Flashbacking

Inspiration comes from the strangest places. I often have flashbacks throughout the day to random memories and times in my life that seem to come completely out of nowhere. I let myself ponder through the things I remember about that moment before I snap back to the present and wonder, “why am I thinking about this?”  Sometimes, it’s just the meanderings of memory that take me to that day in high school when I was put in charge of entering fruit orders into the computer for the FFA fund raiser.  Not that I was one of the “jacket wearing” FFA members, but I did participate in our “field day” demonstrations by churning butter in a series of jars with a sweet, sandy-haired farm boy who was almost too shy to talk to me.  What was his name?  I don’t know.  I only remember that he liked NASCAR and blushed when I teased him about being too handsome to not have a girlfriend.  See?  Why the heck was I thinking about entering fruit orders for the FFA fundraiser?

I’ve been working more regularly on a novel this summer, but I’ve been reluctant to share my progress with friends. I have the odd preference of writing in longhand for my first drafts, which means my “second draft” happens when I enter the writing into the computer.  I’ve started the second draft process, but I can tell the writing is missing something.  I need to add to it to make the situation believable, to make the character seem more like a real person, and to move the plot along without it feeling like it’s dragging.  I have the old pang of self-doubt that strikes when I start struggling with a project, but I’m dedicated to working through it.  But how?

My character is 18.  She’s in the summer between high school and college.  And she is in the middle of dealing with a moment of intense family turmoil.  How do I bring this girl to life?  How do I tell the reader who she is without banging them on the head with a list of likes and dislikes?  And how do I do this without making the long-form fiction feel like it’s crawling at a snail’s pace?

Then came the a-ha moment!  With a flashback, of course.  OF COURSE!  Why haven’t I thought of flashbacking (which may or may not be a “real” word) before now?  She is not far away from being in high school, so I have to tap into my own “yesteryear” memories to remember the angst of being that age again, being in the midst of a major life transition, and how to deal with complicated relationships between siblings and parents and grandparents.  But, she is not me, so I must invent a past for her.  I *can* use my own mental wanderings to populate her past, though.

I remember when I was a little kid, I really thought I was a badass.  It was a freer, more dangerous time, I guess, in retrospect.  I played in half-constructed homes as new portions of my neighborhood were developed.  One of those houses was a two-story house–a rarity in the land of one-story ranch-style homes.  During an intense game of chase with two boys who were older than me (boys who kept calling me a “baby” and a “girl” like it was a slur and not just a fact of genetics), I jumped from the second-story window of the newly framed house, daring them to follow me.  They did not.  I remember laughing at the looks on their faces.  They were looking down at me from the window, stunned that I had jumped from so high.  I was all of 5 and fearless and had legs made of rubber.  Ah, how sweet was that victory!  I decided to give my character the same sense of “I’ll show you” daring.

 

Exercise:

Take 10-15 minutes to write down one of your childhood memories.  Try to remember as much as you can, especially sensory memories and the way you felt, emotionally.  After you’ve captured the essence of that memory, use the same “feeling” to write a new scene for your character.  You can frame it as a flashback to your character’s childhood, or not.  Maybe you have a character who is a child, so it could happen in “real time.”  Maybe you’re character has a child.  It can be translated in so many ways.  Maybe it will inspire a piece of non-fiction.  Maybe you won’t want to change the scene at all–you know how us writers are–always stealing from real life to tell our stories.  That’s what they mean when they say, “write what you know,” right?

Happy writing!

Taking Your Art Seriously

I write. I am a “writer.” I am, however, not what I would call an “author.” The distinction in my mind is the difference between being published and not being published. Authors are published. Writers write.

I have a good many friends who are authors, though, and if I am being honest with myself…I am jealous of their success. I am truly, truly happy for them, but I confess that I am also covetous of their ability to win the acceptance and approval of whatever powers that be that decide: “YES! You! This work you have produced–it is publication worthy!” Huzzah for them. Sincerely.

