Favorite Old YA Books I

Got a bit burned out from meeting various deadlines and took a blogging break. Back now!

I thought I'd post every now and then on a YA book I love, to say what's so awesome about it or how it influenced me. Today's post is on Elizabeth Marie Pope's novel The Perilous Gard.



During the last days of Mary Tudor's reign in England, outspoken lady-in-waiting Kate Sutton is exiled to a remote castle (the Gard in the title), where she discovers the old ways of sacrificing a young man to the fairy folk still thrive. Kate musters all her intelligence and will to save the young man, falling in love and finding herself in the process.

This vibrant, exciting, beautifully written book combines my love for history, fantasy, romance, and strong female heroines. I love history, and Pope's story gives us a glimpse into life in Tudor England (we even get to meet Princess Elizabeth Tudor, a hero of mine) before showing us an England even older and far more dangerous.

And then there's Kate Sutton, who may be clumsy and have difficulty holding her tongue, but it's exactly those qualities that end up saving her and the young man she loves. She's brainy, stubborn, insecure about her looks, and has a will that cannot be bowed. You guessed it - I identified with her in a big way, and she's a role model for some of the female characters I write. The romance that develops is sweet without being cloying because both parties are pig-headed and smart. Another lesson learned from this book - keep the villains multi-layered. The faery folk are sympathetic yet terrifying. You get a poignant glimpse of what it might mean to be one of the them in a land that no longer believes in you.

This one of those books shelved in the teen section that could just as easily be read by adults

Teach Creativity

A brilliant talk here by education expert Sir Ken Robinson. He contends that creativity has the same importance in education as literacy.

The whole talk will resonate with anyone who ever felt that public education lead them away from their passion. Or anyone who was ever educated at all, really. It's 19 minutes long, but edifying and occasionally hilarious. "Can you imagine William Shakespeare being seven? He was in someone's English class, wasn't he? How annoying would that be?"

Aaaalmost there...

I've been writing toward a deadline ever since I got back from Hawaii, so the blogging's been nonexistant. Sorry about that! I'm just about done with a script (am submitting it to a fabulous program that I probably won't get into, but what the hell) and breathing a bit easier now that the end is in sight.

Even if I don't get in this writers workshop, I'll at least have another TV spec to show folks. AND I've rediscovered my TV writing chops after many months of novel writing. The two are very different animals, and it took me awhile to get my TV legs (fingers?) again. For a bit there I thought - wow, I suck.

But of course, this in inevitable when you're a writer. It's a nauseating rollercoaster ride of - eesh, I can't write for beans to - Wheee! This rocks and so do I!

I hit the "This rocks" section of the ride over the weekend and never looked back. When something feels good, don't question it too much. Just keep charging ahead.

Writing for TV is fun. You get to suggests worlds of emotion with a single word, to hint at relationships that may never happen, to show what you think of an idea without ever really putting yourself out there and saying it. It's my character's opinion, not mine (necessarily), right? It's just action and dialogue, and you've got to keep it spare. But look how much you can do with just those two tools! Much fun.

Bellows Beach on Independence Day

My favorite place on earth, warm and beautiful and welcoming. This is crowded for Bellows, which has a former Air Force runway as a parking lot. I got in the water for an hour, collected a few more freckles, and caught a bunch of waves, zooming past the kids on their boogie boards. I learned to bodysurf here the summer I turned nine. Still haven't lost the knack.

Kaimana Beach

Went to Kaimana Beach today to get my body into the ocean. Kaimana's the beach at the Diamond Head end of Waikiki where the locals hang out, at the foot of the New Otani hotel. Thanks to my Dad's membership in the local chapter of the Elks, I can park his car in the Elks Lodge parking lot just half a block away, buy a bottle of water at the store in the New Otani, and hit the sand. The place is also sometimes known as Sans Souci, right next to the Natatorium, a now defunct salt water swimming pool and WW II memorial, complete with cannon.

Thanks to the holiday weekend, the place was packed. Southern swells lifted the hordes of keikis (that's children in Hawaiian) off their feet as they splashed the warm green water. In the winter, it's clear and cool. In the summer, now, the ocean here is a cloudy grassy green, warm as a puppy.

Lanai!

Spent the whole day exploring Lanai with my Mom. You'll see us here standing near the Garden of the Gods, a windswept section that resembles Mars but was once actually the bottom of an ancient lake.

Also featured, former pineapple fields that have now gone wild, and Shipwreck Beach, complete with wreck eternally hung up on the reef.

Lanai is gorgeous, varied, and sleepy. I highly recommend taking a tour with a local guide (Bruce Harvey was our knowledgeable, affable host) to show you all the cool nooks and crannies.

One thought before I go...

...on vacation! Woo hoo!

I may post stuff from Hawaii or once I get back, but in the meantime, check out this post from writer John Scalzi's blog "Whatever" on how publishing works.

Clue: it's very very sloooow.

Happy Fourth of July (just in case I don't blog before then) to all!

It Takes Time to Get Good

Wise advice from Ira Glass of This American Life on storytelling:

Video test!

This is basically a test of my new Flip video phone. I'm seeing if I can upload videos from it and post them here. It's just me on the roof of a parking lot near Wilshire and Western, right after tonight's PJ Harvey concert at the lovely Wiltern Theater, one of my favorite venues in Los Angeles. Too bad it's too dark to share just how lovely the evening was. But it's short, and, fair warning, I appear very briefly at the end.

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Thanks to the most creative, supportive, loving father a girl could ever have.

Time Travel

After reading this post on Scott Westerfeld's blog, I'm inspired to change the time settings on my blog to GMT +3:30, which is the time zone for Tehran, Iran.

Apparently this is one of the few concrete things we bloggers can do to help the protesters in Iran right now. As Scott Westerfeld says, "Censors in Iran are currently searching for blogs with Tehran local settings as a way of finding and shutting down sites that are protesting Iran’s recent (probably stolen) election. The more blogs in the world that are set to Tehran time, the harder the job is for these censors to do their job."

So, hello Iranian government censors! Nice of you to stop by during your iniquitous mission to quash free speech. Stay awhile, have a seat, write a novel.

Make It Up

So I've been flailing around, trying to get started on a new TV script, feeling terribly uninspired. My few forays into hashing out an outline have come to dead ends with me feeling like a lunkhead who can't write for beans.

Yesterday things got slightly better though, because I decided to just make it up.

Yes, I know writers make up stories - that's what I'd been trying to do all along, right? But I was taking it very seriously, thinking things like, "this has to be great" and "I have to make this perfect," and so on.

But yesterday I thought, "Okay, just write the crappy version. No one's going to see it, not yet. Just make it up."

For one thing, the script was sparsely populated. I had the main character and a few others, but the story involves a mystery, and I needed suspects, a killer, red herrings. For some reason, they just weren't appearing in my mind.

So I just made it up. Okay, here's the killer. Is he married? Instead of pausing to ponder all the reasons why he should or should NOT be married, I decided, sure, he's married. Why not?

And the victim - who's in her life? Is she married? Yeah, what the hell. And then I saw a connection between the victim's husband and the villain. I never would've made that connection if I hadn't just made the husband up for no good reason. And the killer's wife? She'll make a good red herring, since it turns out the victim was sleeping with the villain. Another connection made.

