As always happens, my writer's mind has begun its usual diversionary track. Yep! While revising and expanding my work in progress, a new work or maybe a new series has reared its ugly head. Characters are begging me to create them, scenes are appearing in dreams, imagination is putting together settings, and I'm struggling to keep my mind on the task at hand.
Some writers can handle multiple projects at one time. I can't. I'm a writer in focus. In other words, if I'm not in focus, not zeroing in on one piece, then nothing really gets finished. I may write character profiles for this new piece, and I most likely will attempt a general outline (something I never really adhere to).
Outlines work for some but not for me. It seems that my stories begin and then write themselves, each scene appearing on the inside of my eyelids and then transferring through my keyboard onto the screen in front of me. I usually know how the story is going to end, but I seldom know how it'll get from point A to point B. If I outline, it is very general, meaning it has a few character names, where or if those characters survive to the end of the novel, and how the story climaxes. That's it. Nothing more.
This burgeoning thing that is trying to distract me, as is true in all my stories, is founded in personal experience. I live in a region of the country served by the regional electric service monopoly known as AEP. AEP serves the general Appalachian region most associated with "mountain folk" as defined by popular, national opinion. Nevermind that these "folk" earn almost 50% less than people living in urban areas. Nevermind that these "folk" have fewer job opportunities, cannot access public transportation, and are bereft of some of the services available in other areas like public water and sewage, trash pick up, and zoning. Regardless of these facts, AEP has raised their electric service distribution prices almost 100% in the last 5 years. That's right. Cost of electric service has DOUBLED! Needless to say, the villain in my new book will be an electric company, a thinly disguised version of my nemesis, AEP.
That's all I'm telling right now. BUT my two-book series, WIP MUST COME FIRST. I can't trunk it again, not while I'm making headway in character development and plot line. This is when it usually happens...when I begin to rush toward the end, effectively disjointing the storyline and leaving my characters to perform deeds that seem foreign to the character I developed early in the story. This is when that virtue, patience, must take hold. Jumping from an unfinished novel into another not-yet-written piece will jumble my feeble brain and make both endeavors fruitless.
Writer know thyself. That's been a little hard for me. I've learned about me and about how I write over time. I know that if I hurry to finish the WIP, then the story will feel rushed and choppy. If I leave the WIP to move to another story that is bubbling up through the curly strands of my brain, then the work in progress (a good story by all accounts) might never be finished.
What is a writer to do? In this case, I'm pretty sure I've got a handle on it. I take notes. When the new story bubbles up, I wipe it from my brain by taking notes on possibilities as to how it might turn out. I keep the notes in a safe place. The WIP will be finished, to my satisfaction, and beta-ed by the Dawg Pack. After the pack has howled out its approval or disapproval, after the final edits are done, then I'll query the piece and keep my fingers crossed. While I'm querying, I'll slip out my notes and let all those collected bubbles of possibility breathe again. I'll write the first chapter of the next WIP, then the second chapter, and so on. When the agent who requests the full manuscript of the two-book series calls and says, "I'd like to offer you representation," I can say (after the screaming and fainting and shouting for joy, of course) "You know what? I've got two finished books on the old computer and I'm half way through a new one." Won't I be proud? :D
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Finally!
Okay. I've finally made some great headway. The one thing my beta-readers found unsettling in the one-now-two books I'm working on was character development. It seemed I slacked up a bit when it came to almost everyone in the story. Yep! As Robbie the Robot (oops! dated myself) once said, "Error. Error."
Character development appears in class number one of any writer's workshop. The key to success is to make the reader love at least one of the characters and have strong feelings about the rest, whether they're villains or heroes. When members of my writing group began the book, my main character was spellbinding. Well, that may be a little strong, but hey! They liked her a whole lot. When the book passed the half-way point, I began to hurry, letting my compulsive desire to finish overwhelm the characters, all the characters. Doesn't work. By the end of the book, most readers were glad the read was over, having seen the MC turn from strong and complicated to whiny and overbearing. Not good. Not good at all.
