One of the big-picture items of the writer’s life is sitting down to decide what to write about each day. But even larger than that in terms of what you hope to accomplish with your career is the “why” of it all. I’ve covered a few important topics on the writing process last year; this year my plan is to first take a deep dive into the issues motivating a writer and then continue on with how to get that novel sitting in the deep recesses of your brain into a reality.
So, why write? Unfortunately this is going to be another one of those topics in which the only real, right answer will come from your own heart. If you’ve decided to sit down at a word-processing device and pour your heart out, you’d better be damn sure this is what you’re meant to be doing. But how does one figure that out? Where do all the ideas come from, and why won’t people stop asking where your ideas come from? I wish there was a simple answer to all of this, because if so I would’ve milked it for all it was worth and made a lot of money doing this. Truth is, just like motivation, whatever forces you to want to create must come from inside. Nothing I can do or write will ultimately help you in this regard. That being said, I can at least try to provide some guidance for your soul as you head down this journey. The big “why” of it all should be some kind of trigger from your life. An easy exercise to figure this out is to understand what is driving you. I can offer up an example from my first novel here. Our Senior Year was a story I had been carrying around with me since my own senior year of high school. I saw somebody like myself as the main character, and thought of a composite of some of my friends that could exist as other characters. It would be my attempt at telling a basic “boy meets girl” story that takes place in countless high schools across the nation, only in this case my shallow mindset at the time forced me to *spoiler* have the main character commit suicide once he realizes the relationship can never be. Looking back on this time (as it became a more major theme of the actual novel), I can see that I was trying to tell a story to deal with how I was feeling in those days, and felt that this would be the only way I could get it onto paper. As the story progressed I realized there wasn’t a whole lot of other plot there, so I subsequently came up with some other ideas, such as the *spoilers* car accident and the college visit. But ultimately this story was borne of the necessity of what I needed to tell. Now try visualizing a story like this from your own life. What story is inside you that you are burning to tell? What can’t be fully realized until you get it into that kind of form? If there isn’t anything there yet, dig deeper. There are many reasons to write, and this is just one way to access those feelings. But how you deal with those feelings is the key: this is a story that has to be told, and you are the only person who can get it right. Is there a relationship in your life that isn’t going well? How are things going with your parents? Do you enjoy the place where you live, your current status in life? All of these things are worth pondering if you’re trying to get to the core of what it is to feel that writer’s drive. Again, these are just partial motivators, but they are one way to get started. The “why” of writing is that a story is burning deep within you that must be let out - are you able to calm your mind enough to ponder and think it through? I had to learn how to do that so don’t think it’s going to be an easy or short process. But when it comes down to it, this is a solid way to get ideas, which contrary to popular belief don’t just appear out of the ether (ok, sometimes they do). The larger point I’m trying to make here is the “why” of writing can be anything you want it to be. On another side of things, say, the journalistic side, perhaps there is something going on in your neighborhood that really gets you animated and makes you want to effect some change. Find out who the key players are, interview them, and find other relevant government documents or other supporting elements that will bolster your overall picture of the situation, and then find a way to get it to the masses. The main element of this is whatever drives you: the story, the article, the situation, the people. Same can be said for stuff that’s going on in your own life. I can use an example from my second novel for this one. Last Man on Campus was another slow burner that existed in the back of my brain since my college days (it used to take me decades to finally put these ideas into story form - I’ll write more about my own problems and limitations in this space soon). I knew it was going to be a scary story about some kind of conspiracy running the show at a college campus very much like the one I was attending. That thought alone was enough to drive me to figure out the plot aspects of the book and eventually forced me to expand it into *spoiler* a larger universe that will spill over into at least one more novel. But at the center of it all was that core story about a guy trapped on his campus by forces beyond his understanding, which in turn was inspired by my own creeping meanderings around my dormitory hall and considering its story value. It can be as easy as simply looking around yourself and coming up with a story that maybe has always existed there, but it took your writer’s eye to see it. I’m not sure that this advice would work well for somebody trying to craft a more out-there genre type book; only you can know what a space lazer should look like if you’re writing a Sci-Fi novel, for example. But on the whole this can be a great way to access those feelings and to start putting together a story. So far this all seems pretty basic, right? “Look at your surroundings, dig deep within yourself to come up with the story, find something you’re passionate about.” But as simple as all of this sounds, it will take a long time to hone them into a career. I’ve got two published books under my belt and yet I am still struggling from idea to idea when it comes to my next work. Thankfully, since I keep my mind and eyes open to the possibilities around me it has become much easier to attune myself to the ideas when they arrive. It also helps to get the new ideas down into writing as soon as you can: either with a notebook or online using Google Docs like I do. The important thing is that you realize and understand the useful parts of the ideas: those things that will propel the story in unexpected directions that you may not have thought of at the time, but will someday realize that’s where it was headed all along. The most important part of all of this is being able to access that within yourself. Part 2 of this essay will attempt to look at that aspect.
