Christopher Hivner's Blog - Posts Tagged "writing"

In my last post I talked about finishing a big project that occupied my time for around 6 weeks. It was a great relief to finish it and be able to move on to something else. The problem has been, move on to what?

I have dozens of “work-in-progress” projects, not to mention short stories in various states of completion. I also haven’t written any new poetry outside of what I did for the book project. I have a humor blog, Cosmic Overdrive, that I had made a goal of updating more often this year, at least twice a week. There are contests I would like to enter, anthologies I would like to submit to: my plate is littered with cold, half-cooked meals I need to get to work on. I haven’t even mentioned my novel which has taken a back seat the past few months to other things.

Moving on to new ventures should not be a problem then, right? Pick an idea and go! Except, I haven’t been going anywhere. I’ll sit down and do a little editing on a story, or post something to the humor blog. I’ll add to my voluminous notes on various plans, but I’m missing motivation.

The book project was exciting. I dove into it head first like an Acapulco cliff diver. I put so much energy into it that now with it finished, I’m drained. I think about all the things I want to accomplish, all the projects I want to finish, but I’m not taking action.

I’m in a lazy, unsure-of-myself place at the moment. My confidence has also been shaken by a spate of rejections the last two weeks. I need to keep searching for something to bring me out into the light so I can get back to writing about the darkness.

Lately my motivation has been missing, playing an existential game of hide and seek with me. I tell myself I want to write, but my body does not move off of the couch and walk to my computer. It does not pick up a pen and pad of paper. My body remains glued to the couch, my thumb clicking the remote control in a desperate search for happiness in some visual stimulation.

It’s been like this since I got sick about a month ago. A terrible sinus infection waylaid me into missing 3 days of work. My head hurt so much I tried not to move it at all. I laid in bed or on the sofa sleeping and watching TV, waiting for the antibiotics to kick in. The illness finally took the hint and hit the bricks, but it took my motivation to be productive along with it.

A few weeks ago I forced myself to write. I posited that if I just started putting words out into the ether they would form something good, I would feel better and my energy and desire would return like a TV star to his sitcom after a failed movie. The result was some truly abhorrent poetry that no one will ever see. All remnants of it have been destroyed and the after images scrubbed from my retinas by space-age technology.

My latest attempt to turn things around was to dig out a novel I started a few years ago. I have about 60,000 words written. I’m happy with it, I just keep getting sidetracked from working on it and before I realize it months have passed with no work being done.

First I read the whole thing to re-familiarize myself with the story. Read over all my notes and let everything bubble up inside my brain. Then I started writing. Mission accomplished, right?

Not exactly. I’m pumping out 300 words a day on the novel which is pathetic. I should be able to wake up in the morning and sneeze out 300 words. It is a start though. I haven’t discovered my motivation yet, and I’ve looked everywhere, but working on the novel again has made a difference.

Defenestration--the act of throwing a thing or especially a person out of a window
Vivisepulture--an act or instance of burying someone alive
Hagridden--worried or tormented, as by a witch.
Brobdingnagian--of huge size; gigantic; tremendous

These are 4 of my favorite words. I busted out defenestration in a conversation at work one day which left everyone agog waiting for an explanation. I used hagridden in a short story once as well as Brobdingnagian, which is derived from the book Gulliver’s Travels. I have never had the occasion to work vivisepulture into my everyday life. That’s going to be a tough one.

The thing is I don’t use non-ordinary words for any pre-planned purpose. They just come out, definitely when I’m writing and sometimes in conversation. I love words. I love learning new words and once I know them, they may emerge from my mouth when I speak or my fingers when I type.

According to my family this love affair started early. My sister was at one time keeping a list of the words I knew as a child because it grew on a daily basis. I still have somewhere, tucked away in a box or filing cabinet, three paragraph long stories I wrote on an old typewriter when I was around 6 or 7 years old.

The pattern was always the same. I would be watching TV and hear a word I didn’t know. I would ask someone what it meant and head directly for the typewriter. After banging around like a monkey for a while I would wind up with a story built solely around my ability to use that new word I had just learned.

I have been taken to task by a friend and a reviewer once for using too many $25 words in my stories. Oh well. Buy a dictionary, or several like me. Look the word up, learn it, love it, use it, be it, be the word, BE the word (sorry to Chevy Chase and all Caddyshack fans out there). I make no apologies for my use of language because I don’t use it for evil, only for good.

