Saying Goodbye to Charley

This week we said goodbye to my cousin-in-law Charley. He was part of our family for 30 years, yet it is distressing how little I knew about him. But here is what I did know:

I know he was an impeccable judge of character—after all, he married my cousin.

I know he was a little bit crazy—after all, he married my cousin even AFTER meeting the rest of the clan.

I know he was highly athletic, before Huntington’s Disease stole his coordination.

I know he was courageous, braving his disease with dignity and grace.

I know he was determined, fighting the cancer that eventually took him with everything he had.

I know he enjoyed life to the fullest. His father’s early death had made him value life.

I know he was, in my experience, a quiet man—but you know it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.

I know he loved my cousin very, very much—and she him.

I know that he was deeply loved, respected, and admired by his family and friends, and will be as deeply missed by them.

And I know that someone who was so well-loved in turn loved others profoundly, generously, and joyfully.

Charley will be missed by the many, many people who loved him. His life can teach us so many things: courage in the face of unthinkable adversity; living life joyfully and fully every day; and loving those in your life profoundly, among others. But the lesson I have learned from him is to not take people for granted.

To know someone for 30 years and know virtually nothing about them is a much greater loss than knowing them well and losing them to death.

Thank you, Charley. You will be missed.

Collaboration: The Meeting of the Minds

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that my middle grade WIP, The Egyptian Enigma is the product of a collaboration with two totally awesome co-writers, James Kempner and Jeff Pero. You will also know that we just got incredibly detailed and spot-on notes from developmental editor Kathryn Craft on said WIP. So now we have massive revisions to do.

How do you do that with three people?

The revisions are fundamental in that we have to restructure the plot. That means adding scenes, re-envisioning existing scenes, and cut, cut, cutting what we already have. In essence, it means starting over.

I don’t mean totally, of course. There are many existing scenes we will be able to rework and salvage, and our characters will remain much as they are. But since the plot needs so much work, our process is starting over again.

We are having a meeting Dec 28 to discuss everything and get a new outline for the book. We have an agenda, because with 3 authors it is important to know what we will talk about so as not to waste time or run off on tangents. We know from experience that we can only work productively together for about 3 hours and then our focus collapses. So we have no time to lose. Thus the agenda.

To make our time even more efficient, we are all going to email each other our ideas for the new plot. We will do this a week before we meet, so we have time to read and react and absorb everyone’s ideas. Then we will discuss on the 28th and come to a final plot, a final outline. The hope is that the best of our ideas will come together and create some alchemical magic so we have a lean, strong, potent new outline.

Once we have that, I get to work. I will write the new first draft. Then it goes to Jim, who gives it to Jeff, who gives it back to me for a final voice revision.

Before all of that, though, there will be the meeting of the minds—and the synergy that comes with it.

Character Goals in Fiction

I talked last week about the Premise in fiction, and how it can help underpin your entire story. I mentioned briefly in that post that clarifying character goals was also recommended to help make my middle grade manuscript The Egyptian Enigma more focused.

One of the exercises developmental editor Kathryn Craft suggested to me was to go through the entire manuscript and write down the characters’ goals for every scene. If your main character’s goal in the scene is not somehow related to the book’s overall story goal, then the scene is either not needed or needs to be reworked.

I figured that would be easy. I mean, my main character is doing all these things to try and accomplish a specific story goal, right? So obviously he has a goal in every scene.

Turns out, not so much.

Or rather, his goal sometimes has nothing to do with the main story goal he is pursuing. When his goal is to set the table, that doesn’t do much to forward the plot. That scene can go.

And of course you must remember that your main character is not the only character in the scene with a goal. Every character in a scene has their own goals they are trying to accomplish—and ideally they should be conflicting with the main character’s goal. This creates tension and conflict in every scene.

This scene-goal exercise does not take a very long time to do. The real trick is to be honest with yourself while doing it. Don’t write the goals you meant your main character to have—write the goals he actually has as written on the page. Once you do that, excess scenes become very clear.

