NaNoWriMo Perspectives and Helps

Just picture it: you are your newborn
(novel).

Hello, Scribblers and Book Bandits,

If you are considering doing NaNoWriMo this year, welcome to a smorgasbord of perspectives on the matter! Every year, as October comes to an end, I post about this month-long literary celebration. Here are a few old posts and a few new ones for Wrimos to digest.

Last year, I posted a pre-NaNo roundup of great resources. They are still helpful, so feel free to check them out. The post by Mary Kole gives the positives and negatives of the exercise.  Nathan Bransford offers helpful resources in his post, such as his "NaNoWriMo Bootcamp." The experienced story consultant Lisa Cron talks about how to avoid the pitfalls inherent in a month-long noveling stint. Martha Alderson tells us how we can pre-plot our novels in preparation for the event.

This list of genre descriptions from Agentquery.com can help you discover and decide the genre of  novel-to-be.

Lisa Cron writes on the subject of NaNo once again, this time advising writers about how to prep your characters.

And, finally, young adult author and illustrator Ingrid Sundberg gives her own five tips about how to prepare.

So far, most of these posts have been supportive, if realistic, perspectives. But not everyone feels that way about NaNo, which is something important to consider. Maggie Stiefvater, who has tried NaNo in the past, 1.) rants about it (hilariously) in her annual "Dear John" letter, and 2.) explains why she dislikes it and why no one needs it.

As with everything else, we have to decide for ourselves whether NaNo can be a helpful part of our writing process. I'm in the midst of trying out the insane-outline approach to noveling, so I will not be taking part, at least in the traditional sense. What have you decided?

Photo Attribution:
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1981-076-05A / Höss / CC-BY-SA [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

Story Notes, Story Words & My 86 Seconds of Fangirly Fame

Scribblers and Book Bandits,

If you watch the first 1 min and 26 seconds of this video , you will see me being fangirly famous (sort of); I promise it will be useful to you, if you do, because we'll be analyzing the writing style of Lauren Oliver based on the info she shares about her writing process.



Yeeeah, did you hear? Christy Luis!

Okay, onto the real subject of this post.

Lauren Oliver writes enormously popular Young Adult and Middle Grade fiction (Before I Fall, The Pandemonium series, The Spindlers). I've only read the first novel, but its unusual structure and skilled plotting drew my attention--it was a very impressive debut. Oliver also runs an innovative e-publisher called Paper Lantern Lit. She and other "story architects" find writers with a strong voice and teach them about the higher order writing skills involved in structuring story. The architects provide the structure; the writers provide "the talent."

All this talk about structure is what interested me in Lauren Oliver. She obviously has a strong writing method that works for her, so I decided to ask her about it.

What she shares in this video is a mix of planner/pantser writing style. I want to talk about it with you and compare it to 1.) a strict planner's process, and 2.) a strict pantser's process.

I asked emailed this question to Oliver: "You said you write 1,000 words a day. Are all of these words 'story words?' Or do outlining and brainstorming count?" A writer-friend and I had recently discussed the benefits of writing "story notes" along with story drafts. She and I have both wondered if story notes really "count" towards daily word quotas when one is working on a novel. In order to truly understand this concept and its relevance to our own processes, it will be helpful to compare the "panster" method, which uses very few "story notes," versus the "planner method" with its targeted story notes (outlines, brainstorms, etc.). The key for each individual writer is to discover her own happy medium, as Lauren Oliver has. We will analyze her method after looking at first the pantser, then the planner method.

"Story Words" are written “in the moment” --they are short sighted because they come from deep a character's point of view; in contrast, Story Notes are good for long range planning and following several idea strands to see where they could end. Story notes and story words come at the problem in two different ways. These two approaches are also known "pantser" versus "plotter."

Sometimes writing a scene is the only way to discover bits of a story. Quick example: I was trying to outline my first few novel chapters and the plan wasn't clicking very well, but I had to write the chapters anyway for a school deadline. As I wrote, I realized my main character was actually an orphan working as a prison guard as payment for his room and board in the prison's training wing. I may never have found this knowledge, which solved several of my story snarls, simply using story notes and outlining. I had to write in the character's prison-issued shoes in order to understand his sad existence.

In writing NaNoWriMo novels (50,000 words in 30 days during National Novel Writing Month, which is November), I learned some of the benefits of "just writing" without listening to my "inner editor"--the pantser method. Extreme versions of this method have worked well for some authors, such as, say, Ray Bradbury. Pantsers write first drafts, or even multiple drafts, of the story in lieu of outlining and story-notes. Bradbury advised his students to write 4 pages a day. "Most of that will be bilge, but the rest will save your life.” He would think about the work and organize its structure after writing it. These types of writers often say, "Once I've got words on the page, it's much easier to 'fix' them."

But as far as I can tell, I don't work well writing 1670 words a day (average for a NaNoWriMo day) off the cuff. NaNo gave me a few nifty plot twists, a bit of lovely prose and a giant mess of a first draft. In attempting to revise two (and a half) NaNo novels, I learned that writing that way is simply too fast because I literally don't have time to outline, write story notes and discover all the options I could take. I have no time to explore and ruminate. Each time, I ended up throwing out the entire story draft because it's structure is too much of a mess. It doesn't matter how much I love the lovely bits if there is no real useable story.

I think my stories turn out this way because my natural story choices aren't usually the best. I have to explore all of my options in order to find the perfect one (at least on the structural and outer-character-arc levels). Juliet Marillier is an example of a professional author who explores extensively before actually writing. You can read two great breakdowns of her process, here and here, in her own words. And I know I've probably mentioned this about a thousand times on the blog and elsewhere, but John Truby offers a thorough and effective array of structural techniques in his book The Anatomy of Story. I am still mining this "planner method," because I didn't even know about it until after I wrote my first novel NaNo style (which is probably a good thing. I would have run away screaming before I had a chance to get hooked). For my second NaNo, I outlined a little bit in preparation, but I still didn't know what I was doing. Bradbury did say that plotting should happen  after the first draft. So there is a planning, organizing and plotting phase that a writer must go through. Why not do it before actually writing?

