First of all, I have no idea why this photo of my journal (AKA my secret weapon) turned out so *green.* I promise I wasn’t in an alien space bar or anything, I was just at Starbucks (which, forgive me, was the only coffee shop close to Penn as I waited for my train yesterday. Not that I drink coffee. Or beer at 2pm. That’s tea, people, for some girl named Melony).
So, back to the secret weapon!
I tend to write quickly. As in, when I’ve opened my laptop and launched Word, my fingers take off, and heaven help me if I don’t have a distinct plan for where they’re going, because my fingers don’t stop for anyone. They write. Fast.
Because of my tendency to vomit words (and my OCDish desire for order), I don’t start writing unless I have a plan. Please note, there is one exception to this rule: the beginning of a project. At the beginning, I let my fingers fly. I let them show ME what we’re going to be writing about. But as soon as I get an inkling of the story unfolding before me, I step back and plan.
Which means writing in my journal.
And honestly, I shouldn’t say journal as though there’s only one singular receptacle for my thoughts–there are several. I keep a separate journal for each novel-length project, as well as a spare “ideas” journal to keep all of the pesky, shiny new ideas away from my WIPs.
What do I write in the journal?
Well, this is where we get to the secret weapon bit. When I’m writing in Word, or on a printed draft, or even on a post-it note, I feel a little precious about the words I use. I second-guess them. I try to write only the very best ones. And that keeps me from thinking. But in my journals, I write everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I spell everything wrong, I cross stuff out, I blast through paper like it’s my mission in life to use every page up.
How does this help my writing?
Say, for example, I’m trying to build a backstory for a secondary character. I’ll doodle that person’s name (or a question mark if I don’t know it yet) at the top of a page and write: who is Mr. BananaPants? Where does he live? What does he look like? And so on and so on, until I strike upon a question that has an obvious answer, like: what does Mr. BananaPants eat? Well, anything but fruit salad, obviously. His mom caught him gobbling fruit salad once when he was five years old, and she scared him to death when she said he might be eating his own cousin.
And there you have it: the journal fills up, and the answers fill in, partly because I’m making myself focus, but mainly because I’m giving myself the opportunity to think without consequence–to throw words at the page haphazardly and in great abundance, with no worries about where they will end up. I think it’s that very sense of freedom that leads the words to the right place as I journal.
Once the journal is full, the writing begins in earnest, and a draft emerges, only to be journaled and revised again and again until, finally, it’s done. Without my journals, I’m absolutely certain my path to a solid draft would be a much longer and winding road, and though the end result might be similar, the journey would be a lot less fun.
What about you? Do you keep a writing journal, too? I’d love to hear your ideas about journals in the comments.
First of all, let’s all give a great big cheer to Cindy Brown, who won my Valentine’s YA GIVEAWAY! Way to go, Cindy! You’re getting a copy of THE FUTURE OF US, plus chocolate, the perfect Valentine’s gift IMHO. Somehow, my two maniacs pulled your name out of the hat, and I managed to get a picture before they lost the paper! 🙂
YAY, CINDY! I love giving books away, and I hope to hold more giveaways this year! Cindy also writes an awesome blog called Everyday Underwear–really funny stuff. You should check it out! Next up, we have winners of a completely different variety. The season of writing conferences has begun, and I’ve been favorite-ing some of my, um, favorite tweets from insightful people in publishing. I starred quite a few from SCBWI-NY, and I thought I’d share them here. Happy February, everyone!
If you write, you hear the term “revision cave” all the time (or at least you should). And from time to time, authors share their process, describing the structure and form and material of their own personal cave–and I LOVE that. So, I’m sharing a picture from my neatly-swept, ridiculously color-coded cave, because I’m in the same boat that you are (even if you can’t see me there with you).
This is me working in the evening, on my coffee table (which must be cleared for day-time use. Thus, the lack of year-old piles of stuff and dust and grime. Although I am compulsively tidy). Once I have beta feedback, I like to revise on a printed copy of the MS. Those color tabs are for tracking different elements (action, mystery, emotion, key themes) so that I can balance the flow of the story. I scribble endless changes on post-it notes and stick them to the bottom edge of the page, that way the pages stay clear and easy to read.
