Meeting the Readers

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There’s not a lot (in my writing world) much more exciting to me than meeting and talking with the type of young people who will be reading my book.

I’ve had a few delicious encounters with teenage fantasy fans, and they all go about the same way. In my half-curious, half-outgoing way, I start asking questions about the sort of stuff they read.  I love hearing what draws somebody into a book, because I want to make a book that draws people in.

Last night I talked with a trio of teenage girls and was very disappointed to hear (though not for the first time) that the *cover* is the first thing that makes them pick up a book to learn more.

Disappointed, not because I’m not the same way, but because I know I shouldn’t expect to have any control over what the cover looks like. Kinda drives home my powerlessness.

I also found words coming out of my mouth that weren’t quite fair, like, “I don’t like it when authors seem to be trying to teach you something– like a character does something bad and everything else that happens is to show you how bad it was.”

This is both true and not-true.

I don’t like didactic books that make a story serve the lesson the author wants to teach. I do like stories that leave me feeling like I know more than I did in the beginning.

Generally, because of the kinds of books I read, I’m observing more about interpersonal relationships, or emotional intelligence, than anything “factual,” but those are things I’m not seeing a lot of alternate teachers for, so I’ll take what I can get.

I don’t have to “believe” it all, obviously, but good authors definitely make me think, and frequently see things in a new way. 

THIS I like.

A lot.

But giving them my blog and e-mail (Hi, girls, if you’re reading this.) I was forced to look at this website in a different way, realizing that Untangling Tales probably isn’t going to be able to serve my goals as a writer, simply because there is way. too much stuff going on here.

So I’m playing with the idea of an author/novel site to move my fiction-specific stuff to, and I’ll keep y’all posted.  The domain I want is still available…

For the record I am down to two blogs: this one and the family scrapbook.

Obscurity has its Advantages

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One of which is realistic expectations.

Or, rather, few to none, which works as well.

I’ve gone through cycles of seeking my “brand” or identity, or audience, pouring thought and wistfulness and effort into producing content days at a time.

The closest I’ve gotten to a theme is, “an unexamined life is not worth living.”

Which is overstating it, as quotes will.

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charact’ry,
Hold like rich garners the full-ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour!
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love!—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till Love and Fame to nothingness do sink.

John Keats (1795–1821)

For now, I more wish to belive that the unexamined life may perhaps be lived better (than examined), but without the benefit of reproduction. And I believe a scientist would say that any outcome, however perfect, is not useful unless it can be reproduced.

While I do not strive to live as a scientist, I do wish to be of use. And I know my deepest need (for an improved life) is not perfection, but consistency.

But, returning to obscurity (we left it for a moment), I think on what is necessary to leave it: nakedness. Utter exposure, whether voluntary or not, is the cost of coming out of invisibility.

It was Edna St. Vincent Millay, I once read, who said, “A person who publishes a book willfully appears before the populace with his pants down. If it is a good book nothing can hurt him. If it is a bad book nothing can help him.”

My friend Becky and I have had (e-mail) conversations over this, the choice about how open to be.  She knows her audience. She has a sense of mission in her writing, and finds both power and purpose in choosing to open some very personal parts of herself.

I have none of those motivators. Much of my fragility and “intimacy” is very self-centered; they are things I want to remember on topics that are close to my heart and so are easier for me to write about.

Or maybe just easier to stay connected long enough to finish.

All my life I have heard about “masks” and “getting rid of masks.” The idea of presenting a false front is despised in all circles, even while (as a culture) we feel more disconnected from one another than ever before.

So people talk publicly about stuff that doesn’t make you blush any more, and shocking announcements are defended effectively.

I tried to explain the phenomenon to my mother (who doesn’t need anything explained to her), and she is simply horrified at the practice. “Why would anybody do that?!” she asks.

I proffered a few of my theories (the attempted explanation part), but she didn’t seem to hear any of them. And I can’t say I blame her. I don’t rightly understand it myself.

But I’m a part of it.

Apparently I’m in the early years of Generation-Y, and attribute it to what you will (I’ve read theories about this too), we are a “real” generation, where authenticity is the key word.

I’m a part of it without even knowing it.

I can’t tell you how many times someone older than me (and not always very much older) will laugh in an embarrassed way at something I just said and respond, “That’s what I love about you, Amy, you’re so real.”

Which, frankly, confuses me, because what else can a Believer be?

Continue reading »

Staying Happy

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I started writing a different post, about what I would change if I didn’t “owe” anyone, if I were free to be self-centered and do whatever I want to do.

Then I realized, I kinda am.

