GENREALITY

I sometimes wonder if I didn’t get into the world of fiction because of curiosity. I mean, I know the story of how all this craziness began. I tripped at a party and embarrassed the hell out of myself. Ran to a corner where friend stood to hide and we started talking about books. At some point in the conversation she said, “You should write a romance novel.” I don’t even remember in what context that was, but that germ of an idea stuck in my head.

When I came home I was curious to see if I could do it. I’d written the biography “Joss Whedon: The Genius Behind Buffy.” Actually, I’d written the guts, my publisher Glenn Yeffeth made it real book. I’d been curious to see if I could pull that off too. I honestly didn’t know when I began these projects if I could do them.

But I’m the kind of person who likes to accept almost any opportunity that comes her way, especially when it comes to books. Back to that first story… I came home and for the next two weeks I spent every hour I wasn’t working on the day job or taking care of two young boys, working on that book.

I remember the moment when I realized I’d found my “real” dream job. I’d written a scene where the lead wasn’t sure what to do about the man in her life. She cared for him, but didn’t think he would ever really understand what she was. My eyes teared and I typed and a lump formed in my throat. Everything in that scene felt so real. That’s when I knew I wanted to write fiction.

If I hadn’t let my curiosity take over, I might never have discovered this love for writing fiction. Sure, some days I might wish I hadn’t, especially the ones where I get 20 hours of sleep over a five-day period. But for the most part I love what I do. Taking that leap of faith is one of best things I’ve ever done for myself.

The same sort of thing happened with moving to Harlequin. I’d been friends with editor Kathryn Lye for years. She is just one of those people I adore. During RWA (The big convention for romance writers) we usually try to get together. Sometimes we’d watch new pilots so she could see trends. Other times we’d talk about everything from books to life as we know it.

A few summers ago we were in San Francisco and had breakfast. Once again we were talking about everything and nothing. I’m not sure how the subject came up, but she asked me what I was working on next. I told her I was in the mood to do something different. I wanted to do a spy version of “Women’s Murder Club.” It was an idea that had been mulling around in my head for a long time.

She said that would be the perfect sort of thing for Blaze and that I should consider writing for them. I was shocked. I’d never even thought about it, but I would have give anything to work with her. (She’s a phenomenal editor and I’ve already learned so much from her.) Several months later I was writing “Take Me if You Dare” for Harlequin. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done.

There were challenges again. I’d never written third person. I’d never been in a guy’s head for POV. I’d never written a book without magic of some kind. I was CURIOUS to see if  I could even do it.

As a writer it’s important to challenge yourself and dive into new things. It’s good to be curious and to accept opportunities when they come your way. I have this saying, “Throw yourself out there and see what happens. You never know what’s going to work.”

I’m curious if there was ever a time when you took a leap of faith and it worked out? Tell me about it, I really want to know.

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*sorry I’m late…I made the mistake of trying to upload over 400 photos to my online backup server last night, at once, and while it worked, it pretty much froze my internet for anything else, so at 330 AM I decided I’d post this when I woke up and went to bed*

What I learned on retreat…or should I say in retreat?

A few weeks ago I posted about going on a roadtrip/writing retreat with a buddy. It was something I’d been looking forward too for a long while. You see, my plan was to spend June and July focussing on other aspects of my life so that in August I’d be ready to re-focus on writing with much intensity. (I’ve come to accept that unless I’m intense/passionate about something, there is really no point in me even attempting to do it. ) As with most things in life, plans go awry.

June and July were full of stress and drama for me. So much so that I realized that if I was going to get serious about my writing again, I needed to leave the night job. Most people have Day Jobs, but mine is a night job for 2 reasons.
1) I work nights at it, not days. (Waitress/bartender)

2) Writing is my day job.

Yes, I claim writing as my day job even though I haven’t been doing a whole hell of a lot of it lately. See Carrie post yesterday about Time management to get an idea of what I might’ve been doing.

As you know, there is more to being a writer than the actual writing, so I’ve been keeping busy with plenty of things. Writing a bit here and there, promotions, planning, and researching for new projects. PLus, I’ve been trying to organize some of my previously published stuff to make available electronically. I mean, if it’s just sitting on my computer, why not give it a try and see what happens, right?

