5 MUSTS For Successful Writers

Please excuse our small departure from the normal content of this blog. We will resume our regularly scheduled programming next week. What can I say? When satire strikes, you must obey. 

You've got a really awesome idea for a book. You know your screenplay is a billion dollar hit. Maybe you just like words. Whatever the reason, as my friend Anna would say, you wish to be a writer. The only problem is, you're not sure how to do it. Don't worry! I've got 5 MUST-DO tips for you that will turn you into a huge success:

1. Start Fast and Give Up Faster

Everyone knows that if you're going to be successful in publishing, it'll happen overnight. This industry moves fast, so you have to move faster. Got a rough draft done? Good enough!! Slap together a query letter and send that puppy out. No one expects you do have a polished piece; there'll be plenty of time for that once somebody writes you a big check.

If you've sent one query, though, and it got rejected, best to give up right away. One rejection is enough: as everyone knows, all agents and publishers like the exact same thing, so if one said no, they'll all say no. No big deal, though, since you can write another one in the next couple of hours!


2. Write Only What You Know

You know the old writing adage, write what you know? Well, it doesn't go far enough! Write only what you yourself have seen, felt, touched, or experienced. Driven a Ford but not a Toyota? Then your characters should only drive Fords. You can never imagine anything else to any degree of accuracy. This means that your stories will be populated by you, yourself, and you, but that's totally OK: who doesn't love a navel-gazer?


3. Put Everyone You Know In Your Work

The best way to make sure everyone you know buys your work is to put them in it. Don't disguise - how else will they know it's them? Don't tell them ahead of time, either, because that'll spoil the fun. Make sure you bring out their worst qualities and share their deepest secrets, because drama sells.

Also, who is your main character going to talk to if you don't put in your family and friends? See #2 above.


4. Never Read

Ever! It'll waste precious time you need in this speedy, ever-changing field. You read in school, right? That's enough. You can figure out what sells and what's good by looking at covers and thinking about it.


5. Get Sensitive

Feedback works best when you're too defensive to hear it, so make sure you can't stand to hear a word against what you've created.

And besides, everyone - and I do mean everyone! - is going to LOVE you and your work! Writers are great at pleasing everyone. What better way to enjoy it than to soak it all up? So shed those protective layers and make sure your skin is good and thin; that way all of the universal adoration will sink right in.


That's it! That's all you need to know. If you follow these, I fear for you know you'll be a HUGE success!

Got any more great tips for becoming a successful writer? Share them in the comments!

Disclaimer: no writers were hurt in the making of this post, but then. no writers were made in the making of this post, either. 

Writing Process and...COME BACK!

No, that's not a totally desperate plea to you all, visitors; it's an announcement that Melissa Maygrove's debut novel, Come Back, is now available!! I'll have more on that shortly, but first -

The lovely and talented Kristin Smith tagged me in a writing process meme last week - yes, last week; I know that's like a decade in internet time, but I've been very busy recovering - so I'm going to respond with my own process today. Better late than never, right?

And no, I haven't forgotten that I promised to write a post about public speaking. I will, but thanks to so much busyness in the blogosphere, it's going to have to wait til June's IWSG post. It'll be there, I promise!

Now, on to my writing process:


What am I working on now?

Well, gee, I dunno if I should answer this. I mean, I never, ever, ever talk about it, and I'm just not sure I'm ready to start. I've heard that some people post about their WIPs every single day in one month, but I just don't think I can't do that (did I get to 26 links yet? Hmm...) Well, if I must...

As you all know, probably long past the point of curiosity, I'm currently researching, brainstorming, and plotting out a novel about two souls. The book will follow them through six different lifetimes, all the way from Ancient Greece to the London of the future, in one seriously long and epic love story. You can read the little blurb I created for it here. I'm also querying my first novel, Cloudland, and Other Stories.


How does my book differ from other within its genre?

Hmm. Good question. I've been having trouble fitting this one (and Cloudland) into one specific genre, because I tend to write literary fiction plus something else. Cloudland is literary fiction with elements of fantasy, and my current WIP is literary fiction plus some romance plus magical realism. I hope that works in my favor instead of against me, but honestly, even if it doesn't, it's what I love to read, so of course it's how I write, too.


Why do I write what I do?

Yikes, that is not an easy question. I suppose I write about topics that challenge me, inspire me, trouble me, hurt me, and drive me crazy. I wrote Cloudland because I wanted to talk about grief; about how it can tear you apart if you don't face it; about how universal and yet specific it can be; about the possibility of redemption and growth and peace inside all of that unbearable pain. I'm writing my current WIP because I wanted to dive into that terrifying, thrilling, messy place where love, faith, and fear intersect; because I wanted to raise big questions about souls, and how we love, and who we love; because I wanted to explore all of the ways we can sabotage ourselves and our own happiness, and how the world can sabotage us, and yet we can still hope for - and perhaps even get - a second, a third, a five-thousandth chance at joy.

I couldn't tell you why I write literary fiction; it's just the way it comes out. I have my own frustrations about that genre, anyway, because the name is so inherently snobby. But that's apparently what I write, so there it is. I write magical realism because I desperately needed magic to be real when I was young, and I never got over that acute wish; and because now, as an adult, I do find magic in the strangest places, and that's one of my favorite things about being alive.


How does my writing process work?

Well, I've written this to death on this blog, too; may I point you to my post about plotting as a good starting point? In a nutshell, here it is: I get an idea. I worry the idea is stupid. I brainstorm and develop and research that idea, anyway, in the hopes that it's not. In the process, I get excited about it, and brainstorm and develop and research some more. I write extensive, deeply psychological, insanely long character analyses. I outline and re-outline and outline some more (I will never be mistaken for a panster). In between, I worry and fret and write brainstorming snippets that help me develop character and scene, and worry and fret some more. Once I have a finished outline, I write and write and write, then read and read and read, and edit and edit and edit, and wash, rinse, and repeat.


So...what's YOUR writing process like? Tell me! I'm also going to tag Mason Matchak and Anna Soliveres to continue on with this writing process tour.


And now, on to Come Back, at long last!! Happy Release, Melissa! Seriously, I've been so excited to post about this. Melissa is a great blogger, writer, and friend, and I'm so happy for her...not mention psyched to read this book! It's NA Historical Romance, for those who are wondering. Melissa is also running a giveaway on her blog this week, so after you finish reading this, go over there and enter!

Come Back, by Melissa Maygrove
Sometimes a single choice alters the course of a person's life forever.

Left behind by everyone she loves...

Rebecca Garvey had the promise of a California future dreams are made of, until the wagon train her family was traveling with left her behind. Now she’s slowly dying in the wilderness, abandoned and stripped of her self-worth. Once the shock of her desertion turns to embittered despair, she doesn’t want to be found. Then a handsome stranger challenges her convictions and changes her mind.

Headed for Texas, chased by the demons of his past...

Seth Emerson knows exactly what he wants. Working to save for a cattle ranch of his own keeps him busy and keeps his pain buried. Rescuing a stubborn woman from the hills of New Mexico Territory isn't part of his plan—but she’s exactly what he needs.

