The Power of “Could” Over “Should” For a Writer

April 5, 2013 at 10:24 am (Uncategorized)
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Monkey-typing

This past week I’ve been on vacation, at home, but I’ve got diddley squat to show for it in terms of writing and editing. 

My plan was to edit the first fifty pages of Biomalware then go back and start a total re-write.

Then I got an idea for a new short story. 

Then the short story turned into a novel idea.

Then I made a list of all the short stories that I’ve started on my computer and never finished.

Then I made peanut butter chocolate chip muffins with my daughter.  (She did the stirring.  Well, some of it.  She’s only 2 1/2.)

And did a few Soduko puzzles.

There were other things in there but you get the idea.  Not much writing or editing.  Part of the problem is that I think about what I “should” do and my brain balks like a mule.

So, I’m going back to an old idea I learned years ago, turning “should” into “could.”  Instead of telling myself I should be editing Biomalware or working on a short story, I tell myself I could edit or pick a story to work on.  For some reason my brain just hears it differently and I don’t get the malaise that I get when I tell myself I “should” do something.  Hopefully that will help me getting some writing or editing done over the next three days, before I go back to work.

I did manage to post a new short story to Yahoo!, Memories and Choices.  I originally submitted it to the Writer’s Digest short short story contest but it didn’t win so I’ve put it out there for the reading.  It’s a bit of science fiction, magical realism and fan fic.

I understand there’s a Camp NaNoWriMo running this month.  They can be great for motivation but I won’t be participating this month.  I’m trying to focus on quality over quantity right now.

Happy Writing!

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The Glimmer of Hope

March 1, 2013 at 12:41 pm (Uncategorized)
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It’s been a long week and I’m so frazzled from the process of trying to rewrite, revise and edit the summary and first fifty pages of Biomalware before tonight’s deadline that I’m not entirely sure why I’m doing this anymore. I want chocolate… and a nap.

After I submit Biomalware to the James Jones Fellowship contest tonight, I’m going to take the weekend away from it. I have some reading and commenting to do for others and the house is in a state of disgrace that only some heavy duty cleaning and elbow grease will elevate it from.

I’ll need to get back into it fairly soon and revise then edit the next fifty pages so that if the Fellowship competition should call for them, they will be ready.

I’m seriously thinking about creating just an outline for the book and going back to reimagine each scene and write it fresh with all the details then combine the best of the two versions I have. I think I probably will. That would allow me to come at it from two different writing directions. It will also give me time to research the GMO question and take Sam through the research process more in the book.

Oh, and to cap off my wonderful mood yesterday, I got my rejection e-mail from the Writer’s Digest Short Short Story Contest. Guess I’ll be submitting that story to Yahoo! Voices this weekend. I doubt it will get much interest because they aren’t really featuring new stuff these days but at least it will be out there. I really liked it though it’s a bit unusual, a bit of magical realism, so hopefully someone else will enjoy it too.

I write because I like to write and to connect with others. I would really like to be writing novels and short stories for a living. I often refer to it as living the dream.

New York State came up with an ad campaign a few years back for their lottery tickets that said “you can’t win if you don’t play.” Now they more often go with “Hey, you never know.” Both sum up how I feel about submitting my work to contests and for publication. It’s a long shot but there’s that glimmer of hope that keeps me persevering. I know I want to write for a living and I know it’s a long shot but I know it’s certainly not going to happen if I don’t submit what I’ve written. I’d write even if no one ever read it but it’s so much more fun to share what I’ve written.

So, I have my lunch hour today and what time my 2 year old will allow me after work to continue revising and editing the excerpt from Biomalware before I submit it competition. On the one hand, I know there is so much more I could do to it, and will in the future. On the other hand, I promised myself that I was going to submit to this contest and I really feel compelled to at least put it out there. Maybe I could get an honorable mention for the ideas, if not the execution.

Hey, you never know.