I drink a lot of tea.
I resist the remote control but keep it just barely on the edge of the table where it beckons to me like a hard-earned treat.
Generally, I start out with the headphones in my ears and then rip them out at some point, when a moment grabs me so acutely that I must eradicate all other sound to focus on the essence of it.
Oh, yeah. That notebook with the ridiculously positive “Do What U Love To Do” printed across it? well, that’s a notebook for new ideas. If they interrupt my work flow, I dump them in there super-fast to get them out of my brain, and out of the way.
The notebook on top of my laptop has ten bajillion pages of journalling in response to my beta readers’ endless questions (thanks, guys!). I keep it out for reference. It gives birth to hundreds of post-it notes.
And at some point, I reach the end of the pages and go back through a second time to copy it all into the computer, using this pass as an opportunity to edit even further.
And that’s it. That’s how I work. How do you work? Do you have a sacred space? Are you anal retentive about color-coded post-its, too? Feel free to leave links in the comments, if you have pictures to share. I LOVE spying into other people’s worlds. That’s why I do this crazy fiction writing thing in the first place.
On Saturday, I abandoned my family to go spend the night with strangers–well, not total strangers. My crit partners! I may be in the revision cave, but that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to leave it. Especially if it’s for work purposes (please ignore the wine).
Across digital lines of communications I’m quite tight with my CPs, but in real life, I’d never met one until this weekend. Fortunately, none of us turned out to be large, hairy bald men impersonating women on twitter. We were all, in fact, totally awesome, insightful, supportive, and incredibly creative.
Can I just say, if you have not taken the time to hang out with other writers, make it a priority. I know it’s hard to find people. But offer to host, to organize, to drive–whatever it takes–and make it happen! Why? Because writers are the best people for other writers. My CPs did not in fact think I was crazy when I showed up with this:
Really! Instead, we all talked about revisions, and how we handle them. And what we’re working on. And everything we’d ever worked on. And what we might work on in future. And basically everything else in our lives, all in a couple of days that felt more like a week away from the kiddos (one of whom projectile vomited into the sink less than an hour after my arrival home).
So, after blabbing endlessly for hours, skpying with three other writerly friends, and spending a long, quiet stretch of Sunday in our PJs simultaneously clicking away at our laptops, I left with a renewed sense of purpose in my work, hope for my friends, and a big stack of additions to my TBR pile! Thanks, girls. It was lovely.
It’s the first day of 2013, and I’ve already written the wrong date on four different things. I wonder how long it’ll take me to adjust this year. Usually, I’m good by May. Although every once in a while I’ll spit out a random date from the ’90’s, and wonder how exactly my brain manages to function at all. Usually, these random retro dates make their appearance on something completely unimportant, like a water bill (note: water companies do not like ten-year-old checks).
2012 was a quick year for me–my first full year of writing stuff. To celebrate the completion of my latest MS, I spent much of December reading great YA and writing very little. In fact, the only thing I wrote the entire month were notes, in my journals, on the beach, in Jamaica (go ahead and hate me, I can take it).
I just dug the sandy, wrinkled notebooks out of my beach bag, which I sadly have little use for now in the frozen, snowy tundra of New Jersey. I’m looking at these notes and feeling that feeling–you know, the one where you feel pukey and impatient and shy all at once? Yeah. That’s right. Pre-REVISION nerves.
This week, I’m diving back in to the middle grade project that my wonderful betas read during December. I filled up my notebooks armed with their notes. Now I just have to translate all of this mess into a revised novel. No biggie.
And in two weeks, I’m meeting some of these uh-maaaaazing CPs for the very first time in the flesh. I’m super excited. I hope we click as well in person as we do over the wires. I hope my freakishly loud laugh doesn’t scare them away. And I hope we all keep moving forward, creating new things, putting them into the world, and making the most of our time in it. Happy New Year, everyone!
During December, I’m reading YA. TONS of YA. And I’ve been sharing my thoughts on twitter under the tag #YADecember. This weekend I shared some thoughts on series YA, and thought I’d plop them all together on here, too.
Many of the new YA books on the market are one of a series (yay for the authors!), but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be an AWESOME read all on their own. Unfortunately, I think quite a few were written as one stand-alone story with only vague ideas for a series, and that comes across in the read.