Making greater sacrifices than either of them could foresee...


Seth and Rebecca set off on a risky journey and a quest for truth, each healing the other’s love-starved soul along the way. Will they give in to their growing attraction?  Or will they honor their commitments when Seth returns Rebecca to civilization... and her betrothed?

Where to buy:

Amazon / Kindle / Barnes & Noble / Nook / Kobo

About Melissa:

Native Texan Melissa Maygrove is a wife, mother, nurse, freelance editor, and romance writer. When she's not busy caring for her tiny nursery patients or shuttling teenagers back and forth to after-school activities, she's hunched over her laptop, complicating the lives of her imaginary friends and playing matchmaker. Melissa loves books with unpretentious characters and unforgettable romance, and she strives to create those same kinds of stories for her readers.

www.melissamaygrove.com

Blog: www.melissamaygrove.blogspot.com

Twitter @MelissaMaygrove: https://twitter.com/MelissaMaygrove

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MelissaMaygrove?ref=hl

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106752837827430594401/posts

Goodreads author page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8103285.Melissa_Maygrove

Writing Love Stories For Dummies (Like Me)

This week's blog-post-brainstorming started with a good, old-fashioned dither. I'm still researching Tibet, you see, so - hmm, how to say this nicely - my current process is REALLY EFFING BORING.

Not that the research is boring; not at all. As I've mentioned, I love research (most of the time). It's just that telling you about that process is rather akin to forcing you to sit through a dull lecture by a professor who sounds like the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

So, I dithered. And then I thought: WAIT! I'm not just researching Tibet; I've also been researching love stories!

Why? Well, part of my advice to people when they're struggling with plot (besides go back to your characters, of course) is to look for some way to frame the plot; some plot-skeleton to hang your story-flesh off of, if you'll excuse the unsettling metaphor. This can be literal - when I was writing Cloudland, I used Joseph Campbell's monomyth - or it can be thematic. You know, some kind of writing prompt, or jumping-off point, like, in the month of April I'll write blog posts for every letter of the alphabet. Or something.

For this WIP, since a) it's about love, and b) it follows souls through multiple lifetimes, I thought I might be able to structure each lifetime around one of the Great Love Story Plots.

Except, erm, I didn't know what they were. What?? I've never claimed to be an expert on writing romance. Far from it, actually. This is where all of you romance writers point at me, and laugh, as well you should. But I really did do some research on it.

So, for all of you non-romance writers, who, like me, freeze in panic when they have to write a love story, I want to share the most helpful thing I found in my research thus far: a fantastic old blog post by one Margo Berendson, listing her idea of the 13 standard love story plots, with examples for each.

For those who don't have time to click on the link, here's a little user's guide to the love plots I'm going to mention, quoted from her blog:

• Reluctant love: "where two people are forced by circumstances into a betrothal or marriage. Sometimes both are reluctant partners; sometimes one is willing, the other reluctant. As the reluctant one comes to know her partner better, they genuinely fall in love"
• Love Torn Apart: "the opposite of a happily-ever after, where love reigns for a while, but then is torn apart by circumstances" 
• Love Forsaken: "a pair of lovers where one rejects the other (usually because of unequal status or to honor the family), and then regrets it"
• You're the Last Person I'd Ever Love: "two characters start out disliking each other, often quite intensely, and then fall in love as they get to know each other better"
• Forbidden Love: "Romeo and Juliet, Lancelot and Guinevere, Paris and Helen" and so on. 

If you found those helpful, I highly recommend checking out the original post. Just sayin'.

Anyway, thanks to that post, I'm off and running, and GOD does it feel good to have a sense of the overall structure of this monstrosity that I'm working on. And because I'm me, and I am incapable of doing anything simply, I want to combine these plots to make new stories. Yes, one lover might be headed towards an arranged marriage, and therefore a reluctant love plot, but suddenly another character arrives in the story, of the wrong race or gender or social class (or all of the above), and now we have a forbidden love story, with a dash of love triangle and great potential for love torn apart. And THAT is fun to write.

For example, I'm thinking my Ancient Greek story will combine jealous love and love torn apart (yes, I made the first one up, but I like it. Think crazy jealousy ruining everything, like in Othello), and my modern London story will be an amalgamation of you're the last person I'd ever love and love forsaken, with a possible, unusual, modern twist on forbidden love.

Silly? Maybe, but it's working, and I'll take that over dignity any time.

Insecure Writers: Writing the Unknown

NOTE: It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for The Insecure Writers! For those who don't remember, it's an online group created by Alex J. Cavanaugh for writers. You, too, can join us anytime!

Before I get started, I just wanted to say that I'll be doing my first-ever guest post this week, on Friday. So, stop by on Friday for the link and info!

First I just have to say, thank goodness for Shell Flower. I logged on today to write my blog post, and would have totally missed the fact that it was IWSG day if I hadn't seen her post, first. So, thank you, Shell, for dragging my brain out of Ancient Tibet, and into March 2014!

For any newcomers (and hello and welcome to my neurotic ramblings), my current WIP is a journey through Ancient Greece, Tibet, South America, India, London, and Australia. Which means I need to heavily research all of these places (yes, I am insane. As I said, welcome to my neurotic ramblings.)

So, I've had my nose buried in Tibet all week. I'm reading a book called, appropriately enough, Tibet: Its History, Religion, and People, by Thubten Jigme Norbu, a Tibetan monk who also happens to be the older brother of the current Dalai Lama. It's a lovely, if rather dry, read, full of actually useful information (something new for me) about the daily life and religion and outlook of normal Tibetans - not just kings and gurus, but peasants and nomads, too - and I'm very grateful to my local librarian for pulling it off of the shelf and pressing it into my desperate little hands.

It's also a lot. I mean, it's a lot to take in. I'm attempting to understand the world view of a character that's vastly different from my own, and whose culture I am mostly ignorant of - and let me tell you, Tibetan culture, history, and religion are not simple. The country is thousands of years old, with a complex animist religion at the time my character was living (500-600 CE); I've never met a single Tibetan person or been to Tibet; and unlike Ancient Greece, whose culture and mythology form the foundation for much of our own, Ancient Tibet is something I've only barely touched on in my life's learnings so far.

Now, I would never say that writers should only write about their own culture, race, gender, sexual orientation, and religion. Because really, if I did that, I'd be writing novels full of me, talking to me, interacting with more me. How BORING (not to mention alarmingly self-involved.) I think it's important to go outside of what is familiar; to reach into the unknown, and hope to bring back something to share; something that illuminates, even in the smallest way, what it means to be human. To find not only what makes us different, but also what unites us.

I do believe that. But I'm also nervous. What if I really mess this up? What if I offend an entire nation, for God's sake?

This insecurity, I know, is understandable, but I have to find a way past it. Because right now, it's stifling. Part of what I'm trying to do is find my characters and plot through this research, and the fear is totally stopping me. I have no ideas. I am blank, blank, blank. Every time I try to come up with an idea, my brain starts going, oh my god no I can't make the character a jerk because then people will think I'm RACIST, and all creativity comes to a screeching halt.