AND I know I have no room for grousing about feeling jealous or depressed about my own lack of authorhood BECAUSE it’s my own fault. I haven’t *really* tried to become published in the traditional way since I left grad school. If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know that I put a short story on Amazon (about a year ago) to be sold like a Kindle “single.” For 99 cents. And of all the people I know who know I did this…let’s say something like 100 people (a low estimate)…7 of them dared to spend less than $1 on a story I wrote. And these are people I know. It’s demoralizing.

So yeah. Boo hoo. Pity party for me. In all honesty, I wrote a supremely snarky “nobody loves me” blog about the whole debacle, but wisely decided not to post it. Although, in retrospect, it’s pretty damn funny. I mean, if you like snark.

But now that party is over. I am just done wallowing. Because I decided, “If I don’t take my own art seriously, who will?” Self-publishing is one route to take, but just plopping something down on Amazon isn’t going to turn me into an author because I wish it to be so. It’s time to go back to the basics of becoming an author and go about it in a different way.

First, obviously, is writing.

Second, just as obviously, is attempting to become published by TRYING to become published. There is no wishing in publishing, dear self.

Third, is to return to my old methods that allowed me to gain insight and growth as a writer…by reaching out to my friends who are/were writers and get them to share work with me. And if they won’t/can’t, then it’s time to find a new group of writers to bounce ideas off of, and to serve as a voice of reason when I want to put a sasquatch in my short story. Or maybe they will say that sasquatch should stay. You just never know.

And I’m going to take this little gem from my cousin. She is a painter, and recently she quoted a friend of hers who said, “art is an equation; the more you put in, the more you get out.” Such a simple adage, but a good one to remember.

So. Here goes. Taking my art seriously.

Starting Up Again – Time to Write

Hey all!

I got married! Woo hoo! So glad THAT’s over…

SO…now it’s time to start writing again. I don’t know what it is about winter and colder weather and holiday vibes that make my brain go crazy with ideas, but here they are again. It’s like a cocktail party in my head what with all of these characters bouncing around and trying to tell their stories over each other.

So, I’ve devised a plan. A writing exercise based on this cocktail party idea. I really just want a way to tease out the characters, make them less like an amorphous, cacophonous crowd, and more like solid individuals.

First: Name each character with a full name (and if you are so inspired, explain why this person is this person, a la “Her mom and dad had met at the Starlight Diner, and so, logically named their firstborn child after the waitress who served them: Cleo.”)

Second: What is your character drinking at this cocktail party, if anything? Cleo likes Jack & Coke.

Third: What is the character wearing…party attire or “regular” clothes? Just make the clothing true to the character’s style or lack thereof.

Fourth: What would your character be doing at this party? Hiding in a corner, laughing the loudest, earnestly discussing the Superbowl prospects of her favorite team, getting drunk for drunk’s sake…?

And now that you have all of this fodder, try to focus in on these characters in pairs. They can be from different stories, even, but let them have a conversation. What would they talk about? What would the character share about his/her life with a person from a different story? What would they say about their own stories?

I am really excited to do this one! I can hear the glasses clinking and the smokers heading outside, and the one who MUST tell the story of the trip they took to Africa, and the one who is rustling through the coats…

Cheers! And good luck!

Tweaking or Just Tweaking Out?

Tweaking words is the name of the game.  Like a sound engineer with one of those giant soundboards of nobs and levers and sliders and digital output, I am constantly trying to nip my writing into something better, something perfect, something *just* right.

At some point, though, you have to stop tweaking.

My current battle is with this new publication I have on Amazon.  It is the short story “Church of the Palomino.”  I can’t post a link to it here, but you can search by the title and find it.  Please go…search, find…and do what you will (i.e. buy it)!

So, the object of my tweaking has shifted from the story itself to the description of the story.

It used to say this (a blurb I fashioned around midnight one night in a feverish attempt to meet my self-imposed publication deadline):

“A widower finds solace at The Palomino. Or thinks he does. The object of his worship is an exotic dancer. Circumstances draw them together one fateful night, but things don’t turn out as expected.”