That is, unlike the people I genuinely pity, I really am living the life I want to. And it’s not easy.

So I didn’t pick an easy life.
Moving on.

This brilliant (unpublished) post enumerated the three directions I feel pulled in, and I said–

What? My world’s falling apart over three things?

Now, granted, my world was not falling apart (just my focus), and there are a LOT more than three things on my mind right now (each category has numerous subsections), but to see clear sections has settled me down, and I’m back to believing I have a reasonable number of things to manage.

Still Reading

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And now I’m reading differently.

Jay got me a Kindle for Christmas.

My favorite thing so far is that I found a cheap Ben Hur (paid for one that was indexed) and a free ESV translation of the bible.

When I described to my writing friend that I was basically writing Christian fiction, she urged me to read Ben Hur, even loaned me the book, but it was hard to get into.

Ditto with the ESV, which was discouraging becasue that’s the translation Jay wants our family to memorize in, and I need to read in it to collect the rhythm.

Anyway, both tomes had small print without enough leading or kerning for comfort in extended reading.

But with the Kindle I can change all that, and have.

I’ve gotten farther and read longer in the days since Christmas than I did in the weeks before it.

My current bible-reading plan, facilitated by the Kindle: 15-minutes/morning (set a timer) picking up where I left off the day before.

I like a length of time better than a length of text because it lends itself to a more patient reading.

And 15-minutes sounds short, at least to me, but whether you’re sitting in the quiet of a house asleep, or attempting to be the island of calm in the mists of an active family, a stretch that long on any one thing seems like time eternal.

And I started in the Minor Prophets this time, since I’ve probably read Genesis more than any other book in the bible.  The prophets are amazing for their word pictures and analogies.

Tragicomedy

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I was just working out some story grids for my POV characters

[Character] wants [Goal]
In order to [Motivation]
But [Complications complicate]

And Tykone’s grid cracked me up. There seems to be a fine potential for comedy here (something I’ve felt deficient in), but I have to work into mean-author mode before it could be fully realized.

Tykone wants to rescue Linnea
in order to prove he has value as a protector, establish his identity as he wishes it to be
but other people keep doing it first.

I laughed out-loud just writing that. But Tykone himself is so serious and tragic it seems backward and near-cruel to make him the core of jokes or running gags.

I mean, in the end, in good comedic fashion, he needs to be rescued by her.

But I don’t think I can rub his face in his own weakness.

Broken Ribs Are Broken Ribs

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I like watching pilots.

My parents like to laugh when I say this, since my husband recently earned his license.

I like watching T.V. show pilots, because the good ones, next to songs, are the most compact form of good storytelling I know.

And with my journalism background, compact is meant as compliment.

~

In the pilot show of Burn Notice (the only episode I’ve seen) our Smart, Tough Protagonist finds himself seriously beat up in the first ten-minutes.

Later when the episode fall-man takes a swing at our STP and has his split second of triumph, the image freezes and STP narrates matter-of-factly: It doesn’t matter how much training you have; a broken rib is a broken rib. It doesn’t matter who you are or how you got it, it’s going to hurt.

Fall man thinks his punch was particularly effective, because he’s experienced enough to recognize real pain. What he doesn’t know is that STP’s already outlasted tougher punks than this guy.  And can prove it.

Other favorite line from the show: People with happy families don’t become spies. A bad childhood is the perfect background for covert ops – you don’t trust anyone, you’re used to getting smacked around, and you never get homesick.

The point is that injury = injury. It’s part of being a member of the human race and, honestly, doesn’t define who you are any more than a bloody nose (though it might be argued broken ribs and bloody noses are indicative of a particular identity).

~

Sinners sin, and fragile people get broken.

And there is the rub: even most of us who admit we’re sinners would rather avoid the nitty-gritty of it (fair enough), and all of us feel a bit affronted to be called fragile.

“I’ve taken care of myself til now!”

My whole life I’ve wondered about the horror of tears; why they are so desperately fought.

Why are tears so dreadful? So shameful?

Some thoughts:

  • They confess need.
  • They show weakness
  • The mourner’s core has identified a reason to spill a limited resource.
  • Observers now know too much, and/or too deeply.  Where there is often no desire or right to know.
  • The crier is on display, subjected to public interpretation.

Tears come from so deep it feels like a betrayal to have anyone either ignore or interpret them.

And if I barely know where they come from, so the effort of wondering how others see them is too great a burden.

The reality is, I break.

I bleed.

And somehow this is the natural order of things. This is part of creation and our finitude as humans.

