I often think to myself, “what inspires me as a writer?”

I lie in bed and stare out the bedroom window at my neighbor’s trees. I wait for inspiration to arrive, perhaps at my doorstep on the back of a bird or the wings of the yellowjackets buzzing around my window. I sit at my computer, pull up Google docs, and wait patiently for nearly an hour. I have typed nothing.

I blame it on “Writer’s Block.” Or on fatigue, then I stroll to my kitchen and grab myself a Dr Pepper (I don’t drink coffee). I return to my computer, half-hoping that my next great short story or novel was written by magical elves or fairies (or orcs) in my absence. My much anticipated burst of inspiration never arrives, and as a result, I don’t write much or nothing at all.

Big mistake. As a writer, one thing every other writer tells you to do is to write everyday. It doesn’t really matter what you write, as long as you write. You could type an entry into a daily journal, or put work in a story on a daily basis. Or you could blog. Writers have plenty of options and opportunities to write everyday.

Writing everyday is not just a slogan tattooed in the minds of writers. It is something writers must do. It’s in the job description. At first glance, writing daily appears to be an exercise meant to improve your writing skills (it does, but it is only one of its many purposes). It also allows to writer to express him-or-herself creatively. Writers write to make progress on their works as well.

But the most important reason writers write everyday is that it instills discipline in the writer. Discipline in any field is important for success.

I think the real reason older, more experienced writers tell emerging ones to write everyday is because they have learned that one cannot, and must not, rely on bursts of inspiration to work. Do things happen to the writer that inspires them to write a full story? Sure. I was inspired to write “Four Firewoods” after hearing a pecan fall in a mound of leaves outside my window. But that sudden onset of inspiration does not come all that often. One cannot waste time waiting for inspiration to come along. So I, like many other writers before me, learned that the hard way.

Discipline is more reliable than inspiration.

Hey everyone!

I posted on my Facebook page a few days that I had been reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Well, I have completed reading it so I thought I should share my thoughts on the novel. In short, I really enjoyed it.

Gone Girl is a #1 New York Times Bestseller by Gillian Flynn. It is about a man whose wife disappears. You might think this is a typical premise, but you’ll be wrong! When the small-town police arrive to question the man, Nick Dunne, he begins lying about things. The novel alternates perspectives between him and his wife, Amy. Amy’s sections are written in the form of a diary with entries dating for several years before the date of her disappearance.

Now, I don’t want to spoil anything. The twists the plot takes are well worth it, and perfectly executed. But I will say this: everyone is in a shade of grey (not of the 50 Shades variety, either). Nick is openly deceptive, but as you read on, so is Amy. If you were to pick up the book from Barnes and Noble or buy it for your Kindle, you might see blurbs from critics that describe Gone Girl as “terrifying” (Time) or “sinister” (Chicago Sun-Times). Those critics are right.

My favorite aspect for this novel is the fact that, since the major characters are morally ambiguous, everyone acts as each other’s antagonist. I love this. Antagonists always make stories interesting. Gone Girl is no different. Every character has a motive, something that drives them, and someone to oppose them from achieving whatever it is.

Gone Girl is both literary fiction and genre fiction. One foot is firmly planted in a tight mystery thriller, the other in well-crafted fiction. The characters change as the story progresses, or rather what we understand about these characters changes. The twists are unnerving in that way.

Gillian Flynn does a terrific job with these characters. I invested a significant amount of time reading this book. I’m glad I did.

My verdict: Recommended 

This post’s title sums up my experience of writing fiction.

Novels and short stories, especially those belonging to the “literary fiction” category, feature something critics and professors alike call “truth”. This truth is what is true for the author. Readers pick up on the themes and project their opinions on how these themes show this truth. The author’s work of fiction becomes something more than it is, becoming a sort of puzzle for readers to decipher in order to understand the truth/themes the author wishes to convey. That might be true, it might not.

But in my experience, writing is a different kind of puzzle. Words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, everything comes together to form a work of fiction. I like to treat each piece of the fiction puzzle (words, phrases, etc.) as a moving part, a piece of movable type. I move things around, everything hopefully falling into place like a game of Tetris. It takes a large amount of maneuvering, a significant effort on my part, until I come across something, anything that makes me say “Ah, this is perfect.”

But my focus on this puzzle does not stem from the thematic parts of fiction. No. I try to use each part of my fiction to create interesting characters, a tight plot, and fluid pacing. I find these items infinitely more important in fiction than themes and “truth” – whatever that might be. I want to convey “truth”, certainly, though the truth around characters take precedence. I might not do any of the aforementioned three things perfectly, or even competently, at this point but that is what I aspire to be. I do not want any of my stories or novels taught in classrooms at any level based on the presumption that my works are some kind of commentary on our world. There is too much analysis in fiction anyway.

Next time you read a novel or short story, take the time to consider the characterization and plot development. These are the areas writers spend an incredible amount of time and effort perfecting. Expound on themes all you want, but the key to fiction puzzle is deciphering characters, their motivations and actions, and how they impact the plot. I feel that it is paramount to thematic interpretations, and more rewarding as well.

Martin

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