This go around, I'm trying to be more patient, to read the un-trunked volumes with an objective air, and through revisions, to tell readers what I already know: that the main character is indeed complicated, rootless yet strong enough to try to find a place in life to plant herself and grow. I'm hoping that all these revisions will work that magic and that by the time readers close the book, they'll want to open it and start again from the beginning. A good dream if I can pull it off.
Harper Lee did just that in To Kill a Mockingbird. Dare I hope to achieve that success? Well, a girl can hope, but I'd be happy with simply writing a good book and finally have readers other than my long-suffering writing group. Of course, no writer writes just to see hundreds of unsold books stacked in a dusty warehouse. I, like all authors (I sometimes call myself 'author' just so somebody says it), want to be read and often. My name on a bookjacket is a nice thought, but knowing that readers think I actually have something to say is a better idea.
I'd certainly like to think I have something to say, that my work will not only entertain the reader but also offer insight into the human condition. I write literary fiction, so far mostly historical literary fiction. For some reason, looking back at what we've been seems more appealing than looking forward to what we might become. We learn from history, or so I've been told, and history has always shown me a new way to view the present. As a writer, I can re-write history just a bit, hopefully just enough to offer that 20/20 hindsight we've all heard talk about. Some write about a future that we may never see. Their imaginations send us to apocalypse or to a wonderland in which all things evil are overcome by good. A nice place if you can find it.
My late husband was a visionary of sorts, even though, like John Milton, he was legally blind. He enjoyed Star Trek, not so much because of the scifi adventure but because the Trekkie world held cures for all diseases, hope that poverty would be eliminated, and laws that forbid the use of force except at times when Justice had been raped by burgeoning Injustice. Evil was always nipped in the bud, as Barney Fife once said. He liked to learn what visions writers had for the yet-to-come. To those who write futuristically, I doff my hat.
As for me and the 1800 or so words I've added to the WIP, I'm hoping my words give insight to the importance of personal history, to the idea that where we come from does as much to shape who we are as any other component of life. We're built, brick by tragic brick. We don't spring to life fully completed. Like the potter's clay, we're molded and shaped by circumstance, geography, and history, ours and the history of those around us. That's the point. We're born, yes, but then we must become.
My main character is finally becoming. What? Well, should the book be published and if you're interested, you must purchase a copy or otherwise, wait for the movie. :D
Character development appears in class number one of any writer's workshop. The key to success is to make the reader love at least one of the characters and have strong feelings about the rest, whether they're villains or heroes. When members of my writing group began the book, my main character was spellbinding. Well, that may be a little strong, but hey! They liked her a whole lot. When the book passed the half-way point, I began to hurry, letting my compulsive desire to finish overwhelm the characters, all the characters. Doesn't work. By the end of the book, most readers were glad the read was over, having seen the MC turn from strong and complicated to whiny and overbearing. Not good. Not good at all.
This go around, I'm trying to be more patient, to read the un-trunked volumes with an objective air, and through revisions, to tell readers what I already know: that the main character is indeed complicated, rootless yet strong enough to try to find a place in life to plant herself and grow. I'm hoping that all these revisions will work that magic and that by the time readers close the book, they'll want to open it and start again from the beginning. A good dream if I can pull it off.
Harper Lee did just that in To Kill a Mockingbird. Dare I hope to achieve that success? Well, a girl can hope, but I'd be happy with simply writing a good book and finally have readers other than my long-suffering writing group. Of course, no writer writes just to see hundreds of unsold books stacked in a dusty warehouse. I, like all authors (I sometimes call myself 'author' just so somebody says it), want to be read and often. My name on a bookjacket is a nice thought, but knowing that readers think I actually have something to say is a better idea.
I'd certainly like to think I have something to say, that my work will not only entertain the reader but also offer insight into the human condition. I write literary fiction, so far mostly historical literary fiction. For some reason, looking back at what we've been seems more appealing than looking forward to what we might become. We learn from history, or so I've been told, and history has always shown me a new way to view the present. As a writer, I can re-write history just a bit, hopefully just enough to offer that 20/20 hindsight we've all heard talk about. Some write about a future that we may never see. Their imaginations send us to apocalypse or to a wonderland in which all things evil are overcome by good. A nice place if you can find it.
