Writing Conference: Friday Night

Dear Diary,

Today was AWESOME! Morning critique group was, as usual, very helpful. Then, I got to go to lunch with Janette Rallison! How, do you ask? She is from Arizona, but her very beautiful daughter is a single BYU student. My friend and conference attending buddy Erin's cousin is a very good looking and sweet single BYU student. The lunch was a setup for the two. So much fun!

Then, I got to attend James Dashner's presentation. I feel like we are old friends.

Love,

Fired Up on Friday

Writing Conference: Thursday Night

Dear Diary,

Today was so much fun. Everyone was so much more relaxed and easy going and chatty. I chatted with an agent (a San Diego native who's lived in NY almost all of her adult life) about her--- get this--- shopping trip to both local D.I. stores the night before! I chatted with James Dashner, who not only remembered that we've met (several times, actually), but remembered where he knew me from. And later he gave me an arm squeeze.

The best part? I almost single-handedly talked Tracy and Laura Hickman into singing a duet of the freeze ray song from Doctor Horrible's Sing Along Blog. How cool would that be? They didn't today, but I can tell that they wanted to. I have full confidence that they will perform for us tomorrow.

Love,

Tickled on Thursday

Writing Conference: Wednesday Night

Dear Diary,

My brain is crammed so full it hurts. It might even burst open before long. For the past three days (really? That's all it's been?), I've spent from 8:30 am to 12:30 pm critiquing 10 pages of 8 different people's manuscripts and hearing instructions and advice from my author/mentor. Then I spend the next 4 1/2 hours listening and asking questions to authors/editors/agents about how to increase my chances of getting published. By the time 5:00 rolls around, I'm very much in need of a soft, dark, quiet place. So, I come home and be a mom and wife for five hours, then read 6 more manuscripts, then edit and print my own 10 page section, and then go to bed at a time of the night morning that my body certainly doesn't agree with.

I think it might be slowly killing me.

Love,

Worn out on Wednesday

Writing Conference: Tuesday Night

Dear Diary,

I met two editors who were the cat's meow today. Very non-intimidating. They both eased my trepidation towards editors in a big way. And, I can send one a partial, and the other my complete manuscript! So very beyond cool.

My workshop group read my prologue and first chapter today, and they loved it! Wahoo! Totally made my day. I knew very well that there was a problem with my first chapter, I just couldn't for the life of me figure out how to fix it. The incomparable author-mentor Claudia Mills told me just what I should do. She's a genius! I'm beyond grateful and will definitely have to hug her.

Today was a good day.

Love,

Terrific on Tuesday

Writing Conference: Monday Night

Dear Diary,

The conference wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Apparently, I get a bye on the whole pitch thing! What does that mean, exactly?

Well, there are basically three steps to getting published. First, you send a query letter. If that sounds interesting to them, they ask for a partial, or the first three chapters of your book. If they like that, they ask for the whole manuscript. Getting past the query letter part is hard. By going to this conference, a very nice editor is letting us skip the query letter part, and go straight to the partial! No pitch needed. Whew! Of course, she also mentioned that her publisher gets 10,000 partials a year, and 35 get published. We aren't going to dwell on those kind of odds, though.

Oh, and remember how last time, I had a hard time not giving authors a hug that were so good at sharing their expertise? Well, this time, a giant in his field, Tracy Hickman gave ME a hug! Pretty darn cool.

Love,

More Relaxed on Monday

Writing Conference: Sunday Night

Dear Diary,

I wrote a query letter today. A query letter is a one page cover-letterish document in which you have two small paragraphs to tell enough about your book, that an editor or agent just can't stand to not ask to see more. Fairly daunting, if you ask me.

For months I have been dreading writing it. I have put it off until it can't be put off any longer. I told myself that if I'd just sit down and do it, it wouldn't be as hard as I imagined it would be.

It was harder.

There's no way I can show this thing to them.

So I moved on to the pitch.

