Responsibility to Characters

Sometimes I have a hard time finishing stories. In the beginning, I'm all jazzed up about a new idea, but then the idea begins to drag, everything goes wrong, and my novel ends up in a dusty computer file labeled "Grave Condition."

But what if I owed my characters the chance to tell their story--even if I tell it poorly, even if everything goes wrong? Maybe I owe them a beginning, middle, and end. Maybe I owe them some resolution.

Whenever I re-read a story I didn't finish, I usually get a sick feeling in my stomach because I want to know what happens. The story just stops, and I'm the only one who can finish it because it was my brain child in the first place. It's so frustraating!

Last year, I wrote a novel for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. It made it to the quarterfinals. It wasn't a bad novel, but it had issues. For example, it had two protagonists. Sisters. I couldn't decide which one I loved more so I kept them both, and it ended up hurting my story, I think.

After a great experience at a writer's conference, I gave one of the sisters--Cacey--a novel of her own. Cacey got her beginning and midddle and end. She got her happy ending. Ironically, Cacey's story had nothing to do with her sister Ivey's story. One was contemporary, the other paranormal. One was set in the South, the other set in the North. The only connection between the Cacey in the first novel and the Cacey in the second novel was that she was the same young woman in my mind--she looked the same and acted the same and had the same hopes and dreams.

Now that I've given Cacey a novel of her own, I recently realized that I can go back and tell the first novel from Ivey's viewpoint solely. It's really her world, her life, her story. I can't tell you how relieved I am to give her the attention she deserves.

Only Five Days and Eight Hours Left!

I've been working on NaNoWriMo since the beginning of November, but I've only managed to accrue about 30,000 words of false starts. That doesn't mean that I don't have time, though. I still have five days!

I've decided to try again to write a Harlequin Romance novel, and I have an idea that got some attention from an editor a few years ago. I'm going to have another go at it. I can do it, right? Only ten thousand words a day.

Inspirational Quote to Spur Me On: "It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
– Ursula K. Le Guin

Thought for the Day

“To acquire true self power you have to feel beneath no one, be immune to criticism and be fearless.”
― Deepak Chopra

A Quick Update

It's been a crazy couple of months.

After the SCBWI FL conference, I wrote another YA novel called Moneymaker that I really enjoyed writing and researching and can't wait to edit.

Then I decided that I needed some more income sources, so I've been writing freelance articles and blog posts. Some of them are fun. Some not so much. Let's just say I now know way too much about whole house water filtration systems. When my posts to the new blog I'm writing for go live, I'll definitely include the link in my bio. I'm super-excited about it because they're super-fun posts to write (Did I successfully convey my enthusiasm with my repeated use of "super"?).

I'm also gearing up for the farmer's market to start again in September so that I can start selling my homemade pet treats. I've had to get all my business things in order. They're actually amazingly friendly at the tax office--go figure.

For fun, I've been reviewing books for Kensington. I'll post the reviews to the blog once I figure out a seamless way to do so. I want them to be formatted nicely and not seem random.

Finally, I hope to get back to updating this blog more regularly, using some of the skills that I've learned. I have some ideas and hope to implement them soon! Stay posted.

Conference Round-Up

After spending two days listening to two published authors and an editor for Knopf speak at the SCBWI Florida Mid-Year Writer's Conference, the most important point that I took away was the necessity for a strong narrative voice in young adult fiction.

The consensus seemed to be that, in middle grade fiction, some authorial presence was acceptable. In young adult fiction, however, the reader has to feel intimate with the main character, as if he or she was looking at the world through the main character's eyes.

Anything that destroys, or calls into question, the reader's closeness with the main character is BAD!

What can destroy closeness?

-Making observations that the main character wouldn't make.
For example, if it's hot, and a character wants to put her hair into her ponytail, she wouldn't say, "I swept my curly chestnut locks up into my purple velvet hairband." When you think about "curly" and "chestnut" and "purple velvet," you realize only some of those descriptors would be important to her. For example, when I pull my hair back, I might think about how it's dark and I wish it was blonde. Or how it's curly and might look frizzy pulled up. Or how the purple hairband looks really stupid with my lime green top. I would not be thinking about all those things simultaneously, however.

