Archive for writing

Spring, Sprang, Sprung

March 20, 2013 musings, Uncategorized, writing Comments Off
woof

Look how happy this guy is about SPRING!

It’s officially SPRING! No, don’t look at the snow outside. Or the thermometer. Or the clouds obscuring the precious, golden, lemony sunlight… it is officially spring!

JUST GO WITH IT.

Spring, like many things in our calendar and in our world, is rife with symbolism and meanings that have been liberally applied by human beings since the dawn of time (or at least our cognition of time). Spring is a time of rebirth, regeneration, healing, cleaning, growing. It’s a time of fertility and creativity. It’s a time of resurrection. So it’s the perfect time for me to begin my new life focused on my writing career, instead of merely focusing on survival (this is my last day working full time at my soul/time-sucking day job).

I’ll be the first to admit I’ve had some major setbacks in the past year, and I’ll be the first to take responsibility for those setbacks, too. But I’m here, now. In this new place in time, I’ve made choices, taken chances, and given myself permission to move forward on a basis of courage, hope, and dreams alone. And I couldn’t be more excited, more proud, or more terrified.

Yes, there is a lot of fear surrounding this. Will I get writer’s block? Will I run out of ideas? Will I accidentally fall under an ancient Egyptian curse that makes my fingers disintegrate every time they touch a keyboard? Maybe. Maybe I’m not good enough, and not brave enough, and not really “meant to be” a writer.

But my fears change nothing. Maybe I will have another existential crisis. Maybe I will fail, and fail, and fail. Maybe I will even give up. But I already know, no matter what, that I will keep crawling back, bloody and bruised and broken, because my dreams refuse to die–no matter how much I smother, bludgeon, and burn them.

And so, maybe, just maybe, I will succeed.

But it’s really hard to publicly admit that I believe I will succeed. Isn’t that messed up? And yet, I wonder if that’s the real magic, and real courage: daring to believe that you might just be as great as you can imagine yourself to be; refusing to believe in the lie of perfectionism; refusing to buy into a world that doesn’t want you to celebrate the fact that you are fucking awesome, and you have got so much to give.

So I’m gonna own that. I’m doing this crazy, risky, wild thing by making less money and spending my life savings to allow me to stay home and write–but I’m doing it because I believe in myself. I believe in my ability to write, and my ability to break hearts, and my ability to make people cry, and my ability to tell a damn good story.

I believe I will succeed.

Call me crazy, but it’s true.

Confession, and a free short story

September 19, 2012 Published, Uncategorized, writing Comments Off

I have a confession to make: a computer program is responsible for the every day happiness I’ve experienced for the past three years. That’s because three years ago today, that computer program told me I might be romantically compatible with a man who lived 2.5 hours from me. I took a look at his picture, clicked a few buttons, and have never looked back.

That’s right. I met my husband through an online dating site. *blushes*

We live in a strange new age where that actually happens pretty frequently–more and more people are connecting online and finding their true friends, their soul mates. It makes sense, as society expands into the ethernet that we would have to expand dating/mating customs to there as well. Sounds kind of sci-fic when you look at it that way. I look at it from an anthropological mindset, and find it fascinating.

But regardless of how I met my half of my OTP, I love him in ways that are both mind blowingly profound and vomit-inducingly adorable. We are the perfect partners in crime–he makes me laugh when I’m anxious and sad, and I’m willing to dive to catch him when he falls/passes out at the altar at our wedding (yes that really happened). We can both talk for hours about the spiritual implications of The Dark Crystal, the perfect balance of flavors in Thai hot and sour soup, and why Wax Work and Wax Work II: Lost In Time are the most perfect horror films of all time.

You done good, compatibility robot/program. You done good.

Anyway, on to the second part of this post, the free short story!

Two months after I met my husband, I did something I had never done before: I wrote a short story for him, as a birthday gift. I was inspired by strange dreams I’d had since I’d met him, odd pseudo-memories of other lives I may or may not have lived. And he had asked me once, half asleep and maybe dreaming, “Where do I know you from?”

