Looking for Magic and Writing Your Way

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How do you see the world? Your street? Your neighbors? Do you observe strangers’ body language and clothing and imagine they’re on their way to rob a bank? Are they en route to perform surgery? Or will they melt into the ground as soon as they turn the corner?

How does it all look when you gaze at something? What does it feel like? Where does your mind take you?

I was eight years old and squeezed into the corner of a tiny elevator with my family. Our eyes were on the elevator door, waiting for it to open. Suddenly, the solid wall I was pressed against disappeared, and I fell through. The only thing that flashed into my head was Alice.

Title Reveal!

The title of my urban fantasy novel is:

Magical Ties (Book One of the Emily Goddard Chronicles)

There’s no cover yet but that’s coming!

So, What’s It About?

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Sorry, I can’t tell you.

While I’m writing a story, I can’t tell people what it’s about. It’s not that I don’t want to tell. I really, really do. The characters and their adventures are churning inside me like a pressure cooker and I’d love to discuss it. But I can’t. Because I once told the plot of a story while I was still writing it, and something terrible happened. I no longer needed or wanted to finish it—it had its audience. I literally lost that story.

I’ll be happy to discuss the genre, how many pages I have so far, and where I like to write, anything and everything—except the plot.

Actually, now that I think of it, I keep the plot a secret from myself as well. It’s why I don’t write outlines. I tried that once and ended up with another story I no longer needed to write. The sense of urgency was gone. I knew everything that was going to happen so there was no need to write it out. Now, I write outlines after the scenes are written as a way to keep track of my characters. But the future scenes are left blank.

Welcome to the mind of one writer. I once met a writer who loved outlines and others who had no trouble discussing their plot. I’m only able to talk about the processes that work for me but I don’t say they’ll work for everyone. So here’s my piece of advice: If your process works, don’t mess with it. Talk about it, don’t talk about it, outline, don’t outline. But no matter what you answer, remember to smile nicely when you do.

 

* Image courtesy of Boykung at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Multiple Genres? Write Them All

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I always saw myself as a novelist. Short stories were just too short. And I had no interest in any other form.

So I was caught completely off guard when I wrote a folk song last year. I’ve always said I couldn’t rhyme. Not to mention I have no knowledge of writing music or the business of song writing, for that matter. So sometimes I hum my song and sing the words when no one’s around and then go my way. (Be grateful you can’t hear me sing.)

At around the same time, I watched some blues performances on TV and began writing what I call jazz poetry in free verse. And the imagery rolled out, completely opposite to who I am, with hazy smoke staining the walls and a shot glass on the table.

A short story was required for an anthology and I lopped off straggling plot developments from an unfinished novel idea and made it fit.

And then there’s my urban fantasy novel that’s in the production stage, with the sequel beginning to trickle into my head.

It’s all good. It’s all different. It doesn’t matter if you choose to write three books in different genres or three different types of writing or more. The most amazing thing about writing is that we get to do it all if we want.

Will all of it be publishable? Any of it? Who knows? How will we know unless we try?

 

* Image courtesy of Mister GC at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Getting Prepared: How to Write When You Can’t

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I got sidelined with a cold that turned into bronchitis. But being a writer means there’s no one else to do the work. Keeping up with a blog and a novel and Twitter doesn’t magically get done by elves when something like this happens. And it doesn’t have to be getting sick that keeps you from the work. It’s anything that’s unexpected and unavoidable—a flooded basement, a friend’s need for your shoulder, a surprise visit from family….The list is endless.

I knew enough not to work on my novel while under the fog of prescription cough syrup and skipped a week here, but managed to continue Tweeting. Then I pulled together a blog entry last week. How? I had two files.

One file contained a list of blog topics and a rough draft for each. The second contained a list of Tweets I wrote ahead of time—either information or quotes I liked. It still took effort to do and a day was skipped here and there, but I kept up my side of the business. That’s the thing to remember. Writing is a business. Are you prepared?

Make those lists. Write those drafts. Make sure you’re covered for the times when there’s no time to do the work. I’d suggest two weeks’ worth of Tweets and at least a month of blog topics. Avoid time-sensitive topics that would be obsolete by the time you need to use them. There are plenty of universal themes and thoughts that are timeless. Do it now. You’ll be glad later.

 

* Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

Sorry, Folks!

Nothing in my head right now except a cold. So…next week? Same Bat Time, same Bat Channel.

Writers, Together

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Today I’m going to pimp Seth Godin’s blog post: Why don’t authors compete?

