Writerly Wednesdays

First Conference Anxiety (Hold Me)

I’ve been to a number of math ed or deaf ed conferences, but never a writers’ conference. It’s something I’ve been interested in doing, so I was on the lookout for a good one to start with. Something local. Maybe regional. If I could just find one with the right timing.

But no. Thanks to Peer Pressure Practitioner extraordinaire Mindy McGinnis, I’m kicking off my writers’ conference experience at the winter conference for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) in New York.

This is a good thing. I’ve been wanting to go back to New York since the first (only) time I went, when I was a teenager. I’ll get to hang out with Mindy and MarcyKate Connolly. I’ll get to meet people like my editor, my agent, and friends from AQC.

But I’m an introvert. And a worrier. So while there’s a lot of anxious-excited going on, there’s also plenty of just-plain-anxious.

A sampling:

• My classroom. It needs to be ready for my absence. That means prepping the students and getting sub plans ready. Considering the other ninth grade teacher and I have barely been able to get ready a day in advance most of the year, this is worrisome.

• Packing. I haven’t gone anywhere other than between my apartment and my parents’ house in years. My sister has half the stuff I might need, so packing for home never took much forethought.

• My first flight in over seven years. I have no problem with flying. Delays leading to missing my connection … that’s gets me going.

• Speaking of flights, I’m taking my first red-eye. I’ve never had any success at sleeping sitting up. At all. This could be interesting.

• Getting around. Yes, I’ve been to New York before. Took the subway. Took a cab. But I was with a youth symphony group, so I was never in charge. Is it sad that the idea of hailing a cab makes me anxious? Go ahead and laugh at me.

• On a related note, tipping. I come from a world where the only tipping that happens is at a restaurant (which I’m great at). Honestly, I rarely use cash these days. I’ll need to figure this out.

• Being social. Did I mention I’m an introvert? I have plenty of experience forcing myself out of my comfort zone, but it takes energy.

• Oh, yeah. Energy. I have to go directly back to work just over twelve hours after arriving home. Survive Tuesday through Friday before crashing on Saturday (most likely).

Speak up:

5 comments

Your Excuses May Vary

As writers—heck, as people in general—we have things we’d like to accomplish. Write a new novel. Start querying. Revise an old novel. Complete edits before a deadline.

So we set goals. We post them in places like the Writing Odometer at AgentQuery Connect. We round up Twitter friends for a high-motivation Word War or #1k1hr. Public declaration of our goals and intentions can help us follow-through.

Sometimes we stay on track and celebrate. Sometimes we don’t, and then we might publicly confess the cause of our demise.

Sometimes we have really good reasons. Sometimes we’re just making excuses. Sometimes it’s somewhere in-between and can be hard to tell whether we’re being too hard on ourselves … or not hard enough.

My excuses may not be your excuses. I don’t have kids and/or a husband to take up time, which can make me think, “Why am I not getting things done?” Then again, some of you may not have a day job outside of writing and wonder the same. Some of you have both, or other things getting in the way that I can’t even imagine.

Those things are pretty valid, I think. There are only so many hours in the day, and only so much we can pack in before our neurons explode. It’s okay to cut ourselves some slack, especially since beating ourselves up doesn’t actually get much done.

Then again, there are also plenty of times I think, “Just one little round of this mind-numbing game to decompress from school,” and it turns into an hour or two I could’ve used to get something done. Yes, taking a break to relieve stress is important, but I know from experience that falling behind on things that need to be done only creates more stress.

I think my own goal for now is not to fall back on my good reasons so much that they become lame excuses.

Your excuses, of course, may vary.

Speak up:

1 comment

Cynical Reader or Unconvincing Character?

Allow me, if I may, to put on my reader-hat for a moment. See, there’s this thing that happens sometimes when I’m reading, and I’m not sure if it’s me or the book.

“Sorry, book, it’s not you. It’s me.” Ugh. Good thing books can’t throw their readers across the room.

It’s a little hard to describe. I’m reading along, enjoying the story well enough, even liking the side characters, but there’s something about the protagonist.

I don’t believe her.

(Yes, it pretty much always happens to be a female protagonist. Maybe that’s more for me to ponder.)

Not like I think she’s lying, not directly. But what she’s trying to be or supposed to be doesn’t feel real. Not to me. And that’s where I’m not sure if it’s me or her (or rather, her author).

The verdict might vary by book. Sometimes it might really be me and my cynical side getting in the way. Maybe that keeps me from being open to certain traits coinciding. That wouldn’t surprise me.

Sometimes, though, I think it might be a weakness in how the character’s written. Here’s a fairly common manifestation: Female MC is stubborn and insists on being self-reliant. Hates getting help from anyone.

That’s all well and good, and plenty of YA heroines these days fit that description. It doesn’t always fly believably, though, and I think sometimes it’s because the author shoehorns those traits into the character. The author wants a character like that, because who doesn’t love an independent female who isn’t afraid to butt heads with other people?

Wanting that kind of character and creating one are two different things. It can’t be pasted on top of everything else the character is. Pasting is for flat objects. Who the character is needs to be pervasive, leaking through in moments that seemingly have nothing to do with that aspect of them.

With my writer-hat back on, how does one accomplish that?

That’s a post for another day. If you have ideas, please share.

Speak up:

1 comment

Being a Benevolent World-Builder

There are a lot of amazing things about being a novelist—things that make the tough parts worth it. The joy of bringing characters to life, torturing them because we can … in worlds we create.

Talk about power.

Sometimes, though, we get carried away with that power. We name and define enough flora and fauna to cover the planet twice over. We develop a 700-year history of the monarchy. We formulate scientific theories to support complex technology that all runs on algae.

