by Johnny B. Truant

Intro

This post came to my email. I thought it would lead to some fun discussion, so I asked if we could share it here at WITS. With Johnny's permission, here's some (hopefully bloodless) food for thought!

-- Lisa

And now over to Johnny:

The Setup

So here’s a little story about me.

When I wrote my first book, I had no idea what I was doing. I just kind of followed my nose and wrote whatever struck me, but that didn’t get me anywhere productive. For a long time, that first book was just me telling the antics of individual characters, not paying much attention to making it all connect. It wasn’t a story, in other words. It was just a lot of stuff that happened.

I kept at it, though, and soon enough I figured out that stories needed a compass from the beginning. For years, variations on that basic plan refined themselves: I’d start with a beginning (crazy, I know), then STILL would follow my nose … but now I’d keep asking myself throughout the draft how I could move the larger plot forward. That’s how the Fat Vampire books were written, how Unicorn Western was written, how The Beam was written, and a whole lot more. Even when I was co-writing with my constant partner Sean Platt who kept me on the rails, I never really knew where the story would end up. Still, unlike that first book, I finally at least had an idea where it was going.

Learning How to Write

Fast forward almost ten years. Now I’ve got like a hundred books under my belt, writing at a pace of around 1.5 million words (1.5x the full Harry Potter series) every year. You write 15 million words and you figure some things out, such as “what works for you.” So yeah. By then, the wheels were greased. I knew how to tell stories, and because of it I never cared when I got stuck. I knew, from plentiful experience, that the answer was there somewhere … and every single time I hit a wall in a story, the answer absolutely was.

But after years of teaching writing and podcasting about writing and writing books about writing and hosting live events of all sizes for writers, I started to get a lot of other people’s advice and processes in my head. I started paying attention to story structure, because that’s what a lot of people did. I started to think in three acts, knowing exactly where the First, Second, and Third Act needed to start and finish. I heard over and over again about story devices and themes and who knows what else. I’d never cared or thought about those things before. My stories had them, but they had them accidentally. I could dissect my books after the fact and find all that good stuff in them, but it came from my gut, not planning.

Doing it Right

After hearing all that advice, though, I began trying to think about a lot of my previously-from-the-gut stuff in advance. I wanted to write better and better books, and that meant growing as a creator. Growth presupposes change. I couldn’t keep doing things the way I’d been doing, could I? No. I needed to keep experimenting, keep changing things up, keep trying new things to get better.

That’s what all the conventional wisdom said, anyway. The way I used to write, I’d decided, was wrong. I just didn’t know better. Moving forward, I started to think about genre — about not mixing genres together, because that was wrong. Certainly I shouldn’t write in several different genres; that right there was especially wrong. I thought about point-of-view and what was “allowed” and “not allowed,” because I’d been doing some of that wrong, too. I shouldn’t meander in my writing: focus was better and meandering was (again) wrong. I needed to think about theme, to make sure theme got in there ahead of time. I hadn’t been doing that, or hitting the proper act markers, or a dozen other things … and all of that, too, was wrong.

Yeah. Well. That was 2020, 2021, and 2022, and most of what I published during those years were books that’d been previously written. The few books I managed to actually write in those years were laborious and tedious. In the end, I think I cleaned those projects up so that by the time they hit the bookstores, they were pretty good … but they were also very difficult. Very not-fun. Very trying-so-hard. All of my writing flow was gone. The FUN was gone. I wrote far, FAR fewer words in those years, and very little of it was enjoyable.

Changing Things Up

I got sick of it. Something had to change.

And so, a few months before 2023 began, Sean convinced me to forget all I’d learned. To just say FUCK IT to the “right” way of doing things and instead let my freak flag fly like I used to. It took some practice to unlearn all the “proper” things I’d learned about writing, and instead write from the gut like I used to, but now I’m right back in my doing-it-wrong, totally-inappropriate groove. And I’m happy to report a few things to you:

The “wrong” way I write is a lot easier and creates much better stories in the end.

The incorrect, seat-of-my-pants, genre-ignoring, convention-ignoring way I used to write is also a hell of a lot more FUN.

