Category Archives: Writing

Feeling Guilty About Being Sick

You know you’re hooked on something when even a debilitating sickness brings you guilt. The National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has been so productive and fun that I look forward to it every night after work. I’ve learned that my typical pace, prior to NaNoWriMo was about 800 words. This is when my body felt tired and wanted to quit.

That won’t cut it for 50,000 words in a month. Therefore the first couple of weeks I fell behind. Since then, I’ve discovered that I can easily power out 2000 to 2400 words each nightly session. That is until the nasty stomach flu took hold of me. It was Monday night and I can still recall the conversation I had in my head. “I’ll just write 800 words. Maybe 400 words. I should lie down before I fall down.”

I missed a day. And I regret it even now. I’ve made up the difference in word count. It was the lost experience that irks me. The fact that a virus robbed me of another night of writing.

Tim Kane

Natural Disasters and How They Affect Your Writing

Writer’s are basically selfish people (and I’m speaking from experience here). We want the world handed to us. Right now. This is doubly true in the querying process. We send out letters or emails and want the reply instantly. Positive of course. Then when it comes back negative, or not at all, we start to doubt, picking at the scabbed over flaws we’ve built into our writing lives: the query wasn’t good enough; they hated my story; I’m not a good writer.

Whoa there fellas, lets step back and take a look at the world for a moment. If you’re querying right now, think about who you’re shooting all these emails of to? Agents or editors who live or do business with New York. Normally that’s the city that doesn’t sleep, but when Sandy came along, it threw the whole town for a loop. I’ve heard of editors and agent’s email servers down for two weeks.

Yes, that means they’re up by now. But don’t leap to query. Consider the lack of progress for two weeks. Whatever projects these literary types were working on, they’re now two weeks behind. Never mind if the agent you query lives outside of New York. I guarantee that he or she has at least one project with a New York editor.

What does this mean for aspiring authors? Well, you could submit your query now and have it fight for attention with paying projects that are behind deadline, along with Thanksgiving, and Christmas. Agents will either scoot your query to a back burner, or they’ll rush to judgement simply to clear out the email queue.

The best solution is to wait. I know that’s a four letter word with us writers. We don’t like waiting. But the truth is your manuscript will fare a better chance in 2013 when things have settled back to their typical frantic pace.

In the words of the great Inigo Montoya, “I hate waiting.”

Tim Kane

Don’t Talk to Me, I’m Writing

I am a rock. I am an island.

Honestly, I think my friends think I’ve moved to a shack in Idaho and am banging away at an old typewriter. Truth is, to make the NaNoWriMo thing work, and hold down a job, and spend some time with the kids, I have to cut corners. That means my social life has dwindled to a pilot light.

I don’t even want to talk (or tweet) about my writing. I feel like that’s wasted time. I just want to write, and then sleep. Even this blog post feels like cheating. I could rack up a few more words. (I’m about 400 shy of my goal today.)

However, my guilt over not posting finally drove me back here. If nothing else, perhaps there are a few other writers out there toiling through the same issues as I am. We can commiserate in unison as we head back to our manuscripts and commence yet another round of typing.

Tim Kane

Vanity Kills

Imagine if you stared into a mirror and the reflection began to change. It grew scales and glassy eyes. Gills and fins. You’re the same. Only the reflection has transformed. Then, of course, the reflected fish creature comes to get you.

That was the premise for a work of flash fiction I wrote over a year ago. It’s finally seeing publication in an anthology called Fish from Dagan Books.

The inspiration for this came from an old Chinese myth about a race of creatures that live in mirrors. I read about if from The Book of Imaginary Beings by Jorge Luis Borges. In ancient times, there was a war between these creatures and mankind. The Yellow Emperor used magic to enslave these creatures in mirrors, forcing them to mimic our movements. If you stare into the depth of a mirror, you may sometimes see the fish shimmering just at the edges, ready to throw off its shackles and restart the ancient war.

That’s creepy. I thought, what if that really happened. I mean, you stare into a mirror and things start to change. A bit like a reverse Alice in Wonderland. Instead of you going in, the creatures come out.

Tim Kane

Gearing Up for a Month of No Sleep: NaNoWriMo

I am finally taking the plunge. Writing for a month solid. No holds barred.

To be honest, I used to look down my nose at this contest. I thought it was for folks who couldn’t commit to a regular writing schedule. Yet here I am. What changed? Perspective. I’m no longer paranoid of other writers. Nor am I striving to gain recognition. I just want to write, fast and hard.

I’m also coming off several weeks of hard core editing. Switching back to creative writing mode will be like jamming a gear shift into first while doing 55 mph. Lots of grinding metal and flying parts. I figure the NaNoWriMo principle of write first, edit later might be perfect. Transmission be damned.

I hope not to be sidelined. The only legitimate excuse would be work on my current manuscript. If there needs to be more tweaks to get it read for a publisher. I’m not laying out excuses, only putting everything up front. barring any major surprise editing I need to do, I’m full steam ahead November first.

It makes me wonder, what have these NaNoWriMo guys have against Halloween. Don’t they know we’ll all start the contest comatose from massive sugar ingestion just the day before?

Tim Kane