With his hit new book, “Pep Talks, Warnings & Screeds: indispensable wisdom and cautionary advice for writers“, just off the presses, talented author George Singleton, took some time from his busy schedule to visit Writer’s Round-About. He shares with us these 21 aphorisms most of which, as he says, “deal with keeping positive.”

Writing is a challenging obsession. Writer’s cannot succeed without dedication, courage, and a driving passion. We must be remarkable people who do not always follow fashionable trends or popular beliefs. We take significant risks, make grandiose leaps and extraordinary choices.

Take a moment from your writing to read George’s insights,
then get right back to those blank pages.

1. Develop Writer Reflexes
I have noticed that young drivers are apt to step on the accelerator of their cars when the traffic light turns yellow. Older drivers have learned that sometimes the light turns red prematurely, and perhaps a younger driver is waiting across the intersection. When the light turns green, that younger driver over there takes off, et cetera. Good. The world is fine.

In writing it’s all speeding forward with no peripheral vision when one begins. It’s how things should be. One needs to feel the pain of side-impact. Later, the writer has two options: either to be so paranoid of a collision that he or she quits writing, or be so aware of an unwanted collision that he or she learns how to swerve at a moment’s notice.

2. This guy walks into the bar and says…
If you understand that your story might be difficult for the reader to understand in terms of willing suspension of disbelief, then you can easily invent another character who must undergo hearing and living the story. Instead of “I fell into this hole one night when I was walking. The hole went something like 457 feet down, and when I got there I met up with a tribe of stuttering people who called themselves the Dir-dir-dirteaters,” maybe try something like this:

I sat alone in a bar. This normal-looking guy turned away from the bartender toward me and said, “Man. I just got back from falling 457 feet down into a hole where I met a band of stuttering people called the dir-dir-dirteaters.” He raised his eyebrows as if to ask what I thought about all that.

I said, “I got enough trouble, buddy. My wife just called saying she wanted to take a pottery course at the local community college.”

3. The Taste Sensations of Story
Of all the muscles in the human body, the tongue might be the most amazing. There are taste buds sprinkled all over the place—from what I can understand—that deal with Sweet, Salty, Sour, Savory, and Bitter. Good meals might properly include all of these sensations. So might short stories and novels.

4. Choreography or Chaos?
I have watched people in cities walking their dogs. It’s as if the dog knows exactly where he or she should go next. In a way, it’s an act of beauty, kind of like ballroom dancing, or pairs ice skating. I am not so certain, though, that a short story should be like this. Wouldn’t it be more fun and daring—for reader and writer alike—to be not quite sure where the dog might pull next?

5. Essential Tool: Scented Candle
There are many candles in the candle shop. There is not one of them that smells good to everyone. There is not one of them that smells bad to everyone, either. A story might not be for one editor or reader, but it might be for another.

6. Product Placement
I have gone to New York City in the past, gotten up in the middle of the night, walked out of my hotel room, and ventured down to the local all-night convenience store. This has happened more than once. This has happened every time I’ve been to New York, as a matter of fact. I’ve said, “Hey. Do y’all have any Goody’s Powders?” The clerk has always looked at me like I was out of my mind. One man told me that the doughnuts would arrive at five o’clock. I’ve said, “BC Powders? Stanback? I’m talking headache powders.”

I’ve learned that there are fast pain relievers that sell in the South that don’t sell elsewhere. My analysis: Their loss.

7. Shed Your Metaphorical Skin
You can tell when a snake is about to shed its skin. Its eyes get glazed over. It looks meaner than usual. And it will be meaner than usual. Once it sheds, though, it’ll return to being the loveable viper we all know and appreciate.

If you write long enough, there will come a time when nothing seems to be going as you wish. Maybe it’s a time to shed your metaphorical skin, and begin anew. I don’t mean trade in writing fiction for poetry, for God’s sake. I mean try writing from a different point of view than that which you’re comfortable.

8. Surgeons and Mechanics
The good surgeon knows where to cut, but the good mechanic knows his or her bearings.

9. Riding the Rapids
Kayakers know that if they tip over, it’s best to roll back upright immediately. Kayakers don’t know that hitting one’s head over and over on submerged and invisible rocks makes for a better story in the long run.

10. Playing it Straight
You’re playing a video poker machine. The cards come out A, K, Q, J of spades, and the 10 of hearts. You have a straight. You’ve won the hand. Should you throw away that 10 of hearts and hope for a 10 of spades? What would a royal flush pay off? If you’re playing Deuces Wild, maybe there’ll be a two that shows up. That’ll pay off more than a regular straight, also.

Man. What to do, what to do?

You have a story that seems complete with a well-written, nice, normal, convenient, non-controversial, close-ended happy ending. It’ll get published in a journal that has a readership of 250. The editor says that it’s “an international magazine of fiction and poetry” because someone in Denmark subscribes.

Give me a break. If you teach at a small, small college that revels in its “professors” getting published so they can put an item in the alumni magazine, then send it to the little-bitty magazine. Be safe. Die, and have nothing worthwhile on your tombstone.