So, the plan was to get that stuff done, and focus on some other things in June and July, then in AUgust, starting with the retreat, I could work on my new project. Well, the night job sort of ended up taking over my life for the summer, and I spent the first five days of the roadtrip/retreat simply decompressing because I had to work 13 of the 14 days before we left. The first days of our trip were on the road and even though Delilah maintained a three page a day quota, I simply drove, listened to music and thought about writing. (Okay, and spent time talking visiting family and shopping on Granville Island in Vancouver). Once we got hunkered down at the lake to write, I still couldn’t make myself do it. I walked the lake and played with my camera and thought about writing some more. By the time I finally got into work mode at the lake, it was time to leave, so I didn’t get much actual work done.
One of the things that relaxed me the most was that I’d given notice at the night job. It’s time to make writing the #2 priority in my life (#1 being my health).

So, I’m happy because I have one week left on the night job, then I’ll be able to focus more on writing! YAY!

So, lessons learned, again. Just because you’re not at work, doesn’t mean your not working. You need to be sure you’re taking a day off from all work every now and then, or your passion for, well, everything, will dry up fast. And the passion must be maintained. I say this because what Carrie said yesterday about being productive when she was still working was also true of me-before I quit to write full time. When I first started out, and I was driven to succeed I worked fulltime, and wrote every spare moment. Then I quit work to write full-time, and my writing productivity slowed so I could concentrate not on writing, but on career. One of the reasons I went back to the night job was because I thought it would help me find that passion to be super productive again. It didn’t. The only place to find that passion is deep within, and if you lose it, then nothing will get it back but time spent refilling the well. At least that’s true for me.

So, my promise to myself after being on retreat…I will never let my well get so dried up again. I will remember that in order to be productive and passionate. I must relax and take time off and away from the computer on a regular basis, to maintain my passion and drive.

One thing I know I’ll be using to refill my creative well from now on is more photography. In the comments tell me what you do to refill the well and be entered to win a $15 Amazon gift certificate. I’ll post the winner of the draw next week.

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Since I’m into trying new things with my writing right now, stretching my creative muscles and all that, I’ve been looking back at some of my own earlier stuff. That means some of the articles I’ve written as well as stories. I found a file from an online workshop on Writing Dynamic Scenes that I did a while ago, and it really hit home, so I thought I’d share the first part of the lecture here.

From the workshop:

I’m going to start with What does Dynamic Mean?
There are a few definitions for this word, but for our purposes it means “stimulating development or progress”. That definition is KEY. Dynamic scenes must move the story forward and/or show the reader something important. I say “and/or” because some writers will tell you every scene Must move the story or plot forward, but I don’t believe that. There is more to a good story, and more to a dynamic scene, than plot and story arc. Stories are about characters, and we should never forget that.

That means that a scene can still be integral to the story without actually moving the plot forward – but if it doesn’t advance the plot then it has to have another purpose. Character development for example. Description is not a valid purpose. Showing us what a normal uneventful day is for your character is not a valid purpose. If you have a scene in your story where the heroine is showering or doing laundry, she better be having a revelation of some sort that is important and stimulating to us as a reader while she’s doing these things. Make sense? (feel free to ask questions in the comments if you need clarification)

This may seem stupid, but the first thing you need to do to write a dynamic scene is ….write the scene.

Yes. Seems like something I shouldn’t have to tell you, right? Well, I’m telling you this is the first step because too often writers, old and new, get too wrapped up in thinking about what they ‘should’ or ‘should not’ be doing to write freely – and writing freely is a massive component for writing dynamic scenes. You can’t ensure a scene is dynamic until after you’ve written it, so free your mind of any rules or restrictions, stop thinking so hard about using descriptive words and sparkling dialogue and just write!

This last paragraph is what really hit home with me. You see, in trying new things lately I’ve started to really doubt my own skills and storytelling ability, and it’s stalled me. I’ve sat and stared into space or at my laptop, I’ve walked for miles thinking about what I wanted to write. I’ve gone to sleep and woken up thinking about storylines and plot holes and where I want my new project to go.

I’ve put so much pressure on myself to ‘get it right‘ that I’ve forgotten the first step in doing that is ‘get it written‘.

Funny how it’s sometimes so hard to remember the simplest of lessons.:oops:

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My friend Britta Coleman (Potter Springs) teaches a class called The Art of Re-Writing. I call my class Revision Hell. I suppose it’s a bit of perspective when it comes to writing. She’s one of those people who doesn’t mind how long it takes to make a book perfect. I just want to get it done. Once I’ve written that first draft, I’m pretty much ready to move on. That may be why, even though I write fast, I also write tight that first time.

