Passion and Why You Need It

So I spent a good two or three hours this morning trying to come up with something insightful, useful, and or valuable about playlists and the type of music you listen to while you’re writing, the benefits of it and so on and so forth. That is actually not what this post is about at all though. Because no matter how hard I tried, I simply could not write about it. It was like there was some cosmic force that was preventing me from being able to write about it and now I think I know why.

After our delicious dinner of waffles tonight, my mom was talking about how on Tuesday, when everyone was out of the house, she was watching Extreme Weight Loss. It was a really amazing story about a guy who started off over 400 pounds or something like that and managed to lose more weight faster than anyone else Chris Powell has ever seen. And as she was sharing this with me tonight as well as well as some clips from the show to show me exactly how much he has changed (lemme tell you, Wow), she also shared the insight that I needed to write this post.

To do something like that (ie. Lose over 200 lbs in a year) you have to have a passion for something. In this case, he was doing it for his girlfriend.

Perhaps I’m going to end up twisting what she said in the first place, but I’d like you to hear me out.

It takes passion to do something like that. Despite the fact that my mom was referring to extreme weight loss, I would like to extend that to anything, really.

It takes passion to do anything extreme. And yes, writing a novel, editing a novel, and going through the entire process of getting it published is something extreme. I don’t know where you are in your novel writing process, whether it’s still writing or editing or maybe even just being dreamed about, but it is not an easy process. There are moments when you would rather scrub your shower tiles with a tooth brush than have to write another word of your manuscript (trust me. I know. I’ve done it. And man those shower tiles sparkled). And even when you’re done with writing your 70,000 word novel and you think you’re done YOU’RE NOT. You still have to do revising and revising and revising and then submitting it to agents and then more revising and getting your friends and family to read it to see if they like and then more revising and then submitting it again...

Most people don’t get past thinking of an idea or the first three chapters. Even managing to finish a first draft is a feat better than the majority. Why? Because it’s hard. It’s hard to dedicate that much to one set of characters and one plot and one story line and trying to make it all come together and entertaining enough that people would actually want to buy it and make it so that the world don’t want to roll their eyes and laugh you out of the publishing business forever.

It takes passion.

That’s what people always say about music and art don’t they? It is my heartfelt belief that story telling is just as much of an art form as either of those. Anyone can blend colors together on a canvas and anyone can plunk out a bunch of notes on a piano. With enough lessons and or practice, anyone can really learn how to play songs or draw a person. But it takes a real passion and desire to a) be able to go through with all of those lessons and b) be able to make it good. If you don’t really care about writing, you’re writing’s not going to be good.

You see it all the time with English essays. The kids who are just turning it in because they want a grade in the class just write it and turn it in. Sometimes there will be a good writer among them that can still scrape up a good grade with a half effort. Then there are the kids who do care about turning in quality work. In a typical case, who gets the higher grade?

Exactly. Effort matters. And while I’m not going to deny there is a natural talent and affinity for writing factor involved, you have to be able to make that effort to be able to do something with that natural talent. Natural talent isn’t good enough alone. You have to be willing to dedicate the work to developing talent into skill.

If you don’t have a passion for writing… you’re not going to make the effort. You’re not going to spend hours sitting at a computer rewriting your prologue a dozen times (That’s Margaret for you folks.) You’re not going to agonize over your characters’ traits and flaws and reactions. You’re not going to try to think through all of the different ways you can carry out your plot, try to figure out the best option, and then have to switch to another one half way through three times.

You’re not.

It doesn’t matter if the passion is angled more towards a pure desire have finished a book, desire to see your name on a book cover, or maybe you’re one of the lucky few who got a Nester (what I like to call character or a plot that literally seems to know exactly who/what they are and simply decided to choose you to introduce them to the world) and it simply will not allow you to not do it the justice of being shown to the world.