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It’s Monday and I thought it would be a good day to write another piece about the writing process. My previous (lengthy) post on how to write was an overview of the entire process, so now it’s time to delve into a few of the main points a little deeper to figure out how we can all find the motivation to continue our journey.
Motivation is funny - a lot of it resides in one’s head, yet it’s one of the toughest things to tap into when you really need it. As it stands today, I’ve found the motivation to not only write two novels but to continue working on a third, crank out a series of (unpublished) short stories, and create some local journalism. So how did I do it? I wish there was some kind of magic wand I could hand out to everyone who wants to continue down a similar path, but the fact of the matter is you’re going to have to figure out a lot of this on your own. All I can do is discuss my previous efforts and hope that they may be instructive. Writing is damn difficult. Let’s get that out of the way right now. If you are going to commit yourself to a project of considerable magnitude, make sure your decision is final. If you find yourself waffling over the project a month into it, you haven’t dug deep enough to ensure this is what you want. What helps me the most when I sit down to write is simply knowing this is what I’m meant to be doing with my life. True, I do a lot in my life, including work at a bookstore, but when it comes right down to it, telling stories has become “my deal.” Make sure you understand your own, and that you really want to do it. Why is this important? Because you are going to run into roadblocks starting with the first day, and they aren’t going to get easier. Just writing the story is only one part of a much longer expedition to publication, where you will find yet more rejection but hopefully some success, too. So once you’ve committed yourself, how do you keep at it? I wrote before about having a daily goal - this is very important. It doesn’t have to be a huge goal, especially if you’re just trying to get started. Pick a number you’re comfortable with - 500 words may seem like a lot but really isn’t; once you are able to crank out that many words each day you can raise it to 1,000 which is a pretty decent daily goal to stick with for a while. Finding the actual motivation to sit down at your desk is another thing - first I would say eliminate as many distractions as possible. If you happen to share a living space with another (lovely) human like I do, invest in a good pair of headphones for those times when she is watching HGTV in the next room. Make sure you have a clock somewhere that isn’t distracting, and a good writer’s drink like coffee, and that you have enough time to crank out your writing goal for the day. Planning your writing schedule out in advance is also a good idea - the night before a writing morning I always try to affirm to myself (and my wife) that this will be how I plan on spending that morning. Since I only have a few hours in the morning on the nights that I close, I try to get all the errands and chores I need to do out of the way in the hour before I sit down at my desk, and then don’t leave that area until my goal is accomplished. Most word processing programs have a “word count” option that will help you see how far you have left to go. Of course, all the planning in the world won’t be worth much if you sit down at your desk and your mind goes blank. Writers’ block is something we all have to deal with, but it should never cripple your writing. Sure, some days there really will be nothing of value coming out of your typing, but that doesn’t matter. Consider that a LOT of what you’re putting down even now will be thrown on the cutting room floor regardless, and crank out what you can. If there is one thing I’ve learned in the writing of two books - you will get rid of a lot of excess that seemed so important at the time, but really did nothing to advance the story or reveal more about the characters. Even if as you’re writing it you think to yourself, “this is crap,” keep going. It’s wading through the crap that gets you to the good stuff. Another idea that has helped me: at the end of each writing session, scroll down to the next blank page or two in your word document. Plunk down a few more sentences about where the story is heading and what topics you want to hit next. If your main character is going to run into somebody from his past in the next chapter, or the scary conspiracy is going to reveal itself in a new way during the next passage, jot down a sentence or two about the main points you want to convey when writing these next sections. I also find it helpful to put down a few “rules” or “themes” that I hope to follow throughout the entire novel: structural details, characters I don’t want to forget, or important settings. This way, the next time you sit down to write, you already have a page of notes for where the story is heading next. As I complete each of the notes, I delete some of them and add some new ideas until I get to the end (there will probably be some that never make it into the story, either). This is one surefire way I know to beat writer’s block - give yourself something to write about next time. Another way to do this, which I hope to spend more time on in another post, is to create an outline of your novel - that way you will always have a reference point. These are some tips that have helped me keep going over the years. But really, the secret to motivation can only be found within yourself. If I watched more movies from the Eighties I would be able to insert some kind of snarky motivational quote in here, but suffice it to say that you can find this power in your own heart - you just have to know how to coax it into existence. Take it from me, the rewards will surely outweigh anything you gain from putting off your writing for yet another day. After meandering through a few other topics on this blog it’s time to point back in the direction of advice for people who want to try this writing thing on their own. To wit, let’s start with finding a publisher.
