Spoiler Alert and Fair Warning: You’ve heard these two words from me a million times!

Last year, Oasis enjoyed a revival of sorts, which made me revisit their music.

I was never a huge-huge fan, though I liked (like) a couple of their songs. My son and daughter-in-law managed to see them in Toronto, which they were over the moon about. I come from an age when Oasis was considered a derivative band. People said that they ripped off the Beatles – there’s even an oblique joke referencing that sentiment in the movie Yesterday. I hopped on that bandwagon for sure.

Are they really that much of a hack band? The short answer is no. It’s clear the band’s songwriter Noel Gallagher was inspired by the Beatles. He references Beatles songs in his own lyrics.

But you have to remember that at one point, Oasis was the biggest rock band in the world. That doesn’t happen for hack bands. Thirty-odd years later, I think it’s safe to say their songs have stood the test of time.

Any-the-who, during this revisit to Oasis of mine, I watched a couple documentaries about the meteoric rise and implosive fall of the band. I gained a new appreciation for Noel Gallagher’s song writing approach. He said something in one of these documentaries that really struck a chord with me (pun unintended…)

I re-read the title of this post, and I know some will think it’s too click-baity. I’m wondering myself. But I did want to obfuscate the answer because these are very much two words I have said in almost all of the 124 posts I’ve written so far:

Have fun!

Why will these two words immediately help you boost your creativity? It’s like Gallagher said: if you feel your work is too “important” or “serious” or “earth-shattering”, you’ll never get the words down.

• Having fun frees you to explore and experiment without reprisal.

• Having fun allows you to look at your writing from different angles.

• Having fun taps into pockets of your creativity that just can’t be reached otherwise.

There aren’t any straight lines to creativity. But with serious writing, all you have are straight lines. Try some loop-de-loops and find out where they take you!

Over to You

Have you tried to have fun and let go with your writing? What happened? Any other tips for not getting too serious with your writing? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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It’s happening.

I think few will contest that AI is here to stay. For writers – especially professional writers – the choice is adapt or die. We can rail and rant and scream like Lear on the moors, but we can’t stay blind to the truth. And, there’s no Cordelia to save us; only Claude.

I can tell you unequivocally that I have lost business to AI. Because of this, I’m in a middle of a complete rebrand of my day job – part of the reason why I put my novel on the backburner for a moment. Because you see, AI can’t do everything that we can. It can maybe “write” (somewhat poorly, is the consensus). It can crunch data, but it can’t do research in the human sense – it has to be told what to look for. It can’t strategize. It can’t decide what to write. And, crucially, AI can’t tell the human story.

You and I can.

To literally add insult to injury, writers are being told by editors and clients and even readers that their writing “didn’t pass the AI test”. Which, bee-tee-dubs, is run by the same fallible AI. I’ve read posts on Reddit about the frustration of being rejected on suspicion of AI, even when it was never used. Then there is the popular case right now of Shy Girl, the novel being pulled from UK shelves – the first book, as the New York Times describes it, to be “pulled over evidence of AI use”.

The author claims she never did, but her editor may have…

For the record, I believe her. AI is full of hidden landmines for us to navigate, guided by hope alone. For example, is it okay for us to use AI to bat around ideas? Create an outline for us? Write – or edit – even one sentence? Spellcheck?

The mind boggles wordles.

How to Thwart the AI Check (Maybe)

• Make up words. I verbize nouns all the time, but maybe not as much as a nounify verbs. A word of warning: reader tolerance varies on this, especially in formal writing. I’ve never let that stop me from trying, though.

• Make spelling mistakes. Those of you who know me IRL can see me cringing as I type that sentence. For me though, it’s easy when I write in Canadian English. AI (surprise, surprise) only writes in US English as far as I’ve seen.

• Use spaces in your em-dashes… and use en-dashes instead. Apparently, the use of em-dashes is one of the “tell-tale” signs of AI writing. I’ve always used en-dashes with spaces on either side. I’m not convinced the average person scrutinizing your work will tell the difference, but it won’t hurt.

• Write incomplete sentences. Like this one. It’s another thing that AI tends not to do.

• Vary sentence length. From what I understand, AI likes nice, neat, averaged sentences. Screw that. Write long. Short. Something that lands in-between. (It’s a good writing tip in general, anyway.)

• Have a voice. I was talking with a group of writers last night (as I write this) about how flat and bland AI’s voice is. It also borders in that uncanny valley, a term usually used for off-putting AI-generated images of humans (like in The Polar Express). Reading AI-generated words gives me a mild version of that aversion. Finding your voice is a perennial discussion, but worth doing now more than ever.

• Add random words in other languages that people will still understand. For example, French can give your writing a certain je ne sais quoi.

• Add personal insights and anecdotes. AI doesn’t have a life. Therefore, AI can’t draw on life. Sprinkle in tidbits from your own world, like the fact that you watched Survivor last night or that you were remembering the best cappuccino you ever had in that little café on the square that overlooks the Eiffel Tower…

• Add specific details. Like remembering the best cappuccino you ever had in that little café on the square that overlooks the Eiffel Tower…

• Add repetition that serves a purpose. Like remembering the best cappuccino you ever had in that little café on the square that overlooks the Eiffel Tower…

• Create new twists on old clichés. “The mind boggles wordles.” may not be the best example out there. But you see where I’m going with it. AI is not creative enough to think up even my lamest jokes.

• Here’s a bonus tip: keep all your drafts. This isn’t my idea, but I love it. If someone (client, editor, etc.) unjustly accuses you of using AI, sending Drafts 1 through whatever to show how the document progressed may help your case.

To paraphrase George Carlin, never underestimate the power of stupid AI – or the people who rely too much on it. Follow all of these points, and I still can’t personally guarantee your words (or mine) won’t be flagged. Some might also believe it’s unfair that we’re forced to resort to this. It changes our writing, and not always for the good. To that I say: yes, I agree. But also, Lear and moors and blindness.

I’ll leave you with one last thought. When all else fails, fall back on righteous indignation. It’s another thing going all the way back to Siri that AI can’t pull off convincingly.

Over to You: Have You Ever Been Accused of Using AI?

Let us know in the comments below! I’m also interested to hear your hot take on this cold, cold subject. What’s your relationship with AI in your writing life?

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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I wonder if other artists have it as hard as writers when it comes to “creating art”?

For example, I’ve heard of musicians struggling to get music out. Apparently, Sarah McLachlan had to lock herself away to write the songs for her album, “Fumbling Toward Ecstasy”. On the other hand, I’ve heard of musicians writing songs purely by jamming.

Writers though – we seem hell bent on concentrating hard to find the right words. Whatever that means. I don’t know how many times I’ve underlined this concept of having fun with words, and still I’ll get a little tense from time to time when I sit down to write “real” work on my novel.

I’m getting better. Constant reminders help. Like this video about Nirvana’s monster hit, Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Cobain wrote that song without any formal music background. He didn’t purposefully set out to create some of the most iconic riffs in rock history. It was all done by feel, as Warren Huart explains in a video in his “Produce Like a Pro” YouTube series.

Is it possible to write by feel, too?

I think it is – and I’ve been trying to do that for many years now, in practice if not in name. I like coming up with a few simple words and riffing on them like they’re notes on a guitar.

Here’s an example. I dug up an old note I emailed myself for a novel once called Novel 4. That note was this:

“For Roddy, blue was the colour of freedom.”

I vaguely remember when this popped into my head. It had nothing to do with anything at that point in the book. I needed another character, someone who lived on the rougher side of life. I ran with it, not really knowing where it would take me. Why was blue the colour of freedom? Roddy was an inmate, cooped up in prison 23 hours per day. His one hour outside allowed him time to “escape” in his mind, staring up at the infinity of blue sky rather than the beige walls three feet away in any direction.

I riffed out a whole scene that started with those eight words – those eight notes. I wrote by feel. I wasn’t sure if they would work or if the character would work or if I was writing the novel or just a character sketch. A vignette. I just wrote.

As it turned out, the whole book was abandoned. For reasons.

But that’s the fun of writing, right? The adventure of following alleyways, not quite sure what’s around the corner. And if alleyways turn into dead ends, as they sometimes do… well, we had a lovely afternoon exploring then, didn’t we?