So, to recap: Your main character will have a story goal—what he is trying to accomplish in that book. If your book is part of a series, he has a series goal, which will be resolved in the final book of the series. But he also needs to have scene goals, which drive the scene, give it purpose, and forward the overall plot. Other characters will also have scene goals which will conflict, obstruct, or sometimes coincide with the main character’s goals.

That’s a whole lot of goals—but looking at them closely will give you a tighter focus to your entire book.

The Premise in Fiction

I recently got my manuscript The Egyptian Enigma back from developmental editor Kathryn Craft. Her 20-page evaluation highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript. Luckily, much of it was good!

The main problem with the manuscript was that it lacked enough focus to really pull everything together. The plot wandered into odd places, and the characters didn’t always seem to have purpose behind their actions. As soon as I read this, I agreed—it was something that had bothered me but I couldn’t explain it.

Kathryn’s solution was 2-part:

1) clarify my protagonist’s goal so I could trim away the scenes that did not directly forward or obstruct his reaching that goal

I can do that!

2) stay true to the underlying premise of the book.

Excuse me, the what?

The Premise.

Now I’m in trouble, because I have no clue what that is.

Luckily, Kathryn is awesome, and she explains in great detail in her evaluation what a premise is and why it’s important: “A premise is kind of like a moral but not as didactic—it is your story’s raison d’etre. The structure of your premise will suggest story movement. That structure is typically:____________ leads to ___________.”

I have two co-authors whom I will have to talk to before crafting a final premise, but for the purposes of this post I will state the premise as: “Digging up information from the past leads to solutions for a better future.”

Having an underlying premise will help guide what plot points are needed to move the story forward. All plot points will show the protagonist “digging” into things, all of which will lead him into deeper trouble. But since we have a premise in place, we will be able to identify any scenes or plot points that are irrelevant and therefore can be cut.

Having an underlying premise also allows you to use your characters to deepen or to refute that premise, thus giving the characters more purpose and stronger arcs. My protag believes the past holds the key to a better future, and so digs at things perhaps best left buried. His brother believes that digging into the past is fruitless and painful and therefore should be avoided. You can also have characters with related premises, such as a woman digging into the past to try to understand and come to terms with her husband’s murder, or a girl digging in the past to gain the attention and favor of her mother in the present.

So having a strong underlying premise helps bring your plot into focus and helps you find new and deeper emotional roles for your supporting characters. A premise is, as Kathryn stated, a moral, but it is also a worldview held by the main character. This will shape the main character’s actions (and thus the plot) and bring him into conflict with people who do not hold the same worldview.

Now that we know what a premise is, and what the function is, my co-authors and I can hammer out a premise to act as the underpinning of our novel. Once we have that and our character’s goal, knowing what to cut or rearrange or rewrite should become much clearer.

Kathryn said that the character’s goal should be like a strung arrow pointing the way to the climactic ending.

If that is the case, then the premise is the bow holding the arrow up.

Thanksgiving 2011

Since it’s Thanksgiving, I’m going to be completely cliché and talk about what I’m thankful for.

I’m not particularly thankful for the big dinner, because I don’t eat turkey or most of the trimmings, but I am thankful for the fact I have food to eat all year round.

I am very thankful for my family and my husband’s family, who are all warm, loving people who are supportive and are great role models for what family should mean.

I am most thankful for my immediate family—my husband and my daughter. I spent many years being lonely before I found my husband, and he changed my life for the better in more ways than I can count. His greatest gift to me was our baby girl, who lights up my days even when I’m not feeling so great, and who reminds me that laughter really is the best medicine.

But I also wanted to look at what I am thankful for in my writing career. So often I think we authors get so caught up in reaching the next level, we forget to look at where we are and how much we have already achieved to get there.

I am thankful for having wonderful teachers—authors like Jonathan Maberry and Marie Lamba who give me and others the benefit of their time and expertise.

