Hi.

If you’re a writer, then you’re my competitor. If you’re a Fantasy writer, then you’re my sworn enemy. Kind of. In a way, at least.

See, we’re all competing for readers and, without those readers, we don’t amount to much. Unless, of course, you’re content with only friends and family reading your work. That’s perfectly fine, but it doesn’t go far enough for those of us who want to break into the professional arena. Thus, competition.

This doesn’t mean that I want other people’s work to suck. In fact, I want to compete against the best. It’s not very worthwhile if I can’t.

So how does this relate to athletes?

Let’s take a look at football players. They don’t step onto the turf thinking they’re going to lose. Indeed, they spend weeks, months, and sometimes entire years in preparation for one single game. And, in the very depths of their hearts, they believe they will win. If they don’t believe that, then their opponents will smash their teeth into the grass. That’s not fun, and a losing team doesn’t have very many fans. Insert more not-fun here.

We authors need to believe that we’re the baddest mofo on the turf. We need to believe that our years of practice and training will allow us to insert grass into our opponent’s teeth. Is this a little arrogant? Hell yes it is. Is it required? Hell yes.

Now, we writers are a fickle, somewhat emo lot. We doubt ourselves, wonder if what we’re writing is worth a steaming pile of poo, and otherwise mock ourselves. Mock mock mock.

“It’s sooooooo hard to be badass!”
“I don’t wanna be an arrogant prick!”
“Hekp, hekp, gave me a bad review!”

Fuck it. If any writer wants to be the best, they need to be the best. Now, I’m not saying that those aforementioned doubts aren’t natural. They are. I’m telling you to find a way to combat it. Get a punching bag and smack the shit out of it every day before your writing hours. Jog or run. Or just scream into a pillow, maybe tear it a bit, and fling those feathers everywhere. Rarwrwrwrw! On that same note, cuddle a teddybear if that’s what it takes. Make that bear your cuddlebitch.

Find a way to convince yourself that you’re a badass, and go with it. Then write.

See, I want to compete against the best. I want my work to go against the people who put their heart and soul into it, people who believe, at the very center of what they are, that the world had better watch out.

Bring it!

And finally, due to the sheer awesomeness of this post, I shall raise my minion count to 20. I haven’t raised it lately, so it’s time.

Today, I’m hosting guest blogger Terri Giuliano Long, author of In Leah’s Wake. She’s put together a very neat program to help our troops, so it’d be great if everyone can help out. And now, I’ll leave it to her.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.
- Winston Churchill

This weekend, November 11 – 14, Terri Giuliano Long, author of the bestselling novel In Leah’s Wake, joins 50 indie authors in Blog Tour de Troops, a charity blog hop sponsored by the Indie Book Collective.

To celebrate, Terri is hosting Emmy-winning film editor Nina Gilberti, currently a full-time editor for the hit CBS crime drama Criminal Minds. Nina is also an indie filmmaker. On Terri’s blog, Nina talks about her upcoming documentary, When Jane and Johnny Come Marching Homeless, a powerful film about the horrors faced by some veterans upon their return home after war.

In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield.
- Douglas MacArthur

Did you know that one-third of the people living on the streets are veterans who served in the Vietnam War?

In addition to physical homelessness – whether couch surfing, living in a car or existing on the street – many vets also face emotional, psychological, and spiritual homelessness. While they may seem fine on the outside, within they struggle with the hidden wounds of war – issues like Post Traumatic Stress (PTSD), nightmares, hyper-vigilance, meaning they are on high alert all the time, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), drug & alcohol abuse and addiction, prescription drug addiction – resulting in high divorce rates, joblessness, spousal abuse, and suicide. Naturally, these life-altering problems also affect the spouse, children, and parents of veterans.

With her film, When Jane & Johnny Come Marching Homeless, Nina hopes to inspire our nation to care, to generate real compassion – and perhaps create a movement towards profound healing and understanding for these veterans and their families.

Blog Tour de Troops

This Veteran’s Day Weekend, November 11 – 14, 50 indie authors are participating in a daisy chain blog hop to support U.S. troops. Anyone who leaves a comment on a participating author’s blog will receive a coupon for a free eBook – plus the author will give a free eBook to one active-duty U.S. troop. This means you have a chance to collect 50, yes 50, FREE eBooks.

For details and a list of participating authors, please visit the Indie Book Collective site.

AMAZING PRIZES

Leave a comment on Terri’s blog and receive a coupon for an In Leah’s Wake eBook – for every comment, Terri will also give a free eBook to an active-duty troop.

PLUS, just for leaving a comment, you’ll be entered in a random drawing for one of these amazing prizes:

FIRST PRIZE – a $ 50 Amazon gift card, a copy of the Criminal Minds script for episode 701- the season seven opener written by executive producer and writer Erica Messer, SIGNED BY MS. MESSER AND THE ENTIRE CM CAST, PLUS an autographed photo of the Criminal Minds cast!

SECOND PRIZE (total 3) – autographed photograph of the Criminal Minds cast!

