So I thought I would pose this question today...which do you find harder to write, Comedy or Drama? Personally I think Comedy is so much harder. More specifically, I lack the confidence in my sense of humor translating well to a public audience. Or in layman's terms, how do I know that other people will think what I think is funny too?
With the adverse, I seem to be proficient in writing angsty dramatic goodness. That's what I like to write. (Although I love memorable, funny, and sarcastic characters but I don't seem to be good at writing them - not that I don't try).
I know there are other people who are out there that have fantastic senses of humor that never fail to put people into hysterics, but can't write a tear jerker scene worth a damn.
So I can't help but wonder which happens more ofter? Which do you think is easier to write? Which is harder? And I guess more importantly - have you ever tried to improve on the later and what helped turn it around for you?
So its been a while since the last time I blogged. I seem to be going in cycles. I blog for a while, I write for a while, I veg out and watch tv and eat a pint of ice cream...well you get the idea. So today while I was messing around with my blog layout (what do you guys think? I'm not sure I'm sold on it yet) anyway, I decided to blog about some fun stuff I found on the internet lately.
First up:
Tony Eldridge over at MTFA posted an entry by @duolit entitled: 7 Tips for the Introverted Author. Now to be honest with you all I'm not the most outgoing person when I'm thrown into an environment that I'm not familiar with. So the whole idea of having to go out on the road to promote a book and do interviews and all that is - while a thrilling prospect - also an unnerving one. But here are a few tips to help those of you out there who a like me.
Next Up:
I do have to come clean on this next one. So one night while procrastinating on Twitter instead of writing (i know, I know shame on me. :P ), I stumbled across @coffeelvnmom on the #amwriting trend. The next thing I know I have an email in my inbox saying she was following me and I thought "oh that's nice. I love new followers (especially ones that aren't stupid companies trying to get you to buy stuff - LAME) anyway. So today I fired up my blog and found I have a new follower. Guess who? Yup Jessica Brooks aka @coffeelvnmom.
Well it turns out Jessica has a blog of her own entitled - My Thoughts Exactly. And people let me tell you, It's Great!!! If you haven't found it yet, you've got to check it out. She is witty, brilliant, and dude she loves coffee! That's a girl after my own heart. So go check out her blog. :D (And no she isn't paying to say that either. :D )
Book News (Reading Not Writing):
My latest novel love is a book entitled Brightly Woven by Alexandra Bracken. It is a fabulous read! Just to tell you how good it was I staying up until 4 am reading it in one night, under the penalty of having two kiddos to wake up to first thing the next morning. Yes, my friends, it was that good!
In more Book News (Writing this time):
My current WIP - The Bearers - has officially came in at over 23,000 words. I just started Chapter 14. I'm not sure if this is just me but I always worry that I won't have a long enough manuscript. (Which is usually silly because I have found out that I'm incapable of writing short stories. They always come out a heck of a lot longer than I ever intended. Case in point: my original manuscript was something like 175,000 until I split it in half) Two words: long winded. O_o
Moving on...
Music News:
So I've found a great new song to add to my writing playlist. This is King of Anything by Sara Bareilles.
Hmm...what else?
Oh yeah! I'm not sure if anyone hasn't seen it yet but the new trailer of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows has been released and it looks AMAZING!!! Seriously. Now you may as what does this have to do with writing/publishing/agents/ or the whole online writers community as a whole. Well Harry Potter was actually the book(s) that started me on the road to wanting to become a published author. Goblet of Fire to be more specific. Something about it just sent a thrill thru me. I picked up a pen (or keyboard as it were) and have put it down since. :D
so without any further - yeah okay I'm just going to show it now. :D Enjoy!
Jessica Faust over at BookEnds LLC has a great post about what to do with your Galley's/ARC's (advanced reader copies) when you get published. Never really thought of it before but you will have to work as hard as your publishers to help promote your book. There is no sitting back to rest on your laurals. Here are a few suggestions that the lovely agents over at BookEnds give to help.
So since today is a snow day, I decided to take some time to write about letting go. I think one of the hardest things for me was letting go of the characters and world I created in my first manuscript. They were so real and I had their voices so clearly in my head that I worried if I let them go I wouldn't be able to get them back when I wanted to write the other books in the series (which I still fully intend on doing).
However, one piece of advice Janet Reid from FinePrint and many of the other blogging agents I follow have given is keep writing. You simply can't rest on your laurels.
There's a lot of waiting in the query stage. You send out your queries and then you have to wait. Weeks at first. Then if someone requests more it can lead to 3 - 6 months (that's right months) of more waiting. Then if your lucky enough to land an agent, you're going to have to wait even longer while he/she tries to sell your manuscript to the publishing houses. Like I said, there's a lot of waiting so why not do something productive in the mean time.
Another reason to keep writing is Publishers and Agents are not looking for a one trick pony. They want someone who intends to build a career out of writing - which means more than one book. Saying you have a series attached to the submitted manuscript is far more juicy to them than a stand alone. Or having more than one story under your belt shows prospects for the future. In the end, they want clients that are going to produce.
And in truth, I haven't had a chance to go back and work on Purgatory or any of the other stories but I'm not really concerned anymore about losing them. When my mind drifts back to that world, the characters are right there waiting and the world is just as vivid as ever. I'm not saying the voice won't take sometime to get perfect again. I'm sure it will. But the components are still there. And in the mean time, I keep learning.
My writing evolves and continually improves. I find better ways, stronger ways of writing things. So when do finally go back to my first story, the rewrites are sure to be superior to the first. And that, I suppose, is the moral to the story. Keep writing. Keep practicing because that's the only way you'll get better.
So I thought I would pose this question today...which do you find harder to write, Comedy or Drama? Personally I think Comedy is so much harder. More specifically, I lack the confidence in my sense of humor translating well to a public audience. Or in layman's terms, how do I know that other people will think what I think is funny too?