The analogy has been made that a writer’s stories and poems are like their children. The creative process can be a difficult one as is much of childbirth. Also, like when a parent’s child is treated poorly by someone else, we get defensive or worse when our work is criticized. I’m going to take it a step further.

How many of you had a conversation like this when you were kids:

Brother: You got a bigger piece of cake than me.
Sister: So?
Brother: Why should get a bigger piece than me?
Sister: Because I’m mom’s favorite.

I can’t speak for actual parents because I’m not one, but as a writer I can absolutely attest that while I like all of my finished stories and poems, there are certain ones I like the best.

With this in mind I have another phenomenon at work that I wonder if other writers experience and that is, the pieces of mine I like best are the hardest to get published. Understand that I’m a small-timer. When I say published I’m including any for-the-love market as well as paying ones. I haven’t reached the level where I get paid too often and it usually isn’t much so published to me is anyone who reads what I have to offer and likes it enough to present it in their magazine, ezine, anthology or blog.

Again and again I am presented with the conundrum of why my favorite pieces have the hardest time finding a home. An example, two stories from my book “The Spaces between Your Screams”: the first is called Magic Hands. It’s only a few pages long and a simple concept. I like it but know it’s not great or earth shaking. The first place I submitted it to years ago accepted it. Unfortunately the zine folded before they could publish it. I sent it back out and the second place accepted it also. It was published and a few years later I sent it out as a reprint and it was accepted again quickly. I’m thrilled that so many people enjoyed the story, I just wasn’t expecting it.

The second story is one of my oldest, The Sobriety Test. I wrote the first draft back in 1984 and kept updating and rewriting until I was very fond of it. I believed, and still do, that it is well written with a layer of dark humor and good imagery. When I started sending it out into the world I was positive it would find its place easily. Ten rejections later I was scratching my head at the problem. At fifteen rejections I was scouring the pages for mistakes, plot holes, bad adjective usage, overuse of metaphor, anything. Twenty rejections and I was numb. About half the rejections didn’t say why, the other half said things that made no sense to me. I would read their opinion then re-read the story, inevitably throwing my hands in the air screaming “What are you talking about?!” The rejection total hit 21, the highest of any of my stories, before The Sobriety Test was accepted.

This has been on my mind because it’s happening again. I have an alien/zombie/vampire/sundry mythological beings/humor mash-up that I absolutely love. I first sent it to a paying market where the editor said it “didn’t grab her”. I thought, “It literally has nearly everything but the kitchen sink in it, what do you need to be grabbed?” My second attempt was met with a “the satire didn’t flow well and felt forced” which I just don’t get either.

Oh well. Time to tuck my little pen and ink kids into bed for the night. Tomorrow is another day and the next editor is a potential fan.

In this corner, weighing in at over 1 billion words, introducing . . . the Editors from January 1 2012 to April 30, 2012
And in this corner, weighing in at 750,000 words . . . the Writer

Leeeeeeet’s get ready to ruuuuuuuummmmbbbbblllleeeeee!

The bell for round one has wrung. The writer comes out feisty, opening his email to check on a submission and oh, he’s hit with a hard jab, a rejection of one of his short stories. The writer dances away into the corner of the ring, hugging the ropes, covering up. Now he moves in and opens another email and . . . he’s in trouble. The editors have hit him with a jab-cross combination followed by an uppercut-hook combo, four poems rejected! The writer is dazed, wandering around the ring, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. And the bell rings, ending round 1.

Round 2 begins with the writer wading back into the fight. He hits the editors with a solid hook; a short story has been accepted. The editors dance back licking their wounds. Feeling emboldened the writer opens another email and . . . wow! What a haymaker from the editors, a rejection of a cherished short story with a slew of negative comments. The writer is on the mat, trying to stand up again. He uses the ropes to pull himself up, he’s standing, covering up, dancing around the ring for all he’s worth. There’s the bell, he’s made it through round 2.

Its round 3 and the writer is still looking groggy. Tentatively he opens an email and bam! He catches the editors with jab cross combination to the jaw, 2 poems accepted for an anthology. The editors stagger back but won’t fall. The writer moves in to press his advantage but oh! He takes one to the chin, a short story rejected. The writer keeps his balance but the editors are still swinging! They land a jab-cross-jab combo, 3 poems rejected. The writer is woozy. The editors hit him with another roundhouse right, a story rejected. Another flourish from the editors, rights, lefts, jabs, crosses, uppercuts! The writer is being pummeled with rejections.

The writer is down! The writer is down! The writer is down! The referee has stepped in . . . and this fight is over! The editors from January 1, 2012 to April 30, 2012 have won by TKO!