So when you're stuck, forget about reason. Let go of structure and connection and trying make it all make sense. Just make it up. Make no sense for awhile. Odds are you'll then start to see connections between all the nonsense you created, and suddenly it's not so nonsensical. The stuff that isn't connected can later be cut. But don't worry about that for now. Make it up.

Today's Writing Prompt - Deny the Deniers

Ages ago, when I was trying to make this site a place where people could come for writing prompts, I wrote about a story I heard on NPR about a Jewish boy who was adopted by Nazis as their mascot during World War II. It was a fascinating story, and I tried to use it as a writing prompt.

Just today someone tried to post comments to this blog, telling me that the whole story was faked, a hoax.

Uh, I don't care.

This isn't a blog on history. I'm not a journalist or a Holocaust expert. I posted the story here and the links to it so that it could be used as a prompt to inspire storytellers.

So today's prompt - write to me as "Dan" - the guy who thinks this story was a hoax. Consider using capital letters at odd times, make unsubstantiated claims, and have no clue as to what this blog is about.

Rewriting advice

This article at the Writers Store by William M. Akers gives great advice on rewriting your script, but most of it can be applied to your novel as well.

This article focuses on three things - story, dialogue, and scene description.

Screenplays focus on structure and story, whereas novels can and often do wander all over the place, and sometimes aren't very story driven. But if you want to tell a story, structure is your friend, even in a novel.

Yes, dialogue in a screenplay needs to be lean. But you don't want the characters in your novel repeating themselves, do you? All the points here can help make your novel's dialogue sing. I'd add my own tip, taken from movie director Howard Hawks, who called his dialogue, three cushion dialogue. It's a term from pool, where you bounce the ball off of three cushions before sinking it. Hawks never wanted dialogue that went straight to the point. He thought it should bounce around its meaning, getting to the point obliquely. Don't have your character say "I love you." Have a character who is a coffee snob say to their beloved: "You make good coffee." You get the idea.

Sure, scene description in your novel doesn't have to be as tightly focused and written as in a screenplay. But shorter is often better, and tightening it can make you get to the heart of your description in a more powerful way.

Clever clever

I've been lazy since I finished my rewrite and haven't done the script outline I need to do. And I spend time online finding amazing video like the stuff below.

Seriously - how can I write a story about these whales? About halfway through, you'll see what I mean, but this is footage of a fishing line way out at sea. It has a cod hanging from it, and then about halfway thought you'll see an ENORMOUS sprem whale show up, tweak the fishing line, and get the juicy cod.

You can even hear the happy clicking from the whale as he steals the fish. Thieves of the sea! They do have brains bigger than ours, you know.

So the proofing is done and I can relax a bit before plunging into the next project (which will probably be a TV spec script of a currently popular show, although my second YA novel manuscript calls to me longingly). Research for the spec script involves watching eps of the TV show on my Tivo and making notes. Rough life, ey?

But before that, I had to go hang out with my friends, have a beer, watch the kids soak each other with large water guns, and eat Pam's delicious grilled pizza. Along the way I got great news - my friend Harry Connolly's new sci fi novel will be out in September. A mutual friend has read an advance copy and sang its praises to the heavens. It is the first part of a trilogy, and I can't wait to read it.

Another friend is busy finishing up the treatment for a horror film for the SyFy channel. He's gotten great feedback from the network and is happily fleshing out his outline and clarifying the story points. Fingers crossed they love the script and that we're all soon watching it on a bigscreen TV soon.

Add in my homemade quacamole (food processor broke, but squeezing the limes canceled out the garlic smell lingering on my hands), fudgie oatmeal bars by esteemed baker Brian, Pam's delicious grilled pizzas, and a clear night in Burbank with nearly everyone up and hula-hooping, and you've got the recipe for an inspirational good time.

And a nod to the men and women of our armed services on this Memorial Day, whose courage in serving out country through the years through desert, mud, jungle, and sea provide further inspiration. It's everywhere if you look hard enough.

Proofing takes Forever

(Sung to the tune of "Diamonds are Forever")

So I'm proofing the rewrite, and totally underestimated the time necessary for it. I hummed along thinking, la la la, I'll just whip through the proofing and send it off.

Ha!

You can't whip through proofreading, because then it isn't proofreading, it's speed reading. I often say the words out loud or consciously make my eyes embrace each word as it comes along as I proof. Otherwise I'd skip along, tra la, and skip all the typos and awkward phrases. Writing and reading are so much more fun than proofing. But you can't send out a manuscript with errors, baby. It's not professional. And it's us amateurs that need to look professional the most.

A little more than halfway through the proof. If lucky, and determined, I hope to finish it tomorrow.

Writers don't work for you

I love George R.R. Martin's grand fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire, and I'm impatiently waiting for the next book to come out so I can see what happens to all the characters I've come care about so fervently. Jon Snow! Tyrion Lannister! Arya Stark! These are some of the most three-dimensional, fascinating people I've ever met, and I can't wait to remake their acquaitance.

And GRRM, as we fans call him, has not produced the fifth book in his series on any of the dates his publisher has put forward, promising us we'd have the book.

This doesn't make me mad, as it does some of GRRM's fans. But it does frustrate me. Write, GRRM, write! That's what I think. How hard can it be?

I'm a writer. I should know better.

Neil Gaiman puts it brilliantly in a response to a GRRM fan's question on this topic on his blog.

You can click on the link to read Neil's thoughtful, oh-so-right response in full. Or you can get the gist from one sentence:

"George R.R. Martin is not your bitch."

There's a lot more to it. But that's the essence of it all. If you pay for a book, then you got what you paid for. One book is not a promise of future books. George R.R. Martin does not work for me. And he has his own life to lead.

Still can't wait for the next book, though. Hang in there, GRRM!

Editing Letter

I haven't been fortunate enough to get to this point - but if a publisher takes on your novel, they edit the heck out of it with what are called "editing letters." Here's one author's humorous take on the horror, the horror.

Nerds Rule! (Friday Fun Post)

Just read this excellent post on the Best and Worst Things about Dating Nerds.

As a nerd myself, I must agree with the posters complaints and compliments. I have also dated my share of nerds, and even a few hot guy/nerd combos. (Yes hot guys with hot rods and black leather jackets can also secretly collect action figures. The world is a complex place.)

Nerds are fun. I speak as one, so I am biased. But they tend to be creative, thoughtful types, and playfulness is connected to both those things. Writers tend to be a bit nerdy, even the seemingly hot ones. I heart Neil Gaiman, but underneath that leather jacket and behind those big brown eyes is the soul of a comic book geek. And guess what? That just makes him hotter! Do not underestimate the nerd. We're writing your favorite stories, fixing your computers, having crazy sex, and checking out the latest price of that removeable mask mego Robin action figure on Ebay all at once.

YA Ghettoland

It's amazing how condescending otherwise nice people can be if you tell them you are writing a book for teens. "Oh that's nice," they say. "And maybe someday you'll be able to move up and write for adults." Or even: "Why would you write that stuff?"

"Move up"?? "That stuff"?? I am not kidding. People have said this to me. I don't think they realized how silly they sounded. But somehow books for kids can't be as good as books for adults. Forget the fact that the most influential books I read in my life are the books I read before I hit age 18, including things like the Chronicles of Narnia, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, the works of Judy Blume, and fantastic stuff like The Witch of Blackbird Pond and Island of the Blue Dolphins. These are the books that made me love reading and allowed me to move on to Dickens, Austen, and Shakespeare.

