If there be dragons…

After fighting with a scene for three weeks, which included yelling at my keyboard, pulling at my hair and much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I’ve finally broken through the fog. How? I realized that it wasn’t the logistics of the scene that were hurting my ability to write it…it simply didn’t need to be written. I needed several main characters to encounter a, well, let’s say hardship, and instead of crafting a useful way for this to happen I was rushing through what turned out to be an extraordinary scene in the process. Let me be more specific; I hurried them through some rather fantastic scenery in order to be on solid ground and encounter said foe, and by doing so I was missing out on all that I was eventually able to do in the original setting.

All that gibberish to say that if a scene is giving you that much trouble, there are two reasons for it: It deals with something you personally aren’t ready to deal with, or it’s being forced. Check your motives. Does it sound like a plot device? Could your novel/short-story do without the whole scene? (This is good to ask for any scene you write).  There may be many parts of the story that you write only for yourself, because keep in mind that a reader only needs to read what will push the narrative forward. Now, that’s not to say that it will always be obvious how it does so. A scene/chapter may only be for character building purposes, but you have to be unbelievably careful in doing this, you stand the chance of losing your reader’s interest. In other words, yes you can learn alot about James Bond with internal dialogue while he’s on the John, but it won’t have near the staying power as hearing that internal dialogue while he is in captivity somewhere (where he will inevitably sleep with the enemy and blow something up…but I digress).

I learned alot through this…and I may have encountered this lesson before, but as I’ve already said, each novel is different. Every story has its own characteristics and everytime I begin a new chapter, its like beginning a new relationship. There is the courtship phase, the newly-wed phase, the seven year itch (please God don’t let this drag on anymore), and hopefully the blissfully comfortable familiarity of someone you’ve known all your life. There are basic guidelines and ideas for all novels/relationships, but not all of them apply to every piece.

All I want for Christmas is an agent

 Writers endure more judgment and criticism than perhaps any other art aside from music. Agents write blogs on the amount of drivel they read in the slush piles, ranting on how many of us they would like to bar from ever buying another laptop, or picking up another pen. Even when one of us has the good fortune to get published, reviews can cut right to the bone. Some of them are purposely written to make the reviewer seem more important than they really are.  So here is my question, does it matter, really? When you read rants from agents about ill-prepared authors or seemingly thin plot-lines and less than stellar characters, does it discourage you from writing?
There are times when it discourages me from submitting. Mostly, I chastise myself for wasting time on the Internet in the first place. But, there are times when the weight grows too heavy and it halts my ambition. That’s when any author needs to take a few days away from the phone and Internet, and recharge.
Receiving tons of rejection doesn’t mean your work is genuis waiting to be discovered, just as being placed on the shelves of Barnes and Noble doesn’t mean it has been. Trends in publishing wax and wane and the personal tastes of burnt out agents, editors and publishers only narrow down the slight venue that makes it to print. This, at the end of the day, means little in relation to your story.
I read a review from a website I am quite fond of, that felt harsh. I won’t go into which author or what book, but what I will say is that it felt like the reviewer wanted the author to follow certain formulas, map out characters in a very specific way and even went so far as to critisize the plot itself. Clearly, he didn’t care for the book…so why make the assumption that it needed to be changed? If you want it to be another book, perhaps you should just…read. another. book.
I don’t know, maybe I am too sensitive, but I hurt for her. She responded far more professionally than I might have been tempted to. She was applauded for accepting criticism so gracefully. I don’t do much of anything gracefully, let alone taking shots like that. I’ve never been accused of playing well with others. (Unless of course those ‘others’ happen to be my characters, that’s a little different)
So what say you? All this makes me want to be a recluse, not that I’m not already…am I alone here?