I told my kids that I needed to pitch my book to them, first to Cory and Alecia, and then to Kyle. I said the word "um" no less than 17 times during each pitch, and "oh, wait!" followed by some part I forgot several more times. How am I going to do it in front of major New York based professionals when I can't do it in front of an audience who thinks that pretty much anything I pitch is golden?

Love,

Stressed out on Sunday

Embrace the Conflict!

It's in my very nature to avoid conflict. I frequently do it at almost any cost. I greatly appreciate a fairly conflict free life. I don't need drama-- that's not what I thrive on.

So, even though I understand the incredible importance of conflict in writing, I admit that my books don't contain nearly enough of it. I've often wondered how to get over it. Especially, like in the book I am currently writing, when the characters are created before all the conflict is. You get to know them and love them and care about what happens to them, and then it's hard to do mean things to them!

I get a daily email kick-in-the-pants from Dave Farland (aka David Wolverton), and his most recent email was about conflict. This sentence really hit me:

"The reader is hiring you to thrust her into conflicts that she might well run from in real life. "

That she might well run from in real life. Isn't that why we read? To experience something that we aren't likely to, or are too afraid to experience in real life? And to wonder about how we would react in the same situation? I need to provide that. Like Dave Farland suggests, I need to pull out all the stops. I need to find a way to make more conflict even if it's really hard for my characters. And me.

And in the next book I write, I'm coming up with all the conflict first! Long before any characters are born, and I end up getting way too attached to them.

I worried I had lost it forever

I used to have such a drive to write.

Then last semester came along, and I had no time at all to write anything I wanted to write. I patiently waited for the semester to get over, knowing that I'd get back that compelled-to-write feeling that I had before.

It didn't come back.

I was frightening me a bit. I really wanted it, yet for the month of January, I have had troubles eeking out 2000 words a week. I've written stories in the past where I have averaged 2500 words A DAY. My slowest had been somewhere around 4000 words a week.

Then, Sunday night, I GOT IT BACK!!

Yay! I was talking with my kids about it at lunch on Monday. Like the amazing kids they are, they helped me to figure out a few things that I know will help me many times over, and I don't want to forget what I learned.

First, Alecia.

I mentioned how much harder it is to write when I have a writing group. They are much more critical than my usual audience, and it does cause some writers block. I am constantly wondering / worrying what they will think of what I write. As good and as helpful and as all around amazing as it is to have people that will be completely honest, no feelings spared about my work, I know that has taken some of the fun out of it.

Alecia said, "You need to not worry about what they think. You can't let the pressure of writing for your writing group change the way you write. You need to put that pressure out of your mind and just write because you like to write. Don't worry about what they think while you are writing."

Yes, a six year old used that phrasing.

I said, "Wow, Alecia. That's some pretty good advice."

She said, "Yeah, I've been reading a book on how to give good advice."

Hehe.

Then, Kyle.

I also mentioned that when I wrote 9,000-word Pivotal, it took me 5 days. And 23,000-word The Secret Mission took me 9 days. And 24,000-word Pivotal II took me 13 days. And 45,000-word The Treasure Quest, my slowest writing (yet most involved), took me just over 2 months. Why can't I write that much now?

Kyle pointed out that all those stories are about people that I already know and love.

And that, my friends, is Kyle hitting the nail on the head. Sunday is my turning point on the unnamed story that I am writing. Why? Because I spent a good portion of the day REALLY getting to know my characters. Not just getting to know them well enough to tell the story, but getting to know them well. I answered a huge list of character questions, and figured out how they handled things. I figured out what they are thinking now and what they were thinking six months ago and how they have changed during that time and why. I learned their likes and dislikes, their triumphs and their struggles, their hopes and their dreams. I still have a lot to learn about them, but now they are real. They are real people that I really care about, and I really want them to experience what I have in store for them. I want to see how they will react when I put them in the situations I have planned for them. I care about what happens to them.

And that is where the desire to write comes from. Really knowing and caring about your characters.