That’s not to say I don’t have to go back and fluff and puff, as I like to call it. In my revisions I usually need to flesh out scenes and characters a little more. I add texture to those scenes by using the senses more. I also search for those words I use too much and I look for any inconsistencies in my characters.

In truth there are about 30 different things I’m looking for when I go through revisions from bunny trails (going off in strange directions and not bringing it back to the story) to nice nice (a conversation where nothing is moving the story forward). Revisions are a daunting task for me, which is why I take them in small bites. I usually focus on just 20 pages a day as I look for all those things, and in about two weeks I have polished manuscript ready to go.

But that’s my process. You may go about it in a different way. That’s the cool thing, there’s no right or wrong way. Wait, there is a wrong way: If you don’t do them at all.

We say you should write at least a little bit each day, and I find that with revisions too. It just makes it easier to take small patches and clean them up, rather than trying to plow through the whole thing. There are time when I do closer to 50 – 100 pages of revisions in a day when I’m on deadline, but I try to make myself stop somewhere between 20-30 at the most. I know I get tired and careless after that. Though, I do find I can do 25 pages in the morning, take a long break, and do another 25 at night without killing myself.

In truth, I love spending more time with my characters, I just don’t like having to make sure everything is polished. But I do, of course. I have some published writer friends who turn in very rough drafts to their editors. That isn’t for me. I always worry the editor will wonder, “What was she thinking?” Those writers tell me they know there are going to be revisions so why worry about it. I want to make the editors job as easy as possible so she will love me.

Like I said, turning in something really rough is not for me. During the three revisions I made myself do on the YA before turning it over to my agent, I added over 75 pages. My last Blaze I wrote, She Who Dares, Wins, I added more than 30 pages. Like I said, I have a lot of fluff and puff to do after that first draft.

There are also people who revise as they go along. I understand they want a really clean first draft, but it doesn’t work for me. I don’t want that internal editor in my creative process. That IE can make me second guess myself and there’s a good chance I would never finish a book if I did that. And honestly, I think these people are fooling themselves. Most writers don’t know how to perfect those early chapters until they finish their books. And many of them still end up doing at least one pass on revisions.

Everyone has their way of working and as I said before no one way is right. But psychologically I know it’s best to take big jobs a little at a time. You know that horrible saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time?” It’s true.

So how do you handle tough tasks? Do you barge right in and hope for the best? Do you do the hard stuff first and then the easy?

Tell me, I really want to know.

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What are stories made of? Kites and strings and dragonfly wings. Snakes and snails and puppydog tails. Daydreams, nightmares. Hopes and scares. There’s a lot written on how to write, but where does what you write come from?

It comes from a thousand things you’ve forgotten, from the passions you had when you were five and fifteen and twenty-five, from the stories that captured your imagination and the heroes you identified with, from your hobbies and even from hated assignments you were once forced to suffer through. Anything you’ve ever cared enough about to love or hate is writing material. Injustices that make you seethe are fair game. So are triumphs that make you want to crow. So are all those things that excite and move you but you know nothing about so you’ll have to do some research.

Writing what you know is far too limited. Writing to discover has an infinite horizon. But don’t forget what you know, all the deep truths that come from your lifetime of experience. I know there are monsters under the bed and that creatures can come through mirrors at midnight. Don’t pester me with logic and flashlights. Monsters disappear when you shine lights on them. I know there are endless worlds populated with strange things, and that a whole universe lives in a drop of water. I know the sky can fall and just when you think things couldn’t possibly get worse you’ll discover how much imagination you lack. I know there aren’t always happy endings but it’s not over until it’s over, and every day is another day to write another chapter of your life story. I know heroes are resourceful and determined. I know evil exists from the banal to the monstrous. I know the human capacity for generosity and achievement is miraculous and we don’t give ourselves nearly enough credit.

What do you know? What do you fear? What do you wish, hope, dream, imagine? What horrible or beautiful thing fascinates you? What makes you laugh? What makes you pull the covers over your head? What do you wish you understood or knew more about? What do you wish you could unlearn and forget?

Stories can be structured with all kinds of neat tricks, but the raw stuff of stories is messy as hell. Don’t try to tidy it up. Don’t write the safe story anybody else could think of, the obvious choice anybody could see coming a mile away. Don’t write comfortable and smug stories that couldn’t scare anybody or move anybody to tears or laughter. Write what’s real and true to you. That’s what stories are made of.

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