Advice from the Unqualified

Have you ever thought about how, technically, people at the same level as you are not qualified to give you advice?

Take parenting, for example.  I’ve offered quite a bit of random advice here, all written down because I expect it to be useful (to someone… sometime… somewhere…) but if you were looking for real results, you wouldn’t look at my advice.

For that you would look around for some mother whose kids are grown and turned out the way you want your kids to turn out.  That’s results.  That’s experience.

Unfortunately, those moms can also be most insensitive to the place where you are currently living.

“Oh yeah,” says one lady enthusiastically, the first time I bring my 2-year-old and 6-month-old to practice for the musical Beauty and the Beast, “I brought my four kids with me *everywhere.* It’s so good to have them watching real life.”

Six weeks later she was irritated with me for bringing my baby, even with the 2-year-old farmed out.

I thought it was tremendously silly: even wearing the baby I could do all the choreography, and felt rather pleased with myself at that.

So I am not an expert in mothering: I am only keeping notes about what’s worked for me as I go along.  And sometimes that has been helpful.

In the same way

I am not a best-selling novelist.  I am not even a published writer (beyond our local paper), but I read people who are, and I am writing. I also happen to be very good at compiling and extrapolating.

So.  I have advice about writing.  Yay for me.  ;)

I’ll just share the thing on my mind just now, that provoked this post, and perhaps I’ll write more in the future.  But if there was one thing I could say to anybody gung-ho about getting published it’s this:

Don’t Trust Yourself.

Aren’t I mean? That’s the opposite of every female-written piece of advice I’ve ever seen published.  But I think it’s very important.

If you’re already convinced you’re a great writer, that you can slap your best stuff together on the first go around, I (or anyone else who might disagree with your assessment) am not going to seem all that helpful.  And you’re not going to be very easy to work with.  The trick is to let other people (the kind of people who should know) praise your writing.

There’s a great story in G.K. Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy where Ches is speaking with a publisher who remarked, “That man will get on; he believes in himself.”

Chesterton’s reply began with the observation that those who believe most in themselves are the ones who end up in lunatic asylums.  When the publisher protested they don’t all go there Chesterton agreed.

“And you of all men ought to know them.  That drunken poet from whom you would not take a dreary tragedy, he believed in himself.  That elderly minister with an epic from whom you were hiding in a back room, he believed in himself.  If you consulted your business experience instead of your ugly individualistic philosophy, you would know that believing in himself is one of the commonest signs of a rotter.

Actors who can’t act believe in themselves; and debtors who won’t pay.  It would be much truer to say that a man will certainly fail, because he believes in himself.

Strong words, and mentioned largely for their hyperbole, I mean them to illustrate my point; that is, no matter how much we believe in something, unless there is external proof backing up the belief our own effort or enthusiasm is irrelevant.

So, write if you must (it’s certainly cheaper than therapy!), don’t try to stop if you can’t, and feel grateful for your certainty if you know God had called you to write.

Just remember that He may not be calling that publisher to distrubute your work, and you’ll have healthier expectations.

The End

I reached it.

I am amazed.

Stories I have in plenty; endings are one thing I have a dearth of.

Two next-steps:

First, updating the added strands of story so they all are current with this version.

Second, I have the notes I made as I went along, like, this event needs to be grounded in an earlier hint, and, she can’t be standing on the left and be doing that on the right.

I’ve got nearly 50 pages of notes, and while I know they aren’t all changes I need to make (most is just a dated list of how much work was done each session) I still get a bit psyched out if I let myself think beyond just a page or two at a time.

Time to Get up Early Again

Spring is not near by any stretch, but here in the North we have reached a different milestone: being able again to open the drapes when we watch Daddy leave for work, and leave them open.

The light is back!

This makes early rising much more natural and achievable.  I’ve spent the last couple days adjusting my internal clock, and I’m all ready to go.  Woo Hoo!  (Of course, I say that here to twist my own arm a bit to do it.)

