Some of aspiring novelists have very lofty goals for their writing. They seek to be international bestsellers, crafting works of fiction that the whole world will read and recognize, that will integrate into pop culture and be remembered for centuries to come.
If those are your goals, that's fine. To each his own. (Cicero. Now there are some words that endured for centuries. Twenty of them.) Those are not my goals though. I mean, don't get me wrong. If one of my novels ends up that way, I'm not going to say no. It's just not where I see myself going.
Truthfully, at this point I would be psyched to have a real publishing house offer me just about anything to publish one of my novels. Just having my words go into print and show up on the shelf at the bookstore would be amazing.
In the end, I think my goal is to be midlist. To make enough from my writing that I can support it but not enough that people sit in their living rooms with their critique groups and bitch about how crap my work is. (Not that I've ever done that. . . *innocent whistle*)
But beyond the money or the publishing, I will now confess something that has long been one of my most desperate goals: I want to make someone cry.
Yes. I just said that. I want to make someone cry.
I am one of those people who is very susceptible to the emotive content of a story. I have been known to sob at the movies. To blubber at the end of books. I have even teared up while listening to the radio. That last one is dangerous while driving. I don't recommend it.
And I want to be able to do that to someone else. I want my writing to draw them so far into the story, to make them care and invest so much of themselves in the character, that when something sad happens, they really feel it. And they weep. Maybe they don't bawl like a baby, because they're not like that. But they get misty-eyed and possibly there's a sniffle. That would be awesome.
Ladies and gentlemen, mission accomplished! The other day, a fellow member of the TriMu (who I will not name here; she can out herself if she wants to, but I don't want to embarrass her, in case she never reads for me again) read the first draft of my latest project and called me to tell me she cried at the end.
Victory is mine! (Points to whoever comments the origins of that one first)
Monday, August 17, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Schizophrenic Characters and Other Nonsense
To paraphrase the rest of the Tri Mu. “Schizophrenia is not a flaw you should cultivate in your characters.”
Unfortunately, I did this in my current WIP.
In truth, Austin (the name of my hero) didn’t have schizophrenia so much as he had bipolar disorder. In five pages, he went from morbidly depressed to confidently flirty. Hmmmm….No logical jump in between the two either.
Writing is hard. Writing characters with a consistent and believable personality is even harder. As writers, we have people living in our heads (or chickens as the case may be). We know these people. They may or may not talk to us, but we know them. We know their age, their favorite colors, what they like to eat and what they would rather not eat. Some of us have spent years building a world for them to reside.
If I told most of my non-writing friends and family what happens inside my head, they would stage an intervention.
But we know our characters almost as well as we know ourselves. We know who we want them to be and who they have been in the past. So sometimes we know them better than we know ourselves. Prior to editing my first draft, I knew Austin and I loved him. He was flirty and genial. The perfect foil to my sarcastic and slightly depressed heroine.
But somewhere along the line I decided that I had fallen into the perfect hero trap. That he was too perfect to actually exist and that if I were ever going to sell my novel, Austin needed flaws. So I gave him one. A fiancé that died in a tragic accident that he caused. I amped up the guilt and the depression. It was great and I loved the scene. But then, I had to get the heroine and the hero together on the same page and well, it didn’t work.
Flashes of Austin as I knew him before kept coming through onto the page and by the second time I wrote from his perspective, I’d lost the guilt and depression over the dead fiancé.
I knew that I had problems so I let the Tri Mu read what I had completed and even, they agreed that Austin had a mental stability issue. (Thus, the quote at the beginning of this post.)
Characters don’t like it when writers tell them what to do. In this situation, I tried to tell Austin to be depressed and guilty. He disagreed. Non-writers say “You’re the writer. You get to tell the characters how to behave.” Maybe other writers can do this. I can’t. I guess that I’m a character driven writer. I don’t create the character to suit the plot. I create the plot to suit the character. I will have to accept this about myself.
I’ve decided to resort back to my original Austin. He’s happier now that I’ve decided to do this and the words are coming to the page again. And he’s not perfect. He never was, but don’t tell him I said that.