It seems to me that story notes and first drafts accomplish much the same thing, even if they go about it a bit differently. I try to solve as many problems as I can using story notes because it’s much quicker for me than spending days on a sequence of scenes which I must promptly throw out because, well, the structure was unstable/a character took an entirely wrong turn/should have been the antagonist instead; etc. So story notes should count at least somewhat towards a daily word goal. (I will address that "somewhat" in a bit.)

Let's get back to Lauren Oliver for a sec, because she falls right in the middle of this planner/pantser debate. Oliver's process is a bit more of a "pantser" method than I am able to work with, at least at this point in my journey. She writes 1,000 words a day, and 90% of days, she's writing "story words" not "story notes" like brainstorming and outlining.

I researched Oliver a bit and found other insights into her process that contextualize this tidbit. In a different video, Oliver also says that she begins novels impulsively by writing about 10,000 words of her story without slowing down. If the story seems to be jiving, she sets it aside and compiles a working outline before continuing on with her word count. Perhaps the "working outline" is a very SMALL working outline, or perhaps she only takes a few full days to write it. At any rate, she does not take months to do so because, as we know, she writes 1,000 story words a day.

Oliver also offers that she started trying to write novels at a very young age and it took her many years to actually finish one. When she finally did finish one in college, it had no plot. So if young writers just blast out ginormous word quotas from the beginning, most of it the writing be structural miasma. I believe this is why Oliver also often says that it takes time to build up the discipline of meeting a word quota everyday. The quotas may be time quotas, fifteen minutes a day, in the beginning (as she said in another video). I believe by this she means that beginningish writers can meet some sort of quota and raise the quota as they grow in skill enough to properly meet it every day.

And in another video, she mentioned that her first drafts are, let's say, what Hemmingway calls first drafts. This means that she does what many pantsers do and basically uses her first draft as an outline. Her guest author friend essentially answered the question the same way as Oliver, but allowed that sometimes she "cheats" by letting "planning" into the word count.

So what I'm getting from all of this is "What you put into the words is what you get out of them." If you just let loose and write thousands of words a day, you will probably have to snip a lot of lousy and a lot of wonderful writing because it simply doesn't fit the end product. But that does not mean we have to write as Juliet Marillier does in the posts I linked above, outlining every paragraph, practically. In fact, that may be taking too much control and losing creativity, for some people. 

But truly, for several reasons, writing "story words" and "story notes" go hand in hand. When one or the other isn’t helping, I switch.

Eventually we need to recognize when it's time to begin. We cannot just write story notes forever, obviously--we must hone our skill and gradually work towards the confidence that we can begin our stories. I've come to the conclusion that it's important to "write write" at least a little bit during every writing session, be it character exercises for your novel, actual scenes, or even writing on another project that is past the planning stage (I'm preaching to myself, here, but feel free to take it to heart).

I think the NaNo method of a first draft can work wonders if I outline it significantly first. I'm working on a big 'ole outline right now, and I hope to blast out the first draft during a NaNo stint(perhaps next month, perhaps during Camp NaNo), outline in hand. I'm using John Truby book that I mentioned earlier in order to write my outline.

This is my opinion based on trial and error, and it will probably change in my growth as a writer. We all must discover through trial and error what works and what doesn't for our unique processes. It’s time-consuming to really search out and understand my own process, but I guess that’s why they say it takes a million words or a decade to learn how to write well!"

Hopefully you find something helpful in this mess of methodology comparison, whether you're a pantser or a planner or something in between. Should you write story notes? Or should you press on with your word count? It's up to you to find out.

Photo Attribution:
Different kinds of Kings of Clubs. By Tired time (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 

How I Write Essays in 16 Steps (Which can also be how YOU write essays in 16 Steps!)

If I've learned how to do one thing as an English major, it's how to write a solid essay. This process took a long time to refine, though, starting way back in Junior Year of high school. (Well, before then, my teachers tried to teach me. Thank you, Ben Sombs. But I was not very receptive at that time, I guess! :) Many of the teachers at Regent University online have been particularly helpful in giving me personalized feedback about what wasn't working in my essays. Gradually, this and writing stories have helped me develop a good process. (The processes of essay-writing and story-writing actually don't differ a whole lot, as I'll note along the way.) I don't always use every step because each essay is a little different; but I wanted to share all the tools I have used. This post will share everything I wish I knew back when I first started writing essays.

1.) Before I begin read my source (if the essay requires one) and subject or prompt, I find some good study materials to ponder along with my reading; if the essay requires no source, I carefully examine the prompt. Study questions are particularly helpful for research or analysis essays: I find them on websites like Sparknotes.com, or get them from a teacher. If I can, I find some sort of introduction or context for the source, as well. I also make sure to study my prompt very carefully; my AP English teacher always said "'AP' stands for 'Address the Prompt.'"

2.) Then I begin reading my source and taking notes on themes or anything that could possibly be useful.* For longish research essays, this step could take up quite a bit of time. But...I shut up and eat my peas. That's just how writing goes, sometimes! Hence why I like to get started on this a week or two before my essay is due.

*If I don't need a source, I just brainstorm about my topic and thesis. When I finish brainstorming, I skip to step 4 on this list.

Notes are like mind mulch. Good seeds come from mind mulch. (To see how I make mind mulch for stories, check out this post.)