On the other hand, it’s the only way I find new, surprising worlds…

I think sometimes we are too precious with our words. We aren’t working with diamonds here. Sentences are collections of words are collections of letters that we can move around at will, that we can zap in and out of existence.

So why not arrange them hither and thither, and see what fits? Why not riff and find the dissonant chords that somehow work? Creativity doesn’t come from planning. It comes from not planning. Creativity is the act of chasing ideas down alleyways and bringing them to life.

Deciding whether or not they work comes later.

Over to You

What new worlds have you discovered writing higgledy-piggledy? Were the dead ends as bad as all that? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

This opening sentence from Joan Didion’s essay and collection, The White Album, has always resonated with me, and I come back to it often. I believe it to be true on so many levels – and not just within the realm of writing.

Here are two lines from the TV show Community during a conversation about how everybody lies all the time.

Abed : “We don’t lie when we’re alone.”

Jeff : “Biggest lie ever. Nine out of ten lies occur six inches away from the bathroom mirror. We do most of our lying alone.”

Why do we do lie to the mirror? Because we need to tell ourselves stories in order to live.

This Catch-22 of human nature is part of what makes writing so hard!!! If we can’t be honest with ourselves, how can we be honest with our readers? The answer is: we can’t.

This idea overlaps with another piece of writing advice we’ve talked about before: Hemingway’s “Write One True Sentence”. In that post, I talk more about its relation to “finding your why” in your writing.

But in the more literal sense, it means writing through all the layers of bullshit – the stories we tell ourselves – until we get down to the truth, the context, the real meaning underneath. In other words, it means writing authentically.

That’s our job as writers.

Finding Your Authentic Writing Voice

Easier said than done. But here’s a little trick I came up with to be more authentic in my writing.

Remember back to a moment in your recent past (today, yesterday, last weekend…) when you changed your mind about doing something at the last minute. It could be going to the gym, cleaning the basement, painting the bathroom – whatever.

Ready?

1. Recognize that you may be lying to yourself. The first step isn’t realizing that you have a problem, but that you might have a problem. How many times have you sworn to go to the gym the next day, only to bail because you “had a long day” or “can’t get in the right head space” or whatever? Everyone does it. I’m not judging. But a good self-assessment is a great first step.

2. If you’re lying about that, what’s the truth? In the case of going to the gym, the real answer could be that you hate exercising, don’t want to climb into the car on this cold day, just can’t be arsed, or some other real, human emotional reason(s). What was that emotion for you in this case – and what is the real truth?

3. Write about that truth. You don’t have to show your writing to anyone. For your own edification, write down that truth. Write down how you really feel. Write down how you feel about how you feel (e.g., do you feel guilty for not feeling like exercising?) Write down how you want to do better in the future. Write down your fears about that. Write down how you’ll overcome those fears… And so on.

4. Reverse engineer what just happened. So far, we’ve dug backwards. But what do you think brought you here in the first place? Wind forward again and see if you can identify the (mostly subconscious) motivations at each step that led to your final decision to bail.

5. Remember the path you took there and back. What you just wrote probably won’t show up in any writing you’re doing right now. However, if you remember the path you took to get to that truth beneath the story you told yourself, you may notice that the path to finding your one true sentence in your future writing is easier. Bonus: this exercise may also help you dig down into your characters’ motivations as well.

Congratulations! You now have a whole ream of authentic writing sitting right in front of you!

It will take practice to dig deep like this to find our authentic writing voices every time we sit down to write. I certainly haven’t mastered it! The idea with this exercise though is to start getting comfortable with writing uncomfortable things – especially about ourselves.

But if you ever get stuck in places because you feel the writing is inauthentic, adapt these steps and see if you can dig into what’s not working. Chances are, you’re not getting to the full, honest truth. It doesn’t “ring true” because it’s not true.

One last, brutally honest point to remember. We tell ourselves stories in order to live. So when we push past those stories to the real truth underneath, we are going to die a little.

That, too, is our job as writers.

Over to You: Have You Ever Found Your One True Sentence?

What’s worked for you – and what didn’t? Is it hit or miss, or is there a formula you use? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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Ah, Terry Fallis. Such a wealth of information!

I fear that, like with Fitzgerald, some might feel like I drop his name too many times in these pages. But what can I say – the guy inspires me!

Most recently, a post of his hit the nail on the head of an issue I identified in myself years ago: over-describing. I used to think that my job was to paint this perfect picture the reader could walk into and inhabit. So, I didn’t have “curtains” or even “white sheers”; I had three-panel drapes woven from the finest silks and dyed an impossible sapphire blue that made the Pharaohs of Egypt blush with the ostentatiousness of it all. My scenes didn’t take place in a “bar”; they took place in a dimly lit basement dive with a horseshoe bartop in the middle with exactly 32 stools – except when Moe was shooting pool on Saturday afternoons and pulled one up to his favourite billiard table ‘cuz he didn’t want to stand the whole time with his bad back and all, so that left 31 stools at the bar. My characters didn’t…

You get the picture.

When this idiosyncrasy was first pointed out to me, I could understand the reasoning. But I couldn’t connect to it. I couldn’t understand how to fix it. How much description is too much?

On the other hand, I found that I was not describing other things well enough. Like, when I said something like, “Well, love with tear us apart, I guess.” I assumed that everyone would immediately latch onto the reference to the famous punk/post-punk UK band Joy Division from 50 years ago. (What? How could readers not get that?!? It’s their most famous song!)

This type of under-describing is another problem for another day, but the point as far as this post goes is that I found that description calibration to be confusing and frustrating.

Here’s how Terry sums up the issue:

The answer I glean is to give as much description as possible in as few words as possible so that readers form their own images themselves. The corollary (or caveat) is that there has to be enough information so that they get an image that will suit the story you’re trying to tell without getting confused, but not so much info that they skim.

In short: Do mention Joy Division explicitly. Don’t spend a paragraph talking about lead singer Ian Curtis’ T-shirt.

How to Not Over-describe – Four Ways I’m Working On It

I’m still a work in progress. But here are a few ways I’m changing my descriptions so that they convey just enough information to paint a good enough picture.

• Don’t spend more than a few words describing something (unless its intricacies are crucial to the story). Take the description of a ballroom. If I mention “elegant” and “chandelier”, the reader will fill in the rest. If the raised dais on the far left is crucial to the story in some way, mention that. If it’s not, don’t.

• If I need to describe something, avoid info-dumping. Maybe the object reminds my character of a previous time, so I’m unfolding the backstory as the character explores the object. Or, I could describe it in little bits over time. Talk about the dull brass beer taps here, talk about the nicotine-stained window above Moe’s head there. Find creative ways of conveying information so that my descriptions don’t overwhelm readers.

• Use similes and metaphors for big impact in fewer words. Here’s an example from Martin Amis in his novel, Money: “His hair was that special mad yellow, like an omelette, a rug omelette.” Thirteen words that don’t just describe his hair, but also suggest a wacky personality, big eyes, and frenetic energy. (At least, it does for me.)

• Over-describe, then fix it in editing. I like over-describing. There, I said it! There aren’t any wasted words, so maybe I keep that indulgence and just cut it all out later. Besides, if I over-describe now, I’ll have more great words to choose from later.

• Use clichés. I’m breaking the rules here, but clichés can be fast shorthand. My rule of thumb: avoid clichés when you want to have impact, but use them to pass along info quickly (like, “rule of thumb”).

Final thought: another thing I’ve learned along the way is that readers want to create their own images. Describing everything to the hemline takes too many words, and frankly is boring to the reader. Let them participate in your work. Allow them to paint their own pictures.

Over to You: How Would You Describe Your Description Tendencies?

Any other tips for beating the over-description blues? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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Isn’t it funny how you can be judgey-judgey about someone one day, and the next day you see that same person staring back at you in the mirror?

Yep, that literally happened to me. A week or two ago, my slow-dawning realization finally hit me while shaving: I am, in fact, a perfectionist. At least when it comes to writing.

I’d like to think that I’ve never judged other people harshly for their writing perfectionism. Truth is, I have seen perfectionism be a destructive force in writers. But I’ve also seen perfectionism be a huge asset. You don’t write stories like JD Salinger or make films like Stanley Kubrick without whatever obsessive/compulsive-inducing chemicals they have running through their blood.

