yuvi

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a multi-creative in the attic (video)

June 28, 2020 by yuvi

I’ve always struggled with being monogamous when it comes to my creative outlets. I’ve been writing for most of my adult life, but I also dabble with YouTube videos and making apps and making music (sort of) and various other activities. I used to focus on the downsides to working on so many different pursuits (and there are plenty of downsides!), but this video is about me accepting (and maybe kinda sorta embracing) this quality. (I also do about 12 seconds of research and find out that there’s already a name for this quality. But since I don’t like the name, I made up a new name…)

Check out my recent Writer Unboxed post for more info about this subject.

Filed Under: videos Tagged With: geek, I’m-a-failed-writer, novels, publishing, tools, writing

a story about mistakenly writing (and publishing) a novel as a way to take a break from writing another novel

December 11, 2019 by yuvi

I know what I'm doingI recently got news that my book (my second novel!) is going to be published by Red Hen Press. I’m totally excited to work with such a great press—I’ve been following them for a long time, and most recently I loved reading Sugar Land by Tammy Lynne Stoner. But this isn’t about me awkwardly showing off about my book and this press, at least not yet. Today I want to look at the process of actually writing a book in the middle of a busy life with family, a day job, side projects, whining, and chronic pain. When a book goes out in the world and you’re holding it (or its digital equivalent) in your hands, it’s easy to think that writing the book was just this one coherent thing the author had to do, but writing a book is chaotic and confusing and has to somehow fit inside a busy, messy life. And I enjoy (for some reason) analyzing how to jam a writing process into this life. I don’t have a magic formula, but I have a process (sorta), and thought it would be fun(ish) to talk about it.

This is a longer-than-usual blog post, so strap in! (As a bonus, I added section titles and stick figure drawings to ease the burden…)

About the Story Origin

Around five years ago, I was chugging along on a novel that was a pain in the ass for me to finish—it was a big, mEsSy, spRawLing piece of historical fiction and I couldn’t quite bring it together. On top of that, I was struggling at my day job at a social collaboration software company and struggling with my connection to family and friends. Basically, I was miserable. During this time, I went out with my fabulous friend Anne and was telling her about my difficult-to-write novel. She isn’t one to pretty something up if that something isn’t pretty, so she said to me, “This book is toxic to you. I see it on your face.” Writing is hard I used this exact line in the short story I started writing later that night (a line spoken from a character uncreatively named Anne). The story was about dating, divorce, family, parenting, and all the ways that we’re connected (but often not connected) with humans… in this era when we’re hyper-connected to our devices. This story shot right out of me in a few days.

So, OK, fine, whatever, I had a fun short story on my hands. I thought that was that. Maybe I’d try and get the little thing published in a lit magazine, and get back to that difficult novel.

I sent the story to my agent without expecting her to do anything with it, but she said, “This thing sounds like the beginning of a novel.” She also told me that it sounded like I was having a great time writing it. And it was a blast to write. Instead of doing the things I was supposed to do, like working at my day job and doing chores around the house and writing that other book, I was cheating on all those things with this fabulous one-night stand of a short story. (FYI, I’m happily married… the metaphor only applies to book writing!)

Always two thingsIf I were to fake some sort of takeaway here, I think it’s just that I like to be working on at least two different creative things at a time, so that I have a way to take a break from one project by working on the other project. This is a tricky balance (especially with a full-time day job and other responsibilities) because you don’t want to overload yourself with too many side projects and end up getting fired alongside having fifteen crappy, unfinished stories on your hands.

On Writing a Novel Draft Quickly

I was annoyed (but maybe also flattered) at the prospect of having another novel on my hands. This was supposed to be a fun little place to vent, not a new tedious project. But as I walked around with this new (slightly annoying) notion, I actually started getting excited about where the novel might go. I even made a ten-step list (which I can no longer find!) of what I thought would happen in this novel. A very simplified, very high-level roadmap of a novel, with a rough hero’s journey arc in there.