When I read it the next day, my reaction was, “WHY did I start my description with “A widower?”  A WIDOWER?  Really, what was I thinking?  That’s not going to sell a story!

So, then I started using this hashtag in a handful of tweets about the story: #everybodylovesastripper.

Much better, I think.  More light-hearted anyway.  And everybody DOES (or should…strippers are people, too).  So, I updated the brief description to this:

“Everybody loves a stripper, right? Well, formerly puritanical Max does. As a widower he finds solace at The Palomino. Or thinks he does. The object of his worship is Lexi–self-described as “a stripper with a heart of stone.” Circumstances draw them together one fateful night, but things don’t turn out as expected.”

I also managed to introduce the characters by name and include some meatier descriptions of them aside from “widower” and “stripper.”  The problem with describing a short story that has a twist at the end is that you don’t want the brief description to give it all away.  I am so tempted to have this whole diatribe about the relationship between these two characters and what they effectively do for one another, quite by accident, just by having a conversation and living through a couple of strange experiences together.  And it really has nothing to do with who they are or sex or any of the stereotypical things you might think when you put “a widower” and “a stripper” together.  He is not a dirty old  man.  He is lonesome and sad and desperate.  She is a girl (not a woman) who has been driven to this way of making money, because it is her best bet, given her circumstances, for survival.  They are just two people.

But I want people to get that for themselves when they read the story.  Someday I will put down my “English professor” agenda and just let my writing live on its own.

Back to tweaking…out.  I am a watcher and a hoverer.  I can admit this.  The number of times per day that I check my “Amazon Best Sellers Rank” is almost equal to my rank, which is, as of this moment: #152,433.  Woo hoo?  It has gone from 196k to 98k and back again in a matter of hours.  It kind of freaks me out.  And considering how little this story has sold, I know that this number is mainly dependent upon the success (or lack thereof) of others.  So, I’m easing off of the watching, because you know what they say about a watched pot…

As hard as it is, I have to just let it be, and hope that it does well.  And stop tweaking out.  And start working on the next thing!

Church of the Palomino

So here it is.  I apologize to those of you who read both of my blogs, but today is the day.  The Church of the Palomino…the short story I worked to build on this blog…has gone “live” on Amazon as a Kindle single.  Here is the cover:

 

I am nearly peeing my pants with excitement!  After all that time and effort, I have finally put my writing out to the world for everyone to see.  And while it is exciting, it is also nerve-wracking and sort of scary.  Just a wee bit.

 

So, here is the brief description:

 

“A widower finds solace at The Palomino. Or thinks he does. The object of his worship is an exotic dancer. Circumstances draw them together one fateful night, but things don’t turn out as expected.”

 

And it even includes three endings and an homage to Flannery O’Connor.  For just $1.29, how can you resist?  You can’t!

 

I hope you give it a read and share it with your friends. By the way, you do not need a Kindle to read Kindle downloads.  You can read on your iPhone, iPad, or PC.  Convenient AND paperless!

 

Now, though, it is time to work on the next story…a writer’s job  is never done.

The Vocation

I started this blog because my stepson challenged me to.  Because I want to be a writer when I want to grow up.  Because I feel as if writing is my true life’s vocation.  And by vocation, I mean:  I can’t not do it.  I am miserable when I don’t do it.  When I write, something inside of me unlocks and I am able to be myself.  My “real” self.

I have, largely, felt as if my hands are tied by the reality of life.  I have, though, dreamed the craziest of dreams telling me I must…that I have no choice, if I want to live a fulfilling life.  I dreamed last night that my hands were dripping what felt like blood, but when I looked down…it was words, dripping from my fingers on to the floor, where they lay there in a puddle, like alphabet soup.

When morning rolls around, and I have to get dressed to go sit at a desk, and do other people’s work, I have to damn up those words and stories and keep them at bay until I have time.  When the end of the work day comes, I am frazzled, and stressed out, and tired.  And then there is dinner to make, kids’ sporting events, dogs to walk, exercise to do, dishes to wash, floors to sweep…and then I really ought to go to sleep.  And then, my mind whirs out these ideas and notions and stories–things I would really like to explore on paper, research and write about, and I make a mental note and finally fall asleep.  And then it starts over again.