-Working in backstory that the characters wouldn't be thinking about.
For example, if a character's best friend is going through a difficult break-up, it's the break-up that matters more than how the friends met or what the friends look like or how the main character feels about her friend--unless those details pertain directly to the crisis! Basically, any backstory must arise spontaneously from the conflict, or it seems forced and feels like authorial intrusion to the reader.

-Using dialogue as a means to end.
Dialogue should arise spontaneously from the interactions between the characters. It should be exciting--no hemming or hawing or circling around the main issue (unless that says something about the characters). It should not be a tool that the author uses to provide backstory, and it should not be so similar to speech that it's boring (real speech, when tape-recorded, is fractured and disjointed and not a pleasure to read).

One of the authors on the panel also discussed the issues of character lenses. A lens could be anything from a character's religion to her socioeconomic class to her favorite hobby. For example, a Catholic schoolgirl from the Deep South who wants to be an actress will have three obvious lenses that will influence her interactions with the world--religion, environment, and career aspirations. Giving your main character two to three lenses (while most real people have seven or more) will add to his or her depth.

In the end, I learned that the tightest narrative voices have almost a cinematic quality, moving from scene to scene in a purposeful, character-driven way. We have to get ourselves out of the equation and find a way to let our characters guide us--which is easier said than done.

Conference Fun!

Well, I am ashamed to admit it, but it has been a long time since I posted anything. A very long time.

I blame lazy summer days and sick cats and vacation. The weekend before last, I attended Through the Veil in Atlanta. It was super fun. Went on a ghost hunt at Rhodes Hall. Got a mini-Reiki treatment, a palm-reading, and some intuitive life guidance.

On Friday (OMG, that's tomorrow!), I'll be attending the SCBWI Florida Mid-Year workshop. I'm hoping to get a summer inspiration boost. My next post will be about what I learned.

Hope everyone has a productive summer.

My Unhappy Marriage

I have a confession to make. I dread editing. Hate it. With a passion.

I know that it's the most important part of the writing process, but it simply can't compare to the wild, heady rush of the first draft. Falling in love with my characters and world is magical and wonderful and the reason that I love writing.

In my opinion, editing is like marriage.

First, you look at your new husband/manuscript and think to yourself, why did I ever pick this person? What was I thinking? He's all wrong. His hair is unruly, his eyebrows bushy, and he's bloated around the middle. We won't even mention his toenail fungus. I've made a terrible decision!

Next, you think about how much he annoys you in the present and evades your attempts to improve him. You cut his hair too short, so he's got this strange asymmetrical hairdo. You over-pluck his eyebrows, so he's got this perpetual look of surprise. His flabby middle isn't improving no matter how many sit-ups you make him do--he may have even gotten a hernia for his efforts. And the toe fungus? Let's just say that Digger the Dermatophyte isn't going anywhere.

Finally, you look toward the future. You have this sinking realization that you are ashamed to be with him. You wish that you never would have married him. You're going to have to lock him in the house and never, under any circumstances, show him to anyone--like the wife in the attic in Jane Eyre. You might even pretend that you're single. It's better than the dreaded questions: What does your husband do? Can you show me a picture? Can I meet him some time?

Your blood, which used to run so hot, is so cold that you're about to die from hypothermia. Don't go to sleep--you might never wake up! There's only one thing to do. Get a divorce. Change your name. Pretend like this terrible marriage never happened.

Or...stay with him, faults and all. Fix what you can, and learn to love the rest. Look for his good points. His hair, despite being strange, is really thick and soft. His eyebrows have been growing back in. He's starting to lose weight, slowly but surely, and didn't you marry him for his appetite anyway? As for the toe fungus, call in the professionals. Give him some potent anti-fungals. The money is worth it in order to have clear, healthy pink toenails.

In the end, the only way to reap the benefits of marriage are to stay in it, work on it, figure out why you loved the person to begin with and build on your strengths together. You've got to face the pain in order to reap the benefits. Didn't anyone ever tell you that marriage--I mean, writing--is hard work?

Memory Championships!

Next year, I'll tell you where you can find me...in New York City! I've set a personal goal of attending the U.S. Memory Championships. If I win, I'll get a free ticket to the world championships in England.

What are the memory championships? Well, basically, you have to memorize stuff like decks of cards and poetry and random numbers. And you have to memorize it quickly. If you are fast and accurate, you win!

