Untangling Tales

I don’t know why I never thought of it before, but it’s true.

For the longest time I enjoyed a smugly self-satisfied sense that (due to my limited writing time or imagination or some wonderful gift) I almost never suffered from writers’ block.

I made this determination based on the fact that I was never at a loss for words.

Because I assumed that writers’ block was like artists’ block: the literary equivalent of staring at a blank canvas and not knowing where or how to start.

Hint: for writing– especially with a computer– you just start. Put words down.  Make a muddle.  Build of your chunk of marble so that you have something solid from which to carve out your masterpiece.

But I was wrong.  Because I have struggled with finishing. With delivering.

I like to say (just because it sounds cool) that my Super Power is instant extrapolation. But what that really means (as I hinted in the last post) is that I react to things before I need to.  I anticipate, flinch, before the burn.  I call that way of life exhausting! because it is, but didn’t really see an alternative and got a bit fixated on the exhausting! (Because it really made me feel like I was working hard.  That’s what makes you tired, right?)

Well, here’s one alternative to consider.  It’s in a free ebook called The Flinch, and can be summarized like this:

• Name this gut-reaction that is not very (if at all) useful. They call it The Flinch.
• Recognize that the purpose it serves (keeping you safe), done too well, can hold you back from anything meaningful. Can keep you from taking good risks that will grow you.
• Overcome the fear of The Flinch by reminding yourself failure isn’t permanent, and pain doesn’t last forever.
• Use the momentum, the speed and impulse of The Flinch to react forward rather than cringe away.

Anyway, it was a short read, and brought up some good thoughts.

Best question it raised for me:

“Have you ever asked yourself why your stomach tenses up and your can’t watch imaginary characters on a television screen to awkward, embarrassing things? You should.”

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I’ve said before how I collect songs as a sort of emotional personality profile, or as emotional plot-points in a novel.

Sometimes those emotional plot points turn the song on its head.

This one for example:

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So I’ve had two moms in the last month ask me (as a homeschooling mom and a writer), how is it I teach my children to write.

I’ll get back to you on that in 15 years or so.  When I actually know how it is they learned.

In the meantime, I’ll share the philosophy and materials I work from.

Now, I am fairly fluent in writing.  But I never liked to write as a kid. (I hope that encourages anyone who is in despair over her child’s abhorrence.) My understanding of teaching writing was first influenced by Donald Davis’s book, Writing as a Second Language. 

I never finished it, but the title and what I did read set my mind in a direction it had never been before: to see writing as a completely different animal than speaking or reading. Which I believe it is.

This sense of something different was solidified and put into a usable/applicable for when I read the introduction to Susan Bauer’s Writing With Ease.  In that book she points out that when we teach writing we are expecting the student to learn, not one but, four separate skills.

1. Generating ideas. Content that will be conveyed.
2. Translating those ideas into words
3. Holding those words in mind while they are transferred to print
4. The physical act of writing them down.

When you have a child resistant to “writing,” a good first step is looking for where in this chain the process is breaking down.

The first book (Writing as a Second Language) encourages “rehearsing” stories in one’s “first” language (speech) before ever taking them to the paper.  In Classical learning this is referred to as narration.  In its simplest (and most accessible) form, narration is simply answering questions in complete sentences.

The words children create in response to questions (for example, about something they just heard read aloud) may not seem particularly original, but certainly at the beginning originality is not the teacher’s goal.  You are working specifically on the second part of the process: creating words that make sense.

This is why the “complete sentences” part is important.  The child is learning sentence structure by example.

Where did God place the man he created?

In the garden.

Can you say that in a complete sentence?  You can use the same words I did.

God placed the man he created in the garden.

In fact, by getting in the habit of using the words he hears to re-frame the answer, the student is practicing #3 along with #2.

With my girls I use the workbooks Bauer developed to accompany the text I read at first.

The workbooks are not essential, but they replace the planning that I would otherwise have to do myself, and so I find them *absolutely* worth the $20-30 they set me back. (Not forgetting that I can use them for each of my kids if I continue in this method.  Copyright permission clears each book for an entire (single) family’s use.)

The other resource I’ve found useful is the English worktext put out by the same publisher we buy our math curriculum from– BJU Press.  Natasha isn’t using it this year, but did last year, and I was impressed with how systematically it worked through the basics in her 2nd-grade text.

She wrote her first personal essay last year, following the step-by-step instructions as guided by the curriculum.  She couldn’t hardly get through a sentence without a giggly-happy squeal of “I’m writing!” Because it’s a big deal to her to be like Mama.

And there’s the motivating bit about enjoying writing, or words, or Story, yourself.

Kids learn what’s “normal” through observation.  If they regularly see you writing (or reading, or singing or dancing) and enjoying it, finding value in it, that will increase its value in their eyes.

My children may not see it (writing) as important as I do, but between reading and writing, I have what I want most for my kids at this stage in their learning: they are not afraid of language.

Yes, Natasha learned to read without really trying, but, as we guessed in that blog post, the “different minds working differently” means we weren’t surprised when our other two were (are) different in their learning to read.

