Tag: craft

Taming Of The Shrew

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My last post was quite a rant, wasn’t it.  Well, that’s what people in the midst of their own junk tend to do, and they do so without thought.  In this case, “people” would be me.  I’ve been in a bit of a funk for quite some time because too much has changed too quickly, and I’m returning to a world that’s been turned upside down.  It’s a world I thought I’d be landing on a bed of roses in old, familiar territory.  We can all pretty much kiss that fantasy goodbye, can’t we?

As I’ve continued reading and writing, I’ve realized I’m a long way from earning ranting rights about the work of others.  We’ve all got our peccadilloes and preferences, but that’s exactly what they are–very personal and not at all rules others should follow.  However, even in the worst of books/speeches/paintings/rantings of lunatics/dull seminars/whatever, there’s usually something of value that can be taken away and put to good use.

From my last rant, I took away a whole bunch of intolerance for the phrase, “Something about_____.”  I was much more aware of that phrase than in the past, and wouldn’t you know it, I came across the phrase in a book I’m now reading and discovered (much to my embarrassment) that there’s something about using “something about” in prose that’s an excellent tool of storytelling.  At least that’s my opinion.

In my bitchy rant, I did not mention the author or book that sent me off on such a snit, but I’ll happily give title and name of the book that acted as my teacher.  The book is Clockwork Angels, written by Cassandra Clare.  Yep, it’s a YA novel and not the kind of book I usually read, but this one captured my fancy.  Right out of the gate there’s action and an irresistible invitation to enter the world of her imagination.  Besides, I thought I could pass the book along to my daughter when I’m done (she’s heard so many good things about Ms. Clare’s other series that I sent her the boxed set).  According to my daughter, people are talking about her narrative descriptions.  That’s how they define it.  I say that she immediately engages all the reader’s senses with such skill that they can kick back, enjoy the ride, and not worry about filling in the blanks.  This writer does her job.

For me, I was particularly grateful for being surrounded by the smells of Victorian England.  My nose is very sensitive to smells, but I hadn’t realized what an important part of my reading experience smell was.  I’m not all the way into a writer’s world unless they pull me in by the nose.  Atmosphere is a flat picture if there aren’t smells involved, and I’ll cruise pretty pictures on the web if that’s what I’m looking for because it eats up less of my time.  Being a mere mortal myself and incapable of time travel, I’ve never actually gotten a whiff of the Victorian Thames, or a steamer coming to berth off the Atlantic, but I feel as if I’ve been there, whiffed that after just a few pages of this book.  And those dank and dark Victorian rooms.  I’ve been there too, with Ms. Clare.

But on to something about “something about.”  In the hands of a skilled writer, that phrase can set up a scene, alert the reader to discord between what’s seen and what’s felt (in all art forms, we seek to make others feel, don’t we?), or break up writing that  has become too seamless and heading for boredom.  I was totally wrong about “something about.”  There’s nothing wrong with that phrase in the hands of a writer who knows what she’s doing.  I’d simply been reading too much stuff I felt I should read to understand this new world or writing and publishing to realize that anything goes, so long as it goes with intention and purpose.

So there it is.  This shrew has been tamed.  I will never again jump on something that ticks me off without first searching for an instance where that “something” is used well.  If I can’t find it, I think I’ll sit down and play with it until I find a way of turning nothing into something.

If you should happen to be a fan of The Bard, you’ll know that his shrew, Kate, was never really tamed.  She just learned how to play the game.

Call me Kate In The Making.

Can This Writer Be Taught?

After the debacle of the A To Z Blog Challenge, I vowed I’d never again let impulse be my driving force. Right. And that’s exactly why it wasn’t a truly impulsive move when I accepted a 5K-per-day writing challenge posted by a long-time friend, Jeff Rivera, on Facebook. Honest. I thought about it for at least 30 second before posting: “Bring it!” in the comment box. OK, so 30 seconds isn’t that long, but at least I’m making progress. Besides, a lot can happen inside the brain in a nanosecond, so technically I had some idea of why I’d take on such a challenge with a friend who wanted those 5K words verified each day. (No way to cheat. Damn!) The challenge was also posted on a Friday, intended to begin the following Monday, giving me a chance to bow out as gracefully as a chicken with its feathers on fire.

Amazing the mental processes that can go on in just 30 seconds, isn’t it? Especially if they’re rationalization and/or excuses.