I met a gal last week who said growing up in Alaska she gained 15 pounds every winter and lost it every spring.

Winter changes your life.  And so does summer.

So I’ve been up early the last several days and have been picking at that last chapter (it’s turned into a total re-write, so it’s a bit slow-going).

I’m reinspired just now, though, because in a pure, words-per-minute way, morning writing is decidedly more productive than evening writing.  For now I can still see how much is being accomplished in terms of word count.

I think it’s the natural sense of urgency that I can only write until the day “starts” at 7a.m.

At night it’s a lot easier (or perhaps I should say “more natural”) to dawdle and stare off into space.

I’m not implying these have no value, but not all of them are productive (even sideways) and they certainly don’t get the story written down.  Every writer needs both kinds of work.

At night, when the fire of creativity is lit, it’s much easier to ignore the tugging and begging of one’s body complaining it’s tired than it is in the morning to ignore a similar tugging of little hands and voices.

Knowing that that is coming– hearing the restlessness in the next room as little eyes watch the clock waiting for that long-anticipated 7:00— has the effect of hurrying me along.  I agonize less over adjectives and race instead to know what happens next?

~ ~ ~

The challenge just now is balancing my theme of teamwork against the need to stay focused on the main character.  The first version of this ending was a mass of names and bodies throwing themselves at the problem, and the importance of Linnea and her contribution in bringing the fight to this (manageable) point was lost in the surge.

On one level you could say I don’t trust Linnea (my main character).

~

She’s not all that charismatic or attention-gathering by her personality or wit, and there have been times when I’ve feared she’ll be overshadowed by her companions, so I feel very strongly she needs to be as distinctive as possible at the end.

So this morning I think I found a way to do what I want to do, and I’m just itching to play with it (but I can’t just now ’cause my brain won’t work that way when I’m juggling kids).  So that’ll either wait till an early bedtime or tomorrow morning.

I should mention, because it might be of interest, that this teamwork vs. the individual dichotomy became most clear while watching Disney’s Dinosaur with my kids Sunday.  That’s a show that tries to be all about teamwork, but it still comes down to the one in the end.

~

Made me think about my goals and how they looked in another story.

Bookin’

As in, moving quickly.

I put up more than 2,000 words in the last two days.  Which is really good for me.

Actually the whole of it is one scene– the first wholly new scene I’ve written from scratch since… I can’t remember when (rewriting the one I’d already written didn’t count– I knew where it needed to start and end).

One very. rough. scene.  But it sort of fixes the problem of #1 in my 7 Quick Takes for the novel, so I’ve got one more thing off my immediate to-do list.

By the time I cycle back around to it I should be able to iron out the really lumpy parts and just keep the useful stuff.

I only have three scenes left people—three!— and everything I wrote that month, long, long ago, will have been chewed through at least once.  Everything in this document will be brought into alignment with the final storyline.

I wish now I’d kept track of how much of that month I wrote one-handed, nursing a 6-month-old all hours of the day and night.

And people asked me how I could get so much written when I had a little baby…

Never Save Anything for Your Next Book

That is a point emphasized in one of the bossiest and most point-by-point practical books I’ve read on novel-writing.

You Can Write a Novel by James V. Smith Jr.

He approaches the process from a strictly utilitarian point of view; if you are hoping to be published, think in those terms from the beginning: Here, let’s rate your idea.  Is it strong enough to sell?  No?  Throw it out and try again!

~

Anyway, I’ve been thinking in terms of two books for months now, but Book Two has been much more hazy than Book One that is getting more-done every week.

Seeking to re-clarify things for myself I backed up and tried to name my three story strands– the magic number, remember?– and actually found them this time.

  • Linnea’s journey from abused single mother to strong defender and cherished wife
  • The journey of the mysterious stranger from slavery and isolation to freedom and community
  • The almost love-story of another pair of secondary characters (yes, I’m sure anybody will guess.  It’s part of the fun of prediction, isn’t it?  Knowing you’re right).

