The elusive writing group that rocks

I haven’t written a post in a while because I don’t have much to report in my writing world. My name recently changed and I am relocating, so writing has taken a back seat for a while. But I have been attending my KidLit writing group. And that makes me realize I have never dedicated a post to the wondrous phenomenon called writing groups.

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A great writing group can be difficult to find. Sometimes you just need to Google your city name and “writing group” and BAM! You have 10 to choose from. Sometimes you have to go online or start your own. I found my group on http://www.meetup.com. I tried a few that weren’t quite right for me until I settled in with my KidLit group, founded by Janet Wallace of Social Deviants and UtopYA Con.

I’ve talked about being a shy writer here so I’ll skip the part where I tell you to SHOW UP and put your fear in its place. I’ll jump straight into why a great writing group is awesome.

My writing group holds me accountable (see what I had to say about goal-setting here). They ask me how I’m doing and expect a real answer. They inspire me with their pages and their successes. Being part of a driven group keeps me going.

My writing group supports me. They motivate me with their love of my work. They give incisive critiques that are thoughtful and constructive. They tell me what doesn’t work and more importantly, why. A writing group is NOT great if all the writers just sit around and congratulate each other on how perfect they are. That doesn’t help you become a better writer.

My writing group believes in me. They threaten to make t-shirts with my characters’ names on them. They act sorrowful when I tell them I’m not ready to submit anything on my new WIP. They buoy me up when I think about quitting.

My writing group members feed off each other. This is absolutely key for me. They ignite debates when critiquing pages. They sometimes disagree on what works and what doesn’t. They talk about the submitter’s work with seriousness overlaid by a cheerful—and sometimes punch-drunk—attitude. This is what makes a great writing group different from a great CP or a great beta reader. When the group meets, one person’s comments may spark a brilliant idea in someone else’s mind that had not occurred to either writers before the discussion started. It’s magical to see this unfold.

My writing group is diverse. I write epic fantasy and the feedback I got from members who dislike fantasy as a rule is priceless. We’re all open to reviewing genres that are unfamiliar to us and all of understand that we can take or leave the critique as we see fit and not get our feelings hurt.

There are lots of poor writing groups. Some don’t have agreed-upon rules of engagement and the overly defensive or critical behavior of members can put you off. Sometimes the writers are too negative and bash each other, and sometimes the writers do nothing but say how good their work is. Sometimes the chemistry simply isn’t there.

The members of my writing group have become very dear friends AND valuable partners of mine.

I want to hear from you. Do you have a writing group? Is it virtual or face-to-face? How would you define a great writing group?

Shy or nervous about UtopYA? So was I. Key word: WAS.

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http://www.sxc.hu/profile/mcwernic

I am an introvert by nature. I don’t do well around groups of strangers. I’m perfectly comfortable one-on-one, even with someone I barely know, but I shut down in crowds. It’s just who I am. My parents say I was so shy as a small child, they feared someone would think I was abused because all I would do around non-family was stare silently at the ground.

It’s cool. No big.

In August of 2011, I took a big, BIG leap and joined the Nashville KidLit meetup spearheaded by Janet Wallace of Social Deviants and UtopYA Con. I had lurked on the meetup boards for months before I finally just forced myself to attend a meeting. I didn’t know anyone there. Janet smashed through my attempts at being invisible within minutes and I found myself… having FUN. Forgetting to be socially awkward.

I am not exaggerating when I say that simple act changed my life. I found my writing group home and developed friendships that are very dear to me. I also finished writing the book that was scorching my soul.

After KidLit read my novel draft (which is now in the query letter stage), I was invited to be a panelist at UtopYA 2012. I served on the Goddess Complex panel with published, successful YA authors to talk about world-building. I was sure I was out of my league, but they—and the others in the room—embraced me with open arms. I even heard myself quoted later that day by someone I didn’t know. Better yet, I made some awesome writing friends whom I can’t wait to see this year!

Talk about a rush!

I’ve seen a lot of UtopYA attendees talking about their nerves as UtopYA 2013 approaches, and I just wanted to share my story with you. (No, the UtopYA team did NOT ask me to write this or know I was planning to write this.)