Why am I doing this? Well, when I was six or seven-years-old, I memorized a deck of cards forwards and backwards for my grandfather. He was so astonished that he still talks about it. He wanted me to become a card counter in Vegas, but with the advent of card shuffling machines (which render card counting useless), I'm going to have to look elsewhere for memory fame and glory.

Actually, you don't need an above average memory to win the Memory Championships. You just have to understand memory techniques and practice them until you become quick and proficient. That's what Joshua Foer, who wrote Moonwalking with Einstein, claims anyway. We'll see if he's right. I bought the book (it's still in the mail), and I plan to use the resources that he provides to seek out primary sources from memory experts. Then I plan to practice every day.

I must admit that I like to indulge in delusions of grandeur at times, and while I will never excel at any physical sport, world domination in a mental sport is still within my grasp. I may be really bad at it. I may lack the motivation to excel. I'm going to give it a shot, though, and I'm going to go to the championship in New York (barring world disasters, ill health, or travel mishaps).

I'm so excited. Anyone out there in the blogosphere have random life goals that they want to share?

A Duck and Cover Week

Some weeks, the universe is just out to get you.

Last week was one of those weeks for me. I experienced career failures, poor health, and a dismal outlook on life.

Today wasn't a whole lot better. For example, two post offices closed just before I arrived (I think they did it just to spite me), the library parking lot was completely full (when does that happen?), I took a swig out of a water bottle that had been in my car for who knows how long (what kind of illnesses can I develop from such actions?), and my cat was sick (even though I brush him every day and feed him hairball remedies by the dozen).

When everything seems to be going wrong, all I can do is sit back, sigh, and say, "I suppose it could be worse," or "This too shall pass." I like to follow those more placid statements with a string of curse words and a healthy dose of sarcasm.

For everyone out there who's also in a bad mood (and who wanted to kick the television when the unimaginably-wealthy, annoyingly-attractive, madly-in-love "royal couple" looked so smugly happy on Friday), I post this video for your viewing pleasure.

Friday Read: Dark Mirror by M.J. Putney

When Lady Victoria Mansfield's family discovers that she has magical abilities, they send her away to reform school to be "cured." Her new school, Lackland Abbey, is located near the English Channel--a dangerous place to be on the brink of a feared Napoleonic invasion. Instead of working on suppressing her magical abilities, Tory finds herself drawn to an underground group of rebellious student mages who wish to develop their talents for the good of England. While the reader is expecting some sort of Napoleonic showdown, Tory actually ends up falling through a magic mirror that transports her to 1940 on the brink of World War II when her and her friends' abilities are needed more than ever. Tory must also struggle with her magnetic attraction to a handsome and mysterious aristocrat named Allarde who has secrets that threaten to keep them apart.
Dark Mirror provides an interesting paranormal explanation for actual historical events, and the contrast between 1803 and 1940 is vividly described. The plot is riveting, the characters engaging, and the end left me longing for the sequel, Dark Passage, which is set to be released in September 2011. I would recommend the book to anyone who enjoys stories about magic, English history, the Napoleonic period, or World War II. Even if you don't think you like history, you might change your mind after reading this book!

I purchased Dark Mirror at Books-A-Million. My community doesn't have any Indie bookstores, but I do try to support brick and mortar stores when I can. I want them to stick around! You can also find the book here.

Love: How Do You Like It?

The "Drumming Song" by Florence and the Machine is, in my opinion, the perfect description of all-consuming, mind-blowing, soul-wrenching, dysfunctional romantic relationships.

Obsessive love is:

Louder than sirens
Louder than bells
Sweeter than heaven
And hotter than hell

That's how it felt for me when I fell in love for the first time. It was as if someone hit me over the head, drowned out all rational thought, and made me a puppet to my emotions, to the passion that consumed me.

It was sweeter than heaven. And it was hotter than hell. And I'm not sure that I ever want to go back there again.

As a result, I don't want to take my characters there. I don't want the instant attraction of Edward and Bella or Jack and Rose because instant attraction tends to flare up quickly and burn out equally quickly, usually in a destructive blaze.

