I met the fabulous S.J. Chambers at WorldCon in 2012. Her fabulously strange story “The Şehrazatın Diyoraması Tour”  appears in Steampunk World.

Originally, this post was going to be an appreciation of the underrated film The Rum Diary, but, nigh on my deadline to Sarah, I’ve changed my mind on doing that because I’ve come to realize that what I wanted to discuss isn’t something I learned solely from the film, but something I have been learning on my own over the past ten years as a writer. You hear from most scribe-sages that you’ve got to find your voice or style, but I have personally never heard much about gaining experience.  If you have found your preferred syntax and have a grab bag of your favorite mellifluous words, great, but if you don’t have anything to write about, then basically you are playing scrabble. You also have to find your impulse, a word I’ve started using to describe the drive that makes a writer not just a skilled word-slinger but a poet in the mystical sense of the term.

Everyone’s impulse is unique and is hard-earned from experience and experience alone. Impulse takes time and can be elusive, and for those who are eager to write but have yet to find what to write about, this journey can become one full of fear, disillusionment, discouragement, and writer’s block, if not complete abandonment of one’s talent and dreams. Gaining experience doesn’t sound like a difficult thing to do, but I have seen too many people miss the rare occurrence of a double rainbow in the sky or dolphins hunting a beach shore because they are staring at their phone worrying over keeping up with the Facebook Joneses. Even among the older unplugged folk, I know people in my Florida hometown who have never seen the ocean, although the Gulf is only forty minutes away west, and the Atlantic just a few hours more east. So, I don’t think being open to or even appreciating opportunity and experience is natural to everyone.

It wasn’t for me, anyway. The first time I left the South was when I got a museum scholarship to New York City. I was 22 years old and had never traveled anywhere alone, much less been to a metropolis. There was immense culture shock, a lot of money spent, some friendships severed, and slight trauma induced, but after all that, I came back with unknown sights seen, conversations with diverse strangers spoken, thoughts never thought, and an all-around broaden horizon that made me begin to understand more of myself and glean more meaning from the art and literature I assiduously studied.  Most of all, I realized the power of a posteriori over a priori learning and wanted more.

So let’s go back to The Rum Diary. The Johnny Depp film is an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s novel of the same name, and is something of a Hemingway-esque roman à clef of the Doctor’s time as a news reporter in San Juan during the 1960s. The main character, Paul Kemp, is a failed novelist who flees the states for a clean slate. In the middle of the film, after all of his prospects (including journalism) seem to have hit nothing but brick walls, he laments while reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner that Coleridge “…wrote this when he was 25. I’ve been dragging a typewriter around for 10, and I’ve written nothing.…I have no voice, I don’t know how to write like me.” He had the drive, but not the material until he meets several personalities who cast and reel in his life through a series of larks. In the end, he discovers that he has an extreme dislike for lying, corrupt, greedy people, and stumbles upon the impulse that opens the flood-gates to his writing.

When I saw The Rum Diary in 2011, Kemp’s melancholy admiration of Coleridge resonated with my own. At the time, I kind of felt like I had wasted my time after eight years of trying my hand at various modes of writing—from British jewelry copywriting to newspaper journalism to criticism to co-authoring a critically-acclaimed coffeetable book. I was dowsing in all directions and not digging any of it. I began to doubt I had didily to say. But when I saw The Rum Diary, I realized I was a late bloomer like Kemp, and  all of that dowsing was leading somewhere. I was gaining experience, and that experience was being (albeit slowly) digested and gestated into my impulse.

I haven’t written as much, or met certain benchmarks as I had hoped I would in ten years, but I have been traveling  and leaving the hotel, working odd jobs, and meeting and learning as much about people and their yearning and existential exigencies as possible. Publishing has become fast-paced, and feeling like a “slow writer” has given me a lot more anxiety about the whole thing than was really warranted. This is why I wanted to share this with people because I know how daunting it can seem when people are creating two or three finished products to your one, and how easy it can be to feel like you have to do more at the sacrifice of going out with friends, hopping in a car to go explore some hillbilly-guided caverns, or help out a sick family member, even though doing those things may do more for your writing in the end than sulking behind a computer screen. It is okay to mess around a little, and to live life and go out into the world. I have always believed that the whole point to writing is about living, and to do that you have to leave the hotel and send back postcards about what you have seen.

Many thanks to Sarah Hans for letting me send one to her and her readers today.

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S. J. Chambers writes in Florida. Her fiction has appeared in anthologies like the Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (Harper Voyager), Zombies: Shambling Through The Ages (Prime Books), The New Gothic with Jesse Bullington (Stone Skin Press), and in the forthcoming tomes: Steampunk World (Alliteration Ink), and Starry Wisdom Library (PS Publishing). Her lit fic series, Vintage Scenes, which are stories based on specific wines, will be running all year at Mungbeing.com. Also a non-fiction scribe, her essays have appeared at Tor.com, Strange Horizons, and Bookslut, and is co-author of the Hugo and World Fantasy nominated The Steampunk Bible. You can find her online at www.selenachambers.com.

