Second Star to the Right and Straight on 'till Morning

 

image source

 There is an idea circulating out there that unless writing comes easy to you, you're not cut out to be a writer.

This is a MYTH. 

Some published writers who claim they dreampt up their story, who claim the words just flowed out of them and bam! it was publishable, and who delightedly chat with interviewers about the wonder and joy of creating fictionary worlds are grossly misleading the general public about how much WORK goes into writing a novel.And it's easy to feel beat down when you see people, whose books are actually selling, acting like that. Sometimes even though you know it takes work, you wonder if you really have the talent to get there, the skills to make it happen and the drive to succeed. Do you want to know what I think?


I think you do. 

  Hang those dumb authors who've forgotten the long hours they logged behind their computer screens late into the night or early morning. Who've forgotten the sacrifices it takes now they they're well-known. Who would make you feel small for believing in a dream that maybe no one but you can see for yourself.

Now, scratch these authors, sometimes it's hard to believe you have it in you when you see great authors who admit how hard it is to craft a seamless plot and multi-dimensional characters telling it like it is! It can be very discouraging. (I know, I feel it too).

But here's the secret antidote to all that: Don't just believe in the fairy tale of publishing, make the fairy tale happen. To YOU. Take Peter Pan..

Many writers sit waiting in their bedrooms as Wendy fills their head with stories of how great it is to be published...the book signings, the interviews, the fans, the following, the ARCs, the friendships with other authors etc.. And soon you're standing by the window waiting for Peter Pan, that inspirational fellow, to show up with pixie dust and grant the ideas of your book in your head into a manuscript and give you the wings to fly right out the window and into that dream world.

And here's the secret of that. He's not coming. Unless you can capture his shadow and hid it in a drawer, unless you do the work to get the attention you deserve,  it's not going to happen. You may have the happy thoughts, you may be waiting for that fairy dust to pour out upon you but you'll be waiting a long time.

This is what sets apart the published writers from the non.You HAVE to BELIEVE in yourself and that you have the talents, the gifts, the abilities, the drive and the will to succeed no matter what else any one thinks or says. No matter how far away that beautiful Neverland of dreams seems, it is always within reach. Find that inspiration that keeps it in sight and never let go of it. Keep sacrificing. Grow the wings to make yourself fly don't wait for Peter.

Yes, it will be hard. It might be painful. It will be discouraging and you'll have to pour every ounce of faith into yourself even when it seems your straining mud through a sieve to get those words out and the dream seems utterly unattainable.

But you can do it.

There will be times when the missing piece of your storyline falls into place with a click, when a new character shyly slips into your mind like a fresh breath of air, when your fingers wear out from a night's work at the laptop where they just couldn't keep up with your brain. When your heart quietly burns within you because you know absolutely this is what you were meant to do. There will be those times too. And they will spur you on through another drought of pure work until you sail through them again.

But only you can make it happen. I believe in you, do you?

Writing Inspiration

Read, read, read. Read everything—trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the most. Read! You'll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you'll find out. If it's not, throw it out the window."
William Faulkner

"Only write from your own passion, your own truth. That's the only thing you really know about, and anything else leads you away from the pulse."
Marianne Williamson

 Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
Mark Twain

Close the door. Write with no one looking over your shoulder. Don't try to figure out what other people want to hear from you; figure out what you have to say. It's the one and only thing you have to offer."
Barbara Kingsolver

Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.Henry David Thoreau

You don't write because you want to say something, you write because you've got something to say

F. Scott Fitzgerald

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it, and above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.Joseph Pulitzer

Picture sources:Peace Love Bella Vita.blogspot.com

The "Firsts" Do's and Don'ts

     a theater up in Grayling, MI

        I'm not the world's best expert on do's and don'ts. But like anyone who reads and writes a lot, you start to get to know what works and what doesn't. Like I mentioned yesterday, there is so much riding on those "firsts". The first sentence, page, chapter etc..it can be overwhelming to try to do everything that will be required from those pages. It doesn't help that we have so many awesome firsts to follow behind:

        Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. - Leo Tolstoy

        Somewhere in la Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing. - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote

        Call me Ishmael. - Herman Melville, Moby-Dick 

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. - Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813)

and of course...