So you’ve got your manuscript in fine form, and perhaps you even found the money to hire an editor to look over your work to find errors and make sure the tale is consistent (more on that in a future “process” post). You think it’s as good of a story as it can be. Where are you going to take this masterpiece? The first thing you need to do is consider your audience. Now this is something I struggled with at the beginning, as many new authors do, thinking that “everyone” is your target audience. As I wrote in my “finding your niche” piece, nothing could be further from the truth. Your target audience is out there, you just have to figure out who they are. Start by taking a hard look at your work, pondering who in the world would be first in line to read it. Since you are the main person who is going to know this, all I can do here is try to help fill in the gaps with my own experience in the hopes that it helps. For Our Senior Year, my first novel, I had hoped to direct it at high school kids and those of my own (ugh “Millennial”) generation. Unfortunately the book contained a good amount of the kind of stuff kids are into in high school, including drinking, drug use, and some casual sex. Between that and the copious use (again, by high school kids) of the F-word I had a difficult time getting high schools to even care about the work. I had better luck with people my age, as they were able to relate to the story. And I had even more success with those I hadn’t (but should have) considered integral to my audience: people who have gone through a similar experience with religion as the main character in the novel. I got the best overall response from these people, as they could attest to how true-to-life the situation could be. While these were themes that drove the novel from the beginning, I never thought that this would be a particular “audience” to drive the novel toward. Now I know to think as specific as possible when looking for a target group, and you should, too. Think of who is going to get the most out of this book. Will it be young children, adults of a certain age, pet owners, or literary fiction lovers? Whatever you decide, then make sure you push toward those groups with your marketing, book cover, and anything else that will gain attention. Once the target audience gets into it, others will follow (at least that’s the plan). After you’ve figured out the target audience, the next step is to find a publisher to pitch the idea to those who deal exclusively with such a group. I’m going to keep this basic for now and assume I’m writing to people living in my own state of Minnesota. A simple internet search turns up a pretty good list of publishers right here in the frozen north. There are all kinds of niche publishers who preach to a dedicated choir, and you should be able to find one that fits your need. (I should mention here my own publisher, North Star Press, is not on this list - more on them later). What I would call the big fiction players would be Coffee House Press and Graywolf. How do you get their attention? Coffee House has open submissions once a year, which take place next March. Graywolf, having cranked out multiple National Book Award and Pulitzer winners, does require you to have an agent before you can submit. As I have yet to find an agent for my work, I regrettably don’t have much in the way of advice, but I hope to soon! Some publishers will allow you to submit work online or via email, as that’s how most of our business is done these days. Check out their respective websites to find out who they are publishing for, and make sure that aligns with your target audience. Make sure you have a word processing program that can create MS Word documents, and you will be good to go. After the submission comes the hardest part: waiting to see what they think. In my case, I had to wait around a month before I heard back from North Star. But don’t give up if you don’t hear anything or if they respond in the negative. Just consider your target audience again, and peruse another publisher that might work better for your book. Hopefully in their rejection the publisher will give you some advice in this regard. And remember, we’re just starting with Minnesota here; there are a TON of publishing companies in New York City and elsewhere that will be much more difficult to get into but not impossible. I personally liked using a small local press because they worked with me at every step of the way and were a simple phone call or drive away if I ever needed to speak with them. I came across North Star Press, through a writing workshop I attended in Chanhassen, a suburb of the Twin Cities. They had some information there about submitting, so I looked up their website and sent the first few chapters of my book. You can do the very same thing: just click “submissions” on their front page. They are also looking for contributors for an essay collection they will publish next year, so if you want to try out those writing chops you are more than welcome. NSP has been wonderful to work with and they have produced some outstanding-looking books for me over the past two years. If anyone reading this has something they think is ready to submit and would like more direct contact with them, send me an email and I might be able to work something out for you. So that’s the basics of finding a publisher. What I didn’t mention in all of this is the incredibly difficult work of