We’re writers. Many of us are poster children for social anxiety. And that’s okay. But seriously, don’t worry about UtopYA. Go with the flow. Come find me—although good luck picking me out because I chopped off 15 inches of hair since my author photo was taken! We’ll be awkward and nervous together.

This year, you’ll find me moderating the Goddess Complex and Finding Writing Groups panels, and I’m a panelist in the Query Letter Zone. When I’m not doing that, I’ll be somewhere in the audience, scribbling notes and asking questions and soaking up everyone else’s awesomeness. And maybe, just maybe, making new friends. How about you?

Devils, angels, and writing authentic relationships

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Writers are consistently told that their characters need flaws and their plots need conflicts. Yes, yes, and yes. I won’t belabor that point. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately about authentic relationships. What exactly is a character flaw? What is a believable conflict?

I love high fantasy. Many typical fantasy conflicts are external: wars, threatened genocides, innate evil trying to take over the world. But if I read a fantasy where those are the only problems the protagonist must tackle, I get bored and annoyed. Because I don’t buy it. My own normal, humdrum real life is peppered with all kinds of conflict. If even pedestrian people experience myriad conflict on a daily basis, why don’t characters in books?

One of the biggest places to mine for conflict is in character relationships. I’ve discovered in real life that two people’s expectations of each other RARELY match up perfectly. I’m talking about every single human relationship here: lovers, friends, teachers, family members, even strangers on a sidewalk. It is extremely rare that, even when informed by the same cultural norms and mores, any two people will have equal expectations of a relationship, however transient.

Let’s have some examples.

• Ships passing in the night: Recently I went hiking. When I pass other hikers on the trail, I look up and make eye contact and smile, but rarely speak. I like quiet in the forest. I don’t want to disturb anyone. After a few hours of this, the person I was hiking with pointed out that I had poor trail etiquette and it was rude of me not to say hello to passing strangers. I was fascinated by his take on it.
• BFFs: This one is much trickier. If you’ve been on Facebook in the last couple of years, you’ve likely been inundated with photos of inspirational quotes accompanied by adorable cats. These quotes tend to follow along two basic themes: (1) Love yourself first and be okay with letting go those who create unnecessary drama or hurt in your life, and (2) Support others who need it and be there for your friends and loved ones. But really, that dichotomy is spurious. How do you know if you’re not being a drama-causer in someone else’s life by letting them go? And where is the line drawn between being a good, caring friend and putting others before yourself? This friction is a source for endless character conflict. If I choose to refuse someone access to my heart because I don’t see her as a good friend, then I will be seen as selfish, cold, inaccessible, and not worthy of inclusion by others who witness the quiet dance. This shaky balancing act can sow jealousy and judgment between any two characters. I have been given advice by two different people that seems to be contradictory: (1) Reach out more, be more inclusive, and call to check in on your friends more, and (2) Stop caring so much what your friends think and just enjoy being yourself; if they don’t like you then they don’t deserve you. This is a great source for inner dialogue and tension in fiction. 
• Lovers: This has potential to be the most conflict-rich relationship of them all. Lovers have strong, often non-negotiable, and worst of all, unspoken expectations of each other. There is some secret equation of the exact number of kisses, acts of service, gifts, hours of quality time, hours of alone time, and spoken sweet nothings to make a lover happy. Just look at the number of breakups, divorces, and counseling couples there are around you. And if you think your lover’s equation is exactly the same as your own, THINK AGAIN. This is another excellent source of conflict in writing.

Such a list could go on ad infinitum.

Archetypes don’t work for me as a reader because relationships—and characters—are not so simple. Complex, blended personalities are much better. A common character type is the teacher: the insider who helps inform the protagonist (and thus the reader) about the workings of the book’s fictional world. But even these characters should have some expectations of their relationship with the main character. What do they want out of it? Is the hero living up to those requirements? Is the hero even aware of them?

I want to hear from you. What books have you read that include authentic relationships with believable character flaws and conflicts? What authors don’t do that so well?

Creativity is like a cat (with apologies to Ray Bradbury)

Image: stock photo by Andreas Krappweis

Recently I wrote a blog post exhorting writers to write even if they don’t feel like it. To write with DISCIPLINE, not MOTIVATION. Not to rely on motivation and excitement, which can come and go like fickle, flaky acquaintances who always pencil you in but rarely show up at your parties.