So, OK, fine, whatever, maybe this damn thing could be a novel after all. Now I needed to figure out how to turn it into a novel when I didn’t have time for this new challenge.

Working person's residencyI took a week off of work and I left my house for the week and I wrote. The mornings were my main writing sessions… I wrote for about 3-4 hours at a cafe each morning until I reached my quota. Which was in the vicinity of 5000 words a day. These weren’t pretty words. I wasn’t scrutinizing the details. I intentionally glossed over things. And that horrible cafe chair was brutal on my back and neck and shoulders… But regardless of the obstacles, I wrote a lot.

In the evenings, I scanned over what I wrote, taking notes about what I wanted to fix later and making sure I knew where I was heading the next day so I could get a running (or at least a fast limping) start the next morning.

At the end of the week, I had a 30,000-word messy novel (novella?) on my hands.

It took about a year to turn it into a proper first draft, but still, in one week, I had the bones of a novel!

If I were to fake another takeaway here, I think it’s that even with a full-time day job, it’s still totally possible to write a book, but sometimes, at certain phases of the process (especially at the beginning or the end of drafts), it’s critical to disappear from the world for at least several days so you can immerse yourself in the story.

On Revising the Novel

Maybe I had the bones of a novel after a week, but it was still missing the flesh and the blood vessels and the organs and the connective tissue (have I destroyed this metaphor yet!?).

So, OK, fine, whatever, it wasn’t ready for the world yet. I’d need to figure out how to beat this story into shape. But I liked this story and I was (mostly) emotionally prepared to see it through.

First step was that I organized my notes (about what needed to be fixed in the novel) from my writing getaway. I cleaned up the notes and came up with a plan.

Then, I just wrote every week. I know some writers say that “real writers” need to write every day. I think that’s bullshit. But at the same time, I know that my little brain can’t easily fit a whole novel inside there, so I do need to keep a novel-in-progress in my consciousness as much as possible—in the shower, on bike rides, when I’m going to bed, while waiting in line at the grocery store. I had roughly two big (2-4 hour) writing sessions a week, along with about three or four smaller (around 1 hour) writing sessions a week.

(Dealing with chronic pain adds another level of messiness to the process. I already talked about that in my video about writing with chronic pain. Quick summary: lower your expectations, but don’t stop.)

All this writing crap takes discipline and motivation. I know some writers who talk about how they love writing, but not me. I think writing sucks (at least a lot of the time). And writing a whole novel REALLY sucks. Some days, I believe that it takes something like a mental illness to keep at it day after day. It also takes some reminders (either from within, or from others) that you are doing this for a good(ish) reason. (For me, I think the reason is a desire to connect with other humans through storytelling. Your mileage may vary.) One of the most valuable things for me to keep at it is to be part of a writing group that I love. We meet every week for about two hours. Help from my friends This group keeps me committed to the practice every week. I feel guilty if I don’t bring something to the table. They provide emotional support, they remind me why I need to tell the story I’m trying to tell, and they also challenge me when I’m not reaching as high as I can reach. This balance is critical. I wouldn’t want a group that was nothing but a love fest, but I also wouldn’t want a group that was critical just for the sake of being critical. The group should care about you, but also want your story to be the best version of this story that it can be.

It took me a year to have a “real” first draft and another year to get it to a point where I was ready to shop it around.

At the end of each draft, I’d get a few trusted readers to read my book and give me feedback. My wife is a bad ass at this process. My agent is also amazing at helping make it better. I can rely on a few friends to read a novel draft and give me feedback as well. Similar to the writing group, the ideal reader wants to make the story as good as it can be.

The semi-takeaway here is that I am not capable of writing a book in isolation. (More power to you if you’re different…) I need a kind-hearted community that can help me serve my story. (And, in turn, I try and help others in the same way.)