And that was all the inspiration I needed for this story, which I’m posting here for free in honor of the many freak occurances that led us to each other.

I hope you enjoy it :)

A Lover and its Ghosts

Somewhere there’s an ocean,
salty dark and deep,
that swallows stars into its heart,
and lulls the sky to sleep.
There swims a single memory,
amidst the floating lights
like lanterns lit for long lost souls
as naked as the night;
It weaves between the luminescence,
dances on the crests
of waves too far from salt-stained shores
that catch what comes to rest.
But sometimes when the moon is full
and galaxies align,
reflecting on the ocean
one can glimpse amidst the brine
the sight of what has lingered there,
more brilliantly than most
the memory of what once was:
a lover, and its ghost.

-M.C.F. Nov. 2010

 

1

Where do I know you from?

 

Read more

A New Note on Writer’s Block

July 11, 2012 musings, Publishing, Uncategorized, writing Comments Off

Rusty, aka: Lord Rusticus

Well, it’s been a while since I posted here, but I have Explanations. The biggest one being that it’s summer, and I feel like every free moment is booked from June to October. The other big reason is that we got a dog just after my birthday! So I’ve been busy calming our resident cats, training our new pup, and trying to deal with his previously undiscovered allergies that are making him scratch all the hair off his head. Oof. He’s like a fluffy little old man, except he’s hyperactive and chews on everything (like the six pairs of  shoes we’ve had to throw out). But we love him!

The other big thing keeping me away from this blog? I’ll admit it: writer’s block. That thing I don’t really believe in. But let’s call this Advanced Writer’s Block, Code Orange. I wasn’t quite at the quitting stage (Code Red), but I was definitely in the “will I ever write again?” stage. It wasn’t that I was uninspired, or out of ideas, or believed my writing was bad. It was beyond all the normal things that once kept me from writing, long ago before I called them out as frauds. It wasn’t any kind of belief in lack that was a problem–it was a belief that there was too much. I had too many choices, too many questions–but there was lack, too, I guess, because I didn’t know myself well enough, or my story well enough, to know how to resolve my concerns.

Ultimately, it wasn’t about any of those things though. It was about fear, of making the wrong choice, of wasting time and effort. And even beyond that, it was something more: I was putting too much pressure on myself to write the “best book EVAR.” And even beyond that, the pressure was there because, essentially, I hate my day job, and it was also there because I hate false hopes, hate getting so far as to have lots of agents (I’ve lost count now) request the full manuscript only to pass a few weeks later. I’d reached my limit of stagnation and disappointment, and I was depressed. (Actually, I had “severe anxiety” for three months, but that was basically just me, doggedly determined to Solve All The Problems)

Anyway, I could go on and on psychoanalyzing myself here, but who cares? The point is actually something much easier to digest: I have got a lot of experience under my belt when it comes to creative recovery, overcoming blocks, and understanding how the artist’s mind works and surprises us. I know a lot of tricks, and I know a lot about my own creative habits, and I know a lot about how to avoid the common pitfalls of Doubt. But even with all that I know and all that I’ve experienced? Writer’s block still got me. Like a virus that’s mutated to become immune to antibiodies, my ego ramped up its bullshit to weasel through my wall of well-grounded ambition, and then proceeded to kick me in the teeth.

It’s more than that, though. It’s not just that the insidious part of my ego that likes to kick me into place has adapted–it’s that I, myself, have grown and changed, by leaps and bounds, as a person. Emotionally, mentally, creatively, I’ve grown in depth and width and height, but consciously I have not yet stretched my awareness to cover my new borders. I don’t really understand myself as well as I thought I did, because I’ve changed shape. That’s why, when looking at an old manuscript and a partially finished rewrite, I had no idea how to proceed. Of course, I love the old version. But the new version is amazing too. And both are very different. How can I choose what to keep, what to change?

The thing is, the story I loved several years ago when I wrote that novel is still a story I love, but no longer a story I can tell. My shape has changed–my stories have changed with it–and in order to tell the story I want to tell, I have to explore this new creature I’ve become, get used to my skin, my height, my voice. So,  I guess this whole period of anxiousness and sadness and crippling indecision was/is actually just growing pains.