Anyway, here’s what I blabbed about:
I woke up this morning to a lovely surprise in my inbox–the charming Amanda Fanger has nominated me for a very pretty blog award. I’m always very grateful when another writer selects me for an award. Because, think about it. How long does it take you to even *think* of five other blogs off the top of your head–much less select your favorites? So, I’m grateful to have anyone at all recall my blathering with fondness.
But here’s the truth about me and awards: while I *love* the setinment, I’m pretty shabby about following through with the ‘things about me’ and the blog chain, etc. Not because I don’t want to share, but because I don’t write about me a lot on here. I don’t think anyone’s sitting on the edge of their seat dying to know my favorite kind of pasta, or what time of day I shower (on shower days, of course).
However, I love the look of this award so much that I decided to take the plunge and share–with a twist. As some of you may know, I spent a decade designing products before picking up the writer’s pen(AKA laptop). During that decade, I learned how to think creatively. The Creative Process is not something to be undertaken lightly, or taken for granted–it is every creative person’s life-force. A molten core of creativity that lies within us, ready to spew out ideas if we cultivate it.
So, as an Inspired Blogger, I am supposed to list seven things about myself. And I’m going to do just that. Here are seven things I learned as a designer about The Creative Process:
1. GENERATE ALTERNATIVES. There are *always* multiple solutions to a problem. Don’t clutch blindly to the first idea that struck you. When drafting, let the words fly. But in revision, examine each choice and all the alternatives before selecting the best path to take.
2. EVERY IDEA HAS MERIT. There are no stupid ideas. Really. In fact, some of the stupidest ideas prompt the best solutions in the end. When drafting, keep ALL of the ideas. Store them in a little pile off to the side, or in your writer’s notebook. Don’t allow analysis *during* creation. The time for culling ideas comes during revision.
3. WORK BIG TO SMALL. When creating a product, we generally narrow down the manufacturing process before we design said product. Otherwise, there are too many options to consider, and 99% of our sketches will not apply. So, when working on your story, start at the top with the big ideas, and try like hell not to fuss with the words. Don’t waste editorial energy on words you may need to throw away.
4. LISTEN TO CRITIQUE. In design we have a saying: Crit Happens. Critique is something that occurs *constantly* in a design setting. In client reviews, in the war rooms, and in quick snippets of conversation at lunch, in the hall, in the bathroom. Why do we crit so much? Because, the collaboration of minds produces the very best idea. And that is the goal: to find the right idea. Let critique help you do that.
5. YOUR IDEAS ARE NOT YOUR BABIES. If ideas were babies, and designers kept every idea they ever thought of, every designer would have millions of children. So when you get upset about cutting something, remember just how many other ideas you have. And drop the ax.
6. DON’T SKIP STEPS. The Creative Process is just that: a process. If you skip a step, your results will stink. Practice your process religiously. And never, ever skip a step. Do the work in revision, no matter how many revisions it takes. I often see the question: am I done revising? If you tap into your process, you will know when it’s time for more feedback, or if your feedback has averaged out and you are ready to submit.
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7. TRUST THE PROCESS. In all of the years of designing stuff from toothbrushes to emergency eye-wash stations, I never once ended up with no ideas. Because The Creative Process works. It’s completely normal to have jitters at the onset of a new project. But if you follow your dully-practiced path of creative thinking, you will find solutions. Every time. For every problem, there is at least one answer. For most, there are many. So have faith in the process.
And now, the truly impossible part of blog awards: passing the award on to others. Here, in no particular order, are three bloggers who inspire me very much.
Jessica Vealitzek shares True Stories every Monday, and I hungrily anticipate her posts every week. Jessica’s background in journalism shines through in these fascinating glimpses into other people’s lives.
Annie McMahon, AKA Dutch Hill News, who has perhaps the best-researched, most-helpful lists about anything MG ever on her website. So many lists are really a bunch of blah when you read through them. But I find something excellent in every one of Annie’s lists.
And last but not least, Andrea Hannah, who self-named blog I discovered a few weeks ago via #Pitchwars, and who cracks me up. There’s a lot of great info on her blog, but also, well, an inspiring energetic faith in writing that we all need to read about sometimes.