I am thankful for the community of writers that I have found—supportive and welcoming and very, very helpful to all who show up with a sincere desire to write and improve their writing.

I am thankful for my writing friends, especially my Author Chronicles partners, who are always there to share the ups and downs of the journey.

I am thankful for the passion that has kept me writing for so many years. I feel that few people are able to pursue their real passion in a meaningful way, and so I am thankful for this.

I am thankful that my years of hard work have not been in vain. My writing is miles better than it was just a few years ago, and I continue to learn and improve every day.

Even though I am not yet published, when I look at where I am in my career, I can honestly say that I am closer than I have ever been. It no longer seems so pie-in-the-sky, but like an objective that can be met someday.

I am thankful for Donna Hanson Woolman, who walked 18 years of this writing journey with me before going on ahead. Even now, she walks with me every day.

I am thankful for my life, the opportunities I have had, and most importantly those who have loved me along the way and love me still. I would be nothing and nowhere without each and every one of you, and I am thankful for that every day—not just on Thanksgiving.

I’m Not Doing NaNoWriMo…Or Am I?

November is National Novel Writing Month, called in the biz NaNoWriMo, or simply NaNo. The objective is to write the complete first draft of a 50,000 word novel (or 50,000 words of a longer novel) in the 30 days of November.

NaNoWriMo is nuts—and I would totally do it if I had the time!

1,667 words a day. Every day. For 30 days. It’s not really that hard if that’s your ONLY job. In fact, if it’s your ONLY job, you probably should be writing more than that every day when in the first draft phase.

But since I have a 2-year-old, writing is not my only job. I set my goal a little bit lower—to finish revising a first draft of 35,000ish words into a strong second draft. I’ve been doing quite well, I am happy to say. I’m about 20 pages/8 scenes from the end. I’m very pleased with it so far.

I am also pleased with my writing discipline this month. I haven’t been able to create any more time in my schedule, but I have clamped down hard on spending what time I do have writing. I have severely limited my social networking/Internet time, ignored my email, and pretended that Spider Solitaire does not exist. All the things I often allow to intrude “just for a moment” I tried to shut out. I am very happy with the productivity I have managed to find this month.

And I seem to have been infected with the NaNo bug, because the past few days I decided to actually keep track of my word count for the day:

Sunday: 1,600
Monday: 2,250
Tuesday: 1,140
Wednesday: 1,173

Wow. That’s a lot. An average of 1,541 per day.

Hmm. That’s not that far from 1,667 per day…

If you’re doing NaNo for real, how are you holding up?

Revision: Stepping Up Your Writing Game

My two co-authors and I just sent The Egyptian Enigma out for critique. Both of them are hoping for a relatively clean return. I am hoping for a lot of red ink.

I hear you asking, “Are you nuts?” (And since I’m hearing your voice in my head asking it, then perhaps the answer is yes.)

Nobody can actually want to revise! Not this deep into the writing project. To have to wade through an entire novel again! To have to rewrite scenes and chapters. To have to rethink characters and motives. To have to do yet another storyboard.

I understand. To revisit, to rewrite, to revise, can be frustrating. Especially if the revisions are of the major variety. Revising can sometimes feel like starting at square one—for the third or fourth time.

But I find it exhilarating. Sure, I get to the same “Not again!” feeling every once in awhile, but I see revisions (especially of the major variety) as a challenge. It’s a chance to step up my game. To stretch myself as a writer. To find a new writing level inside I never knew was there.

It’s also a chance to get it right. Every writer knows what I’m talking about: That feeling that what you put on the page doesn’t reflect the intent or the vision in your head, even though it’s the best writing you can do. That feeling doesn’t go away (at least, it hasn’t for me). It just keeps shifting as you learn more about your craft. There’s always something you haven’t mastered yet.