WIN A CARE PACKAGE FOR YOUR FAVORITE SOLDIER

With your comment, leave the name of a U.S. troop and he or she will be eligible to win an awesome care package, consisting of: $ 100 Amazon gift card, a boxed video set of Criminal Minds, Season 6, PLUS an autographed photo of the CM cast!

* Winners to be determined by a random number generator, using random.org.

To learn more about the film When Jane & Johnny Come Marching Homeless and to enter the raffle, please visit Terri’s blog.

So, it’s now day 8 of my war with NaNoWriMo.  It’s not going well.  These bastards just keep writing and writing, and it seems nothing will halt them.  They scribble words on a sheet of paper, tap their little keys on a keyboard.  Tappity tap tap tap.  With wide, maniacal grins, they whip through page after page, and it seems as if they’ll stop at nothing.

“No!” I want to scream.  ”It’s folly!”

Worse, they’ve gained a valuable ally.  A deep, thick beard sprouts from his face, and his booming laughter fills a room.  He smells a little of sweat, mingled with the tangy scent of an expensive shampoo, and his Jhoss Whedon t-shirt does nothing to damp it.  He’s Patrick Rothfuss–cue melodramatic cult-following mania now.

Proof.

Worse than even that, he’s the one single writer I admire above all others.  I’d bear this man’s man-babies, and my wife knows it.  She’s come to accept it, which is good for the relationship.

“Why, Pat!” I yell to the heavens, and their silence mocks my cry.  ”Why hath you abandoned me!”

In other news, he’s also selling a fucking kickass calendar.  Check it, yo.

Buy it here.

And now, I’m going to leave the keyboard and have myself a nice cry.

National Novel Writing Month may not know who I am, but I’m declaring war on it.  That’s right, with big ol’ gnarly swords and axes ‘n shit.  A splash of gooey crimson, a length of pinkish-white entrails, smelling of iron and heat and death, and we’ll have a nice little battle.  Who cares if it’s one-sided?

Disclaimer:  My brand-new chair just dumped me on my ass, so I’m a little pissed.

Why NaNoWriMo is the Devil’s gift to writers:

Look at writing as a ladder.  At the very top—way up on the last possible step, where it’s terrifying to let go lest writer meet dirt in violent fashion—is where each writer could potentially climb.  Climb a little farther, grasp another wooden dowel, then another, and they’ll eventually reach it.  Hopefully.  The problem is that most writers never get off the first rung.

Why?

Because they don’t learn the fundamentals.  They never learn how to structure a sentence, when to properly use an adverb, the dangers of infinite verb-phrases, the boring depths of passive voice, the terrors of SOB verbs, or countless other bottomless pits.

Writing a good story isn’t half of the ladder.  Nope, not even half.  Yes, self-editing plays a part in there somewhere, but look at it this way—even with self-editing, our example writer only climbs ten rungs, or fifteen.  However, if they are at rung number fifteen when they start, then they’ll reach twenty or twenty-five at the end of their self-edits.  Add in an editor, and they may even reach to the thirtieth.

And this, folks, is where my problem with NaNoWriMo comes in.  The program doesn’t encourage writers to write well, it simply encourages them to write.  It reinforces bad writing habits that end up taking months or years to erase.  In many cases, those bad habits are never fully eradicated.  Let me be perfectly clear here, no editor, no matter how good, can clean up a manuscript that’s sloppy to begin with.  The better the base material, the better the end product.  That also goes for self-editing.

Yes, there are exceptions.  Some writers start off with NaNoWriMo and go on to be published.  In fact, we’ve even got one or two at Evolved Publishing, and they’ve proven themselves as gifted and dedicated writers.  However, those are exceptions.  I don’t want to make up a bogus figure off the top of my head, but how many writers start with NaNoWriMo and then go on to be published?  Judging by the hordes of submissions we’ve received, I’d guess not many.

Learn the fundamentals first.  I mean seriously, a racecar diver doesn’t compete in the Daytona 500 without first learning how their car works.  Go slow.  A mechanic doesn’t attempt to swap an engine until he learns his tools, completes a brake job or two, and works his way up that ladder.

A new bloody writer shouldn’t try to write a novel in a month.

Yes, quality is more important than quantity, because it cuts down on those aforementioned bad habits.  I swear to the ever-living god, those things breed faster than a horde of zombie bunnies.  Kill them.  Kill them all!

Buy books like Strunk & White’s Elements of Style or Renni & Brown’s Self-Editing for Fiction Writers and study the crap out of them.  Go take a grammar class at a community college, or buy Sin and Syntax by Constance Hale.  It’s possible to teach yourself through experience, but only if you actually teach yourself.  Writing at break-neck speed isn’t learning.  Take this month to do that, instead of writing whatever pops into your skull.

And, if you do indeed decide to embark on NaNoWriMo, throw their goal out the window.  Writing as fast as possible isn’t a goal, it’s a death sentence, and these writers are only hurting themselves.