It’s a game of diminishing returns though, and there needs to be a balance. At what point do you say, “Good enough!” and move on?

I thought it would be helpful for me to drill down further to identify exactly what mechanisms are at work in my own brand of perfectionism. What I found may not be true for all perfectionists, but this is what happens to me.

1. First, it’s not lost on me that my perfectionism tendencies come out while writing fiction. I suspect confidence has something to do with it. I’m much more certain in my day-job writing identifying when something is “right” or “wrong”.

2. Second, I do want to write the perfect sentence. I want my immortal “Call me Ishmael” passage. That’s part of what drives me to keep polishing. Another part: I want to write that perfect sentence for the sake of the perfect sentence. I like bringing creative ideas into existence, whether I get credit for them or not.

3. Further, I think some part of me believes that the perfect sentence is out there, waiting to be uncovered. It’s a strong compulsion, like Indiana Jones reaching for the Holy Grail just beyond his fingertips at the end of the third movie. If I reach just a little bit further… Or, maybe I just need to move nouns and verbs around the board like an incredibly complex game of Wordle until I get it right. Nope, that’s not it. Nope. Nope… Yes! Thing is, the New York Times isn’t lighting up my cubes to tell me what words need changed.

4. Eventually, my perfectionism can ruin the piece like over-kneaded dough.

Lately, I’ve been considering this: we live in a nuanced world where there’s no such thing as a single black-and-white perfection. There are a few times I’ve struggled over a sentence, made a tweak, and then realized it made absolutely no difference to the success of that sentence. (Okay, this has happened many times…) Worse, you show two sentences to six people and get seven different opinions. Nobody is going to agree on what’s “perfect” anyway. So why do I still chase perfection when there’s clear evidence it doesn’t even exist?

I’m still working on that one. But not as hard as working on not being perfect in the first place. Here are four strategies I’m actively trying right now to curb my perfectionism:

I don’t rewrite right away.

This is a toughie for me, because as soon as I finish a piece (a paragraph, a sentence), I go right to the beginning to start fixing it. Forcing myself not to do that is difficult. It’s like playing Jedi mind tricks on myself. I can picture Obi Wan Kenobi waving his robed hand in front of my bewildered face and saying, “These are the words you are looking for…” That’s how I wrote this post – I dashed it out, put it away, and looked at it again later. The approach saved me a lot of time fretting over commas and adjectives that really don’t make a difference to the reader.

I’m trying to get better at realizing that I’m fretting.

On that note, I’m training myself to recognize the symptoms of fretting sooner. Have I spent five minutes pushing around a couple of words? If I look at the two or six or 12 minor-tweak versions, are any of them “wrong” and any of them “perfect”? There will certainly be some stinkers, but there will be at least four options that are equally as good as the others. I’ve got to stop fretting, pick one, and move on.

I edit faster.

My perfectionism streak also comes up in later drafts – probably even more so. Therefore, I’m employing a similar tactic when I’m editing. Read quickly. Make changes where necessary. Leave well enough alone when alone it works well enough.

When I proofread, I don’t edit.

I always do two or three final proofreadings of anything before I send it out. Problem is, I also make perfectionist tweaks along the way. Not only is that counterproductive, it actually increases the chances of introducing the same typos I’m looking for…

These strategies are partially aspirational, by the way. I’m getting better, but I know there is more fretting and Wordle-ing to come. Baby steps, Graham. Baby steps.

And, for the record, rewriting is vital to improve your writing. I’m not suggesting we don’t rewrite. What I’m talking about here is pushing peas around a plate in a way that accomplishes nothing. (There’s that careful balance again…)

I want to leave you with one last realization I had: There isn’t one “perfect” sentence; there are in fact a thousand of them. We’re not looking for a needle in a haystack. We’re looking for a needle in a needlestack.

Choose one, and move on.

Over to You: Do You Suffer from Perfectionism?

You perfectionists out there: tell me if any of this sounds familiar. Is your brand of perfectionism similar, and how do you combat it? Let us know in the comments!

If this post might be helpful for other writers in your life, please Share with them as well!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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Wandering through the Substack stacks last weekend, I came across a newsletter I hadn’t seen before: Poet Kate Baer’s newsletter, Good News/Bad News. Most specifically, I read her list of 10 Novels I Recommend To Anyone, Anywhere, No Matter What.

I enjoy “What I Read and Loved…” lists like this. I usually find something new and interesting to read. CBC Books regularly posts “6 Books that…” inspire / empower / exfoliate this writer or that writer. Besides, you can learn a lot about a person based on what’s on their bookshelf.

When I came across Baer’s list, it got me to thinking: why have I posted anything like this before in all my years writing this newsletter? I couldn’t come up with a good answer, so I started compiling.

However, I quickly got bogged down. What makes the list? Favourites? Novels? Non-fiction, “best” books I’d recommend to people, best books about WWII…?

Since this is a newsletter about writing, I decided to list the books (and one movie) over the years that inspired me to write.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I’ve talked about this book ad nauseam. (Literally. I’ve had comments…) I won’t again, except to say that Fitzgerald’s tight but lyrical prose represents the pinnacle of writing for me.

King Leary and Whale Music by Paul Quarrington

If you like hockey or sports, read King Leary about a hockey legend in his later years. If you like music or none of the above, read Whale Music. For me, it’s basically a two-way tie. Both are laugh-out-loud books that still give the reader tender moments. I had the extreme pleasure and good fortune to meet Paul Quarrington, and he was a great guy to boot.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson

I like Thompson’s rawness and wild stream of consciousness. Most of his writing has influenced me in some ways, but I chose this one in particular because it has what I think is the best opening line in a book ever: “We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.” Not only does that paint a picture, it pretty much sets you up for everything else that is to come. Thompson’s writing is bombastic, but he always writes from the strange and savage fringe of truth.

The White Album by Joan Didion

This collection of essays is very specific in time and place: California in the late sixties and early seventies. I like this book despite that fact... lol Her titular piece trying to make sense of the Manson murders and everything else going on is perhaps one of the most complete and poignant snapshots of that moment in time. But most of all, I love her raw, emotive writing. You can feel her trying to find the truth as she scribbles.

The New Journalism by Tom Wolfe (with pieces from many writers)

Today, the term is “creative non-fiction” but before that came New Journalism. Writers like Didion and Thompson along with Breslin, Wolfe, Talese, and many others used the tools of fiction to tell livelier non-fiction.

My Idea of Fun by Will Self

A highly subversive novel that keeps you guessing.

The Magus by John Fowles

Another book that keeps you guessing, but in different ways. It’s long and the language, sadly, doesn’t hold up in my opinion. It’s been decades since I read it all the way through, so I’m not sure what I’d make of it now. But it excited my twenty-something writer mind.

A Fish Out of Water by Helen Palmer

This is the first book I loved when I first read it at five or six. It was part of that series of books that looked like Dr. Seuss, but wasn’t. (In fact, as I just learned, Helen Palmer was married to Dr. Seuss himself…) Maybe my mother read it to me first, but I don’t have a clear memory of that. I do remember reading it myself, over and over again. It’s probably the first book that inspired me to try writing. I think what drew me to it was the boy with the curious mind who likes to try things – and quickly gets in over his head when chaos ensues…

The Secret World of Og by Pierre Berton

Another book from my childhood, and highly influential as a classic adventure novel where the kids are in control. A short story I wrote in Grade 3 had clear, derivative connections to this book after we read it in class. It doesn’t get much more influential than that!

When Harry Met Sally by Nora Ephron

Such an intelligent movie script! I once had a fantasy to shellac one wall of my office with this script in order so I’d have the whole movie up there to see. (I still might do that…) I like a lot of Ephron’s other movies and essays too, but this is the one that continues to inspire me as a writer.

Over to You: What’s on Your Bookshelf?

What books have influenced you as a writer? This could be novels, non-fiction books, picture books – whatever you like! Let us know in the comments below.

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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I’ve stated in these pages before that I have a hard time discerning whether my fiction passages are good or bad.

It’s a weird feeling because generally speaking, I know when my day-job writing is working. Perhaps it’s because writing an 80,000-word novel is more complex, nuanced, and interconnected than a 500-word article. Fiction requires different skills including elements of storytelling that I’m still learning. But I see myself getting better at identifying when something works and when something doesn’t.

