Writing Wednesday

Hola, true believers!(los verdaderos creyentes!)

Greetings from the Casa del Pino Blanco this fine day...

Today is The Chris West Blog's premiere 'Writing Wednesday,' a day to discuss and ponder the excitement and ins-and-outs of the writing process for those of you who may be thinking about the writing process yourselves out there in Internet-land.

As an English teacher to seventh graders, writing is the most important, most critical aspect of our state standards which I teach every year. I am proud and excited each year to find my students, after a year of intensive writing in my classes, grow from "I can write one five-sentence paragraph in thirty minutes" writers to "I can write an awesome five-paragraph essay with a hook, transitions, and an effective conclusion in thirty minutes" writers. It is a fascinating, very rewarding journey I am proud to take with my students.

I must say, I've been engaged in my own coursework for the past four years (working on a Master's and Ed.S), and I use my own experience as a student/learner with my students. I tell them, "Look, I'm doing the SAME EXACT THING you are! I use these SAME TECHNIQUES in my own writing!" It seems to help them get over the fact that a teacher is 'instructing' some random technique when the person teaching it can show examples from classwork. I think it makes the learning more concrete to know that "my teacher has to do homework, and I can write just like he does."

Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know, but my students have performed very well on writing assessments over the past seven years. Speaking of assessment, I am a believer in life-long learning, and a crucial part of being a life-long learner for me is the ability to self-assess.

I've begun work on the next novel I'll be publishing (the first of hopefully three books this summer, Lord willing and the creek don't rise), and I've noticed some happy, positive aspects:

•  Writing this novel seems to be coming much easier after writing/pubbing my first novel, Transfigured and its prequel, Injected.
• My writing SEEMS to get better as I write more, something I've always told my students. "If you want to get better, you have to practice." (They like to ask- 'Why do we have to write so much?' My answer: 'Basketball players practice lay-ups fourteen thousand times every single practice, so that when they have to perform a lay-up in a game, it's second nature. That's why we write so much.')
• I am more critical of the words, phrasing, and punctuation I write now, rather than banging it out and re-writing, editing, re-writing. After plodding through an entire novel, only to return to the work and endure intensive editing and re-writing of critical errors, I do not wish to revisit my writing to find terrible, elementary mistakes again! :)

The number one thing for any writer is to do just that: write! There are a few rules I try my best to follow when writing, gathered from other, more famous and successful writers whom I cherish:

1. Stephen King (and a plethora of others) stated: 'Put your butt in the seat.' The writing won't get done if YOU do not take the time to sit down and WRITE.
2. Hemingway (one of my absolute favorites, of all time) said: 'Try to write the most true sentence possible.'
3. Strunk's The Elements of Style says: 'Write with nouns and verbs.' (Very true, especially when you consider we writers sometimes attempt to over-describe a scene. Sometimes, least said is best said. Let the reader build the background when necessary.)
4. My beautiful wife Misty, a fantastic writer and English teacher, told me this: 'Life's not going to stop just because you don't feel good.' I woke up one morning feeling rough (headache, muscles hurt, whiny, etc. etc.), and didn't feel like writing, editing, plugging into the computer and putting in the work. She told me that in jest, but it's a piece of advice I definitely took to heart. No one else is going to write the stories in my head for me, and I can't sell books that haven't been written.

(Check out Misty's blog at http://mistywestridesabike.blogspot.com!)

That's all for today, true believers. Go buy Transfigured and Injected for your favorite eReader (Kindle, Nook, or download either's software to your PC, phone, iPod, iPad, or iPhone!) for only 99 cents, as part of the Spectacular Summer Sale!

Enjoy the ride! :) (Disfrutar del viaje!)

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