My late husband was a visionary of sorts, even though, like John Milton, he was legally blind. He enjoyed Star Trek, not so much because of the scifi adventure but because the Trekkie world held cures for all diseases, hope that poverty would be eliminated, and laws that forbid the use of force except at times when Justice had been raped by burgeoning Injustice. Evil was always nipped in the bud, as Barney Fife once said. He liked to learn what visions writers had for the yet-to-come. To those who write futuristically, I doff my hat.
As for me and the 1800 or so words I've added to the WIP, I'm hoping my words give insight to the importance of personal history, to the idea that where we come from does as much to shape who we are as any other component of life. We're built, brick by tragic brick. We don't spring to life fully completed. Like the potter's clay, we're molded and shaped by circumstance, geography, and history, ours and the history of those around us. That's the point. We're born, yes, but then we must become.
My main character is finally becoming. What? Well, should the book be published and if you're interested, you must purchase a copy or otherwise, wait for the movie. :D
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Running a Good Race
My good friend, Gini Koch, is expecting. Her second book will be on shelves come December, 2010 (Alien Tango), and two more are scheduled to be out soon. If she and I were in a race, I'm running well behind the champ. However, as she often reminds me, it took her a while to get where she is on the publication track.
I'm not so patient. You might even describe me as impatient (or so says Gini). I started my attempted writing career rather late in life. That fact shouldn't surprise anyone. I finished my BS when I was forty-five, and although I went straight from under-grad to graduate school, I was the oldest graduate teaching assistant in university history (I really don't know that for sure, but it certainly seemed that way.) Getting out of the gate behind the rest of the pack is something I'm used to.
Oh-Wise-Gini also reminds me that she worked hard at becoming a professional writer. She wrote countless volumes before she hit on just the right combination to catch the eye of her agent. She wrote hundreds of query letters and got almost as many rejections, some formula "I'm not interested" letters and some more personal. She's no novice, no got-an-agent-the-first-time-I-entered-the-race kind of gal. Gini is the consummate professional, a hard-working writer who's not afraid to take a shot at her dreams no matter how long the realization of those dreams take.
In this day and age when thousands of would-be writers are talking about the great books they're going to write, I'm told that only about 1% of those books are every really written. I've written three manuscripts. I hesitate to say that I've completed three novels because I'm not sure you can say that unpublished manuscripts are ever completed. I've even queried one of them with some success. I had several requests for full manuscripts from my query. That's why Ms. Gini calls me Query-Dog.
Am I back at work on my latest efforts? You betcha. I can't wait to get the okay from the BIG DAWGS (writing group) to go ahead and query. My old impatient self might just want to query with the work I have, but rule one of the writer's handbook: Never query on only a partial manuscript OR on a manuscript with issues. I've got rule one down pat!
Well, back to the race. I'm more like the tortoise than the hare. I came out of the gate rather late, but I'm ahead of the 99% of runners who never even finish the book. That's something, huh?
I'm not so patient. You might even describe me as impatient (or so says Gini). I started my attempted writing career rather late in life. That fact shouldn't surprise anyone. I finished my BS when I was forty-five, and although I went straight from under-grad to graduate school, I was the oldest graduate teaching assistant in university history (I really don't know that for sure, but it certainly seemed that way.) Getting out of the gate behind the rest of the pack is something I'm used to.
Oh-Wise-Gini also reminds me that she worked hard at becoming a professional writer. She wrote countless volumes before she hit on just the right combination to catch the eye of her agent. She wrote hundreds of query letters and got almost as many rejections, some formula "I'm not interested" letters and some more personal. She's no novice, no got-an-agent-the-first-time-I-entered-the-race kind of gal. Gini is the consummate professional, a hard-working writer who's not afraid to take a shot at her dreams no matter how long the realization of those dreams take.