Read it, it’s good. But here’s what I’ve gotten out of it. That the career of writing is—at its best—filled with other writers who cheer each other on. As solitary a profession as it is, we’re surrounded by fellow writers who uphold us, support us, and help us. This is very different from many other professions where competition is the rule.

I’m a writer. I didn’t get here on my own. From the teachers who taught me how to string a sentence together to the writers who are ahead of me in the business and offer their advice and support, I owe a lot of people thanks. (As well as family and friends who might not always understand what I do but cheer me on anyway.)

I’ve asked questions and have been answered. I do the same for others when I can. It’s a circle filled with creativity and laughter and groans of frustration. Who else will fully understand except another writer?

Does that mean there’s no envy or jealousy? Of course not. There are times when I hear that a friend is writing at breakneck speed and I feel a twinge. Or someone is publishing their tenth book and I’m still working to get my first novel out there. But if I feel that momentary twinge, it’s also true that if their work is doing well, it doesn’t diminish mine. And it gives me hope that mine will do well too.

 

To Be or Not To Be…Seen

 

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“Get a professional head shot.”

“You need to put a photo of yourself online.”

I’m told that showing myself is a good marketing tool. Why? To me, writing is a way to become well known and yet keep my anonymity. No matter how popular my books will become (hopefully!), I’ll be able to walk into my local supermarket and buy a bar of chocolate-covered halvah without anyone comparing me to my lean-and-mean heroine.

Louisa May Alcott understood what happens when fans look beyond the fiction. She wrote a scene in Jo’s Boys where Jo, gray and middle-aged, was a popular author. A family dropped by to meet her and while she hid, her son gave them a tour and pointed to a badly-done portrait. The daughter was disappointed:

‘I thought she’d be about sixteen and have her hair braided in two tails down her back. I don’t care about seeing her now,’ said the honest child, walking off to the hall door, leaving her mother to apologize, and her sisters to declare that the bad portrait was ‘perfectly lovely, so speaking and poetic, you know, ‘specially about the brow’.

This scene has stuck in my head for years. Why ruin the fantasy? My characters do things I’d never do—good and bad—and the reader gets to go along for the ride. Why confuse magic and action and whatever else lives on the pages with the soda- and tea-drinking, cat-loving night owl who spends her hours at the computer?

I could change my mind. There’s that small voice in the back of my head telling me to use whatever tools necessary to promote my work. I look at the photographs of authors whose work I enjoy and respect and think that one day, I might.

But in the meantime, there’s work to be revised and a new story to write and the supermarket awaits.

 

*Image courtesy of scottchan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

It’s Here!

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Well, it’s here. Written by my writers’ group, The Penheads, five completely different genres bound together by one theme is now available at Amazon:

http://amzn.to/1lyGFnD

 

Finishing My Novel—Really?

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As I approached the final pages of my novel, I heard the Bugs Bunny chase music in my head. Speed up, speed up, speeeeed up! I wrote faster and more often until it was done. I felt exhausted and exhilarated.

Then came the crash.

All the advice I read was to step away and not look at it for a month before revising. I rebelled. A month?! No, I would forge through and revise it in that precious month and then publish.

If you’re a writer, chances are good you’re either laughing or cringing at this point.

Fortunately, sanity prevailed. I waited a month. I knew there was more work to be done on my novel but it would be minimal. A few tweaks here and there and I could start the next one. Those pages were polished—I had edited earlier sections while writing the later ones so I knew I was ahead in the game.

I read page one. I stopped. I wrote what? She said that?

My characters had changed during the course of the novel and I hadn’t noticed.

It took me days to stop sulking and realize that was a good thing. It wasn’t that they became other people—they just grew as their circumstances changed. But work was needed to make the transitions smooth.

I revised. It took months. (Hopefully, the process will become shorter with future books.)

But here’s some of what I learned:

There are wonderful books on editing out there that can walk you through the cutting-the-fat stage. Read them. Apply them. And remember:

(1) Spell check.

(2) Manual check. (More on this below.)

If you skip these two steps, be prepared for the criticism that will rain down on your baby. But more to the point, isn’t our goal to give readers something good to read? Why spoil it for them with bad grammar and misspellings? And why should they take a chance on you next time?

What do I mean by manual check? Reread your story. Does it flow? I watched an old movie where the heroine walked through a secret passageway holding a candle. She turned the corner and held a flashlight instead. Ouch.

Also, it’s possible to fall so in love with our work that we write in a haze. I once read a book where I skimmed almost a hundred pages and didn’t miss anything in terms of action or character.

Cut every word that doesn’t add to its beauty, its horror, its action.

So. My novel has been written. It isn’t finished. But I’m very close now.

Back to work.

Image courtesy of Just2shutter at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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