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It’s as simple as that: good writing matters a big deal

It’s as simple as that: good writing matters a big deal. As I dig more into this writing career, I realize how much I still need to learn.

I’ve always been for thrillers and mysteries. I’ve always loved fast-paced books with lots of action: books that I could see in my mind as the next big Hollywood blockbusters. But lately, I’ve realized that there’s also another side of reading. A reading where words enchant you and make you want more of this world of beautifully written words. Now, I believe that good storytelling doesn’t exist without good writing.

I must confess I haven’t read much of Literature Nobel prize winners before. Except from “One Hundred years of Solitude” from Gabriel Garcia Marquez (which I didn’t like), I wasn’t drawn into these awarded authors. It was like Oscar movies: not all Oscar movies winners are good. In fact, some Oscar winners are actually weird and not in my taste of “awesome films.” But this time I bought Alice Munro’s: “Lives of girls and women”, a Nobel prize winner, and I can’t believe I did it by mistake.

The purchase was done when I was coming back from NY’s Writer’s Digest conference. I’ve written down all those titles that during the conference attendees were advised to read. One of the panelists highly recommended to read Alice Hoffman. In the airport, when I came across Alice Munro and read the label “Nobel Prize winner,” I really thought I got the right “Alice.”

I realized of my mistake when I came home. But as a bookworm, I’m never sad for having a new book to read. So I give it a go to this book. And I loved it. Munro’s writing is completely beautiful. The way she starts describing everything and how characters develop in this beautiful written prose was such a relief and rest from the fast paced books I’d been reading before. It made me love writing and reading even more. It made me realize how much, still, I have to learn from writing in English.

This blog post was meant to be a review of Alice Munro’s “Lives of girls and women” but as I came across the blog, I realized I mostly wanted to express the lesson learned while reading this book, and how it has influenced my writing learning process. I’ve also realized how important is for writers to read out of their genre, how it makes you grow professionally. There’s still a wonderful world of written words out there.

And you, have you come across with these beautifully unexpected books that made you want to grow even more as writers?

January 11, 2016
Crazy starts of year

The first post of this year! 🙂 I couldn’t be happier. Isn’t it funny how some numbers in the date can affect your life perspective goal wise? If we think of this well enough, years, months, dates, etc. are only numbers. We really don’t need the first of january of each year to assess our life objectives, but we’re human influenced by numbers, and our nature, and society partly, makes us reset every beginning of each year, restart our goals, focus, and start fresh.

The last days of the year have been surreal, with some (not serious) health problems, a minor surgery, and medical rest, but enough for me to assess how much I take care of myself physically.

2015 has been all about my book and writing as priority number one, and this year it will continue to be. But I’ll have to work this year on a forgotten goal: exercise and good eating habits. I have been telling myself that the latter were not priorities at all. That exercise would only take me time away from my writing objectives. That life was too short to not eat what I like. But I confess that a lot of lazy writeless time has gone through 2015 that could have been used for physical activity. And that not eating well has its consequences no matter the age…

In addition, I’ve been assessing other aspects as well. I’m not for vanity and long is the time that I indulged myself in taking care of my looks. In the name of saving for my trips, I’ve left many self-care aspects forgotten. I don’t mean to spend now tons of money on hairdressers and related stuff, but once in a while won’t do bad. So 2016 has to bring a little bit more of pampering, exercise, and good eating habits in my life. I won’t have another life to look fresh and radiant, will I?

I hope to find better balance this year. I hope to strive through writing even more. But more than anything, I hope to seize each day! Carpe Diem!

January 4, 2016
2015 in review

It’s good to have one more year of blogging, and I’m always happy to see this report.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,200 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 20 trips to carry that many people.

Thanks so much to my frequent readers and commenters: Glynis Jolly , Teachezwell, Scifi and Scary, Juni Desiree and many others.

Click here to see the complete report.

December 31, 2015
That strange feeling at the end of they year

As the holidays are about to arrive and people start getting ready for the long holiday vacations, 2016 also strikes in. And of course, new year’s resolutions can be a common topic around this time. Many people here at my work are counting the days for the holidays to start. I’m not. Although, a rest is always well received, I still don’t want 2015 to be over. I feel like time is going too fast. I still want to make the most of what is left of 2015, even if it’s only a couple of days.