I’m not quite there yet. I’m not entirely certain who I have, or will, become, but I’m finding my footing more and more each day. The smoke and debris are clearing from my head, and I’m beginning to make out the shapes and sounds of the new stories I’m carrying in my heart, incubating, until I’m ready to put them onto paper.

I’m also trying to learn patience, because god DAMN it I want those stories ready to be written.

Abusing the Use of Sexual Assult in YA

June 14, 2012 musings, Publishing, writing Comments Off

If you haven’t seen this article on The Victimization of Lara Croft, read it. It brings to mind an issue I have, specifically about YA novels, that has been bugging the hell out of me lately: there is too much god damn sexual assault.

Before you get upset and say “it’s a real thing and YA needs to address real things!” hear me out: Yes, YA is doing a bang-up job at addressing real things, and yes, sexual assault is real. For all the women I know, the majority of us have either been sexually assaulted, harassed, or straight up raped. I know how real this thing is, and that’s why the common and complete mishandling of this highly sensitive subject pisses me off. 

I’m not saying all, but if you read a handful of YA from the past few years with female protagonists and romance, just like in real life, 1 in 4 females will be a victim of sexual assault. The abundance isn’t what pisses me off, but how it’s most commonly used in the context of the story: aside from stories where rape and the emotional fall-out is the prime conflict throughout the book, almost every single time a female protagonist is sexually assaulted, she is then rescued by her romantic interest. Not only is that probably never going to happen, because most girls aren’t semi-stalked by their teenage dreamboats, but that course of events makes the female protagonist into a victim, and her romantic interest a hero. It artificially deepens the bond between them by taking a serious trauma, something with long-lasting psychological and emotional effects, and romanticizing it.

Pardon me, but what the fuck, people? 

Forgetting the fact that this is a widely overused trope, it’s also insensitive as hell, completely dismissing the fact that it’s not healthy or expected that a girl would fall in love with her rescuer, and for many people who have experienced emotional trauma of any kind, that is a potential problem: it’s called erotic or romantic transference, and it’s like an inverse Florence Nightengale effect–patient falling in love with therapist, or rescued falling in love with rescuer. Girls who experience sexual trauma are much more likely to form unhealthy dependencies and attachments to romantic or sexual partners, and even develop romantic feelings for people they don’t actually love or probably shouldn’t fall in love with. Likewise, some women have a hard time developing romantic feelings for anyone, ever, because their ability to trust the human race (and in particular, men) has been shot to hell.

The scary thing is, as both readers and writers we’ve created this trope unconsciously–making the female protagonist incapable of defending herself by making her a victim of sexual assault does two easy things: makes her vulnerable and desirable. Weird, huh? That’s our reaction, for the most part: this person had such a strong reaction to this character that they tried to violate her, and now she’s a little more interesting to us, too.

I’m not a proponent for invulnerable characters by any means–Superman is boring and his superness causes many a plot hole. Sure, I love a strong female protagonist, but what makes them real and what makes their strengths even cooler is that they are not perfect. They do have weaknesses, weaknesses that they often overcome or come to terms with–that’s called the character arc. But I’ve never read a non-rape-issue YA novel where the protagonist was sexually assaulted and actively overcame the traumatic effects of it, because for the most part those are glossed over or not even mentioned. Yes, it’s a big deal at the time, or maybe there is some obvious residual fear if the actual character who assaults the protagonist doesn’t go away, but for the most part it goes like this: set up, assault, rescue, love, no psychological or emotional repercussions whatsoever.

I admit it’s possible that a character is strong enough, mentally and emotionally, to pick themselves up and dust themselves off and go on about their lives as if nothing ever happened, but we’re talking YA, which means teenage girls without well-defined senses of themselves as sexual beings, and…well, good luck selling that line.

As writers, we need to try harder, not just for the audience but for the dignity of our stories, to avoid abusing sexual assault as a vehicle for character appeal. As readers, we should be wary of our own reactions to this trope–it’s natural to want to protect a girl who has been victimized, but don’t be complacent about this form of emotional manipulation. If the author wants you to care about their main character, demand female protagonists who are made appealing to the reader because they are intelligent, insightful, hilarious, brave, brutally honest–anything besides so hot and vulnerable you either want to rape or protect her.