If you’re a writer, you’ve probably asked someone else to read something you wrote and give you an opinion. That, in a nutshell, is what a beta-reader should do for you. Read your work, and give you some kind of amazing sent-from-heaven input that will make your work approximately ten million times better than it was before they read it. But let’s face it, that’s not entirely realistic. In my experience a good beta reader will only improve your work by a factor of ONE million, not ten.
But I digress! What I really want to share are my own rules for beta reading. A general how-to guide, for those of your just starting out, or recovering from a nightmare exchange, or looking to up your game. This advice is based on a solid year of beta exchanges, during which I believe I’ve learned the ropes. I’ll let my CPs chime in on that one–what’s a CP, you say? A Critique Partner. They are the kind of beta readers who will give you detailed, writer-based feedback. NOT beta readers such as teenagers, whom I view as target market samples–giving your YA novel to teens is ethnographic research in my book. I’ve explored that process as well, but the rules for that kind of beta exchange will have to wait for another post.
For now, let’s focus on a beta exchange between CPs, people (most likely writers) who agree to read each other’s work and share feedback. Here are my rules for a smooth exchange–because, like any exchange, there is the potential for a swap to go awry. Attending to the ‘business’ side of a beta swap right away can save you headaches and put you on the right track.
How to Set up a Successful Beta Exchange
1. Swap details first. Novel title, genre, short description or query, and WORD COUNT. Note the caps there? Yeah. Word count is pretty important in an exchange. If you’ve written 35K, and they’ve written 140K, you might not want to swap. Or you might! It’s totally up to you. But exchanging this info up front will give you a chance to kindly opt out if you are not a match with your CP.
2. Swap samples. Some people swap the first three chapters. Other swap the first 25 pages. Whatever you swap, I recommend trying a sample of someone’s work before you sign up to eat, I mean, read, the whole thing. If only we could do this in restaurants, too, right?
3. Establish swap expectations. This is the ‘business’ part of a swap. Set a timeline for the exchange. Agree to a format for feedback. Do you want notes in the Word doc? Do you want to use ‘Track Changes’? Do you want a separate summary written in email? Do you expect the MS to be formatted a particular way? Will you be open to more questions after the crit, or reading a future revision?
4. Establish feedback expectations. There are INFINTE topics to address within a work in progress. It’s a good idea to give your beta reader an idea of the feedback you’re looking for. Is this a first draft? Are you looking for general feedback on plot, character development, pacing, and voice? Or are you at the polishing stage? Are you looking for line edits, grammar tweaks, and quick kills for dangling participles? Know where you are with your MS. There’s no sense in getting line edits on a first draft. Save that picky, time-consuming work for later drafts whose plot holes have already been fixed.
Once you’ve chatted with your potential CP, found that you have a nearly identical word count, and exchanged samples (only to discover you must have been separated at birth), it’s time to get to work. And how exactly do you do that? Well, here’s my best guess, based on beta reading a couple of dozen MSs in the past year.
How to Beta Read
1. Remember that this is not your MS. However you give feedback, and whatever level of critique you have agreed to, do your best as a reader to tap into your CP’s unique point of view. Try to push that unique voice and story in the direction it NEEDS to go, not the direction you would take it if you were writing this story. You can show a million writers the same picture, and we’ll all write a different story. Help your CP write theirs, not yours.
2. BE HONEST. Notice that I put that one in all caps? That’s because beta reading is a total waste of time if you aren’t prepared to give honest feedback. Say what you mean. As a reader, and as a writer. Don’t shy away from pointing out writing that needs work. Or voice that goes in and out. Or characters who act OUT of character. Or plot holes big enough to drive a car through. Or whole passages, or even whole chapters, that bored you to tears. Whatever level of feedback you’ve agreed to give, give it kindly, but with total honesty.
3. Specificity is a gift. As a beta reader, it’s easy to feel like we need to solve the other writer’s problems. Don’t worry about that. Worry about telling your CP EXACTLY what you are experiencing/thinking/questioning at any part of the novel. Rather than making suggestions, ask questions. When your CP reads your question, they will know what to do. They’re writers!
