This time of year the world seems filled with extra light. There are candles in my windows. And in my neighbor’s window, a menorah–more candles. The shops are full of decorations in every shape, color and configuration imaginable and most of the decorations feature light in some form.
Thanksgiving is just past and, already, we’re knee-deep into preparation for Christmas–or Hanukkah–or–Kwanzaa–or–Ramadan–or (some holiday unknown to me, but precious to someone). Mid-winter is a time of holidays, each with a distinct set of customs and a unique manner of observance. Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa are celebrated with special meals and the giving of gifts. The food served and the gifts given vary according to the tradition being honored, but in each they are chosen to remind celebrants of a common heritage. Ramadan follows the opposite path by observing the special time with fasting instead of feasting. And yet, even in this completely different tradition, there runs a common thread. All of the holidays involve at least some level of introspection. Underlying all the festivities, all the customs, both merry and solemn, there is an awareness of the need for understanding, a call to examine our innermost selves.
Many of our celebrations throughout the year involve light (colored lights, candles, crackling logs, fireworks) and this is especially true of those that come in midwinter when night falls so quickly. Maybe it’s because these holidays are so close to the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, and we feel a need to light the darkness. Are our candles really symbols of the light we find when we seek within and our need to proclaim it to the world? I feel sure that they are and it occurs to me that this need to proclaim is akin to the force that compels writers to write, painters to paint and composers to compose. It’s the artist’s need to illuminate, to direct a beacon that shines so brightly we cannot fail to recognize and then to proclaim the common humanity that lies beneath our differences.
So let’s all light candles–millions of candles of diverse size and shape and color–to celebrate our commonality. And the darkness will vanish.
As writers, we walk a fine line between exerting too much control and too little over our written words. The left side of our brains – the side involved in logic – is where our speech and language skills reside. Yet it is the right side of our brains – the site of intuition and emotion – that provides the true genius to our work. The question then must be: how do we best negotiate between the two?
Of course, we can work out some of our writing problems through cognitive approaches. These might involve brainstorming, outlining, and making all sorts of detailed charts of plot action and character introduction. Drafting and revision are usually deliberate and highly conscious activities. Yet other writing solutions come to us through the unconscious. These solutions might be manifested through metaphorical thinking, recalled dreams, disparate images that float into our consciousness unbidden, and sudden connections between ideas.
If you examine a finished piece of writing, you can’t help but notice the myriad unconscious choices the author has made. The subject itself might be a surprise, even to the author. It may result from a childhood experience that is all but buried. The writer’s point of view, use of metaphor, and choice of words may be unconscious choices. These unconscious decisions coupled with the deliberate (and very conscious) execution of our craft make up our writing voice. Learning to listen to our unique writing voice creates power in our words.
Many fiction writers begin with a visual image. Gabriel Garcia Marquez, author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, claims his starting point is often “a completely visual image.” We should learn to watch for such images. They can form the inspiration for our work because they tap into dreams and memories. They are outward manifestations of the unconscious.
In the same way, metaphorical thinking can also signal the working of the unconscious. Metaphors foster creative thinking and can add richness to our work. Writing very close to our dream state is another worthwhile practice. Many writers do their finest work either late at night or very early in the morning. Others actually wake themselves throughout the night to catch fleeting images or keep a dream journal so they can quickly record them. Sigmund Freud believed that literature illustrated the workings of the unconscious, after all. And Samuel Taylor Coleridge composed “Kubla Khan” via an opium-induced sleep.
But no fair looking for the easy fix of drugs or alcohol. We need to work hard at solving our writing problems before we let the unconscious take over. We can’t just wait for inspiration to hit us over the head. We have to put forth plenty of conscious effort. Then, sometimes we’re rewarded, as often as not during a downtime in the composing process when the unconscious breaks through to consciousness. Then we might just propel ourselves into the “writing vortex” Louisa May Alcott wrote about, a place where we lose track of time and sometimes even our surroundings. That’s a pretty amazing place to be.
I am getting my full-body armor out of the writing closet. What’s that, you may ask? My feeble analogy for what I’m preparing to do: Pitch my new book “The Last Year of Birdsong.”
For all writers who’ve been there — and still are — you understand what I mean. While I hate to use a battle analogy, I’m preparing myself to be lambasted by the inevitable rejections, ergo, the armor. Emotional protection from a very vested interest of work and time.
