#IWSG I Joined the Insecure Writers Support Group

My first thought upon finding this was, There's a support group? And then I thought, Finally!

Writers are a peculiar breed. (I've always been peculiar, but now that I've figured out I'm a writer, I have a reason for it.) Writing is, after all, a lonely profession. It's just you and the keyboard, and that little voice inside you.

Some days, that voice is kind and encouraging. Other days ... Well ...

I talk with other writers frequently and I've discovered that a lot of us suffer from the same  issues that stem from insecurity.

We're our own harshest critics. Half-way through the manuscript for Ghostwriter, I wanted to scrap it. I can remember sitting there at the keyboard, chastising myself:"This sucks. No one i ever going to want to read this crap. What made you think you could write a book, anyway?"

One of my fanfiction stories has six thousand reviews. Five of them were mean. Guess which ones I have memorized? My friends and family have praised my writing, but that little voice says to me they're just "being nice." And so were those 5,595 reviewers.

This is why it's helpful to put your writing aside for a while and then go back and read it like a stranger would, not looking for flaws, but just enjoying the story. I've gone back to some of my stories and said, "Hey, this isn't bad!" That's a good feeling. I've also gone back and said, "Oh, lord, what was I thinking?" but this is good, too. It shows how far I've come, how much I've learned.

And there's another aspect of being your own harshest critic that's positive: it makes you want to work harder to improve. The key is giving yourself credit when you do.

Writing is part of our souls. Even if our work is fictional, there's tiny bits of ourselves stirred within. I don't think a writer can help it. We get our inspiration from life experiences and that makes it personal in a way that's difficult for a non-writer to understand. Though I don't do it personally, many people write as a form of therapy, exorcising their demons with paper and ink. Whatever the reason, it sometimes feels like cracking open your head and inviting people to root around in your brain.

It ties in with the fear of failure. Because if our writing is from the heart and people think it's terrible, they think we're terrible. That's why it's often so difficult to take that first step in sharing what we've written.

But we have to find that courage. That's what art is all about, after all. It's human emotion and thought translated into a visual or audio medium. It's that personal aspect which makes it art instead of just a consumer product. And like all art, your words will not speak to everyone.  Accepting that sounds so simple, but it can be very difficult.

"Dark Goddess" Now Complete

Both versions of Dark Goddess are now complete. The E/B version was hosted on FanFiction and the E/B/J version was over on TWCS. You can download them from my downloads page.

A while back, i wrote a post about why I did two different versions, but when I split the site between my OF and FF, the post seems to have gotten lost somewhere in the shuffle. Anyway, I'm too lazy to hunt it down and re-telling you is easier.

I originally "wrote" two different versions of it in my head. This is not uncommon. I may re-write a story half a dozen times with new characters, new pairings, new plot twists, etc. I liked both versions, though I preferred the E/B/J version slightly more. I decided that was the one I'd post.

When I was discussing the story with SoapyMayhem, she who made the lovely banner above, she warned me I might face some negative reactions from it. I figured I was cool with it. If people didn't like it, they didn't have to read it, I reasoned. No hard feelings. After all, not every story is right for everyone.

Love triangles are a seriously under-utilized plot line.

However, once I started posting, I encountered a lot of people who were confused by the pairings. They thought it would be another Edward-and-Jacob-fight-over-Bella story, or a threesome story, in the sense of all three of them sharing the same bed. I was composing long emails several times a day to try to explain where the story was going, romance-wise.

At the same time, I was finishing up edits on my second novel The End of All Things, and trying to start my third. It got overwhelming, trying to keep up with the correspondence and with juggling my other stuff. So, I decided it'd just be easier to write two versions of it.

In all, I'd estimate only about 20% to 25% of the text is different. The stories are identical up to about chapter four. Later, a chapter is omitted completely from the Original Version. And the last chapter contains only a few snippets which are the same.

They see me rollin'. They hatin'.

It was a really interesting experience, writing two versions at the same time. I usually did the E/B version first, because I tend to write my FF on FanFiction's word processing screen, a habit I retained from the days of Compulsion when I found that uploading my chapters after writing them on my computer made chunks of text disappear  I have a new computer now and FanFiction has updated its software, but it's just how I roll. I'm a creature of habit. What can I say?