I stand by my advice; in the same post, I pointed to personal evidence that the butt-in-chair principle combined with a little accountability and actual goal-setting works for me. But the other day, I saw a quote by Ray Bradbury from his book Zen in the Art of Writing: Releasing the Creative Genius Within You. Here it is:

As soon as things get difficult, I walk away. That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. If you try to approach a cat and pick it up, hell, it won't let you do it. You've got to say, “Well, to hell with you.” And the cat says, “Wait a minute. He's not behaving the way most humans do.” Then the cat follows you out of curiosity: “Well, what's wrong with you that you don't love me?”

Well, that's what an idea is. See? You just say, “Well, hell, I don’t need depression. I don’t need worry. I don’t need to push.” The ideas will follow me. Whey they’re off-guard, and ready to be born, I'll turn around and grab them.

I adore this quote. As someone who is allergic to cats, I’ve noticed that cats are drawn to me… the only person in the room not actively calling, “Here, kitty, kitty.”

Bradbury’s wisdom—nay, genius—here is in helping us realize that forced writing is going to read like forced writing. Crappy. Dry. Non-brilliant.

However, just to be contrary, I’ll give you another Bradbury quote on writing, which I found to be rabble-rousing to my inner procrastinator:

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories—science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

How can the same person think you can’t chase ideas also think you should write every single day? In my opinion, these concepts don’t cancel each other out. Treat your ideas like cats. Make them follow you, and FEED THEM so they don’t starve to death.

What are your thoughts? How do you feed your ideas AND make them follow you like a curious cat?

The Next Big Thing Blog Hop

I was tagged for The Next Big Thing Blog Hop, in which writers talk about one of their current projects. First, go check out the writer who tagged me: Carissa Taylor. Thanks, Carissa!


Now, on to my questions and answers...

The Next Big Thing

What is the working title of your book? 

Titles are my kryptonite! My KidLit writing group actually helped me pick out the working title of RIMOTEST FALLING. (Side note: I owe these writers for a lot more than a title!)

Where did the idea come from for the book? 

That is such a hard question. It’s the story I need to tell. It was always there, just waiting. I know, it sounds like a cop-out answer. But it’s true.

What genre does your book fall under? 

It’s YA Fantasy, or you could say YA High or Epic Fantasy since “fantasy” has become such a diverse genre and means so many things.

Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition? 

This took me forever to do! I even asked for help from people who have read the book. My choices are based on looks alone. I recognize that real casting decisions are made on the basis of a lot of other equally important criteria, but since this is just pretend anyway, I went on appearance alone.

Arika: Clémence Poésy

Eldred: Cillian Murphy

Syd: Kit Harington

Mina: Nicole Kidman

What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book? 

Oh, please don’t make me do this. I know it’s hard for everyone, but I feel like it’s especially difficult for a book that takes place in a completely new world. Here’s my shot at it:

In a world where magic only lives in the old stories told beside smoldering hearths, a young peasant girl fights for her forbidden love and discovers everything she thought was fiction is true; she must traverse a realm filled with ancient magic, malevolent elves, and masked assassins to prevent war. 

Ha! You didn’t say no semicolons!

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency? 

I’m pursuing traditional publishing at the moment.

How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript? 

A decade. No, really: almost a decade. I didn’t slave over it every day or even every month. It took me a while to decide this was something I HAD to do, not just something I was piddling around with.

What other books would you compare this story to in your genre? 

Like Kristin Cashore’s Graceling, my novel portrays a strong, believable female protagonist. The politics in my world are sound but not inaccessible, as in Shannon Hale’s The Books of Bayern. You will find lots of Tolkien-esque adventure in it, and Arika comes along like Garion in David Eddings’ Pawn of Prophecy.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest? 

My world, Rimotest, is fresh and different. For example, elves are both good and evil, many prejudiced against humans (pure racism). Arika and Syd’s stories alternate and they are given almost equal attention. Romance is present but doesn’t overwhelm the story; adventure and self-discovery are the key drivers. And the ultimate villain is complex, not just some bad guy bent on destroying humanity for no good reason like you see in a lot of fantasy; he even has more than one history, depending on who tells his story.



