Category: Support

Writers aren’t the most organized people. Frankly, I’m lucky that stuff doesn’t fall on me in my bedroom every night. We’re especially bad at time management. After a certain point in our writing our minds start to wander. Even deadlines can’t help us all the time. It’s not because we aren’t passionate about our work or because we don’t want to write anymore. The reasons vary from writer to writer and situation to situation. Sometimes we’re too scared and subconsciously trying to self-sabotage, and sometimes we’re just distracted. Whatever the reason, time management typically isn’t a writer’s forte.

Is this lack of time management skills really a problem in our industry? What can we do to pull ourselves out of that trap?

Honestly, neither answer is simple.

For some writers a lack of time management skills can be a problem but for others it’s not. Some writers’ work will suffer if they don’t give themselves enough time. Others thrive under pressure. Still others are somewhere in between or move from one to the other depending on the project. I fall somewhere closer to the third category. While I often succeed best on a tight schedule for academic writing, my fiction writing can suffer greatly if I try to do anything at the last minute.

When deadlines are involved, it’s always best to start early enough to have wiggle room. Even last-minute writers can fall victim to writer’s block under too much pressure. That’s not to mention the array of technical issues which may arise solely because of Murphy’s law. Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. All we can do is be prepared, and starting early is one of the best ways to ensure that we’re prepared.

Other than preparing for the worst, I’m not sure if there’s anything else we can–or should–do if we have time management problems. As I said, different writers work best under different circumstances. If pressure helps you write, you may not want to change that. If it isn’t working for you, you should learn some time management skills.

If you’re looking to cultivate such skills, I’m not the best person to ask. Aside from keeping deadlines straight in my head and prioritizing what to do based on those, I don’t have any real “time management skills.” That may be one of the reasons why I’m stressed all the time (that and the fact that I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder). However, I always turn work in by or before the deadline, so my disorganized methods must work for me.

The key to time management in writing is finding whatever works for you. Your best (writer) friend may have to write down a detailed schedule of when she’ll write what, but you may do best just by going with the flow. She may set her own deadlines in addition to an editor’s deadlines and you might need to just keep your editor’s deadlines in mind. As with all organization matters, writing is organized chaos; only the individual writer can understand his/her methods because they were tailored especially for him/her.

Do you have any time management advice? Tales of woe or cautionary tales? Leave your thoughts in the comments. Also keep an eye out for more of my thoughts on writing and organization, and be sure to sign up for notifications straight to your inbox.

Trigger Warning: Today’s topic is the “bury your gays” trope. The following post and any resulting conversations may contain triggers for members of the LGBTQIA+ community, particularly those who have suffered any abuse for their identities and/or are survivors of attempted suicide or whose loved ones have been affected by such trauma. Please proceed with caution.

A discussion of Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” has caused some…heated debate within my Master’s Literary Studies program. Unfortunately, such conflict is inevitable when discussing hot-button issues like the treatment of LGBTQIA+ characters in modern literature. It’s certainly given me something to think about, namely the “bury your gays” trope and its effects.

The debate in my class’s discussion forum is mainly over whether writers should take the opinions and sensitivities of certain communities into account when writing a story. The “kill your gays” trope and its persisting prevalence in Western culture emerged during this discussion as an example of why writers should take at least some care in considering how you will represent a specific community. Admittedly, I faded in and out after the initial posts by these people because I feared things could take a bad turn. I also feel, after stupidly repeating myself multiple times in the post, that I made no real contribution and that I just put my foot in my mouth. Still, I have some very strong opinions on this matter.

Before I continue, I want to define the “bury your gays” trope as I have come to understand it. In popular culture there’s a tendency for LGBTQIA+ characters to be killed unnecessarily and/or unnecessarily cruelly. Another prevalent trend is for LGBTQIA+ characters to be given tragic story lines overall, not just being killed off. For more information on this issue and the LGBTQIA+ community’s problems stemming from it, please follow this link.

I’ve said repeatedly that writers shouldn’t care what other people think and just write what they’re going to write. I still believe that. However, many writers, myself included, forget the sort of effect that their works can have.

Writers shape culture, social dynamics, and politics as much as we reflect them. One prominent modern example is the study that suggests that readers of Harry Potter are more empathetic towards stigmatized groups because they read Harry Potter. What we say in our books, short stories, and poetry have a much greater effect on people, on the world, than we could ever imagine.

I know what you’re thinking at this point: if writers have such sway, shouldn’t we use that influence to show people the horrific conditions under which the LGBTQIA+ community often suffers? Yes and no.

We need to use our writing to bring attention to the problem. Sometimes that involves depicting the disastrous outcomes of prejudice, whether there’s a sad ending or a happy ending after the dust has settled. Nevertheless, these traumas should not be the only way in which we represent the LGBTQIA+ community.

