{"id":3295,"date":"2018-04-08T06:03:42","date_gmt":"2018-04-08T10:03:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/?p=3295"},"modified":"2018-04-08T06:26:27","modified_gmt":"2018-04-08T10:26:27","slug":"writers-are-always-writing-even-when-theyre-not-writing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/writers-are-always-writing-even-when-theyre-not-writing\/","title":{"rendered":"Writers Are Always Writing, Even When They’re Not “Writing”"},"content":{"rendered":"

People at my health club often ask me \u201cWhat are you working on?\u201d or \u201cAre you writing another book?\u201d This happens even if I\u2019ve just published a book. and it was covered in the local newspapers and on local radio.<\/p>\n

When I say \u201cI\u2019m always working on something,\u201d most people look bemused. It probably sounds too vague, or maybe they think it\u2019s an excuse, a cover for the fact that I\u2019m not actually writing anything at all.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s the truth. I never stop writing. I don\u2019t need a PC, tablet, legal pad, Post-it notes or anything physical to write. Once I have an idea, it settles into whatever part of my brain has become Lev Raphael, Inc. and has its own independent life.\u00a0 Sometimes it has Casual Fridays or staycations, but that company is busy 24\/7.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Watching a movie or TV show, I\u2019m not a passive viewer. I rewrite dialogue in my head and sometimes say it out loud (only at home). When I caught an episode of The White Princess, <\/em>I winced when two characters in Tudor England said to someone whose daughter had died, \u201cI\u2019m sorry for your loss.\u201d That struck me as way too 2018, and Lev Raphael, Inc. was thinking of ways the show\u2019s writers could have expressed the thought with a less 21st century feel: \u201cYour loss grieves me\u201d or maybe \u201cI mourn for your loss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dialogue that misses the mark makes me think harder about the dialogue in whatever book I\u2019m working on.<\/p>\n

Of course, I enjoy it more when the dialogue is memorable, and that\u2019s one reason I’ve watched Scandal<\/em>. It’s showcased characters each episode by giving them moments where they go off and repeat themselves in various ways with different emphases. Sometimes the feel is comic, sometimes it\u2019s threatening or even grotesque, sometimes it\u2019s all of that–and it’s always entertaining.<\/p>\n

On Scandal<\/em> the character playing Attorney General David Rosen once actually brought a human head in a box to his ex-girlfriend\u2019s apartment, asking her to store it briefly in her freezer or fridge. She was incredulous and demanded to know why the powerful, shady character Rowan had given it to him. Hapless Rosen said it was because he needed a DNA sample to track down a deceased villain. While the box sat in his lap, he explained:<\/p>\n

That man terrifies me, I was not about to argue. He gives me a head, I say thank you for the head. I take the head and I go, right?<\/em><\/p>\n

I had DVR’d the episode, so I replayed this a few times. His lines made me take mental notes about a character in an extreme situation not responding with panic, but acting almost normally while reporting something completely bizarre. The contrast between the box and how he spoke about it was highly instructive: Lev Raphael, Inc. opened another file…..<\/p>\n

Lev Raphael is the prize-winning author of 25 books in genres from mystery to memoir, including, Writer\u2019s Block is Bunk<\/em><\/a>, a guide to the writing life.\u00a0 You can study creative writing with him on line at www.writewithoutborders.com<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

People at my health club often ask me \u201cWhat are you working on?\u201d or \u201cAre you writing another book?\u201d This happens even if I\u2019ve just published a book. and it was covered in the local newspapers and on local radio. When I say \u201cI\u2019m always working on something,\u201d most people look bemused. It probably sounds … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,2],"tags":[774,497,1215,809,496,979,1146,214,775,787,758,380,495,1216],"class_list":["post-3295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writers","category-writing","tag-amwriting","tag-authors","tag-dialogue","tag-lev-raphael","tag-publishing","tag-scandal","tag-stephen-king","tag-the-writing-life","tag-writers-block","tag-writers-block-is-bunk","tag-writers-life","tag-writers","tag-writing","tag-writing-dialogue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3295"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3307,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions\/3307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.levraphael.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}