Categoría: How to write fiction

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction trying not to go blind or at least try in 7 basic advices

If you read What’s a writer’s lifestyle?, you must have already thought that from now on as a writer you have a lifestyle that includes: screens, blank paper, researching books —some in san serif typographies that overkill legibility in condensed light gray; staring into muskrats’ lives until the muse whispers or staring into all the undone laundry.

So, even if you design, draw or write only for yourself for as while the lunch runs and the rest of the day you work in an office; I believe your sight’s in danger. It’s been a time since PC’s[1] and laptops have left way to tablets or smartphones, bringing smaller and smaller typographies or just a non smartphone amicable page in reduced view. Which instead of making us buy special spectacles or a filter[2], endangers us by the constant and uninterrupted use of the thingy (I never let go of my purple baby…oopsie).

So lucky there are a few actions one can do to avoid further trouble:

  1. Buy  eye drops: dry eyes are prone to itch and…you’ll end rubbing them. After touching the surface of your smartphone. Dirtier than the toilet’s lid. You better use the drops and keep your mesmerising eyes well lubricated. And if you’re to wear contacts —as me, since the magnifiying glasses are too heavy to carry around; you should ask the ophthalmologist. Just in case the commercial ones would ruin your contacts’ investment.
  2. Do your eye gymnastics: yep, that does exist. From taking the pen/pencil you’re working with and get it closer and further to your face as you change the focal point of your sight to go and peep on the neighbours[3]…No. Not that one. Erm…to look at the horizon.  YourTelly doesn’t have it all but there are videos you can watch and follow three times a week. There’s a book called  “Aprende mejor con gimnasia cerebral” by Luz María Ibarra[4]  where you can find the exercise of zigzagging your pupils about four times to relax. This video is all about how to look after your eyes and it includes some exercises to relax constrain. If you don’t like this one, there are others using yoga.  
  3. If you haven’t slept the last few nights (and I know you shouldn’t be but are doing equally as I do…we do from time to time), chamomile tea bags. Or any other kind on your eye lids. Tepid, warm or cold, your choice. Cucumber slices will give you a spa look if you feel like mentally traveling…
  4. Fix the height of your chair and screen. Upper or downer, if the screen is not on your sight line, you’ll crane your neck and that is going to give you a massive neck-shoulder soreness you’re going to wish to get a massage. The massage is not a bad idea…help yourself to have one that you want and not one that you need. Plus if the floor is about a few centimetres out toe’s reach…your feet will numb. And I know since most of the chairs remind me of my proud Chanel number 5 small bottle size. I guess tall people have the opposite problem of hunching when the chair is uncomfortable. Thankfully, cushions and books, specially dictionaries are handy. At least that way you will get up to reach the dictionary from under your behind.  
  5. Adjust the size page or zoom in your text editor. To force yourself to see what you really don’t, makes your eyesight worse. If you write in an analog way, make your calligraphy bigger. To study Korean I’ve had to adjust the size of my handwriting since the alphabet is prone to be merged as blocks and I need to guess what side the vowel stroke is. Even worse, the “lovable” ones, tend to make things in the smallest fount size possible. 아이고!
  6. Stop staring at your screen. Look somewhere else from time to time…like right now.
  7. Are you facing eye troubles? Run to the Ophtalmologist. Glaucoma and macular degeneration are irreversible tough they can be stopped a bit. The drops are…expensive to say so. Infections or any other eye trouble related to diabetes must be under periodical control to minimize and keep on bay damages. Nonetheless, any problems as blurry double vision can be a symptom of something bigger. Going to the ophthalmologist will eliminate astigmatism or tired sight before the general physician.

In addition, if you’re a magna myope (more than 6 diopters) you are a strong candidate for: retinal tearing, cataracts, glaucoma and/or macular degeneration starting from 35 years old (depending on the diopters you need to correct). Thus, it is better to get yourself checked. The substitution of the eye lens to correct shortsightness with an IOL (Intra Ocular Lense) to reduce it, is not a good option before you become 50 since it will reduce your eye muscles’ use, causing sight tiredness before you come to know of it.

Your body, dear writer/engineer/designer colleague, is the only tool you can’t replace…yet. And if it is already possible there’s no way to afford it. Take care of your eyes.

[1] Does anybody out reading this nonsense know what a PC is?

[2] Now the trend is to sells us a blue light filter over the plastics of the spectacles, I wonder if in a future we will buy filters anti smartphone.

[3] My neighbours, the ones living around, happen to be lizards and birds living in the apartment complexes of the Evergreen oak and Cypress ones.

[4] Is there an English version? Not of this book and there’s a page about Brain gym…but I haven’t read any of the books recommended there thus, I can’t recommend any other.

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How to write fiction

How to write fiction living a writer’s life or what’s a writer’s lifestyle?

Escribir como estilo de vida

So you’ve decided to do it tough you have no idea how, where or when to start. Perhaps you have already started a manuscript or a first sketch (comic wise) and yet…it has never come around that writing is a lifestyle.

Eh? What the heck do lifestyles have to do with writing? Mr. Chuck Wendig says writing isn’t a lifestyle .. Aren’t there writers who used to think it’s all right to drink booze to inspire oneselves and those resigned to be a little…chubby cause you’ll be cooped up behind a desk all day?

Yep…but even that decision to torture yourself by staying immobile moving your hands only is a lifestyle. Why? Cause you’ll be deciding to do this or that and will be getting used to it. It means your rear on a chair. You see, there’s this author (Cathy Birch) who starts her book  “The Creative Writer’s Workbook” with chapter one dealing on how important it is to have a lifestyle that helps to the act of writing.

