As I mentioned earlier this week, we’re going to make some changes to KSW. This writing blog is now just about two years old, which totally blows my mind. Two years, and it’s evolved a ton since the very beginning.

• Why the changes?

KSW will continue being a writing help blog, but in a different way. The writing help community on Tumblr has expanded so much since we first began, and now there’s a plethora of super knowledgeable writing help blog maintainers that we respect and love, and they’re in better places to answer all those writing questions with extraordinary detail – and quicker.

We’re, unfortunately, not in those places anymore. As some of our long-time followers know, I run about 99% of this blog on my own because Victoria has a full-time job, but now that I have two jobs, working on a third, on top of self-publishing, I can’t dedicate as much time to the blog as I used to.

• So, what’s going to happen?

We’re changing our focus. Answering questions and writing up articles takes hours upon hours, and while I enjoy doing it, I can’t afford to like I used to. Instead, we’re going to fill a niche in the writing help blog community – a niche we’ve been playing with since the very beginning.

A lot of you are already familiar with our intro critiques, the First 250 Words Smash, and also our KSW Writing Exercises. What I’ve been doing in the recent history of KSW is critique these intros and then set up exercises based off of common writerly issues (which, most recently, also included a guide on how to tackle the upcoming batch of exercises).

This is what I want KSW to focus on: actively helping writers like all y’all.

• Does that mean no more articles or asks?

Nah, that means the articles I write up will be directly related to the batch of exercises I put together based off of recent intro critiques.

As far as asks go, we’re going to encourage you to send your questions to our writing help blog friends who answer quickly and awesomely. Seriously, they’re incredibly wise and knowledgeable, and a lot faster than I can be.

• Is that all?

Nope.

Actually, there’s another half to this change. For the first time, we’re going to take on a team of beta readers to do exactly what we’ve been doing: critique intros.

Yes, we have a lot of trouble keeping up with Word Smash submissions, especially lately. But with KSW’s huge (and continuously growing, thanks to our writing help community friends) follower base, it’s seriously high time that we took on some additional peeps.

So, we’ve put up an application for any of our followers to join the KSW Team solely to critique intros.

Tickle your fancy? Then click the “read more” so I can entice you further.

• What will a beta reader do, exactly?

Depending on how many applications we get and how many peeps we take on, a KSW beta reader will critique an intro every week or so, which is about 1-2+ hours. If you can dedicate this time, we encourage you to apply for a spot.

The cool part is that I will be a coach, working collaboratively with you. I’ll read through your critiques and make an assessment of what to tackle in the KSW Exercises. We’ll be communicating here and there, but we like to take things easy and make sure everything stays fun. As soon as it stops being fun, that’s bad.

• What are the benefits?

As a coach, I can help you hone your critiquing, revising, and editing skills, which in turn hones your writing. I learned a lot of what I know now simply from listening to other writers give their own personal critique on a piece we had collectively read. It really helps to see others' perspectives.

A secondary thing is that Victoria and I are also in need of our own critique partners for our self-published series. So, if you decided you were interested, and you could set aside the time, you’d get both Victoria and I as your mutual critique partners for your completed manuscript(s).

I mean, that’s pretty cool, because the only time we ever critique is for the Word Smash and our own critique partners.

As a team member, you can choose to be represented on the blog anonymously, or with your credentials and your own writing blog or what have you, in a little bio. It’s up to you. You’ll also get your own signature like we have for the end of your critique. Totally legit style.

• How can I apply?

Copy the application here, then paste it in an email to keyboardsmashwriters at gmail dot com with your answers. If your answers tickle our fancy in return, we’ll send you a sample passage for you to critique and send back to us.

What we’ll be looking for with the form: simply if you’re a good match for the KSW Team. Experience isn’t necessary (some could say we lack experience, ourselves), but we’ll definitely be looking at good spirits and enthusiasm.

What we’ll be looking for with the sample critique: all the usual staples of well-written critique, such as personal perspective and comprehension, and how thoughts are communicated. You don’t have to be perfect – of course not. We’ll be looking at potential and natural skill – stuff you might not even realize you have. Anything else, we can help you work on.

• When’s the deadline?

The deadline is when I decide we have a strong enough team. Different applicants might be able to make different commitments, so I won’t know how many we need until we have the KSW Team together.

That being said, I don’t want to leave the applications open indefinitely. I just don’t know how many applications we’ll actually be getting. I’m always surprised.