So that's my insecurity for the month (year; decade; all known time; whatever.) Next week, I hope I can report back on my plot progress... but at this rate, I may just end up sharing some interesting facts on Tibet. Le sigh. 

Inspiration for an Interlude

This is a strange thing for me to say, since my problem is usually verbosity and not brevity, but I don't actually have a whole lot to say today.

I know, I know; peel yourselves off of the floor, dear readers. Miracles can happen.

This unusual pithiness - although I'm not sure anyone who uses the word 'pithiness' should be allowed to call herself pithy - is a direct result of the transitional state I'm in in my Work In Progress, aka WIP. I've settled on the bare bones of a plot for my Ancient Greek lifetime; I have lengthy and detailed psychological treatises on my three main characters; and I have a very, very general idea of where this lifetime might fit into the action of the book as a whole.

All of which means...it's time to leave Greece. I'm having a difficult time tearing myself away - this is what happens when you sink yourself into the slippery sand-trap of character, time, and setting - but I'm managing it. I cracked open a book on Tibet.

And...I'm reading. Yup. Researching. Very preliminary. Fascinating, huh? I could go off for a while about the obvious imbalance in the amount of time American schools spend teaching about Ancient Greece vs. Ancient Tibet, and hence my own sad lack of knowledge of Tibet's religion, culture, and history, but I'll hold myself back, and just read about it for now.

So in the meantime, for this week, I'll just give you one of my favorite inspire-me-to-write quotes, in the hopes that it helps you get to your own work today, whatever that work may be:

“Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else... may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds.”

- J.R.R.Tolkien

That might seem like a strange inspirational quote for someone who mostly writes literary fiction, but I love fantasy. I always end up with little whiffs of it in my writing, anyway, no matter what my genre may be. And that quote above is one of the big reasons why.

Have a great week, all.

It's OK to Experiment

I'm experimenting with voice these days, mainly because I'm fully inside my Ancient Greek story-line, and it just feels weird to write about Greek gods and myths with a modern tone. I mean, I know I don't need to go all Ovid on everyone, and start declaiming in verse, but I also know that having Apollo greet his sister, Artemis, with a "Hey girl, what's up?" feels just a wee bit awkward or, y'know, anachronistic (a word which, ironically, has Greek origins).

I say "experimenting" for a few reasons. I'm in that stage of development where I end up freewriting a lot of scenes that may never see the light of day; this helps me see how characters react to each other and to various situations. I often end up writing out scenes that happen before the action in the story, to sort of see how they unfold. This is pure experimentation; some of it works beautifully, and some of it should never, ever be read. By anyone. Ever.

I'm also experimenting, quite literally, with the tone - the voice - of these scenes. I'm finding myself writing some elevated, formal, and stylized language that I never normally use, and as a result it's a bit of a struggle to make it sound natural. See, I spend a lot of time thinking about the rhythm of the writing; how it flows, how it sounds out loud, whether it feels smooth or awkward. Yes, I read it out loud sometimes. Whatever - Jeanette Winterson said I should.

And yes, of course, I'm totally freaking out about this. Does this sound super pompous? Are people going to think I'm crazy? Is this the most unreadable, ridiculous pile of junk EVER written or what?

But the freaking out - that's normal. It's this new voice that isn't.

In all honesty, neurotic fears aside, it's kind of fun to try out a new style of writing. Ideally, I'd write each section of this book - each time period - in a different voice. The story in Ancient Greece should sound different than the story in modern London, or on a farm in Australia in the 1960s. If it doesn't, I'm not doing my job (this is another reason why I think I must be crazy to write a novel about souls moving through six different lifetimes. Seriously.)

So, I experiment. And because it's really fun to do something incredibly dumb, and expose myself to ridicule, I thought I'd post some of it here! It's totally brand new, unfinished and unedited, and absolutely NOT READY for public consumption, so naturally, I'm making it public. This is from a scene that may never appear in the book. It's an  explanation of what drove Apollo to swear off all love affairs; I used the myth of Apollo and Hyacinthus as the straw that broke the god's back:

It was Hyacinthus, in the end, who broke apart the last whole pieces of Apollo’s heart. Dark of skin and hair, wide-eyed and glowing with adoration, the young prince drove Apollo to distraction from the day the god first spotted him, running the edge of Sparta’s rivers with the swift wind at his back. Apollo descended from Olympus so quickly that he stumbled more than once as he ran, leaping and tumbling over the mountain’s forbidding cliffs with eyes fixed always on his goal. When he reached his target, and the youth stuttered his name, blushing and already weak with love, Apollo swept Hyacinthus into his arms and swore to never let go. From that day on, forgotten were the god’s lyre and his music; his bow lay neglected in dust and shadow; all his time was spent laughing over the hills with Hyacinthus. Together they hunted birds and netted fish, “like two silly mortals,” as Artemis scoffed; or played at sport, be it racing or discus or wrestling, their skin oiled and gleaming; or else wrote their passion, bodies entwined, across the sweet caressing grasses. 

As the days passed, and Apollo’s duties fell further and further from his mind, Artemis’s disdain swelled into open fury. “No good ever comes of these ridiculous affairs,” she spat, her face dark and her tone grim. “Something terrible will happen again, and it will be your fault when it does.” But Apollo, love-soaked, just laughed away the hard edge in her eyes, soothing her contempt with promises to spend many months hunting with her again, soon; tomorrow; or next week; or perhaps in a few moons… 

You can see from this small snippet that dialogue is an issue. It's one thing to make the prose stylized; it's another to make the characters talk that way, too. I'm still figuring that out. Along with everything else, of course.

Thanks for indulging my experiment. What about you? Do you experiment with writing, or something else in your work?

Images Instead of Words

Quick one today - and yes, I really mean that this time, because I have a lot of other stuff to do. For one, all of your comments were so helpful (seriously) that I've been off and running with my plotting, and two, the Olympics are on. And political controversy and human rights concerns aside, I love the Olympics. There's something about watching athletes stretch and challenge the limits of what the human body can do, and excel with such determination and grace, that just utterly captures my imagination and my heart.

There. I said it. I'm a sucker.

Anyway, I'm still working on Ancient Greece, banging out the details of the plot, which means that I don't have a whole of new thoughts to write about here yet. So I thought I'd share a little piece of what I do when I'm developing a novel: I get heavily involved with Google image search.

Now, I don't often do this for my characters, because I usually can't find anything that captures the way they look in my head; most searches leave me feeling disappointed and irritated. For example, an image search for "Apollo Greek god" will turn up a wide variety of pictures, from the classical to the artistic to the romantic, but none of them come close to how I see him: tall and athletic, with short curling blond hair, serious but bright eyes, and a body that a male model would kill for. Not a bad mental picture, huh?

Where I do find a lot of inspiration, and a lot of success, is when I search for images about a place. I need to be able to describe how any given setting looks, but a really good image will fire also my imagination, and give me a little flash of an idea that I can work on. I've got a bunch of these for Ancient Greece.