Ultimately, I think every writer needs somebody to bounce ideas off of: a first reader, beta readers, and for the lucky, editors and agents. What can be crystal clear in your mind might not translate onto the page in a way that makes it understandable to the reader. To borrow a phrase: You don’t know what your readers don’t know.

That being said, I do believe it’s the writer’s responsibility to try to illuminate some of those blind spots in the early stages that you can give the best possible version of your work to those first readers. Why waste the time of a reader with something that’s less than your best?

The classic tip is to put your writing aside for days or weeks and read it with fresh eyes. That still holds true. But I got another idea from a video on YouTube of Andy Summers from The Police talking about getting perspective while writing music. Context is everything, and where you experience the work can change your context.

In other words, a change of scenery during the review stage changes your perspective from the creation stage. And, if the theory holds, that change in perspective can help you decide if the piece is good or not.

Sounded like it was something worth trying. So, I printed off a scene from my novel WIP I am particularly happy with, and took it to the living room to read. Then, I took it to a coffee shop. The weekend before last, I took it with me to the Laughing Foxes Writing Retreat, and read it over coffee while looking at Marie Louise Lake in Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.

I decided not to edit – that could come another time. I just wanted to let the words flow over me.

That was the theory. However, that’s not quite what happened…

First, the urge to edit proved to be too much. There were so many things that I wanted to change that it seemed counter-productive not to change them. I quickly made peace with that and whipped out a pen. After all, if the whole point of the exercise was to read it in different places to find flaws, shouldn’t I just fix them then and there? Summers couldn’t fix his songs in a coffee shop because he needed a recording studio for that. I was following a standard that applied to making music, not to writing a novel. So, edit away!

Second, I was surprised at how many things I wanted to change in the WIP. Mostly, it was about cutting words. I’ve never had a problem with hitting the ejection seat button for words that don’t work. But when I separated myself from my office – the place where the work came together – I could see the words that didn’t work more clearly.

Third, words that worked in one place didn’t work in another place. That first review on the couch? I saw a ton of things that needed to be deleted, but I didn’t have a pen at that point. By the time I was on the writing retreat, it seemed like fewer things needed changed. I’m not sure if it was the location or the time between edits. It could have been just my perception. Whatever it was, I want to pursue this more so I can know exactly what’s happening here.

Fourth, and perhaps so obvious that I almost forgot to mention it, reading words on a page is different than reading them on a screen. Paper versus screen in itself changes context. That means that although bringing your laptop to the coffee may give you different context, you’ll likely have better results when you change the medium, too.

Overall, I’d call this exercise a success. I will tweak the process somewhat, but yeah, I’m amazed at what a difference this simple exercise made for my writing!

Over to You

How do you review and/or edit your work? Have you changed venues to get a different viewpoint on your work? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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My vacationing son and daughter-in-law sent a group chat video of them in a club, cheering to “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode. The text came in just as I was getting things together for the writing retreat. “Dad needs to see this,” was the conversation apparently. It made me laugh. I love they thought to text me.

I’m not sure how he knew, but my son was absolutely right: I needed to be reminded of that song. I had some trepidation going into this retreat as I mentioned last week. I’m at a creative crossroads. The goal of this weekend, I decided, was to find direction. Decisions are often easier to make when you remove yourself physically. Paris is one of my go-to preferences, but (a) that’s a plane ticket away and hotels ain’t cheap anymore, and (b) the writing retreat with all my peeps was at Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, not Paris. For now, anyway.

As the title of this post may suggest, I’m enjoying the silence. The banner image above is my view while writing this post – yesterday morning, your time. The day before, there was a rare winter fog that covered everything, frosting the pines along Marie Louise Lake. It was amazing and surreal – a time and place that you’ll only experience in a few specific pockets of the world. And I was standing in one of them.

There have been workshops and discussions and meals together, and lots of writing time in between. Creatively, I’ve dabbled in the novel a bit (more of that in a future post) and I took on a whole new, fun project: a sleep story.

Yeah, that’s what everyone here asked, too.

A sleep story is an adult bedtime story meant to help you de-stress and calm your mind so you can drift off to sleep. I downloaded a few of them in my Spotify account for my trip away. Perhaps the most famous sleep story is “Blue Gold” written by Phoebe Smith and read by Stephen Fry. (Not available on Spotify, bee tee dubs.) To write a sleep story, you need long, flowery, conflictless sentences that meander aimlessly, emphasizing rhythm and long vowels to literally lull the reader to sleep.

Well, I can do that!

Now that it’s finished (save a few last-minute tweaks, no doubt), my plan is to record it and put it on YouTube or Spotify. But I’m not making any promises, because another successful breakthrough I had this weekend is that I’m not putting any pressure on myself for personal projects. I will dive into the projects that interest me, and I will get out of the pool when the water gets cold. If a project gets finished in that short time, excellent! If not, meh. There are other pools to dive into.

The rest of my creative energy will go into work projects. I have a couple of new career directions I want to branch out into, which will take my “extra” time to build. Being able to put aside my novel for a guilt-free while to concentrate on those options is ultimately the best move for me.

Creative energy is a funny, finicky thing. I’ve enjoyed a life of flitting around like a bee, drinking from this flower and this flower and this flower. The problem now isn’t the flowers. My creative well (to boldly mix metaphors and split infinitives) is as deep as ever. The problem is me. Creative flitting between projects isn’t as easy as it once was. That realization isn’t fun, but it’s fine, now that I’ve identified the issue.

And the solution for me, dear reader, is creative minimalism. Give more attention to fewer projects. This weekend has been a microcosm of that philosophy, and it’s worked wonderfully. For now, on the last day of the retreat, I’ll sit back and plan those next work steps. I’ll stare out over that beautiful lake.

And, I’ll enjoy the silence.

Over to You

How do you keep an even creative keel? Do you like working on many projects at once, or just a few? Or maybe only one? How do you enjoy the silence? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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Such a strange word to use for a writing weekend: retreat. In many contexts, the word “retreat” has negative connotations. Falling back. Giving in. Giving up. There are also undertones of fear, regret, and failure.

But add the adjective “writing” in front of it, and the meaning flips completely! Suddenly, the connotations are freedom, luxurious writing time, and creative energy with undertones of joy and productivity.

At least, that’s how it usually works for me. I’ll confess, I’m not looking forward to the upcoming Laughing Fox Retreat this weekend as much as I was, and those negative connotations and undertones are seeping in. Partly is the fact that I’m not where I wanted to be in terms of word count or, most specifically, number of completed scenes. I bought index cards and planned to map out the story like I mention here and other places.

But that lack of scene count is merely a symptom of a larger problem. “Carving out time” is a three-word sentiment that takes nothing to say, but a huge amount of energy to achieve.

Putting pressure on myself isn’t helping, either. I’m overwhelmed. Something’s got to give. At this point, I’m afraid what gives will be my heart.

I don’t believe I’m unique here. I want to put into words what I suspect a million other writers like me feel every day.

First, dear reader, don’t worry. This isn’t the End of My Novel as we know it. I want to write it. In fact, I wish I could run away to a Greek island à la Leonard Cohen and just finish the damn thing.

But I’m entering a profound phase of reckoning about the amount of time I could or should put into it right now. How many chainsaws can I juggle?

Maybe what’s happening is that I’m finally fessing up to the fact that I can’t do everything. What I need right now is to let myself off the hook and give myself permission to work on fewer things. I have so many projects on the go including day-job projects that I’m at risk of experiencing creative paralysis. It’s time to become a creative minimalist and put a few of those projects onto the metaphorical shelf.

I don’t know what “creative minimalism” looks like. But I do know that I’ll still work on the novel. I wrote two separate passages during the writing of this post because ideas came to me. I would guess I’m putting down ideas at least once a week on average. That’s not gonna stop.

So no, interest isn’t the problem. It’s not the novel I’m ditching. It’s the pressure and guilt I’m putting on myself to “have” to write it.

And, as of this week, I’m okay with that. (Mostly…)

Writing is hard, and often because of all the things that are happening outside of writing. I have not had the ability to set any sort of schedule or work on it for any extended amount of time since November. Getting stressed or feeling guilty about that fact only makes it worse. It’s a broken-wing death spiral – and I’ve decided to pull out.