Unfortunately, I did this in my current WIP.
In truth, Austin (the name of my hero) didn’t have schizophrenia so much as he had bipolar disorder. In five pages, he went from morbidly depressed to confidently flirty. Hmmmm….No logical jump in between the two either.
Writing is hard. Writing characters with a consistent and believable personality is even harder. As writers, we have people living in our heads (or chickens as the case may be). We know these people. They may or may not talk to us, but we know them. We know their age, their favorite colors, what they like to eat and what they would rather not eat. Some of us have spent years building a world for them to reside.
If I told most of my non-writing friends and family what happens inside my head, they would stage an intervention.
But we know our characters almost as well as we know ourselves. We know who we want them to be and who they have been in the past. So sometimes we know them better than we know ourselves. Prior to editing my first draft, I knew Austin and I loved him. He was flirty and genial. The perfect foil to my sarcastic and slightly depressed heroine.
But somewhere along the line I decided that I had fallen into the perfect hero trap. That he was too perfect to actually exist and that if I were ever going to sell my novel, Austin needed flaws. So I gave him one. A fiancé that died in a tragic accident that he caused. I amped up the guilt and the depression. It was great and I loved the scene. But then, I had to get the heroine and the hero together on the same page and well, it didn’t work.
Flashes of Austin as I knew him before kept coming through onto the page and by the second time I wrote from his perspective, I’d lost the guilt and depression over the dead fiancé.
I knew that I had problems so I let the Tri Mu read what I had completed and even, they agreed that Austin had a mental stability issue. (Thus, the quote at the beginning of this post.)
Characters don’t like it when writers tell them what to do. In this situation, I tried to tell Austin to be depressed and guilty. He disagreed. Non-writers say “You’re the writer. You get to tell the characters how to behave.” Maybe other writers can do this. I can’t. I guess that I’m a character driven writer. I don’t create the character to suit the plot. I create the plot to suit the character. I will have to accept this about myself.
I’ve decided to resort back to my original Austin. He’s happier now that I’ve decided to do this and the words are coming to the page again. And he’s not perfect. He never was, but don’t tell him I said that.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Pot on the Fire
Hi again! Vert here.
I was wondering what to write about this week, and Vikki brought the mule to mind. She was asking about revisions and updates on the process, which made me consider where I was, writing-wise, in the first place.
I find myself, these days, thinking more about what I want to do with the writing. Do I want to put more organized time into it? Do I want to shelve it completely for the next couple years and come back when I have more focus?
I look at the writing that I have been doing in the past 3 or so years, and I think, yeah, there are good parts in here, but do I really want to invest myself so deeply in what might end up encouraging schizophrenia?
Those are more mental questions than Vikki knew she was stirring up, perhaps.
I know that I enjoy the creative process that writing is. Even the process of revising has its small joys and victories.
...Maybe, for now, I will content myself with that, and write on...
I was wondering what to write about this week, and Vikki brought the mule to mind. She was asking about revisions and updates on the process, which made me consider where I was, writing-wise, in the first place.
I find myself, these days, thinking more about what I want to do with the writing. Do I want to put more organized time into it? Do I want to shelve it completely for the next couple years and come back when I have more focus?
I look at the writing that I have been doing in the past 3 or so years, and I think, yeah, there are good parts in here, but do I really want to invest myself so deeply in what might end up encouraging schizophrenia?
Those are more mental questions than Vikki knew she was stirring up, perhaps.
I know that I enjoy the creative process that writing is. Even the process of revising has its small joys and victories.
...Maybe, for now, I will content myself with that, and write on...
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Working Through It
It's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks for the TriMu. We've had a lot of writerly stuff going on and that's taken its toll on us all. (See Sarah's post from last Friday for more details of the tragic brain explosion.) I've also had some personal stuff going on that's been dragging my brain off in ten thousand other directions, none of which involves a familiar.
But through all of that, there are still things that need to be done, other projects that cannot be abandoned in light of our having other things to do. Deadlines are deadlines and even self-imposed ones must stand or the whole system falls apart.