Anyhoo, it was a great learning experience because it made me concentrate on how romance plots are built. Little gestures which might build toward tension or emotion... I had to look at each of them and decide whether to discard it for the alternate version. And then build the alternative romance plot line for Jacob.

I keep trying different things in my writing and so far, I've enjoyed every moment of it.

Tell me, which was your favorite version and why?

Download Page Updated

I updated the downloads page today. The files for Written in the Stars and The Selkie Wife now include the outtakes.

I also added EPUB versions for Nook users.

Enjoy!

Stand up for Katalina!

The Stand up for Katalina charity has been an incredible outpouring of love from the fandom. As always, I stand in awe of the generosity and kindness of this amazing group of people.

 Katalina's bavery and grace in the face of her illness inspired this story for me. I deeply enjoyed writing it and I hope you guys enjoy reading it.

If you'd like to get a copy, along with stories from dozens of awesome fanfiction authors, donate here.

There's a teaser on the site, but I thought I'd give you just a little bit more....

Alice thinks her introverted sister, Bella, needs to get out and enjoy life, so she signs her up for tango lessons. Thanks to a sexy, hands-on instructor, Bella will learn more than the steps.

He pushed play and the music began. “Because, Bella, I’ve never met a person who needed to dance more than you did.”

“You felt sorry for me?” The words were like a sharp needle, stabbing into her heart.

“No. I wanted to be there when it happened. Because I knew it would be glorious.” He extended a hand. “Dance with me.”

It was a request she could never deny.

“We’re going to try something new,” he told her. “Do you trust me?”

She did. God help her, she did. She nodded and he smiled again. “All right. I’m going to dip you back, lowering you down. I want you to curl one leg around mine. We’ll go slow.”

He took her into his arms and, as always, her heart sped up. As if he knew it, he smiled softly, and brushed a tendril of hair back from her cheek. “Here we go.”

He lowered her, slowly, as he’d promised. Bella used her right leg to brace herself and curled the left around his legs. “What do I do with my arms?” she murmured. They were currently locked on his shoulders.

“Let go,” he said softly.

She did, and it was so deliciously freeing to feel her body completely supported by his arms, knowing that she was utterly safe within them. Slowly, Bella lifted her arms until they were behind her head and she let her head fall back. He made a small sound and she sensed, more than felt it, when he lowered his head and brushed his lips across the vulnerable column of her throat. As lightly as the brush of butterfly wings, like the kiss of a summer breeze.

The Fires of Censorship Still Burn

As good almost kill a man as kill a good book: who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.” John Milton, Areopagitica

~.~

As many of you know, the fandom went through a period of censorship a little while ago. Many beloved stories were removed from fanfiction.com, and despite the efforts of petitions and personal pleas sent to the administrators, the purge went on. Some of the stories will never return, and will exist only as traded files amongst the few.

Banned Books Week ended a few days ago, but it's an issue of which we should be aware year-round. Nearly every day, there's another story in the media concerning the efforts by a tiny, yet noisy, number of people who seek to ban books from schools and libraries (books they often haven't even read except to skim through and cull "objectionable" parts for their complaint.)

Author Pat Conroy wrote a beautiful letter in response to two of his books being banned by a school board, which was published in the local newspaper. It's long, so I won't repost it in its entirety, but you can read it here, at Letters of Note.

October 24, 2007 

To the Editor of the Charleston Gazette:

I received an urgent e-mail from a high school student named Makenzie Hatfield of Charleston, West Virginia. She informed me of a group of parents who were attempting to suppress the teaching of two of my novels, The Prince of Tides and Beach Music.

[...]

I've enjoyed a lifetime love affair with English teachers, just like the ones who are being abused in Charleston, West Virginia, today. My English teachers pushed me to be smart and inquisitive, and they taught me the great books of the world with passion and cunning and love. Like your English teachers, they didn't have any money either, but they lived in the bright fires of their imaginations, and they taught because they were born to teach the prettiest language in the world. I have yet to meet an English teacher who assigned a book to damage a kid. They take an unutterable joy in opening up the known world to their students, but they are dishonored and unpraised because of the scandalous paychecks they receive. In my travels around this country, I have discovered that America hates its teachers, and I could not tell you why. Charleston, West Virginia, is showing clear signs of really hurting theirs, and I would be cautious about the word getting out.

[...]