This is a touchy subject, I know–hell, discussing YA is a touchy subject in general these days. Feel free to yell at me and tell me I’m wrong, because truly, I would love to hear what anyone else thinks about this subject.

Happy Birthday TPaL!

May 16, 2012 musings, Publishing, The Poppet and the Lune, Uncategorized, writing Comments Off

Happy Birthday Week TPaL!

Tomorrow, I turn 27 (years young!?) and my baby, The Poppet and the Lune, turns 1 year old. To celebrate, TPaL is available for FREE in the Kindle store until the end of May 17th, our official birthday! (Go on! Get ye to the kindle store! Download an app! It’s FREE!)

an original illustration from my little blue journal which holds the earliest chapters of TPaL

In another bit of happy news, somehow this whole “free” business has gotten TPaL some visibility! As I write this, The Poppet and the Lune is ranking #129 for free books in the entire Kindle store, #6 in free Fantasy Kindle books, and a mind-blowing #6 in free Children’s Sci-fi-Fantasy Kindle books. I am shocked, and amazed, and so, so grateful.

It’s been almost a year exactly since I published TPaL and released her to the world at large, and I want to say something about what I’ve learned. I’m not sure exactly, how to say it (a more common problem for writers than you think), but I’m going to give it a try.

Some of you may recall that TPaL was originally a free web serial hosted on my wordpress blog, with a very small, but very kind and loyal following. The story was told for the sake of telling stories–it was meant to be fun, and adventurous, and to explore the heart of my own love of story. I hope that it’s been all of that to those of you who have read it.

If manuscripts are like people, and many authors say that their manuscripts are like children, or lovers, or enemies, then I would have to say that The Poppet and the Lune has been a dear and constant friend. She has never been demanding. She has never been difficult. She has always been exactly what she is and was meant to be, never straying, never giving up. Even when people cock an eyebrow at her premise, or shrug their shoulders when trying to think of publishers to sell her to, she is steadfast, and certain.

I have a lot to learn from that.

original illustration from the blue journal

It’s so easy in life, especially in the publishing world, to lose sight of who and what we really are. For the sake of marketing, we don genres and audiences as if we’re trying on winter coats, seeing if our stories appeal more to one crowd or another, wondering if our story is appropriate for one age group or another. The line between telling your stories and finding an audience versus fitting your stories to a specific audience is not very fine, but it does get blurred. We get blurred–when we lose sight of who we are, and the heart of our stories.

Being true to your story means being true to yourself. Sometimes that doesn’t get you an agent, or a book contract, or very much in royalties. But it gives you peace of mind, and that is invaluable. That is what primes you for your next book, and your next. There is clarity there–precious, priceless clarity–that is sometimes called insight, or inspiration, which is at the heart of all creation, of all storytelling. We cannot afford to lose sight of that–we cannot afford to lose sight of who we are, even as we grow and change.

Birthdays and anniversaries are about more than celebrating that first breath, kiss, or step into the world. They are about taking stock, reflecting on change and what you’ve learned, the ways you’ve grown–they’re about setting goals, and planting hopes and dreams–and celebrating every victory and failure that has shaped you into what you are today.

So with another year under my belt, and many lessons learned, I think I’m going to take the time to do that for the rest of my birthday week.

Happy Birthday, TPaL. You’ve come a long way.

And Happy Birthday, Self. Remember, you never stop learning.

Small Victories

April 17, 2012 musings, Uncategorized, writing 3 comments

I did something this weekend that I’ve never successfully done before: I outlined my novel!

I know, I know, that’s not really a big deal for all you clever people out there who always outline your novel because you realized long ago the importance of having a track for your writing, so you at least know when you’ve fallen off of it. But I’m not as clever as all of you. I’m what they call a seat-of-the-pants writer. I get a basic idea that excites the hell out of me, a handful of characters that slap me around until I get them right, and a general idea of the ending… and then I write. I figure it out as I go, each scene as surprising as the next. This seems horrendously inefficient when I explain it like that, but it’s how I’ve always worked best.