3.) Once I'm finished reading, I just write about the material for a while in an effort to pin down topic ideas. Actually, sometimes I'm not finished reading everything, yet, if this is a research essay; but I make sure to constantly ask, "What is the author of the source trying to tell me?" as I do read and after I finish a source. As I observe main points and themes (for which the study questions come in handy), I keep asking myself what might be useful for my thesis. Throughout this step and the rest, I ask myself question after question about the material and my own notes so I can begin to understand it all and make connections. I describe this process in this post, if you are curious about it. Although I describe it there in terms of story-writing, it works exactly the same way in essay-writing.

4.) When I've brainstormed everything I can possibly think of to say on the sources and topics, I go back over my notes and highlight the best stuff I find there. This mysterious "best stuff" will often be made up of conclusions I've drawn from the rest of the mass. Sometimes I'll spend a whole page or more just coming to one conclusion. Most teachers never tell you that lots of "eh-but-necessary notes" happen before the good stuff happens. Once in a while, the study questions yield good stuff immediately. But by the time I finished my last essay, an analysis of Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, I ended up with a whopping six pages of messy notes on top of the four pages of my essay. And each note brought me closer to "the end."

5.) I compile the "good stuff" onto a new page or word document, separating it from the leftovers.  Typically, by this point, some sort of central idea is beginning to percolate in the back of my mind, so I pick the notes that fit that idea. But I make sure to save the old leftover notes in case I change my mind later.

6.) At this point, I might need to take a break. Emptying my brain is usually exhausting, if I do it right.

7.) Next, I make connections between my ideas by scanning and sorting my good notes (and, if necessary, my leftovers). I write s'more, beginning to form ideas for the introduction that will lead me and my readers through the mass of information (though the introduction will not truly take its final shape until later). If I need to, I riffle amongst those old notes I saved. Perhaps I find that I need to expand or change the central idea, or perhaps my exhausted brain picked the wrong central idea at first. Whatever the reason, old notes sometimes come in handy. Because I'm a visual learner, I use strikethrough text to cross out old ideas when they may have become irrelevant, and I use the highlighter tool to pick out new "good stuff." Actually, I don't know what the heck a visual learner is, or if I am one, but these two tools sure help! At this point, I am still asking and answering any questions about my own essay or my source the way I described in that post I mentioned in step 3.

8.) After I've picked some good ideas out of my notes, I develop a thesis. I refine the central idea I've been pondering. It may be tough to find amidst all the possibilities, so I keep them all, for now. My thesis may begin to come to me even before I've finished all my research. And even at this point, my central idea/Frankenstein monster thesis may completely change. I usually panic at this step because it's hard, but I'm sort of learning to skip that and just keep looking for the best option.  The best kind of thesis will not have lots of directions--it will be fairly concise. It will state a firm claim about my topic, one I think I can prove. Everything else I write in this essay will depend upon this one little sentence. Again, highlighting and strikethrough text come in handy.

The thesis is a lot like the premise of a story. Or like God. It is the Alpha and the Omega of your essay.

9.) Once I have my thesis, I move it onto a brand-spankin'-new page. This is a new beginning, because I finally have a focus point for my essay. But I keep my notes in a separate document in case I need them again.

10.) I use my notes to figure out what points to make in support of my thesis. These are called "supporting points," and they will form the backbone of my essay though the body paragraphs. It may take some time to find these main points. I compile all the major ideas I've discovered into the all important introductory paragraph, which is still messy. I compare them with my thesis and pick the best ones.

11.) Once I  have some possible "supporting points," there's nothing to do but try them out. I start filling in the spots between the supporting points to see if they actually lead anywhere (they don't always, but there's no way to find that out until I explore them). Yep, more notes! But these notes will eventually become my body paragraphs. I make sure to quote directly from my source to support each of my points. Even supporting points need support.

12.) Once I've filled out my body paragraphs, I start connecting them with transitions. If I can't connect one of my supporting points/body paragraphs, that's alright. I just paste it right near the top of my "notes" documents so I know where to find it, in case I change my mind. I may even erase it using "track changes" if I can't bear to simply remove it (another useful crossover from my story-writing process). Usually, by the time I've finished my essay and I check back on these track change deletions, I have no problem removing them because I've realized they just don't fit. This is how I trick myself into "killing my darlings."

13.) I tie everything up into a conclusion. I may form the conclusion at any time during the essay, not just at the end. Creating the conclusion helps me see my essay as a whole for the first time. It also forces me to see whether or not all the parts of the essay (introduction, body paragraphs and transitions) fit together. I summarize all of my main points and tie them into my argument, the thesis. And once I've finished with all these parts of the essay--thesis, body paragraphs, transitions and conclusion--there's only one essay component left to write.

14.) I write the introduction of the essay. This may seem backward, but let me explain. My introduction shows the reader the main points I will make and the order I will make them in.* If I don't know those things myself yet, how can I introduce them to my reader? I tinker with my introduction throughout the essay because it gives my essay both form and focus. It shares the "designing principle" (a term from John Truby's wonderful book The Anatomy of Story) of the essay with my readers--meaning, what will I cover and in what order? For example if I decide I'm going to argue how Moll Flanders changed after each of her (five) marriages in the essay, I might let them know the order: first marriage to last. Readers need to know this. So, to recap: once I've figured out my supporting points and tied them together using the transitions and conclusion, I can officially write "the" perfect intro to my creation because I finally have all the parts. That's what I write it at the end. Then I've finished my rough draft! The process gets easier from here on out.

*The introduction also interests the reader in my essay so they'll keep reading. This is called "hooking" the reader. A "hook" can be a quote, a question, a startling statistic or claim...anything that will interest them, really.