In this day and age when thousands of would-be writers are talking about the great books they're going to write, I'm told that only about 1% of those books are every really written. I've written three manuscripts. I hesitate to say that I've completed three novels because I'm not sure you can say that unpublished manuscripts are ever completed. I've even queried one of them with some success. I had several requests for full manuscripts from my query. That's why Ms. Gini calls me Query-Dog.
Am I back at work on my latest efforts? You betcha. I can't wait to get the okay from the BIG DAWGS (writing group) to go ahead and query. My old impatient self might just want to query with the work I have, but rule one of the writer's handbook: Never query on only a partial manuscript OR on a manuscript with issues. I've got rule one down pat!
Well, back to the race. I'm more like the tortoise than the hare. I came out of the gate rather late, but I'm ahead of the 99% of runners who never even finish the book. That's something, huh?
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Late Nights
Well, it's 12:45 AM here on the creek. The moon is shining only half-full, and Buddy, my basset hound, is sleeping on the couch, as per usual. Now and again, some wayward night creature howls or yowls from the woods behind the house, and I catch a glimpse of a deer making his/her way across the lawn and toward the water. Unlike the citizens of Churchill, Manitoba (I'm hoping I got the province right), I'm not facing polar bears as they follow their migration route down main street; however, deer migrate from their hide-outs in the woods to open pasture at night.
Why am I up? Well, normally I'm not, but my daughter is heading home from a business trip to Chicago. I thought I'd wait up to welcome her home and get some writing done in the mean time, but 'the best laid plans' and all that. I find that I do my best writing in short spurts not those long, laborious eight hour stints I used to pull. Oh, I got a lot of words in when I forced myself to sit in my relatively uncomfortable desk chair and write. Nowadays, I'm not doing that to myself. Nowadays, I'm writing when the inspiration strikes, and I don't keep pushing if that same inspiration dwindles away. It's called self-preservation.
I still have the same desire to be published, but I'm not so willing to kill myself in doing it. I WILL get an agent. Of that, I am certain. However, I must exercise patience along with all that perseverance. Between the day job and the nightly sojourns into Creative-ville, I've allowed very little time for me to be me. Wisdom comes to those who wait.
Why am I up? Well, normally I'm not, but my daughter is heading home from a business trip to Chicago. I thought I'd wait up to welcome her home and get some writing done in the mean time, but 'the best laid plans' and all that. I find that I do my best writing in short spurts not those long, laborious eight hour stints I used to pull. Oh, I got a lot of words in when I forced myself to sit in my relatively uncomfortable desk chair and write. Nowadays, I'm not doing that to myself. Nowadays, I'm writing when the inspiration strikes, and I don't keep pushing if that same inspiration dwindles away. It's called self-preservation.
I still have the same desire to be published, but I'm not so willing to kill myself in doing it. I WILL get an agent. Of that, I am certain. However, I must exercise patience along with all that perseverance. Between the day job and the nightly sojourns into Creative-ville, I've allowed very little time for me to be me. Wisdom comes to those who wait.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Withdrawls!
Okay. I'm giving up on worrying, just like I gave up on guilt. Both practices are totally non-productive, as a wise man once told me. They serve no purpose except to steal any joy that might come. I'm not into allowing anyone or anything to steal my joy (it's such a rare commodity!)
The fourth of July has come and gone, the fireworks have fizzled out, and I am back at my keyboard. Writing has been more challenge than joy lately, but as I said, I simply refuse to allow the joy I take in the written word to be pilfered by my own insecurities. As of yet, I am an unpublished novelist, but I have been published: Raving Dove, Raphael's Village, EXIT 109, and others. True. I've been published mostly as a poet, but I've sneaked in a few essays and short stories. My days as an AGENTED and PUBLISHED novelist approaches. I refuse to have any doubts.
One day, readers will stumble across this blog and discover that ALL writers have insecurities, fears that their work doesn't come up to muster, and doubts that they'll ever see their name on a book jacket. I sound bold and confident here, but just a few short posts ago, I was wallowing in the quagmire of desperation. Comes with writing territory, I suppose. Keep up with me folks. Better days are coming. More words, more hope, and more works in print. Persistence wins the game, not that runner who shows well out of the gate but loses advantage in the long haul.