But the more I thought about it, the more I was ready to “bring it!” Five thousand words per day, delivered by 4 p.m. (not my style of writing at all) was just crazy enough for distracting me from the emotional turbulence of my WIP . It’s a memoir I’ll publish under a name far removed from mine, but it’s still my story and really tough digging up from its grave. Most of my time has been trained to putting it away and carrying on with eyes on the future. Best to just barrel through for the sake of minimal bruising. And tears. And—the biggie—shame. I was going to write this thing without ever feeling the emotions.

Who said adults don’t indulge in magical thinking?

All the emotions and heartbreak of that time just hammered me faster, harder, and more deeply. Oh, joy. And I had to get up every day for a week and keep facing that boxing match. To get through it, I added more rationalizations, most of them actually rational. As much as I’d like having the world spin my way, it’s never going to happen. Writing might be a free fall into the cracks of creativity, but a career as a writer has deadlines and demands not personally tailored to my liking. Bette get used to it. I also reasoned that it was a good way of fiddling with my process and discovering where my mojo and muse best like to be tickled.

That helped a little, but not enough.

Each day’s writing left me physically, emotionally, creatively, and intellectually exhausted, which I expressed through full throttle bitchery. I also ate like a teenage quarterback and fried my stomach with pots of strong coffee. By the time Friday, that blessed day when it would all end (yeah, still in magical thinking mode), I was fighting for every second of consciousness and fending off panic attacks with excessive walking of the dogs. That Friday came over a week ago, and they’re still sleeping it off.

It’ll be another couple of weeks before I re-visit those twenty-five thousand words I wrote that week for evaluation, but now that I’m caught up on sleep and have a week’s worth of nutritious food pumping through my veins, I feel sane enough to look back and evaluate whether or not it was worth it, whether or not there was anything in that challenge that proved this writer can be taught.

It turns out, I can be taught. Yay!

I actually did learn a lot about my process and writing in general, and I’m putting them here for future reference on those days when I feel all is lost. So here’s what I learned:

  • I can meet externally imposed deadlines (an inevitability in a writing career) if I stay focused and determined.
  • Tackling difficult material is what it is. There’s no way of barreling through it effortlessly. Writing is difficult no matter what the subject, so give it some respect.
  • I actually like writing every single day and don’t need a challenge or discipline or goals to do so. All I really need is an excuse that allows me to do so. It’s time to stop looking for that from outside forces and grow a pair that makes it easier telling others, “Sorry, can’t give my time for what you want. I’ve got my own good times to enjoy, even if I disguise it as work.” (I’d probably leave out the “disguised as work” part. Don’t want to tell all my secrets.)
  • Those that truly love and care about me actually flourish when relieved of my self-sacrifice.
  • Finding the right voice for a project isn’t a matter of scanning a menu and saying, “I’ll take that one.” It’s a hard-won prize that comes from experimentation, writing through voices that don’t work, and having enough skill to recognize it speaks..
  • I write a higher word count when the work count tracker is turned off. I’m more productive when focused on the story, not word count.
  • An exhausting challenge, once in a while, is a tool I’ll always keep in mind when I’m feeling stale and the work stinks of needing a bath. Pushing beyond my limits is like wind sprints for distance runners—it pumps up endurance and puts the longer runs into a different perspective.
  • The biggie lesson I learned is that goals coming from my own “I want” or “I need” (internal locus of control) are gifts I give myself. I need to open those gifts more often. Goals I think I should aim for because that’s what s/he does or expects or it’s their process (external locus of control) are always a set-up for failure. They belong to someone else, and I’m a really lousy thief.

Ta-da! Done cataloging the lessons learned. And I’ve got an additional twenty-five thousand words hacked out for this WIP, which might be the worst gathering of drivel ever assembled, but at least they’re there and stand as markers on what works and what doesn’t. That’s pretty cool, but cooler still is that I’ve dug down into the writer I am and learned some valuable lessons I wouldn’t have otherwise learned.

This writer can be taught, and for that, I am grateful.

Now it’s “Onward, McDuff!” and using tools gathering during my 5K battle to write a damned fine story. All I need now is a whole buncha sweat, a few emotions thrown into the blender, and revising a couple dozen times before turning it over to writing buddies for critique.

Wow. All of a sudden working in a sewage plant is sounding pretty good.

