Tag Archives: Writing

Developing My Writing Brain

21 Sunday May 2017

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I would love to be a word genius: stories spilling out of my brain with no need for editing or grammar checks.  That’s not how my writing process goes, unfortunately, so I do a great deal of reading.  Reading is my favorite thing and, among the amazing fiction I read for fun and the history I read for research (and fun), I also read about writing.  Some of the books I read are craft and others are writers writing about writing.  Most I read and put back on my shelf but I just finished a book I thought worthy of mention: Fire Up Your Writing Brain by Susan Reynolds.

This book doesn’t cover craft-not really.  Rather, the book contains tips and tricks derived from neuroscience to take what I already know as a writer and make it work more efficiently.  This is a book I’ll have to study and my favorite part were the quotes included from different writers.

There were three things I read on my first pass through this book that stayed with me:

First, a little blurb about Mark Zuckerberg was included stating he buys multiples of the same shirt in order to minimize how many decisions he makes in a day.  He’s quoted as saying; “There’s a bunch of psychological theory that even making small decisions about what you wear, what you eat for breakfast, etc., can make you tired.” (Fire Up Your Writing Brain, page 162).  The TBI I sustained in my car accident years ago means it’s easy for my brain to get overwhelmed.  Planning my meals, multi-tasking at my job, researching, writing my manuscript, posting to my blogs…it can get difficult for me to keep it all straight.  This quote struck me.  I’ve already been looking for ways to simplify my life and reading this has caused me to make doing so a priority.

Two, no one is perfect and yet I keep expecting my writing to be so.  The section entitled “Your Expectations Are Too High” on page 194 spoke to me.  In it, Ms. Reynolds states “The best advice anyone can give inexperienced writers is to write a first draft as quickly as possible, as good books are not written, but rewritten and rewritten and rewritten.”  This is something I’ve heard many times from many sources but perhaps, this time, I was ready not just to hear it but take it to heart.  I finished a first draft years ago: all 611 pages of it.  It’s been whittling and paring and cutting that mass of research and character background into something more readable that’s been a problem.  I have difficulty not tweaking this, re-writing that, what if this, and would it be better if… What Ms. Reynolds’ book is helped me realize is it’s still too early in my process to expect perfection.  I need to turn off my editing brain for a while. Easier said than done but I’m pushing through.

Three, it’s important to have a writing space.  I’m fortunate to have an office downstairs where all my books are neatly on their shelves, I have a desk, a comfy chair, and a place to put my feet.  While simplifying my life, parts of my office have become a dump site for papers I have to scan before I can shred, blank cards I have yet to fill out and send to friends and family, and other detritus I’m can’t throw away before I look at it.  Writing in this room feels different than writing anywhere else in the house.  Because of my books?  I can’t really say.  However, I need to get the room organized so I can work there without feeling anxious about mess.  This too is now a priority.

I gave this book 5 stars on Goodreads.  The information in it is bound to be more useful than I yet realize.  This is one that definitely goes on my bookshelf; just as soon as I get the shelf dusted and sorted.

The Good Old Wintertime

11 Saturday Mar 2017

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It’s still winter according to the calendar but snowy days have been few and far between here in Colorado.  I need some cold days because my cookie recipes are stacking up but I can’t complain too much: cold weather makes me feel old and creaky.  On really cold days, I entertain myself by thinking of seeking warmer climes but I’d miss winter.

I like snowy days.  Every sound is muffled and the world is quieter, stiller, than usual.  At least, I like them when I’m inside and warm.  I remember one time when I wasn’t much of a fan of cold and winter.

My dad had taken a job as foreman on a ranch and moved us north.  My brother and I were excited to be living on a ranch and were sure we’d each be able to have a horse.  It was the dead of winter and, practically the moment we arrived, the pipes in the house froze.  I don’t remember much of that time other than the bitter cold.  I do remember being put to bed with so many blankets and coats I could barely move.  I woke up on the third morning after our arrival to the sound of my mother packing our boxes and we were gone.  That was the coldest I ever remember being and the shortest I ever lived in one place.

