"I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I do know this: In order to be a writer you have to write what's in your heart. The moment you try to write about a topic that's currently hot or what you think others believe you ought to do, you're sunk." Eric Van Lustbader
The newest "Twilight" movie has just been released and people are seeing Vampires everywhere. I heard on the news a story of a woman who crashed her car into a canal because she saw a Vampire in the middle of the road and she swerved to miss it. She added that the Vampire let her go and did not suck her blood. Sigh.
If you browse through Barnes and Noble - you will see books about Vampires everywhere. It is the hot topic - just like wizards were hot when Harry Potter was all the rage. That doesn't mean that all writers should now start writing about vampires. The people who are riding the wave now, were writing about Vampires when it WASN'T popular. And - like all things - this, too, will pass.
I think you have to write the story that is in you - the story that keeps you interested enough to write it out and see were it goes. Of course, publication is every writer's ultimate goal - but it cannot become the focus of your work. In Anne Lamott's, Bird by Bird, a must-read book for writers, she says that when she teaches a writing seminar every student wants to know about agents and publishing. But she stresses that you have to concentrate on the writing - make that the main thing - before anything else can enter the picture.
This also speaks to the "worrisome critic" in your own mind. The one that worries about writing something that will offend your Aunt Edna. Let it go and just write what is inside you. Lose yourself in telling the story and resist the siren's call to follow the latest publication trend. Who wants to be a poor reflection of someone elses image when you can be a unique and shining example of yourself. Trust your own voice. It is the only one you can hear clearly anyway.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
WE ALL HAVE TO START SOMEWHERE
"My first notebook was a Big Five tablet, given to me by my mother with the sensible suggestion that I stop whining and learn to amuse myself by writing down my thoughts." Joan Didion
I caught the writing bug in church. I'm not saying that it was a religious experience or some life-changing touch from the hand of God. It was more like desperately grasping at the sides of a lifeboat so that I did not perish from complete and utter boredom. Usually during the first few droning sentences from the pulpit, I would mentally slip away and begin to concoct wild stories in my mind. Stories which, of course, cast me as the brave heroine facing peril at every turn. I would become so lost in these daydreams, that it was difficult to snap to attention when it came time to stand and sing the first and last stanzas of the hymn of invitation -usually Just As I Am.
Besotted with the joy of inspiration, I spent the week, feverishly writing the story in one of those little spiral pocket notebooks, filling the pages with my number two pencil and anticipating rave reviews from my peers. Of course, I truly had a captive audience because the next Sunday, I would pass the notebook down the pew to my friends who gratefully consumed each word. My story became their lifeboat that safely took them through the monotony of the sermon to the closing hymn.
While they were reading my words, I was fantasizing about become famous...about graciously receiving their words of praise with an appropriate amount of humility. The response was never quite what I expected. There was usually the politely mumbled, "That was good" balanced by "That was really stupid." Unreasonable critics exist even in childhood. But, in spite of the mixed reviews, I continued to produce these spiral notebook wonders for several months, until my mother discovered that I was not actually paying attention in church (Who knew that was required?) and put an end to them. I was hoping that my faithful readers would be heartbroken, but instead they simply substituted games of hangman and tic-tac-toe. How easily I was replaced.
So now - a bajillion years later - I am here putting words on paper, weaving stories that I hope will interest and entertain the readers. Gone are the fantasies of fame and fortune but sometimes, when I finish a chapter or a scene, I catch a few bars of Just As I Am floating around in my head.
I caught the writing bug in church. I'm not saying that it was a religious experience or some life-changing touch from the hand of God. It was more like desperately grasping at the sides of a lifeboat so that I did not perish from complete and utter boredom. Usually during the first few droning sentences from the pulpit, I would mentally slip away and begin to concoct wild stories in my mind. Stories which, of course, cast me as the brave heroine facing peril at every turn. I would become so lost in these daydreams, that it was difficult to snap to attention when it came time to stand and sing the first and last stanzas of the hymn of invitation -usually Just As I Am.
Besotted with the joy of inspiration, I spent the week, feverishly writing the story in one of those little spiral pocket notebooks, filling the pages with my number two pencil and anticipating rave reviews from my peers. Of course, I truly had a captive audience because the next Sunday, I would pass the notebook down the pew to my friends who gratefully consumed each word. My story became their lifeboat that safely took them through the monotony of the sermon to the closing hymn.