Nowhere are you more likely to touch a nerve, bring comfort, entertain, or enlighten as you are with kids. Check out this story in the NYTimes about an author who got pushed into the YA category, was dissed by "adult" writers and ultimately realized the impact her book had on teens.

Apparently there was a bit of an outcry when some YA classified novels won some Science Fiction awards. Check out writer John Scalzi's post, where he disposes with that argument most effectively.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that kid's lit is ghetto-ized, even though it's one of the few areas in publishing resisting the recession and people love to pontificate how important it is that our children read. Kids don't vote. And they often don't pay for the books they read. Certain conservative politicians have resisted the US signing the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child, for crying out loud, saying they don't want some non-American organization telling them how to raise their child.

I send a big fat raspberry fart noise their way.

Keep Your Village Small

My latest girl/talent crush is Amanda Palmer, a singer/songwriter/artist extraordinaire who was one-half the Dresden Dolls and just put out an amazing solo album called "Who Killed Amanda Palmer." I can't get "Oasis" and "Leeds United" out of my head. (Warning: you may encounter darkest irony, wit, and insight if you watch these videos. "Who needs love when the sandwiches are wicked and they know you at the Mac store?")

Anyway, I follow her on Twitter and found this clip, which struck me right between the eyes. Probably because I have the stupid habit of taking on everyone's pain and worry about the people starving in North Korea and being raped in the Congo. Not to mention the occasionally self destructive activities of people you love. Ever feel like all the crazy horrible pain going on all over the world at once feels like it's pressing in on you? I mean, people are dying and being tortured, and animals are being starved, and kids are being sold, and on and on right this very minute.

How can we deal with this? I have to push that stuff aside when it starts to smother me like that or I'll go nuts. And I have to remember that I'm happy, and that it's good to be happy because happy people spread happiness around to others. As a writer, I think you must have imagination and empathy in order to get inside other people's heads so you can understand your characters. But go too far with that and it wears you down until there's nothing left of you. You're a shell filled with other people's pain. And what the hell good does that do anyone?

So I think Amanda's right. This is from the site Uncensored Interview.

Amanda Palmer: The Village People.

Kind of ironic finding this via Twitter, a much bigger "village" than a few hundred people.

The Benefits of Failure and of Imagination

This is old stuff - JK Rowling gave the commencement address to a group of graduating students at Harvard a few years back. But it's worth revisiting as we keep moving forward in life. In a very moving speech, shown below in three parts, she tells how both failure and imagination have lead her to lead a rich life. The last part includes the two-minute standing ovation she received from her audience.

Synopsis = Hell

Writing a synopsis of your novel to entice agents or publishers is one of the tasks writers hate most. I know I'd much rather write an entire first draft of a book than write a five-page synopsis. Yuck! To help you along, I found this nifty entry in a blog that summarizes the process nicely.

My own thoughts: First, best to write it after the novel is done. Don't try it during your first draft, because things may change and you'll have to re-synopsize, which is evil.

Second, keep it shorter rather than longer. Short and snappy.

Third, reveal the ending. You're not trying to create suspense. The agent/publisher wants to know that you can plot things out successfully and satisfy your reader.

Fourth, I start just slogging through events A-Z. Then I go back and make it sing.

Fifth, touch on themes and characters, but mostly you're trying to tell what happens.

Sixth, reward a drink or some chocolate when you're done. You deserve it.

To counteract the icky feelings that came from yesterday's post, today I am posting a video clip that just brings joy to my heart. I'm a bit late to this party, apparently. It zoomed out into the internet world last week I think, but check out this clip from the Antwerp train station in Belgium. Seemingly spontaneous acts of creativity rule!

Women for Women

I'm still reeling with outrage after hearing that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has signed into a law that, for the Shia population of his country, legalizes marital rape.

I know that this is a blog about writing, but this sort of thing makes my blood boil. It makes me want to write screeds of invective, showering hatred on people like Zardari and the Taliban who burn down girls's schools and flog women for looking at a man.

But hate begets hate, doesn't it? There are better ways to deal. So I'm thinking how to write about injustice against women in a more constructive way, and I'm eyeballing this charity: Women for Women. You can donate money or sponsor a woman, who will correspond with you as your very few dollars change her life.

Even if you can't afford to donate or sponsor someone, if you're a writer, think how your writing skills, your storytelling, but affect how a reader thinks. If we illuminate injustices like this one, we get a step closer to eliminating them.

Wheeeee.

This is how I feel going into a three-day weekend with not one but two Easter dinners ahead of me. The video below, found thanks to perusing Neil Gaiman's website and up on Fabulist, helps express my percolating enthusiasm. It's by singer/songwriter/performer Jason Webley.

Bouncy Blog Post

Nuture your creativity today. Imagine strange things. Bounce one weird idea off another. Like this:

The Beatles - Remastered

Okay, this has nothing to do with writing, but I cannot hold it in. At last AT LAST they have announced that the Beatles albums will be remastered and released on September 9!

Deep breath. I am, what you might call, a Beatles fan. In fact, the technical term might be Beatles nutball insane lunatic. And I've been waiting since the Beatles first came out on cd in 1987 to get a decent sounding recording of their albums. Like many early cd releases, the sound quality of these was crappy. Thoughout the years, other artists have had their cds remastered - the Beach Boys, heck, even later artists like Prince and U2 did it for their early releases. If you're a Beatles geek like me, you can get the detail in the NY Times article here.

In celebration, herewith my favorite early tribute to the Beatles, by way of Sesame Street:

From Typewriter to Book

Okay, so I've already failed at Blog Every Day April because I enjoyed my weekend and barely went online and certainly didn't blog. I'm not particularly heartbroken about this, since real life trumps blogging, but will endeavor to make this Blog Nearly Every Day April to keep in the spirit of things.

Here's an easy post. The digital marketing team at publisher McMillan USA created this very funny instructional video to educate you on how a book goes from something in the writer's head to international best seller. Check it out.

For Poetry Month - ED

Poem 1354
by Emily Dickinson

The Heart is the Capital of the Mind --
The Mind is a single State --
The Heart and the Mind together make
A single Continent --

One -- is the Population --
Numerous enough --
This ecstatic Nation
Seek -- it is Yourself.

BEDA, Day 3

I'm all distracted and busy and can't focus on making a coherent blog entry. I just want to laugh and cry and shake and sing. Hey look, I'm doing all four at once!

Wow, look how everyone's running away. Bye!

But today is day 3 of Blog Every Day in April (BEDA) so I had to put something down, right?

For the first time in a forever I fee like maybe, just maybe, I know what I'm doing. This is rare phenomenon in writers and thus deserves thorough documentation.

THINGS ARE WORKING, PEOPLE!

Like, my plot is flowing, my ideas make sense, I feel like I understand my character. I've done this before, and I can do it again. AND, I'm not the only one who thinks so.

(And I don't mean that my parents think I'm great. They do, God love them, but that's not what I'm talking about here. People unrelated to me in any way think I know what I'm doing. So it just might be true. On a side note, parents who think you are great are the best thing in life and if you have/had that, then you WIN.)