Keep smiling. Keep sending up skyrockets, and don't spare the word count!
The fourth of July has come and gone, the fireworks have fizzled out, and I am back at my keyboard. Writing has been more challenge than joy lately, but as I said, I simply refuse to allow the joy I take in the written word to be pilfered by my own insecurities. As of yet, I am an unpublished novelist, but I have been published: Raving Dove, Raphael's Village, EXIT 109, and others. True. I've been published mostly as a poet, but I've sneaked in a few essays and short stories. My days as an AGENTED and PUBLISHED novelist approaches. I refuse to have any doubts.
One day, readers will stumble across this blog and discover that ALL writers have insecurities, fears that their work doesn't come up to muster, and doubts that they'll ever see their name on a book jacket. I sound bold and confident here, but just a few short posts ago, I was wallowing in the quagmire of desperation. Comes with writing territory, I suppose. Keep up with me folks. Better days are coming. More words, more hope, and more works in print. Persistence wins the game, not that runner who shows well out of the gate but loses advantage in the long haul.
Keep smiling. Keep sending up skyrockets, and don't spare the word count!
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Okay! Okay! So I need a job!
It's summer, and the university where I work during fall and spring semester doesn't give adjuncts summer work. What does that mean? It means summers suck, at least, financially. No worky-no earny-no earny-no buyee (That didn't come out just the way I wanted it, but you get the drift!)
I did pick up five weeks of work, teaching through a special program for disadvantaged high school students. I love the program and the kids, but it IS only FIVE weeks of work out of four months. Every summer, I tell myself, "You've got to get a real job." BUT every summer, I procrastinate because, darn it! I like to teach almost as much as I like to write. So what if being an adjunct means that I make very little money compared to other people who have MA's. So what, if I get no benefits from the state, and I have to pay for on-campus parking. So what if I spend Christmas vacation sweating it out as to whether I'll get a contract for spring! So what if public school employment possibilities are as dead as post secondary jobs! Teaching? What am I doing?
I'll keep teaching. That's what I do, but I also keep hoping that writing becomes my job and teaching is just my hobby. That's why I can't believe I let myself get so far down that I couldn't write. If anybody's out there, if anybody's reading this: DON'T GET THAT FAR DOWN! (That's right. I shouted.) Writing gets under your fingernails and embeds itself in the pores. It becomes as much a part of the writer as blood and bone. To punish myself by not hitting the keyboard is as bad as Van Gogh cutting off his own ear (an event whose validity recently became a subject of debate)!
I write. Writing is as much therapy as production. Remember that. Remember me, and for Heaven's sake, send me job suggestions! :D
I did pick up five weeks of work, teaching through a special program for disadvantaged high school students. I love the program and the kids, but it IS only FIVE weeks of work out of four months. Every summer, I tell myself, "You've got to get a real job." BUT every summer, I procrastinate because, darn it! I like to teach almost as much as I like to write. So what if being an adjunct means that I make very little money compared to other people who have MA's. So what, if I get no benefits from the state, and I have to pay for on-campus parking. So what if I spend Christmas vacation sweating it out as to whether I'll get a contract for spring! So what if public school employment possibilities are as dead as post secondary jobs! Teaching? What am I doing?
I'll keep teaching. That's what I do, but I also keep hoping that writing becomes my job and teaching is just my hobby. That's why I can't believe I let myself get so far down that I couldn't write. If anybody's out there, if anybody's reading this: DON'T GET THAT FAR DOWN! (That's right. I shouted.) Writing gets under your fingernails and embeds itself in the pores. It becomes as much a part of the writer as blood and bone. To punish myself by not hitting the keyboard is as bad as Van Gogh cutting off his own ear (an event whose validity recently became a subject of debate)!
