Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Staying focused

For the past two weeks, my mind has been all over the place and I have found it very difficult to focus and reach my daily word limit or use the time I have allocated to myself for writing. In my case that was because of weariness (it’s this time of the writing process where I need to take a couple of days off from writing, though saying it is one thing; doing it is a struggle against my guilt for it, haha) and because of a minor health issue. It made me think about it, however, so today I thought I should write a few things on the topic of staying focused.

Mind you, this is my take on the subject based on personal observations. It doesn’t mean the following will work for you too. It may be worth giving it a shot though, if you find it hard to stay focused.

1. WRITE!

Early on, when I had just started writing, I kept finding articles about the need to have a routine because it would help an aspiring writer. At the time I thought of that as too much, arguing that inspiration is not something that you can just summon out of thin air and expect it to work. I thought to myself that it would be better to just feel the need to write rather than force it. It wasn’t until almost a year later that I tried it. Since then I have seen remarkable change in the quality of the work I produce and, most of the time, it’s almost as if my mind switches on for writing when the time comes. True, not every day’s work is something I’d keep during revisions BUT the point is this daily ritual keeps me focused and eager to write. You may say “but you have a novel to write and to plan the next one, therefore you can stay focused.” True, but when I didn’t have a novel in mind or didn’t feel like doing it, I went on to my tumblr account, found a photo I liked and a wrote a short story of no more than 1000 words, just to keep me in shape. Did it help? Looking back to it, I think it added its own little corner stone. Had I written whenever I felt like it, chances are I would have never written anything or it would have been impossible to tame my mind now that I have work to do.

2. Time allocation

Yeah, that one’s a bitch. Our daily lives are packed full with things to do that somehow appear (and, to some extent, are) more important that just sitting down and scribble make-believe stories. However, you won’t get any writing done unless you allow yourselves to have even a 30 minute time frame to sit down and write. It sounds ridiculous, right? 30 minutes, you say? That’s all? Well, if that’s all you can spare in a 24-hour long day, then that’s all you can spare! Would you rather not spare it at all and keep your stories in your mind or in the form of notes? As long as you can find the right time for this 30-minute window, then you will be able to use it to your advantage, provided you have first followed suggestion number 1 above. I think the two work well together. You won’t produce 2000 or 3000 words per day but you will produce 500 words and that’s 500 more words than doing nothing.

3. Setting goals you can meet at the end of the day

I guess ultimately this suggestion could be part of both previous suggestions but I think it should be on its own. Writing something big, like a novel, with so many distractions around you (*cough cough* internet distracts people?! Life does that too?!) it’s nice to have set manageable goals for each day and see them come to fruition. My goals, as far as writing is concerned, are to end the day having written AND read for a few hours. See? Nothing grand or intimidating; just stay focused on my writing and reading routine basically.

4.Use some sort of an outline

Let me be crystal clear about this: not everyone can work with an outline. I’m not suggesting that everyone should use an outline. What I am saying is give it a shot, see if it works for you. Just do it right before you decide it’s not for you. It doesn’t necessarily have to be an outline in the most detailed form (like the snowflake method myself and others use, which could be a book of its own if you think about the amount of words written there). You could just have a notebook by your side when you first get an idea, write your thoughts down as they come and then rearrange them accordingly to have an easy flowing plot and story. That way you can save a lot of time during editing and revising. I tried writing “on the fly” when I first started and it felt nice. It felt very creative. But I had ideas popping up every page for things that had happened many chapters before because the story shaped itself as I wrote it. That meant I had to go back and change things in previous chapters or inserting a comment on the page to correct it later. Eventually, my mind got bogged down. I had material to write, ideas to use but it was a mess in my head and I felt overwhelmed. The result was to almost give up, thinking I just wasn’t good enough for it. The feeling sucked! Why? I wasn’t focused!