Instead, I like romantic relationships to heat up slowly like the controlled flame beneath a gas burner. I think about the British show Doc Martin and how the flawed hero and heroine's relationship develops slowly over the series. I think about GiGi and Gaston. Anne of Green Gables and Gilbert Blythe. Beauty and the Beast. And in the realm of literature, I think about my all-time favorite book Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause where the hero "waits" for his heroine, knowing that she is the woman for him.

If anyone stops by, leave a comment and tell me what you prefer. The knee-shaking, heart-pounding, instant-infatuation type of romantic love? Or a love that grows slowly over time, that may even start out as hatred or a general dislike?

Creative Frustrations

So...I had the whole book planned out and organized. Everything should have been perfect. But it wasn't.

Writing felt like drudgery. Nothing was coming out correctly. I just couldn't think, and I wanted to compulsively refresh my twitter feed or read blogs or feed the cat...anything but write. I had to sit down and really try to analyze what was going on with me.

First, I haven't been exercising or eating right. I've been sitting in a chair all day, eating far too many sweets, and watching television at night. The extent of my exercise was a short, thirty-minute walk with the dogs at night.

Second, I explained my story idea to a friend, and he thought it was weird. I should have known better. I should have kept it a closely guarded secret, but I was just so excited. Now I'm struggling to hold on to the joy of my original vision.

Third, I'm feeling the time crunch. 13 days are gone. Only 47 days left. It's a lot of pressure.

What am I going to do now? Well, I'm going to write. It doesn't matter if I like it. I'm going to make it work because I have to. I won't let frustration or negativity bring me down. Writing is my job.

But I am going to do some things to make the process easier. First, I'm going to stop eating junk and give myself permission to exercise--to take some classes at the gym, or go swimming, or walk around the lake. I'll do something fun every night without fail because it's my responsibility to stay healthy. Second, I'm going to keep my lips zipped about my story. I'm not going to tell anybody else until it's done. Finally, I'm going to relax a little about the time crunch. I have plenty of time. If I let myself relax, I'll write fast, and I'll enjoy it. I just need to "let it be easy."

I wonder if others can relate. How do other people give themselves pep talks?

Word By Word

Well, I started running right out of the gate on my #60n60 project. Got an idea, explored it a little, wrote about 15,000 words and then another 27,000 words. Quickly realized it wasn't working! It wasn't my voice! It was a disaster (alarm bells were ringing in my head).

So I went back to the drawing board. Came up with a setting, a hook, a mythology, and characters that I could live with. Created a story bible with my characters' backgrounds, the setting, and other pertinent info. Wrote a tentative pitch and synopsis/outline.

Tomorrow, I begin the actual first draft. Keeping my fingers crossed that it will come out the way that I envisioned. I can hear the characters' voices in my head. The plot is pretty clear. Really feeling the time crunch, though. Tomorrow is day 11 of 60, and I need to be able to publish this sucker in 49 days!

No matter what happens tomorrow--even if I hate the writing and it's killing me and it sucks--I will keep working. Because rough drafts are always hard, and happiness doesn't come until I start editing.

Hope everyone's Monday brings much joy and happiness.

Writing about the Wicked

Day after day, I stop at red lights in the middle of nowhere, pay my bills even if I feel I'm being extorted, and ignore my neighbors when they start their home improvement projects at seven in the morning on a Saturday.

I'm not wicked. Not even close to it. But sometimes I admire people who are. Like vigilantes and bank robbers and assassins and, for the more supernaturally inclined, werewolves and vampires. As long as I'm not the victim of their unlawful actions, I can enjoy reading about them or watching them. The HBO show Dexter is a good example--he's such a lovable sociopath.

My story for 60k in 60 Days contains characters who behave in morally questionable ways. For example, I googled "How to Run a Strip Club" yesterday--something I never thought I'd need to know. And I have to say that I'm enjoying writing about bad boys and girls. Virtuosity is often good in real life but boring on the page.

I believe that everyone possesses inside themselves the potential for both good and evil, light and dark. Thankfully, movies, television shows, novels, songs, and video games let us explore our dark side in safe and healthy ways. In the end, when I self-publish my current project, I hope that people enjoy my wicked characters as much as I am

The Closest I've Ever Come to Writer's Block

I don't know about this whole "Writer's Block" thing. In school, when I had a deadline, I used to procrastinate, feel like I couldn't do it, and finally, with the dreaded deadline looming, produce something. It might not have been my best work ever. I might not have felt jazzed about it. But it was something.