The Adulturous Blogger

I did. I cheated on this blog, abandoned it and left it questioning my love.  I was seduced by a challenge I’d never even flirted with before, and boy did I ever fall to temptation.  Worse, I did it on a different blogging platform, throwing myself off the learning curve I was on with WordPress and whirling down a learning luge without safety gear.

What a mess.

But one of the best writerly messes I’ve ever made.  I learned a lot about myself, and I believe that the more I know about myself, the closer I get to that core we all share, and the better I’ll get at turning out work that resonates with a larger audience.  Emerson called that core the Over-Soul and likened it to each of us being a unique note on the flute, played by the One Breath from which we’re all made.  I like that. I believe it.

So, what exactly did I learn?  And how might it apply to others sweating over their keyboards?

Well, I learned that I’m impulsive, and that’s just fine. I learned there are no characteristics we have as unique individuals that are bad or the sloppy big-dog kiss of death on the cheek of our dreams. We are who we are, and it’s our job to mine that field and make it productive.

After getting really bummed about my infidelity, my failure on the other platform, the crappy posts I made, and in general feeling sorry for myself because everything doesn’t come easily for me, I went into a period of depression. Then defeat. Then I started thinking about starting a business unrelated to writing, rationalizing I could use my writing skills in marketing that product. Oh, and I also ate a lot of candy and beans. I know, a weakness for candy and beans (eaten separately, never together—I’m not that far over the edge) is a strange combination of food passions, but that’s what makes me unique.

It was the chocolate and beans and alternate business plans that sent up an army of red flags. Those are the things I do when I’m running. Now that is something I’m very good at—skedaddling. But it, too, is productive. Distracting my mind with the damage I’m doing to my body, and knowing that starting a business is the last thing I want to do, yet there I am doing it, let’s what I call my Smarter Self some time off to figure things out. It sounds as if this is time wasted, but I’ve never found that to be true. What I am finding is that the more I’m aware of the running, the sooner I stop the wind sprint and give my Smarter Self a rest on purpose.

Those last two words are important. They keep me on the purpose of writing. I’m aware. I take control of my running, don’t get blinded by guilt and frustration and self-loathing and all that other happy hoo-ha we writers like doing to ourselves. It frees me so I can look at the journey of the run for footprints leading to my work.

For instance: During this last run, I baked a lot of bread, took my first stab at canning, and did a lot of doodling on business plans. When I was younger and dumber, I would have eventually stopped my run, looked at what I’d done and been ashamed. Yeah, I do the shame thing, right after I’m done with the blame game, which is all turned inward these days. Now I’m learning that nothing is a waste of time for a writer. Nothing defeats the writing journey except our mindsets. And guilt. And the weight of shame. But even those characteristics and habits can be useful if we know them through and through and can write them into a character. Same holds true for what I learned baking and canning and drawing up business plans. There was research done on all those feet of my run, and it’s all worth keeping and filing away for character development down the line. And through the particular shape and form of my run, I learn which characters are knocking on my door, asking for their story to be told.

I’ve had a central character of a story lounging at the back of my thoughts since I started this blog. I thought it was a project for the future, but now I might reconsider. If the rough idea I have for this person came through as I was running, maybe her story is more urgent than my thinking mind understood. At the very least, it’s something for me to explore through character sketches, story outline doodles, and just waiting to see how much of her keeps tumbling from my daily writing about this maximum culture shock of moving from Sin City to the Bible Belt (another blog in development).

Whatever it is, it’s all good.

Even the impulsive nature I’ve got. Once I realized my “character flaw” had grabbed me by the throat, I simply stepped away from its grip and thought about how I could use it.

There’s a debate amongst writers about pantsing v. outlining and structure. I find both useful. I find I do my best writing in both styles, just different kinds of best writing. (I also write my best crap in both styles.) There are so many surprises in pantsing, especially when it’s a word count marathon, but there’s also so much feel of the artist at work, sculpting thought and language when writing slow and deliberate with a road map. I find that I need pantsing on a regular basis. Just as my dogs love their morning walk but need a few days of opening their stride to full tilt at the park, I need a variety of writing routines. One style of writing pumps my juices, and the other gives me a feeling of being in control.

My adultery taught me that I—just me, not necessarily you—need regularly scheduled, crazy wild word count days of pantsing as part of my writing life. It’s like wind in the hair of my creativity. Stretching my stride. I’ve got to keep running. It’s part of who I am.

