Learning to Part with Your Words

This has been a craaaazy month!

First, I became an uncle (for the first time) to the most beautiful niece in the world. She's tiny and adorable, and the first time I held her, she peed all over me, and I even thought THAT was adorable.

Second, I moved last weekend. And that was tough. I'd been in my old apartment for two years, and I accumulated a ton of stuff. I had to pack in 100 degree, 100% humid weather. And then moving day was a never-ending nightmare in itself filled with multiple cargo van trips from old place to new place. By the middle of the day, I was exhausted, my arms sore -- and I still had another truckload! While I was schlepping my cargo back and forth, I kept saying "Why do I have all of this crap?" Seriously. I'm not a hoarder. I think I have a normal level of possessions for someone my age. But why did it feel like somuch and so unnecessary? I began throwing out and donating old stuff -- clothes, DVDs, books, random items that once had sentimental value, but were now crap. I took no prisoners. I refused to buy into my self-rationalization that yes, I would wear this shirt again.

Moving felt a lot like editing. There are plenty of places to cut from when we edit. We accumulate "junk" over the first and second drafts -- unresolved subplots, minor characters that serve no purpose, scenes that are now unessential. I found different types of items I had to throw out in my move, just like there are different kinds of edits:

The easy stuff: When going through my apartment, I found plenty of easy choices of junk to toss. Shirts with holes in them. Pencaps with no pens. This is the fun, easy part of editing. I could already think of three things I would cut from a draft before I even finished it. No problem. Editing will be easy.

The wishywashy stuff: These are things in my apartment that I knew I had to throw out, but I had to give myself a little push. I was still a bit hesitant. Yes, they were goners, but I had to defend them. I owned a pair of dusty, moldy slippers. Gross, but comfortable. I've owned the same bedsheets for 10 years. Their color and comfort level faded some time ago. Buh bye. In editing, we refer to this as Killing Your Darlings: the easy version. Yes, there are scenes or characters or couplets of dialogue that you LOVE. But they don't fit your story anymore. Most times, the scenes that I first think of, that ignite a story idea within me, are usually the ones that get cut. But I'm not too sad about it, because even though I love them, I know it's for the best.

The difficult stuff:  I throw out/gave away things that I loved, things that weren't too old or too dirty. I had nice slacks that were too big on me now, a pair of leather shoes I bought in Spain, a dining room table in great condition. But in the end, the slacks didn't fit anymore, the shoes weren't comfortable, and I got a new, nicer table. In short, I moved on. I'm not the same person I was when I got those things. I can't be one of those people who holds onto every thing I've ever owned. When I edit, I've had to cut sections I loved, parts that had no discrenible problems, per se. But the book I was writing when I wrote those passages was not the same book I ended with. My story developed, changed, and I couldn't bring along every word. You can't get tied permanently to what you write. You have to be strong enough and confident enough in your hard edit choices. I figure that if I wrote something great in the past, I can do it again in the future, or else I have no business being a writer.

Writing is Work - Not Pleasure

Happy June! I hope you all are enjoying some of the longest days of the year. It's been light out until 9 p.m. here recently!

I am nine days a week late, but I hit my 1-year blogversary! I can't believe it's been a year of blogging, and I'm proud of myself for keeping up a somewhat consistent pace. I give credit to the prolific bloggers out there who generate content multiple times a week. Expanding your network. Coming up with post ideas. Blogging's hard work! And so is writing.

Over the past few weeks, I've been changing my attitude towards writing. Maybe it's an attitude I've always had but have tucked away, not wanting to admit. I realized that writing is work -- hard work -- and not pleasure. It's not meant to be fun. And that's where I think many aspiring writers stumble.

Some people who are interested in writing think of it as a fun side hobby, a creative release in their lives. They look forward to that time of day when they can sit down and write. But when they do get to writing, and are blocked or the words aren't flowing, they give up. That's because they have the wrong mindset. When you want to do something for pleasure, you don't expect it to be hard. Reading, watching TV, going to the beach. There's nothing difficult in those hobbies. Writing can be difficult, and it can catch people off guard. More intense hobbies like playing an instrument, arts and crafts projects, or crossword puzzles may require extra effort, but they don't have stakes. It's still low stress level. Most people aren't practicing guitar to try to snag a record deal. They aren't beading necklaces in order to start their own jewelry line. These are generalizations, but there are less people doing those hobbies with professional aspirations than there are writers who have hopes of book deals.