4. Do the work. What do you get out of beta-reading for another writer? Well, other than eye strain (I kid) (not really), completing a beta-read teaches you how to write. Yeah. So I think the effort is worth it. Because when you read someone else’s story, you see things about your own writing that you would not see otherwise. For every minute you spend scrutinizing someone else’s pages, your pages will improve. I promise. Plus, being a great CP is rewarding. You will attract even better CPs, people who are agented, or even published. A great CP does not go unnoticed.
5. Beta Reader Checklist:
— Did the opening sentence grab you? The opening chapter? Does the novel start where the story starts (most don’t in the first draft)?
— What were the most exciting parts of the story? The most boring? How was the pace overall? In each chapter?
— Did you like the MC? Were the secondary characters well developed as well? Did any characters act out of turn? Was the antagonist well-developed as well? Did you understand the antagonist’s motivation? Did you have sympathy for them?
— Was the world-building complete? Were there sensory details? Was there any info-dumping?
— Was there telling instead of showing?
— Was there enough dialogue? Enough action? Enough description?
— Were there bad writing habits? Too much passive voice, dangling participles, lack of sentence variety, cliche phrases, bad dialogue tags, too many adverbs . . .
— Did the story end in the right place?
And finally, one note on RECEIVING a beta-read. Thank your CP. And don’t ask any questions, not for a minimum of 48 hours. Read through their feedback carefully. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from beta swaps, it’s that every single reader shares an observation that improves my work.
Because regardless of writing skill, most writers are great readers, and they have feedback aplenty. The first time you read beta feedback, you’ll most likely have a heart attack. But rest assured, after the shock wears off, you’ll be energized. And excited. And thankful. And you will LOVE your CPs.
Read About my First Beta-Read!
So, awhile ago I made a resolution to attend my first writer’s conference within a year, and this past weekend I attended an SCBWI-NJ workshop! Yay! First of all, let me say this moment was very exciting. I felt like attending this workshop was my coming-out party of sorts, wherein I revealed my writerly identity to the world. Sure, I have CPs and a writer’s group, and I’ve written a couple of MSs at this point . . . but this was the first time I showed up as a writer in PUBLIC.
It’s a good thing for me that a lot of other people showed up, as well, because I got over those nerves quickly as I surveyed the room of attendees and realized we were all in the same boat together. Sure, some of the people there had agents or published books, but every single one of us still had some kind of writerly aspiration we were working towards, whether that be getting agented, or published, or re-published. I was among friends.
Why did I go to a Conference?
The event I attended was a single day free workshop offered by SCBWI-NJ. I begged my husband and kids to drive me there through post-Sandy roads, detours, and traffic so that I could get a taste of what a writer’s conference would be like. Granted, I’ve gone to a whole lot of professional design conferences and trade-shows, so I knew what to expect from the conference environment. What I was interested in learning was what really gets discussed at these events, and what I might stand to learn from biting the bullet and paying for a larger conference in the future.
The Scoop on this Workshop
While I listened to the wonderful Leeza Hernandez introduce the industry professionals participating in the day’s workshop, I started to take notes, and then thought better of it and started live-tweeting the event. After all, the most important soundbites would surely be under 140 characters, so why not share with my writer buddies as I learned? Read on for my favorite soundbites from the workshop by topic.
State of the Industry
The workshop opened with remarks from a panel of industry professionals including agents Ted Malawer and Rachel Orr, and editors Jenne Abramowitz, Paula Sadler, and Sara Sargent. The remarks spanned common topics of interest from what’s trendy, to personal interests, to discussion of the Penguin/Random merger, to some very insightful remarks about publishing and writing on the whole.
Phew! That was a lot of info, right? Great info and good insights into what these agents and editors are looking for, though!
Series Paperbacks with Jenne Abramowitz
Am I particularly interested in writing a paperback series? Not so much. But I am interested in Jenne, because she has SO much experience in the publishing industry, and I just knew she’d have some really interesting remarks to share.
Crit Groups
I also attended a Crit Group Session with Sheri Perl-Oshins, but didn’t tweet during the session as it was a real workshopping expercise. Sheri shared a lot of great insights into how to form crit groups and how to run them. The biggest takeaway I had: Set Expectations Up Front. As long as you discuss how swaps will work, schedules, and expectations, you should have an okay crit experience–but remember, not everyone will be a great match. Connect with writers via Twitter and FB and through your local library, or however you need to, because feedback is critical to producing great work!