First, Mount Olympus:

There are a ton of images out there of Olympus, but I love this one because it's mysterious and otherworldly - a place I imagine the gods might live. Plus, it's often described as wreathed in clouds, which is a fantastic image. This one led me to wonder about how Apollo's mortal lover might see the mountain in its veil of clouds, and what he might think about the beings who live there - which gave me great insight into his character.

Then there's this one of the same mountain:

Very different, yes? I often imagine the Greek slopes like this: bare, desolate, and ancient. I imagined Damon, Apollo's lover (yes, I changed his name), herding his flocks of sheep on slopes like this, and this lead to my idea for the scene where Apollo first sees him.

Finally, there's this very modern picture of one of Apollo's temples:

Yes, I know, it's rather bare. There are artistic reconstructions of what the temple might have looked like, but like the images of Apollo, they're too specific for me: they don't leave room for my imagination to work. This one, on the other hand, has just enough structure for me to build a mental picture around it, all gleaming white marble and soaring grace, and I love how blue the sky is, and the sense of enormous, wide open space.

Ok, I know this post looks long, but it's also got a bunch of images. For me, this is actually short. Sad but true.

Insecure Writers: The Reality of Fear

NOTE: It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for The Insecure Writers! For those who don't remember, it's an online group created by Alex J. Cavanaugh for writers. You, too, can join us anytime!

Ok, everyone. I'm going to do it again. I'm going to get serious, and talk about fear.

Here's the rub: I'm afraid.

The novel I'm currently working on is about love. Specifically, it's about two souls in love. Here, in fact, is the blurb I wrote about it for NaNoWriMo:

"Two souls chase each other through time and space in a love story that spans entire continents and eras. A Greek god falls in love with a mortal youth; a born-again preacher falls under the spell of a brilliant yet icy scientist; a young tribal leader risks everything for the sake of a wild nomadic shaman. These stories intertwine with many others to form a complex tapestry that explores the intersection of faith and love, and the very human fear of making leaps in both."

Way in the very beginning of this process, when I decided I was going to write a book about souls, instead of people, I knew I was going to play with gender. It didn't even occur to me to not do that. In a previous IWSG post, I mentioned this, noting (to quote myself, here) "And what better way...to explore how our souls love, than by taking gender out of the equation? I mean, does a soul have a gender? ...it's such a fascinating issue and question that I want to raise it."

And that's what I'm doing. As of now, there are going to be at least six lifetimes in this book (although I reserve the right to add or subtract as needed.) Three will have a love story between a man and a woman. One will be between two men. Another will be between two women. A third, which will begin and end the book, and weave throughout the other stories, will be between a woman and a narrator whose gender is never specified.

I know that many people will read that last paragraph and think, "So what?" And some others might think, "Cool!" I also know, though, that many others - more than I might think or hope - will read it with mild disgust at best, and outrage at worst.

This is not exaggeration. There are entire countries where loving someone of the same gender can land you in jail, or in a grave. In the modern world. In 2014. The US isn't exempt: despite the Supreme Court's ruling in 2003, there are some states that still enforce (unconstitutional) laws that target homosexuality.

So it's with some trepidation that I write this book. Look, I'm realistic; I know I'm not doing anything seriously dangerous, or even trail-blazing. Many, many activists, plenty of normal people, and a large and growing number of writers have done and will do much more, and risk much more. I salute them and support them in any way I can.

But I'm human, and I'm flawed, and I'll admit that I don't want to be hated or judged. I want people to read my books. I want people to buy them, and read them, and talk about them, and I don't want to become a target of vitriol (who does?), or preach to the choir - and incidentally, M.L. Swift has a great, brave, eloquent post about not doing just that, which you can read right here - simply because I chose to write about love. Judge me for writing badly; for being boring; for being untruthful in my work; but please don't judge me for what I believe, in my heart, about love. Or for who I love.

Because I do believe it, deeply. I believe that gender, like race, is skin-deep; that many if not most of our assumptions about gender come from social mores, not biology; that our souls, whatever those gleaming, intangible, vital streams of light and spirit may be, do not obey the laws of gender; that when we love, truly love, we love with our spirits as well as our physical bodies. And I want, desperately, to tell this story: the story of souls, not people, who love.

And so I can't write this book any other way. And yet, I'm still afraid.

Is that silly? Maybe. But I can't help it: the fear of judgement is very real. I have friends here online, and a whole world of readers I hope to attract, and I don't want them to dismiss me, or my stories, because of prejudice.

And yet, they might still. Ultimately, it doesn't matter - I'm going to write this anyway, no matter what people might think. I would guess that writers who censor themselves out of fear of judgement probably end up creating terribly dull fiction. Certainly some of the world's great books have offended, and will continue to offend, giant portions of the population. I'm not completely crazy; I don't think I'm writing one of those masterpieces (I have a very long way to go, and a lot to learn, before I could even hope to do that.) I just hope to tell a true story - not a real story, but one that vibrates with something true about what it means to be human - and yes, to reach some hearts that might be surprised to find themselves reached.

Putting the 'Stuck' Back in Process

This blog is about the process of writing a novel. It says so, right up at the top of the page. And I'm writing a novel. Yup, I sure am. Sometimes when I write about writing, it's informative; sometimes it's neurotic; sometimes it's inspirational in intent; sometimes it's a little bit crazy; and sometimes it's just plain stuck.

Yes. I admit it: I'm stuck. I've been bashing my own motto to death and doing major character development as well as runaway research in the hopes of someday, maybe, unearthing a PLOT, but to not much avail.

Or, to no avail.

I'm still in Ancient Greece - Tibet, India, Australia, London, and New York are just gonna have to wait. Here's the set-up of the Greek plot thus far, in a little nutshell:

Boy loves god. God isn't into it. Boy convinces god to be into it. They begin a love affair. 

I'm very happy with this so far. A reluctant god who has sworn off love affairs, plus a smitten and utterly determined (and mildly narcissistic) mortal, makes for good fun conflict.

So the mortal wins, and they get together.... And then what??

I know it's not going to work out (sorry, but it's not). First of all, Greek gods are about as capable of fidelity in love affairs as - as - well, crap, my metaphors are failing me, but let's just say THEY'RE NOT CAPABLE AT ALL. Second, as I've mentioned before, despite their own major failings in the monogamy department, Greek gods don't deal well with lovers who cheat on them. Third, neither one of these people is really emotionally capable of true intimacy.

This is all good, right? Lots of potential conflicts, right? I KNOW! I read that and I think, "so what's the problem?"

The problem is that I can't for the life of me figure out exactly how things get messed up, or why. Does Apollo cheat on his mortal? Does the mortal cheat on him? Why? And if so, with who, and then what? Does Artemis somehow get involved? She keeps popping up in my brainstorming, but won't tell me why. It's annoying.

I was expounding on this on Twitter today - ok, fine, I was complaining - and the wise and very smart L.G. Smith advised me to "Time to take something precious from them [my characters]. If they have nothing to fight against, they're too comfortable."