I know that age and time are just numbers, but in certain ways, they always tick and remind me of my goals in life. This year was intensive, and I did many things during it. I really wanted to have my novel done in 2015. But I’m not there, and I will probably work on it for a couple of months more. In some way, I haven’t met this year’s resolutions and I can’t avoid feeling a little bit sad about this. Moreover, I’m finding it difficult to go back to my book. As you know from previous posts, I stopped writing for more than a month, and now, I find it hard to get back into the writing routine again. If it were me, I would try to finish the novel in these days. But I’m aware it’s not possible.

Do you usually have this feeling when it’s nearing the end of the year?

December 21, 2015
The new writing perspective

It’s been almost two months since I didn’t work on my thriller novel. Some fellow blog readers may know that I’ve been working on it quite a while, since last year most specifically. After I finished it, I gave it to a couple of beta readers, and then passed it to my editor. I got the book ready. I pitched it at Writer’s Digest conference in New York and I got the attention of seven literary agents. I sent the requested material to them and got four rejection replies already. The three remaining never replied. But the harsh truth is the book wasn’t ready. It wasn’t yet.

This is my first book, my first attempt, and you can tell I’ve been impulsive with it. I’ve fallen into the most frequent mistake most amateur writers do. I knew how important it was to make sure the manuscript was ready before pitching it. And here I was making the same mistake, trying to do it as fast as possible, not letting the book rest for a while before doing the last rounds of edition. Hurrying up too much.

When I pitched it, the book was quite acceptable from the writing point of view. I made sure the words were accurate, I tried not to tell but show, I triple-verified all grammar rules, and I hired an external editor. I also made sure the plot moved fast, had twists everywhere, and that the “theme” was cohesive and there were no plot holes. What went wrong?

In October, I managed to contact a very good beta reader on Goodreads. He gave me great feedback from the technical point of view (the book is about hackers) but also gave me great advice from the literary point of view. My weakest point was clear as water: Character development. They felt flat. The main characters were completely unidimensional. And I started seeing the flaws I haven’t seen before. I realized the book was not ready. I wasn’t satisfied with it, I knew I could do it a million times better. I had pitched too soon. (And I’m still crossing my fingers that the reason the three literary agents never replied was because my manuscript got lost in their email folders. This way, I can still have them in my pitching list for when the book is finally ready.)

I started to review my manuscript yesterday, from scratch, rewriting practically everything. As I did It, I understood also what was missing in my writing. My voice. Although, the story is action packed, it’s actually dull. There’s no magic in the words. There’s no humour, no irony. It’s not witty. I can do this better. I can make more complex characters, ones that make people surprise, gasp, hate, love, laugh. The book was never ready.

November was a month of no writing. Since most of us writers have a full time job to maintain, I was involved in a work project that left me zero time to write. I’d never believed this time away from writing was actually what I needed, that No writing for some time would be more productive than a full month of continuous writing. I see the point now. Let the book rest.

So I’m re writing the whole manuscript. But this time the story will come alive like a true story should do.

I’m thankful I realized this before precipitating myself into insisting with more agents, or even considering self-publishing. Now I know the true. The book will be ready when it’s ready.

Did you have any similar experiences? If you’re a writer how much can you relate to this? Any advice you would like to give me?

December 9, 2015
A Masquerade of Games

There are many self-help/improvement posts out there. I write a couple from time to time and read related posts whenever I have time. Mostly, they talk about the same life lessons and few actually catch my eye long enough to finish them. I believe that “layersofarose” did quite a good job with this one. With simple phrases we hear on an every day basis, the message stays true. I wanted to share it 🙂

December 7, 2015
I don’t give up

And I’m back. I’ve missed my blog so much. All this time I haven’t been able to write it because of an extra job. It finished and I’m ready to continue. I must confess it was hard, hard to stay ok these weeks because I was at the point of exhaustion and burnout. And many things in my life were left in a standby.

