So Where Have I Been???

Just wanted to give a quick update, since I haven't written a post in nearly a month.  I've been working with my editor friend, Lisa, for quite a while now, but the last month was really a push to finish.

I feel like An Untold Want (formerly known as Counting Crows) is done.  Lisa is doing another run through edit, and there may be some little things, but nothing that should take another year of editing.  I'm happy with the story as it currently exists.  I added some things, deepened some things, and explained some things that make it a richer, more satisfying tale.

I know I've told my friends that I've been working on this novel for nearly ten years, but I thought hard about it the other night, after Dustin teased me, and, really, when I started my current 9-to-5 job six years ago, I only had three chapters written. Today, An Untold Want is thirty-one chapters, plus five diary excerpts [from ancestors], a total of  129,244 hard earned words.  Plus in that six years, I've also taken a lot of breaks, while -- *sigh* --waiting for agents to reject me, including time to write Couillon and to start my new novel.

I had planned on submitting this novel to Amazon on Summer Solstice, but since it's still in the  hands of one last agent, I want to wait and see what happens with that.  If nothing else, I'd love to say I'm in the good-ol'-boys'-club.  I'd also love to have a physical copy [or twenty] of my book to put on my book shelves.

But if I get another reject before August 1st [Lughnassahd], then it will be going on Amazon on that date.

Lughnassahd is the first of the Celtic harvest holidays, the time to reap what has been sown.  Growing time turns to gathering time, which seems like an appropriate time to release a novel.  Maybe it will help me reap some rewards, as in royalties.  Who knows?  It certainly doesn't hurt.  As Maggie says, I'm praying to whichever god/dess is listening.

Holy Crap, I'm Critiquing Stephen King's Work...

In preparation for Stephen King's Doctor Sleep coming out, in which Dan Torrance [as in Danny Torrance] is the protagonist, I decided to re-read The Shining.  

Let me give you just a little background on my favorite writer, before I go on.  According to Wikipedia, he's written eighty-seven pieces [which include novels, short-story collections, novellas, e-books, non-fiction, a screenplay, a couple of comic books, and a poem -- you get the idea].  And if Google spreadsheets can be trusted, those eighty-seven pieces add up to 35K+ pages [not words, pages].

The Shining, which hit the book stands in 1977 [the year I graduated high school], was his third novel to be published. So needless to say, his writing has grown over the years and has changed with the times and the expectations of the publishing world.

Yes, I say 'needless' now, but I didn't think about all that when I picked up The Shining this time, thirty-six years after I'd originally read it.  No, I thought about how much I enjoyed it the first time, about the scene with the topiary animals [which I mistakenly remembered as having happened to Danny, not his father], about the creepy history of the hotel, about how after reading Salem's Lot at sixteen, Stephen King had once again written something capable of scaring the stuffing out of me.

And I couldn't wait to dig into it again.

But this is where my story gets wonky.  I'm about halfway through the book, and I'm thinking, wow there's lots and lots of telling -- not showing.  For example, not even three chapters in [or something like that], Wendy, the mother, while laying in bed [so no action other than her being drowsy] reflects on her life with Jack and what happened to Danny, etc... for a whole chapter. Basically it is a full chapter of flash-backs.  Same with the father, Jack.  Further in, there's a chapter of Jack reading newspaper articles about the hotel.  Even Danny does a bit of looking back on his short five years.  We get the arm-breaking incident from three different perspectives. What hit me was that that type of writing is frowned upon these days.  I was beaten soundly [okay, exaggerating a bit] for things like that when I was a new writer.

Back-story slows the action.

Maybe you should start the novel sooner. 

No one cares about all that.

SHOW us; don't TELL us.

And yet, I don't feel like all this telling takes away from the story. Yes, it could be cleaned up a bit, but it's still a fabulous story.  And when Stephen King shows you something, you can't get it out of your head.   So maybe a little bit of telling from the Master is a good thing. And yes, I noticed the discrepancy in style, a lot, but like I said, I've had it beaten into me that you don't do things like that, at least not in this millennium.  A new -- 'uneducated in the rules of writing' -- reader may not have even noticed.  [I do tend to edit as I read now, re-writing as I would have written a given story.]

So, I'm writing [no pun intended] off this problem that I'm having as a change in the rules of writing over the past thirty-six years, or maybe because so many more people are publishing now, the rules have become more rigid.  I know that Stephen King's new novels fit right in with today's requirements for what constitutes a 'good writer'.  I know that I only wish I could write as badly as Stephen King.  [That's for all the snotty, literary fiction people.  Hey, I read/write literary fiction, and he's still my favorite author. So there!]