15.) I clean up the draft by clarifying rough spots, fixing typos and making it all-around prettier. This usually involves taking a step back and letting the work sit for a short time. If I have a few days (I usually don't), I'll come back to the essay and probably be glad I did. Oftentimes I'm too "close" to my work to catch all the typos. I almost always read my paper out loud to myself before turning it in, because that helps even an overloaded brain find the weak spots. Some people print papers out to spot more typos, but that doesn't do much for me. Save a tree. Once in a while I will change the font as I do a final read-through. This helps catch those final typos because, rather than skimming through all that Times New Roman again, I have to actually look at the words. And then? Then I'm finished.

16.) And I go celebrate. Seriously, that was hard work.

This process is extremely fluid, which can make it stressful. Every essay works out a little bit differently. I always use certain steps, but other steps I only use once in a while. And there is no set time period for writing an essay--often, it takes me at least a full day of slogging to complete a rough draft. But even sledding, an essay takes hours of diligent work. But once you learn to trust the process (your own process, I mean, not necessarily the one I've laid out here), then it will become a bit less stressful. We Scribblers must simply keep pressing on if we're going to write worth-while essays!


Photo Attribution
By Dbxsoul (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

An Investigation: How to Identify Your Story's Problems

Scribblers,

I ran across a problem in one of my stories, recently. That's not bad or even unexpected. A problem can be dealt with.

But I couldn't figure out what the problem was, exactly.

Have you ever experienced that? You can't put your finger on it, but something about your story is out of place?

Part of writing is learning how to deal with this. There are probably a million ways, as there are for every other step of the writing process. I'll tell you how I do it, though:

I transform into an investigator. An investigator refuses to be discouraged by puzzling clues or the general unpleasantness of bad writing. We Scribblers must be inquisitive folk. When a story of ours has a problem, we must be all up in its business. Nosy. Investigative.

Asking questions is the best technique I've found to discern the nature of a problem.

Lately, I've been revising a piece of historical fiction. I researched lots of period details, carefully formulated a unique story structure and mapped out what my main character wanted and needed.

But something was missing. The story felt dead. I sent it around to a few friends and got some great feedback, but even as I revised it, I just didn't like it very much.

So I turned to questions. When trying to solve a hazy problem in revisions, I have to push past my natural comfort zone and persistently inquire about my story's problems. I have to ask,

"Which areas feel wrong?"

I follow my intuition to areas that just don't feel "right." Typically, these are areas that I've been avoiding because they're uncomfortable and I don't feel like digging in to assess the damage.

This questioning process frequently takes me down tangents that may seem unrelated to each other, but I pour every thought out onto the page. I explore every misgiving or uncomfortable vibe via multiple smaller, more specific questions. Any one of them or all of them combined could be "the" problem, or a symptom of "the" problem, or at least an opportunity to improve my story. Exploring and questioning can be time-consuming, but they are necessary for me.*

*Lots of writers do this "exploring." As always, I would direct you to John Truby's The Anatomy of Story and Chris Baty's No Plot? No Problem! (Chris Baty is also the creator of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month).



This is an example of what story notes, questions and exploring can
sometimes look like. The red is what I'm unsure about. Other times,
I highlight, make comments, or use strikethrough text to sort.

When you go on revision-brainstorming tangents, your subconscious is trying to point out what feels wrong about your story.

After I've exhausted my tangent, I've typically exhausted my brain, too. I take a break for a bit. Then I come back and organize the mess of "story notes" that usually looks like words, words, words without meaning. I have to fight off a headache and lots of distractions every time I begin to sort and evaluate this mess because it can be tedius and discouraging.* It's hard to deal with intangibles, especially if you are an indecisive sort of person, like I am. But I have to explore my options.



This is an example of a more "sorted" section. I've organized my
thoughts into labeled lists of ideas, such as the character's "Desires"
or the story's "Premise." But tangents still butt in throughout the
entire process, as evidenced by the gigantic comment to the right.

*I also begin to question myself: Exactly how short is my attention span? Am I really cut out to be a writer? How could I possibly write such a dead boring story? If you hear these voices in your head as well, don't worry. Once you push past the madness in your first few stories, you'll start to develop the confidence that you'll eventually like the end results. (Note: Your housemate(s) might try to comfort you at this stage. What nice friends. Tell them you'll be okay, you're just dealing with the voices.)

All these tangents and miniature questions may show you an overwhelming amount of work to be done still (it did for me: the side characters, the main character voice, and the themes). And/or, you might find that all these smaller problems are a symptom of one larger problem. My problems stemmed mainly from writing the end of my story all wrong. Don't worry, your story will be better for your revisions. But before implementing them, you can always save the old draft, in case you don't like the result.

I have one more technique that helps me form questions, if I'm struggling to sift through my masses of notes. Or perhaps I am perplexed by some seemingly unrelated feedback from my online critique group, and my investigation isn't helping.

I usually take a day off from my brainstorming page and open up an email addressed to no one.

I imagine I know a recipient who has all the "answers" to my story story questions. But this person is  extremely busy, so I don't want to waste her time. Like a professor, for example (uh oh, my technique development is showing).

I then form my incomprehension into a few perfect, succinct questions in the clearest possible manner. If I don't have an answer to my question by the time I form it (often, I do), I save it in my "drafts."

Then I do something else for a day, such as reading a writing manual or something else I think might help me answer the question. I may even give my brain a break and read for plain old fun.

Later, I return to the query and revise, revise, revise. Tighten it up even more. Did I really word the question right the first time? Or is my focus slightly off?

Then I take another day off from the question and read some more, or work on another project. (Letting the problem sit can be a great way to solve writing snaggles, as long as you come back on time to make your deadline. I do this constantly with blog posts, school papers or story problems. The only thing is, you have to start the project early in order to have time for rumination.) Then I come back to it again. After a few edit-then-research sessions, I always manage to find an answer.