When you put so much hope into something, into a new career chance, it’s very hard to accept that at the end you didn’t get your chance. But life is like this. And I’m so grateful I had this opportunity because I’ve learnt I’m stronger that I think. I’ve learnt I can achieve everything, even if it doesn’t turn out like I always want. I’ve learnt that I can be as strong as steel and hardworking as million people together, and the most important thing I’ve learnt is that “I don’t give up”. I’m willing to accept those words are no longer part of my vocabulary.

I’ve learnt life is better when you learn things the hard way. It makes you tougher and ready for the next challenges. But mostly, I’ve learnt that this blog should never be left aside. I’m thankful for all the people I shared this blog with. I’m thankful that I have a way to connect to them. I’m thankful that my words are read.

December 3, 2015
Book review: Eats, Shoots & Leaves

As I closed the last page of my book, I softly muttered “interesting” without even noticing. My mother happened to be near me at that moment. She asked me “What did you just read?” I waved the book cover to her and answered “A book about punctuation.” She winced.

I would have probably winced too if I’d been my mother. She knows I’m a book worm, but sometimes my eccentricities trouble her a bit. Reading a complete book about punctuation just because you want to is kind of unheard off, no regular “reading for pleasure” material here. But I do read a couple of books like these ones once in a while. Mostly because, as a writer, I need to improve my craft. I need to know where to put the period.

“Eats, Shoots & Leaves” is a clever and informational book where not only grammar rules are exposed, but also a wave of useful information strikes in. It’s not only about commas, semicolons, periods, dashes, etc., but also about their history, how they arrived to our world, what our crazy predecessors thought of them, how some tried to abolish their existence, and how punctuation marks strived successfully. I got attached to each punctuation mark as I would’ve gotten attached to a fiction character. Embarrassingly, I’m that quirky when it comes to books.

Moreover, Lynne Truss leads us to a deeper level, to the analysis of the evolution of punctuation marks. We learn not only their history, but also how our modern times, influenced by technology and constant mobile messaging, are changing the world view towards punctuation. With good evidence, Truss foresees the punctuation world future, with upcoming years of punctuation invasion. We won’t get ridding of them any soon. Reading this book gives us an insightful perspective. We’re not only being told about punctuation rules; we’re also acquiring enough criteria to understand their evolution.

But the aside note is that the book is clever and funny – British funny, humor that always makes me laugh for a reason. I enjoyed the book as much as I would have enjoyed a fiction novel.

Was I the only lonely boring person reading books about punctuation? Nop, I lent the book to a work colleague. The guy loved it. He read it faster than me, just in a couple of days, again my excuse being I’m a slow reader. Would I recommend this book to everybody? Definitely. Yes.

Have you ever read any type of grammar/punctuation of what it could be thought as “boring” and find yourself enjoying it more than expected?

November 5, 2015
What good is to travel?
When I first started writing this blog (2 years already! can’t believe it), my main objective was to build a traveling blog. I’d been following a couple of travel blogs (Barcelona Blonde, Nomadic Matt, and others) that had been fueling my desire for traveling the world and writing about it. But Money and other personal issues made me put a halt to these intentions, settle in one place, and start blogging about something else. I regret nothing. Thanks to this change in plans, I started writing fiction and blogging about it. What a memorable experience it has been.

But I still travel. I may not be able to sail the world, visit all its continents, and be “on the move” constantly, but I’ve managed to travel quite a bit (18 countries, 44 cities, until now). My travel bucket list ranks high in my life priorities. And since there are some continents that I’ve never been too yet (Asia, Africa, and Oceania – Australia! why are you so far?), my eagerness remains intact. But I can’t complain. If I die tomorrow, I’ve done my fair share of traveling. I couldn’t be most thankful.

Traveling is a life-enriching experience, unmatchable to any other. And when you write, there’s nothing better to broaden your horizons. And though, I don’t travel as much as I did before, I still try to save as much as possible to do one nice trip per year.