Off now to crank out a few more pages before my class deadline, then whooshing off to a big party tonight on a flower-decked patio overlooking the lights of Hollywood. (Ooh, how glamorous! There will even be fudgie oatmeal bars at this party, thanks to my friend Brian, so you know it's gonna be great. Oh, and cupcakes. And well, maybe some alcohol.)

Have a good Friday night!

Writing is Hard

It's day number two of Blog Every Day April! Once this blog is done I'll be two for two! Go, me!

So they tell you that writing is hard, that life as a writer is a hard life, blah blah blah. And you go, yeah, sure. I get it. What's the big deal? I write something out of my genius brain, people love it, it gets published and makes a lot of money. You'll see this attitude in folks everywhere. You know, the ones who don't write.

I can't tell you how often people have said something like, "Hey! I've got a great idea for a book/TV show/movie! I'll tell it to you and you can write it and we'll make lots of money!"

Uh, no.

"No really! It's the most fantastic-est idea ever! All you have to do is write it!"

Um, no. Thanks. But no.

"Okay, well, who in the industry can I sell this idea to? Just point the way and I'll go sell it and be rich, rich I tell you!"

It doesn't work like that. Get a clue.

Ideas are easy, people. Ideas are a dime a dozen. If writing them down is so damn easy, then go take your brilliant idea and write it and make your own million dollars. Leave me out of it.

Truth is - it's the writing that's hard. People can look at your book/script/poem/whatever and say - why don't you make your main character do X instead of Y? Add a lesbian scene. Add texture, add depth, add puppies and kittens and rainbows. They say this gaily, as if they know how amazing their ideas are and how grateful you are to hear them. Then they sail away, dusting off their hands in satisfaction. Problem solved!

Well, no. There's still this pesky thing called writing that has to happen. Writing is more than just jotting down ideas. It's more than characters, plot, texture, scenary, puppies, and kittens. It involves staring at a blank page, knowing that out of all the words in the English language, you have to pick the exact right words to convey all this depth, all this tension, all these rainbows and unicorns and dancing elves. You not only have to have the idea, you have to have the bricks, the mortar, and the know how to use them. You are architect, contractor, and home owner all in one. You have to entertain, enlighten, amuse. There's pacing, plotting, syntax, vocabulary, metaphor, theme and which breed of puppy to consider. The possibilities are infinite, and you have to pinpoint the perfect needle in the midst of that Milky Way sized haystack.

So writing is hard. After you're done writing, you then have to find someone who likes it enough to pay you for it. And that's just as hard as the writing. It's not for the faint-hearted. It's not for the egotistical. You will get beat down and discouraged. You will work long hours alone with no one to tell you how brilliant you are. You will be rejected, over and over again. You will scramble to find hours in the day to write, then when you do sit down, your mind will be blank. The muse will not come.

If you have to write anyway, do it. The world needs people of determination and character who can face these problems down and keep moving forward. But remember, it's no picnic. It's not even a dinner party. It's hard. Now get to work.

Favorite Poem

In honor of Poetry month, I post here what is probably my favorite poem. There are many others that come close, but I always come back to Fern Hill by the late great Dylan Thomas.

FERN HILL

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

Blog Every Day April

YA author Maureen Johnson has declared this month to be Blog Every Day April (BEDA - on Twitter search #BEDA). So in addition to it being Poetry Month, it's apparently blogging month.

Any other writing demands you got, folks???

I'm in the last week of my class, trying to churn out pages, and now I'm supposed to blog every day and write a poem every day too? Can you, ya know, spread this shit out a little for me?

Yet lo, see how I have blogged today, April 1? Perhaps I shall be able to do this BEDA thing.

Perhaps not. No promises.

In the spirit of all this, here's a stab at a poem for today.

Running down Hollywood Boulevard at sunset

Plane contrail a white arrow in dusty blue sky
backlit palms
Elvis and Marilyn arm in arm
three musicians, pierced, blue hair, use the crosswalk
carrying a guitar, a trumpet, and a bass.
A woman tends white roses in the Wattles gardens
while rats rustle in drifts of leaves
beneath the avocado trees.

Breath comes hard, I limp
past an open case of beer on the sidewalk
and stop. Inside, bottles beer.
A few feet away a dog owner
has neglected to pick up after an elephant dog.

No one but me
and the old Russian ladies
leaning on each other down the block.

Sweat trickles down my back. A sign
on the telephone pole reads only:
Young Man in need of Living Situation.
All the phone numbers have been torn off.

I feel the beer.
It's cold.
But I run on.

April - a Poem a Day

Robert Lee Brewer at the Writer's Digest blog Poetic Asides in once again having is Poem a Day in April challenge.

For those that are poetically inclined, it's a great way to get those creative bats fluttering. Robert posts a prompt every day, you write a poem and put it in the comments section of his blog, and he picks his favorites.

I tried this last April and it was a complete mixed bag. My chocolate chip cookie poem got picked as a favorite, but some of my efforts were so awful that I ended up deleting them from this blog. Never to be read again!

I won't have the time to do it again this April, (too much else to do!) but I do think I'll check out the prompts and try my hand once or twice along the way. If anything I churn out is slightly palatable, I'll post it here.

If you take the challenge, let me know! And good luck!

Outlining

Thanks to a member of my writing class, I found a very useful post on Deadline Dames about outlining here.

If you've never tried outlining, I can't recommend it highly enough. The post on Deadline Dames shows a couple of fairly simple, straightforward ways to do it. One uses a fave of mine The Writer's Journey by Christopher Vogler to get things going.

Whenever my writing bogs down and I feel like I'm trudging through sludge to get something on paper, it's almost always because I have no idea where I'm going or why this scene exists. The answer is - outline! Every scene in the outline has a purpose, and knowing that purpose makes it ten times easier to write the scene.

Things will change as you write. You'll come up with ideas that never occured to you before, or see that things should go together differently. That's fine. The outline is not set in stone. I often reoutline, or jot notes in my old outline to indicate changes. It won't squash your inspiration - it'll foster it.

Busy Week!

Went out a lot this week, date-y things, friend-y things, civic duty things. And then there's all that working out and washing my hair and giving medicine to my ancient cat. I thought about bringing my laptop to jury duty but have a horror of schlepping things around. Plus it gave me an excuse to keep reading YA book WAKE by Lisa McMann, which is excellent, by the way!

All of which means I only have four new pages of writing so far. My class deadline (only two more to go!) to submit up to 15 pages is Saturday at 9am (realistically, that means by the end of the evening on Friday because I sleep in on the weekends, babe). I can submit less, but my teacher, Jill Santopolo (children's author and editor at Balzer & Bray), is fabulous, and I want to maximize my use of her talents by getting as much feedback as possible.

So let's be real: no way am I going to churn out 11 pages by the end of the day today. I might be able to generate 5 or 6 - if today is a good day So I'll have maybe 10 or 11 pages for Jill and the other class members to rip into. Sigh. Then just one more week of feedback before I'm on my own again.

Well, not quite. I have good friends who are talented writers who give me their feedback if I do the same for them. Halleluyah! But it's weird how I have this compulsion to squeeze every last drop of feedback out of Jill before she slips away. I guess it's just a sign of how valuable her comments are!

Busy weeks happen. I'm a bit disappointed I didn't write more, but at least I wrote something!

Think Big, Write it Down

Writing is useful in so many ways. I just read a post on The Art of Nonconformity about writing a Big Life List.