Personally speaking I agree it is uberly important to keep fit the main tool we use for writing: our bodies. Whatever the problem you have, either wearing spectacles as thick as a telescope (mine can be used to peek at future), walk on wheels, not to move at all; a body is a very much needed container and weapon. Even if all you do is an indoor desk job not writing related.

Then, as to illustrate the argument, I’m to quote a little (in the original to Spanish translation blog entry I quote but here I’m going to ad lib). Writing is a physical deal…Yep, it is. Unless we live in the matrix, it is your body which sustains the damage of not being kind to yourself.

So what’s a lifestyle to begin with? According to the Oxford online dictionary it is: someone’s way of living; the things that a person or particular group of people usually do.

  • He doesn’t have a very healthy lifestyle.
  • She needs a pretty high income to support her lifestyle.
  • An alternative lifestyle.

Thus…deciding to write is a lifestyle after all. No matter how much your life is different to this or that routine, whatever you do to live is a lifestyle… Then here is the advices:

  1. Keep your brain on edge. I mean, keep it active by changing activities and from time to time do something to challenge it. AND SLEEP for your brain sake.
  2. Eat as well and as regularly as possible. I know writing can take away space time sensitivity but…. listen to your stomach grumbling!
  3. Your eyes should be looked after as much as possible. Even if you’re blind, eyes can become infection gates if you don’t take care of yourself. Have them checked, use your refreshing tears and have them rest.
  4. Exercise. It’s proven that exercising can boost your attention and productivity. Get up from the chair from time to time! Do your pre writing warm up, do your in between get up and stroll.
  5. Find the time. Use the potty breaks if you have to but find the time to write. Start. Just write. Draw a schedule for yourself and stick to it as if you’re drowning. Nothing hurts more your writing than stop writing.

Is this incompatible with your actual lifestyle? Do you want to torture yourself?! I mean, stop moving at this moment anything but your fingers for about two hours……..be welcomed to maso land. It’s torture to do so. No matter what you decide, you’re about to get yourself a writer’s lifestyle since you’re to write.

Be kind to yourself.

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How to write fiction

Bob esponja mola

¿Estás pensando en abandonar esta entrada? Antes de hacerlo déjame poner dos de mis cartas sobre la mesa:
Bob esponja no me gusta
La explicación de las causas que llevan a un resultado no significa que estamos de acuerdo con el resultado. Ni que el resultado tenga por fuerza que ser así.

Digamos que un día cualquiera compras una película del botadero en el super. Llegas a casa y empiezas a verla. La trama…se trata de mujeres en atuendos ajustados* luchando contra un archi-villano que pretende convertir a un bebé en el emperador inmortal que actuará como su marioneta y reinará sobre los seres humanos. Como no sabe que bebé es el bueno, secuestra a un montón de niños; al fin y al cabo puede convertir a los bebés sobrantes en sus secuaces. Hay además un científico trabajando en una capa invisible y un detective eficaz contra los malos del montón pero inefectivo contra los super villanos.
No suena muy diferente de un film americano de super héroes ¿O si?
¿Y qué tienen que ver los super héroes con Bob Esponja? Un mucho y nada como verás  a continuación.
La película realmente no era muy atractiva en realidad. Es una película de culto, es china una parte de los diálogos estaba sin traducir y el presupuesto la hizo parecer un episodio de Batman y Robin con ropa y lugares a lo futurista sólo faltaban los pow y los pam en sendas viñetas para serlo de verdad.
Ante las caras un tanto insatisfechas de mi familia, se me ocurrió la pregunta:
¿Qué hace de esta película distinta (en cuanto a la trama)  de Superman o Batman? Que hace que Batman o Superman no nos parezca tan ridículo**. A lo que recibí una respuesta inesperada. Mi mamá me contestó:
¿Te acuerdas del día que nos subimos al camión y había dos jóvenes hablando de Bob Esponja? ¿Cómo hablaban?
Recordé. Los dos estudiantes de CBTyS (bachillerato tecnológico), eran verdaderos forofos de Bob Esponja; se habían aprendido los capítulos como si de oro líquido se tratara. Comentaban con una fruición los capítulos, que casi se antojaba ver la caricatura. Apuesto a que se sabían mejor sus escenas favoritas que la tabla periódica, la cronología de las  conquista española o la carta de los derechos del niño. O las tres cosas juntas.
Es decir, hay a quién le gusta Bob Esponja. Y a quién le gusta el Quijote. Y a quienes les gusta el béisbol. Y…el fútbol. Y…muchas otras cosas que no nos gustan***.
Lo extraordinario no es que a otros les guste algo que no nos gusta a nosotros. Lo extraordinario es encontrar cuando compartimos algo que nos gusta y disfrutar aquello que compartimos; sin menospreciar lo que no como ridículo, estúpido o inútil.
Por lo tanto, Bob Esponja mola. Siempre y cuando no me obligues a verlo.

*Heroínas. Por si se les antoja ver a Maggie Cheung, Anita Mui y Michelle Yeoh.
**Claro que la manufactura la pone a años luz de estos filmes y no parecía del todo bien contada. Aunque no hay modo de saberlo porque según mi profesor de cine en la universidad, los japoneses tienen películas con veinte minutos de inmovilidad total (¿quién puede ver eso?). A saber que consideran los chinos como bien contado porque no conozco a ningún chino que me diga y dudo poder leer algún tratado sobre escritura de ficción que esté escrito en chino.
***A mi no es que no me guste el fútbol, lo que no me gusta es que sea pretexto para comportarse como multitud. Del mismo modo que los conciertos de rock, o cualquier evento masivo. De hecho, no me gusta ver deportes, ni en la tele ni en vivo. Me gusta más participar, a pesar de mis grandes habilidades atléticas que consisten en tropezar con el balón o temer todo objeto que caiga del cielo.