With that said, I'm enthralled with Stephen King, and there are parts of The Shining that still has the ability to scare the stuffing out of me.  Oh my god, the old woman in the tub.  How scary is that?  Danny's only five in the story.  If I saw something like that, I'd pee my pants too, even now.

And I'm looking forward to reading Doctor Sleep.  Although Joyland will likely come first. I can honestly say that of the eighty-seven pieces that Stephen King has written, I've read at least half of them, and several multiple times.  [Doctor Sleep and Joyland are included in that eighty-seven.]

You want to know more about Stephen King, you say. Well, let me google that for you.  There are about a bazillion websites out there.  Go look for yourself.

But if you're really lazy, you can start here: http://www.stephenking.com/index.html.

Who's in Charge: You or Your Writing Tools?

From guest blogger Dustin Higbee:

By day, I’m a software developer.  By night, I’m a sleeper.  The spaces in between are filled with family and writing.  There are many parallels between software development and writing.  You need to know a language, but more importantly, you need to know how languages work.  You need to learn the fundamentals of good structure.  You need to adopt a work process that suits you.  This can be planning via outline or model, or you can iteratively write and revise.  No matter how you get there, the only thing that matters is the working code you ship or the finished manuscript that you publish.  But I’ve noticed that there is one part of the process that keeps both developers and writers from getting to done: tools.

It starts with an unmet need.  The project has grown too large to organize, so you search for a tool to help with organization.  The tedium of a repetitive task drives you to look for a tool that can automate the task.  Pretty soon you are auditioning tools instead of cutting code.  You are testing features instead of putting words on the page.  A little of this is ok, because a legitimate productivity boost is possible. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

Enter phase two.  You’re comfortable with the new tool, blissfully hacking away at your project, when a friend (or your stand-in, the Internet) mentions a useful feature that hadn’t occurred to you.  New tool X has it, your tool does not.  You decide that you don’t need it and continue working with what you have.  But the knowledge nags you from the back of your mind, tells you that you’re incomplete without it.  So you switch.

Again, you’re blissfully hacking away at your project.  But alas, you find that New Tool is missing features that were available in Old Tool.  In a brief moment of insanity, you contemplate using both tools at the same time.  If you are a software developer AND a writer, you are permanently insane, so you contemplate coding up a new tool that has all of the “required” features.  Maybe you are lucky enough to find a third tool that has everything.  But at some point, you catch on to what others in your profession have already discovered: the tool is a distraction.

 
If you’re a developer, you switch from Eclipse to Sublime Text.  If you’re a writer you ditch Scrivener for WriteRoom.  These tools hide the features they contain when placed in “distraction-free” mode (Scrivener tries to do this too), but in many cases these tools are simply missing features.  So you are almost back where you started.  From here you have options. 

1. Repeat the cycle until vomiting ensues
2. Retreat to quill and parchment
3. Plan your process

Option one is obviously bad, but many great works have been created with option two.  If it works for you, I am impressed.  But I will still think of you as a Luddite who is missing out on the progress of humanity.  What about option three?

Option three starts with recognizing that the tools have taken over your writing process and that you need to regain control.  A little Project Management can help here.  Many writers think about the steps of their projects as Plan, Write, Revise, although maybe not always in that order.  In this view, the Plan task is focused on the real work of researching and outlining that happens during the project.  I’m suggesting that you add a pre-planning step in which you create a project plan.

The project plan describes your process for completing the work.  The key for this discussion is that you are choosing the tools you will use for the duration of the project.  You are setting aside a specific time for selecting tools (before the project begins), and then making an agreement with yourself to stick to them until the project is complete.  When you start the project, you simply Plan, Write, and Revise using the tools you have in your toolbox.

 
There are, of course, other parts of the process that you can lay out ahead of time and it is easy to fall into the trap of planning so much that you never start.  But if you know that tools flip on your ADD switch, then a little planning ahead may just help you maintain your focus.  

5000+ Hits, Another Milestone

Sometime during the night, I passed the 5000 hits mark on this blog.  I can tell I'm getting more of a following -- thank you all -- because I went from 4000 to 5000 in a little over a month.  Considering it took me a year and a half to get to 4000 hits, I consider this a huge accomplishment.

Keep your cards and letters coming, and keep coming back, please....

Love you all!