I've done variations of this and found it to be very useful. I wrote a list of writing goals here in this blog at the beginning of the year, and am on my way to achieving them - I hope!

The other day I found a list of life goals I'd written many years ago. I'd put it away in an obscure place and came upon it. And guess what? I'd achieved the majority of the goals I'd written there! And that happened without looking at the list after I'd written it. I think writing it down makes it more concrete, lays it down in your synapses somehow, so that you take in the goal unconsciously and start moving toward it.

It may be time for me to form another list of Big Life goals. Maybe it's time for you as well? Check out the links above to see ways to help yourself. Take your time, be concrete, think beyond adventure goals (climb Mt. Everest), and consider publishing the list somewhere. All these things can help you have a life that's more fulfilling as you go through it.

Anyone But Tom Bombadil

Author Neil Gaiman sat down with Stephen Colbert on his show last night to discuss his lovely Newberry Medal-winning novel The Graveyard Book. (Read it now! I loved it.) The interview below reveals the theme of the book and that Neil loves Tolkein but hates Tom Bombadil.

Because I follow Neil on Twitter, I've learned that they cut out 40 second of the interview, where Neil said his favorite Tolkein character was Gandalf, and Colbert said his favorite was Faramir. Enjoy!

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Neil Gaiman

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Political Humor

Mark Sanford
NASA Name Contest

Indulging my Inner Archaeologist...

They are opening up the chambers in the Bent Pyramid in Saqqara! Check out the announcement here.

I did make it into the pyramid of Menkaure when I went to Egypt in 2003. You had to crouch and walk, maintaining that crouch, down a steep incline, clinging to the right hand wall, while people coming out climbed up past you on the left. As you descended, it got dark and sticky and hot. The stone above your head bulged downward. You became accutely aware of the tons of stone piled on top of you. Many people turned around and got the hell out of there after a few moments. Those tomb robbers could not have suffered from claustrophobia at all.

Now I have to go back to Egypt. And maybe write something about exploring underground tunnels beneath a bent pyramid, the tons of stone weighing down from above...

Writing with a Cold

I've been under the weather for about three days now. Hopefully today is the big finish and I'll start getting better. But it did make me (blearily) wonder - how do people write to deadline if they get sick?

I had a brief burst of energy last night and did manage to write two pages. Now I'm afraid to go back and see what I wrote. But I do figure it's better to get something down, almost anything, rather than leave the page blank. Rewriting is a certainty as it is, and you might as well give yourself more to rewrite, right?

We'll see if I have enough energy to crank out two more pages tonight. So far, no. Just typing out this blog entry is making me want to go lie down. So I'm going to lie down.

But all you writers out there, who write sick, on deadline or not - hang in there. Keep writing.

The Grace of Surprise

Okay, this really has nothing to do with writing, but I found the video clip below and am just in awe. In it, a basketball player Chris Paul dribbles the ball through rival team member Jason Perry's legs at lightning speed. It's so fast you can barely see it.



Never thought you'd see a sports clip on this blog, did you? Thank goodness for slo mo and replays. The pass to his teammate who makes the dunk afterwards is almost as spectacular. I could watch this kind of graceful athleticism for hours. It shows the benefits of hours of practice, natural talent, and determination. Writers take note!

(As a tall chick, I also like seeing really tall people show the world that just because we're tall doesn't mean we're clumsy.)

Ten Commandments for Happy Writers

Check out agent Nathan Bransford's post today about the Ten Commandments for Happy Writing.

He's pretty much nailed it.

The Impossible Dream

I haven't seen the Oscar winning documentary Man on Wire yet, but I saw a montage from the film that just floored me, and inspired me.

Getting published. Making a living writing. Impossible dreams, right? Well, take a look at the clip below of Philip Petit, the man who walked on a wire strung between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. It's a lesson in how to make your impossible dreams come true.

At one point, Petit says, "I thought, okay, this is impossible. Now let's get to work."

Social Networking Etiquette - Agents

So you want to friend an agent on Facebook, or follow your dream agent on Twitter? There are some rules, baby.

Check in out here, on the Literary Agents blog.

I'm now on Twitter. Please forgive me.

At the urging of my evil friend Elisa, I joined Twitter today, and you can follow me @ Ninaberry if for some god-forsaken reason you're on Twitter too.

My excuse? I'm trying to see it as a writing exercise.

Okay, so... yeah. It's a narcissitic writing exercise. For those of you not up on the latest web insanity, Twitter is a site where people just post updates on themselves all day. Unless they block you, you can follow the updates of folks like John Cleese and Neil Gaiman (two of my faves!) and even send them messages. Along the way, you can post your own updates and get your own followers. There's a central feed where every single one of the kajillions of updates is listed as they are added.

Even just this one day of experience has shown me how valuable writing talent is when it comes to Twitter. Would you rather read witticisms from Stephen Colbert or learn that your Aunt just bought some Cortaid? Exactly. That's why Colbert has thousands of followers and your Aunt just has your obligated ass following her.

So I'm going to TRY not to bore all four (!) of my followers with dull updates. This is a challenge since my life is not all that exciting. So I must find ways to make my plodding life and dull observations sparkle and shine. This is a writer's lot, to find the universal, the funny, the beautiful, the truthful in the things and people around them.

It's not easy! But that's my excuse for joining Twitter. Later on no doubt I'll descend into narcissitic madness. Stay tuned!

Oscar Nominated Screeplay Podcast

Deceptive title for this post, ey? My friends Brian Pope and Mike Musa star this week in Pilar Allessandra's latest ON THE PAGE's podcast #76 - "Oscar Talk." You can check it out here or on ITunes - just search for On The Page.

Brian and Mike are funny and smart, and sometimes they're even right! The podcast is a lighthearted and informative. As a writer, I often try to figure out what makes a movie great, and how much the screenplay has to do with it. Of course, if the screenplay is awful, the movie won't be much good. But can a movie be great when the script is just okay? Can a truly great script lift an otherwise adequate movie to greatness? Which of the nominated films has the best screenplay and why?

I live and work in Hollywood, so the Oscars are a big deal around here. They arouse much passionate discussion. Personally, I enjoy the hullabaloo and the excuse to talk about movies, but rarely do I agree with the choices the Academy members make.

You have to remember that the Oscars are first and foremost a marketing tool for Hollywood. On Oscar is not like the hand of God reaching down to pick the best movie. It's a bunch of industry folks with their own weird takes on the people and movies involved.

Fortunately, Pilar, Brian, and Mike know movies, but they also know the truth about the Oscars. If you care about writing or movies, they are definitely worth a listen.

Exposition Central

Conveying vast quantities of exposition is fricking hard in a novel! I have a ton of info to convey on the world, the organizations in it, the people within them, their titles, names, hierarchies, conflicts - oy! I managed to hint at a lot of this in the early, action oriented scenes, but there's only so much of this stuff you can show.

And we all know showing is infinitely better than telling.

So what am I doing now?

Telling.

One character is telling stuff to another. It's logical that he would do this. But I just know that I'll need to change some of it later. This is where I have to force myself to just power onward, rather than stopping to make it perfect now. I can lose a lot of momentum worrying about things like this, and right now I need to just crank out pages, imperfect though they may be.

But exposition's a bitch, baby. Hopefully later I'll make it MY bitch.

busy busy busy

Write write, read read, edit, comment, read, write write.

Blog.