The next time I find myself doing things out of character for me, I’ll know there’s a character within me fighting for freedom. I won’t stop running, I’ll tame the run, use it, harness the power of impulsiveness. I’ll steal a day and fill it with an impossible word count so big it allows no time for looking back, just running, running, running because that’s what I do, and everything I do is for my writing.

A writer is and can’t be anything else. We can only waste time if we don’t recycle it.

I still wish I’d done things differently these past few months, but I don’t regret the practice they’ve given my development as a writer. No, I didn’t complete and sell a novel, but I got in a bunch of practice on how to be who I am.

Just as mastering the craft of writing takes thousands of hours of practice, we also benefit from practicing who we are.

It’s not easy, and there are so many temptations along the way.  Just remember who your true lover is.

The One With The Most Character Wins

AND THE WINNER IS…

Me! I’ve got a character I like, want to spend time with, get to know better, and with a story that interests me. Well, actually, I’ve got two. One of the characters is someone I can start spinning lots of tales around right now, which is something I need, and another character that requires a lot of research if there’s going to be a good setting around her with more stories to tell.

I’ll state again just how surprised I am by the impact of having photos to look at. I wasn’t prepared for what a kick start that would be for my imagination, or the idea of making the characters state their case for a position in my thoughts and time.  And that person would be:

Photo by: savit keawtavee

Everything about her captured my attention and sparked my curiosity, which just might be the root of creativity (hmm, hadn’t thought about that before.  Writing is magic, it opens the Big Mouth Of Imagination before you have a chance to hush it up and behave).   She’ll no longer be named Robyn, but an element of  Robyn’story, as it’s already been sketched in my mind, is being extracted and made the central issue of her life, and the character trait that moves the story forward. I want to know what happens in her life, how she’s going to handle the situations she encounters, and that’s a very good sign for me, the writer.

There’s nothing worse than looking at the computer/blank sheet of paper and feeling dread well up from your gut. I’ve got none of that with this young woman, so that makes me the winner in this contest and a very happy camper.

That yippy-skippy feeling has to bleed into the writing of this project and this character. I don’t see how it can’t, which makes me feel ten kinds of bold for having tried a new approach. Even if it hadn’t worked out and I’d ended up with less focus and excitement, at least it would have shown me one way of doing things that doesn’t work for me.  And I’m sure I’ll have plenty of struggles as I go, but I’ve got that initial excitement nailed right here on this blog.  I’ll be returning for inspiration when the going gets tough.  Yay, blog!

The second character that fascinated me was what I now call my Research Ozark Protag.  Just to keep her face fresh for myself, I’ll post her photo again.

Photo by: graur codrin

She’s got the perfect can’t-help-myself exotic look that fits the character I’ve been thinking about.  And this photo has the perfect expression–serene, bemused, aloof yet compelling–that I wanted for my character.  She is the central character of the series of mystery novels I’ve set my sights on writing, but her surroundings are going to need a lot of research to make them real.  Why?  Because she ends up moving to Ozark, Arkansas, can’t believe she’s actually done such a thing, and that mirrors my life exactly.  I’m researching for her, and researching for myself.  (This radical move in our life will also be the subject of another blog I’m putting together.)  I also like research, but I’m not as good at it as I’d like to be, don’t have the tools and skills for getting below the surface and knowing the story in the tangled roots of a setting.  For this character and this series, the setting will be a central character because Arkansas is nothing I expected it to be, and as complex as any person I’ve ever met.  Look at this woman.  Does she look like a good ole country girl from Arkansas?  Right.  It’s going to take some work getting her puzzle pieces to fit with the puzzle that is Arkansas.

So there we have it, my first step in taking risks, and that’s what it’s all about. I think.  I hope.  I know. What the heck I’m doing. I don’t, but right now that’s not even a consideration.  I’ve got my character, she intrigues me, and my work is now fun and exciting.

That’s enough of that.  Time to hit Scrivener and start spending time with used-to-be-Robyn and discovering more about her.  It’s going to be a fun day…until I start tearing my hair out 😉

(Just a passing note: The memoir will always be on my mind, and I’ll always be writing bits and pieces along the way, but it’s not yet an official project. I’m just not ready to have what used to be as my central focus.)