Writing 2.6 - What to Write About

Guest Blog by Rich Voza, originally presented on his blog, Brainsnorts: Trashing Today for a Better Tomorrow. You can see it here.

Preface 1: I started this post thinking it would only be about three paragraphs, maybe 300 words. Not so.

Preface B: I am not writing this to criticize anyone’s blog or suggest that anyone should do anything any differently than what they’re happy and comfortable doing on their blog. I’m writing this because I’ve been asked a similar question, and I’ve seen similar questions posted on other blogs, so this is an extensive answer either to those bloggers who have asked or those who are thinking of the same question but haven’t yet asked it. I’m not suggesting that I’m any kind of a blog authority or writing lord. I’m nothing of the kind, but I like questions, both asking and answering, and I like being thorough. Sometimes. Also, these are my thoughts only. Every other blogger in existence might disagree with me, and that’s not only okay but probably good.

Someone recently asked why I blog. That wasn’t easy to answer. In a way, blogging can be like a comedian testing jokes in a small comedy club before going to Vegas or Atlantic City, but that carries the suggestion that I’m “going somewhere” after this. Not likely. My blogging originally stemmed from something at work. I had to send out daily, boring e-mails to about a hundred people. I knew those e-mails would be annoying, stupid, but necessary information.

So my goal was to make it a little entertaining and perhaps make someone smile a little. I admit that it gave me a little extra boost when someone with whom I worked a long time would reply to my e-mails and tell me how funny I was or that they never realized this other side to me. I tend to be very boring and monotonous in person until I get to know someone well enough to unleash the demon known as – Rich. After enough people said, “You really should be writing for a living, or writing comedy, or host a game show or something,” I agreed, but I still wasn’t sure what to do about it. So far, this blog is all I’ve done about it. But this post isn’t about me, although it certainly seems to be going that way. This is about you. Well, not you personally, but those of you who have asked me or posted questions about blogging.

Over the past two weeks I’ve seen more than the usual amount of blog posts in which someone did one or more of the following:

1. Apologized for not posting often enough and promising their lovely readers that they will get his or her or both asses in gear and start producing more.

2. Acknowledged that they just couldn’t think of anything to write about lately.

3. Promised not to let that blog fizzle out and die like a previous blog.

4. Asked readers to help decide what they should write about next.

I’ve also seen blogs on which the author posted a poll asking readers to vote for a favorite topic on which the author should mainly focus. Movies? Television? Music? Books? And I’ve also seen the blogs on which an author begins a story and asks readers to make suggestions on which direction the story should take. Now that I’ve made you read through about 600 words, I’ll get to the point, but it’s nothing you haven’t heard before.

If you’re not sure what to write about, most people say, “Write what you know.” I disagree. I say, “write what you feel.” If you see a movie you love – write about it. If you read a book that bores you, or turns you on, write about it. If a driver on the road next to you does something that pisses you off and you’re thinking of giving her a flat tire, write about it. If you love to cook, take pictures of the process, sketch the details of the recipe, and write about it. If you love sports or political debates, park your laptop in front of the television, take notes, and write about it. And if you find yourself strangely attracted to the female news anchors of CNN, well, maybe you should keep that to yourself. You shouldn’t just write about things or topics without specifying how those things affected you. I don’t need you to tell me what the movie was about. I need you to tell me how it made you feel. If all I want are the facts, I’ll watch the news. No, not Fox News. Duh, I said “facts.”

 Every one of us has probably heard the words “write what you know.” Well, if I’m an electrical engineer, and I know electrical engineering, but I love hockey, then I’d said it’s better to write about hockey than electrical engineering. One particular blogger I know used to write great posts about lists of all kinds. Movies of the 60’s, breakfast cereals, sexy commercials, all kinds of things, all kinds of lists of things with his opinion on why each deserved to be anywhere from #10 to #1. After a while, he thought perhaps he should only write about one thing – movies, food, sexy things? So he asked his readers to vote, and I politely told him that was not a good plan. His readers were not there because they loved movies or commercials. They were there because they liked the combination of his style, attitude, and opinion. Readers did not care if he made a list of oatmeal flavors or golf courses, they just cared that he was entertaining in his presentation.

