Posts by Sarah Callender
First, a caveat: this is a post about the craft of fiction, and I don’t have the first clue about how to teach the craft of fiction.
From my years as a high school English teacher, I could teach you how to write an essay on the symbolism found in The Great Gatsby. I could teach you the joy of diagramming a sentence. I could give you some tips on what to do when you run into an iambic pentameter in a darkened alley. But teach you about the craft of fiction? Bah. No way.
So instead of trying to teach you, I’ll simply share something fiction-crafty, something about which I am very excited.
My friend, Schmidtie, does this when she discovers something life-changing (an ergonomic garlic press, Corn Salsa from Trader Joe’s, those little mini peanut butter cups, also from Trader Joe’s). She wraps these discoveries in tissue paper, puts them in a cute paper bag, and says to me, “Here’s a little something you HAVE to try.” She shares because she knows these things will change my life. And they do.
But what if once I share this life-changing, share-worthy discovery about craft, you think, “Huh? That’s not life-changing. That’s Craft 101.” Kind of like when, just last week, Schmidtie joyfully shared her latest, brand new discovery: Goodreads! Yes, Schmidtie was ten to fifteen minutes late to the party on that one.
Maybe you’ll think the same thing of me. Maybe my new discovery will leave you bored and unimpressed, and you’ll promptly email the WU Mamas and call for my demotion. Maybe in sharing my new discovery, you’ll also see I learned/stole this idea from Lisa Cron’s Wired for Story, chapter seven, pages 129-139. That’s right! I stole the idea of a fellow WU contributor!
OK, but this week I sat in church and we learned about Loving Your Neighbor. For the hundredth or thousandth time. For good reason. We humans need to be told and retold to love one another because we forget to do it. Likewise, preschoolers must be reminded, over and over, to share. Dogs must be reminded, over and over, to heel. So maybe I should share this not very original idea in case you are as forgetful as I . . . but will my ego and I look stupid? Ack! To share or not to share?
Friends, it is this tension, the emotional stress, the feeling of suppressed, palpable anxiety found in all good stories, that I’d like to share with you today.
So let’s talk tension.
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You know those red dots on directories of shopping malls and airports? The red dot that’s labeled YOU ARE HERE?
Well, “Here” is where I am: waiting for an editor to make an offer on my first book.
My brilliant agent has carefully selected specific editors, then pitched my manuscript in a way that accurately represents both me and the story.
And now we wait. Now we hope. Now we I eat bowls and bowls of Chocolate Chex cereal and get snippy at my husband for things that aren’t his fault. Now I forget to write important meetings on my calendar yet I show up for dentist appointments I don’t have. Now I feel simultaneously tired and like I have just snorted and mainlined and smoked Arabica roast. Have I snorted coffee grounds? Maybe I have and just didn’t realize it.
Even better, The Doubts take this opportunity to throw loud and raucous parties in my head. They invite all of their friends and cousins and colleagues and yell, You’ll never get published! and Your book’s totally lame, and so are you! and Hey Big Butt, lay off the Chocolate Chex!
It’s good times at Casa Callender. Indeed, I’d like to be some place else other than Here. I’d like to be There. Or Over There. Even Way the Heck Over There would be better than Here.
But alas, I know, from the stories of other writers, Here is a place where I need to become comfy. If I’m going to stay in the biz, I might as well kick off my shoes, hang up my coat, and make myself a chocolate sandwich, hold the bread.
Why?
Read MoreOver the holidays, as our family was participating in the 2012 Winter Flu Olympics, we spent much time on the couch, watching Phineas and Ferb cartoons.
There is much I love about this show, but my most favorite is the evil Dr. Doofenschmirtz, inventor of all sorts of “-inators,” (the Bigger-inator, the Resolution Changer-inator, the Dill Pickle-inator), all designed to take over The Entire Tri-State Areaaaaaa!
Thus inspired, my eight-year-old started inventing. A Citrus Peeler. A Bed-Maker. An Automatic Snack-inator. To date, she has fifty-four inventions in her invention journal.
I have always considered her an artist, not an inventor, but pondering the distinction, I wondered if artists (including writers) are actually just a unique branch of inventors.
Sure, my novel will not have the impact of sliced bread. Nor will it make humans more efficient. It will not simplify our nutty world.
But writers are inventors in that we strive to build never-before-seen stories and characters, with the hope that these stories and characters will illuminate an idea, connect the lonely or inspire authentic emotion in others. Inventors create machines and ideas that improve the world; likewise, writers create stories that improve the world . . . so we can take over The Entire Tri-State Areaaaaaa!
