Reinventing Yourself as a Writer

This is a prequel blog.  (Sort of like how a novella comes out before a novel.)

I've been invited to be on the Ruby Slippered Sisterhood blog (www.rubyslipperedsisterhood.com)

 on Thursday, May 23rd, as one of their series of Golden Heart finalists. I'll be talking about...me. Specifically, what I did when I hit a brick wall in my writing that helped me up to the next level. (The next level being two Golden Heart finals this year—but I’m not published yet.)

So on a related topic, today I'm going to talk about some advice on reinvention that I got from some seasoned writers this past weekend at my chapter conference.

I think everyone hits their own brick wall—more likely multiple ones at different times in our careers.

Every writer, from novice to seasoned professional, has to continually re-evaluate their writing on multiple fronts—before you publish, it’s what is my true voice? What are my strengths? What kind of story should I be telling? 

And during a career, it sounds like the same questions must be asked as well.

This weekend, I heard a panel of three longstanding authors who discussed keeping your career afloat in rough waters.

The panel was comprised of Duffy Brown, LuAnn McLane, and Donna MacMeans.

They all said—write a story you’re passionate about.

Find you strengths. If you don’t know, ask your friends. They will know.

Reinvention involves working with your strengths, finding an angle that is unique but fully yours.

Be brave.

Keep writing.

You have to love writing THAT MUCH—if you can think of one reason you shouldn’t do it, maybe you shouldn’t.

You have to write something you are enthusiastic about, that you believe in with all your heart. Fake enthusiasm shows. Real enthusiasm sells books. Your writing has to touch your own heart and your own emotions.

Learning discipline now gets you through the hard times later. Writers that survive keep producing.

LuAnn McLane ended the panel with this advice for us when we question our choices or when we have tough decisions to make about our careers:  Always remember how much you love reading. Reading brings joy to people through tough times by making them laugh, cry, and feel many different emotions.

We were readers before we were writers. Who among us doesn't love to read! And I think that's a good thing to remember when we face the brick wall.

FreeFoto.com, Image 12-64-7

Creativity and Productivity

I read something this week that has been churning in my mind ever since. It's a fabulous blog post on creativity done by Margarita Tartakovsky and you can view the entire post here:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/04/14/9-illuminating-lessons-on-creativity/

The entire thing is fascinating, but the part that really stuck with me all week was the story about the pottery class. Basically, students who had to produce quantity of pottery produced more creative--i.e., higher quality--pieces than students who were permitted to take an entire semester to create a single piece (i.e., those who strove for quality, not quantity). 

Tartakovsky's advice is to stop striving for perfection in creative work, but instead to focus on a "magic threshold" where you're happy enough with it but you're able to let it go and, in the words of artist Jolie Guillebeau, who taught herself to paint faster, "hope that the quantity of my work will also improve the quality."

This is a fascinating concept, and one which skilled, bestselling writers surely must learn. Could it be that the more you produce, the more creative you become and the better you get at being creative?

It reminds me of something I read--I don't remember where--basically, this writer said that not everything you produce is going to be great. But the MORE you produce, the BETTER CHANCE you've got at putting forth something great. 

So are speed and perfectionism mutually exclusive? 

Well, I think they can co-exist, if the perfectionism is toned down. How to do this? (I don't know, but I am working on it. )

This article also addresses the fear the creative ideas are finite. I remember reading something from a bestselling author saying she felt she had more ideas than she could possibly write about in a lifetime. I am on the opposite spectrum. I fear not having ideas. But filling the creative well is a skill that can be cultivated, and it starts with showing up every day to work. And work hard.

More great advice:  Focus on process, not outcome. Focusing on outcome stifles the process, says creativity coach and writer Miranda Hersey. Worrying about if your work sucks, if you'll be able to get it all together and have it make sense, and what will happen in your career are creativity killers.

When this happens, I think about why I sit in front of the computer day after day. The answer is--because I wouldn't want to be anywhere else! I'm so grateful to be here! Things are a little different than when I was 12 and writing Star Trek fan fiction to my heart's content. The muse is a little older and more scarred, and the devil-may-care attitude has been pulled back and restrained. But the joy is still there.

I think this article reinforces the fact that the skills it takes to write fiction, including the creative skills, are trainable with lots of work and the determination to show up day after day to do your job. Like any other job, practice makes perfect--or at least better.

How do you teach yourself to write faster or tone down your inner perfectionist?

Beautiful brickwork on a Savannah sidewalk outside of Colonial Park Cemetery (my photo).

Sidewalk of seashells in Savannah--I think they call this tabby, a concrete made of lime, sand, and oyster shells (my photo).