I am an editor. And I fully agree that you cannot effectively edit your own work. But as a writer and editor, I have a good nose for when my writing isn’t quite cutting it. When I don’t feel that “click” when every aspect of the writing comes together the way it should, making the writing feel solid and seamless. However, I often don’t know why I feel that lack of solidity, or how to fix it.

That’s why I’m hoping for a lot of red from this reader. Because The Egyptian Enigma is a really good book—but I want it to be better. There is something missing that can take it from a good book to a great book, and I can’t figure out what it is. I’m hoping my reader can tell me.

I want to step up my game.

Tapping into the Reader’s Inner Ear

Books are a print media. So it makes sense that writing should be a visual art. And in fact, we do think about how the words look on the page. We consider how much white space there is, how the varied paragraph lengths look on the page, and try hard to eliminate those one-word “orphan” lines (they drive me crazy).

Some take it deeper than that, considering how the words themselves look. Short sentences and short words in an action scene promote tension, for example. But even more than that, the particular letters that make up a word can convey a visual sense of the word. Consider “faint” and “swoon.” They mean pretty much the same thing, but just looking at them gives a different sense of the action. The upright, skinny letters in faint give it a quick, hard look. The rounded, wide letters of swoon stretch out the action.

Clearly, however, writing is not considered a visual art. We don’t say to one another, “That sentence doesn’t look right.” We say it doesn’t sound right. And not just about dialogue, although that is especially important. There’s a reason we are told to read our novel aloud when editing: We need to know how it SOUNDS.

Writing is an aural art. We describe rhythm and pace, the cadence of the sentences. We talk about alliteration and assonance and onomatopoeia. We say words resonate, or a work speaks to us. We discuss a writer’s voice and tone. In short, we rely on the reader’s inner ear.

Which makes me wonder what the reading experience is like for people who are deaf.

I have, for a variety of reasons, become interested in American Sign Language (ASL). Because of that, I took an ASL course. Our teacher was deaf. She explained to us that she spoke ASL, and although she read in English, English was her second language. I had never thought about that before.

So now I wonder how people who have been deaf from birth or who have no memory of spoken language experience reading. The cadence of the sentences is missing for them. The suggestive sound of the words does not exist. Whereas they have one sign that can mean various things based on context, we have many words that all mean the same thing. And although we writers agonize over getting the dialogue to sound natural, it will never read as natural for ASL speakers, because ASL has a very different grammatical structure than English does.

Is reading dull for them? Do they feel that they are missing one level of the meaning? I know when people write about smells or taste, I (who have no sense of smell) often feel disconnected from the passage or the meaning they are trying to convey. But a writer’s reliance on the inner ear (his own and the reader’s) is more than just a stray passage here and there—it goes to the core of writing. It is in every word.

My writing is usually devoid of any reference to smell or taste, as they are not factors in the way I experience everyday life. Similarly, a deaf person’s perception of the world is fundamentally different that someone who can hear. I wonder, then, if a deaf person’s style of writing would be intrinsically different than a hearing person’s?

Does anyone know of any fiction writers who are deaf?

Creativity on demand

During our YA class this month, we talked about all the things that are time sucks in our lives – including the Internet (but not this blog, this blog is useful). Most of us are struggling with making the time to write. We have jobs, families, small children, and the million other things life throws in the way when we’re not looking.

Most of us said that we have fragmented writing time – an hour here, a half-hour there, and the like. We discussed strategies for making the most of this time, such as always having a notebook with you to jot down ideas or scenes when you get a free minute.

Then one classmate asked, “When you finally get your half an hour, how do you suddenly throw on the creative switch and dive into writing?” She said she often wastes some of the precious time getting into the proper frame of mind to write. As she said, “It involves a lot of staring at the screen.”

So I started thinking about how I do it. My writing time is incredibly fragmented, yet I am usually able to sit and start writing when I get the chance. I’ve defined three steps to flipping that creative switch on demand.