Now it’s time for me to pass on the fun. Writers, I hereby declare you TAGGED!

Teal Haviland: http://www.tealhaviland.com/ 
DB Graves: http://panicwritten.blogspot.com/
April Robbins: http://aprilrobbins.com/

This was fun! Thanks, Carissa, for tagging me, and everyone keep your eyes peeled for my victims’ posts. Teal, DB, and April, let’s see your answers to the questions above!

The legacy of Oz, or, Being true to the story

I have a confession to make. There is a story that I love… but I only know it through movie adaptations and not the original books.

I know. I KNOW. I’m a sinner.

It’s the Oz story, originally penned by L. Frank Baum, the first of which was published one day shy of 84 years before I was born. I fell in love with the 1939 The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland when I was wee. Indeed, my parents had to record the movie onto VHS from a television broadcast because I demanded it so often. I fondly recall the now-very-retro Pepsi commercial they accidentally taped at the scene when Dorothy meets Professor Marvel when she is running away. Every time I re-watch the movie, I expect that Pepsi commercial.

I loved this movie well before I knew how to read. My mother likes to tell the story of toddler Jessie pulling out the TV Guide (remember those?) and pretending to read aloud, “The Wizard of Oz is on RIGHT NOW.”

When I was little, it never occurred to me that things like that had a legacy. I honestly never gave it a thought that my beloved story might have had earlier roots. Indeed, the first time I think I realized there were 14 Oz books written at the turn of the century was when I was in college. I minored in anthropology and recall learning of the theories that Baum wrote the Oz books as (a) political allegory referencing the monetary policy of the 1890s or (b) a promotion of capitalism and the shift in perception of children as little people who needed their own stuff. (Neither theory is universally accepted, by the by.)

As a side note, until the Internet was a thing, I had this problem repeatedly. I didn’t know one of my first favorite books of fantasy, Sabriel by Garth Nix, had two sequels published 6 and 8 years later. When I discovered the sequels much later, I felt both thrilled and betrayed by my own lack of follow-up.

I think it’s amazing that such legacies can be born and persist through generations. I realize that I was a weird kid. I first read Jane Eyre—for fun, without being told to, just because I read the back of the book in the library and thought it sounded interesting—when I was in the fifth grade. And I liked it. In short, I wasn’t turned off by old stuff. But with Oz, I was not alone, not by a long shot. Every kid I knew had seen the movie, and just about every one of them adored it as much as I did.

So what’s the lesson to learn? I think a hundred different publishing pros from writers to agents to marketers could come up with a hundred different lessons to be learned from Oz. What is it, exactly (the movie, I mean)? Well, it’s a sanitized fairy tale at its heart, with a few gentle morals and very little violence. It stars a great team of lovable characters who fight a villain so scary I hid behind the couch every time she was on screen. Also, it is almost completely romance-free. And that is what holds my interest.

A few months ago, I asked my writer and publisher friends on Twitter to recommend some YA books that had no romance in them. My Twitter feed is FULL of YA book recommendations day and night, so I expected to be flooded. Instead, I heard cyberspace crickets. One person pointed me to an NPR list of great YA books as picked by their readers. No one else had a single recommendation.

So much entertainment includes some element of romance in it nowadays. But is that what young audiences crave… or is it what the authors themselves crave? Obviously one can point to other successful books and movies that pivot around steamy romance and spot the flaw in my mode of thinking. Heck, you can point to a 1939 film that many people adore today that involves heavy romance overtones: the movie adaptation of Gone with the Wind with Vivien Leigh. Some of my girlfriends watched it when they were pretty young and still have fainting spells over it.

I guess the point I am taking away from the legacy of Oz is that a successful story doesn’t have to involve steamy romance. It can, if that’s what you want to do, but don’t feel like you MUST cram romance into your story that doesn’t need romance to have legs. All this exploration is to say: be true to the story, and only to the story, forever and ever, amen.

And yes, I have purchased the 14 Oz books to read at some point.

How do mechanics affect your writing voice?