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My Crazy GH Call Story

Well, I thought I'd share my Golden Heart^®  call story from last week. As you all know, The Romance Writers of America calls all of its unpublished manuscript finalists in its annual Golden Heart^® contest every year on a designated day.     

I was picking up my 16-year old son’s friend to take them both to volleyball practice when the letters “NE” popped up on my cell. All I could think of was, if this is some weird telemarketing call coming in from Nebraska, this is a very cruel trick of nature with TERRIBLE timing.


But I didn’t believe it could be RWA calling! How COULD it be, when I’ve entered this contest six–maybe seven?–times, and I had sworn this one would be my last. I’d even determined to go about my day and just be happy for everyone else later. I’d ridden the roller coaster too many times and just couldn’t bear to do it again.


So anyway, it was Cindy Kirk, Harlequin Special Edition author AND an RWA board member, and she told me she had great news. Then she said I was a DOUBLE finalist. I barely heard. I just started bawling, right there in the driveway in front of these teenage boys. And I could not stop.


I told my son I just couldn’t drive, that he better drive until I calm down. I figured even a teenage driver with his temporary permit was better than a hysterical crying woman. So a few miles later after I did a little, he said, “Mom, just thought you should know, I don’t have my temps with me.”
So somehow I managed to calm down enough to drive the rest of the way.

 After all, I wouldn’t want the GH to be responsible for him not getting his real license!


So anyway, it's been a crazy week. I'm getting to know all my fellow finalists, there are pictures to be taken, dresses to be bought, and plans about manuscripts to be considered. And of course, the rest of life's responsibilites to fulfill.

I am thrilled to be a finalist. I still can't believe it. But I just don't want to lose track of the ultimate goal, which is getting published. That means setting the craziness aside every day and making my daily word counts. 

How do you all set craziness aside every day to get your work done? Actually, the past week isn't dissimilar to the usual craziness of life. There's just been a bit more of it than usual.

This is a picture from my own yard today. It was very sunny, but still only 50 degrees (that's northern Ohio for you!). You can see the bare tree branches in the background. I don't know what these little purple flowers are, but they resemble violets. They looked amazingly vibrant popping out of the grass. Spring is finally, finally almost here, after a very long and cloudy winter. 

Do you see the analogy to my call story? :)    

Purple flowers, northern Ohio, early April, 2013 (my pic)

I am a Golden Heart Double Finalist

I was just going to post some pictures from my trip to the lovely city of Savannah this past weekend but today I got a call from RWA that BOTH of the manuscripts I entered finaled in the Golden Heart contest.

My friend and chaptermate Amy E Jones ( http://aejonesauthor.com/), also from Northeast Ohio RWA (NEORWA) also finaled in the paranormal category with her manuscript Mindsweeper.

Thanks to all my chaptermates and friends who've helped me, supported me, read my stuff, and helped me get here! You all know who you are and I will thank you all personally.

And congrats to all the GH and RITA finalists, all of whom are listed on the RWA website here



View of a Savanahh, Georgia, garden through a wrought iron gate (my photo).










Do you read to escape...or for something else?

Author David Shields got his new book How Literature Saved My Life written up last month in the New York Times Book Review. It's a memoir that discusses the reading and writing life of a distinguished man considered to be a genre-breaking author (see http://davidshields.com/).

If interested, you can read the review here:   http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/books/review/how-literature-saved-my-life-by-david-shields.html?_r=0. 

The reviewer, Mark O'Connell, quotes this passage from the book (It's a passage I can't stop thinking about):

"Acutely aware of our mortal condition, I find books that simply allow us to escape existence a staggering waste of time (literature matters so much to me I can hardly stand it)." 

At first, I dismissed this comment, thinking that many a time I pick up a book  to escape my worries and concerns, i.e., I unabashedly use books as therapy.  In fact, especially the books I read at night tend to be lighter, funnier, and more reality-escaping than what I read at other times because I enjoy sleeping instead of staying up worrying about my problems (and everyone else's).

But this phrase kept coming back to me.  Is there something wrong with me? Do I not try to eek out all the traces of life lessons, self-revelations, and insights about the human condition that books contain? Am I reading the wrong books--maybe I need ones with more despair and existential crisis that end badly and in much pain. (Okay, just kidding, but I couldn't resist poking a little fun at literary fiction.)

Well, maybe I do eek out traces of life lessons of books--all the time. Actually, maybe we all do, just not to the urgent and intellectual extent Mr. Shields seems to. Maybe it actually happens as we enjoy the story.

We read for connection to other human beings--do you think? What are they always telling us in writing workshops--make your characters relatable. Give them a complex array of traits and flaws so that your reader immediately identifies with them. Take the reader on the journey as your character faces her worst fears, challenges her world view, and changes--works to overcome obstacles in her life that make her a better person.

This is why I read, especially romance. I love the journey. I love the hope that we can change our faults,  can learn to see that our weaknesses and flaws aren't boulders that can never be moved, and I love that love--connection with other people--is the one thing that matters in our very mortal existence.

So this ain't highbrow, but I truly believe that no book we truly enjoy is ever a means of just blanking out our existence. We're searching for something--connection, encouragement, reassurance that this journey we're  all on does mean something--that our life means something--and we're searching for wisdom to make it the most we can.      





Image of Bluebells from FreeFoto.com http://www.freefoto.com/imagelink/?ffid=12-36-1&s=s"

 

Starting a New Story: Thoughts from Michaelangelo

Note to my dear characters: Yes, alas, it's time to say goodbye. I created you, amid much sweat and blood, and I know you now like I know my own children (except that you're both far more predictable than they are!).

My hero, you were such a good guy, a real gentleman. And my heroine, so brave to take on what you did and make the best of it. 

I know you both so well--your senses of humor, the way you laugh. I know your deepest flaws and inner fears, and how you worked so hard to overcome them to become the best people you can be...and find love in the process. I know where you live and the quirky things you keep in your houses. I know your dreams and hopes for the future. I know how much you both love one another.

But now, just when I'm so sure of who exactly you are, I have to let you go. Turn over a new page, begin again the tormented process of discovering new people, create a new story out of these twinklings and shards of ideas that float about precariously in the swirl of my mind.

My fingers freeze over the keyboard. A thousand characteristics, flaws, hopes, dreams, and wishes appear. Which ones to pick? How to make this mess of emotions, memories, yearnings, gel into new characters, a new story? A coherent, good story that tells a message about strength, resilience, and courage.

I don't know how it happens, how this aimless blob of ideas takes shape and becomes an undertandable story. It's like what Michaelangelo said:  "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it."

Supposedly, Michaleangelo carved as if he were "witnessing the revelation of a submerged object." He would put a stone model into a container and slowly dip water out of it, and this would help him visualize how to carve the stone (see  http://www.stoneproject.org/2-reductive-thinking-skills.html).

Same with writing. We visualize, we struggle, and slowly, the path is revealed. A new story takes shape.

As Michaelangelo said, "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."

But don't think for a minute that came easy, even to the greatest artists. Because he also said, "If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."

There is hope in hard work and struggle!





Image from FreeFot.com, "Aubretia," #12-43-1






Donald Maass: Tension, Tension Everywhere

I heard famed writing craft author and literary agent Donald Maass speak at a one-day workshop back in January. It was revelatory.

So I went back to my copy of Maass's The Fire in Fiction and reread Chapter 8, Tension All the Time.

How do you create the type of tension that keeps a reader reading every blessed page of your novel?
A page-turner. Can't put it down. Kept me up all night.

How? How? Well, Maass says, it's not by creating a big plot with a big question that will keep the reader turning the pages to find out who-done-it. Even if it's high-stakes. Really high stakes.

It's not setting each scene up carefully with a goal your character goes after, as we are taught to do.

It's not incessant action, sanppy dialogue, or reading about what is going on deep in your point-of-view character's mind.

Not saying that any of that stuff is not important. IT'S JUST NOT ENOUGH.

Maass says that an instinct for tension is the best predictability he has for which writers will go on to become career novelists.

This tension has nothing to do with the set-up of the book and all the other things I've just mentioned.

Rather it is about permeating your novel with constant tension that arises from CONFLICTING EMOTIONS, not from outer action going on but from your character's INNER CONFLICT.

No one will give a rat's arse about your beautiful passages of description, your careful backstory hidden in dialogue, your contemplative sequel where your character mulls over what just happened, your carefully choreographed sex scene, or ANY emotion your character feels UNLESS you infuse every single bit of it with MICROTENSION, which Maass defines as "the moment-by-moment tension that keeps the reader in a constant state of suspense over what will happen, not in the story but IN THE NEXT FEW SECONDS." (Boldface mine.)

I am going to sticky-note that last part to the corner of my computer screen.

As Lori Wilde has said in her writing classes, it's all about EMOTION. That's why readers read.

Maass says tension comes from INNER CONFLICT, FEELINGS IN CONFLICT WITH ONE ANOTHER, not from the outer actions we put on the page.

If you are intrigued, read Maass's book. This chapter that I'm talking about has tons of examples and "Practical Tools" section that helps you workshop your own trouble spots so you can up the tension stakes in your own writing and create your own best-selling, page-turning blockbuster of a novel.