Kidding.
But I’m not kidding about this: if we are to be inventors of published stories, we need to foster the traits and adopt the trappings of other famous inventors. I’ve come up with six (using my patented Inventor Trait-inator).
Read MoreAbout a year ago, we hired a company to clean our carpets.
The gentleman who arrived at our door looked like someone who would be, perhaps, even better suited to perform at a bachelorette party.
But Therefore I opened the door wide for him and spent the next few hours pretending to write as he cleaned my carpets.
When he finished, and I handed him my Visa, he smiled. “You know, Mrs. Callender, cleaning carpets is just my day job.”
“Oh?” Suddenly I felt uncomfortable.
He reached for his back pocket, pulled out his wallet and slipped a business card into my hand. “I’m a writer. And an actor.”
“Ah,” I said. “Got it.”
“This card is for my new movie . . . check it out if you want.”
I read the card aloud. “Rogue Saints: The greatest church, diamond heist, romance, comedy, drama, adventure you’ve ever seen.” I smiled. “Wow. All those things in one movie!”
When my husband got home that night, I held up the business card, moving it around as if tantalizing him with a treat. “Not sure you want to commit to just one genre?” I murmured, my voice sultry. “Try Rogue Saints: The greatest church, diamond heist, romance, comedy, drama, adventure you’ve ever seen.”
Who would fund a film that clearly had such major identity issues? Who would write a screenplay that was such a blatant, unapologetic salmagundi?
Well, my friends, the Mocker is now the Mocked as it seems I, too, have managed to write a genre-straddler of a novel.
Read MoreAs I write this post, EBay has sixty active listings for “full suit of armor.”
Some are shiny silver, others are bronze. Some have gaudy feathers on the helmet, others offer chain mail accents. A few promise a complimentary battle axe. The prices range from $10-$9,650, and twenty listings offer free shipping.
But as long as mine is a full suit of armor, a head-to-toe get-up that will protect my tender heart, my fragile ego, my flighty muse from all writerly rejection, I’ll be a happy customer.
So what size armor am I? If it’s too big or too small, will a tailor be able to alter the suit to fit my 5’4”, short-waisted self? Oh, and I am prone to heat rash . . . and armor, I assume, lacks the breathability of cotton.
Shoot. I just did some research and learned that even chain mail, which would provide a bit more ventilation on warm summer days, is heavy. Clangy too. How can I possibly sneak up on people when I’m so clangy? Will librarians allow me to enter the library with such a noisy ensemble? Shhhh! They will say. SHHHH, Knight-Writer!
Still, I desperately want to protect my sensitive self from the many forms of rejection that are hurled at me, sometimes when I am prepared, and other times, when I have left my shield and safety goggles at home, right there on the counter beside my grocery list and the overdue library books.
Make no mistake; we writers will be rejected. Agents will not want to represent our work. Editors will not want to purchase our manuscript. Our sincere blog posts will be mocked. We will get one-star ratings on Amazon and Good Reads.
We writers will be rejected in productive ways (“I adored your protagonist, but the second half of the story felt predictable, even when she punched the priest, then ran off with the Best Man. “) and unproductive ways, (“Your book sucked. I don’t know how it got published. It was worse than barf.”)
In this era of the Internet, unproductive feedback abounds. Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget, explains that the anonymity we find on the Web can too easily turn people into trolls, “anonymous [people] who [are] abusive in an online environment.”
Even when a reader or critic makes his identity known, he can still hide in the internet’s vast ethersphere, saying whatever he wants in whatever unproductive language he chooses.
And it will hurt. We writers tend to have an abundance of sensors and feelers. Our porous skin absorbs everything. Our brains are wrapped in fly paper. Everything—every review or comment or rejection—sticks.
So what do we do?
Read MoreI’ve never really considered myself hero material. I don’t have the right footwear. I need at least 7.5 hours of sleep a night. When I stand up too fast, I get a little dizzy and have to bend over for about five seconds until the blood rushes to all the right places.
My most unheroic trait, however, is this: I am a shirker of responsibility.
To illustrate my point, the Puget Sound Blood Center has been calling me, hoping I will set up an appointment for another blood donation.
I said they could call me; I just said I needed a full year to recover from the panic attack I had there last summer (they still gave me the juice and cookies). My year must be up because I see their number appear on the Caller ID: PSBC Predictive, calling to remind me that donating blood equals saving a life.
I let it go to voicemail. Superman wouldn’t let it go to voicemail.
Another realm of my shirkdom, one that’s far more humiliating to admit to my writer friends: I have bought many, many books on Amazon. Please know my head is low and my cheeks are red as I admit this to you.