So even though I was feeling tired and burned out and my Muse wasn't speaking to me, I kept opening up my WIP every day and pounding away at it. The words came with painful slowness, needing to be dragged kicking and screaming out of my imagination and forced through stiff wooden fingers to grind past the keyboard and onto the page.
To say writing was difficult for the past few days would be the understatement to end all understatements.
And then, as it always does, something lovely and amazing happened. I was sitting at my laptop yesterday, at a ridiculously late hour of the night (or a ridiculously early hour of this morning, if you want to get technical) because I was still several thousand words away from my goal for the day, when my Muse snuck back into the room.
She stuck her arm through the doorway, waving a white flag fashioned out of either a crumpled paper napkin or an Armani handkerchief. (I'm not sure which as I was tired and getting a little bleary-eyed.) She even offered to bring me a caffeinated beverage if I would just let her play with the familiars again for a few hours.
Two hours later, my word count goal for the day was met by over one thousand words and now the last few chapters of the book are sitting right on the edge of my brain, just waiting for me to let them fly out onto the page.
The morale of the story? Even when your brain is 'sploded and you feel like you couldn't string together a coherent sentence to save your life, keep writing. Write your way through it. It's the only way to get past it.
Or, as Kalayna says, the Muse comes to those waiting at the keyboard.
But through all of that, there are still things that need to be done, other projects that cannot be abandoned in light of our having other things to do. Deadlines are deadlines and even self-imposed ones must stand or the whole system falls apart.
So even though I was feeling tired and burned out and my Muse wasn't speaking to me, I kept opening up my WIP every day and pounding away at it. The words came with painful slowness, needing to be dragged kicking and screaming out of my imagination and forced through stiff wooden fingers to grind past the keyboard and onto the page.
To say writing was difficult for the past few days would be the understatement to end all understatements.
And then, as it always does, something lovely and amazing happened. I was sitting at my laptop yesterday, at a ridiculously late hour of the night (or a ridiculously early hour of this morning, if you want to get technical) because I was still several thousand words away from my goal for the day, when my Muse snuck back into the room.
She stuck her arm through the doorway, waving a white flag fashioned out of either a crumpled paper napkin or an Armani handkerchief. (I'm not sure which as I was tired and getting a little bleary-eyed.) She even offered to bring me a caffeinated beverage if I would just let her play with the familiars again for a few hours.
Two hours later, my word count goal for the day was met by over one thousand words and now the last few chapters of the book are sitting right on the edge of my brain, just waiting for me to let them fly out onto the page.
The morale of the story? Even when your brain is 'sploded and you feel like you couldn't string together a coherent sentence to save your life, keep writing. Write your way through it. It's the only way to get past it.
Or, as Kalayna says, the Muse comes to those waiting at the keyboard.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Aside: As the Brain 'Splodes
Nothing provides me with a wellspring of glee so much as dipping pen to paper and forming words on a page. Novels, short stories, poems, or general world-building -- as long as I'm creating, molding, weaving, bliss is mine.
The instruments of my happiness in the writing endevour are firstly my brain, which recognizes the true joy of building and spinning tales from the ether, and secondly my muse, a whimsical mind sprite who graces me with her presence from time to time in the form of Brilliance (which my inner editor assures me is all in the mind of the writer).
A couple of weeks ago, needing a break from relentless editing, I delved into the realm of a new short story and decided to play there for a while, spinning it on the pottery wheel of my earstwhile brain. The brain was pleased, as was my muse, who clapped her hands in fiendish delight as the words tumbled out onto the computer screen.
But brains, like muses, are fickle creatures. Possibly in reaction to a looming zombie threat, my brain decided to pull a garden gnome on me -- it split for better pastures. Oh sure, I got postcards with big glossy pictures and fluffy, loopy text: "The plot's here, wish you wrote this well!" and "This is your brain on books." and "Viva l'Existance!" I got tales of how my brain was feverishly editing elsewhere, working for someone else, enjoying the greener grasses. I got a lot of pictures of blue phone boxes and fireplaces, which are apparently all the rage in the travelsphere these days. (They never appear on Expedia or Priceline - I can only assume they're so popular the tickets go as soon as they appear on the sites.)
