Monday, September 22, 2014

Welcome Guest Author - Michael Kudo

Please welcome our guest Michael Kudo today! We're so glad he could stop by today!



I’m here with BWU today to discuss my writing process – the what, when, where, and how.

I can’t even calculate the amount of times I’ve had friends come up to me and say things like: “Wow, you actually sat down and wrote a WHOLE novel?!” or “I love to write, but it’s so hard staying focused” or even, my personal favorite: “You wrote over fifty-thousand words on a single topic/subject? You must have incredible willpower!”

So after I laugh internally, I smile and shake my head and assure them it isn’t as easy as it sounds. They seldom believe me. I think in their minds, I’m just a godless charlatan who wants to horde the secrets of writing all to myself so I can build an empire and rule the world! A bit dramatic, but you catch my drift.
The point being, it isn’t as easy as they think and to prove it, I’m going to break my writing process down in ten simplified steps.
(1)    Actively decide to write – it may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised how hard it is to make that decision. The way writers work (or most of us, anyway) is that we need inspiration to hit in order to write our stories. Inspiration can be anything from memories, a normal, everyday experience, or our characters whispering sweet nothings in our ear. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen every day and if we actually waited for inspiration to hit every single time we sat down to write, we’d never get anything done. Generally, it’s a good rule of thumb to get SOMETHING down. Anything. Even if it’s just a few fragmented sentences. If you’re writing, you’re winning.

(2)    Free myself from distractions – It could be just me, but I’m easily distracted. I’m like an ADHD kid on 7 grams of cocaine, 2 boxes of cookies, and a shot of hard liquor. So that being said, in order to write, my environment needs to be PERFECT if I’m going to get anything done. I need to have white noise of some kind, whether it’s rain (rainymood.com) or the soundtrack to one of my favorite videogames (Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy 6, Legend of Zelda: Windwaker, or Super Mario RPG, for those who are curious) I just need something to help silence the unhelpful background noises and coax out my creativity. Speaking of videogames, I’m a huge gaming geek. I love playing video games and sometimes it’s hard to stop myself from getting in that extra battleground or playing that extra round of Hearthstone.

(3)    Sum up the chapters – I used to be able to just write as I went along but I’m finding it harder and harder to write that way as of late. I now open a wordpad document and write out the chapters and add 3-5 brief sentences about the key scenes in each chapter I want to touch on. This helps me because I now have a goal to strive towards.

(4)    Write – Yay, I’m writing! How much fun is this? LOOK MA, I’M A WRITER!

(5)    Become distracted…by something – Oh, look, is that a unicorn? Or better yet; well, I’ve written a couple hundred (or thousand) words…I deserve a break. Maybe fifteen minutes of browsing the Internet (read: 1 hour) or a quick match in a video game (read: 2-3 hours)

(6)    Cry and regret life choices – Okay, so maybe it wasn’t a good idea to spend all my free time playing video games and browsing the Internet. My bad.

(7)    Drink and eat chocolate – You know what they say: write drunk, edit sober. And in the middle of a potential emotional breakdown consuming more chocolate that previously thought possible by a human.

(8)    Seek Reassurance – I’m only human. Sometimes it’s nice to be told you’re not a failure and that no matter what, you can do it. For me, my fiancĂ© takes care of that role. =)

(9)    New Resolve – I can do this. I can get this story done.

(10) Finish – After much struggling and mental turmoil, I usually have a novel completed at this point. Tada!

And that’s my writing process.

Blurb:

“I don’t like to be called an Assassin, I prefer the term problem solver.”
My name’s Alex. I’m an average guy. I kill people for a living. But don’t judge me.
I don’t take jobs on just anybody though. I only kill the really annoying people, like cheaters or abusers. So if you think about it, I’m actually doing God’s work—okay, maybe that’s stretching things a bit.
Other than the whole committing murder and trying to get away with it thing, my life is simple.
Well… except for the fact I’m in love with a fellow assassin who happens to be my mentor. I also have to make sure I’m careful when I’m on the job because if I ever fail a hit, I’ll be considered a “liability” and be executed promptly. Oh, and there’s a small chance someone in the organization is trying to have me killed. But I’ll figure that out, eventually. Did I mention I’m gay?
Okay, maybe my life isn’t so simple.
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Author Bio:
Michael was born and raised on the Jersey Shore – the geographical location, not the TV show. As such, he cannot boast having tanned skin, a rock-hard body, or being BFFs with Snooki. His version of GTL is gaming, Tumblr, and Lounging. He didn’t know what to do for a living until he wrote a couple of fun short stories as an English class project and made people laugh, something he’s always enjoyed doing and decided that’s what he wanted in his future.
A self-described “Otaku” (person with obsessive interests in manga, anime, and/or video games) Michael spends most of his time enjoying those things, becoming emotionally attached to fictional characters and collecting every bit of My Little Pony merchandise available.
He lives with his fiancé of five years in the heart of NJ.
Find out more about Michael on his blog (http://michaelmeeps.blogspot.com/) on Twitter (https://twitter.com/MichaelMeeps), and on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/michael.meeps)!