Q&A with Agents
The final session I attended was a Q&A with Ted Malawer and Rachel Orr. I was really looking forward to this session because these agents are both, well, funny. And genuine. And in general, it was an informative and fun session. But there were a lot of questions that quite frankly could be answered online with a quick trip to their agency websites, or using google. At times I questioned how much agents really enjoy a Q&A. Having been on a pro panel myself as a designer, I can say that nothing sucks the life out of you like mundane questions or self-promoting questioners.
What Did I Learn?
I learned that I would like to go to another writer’s conference, but I need to be careful about the focus of the conference I attend. I don’t want to throw myself into pitch sessions. I’m not terribly interested in Q&A’s. What I really love to talk about is writing. The deep, underlying mechanics of writing. Characterization. Plotting. Settings. Word devices. Sentence Structure. And I also LOVE books. I love authors.
So, perhaps what I need is a writer’s conference that’s more about writing than publishing. I trust publishing will work itself out with time. That’s not what I want to focus on right now. So I’m considering BEA for the love of books, or another SCBWI conference (if it offers more content-oriented sessions). If you know of a great writer’s conference, please share! I hope to meet you there one day.
Wow–Just one week ago, I was celebrating some truly incredible, wonderful news via the lovely Ms. Anna Meade:
WOOOOOOOOOO! Go forth to her website and pour out congratulations and love, as it was a mightily hard-fought battle but her story prevailed.
Melanie’s entry, The Catch, is a pithy bite of dark flash fiction with a crunch at the end. I was filled with dread the entire time I read it and she built the suspense to the unbearable climax. Well done, Melanie! I look forward to collaborating with you on my next flash fiction contest in 2013!
When the audio recording of The Catch is posted, I will let everyone know!
Seriously! That happened! I am still so humbled and excited and proud and flabbergasted. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the Dark Fairy, please let me introduce you to Anna and her wonderful website Yearning for Wonderland, wherein you will find incredible interviews, amazing writerly companions, and truly inspiring contests. I entered the Behind the Curtain contest because, well, Anna’s prompts are awesome. For example, here’s the prompt from #BTCurtain:
Greasepaint and floodlights and cheerful music out front, but behind the curtain sometimes darker dramas unfold. Whether theatre or circus, pantomime or ballet, there is the world presented…and then the world hidden.
Too often, a gorgeous, painted stage facade conceals dry rot and warped wood. The clown’s smile wipes away to reveal bitter rage. The ballerina’s twisted foot, the leading man’s alcoholism, the abuse of performing animals, all carefully hidden from the audience. For the price of just a ticket, the artifice is yours.
Yet I challenge you to pull it aside, to peek behind the curtain. Who do you see, what do they feel, and most importantly what do they hide?
How could a writer NOT respond with great creative enthusiasm to that? So, long story short, I entered, I read over sixty other fabulous stories, and last Friday, amazingly, my story was selected as the grand winner, along with…Sophie Moss (@smosswrites) for Scarlett’s Rose Petal Revenge,
J. Whitworth Hazzard (@zombiemechanics) for his creepy, stalker story, Scopophiliac, and Jessica Marcarelli (@jmarcarelli) for her entry, Behind the Curtain.
And I am so grateful. Even more so now that I’ve spent the time since that wonderful moment riding out a hurricane and living without power and heat in descending temps, only to flee New Jersey for the refuge of my parent’s home in NC late last night. This is the first time I’ve been back online, and sitting in a warm living room with heat and hot food and a warm blanket–do you notice a motif, here? I was really cold for the last week!
But while I was freezing, I was also thinking a lot. About winning. And losing. And how there really is no way to inhabit one of those spaces entirely. We are all winning and losing a little bit each and every day. The tally adds up to a vague gray sum, something neither black nor white, but a shade of human in a way. For one moment, your heart soars, and the very next it plummets. I think I’ve learned not to hold too tightly to any of these moments. It’s best to let them ebb and flow, and try to remember who you are and what you want out of this day, out of this moment–and know that regardless, there will be wins and there will be losses, but all that matters is staying the course.
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