So why outline now?

I’m beginning a second re-write of my current Work In Progress, a novel that has been an off and on love affair since 2008 (more obsessively the past two years…I kind of wrote it around The Poppet and the Lune). This new (and I hope final) version is a combination of version 1 and version 2, plus a little tweak that fixes a million different Problems I’d been having, so there is a lot less creativity involved at this point when it comes to the plot and structure of the story and character arcs. My job now is to write the scenes as beautifully and gut-wrenchingly and hilariously (you get the idea) as I can.

So I’ve outlined, essentially, to make a to-do list. Scene execution is the best part about writing–it’s the actually word play, the actual act of writing–so now it’s like I have this long to-do list full of things I can’t wait to do. Which is why this outline is so exciting!

I suppose what I can take away from this whole experience (if the outlining helps as much as I expect it will) is that perhaps my first drafts should be more like very detailed outlines. I can still write them seat-of-my-pants style, but also not lose as much when I discover plot holes or pacing issues. In writing version 3, I’m throwing away over 200,000 words from my previous versions. Which…ouch. Just ouch. Those are some really good words I’m tossing. But a novel isn’t just the sum of its pretty words–the pretty words need to weave within the structure of a well-crafted world and story.

We’re always learning about ourselves and our craft, aren’t we?

Anyway. I’m excited!

What about you? Do you outline, or write seat-of-your-pants? Do you perform major surgery on your first drafts to make the second draft work, or do you find most of the revisions in later drafts are less massive? Let me know! Sharing is caring!

Try, Try, Try, Repeat: Lessons for a writer, from my ukulele

April 12, 2012 musings, Uncategorized, writing Comments Off

It just so happens that I have some (limited) talent with musical instruments–the mediocre kind of talent that means I can pick up almost any one of them and play Jingle Bells within five minutes of fiddling around (except for percussion instruments, silly). My Instruments Practiced list includes violin, piano, cello, upright bass, bass guitar, saxophone, clarinet, bassoon, acoustic guitar, and my latest conquest, the soprano ukulele. 

This is me with my ukulele. Really.

Music has never been my passion like writing is–it’s more like my therapy. I took a break from novel rewrites the other day, feeling like I’d re-written one scene a bazillion times, and decided to practice a few Radiohead songs I’d been picking up lately (I’d found the tablature on-line a few weeks  ago).

I had a moment like this:

Did I just play Exit Music for a Film, when I struggled with Three Blind Mice not one year ago?

I did!

Back when I first got my ukulele, “real” songs had seemed so out of reach it almost wasn’t worth it to keep practicing. My fingers weren’t used to the small neck of the instrument, and they didn’t bend the way the chords asked me to bend them. But has that ever really stopped me?

This is probably more accurate. I do practice on my porch, and I am a dirty hippie.

I remember a few years ago when I first got my Casio keyboard, living on my own in a little one bedroom across the street from the zoo. I would hammer out scales and make up meandering melodies and feel generally like I wasn’t learning, wasn’t getting any better, because I wasn’t being challenged. Too cheap to pay for lessons, I picked a song that I knew had a killer piano part–Ben Fold’s Brick–printed out the sheet music, and told myself I would learn it.

I staggered along learning the left hand first, then the right. I’d play through, one-handed, over and over again, then with both hands, fitting their separate notes and rhythms together like the broken pieces of a shattered plate. I would play a measure or two, mess up, go back a few measures, repeat (repeat, repeat, repeat…), until eventually the notes I was trying to play came out the way they were supposed to–the way they were meant to be played.

I had a little epiphany while I was sitting on my porch, feeling all proud of how far I’d come with my ukulele skillz: when you’re writing a novel, sometimes it’s a lot like learning to play a song. You take it slow, you go over the parts you have trouble with again and again, writing, rewriting, and rearranging until all the pieces finally fit. You know you’ve gotten it right when the story flows, just like a song, harmonious and dynamic and alive.