Write write write. Read, edit, comment. Write write write...

A Writer's Credo

Agent Michael Stearns has an effing brilliant quote from Raymond Carver on his blog As the World Stearns, which clearly gives a writer's credo. Check it out here, and be reminded of what it is to be a writer.

25 Random Things

There's a viral note going around Facebook that asks you to write down 25 random things about yourself. Then you tag 25 of your friends and they write down 25 random things about themselves and tag their friends. And so on. Of course, most people don't do it, but I did. And I think it could be turned into a writing exercise of sorts. How do you convey your personality in this list? How can you be creative? Maybe we should make these random lists about the characters in our novels and screenplays? Herewith, my list:

25 Random Things About Me

1. I love random things. I score very high on the random side of random vs. sequential.
2. I am a cat and dog person. I even think opossums are cute.
3. I have an extra vertebra.
4. By the time I get to the last stanza of "Fern Hill" by Dylan Thomas, I'm all choked up.
5. I get choked up easily.
6. I feel happiest and most at home in the waves at Bellows Beach, Oahu.
7. When I'm irritable, I get clumsy.
8. I keep snacks on hand so my blood sugar doesn't drop and I don't get irritable and clumsy.
9. My favorite movie is "The Searchers."
10. I think hot tubs, illegal drugs, and Girl Scout cookies are overrated.
11. Single malt scotch is my favorite alcoholic drink, but it takes me about two years to get through a bottle.
12. I love stationery stores. All that blank paper gives me a weird happy high.
13. I often get impatient reading "great" books, so of course I was an English major.
14. But Shakespeare is my favorite writer. After him it's probably David Simon of "The Wire."
15. I once disproved Einstein's Theory of Relativity, using a sneaky Socratic method.
16. I think Socrates was full of it.
17. I once fooled a Frenchman into thinking I was French.
18. Best food I ever had was in Bologna, Italy.
19. My dentist stories are worse than yours.
20. I've worn the ring my mother gave me on the same finger since high school.
21. I'm starting to feel self conscious about writing this list. Am I revealing horrible overly narcissistic tendancies to the world?
22. I like to howl at the moon.
23. For a long time I wanted to be an Egyptolgist.
24. I can count to 29 in Turkish. If I knew the Turkish word for "thirty" I could get up to 39.
25. Currently, my favorite word is "pulchritudinous."

100 poems for 100 days

If you have any poetry in your soul, check out this site.

An Excellent Waste of Time

Was mooching around YA Author Eileen Cook's blog like the passive aggressive lurker that I am, and saw her recommendation of this site as a top-notch time waster. I checked it out and agreed so wholeheartedly, I'm passing it on to the eight people who occasionally waste time on this site!

It's called Passive Aggressive Notes. And it will remind you of all the wonderfully horrible things people do, and the hilarious notes we leave to tell them to just stop it already. I copied one, which you can see above, but that's just the beginning of the panty-raid story! Also, take note of the misspelled "steeling" with the second "e" changed to an "a" post printing. At least we know the panties aren't made of steel. Imagine the chafing!

Side note: is there a sillier word in English that "panties"? If you can think of one, post it in the comments.

Red, White, and Blue Day

I'm so proud of our country. We take for granted this peaceful transfer of power, I think, forgetting how revolutionary it still is.

It's an amazing day. I wish I could be there with the two million who witnessed the inauguration of Barack Obama, but I feel as if we are all there in spirit today. The thing with feathers is fluttering in my heart once more, and I'm a bit verklempt. It makes me realize how difficult these past eight years have been. I've been holding my breath, braced for more horror from my own government. Now, I hope, I can breathe a bit freer. And so will the rest of the world.

Writing Advice from the Master - Joss Whedon

Joss Whedon, writer of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, the upcoming Dollhouse, and notoriously brilliant rewriter of just about any major screenplay you enjoyed (I'm looking at YOU, Iron Man) has written his Top Ten Tips for Screenwriting.

Pay attention. Even if you're writing a book instead of movie, most of this applies to you. Pay particular attention to Tip #1. It's a doozy.

Start that Story

There are so many ways to begin. I'm starting something, and I approach it from mutiple angles, but here are a few things to zero in on:

What is the conflict? Conflict equals drama. Drama equals story you really want to keep reading (or watching.) Pile on the conflict in every scene. But figure out what the main conflict is. Are the Nazis butting heads with Indiana Jones to get the Arc of the Covenant? Voila, conflict.

Who is the protagonist? Who is the antogonist? Be sure to have one of the first, and at least one (if not more) of the second. In more literary efforts, the antogonist can sometimes be an internal struggle, an alcoholic tries to stop drinking, so their disease is the antogonist - that sort of thing. Or make your villain the Nazis. They're always good antogonists.

What does your protagonist want more than anything? This is a biggie and needs to be something vital, preferably life or death. Or at least your protag thinks it's life or death.

What does your protagonist need more than anything? They learn that they need something different than they ever dreamed. Like, the unpopular girl who just wants to be invisible in high school who gets the lead in South Pacific and learns to that she's got talent, and it's okay to be noticed. See how what she wants (to be invisible) is diametrically opposed to what she really needs?

Sometimes I lose sight of these central questions when I'm figuring out characters, day-dreaming up some cool scenes, or building my imaginary world. But if you can figure out the answers to these questions, your story will have heart and meat.

Writing Goals for 2009

2008 was the Year of Writing, so 2009 will be... the Year of More Writing. Can't wait!

I don't technically do resolutions, but I do have goals for this year. Maybe we can check in at the end of the year and see what happened. The goals are:

1. Write another novel for teens. (Completely different and separate from the one I wrote last year.)

2. Write two more TV spec scripts. Finish the first one by April, the second by July. Start another spec TV or spec feature during the remainder of the year.

3. Get a book agent.

4. Get a TV agent.

5. Do at least three writing exercises a week.

6. Write two short stories.

7. Write in my journal at least once a week.

8. Write at least three poems.

9. Eat more cheesecake.

What? That's related to writing... in a way.

January - Month of Writing Advice

YA/fantasy writer Justine Larbalestier has deemed January to be Writing Advice month in her fabulous blog. Take a look if you're in need of writing advice of any stripe.

I'm only up to the "How to Get Unstuck" post, but so far it's all so right on the money.

My own thought on how to get unstuck when you're plot seems dead comes from screenwriting. Take a break, then come back and write down any and all thoughts for scenes for your book/story on separate notecards. As Justine says - have two characters that don't meet in the story meet somehow, throw in some explosions, whatever. It's all allowed. You'll be amazed at how this starts to trigger other, more logical ideas for scenes or connections in your story. Try to figure out how to get from the scene on Card Y to the scene on Card Z. This will lead to a flurry of other ideas. Not all the cards and ideas will be appropriate for your story in the end, but I bet you some of them will be great.

New Year's resolutions - 2009

1. Broker peace in the Middle East.

I should be able to find the time in between yoga and giving my cat his meds.

2. Stop Global Warming

I've already begun the work by having my heater break repeatedly.

3. Put Hubble #2 into space.

The original took some of the greatest and most intriguing photos ever. We can't just let it die! Hubble #2 will continue to gaze upon the vast reaches of space. Perhaps we'll finally get a shot of that most elusive phenomenon - Santa.

4. Write the Great American Novel and the Great American Screenplay.

After work and during lunch breaks. It's that easy, right?

