GENREALITY

I did a post earlier in the month about the many things I’m thankful for in life. In America it’s Thanksgiving Day today. It’s basically a time for families to come together and do what we do best — eat. I like hanging out with the family,but there are some other things I enjoy about the day. I love the big newspaper with all the Black Friday ads. I like the zombie nap I take after eating all that food. Unhealthy, yes, but extremely pleasurable. I like listening to my boys hanging out with their little cousins. There’s a bit of hero worship by the cousins and it’s fun to watch how my boys handle it.

I like the way the house smells when all that good food is cooking. Oh, and then there’s the leftovers. That means no cooking for a few days. When everyone gets tired of turkey and roast, we usually have one nice meal out some time during the weekend. Oh, and I almost always put the Christmas tree up that Friday. And sometimes I’ll even brave the crowds to do a little shopping. I don’t mind the chaos as long as it’s not so crowded that I can’t breathe.

But the best part of Thanksgiving is that I usually get a lot of writing done. Well, not on the actually day. But the Saturday and Sunday after, for some reason, are always extremely fruitful when it comes to writing fiction. Maybe I’m more relaxed. Maybe it’s the idea that Christmas and the New Year are just around the corner and I want to finish up the old projects so I can start fresh. But I feel a sudden urge to write and write.

I’ve learned to take advantage of these times. I’m the chick who says you should write every day no matter what, and I believe that. BUT I also think you have to be tuned into your mind and body and take advantage of those times when you feel like you’re on a creative binge. Sure I should be hanging out with the family, but I think it’s the idea that I’m playing hooky from them that makes the writing so much fun. I slip on the headphones (which I’ve just noticed are missing from my desk. Kids!) and I’m in another world.

So do you guys ever do something like this? Slip away and do something fun or creative? Do the holiday inspire anything but panic? Tell me, I really want to know.

I’ve been talking the last few weeks about how it’s good to continue to hone your craft and learn as much as you can about writing. You never know what might spark your New York Times bestseller. I follow quite a few writers on Twitter and Facebook and one of the most prolific Tweeters is Neil Gaiman. It just so happens that he’s written some of my favorite books. I have a slight crush on that voice of his. (Listening to him read his books is one of my favorite past times.) And he’s wicked clever.

He also tweets a great deal of useful information. A few days ago he posted a link to an article about Terry Pratchett teaching a writing class. Here’s the link http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/weekend/2010/1106/1224282772070.html

It was kind of nice to read Pratchett, who has been so successful and writes such clever books, almost never knows where the story is going to go until he writes it.

But what I liked best was when Pratchett talked about the secrets of writing. One of his topics was writing drafts. He tells the students that with the first draft “let it run. Turn all the knobs up to 11.” I couldn’t agree more. I know there are some people who feel that they must edit as they go along, but I can’t help but wonder how much more clever their prose might be if they’d just let their imagination take over and worried about the editing later.

I find it freeing to write this way. I do it even when I’m on a tight deadline. The minute I start to even think about editing, I begin second guessing myself and feeling as those what I’m doing is total crap. Pratchett says the second draft should be hell. He says, “Second draft: hell. Cut it down and cut it into shape.” He goes on to talk about the third and fourth drafts and he’s absolutely spot on.

He also compares writing fiction to writing music. “Playing chopsticks on the keyboard, waiting for a melody to turn up. Listening to what notes are making sense.”

I’m curious if you’ve read an article or taken a class that has changed the way you look at things or helped to build your confidence in some way.

Please share.

Oh and if you want to read the first book I fast drafted, check out Charmed & Dangerous.

I’ve been talking about how changing your routine can be a good thing when it comes to writing. We all get set in our ways, but it’s a good idea to shake things up now and then. I talked about how a class on themes helped me to lock down something that was wrong with one of my books. Another class taught by a county medical examiner, helped me to realize I had a few things wrong about my murder investigation in another book.