Imagine depicting people of color, Jewish people, Muslims, and other minorities only with tragic plots and/or stories in which they die, or that the majority of stories with these communities turned out that way. Could we say it’s to bring to light the injustice, prejudice, and abuse to which they are subjected? It would be racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia. Mind you, all minorities are still severely underrepresented and misrepresented in Western literature. However, if we were to treat them with a parallel of the “bury your gays” trope, would we be able to justify it by saying “characters die” or “tragedy makes for interesting stories”?

Here’s another way to look at it. You know how heterosexual (particularly white heterosexual) people have come to the realization that so many “love stories” end tragically and encourage their children to not follow those examples? Well, take that feeling and apply it not just to love stories but a vast majority of books, TV, and movies in which heterosexual people are main or secondary characters. It’s not something we’d want our children or other people with similar sexual identities to aspire to, huh? Doesn’t really fill you with hope for your own life, does it?

I’m not saying that all LGBTQIA+ characters are treated this way. There is, however, a disproportionate number of them that are in comparison with hetero-normative characters. The 100 TV show killed off Lexa, who had a relationship with the main character Clarke; The Originals killed off Josh’s boyfriend, Aiden; some people even consider Dumbledore as an example because he dies, his relationship with Grindewald was tragic, and he is not openly depicted as gay in the Harry Potter books. These are just three of the examples that I’m aware of.

I hate admitting it but I’m not innocent of this trope, either. In a story I submitted for my Master program’s first writing forum, my main character–whose sexual identity is put into question–is killed and, for the reader, seems to be in an ambiguous in-between state, a limbo of sorts. I often thrust my main characters into horrific situations, sometimes even killing them, and especially so in fantasy pieces like this story. That’s why I didn’t even think about the possibility of harming the LGBTQIA+ community with this particular ending.

I can justify it all I want by saying that I was trying to illustrate the poor treatment of the LGBTQIA+ community and the scapegoating that they are subjected to, but there’s a thin line between conveying a message about a negative stereotype and perpetuating it. Before realizing I played into that issue, I had already decided to expand it into a novel (three, actually) that follows the main character after the supposed death. That’s no excuse but my plans do include a better, if bumpy, plot for the main character, so I’m trying to not perpetuate anything negative as I continue my stories.

That brings us to an important question: what if the story is best the way it is, with something bad happening to an LGBTQIA+ character?

The answer is complex. If, after an extensive review and self-reflection, we decide that that’s how the story needs to be, we have to leave the story that way. I was told by the person who helped me realize the social implications of my story that it was a good story; I just shouldn’t publish it yet, given the current socio-political climate. With this story, that’s probably the right path. The fact that I’m trying to make it the first chapter of a novel made that decision easy.

But what about those who need to publish the story exactly as it is in order for it to be its best? Well, you could wait until this trope has been disposed, has itself been buried. You could also write and publish other works which have LGBTQIA+ characters but do not put them through the “bury your gays” trope, instead finding a way to write a great story in which they are content. My strongest recommendation, however, is to not have your first published piece contain a “bury your gays” situation. You wouldn’t publish a story involving racism which ends badly for the person of color as your first published piece, would you?

Ultimately, writers must be the masters of their work. We can’t let the possibility of offending people make us question every one of our choices, but that doesn’t give us free license to offend people without caring at all. If we write negative stereotypes (gender, race, sexual identity, religion, etc.) or constantly kill off minority characters/give them tragic plots more often than our non-minority characters, we perpetuate negative stereotypes and attitudes towards minorities. We can even push people with these identities over the edge. Besides, if we don’t explore alternate endings, we may miss out on a story we’re more proud of. We can’t be policed by other people’s beliefs and sensitivities but we would do well to consider them as we revise our work.

Thoughts? Concerns? Examples of the “bury your gays” trope you wish to discuss? Counter-examples? Remember, we welcome all perspectives but the discussion must remain civil and intellectual. Anything less wouldn’t be productive (and any trolling/bullying could result in your suspension or banning from the comments section; please remember to check the comments policy before posting).

In the last webinar for the year, my Master’s Elements of Fiction class discussed images, metaphors, and symbols. We discussed their roles in writing, how we approach them in our works, their relation to literary theory, and much more. I plan to (eventually) talk about everything that came up in this webinar in one form or another. For today I want to focus on a particular quote on imagery that we debated:

There are images made with eyes open and images made with eyes closed. One is about clear sight and the other about similitude.  

–Charles Simic

Our main debate was over which images were made with eyes open–the ones about clear sight or the ones about similitude–and which were made with eyes closed. Part of the class thought that images made with eyes open were about clear sight and that images about similitude were made with eyes closed. The other part, myself included, thought that clear sight images were actually made with your eyes closed and that the images made with your eyes open are similitude.

Before I explain both sides, I should give you the definition of “similitude” (I honestly had to look it up myself). Basically, a similitude is a likeness or a resemblance. (For the full definition, check out Dictionary.com.)

Now, I can see why some people think that Simic means for the clear sight to be the images made with your eyes open. First of all, it makes sense semantically. Images made with eyes wide open comes first in the first sentence and clear sight comes first in the second sentence; it would only make sense if Simic meant for them to correlate. Of course, Simic is a writer, a poet in particular, and so what seems obvious in that sense may not actually be the truth.