About the novels your county just censored: The Prince of Tides and Beach Music are two of my darlings which I would place before the altar of God and say, "Lord, this is how I found the world you made." 

[..]

The world of literature has everything in it, and it refuses to leave anything out. I have read like a man on fire my whole life because the genius of English teachers touched me with the dazzling beauty of language. Because of them I rode with Don Quixote and danced with Anna Karenina at a ball in St. Petersburg and lassoed a steer in Lonesome Dove and had nightmares about slavery in Beloved and walked the streets of Dublin in Ulysses and made up a hundred stories in The Arabian Nights and saw my mother killed by a baseball in A Prayer for Owen Meany. I've been in ten thousand cities and have introduced myself to a hundred thousand strangers in my exuberant reading career, all because I listened to my fabulous English teachers and soaked up every single thing those magnificent men and women had to give. I cherish and praise them and thank them for finding me when I was a boy and presenting me with the precious gift of the English language.

[...]

The school board of Charleston, West Virginia, has sullied that gift and shamed themselves and their community. You've now entered the ranks of censors, book-banners, and teacher-haters, and the word will spread. Good teachers will avoid you as though you had cholera. But here is my favorite thing: Because you banned my books, every kid in that county will read them, every single one of them. Because book-banners are invariably idiots, they don't know how the world works—but writers and English teachers do.

~.~ 

As has been said before, all it take for the wrong thing to triumph is for good people to do nothing. Bibliophiles need to become more noisy than those who would seek to suppress. Snuff the flames!

Coming soon ...

By the incredibly talented SoapyMayhem

I'm writing a story for the Stand Up for Katalina compilation. In case you don't know, Katalina is a member of the fandom who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. People wanted to do something for her, of course, so she asked that we donate to the Stand Up to Cancer charity. Her bravery and grace during this difficult time are inspirational.

Katalina gave each writer a prompt. She asked me to write about an Edward who dances the tango, and a story began to bloom in my mind ... a story about a shy, awkward Bella taking dance lessons, and an instructor who teaches her more than just the steps ... He teaches her to take joy in life.

You'll love this compilation. There are over 40 authors signed up already, and more are joining every day.

Stop by the website and leave a little note of support, and please, donate if you can.

An Interview with Fanfiction Addiction

Fanfiction Addiction, the Spanish Twific group, interviewed me for their first issue of Virtual Magazine. It's absolutely beautiful. Even if you don't speak Spanish, you should check it out because it's prettier than many print magazines.

The interview in the magazine is in Spanish, but I have permission to post the English version here. Enjoy!

· If you were...

A month
April. When the spring has begun and the world is filled with new possibilities.

A day of week
Friday, when everyone is anticipating the fun of the weekend.

A moment of the day
Right as you fall asleep and slip into the dream world, where anything and everything is possible. 

A planet 

Pluto. I don’t care what astronomers say! It’s a planet to me, and always will be!

A drink
Iced tea. Fresh and crisp, with a hint of sugar. 

A musical instrument

A violin. It’s a difficult instrument to learn, but creates beautiful music. 

A fruit:

A grape. Tasty and good for you, and if squeezed and allowed to age, turns into a drink which gives joy to those who share it. Good for the heart, too! 

A meal:

Chicken soup. Warm and soothing, something that nourishes and brings memories of home and comfort. 

A body part:

The brain, the seat of imagination, the part of us that creates our dreams. 

A subject:

Sociology. I’m fascinated with what makes people the way they are. 

A number:

Seven. There are four sevens in my birthdate, and seven letters in my full first name, Melissa, and a few other instances where it appears. 

A color:

Blue, the color of the sky. 

A scent:

Sandalwood. My favorite. 

A city:

London. It’s a vibrant city, full of history, with a diverse population.

A language:

English; it’s the only language I know. But it’s a rich language filled with colorful words, nuances and subtle inflections. Turning a graceful phrase is like a dance, beautiful when it turns out right, embarrassing when it falls flat. 

A song:

O, Fortuna - Carmina Burana. I think it’s one of the most beautiful songs ever written.

A movie:
Lord of the Rings 

A name:
Calliope, Greek muse of epic poetry


A picture:

 

A book:
The Velveteen Rabbit.

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

A flower:

Stargazer lily, my favorite flower. 

A station:
King’s Cross because I love Harry Potter. 