On Finding a Publisher

I love rejectionFinding a publisher is definitely not my favorite part. For my first book, I found a publisher on my own. For my second book, my agent (bless her! ❤️️) found a publisher. In both cases, rejections did not feel good. Even worse, spending time thinking about what the “market” wants can very nearly kill my creative soul. On the other hand, the publishing world is still full of people who love stories. And I love talking with people who love stories… the agents, the editors, the publishers… it’s just fabulous to talk about stories. (One senior editor even spent six months working with me—on his own time—to improve my book just because he liked it so much, even when his publishing house wasn’t willing to take the chance on it. That’s a pretty cool world to be in. Good luck finding someone who will work with you on your taxes just because they think your taxes are interesting…)

So, OK, fine, whatever, the publishing biz is a big scary mess, but it’s a damn fine feeling to find a publisher that is excited about this story you’ve been working on for so many hours across the months and years.

Got to the end

I hope some of this was interesting or useful. This story is to be continued. Also, I’m aiming to create a video about the process of writing a novel based on what I learned from this particular novel… Hopefully it’ll take me less than five years to make this video.

By the way, I’m back to writing that “difficult-to-write” book and it doesn’t feel so difficult these days. (Shhhhh!… Don’t mess up this short-lived groove!)

Filed Under: words Tagged With: emoticons, literary, novels, publishing

Why Scrivener? (video)

September 18, 2015 by yuvi

So I made this short video called “Why Scrivener?”

Why the hell did I make it?… I’ve been tutoring people on how to use Scrivener for many years now. I find that it is effective to first show people what it can do and make sure that it addresses something they are struggling with. As much as I love Scrivener, it’s not the right tool for every writer or for every writing project. I run through this shpiel enough times in an average month that I thought I’d make a short video where I make the case for Scrivener (and get to say some dirty words in the process). Let me know what you think!

Info Related to Scrivener
  • Literature & Latte’s home page
  • Official Video Tutorials
  • To go through Scrivener’s interactive tutorial, launch Scrivener and from the menu, select “Help > Interactive Tutorial”. It’s a good tutorial.
  • To see Scrivener’s help manual, launch Scrivener and from the menu, select “Help > Scrivener Manual”.
  • To view my (relatively out of date) one-hour tutorial on Scrivener, check out Scrivener from my POV.
  • Literature & Latte’s support page

Check out all my second-rate videos on my video landing page.

Filed Under: videos Tagged With: editing, geek, I'm-a-failed-writer, literary, novels, revisions, scrivener, tools, workspaces, writing

S2-23: Writing About Loved Ones

December 5, 2014 by yuvi

In this podcast episode, I visit with Jackie and Bill again. We discuss what it is like to write about the people we love, and how it affects them. Jackie is currently working on a (second) memoir and I’ve written lots of autobiographical-sounding fiction (along with a few essays). So apparently we can easily bullshit about this subject for over an hour. (I edited it down to 65 minutes.) It was again great to have Bill’s perspective so he could chime in on how it felt to be written about, even in cases that weren’t necessarily flattering. Give it a listen…

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/anchor-audio-bank/production/2018-6-8/3534233-44100-2-f6ed807668eba.mp3

Podcast Information
  • Find out more about this series
  • See the episode list
  • Download the show directly
  • Subscribe in iTunes
  • Get the feed URL
  • Watch a video tutorial on podcasts

Filed Under: podcast Tagged With: jackie, literary, neurotic-tornado, novels, relationships, writing

Creative Sprints (failvid-17)

May 1, 2014 by yuvi

In this Failed Writer video, I talk about how I chip away at my creative projects. I’m definitely no model for success — every week I consider dumping my novel — but I still manage to keep doing creative projects every week. So here is my tactic, sort of.

By the way, I’m use the Clear app for my creative list making. Check it out.

Want to see all my Failed Writer videos? Check them out here.

Filed Under: videos Tagged With: geek, I'm-a-failed-writer, literary, novels, tools, writing

Taking Risks (failvid-15)

January 16, 2014 by yuvi

The idea of taking a risk has been on my mind lately. In particular, I’ve been thinking about those risks people take that don’t necessarily end with a fabulous success story. So here’s a video about it.