I want to know…how do I make this dream life my real life?  I remember Toni Morrison saying that she had to make time to write…that she had to carve it out for herself or it would never happen.  In an interview from the Paris Review (1993), she said, “Writing before dawn began as a necessity—I had small children when I first began to write and I needed to use the time before they said, Mama—and that was always around five in the morning.”  {If you have read my blog, you know this does not work for me…I am not a morning person.}  But then, she says this:

Writers all devise ways to approach that place where they expect to make the contact, where they become the conduit, or where they engage in this mysterious process. For me, light is the signal in the transition. It’s not being in the light, it’s being there before it arrives. It enables me, in some sense.   I tell my students one of the most important things they need to know is when they are their best, creatively. They need to ask themselves, What does the ideal room look like? Is there music? Is there silence? Is there chaos outside or is there serenity outside? What do I need in order to release my imagination?

I know that I have to carve out the time for my writing life.  I know that I am going to have to prioritize and carve the time from the day for this act of creativity, because no one else is going to, because no one else needs to.  It’s not their vocation…it’s mine.

Have you designed your perfect place, found your perfect time?  I’m taking this as my task today.  To schedule it and make it known.  To steal it, if I can.  To listen to the calling.  To write.

Another Ending…Writing sdrawkcaB

I have this short story I want to submit to a the Austin Chronicle short story contest.  It’s not finished.  The deadline is SOON!

So, to force myself through to that ending, here’s the exercise I’m going to try:

Writing the ending I want first and then write backwards from there.  This exercise makes the writing more like solving a logic problem, or even a maze, but sometimes taking things out of chronological order gives you the freedom to write without thinking about “how am I going to get there?”

Of course, I will need to reorder what I come up with, and I will also probably need to do some severe editing after the fact…the word limit for this contest is 2500 words.  I am usually much more verbose in my stories…5000 word limits can be a challenge for me.

Since I know I have this limit, though, I think I am going to try another writing tactic–this one from from high school…writing on index cards.  This can help solve the non-chronological problem, too, because not only will the index card put a boundary on what I am writing, it can help with the “moving things around” aspect of reorganizing.

I am looking forward to this puzzle now.  I’ll let you know how it goes!

WHEW! NaNoWriMo is Over…Bring on the next deadline!

I am not going to pretend or try to fool you, dear reader, that NaNoWriMo was a successful undertaking for me this year.  Alas, it was a dismal failure!  Again, circumstances beyond my control intervened in my completion of this noble task.

So, I am going to do what I do every year.

Go back to doing what I was doing before.  An obvious choice, perhaps, but one that suits me well.

And for the short term, there is a local short story contest upon which I have honed my focus.  It’s just a week from the due date, so I need to focus in on that somehow, with my one local story that is “almost” done being the thing that needs the fixerating.  It probably needs some major editing, what with a 2500 word limit, but I will, again accept the challenge with hopefulness in my heart and willingness in my hands.

Let’s see if I can complete *this* one, dear readers.  I’ll be sure to keep you posted.

Good luck in your own pursuits!  Now, where did I leave that second cup of coffee….?

+++This message brought to you by a stress-addled mind+++

Keep calm and spike your coffee with rum!

NaNoWriMo: Five Confessions!

Sigh.

Confession #1.  My word count, as of today, is 10,017/50,000.

This is good, because it’s better than nothing.  This is bad, because the goal for this day, in the middle of the month, is more like 25,000/50,000.  I’m only 14,983 behind.  Unfortunately, this is more than I can make up in one night.

Confession #2.  I am tempted to quit.

See?  This is where I was each of the previous years I decided to partake in NaNoWriMo.  Two weeks in and already so far behind that I feel like I can’t catch up.

So, let’s see if I can talk myself out of it with some rational numbers.  If I can write 2,665 words a day from here on out, I can still hit the goal by November 30th.  It’s not out of the question.  There may be hope?

