Motivation

Hmm, I've noticed it has been quite some time since I added to this blog so I figured I'd take some time out today to write a bit about the motivation to write, as it links in nicely with the very reason I have been absent from participating in this blog.

Most of my time nowadays is devoted to work on my brother's website, Varanasi Estate, leaving me little time to work on my own creative writing as well as the blogs I contribute to. Yet, there is another factor which does cause some laziness on my part, that being a lack of motivation.

When it comes to writing for Varanasi Estate, that is something that I must do if I hope to get paid at the end of the week. So regardless of desire, passion or motivation, I glue myself to the seat and force myself to keep typing. Yet as much as I enjoy creative writing and expressing myself, when it comes to actually writing it, it can be one of the hardest things to get me to do and it is because of this simple lack of motivation.

I've been forced to find ways to ease into writing. I can no longer wake up, jump on the laptop and write a chapter of a novel or a short story. I procrastinate instead, usually for the entire day. So I find ways to look forward to writing. I start by taking my dog for a walk, then doing the dishes and finally cleaning the study or my bedroom before I actually sit down to write. Walking the dog gives me time to think about what I want to write while she's running round having the time of her life at the park. Both doing the dishes and cleaning are things I hate doing so writing, in a way, becomes a form of procrastinating from chores and I start to look forward to it. It's a simple way to kind of ease into the writing process and it works for me.

So next time you realise that you've played too many video games or watched too many movies when you should have been writing, remember to just ease yourself into it. Start with tasks you hate, but aren't time consuming or too demanding and continue until you're just begging for time to write. Hope it works as well for you as it does for me.

Happy New Year!

Just a quick happy new year, fellow writers!

May 2012 bring you success, happiness, and good health!

Love, Emma Louise.

Sickness and the Flow of Creativity

Sorry no one has updated this in forever, I have my reasons though.

So, last Wednesday I had my tonsils out. And as a warning, if the doctors ever suggest it for you: Don't. It was some of the worst pain of my life.
But that's beside the point right now.

Now I thought, before I got them out, that I would use my week and a half recovering to do some writing. Oh, how wrong I was.

Around day 4 I managed to drag myself from my bed and collapsed in front of my desk. I opened my current chapter in word, put my fingers on the keyboard, and waited for the usual magic of writing to take me over.

Only, it never did.
I tried to write a few sentences, but when I read over them 5 minutes later I realized how much they sucked. So, I tried again.
And again.
And again, but alas, to no avail.

And then it got me thinking today (day 9, in case you were curious), why? Why couldn't I get a single damn word out! I knew where I want to go, I had these next chapters planned out entirely, but I just couldn't write it.

And I think I've stumbled upon something we all need to watch for.
I'm calling it the 'Health to Creativity' rule.

The healthier you are, the better your brain functions. Now this is a no brainer, but had you ever thought that maybe, the healthier you are, the more creative you are?

Have you ever tried writing when you are sick? It's hard, isn't it. Yet when you're not sick, it's quite easy isn't it? It all flows and the words make sense and the sentences seem nice and occasional (for me) poetic.

Health is a very important factor for Writers regardless. I mean, what do we do all day? Sit at a computer, a laptop, a typewriter, a journal, and do what? Nothing physical. So then its crucial, if like me, when you're not healthy or well you can't write, that you need to get healthy. You need to eat well, exercise, and stay on top of virus' and what not.

How much exercise do you do? Would you call yourself healthy? How do you stay active when all you want to do is sit and write?
I'd love to know.

Planning a Career in the Writing Industry

Hello everyone. My name is Andrew and just like Emma and Daniel I'm also a young writer. I'm at the tail-end of a Professional Writing and Editing Course I began nearly two years ago. If all goes well I will have my Diploma by the end of the year.

For this post I would like to discuss future employment opportunities within the writing industry. For those of you studying a writing course you must by some stage have begun to wonder what sort of employment opportunities await you.

First of all you really need to evaluate exactly what skills you have attained from your course and what skills you can picture yourself utilising in the future to attain that dream job. If you perceive yourself to be a good writer what styles of writing best suit you? Do you really enjoy journalistic writing? Or are you more of a creative writer? Maybe you are more into editing and proofreading. If you are having trouble getting even this far, ask for help. Get other people's opinions. Ask your teacher/tutor what they think your strong and weak points are with your writing. While you're at it why not approach someone who already works in the writing industry? They are surely the most qualified to tell you on the spot exactly what skills are required for the job you want. Just don't be afraid to ask for help. Ask and you shall receive.

Okay so now you've identified your strong points. You know what style of writing best suits you. From here I'm going to briefly explain my personal experience in discovering my strengths and weaknesses in writing and how I began turning them into realistic job opportunities.