While they were reading my words, I was fantasizing about become famous...about graciously receiving their words of praise with an appropriate amount of humility. The response was never quite what I expected. There was usually the politely mumbled, "That was good" balanced by "That was really stupid." Unreasonable critics exist even in childhood. But, in spite of the mixed reviews, I continued to produce these spiral notebook wonders for several months, until my mother discovered that I was not actually paying attention in church (Who knew that was required?) and put an end to them. I was hoping that my faithful readers would be heartbroken, but instead they simply substituted games of hangman and tic-tac-toe. How easily I was replaced.
So now - a bajillion years later - I am here putting words on paper, weaving stories that I hope will interest and entertain the readers. Gone are the fantasies of fame and fortune but sometimes, when I finish a chapter or a scene, I catch a few bars of Just As I Am floating around in my head.
Monday, June 28, 2010
THOSE DREADED FIRST SENTENCES
"The opening's not everything. You can start off with Call Me Ishmael and still lose your reader down the line if you're not careful. But your opening has to be good - or the rest of the story won't have a chance because nobody'll stick around to read it." Lawrence Block
For the last few years I have attended the annual James River Writers Conference. The opening session is called "First Pages" where brave souls submit the first page of something they are working on for evaluation. The page is read aloud by an actor and then a panel of agents give reasons why they would or would not continue reading to the next page. This is always an astounding experience for me. They expect so much from the first sentence or two - not just the first page. Often I have felt their comments were unreasonable and harsh - but what do I know...I am just a lowly writer.
The opening sentences for my first novel, Tell Me That You Like It , are: "Lila Hawkins' hands trembled as she lit another cigarette. She had a decision to make. A decision that could get her killed." Okay - that starts the action quickly I think. The reader doesn't know the story - but hopefully they want to know what kind of decision someone would have to make that could end in murder.
The opening sentences for my second novel, Where No One Can Hear You Cry, are: "Lenny knew the gun was in his hand. He could see it and feel it, and yet his mind struggled to accept the reality of what he was actually about to do." Another acceptable opener that hopefully hooks the reader to continue. Still, I feel like it is an unreasonable expectation by an agent to discard a submission because the first few sentences may not be packed with action. Sitting in on these opening sessions with agents, I sometimes felt like they enjoyed being the cynic. After all, I think it is easier to criticize something than it is to create it.
The novel I am currently working on begins: "Countless times over the years, she had fantasized about killing her husband. She lulled herself to sleep by visualizing graphic images of hitting him with a baseball bat or slipping poison into his beer. But when she stood over his lifeless body lying in a sticky pool of blood, she realized that she never could have imagined this." Did that grab you? Would you read the rest of the page?
There's an old song with the lyrics, "It's not how you start, it's how you finish." Well, writers apparently don't have that luxury. We have to start big just so the reader will care how we finish.
For the last few years I have attended the annual James River Writers Conference. The opening session is called "First Pages" where brave souls submit the first page of something they are working on for evaluation. The page is read aloud by an actor and then a panel of agents give reasons why they would or would not continue reading to the next page. This is always an astounding experience for me. They expect so much from the first sentence or two - not just the first page. Often I have felt their comments were unreasonable and harsh - but what do I know...I am just a lowly writer.
The opening sentences for my first novel, Tell Me That You Like It , are: "Lila Hawkins' hands trembled as she lit another cigarette. She had a decision to make. A decision that could get her killed." Okay - that starts the action quickly I think. The reader doesn't know the story - but hopefully they want to know what kind of decision someone would have to make that could end in murder.
The opening sentences for my second novel, Where No One Can Hear You Cry, are: "Lenny knew the gun was in his hand. He could see it and feel it, and yet his mind struggled to accept the reality of what he was actually about to do." Another acceptable opener that hopefully hooks the reader to continue. Still, I feel like it is an unreasonable expectation by an agent to discard a submission because the first few sentences may not be packed with action. Sitting in on these opening sessions with agents, I sometimes felt like they enjoyed being the cynic. After all, I think it is easier to criticize something than it is to create it.
The novel I am currently working on begins: "Countless times over the years, she had fantasized about killing her husband. She lulled herself to sleep by visualizing graphic images of hitting him with a baseball bat or slipping poison into his beer. But when she stood over his lifeless body lying in a sticky pool of blood, she realized that she never could have imagined this." Did that grab you? Would you read the rest of the page?