I can also see people thinking this way because one would assume that you have to have your eyes open in order to have clear sight. However, this is a literal interpretation of Simic’s words. “Clear sight” could mean seeing things as they truly are, not just as they appear to be in the physical world.

This possibility for “clear sight” is what leads me to believe that images made with your eyes closed are about clear sight. Let’s add to this definition of clear sight the definition of “similitude”. “Similitude” is a likeness or resemblance, something which looks like something else. These sorts of images writers must make with their eyes open in order to see that which the image is a similitude of. The example I gave in class is that I see a flower in front of me, I write “there is a flower”, and that image is a similitude.

Clear sight, then, is something beyond what we see in everyday life. It’s the parts which we can’t see, for which we have to expand our sight and our mind in order to steal a glimpse.

Let’s take, as an example, Plato’s allegory “The Cave”. I don’t want to mislead anyone with my summary, so here’s a link to a summary of the allegory on Wikipedia. Essentially, there’s a cave in which people are forced to look only ahead of them. Behind them are people with a fire and puppets, which they use to cast shadows on the wall in front of the observers. The people who are forced to look forward only see the shadows on the wall. It’s not until they’re freed that they can see everything: the shadows, what makes the shadows, and the world outside the cave.

Images in literature work in a similar way. When you only look at what’s in front of you, you only see the shadow–the semblance–of the image. However, if you look around, look in unconventional ways, you can see the shadows and the truth behind them. Seeing with your eyes open is the traditional way to see an image. You only see the “shadows” of physical appearance. Seeing with your eyes closed, on the other hand, involves looking beyond the shadows to reach their essence.

I know that, from a common sense point of view, this comparison seems like a stretch. How can you see something clearly if your eyes are closed? I want you to consider for a moment meditation and imagination. When you meditate, your eyes are closed. I can’t speak for anyone else but when I meditate, I see images. They aren’t the objects that are in front of me. Rather, they can be anything from inverted images of the objects around me to a replay of a memory to some flash of cosmic insight that I can’t even explain. Similarly, the images you see in your imagination are not the objects right in front of you. They are distant world, a plant you’ve only seen in passing once or twice in your life, a person you’ve never even laid eyes on. Sometimes your eyes have to close in order for those images to come into focus, like how dreaming brings images into sharp focus but trying to replicate those images when you’re awake and your eyes are open makes them fuzzy.

When your eyes are “closed,” you experience more than just the appearance of an image. You experience the smells, the sounds, the emotions, the moods, and the significance behind them. If you draw on these sensations, rather than just the similitude, you create for your reader an image beyond the physical world. You show them the rest of the cave and, perhaps, a way out to the world beyond it.

 

Some people think that the writer’s worst critic is his/her audience, that negative reviews destroy him/her from the inside. It’s true that readers and reviews are important to most writers but they are far from writers’ worst critics. Honestly, readers and reviews only have the slightest influence in comparison to writers’ real worst critics: themselves.

I know it’s cheesy to say that we are our own worst enemies but there’s a reason phrases like that exist. In this case the saying exists because it’s true. It’s true for any person but most especially artists. Painters, drawers, sculptors, actors, and, yes, writers are notoriously hard on themselves. We expect perfection and if we don’t get what we consider to be perfect, it won’t matter what anyone else says. We’ve already failed ourselves.

How do we deal with these inner critics? As I’ve said repeatedly, I don’t know. I can barely get mine to shut up long enough to get any work done, and lately that’s required a combination of anti-depressants and two kinds of anti-anxiety pills. Nevertheless, learning to live and work with the writer’s worst critic is key to being a writer.

Writers can benefit from some self-criticism. The important word there is some. We need to be critical of ourselves and our work so that we can produce the best writing that we can. It’s especially helpful during the editing/rewriting phase. However, there’s a point when enough is enough. If the voice inside your head is telling you that you can’t make it, that you will never make it, that your writing is garbage, that’s when you need to take a step back and reevaluate your situation. Been there, done that, probably will be back there again tonight as I work on my end-of-year portfolio.

Despite what people may try to lead you to believe, it’s not so easy to just turn the inner critic off. Believe me, I’ve tried. It slips back into your thoughts as soon as you think you’re in the clear and you let your guard down. My inner critic especially loves to appear when I’m in the middle of first writing a story and when I’m in the midst of editing. Yes, it can help me edit and improve my work but it’s often in hyper-drive and tries to derail the entire project. I’m sure I’m not the only one. There’s a reason why the stereotypes of writers with addictions and mental disorders have gained traction.

The important thing to remember is to write despite this critical voice. It’ll probably still shout in your head and make you want to curl into a ball, but you can show it who’s in charge. You’ll feel much better if you just get a project done even with the doubt. Sometimes you’ll have to stop and give the voice a bit of a credence–after all, it may actually have a point about the last passage you wrote–but you also have to brush aside comments along the lines of “you’re a failure.” I know, easier said than done. If we don’t at least try, we’ll never get anything done.