Well, on April 1, I started my 60k in 60Days project (60,000 word novel entirely conceived, created, edited, and self-published in 2 months--see http://www.pushingthepen.com/ for more info). I was so optimistic.

Let me start off by describing my process (a rather high-faluting way of saying what's worked for me so far--and by worked, I mean what's gotten me to the end of a novel that I felt I could pitch to agents or enter into contests). I start off with a premise (and sometimes not even that), panzer my way through the first draft (i.e. write to find out what happens and how my characters get from point a to point b--very sloppy, very messy, very fast), and usually outline somewhere in the middle of my first draft once secondary characters and sub-plots have developed so that I don't forget anything.

Before I write my second draft, I create a pitch (to focus me), a synopsis, a detailed outline, and a story bible with maps, pictures of my characters, detailed bios of my characters, notes about my world, etc. Finally, I create a second draft. I still don't worry about grammar and mechanics. I worry more about character arcs and plotting.

Finally, in the third draft (which takes forever!), I edit for grammar and style and try to use sensory descriptions and make my sentences pretty and have proper grammar. My weakness is the third draft, I think, mainly because my self-editing isn't spectacular. Even when I was an English Major, my advisor said to me, "I gave you an "A" because the writing was good but the grammar--not so much." And the irony is that I don't even see those small details--I really don't.

Anyway, so I broke with my own process for 60k in 60 Days. I felt the pressure of a deadline, and I tried to draft an outline after a small amount of brainstorming. To make a long story short, 15,000 words later, I ended up with about five different versions of the same story that just...weren't...working (insert sound of teeth grinding here). Could I have forged ahead with those earlier stories? Yeah, probably. Would they have been--I hesitate to say "bad"--not good? Yeah, probably.

So after much hand-wringing and self-defeating cognitions, I finally figured out a premise. I brought all the activities of my world to a screeching halt (aside from feeding my animals who don't care whether I'm writing or not), and I pounded out another 11,000 words on a novel I'm feeling pretty good about. Not great, mind you. I'm too supersticious to say great. I have to finish first. It has to be 60,000 words. I have to feel good about it (after the third draft).

In the end, I wrote 26,000 words in 3 days, but I was only able to keep 11,000. I never considered giving up, but I did start to sense this terrible, unscalable psychic wall. The wall has become small, more manageable, but it will stay there until the first draft is done, until I don't have a blank page and endless possibilities to deal with anymore.

Now, I have to join the real world today--run errands, pay bills, etc. But tonight...tonight, I'm going to keep working on scaling that wall.

Tornado!

I lived through tornado weather today--one of the joys of living in Florida.

I was watching the news and listening to the police scanner when it came over the house. Just as the wind picked up, I heard officers all over the city radioing dispatch about hail and debris and their cars being lifted off the ground by the wind. "Please advice," said one officer. She sounded scared.

I gathered my cats and caged them just in case I had to move them into the bathroom. They were not happy. Then I sat by the front window and watched. Hail battered the glass, and the sky looked green. A transformer blew one street over, and I lost electricity. The police scanner went out, and I had no Internet on my phone. In less than ten minutes, the storm died down to normal.

I didn't know if it was gone or not. I had no connection to any weather information. By the time I got the Internet and Scanner back, there were fires all over the city, wrecks, and over-turned planes at the airport. One police officers warned about another "wave" coming through in forty minutes. One street over, two more transformers blew, and the police mentioned a "live" chain-link fence.

In the end, I got my electricity back in less than five hours. The news didn't report any major injuries. My family and my animals were all fine. It was frightening, but it made me really focus on the present, on "right now." It made me glad to be alive.

What I learned: always have flashlights and extra batteries, extra water, and a weather radio on hand. Have a game plan for my pets. Don't take anything for granted.

What a day! Tomorrow I start 60k in 60 days (well, today, actually since I haven't gone to bed yet). A fresh start. Very excited.

New Harlequin Superromance Challenge!

The editors at Harlequin Superromance are hosting a new writing challenge called "A Soldier's Story: A Memorial Day Writing Challenge," and the prize is a crtitique of your full manuscript by not one, but two, Superromance editors!