My sister-writers in this blog recently have experienced a severe bout of rejections. On a personal level – as a friend and reader — I can tell you their books are amazing. On a professional and unbiased level, I can tell you their books are so worthy of publication. Their characters are compelling and well-rounded; their stories captivating.
And yet, agents offered the familiar mantra, the one I received countless times when “Deadly Habits” was roundly rejected: It wasn’t what they were looking for. It didn’t, in essence, knock their socks off.
So what are agents looking for? Obviously great writing and good stories. We’ve got that in spades. But as one of my sister-bloggers said, until the publishing industry gets over its current love affair with vampires, perhaps our characters should all have fangs.
In my heart of hearts, however, I’m not going to compromise. In fact, my next book does come from the heart. While it details the day-to-day adventures and struggles of a young girl growing up in Texas, it does have a metaphysical spin with other-worldly connections. Did I write it that way to make it “different?” No. That wasn’t my intent. But if that appeals to agents, all the better.
At this point, all I can do is go forward with my own personal three “P’s” — passion, persistence and professionalism. And I’ll do all that as I brace for the final “P” — pitching. So here I go, full body armor at the ready. Wish me luck, folks.
I’ve been thinking a lot, lately, about giving birth. (Here’s where I read your mind, dear reader. Hmm, you’re saying to yourself, isn’t she a little, uh, mature for that? You’re a very polite person, I know). But before you come to the conclusion that I’m delusional, please let me explain myself.
For one thing, the concept of giving birth was the inspiration for the name of this blog. The analogy between the length of time and the pain involved in making a baby and producing a finished novel struck my fellow writers and I, all of us women, as particularly apt. Speaking personally, it’s been my experience that both endeavors involve sweat and tears, if not necessarily blood.
Since there are five of us and we have the luxury of taking turns, writing for this blog is a much less arduous task than “birthing” a novel, but it does keep us all thinking regularly about the process. And now that I’ve begun work on my second novel, the act of giving birth—both literally and figuratively—is on my mind even more.
In my work-in-progress, an unmarried daughter’s pregnancy exposes the secrets and lies that have helped to conceal her mother’s own illegitimate birth. When the identity of her real grandparents is revealed, the daughter is left with many questions, among them: why had her mother been so determined to deny the truth about her parentage that she would lie to her own daughter? As she finally uncovers the answer, the daughter comes to accept her mother’s belief that giving birth and being a parent are two very different things.
For me, it’s not too much of a stretch to apply that same credo to the creation of a novel. With the joyful completion of the first draft, the “baby” can be said to have been born. But, no matter how beautiful it may be in her eyes, the writer soon realizes that first incarnation will require a lot of nurturing and grooming before it’s ready to go out into the world. Inevitably, there will be numerous revisions before a book is strong and accomplished enough to venture into the competitive publishing marketplace.
And, just as with a child, the parent/writer inevitably loses sleep over how her offspring will turn out.
Are you an actor or the audience? I frequently go to the Broadway theatre with my daughter – I love hearing her laugh in a darkened auditorium. We are part of an audience there. We take no risks. We only listen to the actors onstage and go outdoors to state our assessment of their work. (Once, I was interviewed by a reporter for my evaluation of a play. My comments appeared in the next day’s Daily News.) We decide on the play’s worth but we don’t have to say lines in front of a house full of strangers nine times a week.
In writing a novel, we do take risks. Will the reader like me? Will he or she recommend my work to friends or family? Will he or she laugh at my funny lines? When I’m serious, will my intent be recognized?
When I write, I am like the actor. I take the risks. Work that has taken me years to finish is read in a few days. Sometimes the reader puts it in a box for donation to the library. I can only hope my audience recommends my work.
The Friends of the Library Book Sale has consumed most of my waking hours for the past several weeks. We started with boxes of donated books–over 400–and that doesn’t count the numerous plastic bags filled to bursting. It was a period of hard work, made light by many hands and a time of fellowship with scores of people who truly love books–in short, a good time and well worth the effort.
The sale was a triumph on several fronts. First and most obvious, it was an economic success, one that couldn’t have come at a better time. Severe budget cuts have forced curtailment of library services at a time when the public’s need is greatest. The money raised by the book sale won’t be enough to bridge the gap, but it will make a difference.