A garment: 

A hat. A big, floppy hat in a color that doesn’t match anything, with a large plastic flower on the side. (One of my favorite poems is “When I am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple.”) 

A country:
Ireland. Land of mists and legends. 

A place:
Kauai, a place of flowers and waterfalls. 

An animal:
A dog 

One sense:
Sight 

A cartoon:
Futurama 

A gift:
A bookstore gift card. 

A hobby:
Sculpting 

A feeling:
Curiosity 

1. - If you could choose see your work as a TV series or a movie, which would you choose? And why?

This is a difficult question because I’m not sure I would like to see any of my works made into movies. I’m usually disappointed with movies made from books. Very rarely do they capture the spirit of the original and they often have a lot of changes to the story or characters. The movies they make are rarely as good as the “movie” I see in my head when I’m reading or writing. I think I would prefer that everyone see their own “movie” rather than watch it on the TV or cinema screen. 

2. - You mentioned that a Volturi male suffers when your couple dies. It's physical pain typical for his race or is just the pain of losing her?

A Volturi who loses a beloved mate can literally die of grief. They lose the will to live and begin to waste away. 

 3. - Was it difficult to create such a different world? What inspired you to create it?

I have read romances and seen movies where people go to live on other planets, and it always seemed to me that they made the aliens too human. Some of them would throw in a couple of differences and a few strange-sounding words, but make the rest of the alien culture basically the same as humans. As I see it, aliens would be much different than earthlings. They wouldn’t have evolved exactly the same as humans, or have the same culture.

I started with their physical traits. Twilight uses wolves, and so I decided to make my aliens feline-based. I had to think of everything from their physiology to their diet, to their reproductive process. As an example, since they’re strictly meat-eaters, their teeth would be different from our own.

But, at the same time, I wanted all of their traits to be realistic, so I based them off of various animals and some rituals of human cultures. The idea for drones came from bees. The idea for the babies to be born in an “egg” actually came from an old TV show called “Mork and Mindy.” (Helen of Troy from Greek mythology was also born from an egg.) The idea for the males incubating the babies came from penguins/seahorses.

4. - Bella will introduce some human traditions?

Yes, she will. In the first outtake, “Nessie’s Mating”, Nessie thinks about how her mother introduced shoe-wearing to upper class women. Alpha women didn’t wear shoes; their mates were supposed to carry them in places where the ground was rough. And while that seems sweet and caring, it also keeps a woman dependent on a man for transportation. Bella saw shoes as a sign of liberation.

She also introduced the idea of having pets. The Volturi thought it was strange to keep their “food” in the house, but after the Empress did it, people started keeping animals as pets. Eventually, this would lead to better treatment of animals as people start caring about them. 

 5. - Do you believe there was life in other worlds?

I’d say it’s likely, given the number of planets that are out there. But as to whether there is intelligent life, I cannot guess. I’d say it’s unlikely we will ever know, unless we manage to invent something like the “jumpers” that can fold space and time and move people over the vast distances of space. We’re not likely to get a radio signal from aliens; their technology would probably be so different from ours that we could be “hearing” them right now and not even know it because we don’t have the right kind of machine to listen. 

6. - What do you feel to see your histories are translated in different languages? Can you imagining that they were going to reach to so many persons?

I’m thrilled and amazed that the translators are willing to put so work into bringing my stories to people who speak other languages. Truly, it is an incredible gift. I love reading the reviews.

It’s very exciting that people around the world can read my stories. I never imagined having such a large audience. The first story I wrote got a grand total of 45 reviews and I was delighted that I had any readers at all. I certainly never expected this level of interest. It’s amazing, and a little scary sometimes, too, because I’m afraid I’ll disappoint so many people. 

 7. - Why you histories [stories] have schemes inspired in supernatural things?

I like exploring how people would react in bizarre circumstances. Many of my stories start out in my mind with the question “What if this happened …?” 

8. - How do you let to flow your stories in the context of unconventional situations?

I try to make unrealistic situations as realistic as possible. In Written in the Stars, I tried to think about what it would really be like to be a queen, having so many decisions to make – and having to live with the consequences of those decisions- the responsibility, and being watched at all times. In The Selkie Wife, I took an old fairy tale and used it to tell the story of Queen Mary I and tried to stay as close as I could to the real history of the time period. In Better Angels of Our Nature, I wanted to explore the concept of great power coming with great responsibility.