Usually though, I like snow.  I like watching the flakes fall, I like the feeling of isolation.  I used to like hiking in the snow, though I don’t do much of that now.  All other sounds are muffled and the crunch of snow under my boots, the creaking of branches, and the occasional drop of snow to the ground all are inordinately loud.  Even when with other people, hiking in the snow made me feel alone.  I always felt more in touch with my own breath outdoors in the snow-perhaps the act of drawing the cold into my lungs-and even my thoughts seem to move more slowly.

I once tried to capture this feeling in poetry.  I wrote the included poem for my English class while at University and it’s one of my earliest attempts at word painting.  It’s been years but I remember my classmates liked it.  I hope you’ll feel the same.

One With Winter

It was a moment I will always remember

I stepped out of the trees

And a magnificent sight lay before me

A fresh snowfall covered the meadow

Beautiful, unmarred, soft, covered in a thin shell

The light from the moon sparkled like diamonds

All around me was silence-no movement for miles

There was only the fog I created as I breathed.

The coldness of Winter was in the air

It caressed my face, my lips

Winter found a kindred spirit in me

It entered my skin, my blood, my bones

And we were one.

As Winter I felt such peace-such nothingness

I was the ice in the air and the snow expansive before me

Beautiful, still, cold

I let myself sink into the heart of Winter

Until I was becoming lost in the cold

And had to fight my way back to myself

I took care as I walked around the meadow

Reluctant to mar the beauty I had enjoyed.

I returned the next day

To see my snow covered meadow but the snow was no longer there

It had melted-submitted-to the loving warmth of the sun.

 

The featured photo on this post was taken at Wolf Creek by a friend/co-worker.  My thanks to him for the loan.

A Work in Process

11 Friday Mar 2016

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What is my writing process?  Apparently, all writers have them and all are unique.  Do you write standing up?  Write Drunk and Edit Sober or vice versa? Devote an hour a day?  Don’t stop until at least three pages are finished?  Don’t even think about your book until you’ve accomplished a half hour of free-writing?  I enjoy reading about other writers’ processes and there is a sense of community as I find writers share many of the same struggles, but though I’ve been working on my book for years, I still don’t have a process.  It’s constantly changing and has yet to be nailed down.

I try.  “I’m going to write an hour a day. Period.”  I begin with that goal but then I’ll have a day where I’m so tired I can’t string words together verbally much less type something other than gibberish.  Then there days when my arm will hurt and I can’t type or write by hand and, before I know it, days have passed with no progress on the manuscript.  That doesn’t mean I’m not writing if by ‘writing’ I mean thinking about my book and characters, plotting what happens next, or reading a bit by way of research.  In many ways, my process is to work on my book every waking moment-and some sleeping moments-even though words don’t always make it onto paper.

I hear advice like; don’t edit yourself-get it down on paper and then edit.  That makes sense but that doesn’t work for me.  I’ll be writing away and then I realize that both plot and characters feel dry and that a change needs to be made; often four or five chapters ago.  If I don’t go back and make the change, I CANNOT continue writing.  It’s like all creativity dries up.  So, I edit myself I great deal while working.

One piece of advice I have taken to heart is don’t throw anything away.  I have a dump file and, whenever I hit a situation mentioned in the above paragraph, I take the scene that isn’t working and stick it in the dump file.  This has been crucial for me.  There have been so many times I plopped something that wasn’t working in the file and forgot about it until I found I needed it; often years after first setting it down.  I recently copied in work I’d done in my earliest draft-almost ten years old now-into my current draft and was thrilled not to have to re-write the scene.

“Taking a long time” is definitely part of my process but my story arcs over seven books and I don’t want to make the mistake of introducing something in Book One that is utterly contradicted in Book Seven.  I hate it when authors do that.  I’ve had authors I like reference an instance from an earlier book that I remember happening differently and, sure enough, I scrounge up the appropriate book and find I’m correct.  Why does that happen?  Is it easier to tweak the facts for the current book?  I don’t know but it’s annoying.  I also have a hard time continuing to read an author that changes a character’s name in a later book.  Is the name unimportant because the character is a minor one?  No.  If you’re going to bring the character back in later books, make sure you use the same name!  I don’t know if that’s an author or an editor mistake but, again, it’s annoying.