Perhaps as important is the transfer of books from the shelves of someone who can no longer use them into the hands someone who can. Unpacking the boxes, it was impossible not to speculate on where the books had been and where they might go next. As volunteers sorted through donated items, we frequently found ourselves sidetracked, lured into spending a few minutes reading (and sometimes sharing) a much loved passage. We teased each other at the number of volumes on the teetering stacks each of us put aside to purchase and joked that we were our own best customers.
Friday night was member preview night. Savvy dealers came armed with hand-held scanners and stocked up for the months ahead. One gentleman told me he is semi-retired and depends on his on-line bookstore to pay his health insurance–a heart-warming testament to the importance of what we had worked so hard to accomplish. Equally heart-warming was watching families shop together, sharing their delight in special favorites. It was fascinating and sometimes surprising to note the choices people made and to imagine them losing themselves in the worlds within the covers of those choices.
A lot of books disappeared, but having started with an embarrassment of riches, many were left. People asked what happened to the leftovers. I was proud to answer that they would not end up in a dumpster. At the sale’s end, we invited non-profit organizations to select books. A representative from A Woman’s Place (a shelter for abused women) chose books to sell in their thrift shop. A Temple University student filled boxes for the Tree House Project, which provides books to inner-city children who would otherwise have none. One of our board members looked for reading material for book-poor children in the school from which she recently retired. A veteran selected books to replenish the supply of a library run by the USO. There, troops about to be deployed can check out books and, if they are not able to finish them before they leave, keep them. Representatives from nursing homes looked for books their residents might enjoy. Purple Heart collected numerous boxes to sell in their shop.
As I watched the books leave the library, I found myself wondering where a particular book was going and into whose hands it would next be placed. Some, I know, will make their appearance at next year’s book sale–and begin the journey anew.
It wasn’t that long ago that the young adult (YA) market for books was pronounced all but dead. That is certainly no longer the case. Call it the Harry Potter factor or the baby boom bounce, but teens are reading and buying lots of books. There are approximately 40 million people between 13 and 19 in the United States; a recent survey shows that over 60 percent of them read books for pleasure. Of course, publishers are well aware of this trend and do all they can to snag an increasingly larger share of this audience.
Social networking has had a huge effect on YA book sales; a hot book becomes boiling hot very quickly when teens blog or post on Facebook or Twitter. Some agents who used to deal only with the adult market have switched to children’s books and YA. And formerly adult-only authors are now trying their hand at the YA novel and reeling in new readers and hefty sales. It’s arguable, but some critics believe that there is more experimentation and creativity in this market than in standard adult fare. That attracts the best writers and, in turn, the prolific readers – both teens and adults, for there is now a sizable cross-over market, which means that adults are reading books originally marketed for YA. Switch covers, shelve the books in the adult section, and you’ve got a new supply of potential readers.
So if you’re a writer, what’s the difference between writing a young adult and an adult book? Both can have gripping plots and feature young adult or teenage protagonists. Yet there are a few points that differentiate the two:
* In YA novels, your protagonist must be a teenager.
* If you’re writing YA, keep to a limited, adolescent point-of-view. Even when it has a teenage protagonist, an adult novel contains a narrative voice that betrays adult perspective.
* YA novels often – but not always – are shorter in length. Though character-driven, they have lots of dialogue and page-turning action.
* Though they can be gritty and no-holds-barred realistic, YA novels usually leave the reader with some hope.
All this concerns me, not only because I write YA and have just completed an historic novel for this market, but also because in my college teaching, I’ve met so many students who love this genre and aspire to write compelling YA fiction. I always encourage them to polish their craft and to keep a close eye on the publishing industry, primarily by joining organizations like the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators – the standard for the industry.
When you’re a writer, keeping an eye on the publishing market can feel a bit like selling out; it feels too far from the business of creating gripping stories. Yet we can’t afford to ignore what’s going on in the publishing world. As much fun as the creative process is, we also want readers consuming what we produce. That’s a lot more likely if we keep abreast of the trends.
Consider the power of a name. What do you imagine when you hear Ebenezer Scrooge, Holly Golightly or Heathcliff? If these names stir feelings in you, a remembrance of plot and place, credit their enduring authors. It’s no accident that great writers name their progenies with care.