If this doesn't work, you can do as I do and ask this wonderful agent/author/editor for advice! But you'll have to be able to form a general question about it, rather than asking for specific feedback on your work.

Before you try asking the agent/author/editor, though, try questioning yourself. You might be surprised what these organic techniques will yield in you. More than once, I've drafted an email to the agent/author/editor and discovered the answer to my question during the process. Yes, this is how I discovered the technique for myself. Somehow, trying to explain the issue to someone else with respect to their time and attention helps me find, ask and answer the right questions.

So, get in touch with your inquisitive side, Scribblers!

 

Photo Attribution: By Sidney Paget (1860-1908) (Strand Magazine) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

To Be Truly Brave: Religion in YA Fiction

I always thought YA Fiction was brave in breaking down boundaries and discussing the undiscussable in fiction. Homosexuality is a good example. In what other genres do you find titles like Boy Meets Boy? However, I've discovered the disheartening truth that YA Fiction isn't always being brave. Sometimes it is simply being trendy. What with the gay rights campaigns blaring, books about gay teenagers are becoming the popular causes to promote. But I think if YA Fiction wanted to be truly brave and groundbreaking, it would talk about something the overwhelming majority of teenagers worry about: religion.

At least 84% of the world identifies themselves with a religion, and much of the remaining 16% still believes in some sort of spirituality, according to this article by the Huffington Post. That's...most of the world! So you would think YA Fiction would be all over that.

But it's not. Why?

In America, it's popular, comfortable and sanctioned to bash religion. But that isn't the case in most of the world or in every circle of Americans.

I read an interview of the author Rae Carson, a secular humanist, in which she expresses regret that today's religious teens can't find themselves in the fiction supposedly written for them. When asked why she included religion in her Fantasy novel, she said, "I include it because religion exists, and because I think it's tragic when teenagers can't find themselves in fiction."

Teens today do have to deal with religion. They have to discover it and learn about it and decide what they believe. They may have religion in their family, or their family may be atheists, but they will still have to decide for themselves one way or the other.

Don't get me wrong: there is some YA Fiction that digs into religion, but most of the main-stream popular books bash it, brush it aside, or ignore it altogether. YA Fiction owes teens dialogue about something so important.

And by the way, it owes them more than blown up stereotypes and purposefully antagonistic representations.

So let's break the ringing silence and talk this out.

The social reading website, Goodreads.com, provides some religiously-themed YA Fiction booklists, in case you're looking for them. You can get to Goodreads by clicking the box of my book reviews in the top right of my blog site page.

On a side note, should Christian teens be relegated to reading "Christian Fiction" in order to identify themselves in their fun reading? I've talked before about my feelings on the label "Christian Fiction." What do you think?

Photo Attribution:
By Morio (photo taken by Morio) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

So You Want to be an Artist?: An Interview With Poet and Visual Artist Mary Dixon

Greetings Scribblers and Book Bandits,

Recently I was honored and blessed to interview Regent University professor Mary Marie Dixon. She is both a poet and an artist with degrees in both fields (and in theology to boot. Smart cookie!). If you want a succinct description of her many qualifications, click here. After you read her interview below, you can check the bottom of this page for links to her work.

 

1.) “Professor Dixon, you studied in several disciplines. Why did you choose to study Theology, Creative Writing, English, Art and Teaching?”

·         “I was a naturally curious person! I’ve always done visual art, and I earned a Bachelor's in Education to teach it in elementary school. As I wrote poetry, my writing was naturally spiritual, so I wanted to ground it in theological study. So I studied Theology in order to understand my own writing.”

2.) “Wow! So when did you know you wanted to be a poet? Artist?”

·         “I knew I wanted to be an artist from a young age. I liked writing poetry in high school, but I just dabbled back then. I recognized early on that poetry is a kind of cleansing and healing process. It’s both expression, relief, and a method of sharing.  I was a preschool teacher for twenty years and finally went back to school for my Master’s Degree and began writing.”

3.) “You pair together some of your poetry and art. Is that usually a conscious decision, or does your work naturally begin to flow like that?“

·         “When I started at Notre Dame, I intentionally created some of my pieces together. Later on, some it naturally meshed with my poetry, but most often it is by design.”*

*Scribblers and Book Bandits, this is an interesting point by Dixon. Sometimes inspiration will hit us, but usually we must purposefully design our work for a certain effect.

4.) “I'm sure any of the readers looking at your art will wonder about your medium. What is it and how did you start using it?”

·         “Wallpaper primarily. In college, I liked to paint with watercolors, but after my twenty year break, I lost some of that skill. That was frustrating. I would like to get back to it, but I just don’t have the time right now. So instead of painting, I picked up some wallpaper scraps that were going to waste and started making pictures with my preschoolers. It was so much fun and I liked what I could do with it. Then I ran across this book about ‘scherenschnitte,’ which is German paper-cutting. That inspired my own work.”

5.) “How do you actually create your art?”

·         “I just use scissors to cut it out. I sketch a design first, then trace and cut it out, often making lots of mistakes and having to redo it. I kept working at paper cutting originally because it was easy to get materials. I just have to have paper, basically, but painting takes a lot of equipment and set up. It’s very time-consuming."

6.) “How did you first get published and for how many years did you write before you were?”

·         “When I was first in college, I published one thing in an anthology. When I went back to school in 2003, my professors told me I had a gift, so I started thinking ‘Well, maybe I should try publishing.’ My professors told me to keep working at getting published: ‘You can be an excellent writer, but if you don’t put in enough effort to get published, you won’t.’  I understand, now, why they said that. Getting published takes a lot of effort! If you don’t work at it, you won’t get published. My advice on the matter is that if you write a significant piece you think is publishable, keep sending it out there and eventually you will find someone to publish it. It’s about diligence. There are lots of great writers out there better than me (Yeah, right Professor Dixon! You’re awesome.) who aren’t published because they aren’t as diligent at submitting pieces.”