When I sit down to write, I have to remind myself that this may not be fun, especially when I edit. I need to stop setting up false expectations for myself that writing will always be a pleasurable escape. I am working, just like I would be at my job. Of course I enjoy writing or else I wouldn't stick with it, but that doesn't mean it will be fun all the time. It's just like any job. There are good days and bad days, but if you have a frustrating day at work, you aren't going to skip the rest of the week. You slug through it. The fun high of writing can wear off when you are deep into a project everyday. So now when I make time to write, I know that it's for work, not pleasure. I'm not duping myself any longer. It will be tough. It will be frustrating. But like anything that requires hard work, it will ultimately be rewarding.

What is your attitude when you approach writing?

Let's Write Crap!

Two weeks ago, I didn't do much writing of any kind. Not even blogging. I barely rewrote one chapter of my WIP. I would think about said chapter, make notes about said chapter, but when it came time to rewrite said chapter, barely anything came out. I rewrote it in fits and starts, deleting chunks and redoing it, inching my way through the chapter. Until Saturday, when I decided to go ahead and write crap.

Writing crap felt wonderful! I crapped my way through it. I knew what I was writing wasn't great, but writing crap is better than not writing at all.

-It provides a base. You can always revise crap; you can't revise a blank page.

-It illuminated bigger problems. There's a reason I couldn't make my way through this chapter and instead wrote crap. If the scene is set up well, with conflict and reversals and clear motivations, then I shouldn't have had such an issue. I will address my crap on my next round of revisions. Noted. No more dragging my feet. Now I can move on and finish my draft.

-Maybe it wasn't crap after all. Upon rereading, my crap wasn't as crappy as I thought. At first, it was bad, but then the crap gave way to semi-decent writing. It's not my best chapter, but that's primarily because of the bigger problems mentioned in point #2. The actual words aren't an abomination to the English language. That's good to know.


So next time, when I'm sinking into procrastination mode, I just have to tell myself to charge ahead and write some crap.

In Defense of Katy Perry...and Revising

This week, two famous women reinforced two important facts for me:

1) I have a new article posted at In Our Words Blog. ch ch check it out!


In Defense of Katy Perry

When doing my research for this article, I discovered that Perry's been kicking around since 2001, but she didn't hit it big with "I Kissed a Girl" until 2008. In that time, she was signed and dropped by two record labels. She recorded an album with one of the biggest music producers, which then got shelved. So people may not be a fan of her music, but nobody can claim she doesn't work hard. She's been at it for 11 years! It just goes to show that there is no such thing as an overnight success. Everyone pays his/her dues.



2) On Tuesday night, I went to a book signing and reading from author Carol Anshaw for her new novel Carry the One. The book sounds amazing -- and they served cupcakes! During the Q&A, I asked her if she is a plotter or a pantser. I called it a fly-by-the-seats-of-your-pantser, in case she wasn't up to date on the lingo. She said she does do outlines, but she mostly considers herself a Reviser. Before my question, someone else had asked how long it took her to write the book. She said she spent as much time revising as she did actually writing. Anshaw is a big proponent of revising, and it's nice knowing that great books don't just fall out of the sky. Aspiring author, published author. Doesn't matter. Everyone revises.

Update: Revisions, AWP, Books, and Remembering Your Nose

Happy Friday!

I'm looking forward to the weekend. The AWP (Association of Writers Programs) conference is going on in Chicago through Sunday. Professors, students, and alumni of MFA writing programs are flocking to the city to mix and mingle. There are a slew of readings happening in bookstores, coffee shops, and bars. I went to a poetry reading on Wednesday night. To be honest, poetry is not my forte, but I still enjoyed being around other writers. I'm planning to go a fiction reading sometime this weekend. Since we spend so much of our time alone staring at a screen, it's nice to meet other pale, socially awkward writers in person. Their schedule can be found here.

I've also been revising every single day this week. I'm not hitting my chapter-per-day goal, but I'm still proud of myself for keeping up this daily pace. I thought I would dread revisions, but I quite enjoy having a base to go off of.