There's an old song with the lyrics, "It's not how you start, it's how you finish." Well, writers apparently don't have that luxury. We have to start big just so the reader will care how we finish.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM
"One sentence. Two at most. If you can't tell yourself what your story is in one or two sentences, you're already running into trouble. Even in Moby Dick, it comes down to Captain Ahab chases a whale and doesn't get it." Gerald Petievich
This is so true. A writer must be able to relay the basic premise of his novel in as few words as possible. After all, when you submit it to an agent for consideration, you have to include a synopsis - so you might as well start to think about that from the beginning. My first novel, Tell Me That You Like It, is about what happens when a kidnapped child is returned to her family after five years of imprisonment. When I first tried to tell people what the book was about, I wrestled with what to include in the description. Should I talk about child prostitution and pornography? That was a part of the story. Should I talk about the emotional adjustment the child and the family went through? That was part of the story. How about the police investigation? That was certainly part of the story. But, see, those things were just that: simply parts of a whole. They are important and they make the story interesting, but they are not the basic premise.
The novel I am working on now is about secrets and how they affect the lives of my characters. I have to resist the urge to spill out all the details about each individual character - the problems they face, how they relate to one another, etc. If I keep my focus on the main plot, I am less likely to "chase rabbits". A more detailed synopsis can come later when the manuscript is ready to be released into the world to shop for a publisher.
This is so true. A writer must be able to relay the basic premise of his novel in as few words as possible. After all, when you submit it to an agent for consideration, you have to include a synopsis - so you might as well start to think about that from the beginning. My first novel, Tell Me That You Like It, is about what happens when a kidnapped child is returned to her family after five years of imprisonment. When I first tried to tell people what the book was about, I wrestled with what to include in the description. Should I talk about child prostitution and pornography? That was a part of the story. Should I talk about the emotional adjustment the child and the family went through? That was part of the story. How about the police investigation? That was certainly part of the story. But, see, those things were just that: simply parts of a whole. They are important and they make the story interesting, but they are not the basic premise.
The novel I am working on now is about secrets and how they affect the lives of my characters. I have to resist the urge to spill out all the details about each individual character - the problems they face, how they relate to one another, etc. If I keep my focus on the main plot, I am less likely to "chase rabbits". A more detailed synopsis can come later when the manuscript is ready to be released into the world to shop for a publisher.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
I MAY NOT LOOK BUSY...BUT I AM!
"But the author does not only write when he is at his desk; he writes all day long, when he is thinking, when he is reading, when he is experiencing; everything he sees and feels is significant to his purpose and, consciously or unconsciously, he is...storing and making over his impressions." W. Sommerset Maugham
I am in the early stages of actually putting words on the page for my third novel, but the truth is, I began the hard work months earlier. It started with a character. One little interesting character. I had no plot, I had no setting, I had nothing at all but this picture in my head of someone who might be interesting if we were to actually meet, face to face.
I kept trying to hurry the process...to contrive some sort of drama that would catapult this lone character onto the page. The more I attempted to stick her somewhere, the more frustrated I became. She didn't seem to fit anywhere and I almost gave up entirely. You would think by now, with two novels finished and out in the world trolling for readers, that I would realize that persistant patience is a necessity.
I eventually let go and allowed her to skip through my mind, dipping her fingers in the quiet pools of my imagination, stirring up the sediment of contrived scenerios, until she uncovered something sparkling and new. The amazing thing is that, within a few hours, she introduced me to a cast of characters, a small town, and a juicy plot outline that made me remember why I love to write.
But, it took time. Like a fine wine, I had to let my budding idea of a character breathe before she came to life. This seems to be how a book finds its way into my world, ready to spill out on the page. Kind of like playing follow the leader with someone I can't quite see. Certainly makes my life interesting.
I am in the early stages of actually putting words on the page for my third novel, but the truth is, I began the hard work months earlier. It started with a character. One little interesting character. I had no plot, I had no setting, I had nothing at all but this picture in my head of someone who might be interesting if we were to actually meet, face to face.
I kept trying to hurry the process...to contrive some sort of drama that would catapult this lone character onto the page. The more I attempted to stick her somewhere, the more frustrated I became. She didn't seem to fit anywhere and I almost gave up entirely. You would think by now, with two novels finished and out in the world trolling for readers, that I would realize that persistant patience is a necessity.
I eventually let go and allowed her to skip through my mind, dipping her fingers in the quiet pools of my imagination, stirring up the sediment of contrived scenerios, until she uncovered something sparkling and new. The amazing thing is that, within a few hours, she introduced me to a cast of characters, a small town, and a juicy plot outline that made me remember why I love to write.
But, it took time. Like a fine wine, I had to let my budding idea of a character breathe before she came to life. This seems to be how a book finds its way into my world, ready to spill out on the page. Kind of like playing follow the leader with someone I can't quite see. Certainly makes my life interesting.
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