Too bad I can’t find the tabs for my novel online.

I don't know what's happening here. I just wanted to share this.

 
What are some challenges you’ve faced and are proud to say you’ve conquered?
 

5 Reasons Why Aspiring Authors Should Not Trust The Internet

March 21, 2012 Advice, musings, Publishing, writing Comments Off

Wary woman is wary. Hmm...

Call me a hippy, or an optimist, or whatever you like, but I have a personal rule about any kind of advice: if it makes you feel good, take it; if it makes you feel like shit, it’s probably wrong. At least, it’s probably wrong for you.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been surfing around the internet looking for advice on a particular aspect of the writing process or the publishing process, only to have a brick dropped on me that makes me sick to my stomach, makes me question all 20+ years of my experience, and honestly believe that this king or queen of the blogosphere knows what he or she is talking about better than I know what’s right for me. Countless times. And it still happens, even though I make a concerted effort these days NOT to look for advice from anyone but trusted friends. I know it happens to a lot of us out there, innocent creative types searching for wisdom an guidance, and instead we have our dreams and ideas crushed beneath the jackboots of the All Knowing Bloggers.

This is not to say that the internet is useless, or that you can’t trust anyone out there/here. But I strongly, strongly encourage you to take all of what you read and experience in your pursuit of writerly knowledge with a large grain of salt, including this blog and this post.

Which brings me to this:

5 Reasons why aspiring authors should not trust the internet

1.) Opinions are formed from personal experience. I once read a blog post about how dream sequences ruin books and should never be written by aspiring authors, and it crushed me. What does it say about me as a writer that I love a good dream sequence, both writing them and reading them? Ultimately I got over it (I know you were worried), but it seemed irresponsible to make a statement like that when you have hundreds of readers out there who trust you to give them at least thought-provoking, if not good, advice. But almost all blog posts that give us “rules” or ”10 Reasons why” are based on personal experience and opinion, and therefore are never actual hard and fast laws. Maybe the author admits to that, and maybe they don’t, but it’s usually easy to overlook the admission because…

2.) These posts are written by writers, the best liars of the creative world. A good writer knows, consciously or not, how to get their audience on board with them–make them believe in magic, and true love, and that good can occasionally triumph over evil. A good writer also knows how to write a blog post and make it sound like they are an authority on the matter. I’m doing it right now. Don’t I sound official? It’s because I’m just telling you things, and I’m stating these things so matter-of-factly that you’re beginning to see the truth of them, whether it’s there or not. The other reason is because you want to believe people are doling out free professional advice. You saw a list of ten things to avoid or ten reasons to do or not do something, and that made it sound simple and easy to follow. These are all tricks, which brings me to the fact that…

3) The thing the internet wants to do most of all is trick you. It wants to trick you into clicking one more link, or into believing you need one more social networking site, that if you don’t re-post that status about fighting cancer then you’re not as good of a person as that person’s 10% of friends who actually care. Worst of all, it wants to trick you into wasting time, and believing you are working. “Oh, but I was reading an article on world-building,” you think. “It’s okay, I want to be a writer, so spending X more minutes learning about my craft is excusable.” No, actually, it’s not, because unless that blog post was written by Frank Herbert (greatest world-builder of all time, thank you very much!) himself, you’re not even getting professional advice. Have you ever noticed that, for the most part, the busiest writers aren’t writing blog posts about craft? That’s because they’re writing.

That’s probably the worst way the internet deceives us: it tricks us into giving up time for writing, in exchange for well-crafted amateur advice.

4) Haters gonna hate. Really, I don’t want to hear about how the gate-keepers are keeping us down, and so any self-respecting author should self-publish. And I don’t want to hear about how self-publishing authors need to keep their filthy DIY hands off of the term “independent publishing,” unless you’re that excited about being a hipster that you have to shout it from the rooftops. I’m not interested in any blog that paints a negative picture of any group of people, because that kind of advice can only reinforce narrow-mindedness or make you feel bad about the path you’re already considering. Really, when was the last time you Googled “advantages to self publishing” when you weren’t interested in what it had to offer?