writing the novel and getting it edited, as well as doing the proper marketing work to ensure that the book finds success. We’ll have plenty of time to get into that over the course of the next few blog posts, but I wanted to make sure I hit this topic now in case there are people out there who have work ready to go and want to seek publication. We’ll get into the harder work soon. Good luck to you burgeoning authors out there, and thanks for reading. We all make mistakes. Some are huge, some are insignificant, and some you will never live down. I know I have made plenty in the past year alone. A good friend of mine who I’ve come to learn makes great critiques of my work recently pointed out a few mistakes in the first printing of my second novel, including a few odd name changes and a historical footnote that drove me even more crazy for my not researching it properly. This fed into other, more general worries I’ve had about the book and whether or not people like the story. What really got me down about it was the fact that if I had just paid a little bit more attention when I was running through the final edits I would have caught these errors. It taught me a lesson about making sure my final product is as flawless as it can possibly be. The other worries are not so easy to live down. I find myself racked with anxiety: am I doing the best work I can? Is it living up to what I’ve produced so far? Should I even be in this writing game or should I just hang it up in the face of so many other talented, popular writers out there? These issues are important, and it’s very difficult to put them aside, given my personality.
I’m somebody who is already nine-tenths of the way there when it comes to having a pessimistic outlook on my life. I’ve been this way for a long time, and it has caused problems at every stage of the game. I spent a good many years of my twenties unable to maintain a basic relationship with a partner. I was recently let go from a job because of perceived “performance” issues. I sent my first novel to a bunch of different places to be reviewed only to be turned down by every single one of them. A recent inquiry into selling my novel at a bookstore was returned with a simple “not interested.” As a writer, I know I should be expecting this kind of failure on a daily basis, but my stress and guilt about not being good enough is not always easy to deal with some days. “Mistakes were made,” indeed. I was just a toddler when the Iran/Contra scandal broke out, but I have read that this was the smarmy colloquialism jostled about by our leaders in Washington at the time. It’s a funny phrase in how it acknowledges a problem but doesn’t go all the way in mentioning who is at fault, something politicians have enjoyed in the decades since Reagan avoided (a very deserving) impeachment. It could also be used in our own lives if we are seeking to escape accountability, either from our overbearing internal monologue or from those around us. But I’ve found that owning up to them makes for a much better outcome. I did make those editing mistakes, and I am sorry if they were distracting or took you out of the scene. Getting over the fact that people may not like this book is a little tougher to deal with, but as I see it I have two options. One, I can consider it an assent to hang up my writing career, knowing that not everyone is going to like my work. Or I can accept that not everyone is going to like my work and keep at it, improving with every novel and piece of journalism I produce. When it comes right down to it, our mistakes make us who we are. Sometimes I look over the stuff I was writing back in 2008 when I began writing online. It’s hardly stellar work, but I can see the writer I would become in those lines. I would not be where I am today without getting my start there. Therein lies the rub: there is no success without massive, and constant, failure. We are going to fail: at life, at relationships, at producing art. What remains is how we deal with it. I can either let my OCD-ravaged brain latch onto the (many) mistakes I’ve made over the years or I can see them for what they are: necessary corrections on the way to becoming a better writer. It’s going to be a long, hard slog, but in the end it will be worth it. That’s advice I would give to anyone, since I’m supposed to be using this platform to dish some out. What matters is where we land on the other side of our errors. If you consider each screw up to be emblematic of a lifetime of failures, then you’re going to be right. But if you accept that these things are going to happen despite any success you may find, then you are well on your way to a great career. Owning the failure is something that must be done, however you find it within yourself to do it. So go ahead and let mistakes be made. Just ensure that you know who made them, and what to do differently next time. At the very least, that’ll put you miles beyond the people running the country. Well it’s Monday so once again time for your local unemployed author/journalist friend to dispense some kind of wisdom about how I got here, or how you out there might be able to take your own journey into the writing world. Today’s post will be a combination of these themes, condensing down the general notion of “how to write” while still retaining as much content from experience as I can. So, how do you write? I wish it was as easy as the blog post tag line, to be honest.