9. - Where the idea comes of the ritual of courtship of the Volturi? Did you inspired in some African tribe or in an animal?

Their mating ritual of bringing dead animals came from both human and animal mating rituals. Many species bring a “gift” to a female they’re courting, including human males who try to buy the biggest diamond they can afford for the woman to whom they’re proposing. Money isn’t as valued in Volturi culture as a status symbol; their status is based on strength, and so it would make sense for a man to “prove his worth” by bringing the female animals that are hard to kill. 

10. - On what did you base to create the religion Dynali?

From archaeological finds, it appears that the first gods of humans were female, a mother-figure, so I chose a female deity for them. Because the Dynali world is mostly covered with water and they’re an amphibious species, it made sense to make her the “Mistress of the Waters.”

In the scene where Tanya tells Bella the parable of the rippling water, I knew what I wanted her to say: that all of our actions have far-reaching consequences of which we may not be aware. A smile given to a stranger may alleviate their sadness and give them hope. A teacher’s enthusiasm may inspire a love of learning in a student. And so on. Even tiny actions may have huge consequences. I saw the metaphor of the ripples spreading in the pond, and then how the stone the young man threw would have had effects unseen, below the water.

"Dark Goddess" Nominated for Fic of the Week

Dark Goddess has been nominated for Fic of the Week over at Teh Lemonade Stand. There are two days left to vote.

Thanks to Dessie Dhiee Masen for nominating it.







Me right now:

Busy Girl is Busy

Oh, yeesh, I hate starting out a blog post with an apology, but I feel I owe you guys one for how long it took me to get the next chapter of Dark Goddess posted.

Come on, you can't say "No" to that cute little face, can you?

As I posted on my novels blog, I'm back in Editsville. Just as the process was finishing up for Ghostwriter, I'm starting edits on my second novel. These are the big ones, changing scenes for better flow, adding text, deleting scenes as needed, not simply approving the addition of a comma or slightly re-worded sentence.

I managed to finish up the Selkie Wife story I'm contributing to Fandom 4 LLS, so that's one project off my overcrowded plate, but I still have the story for my publisher's Valentine's Day anthology to finish.

Thanks for your patience and support.

These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Snow White on Twitter sent me a question, asking what my favorite book is. I had to tell her that I have so many favorites, it's almost impossible to choose. So, I thought I'd do a blog post about it and arrange some of my favorites by genre.

Historical Fiction

Margaret George is probably my favorite historical fiction author. I have read her magnificent Autobiography of Henry VIII at least a dozen times. She's not always 100% accurate with the historical aspects, but her work is well-researched and well-written. Other favorites include Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Pauline Gedge's Child of the Morning (about Pharaoh Hatsheput), and Colleen McCollough, who wrote a wonderful series about ancient Rome.And who doesn't love the Outlander series?

Sci-fi/Dystopian

Probably my favorite sci-fi/dystopain novel is Children of Men by  P.D. James. I also love Fahrenheit 451, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Tale, and Stephen King's The Stand. The Hitchiker's Guide is probably a given.

General Fiction

I have a passionate love for Harry Potter (though I've never been temper to write an HP fic. Strange, huh?) The His Dark Materials series was also good. Angela's Ashes was an amazing read.

Romance

Catherine Anderson is a favorite because her romances are usually very sweet. I liked the Black Dagger Brotherhood books up until book five. Larissa Ione's Demonica series was pretty cool, because she developed entire races of beings and their cultures. And I liked Jacquelyn Frank's Nightwalkers series for the same reason.

Graphic Novels

Betcha weren't expecting this category, eh? I adore V for Vendetta, The Watchmen, From Hell, Maus, and The Walking Dead. (Terribly disappointed in the TV show.)

"The Selkie Wife" Returns!

My Fandom 4 LLS story is a Selkie Wife sequel.

 "I will find you again, my love." As one life ends, another begins. True love never dies.

For twenty years, Bella has searched for Edward. She finally discovers him again, in the New Plymouth Colony. Will Edward's soul remember hers? Will he fall in love with his selkie wife again as they build another life together in this new world?

Sneak peek:

“Edward.”

He heard the soft voice behind him and turned to see a woman standing behind him. She was tiny, the top of her head barely reaching the center of his chest. Dark hair peeked from under the edge of her white linen cap and the huge eyes in her heart-shaped face were equally dark, but as soft and gentle as a doe’s.