I’ll add that I will go to the retreat this weekend feeling hopeful. I’m going to bring those index cards and fill them in and lay them out and see where I’m at with the story. Maybe I’m closer than I thought. Maybe visualizing the novel as a whole will help me feel less overwhelmed by it. Maybe I just need to be away from everything else that’s going on in my life.

It won’t be Cohen’s Hydra island. But, it will be the largest cabin on the largest lake on the largest peninsula on the largest freshwater lake in the world. There’s something romantic and inspiring in that.

As good a place as any to reflect, take stock, and manage my expectations.

Over to You

I’ll keep you posted as to how this weekend works out. I’m looking forward to seeing some of you out there! In the meantime, anyone else out there feeling overwhelmed with your writing? Or is it just me…? lol

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon! (Seriously…)

~Graham

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For a brief weekend ten days ago, much of North America experienced Thunder Bay weather – except for Thunder Bay.

While 210-odd million people struggled with a disco ball of polar vortices partying down with atmospheric rivers, Thunder Bay was fantastically sunny. Cold, but sunny.

Don’t get me wrong – we’ve had our share of snow already. In fact, since I started this post a paragraph ago, it’s started to come down again. Which means more snowblowing. And with it, more time listening to Dialogue: The Art of Verbal Action for Page, Stage, and Screen by Robert McKee.

I latched onto this book because long-time friend Joanne Hudspith asked me if I knew any good craft books about dialogue. I didn’t, but when I looked around, this looked like a good bet. I get 15 free(?) audiobook hours with my Spotify account per month, which aligns nicely with my 15+ hours of snowblowing a month. So I thought I’d give it a try.

Spoiler alert: I highly recommend it. (The book. Not the snowblowing.)

This is a dense, deep (deep!) dive not only on dialogue itself but its integration with and role in story. McKee uses real-life examples like the novel The Great Gatsby and the movie Sideways – right up my alley! He even rewrites certain passages to underline why the originals work so well.

One of the realizations I had while listening to Dialogue is that I have difficulties with implicit rather than explicit writing. It isn’t a skill I’ve developed to any great extent – at least, not to the level I need to be at for fiction writing and storytelling.

I’ve been actively developing my implicit storytelling the last several months. During #GraNoWritMo in November, I was about to write a dialogue-heavy scene, and I wanted to sharpen my dialogue skills while I was at it. One thing that came up in my Google search to find good bits of dialogue was the first scene of the movie The Social Network, written by Aaron Sorkin. It’s two university students sitting in a pub, talking. Pretty straightforward, right? Except that she is breaking up with him, he’s (awkwardly) trying to connect with her, and there’s a whole lot of other stuff going on to set up his character and the story to come.

You can watch it quickly here to see what I mean:

I’m extremely happy with the scene I wrote after that little exercise. It helped me write a compelling interaction that took on a new dimension, just like those 3D Magic Eye posters from the 90s. We learn more about the MC including his underlying personality and motivations. The scene represents a much-needed win for the MC, making it important turning point in the story as well. And, we learn more about the minor character in the conversation. We certainly don’t need to know about this person since we’ll never hear from him again. But that 3D-ness of the minor character development makes the scene more engaging, which in turn makes the development of the MC more engaging, and then in turn the story more interesting.

Bippity, boppity, boo.

That’s my take, anyway. My beta readers somewheres down the road will be able to tell me if I pulled it off. But I feel myself growing as a fiction writer which, for the purposes of this post, is the point.

Anyway, the snow’s still coming down. Looks like I’ll be listening to Dialogue some more, later today. I’ll keep you posted with any new insights.

Stay warm!

Key Takeaways: If you’re trying to improve your dialogue and your fiction writing in general: (a) read Dialogue by Robert McKee and (b) study Aaron Sorkin’s scripts, especially the opening scene to The Social Network.

Over to You…

How do you improve your dialogue writing? Any books that Joanne and I should check out? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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Have you ever tried to make a list of things that aren’t there?

I know. It’s a weird question. I tried making that list – just now, as of this writing. You quickly realize that not only is that an impossibly infinite list, it makes you question what really is there.

The reason I got onto this skewed topic is that I have been watching a documentary on Joy Division, the 1970s punk/post-punk band that eventually became New Order. In places, the documentary features overlaid type – chyrons I think they’re called in the biz – with titles like “Things that aren’t there. No. 3 – The Factory”. I don’t know what those titles mean.* But the idea gripped me: Things that aren’t there. What a wonderful, paradoxical, whimsical turn of phrase!

I’ll diverge quickly to say that I’ve always been fascinated by the New Order/Joy Division story. I borrowed heavily from them and Factory Records while creating some promotional material for my heretoforever unpublished novel, which you can see on the record label in the banner of this post.

I like the lore and ethos of the band at least as much as I do their music.

For example, at one point they show a clip from a live concert, grainy and oversaturated with distorted sound. The lead singer Ian Curtis is chanting a single line, over and over again (I’m not sure if it’s his voice or the recording, but he sounds a lot like Jim Morrison in this clip): “So take a chance and say you tried. So take a chance and say you tried.”

Seems almost cliché, doesn’t it? Yet, somehow fresh at the same time. And wow – that kind of sums up my whole philosophy to writing.

Which is probably part of the reason why I wanted to try to make my own list of things that aren’t there: it’s a fun challenge. But I quickly got bogged down. In a way, it’s like trying to prove a negative. How can you say, for example, that aliens don’t exist? How can you say that upside down volcanoes don’t exist? How can you say that the colour rumple doesn’t exist? How do you prove that?

Besides, it’s a big universe – or a big multi-verse, if you’re an orthodox physicist. Maybe everything on this list of mine does exist, but I just haven’t seen them yet.

And then my mind took another curious turn. What if they exist simply because I imagined them? Mordor doesn’t exist – at least, not as a place you can fly on Air Canada for a two-week, all-inclusive vacation. But don’t tell JRR Tolkien’s millions (billions?) of readers that Mordor isn’t real. He’s written at least five books that prove otherwise. One is even sub-titled, “There and Back Again.” You can’t go “there” if there’s no “there” to start with!

What definitively exists and doesn’t exist in the world is for philosophers and psychiatrists to debate. But creating the list of things that aren’t there and making them seem real – that’s our job.

At the very least, we need to take a chance and say we tried.

Over to You

Do you feel that the worlds and characters and stories you create are real? Why or why not? What’s the difference between reading about someone we never met walking the Camino, a place we’ve never been, and a hobbit walking to Mordor with a magic ring? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

*I’ve since learned – and this may have been obvious to you – that the list of Things That Aren’t There are places they showed in the documentary that have since been demolished. Perhaps “Things That Aren’t There Anymore” would have been clearer. But then, it wouldn’t have sparked this post… lol

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Home comes in many forms.

For example, my keyboard died about a year ago. I didn’t realize exactly how big a deal that was until recently.

See, when I went to get a replacement, I found out that Microsoft had stopped making my beloved Sculpt – apparently got out of accessories altogether – a year or two before.

I want to be clear here how devastating this news was. The Microsoft Sculpt seemed to be designed just for me. I write with my feet up, keyboard on my lap. The lightweight Sculpt could be moved around easily, had a curved surface (as the name implies) that allowed my wrists to fall just so, and had the keys in perfect alignment so I can fly from “g” to “+” to “End” to “Backspace” without looking. Without thinking. My Sculpt keyboard was as close to a telepathic connection with my word processor as I ever want to curry. Plus, it fit nicely in my computer backpack, making it easy to travel with.

Then, it was gone.

There are many bad things going on in the world, and a discontinued keyboard is nothing compared to the size and scale of global events. I have the ability to put my outrageous fortune in perspective.

On the other hand, the right tool for the job makes all the difference. And in this case, my tool is my keyboard.

I had to find a replacement, and stat. I tried everywhere for a new Sculpt. No joy. I started looking in places like Reddit. Surely, other people must have the same love for the Sculpt as I did? Yes. Yes there are. So many in fact that it is mind-boggling that Microsoft would just up and leave the market.

It was on these message boards that I first heard about InCase, a company that had essentially bought the licence to manufacture Sculpt and other Microscoft accessories. Perfect!

But not so fast... By Christmas 2024, it had been almost a year since they put their first “Coming Soon” notification on their website. Their US website, I should add. On their Canadian website, the thing didn’t exist even in theory.