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Exploring and Reflecting Through Writing

December 28, 2012 at 1:04 pm (Uncategorized)
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OrteliusWorldMap

Last week I met with my writer’s group and they gave me some food for thought about my writing.

Because there were so few of us and we didn’t have much new to share, I read a few things I’d written in the past year and put on my Yahoo! Voices page.  One member told me that she thought, “people like your writing because you’re so honest.”  Another member mentioned that he felt I hold back in reading to the group.  He’s right, it’s much harder to read things for people face to face than what I post under the slight anonymity of a pen name.  Both comments drew me to think about the honesty in my writing.

Honest is something I certainly try to be in life.  In my writing it has to do with seeking the truth of the situation, whether it’s fiction or memoir.  I think that the more honest I am about events and my feelings, the more someone else can connect with it and use the experience.  I’ve always wanted to help people with my writing, if only to feel less alone.  I think the connection that writing and reading can bring, dispelling the illusion of our distance and loneliness, could be one of my most important contributions.  It’s all about the ripples.

I write for others, but even more so, I write for myself.  I explore ideas and situations, exorcise demons.  I particularly love end of the year writing – getting some last licks in before the year changes over.  There’s something reflective and magical about it.  It’s full of anticipation and potential energy.  We may reflect on the past year, think about where we want to go and chart a course.

I’ve definitely been thinking about the novel I want to finish.  I see it going through a lot of changes, giving it layers and depth.  I’m anticipating the day when I feel it’s ready to strike out on it’s own, to present it to people for the reading.

I’m excited about writing in the coming year.  Are you?

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Writing Goals Met and Voided

December 21, 2012 at 4:25 pm (Uncategorized)
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Did I blink?  The Weeping Angels didn’t get me but the year sure went by in a flash and here we are at the end.  It’s funny, in looking back over my writing blog and my Yahoo! Contributor Network page, I can see that I haven’t been sitting still.  I’ve accomplished a good little bit.  (I put up 9 new pieces just this month!)  I “won” Camp NaNoWriMo and National Novel Writing Month by writing over 50,000 words a month in August and November.  But it’s largely not the things I put on my “Writing Goals” list last December.

Was I distracted?  Perhaps, but perhaps I was taking advantage of opportunities.  There are things I really wish I had done so I will have to carry them over to my list for this year.  This past year has also brought some clarity about what I want to do with my writing so there are some things I will take off the list.  Here’s what I wrote last year for goals –

  1. Read Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and use ideas in writing and editing.
  2. Edit middle grade mystery novel.
  3. Write more and edit mainstream novel.
  4. Show both books to writer’s group for feedback.
  5. Choose agents and editors to submit to.
  6. Keep track of expenses. (Treat writing as a business.)
  7. Write an essay monthly and submit it to the Yahoo Contributor Network.
  8. Write an entry weekly for Melora Johnson’s Muse.
  9. Write an entry weekly for http://storymusing.blogspot.com.
  10. Write short stories as ideas come up.
  11. Read, read, read
  12. Consider paying for a professional copy editor to give me feedback
  13. Keep submitting.

#1 – I did read it and I think I incorporated some aspects into my writing.  It was very informative.

#2 – Nope.  Now, I don’t think I will at this point.  Children’s Lit just isn’t where I want to put my efforts at this point in my writing career.

#3 – I’ve definitely written a lot more in 2012 than in 2011 and I did write most of Biomalware.  I just need to finish it and then edit, edit, edit.

#4 – Kinda.  I did share a lot with the writer’s group but didn’t finish the novel so I didn’t show it to them.

#5 – I still have an agency in mind to submit to first..

#6 – No, I didn’t keep track of expenses.  We’ll see what tax season does to me.  I did make enough from Yahoo! that I’ll have to declare it so I’m just hoping I won’t have to start paying quarterly taxes.

#7 – Well, I can’t say I submitted something every single month, but I submitted so many in some months, that I added about 50 pieces of writing this year.  I’d call that solid work.