The other day my English professor in my grad school class posted the following from Kurt Vonnegut:

Vonnegut’s 8 Rules for Writing Fiction

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

These are all things a lot of us know. but do we do them? Are me maybe just a little lazy about No. 4? Could we use some work when it comes to 5 and 6? You never know when or how you’re going to have one of those writing epiphanies that can be game changing.

Right now on my Write Workshop loop we are doing a 4000 word challenge. It’s a 16 day challenge meant to kick you in your butt and get the words on the page. While we’re in this phase we don’t really have to worry about what I have above, except I think it helps, even during the creative process, to have a character you can root for, and to throw rocks at them.

I realized as I begin a new project that I don’t have enough conflict for one of my characters so I’ll probably spend a good part of today thinking of ways I can make him miserable.

If you’d like to help me brainstorm on ways I can throw rocks, feel free. The set up is he’s a Marine, helping out at the UN, who falls for a fashion designer. They’re from two different worlds and he thinks hers is insane. Feel free to play along here.

Or tell me one thing in the past year that you heard that sort of made you stop and think about your writing. You never know, your experience might help someone else, so please share.

I wish I could tell you I have a set process of how I write a book, but that would be a lie. It seems like with each new project I have a different way of dealing with it. Well except for two things. I write down the draft really fast and there’s always music involved.

I believe in giving myself permission to write a crappy first draft. That takes a great deal of the pressure off and I believe it was Nora Roberts who said, “It’s impossible to fix a blank page.” I vomit out those words on to the page as fast as my fingers will type them. Well, that doesn’t mean I don’t get stumped sometimes. But I refuse to allow myself to have writer’s block. There are those who may say it isn’t, but I’m sorry, writers block is nothing but fear. It’s fear of the unknown. Fear of being stupid. It’s just fear. And we know fear isn’t real. It’s something we create. So I tell myself to get over it and I move to the next scene where I do know what happens.

The other consistency with me, is that each book has a soundtrack. The one I just finished was pretty mellow. I had a lot of Joss Stone (Body & Soul is my go-to album for just about all stages of writing), Marie Digby, Martina McBride, The Dixie Chicks and the Courtyard Hounds. There are other times when I’m writing with heavy metal or indie rock blaring. When I’m doing hard core revision, like I have been the last few weeks, that Joss Stone album helps me to focus. I think I’ve used that music so much that when it plays my brain says, “it’s time to work.”

Now, you’re thinking, Candy, you said earlier that every time you write it’s different. Well, how I come up with my ideas and how I choose to execute those drafts are what changes. Yes, I always write really fast, but there are times when I write absolutely chronologically and other times when I have to piece it together. With Dragons Prefer Blondes I had the first page and then the last chapter and I kept going from the beginning to the back of the book and eventually met myself somewhere in the middle. I’d never worked that way before.

With this last book, Truth and Dare, I had a really solid synopsis. That was different for Ms. Pantser. With that book I had the first three chapters and then I kept skipping to the next bits I knew. Then I’d write something and figure out what it was I needed back in that other chapter.

Right now I’m working on a proposal for Harlequin and while the first couple of chapters came easily, writing the synopsis has been hell. I know the story, but can’t seem to summarize it very well. Then this weekend I had an epiphany while at a class Lori Wilde was teaching about Themes. I think I’ve always done Themes quite naturally in my books, but for some reason on this new project I didn’t really have one. I had to sit down and really think about what my characters’ journeys were about. I’ve never done that before.

I just had a call from my editor and once I told her the character’s themes, she approved the books.

That’s one of the many reasons I still take classes all the time. I never know when I’m going to have one of those epiphanies. What Lori had to say really stuck with me and I finally figured out what my themes were about.

The whole point of this really long diatribe, is even if you’ve been writing the same way for 20 years, don’t be afraid to shake it up a little. Take some classes, listen to how others work and try to apply your own version of what you learn to your work. You never know what might happen!

Happy Halloween!