It doesn’t matter how much training you have; a broken heart is a broken heart.

So my latest theory is of tears being as natural as bleeding. As legitimate a sign of wrong-ness, and as natural a thing to tend. Evidence of a wound that needs cleaned and protected.

Yes, I guess that means I’ve been the odd sort that was waiting for some kind of “permission.”

Yippee!

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There it is: I did it. 50,024 words in 30 days.

I have discovered things I didn’t know were in it (Basketball tryouts, just today), and found new things that were in me (attitudes toward the challenges and delights of witnessing).

A summary:

It’s not until 17-year-old Gydeon Calder visits his mother’s homeland for Christmas break that he discovers she is from another world. One where magic is very real. Back home on Earth his father wrestles with suicidal thoughts and the question of whether his family is better off without him.

When Gy’s mother becomes ill in her homeworld of Eshe, he brings her back to Earth with the help of a magical girl who for a time was a swan. Sharizalli is used to an openly violent world where she hid her true thoughts and feelings. In Moscow Idaho, Shay discovers a world where threats are less-open and relationships can hang on speaking the whole truth.

While Gy seeks to restore his parents’ will to live, and with it their marriage, fear mongers from Eshe infiltrate Gy and Shay’s high school in positions of authority. Shay must decide how much of her old life to reveal, and whether she can sacrifice the ease of her new life to save those she has just begun to love.

~

So does that sound melodramatic? Maybe confusing?

Between The Veritas Project and The Fairy Tale Novels (among other titles)  which I’ve read in the last year, I’m firmly convinced of a vibrant, if small, audience for solidly Christian and morally grounded fantasy and adventure stories.

I feel like I’m supposed to be a part of that, and prayed a lot through this month that my stories, however and whenever they become more widely read, will be useful and encouraging to those who read them.

November 30, 2010

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1874 words until a NaNoWriMo win this year.

That’s all.

Except to add:

A friend asked me this month if now I have a system for writing novels. And someone else asked me what the point was of this exercise.

It’s too soon to say about a system, but I will say this: the first time I did NaNoWriMo (2006) I learned how to stick with a novel longer than I felt like it. This time, I think the biggest accomplishment was to display and emphasize to my world (i.e. my significant relationships at church and in my extended family) how important writing is to me.

I’ve hinted at it, and even tried various metaphors or similes to communicate my need to write (“How long can you go without showering? Okay, now just imagine writing is that important to me.”), but being somewhat on display this month has made it very apparent, even to those who may think I have misplaced priorities.

I do pray that those who misunderstood at the beginning of the month have modified their perceptions, but even if they haven’t I feel thankful that my own understanding and expectations of writing has been clarified.

So here’s to bed and one last day of creating before a serious rest (along with a well-needed bout of house cleaning) and a closure of this experiment for the second time.

“With God all things are possible,” especially when it’s what He’s created you to do.

Distinctly Christian Fiction

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This NaNoWriMo novel has been fascinating so far– to me as a writer. Dunno yet about the reader.

It has been an exercise in just-writing and not thinking about an audience. I think as soon as I put a sex-ed classroom scene in, I plucked my chances with a CBA publisher, and when I mocked birth control I drowned any possibility with ABA, but the story’s an exercise, first. I want to put together another book, and this is my effort.

I’ve been funny for the first time ever (a co-WriMoer laughed with me at what I read out loud) and it’s distinctly and emphatically Christian.  (No unbeliever would have laughed, I don’t think, and it was funny without even mocking anything. What a concept.)

Yesterday I wrote a “witnessing” scene and it felt surreal. I practically had flashbacks to my high school days and the helplessness I felt– the unworthiness to emphasize Jesus to another student when my solution hadn’t “fixed” me yet– that I was still imperfect and broken.

The scene did not end in a conversion.

Current word count: 32,722

Quick NaNoWriMo Update

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Just jumping back to say I’ve passed the half-way mark and am currently sitting at 27,063 words since November 1.

I am now starting to use he 3×5 notes I scrabbled together toward the end of October, and since then,as ideas– even tiny lines– have popped into my head.

Not only do I have enough story to get to 50,000 words, I have enough prompts to get there too.  We are now down to work-hours, and having for various (God-be-praised) reasons less of a “clinical” need to write, I find myself interested in other things in my free time, and find I have to actually make myself sit down and work.

Which, you can see I am again not doing. On my novel, that is.

I am thankful.  Not needing to write (to feel level) means I’m stronger than I was at the beginning of November.  But the finishing is still an important goal for me, too, so I’ll go put a few hundred down now. ;)