That’s great. Fill reams of paper or gigabytes on your hard drive with every nuanced detail. Go for it.

The problem comes if we throw it at the reader … all of it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love a fully realized world. And I hate one that doesn’t have enough detail, lacks internal consistency, and just doesn’t feel real. But having that fleshed-out world as a foundation doesn’t mean we have to spell it all out within the manuscript. If we do all the hard labor of working it out behind the scenes, it can seep naturally into the story.

Some details do deserve to make the page and add to the narrative. Personally, there are a couple of situations where I feel it’s worth the word count to detail things in.

It’s News to Me. This is pretty typical in speculative fiction genres. The protagonist enters a new country/society/galaxy/dimension. Everything will be new, so some detailing is only natural. In these situations, I always ask myself what my MC would notice first, and what would get glossed over until they’re in deeper.

It’s a Matter of Life or Death. Okay, maybe not that extreme. But I’m talking about aspects of world-building that are pertinent—even critical—in that particular moment. Make sure the diversion into explanation or description is properly motivated.

I’m Right and You’re Wrong. This can be a fun one. Character #1 says, “Let’s do ____ to accomplish this goal.” Character #2 says, “You’re a moron, that’ll never work!” #1: “Yes it will. If we ____, ____, and ____, then ____ will happen.” #2: “No way. Nuh-uh. The ______ of the ____ will never ____ _____ _____ ….” And so on. Hopefully done more artfully than that, but you get the idea. When there are legitimate differing views on how something in the world operates, that can be a decent time to work in some specifics.

I’m sure there are other situations and a variety of factors that can play into how much is too much and what approach is best. Some genres expect world-building to be handled a particular way. Some readers can drink in pages of geography and political history, while others will skim (if they don’t just give up on the book altogether).

And who says it’s just the sci-fi/fantasy spectrum that world-builds? Historical fiction may call on a setting we have some passing familiarity with, but it has to make it real just the same. Just about any novel has to establish at least a microcosm of a fictional world.

For myself, the sign of great world-building is when I don’t notice it happening. Whether through description, dialogue, or more subtle means, I experience it and live in the world.

Do you have pet-peeves when it comes to world-building? Tips for pulling it off smoothly? I’d love to hear them.

Speak up:

Comments Off on Being a Benevolent World-Builder

Good News Travels … Slowly Sometimes

You know how when you have some big news, so you tell people in a few ways/places, and then you feel like if you mention it more, it’ll just be obnoxious, and surely word has spread by now to everyone who should know?

You know how that doesn’t always work?

Yeah.

As most of you know, I had pretty big writing-life news a couple of times this year. I posted here and on Facebook, I tweeted, and AgentQuery Connect spontaneously combusted both times. I also told my immediate family (obviously) and the parts of my extended family that I see on a regular basis.

I got to that point where I thought word had spread. Naturally, though, there were gaps.

Some were inevitable, like fellow writers who have too many friends on Facebook to keep up with everything. Occasionally, someone will drop me a line and ask how things are going, so I have to pull out the, “Well, I don’t know if you heard about this, but … uh, yeah.”

With others, I just didn’t do a very good job. Family in particular. I don’t see my mom’s side as often as my dad’s, but I figured my mom would tell her sister, and word would get around.

Well, that didn’t work, judging by my aunt’s announcement and everyone’s surprise at Christmas Eve dinner. I guess my aunt didn’t find out until much more recently, so the cousins and their kids didn’t know until we all got together.

I think there’s a lesson buried in here about self-promotion.

We’ve all seen self-promotion gone wrong. The authors who spam your Twitter feed, who are a constant stream of “Buy my book!” We don’t want to do that.

At the same time, we need to make sure word gets out, so people who want to know will. It’s a balance, like everything else.

With that in mind …

Yes, my debut novel is coming out with Disney-Hyperion in Summer 2014. It’s even listed on Goodreads now. Feel free to add it to your To-Read shelf if you have an account there.

It’s also on some lists. If you feel like voting for it, awesome. If you don’t, no worries.

But at least I let you know.

Speak up:

1 comment

Starting From Scratch, Kind Of (The Mega-Rewrite)

A lot of publishing is about waiting. We send out queries and wait. Get requests for partials or fulls and wait. Our agent submits to editors and we wait. We revise, send to our editor, and wait.

Best thing to do with the waiting is work on something else. One thing I’ve been chipping away at (on an off-and-on basis) is a near-complete rewrite of my very first manuscript.

(Some of you remember Fingerprints, right?)

Can someone coin a term for the writerly version of beer-goggles? I’ve revised and re-revised this thing so many times I’ve lost count. It got better each time, and I don’t think it was ever terrible.

I still believe in the characters 100%. The world, too. Even the plot, largely.

But the execution … ugh. Very “what was I thinking?” in places.

I think this is okay. It’s not beating up on myself. It’s acknowledging the skills I’ve gained and developed over the past three years. If I weren’t capable of writing better now, I’d be worried.

So, the solution?

A blank document. A different opening scene. The same general story, but with new ideas for added tension and conflict. And yes, here and there, some words that are worth keeping.

This is kind of intimidating in some ways. I really hope I can get it up to snuff, so there are lingering worries that maybe it still won’t cut it. Hopefully I can just let those doubts motivate me to silence them through sheer awesomeness.

It’s also tricky because the original is so cemented in my mind. I want to change enough without changing too much, and there’s no telling whether my internal gauge is calibrated right on that count.

Thank goodness for critique partners.

(Yes, Mindy, this means that someday you’ll have to read the darn thing AGAIN.)

Have any of you ever done a from-scratch rewrite? Any advice for making it work?

Speak up:

3 comments