This tickled something in my head... but I'm not yet sure what it is. I think she's putting me on the right track. Maybe. I hope. Certainly a love affair wouldn't be comfortable for either one of them - in fact, my instinct is that it's the intimacy itself that takes something away from them, even though they both thought it was what they wanted. I just don't quite have it yet. You know - the thing that gets taken away, and what they do in response.

Is this a case of the thing a person wants the most is the thing that frightens them the most? Or a case of the thing a person wants the most is the worst thing for them?

I don't know yet.

I know. I know. I presented an irritating problem, complained about it for a while, and then neglected to resolve it. This is not what I would call satisfying writing.

And yet, it's precisely the kind of grind that constitutes 'daily work' for a writer. You bang your head against your desk; the banging jars loose a brilliant idea; you follow that idea only to find out it's bunk; you bang your head some more and pull your hair, and problem-solve out loud, and write lots and lots of brainstorming ideas that start with "what if" and end in question marks. Rinse, wash, repeat.

I'm not complaining - or, well, I'm complaining only a little. I love this work. I just love it more when I have solutions to my problems, rather than just large stubborn problems that sit on my desk and taunt me.

So, that's where I am today. Not much of a thrilling inside look, perhaps, but a true one. Thanks for sticking with me.

And suggestions, of course, are more than welcome.

Seriously.

Research is Character is Plot

Ok, first: THANK YOU INTERNET!! (And by "internet", I mean all of you beautiful people who came, read my plea, and left a comment last week with fantastic research tips.) I got a heretofore unimagined wealth of great, helpful information, which I am now using. Like, right now. Right this very second. Oh yeah, I'm a multitasker-extraordinaire.

Ok, fine. Not really. BUT I've been using your ideas already, and I'm spending a day at my local library this week, so that sort of counts.

I want to take a step back, though, and answer a question no one has asked. Why? Because I need a lead-in to the body of this post, obviously. Duh.

Last week, I wrote out a veritable laundry list of research needs for my new book, and explained that I needed these items for, well, really important writing stuff. Which begs the question, Ancient Greece and Tibet and the British Raj and Australian sheep and my good God what the heck is wrong with you?? Are you trying to give yourself a brain aneurysm???

Oh no, wait. That's not the question I was going to answer. Sorry. It was this one: Why exactly do you need this research to create a plot? You say character is plot; why can't you just use the characters instead of doing this utterly psychotic amount of research?

Ahhh, sneaky me, using my own words against myself! Well, smarty-pants, let me give you an example.

So, I had this idea to have one of the lifetimes for my souls take place in a remote village in Tibet, around 500-600 CE. When I came up with the idea, I thought of writing it from the POV of an old man on the day his next door neighbor, an old woman, lies dying. Without giving away too much, this little story revolved around the idea that he was supposed to marry this woman - as in an arranged marriage - but instead, he married someone else.

Cool. Workable idea. Then I did some very preliminary research into Tibetan culture...and found out that Tibet is one of the very few areas in the world where polyandry was widely practiced. For those of you who don't want to click on that Wikipedia link (and really, you should; the article is freaking fascinating), polyandry is "a form of polygamy whereby a woman takes two or more husbands at the same time."

Yes, you read that right. One lady, many husbands.

No, this isn't some form of ancient feminism. I had to read quite a bit more to wrap my head around this concept, but the basic idea is this: in a place like Himalayan Tibet, where there is very little arable land, it becomes critical to keep a family's land intact and not divide it up among all of the children (or, ok, sons) into small, unsustainable plots. To that end, the eldest son is considered the head of the family, and the heir. So this lucky guy finds a gal who is absolutely NOT from his clan, and marries her, and then, by proxy, all of his brothers are automatically married to this lady, too. Whatever children she bears, no matter which brother is the actual father, are considered the children of the eldest brother. And all of these people - wife, multiple brother/husbands, children, and any remaining members of the previous generation - live together, usually in one large house. (And thus you can see why people aren't allowed to marry within their clans; they really are all related to each other.)

It's a creative solution to some difficult problems, when you think about it. In addition to dealing with issues of inheritance, polyandry was also thought to help control population - again, important in a place with limited resources - as well as increase the likelihood of children surviving to adulthood. Really cool, from an anthropological standpoint, but a major problem for me and my cute little idea.

As you can guess, this information threw my seed of an idea on its tiny, undeveloped head. Maybe I do have an old guy with a wife, but are there other husbands, too? Or did he go off on his own and break all acceptable tradition, and marry one lady for himself, thereby losing all right to his family's land?

And anyway, what is the concept of a village in ancient Tibet? Is there even such a thing as a next-door neighbor, or are there just these clans living together in isolated pockets? If so, can our old man even have a neighbor who is dying? And are these marriages arranged, or not?

So, you see, in this case, the research informs everything. This is often the case with a society and culture that I'm unfamiliar with. I can come up with some nice ideas, but until I learn something about the time period and place, those ideas are fairly useless.

Which means... that I really do have to do all of that research. I know, I'm crazy. But if I can pull it off, it might just make a really effing cool book.

Thoughts from the Reject Pile: Tips on Brainstorming

I know I've written about this topic before, but the last time, I wrote about it in retrospect, remembering how it had worked for Cloudland, with that lovely rosy tint of memory coloring my thoughts (ok, fine, it was more like the sludgy brown film of frustration, but whatever.) Now that I'm freshly enmeshed in brainstorming my new idea, I find that I have some new ideas to offer.

To be entirely honest, I found that out because I kept cutting sections about brainstorming out of other posts. Once I had collected a bunch of rejected paragraphs, I decided I could shmush them all together into a brand spanking new post. And here we are - the reject pile!!! Isn't that exciting??

So what I realized is that brainstorming takes a very specific shape for me. Yes, sometimes I do write out ideas, and explore them, via a sort of stream-of-consciousness conversation with myself. But more often than not, I just write.

I know this seems self-evident, since, y'know, I'm a writer, but that's how I brainstorm best: by writing. Not by freewriting, although that's the catalyst, but by actually writing out scenes.

When I'm brainstorming, ideas often occur to me as fragments of prose or dialogue. So, when I'm developing each, I write out a brief scene-let that's built around that fragment. I then end up with lots of little bits of writing, which I call "freewriting". Right now, I have at least two or two bits for each of my ideas of lives for my two souls. Then once I have a fragment of a scene written out, I can see how the idea works, and where my characters want to take it. More often than not, these fragments don't end up in the finished manuscript, but sometimes they do. The first chapter of Cloudland came directly from one of my freewrites.

So, how does this actually work?

Well, I know I want one of the stories in this new book to involve a love affair between a Greek god and a mortal. When I was first brainstorming that idea, I was trying to work out a bunch of different things: which god, what kind of affair, how they meet, who they are, etc. I settled on Apollo as the god, and then I had a flash of an idea, a fragment of prose, really, about how they might first meet. It appeared in my brain as "The first time Apollo saw him... The second time Apollo saw him..." and so on, with each "time" being a new paragraph briefly detailing each sighting, following a rising arc of action that begins with the first sighting and ends with Apollo actually meeting this person. I then thought of the myth that Apollo, as the god of the sun, rides a chariot that pulls the sun across the sky, and decided to use that: the sightings happen when Apollo is in his chariot, making the sun rise.