“Coming (Not to Canada) Soon”

I settled on a Logitech keyboard as a replacement. Any differences, I figured, would be soon be overcome with repetitive use. Humans are highly adaptable creatures.

…except, apparently, in this case. I never really got the hang of the Logitech. It’s bigger and bulkier. Worse, my fingers never seemed to find the right keys with any consistency. I’d hit an errant key somehow, and suddenly I’m looking at a blank desktop. Other times, my whole Word doc would shut down. It was unnerving and annoying.

It’s not a bad keyboard – it’s well made and mostly comfortable to type on. If you love yours, I’m happy for you! It also means you know what I’m saying about loving mine, and maybe what it was like to lose it.

But all that’s in the past now. My wonderful wife Noël got me an InCase Sculpt keyboard this Christmas. (Even now, another year later, they are hard to find, apparently!)

And oh, how my fingers now sing on my new Sculpt! It’s like typing on air. I’m churning out word after word without a second thought. Without interruptions to backspace, fix a word, or find my way back from some seedy corner of Windows 10. Without wandering stressed in a foreign land.

It feels just like coming home.

Key(board) Takeaway: The tools you use matter! I go out of my way to make sure I get the tools that work best for me, and it makes all the difference.

Over to You

Do you have any must-have tools for writing… or otherwise? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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I’ve talked about the Writing Craft Book Club in these pages before. Last Sunday, we discussed On Writing by Stephen King.

This is one of the first books on craft I ever read, and I’m on my fourth reading of it now. Mostly, I like what he says in these pages and, mostly, it holds up almost 30 years later. If I got more from it the first time I read it, it’s because King aims his advice at newer writers.

However, there are a few areas I disagree with King (his bestseller status notwithstanding), including on the subject of adverbs.

“Adverbs are not your friends,” he writes, and goes on to demonstrate exactly why. King refers to other adverb-hating writers like Hemingway and throws in a few examples that prove why adverbs suck.

I think this kind of absolutism is absolutely wrong.

Sure, adverbs can be weak. They are often used as desperate crutches. As King points out, if the writing before the adverb is strong enough, it will make the adverb redundant. Example:

“You don’t expect me to believe you!?!” Stephen said incredulously.

King would likely agree with me that the adverb “incredulously” is amateurish and overkill and should go.

But there are some real situations where adverbs are your friends:

• Merrily We Roll Along, the controversial Stephen Sondheim musical, wouldn’t be the same play as We Roll Along. In this case, the adverb adds context (being the title and all…) Plus, using the word “Merrily” adds colour and dimension, and brings the title to life.

• “Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes — a fresh, green breast of the new world.” From the last passages of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In both bolded places, the adverb adds to the image rather than detracts from it. We all know that “hardly any lights” is different than “some lights” or “a few lights”. The first phrase seems darker, and in this passage the darkness is the point, not the light.

• “To boldly go where no man/one has gone before.” Double whammy! Grammarians have hated – and gutted – this line from the beginning, and gutted it again decades later for its sexist overtones. There’s no way around it, though: this line would not be nearly as effective or memorable without the word “boldly” boldly splitting the infinitive. More proof that the only real rule of writing should be, does it work?

These are just a few of the many examples of how adverbs can perfectly clarify meaning and add nuances for the reader.

Maybe Hemingway could pull off a story entitled, We Roll Along. On the other hand, there is a fine line between sparse writing and opaqueness. Some readers – readers like me – believe that there are times he rolls recklessly along the wrong side of that line.

Key Takeaway: Adverbs are not inherently bad, so you don’t necessarily have to firebomb them from your writing. I prefer to take a moment to consider whether the passage is stronger or weaker with the adverb (or any word, for that matter), and edit accordingly.

Over to You

What’s your take on adverbs? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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It seems like every conversation I have with people about AI has to be prefaced with, “I’m not a Luddite, but...” Usually, that’s followed by a 17-point argument that would indicate to most sane people that I am, in fact, a Luddite.

I’m not going to waste precious words here discussing AI other than to say that I’ve understood for years how AI can be a useful tool, but I don’t trust the people behind the AI. That includes how they get their (my) data and how they use it.

What I want to talk about today is how my beloved em-dash seems to be collateral damage in the rise of AI. As you’ve likely heard by now, there’s quite the kerfuffle around the em-dash vis à vis AI.

Regardless, I find the em-dash to be one of the most useful tools in the English language.

For example, you can use it to make an aside – an extra dash of flavour – with minimal interruption to the main thought. You can use it to emphasize a point – without having to type shouty-shouty ALL-CAPS or waste eye-catching bolding. (I have better uses for bolding…) You can use the em-dash to join two related thoughts together – maybe a semi-colon would do just as well, but it’s not quite as conversational, is it? You can use it to indicate an afterthought – at least, that’s the theory.

Now here’s where it gets interesting*. I don’t use an em-dash at all. I actually use an en-dash (two joined hypens instead of three) – and I use it with spaces around it. This format just makes more sense to me, and never more so than in our Internet world. I recently learned – as in, the last week or so – that the en-dash with spaces is the standard in UK English (with some exceptions). The em-dash without spaces is the American style (with some exceptions).

As usual, the rules around the Canadian style are murky. However, the rule for times when there aren’t any definitive rules is to default to the UK rules. (Often, there aren’t any set-in-stone rules… One of my dream jobs is to get a contract with the Department of Canadian Heritage to create definitive Canadian grammar rules. Know anyone there?)

Where you could deduct points from me is that I generally spell “em-dash” and “en-dash” with a hyphen. This isn’t commonly the convention, but again, it makes sense to me. After all, how do you talk about em-dashes without, well, a dash?

What is really worrying to me though is that I’ve heard of writers explicitly being told by clients not to use an em-dash “because people will think the text is AI-generated”. I haven’t personally experienced this, but I figure it’s only a matter of time.

AI hasn’t affected my personal writing one iota, though. I won’t let it. To drop the em-dash – well, that would mean going against the very core of who I am as a writer – and maybe as a person.

Besides, I have to keep up my Luddite cred.

Key Takeaway: Em-dashes are extremely useful, and I’m not going to let AI taint them for me – or my writing.

Over to You

What are your thoughts on the em-dash? Have you slowed or stopped your own use of em-dashes because of AI? Let us know in the comments below!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

*Some would say em-dashes are inherently uninteresting. All I can say is, fair enough.

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First, some gratitude.

As many people do during this period between Christmas and New Year’s, I’ve been reflecting on the year that’s ending. It hasn’t been the easiest year inside and outsie of writing, for reasons. But this newsletter is definitely a high point, and one I want to build on in 2026. (More on that below…)

I’m hyper-aware that I didn’t get here alone. If you’re reading this, then you’ve helped make the newsletter the success it has been so far. Thank you!

There are a few of you who have helped behind the scenes too, who I’d like to thank in particular:

• Sam Plavins and Jodene Wylie, friends and writers who encouraged me from the moment I came up with the idea

• Donna White, Susan Rogers, Heather Dickson, and Jean E Pendziwol, more friends and writers who encouraged me from those early days before launch

• Vera Constantineau, another friend and writer who’s been my #1 Fan and Cheerleader

• Friend and writer Terry Fallis for his general support and encouragement, and for sending me so many subscribers from his substack, A Novel Journey

• Friend and writer Joanne Hudspith (we go waaaay back – further than Joanne would like me to say, I’m sure…), who helped me plan this next big step with some insightful questions for me, and who has been a big supporter of my work

• Regular commenters who have become friends like Tom Pendergast, Mark DeLong, Meg Oolders, M.E. Proctor, Beverley Bley, and Jenny (who I also know IRL)

• Marion Agnew and Mary Gastmeier, who are all of the above and my co-conspirators in the Writing Craft Book Club

• Berlin writer and entrepreneur Igor Ranc, who I’ve written with most Fridays via Zoom for almost four years now

• Kevin Alexander of On Repeat Records – we struck up a friendship over music, and he even accepted a guest post from me about The Tragically Hip’s first album

• Everyone who joined #GraNoWriMo as an extension of this newsletter

• All those people who have reached out privately via email, who I will publicly thank while keeping you privately anonymous

These people have helped and inspired me multiple times along the way. I couldn’t have done it without you!

