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.

Photo by http://www.sxc.hu/gallery/iprole

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?

The face's role in conveying emotion

 
This morning I heard about a very interesting bit of research on NPR. You can read their report here.

Basically, a researcher showed subjects photos of victorious and defeated tennis players with extreme facial expressions. When the face was shown along with the body, people could easily tell which photos were of losers and which were of winners. But something interesting happened when they showed the photos with either faces or bodies missing. The subjects could readily identify winners and losers by looking at photos of bodies without faces. But faces with no bodies? Not so.

In essence, the research suggests that, to accurately perceive someone else’s emotions, we rely more on body language cues than facial expressions. Fascinating!

This got me thinking about writing. How often in literature do you see phrases like “His eyes were filled with sorrow,” or “Her face lit up with glee”? In fact, how much time is spent describing the face? Often, you’ll know the color of every character’s eyes. In daily life, do you really notice the eye color of every person you encounter?

I’m just as guilty of this as the next writer. In fact, my beta reader pointed out a scene in my unpublished novel in which a character observes the tawny eyes of her opponent in the midst of a swordfight. My beta reader summed up the problem for me succinctly: “Noticing hair during fighting: fine. Noticing eye color during fighting: dead.” After a chuckle, I took the advice and nixed the sentence.

Do we spend too much energy focusing on our characters’ faces in our writing? Is a shrug more evocative than a smile? How can we use this research to inform our writing and make it more realistic and subtle?

On setting

No matter the genre, setting is a critical component of any novel. I would argue that setting is as important as characters, plot, and dialogue. Indeed, in many great works of fiction, setting IS a character on its own. Consider The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien. Middle-earth is sometimes a friend to Bilbo Baggins, as in the salubrious Last Homely House in Rivendell where the adventurers are rejuvenated. Middle-earth is also a foe to Bilbo, as in Mirkwood, the fearsome dark forest that harbors man-eating spiders, enchanted rivers that cause forgetfulness, and nary a good thing to eat or drink for weeks on end. Bilbo’s tale is all the richer for the dangerous lands he passes, the terrible weather he overcomes, and the nostalgic serenity of the good places that bolster his courage and his waistline. How much better the story is, for example, that a terrible mountain “thunder battle” between two mighty thunderstorms drives the party to be captured by goblins, instead of mere bad luck or coincidence.

Can you tell I’m re-reading The Hobbit right now?

A book’s setting doesn’t have to be a completely fictional world (like mine is in my own novel) to stand out and propel the story. Suppose you want to write a tale of forbidden love. Suppose, even, that you decide to set it in New York City. How different would the story be depending on the part of New York that is revealed? It might take place under bridges in cardboard boxes, or in retail stores on 5th Avenue, or in a high-rise condo, or in Central Park… and on and on and on. Each setting calls forward a different love story, with different travails, different conflicts, and even different characters. Though each story’s bones may rooted in one theme (forbidden love), the various settings will, portrayed well anyway, demand different tellings.

Choose your setting with care, and let it live and breathe and walk like a character on its own feet, and watch your story come alive.

What novels come to your mind when you consider setting as a character?

The stages of writing

Image: Creative Commons: pixelperfectdigital.com

 

I read a post by author Veronica Roth in which she says, “I hate writing first drafts and love to revise. When I say I hate first drafts, I really mean it— I mean I dread starting them and grumble through every second of them and generally try to get them over with as quickly as humanly possible so that I can actually do the thing I like, which is to FIX THEM.”

That got me thinking. There are lots of stages of book-making and all writers love and hate different steps. I’m Ms. Roth’s opposite: I love the freedom of creating something new, especially in the beginning half of a manuscript. I struggle more with finishing fresh material, and I am pretty good at (but hate) the revision stage.

I’m currently in the submission stage, which is my own personal writing hell. Summarizing my fantasy novel in a paragraph or sometimes even a sentence is torture to me. The exercise is teaching me to be a better writer, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Ha.

To break the cycle of horrors, I’ve plans this weekend to give myself a break and work on the opening chapters of book two. Hopefully doing what I love best will reenergize me.

I'm not even mentioning the other stages I haven't experienced yet, like marketing and promotions. Book covers and artwork and trailers, oh my!

So, writers, which stages do you relish? Which stages do you dread?

What is NaNoWriMo?

Image: NaNoWriMo.org

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, located at http://www.nanowrimo.org) has been around for a while. It’s a movement to challenge writing newcomers and old hats alike to get serious work done on a new project in one month (November). Here’s a quote from their rules:

•Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
•Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
•Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!

I am a wimp. (Hey, at least I can admit it, right?) I am not participating this November, nor have I ever participated. I think it is super-cool and I admire people who participate. A friend of mine discovered writing by participating one year, and she is well on her way to publishing the novel that started out with NaNoWriMo. And she’s certainly not alone. The movement is powerful AND empowering.

So if it’s so great, why am I not participating?

I could offer all the lame excuses. My full-time day job, long commute, and busy home life prevent me from having the time to crank out that many words in a month. Or I’m scared of failure. But really? I suffer from an affliction that many writers struggle with: lack of self-confidence. Could I take a few days off work and focus on writing to get in the hours? Probably. Could I cancel all my other engagements? Yep. But could I convince myself that I have it in me to churn out 50,000 words in a month? Heck no.

I throw to the wind the advice I have often heard: don’t edit while writing. Just get the words down, get the scenes in place, and go back and fix everything later, they say. That makes my perfectionist’s brain fizzle and pop like a bowl of Rice Krispies with Alka Seltzer added into the milk. So it takes me a little longer to write than many writing superstars.