He had a counter argument. “But blogs with specific topics have more readers than blogs that don’t have a specific focus.” Yeah, he’s right, but that’s because there are people out there who only want to read about food or cars or a guy pretending to be a girl and writing about “her” promiscuous exploits. So those readers had searched for blogs about food or cars or sex, and then those readers follow those blogs. True they might have more followers and “likes,” but that doesn’t mean those readers are enjoying it more. Those topic-specific blogs will likely have more views per day, but that doesn’t mean they’ll have more comments or a more interesting and rewarding conversation. I’d rather have 20 comments than 100 views because I’m not really about the numbers as much as I am about the interaction and conversation. I’d rather have two people give me their opinions on my book or movie review than 20 people just click on it and go away.

The other question that comes up is how often to post, which, although it’s a matter of personal preference, I can at least give not a writer’s but a reader’s perspective. In the almost 500 bloggers I follow, there are some who post several times a day. Sometimes it’s all photography, each picture as a separate post. For me, that’s overkill. For photog fans, it’s a mother lode. After a while, I’m breezing through because I don’t have time to study them all – but I know I’m not the target audience. I also follow blogs on which there might be three or four new poems a day, each in a separate post. Having studied poetry extensively in college, I love reading and interpreting poetry, especially when I can sometimes leave a comment that lets the poet know that I can feel exactly what they were thinking. I love when that happens, but most readers don’t have time for careful reading of everything that we all post every day. Conversely, there are other authors who post only once a week or less. I wish they’d write more, but those carefully crafted, well-researched, and very entertaining posts just can’t possibly be produced on a daily basis.

Please remember, neither me nor any individual is important enough for you to aim your blog at us. Those writers and photographers do not need to care one bit about what I have to say. They only need to care about how it makes them feel to write and post what they’re writing and/or photographing. So, if you’d like a one-sentence answer to sum things up, it would go like this:

Instead of “write what you know,” consider “write what you want others to know.” And I want others to know how I feel about the movie I saw, the book I read, the mouse I accidentally stepped on, etc. And if I write it well enough, then you will know exactly how I feel because I will have chosen the right words so that you feel it too.

About today's guest blogger:

Richard Voza Voza has been writing since 4th grade when he forgot about a summer book report and created a story called Carrot Top Mr. Mouse, about a mouse ridiculed for his red hair. After accidentally becoming an English teacher for 25 years, he now takes writing seriously.

The first volume of his short story collection, When the Mirror Breaks, has been accepted by Whiskey Creek Press. He is currently marketing a suspense novel called Woodbury Avenue, about a stalker in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Two other finished novels are Lizzie’s Journal (paranormal) and Room 317 (suspense).

Most days he drinks coffee and wonders if anyone will read his blog, brainsnorts.com. Other days he sits on the beach, listens to baseball, and watches the waves with friends and a cooler nearby.

NaNoWriMo: Through the Eyes of a Novice

Guest blog by Lisen Minetti

I first heard of NaNoWriMo only a few months ago, when I finally crawled out from underneath my rock wanting to connect with other writers. Before then, writing was just something I loved to do for myself. I rarely shared my stories, or talked about my writing with others. Imagine my surprise when I discovered there was an entire month dedicated to novel writing!

However, I viewed the idea of NaNoWriMo with a healthy dose of skepticism at first. The thought that someone – namely me – could write 50,000 words in 30 days seemed like madness! The fact that I was seriously considering participating left me questioning what little sanity I claim to have.

On the one hand, I did have a story floating around in my head, and had just finished work on book one, so I knew I was capable of finishing a manuscript. On the other hand, however, a little voice inside my head kept reminding me that it took the better part of eight months to write that first book; and that my word count of said book was only around 35,000 words. Yet here I was, contemplating challenging myself not only to write 15,000 words beyond that, but to do so in one-eighth of the time.