Any one of these is passion. And you will NEED it to be able to get through this. It is INCREDIBLY hard to write a novel without any passion for the plot, characters, or world… all you’re going to be wanting to do is anything but writing. And unless you have incredible self-control and discipline, it’s probably just not going to get written.

I’m not saying if you don’t have passion for a certain project you have to give up! Oh nonononononono. If you did that you would also never get a novel done. I wrote half my novel before I really started wanting to write it. That was kinda more bull-headed stubbornness than anything. And sometimes, it really just comes down to that.

But let me reiterate, unless someone made a bet with you and you’re the type of person that’ll never let one of those go, you need passion to fuel the stubbornness. That might sound weird, but it’s true and it makes sense in my head.

Hmm. Perhaps my next post should be about trying to take what’s in your head onto the paper/keyboard/screen. If it is to be my next one, I probably shouldn’t talk much about conveying ideas like that. Might not be the best person to talk in that regard XD

I really do try hard though. I talk out these post in the shower to myself some times. Or just when I’m alone in the bathroom or my room or the kitchen or… I like to talk outloud to myself. It helps me think. Anyways…

Passion.

Writing is an art form as much as anything else. And you don’t hear of an award prize winning artist that didn’t have passion for their projects, do you?

People Watching- How To Make Your Characters More Realistic

Let me share a deep physiological observance straight from the mind of Amanda Vinshire. There are a lot of problems that arise for people of our age group trying to write books. These cover a wide range depending on who you are and where you’re from. But…

The real problem is a lack of experience.

I don’t care if you’re the smartest kid in your class or in your state or providence or territory or country, if you’re under the age of 20, you’re not going to have as much experience as someone who is over 20, unless said person over 20 lived under a rock their whole life. Don’t try to argue the point with me. You may have more experience in some areas. By the time I’m 20, I will have been lucky to have been outside my country once. I know people younger than me who have already traveled halfway around the globe. They have more travel experience than me. But I have more experience in things like high school than this middle school traveler. Age brings experience and that’s something that’s very hard to fake.

You have probably never been to college. You have probably never really been in love. I’m not talking about a crush or a seven month relationship, I mean you honestly want to spend the rest of your life with this person. You’ve probably never been married and you probably have never had kids. You’ve probably only ever made friends with the people put in your path, like kids from school or church or your soccer team, unless you’ve made some besties online.

As I said before, experience is one of the hardest things to fake. That why when you read books by young authors, they’re usually about teenagers and a good portion of the time they take place in a world that doesn’t exist. You don’t have to have a ton of experience to come up with a fake world, simple as that. Just a clever mind and plenty of imagination. Teenagers are easy to write because they’re familiar. We are teenagers. We know how we think.

I guess this brings me to my actual point of this post. Because of this lack of experience, as good as we might be at taking our angsty teenager thoughts and sticking them on paper, we are at a disadvantage.

A disadvantage I tell you.

Particularly as we, as a authors in general, tend to be solitary, introverted people.

What is a character?

A character is a person that an author created and stuck in a fictional situation. Said character will have to travel through the plot to create entertainment for the reader.

Above all, when we write a character, we’re trying to write a person.

I want to really try to impress that upon you. A well written character should be a person. I won’t say a human being, because it might be a vampire or an elf or something else, but it is a person. Someone who is talking and breathing (except in the case of the vampire) and should be real enough that someone wouldn't be surprised to see them in real life (once again, with the exception of the elves or werewolves or whatnot).

And the only way to really create a Person (from now on referred to with a proper noun in replacement of the word character) is to be familiar with people. Straight up. There. I said it.

You have to know people to write about them. The way real people think and act and talk.

It may seem pretty obvious, but sometimes when you’re trying to write a character, it doesn’t seem very obvious. I’m going to quote Margaret in her post about How to Make a Non-Cliché Protagonist

“Anyway, because everyone is different, then that means for the most part, everyone has a slightly different combination of traits.

In other words - for the most part, People aren't Cliche.  So it's a safe bet to model a character off a person or two. Choose the traits that give you pause and make you say "really?"