(sung to the tune of Silly Love Songs by McCartney and Wings)

You’d think that publishers would have had enough of silly reasons.
But I look at my email and I see it isn't so.
Some publishers wanna fill the world with silly reasons.
And what's wrong with that?
They’d like to know, cause here they go again


Yesterday I received one of the stranger rejections I’ve ever gotten. It was a form letter, with a checklist of reasons why my submission may have been deemed unworthy. The one with an x next to it for my 4 poems was “not long enough”. I’ll admit that when I read it I tilted my head like a confused dog.

In almost twenty years of submitting my work I have gotten thousands of rejections. I’ve been told my work was boring, cliché, “didn’t grab me”, had a bad ending, didn’t like the main character, wasn’t gory enough, was too gory, needed more zombies, needed less zombies, was too ‘woe-is-me’, “just published a story like this last month”, why are their aliens in the story at all?, etc. But I’ve never been told the sole reason was that it wasn’t long enough, especially since the guidelines did not have a minimum length requirement. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like an odd reason.

One time an editor spent a paragraph telling me how great he thought my story was. He loved the action, the dialogue, the main character, the weirdness of it, everything. But . . . he couldn’t accept it because they had already acquired their quota for that month. Another one went on for several sentences explaining why my story didn’t work and I didn’t understand a word of it. I re-read it half a dozen times but couldn’t figure out what the editor was trying to say. I showed it to my sister who was an English teacher. Her verdict: It was gibberish.

Years ago, before email, I read a rejection letter where the editor was telling me all the things he would change in my story, except it wasn’t my story. It was obviously someone else’s as all the details he disliked were not part of the story I had sent him.

I once got a rejection email that started out “Dear Nadine . . .”

As with all writers I’ve gotten my share of head-scratching rejections. “Not long enough” has been added to the list. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow’s email brings.

I’ve had some successes recently I thought I’d share.

An old horror/thriller story of mine called “Painkiller”, the first draft of which I wrote about 15 years ago, was published in Thrillers, Killers ‘n’ Chillers

http://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.c...

Another older story, again first draft written about 12-15 years ago, called “The Roundabouts” was published in Welcome to Wherever. This one is a historical piece involving Copernicus and his theory of a heliocentric universe.

https://welcometowherever.wordpress.c...

A short humor story of more recent vintage, ”In a Pickle”, was published at Nights and Weekends this week. Stories like this of absurd humor are inspired by my love of Monty Python.

http://www.nightsandweekends.com/arti...

I had a couple of horror poems published as well. “2 of 1, A Pair of the Other” at Static Movement and “Killer’s Keepers, Losers Dead” at The Carnage Conservatory.

http://www.staticmovement.com/may2012...

http://carnageconservatory.wordpress....

Have a good week.

I write both short stories and poetry and I find that I rarely work on both at the same time. If I haven’t written a new short story in a while I will feel the jones coming on. Within a few days I can’t stop turning my laptop on to write. If I’m at work or in the waiting room at the doctor’s office I have a notebook and a pen. The itch won’t be scratched until I’ve pounded out three or four new short stories. After all that work I’ll feel my energy wane. My desire to write a story has dissipated. So that’s when I get out my poetry notebook.

Poetry can be more satisfying to write in the short term because the sense of accomplishment comes so much sooner. A story may take weeks if it’s a long one and it fights back. A poem may only be 10-15 lines. If I get an inspiration I can feel that desired swell of completion in five minutes. The more involved poems can become like stories though. I wrote a ten page poem for a book project that took me weeks to get right. It wasn’t just the length; it was the tone and language. A poem that long has to draw the reader in and make them want to pull up a chair to sit a spell. At the other extreme a few years ago when I still had my cat Phantom, I had to sit in the vet’s waiting area for 45 minutes while he had a fluids treatment. For some reason I was inspired that day and in the midst of people talking, the phone ringing, dogs barking and cats crying, I wrote 5 poems. My feeling of accomplishment that day was sky high.

I don’t know why but I don’t too often write in both disciplines at the same time. I’m usually in a story mood or a poem mood. The humor will usually last for a few weeks before I switch to the other.

I admit that recently I have been working on both at the same time, probably because most of what I’ve written was for a specific project with a looming deadline. There have been days where I’ll work on a story for a few hours, and then before I go to bed, I shut off the laptop, open my poetry notebook, throw the switch in my brain’s control room and try to find poetic inspiration before falling asleep. A poem is nice that way for me, to work on before bed. If I can only find a line or two that’s acceptable before turning out the light, I still feel progress has been made.