(If I’ve missed you in this list, please accept my most humble apologies – me brain no workie like it used to…)

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When I launched this newsletter just over four years ago, I had a firm vision of what it should be in terms of tone, format, and content; what I wanted to accomplish; and who the target audience was. Although I’ve tweaked some things along the way, that original vision and format remained mostly intact.

…until now.

I said in previous newsletters that I was thinking of playing with the format, and most particularly shortening it. That was welcomed with positive feedback! So, I will officially launch the new format starting next Tuesday. That new format will be mostly recognizable, but with two distinct differences:

1. I’ll be publishing every Tuesday instead of bi-weekly.

2. It will be shorter. My goal is to keep the same irreverent tone but in half the word count. A “Fun Size” chocolate bar that’s all the original with fewer calories.

I have some other projects bubbling on the horizon as well, but I’ll let you know more about those when they are closer than half-baked ideas…

Until then, Happy 2026, and keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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I don’t really like The New Yorker, much as I want to.

Normally, the magazine’s firm stance on the diaeresis and the way they spell “traveller” and “fuelling” would be all it takes. To me though, The New Yorker is like this speciality ice cream store that’s exciting from the outside with turrets and glitter, but inside the menu lists flavours that I don’t care for like Banana or Tomato. Sure, there’s the occasional Elk Crossing that I eat up. “Moving On, A Love Story” by Nora Ephron leaps to mind. But other than those occasionals in traveller cones, it’s a lonely place for me. (And why shouldn’t it be? I’ve lived in New York City a total of about 100 hours in my life.)

On the other hand, I am a sucker for magazine documentaries. Docs about Rolling Stone and Cream were both great. As was the one on Playboy and Hugh Hefner, which was a multi-part series – though for the record, I only watched that one for the articles.

So when Netflix came out with its documentary by Judd Apatow about The New Yorker at 100 years old: sure, I turned it on when I stepped onto the treadmill.

This essay isn’t going to devolve into a review, other than to say that I thought it was well done and worth the watch. But it did spark an idea for me about the misconceptions of the slush pile.

At one point in the doc, the fiction editor explains how she gets 7,000 to 10,000 short fiction pieces per year. Over those 12 months, they publish 50. That’s 0.005% to 0.007% of submissions. There’s a similar segment about cartoon submissions that (ahem…) illustrates the process of the slush pile nicely. Tuesdays are cartoon review days, and the cartoon editor chooses 60 cartoons from the 1,000 to 1,500 she gets each week. Then, she and the Editor in Chief cut that down to 20. You can see them reading, laughing (or not), then putting it into one of three baskets: Yes, No, Maybe. It’s that simple.

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I think most of you have the moral of the story already. But let me underline a few things.

Writers can’t take this process personally. Magazine editors aren’t “gatekeepers” who are determined to let certain writers in and keep other writers out. Instead, they are curators, trying to find the best of the best for their readers. They also have personal biases – some like banana ice cream, but others don’t. Therefore, which desk your banana ice cream lands on counts.

We can probably safely assume as well that there are more than 0.005% of stories that are worthy of The New Yorker. However, there are other things at play, too. Known writers will get chosen over unknown writers; if I could read just one story in an issue, I’d pick the one by Nora Ephron. You have your favourites, too. Some stories submitted this month will be too similar to stories published last month. Some will be like French Vanilla: close seconds for almost everyone, but nobody’s first. (The lesson here for me: don’t write French Vanilla. Write Banana and hope it lands on the right desk.) Even if my story is in the top 1% of all stories submitted, it’s still a long shot that mine will be published in The New Yorker.

Thinking about it this way actually comforts me. Sure, I’d like my story to be in that 0.005%. But if it’s not, it’s nothing personal.

The only thing to do is say, “Thank you for reviewing!”, move on, and submit to another magazine. This philosophy holds true whether you’re writing fiction, non-fiction, or poetry, submitting to publishers, agents, or contests.

Oh, and have some ice cream.

~Graham

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Gerry may not have been the best NHL goaltender of all time. But even if you’ve never watched a hockey game in your life, you’ve probably heard his name.

Just like you’ve probably seen a picture of the most famous NHL goal at some point in your life. It’s in the banner above: Bobby Orr flying through the air after scoring the OT winner for the Boston Bruins in the 1970 Stanley Cup Final.

But even most hockey fans don’t know that Gerry played a huge part in that moment. Boston was up two goals against the St. Louis Blues, cruising to an easy win, until Gerry let in a couple of stinkers that tied up the game.

“If I don’t allow two of the worst goals in hockey history in that game, if I make two routine saves, there is no overtime,” Gerry said once (at least). “I kid Bobby about this all the time.”

The ability to “forget” the goals is one of the most important skills a goalie needs. Even their poorest moments can lead to greatness. Gerry – Gerry Cheevers – winning the 1970 Stanley Cup is proof.

I would argue that the goalie mindset can help writers, too.

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An Insight from #GraNoWriMo

#GraNoWriMo managed to spark the imagination of 19 participants before the end of the month. I take this to be a huge win.

However, we all seemed to be struck by two huge realizations at some point during the month. The message over and over again was that people were not meeting their targets. (“Targets” is the word I used during #GraNoWriMo instead of “goals” for these reasons.) The second was, we were all getting work done anyway. Reconciling these two ideas became one of the informal topics in The Hemingway Café message boards.

I’m not doing as much writing than I would of hoped, but I’m doing more than I would have otherwise, to paraphrase a common refrain.

I think there is an important message here for all writers, so I want to unpack it.

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Targets vs. Goals and the Writer’s Mindset

Writers get discouraged if they don’t meet their goals. Even I was off the pace by Day 4. I felt doubly discouraged with a nice, big cherry of embarrassment on top. Here I am, leading the charge, and I have to stop and say, “Um, I tripped…”

Turned out copping to this “failure” – this being human with a life outside of writing – wasn’t the letdown for everyone I thought it would be. Others struggled too with their targets, and maybe me speaking up about it reduced that stigma. Either way, I think we learned something. Targets can be arbitrary and can set up unrealistic expectations. At worst, feeling like we’re failing our goals can ultimately stop us from writing at all.

So let’s go back to my Day 4 and analyze what happened. My goal for November was to write 30,000 words in my current WIP. After “failing” my daily word count so early in the process, I could have said, “Screw it – I’m off the rails. I’ve ‘failed’. Maybe I’ll come back in December.”

Instead, I kept writing. I caught up in some places, and I fell behind on other days due to Life, the Universe, and Everything. I ended up with 25,245 words instead of 30,000.

The defeatist would say, well, you failed. What I say instead though is that I would have had 4,000-odd words for the month instead of 25,000+.

Mindset is everything. You can call it “tricking your brain”. You can call it “fudging the numbers”. You can call it whatever defeatist thing you like, if defeating yourself is your goal.

But if getting shit done is your goal, then you can call it, “Focusing on the now.” You can call it, “Putting the past behind you.” You can call it, “Still hanging on to win the Cup.”

You can call it a win.

Key Takeaway: Mindset is everything. If you’re not meeting your goals or targets, adjust them. Give yourself a break, and realize that you’re still writing. Above all, don’t let it stop you from getting words down. Writing is the only goal that counts.

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Over to You: How Do You Keep Writing?

Do you get tripped up with not meeting goals or targets? How do you keep writing? Anything you wish you could do better? Leave us some thoughts in the comments below!

I’ll leave you with Bobby Orr’s flying goal. Scroll down to see the video.

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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I mentioned to those who signed up to #GraNoWriMo in November that I’d be experimenting with a concept I called Extreme Zero Drafting. Now that I have some weeks under my belt, I want to talk about it a bit more.

Zero Draft in itself is not a concept I came up with. It’s been described in various names and forms by many writers over the years, including “Shitty First Draft” by Anne Lamott. I prefer the term “Zero Draft” – as in, the draft before Draft 1 – but I’m fully aware that’s a personal choice. You can read my (relatively popular) post about Zero Draft here.