In my descriptions, I've been adding more sensory images, especially smell. We take smell for granted, opting to use visual and tactile description. But people have a strong attachment to their sense of smell. You can evoke a feeling or memory or setting quickly and effectively with sense of smell. You see, the sense of smell is our only sense that's connected directly to our brain, making them more vivid. The sensations don't have to be transmitted and translated like they do with the other four senses. That's why when I smell Cool Water on a guy, I'm instantly taken back to 7th grade sitting in front of this kid Jason who poured it on. Whereas if I see an old picture of him, it would take a little more thinking to picture the classroom. Try to intersperse some olfactory descriptions into your WIP. If you have a minor character, maybe you don't want to spend time describing his/her appearance, giving your reader yet another person to remember. Instead, describe how they smell and distringuish said character immediately.

In book news, I lent my copy of Small Town Sinners to a friend who's a youth minister. She loved it! She really appreciated how the protagonist questions her faith, how organic her development felt, and how the book doesn't put down religion. She's going to recommend it to her kids. I love when people love books I recommend. It's like a job well done...I'm currently reading Stephen McCauley's The Object of My Affection. Yes, I'm breaking my rule about reading the book after seeing the movie. And yes, I keep picturing Jennifer Aniston as the main character, even though in the book she is very different and not as glamourous. But I am enjoying the novel, especially its datedness. (It was written in 1985) The main characters are debating whether to invest in an answering machine. At least it's not a pay phone.







 How is your writing coming along? Any fun weekend plans?

Writing YA for Dummies

Happy Presidents Day!

I'm taking full advantage of my day off by starting the second draft of my WIP. After receiving feedback from my writer's group, letting it marinate for a few weeks, and then reworking my story to fix plot and character problems, I am ready to go! My banana cream pie-in-the-sky goal is to revise 1 chapter/day. A more realistic goal might be 1 chapter every 2-3 days. I'm aiming to finish draft #2 by May 1. (If only I didn't have a full-time job that's in its busy season currently...) I know -- I shouldn't set such firm goals in a public forum where I can be judged held accountable. But I'm hoping this spurs me on to finish in time. How long has it taken you to finish a second (or third or fourth) draft?

An unlikely tool in getting me psyched up for revisions is Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies by Deborah Halverson. My friend gave this to me for Hanukkah, and I let it collect dust all through January. When I decided to read it one morning on the train, I was hooked. I had never read a writing advice guidebook for novels. I figured I knew how to write a story from studying screenwriting in college and from reading lots of books. YA for Dummies didn't teach me new tricks; rather, it helped clarify parts of writing I thought I knew. I had about five epiphanies about my book after reading this.

My biggest takeaway from YA for Dummies was how to write a theme and weave it into my story. The theme is the central idea in your novel. In screenwriting, they call it the controlling idea. In Robert McKee's book Story (a must-read for any screenwriter), he says that Paddy Chayefsky, writer of Network, would keep his controlling idea next to him while he wrote. That way, he could make sure everything he wrote stuck to that theme. After I wrote my first draft, I couldn't state my theme in one sentence. I had about 3 themes garbled together. With draft #2, I've streamlined, and my story feels much clearer and focused. Halverson includes a theme-building exercise in the book, which at first I scoffed at, but came to find helpful.

I recommend picking up this book, or at least flipping through it at Barnes & Noble. Unlike Story, it's written in a nuts-and-bolts fashion, which I can appreciate. Just the facts ma'am. No matter how much you know, you're bound to learn something new. I haven't read other how-to books like Save the Cat or Writing the Break Out Novel. Have you? Thoughts?

Finally, a random comment on a YA book I'm currently reading. Said novel was published last year and takes place in present day. In one scene, the protagonist is searching for a quarter to use a pay phone, and then her friend takes her to a record store. The record store part I will let slide...barely.

But who still uses a pay phone? And they sure doesn't cost a quarter anymore.

I live in Chicago, and I've only seen maybe 2 pay phones. I doubt suburbs have them anymore. Most teens today have never and will never use a pay phone. They carry cell phones. If they don't, they would ask a stranger to borrow one before thinking to use a pay phone. That small detail pulled me out of the story for a moment. So for those of you writing contemporary, leave out the pay phones. I know people are wary about writing in technology that could be outdated in a year. But trust me, cell phones aren't going anywhere.