Challenge: Choose a trait or two that drives you up the wall. Chances are, it'll make a pretty good character trait.”

Basically I’m telling you to “People Watch”.

It sounds creepy, I know, but it doesn’t have to be! All the time. Sometimes it will be creepy, yes. But when you’re a best-selling author and you tell the person you were creeping out that Richard was based off of them and that everyone was heartbroken when Richard died by being stabbed repeatedly in the chest (you don’t like the person you were creeping out and writing this scene was very fun for you), everything thing will be fine!

In all honesty though, “People Watching” does not have to be creepy at all. It could be as simple as going to watch a movie at a friend’s house instead of spending three hours at home on the computer. And while you’re watching the movie, especially if your friend invited other people that you might not associate very much, it’s a good idea to watch (not creepily) them. See what kinds of things they do, listen to the way they talk. I find it fascinating whenever I hang out with my girly friends to just sit around and listen to the things they talk about and the way they think about things. My best friend has four swords, a crossbow, likes shooting guns and torturing fictional characters in her free time. That’s not exactly “normal”. And while I think it’s awesome and just sit back and laugh while she coos over crossbow parts, it’s not normal. If she was the only person I associated with normally, what type of characters would I write all the time?

Exactly.

Now, I will admit that some of this people watching can be done from reading other books, usually books written by older authors who do have more experience in the world and with other people than you. Since we are just teenagers and most of the friends we’re going to make are at the whims of our parents and where we live, trying to learn from these other people and authors is a good idea. It’s also a great benefit for your writing skills and can help you with your plot and world building as well.

But remember what I said about it’s hard to fake experience?

Yeeaaaahhhhh. There’s no real substitute for having to sit there for an hour in a classroom listening to someone make themselves sound like an idiot and really wondering what on earth are they doing in an honors class for crying out loud? Or try to give comfort to someone who HONESTLY thinks the world is over because she’s 16 and a half and have only been on one date. Or, here’s one of my favorites, hear a girl complain about her boyfriend spending too much time with his best friend and then three days later hear the best friend complain about the boyfriend spending too much time with her.

People.

There aren’t dozens of types of people. There aren’t hundreds. There aren’t thousands. There are MILLIONS of types of people. We’re all people with individual traits and individual mixes of these traits and there is NO WAY for you to be able to capture that without actually going out and looking at, listening to, and being with these real people.

Watch them. It can be pretty funny. And it really is a big help for your ability to create characters. The more familiar you are with actual flesh and blood people, the easier it is for you to make it seem like your jumble of words is a flesh and blood Person.

Warning/Disclaimer: This all being said, don’t base a character directly off someone else. Steal some of their traits, sure! But don’t write them into your book. That’s tacky and a bad idea, as much as it will get you a pretty authentic character. It could also get you into trouble with the person later.

(P.S. Got two fours on my AP tests!!!! WHOOOO!)

Umm... Hi?

*coughs*

So, um... hi.

In case you don't remember in the... oh my goodness... 8 months since I or Margret remembered this blog existed (Actually no! We talked about coming back to it as a New Years Resolution... see how well that went), I'm Amanda Vinshire. Not actually my last name and I'm not actually sisters with Margaret Vinshire. We're just best friends that decided to do a blog together for young writers, cause hey, we're young writers and all the good writer's blogs you find today talk about being married and having your day job and I'm not even old enough to be employed without a work permit from my school. Plus, we felt it was our solemn duty to share our brilliant wit with the world! (and try to make that elusive "platform" thing, which I think exists about as much as this thing they call the "sun")

Update On What's Been Happening With Us

AP Bio and Euro devoured my soul. I will not get it back until July 8 when I receive my AP scores. Fingers crossed for the best! School is now over though and with summer came the start of me actually making the plunge into editing my book. That is in process. I've already done some stuff to it, and there's an ever growing list of further edits I'm going to be making. I think they're all pretty good ones though. I may not want to do them, but I know they're going to help. I actually did write, edit, and publish a book in that time! Margaret's birthday present, and only published two copies, but I made both of them completely myself. And it's hard cover. And it has a book jacket! (thanks to my mom who works at a printing company) AND IT WAS PRETTY DANG IMPRESSIVE.