5. Find every homeless cat and dog a home.

I don't think my neighbors have a pet. I'll start with them.

6. Prove that Einstein's Theory of Relativity is wrong.

What does the speed of light have to do with energy and mass? Seems kind of random to me.

7. Buy a home.

With no money down during the worst real estate crises ever. No sweat.

8. Never be angry or cranky with anyone ever again.

I'm already so close to perfection. Surely this year I'll finally achieve it.

Looking Back at 2008 - The Year of Writing

A self indulgent look back...

January - I had a car accident (his fault, not mine!). My first YA novel began to take shape. My faithful friends and fellow Wire groupies gathered to watch at my house as the best television series ever wound to a fabulous finish. "There Will Be Blood" shook me up, and I took a friend to Disneyland. I began another year of gaming with a group of like minded geeks. Yes, I game. So sue me for having an imagination.

February - my novel's plot got clearer. I planned my trip to Europe with my friend Wendy. Our pick - Prague and Budapest in October. The flu laid me low, and I finally got the car fixed. I passed the time with a couple of very nice gentlemen.

March - more writing! Took a screenwriting class from my fabulous friend Pilar, applying the ideas generated there to my novel. I really got under the skin of my main character. My critique group gave great feedback. I underwent extensive dental hell, but it all ended up costing less than I thought. Phew! The schmoozing reached unprecedented levels at various writing and media-folks gatherings.

April brought the beginning of my 12-week YA novel writing class. I refined my plot drastically, rewrote chapter one three times, and finally started to feel good about it. I endured a root canal and rewarded myself with wine tastings, good company, and watching friends perform in front of appreciative audiences.

For May, my calendar has "WRITE!" written in nearly every day of the month. And I did. I churned out pages and got great feedback from my class, which gave me incentive to keep going. May 8, I scribbled: "rewriting like a maniac" in my worst handwriting. Along the way I had a few rum drinks at the Tonga Hut.

June brought the final chapters of my novel, which I managed to churn out in spite of five fabulous days spent in Hawaii not writing. I reconnected with some of my closest friends and acted like I was 16 all over again.

In July I finished my writing class and the first draft of my novel. Hurray! I fell for "The Dark Knight," and attended the SCBWI (Society of Childrens Book Writers and Illustrators) conference in Los Angeles, where there was much schmoozing, attending of lectures, and writing.

In August I stepped back from my manuscript for a few weeks, supposedly to give myself perspective. But mostly I was lazy and hated my writing and figured I was doomed. My lovely mother came to visit and the latest dentist appointment revealed that I now have fabulously healthy teeth. I spoke on a panel at work about working as a creative exec assistant in Hollywood.

September brought me back to my book, and I rewrote and tightened and honed and felt the love again. I put together a website with help from a fabulous friend. Okay - so I have nothing to sell yet, but what the hey! My friend Diane visited and completed a triathlon - yay! I played poker at work, and started sending out queries. My bathroom flooded, and I hit a few Tiki bars because life is short.

From here on, I can't really discuss the query/agenting process, but let's just say so far so good. In October I ventured to Prague and Budapest with Wendy at marveled at how those countries are recovering from Communism. The men in Prague? Gorgeous! A Polish man told me that Hungarians are more passionate. Duly noted. I made notes in case I need to use those locations in a novel.

In November I rewrote a spec TV pilot I'd begun last year, and it actually got a lot better. Hey! Maybe I am learning something along the way. There was much feasting on turkey with loved ones, holding of newborn babies, and listening to live music.

December - I finished the rewrite on the TV pilot, and the beginnings of a new novel begin to appear in my brain. I start to jot stuff down - and signed up for another class, to begin in January.

So yes, I wrote more in 2008 than I ever have before, and I had my share of heartbreak, frustration and fun along the way. And I plan to write even more in 2009. The more I write, the more likely it is that something concrete will come of it, right?

I hope your 2008 was even more productive, satisfying, and delightful. Here's to a creative, adventurous, fearless 2009!

The Racoons - All Grown Up!

The little bandits aren't so little anymore!

Back in May I posted photos of five baby raccoons and their mother here, ignoring the advice of friends and family scared for my safety to venture outside to take those shots. The masked critters did not swarm me, but instead crunched in perfect concert on the dry cat food I'd left out for Miss Kitty.

Now it appears Mom has gone elsewhere, and the babies are now grown - but still together, like a furry Brady Bunch trapped in a variety show after the sitcom has died. They're bigger, they're badder, and they still all crunch in concert.

It's Hard to Type When You're Cold

And there's no heat in your apartment, so the cats have draped themselves over your lap and arms, and the laptop is your only source of warmth.

I'm just saying.

How Do I F*%&ing Start This Thing?

Is there a proper way to begin a novel?

Can you just sit down and write the thing? Some people claim to do this. They sit down with no outline, no character sketches, no idea of where there story is going, and they just write until its done. A few revisions, and - voila!

I'd hate them if I didn't think they were lying.

They may not have a laboriously worked out an outline, a calendar of events, and collected photos torn from magazines that remind them of the characters in their heads, but they fricking have more than a vague idea! It's been percolating in their brains for weeks/months/years, and by gum, they do so have an idea of where it's headed!

And the real, evil, fabulous truth? Most of them do LOTS of revising.

Don't get me wrong. Unless you're Aaron Sorkin, all writers do lots of revising. But those who do not outline/blah blah blah do LOTS of revising. (And Aaron Sorkin perpetrated Studio 60 on us, so maybe he should look into this revision thing.)

So I advocate starting with a plan of some kind. You may not have all 8 acts or follow the Joseph Campbell hero's journey, or whatever. But figure out who wants what and where they end up with it first. It'll save you grief later.

That said, I wrote the first three pages of a novel over the weekend without a completely worked out outline. It was fun! But I have been working on the character, my world's mythology, and have a vague outline of the story in my head. I just skipped ahead a bit to remind myself of the fun to come so I can finish outlining with a lighter heart.

How to Write the First Book in a Series

Want to write the first book in a fantasy series that will sell and keep the readers hooked? Tune in tomorrow for the live internet chat with several writers who have done it. Check out Fangs, Fur, and Fey's podcast/livecast here. Successful fantasy series writers like Jenna Black and Rachel Vincent will share their secrets.

Writers are strange; humans are strange

Great post by the author of YA novel Graceline, Kristin Cashore over at her blog This is My Secret, all about her writing process and the insanity that goes with it.

If you're a writer, check it out. You'll realize you're not alone in worrying, obsessing, procrastinating, and thinking your writing sucks. There's comfort in knowing you're not alone.

Vampires: Target Women

As Twilight-mania continues to dominate the world of YA fiction and mainstream movies, I continue to struggle with the amazing appeal of these storeis.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all for vampires and fantasy stories and hot romantic this-and-that. But the girl in Twilight is just so passive, so uninteresting, so unable to think and act for herself that she bugs the heck out of me. The male lead is described over and over again as "perfect," until I felt all "she doth protest too much"-y.

But who cares what I think? Teens sure don't. They're sucking down the books and swooning at the movie. Heck, a lot of middle-aged women are swooning too, and probably breaking their hips when they fall.

To help us understand this phenomenon comes the hilariously gifted video reporter Sarah Haskins from Target: Women at Current. Check out her funny and slightly disturbing investigation below:

Don't Write the Sequel Until They Pay You

Here's some good fundamental advice I got from a published author. I was wondering how best to spend my writing time now.