(Yes, I know that it was actually Helios who pulled the sun, and that it was only later that this became associated with Apollo, but this is all part of the glorious freedom of artistic license.) 

So, I wrote that flash of an idea out. I have no idea if this will end up in the finished book, but it helped me figure out some things about Apollo and this unnamed to-be lover of his - for example, that at the time of the first sighting too many of Apollo's lovers have suddenly died or been transformed (thank you, Greek mythology), and, heartbroken, he's committed himself to celibacy; that this new to-be lover has been determined to seduce Apollo since childhood, and may actually have orchestrated all of these sightings, setting up a nice little conflict very early on; and so on.

Since I swore to myself that I would never, EVER share any of these brainstorming bits in this blog, because they consist of unfinished, unedited, weird writing that is for my eyes only, I naturally decided to post a little bit of this example here today! Hooray for self-humiliation!!

Remember, this is TOTALLY UNFINISHED. It might really, really suck. Here's that first paragraph, anyway:

The first time Apollo saw him, it was in a curving glance of golden light: his limbs bending up the long grass, each fine thread of muscle and sinew coiling with life; his hair black and wind-blown in the first drawn breaths of dawn. Swift and easy he raced up the shadowed slope, chasing after the flickering white tails of his herd. The god stilled his hand on the chariot and the horses reared back in plumes of flame, and the sun settled its burning arms low on the rim of the world, and so the day began with wildfire and black smoke instead of the rushing stream of rose Apollo had intended. 

And that, my friends, is what I call brainstorming.

Inspiration Is SO Not Standard

That Chrysler slogan drives me a little crazy. You know, the "inspiration comes standard" nonsense that they tag smugly onto the end of every commercial, to reassure us not to worry, because while we might not be able to afford things like built-in babysitters, we don't have to pay extra for the intangible joy of knowing that the factory was especially enthused when it made our car.

Why do I bring this particular example of marketing inanity to light today?

Well, I was banging away at my new novel idea all day yesterday, torturing myself brainstorming to try to come up with something resembling a plot, and in general working hard to dig up some inspiration. And despite my best efforts, it turns out that it does not, in fact, come standard to me.

Which is normal, I know. But boy, is it hard not to get discouraged when I'm sitting at my computer, staring at the screen, and thinking, "Ok, plot. Yup. Need a plot. Yes indeed. Gotta getta plot. And - GO! GO PLOT! GO NOW! Plot? Anyone? Plot?"

Needless to say, I didn't get anywhere for quite a while. Other people might call this writer's block; I call it PJS, or Plot Just Sucks. Ask me to brainstorm about characters or setting or theme and I can prattle on and on for pages. But ask me to come up with a story arc and I'm useless.

Clearly, I needed to find some inspiration, and it wasn't coming from inside me. Not yesterday, anyway. (Incidentally, my fellow blogger Adrienne Reiter wrote a post on this last week, about where creativity and inspiration come from. Check it out.)

My own sources of inspiration change from day to day, but there are a few good wells I always turn to, and one of them usually helps me get to work. Yesterday, I needed a bunch of them.

First, I turned on some music. I have a lot of playlists, but when I'm desperate for help, I turn to Sigur Ros.

Second, I created a new Word document, and gave myself license to write whatever came into my head, without censure or editing. The only rule was that I had to keep writing.

Third, I read. In this case tips on how to write romances, and some love-themed short stories.

No, I'm not writing a romance novel. But I am writing an overly complex version of a love story, and the romance genre has some well-established guidelines that it's good for me, as someone who doesn't read a lot of romances, to know about.

And finally, finally, it came: inspiration. At one point, I found myself writing in the first person POV - something I almost never do - as one of the main characters, talking about all the ways these two souls keep finding to lose each other. (If you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, read this post.) And then I found myself writing out a small scene-let as a possible way to end of the book. Which is very, very hopeful.

I don't have a plot yet (sigh), but I did get some productive ideas. So for now, I'll just keep making my own inspiration, and plugging away. I'll find the story someday.

The Last Gasps of Editing

It's going to be a quickie today (in the purely PG sense of the word. Please, people. There are children out there! None of whom read this blog, but that's beside the point.) I'm just about done with my FOURTH draft of Cloudland [insert loud clapping and whistling here] and I've set myself a deadline of, well, now, to get it done. Which means that today's bloggery must remain brief. And brevity is a major challenge for me, so this is also a personal growth day. Or something.

On this last, final, ending, all-over, done-with and every other word I can think of that means NO MORE EDITING pass, my editor pointed out two little gems that I'll share today. Because, you know, self-humiliation is super fun. And yes, these quotes are real.

She circled one of my favorite darlings, and wrote in the margin, "If you delete this, will you cry?"

Well, of course the answer is YES BUCKETS AND BUCKETS, but unfortunately, she was right. As she usually is. I had rewritten and significantly trimmed down a scene near the end of the book, and as a result I had a piece of exposition that stuck out like a giant, throbbing, possibly infected sore thumb. But I had kept it there because it was really really cool exposition!!! It was all about the Day of the Dead and how the Michoacán people believe that the monarchs that migrate there are the winged spirits of their ancestors and families, who come once a year to visit and bless them. And that was so, so perfect for Cloudland that I just about jumped out of my chair when I read about it, and I couldn't wait to get it into the book somehow. Which I did. By sounding like Professor Liz Blocker, and lecturing on monarch butterflies, their migratory patterns, and their cultural significance to the people of Mexico.

Right. It got cut. Sigh.

But that wasn't all. My editor  underlined a couple of modifier words in another section and noted that the "hyperbole might not be necessary here."

Hyperbole?

Who, me? Exaggerate in my writing? NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS!

This made me laugh, because really, she should just emblazon that note in giant blinking neon print on the cover page of the book. Or on every page. Otherwise I might forget about it.

Ok, folks, I'm off to finish my rewrites. And this post clocked in at mildly long, instead of really really long, so I must be making progress in the brevity department!

Why New York Doesn't Like You, and Never Write Alone

This post really is going to be about the process of writing a novel. I promise. It's just going to take a wee tangent to get there. "Trust me, I'm telling you stories."

Real stories make their way into fiction in strange ways sometimes.

So, I used to live in New York City. Brooklyn, to be precise, and Windsor Terrace to be really precise. I visit NYC a few times a year, most recently this past weekend. Now that I'm a visitor and not a resident, I periodically forget the Truth - yes, capital T - about New York. You see, when I visit, it's a whirlwind of nostalgia and friendship and art and food and wine (a lot of wine). The city lulls me into a false sense of security, and I start feeling pretty great, looking at the concrete jungle all lit up and vibrant, like the city itself is celebrating my return.

I was striding along Greenwich Avenue in the West Village on Monday, delighting in the crisp autumn air, the streaming bright sunshine, the hustle and noise and life of the city, when I failed to notice the neon orange construction cone standing in front of me on the sidewalk. I was too busy being confident, you see, to notice petty things like physical obstacles. So naturally, I stepped on the cone, whacked my arms against the nearest telephone pole to try to get my balance back, failed, and took a lovely swan dive across the concrete and landed flat on my face.