Reflection and Images as Writing Tools

Guest blogger Alan Brewer muses:

In my personal life, I allot time to reflect.  As a talent development leader and executive coach in my professional life, I spend inordinate amounts of time teaching executives to reflect and to capture those thoughts in a journal.  I ask them to think about what was, what is, and what can be.  There is no better window to the soul than a private, reflective journal.  I tend to keep two; one is an appreciative journal to remind me how wonderful life is, and the other is dark--- filled with vicious thoughts and evil.  I find that love and hate are two strongly connected emotions and sometimes when one is developing a character profile, the best emotions and most prolific characters can be found when I cull through my own journals.

While working in the media and entertainment industry, I became acutely aware of the value of images.  Think about a movie poster.  How does one create / capture one image that communicates the theme of an entire movie with all its twists, plots, characters and layers?  Creating an image with words can even be more challenging.  How does one create an effective, compelling image using only words?  Images, however expressed, are powerful storytelling tools, and there is a delicate balance to strike in getting them just right.

I recall two exercises from my undergraduate coursework that I still find helpful.  Exercise 1:  Take an ordinary red-tip kitchen match and strike it, watching it burn until it reaches your fingertip.  Blow out the match, inhale and observe the gray smoke unfurl and disappear.  Then, describe that activity in minute detail, writing a minimum of 5,000 words.

Exercise 2:  Take any horrific headline from the television news (destructive tornadoes, building collapse, plane crash), and tell that story in 3 or fewer paragraphs.  Get all the facts, and tell the story concisely as though you were writing the newspaper copy.   Those two exercises force your brain into mental Olympics, expanding and contracting your memory and thinking faculties.  Free thought and discipline are both valuable in character development and experienced writers learn how and when to use each tool.

Next, I’ll explore how a vivid imagination can fuel character development when “with that said” continues…

Guest Blogger Ann on "Write On"

Write On 

Guest Blogger Ann M. Piraino on her naïve and ingénue writing techniques.  Thanks Sara for inviting me to your Blog!!  Most of the things I have "published" reside on Ancestry.com (so far).

So to Write On – these are the first tools you will need.  Some starting point like my 3 formulae – put some words on the page to start the flow – and an idea of the topic/person/place/thing in your story.  Sometimes it is best to start at the end and work back to the beginning – know how it turns out and head in that direction.  Of course, character development is great in the 3^rd style if you use the semi-auto-biographical version of the formula.

I have three pseudo formula styles for my prose – poetry would be entirely different!  Well, maybe not.

First is OUT

The once upon a time group with lots of direction to go from there! Once Upon a Time, a Long, Long Time Ago, In A Land Far, Far Away, at the edge of a dark forest, in a (small, medium-sized) cottage (house) there lived. . . And so it begins, the first of my formula writing styles to flesh out into a story – maybe a fable, a fairy tale or something more up to date like a story set in Forks about vampires.

Okay, those have already been taken by Hans Christian Anderson, The Brothers’ Grimm and Stephanie Meyer but you get the formula concept. 

I then expand it by using the variables (parts of the OUT used alone or in parts): 

• A Long, long time ago. . .(setting era, timeframe – good for stories about the past in real or fictional form);
• In a land far, far away (setting a location – good for stories in the dessert or even other planets?)
• Maybe in a land far, far away at the edge of a dark forest (look out for hobbits, werewolves, witches and Gepetto the wood carver).

 Second is DARN

That stands for It was a dark and rainy night – NOT Stormy!  Stormy can conjure up too much of a scary proposition – running off the road in your car, getting hit by a tree, stumbling around in the forest or being frightened inside that old mansion on the hill when the power goes out – no, stormy is Stephen King, Dr. Frankenstein, Edgar Allen Poe and the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Rain can be pleasant – thank goodness because we have so much here in the northwest. It can bring up visions of glistening rainbows from water refracting from streetlights as you walk or drive through the city.  It can bring up romantic moments in your cottage, home, motel room with the warm fire burning, candles lit, and anniversary dinner at the table.  It can be Sleepless in Seattle with the lapping waves on your houseboat. . .

But, you could still turn rain to a storm if you want to set up fear and terror – great way to go in a split direction!!

3^rd – WHEN_WAS

Back when Hannah/Morgan/Amelia – whatever I decide to call myself and write in the third person – was (insert age here) – this stuff happened.  This has been a wonderful vehicle to use not only to record some fun stories about my youth and later years but to be able to scrub and put into the ancestry.com files for some future generation (not from me of course, I have no children) to read and ponder.  Who could imagine typing and using something that didn’t plug in or use wifi??  Not having a car or having a car with manual transmission?  Heavens!  How could that be??  Even the current generations Y & Z find those things unheard of!