Long time no speak…

I wish I could tell you I’ve come back here to suffer through a writing hang-over with like-minded company. Alas, I have accomplished no such thing. I could give myself a little credit for having forced myself into some edits for book two. That’s worth half a cookie at least. Okay, a crumb. I’ll take what I can get.
This is my favorite time of year. I can’t say for sure if it is the chill in the air, the quiet frosted nights or just my love of the holidays, but for whatever reason, I love this season. I am, for better or worse, a winter girl. Yes, I know it isn’t officially winter yet. Hush, my mind isn’t aware of that. Anything in Georgia that feels below 70 degrees, is winter. Right now it is a frigid 40 something. Wonderful.
With all the banal pleasantries out of the way, let me get down to business. I have found lately that every time I spend more than a few minutes on the blogs and websites of agents, and industry “experts” that my muse all but vanishes. Its an amazing little act, no doubt…but not one I’m very fond of. Like the life that fuels my writing, so these mechanical formulas are like the ever present ‘Old Age’ that slows down youth and carelessness. The joints and bone and sinew have slowed till each stroke of the pen is like an inevitable broken bone or slip or fall. Leaning on the ‘Right Way’ to do things in some cases may be likened to living in a Retirement Community–Assisted Living.
I want to be careless again, near wreck-less in my ventures. Who cares what the market is right now? Who cares about the odds? I certainly wasted no time considering these things when I first started writing…what has changed to make this…creature…so important now?
Nothing. Plain and simple. Yes, query letters are important. Yes, form is important. But, I am letting the directions get in the way of the path.
So, while this little blog is still in fledgling posts, let me ask you. Why do you write? What warms your bones and fuels your muse?

Enjoying the process, and the art of writing

” Enjoy the process.  If you are destined to be a published writer, the months and years spent working on early manuscripts may be the last time you ever have the luxury of writing for the love of it at your own speed.  As soon as you sell, things like deadlines, the sales department’s mindless prejudices, the editor’s input, and so on become a part of your work.  You will, trust me on this, look back with nostalgia on the days when the only person you had to please was yourself. ”  Vivian Beck

I read this earlier, and appreciate her candor. She is a literary agent who spends a great amount of time giving good solid advice to writers. Why? Because she is an author. There is possibly no better person to have as an agent than one who knows what we go through. I’ve listed her page to the right, please go check it out. You’ll be glad that you did.

The great and necessary solitude

What is it that beckons that inner voice? When the hours draw long and still, and the world quiets to merely a whisper, then it comes. Peace. A deeper solitude than can be found in any writing book, or literary commentary or within the tawdry lines of any blog. There is no price high enough to place on this state of mind to equal its worth.
I spent a long weekend at Oak Mountain, enjoying the crisp fall air and the smell of a campfire. I had originally intended on getting a fair amount of writing done, but found instead that the simple enjoyment of true rest was more beneficial. After a day of getting adjusted back to the monotony of city life, I am ready to write again. Its funny how much can be figured out by listening only to the silence.

For two years a question has hovered over my current project, reeking havoc on my concentration and muddying my plot lines. After listening. Really listening. I now have my answer, and it was there all along.
Tonight, I write!

The Devil’s in the details…

I wrote in an earlier blog,
“We musn’t tell them everything. Some things, certainly, but not everything. I mean this as no excuse for poor detail or fractured narrative. What I mean is this; know it, inside and out, every detail: The peoples, long since faded from memory that once thrived where your hero now treads; animals that will never wander in your protagonist’s path and ruins that are too covered with centuries of stories to be seen. Every rock, village, tide and turn. This is the foundation upon which worlds are built. These are the underpinnings of much greater things. Like steel beams in a modern building, it holds…it structures the fabric of your imagination.
Because after all, it is the utterance of a thing that makes it what it is. As an author, you will always (without fail) know more about your worlds than can be shared with your readers. Your acknowledgement of it is enough. If it is strong, it will carry through your prose and filter into the minds of those who dare dive deep enough. Those are the worlds that leave us dreaming long after the last page has been turned. Like the never ending story, some worlds will never die.”

I ran across a link today that caught my attention. http://www.bmarch.atfreeweb.com/Worldbuilding.htm This is a really detailed list of links.