Of course I’ve long known that writers should support indie bookstores. But still, I didn’t. I had become lazy and cheap, two traits to which Amazon caters.
In writing this post, however, I realized the magnitude of my stupidity. Realizing the magnitude of my stupidity made me want to reduce the magnitude of my stupidity. The result? I vowed that I would no longer allow my desire for convenience and my love of a good bargain to rule my book buying decisions.
I would do my part to save the lives of independent bookstores. And in doing so, I would become something of a hero. A third tier hero, sure, but a hero nonetheless.
And today, so can you.
But why should you? Why should your friends and family care about saving the lives of independent bookstores?
Read MoreYou know what I’m really good at? Landing jobs that pay roughly zilch per hour.
Seven years into my career as a high school English teacher, for example, I calculated (based on the hours I actually spent on lesson planning and grading) that I earned $7.00/hour. That hurt my feelings.
As a new fiction writer, I earned even less. “Less,” meaning “Nothing.”
Early on, however, I knew I didn’t want writing to be my hobby. I didn’t even want it to be my jobby, the hobby-job hybrid. I wanted writing to be my full-fledged job. Which meant I needed to generate some dough.
Well. You may have heard that it’s tough to make significant (or insignificant) money as a newish writer who is still practicing her craft. And it is. Really tough. So I took the hodgepodge approach: tutoring and editing and writing copy and selling my plasma and stealing money from my kids’ piggy banks, all while working on my novel.
Those are all fine ways for writers to generate income, but today, I’d like to share another way to make money, one that doesn’t involve needles or stealing: applying for grants.
First things first. You do NOT have to be a fancy, published writer in order to be awarded a grant. I am neither. I tried to be fancy once back in 2004, and it did not go well. I’m just a regular person who happened to be in a professional writers’ program where I learned boatloads about grants from (among others) the lovely and wise Wendy Call.
I’d like to pass that knowledge on to you friendly folks, because, while you don’t need to be fancy or published, you do need a few key traits
Read MoreTherese butting in for a second to make the happy announcement that the ever-talented Sarah Callender will be joining WU as a half-time contributor! We’re thrilled and honored to have her with us!
Last month, some girlfriends and I took the train from Seattle to Portland (home of Powell’s City of Books and Voodoo Donuts and a Living Room movie theater and loads of other awesomeness), and as we ate and shopped and shopped and shopped (Oregon has no sales tax) our way through the aforementioned awesomeness, I was struck by how different my friends and I are when it comes to taste and personal preference.
In drinks alone, our tastes were varied. I love cocktails that involve citrus, simple syrup and a sugared martini rim. Janna likes a dark porter. Mari likes a martini. Amy prefers something with a bit of bubble in it, be it beer or champagne.
Our fashion styles are equally varied. I gravitate toward more traditional, tailored clothing, tops and bottoms that will still be in style beyond next Tuesday. Yet I also have a hard time resisting the siren’s call of a cute vintage hat or anything that can make me (someone who looks nothing like Audrey Hepburn) look a little more like Audrey Hepburn.
My friends would feel uncomfortable and dull in my outfits, but they appreciate that my style is my style. If I try on a dress that makes me look like the Duchess of Frumpville, they will let me know. If they see something on the rack that “looks like Sarah/Audrey Hepburn” they will let me know. They will not allow me to walk around wearing a dowdy outfit OR a vintage hat better suited for Elton John or Winston Churchill.
Yes, my circle of trusted advisers understands my tastes are different from their own, but my advisers also know it’s their responsibility to give me honest feedback when I ask their opinion . . . or even when I haven’t asked their opinion. I love that in a friend, a partner, a husband. It’s a sign of a true friendship, one built on respect.
As writers, we are doomed without a similar group of advisers. Not just a little doomed. Totally and completely doomed.
Why?
Read MoreFirst, a disclaimer. Sometimes I pretend I’m an MD who has specialized in whatever medical issue happens to be going on in my midst. Last week at church, for instance, when my friend mentioned that earlier that day, she had slipped on her stairs and bonked her head, I became a Head Injury Specialist. As such, I proceeded to scare the ya-yas out of her when I noticed one of her pupils was a little dilated. That’s when another friend stepped in—an actual nurse with actual training—and assessed that my head-injured friend was fine. Indeed she was. Mea culpa.
So, as I discuss my recent realizations on mental health, neuroscience and creativity, let’s remember I am a fiction writer. I make up stuff. Thus, take everything I say with a whole shaker of salt, perhaps even a salt lick.
All right. Let’s begin.
Sometimes, when I’m feeling bad or sad or mad, I like to shake my fist at my own mental health issue (chronic depression) because I really DO NOT LIKE having depression. While I do all the “right” things—see a Zen Buddhist mechanic (i.e. my therapist), take meds, meditate, exercise, eat mostly right, get almost enough sleep, blog about mental health in very public forums—the fact remains: my melon has fragile wiring.
But, as my mechanic reminded me just this past week, this irritating wedge of my DNA, this weak link that makes my melon more of a lemon, is probably the very trait that allows me to be a fiction writer.
Read MoreTherese here. Please welcome today’s guest, the one and only Sarah Callender, who’s here to talk with us about how doubt can be good for a writer. Sarah’s blog, Inside-Out Underpants, is one of my personal favorites–intimate and authentic, and highlighting Sarah’s sharp wit. Case in point, her recent blog post entitled Graffiti, in which she announced her upcoming birthday. Here’s an excerpt:
A small but pertinent announcement: next month I am turning 50!
(Actually, that’s a lie. I’m turning 40. BUT I have realized if I lie and tell people I am ten years older than I am, they will say things like, “Holy schmokes, you look fantastic!”…
I’m so glad Sarah–forty or fifty–is with us today. Enjoy!
Turning the Soil
A few weeks ago my Zen Buddhist Mechanic (i.e. my therapist) told me something that altered the way I look at writing.
“The practice of being a writer,” he said, “requires great doubt.”
I stared at him. Could this be true? I started bouncing a bit on the couch, so great was my excitement.
“Are you serious?” I said. “Because I have great doubt. I have aLOT of great doubt. You may not believe this, but driving here just now, I was thinking that the only reason my agent offered representation was because she felt sorry for me. That’s doubt, pure and simple.”
But my Zen Buddhist mechanic wagged his finger. “Sarah. That is western doubt, the doubt that makes you question your talent, your ability. Rather, I am talking about the doubt that leads to perplexity.”
“Huh?” I asked, perplexed.
As my mechanic went on to explain, the doubt that too easily fills my head and snuffs my creative fire is not the kind of doubt he meant.
Oh. Right. Of course.
Read MoreTherese here. I came to know about today’s guest, Sarah Callender, after her letter landed in the WU inbox. She was an unpublished writer, she said, with a great agent (Rebecca Oliver) and a spanky new novel (Between the Sun and the Oranges) nearly ready to go out on submission. Did we ever accept guest posts from unpublished folks we’ve never heard from before? Truth is, we don’t do that very often. But I visited her blog, Inside-Out Underpants, and fell in mad love with a post there called Monogamy–about the similarities between writing a novel and staying married. Seriously, one of the best posts I’ve read on writing. Ever. Go forth and read it, then come back. I’ll wait. No, really, GO.
Okay, now that you’re back, I’ll tell you the rest of the tale. That post was so fab, my socks knocked so far off my feet, that I quickly invited Sarah to write a post for us. Happily she agreed. Enjoy!
Listen!
“Poetry and Hums,” [Pooh says] “aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is go where they can find you.”
Oh, Pooh. Do you mean Writing Hums? Those electric pulses that sauté and braise and knead our words into stories? If so, you are right, Pooh. The Hums find us; we don’t find them.
Still, I am stubborn. Too often, I find myself standing inside the door of the Belltown Starbucks, 10:00 a.m. sharp, in my raspberry raincoat and sassy wedges, lips glossed, laptop bag held tight in my hands.
The Hums said they’d be here.
But now it’s 10:10.
Now, 10:22.
Did the Hums say 10:00? Or was it 11:00? And was it the Belltown or the Downtown Starbucks . . . and which Downtown Starbucks?
Gummy lip gloss coats my tongue, my throat, my creativity. I’m getting those underarm sweat circles. My elbows itch. Where are those Hums? Today’s my writing day! A whole morning without kids or appointments or distractions. WHERE ARE YOU, HUMS?
Pooh would tell me to be patient. To be silent. But I am hardly ever patient. And life is rarely silent. So I must place myself in places where Hums can find me. And then, I must Open Wide.
You, writer-friend, try it too. That’s right, pretend you’re in that dentist’s chair, only don’t just open your mouth. Open up your whole darn self so the Hums have a solid place to land. Otherwise, the Hums, worried about fuel supply, will be forced to buzz over to another writer’s landing pad, a writer who is Open Wide.
Of course, telling yourself to Open Wide may feel a little weird and scary. And impossible. As if someone is standing over your naked body with a knife or a camera, screaming, “JUST RELAX!!!!”
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