Serve the Work

As 2015 comes to a close, my writing news ends on a high note. After many, many rewrites, Mr. Agent says my manuscript passes muster and we can send it out to publishers in January, after the holiday chaos. I am beside myself with relief and excitement. Just when I came close to giving up on this story, I stuck with it. Maybe the gamble will pay off. Whatever happens, I take comfort in knowing I did my best. I also look forward to finally returning to the business of writing after such a long hiatus and reporting the process to you, dear blog reader, along the way. 

There is one small detail to attend to before Mr. Agent sends out the manuscript. It's a plot point that happens in the third act that he feels needs to be reworked. At first look it seems an easy fix, but as I move deeper into the changes I realize it ripples out and affects many scenes. Whether I make the changes or not is entirely optional and up to me--but his feeling was that since we're waiting until January, why not?

I've given his suggestion a lot of thought and I've decided to go for it. If it doesn't work, we can always revert to the previous version. Part of the reason why I'm taking on the challenge is that the change we came up with together is actually an idea I had pursued many drafts ago, but had abandoned. Why? Because even though the story led me there, it didn't feel literary enough to me. It was too obvious, predictable. I wanted to create something more subtle, nuanced. 

Looking back now, I can see many instances when I tried to steer the story instead of letting it steer me. And what happened? I veered off course. Trying to make the story something it was not cost me a lot of time and pages. 

On a whim, I borrowed a copy of Madeleine L'Engle's WALKING ON WATER: Reflections on Faith and Art from my local library. Shortly after my conversation with my agent I came across the following passage (don't you love it when this happens?) which refers to her process of working on A WRINKLE IN TIME, her masterpiece:

"I began to comprehend something about listening to the work, about going where it shoved me. And so the long two years of rejection slips which followed were especially difficult; it wasn't just that my work was being rejected; or, if it was, it meant that I had not even begun to serve the work."

Serve the work. Yes. This is what I've been learning. When we get in the way of a piece by trying to make it something it is not--either by deciding the story isn't lofty enough or it's in a particular genre we don't care for--we ruin it. Our job as writers is to accept the story as is and let it guide us into being. Our choice, our art, comes from how we tell that story. This is where we can let our heads rules our hearts. 

Is there a story you're stuck on? Think for a moment--are you trying to make it something it's not?

See you in 2016.

Getting Into the Groove

I just received a really nice note from a Goodreads friend named Alex who has the itch to write but doesn't know how to start.

We've all been there, haven't we? Think about all the skills you've learned over your lifetime--reading, riding a bike, cooking a pot of pasta, driving a car--and what it felt like at first. The word that comes to my mind is overwhelming. I remember, vividly, my first driving lesson: hands on the wheel trying to steer, foot on the gas (or brake, more often), eyes bouncing from the road to the mirrors to the dashboard, my brain on overload. It seemed impossible that I would ever be able to drive with ease. But eventually I did--and I never would have if I hadn't gotten behind the wheel in the first place.

And so it is with writing. You'll learn by doing. The trouble is that learning to write, or learning to create any kind of art, feels different than other skills because our thoughts and feelings are so exposed. Emotionally, there's more at stake. We're afraid of appearing idiotic or dull to others--or, even worse--to ourselves. Spoiler alert: No matter who you are, at one time or another both are going to happen. But you will also experience moments of joy when you turn out work that surpasses your expectations. If ups and downs are a given for all of us, why not stop fretting and just get to work?

Whether you're picking up a pen for the first time or returning after a long hiatus, here are a few baby steps to help you get into the groove. 


Step 1.  Buy yourself a beautiful notebook and a bunch of your favorite pens. 

Even if you think you'd rather work on a computer, I urge you not to skip this step. For the first several months it's best to stick with paper and pen. Nothing is more discouraging than a blinking cursor, or more distracting than knowing the Internet is just a tab-click away. Lovely paper and a smooth-writing pen are a pleasure to use. By purchasing good writing materials, you are making a commitment to taking yourself seriously as a writer.


Step 2.  Schedule your writing time.

No matter how busy you are, I guarantee you can find ten minutes a day to write. You can either block out the same time every day or you can choose to be flexible--as long as your ten minutes are done by bedtime. No excuses. For the first month, I recommend sticking to ten minutes only. Even if you're on a roll and could write for an hour, shut it down after ten minutes. It's always best to stop when you're hot--it makes it a lot easier to sit down and write the next day. In fact, it will make you look forward to writing the next day. Getting the motivation to sit down and write is half the battle.

After the first month or so, up your time to fifteen minutes. Then twenty. Settle into a block of time that is comfortable for you. Most writers I know only write for a maximum of about four hours a day. How long you write for is less important than keeping a consistent schedule. Some writers insist that you must write every day. Personally, I take weekends off. If your schedule allows you to only write on weekends, do that.


Step 3.  Give yourself permission to be bad. 

Oh, the hours I wasted, staring at a blank screen, afraid to write a single bad sentence! It would have been so much better to just give myself permission to write the worst possible sentence and then fix it later. You can't edit what isn't there. Every writer writes junky first drafts. The real art, the real skill is in the editing. You have to write garbage--a lot of it--to get to the good stuff. To learn how to write, you'll need to be a garbage-producing machine. In my college oeuvre of junk-writing I produced a schmaltzy story entitled "Pink Soap and Lilacs", that still makes me want to gag whenever I think about it. I will not be sharing the awful details of this particular story with you, which brings me to the next step:


Step 4.  Don't share with anyone--yet.