Words flow. FAST. I’m currently writing two books at once, putting in more words each day on each of them than most “prolific” writers get on just one project. That was impossible during my “correct” years.

And most importantly, “wrong” feels so right to me. The stories unfold as if they’re already there and I’m just discovering them. The magic is back. Good stuff happens.

Hard Learned Lesson

So, my friends, I’m happy to report that Johnny is back and as incorrect as ever. I’m happy to report that although a lot of well-intentioned learning came my way throughout the course of my career, so far it seems that I was originally right all along.

Maybe the way I work won’t sell as many books as doing it right. Maybe my books are weird, or too long, or refuse too ardently to fit inside a single genre or understandable box. I don’t really care about those things. My books are me, and that’s all that I’ve decided ultimately matters.

And so I’ll leave you with a lesson I learned the hard way: If you happen to be a creator like I am, I’d like to encourage you to learn what you can … but in the end to ultimately trust your gut. It’s smarter than you know.

The Discussion

What do you think? Have you struggled to write "correctly?" What has your experience with writing correctness been? How do you feel about trusting your gut in writing?

-- Lisa Norman

About Johnny

Johnny writes fun, page-turning, layered, and most of all “inquisitive” fiction — stories told in many genres and ways, united by a curiosity about life’s biggest questions.

Whether the tale itself is about invading aliens, overweight vampires, or ordinary people in mindbending situations, Johnny’s stories always live on two levels. The first is the surface, where vivid characters come to life to undertake the most extraordinary adventures. The second level, however, is deeper: diving into the corners of reality itself, or just the shadowland of a fractured mind.

If you like Christopher Nolan’s movies or Michael Crichton’s books, you’ll be right at home in the Truantverse.

Originally from Ohio, Johnny and his family now live in Austin, Texas, where he’s finally surrounded by creative types as weird as he is.

Learn more about Johnny at his website johnnybtruant.com. And check out the first book in the Fat Vampire series, now a TV series on SYFY: Reginald The Vampire.

Top Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Tips for Meaningful Mentoring with Teen Writers

By Kris Maze

One of the most rewarding parts of the craft of writing is being able to share it with another writer.  Many young writers write in isolation but could benefit from having an older, more experienced writer step in for a little guidance. It could accelerate their writing ability and help them see writing as a career.

Perhaps you have time to take a younger writer under the wing? Maybe you have worked with student writing clubs or volunteered at the library where you interact with teen writers and want to know more strategies to connect with this elusive demographic.  Sound interesting?  Read on!

Becoming a mentor, whether in a formal sense or simply as an act of being present in a young person’s life, can also be very rewarding for the mentor.

How to be the best mentor ever!

Keep an open mind

Teens love to use shock factor.  Always have and always will.  It’s one way they can sniff out whether you are going to really hang around long enough for their real persona to come out and play with writing. Casual swearing, talk about sex, drugs, and music-you-probably-don’t-like could be a way a teen is testing you, to see if you are open to topics that they want to write about. To see if you will enhance or hinder their creative spirit.

Establishing boundaries is important but listen to them first. If an adolescent is too off topic or the subject makes you uncomfortable, tell them so. Define the task you hope to accomplish by offering what you can talk about: writing, editing, finding a solid story line. Guiding the conversation back to those goals can help build a productive and meaningful mentorship.

Be aware of bad days

The teen brain and emotional set is full of fast-moving hormones. It may behove you to remember that they could be polite and put together one day and just a disaster the next. Show interest in their state of being, but continue to focus on writing and see where that goes.  Having a lot of emotion can be really nice on paper.  Try directing them to write about the bad day they may have had through the eyes of a character.

If your mentee is very upset and unsettled, perhaps ask them to write a journal entry. Offer them to write a brain-dump and get it all-on-paper which they can then shred or safely burn in some metal waste basket.

But if they are overwhelmed, just being present may be enough.  Always suggest talking to professionals for additional help if the kiddo you are mentoring is constantly down or shows signs of not bouncing back.

It’s okay to ask if they have a trusted adult to talk to already.  They may offer that they have a therapist or that they get life advice from their aunt, neighbor, pastor, or another grown-up in their life.  Feel it out and let them know you care but keep it about writing.