A Superromane is about 75,000 words long. I've already printed out the guidelines and have several hard copy examples of what they've recently published. I feel capable of conquering voice and pacing and style for this type of category romance. My biggest challenge will be telling a story that includes a soldier. I don't have any friends or relatives in the military. I'm going to have to do some research to make the soldier character feel authentic.

My second biggest challenge will be writing a second, 60,000 word manuscript for self-publication as part of the 60k in 60 days challenge in the same time period . I'm a fast write, though. I believe in myself!

If anyone happens to stumble upon this blog, why not share what writing challenges you are currently tackling?

An Ode to Loquats

I took a long walk this evening--about five miles--on a search for Loquat trees in my neighborhood. Even though I'm normally a germaphobe, I like to rip the ripe fruit right off of the tree, rub the dirt off, and pop it into my mouth.

Loquats are soft and sweet and tangy. You can eat them in a single bite, and the seeds are big enough to spit out easily. I like to think I've planted new loquat trees in yards all around my house.

Loquats only ripen in the spring, and once you pluck them, they rot quickly. You have to eat them right away. Just like life, you have to savor the moment, the precious few weeks every year when the fruit ripens. It's sad to find so many trees bearing delicious morsels that goes to waste.

Last year in April, I visited Charleston, South Carolina to attend a workshop with Natalie Goldberg. The air was warm, and all the trees were in bloom. She said it looked like the landscape was making love.

I feel the same way about my hometown now. It's the end of the season for orange blossoms, and the confederate jasmine and gardenias are just starting to bloom. The birds on the lake are nesting. A simple walk down the road is an aromatic bouquet, and I feel so peaceful, so hopeful. Winter is over, and the stagnant heat of summer has yet to arrive.

Every season (as subtle as one might be in the South) possesses characteristics to be savored, but to me, spring is about hope. I'm hopeful about my writing. I have ideas brimming, waiting to be born, and nine more months to birth them.

Wherever you are, I hope you feel the same. I hope the world is warming for you, and your best idea yet is gestating.

60k in 60 Days!

I'm doing 60k in 60 days. Are you?

It's a great new endeavor similar to NanoWrimo but with a self-publishing twist. You write a 60,000 word novel or screenplay and self-publish it in two months.

I'm not allowed to figure out what I'm going to write yet (contest rules), but I'm leaning toward something set in a world that I'm intimately familiar with so that I don't have to research it. And something that has commercial appeal since I plan to publish it on Createspace through Amazon.com. Probably a Young Adult novel since young adult novels are the most fun to write (in my opinion).

My first experience with Createspace was during the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition, and I loved it! I always thought that I'd follow the traditional publishing route, but the immediacy of self-publishing is so powerfully enticing. People could read my work now. I could promote my work now. I could take my fate into my own hands...now. It's very appealing.

My greatest concern is editing. Self-editing isn't my forte. As a result, I want to hire a professional editor before I self-publish, but since I'll be writing 60k in 60 days, I may not have time. I'll have to see what happens.

My New Blog!

I am currently involved in the 2011 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. My young adult paranormal novel "Bloodstone" is a quarter-finalist. I was reading on the Amazon discussion boards that reviewers might want to find me on the web. As a result, I decided to create this blog.

In this blog, I plan to discuss my writing process and to post useful links that I find related to writing. I have read so many fantastic blogs by great writers and reviewers that are using blogspot. Now I can follow all of my favorite blogs!

I'm also a twitter addict. My twitter handle is @serendipbrit if anybody would like to follow me.

In addition to writing, I like to read (young adult novels, of course, as well as romance). I love any stories with paranormal elements in them. I have so many favorite authors that I can't list them all, but just a few are Laurell K. Hamilton, Melissa Marr, Sophie Jordan, Kiersten White, and Tera Lynn Childs. My favorite non-fiction authors are Julia Cameron, Natalie Goldberg, and Eric Maisel.

Although I believe that what people "do" for living isn't all that important, I have worked as a martial arts instructor, a purse designer, a private tutor, a freelance writer, a test technician, a family housing specialist, and a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist. My undergraduate degree is in English, and I almost have a Master's Degree in Counselor Education (have to complete that pesky internship).

When I'm not writing, I enjoy spending time with my animals (four dogs, two cats, two rabbits, and a fish!).