11. Scatter your Ashes
Once upon a time I had a pet snake. It lived in a terrarium, on a stand, by the back door. I named the snake Tennessee because it was long, and because my better half was brought up in Tennessee and I always said she was meaner than a snake to me. That’s the way I am. Ha! Anyway, one night I was letting out the dogs, they ran skittering helter-skelter and bumped into Tennessee’s cage. I’m not sure what he was doing—I’d just fed him—but a rock tumbled, and somehow he got his head squished. Tennessee died. Tennessee bled and rolled over and died.

I wasn’t happy with the dogs, understand.

As it ended up I burned Tennessee’s smush-headed body in the fire pit I have out back. I coiled him up in a ceramic ashtray, and set him atop some wood and New Yorker magazines I had. Later, I scattered his ashes in my garden. Whenever I ate tomatoes, or sweet potatoes, or jalapenos, or squash, or cantaloupe I thought about Tennessee the Snake.

In writing, it might be good to scatter all of your experiences into some kind of metaphorical garden. Let those ashes settle, and fertilize what you want to emerge later.

12. One Beautiful Flower
Even the smallest, skinniest, shortest magnolia tree puts out at least one good fragrant bloom a year.

13. Of Feeding the Homeless
My garden puts out way more tomatoes than I can ever eat. I don’t even like tomatoes, at least not every day. For a time I took the extras to a soup kitchen where the preacher and her comrades, I found out, spoke to the homeless people nonstop about how Jesus could save them, et cetera. Then it came to me that Jesus didn’t provide any tomatoes for these people. Why was Jesus getting all the glory and recognition for what people like I was doing? I didn’t understand.

There will be times when you publish stories in magazines, and that magazine will receive awards and accolades. You won’t. Other writers in your same issue will get selected for New Stories from the South, and Best American Short Stories, et cetera. It’s important to understand that it’s not a game, not a competition, not a spectator sport. It’s important—in this analogy—to leave Jesus on the sidelines, and concentrate on feeding hungry people.

14. Taking the Bank Shot
You’re playing pool. You’re playing eight-ball. There are two shots to make. One is a straight-in shot, to the corner pocket, from about three feet. The other’s a bank shot.

If you make the bank shot, the other balls are spread out in a way to easily knock them in and win the game. If you make the easy shot, you’ll have to work harder.

What to do?

I believe that you should try the bank. If it doesn’t work out, you lost and start a new game immediately.

15. Begin with Fundamentals
In the land of baseball, Gaylord Perry was known as a great pitcher who got away with throwing spitballs. Spitballs are illegal. In the world of writing, there have been a number of writers who’ve cheated in all the rules, e.g., Show, Don’t Tell. It’s important to remember that, before Gaylord Perry got to where he was, he perfected the basics. He learned the fastball and curve.

Learn the fastball and curve before trying to trick the reader with a spitball.

16. More Than One Way
There’s more than one way to get the honey-taste out of honeysuckle. There’s a best way, according to everyone. Understand that one way might be the best in Georgia, and another day the best in Virginia.

Understand that not everyone cares about honeysuckle.

Understand that you, as a writer, might be blind to putting poison ivy up to your lips.

It’s a learning experience, as they say.

17. Imitate the Dung Beetle
The poor dung beetle: Everyone makes fun of that thing, pushing poop around. It’s industrious. It’s obsessed and single-minded. It works not unlike Sisyphus, doing what it has to do. The dung beetle’s an insect worthy of every writer having tattooed on his or her bicep, if you ask me.

18. Blends and Concoctions
There’s a reason why white people have white children, black people have black children, Asian people have Asian children, and mixed-marriaged people have beautiful, interesting-looking children. There’s a reason why Neapolitan ice cream is more appealing than plain old vanilla, chocolate, or strawberry.

In fiction, it’s best to mix it up, too. Make a story two stories. Give a novel subplots.

19. Treating Heartworm
One time I told a veterinarian that my dogs wouldn’t get heartworm seeing as my dogs smoked cigarettes, and mosquitoes stayed away from smoke. Before everyone involved in animal rights’ organizations gets riled up, this is a joke.

But this is to say that any problem that occurs midway through a short story can be fixed, in theory. You can go change the point of view. You can cut out the subplot that doesn’t work and add another one. You can make the main character a minor character, and so on. There’s always a way to circumvent a major obstacle.

This is harder than it sounds. It might be time—if you understand the story to be flawed—to shelve the thing for a while and start another story.

20. Camp in the Complaints Department
The safest place for a fly to sleep?—the business end of a flyswatter. When the fly feels movement, he knows that trouble approaches. The best place to have stories fall into the writer’s lap?—standing near the Complaint or Returns booth at any retail chain. Nothing but conflict can take place and be witnessed easily.

21. Modern Convenience and Manufacturer Design
There’s no law that says you have to place eggs in the egg holder section of your refrigerator door, or the butter and cheese in that little cubby hole with the slide-down plastic window. There’s no law about keeping lettuce in the crisper drawer down below. It’s a suggestion, evidently, by the Refrigerator Manufacturers of the World.

There are no rules when it comes to writing fiction. But if you understand that there are safer, better, more convenient places to introduce plot, character faults, conflict, and the like, it might make it easier for you, and for the reader.

George Singleton, who was born in Anaheim, California now lives in Pickens Country, South Carolina. He has published over 100 stories in a variety of magazines and journals including The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, and Zoetrope and four collections of stories, These People Are Us, The Half-Mammals of Dixie, Why Dogs Chase Cars, and Drowning in Gruel.

Find these books by George Singleton