Bill Bodden brings us the second post in the guest blogging series, on the topic of networking. Bill is a great writer and a really splendid guy whose story “In The Shadow of His Glory” is the dark heart of my first anthology, Sidekicks! 

It would be no exaggeration to say that 90% of the writing work I’ve had in the last five years has come through networking. To paraphrase the old saw, (in my case, at least) it really is all about who you know. I’m writing this from a writer’s perspective; pretty much everything applies, with only slight variations, to illustrators, editors, graphic design/layout professionals, the whole gamut of folks involved with publishing books.

As a freelance writer, I scour the web for open calls for fiction, but in truth, I somehow miss most of the ones I would be interested in. As a no-name writer, I very rarely get invitations to submit stories to anthologies. Besides the depressing work of sending out stories and waiting for the rejection letters, I’ve found that I can keep my writing skills sharper if I continue to work as a freelancer.

I’ve recently finished work on a couple of different table-top RPG projects, one of which I was recommended for by a friend. After I completed my assignment, I was given more work by that firm, so I must have done an okay job. I know the developer of the second project personally, and he very graciously farmed some of the writing work for this book out to me.

So how does one get to know people in positions like that? Buy them a drink at a convention. Chat with them; strike up a conversation about puppies or the stock market on aluminum siding – whatever. If they’re gamers, play games with them. Find something you’re both interested in and talk about it for a LITTLE while.

Remember your manners.

Also, remember that this isn’t all about you. Ask them questions about stuff they’ve mentioned; ask what they like to read. You know, carry on a conversation. If it comes up, mention some writing work you’ve done that’s appropriate, but absolutely don’t lead with that information; it sets an impossible standard for the rest of the conversation. If someone else introduces you and THEY lead with “This is Bob Schmalkald; he had a story in the anthology What the Hell Is This? by Editor X,” then go with that, but be prepared to move immediately on to talking about something else.

Then leave. Don’t follow them around from panel to panel; don’t barge in on their dinner party and expect to be invited along as they’re leaving for the restaurant. In short, try — try really hard — to NOT act like a stalker. Being memorable is good, but being memorable for not being a creepy, clingy jerk is much, much better. If you run into them later, great. Chat a bit more maybe, then go chat with someone else. Don’t monopolize their time, and know when to back off. If they happen to invite you along, great; they like you.

Remember your manners.

After the convention is over, friend them on Facebook OR Twitter OR Goodreads. Don’t friend them on all three on the same day – remember that warning about not acting like a stalker? Yeah. After a week or two has passed it’s probably okay to friend them elsewhere, particularly if you’ve been interacting.

Eventually, you’ll be networking without even realizing it, swapping business cards with editors, publishers, and other writers. This is good. It gets your name out there so people will remember you, and think of you when they have a project and need some help writing it. People will actually check out your work, and talk about it with each other. That part is the icing on the cake.

Perhaps the most important thing about networking is this: Deliver what is asked. There is nothing — and I mean NOTHING — that will get your name spread around faster than being on-time and on word-count for a project. If you sign a contract stating that you’ll have 50,000 words typed, double-spaced on 60-lb. linen paper by tomorrow, you’d better do exactly that. Read your contract and know what it means before you sign it.

And remember your manners.

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Bill Bodden has been a freelance writer since 2002. Most recently he has had a story included in Sarah Hans’ anthology Sidekicks! from Alliteration Ink, and upcoming credits in the Achtung! Cthulhu Keeper’s Guide plus several as yet untitled projects. You can check out his work and his weekly blog at http://billbodden.com/

For the next few months, I’m not going to have time to update my blog regularly. Rather than let it go fallow, I thought I’d hand it over to my friends and fellow writers so they could talk about…well, whatever they want that’s related to writing. To kick us off, here’s Alana Lorens. Alana is an accomplished author whose deliciously sinister story “A Recipe for Success” appeared in my editorial debut, Sidekicks! Today she wants to expound on the benefits of a good critique group. Take it away, Alana!

As a writer friend of mine scolded, “It may be fun to chunk out novel after novel, but until you put in the work to edit, they will never go anywhere.”