Wait and wait some more

Processing takes time. Teens may tear into a topic or need to think it through. One of the most important aspects of learning is time.  Let them think and write as they learn their own writing style and process.

Listen

The other most important part of learning and of a good mentorship is getting to know your mentee.  Listening is not only hearing what they say, but it’s also about how they say it.

Does their greeting sound clipped and terse? Did their words match the tone of your conversation? Is their body language screaming “I JUST BROKE UP WITH MY PERSON!” when they are saying something casual about what they ate for lunch? Pay attention with all your senses and your mentee will appreciate your input more.

Use good communication skills

Repeat back what you think you heard.  When working through difficult topics or simply getting to know your mentee, use good communication skills.  A simple one is to parrot back a sentence or two that they tell you, to see if you understood correctly.

Examples:

                “So, you mean to say that being even 1 minute late to first hour means you get a detention, but if it is third hour, you can be late  10 minutes and the teacher doesn’t care. And you don’t think that’s fair?”

                “You like to wear Crocs but only with sweatpants. Did I hear that right?”

                “There shouldn’t be fruit on pizza. Ever. Not even pineapple. Is that correct?”

Ask clarifying questions. There are many reasons to ask for clarification. Have you experienced these when someone went a little further to develop your conversation?

Try open-ended questions that allow the person you are talking to speak in any direction, including ways you didn’t anticipate.

• Sometimes what the teen says can be left up to interpretation.
• Or maybe they are using slang that you want to be clear about what it actually means.  Remember the bad that is good, or is the good is bad? (Thank you, Michael Jackson. I will forever be confused.)
• When the other person knows that you heard them can be magnified when you also care enough to make sure you understand them.

Examples:

“Could you tell me more about ____?”

“I want to be sure I heard you correctly. Could you walk me through that explanation again?”

“That must have been a difficult experience. (Or exciting experience, or scary experience…) What did that mean for you?”

Ask extending questions. Asking extended questions is a great way to show you are listening and interested. Simply pick a detail you wonder about and ask for more information.

Try using basic informative aspects to discover, who, what, when, where, if you’re not sure what to ask about. The conversation can take interesting turns when you start digging a little more.

Share about yourself less.

We have a tendency to get excited about sharing about ourselves when we start a mentorship. We want to talk about what we have done and what we can teach and what we think about our mentee’s situation. But sometimes it is better to just sit back and learn about the person we are working with more organically. 

It isn’t impressive to teens to talk about your accolades, and it could result in an instant eyeroll.  Even if there are legitimate reasons a teen can benefit from you, the relationship should come first. It’s just how they (and many adults) operate.  They may have serious goals for writing, but if they don’t connect with you as a person, even the best writing advice and feedback will fall flat.

Try not to talk about yourself too much at the start of your mentoring. And after that usually only if asked once you have been asked for specific details. Remember mentoring can be very effective when the focus is on the mentee.

Final Thoughts

As writers, we tend to be introverts and hide away in our minds. This can make building a solid mentorship difficult and taxing.  Perhaps these suggestions can help facilitate a valuable learning experience for both the writer and the tutor.

Collaborating with young minds is an invigorating and rewarding experience that I hope many of us can share with others.  Mentorships help younger writers and impart our experience to them, but rich rewards are waiting for the mentor too. It is edifying to invest in a young person, and even more so if you let the process unfold with a mentee in the focal point.

Have you worked with a teen before?  Have you tutored a young person in writing their stories?  Tell us a rewarding experience you had or share who helped form your love of writing.

About Kris

Kris Maze works in education, teaching Spanish through stories. She writes for various publications including Practical Advice for Teachers of Heritage Learners of Spanish and award-winning blog Writers in the Storm where she is also a host. Maze published a YA dystopian novel by a small press in the summer of 2020. Lately, she has been entering and placing in writing competitions, such as NYC Midnight’s Short Story and Micro fiction contests. You can find her Sci-fi, dystopian, YA series, this summer and keep up with her author events at her website.