#8 – There were a few weeks I skipped but I did add an entry most weeks.

#9 – Ditto for #9.

#10 – Yep, I wrote several short stories this year and submitted some to contests and online.

#11 – Well, definitely not as much reading as I would have liked but I did spend more time listening to books on CD in the car this year and that has been fun.  I’m reading the latest Harry Dresden novel by Jim Butcher in hard copy right now and loving it.

#12 – Yes and no.  I have been submitting, just not a novel yet.

I think my overarching goals this year were to write regularly and to make some money off my writing.  I definitely accomplished that.  In 2013 I will finish Biomalware and start submitting it.  I’m just not sure how long that’s going to take.  Eventually, I’d like to say I WILL make a living at my writing but I’m afraid I’m still at HOPE right now.

What were your goals this year?  Did you accomplish them all or in part?  What are your goals for your writing next year?

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Ready for a Nap but Still Writing

December 7, 2012 at 6:52 pm (Uncategorized)
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We had a writer’s group meeting this week and there was a lot of theoretical what if-ing going on, always fun. We had two people returning or new to our group that night. It’s interesting how shifting membership of a group can bring different things to the table and fresh energy.

I continue to urge people to find or start a writer’s group. Even if you don’t all write the same style or genre, you can help each other. Some people will say, “well, I don’t write that type of writing so how can I offer anything useful?” Most often, people can pick out what doesn’t sound right and, with practice, they can say why it doesn’t sound right. I’ve heard it called beta reading instead of editing. It is still very useful to a writer.

Our group read one of the short stories I had created during NaNoWriMo and gave me some feedback so I can finish it up then offer it to Yahoo! Voices. For a prompt, I had a note to myself to start a story with someone walking into an elevator and saying, “I know you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here today.”

It turned out the person had four envelopes for the people in the elevator telling them to be at a certain place that night. I was a little surprised where it went, sort of playing on my enjoyment of mystery and the unexplained in life. One of my favorite thoughts from the Doctor Who series is when The Doctor, as played by Tom Baker, says, “Nothing is inexplicable, only unexplained.” And yet, so much can remain unexplained for our entire lives, even generations. This story plays with that notion.

I’ve picked up several very short writing assignments from Yahoo! since NaNo ended and enjoyed writing them, both because I enjoy the challenge of writing something of interest in a very short form, and because it really helps my motivation to simply finish something. (You can see my latest at http://contributor.yahoo.com/user/1202123/melora_johnson.html )

I’m trying to combat the down time after NaNoWriMo where I don’t particularly feel like working on the project I started during November. I’ve got so much I started that I still need to work on but I’m taking it one piece at a time.

One of these days, I’m just going to take a nap.

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Give Yourself Some Writing Credit

November 23, 2012 at 11:54 am (Uncategorized)
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Taken by Bohringer Friedrich

So often, we think about all that we have yet to do or that we should be doing, but I’d like to take a moment to focus on all we do get done as writers, usually with schedules that are already full of living.

 Last week a coworker sent me a link to Pen Parentis (http://www.penparentis.org) an organization set up specifically for writers who are also parents.  There are dues to pay but you receive certain benefits by being a member, like being part of a community of writers who understand your challenges as a writing parent, savings on application fees for certain contest and fellowship application fees from Pen Parentis partners, an author profile, marketing space, promotion of your literary events on the events calendar and a Pen Parentis logo that you can use on your web site or e-stationary.

 Anyway, it got me thinking that, you know, I’m doing pretty darn good at this writing thing. I am a parent of a small child, I commute an hour each way and work a full-time job. I still write, even participating in National Novel Writing Month where I wrote over 50,000 words in August during Camp NaNoWriMo and hope to do so again this month. I’ve published things on Yahoo! Voices and earned actual money from it, as well as entering various contests.