        It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. - Charles Dickens

        I love picking up a book to read the first few pages and the next conscience thought is "oh woah, I'm on page fifteen?!" That's when you know an author has done something right. A few things right. I'm trying really hard to get that flow in my first chapter so mentally I've gone through the basic do's and dont's so I thought I'd post them here:

      Do's: What does a first page, first chapter need?

-Do let your reader know what the rest of the book is about. Set the tone, style, is it a horror? a romance? what is going to be the main conflict? I once wrote a story about a ghost and there was no mention of anything ghostly for the first half of the book. Not great.

-Do introduce your main players the first chapter. Not all of them, of course, but give us an idea who the starting line up is.

-Do establish a point of view (pov) right off the bat and the general rule is to then stay with this style throughout the rest of your book. Decide if you're going to tell the story through different points of view, first person limited, third person, are you altering between first and third person (usually not recommended).The Harry Potter series was told in third person limited for much of the seven novels but switches to omniscient from time to time and if you're going to do something like this, keep it in line with chapter boundaries, do not change pov in the middle of a scene.

-Do establish readers trust. They want to know that the storyline will take them somewhere, that the foreshadowing and conflict build up will lead them somewhere. They want to feel satisfied, curious, haunted, sad, SOMETHING so show them what you can do. I hate putting down a book that looked so promising only to peter out after a few chapters.

-Do pull the reader into the world suddenly with a quick action starting scene or slowly entice them down the slippery slope to the world you've created. Either way, it's best to stay behind the scenes as much as possible and keep every evidence that there is an author present unseen.

    Don'ts: Things to be Wary of:

-Don't load for first chapter with back story it strangles a good storyline. I'd say 60% if not more of what I write in these beginning drafts will either never be used and will only enhance my knowledge of the character to better portray him or her or I will find a better, more concise way of adding those details little at a time.


-Don't don't start a novel with the hero/herione waking up, recounting his dream and then getting up and looking in the mirror to show what he looks like. Argh! No! bad!I also hate reading a book where the first character I get to know gets killed off right away.

-Don't start with a lengthy dialogue sequence. One, unless you're Hemingway, it's usually boring because we have no idea who these characters are. Two, many times writer's who do this don't include a setting or environment descriptors so for all we know these characters are just hanging in the air somewhere. Of course you can start with dialogue and it can work really well. But there is a right way to do it.

-Don't start too early. When does your story actually start? Is it when the murder is taking place? Or is it the next morning when your main characters are coming upon the scene? Or is that after noon when your main character is in the autopsy room and gets a mysterious phone call about the murder the night before? The best starts I've ever read are those that plop you down right in the middle of an ordinary day, right in the middle of what's going on.


Can you think of any other do's or don'ts?

Self-edit-itis

              
                     Brainstorming is my favorite part of writing. ::blows a kiss to the imaginary brainstorming god:: I've spent the better part of this month and last lost in the fantasy world where anything is possible, free from the restraints of drafting. However, agents don't accept queries based on a terrific bubble chart no matter how many good ideas are floating throughout it.Unfortunately. I know it's time to start the drafting process and I've have started about a hundred times but I just can't stop self-editing. Does this plague you, too?

   So much is riding on those first few pages..an agent will either request more or deny you, readers will either keep or return your book to the shelf, everything one needs to know about the tone, style, and writing ability is in those first few pages.

Here is the state of my first chapter:

It's a mess! For the life of me I cannot sit at a computer and type out something neat and orderly. It's chicken scratch for me until I get it right but that's how I work. Of course, the irony is that by the time the exploratory draft is complete my story has changed so much I'm going to chuck the first chapter and re-write it. The plus side is that I learn a lot about my novel in these re-writes, which is the big idea behind drafting besides drawing out the storyline.

I have diagnosed myself and if you're struggling with the same thing, chances are that you're suffering from self-edit-itis more informally known as why-is-it-taking-me-three-hours-to-write-one-freaking-page-where's-my-inspiration!? Do not fear, it plagues the best of writers (so I hear). DRAFTING is the best medicine and should be taken in large quantities; you CAN take more than six times in a 24-hour period however you also need to leave your desk and actually, ya know, have a life (again, so I hear).

Tomorrow I'll post my personal list of do's and don't of the "firsts" page, chapter etc..until then, I'd love your input. How do you combat Self-edit-itis? How do you settle down and start the drafting process? 