The same thing goes for the old, salty veterans, weather-worn and wearing their badge of “experience” like a shroud. They’ve been through the system, they’ll tell you again and again, and the system is cruel. Well, we covered that in my last post, and you can’t take one author’s experience as gospel.

5) Bitter people are always more than happy to give you their opinion. That is certainly not to say everyone giving their opinion is bitter (ahem). But if you’ve ever given up your writing for a critique and gotten back the kind of feedback I’m talking about, you know it: hyper-critical, personally biased, and ultimately nothing but destructive (unless they’re clever at hiding their bitterness, in which case they do a compliment sandwich: “I liked this… hate hate hate hate hate… and this part was pretty interesting too.”). Offering up your writing to strangers can be, on the one hand, an amazing experience worth putting your faith in humanity to the test. But you have to be wary–the internet is full of trouble-makers. I’m probably one of them.

~*~

Now for the actual, constructive advice part of this post:

If you’re anything like me, or if you hated this post and will probably just ignore everything above, you’re still going to read advice about writing on blogs. So here are some tips I think we can call benefit from.

When reading a blog about writing, ask yourself:

  • How does this post make me feel?
  • Is this narrowing or broadening my perspective?
  • Am I inspired by this post, or do I want to smash my monitor/swallow my smart phone and all the shame it holds on its shiny little screen?

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with that, so I’ll just leave that alone for now.

There are a few blogs that I almost always enjoy:

Nova Ren Suma‘s blog has a guest post series on Turning Points for writers that offers a rainbow of different experiences from all kinds of different authors.

Intern Spills, by… the former intern of a publisher, or agency, I can’t remember. I read all of her blog in two days at work one week, and loved it to death. You will see, however, that this is the site of the entry regarding the dream sequence hate. I got over it, but I do read everything after with an eyebrow ready to be raised.

Terrible Minds, a blog by Chuck Wendig, the King of the “[NUMBER] Things About [SUBJECT]” posts. The reason I love his lists is because he is full of wit and snark, and actually gives solid advice about the craft of writing. How do I know it’s solid? He is constantly admitting that the rules are bullshit if you know what you’re doing.

So what about you? What do you love or hate about finding writing advice on the internet? Do you have any writing blogs or sites you’ve found valuable? Writer by Night wants to know!

In Like a Lion

March 1, 2012 musings, Uncategorized, writing Comments Off

"I do say, good Sir or Madam! Is it March already?"

It’s MARCH. WHAT?

Winter has been shockingly–shockingly–mild here in Buffalo. For the first time in years, we can accurately say at the beginning of March that spring is right around the corner. For me, spring always brings with it a surge of passion and determination. My To-Do list quadruples, but so does my Got-Done list (and this year, my first year as a homeowner, my To-Do list is going to be loooooooong); I breathe more deeply, but have more moments where my breath is taken away. Maybe because I’m a springtime baby–born mid-May, when Lilly of the Valley is out in force and the world has just finished turning that bright green of new growth–but spring is the season in which I learn, and re-learn, every year, that Life is a beautiful, beautiful adventure.

In typical hey!-It’s-almost-spring! fashion, life feels like it’s picking up speed, though I don’t have much to point to as evidence. I sent some chapters to an agent who requested them, which is EXCITING and NERVE-WRACKING. I also happen to know that a copy of my book, The Poppet and the Lune, is sitting on a shelf in the home of an amazing, prolific, and iconic fantasy author, which is both baffling and thrilling. These things feel awesome to me, and they happened all at once which makes life seem like it got really interesting all of a sudden.

But in reality, life always has something interesting to offer if you’re looking for it. These have just been external events, things in the outside world that are taking place and making things exciting. Really, every day something amazing has been happening in my head–a story that I am still head-over-heels in love with has been unfolding and transforming, like a gooey-winged butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. It’s spreading its wings out to dry now as I’m hammering out this new draft, all colorful and elegant, and strikingly, beautifully, fragile. And soon I’m going to see just how far and how high it can fly. How is that NOT exciting?