Just, ya'know, not actually a book I'm going to make any profit on. Unless ya'll would like to know the secrets of becoming her best friend.

Note: The book comes with a clear warning. Those attempting to replace Amanda as Margaret's best friend will meet a nasty end.

Margaret turned 16. She's old now. She attempted to submit her book to agents a few more times, got rejected, and has since decided that she is going to be rewriting her entire book. Yes, that is right. No, it's not just because of the rejects, that would be a very extreme response that I do not suggest for you all. That calls for some editing. Not an overhaul. She just got to the point where there were so many edits she wanted to make she felt like she would probably end up having to rewrite most of it anyways and just decided to start from scratch.

What Does The Fact That We're Back Mean?

Well, this time we're actually planning on being serious about it, we hope. Okay, let me rephrase that. WE'RE SERIOUS THIS TIME. AND IF WE FALTER ON THAT, SEND US ANGRY EMAILS AND MESSAGES AND YELL AS US. TELL US THAT WE FAILED. No, seriously, do.

Margaret has it on her schedule to write a post every Monday. I'm probably more going to update when something strikes me or if I haven't in a while. We're planning on coming up with a couple different topics and saving them so that if we ever need a topic to rant about we can pick one. Also, I am thinking about the possibilities of actually uploading an actual legit story up here. People say it's good to have a couple different projects going at once so that when you get bored or uninspired with one you can go to another. So, something else to put my mind to if I'm feeling like exploding into FLAMES OF RAGE over my manuscript.

Margaret here, making a minor footnote. I'm debating writing a story myself, *legasp* and posting it here as well. Let's see what happens, shall we?

That's pretty much what we're doing. Seeing what happens. Hope you're all on board for the ride!

ReBlog: My Overnight Sucess

I really have to apologize the fails, guys. Neither of us has been that active and for that I'm sorry. And this one isn't really much of a post either, it's more just me copy and pasting an amazing post from Rick Riordan. He really is a pretty awesome writer. Great story concepts, good characters, love the wit and humor, and the end of the last book? SO BRAVE. Such a brave brave man. I don't think I'd have the guts to pull that ending.

Here's the link so you can check it out yourself:

http://rickriordan.blogspot.com/2012/10/my-overnight-success-reposted.html

And here's the post:

Sometimes I like to go back in time and re-read my blog posts from many years ago. This one, originally published in 2007, made me feel especially grateful. Back then, the Percy Jackson series wasn't even finished yet. The Titan's Curse had just come out. I was starting to feel like an actual bestselling author, but I had no idea what was in store for the future. Now, my books are exponentially more successful, and I'm exponentially more thankful for the good fortune I've had. But this blog post still resonates. Getting to where I am was an incredible amount of work, and I still take nothing for granted. I *still* worry that no one will show up when I do an event. I'm re-posting this because it might provide some perspective, and maybe some hope, for other struggling writers out there. Believe it or not, I've been where you are, and I know how it feels!

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2007

MY OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

At a recent event, someone asked me, “How does it feel to be an overnight success?”

The question took me aback. I had no idea how to answer, but I was struck by how drastically perception can differ from reality.

I’ve read about rock musicians who play free gigs for years in dingy bars – paying their dues -- before they get the one big break that attracts national attention. Suddenly, the artist is an ‘overnight success.’ No one has heard of him before, so even though he has been toiling for years, people just assume he appeared out of nowhere, a fully-formed rock star, like Athena springing from the head of Zeus.