I'm a Storyteller!

Last Thursday, I made my debut as a storyteller in Chicago. And I'm still on kind of a high about it.

The storytelling artform is comprised of people getting up in front of others and reading a 5-10 minute non-fiction story about something in their lives. Think along the lines of David Sedaris's personal essays in Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked, etc. There are a smattering of monthly storytelling events at bars around the city. I've had a few friends read their essays, and a part of me always wanted to do it. And since 2012 is the year I'm doing stuff instead of just talking about it, I quickly wrote a story and got to perform it in front of an audience. I was so nervous! But hearing the audience laugh, getting that instant feedback, was exhilarating.

The Phil of 2011 would have said he was going to write a story sometime that year. He would've thought about it, thought about it, put it aside, forgot about it, come back to it, thought about it some more, and then another year would've gone by. (Forgive the 3rd person usage) But one of the resolutions I made to myself was to get my work out there. Don't sit on it. Don't wait too long. Don't obsess about making my work perfect. I wrote this thing in a week, and it may not have been perfect, but I'm proud of it, and proud of myself for getting out there.

I hope you all do the same. Don't hoard your material, fearing rejection like I used to. Also, I recommend reading your writing aloud -- to strangers or just to yourself. It's an unexpectedly nifty revising tool!

Storytelling!

Do's and Don'ts of Accepting Feedback

Greetings, Bloggerinos!

I wrote this post from 35,000 feet in the air. Last week, I was in Florida visiting the folks and lounging in the sun. Considering I left Chicago in the middle of a snowstorm and 14-degree weather, the trip couldn’t have come at a better time. In between tanning, eating, and swimming, I made some time to begin revisions on my WIP. The week before, I had met with my writer’s group who critiqued the first draft. I’ve been on both sides of that discussion, and every time, it’s still nerve-wracking. Here we are, giving our prized work, drafts that we spent countless hours perfecting, to others to rip apart. Receiving feedback is never easy, and from my experiences, I’ve learned some Do and Don’ts to surviving critiques.

DO seek criticism, not validation. Sitting around and talking about how much readers loved your draft makes for a great night, but an awful critique session. Some of your readers may be close friends and family who don’t want to hurt your feelings, and so they will only tell you nice things. Don’t let them. Hearing the good won’t get you to pinpoint the bad. If you are only seeking compliments from your writer’s group, then you aren’t letting them do their job. You wrote an entire book. That’s validation enough. When you are talking with critique partners/beta readers, get to the problem areas. You can save the backslapping for the end.

DON’T defend your book against criticism. In an old writer’s group, one of the writers would always jump to her book’s defense if you ever brought up a trouble spot. “No, you don’t understand.” Or “I made that clear in this section.” She had an answer for everything. It’s commonplace to get defensive or frustrated when a reader gives you criticism you disagree with. But resist the urge to come back with an answer. Don’t talk. Listen. If someone didn’t understand a plot point you thought was crystal clear, then guess what – he or she won’t be the only one. You can’t sit next to every reader who buys your book and answer their questions. Find out why your group was confused; don’t dismiss any feedback.

DO ask open-ended questions.  You need to let the criticism flow naturally. Let them bring up issues you never realized.  When you ask a leading question, it skews the feedback. Let’s say you’re worried that your MC doesn’t have a strong enough motivation in X Scene. Don’t ask the group “Was the motivation strong enough in X Scene? Could it be clearer?” That will instantly taint your readers’ feedback. You’re coercing them into giving you the answer you want, not the one they have. Maybe the readers thought that scene was fine as it is. Instead, ask “What did you think of X Scene?” Use open-ended questions as much as possible. If you are resorting to using such leading questions, then all you are seeking is confirmation of a problem you already know exists.

DON’T take it personally. Our books are an extension of us, plain and simple. Someone not liking our book feels like someone not liking us. We will always feel this twinge when we hear negative feedback. But don’t take it personally. Make sure your critiquers are people you trust, so you always knows what they say is coming from a positive place. To paraphrase Meg Cabot, your book is not a $100 bill. Not everyone’s going to like it.

What are some do’s and don’t’s you have whenever giving or receiving criticism?