Writing

The Obligation of Writing

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Lately, I’ve come to realize just how much of writing involves social obligations:

  • We join writer’s groups for support and are obligated to participate and help.
  • We pre-read for others, and in turn, they are obligated to pre-read for us.
  • We have to juggle obligations with our editors, artists, and so on.
  • We obligate ourselves to speak at conventions – then wonder how we signed up to do three panels (says the author who’s done that).

I’m sure you’ve had your own experiences of “writer’s obligations.” I’m also sure, like me, you may ask “why didn’t anyone tell us how much of writing is social obligations?” For too many writers, no one prepares us for the sheer social weight writing can carry.

For myself, I’m slowly learning to give myself space when it comes to the social demands of writing. I cannot participate in every writing group activity – or I won’t have time to write. I make time for when my fellow writers need help – while appreciating my own limits. It’s a work in progress.

I hope you can show yourself some compassion too.

But we also must remind our fellow writers that the social obligations of writing can overburden them. We can listen to them and gently remind them of their limits. We can carefully warn them when they are in danger of being overloaded. We can accept them as people who can’t do everything.

Maybe they’ll show themselves some compassion.

I’m still figuring where to go with this realization. I’d like to make it more than just a blog post. Perhaps there are discussions to be had in writer’s groups or a panel to do at a convention.

As long as I don’t get over-obligated . . .

Steven Savage

In The Library Of The Mind

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

I’m writing this in 2021, a year of plague, political unrest, and climate change. As I write it, I find myself asking what value my writing has and how it can live on to help people. If you are a writer, artist, or other creative, such doubts and concerns may plague you as well.

We can hope people buy our books, treasure them, and pass them on. Perhaps our works will live on as legacies. Maybe we can make donations to libraries or Little Free Libraries. We may reach people unborn, when they find a peculiar book on a shelf.

But books rot, and decay, and fall apart.

Perhaps we can live on in electronic formats. The internet spans the world, and data storage is cheap. Our legacy may be in electrons, pieces of ourselves in a digital afterlife of ebooks.

But can we count on those who distribute them? Businesses are self-interested, and technology changes.

All of this, all of this counts on people taking an interest in our works. Even if our mark is made in libraries and scrawled on silicon, people may not care.

I won’t lie. I certainly hope my work leaves a legacy, that it is read after I am gone. I hope enough of the world is here, so I have a chance to enlighten or entertain or confuse someone after I’m gone.

But I’ve learned – again and again – that a good writer wants to make an impression now.

Many an author I’ve met speaks of “that one person” – the person whose life changed due to their book. I’ve had that experience, and to see your work change a life reminds you that your creations matter. You make an impression.

Then there are the reviews. That one review on a website that says your book made a difference. Maybe you weren’t a life-changer, but you made their life a bit better. You make an impression.

There are sales, newsletters, blog posts like this one. Each one is a chance to reach people. Each is a chance to make an impression.

These impressions we make don’t end. They shape lives, direct people, and change them. Those changes live on in what they do, who they talk to, and how they think. If you wish, you can easily think of it as obvious karma.

Maybe we even make the world better enough that it outlasts the troubles we’ve created.

Our work, first and foremost, must improve others. Let it live in the libraries of the mind.

Steven Savage

The Soundtrack

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

One thing I discuss with my fellow writers is. Music is yet another form of inspiration, of course, but I find there’s another use for it – making soundtracks for your works.

There’s something about making an inspirational soundtrack to remind you of the mood, the characters, etc. You can turn it on, tune in, and have the music help carry your writing forward. I’ve seen these “inspiration tracks” used by writers and artists for most of my life – going back to a D&D game where the DM found his game a theme song.

But I’ve found a related exercise that helps me with my writing: imagining the “Soundtrack Band.”

Imagine your novel, or comic, and so on gets an adaption as a movie or TV show. The producers want you to pick a band that will do the opening and closing themes, and maybe even other music. You even get a chance to pick some of their past songs.

You just get to pick one band.

T.M. Revolution and Thunderbolt Fantasy inspired this exercise, and if you haven’t heard their songs for Thunderbolt Fantasy, do so. Actually, just watch all of Thunderbolt Fantasy.

Anyway, this got me thinking about my series, the Avenoth novels. What band would I choose if I got an anime or a Netflix adaption of my techno-fantasy series? That made me ask a lot of questions.

  • What band could “embody” the setting? What band “sounds right?”
  • What band had songs that fit the setting – and, of course, could easily be repurposed without them having to record something new?
  • What band would probably “get” the setting and be into doing a soundtrack for it?

In my case, the answer came quickly – Powerman 5000. Their techno-metal sound fits, though their latest novel isn’t quite to my tastes. Some of their songs also were inspirations for my novels anyway: “When Worlds Collide,” “Make Us Insane,” and “Supervillain.”

This let me imagine an audio feel for my novels, and that solidified their feel. It was a useful exercise.

So next time you’re playing with that soundtrack, ask what band you might want to do songs in an imaginary adaption.

(If Powerman 5000 is going a different direction, I’ll be talking to T.M. Revolution and Lenny Code Fiction.)

Steven Savage