But I love a challenge. So I signed up for NaNoWriMo in September with all the same feelings as if I were walking into a particularly scary haunted house: fear, trepidation, and a twinge of excitement. I had no idea what to expect and the possibility that I was going to pee my pants and run away screaming half way through was very real.

To my delight, once I entered the world of National Novel Writing Month, excitement began to edge out the fear. Despite my pantster leanings, I started to jot down ideas and notes to help me organize my thoughts for the upcoming project. I wrote out a timeline for characters to follow, knowing this would help as the entire story took place over the space of five days. I created note cards describing the powers my little witch discovered in book one, and all the ones I wanted her to discover in book two. I pitched my story to my cat, who really didn’t care enough to be bothered with it, and also to my husband, who was helpful in ferreting out holes in the plot. And when I finished all my prep work on October 1, I was ready to write!

Unfortunately for me, National Novel Writing Month is November, not October, so my story had to sit. And about a week before November, I realized I wasn’t excited about my story anymore. Panic ensued and I was almost ready to call off the whole thing. I mean, how could I possibly write a story I wasn’t excited about? Well, there’s the rub. I realized that if I only wrote when I was excited about what I was working on, nothing would ever get finished.

So come November 1, I sat down and just started writing. I didn’t stay up until midnight on Halloween; I didn’t get up early to start writing before work. I waited until I got home from work that Friday and made a commitment to sit in front of my computer until something – anything – came out. And eventually it did come. Within the first few hours, the enthusiasm flooded back and in the first three days I wrote over 10,000 words.

By the end of week two – November 14 – I had written close to 30,000 words. There were days when I hated every word I wrote. Nights when I felt like doing anything else other than writing. Times where I wanted to do nothing more than delete whole sections of prose. But I didn’t. I wrote through it. And came out on the other side.

Week three of NaNoWriMo is upon us and I have written nearly 40,000 words. And with a little luck and lot of hard work, I will ‘win’ NaNoWriMo by the end of this weekend, hitting the coveted 50,000 word mark.

On top of that, I blogged nearly every single day. I continued to help my kids with their homework. I haven’t missed any meals, or suffered from an insane lack of sleep. I worked a full forty hour week every week just like always. And I had the flu.

So how did this miracle happen?

It happened because I embraced the spirit of NaNoWriMo at the outset: I sat down and wrote every single day. Writing became part of my daily routine. If I wasn’t writing, I was thinking about plots and character flaws and story lines. During homework time I would imagine how my characters would behave when their mothers’ were helping them study. When I was sick, exhausted and so cold I could barely feel my fingers, I wrote about the misery I felt, which evolved into a new scene I didn’t anticipate at the outset. But it worked.

When I got frustrated at my story or hit a wall, I wrote some more. I turned to my blog creating a “Dear Abby” format to give myself encouragement and vent my frustrations. I made up stupid songs and skits. I was creative in other ways, and soon my story was back on track.

Most importantly I didn’t give up. I kept writing, even when I didn’t want to. I didn’t necessarily add words to my WIP every single day, but I wrote every single day. Something. Anything. Just to keep writing. Because not writing is the only surefire way to ‘lose’ NaNoWriMo.

And if I end up not hitting the 50,000 word count? Well, I am okay with that too. I write middle grade, so my story may not have that many words to it. But even if I don’t hit my word count, I have something to be proud of: A first draft that I didn’t have on October 31 and the knowledge that I didn’t give up. And there’s always next year.

About today's guest blogger:

Lisen Minetti really hates writing bios because she feels stupid talking about herself in the third person. She lives, works and writes outside of Atlantic City with her husband, two kids and an evil cat. Her current WIP is a middle grade series, the Cady Martin Witchsteries:

As if growing up weren't hard enough, twelve year old Cady Martin has to live with a big secret: she's a witch. While she is busy trying to learn her newfound powers and keep her secret from the rest of the world, she also finds that she has a knack for attracting trouble. No matter where she goes, danger seems to follow her - both from this realm and the supernatural realm.

You can connect with Lisen on her blog or on Twitter.