Here are more names of worth: Rhett and Scarlet (need I say more?), Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein. As I said, naming is powerful stuff. In Puritan times, girls were named Faith or Chastity to live up to those virtures, while Native Americans named themselves and their children to reflect their lives and actions. Do you remember “Stands with a Fist” in the movie “Dances with Wolves”? Her name told me the essence of her being.
The truth is, names have great power, and naming in and of itself is a great power. The Bible tells the story of God giving Adam the power to name the animals and other parts of creation. The process of naming is a creative act, one we participate in as authors.
We birth our characters and then christen them, with names of meaning and worth, sending them off into the happy, sad, romantic or mysterious worlds we’ve created. Most of all, we want readers to remember their names. As famous speaker/author Dale Carnegie once said, “Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” While our characters are fictional, we want their names to be the “sweetest and most important sound in any language” to our readers.
In my thriller “Deadly Habits,” for example, I chose the name Milagro for my protagonist because it means “miracle” in Spanish. She is half Mexican and I wanted to convey a sense of the miraculous in a life filled with secrets and unforgiveness. It also conveys a sense of the spiritual, as this 40-something renegade woman struggles with her life in the convent. To name her Susan or Betty, although nice, would not have had the same cojones for this character.
It’s often been asked, “What’s in a name?” The answer would seem to be “Everything!” Names tell readers who our characters are at the deepest levels. And for writers, it’s the ultimate power trip. So, go forth and christen your characters — and make their names one for the books. Literally.
It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times — what is it that compels me to write? Why, when it sometimes feels like some form of self-inflicted torture, do I persist in sitting down in front of a keyboard to try to tell a story? After giving it a great deal of thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the answers might just be that I’m human.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to believe that Homo sapiens’ need to tell stories probably began with the origin of language. Our ancestors would have communicated the news of the day through their stories, as well as using them as a way to pass along the collective wisdom. (Og was fooling around with a big rock and a sharp stone and he came up with a wheel. And guess what? He found out round wheels work better than square ones!)
No doubt, human nature being what it’s always been, every time the story was repeated, it would have been embellished and tweaked to make it just that little bit more interesting. (When he wouldn’t stop chipping away at that rock, Og’s wife hit him over the head with a bone!)
I also fantasize that not everyone who sat around the campfire felt the urge to speak up and tell the stories. My guess is that Og’s tale would not have been recounted by the best hunter or gatherer in the group. The ancient storyteller of my imagination, who could just as easily have been a female as a male, was probably not the type to lead the way into dangerous territory. More likely, he or she would have been inclined to hang back and observe as others charged ahead. This is all my personal speculation, of course, but there is one thing I’m absolutely sure of … even though the storyteller may have lacked boldness, he or she would definitely have been a great listener.
When the men returned from the mastodon hunt, each with their own version of what had happened, the storyteller would have listened eagerly to them all. Later that night, the clan would be held spellbound as she wove all the details into a story … one with a beginning, a middle and an end. And, as they listened to the tale, the wide-eyed young ones, too small yet to face such dangers themselves, would learn the important lessons that would later help them to avoid some of their fathers’ mistakes. In such a way, I like to imagine, storytelling may even have played a part in the evolution of the human race.
And so, I’ve become convinced that my own need to tell a story springs from that primeval desire to organize life’s chaotic details into a coherent whole, one that will explain all its inherent dangers, not only to others, but also to myself. It turns out that the answer to the question “What is it that compels you to write?” is simply this: it’s in my DNA.
Having good ideas and telling ourselves “That would make a good magazine article, not a book” frequently delays us from writing the idea down. All ideas need to be respected. It is respectful to write them down. I have a folder marked “Possibilities”. All my ideas are stored there.
As for my book, I have a personal deadline for its publication. There is a final deadline but I have a series of deadlines that lead up to the final one. A detailed plan has mini-goals spelled out like Chapter 1: end of September; Chapter 2: end of October; query letters sent to three agents: November 15, etc.
The next step is very important. It is to ask a supportive person to remind you when your deadline is due and to inquire as to your completing what you planned. You must first give them your written plan as well as permission to remind you of your deadlines and successes.
If my manuscript is returned or a query rejected, I have three more ready to go, including an addressed envelope. That way there is no time for being depressed or contemplating what I should do next.
Those of us who procrastinate need to accept our trait and work with it. For me, setting deadlines is an effective way to do that.
Tell me what you do. Writers are flexible – I may add your idea to my resource inventory.
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