The wonderful thing is that the younger two– for whom reading is a harder slog– are enough in love with Story that they are not driven away from all print by their hard road.  I’ve known kids (it made me sad) who had no interest in stories because they were too much of a reminder of their struggle.

Elisha and Melody are both so wired for story they’ve got steps #1 & #2 just *nailed.*  Even #3 isn’t that far away.  So, as a rule, I encourage storytelling, and have them practice their letters, either with tracers or copywork.  They get to advance (grow in strength) in all the steps, even if they aren’t doing them all self directed yet.

We have plenty of time.  And especially with their prolific storytelling and spontaneous narration, I expect a time will come when they’ll want to record their visions to hang on to.

At least, that’s what happened to me.

Glad I did it, glad it’s done.   50,648 words since November 1. Happy to take a breather from creating reality.

Next project is getting ready for a talk on personality theory (Meyers-Briggs, as I’ve been writing about on my family blog). It’s scheduled for January 18 if anyone local wants to come here me speak.

But my next writing project is to finish moving Lindorm into first person so I  can start submitting it ASAP.

I saw an “unagented author” opportunity at a Christian publisher (whom I’d never heard of) getting ready to launch a YA line in 2013.  It sparked a whole series of internal questions about how ready I am to push my “baby” out to receive the spitballs of the world.

Answer: I’m not.

Provoking the mirrored response: So I should jump at this chance, just to get moving.

But the story isn’t done yet (for real: this isn’t stalling), and I am certainly not starting Lindorm at a Christian publisher.  This isn’t snark or hierarchy: I have broken my heart more times keeping this story “neutral”

In the form of most (Western) traditional tales: good and evil exist, and maybe even the outward showing of religion (churches, prayer), but within the story itself redemption is not personified in Christ.

So I am not going to “waste” all that by sending it somewhere that would have taken the incongruity of active magic alongside a real-world redeemer.

I’ve got two other stories I’d only expect Christian publishers to touch, so they’ll get their turn.

(If anyone’s lining up for the opportunity.)

So the writing progression is this: finish Lindorm’s revision.  Send out submissions, and once that’s out turn to finishing the novel I wrote last November.

I just passed 29K tonight.  That means I’m almost caught up with yesterday’s  writing goal (30K)

I’m very glad to have learned two things–

1. The second female character I introduced isn’t a complete idiot. (For a while I had to wonder if she was.)
2. [spoiler] the guy I killed the same day I discovered/introduced him isn’t actually dead.  In the end his brother couldn’t kill him and instead decided to risk some girl’s reputation in order to keep him alive. (Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense.  Like most stories, It’s complicated.)

I was very glad to learn there was a line Charles wouldn’t cross.  He was pretty creepy for a while there.

Who the main characters are is getting thrown all around.  Now that this guy is back from the dead (in a manner of speaking) and his whole character’s been revised by the near-death experience, he’s showing a lot more depth and interest than the erstwhile hero.

So all that convolution to say I’m still on it.

And part of the fun is that I’ve basically written off the possibility anyone would publish this story: It’s blatantly Christian, with *ahem* edgy humor (Yes! I have funny stuff in my story, Yippee!– If you’ve been around a while you’ll remember this has been a sticky spot for me), so I have a hard time picturing a publisher that would take both.  So it’s made the creation process quite a bit more relaxed and free.

When I think of a new angle (that would require changing a character, role, or interaction that I’ve already written) I have a separate file where I make notes about that.

When I think of a fun before-and-after, and plant the before I make a note not to forget the after, and also where it might fit best, if I’ve already thought of that.

Blessedly, I’ve not yet been at a loss when writing time comes around, and while I am a bit behind, it’s not killer.

This has been a wonderful experience so far, and I still hope to finish on time.

21K to go.

I think it was Steven King in his book On Writing  who said the Writer is as much an artist as the sculptor– and maybe more, since the writer must create the raw material he then shapes into his work of art.

This is one of the reasons I find NaNoWriMo useful: successfully completed it leaves me with a block of raw material that actually exists.  Throw in the power of deadline (this is my second year writing with the My Book Therapy community) to make me think of writing every day, and more gets done.

I’m choking every time I sit down to write; I’m woefully out of practice.  If it weren’t for the stat tools and the 10p.m. deadline for the daily reporting (any word count is fine, just reporting is the required part), I’d continue to whittle away my free hours with YouTube and Hulu.

Putting down words is hard.

Two different friends reading my Lindorm novel have commended me for sticking with it; getting the whole thing down.

As it’s happened over five years my perception of it gets a little fuzzy, but these last two nights have reminded me: they’re right! It’s work to get something coherent and all points driving a single story forward.

I also like how these WriMo novels have developed: my first was a fantasy. Last year’s was pretty straight-up a YA romance.  This time I’ve got a murder mystery/intrigue thing going on.  And yet all of them are based on distinct fairy tales I love that all go “beyond the rescue.”