Lately, I’ve noticed something about my own writing style. Mechanics—particularly tense—affect my voice. Voice is that intangible thing for which agents and editors all cry out. But when pressed, it’s hard for anyone to define voice. To be clinical, voice may be your way of putting words together to create the story; it involves the choices you make when scrawling one word after another that, at first glance, has little to do with characters, plot, theme, or syntax.

But is that right?

I have several short stories published in magazines (you can find them at http://www.jessiepeacock.com/bookshelf.html). I’ve noticed that each one has a slightly different voice. Does that mean I’m an underdeveloped writer? That I’m still finding my way?

Sure. Perhaps.

But I also noticed that the mechanics that I chose to use in each story drastically influenced my voice. In one of my favorites, “Fishing” (published by LITSNACK), I decided to write in present tense. That’s not my usual tense of choice. I’m a lover of the past tense. You’ll notice in the story that the sentences are terse and clipped. The voice is well-defined, but it is not necessarily my usual voice.

By contrast, my story “The Five Stages of Thirst” (published by Midwest Literary Magazine on page 45) is written in the past tense. There is more description, though not necessarily more imagery, and the sentences are longer and more varied. The voice, again, is well-defined, but it’s different than the voice captured in “Fishing.”

I see plenty of writing articles commanding writers to “find your voice.” I certainly agree that a piece of fiction will fall flat on its face without a vibrant, mesmerizing voice, whatever the voice actually is. But I wonder if writers’ voice is dependent on many things one wouldn’t think to be related to voice. Consider J. K. Rowling. If you have read the Harry Potter series and then her newest release, The Casual Vacancy, you might notice a definite shift in voice. Some Rowling fans were so startled by the difference their loyalty was lost, or at least cast into doubt.

Having an inconsistent voice (between pieces) is not necessarily a sign of a mediocre writer. Rowling is undeniably talented. But it can be very risky.

Have you noticed shifts in your writing voice that seemingly come from mechanics or other aspects of the piece you’re writing? Do you think it’s critical to develop one voice and stick to it for the rest of your writing career? Let me know what you think!

Goals and discipline versus motivation

I have never been much of a new year’s resolution maker. I am more of an ongoing goal setter. Lose weight, be thriftier, be a better friend… these personal goals pop up throughout the year, halfway through June or at the end of October or whenever I realize I need to improve. But when I look back at my sporadic writing process with my first novel—the one that took me almost a decade to write—I realized I need to sit myself down and hold an intervention.

My writing group has a tradition of sharing writing goals at the end of every year for the next twelve months. The first time I participated was in December of 2011. I had a very rough novel draft almost written. I told my group I wanted to have it completed and edited and revised (and parts rewritten) by the end of the year, and be ready to search for agents at that time. Lo and behold: accountability worked. By November I had polished my novel enough that I think it’s ready for industry pros to have a look.

What did I learn from all this? The writer in me had always acted on the whims of fleeting motivation and inspiration. I had never applied DISCIPLINE to my writing. Lots of pop psychologists harp about seeking out motivation, but I think discipline is more important (and of course harder). You don’t have to be excited about everything you do. If you wait for that feeling, you’ll be waiting a long time for your goals to come to fruition. But if you approach your dreams with discipline, you will be more successful.

Here’s how Oxford Online defines discipline:

1. the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience 
2. the controlled behavior resulting from discipline
3. activity or experience that provides mental or physical training
4. a system of rules of conduct

Discipline is something you have to train yourself to maintain. You have to plan it. You have to make it routine. You have to do it even if it’s the last thing you want to do.

Last month, my writing group met again for goal-sharing, and I gave them an even more ambitious goal: to write a first rough draft of the sequel in one year, along with moving forward on the first book. Despite being a creative and a pantser as well, I do have my analytical side, so I broke down daily writing goals and put them in an Excel spreadsheet. Currently I am 5,389 words behind on my goal, but I’m not going to give up or draw back my goals; I’m going to work harder to catch up. I’m still learning about discipline. I’m far from being an expert. I’ll need help and encouragement along the way. But this simple shift in thinking can be a revolution in the way I move forward in my writing life… and, heck, maybe my personal life, too.

Are you a goal setter, a resolution maker, a planner? How do you stick to your goals? How do you stay disciplined when your motivation and inspiration wane, and life intrudes?