Toolbox

Today's Mood: a bit blue. Today's Music: hmm, I had it on mix earlier. Nothing now. (Although the damn furnace fan has a rattle that drives me crazy if I think about it.) Today's Writing: Revising 1st chapter of Free Lunch. Today's Quote: I should have one, but I am sitting in bed and really don't feel like getting up, stumbling down the stairs to get the book, and then climbing back up here again. So... just do it. (take that as you will)

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Delving further into Stephen King's book, On Writing, I continue to be intrigued. In a section he calls "Toolbox," he talks about the tools writers should carry with them at all times. And mentions the fact that most of them are things we already have. Let's think for a moment about the top level--vocabulary and grammar.

One of my best grammar lessons came from working with Tricia on my Black Dragon manuscript. She would read a section and get it back to me all marked up with purple ink. She crossed out the adverbs (those pesky ly words), and marked any passive tense. Often she suggested changes that when I read them, I thought "oh yeah, of course. Why didn't I see that?"

Now, as I start revising Free Lunch, I find I have incorporated her voice, those grammar lessons, into my head. Today I got rid of several adverbs (and Steve King would be especially proud of me for getting rid of the ly word in the dialog tag.), and made sure every word mattered.

Vocabulary I don't worry about a whole lot. I do try to make sure I am using words that fit my characters, and since I write about and for teenagers, every once and awhile I have to go back and change things. If it sounds like a mom (me) saying it, it's got to go.

One more point of note from my reading today. King talks about the paragraph being the building block even more than the sentence. The way the text looks on the page, the white space, the chunks of thought (my words, not his. His were more eloquent by far). I've seen some interesting things done with this in YA fiction. There is a book I read to my eighth graders called The Children's Story by James Clavell. It is a little book, but powerful. We read it to introduce a unit on Anne Frank and the Holocaust. In the book, there are full pages of text, as well as pages with a sentence, or even just a word or two. It is all about pacing and the impact of the words on the page.

So as I read Stephen King's advice about paragraphs, that is what comes to my mind. It makes me look at what I am writing in a different manner. Chunks of thought, not just words.

Life-support

Today's Mood: Relieved. Today's Music: Random mix--Sarah McLachlan at the moment. Today's Writing: this blog, a flyer for the summer retreat, and hopefully a bit of IFFY. Today's Quote: "Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." -Stephen King, On Writing.

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I am reading Stephen King's book, On Writing. I know, you're shocked I haven't read it sooner; it's only one of the most lauded books out there on writing. But you have to understand that while I think King is a gifted writer, I don't like his books. Because he is a good writer, his stuff stays in my head--forever--and I don't like that kind of stuff in my head. It makes me scared of the dark. It makes me afraid of vampire, aliens, and psychotic nurses as well. So I picked this up more as a "should read" than an "I want to read."

I LOVE this book. I hope it stays in my head as well as King's horror stories have because his advice on writing is wise. Funny how I find Steve King the writer so much more approachable than Stephen King the horror story teller. In this book, he comes across so approachable, so "I've been there." And he has; he's been all the same places (and then some) that I've been as a writer. Those best sellers didn't just appear. There was a lot of rejections first. And maybe best of all, he doesn't make it sound like it is any easier for him than it is for me. Granted, I only dream of going where he is now, but he makes it sound possible.

You'll be seeing more posts come out of this book, but in this post I want to ponder his first piece of advice about writing.

"Put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around." -Stephen King, On Writing

As I might have mentioned, my desk is tucked between the dryer and the cat litter box. So when I read this wisdom, I laughed, because all of a sudden it made sense. He's right. I do have to fit writing in between loads of laundry and taking care of the cat. I used to rail at that, wishing I had more time to write. Wishing I had a life that was more conducive to writing. Even wishing I had a more exciting, dangerous life just so I had more to write about. (Truth be told, I even thought about having another kid to provide more writing material--I mean, just look at how many people tune into Jon and Kate plus eight! But that very, very wrong, I know.)

My desk isn't in the center of the room, but King reminded me that it shouldn't be. Writing isn't my life; but it does support my life. It got me through depression, it got me through babies that didn't sleep, kids who threw up (occassionally on me), and my mom dying of cancer. I don't know what is going to come in the future, but I do know that writing will help me process it and deal with it. Writing helps me appreciate those moments of gold, the humor in situations that--at the time--seem world-shattering.

How about you? Where is your desk located?

Short Story

Today's Mood: Scattered. Today's Music: Love and Peace or Else by U2. Today's Writing: revision of An Artist's Parable. Today's Quote: Thomas A. Edison

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's
useless."