I write. Writing is as much therapy as production. Remember that. Remember me, and for Heaven's sake, send me job suggestions! :D
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Might-Moan-Again
It seems that moaning about my sad state might just have worked, ergo I might just moan more often. (Wow! That's a nicely alliterated sentence, if I do say so myself.) Anyways, after the moan, I found 1536 words, some not-so-evaporated editing skills, and two new chapters in my series. Not bad for someone who wanted to go to a cliff and beg God to have the rocks fall on her. See...it can happen. A writer who felt like she had no words left can find those words lurking in the most unexpected places.
The way I see it now is that anyone who's thinking about suicide should write a suicide note, then sit, read, and think some more. First question: Who the hell would care that I was dead? Second question: How long would they care? Third series of connected questions: Did I play the lottery this week? What if my numbers won and *gulp* I had already checked out? Would the undertaker find the ticket in my pocket, collect my winnings, sell his establishment before my service, and end up on MY beach in the Caribbean? Fourth series of connected questions: Hey! Wouldn't that dead lottery winner/undertaker thingy make a great plot line for a novel? Should I write the novel or let that damned undertaker take something else that belonged to me? That undertaker! Who does he think he is? (But I digress.)
See how it works? (Not connected to the above series of questions) Get sad. Okay. Everybody gets sad, and it's okay to be sad unless that "long barrel of despair" lasts longer than three weeks. (If it's that long-lasting, it's time for the doc and the happy pills. Depression, serious depression, is a serious matter with serious consequences unless taken seriously. I mean that!) The best solution for sadness that I've discovered is madness, not insanity but true anger. Don't be mad at others because the only person that can make you happy is YOU. There are no knights in shining armor, no surprise visits from previously unknown billionaire parents, no magic (other than the perfect sunset), and no one to snap your suspenders but you. In this case, ME.
So...after the previous blogged moaning, I thought about what I always told my clients: "It's not the hand you're dealt in life. It's how you play your cards." (I'm sure that I'm not the first person to use that line, and so I bow to the original purveyor of that great wisdom.) I looked at my recently dealt hand and then asked for four cards. Quite a risk, huh? Well, I didn't get a Royal Flush, but I picked up at least a pair and am still in the game. I got some employment for July, only July, but hey, a month of salary is a month of salary. Know what I mean? When I flick the switch on my wall, I like to have the lights come on. Bills are bills and, as hard as this is to believe, people actually expect payment. Just saying.
The way I see it now is that anyone who's thinking about suicide should write a suicide note, then sit, read, and think some more. First question: Who the hell would care that I was dead? Second question: How long would they care? Third series of connected questions: Did I play the lottery this week? What if my numbers won and *gulp* I had already checked out? Would the undertaker find the ticket in my pocket, collect my winnings, sell his establishment before my service, and end up on MY beach in the Caribbean? Fourth series of connected questions: Hey! Wouldn't that dead lottery winner/undertaker thingy make a great plot line for a novel? Should I write the novel or let that damned undertaker take something else that belonged to me? That undertaker! Who does he think he is? (But I digress.)
See how it works? (Not connected to the above series of questions) Get sad. Okay. Everybody gets sad, and it's okay to be sad unless that "long barrel of despair" lasts longer than three weeks. (If it's that long-lasting, it's time for the doc and the happy pills. Depression, serious depression, is a serious matter with serious consequences unless taken seriously. I mean that!) The best solution for sadness that I've discovered is madness, not insanity but true anger. Don't be mad at others because the only person that can make you happy is YOU. There are no knights in shining armor, no surprise visits from previously unknown billionaire parents, no magic (other than the perfect sunset), and no one to snap your suspenders but you. In this case, ME.
So...after the previous blogged moaning, I thought about what I always told my clients: "It's not the hand you're dealt in life. It's how you play your cards." (I'm sure that I'm not the first person to use that line, and so I bow to the original purveyor of that great wisdom.) I looked at my recently dealt hand and then asked for four cards. Quite a risk, huh? Well, I didn't get a Royal Flush, but I picked up at least a pair and am still in the game. I got some employment for July, only July, but hey, a month of salary is a month of salary. Know what I mean? When I flick the switch on my wall, I like to have the lights come on. Bills are bills and, as hard as this is to believe, people actually expect payment. Just saying.
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