As you begin to churn out your requisite pile of word-sludge you may suddenly strike gold. You might suddenly hit upon an idea for a nail-biting thriller or you may turn out an exquisite sentence that makes you proud. Your instinct will be to share it with someone, but I urge you to keep it to yourself. As I've said over and over again, you will rarely get the ecstatic reaction you are hoping for and early on your writer's ego will be too fragile to handle it. When you find a golden nugget in your junk pile, hoard it. Keep this treasure for yourself. Keep hoarding your literary gold until you have enough of it to feel confident in your ability. If it pleases you, that's all that matters.


Step 5.  Read, read, read. 

When I got my first ghost-writing job, I still wasn't quite sure how to intersperse dialogue with action.   I wasn't even sure how to properly punctuate dialogue. To learn how, all I did was open a book and see how it was done. Every book is an instruction manual. Unsure how to open a story? Or create suspense at the end of a chapter? What about using page breaks? Everything you need to know is sitting on your bookshelf. Take down a few of your favorite books and see how it's done. I still do this all the time.

You should also be constantly reading for pleasure. Read what you like, not what you think you're supposed to read. Fill your head with words and they will be accessible to you when you need them.


Moving Forward

Once you've practiced enough to produce a rough draft of a short story or several chapters of a novel, then you might want to consider finding a writers' group in your area. Don't rush this step, but when you're ready writers' groups can be an invaluable resource for every skill level. For more info on choosing (or starting) the right group for you, see my post about writing groups.

Do you have a question about writing or publishing? Leave a comment and I'll do my best to answer it in a future post. 

Happy writing!

Don't Speed Date Your Characters

I'm back! I can't believe I haven't posted since July. As you could probably tell by my mid-summer lament, I didn't meet my goal of finishing my rewrite by the end of summer. It was too difficult to concentrate on my kids and my work at the same time. When given the choice my kids will always come first. I put away my laptop for the rest of the summer, forgave myself for not meeting my deadline, and spent my time playing games and having water fights instead.

Now that school's back in session, I'm right back on schedule. I'm nearly finished rewriting 2/3 of the book. My new goal for completion is the end of October.

So, where were we?

A while back, I promised a post about getting to know your characters. That seems like a good place to start.

Sometimes when writers talk about getting to know their characters, we treat the exercise like speed dating. We sit down and knock off a list of traits in the span of a few minutes. To show you what I mean, I'm going to set a timer for two minutes and come up with a character from scratch. Ready, set, go...

Character Name: Krista Mahoney

-Female
-22 years old
-Short brown hair, bangs
-Blue eyes
-Small build, sometimes mistaken for a teen
-Crooked smile
-Wears bulky clothes she can "hide" in
-Parents are divorced, one brother
-Dropped out of college after one semester
-Likes cats
-Works at an ice cream shop
-Shy
-Has no significant other
-Likes to read mysteries
-Eats a tuna sandwich every day for lunch
-Crawls under the bed during thunderstorms

Okay for two minutes work, I guess. Notice the kind of details I came up with--most of them are superficial. She's a little compelling but a bit of a stereotype. Could I write a story about her? Sure, but I don't have much to work with.

This list, dear blog reader, would not be enough information to know if you wanted to date someone in the real world, let alone spend time with them in a fictional one. A person or a character, is more than just a list of traits and likes/dislikes. Rather than just quickly sketching out the basics, getting to know your character should be more like those long, all night phone calls with a new crush; where you don't want to hang up so you ask every conceivable question that comes to mind. To truly know your character, to fall in love (which is a necessity for good writing!) you need to take some time and dig deeper. You need to know the answer to the following questions:

-What does this character want above all else?
-What is she willing to do to get it?
-What is she willing to lose?
-What does she need?
-How are her wants and needs in conflict with one another?
-What does she value most?
-What is her major weakness?
-How does she hide this weakness?
-What in her past makes her this way?
-What, internally, is getting in the way of her getting the goal?
-What, externally, is getting in the way of her getting the goal?
-What event causes her to change?
-How does she change?

Let's apply the above questions to Krista and see what happens.

-Krista wants to feel safe and secure.
-In order to feel secure, she is willing to avoid anything that involves risk.
-She is willing to sacrifice friendships and romance in order to avoid being hurt.
-What she really needs is to come out of her shell.
-Coming out of her shell will put her at risk of having her heart broken.
-Above all else, she values a peaceful, quiet life.
-Her biggest weakness is not allowing herself to trust others.
-She hides this weakness by avoiding social situations.
-She's this way because her parents divorced when she was ten. Her older brother, her closest confidant, sided with her father in the divorce and left to go live with him. Krista could never understand why her brother took her father's side. She felt betrayed. She lost both her father and her brother/best friend at the same time.
-Internally, she's unable to reach her goal of security because she's afraid to risk having her heart broken.
-Externally, she's unable to reach her goal of security because she lives alone and has a job that allows her to work in isolation (instead of an ice cream shop, maybe she's an artist?)
-The event that causes her to change is her work forces her to be in contact with a client/patron/philanthropist. If she refuses to contact this person, she will lose her livelihood. The person she is forced to deal with is unpredictable and difficult and keeps her on her toes.
-Krista changes by gaining confidence in herself. She realizes that even when she's involved in events  (or with people) she can't control, she is resourceful enough to handle the unknown and come out fine. With a little experience under her belt, she is now equipped to take bigger risks in her life.

I spent about 30 minutes on the above. Still not a huge time investment, but there's a lot more meat to work with here than on the previous list. Better questions yield better answers. The answers to these questions even suggest the outline of a story. 

You could make a list of character traits even before you start writing a story, but where this exercise becomes most powerful is when you use it on the characters in a story you've already started, especially a story that has stalled. Often when we're stuck it's because we have yet to make some crucial decisions about what our characters want. Take what you already know about your character and use it to answer the questions. Spend time thinking through their motivations. As if by magic, new plot ideas may suggest themselves and you'll be able to move forward.

Are you stuck on a story? Give this exercise a try. Let me know how it works for you.