I respect authors that go that extra mile in research and attention to detail.  The Denver Museum of Nature and Science recently had a Sherlock Holmes exhibit.  Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite characters and I enjoyed immersing myself in that world.  The exhibit had plenty of hands on activities and there was a mystery to be solved as I moved through the different displays.  Great fun but I enjoyed reading the letters written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  One such letter was to his publisher and Mr. Conan Doyle was requesting a copy of an early manuscript as he couldn’t remember all the details he’d set down and no longer had a copy of his own.  My writer spirit felt camaraderie with that: a writer respecting both his characters and his readers enough to research his early work.  Such an eye for detail and a respect for research-as well as great writing-keeps Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on my shelves.

Sherlock

My Sherlock Holmes Collection

 

I knew Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote other books: I’ve seen The Lost World even though I haven’t yet acquired a copy of the book.  I did find a collection of stories I’d never known Conan Doyle wrote and I was especially interested in the Preface to The White Company written by Conan Doyle’s wife.  It begins:

My husband was intensely thorough in all his literary work.  He took enormous pains to have everything right.  For instance, before writing The White Company, he soaked his brain with a knowledge of the period he intended to portray.  He read over sixty books dealing with heraldry-armour-falconry-the medieval habits of the peasants of that time-the social customs of the higher fold of the land, etc.  Only when he knew those days as though he had lived in them-when he had got the very atmosphere steeped into his brain-did he put pen to paper and let loose the creations of his mind.  (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Historical Novels: Volume One; Preface to The White Company)

This, also, I deeply respect.  I do write a bit differently than this; I soak my brain in the period I’m writing in but there are things I don’t realize I should be researching until I’m already in the writing process.  For instance, merely having a character attend a public bath isn’t enough.  I need to know what the baths in both Ancient Rome and Ancient Arabia were like.  How did they differ from one another? Were there different rules for men and women?  Were there castes of society not allowed to attend at all?  What did one do with his or her clothes when bathing?  Fortunately for me, there are historians with these same interests and I can scare up a book or a documentary that will tell me what I need to know.

Maybe my writing should be more disciplined.  Maybe I take too much time.  Maybe I shouldn’t be getting wrapped up in these little details until a second or even a third draft.  Maybe, but it doesn’t seem to be part of my process.

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My Historical Volume Collection

 

In Search of Myself

09 Wednesday Dec 2015

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Motivation

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t use social media to its fullest potential.  I have stacks of books to read and usually only use a computer for work.  Sometimes, I wonder if social media isn’t a waste of time but then I connect with someone, see something that makes me laugh, or read something that makes me think and I see social media’s value.  The image at the top of this post was one that rocked me back on my metaphorical heels.

I don’t remember a time when I ever had a wide-eyed, innocent moment.  My childhood wasn’t conducive to wide-eyed innocent moments, a fact I’m much to old to worry about now.  Besides, like the apostle; I forget what lies behind and press on toward the goal…

…of what?  I read this quote and was trying to remember any wide-eyed innocent moments from my past and I realized what I was really asking myself was, when was the last time I felt like myself?  I’m working as a bookkeeper for a nonprofit that does good work: why am I so tired, stressed out, and sad all the time?  The work is stressful, sure and I have a lot of responsibility, but it’s good work that’s making a positive impact on the community.  Why aren’t I fulfilled?  Why do I feel like I’ve lost myself?

Because, this job swallows up my entire life.  Earlier in November, I worked close to a 13 hour day.  Does that happen all the time?  No, but do I find I have to give more and more of myself to the demands of the job?  Yes.  And, that leaves little time for writing.

I realized those were the times I feel the most like myself.  I feel connected to those things that make me me during those brief moments when I had enough energy after making it through a day of work to write something, anything.  The second half of the quote is what really struck me.  If I’m feeling disconnected and, yes, depressed, what has changed?  What shouldn’t have?  The answer I came up with?  Some time during the last year, I allowed the demands of the job to be my priority and let writing be the thing I did with whatever energy I had left over.

This quote made me feel like I’ve reached a crossroads.  My job isn’t bad.  I have great friends I work with, I feel like a part of something every time an adoption of a child in foster care is completed, and I like the logic of bookkeeping; but a voice deep down tells me it isn’t enough.  I may be doing good work but it isn’t what my heart longs to do.  I have to make a change or something precious inside will die.