You can subscribe to my second-rate blog either by email or RSS.

Filed Under: videos Tagged With: geek, I'm-a-failed-writer, novels, publishing, writing

vid004: The index card treatment

November 3, 2013 by yuvi

In this video, I get to focus on Kate’s perspective on the index card treatment, which is how she lays out index cards to outline her novel. It not only can help with plotting a story, but with detecting patterns in your book. Kate also came up with a fabulous metaphor about a risk with the index card treatment — a metaphor that required all of my bad animation skills. She says many more things that I didn’t get a chance to animate, so check out the full one-hour audio conversation for more of her insights. Enjoy!

Related links:

  • Complete audio conversation
  • Kate Maruyama’s website
  • Kate’s debut novel, Harrowgate
  • Scrivener, the writing application for Mac & Windows

For more information about this half-baked series (and how to subscribe to it), check out The Creative Turn.

Filed Under: videos Tagged With: editing, interviews, literary, novels, the-creative-turn, tools, writing

tctpod-season1-02: The second big thing (with Scott Sparling)

August 25, 2013 by yuvi

In this podcast episode, I talk with Scott Sparling about the challenges of writing the second book. We talk about bringing a work-in-progress into your heart when it wasn't born in the heart. We talk about the egomaniacalness of comparing your work to the Beatles. We discuss the pros and cons of having a deadline for your writing project. We discuss bad book sales, writing in tree houses, stones on the beach, delusions of grandeur, depression, tenacity, stubbornness, and masturbating while writing. Enjoy!

Show notes:

  • Scott Sparling's website
  • Wire to Wire by Scott Sparling
  • An article that Scott referenced before the conversation about Reynolds Price's take on publishing a first novel: “…you publish the damn thing and nothing happens. You’re the same social misfit and compulsive masturbator you always were.”
  • Sgt. Pepper's and Jimi Hendrix on iTunes
  • A Brilliant Novel in the Works by Yuvi Zalkow
  • My Failed Writer video called “Failing as a Failed Failure” relates to what we discuss at 42m:53s of the podcast where Scott gives me a quick therapy session on how my dysfunctional world view might help the writing.

Video inspired by the conversation

Meta links:

  • Find out more about this series (and how to subscribe)
  • Yuvi's overview to podcasts and podcatchers
  • Download the show directly
  • Subscribe in iTunes
  • Get the podcast feed URL

Filed Under: z podcast archive Tagged With: depression, interviews, literary, novels, publishing, the-creative-turn, writing

17.5% less sucky

August 18, 2013 by yuvi

The week that John Gruber and Merlin Mann linked to my video tribute of their SXSW conversation, I started getting (temporarily) 8,000 hits a day on my website. As opposed to the previous 50 hits a day. I don’t count these things too closely, but it was a shocking change. I’ve had a few other notable spikes in attention. Once for writing about my Twitter code of conduct, once for talking about my failures with the New Yorker magazine, and once for talking about my failure to read Malcolm Gladwell’s book that discusses 10,000 hours.

Why am I telling you this? Well, because numbers are tricky. [Read more…]

Filed Under: words Tagged With: literary, novels, publishing, the-creative-turn, writing

video: The Failure of the Intended Story (with Thaisa Frank)

March 4, 2013 by yuvi

This video is based on my interview for The Rumpus with the fabulous Thaisa Frank. She said a lot of incredible things about the writing process during our conversation, but there was one particular thing about the “failure of the intended story” that really knocked me out. Let me know what you think…

Related Links:

  • The Rumpus Interview With Thaisa Frank
  • Thaisa’s website

You can find a list of all my videos here. And you can subscribe to my second-rate blog either by email or RSS.

Filed Under: videos Tagged With: interviews, literary, novels, scribbling-bucket, tributes, writing

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