Another link is http://www.sfwa.org/writing/worldbuilding1.htm Which happens to be my favorite.

I’ve heard it said that you can tell when someone is lying when they give too many details. The words sound false to them, so they try to make them believable with more of them. Like the classic rookie that calls out of the office, regaling his boss with all the glorious symptoms of a stomach flu…
As authors, we must resist this urge, just like any ordinary liar. We are, in a sense, professional fibbers. If we give too much away, the reader will know. What we must do is weave just enough to make it nearly tangible.

So very lost…

“So, here are two pervasive reasons that people write novels: (a) for the approval of others and (b) for the sake of writing itself. Nobody does it for either reason alone. There are easier ways to get approval, and the novelist who works in isolation, never publishing, is not a true novelist but a hobbyist.”  Donald Maass

I’ll admit, he had me through the first line. By the end of the quote, I was slightly put off. In case you don’t know, Donald Maass, is a literary agent with his own agency in New York. He wrote a book, which is where I obtained the little gem of wisdom above. So, my question is, are you telling me Emily Dickinson was not a true poet? In fact, here is a list of other works that were published posthumously:

• Douglas Adams — The Salmon of Doubt
• Shmuel Yosef Agnon — Shira
• Isaac Asimov — Forward the Foundation
• Jane Austen — Northanger Abbey and Persuasion
• Georg Büchner — Woyzeck
• Mikhail Bulgakov — The Master and Margarita
• Charles Bukowski — over twenty books of poetry and short stories after his 1994 death.
• Samuel Butler — The Way of All Flesh
• Albert Camus — The First Man
• Angela Carter — American Ghosts and Old World Wonders, The Curious Room
• Agatha Christie — Sleeping Murder
• Roald Dahl — Roald Dahl’s Guide to Railway Safety
• Rene Daumal — Mount Analogue
• Philip K. Dick — Gather Yourselves Together, Radio Free Albemuth, Humpty Dumpty in Oakland, Voices from the Street
• Charles Dickens — The Mystery of Edwin Drood
• Emily Dickinson — Virtually all of her poems, as well as her letters.
• Ralph Ellison — Juneteenth
• F. Scott Fitzgerald — The Last Tycoon
• Gustave Flaubert — Bouvard et Pécuchet
• Ian Fleming — The Man With The Golden Gun and Octopussy and the Living Daylights
• E. M. Forster — Maurice
• Anne Frank — The Diary of a Young Girl
• Julius Fučík — Notes from the Gallows
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe — Faust Part Two
• Robert A. Heinlein — For Us, the Living, written in 1939, but not published until 2003, 15 years after his death.
• Joseph Heller — Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man
• C. L. R. James — American Civilization
• Franz Kafka — The Trial, The Castle and Amerika as well as many short stories.
• Robert Ludlum — The Janson Directive
• Niccolò Machiavelli — The Prince
• Walter M. Miller, Jr. — Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman
• Jessica Mitford — The American Way of Death Revisited
• Irène Némirovsky — Suite française
• Flann O’Brien — The Third Policeman
• Wilfred Owen — almost all of his poems, the first edition being 24 Poems (1920)
• Karel Poláček — There Were Five of Us (Czech Bylo nás pět)
• Carl Sagan — Billions and Billions
• Dr. Seuss — Daisy – Head Mayzie
• Yaakov Shabtai — Past Perfect (”Sof Davar”)
• J. R. R. Tolkien — The Silmarillion (published 5 years after his death), The Children of Húrin (based on a tale in The Silmarillion, published 35 years after his death)
• Leo Tolstoy — The Living Corpse, Hadji Murat
• John Kennedy Toole — A Confederacy of Dunces, The Neon Bible
• Jules Verne — Le Phare du bout du monde, Paris in the 20th Century
• Virginia Woolf — Between the Acts