At least four people were standing within two feet of me when this happened. I imagine a couple of them probably had to jump out of the way to allow enough room for the full length of my swan dive, for which I am very grateful (it was an impressive dive). When I scraped my face off of the sidewalk, muttering something wise and witty, like "unngghhhh... my head....", I saw that every single one of these people was studiously watching the traffic light, and ignoring me. No one turned around. No one said a thing.

And then I remembered: oh right, this is New York City. It doesn't give a crap. New York won't celebrate my return. What it will do is stick a foot in front of me and trip me, then look at its nails and pretend it didn't see me go flying, just to remind me that it's way, way cooler than I am.

Well, truthfully, it is way cooler than I am, so that's OK.

I picked myself up, brushed myself off (uninjured, thankfully), had a good laugh at my own expense, and went back to Boston a humbler if slightly more irritated woman.

This is not to say that I didn't have a great weekend. I did. I was visiting one of my best friends, a fierce and fabulous force of nature who I'll call The New Messiah (and no harm or offense intended to anyone of any religion. It's just an old nickname). The New Messiah is one of my best critics. She gets the dubious honor of reading the first drafts of my writing, the ones that really should be chucked into a dark corner and hidden from all eyes except my own. She reads through the dreck, anyway, putting up with my worst habits, and gives me honest and constructive feedback.

She didn't read anything this weekend - I have no first drafts right now - but she did listen patiently as I fumbled through an explanation of my newest idea. We were standing on a subway platform in Brooklyn - the G train platform, which, for those of you uninitiated into the joys of the G, means that we had a nice, long, extended time to wait, and talk.

When I finished talking, she looked right at me, and said, "That sounds like a great idea. I'd read that book."

Now, whether or not this is true (and it is; the New Messiah is many things, but she is not a liar. If she hated the idea, she would tell me. This is another reason why she gets to read my first drafts), this a great thing to say to an insecure writer.

And then, she did the next great thing you can do for a writer: she talked through my idea with me, ad nauseum. She asked excellent questions, gave thought-provoking suggestions, and by the time the G showed up (only 17 hours later, no biggie), I felt like it might actually be possible to pull this damn idea off.

I know it seems roundabout, but this whole story really is central to the process of writing a novel.

You see, there's a great myth that writers are solitary creatures. We are, to some extent; we do work alone. But very few of us write alone. For me, my friends are essential and much-valued parts of my process. They act as sounding-boards and collaborators; they edit and proofread and cheerlead and tell me the awful truth when no one else will. And I love them for it, and I never get through the outlining process without them.

Oh, yeah - the part about face-planting on the sidewalk? Yeah, that's not about my friends or my process. Sorry. BUT, I will almost definitely be putting a scene like that - with that feeling, equal parts irritation and humor, and that memory of being ignored by the giant, ever-turning city - into a book. So you see, it really all is related.

To NaNoWriMo, or Not to NaNoWriMo?

NOTE: Largely thanks to the IWSG, I have amazing writers leaving comments on my posts. I LOVE THAT. However, there have been a few whispers from non-writers who feel unsure about commenting, since they don't write. Well, don' worry aboudit. Seriously, this blog is for readers as well as writers. Writers read, but so do lots of other people. At least, I hope so, despite the grim gloom-and-doom research about Americans' growing lack of interest in literature. Which is just a long-winded (of course; this is me, here) way of saying that all readers' comments are more than welcome!

A while back, I mentioned that while I've been editing and polishing Cloudland, I've also been working on my second novel. Now, at the time, that may have been true. At this point (to borrow from Star Trek VI), that's either an omission, an error, or a choice... or ok FINE, Spock. It's a lie.

I didn't intend for that to be the case. The thing is, editing and getting ready to query agents are just a wee bit of a time-suck, not to mention a truly all-engrossing head-space. So, I'm going to use this blog this week to help me get back into developing this new idea. It's a group effort now. Thanks, everyone!!

This new novel a bit past the seed stage, thankfully...but not by much. It's a seed-ling. It has little shoots and maybe a couple of bitty green sprouts that are rapidly shriveling and turning brown because I keep forgetting to water them.

What is it? Well, the original seed was that I wanted to write about the intersection of fear, desire, and faith, and (because I love the genre), I wanted it to be more fully magical realism than I managed with Cloudland, which really turned out to be literary fiction with some fantastical stuff mixed in (and yes, for all non-writers, that classification in particular has always seemed snobby to me, too, but it's widely accepted in the publishing world. So I have to use it and I just hold my nose when I do.) 

I decided that I wanted gods and magic in this new novel, and - because really, how better to talk about fear, desire, and faith? - I wanted to involve religion and spirituality.

Right now, because I seem to be a masochist, my idea is to have the two main characters in this book be souls with innumerable lives and experiences, instead of normal, reliable, easier-to-write people with one solid story each. I have this thought of having the book follow them from life to life, in the form of short or even flash fiction style stories, so that the plot progresses as they succeed or fail in each life.

I have the beginning character analyses for these two souls (and let me tell you, it is challenging to write a psychological analysis for a soul. I mean, do souls go to therapy??), and I have a few settings I know I want to explore, which at this point revolve around love affairs. You know, desire and fear and all that. I've got ideas for a love affair between a Greek god and a mortal in Ancient Greece, a la Mary Renault; a Hindi goddess and a modern atheist; and a Christian reverend and a secular scientist. I also have ideas for two young brothers, a recurring encounter (NOT a creepy one) between a man and a dog, and a story about a young female shaman-ish character and a hunter from a different region (occuring pre-Columbus).

And that's about it. Not really a plot yet, eh? A ton of work yet to do, eh?? (Am I Canadian now, eh?) So I have this equally masochistic thought that to get a jump start on this damn thing, maybe I should participate in NaNoWriMo this year. NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month, is, to quote their website, "a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30."

Yeah. That means I'd need to have an outline by November 1st. Or at least a rough sketch of one.

YIKES.

Is this even possible?? I have no idea. Historically, outlines take me forever. I still don't even know the damn story, yet. I mean, two souls, magic and fear and stuff, OK, all well and good, but what happens? How do they change, grow, fail, succeed?

So this is what I'm wrestling with.

Yup.

It seems like it might be a good idea, and that it might speed my rather slow process up... but it also seems CRAZY.

To NaNoWriMo, or not to NaNoWriMo? That is definitely today's question.

The Number One Best Way to Procrastinate. Ever.

This week, as I was perusing my blog (yes, I sometimes reread my own posts. After I've published them. Navel-gazing, what?), I realized that I've drifted a wee bit from my stated purpose, which is to provide an inside look into the process of writing a novel. Now, this is understandable, and I did warn you at the very beginning that I might stray from time to time, but it's time to get back to the main road. The novel-process road, anyway. 

Also, I wrote that purpose down at the very top of the blog, under my header picture, in big bold letters. It's like having a small elf standing on my shoulder and continuously yelling at me to get my butt back in gear.