7.) “Your writings are often so spiritual. How do you find places to publish them?”

·         “I subscribe to Duotrope Newsletter*, which is very cheap and helpful, and I scour their listings once a month. They send out a huge list of publishers who are looking for themed work. They’ll say they need something on beauty and I’ll know I’ll have something, etc. There’s a lot of newer, obscure or fledging publications that provide good ways to get your feet under you. I have published a lot of stuff because of Duotrope. It’s worth the fee. It used to be very difficult to find journals that would publish overtly religious work, but it’s gotten easier. As far as overtly religious journals, one is “Relief.” Oh- and “Rock and Stream.” But you don’t have to be blatantly spiritual to be a minister. Not everyone is religious, but many wonder about religion. I believe that poetry and art are ministries of beauty- people aren’t always ready for it, but God ministers through beauty. We should use these talents that God gives us. I feel like publishing is something I have to do, though not everyone has that drive. I always have trepidation in sharing my work because, like most writers, I wonder, “Is this relevant to another person?”

*Scribs and Bandits, Duotrope.com charges $5 by month, or $4.17 per month if you buy a full year subscription. You can also follow the site on Twitter for some free info.

8.) “Do you have an opinion about self-publishing?”

·         “I know some people who self-publish. The thing is, it can cost a lot of money. There are a few places that you can do it cheaply- Smashwords, Createspace, etc. But, then, it takes a whole new level of energy. You have to do all the marketing yourself, and that’s a lot of work. Still, ‘self-publishing’ isn’t such a negative term anymore. I belong to the Nebraska Writer’s Guild, and I recently heard a speaker on it there. People used to call it ‘Vanity Publishing,’ and there are still Vanity presses, but there are also legitimate self-publishers and self-published authors.”

9.) “Who are your influences or favorite artists? Authors?”

·         “My favorite art is impressionism because of the combination of colors and vibrancy. I love how the sweeping color makes an image. Monet is one of my favorites, but I like Michaelangelo, classic art, and women’s art. The shapes of Monet and the woman form from Greek and Roman sculpture inspire me. I like the nobility in women’s features. As for poetry, I love Emily Dickinson and David Jones. Jones is kind of difficult to read, but it’s very deep theological material. Gerard Manley Hopkins, Hildegard of Bingen and Theresa of Avila also influence my work.”

10.) “Your influences show in your sophisticated poetic language. It holds up to several rereadings. How did you develop this style?”

·         “When I write, I have a purposeful approach. Sometimes I read poetry to get inspired, then I start freewriting, like stream of consciousness. Then I go back and think on it, and most of the time I’ve written some kind of spiritual perspective to pick out and develop. I usually layer more into the poem. The imagery I use in the beginning is usually set, and the spiritual emphasis comes after that. Sometimes my direction completely changes because revelation is part of poetry. It’s a spiritual exercise for me. It can take me years to finish a piece of poetry!”

11.) “Your work also reflects some agricultural influence.”

·         “Yes, I grew up on a farm picking and plucking and planting and harvesting everything you can think of. In the morning we milked the cows, then we harvested and did chores. The ecology of farm life is very important to me. Work ethic and spirituality come together in my poetry. When I wrote “Odysseus,”* my professor at Notre Dame thought it was weird that I combined those two elements. There is a disconnect, today, for most people about the food they buy from grocery store shelves and how it gets there.”

*Scribs and Bandits, “Odysseus” is one of my favorite poems by Dixon. You can check out the link below these questions!

12.) “What does a typical work day look like for you?” 

·         “I answer all my email, teach my classes, grade papers, and I might have a little time to think about planning for the next day.”

13.) “What would an ideal work day look like for you?”

·         “I would have time to think about my own self-expression. I would also have a little more time for giving feedback to students and planning for the next day. It would be nice if I had a job where I could work in these things. I like to do research—I’m doing research for a paper right now—but during the school year, I don’t have time.”

Don't forget to thank Mary Dixon in the comments section or on her Facebook page, where you can also see some of her gorgeous artwork.

Here are the promised links to her work:

-The Oklahoma Review published her nonfiction piece called "Virtue."
-The Blackbird online journal of literature and the arts published her poem, "Cinnamon Dreams," in Fall 2004.
-A Prairie Journal published her poem "Prairie Dogsology" in 2008.
-Pirene’s Fountain published her poem "Odysseus," my personal favorite, in May 2009.
-Heavy Bear published her poem "Planting Tubers" in 2010.
-Eclectica poetry published her poem "If You Are Western" in 2012.

How I Cultivate Inspiration

Scribblers!
     How do you come up with good story ideas?
     Some writers simply force themselves to write, even when they have no idea what to say. That's just how they get things done.  I call this "Forcing Inspiration" versus "Cultivating Inspiration." For me, this approach works best while I'm brainstorming a story's first outline because everything is still in flux, at that point. I need to force myself to finish the outline. But what about before the outline? What about when I'm considering what idea to begin with? Before I even hit the premise stage? I believe that if a writer cultivates inspiration, he will not have to desperately force this initial inspiration.
    My "Long-term Inspiration Cultivation" = a word document filled with headings such as "Characters," "Situations," and "Themes." There are also genre headings for ideas such as "Contemporary," "Fantasy," or "Non-Fiction" under which I can record project ideas and themes. I make these headings big and bold, and list my ideas by bullet point. Below is an example of what my page looks like right now.

Premises:

• A teenage girl races against a good friend in the dangerous "Scorpio Races" to save her family home. (Premise for The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater.)

