Natasha Fondren

A bunch of writers riffed off of Elmore Leonard’s ten rules, including Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, Ian Rankin, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith, and many more. Great reading.

Well, I’ve only read a bit of it, but I’m keeping it open today and reading a little at a time.

Ten Rules for Writing Fiction Part 1
     Ten Rules for Writing Fiction Part 2

And finally, Seth Godin talks about the Lizard Brain, which tends to keep us creative folk from getting things done when and how we want them done. And other things about creative work.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

If you had to come up with ten (or one, or three, or whatever) rules for the writing life or craft, what would yours be?

Lately, writing has been like strip-mining myself. The other day, I talked about writing about those “issues” which may or may not be recognizable to anyone close to you.

Today, I used those secrets that no one knows but me. Little things. Tiny secrets, those hidden things and feelings you tell no one, maybe your best friend, but that’s it.

It’s so easy to plant them in. It feels so safe: it’s easy to shrug and call them fiction. And often they’re so small, they’re only of note to you.

I’ve always found these secrets have something universal about them, because they’re the sort of things people “recognize,” the sort of things that make people feel less alone.

Glenn goes for surgery on Wednesday! We’re very happy about this, because his wound will hopefully, after six weeks or so, finally start to get better! Yay! They’re going to put him under, which makes me a little nervous, but he’s happy about that. (No pain.)

So what about you? Do you slip in little secret bits of yourself? Does writing ever feel like strip-mining to you?

There comes a point where you’ve read and heard just about every technique. But somewhere in reading the archives of Neil Gaiman’s blog, I came across this tidbit that feels new, even though I kinda do it already. Now I can more consciously play with it, though.

“Give them a chance to forget.”

I think this technique is best shown, rather than told: American Gods Blog, Post 36.

No, really, please click through. Worth it, I promise. Cross my heart. I don’t hope to die, but I do hope you’ll read it.

And from Gary Corby (via Janet Reid, so you’ve probably already seen), is this Microsoft Word tip that made me laugh out loud.

The other use I put autocorrect to is to catch my noise words. Everyone has them. I tend to overuse the word just. To stop myself I put in this autocorrection:

just autocorrects to NO! NO! NO!

If I type:

"I’ll just wander over to the Agora," N said.

What appears is:

"I’ll NO! NO! NO! wander over to the Agora," Nicolaos said.

I found THE prettiest book today: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll and newly illustrated by Camille Rose Garcia. A wonderful goth feel to the new illustrations.

And you know what I thought? That I miss reading books with pictures in them. Then what do I read on the first page?

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, ‘and what is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’

I have a new dream: to someday write such a story that Harper Collins decides it worthy of illustration by Camille Rose Garcia.

(Too much fangirl? Sorry. Can’t help it.)

Also, have found new blog: Multi-Hyphenate: Perpetually Hyphenated. Highly Opinionated. Endlessly Creative. The link does not lead you to the blog front page, but to Paul Klein’s first contribution, of Dark Scribe fame (whom you might remember), who ceased blogging to go to law school. Hmph. He’s getting his life back on track, now. ;-P

I NO! NO! NO! love it when lost bloggers resurface in the blogosphere.

Any new techniques you’ve discovered, or at least put a new name to, made you remember it consciously instead of subconsciously? Any cool links to share?

and it’s here. I’ve had it. I’m tired of struggling to write a non-pseudonym’s genre story. I just reached a point, where… all my issues? Using them. I don’t care if some people I know draw parallels that may or may not be true.

It’s my life and my feelings, so why shouldn’t I use them?

It’s fiction, so of course I’ll fictionalize it. It’s arguable whether or not it will even be recognizable when I’m done with it, if it will be transparent.

Either way, I just. don’t. care. I need all the help I can get. Time to pull out all the stops.

Perhaps it’s the same as stuff I’ve accidentally used, over the years, and was surprised and a little freaked to see the parallels of my life in my stories. Even when you write 100% pure fiction, if you know yourself, you see little bits of yourself. And sometimes, I see threads in my writing, and I step back in horror, thinking: do I really think that?