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Hey! I've written a short story. I didn't really intend to write a short story when I started it, but that is what it turned out to be--and here I said I didn't know how to write short stories! Of course, I still don't really feel like I know how to write short stories. I do better with the novel form and plenty of room for character change. Maybe I'm a slow learner when it comes to life, so I make my characters equally clueless. But I asked my small writing group yesterday if it fit the qualifications of a short story, and they thought it did. (and not a horrible one at that!)

My small group meeting was absolutely wonderful! What excellent writing! It was enlightening to hear such a variety of writing forms (poetry, personal essay, opinion piece, and short story) and then discuss them and analyze them with other writers. I love PW! For those of you not in a small writing group--you should get one. It is just as (if not more so) helpful to hear other people's writing as it is to have them discuss my writing. I learn so much about the craft of writing.

Which, by the way, reminds me that I have got to tell you about this book called Immediate Fiction by Jerry Cleaver. Great writing book! He talks about story and what it does for us as human being. Then he gives the example of how Michael Jordan (in some interview or another) talks about how when things are going well, the team just plays basketball. But, when there is a hint of trouble, they immediately fall back on "the plan"--which is certain positions and moves. Jerry Cleaver took that example and talked about how writers need a basic plan so that when things aren't working, they can go back to the basics and gets things working again. That is the writer's craft. Then he proceeds to share the basics--want, obstacle, action, resolution, showing and emotion. That's it--just those six things. What does your character want? (and it must be something that if the character doesn't get, he/she will not go on unchanged) What is preventing him/her from getting that want met? What does he/she do about it? (action) and how is it resolved? You must Show this (real-time) rather than just tell us about it. And you need to expose the emotion of the characters--so that the readers can identify with the character and therefore with themselves.

Granted, this may all be stuff you have heard before. For me, it was said (well, the book said it in such a way--not me) in such as way that I really GOT it. I mean, I know what plot is--sorta. I get the arc of beginning, rising action, climax, falling action.... But this put it in a much more accessible way (in my opinion).

Anyway, if you are looking for a writing book that gives very concrete (and not overwhelming or too strict and narrow) ways of making your writing better--give Immediate Fiction a try.

I'll bring it with me to Glen Lake in June if anyone wants to borrow.

Speaking of which--only 51 more days!

Writing Books--Inspiration or Distraction?

Today's Mood: Inspired (I hope). Today's Music: U2 at the moment (I haven't settled yet) Today's Writing: Endless possibilities (I've got 8 hours to write today) Today's Quote:

And your main obsessions have power; they are what you will come back to in your
writing over and over again. .... They probably take over your life whether you
want them to or not, so you ought to get them to work for you. - Natalie
Goldberg

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I'm reading Natalie Goldberg's book Writing Down the Bones. It makes me laugh in spots--she has a section on obsessions and talks about writing as an obsession for some people. She talks about writers who always think they should be writing no matter what else they might be doing--ha! I can relate to that. And writers who drink or eat too much chocolate (me) are doing it not because they are writers, but because they are writers who are not writing. And obsession twisted into something else.

On the whole, I enjoy reading books about writing. I ordered Heather Seller's latest writing book--Chapter after Chapter. But I found it interesting that when I talked to another writer about Sellers other book Page by Page, she didn't like it--and at first I felt the same way. Because Heather's writing style isn't mine. I'm not going to start writing by hand. I'm not going to draw little circles when I get stuck (I eat chocolate instead--or take a shower if I can). But in the end, I found if I take the stuff that does work and add it to my mix, it works.
When I was new at writing, it freaked me out. I felt like I had to do it (writing that is) a certain way. What I have learned from reading and attending writing conferences and small writing groups--and most of all just by writing--is that there are as many different ways to write as there are writers. I've started to do the teacher inservice rule (works for church sermons too)--if I get one good idea from it, then it's worth it. Granted, if I buy the book, I'm hoping for more than one idea. (I'm a librarian--go to your library and rent it free, then at least it doesn't cost you cold hard cash if it sucks.)

So, having said all that, any of you have a great writing book to recommend? Heather Sellers book Page by Page is inspiring to new writers (In my opinion) I love Anne Lamont's Bird by Bird. So far I'm enjoying Writing Down the Bones (I find it makes me inspired to write every day) And I have to admit I have a librarian's obsession with owning books, so I also have Story Structure Architect (kind of freaks me out because I'm still not sure about the whole plot thing--I just want to tell the story), Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Plot and Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Scenes, Immediate Fiction (haven't read it yet), Definitive Book of Body Language, Sometime the Magic Works (Terry Brooks), Character Naming, Character Traits (still waiting for that one to show up in the mail), Talk the Talk (another I'm waiting for), and of course, The Writer's Market.

I agree with Seller's on one thing for sure: writing means sitting down and writing--not reading about writing. I made the rule that I can only read about writing outside my writing time. (Incidentally, I've had to do the same thing with character profiling. I was starting to spend more time drawing and profiling my characters than actually writing!)

Happy writing!