Tools of the Trade

Every writer must have a reliable writing arsenal under their belt; a set of weapons to take down the enemy in the field of battle. I have found, however, that many aspiring writers carry a selection of powerful weapons but are unable to use them. If they do, they use them at their lowest potential.

Well that’s how I felt anyway. I ran around swinging sword and shield only to come out battered and bruised with no idea why. That is until a veteran warrior brought spoils from the war, a manual for the unseasoned warrior. She gave me On Writing Well by William Zinsser (Amazon link). My eyes were opened.

I went to a school where I spoke English as my first language. In fact to this day I think and write only in English, while slipping into vernacular whenever the situation calls for it. Or I’m trying to impress my fellow Tswana/Zulu speaking counterparts. Nevertheless, I believed I had a firm grasp of the English language. Editing was a skill I thought I was adept in, like a novice swordsman who knows only how to swing a sword. It was only when thrust into the battlefield that this foolishness became evident.

“Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost. That idea is hard to accept. We all have an emotional equity in our first draft; we can’t believe that it wasn’t born perfect. But the odds are close to 100 percent that it wasn’t.” ~ William Zinsser

Now, reading my writing in light of this new knowledge has been a cringe-worthy experience. That’s a decade of writing, half of it spent writing “professionally”. What bothers me most is the fact that I was not aware of the amateur mistakes I was making. Sure I used words correctly. I put my apostrophes in the right place. I could use punctuation marks correctly. But these were merely the hilt of a Camelot-worthy broadsword.

I have read a little over eighty pages of this +300 word book and already see an improvement in my writing. I now know what to look for when editing my work. Granted, this book is for writing non-fiction pieces but its principles are applicable across the board. I feel like an experienced gamer who finally gets over his pride and plays through the tutorial. The warrior who turns to a master to better their skill. A writer able to properly wield his tools of the trade.

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Monday Madness: The Beast Unleashed

But I love it!

We’re in the last week of February, and deadlines have piled up faster than the zombies from World War Z (which is relatively fast) and now I’m traversing the dark underground tunnels of Submission Land with my trusty laptop and a large flask filled with strong fatigue reducing coffee. My own “Walking Dead”.

Gamecca

As per the usual criteria, every month I do some writing for our local digital magazine, Gamecca Magazine which I have now been writing for four years now, heading into the fifth. That is quite amazing actually and in that time I have written almost 200 articles made up of Reviews, Previews, Technology in Africa articles and now recently, Independent Game Developer Interviews. For this month, I have three previews to write and the standard Indie Dev Interview to write up.

I really enjoy writing for Gamecca and delving into the fascinating world of games and getting excited over upcoming titles. What a privilege to write about games for such an established Magazine. I look forward to another five or more years alongside Walt and Katia, the amazing editors.

Jozi-Flash

At the end of NaNoWriMo last year, a couple of us Jo’burg writers decided to continue writing together even after NaNo and this has led to the establishment of our little Jozi Wrimo group. One of the writers is looking to start her own Publishing company and in the mean time, she is helping our group to publish an anthology of short stories by the end of February. That’s seven days away.

Talk about pressure.

Auburn

Well I haven’t spoken about this project in forever and yes it is still going. Tyron and I worked together on a “novelette” called Auburn in which a character is given a dose of poison. Unsure as to when it will kill them, they embark on a dangerous journey to use the last of their life for a purpose. We separated this into a Light and Dark version that run concurrent to each other ,exploring the character’s motivations and choices. We have had someone edit it for us and now we have another person proof-reading the new edits. We are hoping to knock this out soon too.

Goodreads / Friday Fiction

Lastly I am continuing in my Good Reads reading challenge with the weekly Wednesday Book Review. There are so many books out there that I want to read, that I keep discovering, that I don’t think I will ever be satisfied with the amount of books I will have read say in the next twenty years. My latest discovery was The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

Apart from the amazing book cover design, the synopsis sounds really intriguing so I’ve put it on my TBR list… I just need to go buy it haha.

Lastly of course, I will be carrying on with my own Friday Fiction short stories with prompts normally from Rachel Poli, and hopefully I will introduce Flashmob Fiction and Cracked Flash Fiction to my weekend writing. I have been really slacking on my weekends as they are the only days I get to NOT do anything and it ends up becoming the busiest of times. Nonetheless, I will keep trying and want to thank all those who remind me weekly of the writing challenges in the first place (yes I’m talking about you Carin Marais!)

Beast Mode Activate

So this Blog Post is the first sprint through the dark writing tunnels, away from the pursuing deadline zombies hoping to drag me into the dark recesses of procrastination. Really looking forward to ending February on a high note!

February Days: The Challenges of Reading

Image courtesy: http://jungpark.deviantart.com/

The month of February is already underway and we’re looking at two more weeks before women can no longer propose to men (as per the Leap Year tradition) and make for awkward four years of waiting for the guy to man up… or something of that sort. Ha ha?

From my side, I’m having a rather exciting February, with a lot changes happening suddenly and completely that require a change of structure and form to fit in all these changes… which is perfectly fine.

Reading

I am starting to feel the weight of the Goodreads challenge that I have undertaken, having just finished my sixth book for the year, one book behind statistically, and with another 46 to go before we call it a year. I’m starting to wonder how quickly I can read through a book in a week to give it a fair review, and how well I can plan my reading times, persevere with diligence even through tedious books, and push out my weekly Wednesday Review.

Speaking of which, later today I will be posting my latest read, Sweet Heart by Peter James. This has been an interesting read so far, feels like it would make a good indie movie but Peter James makes it work in book format too. Considering he’s a screenplay writer too you can see aspects of it in his writing. But let’s leave that for later.

Writing

Last Friday I posted three flash fictions to make up for the two weeks, where I missed my Friday Fiction writing. Of course I’m working on improving my writing and so with this re-scheduling of my life, I will get back to my Friday fictions. Also, I keep meaning to join up with Cracked Fiction and Flashmob fiction which happens on Saturdays, but things happen on Saturday as it is my only “free” time so I end up doing everything else besides write (or read). A little bit of time management is going to have to happen to get me back on schedule.

Editing

I’ve started to edit my 2015 NaNo novel after getting some great advice from Bridgett on Twitter who said

I go scene by scene in my first pass, fixing punctuation, spelling and highlighting problems in the passages. On my second pass, I fix the highlights.

The one thing that really put me off editing my novel was just the sheer size of it, and I was overwhelmed by the amount of writing it all was, but by going scene by scene, the novel editing becomes so much more achievable.

Conclusion

I don’t know what happened to February but it is almost gone. All I know is that it’s back to the writing, the reading and making sure that it is a productive 2016.

How’s your February going?