Sure it’s nice to be human again, but then you have to deal with all the junk humans have to deal with.  The nice thing is that when someone makes you human, at least in my story worlds, they’re usually getting themselves in for the long haul.

And a partner makes any load easier to carry.

Recently I began to think about the (fiction-writing) imperative that a main character must make things happen.

One of the most consistent criticisms of Linnea, the central character of my Lindorm novel, is that she’s too passive.  “Everything happens to  her,” someone said, “and she’s always having to close the gap and react.“

Linnea is my first (grown up) heroine.

When I created her I was telling a story. I wasn’t thinking of forms or expectations (hey, I was just trying to make word count half the time).  She grew out of my image of this wounded girl with too much strength to simply roll over and take it.  She continued to think and walk, and even fight when she could find (or create) the weapons.

I really admired her, because she did what I wanted to be able to do: choose the right way to respond.  I wasn’t thinking about how she was “always reacting” because that’s the way (probably unconsciously) I saw myself and people in general.

And I still do.

Lots of people have repeated the line about how our character is not shaped/displayed so much by what happens to us as by how we respond to what happens to us.

The fantasy of a proactive, powerful protagonist is part of our collective hunger to have more control than we have.

I believe most our life what we do with what we’ve been given: given to us either by powers outside of us, outside our control; or what we’ve given ourselves, in the form of decisions we’ve already made, and are now living out.

For example, being married and having children dramatically restricts the number of choices I have.  Because I’ve made the choice to live honorably.  This is a proactive choice I made. No one coerced me into it.  But it now restricts my “options”.

Every Yes we declare is a hundred silent Nos.   The more we live, the more choices we make, the more we are hemmed in by our own freedoms.

I would argue this is why the Young Adult category is one of the most exciting places to write; not only because your characters have more genuine, clean, and life-shaping choices to make over the course of the tale, but also because those choices are felt by those who read them.

Young people are trying on decisions through their reading, experimenting with how they fit.

Readers who are older, who’ve already experienced the profound familiarity breaking away, of falling in love, of screwing up massively and wondering if there’s redemption, relive the fear and excitement.  This is what good stories are for, and as long as they bring us along for the ride (and we like the ride) I’m less concerned about who started the story.

I care most about how the characters end it.

Two posts I read last week made me think about my writing in a new way:

The Seven Virtues Every Writer Needs to Succeed

Which was a nice change from “discipline-” “organization-” “perseverance-” type lists I’ve read many times before.

What’s your Signature?

A lot of writing arenas talk about “brand” and how you need to market yourself to get read.

Steven King wrote in his book On Writing about life themes that come out of a writer.

But I rather like this concept and language better. It sounds more personal and poetic.

To answer the question I believe my stories all deal with the fragility and hunger of honest people searching for sustaining relationships.  I write a rebellion against what my critique friend calls “miscommunication as a plot device” and other relational gaffs that pit people against their feelings, not to grow them, but to create more story tension.

I call this Lazy Writing.

Another element my writing frequently addresses is the tension between helplessness and inaction. This is one of my favorite things about writing fantasy: as god of a whole new world I am able to say frequently, Yes, that first step is enough.

Not a little because I am assuring my own troubled heart that that first step is all that’s asked of me.

To give a quick update, I am now ~2/5ths through my latest revision (at least, there are 5 distinct sections, and I’m one chapter from being done with section #2).

I have had difficulty staying focused this round, and was relieved to find a reason.

The short version is that my life has been really stressful lately (I’ve moved, set up housekeeping, restarted homeschooling and attempted to restart our gluten-free eating.  Apparently too much for a single month’s efforts).

While the novel used to be my go-to recreation, the amount of tension in the story on top of the tension in my real life has been more than I’ve had energy for.

Did you know that your body processes stress and adrenaline (essentially) as it hits the brain, not waiting for reality.  This is why worry can be so damaging (your body is continually gearing up for the worst), and why we feel so exhausted after an intense story.

This really just entered my awareness last week when my writing friend (Hi, Jennifer!) brought up two categories of murder mysteries: thrillers and cozies.  People looking for a rush read the first kind, and people who read to relax gravitate to the second.

So I did question for a while whether I’m writing the right story or the right genre, mainly because I’m so weary I question whether I can continue creating a whole world (and an intense world, no less!).

But then I find I can’t really quit, so on we go.

I’ve decided to release the story in sections to people I know, so if you’re willing to give feedback and we’ve talked before, comment here or send me an e-mail and I’ll get you the first block (then the next once you comment on the first).

The third and fourth sections contain the most changes for this newest draft, so they may be longer in coming, but several of you have been so patient already I wanted to give you the option of reading a bit of the story, if you would like, while you wait for the full.

So I did it.

Turns out (and I was very excited to learn this) the package currently supporting my blog has a lot more room than I’m using. So all I had to do was buy the domain ($4.99 the first year; I can so do this), and put my info into the template to have a basic website.

Naturally I’ll like best to have a blog-based (and therefore interactive) site, but this will do to celebrate securing the site I’ve wanted for a long time.

Check it out: WeavingTales.com