Note to self: Remember that.

That’s the WHAT of it, here’s the WHY

I’ve found out that there are a lot of people I know who also like to write and/or want to write. So, I thought I’d post some mistakes that I make, so hopefully you won’t have to make the same ones.

Last night in my writing class, my teacher talked about two different types of writers. On one end of a continuum is "discovery writers," and at the other end is "planners." Discovery writers like to sit down to write, not having thought too much about plot, and see what happens. They like to discover as they go. Planners like to work through characters, plot, setting, figure out the beginning and the end and everything in between, and then start writing. There’s not a right or a wrong way overall, just a right or wrong way for each individual writer.

Stephen King is a discovery writer. He comes up with some good characters, then plops them down in a situation to see what they will do. He enjoys finding out what happens in the story as he writes it. He likes to be surprised as he goes. This obviously works well for him.

Orson Scott Card is a planner. He may work for eight months on a story, then spend one month writing it. Tolkien was also a planner. He spent 15 years writing The Lord of the Rings. This method obviously works well for both of them.

Brandon Sanderson works somewhere in between. He meticulously plans out setting, world building, and plot, but doesn’t plan so much with his characters. He starts without knowing them very well, and likes to see how they grow when they are placed in the situations he has planned out. This obviously works well for him.

If you would have asked me, even many years ago "If you wrote stories, which kind of writer do you think you would be?" I would have answered without hesitation, "A planner." Now that I’ve been writing for a year, I would tell you that one of the big reasons why I’m a planner is that plot is always difficult for me. It takes a lot of thought and consideration to get it just right. I could never do it on the fly.

My teacher, though, told us that to find what works well for us, he recommends we try out both ends of the continuum. I’ve used the planning method tons. It’s always worked for me. I tried thinking if I’ve ever used the discovery method. That’s when I realized that yes, I have ONCE.

Wanna guess which story I used it on? Yep, Ancient Chinese Secret. I knew WHAT went wrong there (see my last post). I think that WHY it went wrong is because I wasn’t using my writing style. I focused too much on plot and not enough on characters because I knew plot was a weak spot for me; I had to put my focus on it.

So, I guess the lesson learned is to figure out where you are in the continuum, and then respect it. Plan if you need to plan. Discover if you need to discover. And maybe try both on for size if you aren’t sure which will work best for you.

One word of caution from my teacher, though. Stay away from the far ends of the continuum, even if you have to work hard to do so. If you are too far on the discovery end, you’ll find yourself starting out a story, then you’ll get a little stuck or start feel like you aren’t loving your story any more. So, you scrap it and start with a new story. Before long, you have a dozen started stories, and nothing ever gets finished. If you are too far on the planning end, you may write and rewrite and rework until you find you’ve spent most of your life working on the same story, never really feeling like it’s good enough for others to read. Both are bad. Be good and stay away from the ends, but stay true to your writing nature.

That’s all for now, folks. I’m sure I’ll make other mistakes before long.

I think I understand

I have been reading The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones to my kids. I’ve been excited to get to this book, because I am a fan of Rick Riordan; I think he did a great job on The Lightning Thief. Plus, he used to be a junior high history teacher, and I love that he combines history with a great story. All of the ten 39 Clues books will focus on an event or person in history; this one (The Maze of Bones) focuses on Benjamin Franklin, whom I think is beyond cool.

But, I’ve had a very hard time getting into the book. So have my kids.

Why? At first, all I could think of was that it lacked heart. I’ve been trying hard to put my finger on what exactly makes it feel like it is lacking heart. Character Development? I wondered. No, he tells us lots about the characters. (The fact that I thought “tells us” instead of “shows us” should have been my first clue, but I didn’t see it.)

It wasn’t until I realized that The Maze of Bones has the same problem as Ancient Chinese Secret that I figured it out.