Confession #3.  I am a really slow writer when it comes to writing in longhand.

Even when I pick up the pace, it takes me about 2.5 hours to write the original goal of 1,667/night with my pen and paper.   Actually, it ‘s pencil, but who is keeping score on that?  So…I have got to turn to typing.  As if with fingers ablaze!  I acutally type about 60 wpm, so with *that* math, it should only take me about 44 minutes to write that much a day.  Easy, peasy.  Right?

Sigh.

The problem with typing is that it doesn’t, for whatever reason, incite the same sort of creative spark that writing on paper gives me.  I wish it did…I really, really do!  But, gosh darn it, it just doesn’t.  At least, not yet.

Confession #4.  I am not in love with my character anymore, and I want her to hurry up and get where she is going.

So…yeah.  I have been writing this story chronologically.  I am stuck in El Paso with a runaway.  She is 18, but kind of…too methodical and beseiged by guilt/sadness to “get a move on.”  Plot twists present themselves and I think, “No, not this girl.  She wouldn’t take that bait.  She is too ____ to do that.”  Or I might think, “I should just skip her out of El Paso to someplace more interesting.”  But then I tell myself I am getting ahead of myself.

I think it is time to give myself permission to write whatever part of the freaking story/character I feel like writing and stop being so…controlling…about it.  Just putting that thought into words is like a little golden apple someone just dropped into my pocket.  How exciting!

Confession #5.  I can’t stop thinking about all the other stories on my “to do” list.

I think it’s because I’m getting into writing again, those favoritest characters of mine are just piping up in the back row of my brain with arms flailing, screaming “pick me! pick me!”  Or maybe it’s a grass is greener in the other story kind of thing.  Or maybe this whole NaNoWriMo method of bucking the system and “focusing” on a single project is difficult for my brain to catch hold of.  I mean, I literally have an excel spreadsheet with like 10 tabs in it to capture story ideas and character details so they won’t float away.  It’s a good exercise, though.  Deadlines and the like.  I get it.  I even want to do that.  It’s just hard to keep the creative juices flowing with just one flavor.  I don’t really have a solution for this confession except to tell myself, “Sit! Stay! Work!”

I’m sure we’ll all survive.  Somehow.  Hopefully, not by quitting.  Again.

Happy NaNoWriMo Eve!

I found this list from another author…you may know him as the man who wrote Tropic of
Cancer (oh so scandalous back in the day!), Henry Miller:

Writer’s, write!

I wish (with eyes closed and heels clicking) that writing…the art and craft and community of it all…can become my primary, sustaining, fervent, fulfilling work.

There is no reason to be waiting until tomorrow to do any of it.  But tomorrow, I start on THE project of the month…that 1,667 words a day undertaking…the one I will do my best to apply the above rules to.  I AM going to have to shoehorn it into my life, but once I get my foot in there, I am going to wear it out like my favorite pair of pennyloafers.

Church of the Palomino…if I have time for it, I will pluck and pin and reshape it into the thing I want it to be…it is still not quite “there” yet, so I am going to have to put you aside for a while.

Tonight (and surely, I should have done this already), I am going to set up my workspace for NaNoWriMo.  The pencils and pencil sharpener will be within reach, the notebooks meant to capture this particular story will be stacked and ready.  I have decided NOT to do this on my computer because I write better in longhand first.  First pass editing happens electronically.  There is no time for editing with NaNoWriMo.  I DO need to set up a particular playlist on my ipod and/or queue up my favorite CDs, so I have no excuse to go looking for them when it is time to write.  And now that I am thinking about it, I need to have a writing “outfit” ready to go, too.  I know that sounds crazy, but that’s how I roll.  Big shirt over pajama pants and slipper socks.  It’s the little things, people.

I have to admit…this feels kind of like Christmas Eve…so exciting with the getting ready!!!  All that is missing is hot chocolate and plate of cookies (and carrots for the reindeer).  And to think…a book is going to come out of this!  That is the most exciting part of all.

Good luck, all ye other NaNoWriMo-ers!  Let the insanity begin!