The messages became more obscure as the week passed - something about harsh labor conditions and no regrets. The last photo I saw of my missing gray matter was on the back of a lunchroom milk carton, just moments before the news broke -- "Brain declared DED". Depleted, Exploited, and Dead.** The shockwave of my brain's explosion had killed three innocent pencils and twice as many trees. I was in shock. That was ALL? Just how depleted was my brain when it went, anyway?
So this week I set about reborning a brain for myself. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, it takes a lot of clay, paint, precision, and a well-ventilated oven. Once the process is complete, it looks quite brain-like. And once you stuff it with polyfill pellets no one's the wiser.
Except for my muse. She popped in rather tentatively Wednesday, just to make sure my mind had returned, and made it quite clear she despised the echo, found the lighting dreary, and would have demanded HER money back for the decorative travesty. After declaring the whole place positively unfit for her dwelling, she vanished. Usually she makes a ruckus on departure, screaming and ranting about some injustice or another, but this time there was nothing. Only silence.
Sometime between Thursday and this morning she returned with piles of designer throwrugs, a tiffany lamp, a papasan chair, and a pack of popped corn. This afternoon, I checked back to see an outrageous, expensive wardrobe had found a home, along with her favorite pet quartz and several pounds of chocolate. (Apparently the fact that I can no longer indulge in solid chocolate does nothing to stop my muse from flaunting her personal stash.) Yes folks, it looks like she's here to stay.
Now me, my muse, and my brain return to our regularly scheduled Plan Hours. Will we meet our word count goal? Will we ever finish our short story and return to the enduring tale of StarStones? Tune in next week for another installment of "As the Brain 'Splodes"...
**And remember, kids, don't loan out your brain to timelords.
The instruments of my happiness in the writing endevour are firstly my brain, which recognizes the true joy of building and spinning tales from the ether, and secondly my muse, a whimsical mind sprite who graces me with her presence from time to time in the form of Brilliance (which my inner editor assures me is all in the mind of the writer).
A couple of weeks ago, needing a break from relentless editing, I delved into the realm of a new short story and decided to play there for a while, spinning it on the pottery wheel of my earstwhile brain. The brain was pleased, as was my muse, who clapped her hands in fiendish delight as the words tumbled out onto the computer screen.
But brains, like muses, are fickle creatures. Possibly in reaction to a looming zombie threat, my brain decided to pull a garden gnome on me -- it split for better pastures. Oh sure, I got postcards with big glossy pictures and fluffy, loopy text: "The plot's here, wish you wrote this well!" and "This is your brain on books." and "Viva l'Existance!" I got tales of how my brain was feverishly editing elsewhere, working for someone else, enjoying the greener grasses. I got a lot of pictures of blue phone boxes and fireplaces, which are apparently all the rage in the travelsphere these days. (They never appear on Expedia or Priceline - I can only assume they're so popular the tickets go as soon as they appear on the sites.)
The messages became more obscure as the week passed - something about harsh labor conditions and no regrets. The last photo I saw of my missing gray matter was on the back of a lunchroom milk carton, just moments before the news broke -- "Brain declared DED". Depleted, Exploited, and Dead.** The shockwave of my brain's explosion had killed three innocent pencils and twice as many trees. I was in shock. That was ALL? Just how depleted was my brain when it went, anyway?
So this week I set about reborning a brain for myself. For those of you unfamiliar with the process, it takes a lot of clay, paint, precision, and a well-ventilated oven. Once the process is complete, it looks quite brain-like. And once you stuff it with polyfill pellets no one's the wiser.
Except for my muse. She popped in rather tentatively Wednesday, just to make sure my mind had returned, and made it quite clear she despised the echo, found the lighting dreary, and would have demanded HER money back for the decorative travesty. After declaring the whole place positively unfit for her dwelling, she vanished. Usually she makes a ruckus on departure, screaming and ranting about some injustice or another, but this time there was nothing. Only silence.