The Right Way to Build Author Loyalty

Amazing photo by David Olsson

                   Last week Nathan Bransford posted what was supposed to be a humorous pitch about his book only to be booed by many faithful followers.It always amazes me how many nay-sayers there are in an industry that depends on networking and loyalty. And yet if I stop to think about it, what people are more volatile, passionate and willing to voice our opinion than writers! I just hate to see it happen to someone whose given us so much.

              If you've read his blog (do it. You'll be better for it.) then you know the state of the publishing industry these days and how vitally needful self-promotion is. This is nothing new of course, but with blogging, facebook and twitter, readers are expecting more from authors than ever before. What authors are failing to recognize is what really snags a reader into buying their book and why they can't follow the same methods that the big names do.

              Selling a book is as much about selling yourself as your work. Whenever I read any hype about a book I am most curious about the author first. I look up his/her blog and in the first few minutes I either have seen enough to know I'm not interested in the book, jot down the title to see if it's in the library or know this is a blog I'll be adding to my bookmarks and will buy the book. With authors like James Patterson, Mary Higgins Clark, Josh Grisham, even Amanda Hocking now, I already know all about them, they are too big to get to know personally so I am not offended when their blog consists mostly of reviews, interviews, where their book is sold and their tour information. Their books have garnered enough attention for me to form a bias about them that will either cause me to buy their book hot off the press or know I can just click past their latest advertisement and onto something else. But when you're a fledgling hopeful or newer author you can't play that game. 

                  What makes me want to buy a book is not how many times the title can be squeezed into each post, how available the links are to purchase it or flagrant "buy me" posts. There are subtler ways to enhancing readers that also build author loyalty which is really the goal of self-promotion. (Remember, I'm not talking about authors who already have an established reader base and many books already on the market). Many of these ways don't involve pushing the book at all. The books I’ve bought from reading author blogs are all because I felt I was friends with the author and wanted to support him/her, photos of their publicity tour made me feel like the book was worth buying and reading reviews on OTHER blogs (like the authors' friends or crit partners) saying how good the book was. It was months before I bought Kiersten White's Paranormalcy because I didn't read YA at the time but after reading her blog everyday (seeing "Paranormalcy" all the time and growing loyal to her as an author) and seeing the hype other author friends were giving the book I finally had to go out and do it. (It was as good as they said!).

                   Many of these sources of self-promotion were in posts but not the main topic and links to buy the book or find reviews are on the side bars not the center. People read author blogs to find out more about an author, to gain advice, to see what the book is about before buying it. If we like it, we’ll find reviews, other work they've published, and the cheapest site to buy the book on our own. The trick is to make us want to find it by engaging our loyalty, our interest in their writing style or there is so much hype from other sources about the book we have to buy it. 

                  Does this mean that as an author you should never put a "You can buy this at amazon here" or "I'm so excited my book is coming out in __ days!" No. A little of that never hurt anybody and of course you should make your readers aware of what's going on with your book and where to buy it. It's just my personal opinion that authors can be more subtle than they think they have to be. When Nathan's book first came out I knew I'd want to buy it because I felt loyalty to him for all he's given me from his blog and I wanted to give something back. And I knew he would be a good writer from reading his blog. Maybe this kind of thinking is just me..in which case thank you for reading purely opinionated post thus far you poor soul :)

                   Many aspiring authors want to help fellow writers but no one likes feeling pressure to do so. If you write well, have a good following of people who are rooting for YOU, and make them feel a part of what you’re doing then you don’t ever have to feel bad for self-promotion, it will happen on it’s own.

Do you agree? Or am I way off base?

The "Exporatory" Draft

As afore mentioned, I've been crushin' on this new story idea for two weeks now. I have a binder full of loose leaf papers filled with scribbles circled to separate ideas. Here are a few of them:

-an older Leonardo DiCaprio character. Hobbles. Pathological liar.
-soluble in water, in oil.
-Lady Elizabeth, chest shredded open, heart bleeding onto the cobblestones.

Characters, scenes, images, little scraps of character histories, details, random bits of potentially useful information. I love this part of writing. I love listening to different kinds of music and looking for inspiration to spark some sort of image or word to use in a story.

Well, it's been two weeks now and the time has come to stop day dreaming and get writing. This is the HARDEST part for me. The part where I feel most hopeless of ever becoming a writer. The task of taking all of these random bits and turning them into a full-fledged novel is daunting to say the least. What's the method? How does one bridge the gap between pure imagining and the finished work with all the elements? This is where the published writers out work the dreamers. Key word: WORK.