I quit my job.  It was an extremely difficult decision, especially as I don’t have another and every responsible bone in my body takes issue with leaving a regular salary for the unknown.  And yet…I’m beginning to feel like myself.  The outer me feels less like a shell going through the motions of being a responsible adult and is steadily reconnecting with something vibrant on the inside I fear I almost lost.

I am writing.

Who knows what will come of it.  There’s another voice that says no one will be interested in the stories I have to tell.  Maybe not but I don’t regret my decision one iota.  Sure, I’ll have to get a job eventually: my savings won’t hold out forever.  But, I know for certain my next job will support my writing rather than keep me from it.  I won’t make the same mistake again.

My thanks to Jonathan Scott and #MondayMotivation.  Who knew social media would provide the impetus for me getting my passions back on track?  I never would have believed it but they are, and I am, and myself and I are getting reacquainted.

 

 

 

The Resilience of Dreams

08 Monday Dec 2014

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Alaska Photo

There were only two things I wanted to do when I was a child.  One, I wanted to write books that touched others the way some of the books I was reading touched me.  Two, I wanted to study whales.  The whale bug, if there is such a thing, bit me in the 5th grade.  That was when I discovered Pacific Blue; a cassette tape combining music and whale song.  I listened to that tape over and over, dreaming of one day being on the ocean and hearing whale song for myself.  I only applied to one university when the time came: the University of Alaska Southeast where I knew the Humpback whales’ migratory path would take them.  Fortunately, I was accepted.  Unfortunately, I was only able to complete one year of school before a car accident ended that particular chapter of my life.

I didn’t give up right away.  One of my favorite classes was my Microbiology class and I thought I’d keep my dream but change it up a little by switching majors from Cetacean Biology to Marine Micrology.  That’s a field I made up but the symbiotic relationship between Right whales and the parasites that clean their skin fascinated me.  Maybe my new brain injury meant I couldn’t do the diving and ocean work I’d intended but the dream wasn’t completely lost and I liked looking through microscopes and conducting tests.

I underestimated the devastation of the car accident.  I completed a second year of school before I had to call it quits, admit that the car accident had wrecked my life, and I wasn’t physically or emotionally up to completing my degree.  I went home to recover.

Almost 15 years later, I am still recovering.  It took 5 years after leaving university to give up the scientist dream.  I applied to and was accepted in the Microbiology program at DU but wasn’t able to move forward.  When that door closed, I was devastated.  What was I if I wasn’t a scientist?

In the early months after my car accident, I had a neurologist tell me having a TBI (traumatic brain injury) was a little like PMSing all the time.  She prescribed antidepressants and I hated them.  I don’t know if I can put into words how antidepressants made me feel.  Separated: from myself as well as the world around me is as close as I can come.  I made the decision to stop taking them-without any doctor’s knowledge-and have been antidepressant free for 13 years.

A side note: if you are on an antidepressant and want to quit taking it, DO NOT do so without your doctor’s knowledge.  If I’d known then what I know now about the effect an antidepressant has on the brain, I’d never have stopped cold turkey.  Fortunately, I had no serious side effects from quitting the way I did.

I tell you all of that to tell you that journaling is what saved me once I quit taking mood stabilizers.  My brain injury does cause some emotional difficulties but getting everything down in print helps me to see what I’m experiencing and put it in perspective.  I’ve always written: I wrote my first novel in the seventh grade.  It’s not bad though I say it myself.  I did change the name of my villain halfway through the manuscript but it’s a handwritten manuscript: such a change would be noted and corrected in a second draft. 😉 I’ve consistently journaled since my family gave me my first one for Christmas when I was 9 and I’ve indulged myself over the years by writing poetry.  With the death of my scientist dream, a second began to stir.  What if I could be a writer?  I had at least 20 books I’d started over the years but hadn’t been able to finish: all of them were interesting but none of them were the story my heart wanted to write.  What if I had a story to write?  What if people wanted to read it?  I’d had a paper published while at university: it was one I’d written for my English class where I’d had the audacity to compare/contrast one of Edna St. Vincent Millay’s sonnets with one of my own poems.  My teacher had told me I had talent and offered to help me switch majors if I wanted but writing was just something I did for fun: I was a scientist.