So late last year I had already finished one year of study with my course. I had just completed subjects such as journalism, editing, short story and novel writing. Subjects such as novel and short story writing I really enjoyed participating in but it made me realise that creative writing was not one of my strong points. As far as editing class went I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed but I managed to meet the competency. Journalism ended up being my best subject. I achieved top marks and enjoyed participating in this class the most. Coincidence, I think not. Because I enjoyed this subject I was willing to put in the effort to chase people up for interviews, research for hours and write good articles. It was from this experience that I ascertained that I loved to write articles and it would be awesome if I could make a living out of doing this.

So where to now? I still had another year left of study. As much as I wanted to go out and get that dream job straight away, I still wanted to finish my course and I still had to work my dull retail job to earn a living. However I still wanted that justification of knowing that working a job that required me to write articles would be rewarding and possible. I decided I would try and get an internship.

For those of you unaware, an internship is essentially like the work experience you did back in high school. You get the opportunity of working for a company for a brief period of time. It gives you the informative experience you need to decide whether or not you would like to be employed in this field of work. Each company has their own approach to internships. Some companies will let you intern for them over a period of three months, making you work five days a week. Some might give you the opportunity to only work one day a week over the space of a couple of months. Your participation in this internship will ultimately be influenced by the company’s needs and how much they can afford to have you around without significantly interrupting their work flow. At the same time it doesn’t help to ask. Companies will often be willing to negotiate hours that suit both you and them. They should understand that as much as you want the experience of working with them you still need time outside the internship to work and study. Last but not least don’t naturally expect to be paid for this internship. Some companies can afford to but most cannot or simply choose not to.

After deciding where I wanted to do my internship at, I did a little investigative work. I contacted a company I was interested in and requested the email address of the manager for the communication department. I then emailed the manager and outlined my intention to intern for their company. I summarised in the email the type of course I studied, the skills I had attained and what type of work experience I was looking for. From there I received an email back and organised a time to meet with the manager and discuss the possibility of interning with his company.

The interview was a great success and I ended up getting the internship I wanted. I managed to organise a couple of days a week I could work for them on a regular basis. As I mentioned previously I had a real passion for article writing. Some of the tasks I was required to do included writing articles for the company’s intranet, proofreading webpage content and even editing some strategy plans and brochures that were being prepared for publishing.

I came out of the internship with a real enthusiasm for what I was doing. Interning gave me a clear mindset for what I wanted to do for my future career in writing. Fast-track to a year later and I’m now busily sending my resume off to companies. I’m not just applying for jobs, I’m also asking for internships. Because even if I get an internship with some of these companies who knows? They might offer me a job after they see what kind of a worker I am. If they don’t, then I get to add more to my resume which will only add to my skills and experience and give me an even greater chance at landing that dream job next time around.

Another great positive out of this experience of me interning is that I now know exactly what kind of job I am looking for and where to look for it. All of this came out of me simply asking people for help and advice. I hope that this blog post was helpful and inspirational for those out there like me who were initially a little nervous about trying to plot out a career in the writing industry. So until next time, good luck fellow writing peeps!

Things to Consider when Writing Fantasy/Sci-fi.

Good day, Internet! Emma here.

I am about to make a bold statement. This statement is something I believe strongly, and will argue til the day I die. Are you ready for it? Are you sure? Once it's out, I can't take it back. Alright, here it is.

Fantasy and Sci-fi are the hardest genres to write.

Oh I know, all of you 'non fantasy/sci-fi' writers are screaming in your heads right now. But, don't exit the blog and regard me as uninformed, just read.

Firstly, I just want to say I don't really like lumping Sci-fi and Fantasy together. I think they are largely different from each other, but they do face a lot of the same difficulties when it comes to writing it.

Alright, on to my points.

1. The rules.
Now think about this. You write a novel set in this world with no fantasy elements. All your rules are already set for you. The physics, the laws, most of your settings already exist. You don't need to think those up. Where as if you write fantasy or sci-fi, you need to create new rules. If your story is set in a different world, answer me this...
What is the air like?
Is the world round, flat, square?
How does the sun rise, is there a sun or some other form of light source?
For sci-fi, how does the technology function?
What are the rules of the magic in the world?
How do the separate towns or planets make their livelihood? What do they export?
Is your world run on a monarchical system, democratic, communist or something different?

If you can answer these few questions of the top of your head, you are fantastic. If you can't, you're still fantastic, you just need to think deeper.

2. The characters.
Now before you start screaming 'but every writer has to create characters', let me finish. Is the character human? If not, what are they? What do they look like? What powers come with this race? What is their origins? Creating a non-human character is a lot harder than a normal human character. I mean, you can sum up a human with the basic of all descriptions and it'll do just fine. But if they aren't human, if they are an alien, you have to go much deeper into that detail so the reader can properly imagine this character. Now, I don't really write sci-fi, so the most trouble I have is describing the talking lizards in my current novel.