My book is now beginning the arduous submission process. I am so close. But it took me a while to get here. Granted, I have not been working on it steadily, and indeed I put my manuscript on a shelf for a couple years, but you know when I wrote the first chapter? I was nineteen years old. I’m now on the high side of twenty-eight. We’re looking at a decade-long process. I’m not ashamed of that. It took perseverance to get to where I am, and I am confident.

As organized as I am in many other facets of life, I am a mess when it comes to writing. I am essentially a “pantser” (somebody who writes by the seat of his or her pants, writing organically with little pre-planning). That means I could write 300 words one day and 4,000 the next. It just depends on where the story takes me. Accomplishing 50,000 words in a month requires a lot of planning. I don’t think this means that, once I get published, I will struggle with meeting deadlines and getting my pages turned in on time. I’m good under pressure. Just not self-imposed pressure.

I keep telling myself that I will write book two in less than a year. That’s my personal goal. Based on past performance, it’s a lofty one. If I accomplish that, maybe the next book can be drafted in a month. Maybe.

BEST WISHES AND HAPPY WRITING to all the NaNo’ers out there. I hope you find inspiration and energy and success in your new projects. Kudos to you for being braver than I!

Research and the info-dump

Research is something all writers have to do, but the genre in which they write certainly plays a role. I write epic fantasy. My late-teenaged self (the girl who wrote the first chapter of my novel) thought that meant I had very little research to do. I could just make it all up. Right?

WRONG.

As I began to write—seriously write—I realized how important it was to be authentic. So I Googled medieval farming techniques to help me set a scene that had very little to do with farming. I read Wikipedia articles on horse terminology before my protagonist mounted her first steed. I watched YouTube fencing tutorials before the first swordfight. I even trolled medical sites for herbal remedies as I made the decision not to simply imagine up an herb every time a character in the book got sick or hurt (spoiler alert: this happens a lot).

The Internet wasn’t my only source, either. I devoured and highlighted the crap out of the books by Frances and Joseph Gies, Life in a Medieval City and Life in a Medieval Castle. I also referenced Weapons & Fighting Techniques of the Medieval Warrior: 1000-1500 AD by Martin J. Dougherty.

But with research comes a perilous danger: the dreaded info-dump. Once I knew all about oxen, mouldboard plows, and planting seasons for every vegetable you could possibly dream up, I wrote a terrible chapter that included multiple pages of tedious description of how the villagers were spending their days in the fields. It was boring. It was unnecessary to the plot. It didn’t carry the story forward at all.

Of course, I axed almost everything, and ended up leaving in just enough to make the setting breathe and have color. I owe my writing group for helping me do that.

Do I regret learning so much if I could only use a tenth of my newfound knowledge in my novel? Not at all. The research I did helped me write a convincing, colorful couple of sentences that (hopefully) make the novel richer.

I suspect, like everything related to the writing process, research techniques vary by the author. I’m certainly not saying my method was the best or only way to go about it. But it worked for me. This time, anyway.

My writing space

My wedding dress was the first one I pulled off the rack. Yes, I tried on several and went to multiple stores. But I came back to the dress that stole my breath… the first one.

My house was the same way. We sifted through hundreds online and narrowed it down twenty or so. The first one we toured, we walked in and clutched each other with wide eyes. It was perfect. And then the realtor opened a door to what I assumed would be a walk-in cabinet off the kitchen. Instead, it was a rec room filled with ugly sofas and a television. But my husband pointed at the outside wall. A FIREPLACE. The realtor left us alone in that room and my husband grabbed my hand. “You could write in here,” he said. There wasn’t even a question that the room would be mine if the house became ours.

We visited numerous houses for sale following that one, but we kept driving by the first one we had seen. And we eventually beat off the contract it was under and bought it for ourselves.

Since then, I have painted the room walls (three are yellow and one is blue), replaced the carpet with hardwood flooring, and added my own furnishings. My friends say it looks like a psychiatrist’s office with the chaise lounge and the huge desk. I tend to agree.

My writing space is fantastic all year round, but my favorite time to write is on a cold winter evening. The fire is crackling merrily. I am wrapped in a blanket, pecking away at a scene while my dog cozies down in my lap. Bagpipes play softly in the background. I sip hot mulled wine. Comforting smells waft from the adjacent kitchen. And my characters truly come alive in my mind.

My favorite reading memory

I grew up on a farm. Well, sort of. It was sixty acres of pasture and scrubby juniper forest. My mom kept a massive garden and we ate fresh and home-canned veggies all year. We had five to six indoor dogs, fifteen cats, a bird, a frog, a couple sheep, and six horses.

My horse was Phyllis, a gray dappled appaloosa mare. She’s still around and approximately thirty years old. She’s a crotchety old lady now, but when I was in elementary school, boy, did she and I have some good times. We used to ride those sixty acres and canter across sun-drenched fields. I gave her apples and carrots and brush-downs; she gave me nuzzles so powerful I was lifted off my feet.

My favorite reading memory has to do with Phyllis. I used to brush her down, give her some treats, and take her into the backyard where the grass was greener. I’d climb up bareback with a book in hand and she would meander slowly across the yard, grazing peacefully. I would lay down with my bare feet dangling beside her powerful neck and my head resting on her rump. In that way, I would read for hours and hours, listening to her pulling the grass, the swish of her tail, and the occasional puff or snort.

I was a lucky little kid.