That being my belief, what now?  I’ve never been one to quit on anything but this scientist dream of mine did seem thoroughly dead.  What did I have to lose?  My mother helped me get started.  She smiled when I told her what I was feeling, opened a dictionary, and read me the definition of science.  Definition 2 states “a systematized knowledge derived from observation, study, and experimentation carried on in order to determine the nature or principles of what is being studied”.  That struck me.  My ultimate dream was to discover something I didn’t know about the world and share it with others.  Did I need a microscope for that?  Could I use a pen and paper instead?  I opened a fresh notebook (college ruled-wide ruled has never inspired me to write.  I don’t know why) and started with an idea.

That was years ago.  So many I’m not even sure.  I’ve completed a 612 page manuscript since then.  When people would ask me how my book was going I would reply; “slowly, but I am writing a series of seven and the first one needs to be a solid foundation”.  It’s true, I do have a series of seven planned but re-reading my giant manuscript made me realize I was writing all seven at once.  I’ve narrowed my focus to Book One, laying a foundation I can build on later.

My sense of regret and loss has disappeared as I’ve written, researched, deleted, and written some more.  Writing fulfills me the same way watching a culture blossom and grow used to.  So, all the old adages are true.  No dream dies but another is born.  No door closes but a window is opened.  And, thinking back, I wonder if a dream ever really dies.  I don’t think they do: they are much too resilient to die.  I think the same dream manifests itself in a different way.  Life today looks nothing like I planned but my dream of making discoveries is alive and well.  I have to work on the sharing with others bit.  It’s not easy for someone as naturally introverted as I am, a personality quirk my brain injury has seemed to make worse.  However, the brain injury does not define me and I am striving to expand the borders of my comfort zone.

In an attempt to stretch them to the breaking point, here’s a  poem I wrote when I discovered writing could fulfill me and my life wasn’t a wreck because of one accident.

 

Phoenix Dreams

My dreams lay about me

Broken, Shattered

Shards of once vivid scenes

I stand among them

Staring about me

Hoping to find even one

One piece large enough

To remind me again

Of all that I dreamed

For Oh, how I dreamed

But now there is nothing

Devastation only

Not a spark of the life that once was

As I stare about me

Hopeless, Desperate

Finality comes like a fire

Incinerating all

Leaving nothing but ashes

That listlessly swirl at my feet

But wait! A glimmer

Of light and another

I stand watching amazed

As Phoenix Dreams rise

From the pyre of the past

Taking wing they ascend from the ash

I step forward to follow

Forgetting what’s gone

My dream is reborn

 

Welcome Amanda Lynch!

18 Saturday Oct 2014

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Thank you so much to KAM for hosting me today!

When I finished my first novel, ANABEL UNRAVELED, I was excited and petrified.  I had written a book—actually written a book. But now what should I do? Should I find an agent? Should I self-publish? There were so many questions looming and I didn’t know which way to go.

After much internal debate, I decided to attempt to go the agent route. I found list upon list of literary agents and I began sending out my query letters.  I’ll be honest—that was an uncomfortable task for me. I struggled with putting myself out there (and besides, I had just become a mom and it was hard for me to feel like a professional, a real writer, when I spent my days covered in spit up), and I received rejection letter upon rejection letter. It was a bit disheartening.

After afew months of this, I decided that maybe I wasn’t all that talented. Maybe I was a terrible writer. And so, I gave myself a deadline: If I kept getting rejection letters through the end of the year, I was going to give up.

Then, one day, I received a rejection letter that wasn’t a form letter, like so many of the ones that I had read before.  The woman who wrote it was the founder of a rather prestigious literary agency.  And while she didn’t want my novel, she had taken the time to give me some good, honest advice.

I will never forget what she said:

“I see what you’re trying to do here, and your novel has potential…”

She then went on to tell me what she thought I needed to do to make it a better work, and after mentioning that she no longer took on novels, wished me the best.  So I took some time off from writing query letters, and revisited my manuscript. I hacked at it. I polished it and buffed it and in the meantime had another baby, but I still kept working, because I knew it had the potential to be better.

And then in 2012, two years after I had started querying, I got a contract. I had decided to bypass the agent thing and had instead started looking at small press publishers, and I found mine through another writer that I had met on Twitter. The following February, I got to hold a print copy of my book in my hand and as I held it, I thought how glad I was that I hadn’t given up, and how grateful I was for that game-changing rejection letter.