Check out her new Sister-Site KrissyKnoxx.com where the fun-filled horror and heart-felt chills creep through the darker side of her YA works.

A recovering grammarian and hopeless wanderer, Kris enjoys reading, playing violin and piano, and spending time outdoors.

And occasionally, she plants seeds.

by Ellen Buikema

All great relationships have obstacles, including the relationship we have with writing. Sometimes the muse loves us, other times…not so much.

What to do When the Muse Stops Talking

It’s hard to hear your muse when you’re worried. Worry is loud. It drowns out the wonderful inner voice that spurs your creativity.

Instead of stressing because nothing is coming to mind try:

Meditation. Freeing the mind for as little as five minutes can dredge up interesting thoughts that might be useful to your writing.

Going for a walk. Physical activity is great for releasing stress and clearing the mind.

Playing with a pet. Our pets, or if we are speaking of cats, our roommates, seem to have a sixth sense regarding our feelings and often know that we are stressed out before we do. Playing with them is freeing. Your inner voice will be back in rare form in no time.

Dwelling on the inability to hear your muse is a waste of time. Step away from the keyboard, do something mindless, and the inner voice will return.

How to Find Time When There Isn’t Any

We make time for those things that are important to us. Whether you should be writing every day or not depends upon several things, including:

• Where you are in your writing journey?
• Do you have other responsibilities that demand your attention?
• What do you want from your writing journey?

If you are beginning your writing career chances are you’re working a full-time job and writing in the wee hours of the morning when the house is quiet, or whenever quiet time happens to be. For those who choose writing as a hobby, writing may not be on the daily agenda.

However, if you want to be a professional writer, you’ll need to be productive.

“You resign yourself to writing lots and lots of rubbish. You just got to write that out of your system and sooner or later you will hit what you should be doing.”
— J. K. Rowling

Here are four helpful steps to get you on your writing journey:

Set a routine

 According to Psychotherapist Barton Goldsmith, Ph.D., maintaining a route helps keep us grounded. Make a schedule that works for you.

In 1965, Vonnegut wrote a letter to his wife about his daily writing habits. Kurt Vonnegut: Letters (Kindle).

“I awake at 5:30, work until 8:00, eat breakfast at home, work until 10:00, walk a few blocks into town, do errands, go to the nearby municipal swimming pool, which I have all to myself, and swim for half an hour, return home at 11:45, read the mail, eat lunch at noon. In the afternoon I do schoolwork, either teach or prepare.

"When I get home from school at about 5:30, I numb my twanging intellect with several belts of Scotch and water ($5.00/fifth at the State Liquor store, the only liquor store in town. There are loads of bars, though.), cook supper, read and listen to jazz (lots of good music on the radio here), slip off to sleep at ten. I do pushups and sit ups all the time, and feel as though I am getting lean and sinewy, but maybe not.”

Have a daily word count

How much can you realistically write every day? If it is around 200–400, no worries! Set the goal, but stick to it. Value consistency over quantity. Stick to your daily word count for as long as necessary. Eventually, you will be able to write 1000–2000 words or more each day. Practice will get you there.

Allow for cheat days

Just like being on a diet, there will be writing cheat days. Accept that fact of writing life. Although you may not be writing, these days can still be productive.

• Brainstorm ideas
• Look for visuals
• Plot your course
• Read for fun

Set a sleep routine

Here are the sleep routines of a few fine writers.

• Toni Morrison had two children and a day job when she started her writing career. She rose at 4 a.m., and then wrote until it was time to get her children up and off to school.
• Virginia Woolf got up with the sun. After breakfast with her husband, she went to her writing room at 9:30.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of "The Great Gatsby" regularly slept until 11 a.m., and then spent the afternoon trying to gear up for a writing session.
• James Joyce usually slept until 10 or so, then lounged around in bed for another hour, pondering.

Each writer followed their specific sleep routine. Sleep is critical for your mental health and creative voice.

What do you do when your muse stops talking? Do you keep a routine for writing?

* * * * * *

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents, and The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon chapter book series with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works In Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and Crystal Memories, MG Magical Realism/ Sci-Fi.

Find her at https://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Top Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay