Ten Cogent and Powerful Tips For New Writers

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1. Have an idea. This is not absolutely necessary but it helps. If you don't have an idea, following these procedures will still result in quality writing

2. Have a place to sit. Alternatively, a place to stand will suffice so long as it's
reasonably private. Many great writers with hemorrhoids did their work standing up.

3. Have a device that produces marks that conform to the alphabet of your chosen language. Mate that device with a surface or medium to record the device's impressions.

4. Remain stationary for a long period of time while operating the aforementioned device. The recording medium or surface should be placed to maximize comfort. When the recording medium can't be comfortably placed, many great writers have alleviated their discomfort with whiskey, vodka and tobacco.

5. If you begin with an idea, it's optimum to use the language-marking-device to elaborate upon that idea.
If you do not have an idea, it's best to use the language marking equipment anyway, because great success has been enjoyed by authors without ideas.

6. Assuming that words are being employed, it's always best to put the words in a particular order, using the idea as a guidepost. If you do not have an idea it's still desirable to put words in such an order as to be modestly intelligible.

7. It's okay to have ideas change in mid-writing. If you can't incorporate the original idea into the new idea, start over. If this happens frequently, do the opposite: keep the original idea and all subsequent ideas. Put the ideas into an arbitrary or improvised order. Famous writers like Jack Kerouac and William Burroughs have used this technique to good effect.

8. If you have had experiences that were interesting, dangerous or humorous, you can use them as dressing to fill out the original idea or non-idea.

9. If you have not had any such experiences, you may borrow them from other people so long as they have not yet appeared in a widely circulated book or story .

10. A tip for young people looking towards a writing career in the future: learn to write with a quill and keep a good quill sharpener handy at all times.

The Writer's Magic Curtain

                                                                              This frightened child is me at the age of five.
                                                                            I may have been practicing the Vulcan Mind Meld.




Writing and The Magic Curtain

Art Rosch

Aug 31, 2010

            One of the strange things about writing is the way I regard pieces of my work as brilliant until a couple of days, months, or even years later.  Then, The Magic Curtain goes up in my mind and I see that the writing is not brilliant.  It may have potential, it may be utter crap but it isn’t the masterwork I once thought it to be.

            Every writer knows what I’m talking about.  It’s a bit like trying to eat soup on a trampoline.  The very surface of our work is unsteady and keeps moving.

            I KNOW that certain pieces of my work are brilliant.  But….what if that curtain goes up?  How can I ever tell?  My books haven’t been published yet, so there’s no external applause meter to guide me in the nature of audience response.  The meter itself can be unreliable.  Getting published doesn’t mean anything except that someone sees dollars signs behind the work’s title.

            It’s taken me a long time to learn how to write.  I have work that I can rely on to be good.  I have work that I trust.  I have a gut feeling about certain poems, scenes, chapters or essays.  Can I trust my gut?  I have to.  Even though my gut has been wrong in the sense that the work I trusted wasn’t as good as I thought.  It wasn’t awful.  It was provisional; it was in progress.  I needed time to revise the work so that it reached the level I sought.

            I’ve been writing an autobiographical novel for thirty five years.  It’s current title is CONFESSIONS OF AN HONEST MAN.  I might point out the obvious truth that an autobiographical novel requires some age, it needs some bio about which to be auto.  Now that I’ve passed the sixtieth year of my life, I feel like I can view my story in a different light.  The truth about my life is that I’ve had to be broken before I could be repaired. 

I had an agent back in the late seventies, a big-time agent.  He took my books seriously.  I had two books at the time: CONFESSIONS and a sci-fi epic called THE GODS OF THE GIFT.  The agency assigned an editor to work with me.  I had expense account trips to New York.  It was very exciting.  I felt as though I was just on the verge of huge success.  The publishing industry expected big things from me.  I had sold a story to Playboy, a comic sci-fi story that won Playboy’s Best Story Award for 1978.  Every door was open to me.  The fact is that I was like an unripe mango.  Had I been plucked from my tree in 1980, I would have been spit back with a wince and a curse.

            I was invited to Playboy’s 25^th anniversary party.  This was a gathering of movers and shakers in the world of writing and the arts.  I collected a pocket full of cards from people like Philip Roth and the bosses of Random House and Doubleday.

            If I had sold those books thirty five years ago, I would not now have the books that have been my teachers and companions in the art of writing.  My Magic Curtain needed to rise hundreds of times before I could write mature novels.  I had to experience that rush of insight that said, “This writing isn’t as good as you thought it was.  Time to do some revision.”

            I expect that The Magic Curtain will always be an integral part of my writing life.

Sooner or later I will have readers.  I owe it to those readers to produce writing of the highest standard.  I may not be David Foster Wallace or Don DeLillo.  I am myself, and I write the stories that I am permitted to write.  I will never be formulaic, I will never treat my audience with contempt.   I always hear the rustling of The Magic Curtain, telling me to be careful and to stay humble.

I'm Giving Away Prints!

I believe in my writing. I think there's something special about it, but every writer must believe that, or it would be impossible to go on writing.  Writing is both a brutal and wonderful calling.  The main problem is to attract readers, to persuade people that something really beautiful is going on here.  My poems have popped out in minutes, while my books have taken years, sometimes decades to write.  I feel an equal passion for both the short easy ones and the long works that have been like wrestling alligators.  I love the challenge of writing novels.

I don't wear a religion or spirituality on my sleeve.  I like to be more devioius, I like to be both sacred and profane. I am in what is loosely called the Spirit-Mind-Body culture.  I've put in many years of practice and study. My innate modesty prevents me from boasting of my sublime spiritual achievements.  I am adored by my partner and several dogs and cats.  Now I need fans of my writing.  I am irreverent. I have opinions about gurus, life-coaches, the whole "make your dream come true" philosophy.
We should all go for our dreams, but sometimes one can dream the wrong dream, and achieving it can be a disaster.

Here's the deal.  Sign up as a follower of this blog.  Leave a few comments, or show me that
you're sincere.  I will send you an 8X11 print of your choice from the galleries here or my website
at www.artsdigitalphoto.com. Get really involved and I'll make it a 12X18.  That's some serious print.

 I write on photography for Shutterbug Magazine and have two covers to my credit.. I've won a United Nations award for environmental photography.  I'm especially fond of night shots, of the beautiful sky.  I've been selling my prints for ten years  Now my writing is gaining momentum.  A few years ago I sold a science fiction story to Playboy, and it won an award.  Now my book, AVOIDING THE POTHOLES: ROAD STORIES OF A CHANGING AMERICA is being requested by agents.

Contact me at artsdigiphoto@gmail.com or through the blog and we'll talk about what print you want.

Leave comments.  Enjoy.

Art

Eleven Things An Unpublished Novelist Feels

Art Rosch

Copyright 2010

1.I am a genius unique in the annals of mankind.  Most of the reading audience is not advanced enough to perceive the layered depth of my work

2.If my books are published they will change lives.

3. I’m a committed artist.  My work transcends genre. This upsets agents, who are too conventional to see through the boundary-shattering nature of my work.

4.My life experience has been so unusual and difficult that I have a special credibility in writing about the human condition.

5.I’m getting older and all these rejection slips are coming from agents who are my kids’ age.

6.Who do they think they ARE!?

7.While I may not be published in my lifetime, my works will reach the world posthumously.  This is a good thing for the world but doesn’t do shit for me.

8.I frequently succumb to self-pity and apathy but I bounce back with increased defiance.

9.I know the odds against writing a best seller are astronomical.  A series of apparent coincidences will bring my writing before the world.

10.The seven hundred agents who rejected me without reading a single page will write to apologize and ask to represent future projects.

11. Ninety nine percent of the people in the world believe that they belong to the one percent that’s superior to the other ninety nine percent.  I am in the REAL one percent.