So, tell me again how being published makes me a ’serious’ novelist? Maass actually has a great deal of good advice in his book, however, it was clearly written by someone who has more of an eye on the market than on the craft of writing.
In the opening chapter, he remarks that there are a good many ‘novelists’ out there that write because they feel they must…that they adopted the identity of ‘writer’ in adolescence and never learned to let it go. I have worked closely with teenagers for the past decade, and I’m afraid I disagree. There are a myriad of psychological reasons why someone who has the desire to write, cannot. 
It has always come easily for me.  Though I have never felt forced to pen my thoughts, I have known others who struggle with it daily. It has nothing to do with their want to write, more with an inability to say what they mean or the reluctance come to terms with thier own emotions. It isn’t just because they’ve likened themselves to angsty, reclusive writers…but nice try, Maass…I’m sure many people thought that a brilliant insight. Perhaps it is. I just fail to believe that those who consistently publish soulless drivel are any more true in their endeavors than those who don’t care for the scrutiny of the likes of agents, editors, etc.
I mean, even a blog can get you blacklisted these days…

Christian the Lion

If you haven’t seen this…you need to. It makes me tear up every time!

A Writer’s Life

This is too funny! Perhaps I should look into a new coffee maker as well!

Rejection, sweet rejection

Just for clarification, when I am talking about ‘urban fantasy’ as drivel, I am usually referring to paranormal romance specifically. There are actually a great many urban fantasies that I like.

Most authors go through the process of learning to deal with rejection. Some are lucky enough to get offers of representation before they receive much of it. I was asked for a partial last week (for my current project), by an agency in London, so I’m not terribly upset. However, there is a little part of me that is saddened by the process itself. I miss very much the solitude of writing when it was simply my own world, and not up for scrutiny. I know, I know, I piss and moan about this alot, but its how I feel. I also majored in Psychology, so don’t give me this, ‘You only feel this way because getting published is not easy.’ That, I fear, is not the case. Let me explain.
I read once that there are two reasons for writer’s block: Fear of failure and fear of success. I never understood the latter until now. Why would you be hindered by that? Easy, it changes things. It shifts the feel of the created world, changes my focus on what is really important, and most vital…it changes me.
I felt this way the first time I started editing a major piece, so I pray this will pass. For now, it is the last thing I want to be feeling.
I have yet to receive any negative comments from an agency. I am seeing mainly the concerns surrounding the decline of epic fantasy. “Urban, not epic, fantasy is what’s selling right now. Try submitting this work to us again in a few years. Inevitably the market will change.”
As much as it stung to hear it, she was right. She liked my concept…but was far more interested in Vampires and the underworld, enough to ask if I had any writing to that effect. I do, but its more for my own entertainment, not publication. In fact, I have several books that would be considered urban fantasy. I loved writing them, but wouldn’t subject others to it. I’m also being stubborn because I would rather see my current work published. Ridiculous isn’t it?
I mean no offense to those that write what I have lovingly dubbed drivel, really. They work just as hard, but traditionally, it takes them far less time and perhaps even a little less of their soul. There are exceptions to this. Anne Rice did not write drivel. I personally like Shannon Drake. There are a few more, but the majority write sex scenes padded with filler. Oh wait, was that plot I just read? hmm, flip through various pointless fight scenes and deus ex machina, to the happy ending that we all knew was coming. You can find the same thing in a myriad of other titles right now, just look for anything with the words, dark, vampire, vampyr (you aren’t creative for spelling it this way, just FYI), or shadow-anything.

There is an author, extraordinarily talented, by the name of Shawn C. Speakman. Get used to his name, because you’ll see it a lot more in the coming years. You can find his work here: www.shawncspeakman.com 
He has addressed, on his blog, the frustrations of the current market. His prologue for The Dark Thorn cycle indicates that indeed, though a writer may be disheartened, those who have a gift for prose, proceed on. I can’t tell you how pleased I’ll be when I see this series in Barnes and Noble.
Enough for today. Maybe tomorrow I’ll feel a little less jaded. Maybe.