Hey, some of my experiences sucked, so I may as well make money off those feelings. Make a silver lining. And if it connects with someone else who has those feelings, all the better.

Over the last nine or so years, my writing progress has mostly been a deeper and deeper exploration into who I am and how I feel. There’s mechanics and methods and techniques and skills, but in the end, it always comes down to me going deeper.

And I refuse to give up on writing a non-pseudonym story. It’s just going to happen. Period.

This seems to be my mental hurdle, as I’ve been struggling with it for years. And frankly, I am just sick of it. (I can’t imagine how you guys must feel, although to be honest, I’m having a moment of wow, you guys rock, I can’t believe you still read my blog!)

So what has your writing journey been like? What has your greatest mental hurdle been? How’d you get past it?

I’m weary of devices. They’re everywhere. It gets to the point where you read a novel, and you’re thinking, “Ah, yes, foreshadowing. Interesting choice of symbol. Oh, drop a bit of suspense there, huh? Red herring, that. Uh-oh, theme alert: INCOMING!”

There is sort of an image authors like to maintain, that these things—these themes and symbols and the like—are all mystical happenstance. Like Isabel Allende writes:

“But there is something magic in the storytelling. You tap into another world… I have a feeling that I don’t invent anything. That somehow I discover things that are in another dimension.”

Okay, I concede: sometimes things just show up in the book. Themes emerge. Symbols happen. John Irving likes to laugh and shrug and say the bears in all his novels are just coincidence.

Seriously, LIKE HE DIDN’T NOTICE. Once they were there, he made the conscious decision to keep or delete.

Sure, there are writers who end up with that stuff in their novel and don’t realize the technique they’d used. You think their editor didn’t notice? Didn’t consider the keep-or-delete question? Didn’t bring it to their attention?

Yeah, NO.

Which brings me to what I wrote today. I spent an hour writing it, and three hours desperately trying to cover my symbolism and delete all but the essence of my theme.

I spent more time unwriting than writing.

And it still seems to me that all the devices are there in blinking neon lights. Yes, I’m weary of it. Yet these are the elements of fiction; these are the tools of our craft.

I’ll admit that I’m pretty adamant that pseudonym speak nothing of craft. It spoils the magic. No one wants to see the cameras or the supports behind the props.

But there’s not a period in my work that’s not crafted.

So that’s where I am today: frowning at my work and trying to figure out how I can hide all the craft. That’s the challenge. Make it all too blatant, and I irritate readers. Heck, I irritate myself.

More unwriting tomorrow.

What think you?

I’m back to sentences. My first story (novella—2001) was a bit of a Harry Potter rip-off. Really sort of ridiculous, considering the genre pseudonym writes in, but I had a blast creating a magic-filled world. I made lots of mistakes, which I look back on with some fondness and a lot of embarrassment, considering it’s still out there. (*cue The Twilight Zone music*)

It would be hard to read it now and not laugh myself to absolute tears. We’re talking rolling-down-the-face tears. I don’t dare. Just remembering the names I gave the characters makes me giggle.

The second story I wrote was a short story. I don’t remember what it was, but I remember that period of my life. After teaching, I’d kick back in front of my desktop (A desktop! One of those archaic things! *snicker*), and I’d spend an hour toying with a paragraph.

I’d consider the nuances of each word choice. I’d look nearly every word up in the thesaurus, constantly checking that I was choosing just the right one. I’d read the dictionary for fun. I’d spend hours on a single paragraph. Gosh, it was a blast!

But then came money and pounding the keys and daily word counts and frets and worries and deadlines and… all that baggage.

Still, I grew to love plot. I have been plot-obsessed for two years. I love knitting together a plot. I can sort of understand why James Patterson enjoys (besides the financial gain) hiring co-writers: when I’m done playing with the puzzle of the plot, the grind of actually writing it seems… boring.

I’m a pantser, but my current hat tip of a novel to Les Miserables means I pretty much know the entire plot. And now I’m back to toying with sentences and playing with paragraphs.

I feel like a craftswoman again. I feel like my hands are wrist deep in clay.