5. Try not to edit before you finish the entire work

Following the previous suggestion, it may be a good idea to avoid editing last day’s work on the following day. I know a lot of professional writers do it (if I’m not mistaken, G.R.R. Martin does it?) but they are who they are and have years of experience. For me, an aspiring writer, I feel that if I were to follow that I would most probably end up editing the edited edits (!!) more than actually producing new material. Which in turn would mean that staying focused on whatever new I had to write, would be a struggle. I don’t know, it’s possible I’m weak-minded and lack discipline. Think about this, however: this may work for you if you have very little time to spend on writing. If that’s the case, the last thing you want is to spend these precious 30 minute window you have into editing instead of finishing your story up and then edit.

6. READ!

I keep an excel file where I copy (yes, copy) entire sentences and phrases from books that I read. These sentences usually refer to things that an author used in their story and had troubled me in the past or perhaps ways the writer used to draw my attention to something. I then go over them, study them and see how he/she handled that similar situation. I try to see the technique used, how each sentence is structured and then try to see how would I write it instead. The result I produce is usually sub-par BUT during this process not only I get to learn how others (better writers than me) worked their way around my problem but at the same time I put my mind into the whole writing process again. Which as I pointed our earlier, keeps me focused 🙂 Also, while reading a book you may get that light bulb over your head glowing with an idea. Which gets the productivity juices flowing etc etc.

7. Avoid wasting time on the internet

Since most of us have things happening in the house that distract us all the time, try not to add another distraction. If you can, refrain from checking your Facebook feed or tumblr or whatever else you use. I have finally managed to free myself completely from Facebook (even though I have my personal FB page and my author page) and I hardly ever check them. In fact, at the end of the day, I may check momentarily my author page, just in case a new follower appeared or someone sent a message (which hardly ever happens, by the way). But now that I’ve freed myself from Facebook’s clutches, I’m more focused and I feel happier when I see it’s one o’clock in the afternoon and I have written almost 2000 words.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 1 Comment

Third short story titled “The Darkening” now published

Just a quick reminder to let you know that my third short story The Darkening is now published by Voluted Tales. The story appears in their special issue called “Darkness Internal” Issue 3. You can find it at http://volutedtales.com/issue/darkness-internal-3/article/the-darkening

It’s a post apocalyptic horror story and it’s considerably shorter than the previous one, barely exceeding 2100 words, so if you choose to pay for the magazine and read it you should be able to finish it in one sitting.

The story deals with John, one of the few survivors from The Darkening, an event that brought each person’s shadow into life and eradicated the majority of the human race. Ever since then, John had to make some tough choices about life and death, particularly that of other people. In near isolation, he struggles hard to maintain some sort of humanity but his self-preservation instinct often kicks in.

I hope you enjoy it. It’s the one that inspired me to write the novel I’m working on and it should be enough to get you into the setting and mood of living in darkness.

 

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos

Second short story now available

My short story titled When Hades Felt is now available for everyone to read. It’s a story where a wife’s death triggers events in her husband’s life, after a woman dressed in black shows up at his doorstep, claiming to be able to do the impossible (this sentence was actually the pitch/hook I used in my cover letter, by the way). You can find it at http://eternalhauntedsummer.com/issues/autumn-equinox-2014/when-hades-felt/ but please, have a look at the stories, poems and essays the other authors have contributed or read some of the other stuff the magazine has to offer from past issues. I should also warn you that the story is just over 5000 words long, so it may be time-consuming. I should also point out that I write dark-ish fantasy, perhaps borderline with horror (though I’m not experienced with the Horror genre), so since the editor’s description of the story in their main page is “dark and disturbing”, this story may not be your cup of tea. I just hope that by ‘disturbing’ the editor meant ‘depressing’ rather than ‘annoying’, lol 😛

Also, it’s one of the toughest stories I ever tackled and the only one so far that I had to re-write entire sections (namely, the whole last scene). And by rewriting I mean deleting and never looking back at thousands upon thousands of words; if I remember correctly, I rewrote it more than 5 times. Even now that I read the published story, I still frown at a few points. You’ll be the judge of whether the story is good or not. All I know is that even though it’s only been 7  months since I wrote it, my style has changed considerably since then.

This is also sort of a milestone for me, as this is the first story I got paid for and although it’s only a token payment, it’s still the first one. Hopefully, others will follow as well.