If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears . . . well, the tree doesn’t exist until we notice it. Thinking about my own ‘overnight success,’ I remembered one of the first book signings I ever did, ten years ago, when Big Red Tequila first came out. I was invited to Waldenbooks in a shopping mall in Concord, California. They set up a table at the front of the store. They allotted two hours. I sat there in my coat and tie and watched people pass by, steering clear of me like I was an insurance salesman. I gave directions to Sears. I explained several times that I wasn’t an employee at the bookstore and I didn’t know where the self-help section was. I signed a napkin for a couple of teenaged boys who thought the title “Big Red Tequila” sounded slightly naughty because it had to do with alcohol. I sold no books.

I remember the first book discussion group I did in Oakland. Two people showed up. And after that, a seemingly endless string of events for my mystery series – lots of empty chairs, apologetic booksellers, forced smiles. “Oh, it doesn’t matter if no one shows up!” I’d tell myself over and over. “It’s the signed stock and the publicity that counts!” Well . . . maybe. But I still felt like I was trying to fill a reservoir with an eye-dropper.

Most writers have stories like this. We dread the room full of empty chairs. I still have a deeply ingrained fear that no one will show up whenever I do an event. I am constantly amazed when I walk into a bookstore and there are actually people waiting for me.

When the Lightning Thief first came out, two years ago, I was a basket case. I had a feeling in my gut that this book was my big chance. And I also had a feeling that the big chance was slipping away. My family and I went out to the Bay Area to visit our old stomping ground, and I kept looking for signs that the Lightning Thief was making a big splash, getting some publicity, getting displayed prominently. No such luck. We stopped by several bookstores to sign stock. There was no stock. I did an event at one store (unfortunately, the day after the latest Harry Potter release) and the bleary-eyed bookseller’s only comment about Lightning Thief was, “Oh, it hasn’t gotten much coverage, has it?” One family showed up to hear me talk about my book. Two parents. One kid. I went back to the hotel room and curled into fetal position, thinking, “Well, that’s it. Nobody likes Percy Jackson.” My wife still teases me about that trip. She says, “If I could only go back in time and show you what was going to happen.” Still, at the time, I felt hopeless. It was another six months of constant touring and school visits before the Lightning Thief started gaining any traction at all. The Bluebonnet list from the Texas Library Association was the series’ first big break. Then it began showing up on other state lists, and word started getting around. Even after that, things were slow. I remember when Sea of Monsters came out, a year later, I was still having anxious conversations with my editor and agent, wondering what I could do to improve sales. Were we missing something? Was I wrong to think the series would connect with kids? It took almost two years before I really felt like things were turning around.

What made the difference? It’s hard to say, but it was a combination of factors. Most importantly, word-of-mouth. The series grew from the ground up, with one kid recommending the book to his or her friends. Booksellers and teachers and librarians started talking. I toured and did school visits relentlessly. The Sea of Monsters got on the Scholastic Book Club video, which was no small thing. The state reading lists started kicking in. And suddenly, just before the Titan’s Curse was released, the series seemed to reach critical mass and sales exploded.

But boy, it was a long time coming. I felt like I was clawing my way up a pit, tooth and nail. Am I complaining? Of course not. I’m just marveling at how uncertain I felt for so long. Nothing about the series’ success seemed inevitable. Even after I got the ‘ultimate break’ of being published for the first time, it was another eight years of writing while teaching full-time before I could go full-time as a writer, and two years more before I really felt like I was going to succeed. And still, who knows what will happen six months or a year from now? There are no guarantees.