So, to that extent, the applications might close suddenly. I’ll give a last warning, of course, and I’ll take on extra team members if they totally wow me, but make sure to keep a lookout for that notice if you’re planning to apply.


Okay, are you ready? We’re totally excited for your application, so get it started. I'll reopen the ask box just in case anyone has any questions, but the ask box is only open for questions pertaining to the application process!

Are your old story ideas still good ideas?

So, yesterday, we had a big test. We spent the whole day studying and pounding knowledge into our head -- the WHOLE day. We felt like fairly adequate students by the time the teacher tossed (literally) our test packets onto our desks.

But this was how the test went:

Anytime a test is deliberately created to confuse or otherwise bash the student's head in, I get a little passionate about it. After class, we spent our mile hike back to the car very expressively. We might have scared away a few monsters in the night.

But now that I've gotten over the angst of it all, I have some rare itty-bitty time to work on creative things.

Back in my freshman year of high school, I finished my first full manuscript, and as the story had been a product of a dream, influenced from Lord of the Rings -- and Peter Pan, and Treasure Planet, which might inspire the image of a cyborg Legolas and fairy dust...and I suppose isn't all that farfetched -- it was a pure overdose on everything fantastical. EVERYTHING. Wow, looking back on it, it hurts. I cringe. Almost a decade later, I can truly say that it was a hot mess.

But.

BUT.

There are, actually, some redeeming features. Boiled down, the story is good. Luckily, there're no trends that drag it down (vampires, zombies, dystopian, dystopian vampire-zombies), and as I plowed through the story in my head (because I dare not read it), I found much of it is salvageable. I altered the ending, altered the characters, built on the twists, and really fortified a world that was already intriguing to begin with.

I had some good ideas when I was fourteen, I just have better ideas NOW.

Many writers (who don't mystically sell the first book they ever wrote) go through the same process, especially if they trunked a book that was never picked up by an agent or publisher. So, you might be asking, "Is my story salvageable?"

There are some basic things you should consider first. The BIG question is: has this story already been written?

Now, I don't mean that black and white. Every story has already been told, but is your INTERPRETATION untold? Is your story about a boy wizard who goes to wizarding school? Is your story about a girl who falls in love with a vampire/werewolf/angel/vampire-werewolf-angel and gets caught up in vampire-werewolf-angel affairs?

If so, you might want to give this story some time.

But, if you do your reading like you should, and you know your premise is completely unique, then there may be some promise.

HOWEVER, and this is the big, fat, all-caps HOWEVER, be prepared to slaughter the heck out of it. Your premise might be magical, but your story might suck. You might have to throw out the whole thing and start with a nice, crisp blank document.

How do you know if you have to throw out the whole thing?

This is going to be a hippie way to put it, but does your story have SOUL? Does it breathe? Does it have personality? Does it have attitude? Does it have a sense of fashion and wear awesome shoes?

Or does it wear really ugly shoes?

Or...no shoes? (It has about 42% chance of being a Hobbit, if that's the case.)

These are all questions you should ask of any of your stories.

Other questions you should be asking: Is it too cliched? Is the plot wrought with holes? Does it match my intended audience? Have I read enough in and around this genre? Do I KNOW the genre and my audience? Is the story's feet hairy?

Also, the most important question you should always ask yourself when plotting: Can I do this BETTER?

As an (cough cough cough) "artist", I'm very intimate with this question. I got to the point during my life drawing studies where I was doing fairly well, but had plateaued. So, I started asking myself, "What can I do to make this even BETTER?"

Sometimes it was as easy as building on the energy of my lines. Sometimes it was hard, intensive work, like learning every muscle and every bone in the body.

This also applies to writing.

And it's also why I write with an outline. I slap every plot point down in a relatively chronological order, and then I go through and make it all the best I possibly can. The end result is a very neat, tight, fast-paced formula that's as best as I can make it. When agents have ultimately rejected the manuscript, I know I can say that I did the very best I could.

Look at this old story of yours. How can you make it EVEN BETTER?

If you've gone through this process already, what did you do? What other tips do you have?

Are you addicted to your cell phone?

About a year and a half ago, I surprised Victoria by doodling her a pair of Converse for her birthday:

If you want to see the full details, you can go to my old and neglected and pretty much abandoned Deviant Art page. I'm a very visual person, and that site is my favorite place to go to be inspired. (Er, when viruses aren't attacking me, which they often do through that website, so I guess this is a warning to you or something? To not drop the bar of soap while you're there?)