All around me, people are announcing wonderful news, from fantastic cover reveals, to life-altering leaps of faith. My heart is brimming with joy for them. In my own life, the excitement is quiet and internal, a deep-seated, riveted joy, patiently focused on the little miracles happening within and without. And I keep getting this impression of abundance, just… everywhere, and in all things. I keep getting a glimpse, catching a whiff, of something huge, and ineffable, and satisfyingly good.

So, spread the joy! What wonderful things have been going on in your life, or in your head?

Wailing at the Wall

February 8, 2012 musings, Travel, writing Comments Off

Life has been a whirlwind.

Let me tell you about the past few weeks as succinctly as I can. Nothing major has happened, not by certain standards anyway. But my brain and my heart have been on a strange journey that can’t quite be captured in words. Perhaps that’s the reason behind my blog-silence–it’s certainly never because I have nothing to say.

I was in the desert recently, physically and metaphorically. Creatively, I was all dried up, too terrified of a misstep to even crawl my way towards water. But then, I went to Israel. Really. For ten days, I traveled the country with a tour bus full of other 20-somethings, thinking about the history of the land, about our ancestors, about what it meant to be who we are. It was from a Jewish perspective, in many ways, but for me no deep thinking is possible without my creative self cropping up.

 

Wailing Wall, Jerusalem

 

I looked out over the complicated border between Israel and Lebanon. I partied in Tel Aviv, and stuck my feet into the Mediterranean Sea. I felt an array of complicated emotions, complicated further by socio-political awareness, and my unwillingness to identify with a cultural pain-body. I wandered in the desert, stumbling over sun-bleached bones. I heard the call to prayer ring out over Jerusalem from the Muslim quarter, as the sun set over the holy city. I came to the Western Wall, as unreligious as I am, and cried. And I saw thousands of names at Yad Vashem, not knowing who among them I might have called family if history had not been what it was.

I am still unpacking that journey. I don’t know all of what I felt, all of what it means. But I do know that when I returned, despite having come down with the flu during the last days of the trip, I felt stronger and more resolved than ever.

I’d broken through something, managed to inch forward in my creative desert, and the moment I did that I found my oasis. I found the strength to recommit, and begin again.

The book I have been working on these past few months, the one that stalled after some intense interest from agents, for which I’d begun to put so much pressure on myself because of that interest, suddenly opened up to me like the arms of a loved one. “You have changed,” it told me. “And it’s okay for me to change, too. I’m ready to be what you want me to be. And you’re ready to write me as I am.”

Hopped up on decongestants, I began a total re-write of this manuscript last week, switching from first person present to third person present, and then last night I switched it again from present to past tense. I am okay with these sort-of-mistakes, and the work it takes to correct them. I am okay with the new scenes my mind is drawing up, the new ways the characters are showing themselves on the page, the new focus of the story as a whole. I’m okay with leaving behind the beloved scenes I crafted for the original draft. I’m okay, because at least I’m writing, and that will always feel better than standing still in the desert.

I am slowly peeling back the layers of this new manuscript, and at the same time peeling back layers of myself–as a writer, and an artist–as a traveler changed by my journeys. I’m no longer beating myself up for failing my “original” story, or beating my head against the wall trying to make it something safe, something appealing, something that fits into the mold of what an author’s first agented book should be.

Not only that, but my office is finally taking shape, after months of disarray. We moved into our house this past August, and just last weekend we finished painting the chalkboard wall, and I was finally able to set up my desk, move my bookshelves, unpack my reference books, run an extension cord so that all my electrical things had outlets. I finally have my own space, where I can slam on the piano keys and compose ballads on my ukulele, play movie scores on my cello, or do yoga without a cat scratching at my legs. Oh yeah, and I have a place to write.

Something about my trip to Israel has made me come undone, in an excellent way. I stopped fearing. I embraced the grace in my gracelessness, the thrill of each uncertain step. I found faith in things I cannot name. I came to terms with the fact that the desert will always be just beyond the border of the oasis, a fact both comforting and sobering.

And I understood, and understand, that I will learn these lessons again and again, until the day I die.

Here’s to finding an oasis–and the exotic fruits of a strange journey.

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