The Effect of Writing

Back in January, when my first book was released, I was asked how writing has affected my life, and how my life has affected my writing. In a nut shell…writing has affected everything about my life and my life has affected everything about my writing :)

Like any writer, my experiences, my personality, my relationships, my emotions on any given day…all of these affect my writing. But these things affect non-fiction and fiction differently.Fiction is very much an emotional sport. I sort of have to be in the right mood to write fiction. Because I take all my emotions and past experiences and make them a part of what I am actually writing, all the aspects of my real life that affect me tend to affect my work as well.

But non-fiction is very non-emotional (unless you are talking about creative/narrative non-fiction like a memoir or narrative personal essay). Actually, in my book, Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers, I’m trying to calm emotions down. I want to remove the stress and anxiety my readers feel about writing these assignments by making the process as entertaining and easy as possible. Non-fiction, for me, is more analytical, more technical. So, whatever is going on in my life at the moment doesn’t really affect my non-fiction writing.

Now, how has writing affected my life? In every way imaginable. In ways I never even dreamed. If I were to make a pro and con list, writing would probably seem like it affected my life negatively. My house is a mess, my kids live on cereal more often than I’d like to admit, I don’t spend as much time with them (or with ANYONE for that matter) as I should, I tend to spend all my time in front of my computer instead of out in the world…

But the pros are pretty awesome. Because of my writing, I’ve met the most wonderful people; I now have an amazing outlet for both the more analytical/educational non-fiction side of me, and the overly imaginative/dreamer fiction side of me; I get to spend my free time doing what I LOVE; I’ve learned to be patient and persevering and PROUD of who I am and what I do. There is nothing quite like working toward your dream. I’ve found out just how strong and determined I can be. Writing is helping me develop into the person I always wanted to be. :)

How has writing affected your life? And does your life affect your writing?

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The Effect of Writing

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You Tell Me...

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, 
is always a portrait of himself.
~ Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh


I think this is true, at least in part, of me. There is a lot of me in my work. Experiences I've lived through. Emotions I've felt. Some of my hopes, dreams, characteristics, traits I wish I have, traits I wish I didn't have, and all sorts of other things get peppered into my characters and stories. 


How much of you is in your work? Are your works portraits of yourself in any way?

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No Tears, No Dice

 




I may have posted this quote before, but I think it is awesome enough for a second run.


What lasts in the reader's mine is not the phrase but the effect the 
phrase created: laughter, tears, pain, joy. 
If the phrase is not affecting the reader, what's it doing there? 
Make it do its job or cut it without mercy or remorse.
~ Isaac Asimov


I love, LOVE, this quote. Cutting material is one of the hardest parts of writing. Especially when the stuff you are cutting isn't bad. Sometimes it's really good stuff! But it may not be doing its job for one reason or another and so....it has to go.


When I started out writing (for the purpose of publication, in any case), I had pages - a LOT of pages -  that I needed to cut in order to get the pace of my story moving. It wasn't bad stuff. Most of it was description. Really beautiful description (if I do say so myself *ahem*). But it didn't do anything for the story. It wasn't needed to help the plot along. In fact, I was describing rooms of a house that the character would never go in. It certainly didn't evoke any kind of response in my readers, except perhaps boredom, which I REALLY wasn't going for.


So, it got cut.


Now, that was a more clear cut case - but I've had instances that weren't as easy to spot. I had a conversation in my last book that I really loved. I thought it was funny and showed a playful moment between two of my characters. It didn't move the plot along - meaning, it wasn't introducing any new information about the stsoryline. But I ended up leaving it in the book, with a few tweaks. I did change it up a bit so that there were some plot-moving elements. The main reason I left it in the story was because, after taking a poll of all my readers, I found it was evoking the response I was going for. The parts of the conversation that weren't helping to evoke that response got cut. The stuff that worked, stayed.


Have you had material that you've really loved that you had to cut because it wasn't producing the desired response?  Were you able to save it or did it end up in the great red-marked chop pile in the sky?

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No Tears, No Dice

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