For me, it is in fact, fun to chunk out novels. I enjoy the process. I’ve won NaNoWriMo twice, creating a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. Over the years, I’ve written maybe twenty novel manuscripts. I had to wait till I was past 50 before I saw any published, though I have been blessed enough to see many of them come to the light—in fact, I received five contracts in 2010, three for fantasy novels, one for a romance and the last for women’s fiction; in 2011, two romance novels, a space opera and a fantasy, as well as a paranormal mystery; last year, a YA post-apocalyptic series, a romance novella, a space opera, and a romantic suspense, as well as a spooky short story for an anthology, and set so far for 2014, another space opera, vol. 2 in the YA series and a straight suspense. What has made the real difference for me is my critique group.

My personal editing process is stimulated, challenged and greatly aided by a talented critique group I met through Pennwriters. I can’t stress enough the value of a good critique group for any writer. While your mother/partner/daughter may rave about the wonders of your manuscript, if you’re serious about editing for the reading public, you need critical eyes of a variety of sorts. Our group, which meets every Thursday, is a veritable mashup of varied bodies of knowledge; a retired police officer, a therapist,  a lawyer, an artist, a technical copy writer, a barista, some students, some working, some retired–all gifted. Many are published in short form, in newsletters, newspapers, or short story. The group boasts three published novelists, though others are coming up close behind.

This brings me to my first point: find a critique group at the level you need. If you’re just starting out, you’re still learning about everything—grammar, rhythm, metaphors—and need to become comfortable with the use of words on the page. What you don’t need in a critique group is a bunch of snippy professionals who will tear your piece apart as soon as you share it. You need a group with other beginners and a few mentors, a group that runs exercises each week to help you grow as a writer. Hold out for that group.

Conversely, if you’ve been writing some time and you’re ready for publication, you need a group with some published writers in it, to learn about queries and marketing and how to set your work before the public. You’ll want some harsher critiques—in a constructive way! Hopefully, your writer’s skin has thickened to the point where you can hear some criticism of the work, but still understand how changes might make the work better.

My second point: ego has no place in critique groups, on either the writing or reading side. In order to get the most from your feedback, you should listen, not talk. When group members comment on your work, take in what they say. They might not be right. They might not understand what you meant by a particular phrase or scene. Arguing with them just shuts down their urge to help you. Frankly, if the scene is so unclear that they missed the point—maybe the scene is that unclear. If only one person missed it, but the majority got it, maybe it’s fine. Listen. Then decide.

As a person giving feedback, remember your ego doesn’t matter, either. A critique session is not where you score points for being brilliant. Your opinion of someone else’s work only matters as far as it improves the other person’s work. It’s their work. Constructive criticism helps; tearing someone to bits doesn’t. In a business where sheer persistence and will to continue is sometimes all that stands between a writer and publication, destroying someone’s self-confidence to prop up your own ego is criminal. It happened to me, more than once. Receiving scathing words from someone claiming to “help,” I decided to give up any hope of being a published writer. Thank the stars that my inner urges kept that from happening. Primarily because I found my new group.

What I like best about this group is the creative flow that works between us. Ego isn’t an issue. When we have questions, we toss them on the table, and they receive open, honest answers: Is this an information dump? Do you understand the character’s motivation? Is this too big a clue early in the story?

More importantly, in the discussion and exchange process, we’ve shared brainstorming moments that open the door to deeper understanding of my own work. What if your character did…? Perhaps the relationship between the girl and that boy could lead to…? What setting would make this scene most effective? What if the journey took on a more metaphoric flavor and…? I always love it when someone spots a meaningful undertone that I haven’t quite grasped, so I can coax it into the light.

Once you’ve worked over your manuscript with your group, then back to your computer to polish, polish, polish.

Though writing is a solitary process, editing can work best as a collective. I’d urge any writer to find a group, online or in person, that provides what they need. Be prepared to do your share to help others along the way ; keep your ego in check. And start chunking out those novels!

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Alana Lorens dreamed for many years of being a spaceship captain, but settled instead for inspired excursions into fictional places with fascinating companions from her imagination that she likes to share with others. She has been a published writer for over thirty years, including seven years as a reporter and editor at a newspaper in Homestead, Florida, with a list of eclectic publications from horror to tech reporting to television reviews. She writes urban fantasy and science fiction under the name of Lyndi Alexander. The Elf Queen, her first novel, was released by Dragonfly Publishing in July 2010; the series continued with The Elf Child, The Elf Mage and The Elf Guardian. She’s now working on the space opera Horizon Crossover series, and a YA trilogy, The Color of Fear—the first book, WINDMILLS, was published by Zumaya Publications this summer.  Writing as Alana Lorens, she produces romance and romantic suspense, including the Pittsburgh Lady Lawyer series, CONVICTION OF THE HEART, SECOND CHANCES, and the latest, VOODOO DREAMS, released by The Wild Rose Press in October 2013.

She is a single mother of seven, with two special needs children at home with her in Pennsylvania, and she volunteers at her local shelter for domestic violence victims, believing in every person’s right to be safe.