Usually when I read back through a story I wrote, I relive a little of the high I got writing it. It makes my soul do a little dance, sing a little song. It makes me happy. I had a hard time re-reading through Ancient Chinese Secret to make sure it didn’t have any grammatical errors before posting it. It just didn’t interest me enough to read it again. (And yes, warning signals should have gone off here, but they didn’t.) I couldn’t really put my finger on why exactly I didn’t like it.

So, when I had the two stories to compare, it was easy to see the similarity. We didn’t inhabit our characters. Sure, we knew lots about our characters. We both shared lots about them. But, I know that at least in my story, I never tried to BE Karen. I never really got into her head. I didn’t know what it was like to walk in her shoes. I didn’t see the world through her eyes.

I wrote a book for my kids, with them as the main characters along with a girl named Claire. Claire is a sweet girl. I like her. She had a few sad parts, though. Sad parts that really made me feel bad. I bawled when I wrote the parts where she cried. I wanted to give her a hug and tell her everything would be okay. She seemed real enough that I almost believed I could. There was another character in the story, Daniel, who was long dead (decades earlier) when the story takes place, but still integral to the plot. My kids found his journal in the new house we moved into, and learned a lot about him and how he was a part of the map they found— stuff I had outlined before I even wrote the first word of the story. When I wrote the part in the story when Daniel was 15 years old and his dad died, it was really, really hard for me. I felt sick that I had been the one that killed off this wonderful man. I did it. My writing killed him. It was awful.

But with Karen.... I didn’t even feel bad when I made her break her ankle.

So, I am writing this in hopes that the lesson I learned will have a better chance of sticking with me. It’s not a mistake I hope to make again.

And, the night after my epiphany, as if to put the lesson in capitals, I read something that explained it all in one sentence. I was reading Sometimes the Magic Works by Terry Brooks, and came across an epigraph that reads:

“If you do not hear music in your words,
you have put too much thought into your writing
and not enough heart.”

Ancient Chinese Secret: Part 7 (The Ending)

Note: Make sure you have read parts 1-6 (below) first.

Monday

Judy waited in the lobby, excited to share the good news with Karen. She had been waiting a while. She figured that Karen had a greater chance of getting to work on time with Peter driving her– he seemed to be a very punctual person. And yet here she still was, at 9:15, waiting. Maybe the crutches were slowing her down, she thought.

When Karen finally entered the building, Judy ran to her, giving her a hug and taking Karen’s purse so she wouldn’t have to juggle it with her crutches.

“Guess what?” Judy asked excitedly. “I met with Rosenberg this morning, and told him you broke your ankle. He said that he didn’t think you could really work in the daycare in that condition, so he is letting you come back to marketing early!”

“Oh. Thank you, Judy.” Karen’s voice sounded more relieved than it had been in days.

Judy carefully kept the subject away from fortune cookies and curses and Chinese food as they went up the elevator to the fifth floor, and walked the corridors. As they rounded the corner to their desks, they both froze. Sitting on Karen’s desk was a fortune cookie.

Judy gasped. “Where did that come from? It wasn’t here when I went downstairs to get you!”

Resigned, Karen placed her crutches against the wall, sat down, and picked up the cookie. “It’s okay. It’s not like I really thought I could get away with not getting a fortune cookie yesterday. I knew it would show up somewhere.”

“So it just appeared?” Judy asked. “And without any Chinese food to go with it? How unfair is that?”

“It’s okay. I think I may have gotten over my addiction.” She let out a mirthless laugh and turned the cookie around and around in her hands. “You know, I’m okay with not getting a fortune cookie that says I will get fame or riches. In fact, you know those cookies that don’t really have a fortune, they just have advice— I would be just fine with one of those.”

“Why don’t you just not open it,” Judy suggested.

“It won’t change anything. And it’s probably better to know what’s coming.” She took a deep breath, then pulled off the plastic wrapper. She cracked the cookie, pulled out the paper, and then read aloud, “All things must come to an end.”

A feeling of dread washed over her as she realized that she didn’t know if the fortune meant the end of her curse, or the end of her.

The End