However, I added my own little twist with Extreme Zero Drafting. If Zero Drafting means heads-down writing without worrying too much about things like plot and character and story development, then Extreme Zero Drafting is all that plus not even worrying if you’re writing anything related to the story. If you get stuck and can’t think of something story-related, you can just write down your grocery list or type out something you heard on the news or describe getting coffee this morning. Whatev.*

So although Zero Draft is a concept I’ve heard of, Extreme Zero Drafting isn’t – at least in the form I’m using. I’ve heard of writing laundry lists etc. as a way to avoid so-called Writer’s Block. But this technique I’m talking about is more about tapping into creativity rather than jump-starting it.

It’s a technique I never would have come up with if it wasn’t for one simple fact: I was regularly getting bogged down in my current novel.

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What Is Extreme Zero Drafting?

I’m not sure if I’ve listed all the issues I’ve had with my current WIP before, other than vague references. The story/plot has been elusive. Themes have been elusive. Voice has been elusive, and is still a work in progress. Some challenges are to be expected, of course. But I’ve been struggling with things I don’t normally struggle with. It’s made me question why I’m writing this novel, to be honest. The answer I keep coming back to is: because I want to. Besides, there is something there, buried and concreted. If I can successfully dig it out, if I can dust it off, and if I can polish it up, I might have something worthwhile. All big ifs. I’ll keep working at it until it’s no longer fun.

One of those ways I’m trying to dig, dust, and polish is by approaching the story obliquely. So, instead of coming at the story and its characters head-on, thinking about motivations and planning where the story will go, I’m just writing. It can look manically out of control, sometimes. Like a guy with a dog on a long leash. The pulls and changes in direction can seem random as I hold on, but I’m trusting that the dog knows the way.

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How Extreme Zero Drafting is Going So Far

I’ll say right out that my process hasn’t been as pure as I envisioned. For example, much of the writing I’ve done this month has been putting down scenes I had in my head already. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I envisioned exploring new territory with this new technique. That hasn’t happened so much yet.

I also had a “no research” rule guideline. My time working on the novel this month would be precious, and I didn’t want to succumb to rabbit holes. Again, research is not inherently bad. (Neither are rabbit holes for that matter.) But I really wanted to focus on just writing.

Unfortunately, with some of the scenes I was laying down, I needed background information. So, I was faced with a choice: write what I knew and go back to fix after research or do minimal research to find immediate answers and then write. I chose the latter for practical reasons. For example – an example that in no way reflects my book, for those who are searching for clues – what does Mars smell like? How could you smell Mars without taking off your helmet, in which case you’d be dead in seconds? I could write a whole scene based on the scents and smells of Mars, only to find out later that it’s a dead planet that smells like nothing.

I’ve also had problems maintaining a high level of creativity. Many nights I go down to write, only to be too numbed from the writing day or just plain too tired to be creative. This month, I’ve been writing anyway to get the words down and meet my 30,000-word target. This isn’t as futile as it sounds – in fact, I’ve come up with some new and workable ideas in my groggy (maybe semi-dreamlike?) state. But, yeah, “workable” is a key word here. Whole passages will need reworked sometime in the future!

None of this bothers me because I approached it as an experiment – there wasn’t any “winning” or “losing”. However on the other hand, there have been many positives. I’m producing words, which was the main goal – more words in a single month than I’ve done since February. I’m coming up with new ideas, as touched upon above. I’m enjoying the process. (Mostly – those groggy sessions have been a struggle, but I’m happy for them when they’re done.)

The more I write, the more I am solving those story/character/theme/whatev issues I struggle with.

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Final (Interim) Analysis

I don’t have Extreme Zero Drafting figured out. I may write a follow-up post if and when I nail it down completely. For example, I haven’t really gone back to read what I’ve written yet, except for a couple short, specific instances when I was trying to pick up the thread. I’ll have to dive back into these lumps of clay and see if anything useable came out of the experiment. But so far, I’m happy with my progress using this technique.

I should mention too that I’m finding this technique needs more practice than I would have expected, which is part of the reason why I don’t have it all figured out yet. It takes a combination of concentration and letting go. I think that person-and-dog metaphor is particularly apt. You need to be able to both hold on tightly and let go absolutely. That takes a certain knack that I’m still learning.

I’ll let you know what sights and smells my dog finds…

Key Takeaway: Extreme Zero Drafting shows promise as a writing technique to let the story and characters tell you where they’re going rather than vice-versa. Although more research and observation are needed, it’s showing promising results. It takes practice to do, which is somewhat surprising. I’ve learned that it’s like walking a dog on a long leash: you need to hold on tightly while letting go absolutely to the will of the dog.

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Over to You: How’s Your Writing Going?

Did you commit to a NaNoWriMo-type writing challenge? How’s it going? Have you tried Zero Drafting or something similar? Let us know in the comments!

In the meantime, I leave you with a video about regular zero draft writing. Scroll down to view below.

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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I can’t believe how well #GraNoWriMo is taking off!

I started with this vague idea of creating my own personal NaNoWriMo as a way to motivate myself after feelings of despair and get some serious work done on my novel. That quickly leapt to, Well, would anyone else be interested? Which, in turn, led to creating a daily email with quotes, inspiring views, and a few words from me every morning.

Oh, and The Hemingway Café. That sprung from a desire to create a community. I had toyed with the idea, but didn’t spend a whole lotta time thinking about it until Tom Pendergast mentioned he was looking forward to connecting with the #GraNoWriMo community.

After a little back and forth about what that might look like, and a bit of WordPress research, I realized I could fairly easily create an online message board for #GraNoWriMo participants to connect with each other (“The Morning Coffee”), trumpet their successes (that became “The Evening Nightcap”, thanks to Jodene Wylie), and create their own topics for questions and updates as they wished.

The Hemingway Café has taken a life of its own, and I couldn’t be happier.

It was in The Evening Nightcap room that one of the participants, Mark DeLong, mentioned not getting words down one day. Essentially, he was letting go of the guilt of it all.

“Should I even need one?”

I jumped on that question immediately. The fast answer: no.

Here’s why…

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Why You Don’t Need an Excuse for Not Writing

My views on excuses crystallized in that moment. Here’s what I realized:

• You don’t need to give an excuse to others when you don’t have to answer to them. Personal goals or targets are just that: personal.

• Excuses are simply explanations with varying degrees of guilt and shame attached.

• Those explanations sometimes get hyperbolized based directly on the level of guilt and shame. (“I was late because the bus in front of me was sooooo slow!”)

• The level of guilt and shame fluctuates based on how badly you perceive yourself as “messing up” AND how much you believe you owe that person an explanation. (I don’t have the exact math formula, but it would be something like x=mess²+boss³.)

• Excuses are mostly for our own benefit, either to assuage our feelings of guilt or divert responsibility in cases where your actions really did have an effect on other people.

  • If the former, remember that you don’t owe anybody anything in this case.

  • If the latter, own your shit, apologize, realize that nobody’s perfect, and move on.

I do not pretend to follow these practices to the letter. These are, in my mind, the ideals.

Mark’s comments struck me as the epitome of how every single writer wrestles with feelings of guilt at some point. Two nights before, I was rather sheepish when I admitted in The Evening Nightcap room that I’d had a zero day. Me. The guy who put this #GraNoWriMo thing together. And on Day 4, only! I certainly had feelings guilt because I saw myself as leading the way and being a shining example of perfection.

Ha!

I reminded myself that I had promised the group an email every day, but nothing about my own WIP production (as it should be). Not only that, I was quite clear that I was setting myself targets, not goals, like I talked about in this post. Committing to targets has to come with the realization that some days it just won’t work because your kid is in Emerge, work went late, the Jays are in the World Series, or you have a book launch to go to.

Key Takeaway: If you miss a day for any reason, let go of the guilt. And let go of the excuses! Writing is hard, full stop. Excuses don’t bring you anything but feelings of inadequacy. Besides, you don’t owe anyone anything. Creativity includes the freedom to write when you’re ready and to put down your pen when something else is more pressing. Revel in that freedom!

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Over to You: How Does Not-Writing Make You Feel?

Do you feel guilty, lazy, shamed, all of the above? What do you do to let it go? Let us know in the comments below! The more we talk about it, the less we’ll feel the shame, methinks.

I couldn’t find a video dealing with the guilt of not writing. At least, I couldn’t find a video I whole-heartedly agreed with. So instead, I give you a very short video on the waterfalls of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic. Scroll down for some breath-taking views!

Until next time, keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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