Characters:

• A girl determined to become a knight. (Keladry from The Protector of the Small Quartet by Tamora Pierce)
• A boy with stellar instincts who can't remember anything about his identity. (Thomas from The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner)

Themes:

• Learning how to live in a world filled with death. (A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle.)

Contemporary Genre Topics:

• Sexual Assault. (Just Listen by Sarah Dessen.)
• Anorexia. (Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.)

     Whenever I think of a subject, a theme, a character or anything like that, I record it on the page. When I brainstorm, I can smush ideas from this page together to create new stories. A page like this is fertile soil. When I want to write new story, I pluck a seedling from this mass of idea-material and run with it. I begin outlining. What will happen long-term in this story? What will I need to research? My process takes off from there, but I start with that initial page of inspiration. That is what I call cultivating inspiration.
     Some writers describe "forcing inspiration" as staring at the wall and coming up with something brilliant because they just keep writing. They write out of desperation. But, for me, that kind of forging ahead yields results that only sound good because...I'm desperate. I save these kinds of "desperate measures" moments for when I really have no other option--that is, when I have a story to continue and I have no ideas with which to continue it.
     To create my inspiration page, I do some freewriting and soul-searching, then I record the results all in one place. They bleed together in surprising ways. It's an enjoyable, unconscious process.
     My "Idea Page" came in handy this week in my short story class when the professor said, "Two pieces of flash fiction! Chop chop!" I had some ideas ready for digging and planting. I threw some other ideas at them, and they connected in my mind to become something better. (And let me just confirm that no story or story-process is the same, even after cultivating inspiration. One of my stories practically wrote itself in the course of 6-7 hours. The other changed theme, tone and cast several times, even switching back at times. It took me about 3 days to write.)
     Writing out of desperation is not fun. I see no reason to do it more than we have to, no matter how romantic the harried, desperate writer trope might seem. If we cultivate inspiration over time instead of grasping for it when we're desperate, we'll write better stories and we won't be as stressed about it. We'll have what we need when we need it- characters, conflict-filled situations, images, themes, whatever. It'll  be there.

Photo Attribution:
By David Revoy / Blender Foundation (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Unfulfilled Dreams?

    













    



    
     You probably have dreams and ambitions, like I do. Right now, I am grappling with the knowledge that I simply cannot fulfill all of my dreams. In fact, no one can fulfill all of their dreams. We may not even fulfill our one or two most deeply held artistic dreams. Not even if we try our best. Not even if we work really hard. Not even if we're good people, or we spread good Karma or we love Jesus.
   Realistically, my writing might never be published, and I have to be okay with that. What is "getting published" for you? Setting up a gallery? Being a dancer? How will you deal if your dream doesn't come true?
   How can any of us deal with this possibility? How, when we've spent years--two and a half, so far, for me--and lots of money working towards the goal of *fill in the blank*...
   But wait. Is that "goal" really what we are working towards? Will meeting that goal actually make us happy?
     In the video below (2 mins and 25 important seconds of your life), Dave Harvey answers the question, "What is the relationship between ambition and contentment?" I think this is important for writers or any type of artist because...we dream, right? Dream of our book in libraries and burning up the best-seller lists, dream of choreographing the most beautiful sequence...If you have big dreams, you might want to watch this video. It talks a bit about faith because I am a Christian, but it won't bite, I promise!

     Harvey suggests that we can be content with our lives despite unfulfilled aspirations. We have each of our dreams for a reason--they just may not turn out how we think they will. They can turn into something good if we follow them with patience and persistence.
     Maybe you dream of writing, but also of selling cupcakes, or learning to style hair  in your own outrageous fashion tastes, or you wish teenagers would flock to your house and eat all your food and you want to listen to them dream, too. There's a time and a place for our desires to meet and one day they will, even if we don't recognize it at the time. Maybe you won't ever understand your dreams or the work you put into them (scary thought!), but that isn't what matters. It matters that you know you authentically pursued them. You did your best. Even brilliant artists sometimes only became "brilliant" posthumously (such as the author Zora Neale Hurston, or the artist El Greco, just to name a few). As dreamers, we have to be okay with that knowledge if we aren't going to drive ourselves and our spouses and possibly our kids and everyone we love nutty.
     Our goal can't just be publication or however we think our dreams would be "fulfilled." We have to be okay knowing that we may never see validation by others. We have to be okay with knowing we did all we could and we did it well. And, if you are a Christian, you can know you stayed in line with God's plan for your life. Contentment is found there.
     Artists only enjoy life if they content themselves with what they have rather than seeking validation or a certain goal. Focusing on the end goal (getting signed, etc.) truly only brings disappointment because we may never understand why we are blessed with certain talents. Maybe we were never meant to be published or be a famous rockstar; maybe we dream that dream for a different reason than what we can possibly imagine.

Thanks to: Regent University for showing me this video.
Photo Credit:
By Plismo (Own work) [CC-BY-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Faking It

Yes, it is...a faked unicorn skeleton!