First you need to have something to write about. That also sounds simple, but it’s one of the hardest things we practitioners of the page deal with every day. Sitting down at the computer/typewriter/pad of paper as it stares blankly back at you can be very difficult to overcome if you don’t have a firm idea of what your aim is with the written word. I won’t be all that helpful when it comes to explaining specifically what to write, but I can offer a few pointers. The axiom “write what you know” probably reached cliche territory a few decades ago, but it remarkably holds up regardless. While I’ve read diatribes maintaining that this adage is pointless and detrimental to authors, for the most part I’d say it stands up pretty well. I certainly would not have anything close to the output I have without life experience, and I think many authors would say the same. For Our Senior Year, this was the general feeling of high school life, living in a small town, dealing with religious fundamentalism, and more granular details like car accidents and other tragic events, all of which I repurposed for use in the novel to describe these years my life in the most relatable way. With Last Man on Campus it was a little trickier, given that I never saw any ghosts or conspiracies during my time at college, but I was still able to appropriate some great scenes from dormitory life for the novel. I guess the easiest advice to give here is to think about some of the meaningful events of your life. Was there any kind of narrative coursing through these events? If so, is it a narrative that could be repurposed with a dash of artistic license? And if that’s so, you are well on your way toward beginning a story. It could be as simple as a trip to the local farmer’s market - say you met a peculiar individual on the way or at the market; that person could show up as a character in a short story. Or it could come from larger parts of your life - people you’ve known over the years who could appear as characters in your novels. This was a tactic I probably over-used in my first two novels, but can be a reliable way to jump-start your mind into imagining other stuff for these characters to do. I wish I had more specific advice to give on this one, but I will say that you’ll need some kind of overarching design for your story before you can implant aspects of your life into it. For instance, I had a general outline dancing around in my head for years concerning the overall story of Our Senior Year (guy goes to church, meets girl, falls in love, and has his life collapse all in one year) but had to fill in many of the gaps with events from my high school life. I knew Jack Wayne *spoiler alert* was going to off himself in the final act, but I had to decide what was going to earn that decision other than losing a girl, which I felt in itself wasn’t enough. So I dropped in his friend getting in a terrible accident, his grades slipping, and his inability to escape his father’s chosen line of work and life once that happened. These things all came to me at different times, but they were all parts of living in a rural, small-town environment that I observed over my years there. The important thing is using those parts of your observed life well enough so that your own character can become part of the book. Now, this works great for books like Our Senior Year, which are based closely on real life, and work OK for more made-up stuff, what happens when you would rather start from scratch and not “write what you know?” Well, I’ll let you know when I encounter that problem, as it lies on my horizon to be dealt with someday. Ha ha. But seriously, if you stick with writing what you know at first, the rest will come naturally. So you might have a general idea of what you want to write about. Now, how the heck do you go about doing it? That blank word processor/torn out page of paper/cave wall is calling out to you, screaming for your attention to its bland possibilities. How do you get yourself motivated enough to start? Well, I hate to say it so bluntly, but just freakin’ start! Don’t worry about your expectations, don’t worry about what other people might think, and really don’t worry that it’s going to suck (because it will, at first). Throw all those problems out of your headspace for one hour and just start. It could be as simple as writing down the first words of the novel or blog post, and taking a break to see where to go from there. It doesn’t have to come one right after another, but it should be some kind of coherent whole when you’re finished with your section for that day. I hold myself to a hard-n-fast rule of 1000 words for every writing session, in which I cannot leave my desk until I reach at least that many words of a novel. You could implement a similar arrangement for yourself - start out nice and easy with 100 words, or 200, or 500. You don’t have to go way out there with your goal; just have one! And if you meet the goal each day for a week, then look at expanding it. This has been a tried and true way for me to expand my words per day, so now I’m cranking out close to 5,000 each session without breaking a sweat. But you certainly don’t have to try for that level anytime soon. Or if you’re bold you could say 5,000 is piddly, you want at least 10,000 each time! That might be all right if you’re working on the next War & Peace or whatnot, but I would advise starting small and working your way toward a bigger