 Of course, all this writing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. My job is a tremendous help. Not only am I librarian, surrounded by books in a moderately large library, but I run an adult writing group there, sanctioned and originally requested by the library. My director is tremendously supportive of my writing endeavors too. When I had two pieces featured on Yahoo! Voices, she celebrated by giving me a ticket to a local charity fashion event.

 Then there is my family, friends and past school teachers. I’ve never been laughed at or scoffed at but rather supported in my writing. I remember each of my English teachers in high school being supportive in some way.  I remember going to a reading with some students from one of my English classes in high school. I thoroughly enjoyed it and when we left I said that I really liked one particular story and wished I could write like that. My English teacher looked at me and said, “You write better than that.” I never forgot that.

 Last, and perhaps most importantly, my husband is very supportive of my writing – verbally, actively and financially. He listens to me talk about stories that I’m writing with interest and when he knows I’m working hard on a piece he will do extra chores around the house, like emptying the dishwasher when it’s not his turn. The laptop that I’m writing on right now, plus the voice activated digital recorder and the Dragon NaturallySpeaking software that I use were all bought for me by him.

 No, all the roadblocks in my way have been of my own creating which creates a little bit of guilt. I love to write and hope to one day write for a living. Now I have to prove that is what I want by writing and submitting finished pieces. I could kick myself for not moving toward my goals faster, but as the song by Jason Mraz says, “I’m letting myself off the hook for the things I’ve done/ I let my past go past/ and now I’m having more fun.”  We need to start giving ourselves credit for all we do accomplish and enjoy writing. Who’s with me?

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The Writing Future is Becoming Clearer

September 3, 2012 at 11:03 am (Uncategorized)
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I spent a large part of my free time in August (which is minimal at best ) drafting my novel, Biomalware, for Camp NaNoWriMo.  It was a challenge, painful at times, depressing and exhilarating.  I suffered from a bit of writer’s block in the “great swampy middle” as Jim Butcher calls it, and had to rush toward the end.  I didn’t really think I’d complete the story arc but somehow it came together.  It’s exciting to be this far along with it after only a month. 

I started with a short story about a man, a widowed single dad, who takes his two year old daughter to the doctor’s because she seems to get sick most of the time after eating.  The doctor diagnoses a new form of IBS but the nurse slips him a note suggesting that something else is happening.  It turns out that a new line of genetically modified food is making her sick.  As I worked on the book, unexpected events suggested themselves.  We had a natural gas explosion that destroyed a house in town and it fit into my story perfectly.  It also turned out that making people sick was not all the food was doing.

There’s a lot to do yet though.  I’ve completed the story arc but it’s pretty skimpy in a lot of places.  Before I started, I was planning to add another 50,000 words to the novel in September to finish it but now I think I’ll focus on editing and rewriting to add material.  (I still have a little research to do in order to make sure it all makes sense.)  I hope to end up closer to 80,000 words. 

In October, I’ll hand the novel off to my writer’s group for feedback, hoping they’ll have time.  That should help me focus it a little better, and maybe expand more.  I’ll also recruit some other beta readers from family and friends to give me feedback.

November gets a little tricky.  I’ll still have a editing to do but I’d like to finish Devolution for National Novel Writing Month in November.  I started that some time ago and have released two parts of it on Yahoo! Voices.  Planning for that will also fill some of my writing time in October.

I have the first agent picked out to submit Biomalware to and I plan to submit in December.  It was kind of funny, I knew what agency I wanted to submit to and the latest Writer’s Digest had a list of twenty-five agents accepting new work.  Two of them were from this agency and one listed science fiction. 

Today I’m hoping to take out all the portions of the manuscript that I knew I didn’t want to keep but left in to reach my word count for Camp NaNoWriMo.  I’ll take them out and put them in a separate document so that I still have them to refer to, and in case I decide I do want some portion of them.

It’s turning into an exciting year for writing.  The future I envision, of writing for a living, just seems to become more clear as I work.