Edward bowed and quickly retrieved his doublet from the stump where he’d left it. He’d taken it off to work in his shirt and he blushed slightly to be seen in such a state of undress in the presence of a lady. And a lady she must be, for her light blue gown was made of soft, fine wool and her slender white hands bore no callouses.

She gazed at him expectantly and Edward’s blush deepened a bit. “I beg pardon, Madame,” he said. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

Sadness settled over her and she dropped her eyes. “I had hoped you would recognize me.”

The strangest thing was that he did, in some deep recess of his mind. He tried hard to place her, for surely if he had ever met such an enchanting creature, he would have remembered. Still, she seemed familiar in some way, like a forgotten word dancing on the tip of one’s tongue. “Your pardon, my lady,” he repeated.

“I am Bella,” she said and gave a small curtsey when he bowed again, an automatic action which told him that his assumptions of her status had been correct. “I have searched for you.”

“For me? Wherefore would you—“ He stopped, for a strange fragment of a memory, like a recollection of a long-ago dream flitted through his mind. He saw Bella, though she was dressed in a jewel-encrusted gown with a wide lace ruff framing her neck and shoulders. He blinked and the vision – if that’s what it was – vanished.

“Your heart remembers, even if your mind does not,” Bella said. “Your soul knows mine, Edward.”  She reached out and took his hand into hers and he felt a strange tingle pass along his nerves. 

Why We Write

In my novel, Ghostwriter, Seth writes as a way to escape from a tragic past. Today, while finishing up the final round of edits, i thought about what makes writers want to put a pen to the blank page.

The answer to the question, Why do you write? is as varied and unique as each writer themselves. Some do it because they must, others because they want to share or create. In the movie V for Vendetta, Natalie Portman's character Evey says: "My father was a writer. You would've liked him. He used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

I came across this lovely letter written by poet Rainer Maria Rilke. He had been sent a letter by an aspiring poet named Franz Kappu. Kappu sought to know whether he should continue as a poet. Rilke wrote back to him, and a correspondence began between them which was to last for five years.

Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. 

(Do read the rest of the letter. It's one of the prettiest love letters to writing itself that I've ever read.)

Perhaps a question much like this was in Emily Dickinson's mind when she wrote this line: "This is my letter to the world/ That never wrote to me ..."

I do not know who wrote this. I wish I did.

From an essay written by Joan Didion:

 ... I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. I knew I couldn’t think. All I knew then was what I couldn’t do. All I knew was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.

By which I mean not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hourse are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?

And perhaps, in some instances, there's a bit of ego involved. Reginald Shepherd wrote this response:

 I write because I would like to live forever. The fact of my future death offends me. Part of this derives from my sense of my own insignificance in the universe. My life and death are a barely momentary flicker. I would like to become more than that. That the people and things I love will die wounds me as well. I seek to immortalize the world I have found and made for myself, even knowing that I won't be there to witness that immortality, mine or my work's, that by definition I will never know whether my endeavor has been successful. But when has impossibility ever deterred anyone from a cherished goal? 

Some write because they find reality unsatisfactory. In honor of National Day on Writing (which, apparently, is a thing) The New York Times asked writers to Tweet their reasons for writing. Neil Gaiman Tweeted this: “Because I can lie beautiful true things into existence, & let people escape from inside their own heads & see through other eyes."

The reason why I write is a combination of all of the above. I've always written; I cannot remember a time before I was dreaming up fantastic realms or exploring possibilities in this one. The difference is now that I'm actually typing out the words instead of "writing" the books and stories in my head. I'm not particularly interested in immortality for myself, but I like the idea of my stories living on after I am gone.

So, You're Stuck: Part II

Today's post is dedicated to the memory of  Gisela Gagliardi, who died yesterday after a tragic accident outside of Comic Con. I never met Gisela, but my heart goes out to her family and friends. A fundraiser has been established to assist her family with her final expenses.

______________________________________________________________________________

The last time I wrote on this topic, I gave some tips for getting the creative juices flowing when you feel like you've hit a brick wall. Writer's block is a very common affliction, but it doesn't have to be a roadblock. Think of it as a rest-stop, a chance to refresh your batteries and approach your work from a new angle.