1. Plan what you are going to write.

When I get up in the morning, I decide ahead of time what I am going to work on when I get my writing moments. Am I going to edit my MG novel? Am I going to write a blog post? Am I going to write new scenes for my YA fantasy? If I know what I am going to work on, that’s one less thing I need to decide when I finally get time to sit down.

2. Rev the creative motor.

Because I know from the moment I get up what I am going to work on, I tend to think about it off and on all day. Any moments where I have free time to think, I think about the project. Laundry? On hold on the phone? Pushing baby girl on the swings? Bathroom break? Waiting for the toast to pop up? Any and all times when my mind does not need to be paying full attention, the project pops to the forefront. I run it through in my brain. If I’m working on a new scene, I will start writing it in my head. My creative motor stays in gear all day long. Then when I sit down, all that energy is ready to pour out, and I can leap into the writing because it’s been in my head for hours. Any writer knows most of your writing is not done on paper, and most writers will admit that they never stop writing in their heads.

3. Just write.

The two steps above help me be ready when my writing time comes. But the most important thing is to just write. It may be bad writing. It may go in the trash bin come revision time. It might be the worst rubbish I ever wrote, even though I had been thinking about it all day. But that’s okay, because none of it is a waste. Every word I write is a victory, and also a lesson. I learn from the bad writing, sometimes even more than from the good.

The answer to my classmate’s question, for me, is that I can turn on that creative switch “on demand” because I never really turn it off. By planning my writing goal for the day and then keeping it in my mind all day before I get to sit down, the creative switch stays On. And that helps me do the single most important thing for any writer:

Just write.

A New Paradigm (Again)

I have talked often of finding a balance between my writing and my life. I have told of new ideas, new routines I’ve made to find that balance, only to share the frustration that comes with life’s interference with those plans.

But I have a new plan.

Seriously.

I’ve been doing the catch-as-catch-can thing for about 2 years now. Coincidentally, that is about how old my daughter is. And I am here to tell you that putting out fires for 2 years is exhausting and spiritually unfulfilling. Certainly I have enjoyed much of what has gone on in the past two years, but the harried, never-get-to-quite-focus mentality has left me feeling both incompetent and fractured. So I sat down to reassess everything.

I found that the greatest issue fueling my frustration was not being able to move all facets of my life forward at once.

I consider that I have 4 major facets in my life: Baby, Husband, Household, and Writing. Baby moves on her own rocket trajectory and moves ahead at warp speed. I try to stuff the other three facets into whatever time and energy I have left over. I found that one always outweighed the other two. When I focused on Writing, the Household and Husband suffered neglect. When I caught up on Household, Writing and Husband stagnated. When I actually pay attention to my long-suffering Husband, very little Writing or Household gets accomplished.

So I always ended up playing catch-up with 2 facets, frustrated that they had slipped in the first place, and then returning to the putting-out-fires method of living. This is not conducive to writing, at least not for me. I need at least an hour to really write. Editing I can do in smaller chunks, but for writing I need time.

My new plan? Move everything forward at once. Set tiny daily goals in each area and meet or exceed them. If I feel like I nothing is stagnating, perhaps I won’t feel the intense pressure of everything I’m NOT doing while I am trying to concentrate on what I AM doing.

It helps that I can now do more things when baby girl is awake. She’s old enough now to want to help or to entertain herself for a while. I can actually do housework, make (short) phone calls, and do email and social media when she is awake. That helps immensely. If I can move most of the Household and some of the Writing into the daytime hours, that will leave her nap and the nighttime for me to have some concentrated Writing time (and time with Husband, too, when he is not working crazy night shift hours!).

Circumstances keep changing, especially as my baby girl keeps changing. So it is smart to sit back once and a while and see what’s holding me back and how I can adjust things to overcome that. I’m hoping that by pinpointing my largest frustration, I can now make a plan that will be successful.

How about you? Do you re-evaluate your writing routine every so often to see if it can be improved? Or have you found a writing design that works for you?

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