 

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Disappointment? Maybe

June 11, 2012 at 8:17 pm (Uncategorized)
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Well, I finally recieved the e-mail from the New York Foundation for the Arts.  I did not qualify for a Fellowship this year.  Oddly, I’m not that disappointed.  I’m not sure if that’s because I knew it was a long shot (but worth it at $7,000.00!) or because things have been going pretty well with Yahoo! Voices.  (Though not nearly to the tune of $7,000.00.)  Maybe I’ll be more disappointed tomorrow, or maybe I’ll just get on with writing some more.

I had a busy weekend, submitting various pieces of writing to Yahoo! Voices.  My latest one just posted.  It’s actually an essay that has taken me over a year to write, about the night a tiny tornado waltzed through our yard and sideswiped us.  I was home alone with the baby.  Funny how you run on instinct when something like that happens. I called it 27 Minutes, though maybe I should have called it The Tiny Tornado That Waltzed Through My Yard.

I started that essay about five times but never quite finished it.  It’s not very long so all I can say is that my brain resisted it.  I suppose that’s natural when you are writing about a traumatic experience.  I still get very nervous when it storms in the evening.  I’m not sure if that will ever go away.  Writing is supposed to be therapeutic, and I suppose it can be, but I don’t think this has helped me that much.  I think time has done the most good.  Still, I’m oddly proud that I finally got it out and done.  My writer’s group suggested marketing it to many different venues but I felt like I just needed to be done with it.  So, there it is.  Maybe some people will find it interesting.

6/12 – Okay, a little more disappointed today.  Things to do though.  Best to just keep moving along.

Here’s a pic from the next morning.

27 Minutes Pic

Carriage house roof lying on garage and my car.

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Editing and The End of the Line

June 8, 2012 at 12:16 pm (Uncategorized)
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Well, it’s been a great run but it had to end sometime. Yahoo! Voices has updated their top spots. Devolution: The Beginning garnered 279,448 views and my villanelle, Regrets: A Confessional Villanelle, received 56,639 views before Yahoo! booted them out of the top spots on their Creating Writing page. 
 
I received some really nice comments in the process, as well.  One person said the villanelle was “deep and powerful” while another said the last stanza was “epic.”  Personally, all I could think was how tortuous it was to write!  I had the idea immediately but it took me three weeks to tweak it into form.  I’m really glad people liked it.  Someone called the beginning of Devolution “gripping.”  I hope they will be back to look for more.
 
I do wonder though, how many people really liked it, or at least derived some modicum of entertainment from it, since I don’t see that people shared it on Facebook.  Perhaps they copied and posted the link.  Very hard to tell.  This is where you just have to write for yourself and hope other people enjoy it too.
 
Devolution started as a novel.  Since it was sitting on the hard drive of my laptop, not going anywhere, I decided to pull a story out of it when Yahoo! Voices asked for a short story of the science fiction persuasion.  I had already done a lot of editing on it, following advice about getting things off to a fast start, so it wasn’t too difficult. 
 
Last night I pulled another story out of it.  I’m looking at it as linked short stories, sort of a serialization in the tradition of Charles Dickens.  It feels good when you can go back to a peice of writing that you haven’t looked at in six months and think, “Not bad.  I’d pick this book up to read myself.” 
 
I’m still editing the boring stuff out of the next installment of Devolution.  Much easier to do when you haven’t seen it in six months.  I’ll post that then, and this is where it gets sticky, I’ll have to write some more.  At the end of the scene, my character and her brothers are confronted by a gang on a bridge, then everyone is swept off the bridge by a flood.  My character has been nearly drowned and pulled out of the water by strangers.  The possibilities are limitless. 
 
Wasn’t there another novel I was supposed to be writing this summer?  Yes, and it’s happening, just a little slower because my mind has too many things it wants to say all at once.  Feels a little like a flood.
 