It even feels Zen, taking my eyes off the top of the mountain and focusing on just the one step in front of me.

So what are you loving right now? What are you focusing on? What is making it fun for you?

I’ve been dreaming characters. This book I’m writing is a modern retelling of Les Miserables, which I’ve tentatively titled Tears of the Wretched. Tentatively because it’s a little melodramatic. But then so is Les Miserables.

Every time I think about what I’m attempting to write, it scares the bejeezus out of me. I cringe just to tell you what I’m attempting. I’m, like, embarrassed that I presume to try this.

So moving on…

I’m dreaming characters. This is so exciting, because they are these vivid, fascinating (to me) characters. They are not main characters, but walk-ons. And they say so much about the world they live in, their society, their family, their life, and who they are, in a very poignant way. (At least, I imagine they do.)

That’s a tall order. They are a picture worth a thousand words.

And they’re so fleshed-out, in my mind, that I could write a whole novel on each one. Which is a problem, because I keep wanting to move them up to major character status. Or actually write a novel on them.

What’s also odd is that I’m not thinking them up. They are hitting me. Bam! I am dreaming them. Just boom! and they’re there.

Surreal. This has never happened to me before, not in nine years of writing.

But thank you, Universe. No way could I write this story without some major divine intervention.

It makes me ponder. I generally focus on my main and secondary characters, and other “bit” characters are added as needed. They’re static, single-function, serving the story and/or the other characters.

Should I be doing this in all my stories? Would I have a livelier, more vivid story if I made each bit and minor character novel-worthy? Even those who are only onstage for a sentence or paragraph?

Am I reading too much Dickens? (I’m currently reading Oliver Twist. Reading Dickens is like sipping a good cup of hot chocolate: comforting and yummy.)

What think you? Do your bit characters make you want to write a whole novel on them? How do characters occur to you? How fleshed out do you go for each character? Major? Minor? Bit?

Since I let myself work on Shiny Idea, I’ve been possessed. I love feeling like this. My god, I love my story. It’s crazy. I wake up early so I can work on it. I think about it all the time.

It’s like this story is a divine mission.

Which is a little depressing, since books of the heart and whatnot do not typically sell. I don’t think I’ve ever written a “book of the heart.” I’ve loved several of the stories I’ve written, but I don’t think I’ve loved my characters quite so much.

This story is so populated, my head is already spinning. I have no idea how I’m going to pull this off. I can’t wait to try.

Different things drive us in different parts of our writing life. I used to love getting in a character’s skin. When I first started writing, I would sit for hours and play with words in a single sentence. Now, my obsession is plot. The more complicated I can make it, the more I love it. Plot is the COOLEST. I think that’s why I’m having so much fun in this one. I love a ton of interweaving connections. I love the mini-stories, the hints and bits you drop and then weave in later, the twists, and—in this one—the far-fetched things I have to challenge myself to “sell” to the reader.

You know me. I love fictional fiction, where belief must be suspended. That’s going to be a struggle in this one, since so many elements are “real.” I love Irving and Dickens and Zafron and Gaiman and the like because you’re reading fictional fiction made real, not realism made into a novel.

Anyway, I’m possessed, loving my characters, and having a blast with plot. This book is going to be FUN to write. It’s a modern re-telling of Les Miserables, which always makes me cry. When I was telling the story of Les Miserables to Glenn, I choked up several times and had tears running down my face. I’ve been dying to do a modern re-telling of it since forever; I just needed the other half.

What about you? How does your current WIP tickle your fancy? Have you ever been possessed’ by a story before? Have you ever had one where “writer’s high” is nearly constant?

I made a decision. I made a plan. I outlined the stories I’m writing in my thirty-sixth year, with a method to my madness, a plan for my career. And this other story is interfering. What am I supposed to do?

I’m so irritated.

To make matters worse, I feel horribly underqualified to write the story that’s bugging me. The story that’s interfering has nothing to do with what I want to write. For goodness sake, it’s commercial, I guess you’d say, almost on the literary side. I am a genre writer.