Once I had these clearly before me I could look at what I had bumped to Book Two for the wrong reasons.  When those pieces were added/returned to my current document it suddenly clarified the question of what Book Two was actually about.

Currently it’s nearly a complete thematic opposite, which is fascinating to me, considering how important I see the original themes.

It also made this finishing process a bit easier because now all of my three strands are happening where we are now, and the time line of the second book may be fitted to this one, rather than trying to write them simultaneously (I was drowning).

As a side-note the compilation bumped my word-count by a solid 10%.  This can be good or bad, but I’ve determined I’m not going back to iron out the added sections until I reach *The End* of my current track.

Progress Report

Added ~ 2500 words in the last week.  It took that much to update the last of my (p)reworked scenes.

One of the noveling books I’ve read (probably more than one) emphasized that each character should be multi-purpose.  The doorman should never be just open the door.  He should also be the one who holds some essential clue.

~

I recently made a connection that catapulted a minor character of this novel into a major character in the next, swishing motivations and appearances all over the map.  So I went back (hand-slap if you have too) and brought the cleaned up portions up to date.

I must say, it was amazing how much faster the clean chapters were to update than they were to clean up in the first place.  Wow.

Anyway, the first 17 scenes are now current with my “3.4” version of the plot.  One particular advantage of flying through these scenes was feeling the overall tone of the piece and knowing (*quite* clearly) which chapters were out of sync.

Two out of 17 doesn’t seem so threatening; and noticing those two indicates that I actually have some measure of cohesion in the rest of it.  Very encouraging.

Hero as Mother?

What a fascinating thought!  LitLove at Tales from the Reading Room analyzed Twilight with this view I’d never seen before; basically that the ideal romantic partner is as all-powerful, all-providing, all-protective, and all-loving as a good mother is to her young child.

So naturally I had to return to my story and see if that is in my “ideal” world as well, because, however well it worked for Twilight and vampire romance it’s not something I want to promote.

Even so, my main trouble with the idea of calling these romantic notions “maternal” is finding (or defining) the line between the healthy mutual dependence and the unhealthy.  I completely reject the idea of hubris and total autonomy (it’s actually one of my novel’s themes).

~ ~ ~

A quick mental review of my story does show a bit more give-and-take than I would imagine for the maternal model:  Yes, the husband rescues the wife, but she’s already saved his life too, so I see it as a reciprocal relationship.

At one point early in the relationship he actually scolds her for depending too wholly on his (underprepared) judgment.

“Tykone didn’t want us to go,” said Kennett.“He thought the king and queen would come up with some solution for a useless crown prince.”

“He didn’t call you useless, and you said you wanted to go.”Linnea was shivering and angry, wishing the sun would hurry up and rise so she wouldn’t be so cold.They had moved away from the warmth of their fire and shelter so they wouldn’t waken Hale, but the ground of the barren clearing was completely frozen where they stood and Linnea could feel the cold seeping up through the soles of her simple boots.

You said you would go where I go.That’s all you said.You’ve been human longer than me.You knew you’d be cold out here without the proper gear.Why didn’t you say so?”

Linnea closed her eyes, pinching out tears of cold.“It’s that— I thought you knew what you were doing?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw Kennett staring at her, open mouthed.“You can’t be serious,” he said, finally.She looked away.

Now it was Kennett’s turn to sound angry.“As soon as Tykone was gone I told you I have no idea what I’m doing.You’re the one with all the experience being human!”

In contrast it’s the fellow she’s forced to depend on while in hiding who takes the (more controlling) role that might be labeled maternal.

~ ~ ~

Speaking of relationships in general, my limited education/experience leads me to mistrust such one-sided power/surrender in a relationship.   Not because I believe men and women are the same (I believe there are distinct roles), but because I see that one-sided relationship as half a step from a controlling, then abusive, relationship.

And either could look the same from the outside.

