Freebie 7 – Teach Yourself Creative Writing

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The Kindle version of Teach Yourself Creative Writing is free for one day only, and that’s tomorrow, Thursday, June 20.

Teach Yourself Creative Writing

Can you learn creative writing?

I don’t believe that creativity can be taught. Either you’re born with it or you’re not.

That’s gotta make you wonder why I taught Creative Writing to literally thousands of students, mostly in classrooms, or why Creative Writing classes exist at all.

It’s because the craft of writing can be studied and learned. If you have that innate creativity, that’s wonderful. But you’ve got to bring that out. Creation remains “mystical” but craft is learned and honed by many hours of hard work.

If you have something that you need to express, and the act of expressing it is agony, that’s just not right. We want the act of self-expression to become as easy and as natural as possible.

How do we do that?

Practice. That’s the only way. Write constantly. Write thousands of words for years and years knowing it’s okay if most of them suck. Mine sure did.

To distill what you think, feel and believe from all the trash floating around in your head, and then to actually put that on paper the way you mean to put it, is a skill that only comes from years of practice. They don’t teach it in any school I’ve ever been to. I struggled at this for 20 years or so after I graduated from college. That’s how I learned to write. Not in a classroom.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve got a project going, or a dozen, or nothing at all. These are the skills that you will use the first time you face the blank page, or the hundredth.

You’re a reading junkie, aren’t you? I think you have to be. If you want to write, you must read. If you don’t love reading, you can’t create something that others will love reading. If you don’t love reading, then writing isn’t for you. It’s not about writing because you want to say, “I am a writer.” It’s about writing because you love writing. And reading.

In your lifetime of reading, you’ve been unconsciously internalizing the rules of great writing. That’s what you want. To internalize.

First we study rulebooks, perhaps take some classes, and conclude just about everything we’re is doing is wrong. So many rules to memorize. We might dread sitting down to write with all those constraints.

But really, it’s not about memorizing rules at all. It’s about internalizing the rules, following them (or not if you prefer) without being consciously aware of what they are. They’re there, but in the background.

Your story is what matters. You’re supposed to be having fun, not “working.” At least not during the creation phase.

Study rules, learn rules, memorize rules… there’s one more step. Internalize rules.

Well, actually, there’s another step after that. Break rules. But do it deliberately, not out of ignorance.

In the process of all this work, you’ll find your own unique writing voice. Without that, there’s no point in writing at all.

Teach Yourself Creative Writing

Criminal Law and Realistic Expectations

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Let us be practical in our expectations of the Criminal Law…. [For] we have merely to imagine, by some trick of time travel, meeting our earliest hominid ancestor, Adam, a proto-man, short of stature, luxuriantly furred, newly bipedal, foraging about on the African savannah three million or so years ago. Now, let us agree that we may pronounce whatever laws we like for this clever little creature, still it would be unwise to pet him.

REYNARD THOMPSON
A General Theory of Human Violence
1921

How I Wrote An Allegorical Book About Successful Goal Setting in Business and in Life

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Years ago, I was approached by an author who I greatly admire and who writes a bit like I do. We were going to cook up some ideas for a novel together and then write it. He had some, I had some, and the emails were a whole lot of fun. I was quite excited, as I’d gone years without writing a novel. I hope he had as much fun as I did, because some results of our brainstorming can be seen in CONUNDRUM and ENIGMA. But, I decided that I’m probably not meant to co-author anything with anybody. We still remain great friends, which we’ve been since the 1980s.

Later, another author who I greatly admire and who writes a bit like I do approached me about co-authoring a novel. He’d written over half, which he sent me for my input. That sounds like a dream job, but my input was that, oh crap, I just wasn’t meant to co-author with anybody. He replaced me and they created yet another best seller. Meanwhile my dry spell as a novelist went on. Good thing I was writing non-fiction at the time.

Finally, I wrote some novels that I happen to love. CONUNDRUM, ENIGMA, and SANDLOT. If I threw out everything before those three and stopped now, I’d still be proud and die a happy man. If you haven’t read them yet, I forgive you.

Last month, I was approached by a businessman whose works I’ve edited over the years. The man has a real knack for giving me projects that are way outside what MichaelEdits.com claims I can do and helping me expand my skill set as a result. He wanted to co-author a business book with me. That is so far outside my expertise that…

Well hell, I wouldn’t be writing this blog post if we didn’t pull it off. We’re still working on the title, subtitle, conclusion, and additional resources.

I don’t know what the fate of this book will be, but I am damn proud of it. It’s an allegory with business advice and in fact life advice. It reminds me of Plato but with a much lower word count. It’s also the only business book in the history of business books to mention Devo.

Meanwhile, I do have that half-done novel to finish. I only started it three years ago.

Oh, if you’d like to see the novel that I co-authored with Gerd Balke about 12 years ago, which in this case means editing it and finding a publisher after he wrote it and then died, SKULL DANCE is right here.

The Chicken or The Egg?

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Von Miller, linebacker for the Denver Broncos in the NFL, owns a business raising chickens. A reporter asked him which came first, the chicken or the egg. His answer:

For me, I think it’d have to be the chicken. You need something to protect the eggs. You just can’t have eggs there. I’m sure there are a lot of theories out there of where stuff comes from. For me, I think it was some form of a chicken or something that had to lay the egg first. It just depends upon how you look at it. Is the glass half full or half empty? For me, it just makes sense for a chicken to come first.

Editors Talking Trash

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wrongoninternetYou don’t know the difference between circumscribed and circumcised.

You don’t know the difference between anxious and eager.

You don’t know the difference between distinguished and extinguished.

You don’t know the difference between a repository and a suppository.

You don’t know the difference between lightning and lightening.

You don’t know the difference between public health and pubic health.

You don’t know the difference between averse and adverse.

You don’t know the difference between than and then.

You don’t know the difference between flout and flaunt.

You don’t know the difference between a podium and a lectern.

Inscribed at the library of the San Pedro monastery in Barcelona

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For him that steals, or borrows and returns not, this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain crying aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease to his agony till he sing in dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw at his entrails in token of the Worm that dieth not. And when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of Hell consume him forever.

Freebie of the Fortnight 6 – Sandlot

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I finally got myself a Kindle and became totally hooked in a matter of minutes. So for this week only you can pop over to the Kindle store on Amazon and grab your free copy of:

Sandlot

This book is free from Monday June 3 through Friday June 7.

I became an orphan on my 48th birthday. That’s why I returned to North Carolina after 12 years in China. If I didn’t have to help settle Daddy’s estate, I might never have returned at all.

===========

I snapped the ball to myself and dropped back as all hell broke loose.

Holy shit.

So many bodies coming at me. Big bodies. It seemed like the whole team. I couldn’t see shit.

I didn’t look at them. Just like crossing the street in China. I looked down the field. The pine, the blocking sled, my guys, the other guys. I got a glimpse of Rotten Roscoe and I flung the damn ball for all it was worth.

Suddenly I was buried in big stinky foreigners – um, fellow Americans of passion and enthusiasm. First I noticed there was no air in my body, then the dizziness, and then the pain. Then the noise. Then my brain latched onto the fact that I was on the ground. My back hurt like hell. My ribs managed to complain a bit too.

The large hairy-faced young man atop me wasn’t a teammate.

“You again,” I moaned.

He grinned. “Welcome home.”

“Ohh,” I groaned. “I haven’t been tackled in…”

“Years? Didja forget we play tackle?”

“Oh God, I think I did. Oh.”

“I’m Tater.”

“Nice to meet you.”

Then I noticed the happy whooping screaming. That was Rotten Roscoe and Gilroy celebrating a touchdown. Mostly Roscoe.

“What’d you do?” I asked Tater. “Send your whole damn team after me?”

“Pretty much. We didn’t think you could throw that fast.”

Rotten Roscoe and Gilroy reached me as I got to my feet, with two defenders following at a walk.

I noticed I was the oldest guy out here. And the smallest. Being old felt normal, but being small didn’t.

“I can’t play anymore,” I warned Rotten Roscoe before he could try some kind of macho chest-bump celebration that would’ve knocked me on my ass. My hand was on my lower back, old injury, although really the pain was very much in my ass. I hobbled my aching ass off toward Daddy’s… toward my barn.

“Hey,” Rotten Roscoe yelled at my ass. “We play again next Saturday.”

===========

I was looking at something or other on the shelves of the local Food Lion, stunned at how few people there are in American supermarkets, even more stunned at American prices, when a lady suddenly yelled, “Ass wipers?!”

I wasn’t the only customer to stare at her.

“Oh.” She laughed nervously. “Oh, um, I didn’t know my son wrote that on the shopping list.”

It’s good to be home.

===========

“I was reading about that hand transplant,” said Rotten Roscoe. “Did you hear about that?”

“Yeah, I did,” said Stephen.

“If that was you, and you had somebody else’s hand, could you jack off with it?”

===========

“Who’s your favorite quarterback?” Roscoe asked.

“Jim Kelly,” I replied. “Smart, accurate, strong arm, mobile, tough as hell, and he always knew where his helmet was.”

===========

“What’s the difference between a mosquito and a slut?” said Marcel. “When you slap the mosquito it stops sucking.”

“Comedy is not pretty,” said Cash.

I could only shake my head. I laughed at shit like that but I didn’t have the balls to say it or even Tweet it.

“I told my landlady I had a leak in the sink and she said go right ahead.”

Note to self. Tweet that one.

===========

“That your car?” he asked, eying the rusty white little 4-door.

“I know, it’s probably older than you, but at least it runs.”

“I think it just walks.”

===========

I looked at the new guy. Were all my teammates burly? It seemed like it to me, but maybe it was just that reverse culture shock thing. This burly man, however, was also quite menacing.

“Betsy,” he said, offering his hand.

“What?”

“My name. Betsy.”

I shook the hand. Beefy. “Nice to meet you…um… Betsy.”

“Like Betsy Ross. My name’s Ross Crosby. Everybody just calls me Betsy.”

“Okay.”

“I useta play fullback at UNC.”

UNC as in University of North Carolina? Damn.

“What happened?”

“Got kicked out. Broke a guy’s neck. It was a accident.”

“Oh. I’m glad you’re on my team.”

“So was he.”

===========

“Call me Carlos. Oh, is McDonald’s okay with you?”

“Sure.”

“I like their Filet-o-Fish. It doesn’t taste like fish at all.”

I couldn’t see his expression well enough to know whether or not he was joking.

===========

“So I asked her, ‘What time do you get off?’ She said, ‘Seven o’clock.’ So I said, ‘Can I watch?’”

===========

Number one, it is always a fumble. The ground can cause a fumble. If you don’t like it, hang on to the damn ball.

Number two, there is no such thing as forward progress. The ball is down where you land. If you don’t like it, don’t get knocked backward.

Number three, there is no such thing as pass interference. If you don’t like a defender hitting you, hit him back.

Number four, there is no such thing as roughing the passer. He’s a football player, dammit, and he can hit back.

===========

“I told the girl, I don’t want your virginity, I just want the box it came in.”

===========

I sighed. “You – dammit you don’t even have a scratch on you.”

“Some guys don’t fight so well when they’re naked.”

===========

“God said don’t read my blog. Adam said where is it? God said I AM dot com but don’t read it. But Adam and Eve read it, so he kicked them out of Eden where the Wi-Fi was.”

“What’s that got to do with football?” Marcel asked.

“Not a damn thing. Let’s go out there and kick some ass.”

I grabbed my helmet amidst all the macho boo-ya shouting and we stormed the field.

“Kirk,” said Kent as we ran, “did Adam and Eve get to keep the Apple?”

===========

Betsy turned and aimed low, clipping Barney’s knees from behind, at the same moment that I charged at a spot slightly to Barney’s left and threw out my left arm in a stiff clothesline.

At the moment that I stopped the forward progress of Barney’s head and shoulders, Betsy send his legs flying forward. Barney flipped until he was parallel to the ground, then landed hard on his back.

That, in case you wondered, is the Hucklebuck. It’s dangerous, immoral, and quite illegal. Some backyard childhood shit.

===========

I nodded. “Is this your first cast?”

“Yeah. You ever break any bones?”

“None of my own.”

===========

“Do you know what Deng Xiaoping said about this?” I asked.

“No,” said Stephen, “I do not know what Deng Xiaoping said about this.”

“It doesn’t matter whether it is a white man or a black man. If it catches footballs, it is a good man.”

“Deng Xiaoping never said that.”

“Well, he would have if he’d played football.”

===========

“Okay,” I decided, “I can do a speech. Some of y’all have heard me talk about vipassana. You know, mindfulness.”

I had to stop for a few groans.

“Vipassana. Mindfulness. Focusing on nothing but right here, right now, no future, no past, just now, like Cesar Milan’s dogs, living in the now. When we take the field against a bunch of cops and make them our bitches, think vipassana football. Feel every hit. Smell every stink. Focus all your attention on right here, right now. This is football, man. It’s life, it’s football, it’s the most fun you’re ever going to have.”

“What about fucking?” Tater asked.

“It doesn’t last 60 minutes. Football, gentlemen, is what it’s all about. Feel it!”

===========

This book is free from Monday June 3 through Friday June 7.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008GM2F2A

Top Ten Travel Tales

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  1. Have Clipboard, Will Travel
  2. They Call Me Mr. Dits
  3. Let’s Talk About Michael’s Hair
  4. Michael Goes on Walkabout
  5. Enhancing Government Leaders’ Critical Thinking Skills
  6. Being A Superhero Again
  7. My Big Italian Family
  8. Dude, You’re Wearing Some Classy Underwear
  9. Remembering Our Year In Hanoi
  10. Who Moved My Rice?

How Did You Find Me?

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What kind of searches lead to this blog? These make me think that some search engines need a tune-up and an oil change:

How much does Scribendi pay editors?
Not enough. Also, abuse from an employer who writes “without further adieu” is unnecessary. That’s what customers are for.

How to piss a girl off with body language
Sometimes breathing is enough.

How to satisfy my blackman in bed hes 29 years old?
Bring a friend? Why the hell are you asking me this?

The Sandlot Chronicles of a Lost Soul
It’s obvious why that led here, but not why someone searched for it. I’m just bragging because I love that phrase.

cow horses they stealing our jobs cartoon
I hate when that happens.

Write to the editor dog poop
That’s what I always write to the editor.

Why is my cat cleaning my beard?
Always a valid question, but you won’t get a good answer from a human. Here’s a video.

Here’s Why That Dog Bit That Child

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A child looks at a dog. The child stares at the dog, with sustained and direct eye contact. This, to the dog, is a challenge.

The child bares its fangs. Challenge.

The child raises its arm wide and high, and looks big. Challenge.

Fingers are spread, looking like fangs. Challenge.

The child screams with glee. Challenge.

The child charges at the dog. Attack.

The marvel isn’t that dogs bite children, but rather that more dogs don’t bite children. Dogs are saints. Educate your children.

I recite that from memory, by the way, and editorialize heavily. The original narrative is somewhere in the middle of LEARN TO SPEAK DOG by Stanley Coren.

I think I’ve got dog language down pat.

When he explained how humans communicate with facial expressions, it was all news to me. When he gave the easy quiz on human body language, I bombed horribly.

Perhaps I’m actually a dog who’s trapped in a human body, but you’ll have to ask my cat about that.

Reedy Creek Park and Nature Preserve — May 28 update — Charlotte, North Carolina

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MAY 28 UPDATE is the picture below. This is a black rat snake. The white belly is a clue.

snake

And now we return to the original May 8 broadcast.

Eleven of us walked from the Nature Center at a steady clip, up some steep muddy paths, around Kingfisher Pond but not to nearby Dragonfly Pond. One intense hour later, ten went to yoga class and I went home. But since I had my camera with me, here are some photos. Clicking on any photo will enlarge it.

Kingfisher Pond (3)

Kingfisher Pond (2)

Kingfisher Pond (1)

Let’s pause here. These guys briefly trotted up behind us. The boy is 140 pounds but the girl is only 100 pounds. Not the best photo, but the dogs were incredibly friendly.

Dogs

Let’s wrap it up with a bridge, and tree with a splitting bark.

Bridge

Tree

Michael LaRocca’s Advice To Authors

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cat at computerNo, I’m not going to tell you to run away from your keyboard screaming and find a real job. Or your pants. Nope, I’m just linking to some of my greatest hits, numbered lists excluded. What makes this advice so great is that I stole all of it.

First, before you submit anything to an editor, publisher, or agent, read The First Five Pages: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile by Noah Lukeman. I’m keeping him on the black menu bar at the top of every page of my blog, including this one. See it?

And now for the others:

Slush Pile Hell

Mark Twain Explains Proofreading

Vipassana and Writing

Slush Pile Hell 2

From The Mailbag

Don’t Write Shit

Beware of authors. They’re all spammers.

Why I Didn’t Blog Today

Why you should never marry an editor

I Could Revolutionize Literature

I Write Fluffy

You Need To Care About It

Vigorous Writing by William Strunk Jr.

The Problem With Asking Me Questions Is That I Answer Them

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Q: How long does it take to write a book?
A: That depends on how good you make it.

Q: What’s the hardest thing about catching an editor’s eye?
A: Getting someone to throw it to you.

Q: How can I stop people from stealing my ideas?
A: Don’t worry, nobody wants them. Ideas are the easy part. You can do that in a day. Writing takes months. Maybe years. There are no new ideas.

Q: Where do you get your ideas from?
A: I steal them. Got a book for me to edit?

Q: Why don’t women blink during foreplay?
A: They don’t have time.

Q: Did your mother have any children that lived?
A: Nope. Did yours?

Q: Why don’t senators use bookmarks?
A: They just bend over the page.

Q: Why don’t Buddhists vacuum in the corners?
A: They don’t have any attachments.

Q: How much do you have to pay to get published?
A: Time for me to stop joking. Please, please, please don’t pay to get published. Readers pay publishers and publishers pay authors. Don’t believe anyone who tells you different.

Q: What’s the worst part about seeing five lawyers in Cadillac go over a cliff?
A: A Cadillac seats six.

Q: Why can’t a pony sing?
A: Because it’s a little horse.

Q: What do you call an author without a girlfriend?
A: Homeless.

Q: Why did the cowboy get a dachshund?
A: Because he wanted to get a long little doggie.

Q: Why does Mike Tyson cry during sex?
A: Mace will do that to you.

Q: How many years do you have to write before you can quit your day job?
A: 42.

Q: Who’s your agent?
A: Huh?

Q: Who’s your publicist?
A: Huh?

Q: Who’s your editor?
A: Huh?

Q: What’s the difference between an editor and God?
A: God doesn’t think he’s an editor.

Q: What’s the difference between a golf ball and a woman’s G spot?
A: A man will spend 10 minutes looking for a golf ball.

Q: What does a Ziploc bag have in common with a walrus?
A: They’re both looking for a tight seal.

Q: What’s does it mean when they fly the U.S. flag at half mast at the post office?
A: They’re hiring.

Q: What’s the difference between a PhD in English and a large pizza?
A: The pizza can feed a family of four.

Q: Why did you start writing?
A: Why not?

Q: Where can I learn more about your writing?
A: http://www.michaelwrites.com/?page_id=463 but you’ll hate yourself in the morning.

Dog Blog

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Duncan (2)His name is Duncan. He was my first, back in August. He broke his leash, he broke my cherry, he stole my heart. He leaped into the air whenever I arrived, over and over again, so that his head was roughly the same height as mine. I tried to imitate Cesar Milan, and maybe Duncan tried to rip out my shoulder, but we had lots of fun. He’s five years old, and I told his owner, “Duncan is in his prime and I’m way past mine.”

DuncanThe sight of us terrified all of Duncan’s neighbors. You can see from the photos just how alpha this 90-pound muscleman is, and perhaps his owner wasn’t always in control.

I had no idea that shit was so hot when it was fresh out of a dog’s ass.

The important thing is that I bring home lots of scents to stimulate the sharpest mind in the house, which belongs to Picasso.

Free Reports and I don’t care who you are

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Once upon a time, I was giving away so many free reports in so many different places that I confused myself. I decided it might be a good idea to put everything in one place where you can easily ignore it, and here’s what I found:

  1. I Want To Publish My Novel distills about 30 years of failure into five little pages.
  2. Make Money Editing From Home distills about 13 years into a free page right here on this very blog. Free. It’s also selling a book, but you might want to ignore that as being out of date. The key point here is thirteen years. If you want to get rich quick, you’re in the wrong place.
  3. If you look at the black menu bar at the top of this page, you’ll see my favorite articles of the many I’ve written over the years.

If that’s still not enough, get thee to a library.

The “I don’t care who you are” part of this title means I don’t ask for your email address or harvest any of your information if you read my freebies. I’m too lazy.

Wanna see where I wrote all that stuff? Here’s my office:

Office

Ruth G. Shaw Trail in Charlotte NC

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I took a walk this afternoon, and saw that yesterday’s thunderstorms woke up a few friends. The photos are a bit blurry because I used my phone instead of my camera. I saw the tortoise first, the fuzzy caterpillar a minute later, and the snake a minute after that. Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Free Samples of Michael LaRocca’s Writing

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If you’ve never looked at the menus to the right of this text, you’ve never seen the categories. You’ve probably missed some other cool stuff too, but let’s focus on the categories.

You may have noticed that most of what I post falls into the fifth category, but today I want to focus a spotlight on Michael Writes. Click that and you’ll see everything I’ve posted about all my novels, including sneak previews of the one I haven’t finished writing yet.

Peckers, by Jill McCorkle

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Ho Made Apple Butter

I’m thinking I will have myself a restaurant known as Peckers, and as my model I will use Hooters, where one of Bill’s buddies likes to go on Friday night. I will have a woodpecker instead of an owl and waiters instead of waitresses. They will wear uniforms that are, shall we say, a bit revealing below the belt and as manager my job will be saying who looks good in the outfit and who doesn’t. Sorry, that’s business. It’s not harassment if you say right up front that Peckers is all about peckers. The Pecker Burger, the Pecker Shake, the foot-long Peckerdog, the Pecker who serves you. There will be lots of cute puns about wood, redheaded, etc. I think it will be a huge success.

–from Creatures of Habit, by Jill McCorkle