In the past six weeks I’ve written 3 short stories and around 3 dozen poems which is about the most prolific I’ve ever been in a short spurt.

I haven’t written here in a while. It’s not you, it’s me. I’m . . . a bad blogger. I got busy doing other things: writing other blogs, working on a novella, etc. But I’m here now. That’s all that counts, right?

I don’t understand Twitter: Never have, probably never will. But I kept reading that if you’re a writer you have to be on Twitter so I joined. It’s been a few months now and I still have no idea what I’m doing. At most I’ve sent maybe 3 tweets in a day. Some of the people I’m following send 3 every femtosecond. I’ve gone 5 or 6 days without even logging on to Twitter.

The biggest confusion is how I’m supposed to use it as a writer. Recently I’ve read several articles about what I should and shouldn’t do. Big help they were as they all contradicted each other.

One tells me to use Twitter to send out links to my book, website, whatever. Others say, “Well you can do that in a minimal way, once in a while.” Yet another article said “NEVER! Never use Twitter to spam your followers with links and sales pitches! NEVER!”

As an aside, I like the Spam you buy at the supermarket. I think it gets a bad rap. A nice thick slice of Spam fried up in a pan makes a good sandwich.

Anyway, these articles tell me to sell my work, but don’t be intrusive; be myself but don’t be rude or controversial; have something to say, but not too much to say; retweet things you like but don’t retweet everything, blah blah blah.

Since there is no consensus I’m just going to Tweet whatever I feel like and if one of my cult of 33 followers wants to unfollow, so be it. If you’re interested in following me on the unmitigated disaster that is my Twitter account, the address is: @your_screams

Like most writers I use outside influences as inspirations. Music is my muse of choice. It can’t be anything with too many lyrics, or at least lyrics in English, because they’re too distracting. And it depends on what I want to write as to what I listen to. If I’m in my horror mode it will be death or doom metal. The music itself is perfect to create a dark, menacing mood and even though the songs have lyrics, you can’t understand a blind word because it’s mostly growls and grunts. I’ve written some good horror poems while listening to Beyond Black Void, a one-off project by a Belgian guitar player to create the most depressing doom metal ever written. I also like to write to Ahab and Burzum.

If I’m writing my mainstream poetry I’m very partial to Azam Ali either as a solo artist or with Vas or Niyaz. She has a gorgeous voice but sings entirely in Persian or other languages so instead of the lyrics distracting me, her sensual voice becomes another instrument mixed with the music. I also love Dead Can Dance. Lisa Gerrard is another female singer with a mesmerizing voice who sings almost entirely in other languages or made up sounds. When Brendan Perry sings it’s in English which can sometimes break my concentration. I just recently discovered a Norwegian group, Arcana, which also puts me in a good frame of mind, as well as Delerium.

Ambient music in general puts me in the mood to write: Steve Roach, Robert Rich, Vidna Obmana, David Parsons, Mind Over Matter, Appalachian Falls, etc. Here are a couple of links:

Vas -- Sunyata
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMgRVV...
Dead Can Dance -- Yulunga
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJqUbb...
David Parsons -- Himalaya
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0sOSA...
Beyond Black Void -- Desolate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEs30Y...

Photographs and art work are also rich sources of inspiration for me. The simple photograph of a steer a few years ago gave me the idea for my short story “The Way of the Land” which was set in a medieval time period. I’ve written two poems after studying the painting Entres Les Trous de la Memoire by Dominique Appia. Recently I was trying to write a large batch of horror poems for a particular project. I started to run out of ideas so I opened a book I have on the work of Hieronymus Bosch. Concentrating on parts of The Last Judgment helped me to write three poems I was very happy with.

Entres Les Trous de la Memoire
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Entre-m%C3%A9...
A piece of The Last Judgment
http://www.flickr.com/photos/profzuck...

Recently I’ve made myself work a little harder. I was again in the mood to write some horror poetry but I wasn’t at home with easy access to my music or any artwork. I decided to look around the room I was in and write about the first thing that I saw. Over the next hour I wrote a poem from the starting point of a telephone and another from a yellow box of tissues. Later that night, back at home, I continued the experiment with a take-out menu and a container of powder. I’m working on one right now that started with a pine tree.

Here is the silly poem I wrote after glancing at a Chinese take-out menu:

The menu said
“finger sandwiches”
but I didn’t expect
a ham and cheese on rye
flipping me off

I know, not exactly Pablo Neruda, but it made me laugh.