3. The world.
You set a novel on Earth, and you can almost visit every possible setting you might have in your novel. It is a lot harder to create and explain a world that exists only in your book than it is to set your novel in a coffee shop. Everyone goes to coffee shops, we can all imagine the basic set up of a coffee shop. But what about an alien planet in a far off galaxy? Can you imagine that? I know I certainly can't unless someone sets it up for me with a long, elaborate description.

Now, I know I've listed these reasons as to why writing fantasy and sci-fi is hard, but at the same time, I could never write a normal fiction book. They, to be blunt, bore me. It's not a challenge. I want to read about somewhere I haven't been, somewhere I've never seen or even heard of. I want to read something new and exciting that I have to visualize in my head. I don't like our world. If I liked it, I'd spend more time outside. I prefer fantasy and sci-fi worlds. Because they are interesting. Earth is boring.

Daniel's Input

I felt it long overdue for my input to this blog so I decided to just jump right in without really knowing where I'm going or what it is I intend to write about. So we shall see how this goes.

The whole point of this blog, as mentioned by Emma in her recent post, is a way for us upcoming writers to share our experiences in the world of writing and hopefully inform and encourage those of you out there who are in the same boat as us.

At this early stage of my career, there isn't a whole lot of experiences for me to share. However, there is one key piece of advice that I would like to give out to any writer who is just starting out: become involved. I was very reluctant to attend a TAFE or Uni course on the subject and believed myself capable of getting published solely on my own talent. Through attending TAFE, not only did I learn new writing techniques and ways to hone my craft but I met an array of wonderful, and some not so wonderful, people and it sparked my desire to become more proactive. For example, this blog is something I probably would never have thought of doing by myself, yet it was due to the shared interest and passion of writing between Emma, Andrew and myself that I was given the opportunity to write for it. This blog has transferred into me starting my own blog for movie reviews and I can only hope that will lead on into something more.
 
So for me, at this early stage of my hopefully long and fruitful writing life, I feel it is all about being proactive, getting out there and doing stuff, making sure your name is on as many things as possible. But most importantly, it's about having fun while you do it.

I guess that's about it from me at this point, I did intend to talk about myself more but decided against it otherwise I'd probably just bore everyone and the resulting brain haemorrhages would all be my fault. And I can't have that on my conscience.

What this is all about

This blog exists for one reason and one reason only.

Because we think we're good enough. We think we're good enough writers, creators, and dreamers to make it in the word of writing. This blog is for us to tell you about our successes, our failures, our techniques for our craft, and hopefully, for us to inspire you.

There are three writers for the Unestablished Young Writers Collective so far. Myself, Daniel (Seen It), and Andrew. We are all young adults. We are all passionate about our craft. We are all good friends. Daniel and Andrew will go on about themselves in another post I'm sure, so here is a little about me.

I'm a girl. I'm a student. I'm passionate about dragons and fantasy. I love animals.

Most of my posts on here will probably be about writing fantasy. Creating your world, your characters, establishing that world and not losing focus when you go in to deep to the world you've created. I've already completed a second draft of one manuscript. It's not my usual style to be honest. It's first person, it's set in our world, but it's got shape shifters and quirky characters that I fell in love with when I started it. But this novel I've written, while I do love it, is not my big project. My big project is a larger than life fantasy novel that I have spent all year working on, between studying and working part time behind a bar. That project, which I call 'Dragon Child', occupies most of brain space. It's always there in the back of your mind. I've become lost in my created world many times. Losing track of the main story and my main character. That, I think, is one of the dangers of writing fantasy.

I mean, you spend just weeks creating this world, the people in it, the towns, the mountains, the creatures, the lakes and the rivers and the oceans. I can get so caught up in this world and all it's characters that I loose sight of my main character, and his quest. But just as easy as it is to get distracted, can you get back on track.

I am also, for lack of self control, a master procrastinator. Now I know you're thinking, 'how can you claim you procrastinate when you've finished a manuscript?' And here is my answer.
I procrastinated on Dragon Child by finishing my other manuscript. That, and the other novel had to be handed in last week for an assignment for my writing course. Oh, thats another thing you should do if you're serious about being a writer.

Do a course in writing. They exist, I should know, it's where I met Daniel and Andrew. There is no better way to learn and grow as a writer than to study your craft, and be in a community with other writers. Your teachers, more often than not, will already be published in some form or another. I was lucky enough to have my 'Writing for Children' teacher end up being none other than Hazel Edwards, author of the famous 'There's a Hippopotamus on my Roof Eating Cake' picture book. Not only does doing a course in writing allow you to practice and hone your craft, but it allows you to network. And networking is crucial. Absolutely.

Well, I feel this is enough of an opening ramble for now. So, I shall bid you fare well, and hope that you stick around in the future, I'm sure one of us will post something here that interests you.