Inspirations
I tend to write in first-person, so I’m always on the hunt for fresh character tags that show, not tell, reactions or liven up dialogue beats. This morning on my way to work, the drive-hour DJ actually imparted something worth listening to among his inane bibbling: physical signs that someone is lying to you.
I was delighted. A little Googling, and behold, I found a great source of physical tags by Gary Pearlman just itching to make their way into my latest wip. I’d thought I’d share them with you, just in case you have a character who may be hiding something from your protagonist.
Liars tend to (obvious tags first):
Read MoreSome writer friends pointed out this cool image last week. Do you see a girl spinning counterclockwise or clockwise? Surprisingly, not everyone will see the same thing, even if they’re staring at the screen in the same moment. Seriously. And what you see now may not be what you see fifteen minutes or seven hours from now; it all depends upon which part of your brain is the most active at the time. Right now, for me, the dancer is spinning counter-clockwise–the direction, according to the article she came from, that most people will see her spin. But when I first saw the dancer–after working on my fiction for a chunk of time–she moved clockwise.
This post is going to lean left brain to start because the science major in me has been activated. And something about brain discussions appeals right now–maybe because it’s nearly Halloween and I’m hungry for gummy brains. Muahaha.
According to the article, these are the distinctive roles found between the left and right sides of the brain:
Read MoreI don’t know what it is about excising a scene, but it’s a scary process–at least for me. Here’s how it goes: Take scene I was previously happy with, rethink it to a bold degree, then expunge so that new scene contains about 10% of old material. Breathe. Breathe some more.
I don’t know why, I always worry these new scenes are too clinical, that they don’t have enough voice, flair, that they aren’t painted properly.
Smart writers save their old scenes, because it’s always possible the new ones won’t work and/or the old ones really are better. Generally my old scenes don’t make it back into the wip, but that doesn’t mean I delete them. Nay! My grandmother was a pack rat, and I’ve inherited the gene, at least when it comes to my writing. I think just about everything I’ve ever written–fiction and non–is in my computer’s thankfully vast memory somewhere.
The Dead Files are interesting to peruse every once in a while, because sometimes among the scatter of refuse I find a gem. One paragraph or description or sentence that’s just killer good. These rediscovered words are then transported to a new home: the Golden Dumpster.
Read MoreI’m the sort of writer that gets inspired by oddball characters or intriguing situations. Rarely do I find inspiration in a place. Settings are not my bag in my fiction; I prefer to give a hint and move on to juicy dialogue or a cracking action sequence. Okay, sometimes I like exploring the feeling that setting evokes. But I don’t waste a lot of time on it.
Last week, however, I took a road trip to a place where I’m thinking of setting my next novel, and I was amazed. The setting actually informed how I want this story to unfold. I never had that happen to me before. Maybe I’d been going about this setting thing bass-ackwards (and that wouldn’t be the first time :-)).
The landscape, the foodways, folkways, even road signs all provided inspiration I’m convinced I wouldn’t have found if I read it in a book or even a documentary film. Being There was everything.
I have a memory like a sieve and I worried that I wouldn’t remember some of the more ephemeral things that contribute to evoking a place in an authentic way. So I made sure I did the following:
Read MoreSo…I just sold my second novel. Hurrah! Since I’ve already published my first one, it must have been a breeze, right? Er, no. In fact, the book that I anticipated being my follow-up novel was not the one that sold – and I have a theory as to why. Play along and tell me if you agree.
As I said, I was knee-deep in another manuscript. About 150 pages deep, in fact. And I dutifully worked on it each day, slogging through because, well, I’m a writer and I had to write each day because that’s what I do, or at least that’s what I told myself when I forced myself to focus on my characters when I went running (a prime brain-storming time for me) and and on the prose when I got into my office every morning. But slogging it still was – though the words came out well-enough, the motivation behind them was lackluster. And when I shared the pages with my agent, we both thought, “Well, it’s certainly well-written, but do we love it?” Like a boyfriend whom we thought we should love, but had a sneaking suspicion that we didn’t, we weren’t sure. Or, more accurately, like that dang boyfriend, we convinced ourselves with each reading that it was indeed love, but anyone who peered in at us probably would have told us differently. (You know, like that friend who is making a cataclysmic romantic mistake.)
Read MoreI vividly recall seeing one of the towers collapse live on CNN this day in 2001. I remember sinking to my knees in shock and horror.
“I can’t believe what just happened,” I said.
My daughter came up behind me. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”
My hand was over my mouth. I told her the truth: “A lot of people just died.”
I’m not a native of New York City. I can’t imagine what someone who lives in the city—who had a loved one die or was running from debris or just watching terrified from the periphery—felt that day or how they’ve managed to cope in the aftermath. I guess most of them did what we all have to when life tuns out harsher than we could’ve dreamed: develop a thicker skin and try to move on.
Even though I’m not a native of NYC, I am a New York state resident. I remember the most ominous looking sky the day after the attacks, with positively stark, gray, fat clouds rolling overhead. I remember thinking they were overfilled with remnants of the terrible day-pieces of city and other people’s lives descending on my hometown like a traveling cemetery, demanding that all of us pay our respects. They affected me, those clouds and the unnatural storm that preceded them. They made me anxious, and they made me hear the ticking of the clock more loudly than ever before. I began taking my dreams a lot more seriously. I looked at the faded fortune cookie slip I’d kept for years, the one that said, You are a lover of words. Someday you will write a book, and I thought, “Someday is now.”
Read MoreSo. Here we go again.
After another year of dogged determination or sheer insanity, I’m ready to draft out the final chapter of my current wip. Except I don’t know how my book ends.
I mean, I have a vague idea of how it should end (hopefully leaving the reader slavering for more), but I’m waffling between an upbeat ending or something more artistic (e.g. sad). I confess I’m so sick of my wip right now that I want to slap some perfunctory ride-into-the-sunset down and get onto the hard work of revisions. But I know it’s either come up with the ending now, or come up with it after wasting more months navel-gazing. I choose getting on with it now.
So I went back to my trusty Vogler and Frey, and refreshed myself on the guts of good endings.
According to the masters, a good ending should:
Read MoreLast weekend I took my daughter to see the animated movie Ratatouille, and I was blown away. I’d expected a light PG romp about Disneyfied animals who have crazy adventures in Paris. I didn’t realize I was going to be treated to a meditation on creativity and artistic expression in a subtle and highly mature way.
For those who haven’t seen it, Ratatouille is the story of Remy, a rat born with a sophisticated palate. Unfortunately rats aren’t picky about their food–they eat to live, after all, not live to eat, and his finicky tastebuds are misunderstood by his rat-pack. In a series of events, he’s separated from the pack and forced to survive on the streets of Paris. There he befriends a talentless pot-scrubber and transforms him into a master chef by controlling him via his hair (don’t ask, just see the movie).
Read MoreBefore I let too much time pass, I want to share some news from around the web and blogosphere with you.
First, join me in welcoming a site called Write Attitude, put together by some friends from my goal-in-a-month group. There’s a cool opening video on the site, loaded with inspiring quotes and positive vibes. You’ll also find writers’ journey outtakes and some articles on the site’s pages. Well worth a visit.
If you’ve never heard of StumbleUpon, you should really check it out. Register (free), download a toolbar (easy), and specify your interests (writing and whatever else floats your tire). Then “stumble” onto articles that others have already deemed worthy of your attention. Rate it with a thumbs up or down, and your ratings will help draw others’ eyes to the site as well. Kath and I were stumbledupon recently when someone tagged my Unpubbed Writer’s Seven Deadly Sins article, and we couldn’t believe the upsurge in traffic. Literally there was someone visiting from StumbleUpon about every minute, for a week straight. Since my introduction to it, I’ve signed up and tried it and found some great articles such as:
Read MoreFirst, a quiz: Where did I take this photo?
A. Zion National Park, Springdale, Utah
B. Bryce Canyon National Park, Bryce Canyon, Utah
C. Grand Canyon National Park, North Rim, Arizona
Thanks to the wonders of technology I was able to pre-load a few posts last week, but I was actually busy exploring these three parks–plus visiting a rodeo, an animal sanctuary, riding horses, baking in 114 F weather in Vegas, seeing a Cirque du Soleil show (“O”) and eating waaay too much French toast via breakfast buffet. The kicker was waking at 4ish a.m. to catch a flight yesterday morning, then dealing with the trials and tribulations present at the JFK airport in NYC during a high terror alert. It doesn’t calm an already flight-wary person to witness an airplane being surrounded by police and other vehicles with flashing red lights just hours before you’re supposed to board a plane by the same line (Delta, if you’re wondering). We had delay after delay following that incident, until finally–after 9 1/2 hours of wait–we boarded our metal bird for a blissfully uneventful ride home. We walked through the door at about 2:30 a.m. and landed like felled trees in our beds. So maybe you’ll understand why I’m feeling tired and why this post is super late reaching you. I’m on west-coast time (like the west coast of Japan, maybe).
Anyhoo, thanks for bearing with…I promise to find something useful to say here.
Somewhere between Vegas and NYC I turned on my AlphaSmart and reviewed notes I took at a writing conference last year. Long-time readers might remember my post about the brilliant Michael Hauge and his talk on Identity and Essence, and how these things relate to character arcs. (If you haven’t read the post, you can read it HERE, and read my later interview with Michael HERE.) What popped out of those old notes for me was a question Michael posed to all of us at the end of his hours-long session: What won’t you do to succeed?
Read MoreA few weeks ago, I blogged about my ignorance of the thriving world of fan fiction writing. As an editor, blogger, and aspiring novelist, pretty much all my spare time is devoted to those three things, and oh yeah, trying to squeeze in a family life. But I’d run across some fan fic doing my bloggy duty for WU, and I was mightily impressed, if not by the quality, then the sheer quantity of fan fic out there.
What was it, I asked myself, that drew writers into spending hours of labor devising stories about people and situations that came out of some other writer’s head?
So I asked you, our readers, if anyone wrote any fan fic, and why. The responses varied, but they all came down to one thing: the feedback on writing was virtually instantaneous. If any of you have been reading Jasper Fforde’s interview (below), you know that it’s darn near impossible to get anyone but your mom and best friend to read your work. But fan fic offers a forum for people to post work and get crucial information on the response their writing evokes in readers.
Read MoreSometimes it’s hard coming up with a blog post. After all–unlike Marsha, Juliet, Allison, Vicky and Jason–I am a pubbed nonfic writer but not a published author.
[Update: Now I am! But this post, written in 2007, still holds true today.]
Aren’t I just guessing at what’s required to make it in this business? Some days I just don’t know. But here’s what I do know, for sure: I know what can kill a drive, what has held me back and tied me up in knots. So that’s what today’s post is about.
The 7 Deadly Sins of the Unpubbed Writer:
1. A weak concept. Let’s write a book about a guy and a girl and a dog, and love and a peach pie. And maybe an eye patch. Or not. A STRONG concept will not only increase the likelihood that you’ll be successful in the end, but it can actually help you to finish your wip. How? It’ll inspire you to sit and work on it for hours at a time. Like a body, prone and needing CPR, your manuscript needs your help. If you love it–really, really love it–and see value in it, you will keep breathing life into it until it starts breathing on its own.
2. No deadline. My kids’ school has asked my hubby and me to write a song as their new anthem. Cool, eh? They asked two months ago, and we’ve yet to work on it. I was joking with the secretary about it recently. “You should give us a deadline,” I said. “It’s all right,” she said, “you can’t rush creativity.” I smiled, shook my head. “Oh, you’d be surprised.” As someone who’s had the benefit of the hot-iron push of deadline, I’m here to tell you that it’s a truly motivating factor. But how to impose a deadline on yourself when there isn’t anyone waiting for the script on the other end, prod in hand, check in the other? You just do. You entrust an editor-like authority to those who understand your desire to reach The End–like a critique partner or buggy sister–and then let them use a pseudo-prod to bother you regularly. You mark your calendar with your deadlines–“finish part 1″…”wrap up first draft”–and you reward yourself when you meet the mark. Push yourself, and let others push you too. Don’t let your wip become an unsung song.
3. A bad critique group.
Read MoreI’m a little embarrassed.
I’m pretty well-versed in the ins-and-outs of publishing. I know how to craft a compelling scene and keep the adverbs in check. I’ve interviewed tons of terrific authors about their work. But I know nothing about the biggest area of genre fiction going right now: fan fiction.
I mean, I’d heard about it. Writers would drop casually that they’d written a little fanfic on the side just to keep themselves limber between projects, or a fansite would have a section devoted to fanfic. Slowly it dawned on me that this was a viable outlet for writing fiction, and I wanted to know more.
So I do what I do, get online and start digging away. Last week I also asked our readers if they’d written any fanfic. Sure enough, many did, and a few have shared their experiences.
So what is fan fiction?
Read MoreDoes this happen to you? You’re driving somewhere that takes about 20 minutes. Suddenly, the solution to a knotty problem that’s been plaguing you in your wip pops into your head. But you’re driving. You can’t pull over. You can’t drive and write, either (though you think about doing it anyway). You pray desperately that the idea sticks long enough for you to get to your destination and jot it down in its complete perfection.
Then you get where you were going and have forgotten half of it by the time you get your notepad out of the glove-box.
I had this happen to me the other day, and it was frustrating as hell. I do that a lot, get good ideas at the wrong time. There’s something about having my body involved in a rote task that releases the clamps on my mind. I take cold comfort in the fact that I’m not alone in this. Writers tell me that they get their best ideas while scrubbing the floor or cleaning the gak out of their gutters. Others like to sleep on it, and find answers waiting for them in the morning.
Brain experts call this the left mind/right mind struggle. People tend to have one side of their brain dominate their thought patterns. If you are an analytical person who likes to have all their ducks in a row before embarking on a project, you tend to think with the left side of your brain. If you’re the sort of person who goes with your gut, sure you’ll eventually get to the answer, you are probably dominated by the right side of your brain.
(If you’re not sure which part of your brain dominates, take the quiz HERE).
I’m a firmly left-brainiac. Which means I over-analyze when I should be creative. But I’ve found exercises that will help strengthen the right side of my brain.
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