I suppose it’s okay if I flit back and forth, but what really irritates me, is that the planned story is not writing. I’ve written a buttload of crap and brainstorming and nothing holy is emerging.

When this happens, I always go back to pseudonym. Her stories write so easily, mostly, kind of. Well, easily in comparison. Why do they write so easily?

There’s an element of escapism, I suppose. And when Glenn’s away, particularly, there’s an element of loneliness seeking company with my characters. There’s always a passion… usually to comfort my character, to make her feel less lonely, empower her, give her her dreams.

When things are flowing, there’s always this big element of love. I feel like my heart is wide open. Just… loving.

I need to love my audience, I suppose. Angie laughed that I’d never written a spy thriller, having been “spyscribbler,” LOL. But the number one problem I had and never resolved, is that I didn’t know my audience, and I couldn’t write blind.

So maybe, instead of searching for my story, I need to search for my readers. I need that touchstone. Even if I’m wrong about my readers, I still need to write to them. I need to love them first.

I don’t know.

What do you do when a story isn’t writing? How do you feel when a story is flowing? What triggers that rush of words, when things are going well, when you get that “writer’s high?” Do you try to get an emotional sort of connection to your readers before you start your story?

I’m reading Graceling, by Kristin Cashore. It’s one of those deceptive books, where you think you’re reading a fairly good story, but for the first half you’re a bit puzzled as to why you can’t put it down.

Then BAM! About halfway through, you suddenly realize that this book is one of those books that changes you, one of those books that makes you think about yourself in a new way, one of those books that teaches you something elemental that you can’t quite put you finger on, but you can feel it’s there, working inside you.

And it’s something good.

A “grace” in the book is an extraordinary talent only a few are “cursed” with. Katsa is led to believe her talent is one thing, but halfway through the book, she sits and thinks and studies herself, and realizes her talent is actually something else entirely.

It’s funny, her realization was timed perfectly with my own realization. I was reading along, and for some reason, it occurred to me that the problem I’m having with one of my WIPs is that I’m not empathizing with my characters enough.

As I read further along, I had absolutely no idea where the story was going. In my own writing, this is all but a sin. I’m a “planter.” If a gun goes off at the end, I make sure to place it on the mantle in chapter one. I try to hint at my entire story in the first page, and I try to plant the entire novel in the first chapter. So I was wondering if my stories lack suspense and are predictable.

I decided I would go back and read a few to see.

As I had these two epiphanies, I thought back to those who are big fans of critique partners, because the main reason to have them are to see your work in a different way. It bothers me, sometimes, that I don’t have a burning desire for the whole critiquing thing.

It’s not fashionable.

I love critiquing others’ work, because I learn so much, but to me it’s so close to teaching that I can’t critique their work; they probably wouldn’t get the best of me unless I were their critique partner for a year, or something insane like that, and deconstructed where they are, where they want to go, how to get there, who they are, how they work, and how they learn.

Teaching is so ingrained in me, that critiquing always makes me feel a bit like I’m teaching blindfolded without knowing the student. I know critiquing and teaching are different things, but teaching is me.

But that doesn’t explain why I only ask for help myself rarely and when I’m absolutely desperate or scared. I mean, I love edits. I get a professional crush on most of my professional editors; I think they’re the coolest. Copyeditors, too. People complain about copyeditors, but I love copyedits. They’re fun to play with.

Then I thought about my two epiphanies, and how bored and disappointed I would be if they had come from someone else. I live for these epiphanies; I’m constantly seeking them out, turning my stuff over, looking at it in a different light, analyzing others’ stuff, and deconstructing this writing thing.

I always say I’ll seek out critique partners when I come up empty on how I can improve, but I rarely come up empty.

I realized then my talent isn’t writing; it’s learning, deconstructing, teaching. In piano, I knew how to deconstruct musical talent and teach someone to actually be talented. I can shift my thinking to look at things in a new light. I know how to learn and how to improve. I know how to study others and learn from them.

And that’s not just my “grace,” but my fun, my delight, my raison d’etre.

What is your grace? What is your raison d’etre? Or maybe I mean, what is your raison d’ecrire? (Your reason for writing.)