     This post is for scribblers like me who must constantly beat back a gigantic hairy inferiority complex. When I began writing, I felt inadequate (and, in fact, still do). In the beginning, it is so so so hard to put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard or brain-feed to word processor, or however you write, because it feels like everyone already knows this and I'm not saying it right anyhow so why bother? Perhaps you can relate? Humility is an important attribute in a writer, but this isn't humility. This is being scared witless that I have nothing to say to the world.
      As I slowly make my way through classes and textbooks and years of life, I realize more and more how very little I know. It's a backwards process: I think I understand something until I reach into it a bit farther and encounter a new plane of knowledge...then I realize I'd have to walk all the way across that plain as well, if I truly wanted to understand. Things are much more complicated than I thought. This is so entirely scary that I just feel like quitting...which obviously gets very little work done.
      So I just have to fake it. No, wait, don't leave! Let me explain. To convince myself I can write something worthwhile, I have to fake it, at first. Two extremes have developed among writers: 1) Write what you know, and 2) write whatever bubbles up from your soul, man. I think writers learn during the writing process--we don't know everything right at the start. We learn and teach ourselves by writing. In fact, writing a book teaches the writer even more than it teaches the readers. In Madeleine L'Engle's book A Ring of Endless Light, the grandfather comments, "A poet friend of mine told me that his poems know far more than he does, and if he listens to them, they teach him" (70).
     For a long time, I felt it was my duty to write only about what I understood very well so that my readers will understand perfectly, too. Now I know not to wait until I feel like I know everything (because I never will). In fact, even if I feel like I know nothing in the beginning, that's no excuse to shirk brainstorming and idea-gathering. It's actually the perfect motivation.  Writing itself changes and teaches us, so there is no point in "waiting until we know something."
     I'm not saying we shouldn't be researching or outlining for our work--that is a part of writing. What I'm saying is, don't be scared to dive in. And don't get bogged down in those things for a decade, either. Make sure you're writing things, small things, even. Poems carry little images and little truths. Essays develop truths. Flash fiction and short stories begin developing characters who learn and grow. You don't have to write a novel right off the bat. Writing small teaches as much as writing big.
     I know more than I did when I started writing. Viewing life through the thoughtful lens of a writer teaches me more than I learned with my previously-passive eyes. So even when I write something that I worry isn't very good, I remind myself that the only way to get good is to keep trying.
     And until I know, I fake it. That's the only way to push past the insecurity until I actually DO know. As John Truby says, we should "Write something that may change your life."

Works Cited

 

L'Engle, Madeleine. A Ring of Endless Light.

Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story: 22 steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. New York, NY: Faber and Faber, Inc. 2007. Print.

Photo Attribution

By Wilfried Wittkowsky (own foto / eigenes Foto) [GFDL (www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

How to Start a Story: The Premise Method

     There is more than one way to start a story. In fact, there is no "right way"--every author does it differently. Sometimes, an author even changes her methods around to keep it fresh. There are two things you can do to figure out your own method: 1) read how others do it, and 2) try each method for yourself. It's a lot of hard work to figure it all out on our own, but I guess that's why "the experts" say a writer needs to writer for 10,000 hours, 10 years or hack out a million bad words before they master the craft. And even then, a writer never stops learning!
     The good news is that there are lots of blog posts and craft books and author interviews that discuss writing methodology. With that in mind, I have a method to show you which I have recently fallen in love with. It may not be the right method for you, but until you try, you won't know, right? (You can always test it out on a short story before dragging it into NaNoWriMo with you this November :) I call it "The Premise Method."
     It makes sense to be sure the base of our story is very solid, because everything else we write will build on top of it. If we have to drastically change the base of the story...well, the story will drastically change.
     In his book The Anatomy of Structure, John Truby talks a lot about this. He starts with a thing called a "premise," which is also known as a "log line" or an "elevator pitch" (because it should be compact enough to enable a recitation during the course of an elevator ride with an editor or agent).

A premise is a one or two sentence version of your story: a sense of your main character, the first action she takes, and a general notion of the ending.

     The premise can be your story base. Here's an example of a premise of the book Holes by Louis Sachar: "A kid with legendary bad luck must survive a juvenile detention camp's secret agenda and unearth the truth about his family curse" (Kole 33). For more about writing a premise, you can either read The Anatomy of Structure's first chapter, Writing Irresistible Kidlit by Mary Kole, or this great blog post byDonald Maass.
     To write your premise, explain in one line what your main character does when faced with your story's inciting incident. Also give a vague notion of the ending. That's about it! Try to make it interesting.
     Truby says it's important to form the right premise because every other decision we make will be based on this premise.
     Freeeeeeze! The right premise? Who has the right to tell me what premise is right for my story? Well, I do. And you do for your story. But how can we tell? By doing lots of brainstorming and exploring. Usually when I write anything, the first ideas aren't what I end up polishing and submitting. I've usually narrowed and focused the original flash of inspiration to something slightly or completely different. It's very rare that I write something that stays essentially the same.
     So. Brainstorming to find your perfect premise takes a long time--Truby recommends weeks. Literally, weeks of brainstorming. This was a very freeing idea, for me, because I've always felt like I needed to get writing, bash out that word count, etc. But brainstorming is important for writing a truly unique, organic story. It may even save a writer time by brainstorming up a premise before writing because she will discover plot problems to solve before they are solidified in a manuscript. If a writer just grabs her first idea and starts writing away with it, she may have to change everything about it later.
     If you are worried about taking so long to brainstorm a story, remember that you can also be working on another story in order to keep your skills razor sharp and stories out on submission. We writers multi-task!
     Premise is not that way everyone begins their story, but it seems to be a fairly common method. It helps focus an idea if we can get those main elements--character, plot arc, general idea of ending--into one or two lines. It gives you guidance as you write.
     If writers plan during the "premise" phase, they may be able to avoid some redo-business. Everything changes drastically when a writer explores her premise over the course of a few weeks. She can solve the problems in her premise with a  bit of brainstorming, and change it if need be. That sounds like a good deal to me.

Christy Dares You

To write a premise. Right now. You can write a brand-spankin' new one out of thin air, or you can write one to a favorite book, or to your own WIP novel. Go for it! To do is to learn.

Works Cited

Kole, Mary. Writing Irresistible Kidlit. Cincinnati, Ohio: Writer’s Digest Books, 2012. Print.

Maass, Donald. “The Good Seed.” Writersunboxed.com. 4 April 2012. 2 Feb. 2013. Web.

Truby, John. The Anatomy of Story: 22 steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. New York, NY: Faber and Faber, Inc. 2007. Print.

Photo Credit

By Amusafija (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons