Addicted to Writing

Manage Your Freelance Writing Career While Writing What You Love

Music for the Writing Life: Curing Headaches, Getting Inspired and More

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music and writing
Image via farrahpenn.com.

Music has always been such an integral part of my life. People who are more exposed to music than me are probably musicians. Hell, if I hadn’t been tone-deaf, there’d be no stopping me from hitting the stage with my own band and rocking until the early hours of the day. Not that I’d stop writing. I’d be a writer/musician.

But luckily you don’t need to have talent to enjoy and utilize music to suit your moods. You can even use music to adjust your moods.

How many times have you listened to a sad song in a sad mood because you wanted something you could relate to?

I can also easily find a song to transform my emotions anyway that I like.  For instance, if it is winter, and I need to be writing a sunny beach scene in Hawaii, I take advantage of chirpy and fast songs to help me get there. Sure, imagination works. But why not make the transition smoother, faster and definitely more fun?

Writing along to an upbeat song can help with your mood, as well as your writing speed. As much as I like a good REM song, a Motörhead number (Ace of Spades, to be specific) will make me think and type faster 90% of the time.

That said, I would definitely not be listening to Motörhead, Mötley Crüe or Guns’N’ Roses if I had a headache. Not because the songs are hard or fast, but because the voices of the singers…well, are not the softest. They might blend in nicely with catchy electric guitar solos, but they don’t offer relaxation. Not to me, anyway.

Below are suggestions for songs, singers and bands for causing, avoiding or accelerating certain feelings and moods (as well as helping with writing certain settings):

(Of course keep in mind that I’m primarily a rock fan so that the choices won’t surprise you a lot.)

For:

A hard-rock club scene/ head-banging people at concerts/just writing damn fast: Ace of Spades-Motörhead, Fuel-Metallica, Kickstart My Heart-Motley Crue. Just for starters.

80s-90s/fitness/partying through rock’n’roll/feeling energetic/typing fast: Pretty much all the fast numbers of glam metal/glam rock bands (or the glam rock periods of classic rock/hard rock bands) such as Warrant, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Whitesnake, Mr. Big.

Romance: Pretty much all slower songs of the bands mentioned above. And Bryan Adams.

Ultimate relaxation, peace and passion without exhaustion: REM (stay clear of songs like Lotus, though unless you prefer electric/computerized sounds over the softness of guitar), The Corrs, any slow Bryan Adams (he has more energizing rock numbers than people give him credit for), most unplugged albums of artists you like, Road Trippin’-Red Hot Chilli Peppers, anything Elvis Presley

For modern times: Matchbox 20 , Goo Goo Dolls

Fast, angry, slow, frustrated, depressed, happy, confused, excited…Whatever feeling you are after, or any combination of these feelings, they can provide the songs for you.

Anger, frustration and rebellion: Metallica, Offspring, Greenday

 One cure-for-all: Bon Jovi

It’s a shame that people are either crazy about ballads like Always or the 2000 hit It’s my life and deem the band a too-popular-to-be-cool pop-rock band when they have so much more to offer. Not counting the first two albums (Bon Jovi, Fahrenheit 4800) that would fit perfectly in the over the top soundtracks of most 80s films, and if you really don’t want to get into the 80s happy-go-lucky parties and big hair periods (though there are some great classics in their 3rd and 4th albums),  just start with Keep the Faith (1992). It’s modern rock before modern rock bands started popping around. The themes are more diverse and lyrics are funnier. It’s a good combination of awesome party fun and soul-searching. The sound is just different, in a very good way.

Then there’s These Days, a dark rock album closer to hard rock than pop rock. Survival, faith, love, sex, betrayal, drugs, depression…You name it. It’s there.

I can go on for a while, with them being my favorite band and all. But they do have the ultimate combination: great vocals, diverse and great lyrics and good music.

Give me a theme or a situation, and I can probably find a song from them. Also given that the singer’s voice improved considerably since the early 90s, there’s no mood they can’t put me in or get me out of. They write stories, not just situations.

Oh, they are also the right choice when you want someone singing that you’ll make your dreams come true. They sing that theme really often and really well.

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MY FAVORITE HEADACHE-KILLER VOCALS – SONGS-BANDS

(These can kill headaches faster than Advil)…

Any Crowded House song

Blind Faith by Warrant

Bon Jovi (try acoustic or non-pop rock ballads)

Bryan Adams – any slow number

Red Hot Chilli Peppers- Road Trippin’

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I have more of course, but these are my basics. Who do you listen to when you write? And why?

 

Write Your Revolution: 9 Simple Ways Writers Can Find Paying Web Markets

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Hi everyone!

Sorry about the absence.

I’m publishing my new post very soon, and until then you might want to head over to Sarah Russell’s Write Your Revolution blog to read my article 9 Simple Ways Writers Can Find Paying Web Markets. The article lists how to create your own ever-growing list of web markets in any niche since when it comes to web markets, we don’t have a definite resource.


My cold struck back, but I also did some great research, found and pitched cool ideas and I’m formatting a screenplay.

And hopefully this month will be the month when I’ll turn bulk-writing a habit. I’m good at taking notes and brainstorming in bulk when ideas hit from north and south, but maybe because I’m good at with the brainstorming, I end up writing one post at a time.

Do you occasionally take posting breaks without wanting to?

6 Cliché Writing (Career) Tips To Benefit From

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You might remember from my When It’s OK to Use Cliches in Your Writing: Hidden Metaphors – Poison’s Bret Michaels Style post that I am all for clichés that work. That post will be followed up with more working clichés (especially in fiction). But this article is dedicated to classic writing tips.

There are more than 6 of course, but today I’m tackling these 6 popular ones.

–          Write about what you know

Not everything you know might be fun or lucrative to write about, but I bet some of your vast knowledge is fun, lucrative or both.

Writing about movies, TV shows and music is incredibly entertaining for me. In addition to running an entertaining blog, I got my first assignments on these subjects too.

Then there is the fact that your internal entertainment trivia database can help in finding many fun references and making your points come across in a more remarkable way. Copyblogger does it. Carol Tice does it. It works, and it comes and flows naturally.

It also fits my category Fictional Writers where I cover writers from movies and TV shows. You might want to start with my latest in that category: The Following: When Both The Protagonist and Antagonist Are Writers.

Other areas where I wrote what I knew and sold articles include traveling, business, freelancing, writing and social media.

–          You don’t have to be an expert to write about a topic.

slash-gunsnroses
OK, I’d not have minded having his talent. But what are you gonna do…Slash image via fanpop.com.

You just have to know better than the audience you are targeting. Just like you don’t have to play the guitar like Slash to be able to teach a beginner, you don’t need to be light years ahead from the readers of the market you are targeting.

If this weren’t so, our publishing possibilities and writing income would shrink considerably.

That being said, I wouldn’t mind being an expert writer who could write a bestselling book on my expertise area. There is a reason so many books written by professionals turn out to be great reads. Nope, not all of them are ghost written.

–          Write what you don’t know.

Time comes when the alternative gets so popular that it feels weird to call it alternative.  Raise your hand if you think Radiohead no longer belongs to the alternative rock bands category.

Just like its counterpart, this is a practical and lucrative tip. Especially if these new areas you’re discovering have anything to do with finance and technology.

You know how to research. You can educate yourself about new areas and end up finding a lot of “what you know” and hopefully “what you love” in the process. My new obsession ares are microexpressions in psychology and neuropsychiatry.

–          Write about what you love

I quit my full-time job because a)it wasn’t related to writing b)I hated it.

Now, while I am absolutely addicted to writing, I have no interest in writing about things that I don’t care about, or at least find interesting.

This blog is based on this idea. Writing only about what you love (granted it also depends on which areas you love) might take a longer time when bringing home the big bucks. So you have been warned.

But I found the perfect balance by supporting my writing income with part time teaching. Teaching helps me with being more social (as opposed to the solitariness of writing) and prevents me from taking jobs that don’t excite me. Win-win. Oh, and it also worked as an article idea.

–          Make yourself familiar with the publication

In other words, research the publication like mad. While it won’t guarantee being published, it is one of your strongest weapons to increase the odds in your favor. Team it up with a great idea, an exciting query and you are good to go.

–          Everyone gets rejected.

You’ll get rejected. It sucks, but after a little practice (and some published articles/stories), you’ll learn to shake it off (in a shorter time).

Sure, there might be a writer out there who never gets rejected. But then it is possibly a writer who is not really working. At least not for others.

Even if you’ve eliminated the query process and ensured that clients come and find you, there is a chance not all your ideas won’t knock your clients’ socks off. Statistically speaking.

So yes. I know you heard it before. It’s not personal, and it can be due to a variety of reasons. It is however almost never about your writing skills. It might be about the idea, or how you structured that particular article.

If there is constructive feedback, take it, thank for it, revise and re-slant for another. Yes, there are other reasons but usually the fix is the same: get to the source of the problem (if it is writing skills, that can be improved too), take care of it and don’t let the idea go to waste.

Most ideas can be salvaged through brainstorming, improving and recycling.

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So what cliché writing tips work for you? Do you have any favorites?

How Important Is A Story’s Ending to You?

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“One thing guaranteed to kill a movie-going experience is an unsatisfying ending. In my opinion, the ending might very well be the single, most important moment of your script… the final taste in the audience’s mouth. For example, if you remove the twist of an ending in ‘The Sixth Sense’, would the movie have gotten such a buzz? I doubt it.”

 

Script Magazine, E-mail Newsletter

 

the_sixth_sense
The Sixth Sense movie poster via wikipedia.

How important is the ending of a novel or a movie to you? Are all the works you enjoyed great from the beginning to the end?

Or have there been stories that had you from the first page only to disappoint you with the ending?

What about stories that you found merely mediocre but had to applaud the ending?

Let’s take these three groups of stories:

*The thrilling story with an unexpected, sad ending

I’m a huge John Grisham fan. I love all his legal thrillers, and I’ll consider myself so lucky if I can write such page-turners one day.

But one of favorite my John Grisham books has a bittersweet ending that I didn’t see coming. After all the brilliant things the protagonist pulled, it caught me by surprise that Grisham hadn’t given his hero a romantically happy ending.

While no one would expect cheesy or boring or happily ever after from his genre, the hint that the hero wasn’t let down romantically in the end would be just fine.

Because while he wasn’t the nicest guy on the planet, he was by far the most likeable character in the book, and I was rooting for him. No, a partially sad ending didn’t lessen my admiration for the book. But I couldn’t help wonder why Grisham wanted the hero have an ending like that.

P.S. If you are guessing or wondering which book, just ask me on Facebook.

*The thrilling story with a worthy ending

In the wonderfully exciting world of grey characters, you don’t exactly wish for a happy ending. You do want a satisfactory ending, though your definition of a satisfactory ending changes as the story progresses to reveal the protagonist to be less than a model citizen.

Gerard Butler/Maria Bello/Pierce Brosnan movie Butterfly on a Wheel is such a story for me. The kidnapper (Pierce Brosnan) “kidnaps” the parents (Gerard Butler and Mario Bello) while he has their daughter taken hostage somewhere. They either do whatever he wants, or the little girl dies. But what do you do when his requests turn out to include destroying their life savings, blackmail, career sabotage and murder?

butterfly on a wheel movie poster
Image via moviegoods.com.

It may not have the effect on everyone, but I love a movie where the seemingly sociopathic villain turns out to be a victim of circumstances and the so-called hero is a selfish jerk. Oh, and the ending…whether you see it coming or not, it is so much more than Gerard Butler managing to save his and his family or not.

But my favorite great concept-great story-great ending combination has to be The Life of David Gale with Kevin Spacey.

*The not-so-engaging story with a brilliant ending

(Warning: From this point on, I’ll include major spoilers for the movies The Sixth Sense, The Others & Passengers, so please proceed at your own risk. )

Maybe it was because I saw it on DVD on my friend’s PC, but I just didn’t like The Sixth Sense (1999). It wasn’t thrilling, surprising or interesting. It was a bit spooky at times, but I just didn’t see what the fuss was about…until the end came and I had to applaud the writer/director M. Night Shyamalan for his creativity.

But my love for the ending doesn’t change the fact that as a whole, I wasn’t impressed and I don’t want to see the movie again.

And the brilliant ending gave birth to:

*The once-great-now-disappointing ending

Surprise me once, congrats. Surprise me twice, fine. Pull the same trick for the third time, and lose your audience.

How many movies have you seen that are like Christopher Nolan’s Memento? And by like Memento, I mean movies that tell the story backwards, starting with the end and ending with the first scene. If I have seen similar movies, they certainly haven’t made an impression. Oh, I love Memento, by the way.

Of course another good movie using similar storytelling chronology is possible and welcome. But it just wouldn’t be as remarkable if that story ended (well, in this case, began) like Memento. Would it?

 

the-others-dvd
Image via beyondhollywood.com.

Now, I actually liked The Others (2001). Maybe it was because I created a suitable atmosphere: I watched it on a big screen TV with a friend at night, with lights off and while there was no one else at home. Any outside sound made us jump, and it didn’t let the slow pace of the movie affect us in a negative way.

When the ending came…Let’s say that it wasn’t a huge letdown, but it didn’t make us appreciate the movie further. Still, with the endings in mind, I prefer The Others. But I’m done with that kind of ending.

passengers-movie-poster-2008-1020418550
Image via moviepostershop.com

 

Then came Passengers (2008). Passengers wasn’t a thriller/horror film but a romantic mystery/drama and I enjoyed the psychological aspect of it as it told the story of plane crash survivors who try to deal with the trauma. It wasn’t ground-breaking, but it was good. Fun. Emotional. Until the moment when we learned about what really happened to the survivors. Yep, they were dead all along.

Unsurprisingly, The Sixth Sense has the highest revenue, most critical acclaim and the highest rating by movie-goers. The Others is also highly-regarded and turned in profit. Passengers didn’t make a profit, and isn’t appreciated much.

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Can a bad, or a recycled ending take away from the experience as a whole? Absolutely. It can even make you wish you hadn’t watched/read that thing.

But can a great ending make up for 100 minutes that failed to engage you? No, not really.

Of course a great story is a story that hooks you from number 1 and never lets you go. A greater story is a story that doesn’t let you go even after it ends.  The ending is one of the most crucial parts of the story. It can break it, but I’d not go as far as to say it can make a story. And the Script article covering endings unsurprisingly covers a movie that is liked from start to finish: Rocky.

What are your favorite endings?

What endings disappointed you the most?

How important is the ending to you?

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