It gave me chills

When I was in college, I had an art teacher who drove me up a wall. He taught graphic design, and when I created something for his class that he didn't quite connect with, he could never tell me why. Our conversation concerning one of my lesser projects might be something like the following.

Me: What do you think?

Him: Hmmm. I'm not sure.

Me: What do you mean?

Him: It's just not quite there.

Me: How can I change it so it is "there."

Him: I'm not sure. It's just not quite right yet.

Me (later in the privacy of my room): AAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHH!

I know what you're thinking, but I'm not bitter. Really.

I read a passel of blogs on writing because, like many other writers, I'm trying to become a better writer. I enjoy reading great stories, and I want to know the secrets so my writing can be great, too.

But the main reason behind my study (which includes regular books on writing as well) is that I don't want to just write intuitively. Unlike my design teacher, who knew what was good or was not good when he saw it but couldn't tell me why, I want to actually know what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

That's why I have to share this post from Adventures in YA & Children's Publishing from this week. It was so awesomely stupendous that I believe every writer who is serious about writing books that readers can't put down should read it. This is one of those posts you need to read. It's that key.

Enjoy! : )

A favorite quote

I saw this today and liked it so much that I wanted to share it. I'm sure it's true about many things, but I believe it can be well-applied to the writing arena.

Don't only practice your art, 

But force your way into its Secrets,

for it and knowledge can 

raise men to the Divine.

Ludwig van Beethoven

(To watch The Piano Guys' Beethoven's 5 Secrets and enjoy the music they posted with the quote, check out this link.)

Double duty: is your writing pulling its weight?

I've been reading Characters, Emotion & Viewpoint by Nancy Kress, published through Writer's Digest Books, and I've been noticing a common theme. No matter what you're writing, whether it's setting, dialogue, drama, backstory, etc., Nancy encourages you to always make it do double duty, thus maximizing your word usage and the impact of your writing. 

Wow! I thought. Great idea! Then I began to wonder if I did this. The unfortunate answer was not often enough. In fact, I realized that the only time I was applying this powerful double strength writing was when I was doing it unconsciously. If I wanted to be published someday, I couldn't afford to miss out on this opportunity to make my writing better.

If you're not sure what I'm talking about with the double duty thing, here's an example. Say you're writing a scene which shows your main character trying to obtain an after-school job. Here's a paragraph that focuses on setting:

The bell jangled above Isaac's head as he pushed open the worn wooden door of the pet shop on Main Street. After his eyes adjusted to the dim interior, he threaded his way through a clutter of dog toys, bird cages, and pet food until he found the counter at the back over which the grey-haired owner Mr. Stanford  peered at him from under his shaggy eyebrows.

We've described the pet shop in which Isaac has chosen to look for a job, and we've even described its owner a little. There's nothing wrong with this, but could the description do more? Could we write this description in such a way that it actually does double duty and also paints a picture of Isaac's character in the bargain? Let's try again.

Isaac pushed open the worn wooden door of the pet shop on Main Street and jumped as the bell jangled above his head. He shuffled from one foot to the other, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dim interior while he got his bearings. After a hesitant cough, he threaded his way through a clutter of dog toys, bird cages, and pet food until he found a counter at the back over which the grey-haired owner Mr. Stanford peered at him from under his shaggy eyebrows. Isaac swallowed a couple of times and opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Ta-dah! Now we know where we are, but we know some things about Isaac, too. He's timid rather than bold and cocky, and he comes across as cautious. It would seem that he's either not comfortable when talking to adults or that he doesn't know Mr. Stanford well. Possibly he's a little scared of him. Even without the skilled hand of Nancy Kress, I've made my little setting do more work than it did before.

How about you? Are there ways that you can consciously get your writing to do more?

Creating Something New

I sometimes wonder why I write when everything has already been written. Walking into the library with no plan and just wandering the fiction shelves can be quite overwhelming (although I do it). However, it looks like everything in the world has been written about – over and over again. Then I am in a mood for something "new".

When I write fiction, I write to create something that either I would like, or that people I love would like. For instance, I am working on a novel with a setting that interests me at the moment and I think my neices might enjoy it. However, my interests are somewhat dynamic and eclectic, therefore my reading and writing choices change and shift. It must be the same with many people for books (and movies) are now consumed at an incredibly high rate.

This demand for a new twist or turn compels me to create something new – out of the old, along with some “new” ideas of my own.

My mother makes and my grandmothers made quilts. My grandmothers made them out of recycled clothing. My mother sometimes uses older material for effects. I personally like the older quilts better, although the fabric is more delicate. They have more of a story to tell, and I like stories, especially histories.

So, I write as I would choose to make a quilt – with an interesting pattern, using old and new materials, and that tells a story of history – creating something new.

The Amazing Power of Research

In the process of editing and re-working my NANO novel, I kept getting stuck on certain plot situations. My imagination was working to fill in the gaps, but I feared I was pulling too much from embedded movie images (a downside of writing so much, so quickly).

I needed more accurate images, information and knowledge about the medieval world (for example, warfare descriptions and methodologies, and what life in a rich medieval city was like). I “stumbled” on the Byzantines and their capital, Constantinople. What I have learned and discovered is amazing and delighting and fearsome and…

I am so excited! My work is in a shambles. But, I have back story, history, and information to stir my imagination as I put some pieces back in a different order, as well as creating new pieces in this very complex puzzle known as a novel.

And they lived happily ever...can I get back to you on that?

I've been out of the writing frame of mind since Nanowrimo. I was so sick at the end of November that when I gasped across the finish line, I just lay there on the ground waiting for myself to feel like getting back up.

The problem is that I never did.

So now I have a Nano novel of 50k plus words with no ending. I can't tell you how irritating that is to my kids, who have been waiting over a month now for the next installment. They got pretty used to picking up my binder of work-in-progress printouts that were being produced with happy regularity by myself as I was forced to kick out 1700 words a day. To suddenly have nothing new to read was trying. Fortunately John Flanagan came out with a new Ranger's Apprentice book so they scuffled over that for a bit while I was waiting for creative juices to spurt out somewhere.

Still nothing.

I don't know about you, but I tend to take the course of least resistance. That means that I'm drawing more than writing because it happy requires no conscious thought on my part. It's not really procrastinating.

Okay, so it is procrastinating, but in a sneaky productive way, because it does nothing to finish my book. So it is with a sigh, knowing that I must complete a task that I don't feel like doing, that I lay aside my 6B drawing pencil and instead pick up my pen/laptop to write something each day. It won't be inspired, but I hope by the end of February, it will be done.

No to resolutions—yes to goals

Resolutions, it seems, have become passé. I don't know about you, but the word resolution causes me to immediately conjure up the image of a ball and chain in my mind. Perhaps it is because resolutions are usually New Year's desires that are 99% likely to go unfulfilled that they are so distasteful. Anyway, I'm not resolving to do anything in 2012.

I find goals, however, to be another thing altogether. I like goals. They feel achievable, and this being January, there have been lots of writing websites with encouraging goal (and resolution) ideas. The first four are from DiYMFA (Do-It-Yourself Writing Degree), but I found other great articles through the Writers Knowledge Base. If you want more on writing goals (and even writing resolutions), you're much better off using their search engine created just to help you find articles on writing than you are trying to Google.

• Making Writing Resolutions Stick

• Turning Writing Resolutions into Reality

• What Are Your Writing Resolutions?

• Making the Most of Failure

Enjoy! 

: ) Beth