 Oh!  Forgot to mention my latest poem, Agnostic Blessing, is up.  It was inspired by another poet I met at a workshop, Susan Deer Cloud.  I told her about seeing a wolf and she said that was powerful medicine.  That made me start thinking about other animals I had seen in the country where I live.  Hope you enjoy!

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Humbled & Developing a Novel Idea

May 25, 2012 at 3:36 pm (Uncategorized)
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It’s been a heady week for me, watching my page view hits rack up on Yahoo! Voices.  The story and poem are still featured so I’m waiting to see where that run ends, but I had a humbling moment yesterday as well.  I finally actually looked at the poem since I put it up and realized, to my chagrin, that I had transposed two stanzas so that the rhyme scheme was not proper for a villanelle.  In a villanelle, the last line of each stanza is supposed to alternate.  The way it was displayed, stanzas 3 and 4 ended with the same line.  Ah, well. I consoled myself with the delusion that only a poet would notice.  (I certainly didn’t.)  I fixed it and had a bit of a laugh at my own expense.

Moving right along, I’m getting ready for CampNaNoWriMo.  Are you?  I won’t pretend that I actually intend to write 50,000 words in June, but I’m using it as a catalyst to get my new novel off the ground.  Before June 1st, I’ll continue to read Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass and make notes for the novel as I find inspiration.  This weekend I hope to fill out the character, setting and plot sheets I found online.

The novel I’m going to write is based on my own short story, Biomalware.  (Hubris, anyone?), I’ll try to give you an idea of how I’m using Writing the Breakout Novel to help me develop this short story into a novel.

Biomalware is about a young, widowed father who takes his two year old daughter to the doctor’s office because every time she eats, she’s in pain.  She only eats when the hunger overcomes her fear of the pain.  The doctor writes the father a prescription that should help but the nurse slips the father a note telling him that there’s someone who can help more.  He goes out to the place on the note and the farmer there tells him it’s GMO crops contaminating all our food that has made it indigestible for his daughter.

My writer’s group strongly urged me to turn this into a novel.  I decided to take their advice but obviously the story needs a lot of developing to sustain a novel.  Writing the Breakout Novel is helping me marshal my thoughts to do that.  I’ll give some examples of advice from the book and how it has inspired my thinking.

Maass says that it is important to try to capture the times of your story.  In my case, that would be current day or 2012.  What things catch my attention in the news?  There’s the polarization of people over issues, the different political parties, dissenting factions over gay rights, anti abortion activism is on the rise, and corporate rights seem to trump the individual all too often these days.  I’m not sure what will work into my story, perhaps all of them over the course of it, but the last one seems particularly appropriate as I recall a certain corporation taking farmers to court because their seeds were contaminated by the corporation’s GMO seeds through cross pollination.

Maass suggests you should try to “shatter your protagonist with a tragedy or give him an unexpected gift.”  That got me thinking. I could have the kid die, though I don’t know if I could stand to do that.  I could definitely flashback to how he lost his wife.  I could have him get the medicine and have the kid get worse, perhaps from malnutrition because, though the medicine is masking the symptoms, the food is still not being absorbed by her body properly.  I like the latter two ideas best.

“I would like to suggest that there are two character qualities that leave a deeper, more lasting and powerful impression of a character than any other: Forgiveness and self-sacrifice,” Maass says.  My character seems to have the self-sacrifice thing nailed down.  He’s a single, widowed, father who is going to go to extremes to help his own child, and other children like her.  Now, where can I bring forgiveness into it?  The doctor?  The father may be angry with him for pushing the medicine but the doctor wants to help and has probably simply accepted the party line fed to him (though he has also ignored the warnings of the nurse as new age mumbo jumbo.)  He has failed his patient to some degree, but not out of malice.  There is room for forgiveness here.

I’m about halfway through the book and I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish it before the 1st, but perhaps.  It’s exciting and intimidating to contemplate starting a novel again.  I just hope I can go the distance.

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