It was thoroughly challenging, and I'm supposed to do it again, but it's such a tedious process, and it was about a million degrees at the time, with thunderstorms, and a surprising lack of Advil for my back after hunching over the shoes all day.

But, as I've noticed, people don't really see the shoes when Victoria wears them. People are increasingly buried nose-deep in their phones -- while in their cars, in classrooms, or even walking from one place to the next. More than enough times someone has very nearly collided with me because they wouldn't look up from their phone for half a second, and that's both on the road and simply walking. I seriously need pedestrian insurance against other pedestrians now.

I'm an introvert by nature. I don't really engage in much conversation because I'm socially inept. I'm the type that's conscious of everything I say or do or where I'm looking or how I'm fidgeting or if I'm being weird.

I mean, I AM weird.

But.

I'd rather people didn't readily know that.

So, for the most part, I used to like to sit and listen to people. Yes, I'm the weird girl that listens to one girl badmouth another girl -- or one boy badmouth another boy, either way. I find I don't get to do that anymore, because people interact less and less and less.

Class used to have more people awkwardly engaging in conversation before the session began. Now, everyone's on their phones, talking to people they already know, not really meeting anyone new. People are engaged less and less in their surroundings. Once when I was walking through a mall, I watched a mother and daughter walking side-by-side, both of them texting on their phones and probably talking to each other.

I was like:

And, well, maybe they have their reasons. Maybe Mom runs her business through her phone, and that's why she's on her phone all the time.

If that's the case, I might say she's instead addicted to her business.

Addiction, in any case, is baaaaad.

It's an interesting concept, though. What if, in the future, we're all addicted to our phones or tablets or computers, and we share little contact, and see the world always through a screen? Technology is doing more and more for us -- heck, cars will be able to drive US in the near future (which is sort of a blessing). What happens when we only know how to see each other through screens? What happens when the digital world takes over the physical world?

Personally, I think I might go live amongst the trees and talk to all of them and name them and gossip about them when they're not looking.

What do you think?

Do you have word tics?

Probably.

Most likely.

Even the great people of the world do.

So, what are these mystical "Word Tics"? They're quite elusive and strangely addicting. You use them mindlessly, and although you don't even notice them, oftentimes they gut your narrative with repetition.

When I finished one of my previous manuscripts, my victory swag took over. I know no first draft is perfect, but hot dang, I felt pretty darn close to it. Then, I took a trip to this fantastic free word cloud generator called Wordle, dumped all 100k into the generator, and then promptly received five smacks in the face.

This is what it looked like.

Yuck.

Really?

I did that? No way. There was no way. I couldn't remember a single time I'd used the word "back", or "around". Yes, "eyes" was an obvious one, because eyes are a primary tool for emotion and reactions, and...

And.......

And then I took a closer look.

I started with the first chapter, did the awesome action "ctrl + f " on the word "around", and promptly received five more smacks in the face. Actually, it was probably about ten smacks, with finding the word "around" at least once per page. AT LEAST.

It is word dependency, essentially. I'd grown so dependent on these words that I couldn't think outside using them. So, I embarked on a long journey of training and discipline: I went through the entire manuscript for each of the above words, and I decided, one by one, whether or not I absolutely NEEDED the word, or if I could change it -- and make the sentence BETTER.

Many times I could omit the word entirely:

"I turned around."

Which became simply:

"I turned."

I love brevity. Anyone who knows me knows I cuddle and whisper sweet nothings with brevity. I discovered that I liked "I turned" in all its two-word sentence power.

A different example:

"I looked around."

This became:

"I observed the area."

Variation in your narrative is important. It keeps things fresh, challenges you to use different words and different ways to write the same things. It challenges you to get CREATIVE, which you'd better be doing while you're writing. And if you can't think of anything, then mark it, leave it, come back later with a fresh brain. An epiphany might strike you during one of your thinking activities, like sitting on the porcelain throne.

Once I finished this extensive training, flat dead on the floor, an amorphous mass, my word cloud then looked like this:

Ta-daaaah~ There's a lovely sense of balance here. On top of that, I had beaten those words into my brain so thoroughly that, now, I've improved my awareness of them. As I write, I can sense their approach and ward them off entirely with a drop-kick to the face.

There are, of course, downfalls. Whenever politicians speak, my eyebrow twitches at words like "contingency" and "precedent". I rage whenever I see the phrase "critics cry foul" in news articles, and now that I've put it in your mind, I bet you will too. Or maybe it's just my OCD kicking in, or my awkward penguin.

Now, go forth and multiply.

.....Your word count, of course. Population crisis and all that.