One of the first ways to do this is to consider your goal for the particular story/chapter/paper. Do you want to convince your reader of something? Do you want to create a certain mood or to stir a certain emotion in your reader? Scare them, make them laugh, make them cry? The words you choose will greatly affect the outcome. Social scientists have long noted that the way a poll or article is worded has a heavy influence on the responses it will get.The reader may be completely unaware that the word choice is "nudging" them toward a certain conclusion.

 In a second study when positive and negative statements were combined (“… removing homes and extended roads”) 40% of people thought he would be re-elected. When the tense was switched (“…removed homes and extending roads”) 56% of people thought the politician would be re-elected.

Make a list of the words that you associate with the emotion you want to draw from your reader. Do an internet search for websites that deal with the topic. Read some of the stories and copy down phrases which you think captured the mood or stirred emotion. Now, think about how your characters would employ those words to describe their situation.

One of the things that once gave me a bit of inspiration happened when I was researching a word. I looked up the etymology and discovered its first recorded usage. Looking up that particular piece of text led me to an amusing anecdote that inspired a moment in the piece I was writing.

I never imagined I would find an "etymology" cartoon. God, I love the internet!

 Another idea is to write a "fanfic" of your own story. Write a few paragraphs from another character's perspective. Sometimes, we get "stuck" in the mind of our main character and that can limit your perception of the whole story.

Try a different narrative style. Have you been writing sequentially? Skip ahead and write the scene that's giving you trouble as a flashback. Have one of the characters call a friend and describe what happened in dialogue. Write it in a different tense.

One writer I once discussed this subject with said that she was "unblocked" when she decided she wasn't going to be able to complete her story, so she wrote out a summary of how it was going to end, intending to post it for the story's fans, so they'd at least be able to have some kind of resolution. As she was writing it, it got longer and longer as she added more detail, and before she knew it, she was writing the rest of the story as she'd hoped.

Simply talking it out with a friend can also help you. Call up a friend who can listen to your ideas and offer suggestions, or even just chat with a stranger over the internet. One writer online suggests talking to your dog or cat about it. (I swear I'm not making this up.)

Maybe you'd be better off talking to a dog. Cats aren't famed for being good listeners.

Maybe you need to take the story in a new direction. Supposedly, Mark Twain was stuck when he was writing Huckleberry Finn when he suddenly had the idea that Huck and Jim would take the wrong fork in the river and get lost. Maybe having your own characters get "lost" in something and fighting their way back will help you get back on track, as well.

Lastly, Google Images is your friend. Got a word or phrase that conveys what you want to say? Type it in as a search term. Browse through the image results. If you find one that grabs you, make another list of words that describes it. Use that image and the words as the basis for a paragraph of text. You may just find yourself expanding on it bit by bit.

And Now For Something Completely Different ...

I thought I'd try something a little different with today's blog post and I may turn it into a regular feature: My Favorite Writers & What They Taught Me. See? I even made a logo for it ...

I'm sure you're in awe of my mad Photoshop skillz.

Raum asked me about my favorite authors in one of her columns, and what I had learned from their work. I said, "The best writers are bibliophiles. As our mind devours each page, we're also learning the way to present a scene, to build up tension or foreshadow. Each writer has their own unique "voice", but just like a baby learning to talk, we learn by experiencing the voices of others."

I thought I'd discuss a few of those writers I mentioned and what I learned from them. The first author I mentioned was Stephen King, who seems a good choice for my inaugural column on this subject, as he is a writer with whom most people are familiar.

I read a lot of Stephen King when I was young. My mother is a fan of horror/dystopian novels and so the latest Stephen King novel was likely to find its way to our home quickly. The only works of his that I've never read are his Dark Tower series and Eye of the Dragon, and my mom hasn't yet loaned me her copy of the JFK novel.

King made a big impression on me, and I'm not just talking about the nightmares brought on by It.

As if Tim Curry wasn't scary enough already ...

King has a reputation, as he somewhat inelegantly puts it, of "having diarrhea of the word processor." Some people mournfully posit that he's not as good as he once was, but really, he's been known as a under-edited "hack" for his entire career. But then again, so was this guy:

Ever read/seen Titus Andronicus?

There were a few things I gathered from King as a writer:

He could create an entire character using only a few words. A good example of this may be the character of Dodie Eberheart from The Dark Half. Don't remember her? Probably not. She was only in the story for one chapter, but he somehow managed to create a vibrant character, complete with back-story, in just a small handful of pages.