But for all that I still see couples for whom the “total dependance” model seems to be working for.  Whether or not that stems from elements missing from her childhood could be irrelevant.  After all, “compatible neuroses” seems to be an utterly sufficient alternative to two “healthy” people when looking at the levels of peace and happiness in a marriage.

The Difference Between Blogging and Writing a Book

Blogging is like being the hostess or guest of honor at a party (or maybe just my kind of a party…): everyone is already connected to you somehow; you have some measure of established status, credibility and sometimes feedback.

Whatever you say (write) has the general context and cushion of relationship to get you to the next post/conversation, so flubs are less-threatening.

Writing a book, on the other hand, is like giving a speech.  In the same way that collecting three points (along with their supporting material) takes for most minds more thought than daily conversations, you think longer about the words for a book.

These words have more weight to you as a writer because they must be solid enough to stand on their own.  This work will be read by disinterested (in you the writer) people as well as those who love you and those who’d delight in ripping a gaping hole in your idea-baby.

Novel Magna Cartas

This was one of my favorite concepts from the book No Plot?  No Problem!

The idea is to make two lists, one of the things you love to find in your novel reading, the other things you absolutely hate.

As I recall, he pointed out that we tend to think in terms of the yuck stuff being good for us, and when we feel that what we’re doing is not ________ enough we reach into the yuck pile and act as though that can fill in the blank for us.

How true any of that is can be saved for some indeterminate point in the future.  What I want to do is share the lists I started before I began writing my Lindorm story

Magna Carta I (The stuff I like)

  1. Physical (especially trans-species) transformation
  2. Music as part of story
  3. Well behaved animals (impeccably trained or sentient)
  4. “Convenient” sleeping and awake times from the babies/kids
  5. Mysteries that go deep into folklore
  6. Making necessary elements of folk/fairy tales natural
  7. Genuine peril
  8. Threatening villain
  9. Uncertainty of friends (sometimes)
  10. Genuine friends (other times)
  11. A thinking character watching the process of his or her thought.
  12. Mixing folk elements from various cultures and seeing it “work”
  13. Complexity (lack of obvious predictability)
  14. Surprising twists and secrets that the reader discovers with the protagonist
  15. Cleverness
  16. Characters out-thinking one another
  17. Courtesy among enemies
  18. Truth-telling as a form of riddling and testing
  19. Witty banter
  20. Good conversations
  21. The protective defender
  22. Dramatic rescues
  23. Endurance through fear
  24. Acts of evil are shocking offenses to the way things should be.
  25. Misunderstood identity/”fish out of water”
  26. Build on characteristics the protagonist(s) have to begin with, but doesn’t imagine any of them are already complete
  27. Overcoming an old enemy through what they’ve learned on their journey
  28. More than one character changes
  29. Acknowledge (and explore to some extent) the power of relationship
  30. Thought-provoking observations

Magna Carta II (the stuff I don’t like)

  1. Not-talking being the reason something bad happens
  2. Smart characters acting clueless
  3. Sex without significance (i.e., without the benefits or the consequences)
  4. Defiant/disobedient/“mischievous” children being portrayed as cute and entertaining (I find them irritating)
  5. *Angst*
  6. Daily details that don’t advance the story (setting is fine, day-in-the-life-of, not interested).
  7. Over-hinting
  8. Dragging the There’s-something-important-you-don’t-know wait too long
  9. *everything* stacked against the protagonist
  10. Too much time is spent on the meaningless, to no end
  11. I can tell where this is going, it will end badly (and frequently was utterly avoidable)
  12. Cruelty (a villain chooses a particular evil *because* it strikes so hard and deeply into his/her victim’s psyche) — honestly I go back and forth on this one; I see its usefulness, too.
  13. The fate/destiny/end of the characters is utterly outside of their own control–can’t be changed or improved by wise choices or good counsel
  14. Conflict simply to wrack up the tension
  15. How do your likes/dislikes line up? If you make a set of your own lists, leave a comment with a link– I’d love to read it.