Sometime between Thursday and this morning she returned with piles of designer throwrugs, a tiffany lamp, a papasan chair, and a pack of popped corn. This afternoon, I checked back to see an outrageous, expensive wardrobe had found a home, along with her favorite pet quartz and several pounds of chocolate. (Apparently the fact that I can no longer indulge in solid chocolate does nothing to stop my muse from flaunting her personal stash.) Yes folks, it looks like she's here to stay.
Now me, my muse, and my brain return to our regularly scheduled Plan Hours. Will we meet our word count goal? Will we ever finish our short story and return to the enduring tale of StarStones? Tune in next week for another installment of "As the Brain 'Splodes"...
**And remember, kids, don't loan out your brain to timelords.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
A New Procrastinateling
A few months ago, I blogged on the procrastinatelings that inhibit our ability to write or work on novels. One in particular, blogging, has not plagued me this summer. In fact, I have been so remiss in my blogging that I wonder the TriMu keeps my ugly mug up on the sidebar.
Although I have not been hounded by the blogging procrastinateling, I have met with a new one, so powerful, it ripped me away from my assigned blog days. The dread procrastinateling has a foreign and exotic sounding name--noveling.
Yes, friends, my novel (and those of other members of this group, but I'll let someone else blog about that) has invaded my brain to the point that the first thing I think about when I wake in the morning is that I actually want to open up Chapter 7 and rip into yet another scene revision. The last thing I want to do when I sit down to my computer is blog.
So, this is all you get for now--a brief recognition that, yes, I am still alive. And now it's time to feed my happy new procrastinateling while he is with me. If the past is any indication, he won't be here long.
Although I have not been hounded by the blogging procrastinateling, I have met with a new one, so powerful, it ripped me away from my assigned blog days. The dread procrastinateling has a foreign and exotic sounding name--noveling.
Yes, friends, my novel (and those of other members of this group, but I'll let someone else blog about that) has invaded my brain to the point that the first thing I think about when I wake in the morning is that I actually want to open up Chapter 7 and rip into yet another scene revision. The last thing I want to do when I sit down to my computer is blog.
So, this is all you get for now--a brief recognition that, yes, I am still alive. And now it's time to feed my happy new procrastinateling while he is with me. If the past is any indication, he won't be here long.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Taking a Sounding
Today has snuck up on me. Well, not really. But I have had a hard time finding a topic to blog about for this week. Sure I could continue my meta musings (not to be confused with similarly named fiber product), but... frankly, I didn't feel like it. :)
So instead, I will meander briefly on the subject of dimensionality. Every character, place, scene even, needs depth in it. As a reader, I only have a certain amount of attention to spare for elements that are shallow or superficial. Therefore, as a writer, I owe it to my putative readers to make sure that my elements don't come off as cardboard cut-outs.
That being said, I also have to make sure that I am not just producing collages for the senses, without underlying activity.
Is it a balancing act? Will I get better at it as I go? I have no idea really. I hope so. :)
And since, in order for me to get better at introducing depth without inducing the floundering response in my critique partners and beta readers, I need more practice at the craft, I'll end here, and head back to other writing activities, in this case, exploring the Mongol lifestyle.
See you next time!
So instead, I will meander briefly on the subject of dimensionality. Every character, place, scene even, needs depth in it. As a reader, I only have a certain amount of attention to spare for elements that are shallow or superficial. Therefore, as a writer, I owe it to my putative readers to make sure that my elements don't come off as cardboard cut-outs.
That being said, I also have to make sure that I am not just producing collages for the senses, without underlying activity.
Is it a balancing act? Will I get better at it as I go? I have no idea really. I hope so. :)
And since, in order for me to get better at introducing depth without inducing the floundering response in my critique partners and beta readers, I need more practice at the craft, I'll end here, and head back to other writing activities, in this case, exploring the Mongol lifestyle.
See you next time!
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