This particular line always stuck with me:

[W]hen Dodie Eberhart raised her voice to its maximum decibel level, windows cracked, the eardrums of small children ruptured, and dogs fell dead.

It's the traditional King tongue-in-cheek humor, probably emphasized by the hint of alliteration, but it's a rich and colorful image.

Not that kind of colorful, but I didn't want to look for "ruptured eardrum" or "dead dog" images.

The next passage illustrates two things I also assimilated from King: the way he writes chpaters from an animal's perspective and his invention of words. Here, a ghost is trying to convince Horace, the dog, to take to his owner, Julia, an envelope that has fallen behind the sofa. Horace is distracted by the popcorn he finds back there.

 Julia would never eat anything that had been in his mouth, Horace knew this from long experience. Even if he pushed it out with his snout she wouldn't eat it. It was peoplefood, yes, but now it was also floorfood.

"Aw, man, you know the human is going to throw that perfectly good hotdog in the trash!"

Two new words in the space of just a paragraph!

Those of you who have read my story The Better Angels of Our Nature may remember the passages written from the puppy, Dave's, perspective.

 The winged-man had told him they were going to defend their territory from other humans that Dave thought of as baddogs, a terrible term that made him quail when he heard it applied to him, the worst thing he could think of to call them. The baddogs wanted to take the winged-man's female.[...]

 They began to open the smaller dens and pull out the pieces of flatfur that humans put on over their hairless skin. Dave growled deep in his throat at the way they threw around his humans' things; and they didn't even run to fetch them, so what was the point? One of the baddogs must have heard it even though humans were mostly deaf. (They barely had a sense of smell either; Dave wondered how they managed to navigate the world.)[...]

Forlorn at having to abandon his den, Dave searched the soil for the scent of the winged-man in ever-widening circles until he found it. His tail wagged in delight. He followed it; the winged-man and his mate had walked this way relatively recently. It was a long walk and rather frightening as large roaring beasts which smelled like burning and had sunshine eyes ran at him. Dave dodged many of them on his way and they did not chase after him.

It was a very entertaining writing exercise, to try to write from Dave's perspective, to define objects through his eyes, to interpret actions as he would see them. How does a dog think? Certainly not as we do. When we think of a dog's actions, we tend to define it from a human perspective. "He's jealous," or "He's feeling guilty." Well, if a dog could narrate, wouldn't they define our actions from a canine perspective? He would likely pity us for our dull senses and see our trips to the grocery store as successful hunting missions and our interactions with other humans as a struggle for pack dominance. King set me on the path of wondering about these things, and in playing with the English language to create new "dog words."

This is a photo of Sam the World's Ugliest Dog. Yes, he was real, and so was his title. No, he wasn't horrifically injured or deformed; that's what his breed looks like. Yes, at some point, a person said, "I want to breed a dog that looks like this." And if that isn't a scary thought, I don't know what is.

King also has a knack for describing how ordinary people would react to extraordinary circumstances. This passage is from The Moving Finger, one of the stories in Nightmares and Dreamscapes:

A finger had poked its way out of the drain-hole in the basin.

A human finger.

For a moment it froze, as if aware it had been discovered. Then it began to move again, feeling its wormlike way around the pink porcelain. It reached the white rubber plug, felt its way over it, then descended to the porcelain again. The scratching noise hadn't been made by the tiny claws of a mouse after all. It was the nail on the end of that finger, tapping the porcelain as it circled and circled.

Howard gave voice to a rusty, bewildered scream, dropped the broom, and ran for the bathroom door. He hit the tile wall with his shoulder instead, rebounded, and tried again.  This time he got out, swept the door shut behind him, and only stood there with his back pressed against it, breathing hard. His heartbeat was hard, toneless Morse code high up in one side of his throat.

 In this story, Howard never discovers what the finger is doing in his drain. The story is mainly concerned with his bewilderment and reaction to the scenario. He tries to explain it away, tries to convince himself he didn't see it, but ultimately brings himself around to the conclusion he must combat it. It's the slow transformation from disbelief to terror which makes this tale so compelling.

Stephen King once said that many of his stories begin with the simple thought, "What would happen if ..." He's made me think along the same lines.