So. A couple of weeks ago, while expounding on the pantsing vs. plotting writing styles, I made a nice, neat little outline of my process, because I outline everything. (No, really, I do. Including my insecurities.) And as I was doing that, and linking each item back to a post I'd written, I found a big, gaping hole in the very beginning: research.

Now, I imagine that different writers feel very differently about research, so I can only speak for myself when I say that I FREAKING LOVE IT. Call me a dork, but I'm laughing all the way to the bank. Er, the computer. Researching is a time-honored, perfectly acceptable, even necessary method of procrastination. See, you need to research; it's essential for a rich, believable, interesting story, so when you're doing it, you're working. Except, you're not writing. You're avoiding that. See how that works? Genius.

When I was working on Cloudland, I had a few areas that I knew I'd need to research. As I am not a) a public school social worker (like Sara), b) a child psychologist, or c) an expert on children's grief and grieving, I knew right away that I'd need to find out just a little bit more about all three subjects.

First: social work. I started by interviewing a grade school guidance counselor, which was the right age group but the wrong job, but close enough to a school social worker that it was very relevant. Then, I interviewed a high school social worker - the right job but the wrong age. Between the two of them, plus some research and reading of my own into social work in public schools, I got a wealth of information about their jobs, their training, their methods, expectations and daily work, and much more, and was able to piece together what the life and job of a grade school social worker might be like. I am very, very grateful to both women for their time and help. (And yes, I would have loved to interview an actual grade school social worker, but for a variety of reasons I couldn't easily find one. So I improvised.)

Second: child psychology. Maybe this seems strange, since I wasn't writing a book about the way a child's mind develops. But one of my main characters, Jake, is a six-year-old boy, and I needed some insight into how a six-year-old perceives the world. How does a first grader see and understand his parents? Religion? God? Death? I spoke at length with the guidance counselor about these topics. Then I read some work by Jean Piaget and other renowned child psychologists, until I thought my head might explode, which took about ten minutes. Tops. 

Luckily, my wife teaches first and second grade. Jackpot! She rescued me from dense, dry psychology books and gave me a bunch of articles, plus her own extensive knowledge. I then found a few helpful books at the Boston Public Library, including one absolute goldmine called The Spiritual Life of Children by Robert Coles, which is a fascinating and moving look into how children from different cultures perceive God. It was beyond helpful; it was inspiring. It gave me huge insight into Jake's character and provided the basis for the opening chapters, as well as the thinking behind Jake's decision to try to find his mom. 

Third: how a child grieves, which is wrapped up in how a child understands death. This one was difficult, but again, I spoke with my wife and the guidance counselor, I read books from the library, and finally, best of all, I read through a folder my wife gave me, which contained resources and information for teachers of young kids to use when someone in their class had suffered a loss.

This all took a very long time, as you might imagine. Again, that's part of the glorious procrastinating power of research! In all seriousness, though, besides the enormous insights you get, one of the best parts of researching is when you stumble across an idea, or a piece of information, that captures your imagination and beckons you to follow it. When you listen, and walk down the path that idea offers, it can often lead to surprising, inspiring, and even revelatory changes to the story. During the process of my research, I stumbled on some information about djinn, or genies, as well as the Mexican holiday El Dia De Los Muertos, or the Day of the Dead. Both of these ideas helped to shape Cloudland in unexpected ways. 

How?

Well, gee. You might have to wait until it's published to find out.

Which might be a while. Sorry about that. 

Insecure Writers: Outlines Are My Binky

NOTE: It's the first Wednesday of the month, so it's time for The Insecure Writers! For those who don't remember from last month, it's an online group for writers. Most of whom are insecure. So we support each other from the safety and comfort of our desks. It's perfect.

Happy Wednesday and IWSG, everyone! In honor of the two-year anniversary of IWSG, I'm taking a brave, massive step outside of my comfort zone, and writing about feeling neurotic and insecure as a writer today. Because, you know, I never do that here. Ever.

I'm taking a numbered, outline-ish approach to today's post, because yes, I'm a plodder plotter through-and-through, and numbered lists make me feel safe and warm and happy and reassure me that all is right with the world. Just like a binky. Also, I just can't help myself. So, without further ado, here's my List of Current Worries While Attempting to Write (Note: this list will probably change by tomorrow. Or later today. I make no promises that I will not have an entirely different list of worries in about ten minutes):

1. New Ideas: Yes, I'm still wading through piles of slain paragraphs as I edit Cloudland, but I'm also working on a new idea (more on that later). Every time I come up with a new seed for a book, I wrestle with the same thought process. It goes something like this: Oh... oh WOW. This is fantastic. This is genius. I'M a genius! Wait til this gets out into the world!! Oh god, wait. People - real, live people - will see this? WILL people see this? Will anyone WANT to read this??? Is this actually a good idea, or is it instead a truly STUPID INSANE ASININE IDEA THAT EVERYONE WILL HATE? Ok. Deep breaths, deep breaths. Yes, this IS smart. I'm smart! Wait. Am I too smart?? Am I even CAPABLE of writing this? Oh god... And so on and so forth. 
2. Actual WRITING: I spend a lot of time talking about process, but not a whole lot about the actual act of writing. Which is really - note to self - an entire other blog post or ten. But for the purposes of this list, let's just say that on the good days, generating text is FUN. I feel like a superhero streaming words from my awesome Spidey wrist web-shooters. On the bad days, every single word is up for intense, microscopic examination. You know: Is this really the word I want to use? Why isn't this sentence FLOWING correctly? NOTHING SOUNDS RIGHT KEEP GOING DON'T BE A SISSY. Fun stuff like that.
3. Time: Oh yes, this is a huge one. I'm always juggling life demands with writing, and always worrying that I'll never actually manage to finish anything. Now, I do have a finished third draft (HALLELUJAH!!!) of Cloudland, so this concern might be slightly overblown and unrealistic, but really, since when does insecurity rely on reality? However, I do have a day job. Blessedly, I am busy at my day job, and therefore am making money and eating and paying my mortgage and buying too many books. But that damn job keeps interfering with writing. Strangely, people don't want to pay for a massage unless I actually show up and give them one. Weird, right?
4. Agents and the Long-Feared Query Letter: I am fast approaching the point where I'll be sending query letters to agents and trying to convince them to a) open the email, b) actually read it, c) ask me to read some pages of my novel, and d) represent me. This is making me very, very nervous. People often ask me why I don't just try to get a publisher, and the quick answer is that even if I'm lucky enough to find one who wants to publish my book, I'm going to need an agent to help me negotiate a contract. So, that means I have to try to sell myself. Which I am so, so, SO very good it. Or not.

I know, only four items today! Not so bad, right?

Well, truthfully, #3 is giving me a headache and lighting a fire under my butt, which hurts, so my brain decided to stop coming up with worries and start telling me to get the hell to work. Which is my plan. As long as I can get over #s 1 and 2.

You know what, though? I feel a little better now that I've gotten all of that out. Huh.

So, IWSG folks, as well as non-writers, what are your worries today? Writing related or not - all are welcome. Leave 'em here on this blog, and walk away a little lighter and less insecure for the day. See? IWSG For All.