Other than that, in a month or two I expect my other short story, the one that inspired me to write the novel I’m currently working on, to be published by Voluted Tales, an Australian literary magazine.

I had to withdraw my fourth story from the magazine I had sent it for review, since they never responded to my follow-up emails. I think the magazine may have stopped operating. So, off to make some more edits to that story and find a new home for it.

If you have any comments about it, please don’t hesitate to post them below in the comment section.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

Progress Report

It’s been a while since I gave you a progress report on my work so far. If I remember correctly, it was on August 31st and it was around 73k words. So here’s how much I’ve written so far: 94500 words. It’s clear now that I will exceed my originally planned word limit. The good news is that the first 10 chapters will have to be condensed into 2 or maybe 3. There are 2 scenes with dream-like memories in them where we learn a few things about the main character but they will be placed between later chapters. A daunting effort, no doubt. “Murder your darlings” is the saying, right? Well, I’ll show them 😛 The reason for such a huge need to remove so many chapters is that my inciting moment takes place at chapter 10. It was a great blunder I made, as I tried to set the character, his relation to the rest of the world (which amounts to one and only family) and, the most important for the story as I saw it then, to show the fear the survivors of the Darkening experience and how the main character experiences it. I think I over did it… Alas, we can only learn from our mistakes. I just hope that when those  revisions and edits, the result will be a less boring story for the reader (the things we do for you, dead reader, lol) without failing to show the ever-present dangers the survivors have to face.

Heat has dropped considerably here in Greece and I can once again use the PC for a few hours. Slowly, but steadily I’m getting back to reaching my old word limit of 2000 words per day. I started by getting into the habit of writing 1500 words daily but the past couple of days I was able to write 2000 words in matter of 3 hours, so that’s good news. If everything goes as planned, I will have completed the first draft by November, at which point I will put it away and not think about it for at least 1 month, if not 2. Then I’ll roll my sleeves and get it edited, hopefully with a beta-reader (that’s another problem I will have to tackle – to find beta readers).

Finally, as you may have seen already, I made some changes to the blog’s layout today. New theme, deleted a page (removed the one about the ideas) and corrected the goodreads widget. Comment below if you can’t find something or if I forgot to add a widget from the old theme or just to tell me if you like the new layout.

Posted on by Chris Sarantopoulos · 2 Comments

What is YOUR dream?

Today I’d like to get as many of you involved into a little exercise. Well, not really an exercise but it may help you get in touch with the feeling that sustained the need you have to write (or had, if you feel you are stuck).

I would like you to write in the comments below what was or is that one dream you have (or had) that you wanted to experience through your writing that would make you feel complete, both as a person and as a writer. I’ll start with mine.

I’d like, in years from now, to sit on a bus or train or a restaurant or any other place, one that I’ve never been before – preferably in another country than my own – and accidentally overhear some people sitting next to me – complete strangers to me, mind you – having the following conversation:

“Have you read [title of book] from Sarantopoulos?”

“Yeah, it was OK.”

Just that. Nothing more. Just two people I have never seen before, who don’t know what I look like but who have read my stories and have deemed them OK for their tastes and their wallets. Not “great” or “amazing” or anything else pompous; just OK. No contracts with absurdly lots of 0’s, no TV contracts or excessive fame, no nothing. Just… OK. What I want, is my stories read by as many people as possible. I don’t care how they get their hands on them, as long as they do.

Now, if I ever get to experience that, then I will know for a fact, beyond any doubt, that I have done well in choosing to write and that I have succeeded in doing so. I’m certain I’ll be sitting next to them giggling, while reading a book or munching down something from the local cuisine, feeling like I’m at the top of the world. Chances are I won’t even introduce myself and let them build their own imaginary picture of me.

I often wonder how achievable this is for someone like me?

Please comment below what you want to get out of your writing. Don’t be shy to whatever it may be. I’m a dreamer so I get to dream stuff like that. You may be a more down-to-earth kind of person so you may have a dream to achieve fame or lucrative contracts that will allow you to carry on writing. Just share your dreams with the rest of us here.