As with any high-profile job, writing is judged by the exceptions in the field, not the average. When the general public hears the word ‘author,’ they think J.K. Rowling, Stephen King, James Patterson. They hear ‘basketball player,’ they think of Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan. It’s an easy jump to think that all authors are like J.K. Rowling, and every basketball player is Michael Jordan. In fact, 99% of authors have never and will never experience anything like the success of the top 1%. Most writers, even if they manage to get published, never quit their day jobs. Most will never get on the bestseller list nor have their books made into a movie, just as most basketball players will never play in the NBA, and even those lucky few who do will never make the money of a superstar. Judging other books by the Harry Potter series is sort of like saying, “Well, that guy won the Powerball lottery, therefore everyone who plays should win the Powerball lottery.” That doesn’t mean we can’t dream. If a kid wants to aim at being a pro ball player, that’s awesome. If a writer wants to become the next ______ (fill-in-the-blank author), that’s fantastic, but it’s good to approach that ambition with your eyes open. It will most likely be a long, hard road with no guarantee that success will come. Exceptions are rare, which is why they get so much attention. For every well-known author you can think of, there are a thousand more struggling in the purgatory known as the “midlist,” and tens of thousands who are still trying to get published. And even those well-known authors probably struggled a lot longer and harder than you realize to get where they are.

I’m not saying this to gripe, or gloat, or whine. I’m just trying to provide some context, so when I tell you how grateful I am for the success of the books, and how lucky I feel, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. People ask me what I think about getting so much attention, and how it’s changed my life. It really hasn’t. I’m the same guy who sat in Waldenbooks for two hours, giving directions and smiling vacantly at a stream of shoppers who were trying to ignore me. I’m the same guy who stared at countless rooms full of empty chairs in countless bookstores for ten years. I am still amazed every time I get a crowd at an event. I take nothing for granted.

But you can’t really explain something like that in the middle of an event. It’s too hard to put into words without people thinking that I’m bragging or complaining. So the next time someone asks me, “How does it feel to be an overnight success?” I plan on smiling politely and saying, “It feels great.” 

Worth of 1000 Words

Terribly sorry for not posting anything recently. I blame school and my dear “sister” for finally pushing me over the edge of obsession with her characters.

But no longer! For here is another blog post for you all to enjoy!

Warning: This post contains a lot of irrational complaining

I just have to know, does anyone else get seriously and completely ticked off when people say “A Picture’s Worth a Thousand Words”? Every single time that the grandma in Princess Diaries yells at Mia about how she has two pictures which equals 2000 words, I just get so mad!

That’s actually probably just me though, huh?

For some reason I always and still do take that personally, as if the people are purposefully trying to insult the value of words. I don’t know, it’s just one of those weird personal things that always makes me so mad. The reason for this: we were talking about it in Bio and it just got my blood boiling when a single phrase popped into my head for ya’ll to hear me babble about.

You ready?

I don’t think you are.

You’re going to cave in from the sheer awesomeness of this line.

Sure you’re ready?

Positive?

You asked for it!

A picture’s worth a thousand words. Your job is to paint one in less.

Bask in its sheer awesome amazingness.

Uh huh. You know you want to.

… so yeah. I guess this is mostly about expressing my frustration with people who say THAT phrase because I for some reason take it as a persona insult against one of my favorite things, writing. And the problem is that in the world’s view they’re right! Sure the pen’s mightier than the sword, but the picture’s 1000 times more worthy than the word.

And I’ll admit that in a number of situations, pictures are more useful than words. For example, explaining oxidative-reduction-chemiosmosis-phosphorylation. The picture helped a lot in that situation. But we have to realize that words can do just the same thing sometimes, and can do it better too.

So here’s the rub, returning to the earlier statement. “Your job is to paint [a picture] in less [than 1000 words].”

What does this mean children?

It means description.

Good description, not lengthy description. Let’s not lie to ourselves here, the world of books and literature doesn’t usually run on the principle of “longer the better”. In fact it’s usually more along the lines of “less is more”.

Trust me. I know what you’re thinking.

I don’t like description much either.

It’s boring. The characters are fun, the dialogue is interesting and witty (most of the time), and you just want to get on with the plot already. Trust me. I KNOW. It’s one of the problems I need to work on, I think. It’s something a lot of people need to work on.

So let’s try to write something together. I’ll “paint a picture” in less than 1000 words and post it. Then you rate it. If anyone wants to send in their own “pictures”, I would be more than happy to post them so they can be rated at the same time.

(I was told I need to be more interactive with you guys, so I’m trying it out. Is it working?)