number each time. When you find the number that you’re most comfortable with, stick with it until you can attain it without agony and without looking at the clock every five minutes (I would advise having no way to measure time available when you write, but that’s up to you). Once you have the idea in your head, and have a reasonable schedule in terms of amount written each day, see how long you can make it last. Considering an “average” size novel is going to be around 75,000 - 100,000 words, factor that into your schedule as you go. At 1,000 words per day, it will take roughly three months to iron out a good first draft. Do you have the patience and wherewithal to hack it for that long? If not, you better find it. But again, don’t be afraid to start small. A nicely written short story could be 1,000 words, and you could crank that out in one day. Twenty days later you’ll have a nice start to a short story collection. Looking more on the journalistic side? A quick article could be around 700-800 words, or a nice meaty blog post. Do that twice a week and you’ll have a nice portfolio even in a month’s time. The important thing is to stick with it. Which brings me to the third point of advice here - how the hell do you stick with it? How does one not only get the idea straight, set up a workable writing schedule, and get a nice first draft completed within a decent time frame? Here again I can only offer what works for me - you’ll need to tweak these rules accordingly to find out what works for you. Regarding motivation - to a certain extent this will be entirely up to you. If you want to make it as a successful writer, you’ll find the motivation somewhere. Those of us who hope to make it in this industry know how to overcome that blank screen, the desire to quit before you’ve met your daily goal, and how to tie it all into a coherent whole. (I should also add here a good support system is second to none: I would not have anywhere close to the amount of work done without the constant drumbeat of support to be found through my wife). This can be very simple. One of the joys I have in my day now that I’m unemployed is a nice routine. I get up, do some stuff around the apartment, make coffee, and then settle in to write. Having a steaming cup of coffee next to me is sometimes all the motivation I need. Or promise yourself a fun activity if you can just crank out your daily goal. Say, allow yourself an episode or two of your favorite TV show, some kind of food-related item that you really like, or find another way to reward yourself that won’t do more damage than it’s worth. I wish I could say it’s more complicated than this, but it really isn’t. If you want to make it as an author in today’s day and age, you need to do the work, but make sure it’s worth it to yourself. Right now all I really need is the promise of coffee and maybe a bowl of cereal, but this could be anything that gets you planted at the desk writing, or motivates you to finish writing so you can have it. This could be something you fit into your schedule as a routine, so you could have two hours of writing in the morning followed by one hour of video games, or a nice walk on the bike trail with a hilarious podcast (my preferred way to wile the afternoons these days). Whatever it is, make sure it motivates you enough to complete the original task AND keeps you wanting to do it every day. Because you really need to do this every day, especially if you hope to produce a lot of work. So, consider this a brief introductory course on “how to write.” Trust me, you could spend an entire day searching online about advice for authors. There was a time when I scoured sites for this type of information, overloading myself on steps to take by various people who had “made it” and wanted to dispense some advice out there for those getting started. And by all means, if you want that kind of advice go seek it out - some of it can be very valuable. But after a while I stopped reading those types of articles completely. Because when it comes right down to it, as a writer you need to find your own voice. No one - not a famous author, not me, not a writing instructor or professor - will be able to find that if you cannot. This ties a bit in with the first part, which is finding the idea. While there are a few good ways to go about doing this, ultimately you’re going to have to needle your own brain for inspiration. This can come from your own life or whatever you come into contact with, but what matters is how you interpret them and make them into a workable story. So by all means, if you feel like the advice I’m laying out here isn’t working for you, go out there and look for something else. The great thing about writing is that it’s a pretty freakin’ old form of communication that has existed through various ages and mediums, and still remains (in my opinion) the most powerful form of interacting with others that we’ve got. Of course this is now splintered into a thousand different forms with the advent of the ‘net and social mediaz, but that’s a post for another time. In conclusion, here’s my initial advice on “how to write:”
And as always, thanks for reading. |
AuthorJohn Abraham is a published author and freelance journalist who lives in the Twin Cities with his wife Mary and their cat. He is writing a speculative dystopian novel and is seeking representation and a publisher. Archives
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