Laini Taylor (author of the Dreamdark series and Lips Touch: Three Times) describes the first draft as an exploratory one: (I hope it's okay Laini to post your words here instead of mine because they're so much better!):

                Imagine you’re standing at the edge of a jungle in, let’s say, Borneo (because I have a fascination with Borneo). You have a rough idea of how big this jungle is -- you’ve flown over it in a helicopter and seen dense green treecover, and you know what’s on the other side. You know where you want to get to, and you have a very vague idea of what’s IN the jungle, but you have no map, and as of yet there is no trail. What you do have is a machete, a blank roll of paper, and a grease pencil.

                There’s only one way to get to the other side of the jungle: take out your machete and start whacking. Carve your way forward and forward, sometimes sideways and sometimes back, until you get to the other side. That first time through, you’re going to come across ravines, swamps, viper nests, rivers, all sorts of things you didn’t expect and you’ll deal with them and get around them, over them, through them, in all manner of resourceful ways. And when you step out of the jungle on the far side, what you’ll have in your hand is a sprawling, wrinkled, sweat-stained mess of a map of the territory you’ve just discovered. It might not look very pretty, but it is a glorious thing, a document of discovery. You clutch it to you, and after you’ve rested and healed for a while, you go back to the far side of the jungle and. . . you start again. (Source here)

Isn't that awesome? I love all the bush wacking involved and really, isn't that how it feels a lot of the time? You day dream and mentally interact with your characters, you see things in real life that spawn a mini scene in your brain that makes your hands itch to write down.You have all this beauty and intrigue and pure potential rolling around in your brain so hard it makes you want to explode and then comes the painstaking process of adequately transcribing those feelings and mental images into WORDS. It's like trying to strain pudding.

It's not like this for everyone, you could be one of those people where words just fly out of your fingertips and you fill page after page without stopping. You're one of the lucky ones, my friend. Blessings.But if you're like me, it can be a hard process. But Laini's words bring a measure of comfort.These first few drafts are exploratory, getting to know the lay of the story land. Go easy on yourself. Give yourself permission to write horribly. Set an impossibly high word count as your goal and set a timer and write and write and write. It will come together. Slowly but surely.

You'll probably write a lot of what won't make it into the finished novel. But this helps two ways:

1. You have tons of great back story that helps you write a more dimensional, believable character
2. You're getting so much practice writing that subsequent drafts will be THAT. MUCH. BETTER.

And in the end, those who write, publish. It can be as simple as that. Keep writing my friends!

So Crushin'

A new story idea is like a crush. It suddenly springs into your mind looking handsome and winning and suddenly all of your time is spent thinking and dreaming about it. It's charms are many and for a long time it looks perfect, the Bestseller, the Book That Will Bring Me Success! It's perfect! A revolution of an idea! Then slowly the doubts filter in; in crushing so hard on its perfections you start to look at yourself with all your imperfections as a writer. Will its characters reveal themselves to me? Can I do this idea justice? Am I an adequate writer? 

This idolation and drudging self examination continues on through the duration of the relationship and while you no longer find it perfect, and in fact, there are many, many flaws that have to be worked through, over time something magical and wonderful begins to happen. A book is being formed, it's full of well-rounded characters, deep themes and a solid storyline.

Sometimes you're already in the middle of writing when this crush suddenly enters your life. Some authors ignore such promiscuous impulses and swat away the distracting temptress. Many others can't ignore the siren's call, that of a new project promising to be nothing but faithful and never disappointing and sooo much better than the current what's-her/his-name you're with now.  Be wary my friends! Sometimes it's worth setting aside a project that just isn't working and beginning anew but many times it's not the project that needs to work harder (hint: it's you). Every fling starts out this way and you've seen the news lately to know what happens next. (Let's just hope you weren't sending pictures of your Johnson to this new idea because frankly this metaphor only goes so far people).

But if you happen to be "single" and on the hunt for something so promising and exciting as a new idea, when the moment happens it's breathtaking. The stars align for that short time, the world sits right on its axis and even though life will still come at you hard there is something redeeming about a new idea full of hope of a brighter future despite all the let-downs of previous drafts.

 I've been in the singles pool for a while now (I'm not embarrassed to admit it) but this idea is looking pretty good. I expect we'll have a DTR soon and then announce that we're officially together. But don't tell him that. You know how men get around the word commitment.