I remember my step uncle always talking about back-in-the day when he would travel miles to school, or camping trips dragging his canoe behind him until he found the river.  Hard to believe now but in the 1920s it was real!  They say write what you know and even with tricky memory, writing about yourself is easy – no made up backstory or the ‘what would my hero do in this situation’ concerns – you either know because you already did IT or because you would follow a similar value or ethics decision in the future.

Whatever I/you choose and wherever I/we end up – we can Write On.

Reader's Bill of Rights - Later Amendments

Last night as I was dropping off to sleep, I realized that the Reader's Bill of Rights needs at least one additional amendment.  I'm pretty sure I can come up with a few others as well.

And yes, I know that the Bill of Rights themselves are amendments.  That's why these start at eleven.

Amendment 11:  The right to read more than one book in a given time frame.

I usually have three to ten books I'm reading at any one time.  Some are non-fiction, some are short story collections, and most are novels of some type or another (usually different genres).

Right now, I'm reading (eleven books):

Wool, by Hugh Howey

The Castle, by Franz Kafka  (yes, I do read classics, quite often)

Mockingbird: a Portrait of Harper Lee, by Charles J. Shields  (biography) 

Such a Pretty Fat, by Jen Lancaster (memoir/humor)

Indians of the Pacific Northwest, by Wine Deloria, Jr. (non-fiction)

Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

Wisdom of Psychopaths, by Kevin Dutton (non-fiction)

The Bone Chamber, by Robin Burcell 

Naked Lunch, by William S. Burroughs (memoir, maybe, who knows?)

The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
and

Collected Stories, by William Faulkner  

Need I say that the last three, and Confederacy of Dunces, are not light reading. Engrossing, entertaining, enlightening, but not light.  I can only get so far in any given one of those without a break.  For the last two, I'll usually read a full short story.  Confederacy of Dunces and Naked Lunch, I'm not usually so lucky.  Confederacy of Dunces isn't that hard to read, but I'm having a problem with the characters being so stilted or two-dimensional.  Who would have thought reading Kafka would be easier than ... well, anyone. [I'm quite enjoying The Castle, btw.]

And as for Naked Lunch, you try to read it and see how far you can get in a single sitting.

As for non-fiction, biography, and memoir, I struggle a bit because I'm such a "story" oriented person.  Jen Lancaster is a great writer, but to me, Such a Pretty Fat comes across as a series of anecdotes tied to her trying to lose weight.  Mockingbird has a good story line, but there's so much detail thrown in that I have to stop after awhile or forget what I've read.  Same with non-fiction.  I can only consume it in small bits anymore if I want to retain it.  Face it, at my age my brain is just too full of other stuff.  

Amendment 12:  The right to own more books that you can possible read in your lifetime.

I don't know how many times I've gone to my book shelves and searched for something only to not find exactly what I desired.  I keep many, many books on hand.  Just in case.

Amendment 13:  The right to own a Kindle and still be considered a bibliophile.

See Amendment #12.  I never thought I would own a Kindle because I so love the smell and feel and weight of books, even when they hit me in the head when I fall asleep reading.  But I live in a condo.  I have one whole wall of floor to ceiling bookshelves, jammed full.  I was getting to the point that I was expecting a visit from Book Hoarders -- there should be a show called Book Hoarders; I know many.  I still have books piled up on my nightstand and coffee table, but now with my Kindle, I have room on my dining room table, kitchen counters, and dressers for things besides books.   [I do still have one counter in the kitchen for cookbooks.  The Kindle pretty much sucks when it comes to recipes.]

Amendment 14:  The right to fall asleep while reading.

A caveat applies.  You should be careful where you fall asleep while reading.  Snoring in the library isn't cool.  And sleeping in a crowded airport isn't safe, at least not any longer, especially if you're carrying a laptop or expensive purse.

Amendment 15:  The right to buy the same book more than once.

The Kindle helps with that because Amazon will tell you that you've already purchased said book.

Amendment 16:  The right to give-away/sell books.

Especially to make room for more books.  Or to share a favorite with a friend.

Amendment 17:  The right to get so lost in a book that you forget where you are, what you were doing, or why you care about the where you are and what you were doing.

I know I'm enjoying a story when a movie plays in my head, when I forget that my eyes are scanning a page because I'm seeing what's happening.  And that is why most of us read, isn't it.  To travel to other times and places, meet or be other people.  To get away from some untenable situation, even for just a few minutes.



With that said, go read a book.  Or five.