But what exactly have I learned from traveling?
- People are the same everywhere. They all struggle; they all do their best. Nobody anywhere is better than somebody elsewhere.
- There’s nothing better than learning other languages. Even if you don’t master them. It feels nice to say “hello” and “thanks” in many languages. It doesn’t matter if those are the only words you learn. People appreciate when you make an effort to learn at least tiny bits to communicate with them. Keep in mind that they’re in no obligation to know your language.
- Society restrictions are just that “society restrictions.” Those awful closed-minded standards by which your society apparently rules, end there, in that small circle of your town. When you travel, you realized that nothing of that matters, that you’re limited only by your own convictions.
- Globalization is here to stay. You can be whatever you want wherever you are.
What other lessons do you think can be learned from traveling?
October 20, 2015
Reading with writer’s eyes…

Being a writer is not easy at all, being a reader who writes neither it is. Reading and Writing are my biggest passions. But as I try to merge them into one world, I realize the challenge increases.

In order to write, you have to read. This is the most common advice you’ll receive from writers, books and courses about writing. And there is no bigger truth. Once you decide that writing is you want to do for the rest of your life, reading will come attached as a twin sister. I don’t believe in writers who don’t read. I just can’t. It won’t matter how many a good ideas you have, if you don’t know how the world of books work, and the only way to know is by getting up close to what’s out there.

But one must read all types of books out there:

Reading classics – They are classics for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is that they usually show great command of the language. They display high-quality narrative that has been awarded and well appraised by so many. What works in these books? What made them classics? You need to find out by for yourself.

Reading Best Sellers – And it includes the highly criticized dystopian YA. But why are they so popular? Why are their writers the ones that can actually make a living of this? I usually hear many people chastising these books. Finding them with “my favorite books” tag in intellectual circles of writers would be almost impossible …. But guess what? They do sell! They have “the formula.” And yes, writing-wise they may not be the best example, but they can certainly grab readers.

Now, you may say: “Well, it depends on the reader.” And usually not all teenagers are the most loyal parameter of quality reading, but they are a wide popular profitable target market. Despite these books might be cheesy and corny, we realize many adults do also enjoy them. The key, I believe, is to find a balance between what is good writing and what sells. Let’s face it, we all know that deep in our hearts, we would really love to make money of our writing. So reading this literature we must (my Yoda dysfunctional personality)

Reading all genres – I’ve heard tons of advice saying that you must read in your genre. True! But it doesn’t end there. I’ve learned to read in all sorts of genres. And I believe that it’s not fair to say you aren’t used to an X genre because you don’t read in it. All genres are writing; all of them teach us something. Romance teaches us how to create romantic tension between characters. Thrillers teach us how to insert adventure and movement in your plot. Mysteries teach us how to grab readers until the end of the book. Sci-fi teaches us through setting description how to create fantasy worlds. Memoirs teach us how not to lose the essence and spirit of your book… and so on…. All these elements usually coexist in a book.

People read not only because the plot was so exciting that they couldn’t let the book go, but also because they cared about the protagonists; they found allies or inspiration in them. I’ve read a couple of action-packed thrillers that got me bored easily. I reached a point where I was just so bored about the extensive description of a fight scene; a slow motion punch described in pages. It reminded me of those movies where half of the movie is shootings and guns and no interesting plot. It also happens with books.

If you’re like me, with preference for Thrillers for example, then you have at least to care about one of your characters. We want to know that the CIA spy of a book has a family with a sick child, that if he doesn’t do the job, his son will die. We want that CIA spy that when he’s about to die, we will keep reading and pray that he doesn’t. If he’s just a random handsome spy with great muscles, involved in a cat and mouse chase during the plot, it gets boring…Thriller writers need to read romance and memoirs too!

As a writer, I try to read with a different eye. I try to see all elements in a book, how dialogue flows, how settings and actions are described, how writers show and don’t tell. I assess why the plot gets exciting, how chapters end, and what makes me go to the next chapter. I evaluate those setting descriptions that are just too long for me to care. I write down when I find words and expressions that work so well that I could use them in a further work (one of the advantages of kindle reading, that you can highlight words without actually damaging a book.)

This is a new way of reading, different from what I was used to, but satisfying nonetheless. It’s not only about finding refuge in a book while resting on a reading corner, but also investing time in my long-time dreamed goals.

If you’re a writer, do you find yourself with this different perspective of reading?

October 15, 2015