Candy

TV can be a giant time suck but it can also serve as inspiration for writers. When the snooty folks say, “I don’t watch television,” as if it is beneath them, I say, “too bad because you’re missing some of the most artistically diverse programming ever. Television has had a creative boon the last two years and it isn’t over yet. I don’t know about you, but it’s also a great place to do some research. Need some ideas on how to make quirky detectives work? Check out “Castle.” Want to lawyers who are funny? Check out “The Defenders.” Want to liven up your prose with some spies? Take a look at Nikita and Undercovers. These shows might inspire you to do your own little twist on a well-worn genre.

I started talking about the new season on my personal blog at http://candyhavens.livejournal.com you can find the information for some of the new series that I’ve added to my DVR. And I honestly talk about the good and the bad for Monday – Wednesday. I’m going to finish off that post here, and my hope is you’ll be inspired to check some of these shows out, and in turn they will inspire you.

Thursday

This is one busy night of television, at least in my house. I’m a fan of Bones and Fringe on Fox, Nikita (a new spy series) and Vampire Diaries on the CW. That doesn’t leave a lot of room on the DVR, which is why I had to buy another one. I wasn’t going to miss one of my all-time favorite shows BIG BANG THEORY. Here’s a show is a great example of how to write some funny nerds. I’m actually angry that CBS moved this show from Mondays, because that quite honestly made Monday a perfect night of television for me. And I’m not sure I can ever forgive CBS for pairing it with the awful William Shatner show $..! My Dad Says. Ugh. That’s some bad television you won’t find inspiring at all. There’s a funny new comedy that has an incredibly diverse cast, Outsourced on NBC, that is so funny. This is a show that reminded me we also need to keep the characters in our books diverse. And it’s also a show that will make you laugh. One show that won’t make you laugh is “My Generation” on ABC. I didn’t find it very entertaining at all, but if you’re doing research on 20 somethings it might be one to check out. They were all a little too whiny for me, but I did get some good ideas for character development. I watch the other NBC comedies and ABC dramas online. There’s just no room at the inn on the DVR’s.

Friday

This used to be such a dead night, but it’s a busy one now. I love me some Supernatural and since it’s paired with Smallville, I’ll be keeping up with that one too. I’d given up on Smallville after the third season, but I started watching last season again and it’s an entertaining series. This is Smallville’s last season and I hope they go out strong. Fox moved Human Target, one of my favorites to Fridays along with The Good Guys. I’ll be watching both of those. All of that pretty much fills up the DVR for the night, but if you like law shows you should check out Jimmy Smits in Outlaw on NBC. It’s a different twist on a law show, and Smits is charming as always. Another charming guy is Tom Selleck and I also adore his co-star Donnie Wahlberg, but their show Blue Bloods is like watching paint dry for me. I should probably give it another chance but it’s a cop show with just nothing new for me.

Sunday

This is a busy night in cable. If you aren’t watching Boardwalk on HBO, you should. It’s amazingly well done. I’ve never been that interested in the Prohibition Era, but this show has changed that. Steve Buscemi is just a revelation in this series. He’s finally found a role that takes serious advantage of his talent. I’m also a big fan of Bored to Death on HBO, which follows Boardwalk. It’s the crazy life of a writer, only he gets into even more trouble than I do. I still watch Brother & Sisters, which ended with a couple of big cliffhangers last season, and I’m still a fan of Desperate Housewives. Um, if my friend producer Jeff Greenstein wasn’t working on DH, I’m not sure I’d watch any more. Vanessa Williams, who guests stars on this, gave me the meanest look while I was interviewing her. It wasn’t anything I said, I promise. I just don’t think she thought I was worth her time. I wish that sort of thing didn’t keep me from enjoying a show, but it does. Fox animated is back strong. Goodness knows I still love me some Simpsons, and my kids live for Family Guy.

Well, if you can find a little inspiration in all that, well there’s something wrong with you. Do I watch all these shows every week? No, I wouldn’t get anything done if I did. But I do turn to them when I need to get out of my head and into someone’s world other than my own.

Tell me what shows you watch, and which new ones you’re looking forward to.