Should I plunge into an outline for the sequel to the book I just finished? Or should I launch into something totally new. The argument for the sequel, in my head, went something like: well, once they buy the first one, I want to be ready to go with the second!

This, of course, assumes someone will actually buy the first one. Blah blah blah, assume makes an ass out of, well, me, mostly.

So don't plot or plan or write your sequel until someone buys the first book. Yes, I do have a strong idea of where the story should go. I figured that out before I wrote the first book. But it could very well be a big fat waste of time if I spent more time on that storyline if no one else likes it the way I do.

So I'm doing research and making up stuff for another book, and I'm in that happy stage where the world is jampacked with possibilities and I can do whatever I want with anyone and everything in the world. Structure and limitations come later.

I'm thankful for...

My wonderful, supportive family and friends.

My health.

My job.

That I've got the time, energy, and wherewithal to write.

Writers like Harper Lee, Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, Dave Simon, and George R.R. Martin.

That fragrant pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting I just ate.

The warm, friendly waves at Bellows Beach.

The Advil I just took to counteract the sugar headache from the pumpkin cupcake.

Dictionaries, thesauri, Google, wikipedia, my DSL connection.

Whoever designed my favorite underwear.

How a newborn baby feels when you hold him.

Ink on paper.

Dreams. Hope. Excitement. Laughing till I squeak.

A fat yellow full moon hovering over the Hollywood Hills.

My cat Lucy asleep with her legs in the air.

The smell of orange blossoms.

Plumbing that works.

My other cat Max insisting on lying on top of me.

Charlotte's Web, the Chronicles of Narnia, Half Magic, and all the other books I loved as a child.

Emily Dickinson, John Ford, Van Gogh, Nefertiti's sculptor, the Cave at Chauvet.

Having a wonderful place to go on Thanksgiving filled with people I love and the smell of turkey and pie.

Just Keep Writing, Just Keep Writing...

There's a character is Finding Nemo named Dory who is terribly upbeat and goofy, and one the little mantras she sings is "just keep swimming, just keep swimming..."

I've been feeling a bit low and sorry for myself and disappointed in some stuff. Some of the waiting is over, and I didn't hear what I wanted to hear.

So, after some wallowing, I go back to the mantra - Just Keep Writing. Thank goodness I have supportive friends, some of them fellow writers, some of them not, who tell me that I'm not insane, not to give up, and to get off my ass and keep writing.

So I'm brainstorming some new ideas and having a blast. Nothing like creating a whole new world to make you feel empowered, at least in your own imagination.

Put It Out There

Why is it so hard for me to show people my writing? That's what I want to do for a living (eventually, fingers crossed, if I'm lucky), right?

But some part of me magically wants to make that living writing cool stuff that no one will ever see. Because then no one can ever judge me and find me lacking, silly, or pointless.

Conversely, I find it super frustrating to write continuously in a vacuum, with no reward coming from all the effort.

Jeez, I'm a pain in the ass. I feel like kicking my own butt all over the planet.

But these are the contradictory feelings that I'm always battling - I suck. No I'm great. Why does no one realize how fabulous I am and pay me for it? Why would anyone pay me to do anything?

I suppose there's a middle way, and the truth lies somewhere in there. In the meantime, I'm going to keep pushing back the fear and darkness and try to put it out there, let people see my stuff, and see what happens. It's terrifying, man! But life is short, and other cliches. Just because you broke your leg last time you jumped doesn't mean this one will go badly. Just triple check your parachute.

Why Does this Feel Appropriate?

From The Onion:

Cancer June 22 - July 22
While it's true that the universe works in mysterious ways, it's becoming pretty clear what it has against you.

The Hardest Part

Remember that Tom Petty song, The Waiting? The lyrics say it all: "You take it on faith/You take it to the heart/The waiting is the hardest part."

I can't be specific about what I'm waiting for. It's just not politic. But waiting is part of what you have to do as a writer, and it just fricking sucks. So much about being a writer sucks! It's really hard, man. Don't do it unless you can't help yourself.

Write or Die

Found a cool widget/website at Write or Die/Dr. Wicked that will help you get words on the page.

Check it out here - put in your word count and the time you allocate for yourself to achieve that goal, click, and start to write. The widget will keep track of your time, word count, and even help you paste what you wrote to the clipboard to save it.

I'm not participating in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year, but this would be very handy for any NaNo-ers out there trying to meet their word count goals every day.

Or consider this NaNoWriMo calculator to help you stay on track:

1667

Photos

I finally downloaded my photos of Prague and Budapest. You can see them all at my Flickr site, here.



That's me in front of the John Lennon wall in Prague. Back in the communist days, students started graffiti-ing a tribute to Lennon on a wall in the Castle district of Prague. Despite crackdowns and white washing by both communist and the current regimes, new graffiti continues to appear. I added: "All You Need is Love."



Here I am overlooking Budapest. I'm in a very cool series of towers and walkways in the Buda section of town, overlooking the Danube and Pest on the eastern shore.

Travel is such a privilege. I'm so grateful that I get to galavant all over creation, taking photos and soaking it all in. It's wonderful to be surprised, and every new place I go surprises me in some way, beyond anything the guidebooks could ever tell me. It keeps me humble, widens my viewpoint, and makes me appreciate coming home. If you can get away to another country - go! The flights are hell, the lack of sleep is daunting, and you get sick of looking at a map every time you want to go somewhere. But in return you get to see the world from a different perspective, like a shaft of sunlight hitting the world at an angle you've never seen before. It's revelatory. And it's damned fun.

Yes We Can

Jet Lag = Early Voting

Thanks to jet lag, I awoke at 6am today. So what the hell - I got up, got ready for work, and walked to my polling place at Gardner Elementary School in Hollywood. I'm not a morning person, so I've always voted after work. But today, with an historic, exciting election in the offing, plus jet lag from my trip to Europe, I broke with precedent and actually GOT IN LINE to vote.

I've never had to wait more than two minutes to vote. But today, with a possible victory for a Hawaiian-born black man, I had to wait a whole 30 minutes. It was worth every second.

I love voting on Election Day. I'm all for early voting, absentee voting, or voting by telepathy if that were possible. Anything that makes voting easy and available to all is fabulous. But for myself I love doing it on the official day, stepping up to that rickety little voting "booth" (really more of plastic mini-cubicle at my polling place) and using that short squat inky pen-thingie to mark my choices. Folks around me in the other wobbly cubicles were taking their time marking up their ballots.

I trucked through - click click click, and looked up, blinking. Was I really done? I made way for the next voter and handed my ballot to the wild-haired elderly Russian-American man waiting for me next to the crouched machine that ate it up and belched somehow to show him all was well. He handed me my "I Voted" sticker and a felt a swell of silly pride - in myself, and justified pride - in my country, where power changes hands peacefully at the command of the people.

Voting rocks. It's like telling, for a brief moment, the story of our country, the narrative of your state, the tale of your city.

Empty shoes - Budapest

Another great shot by Wendy. This time we're in Budapest, and the shoes are a memorial to the victims of the Nazis who were executed as they stood along the river Danube. They were forced to take off their shoes before they were shot and fell into the river.

Who were the people who once stood in these shoes? As a writer, my head spins with the possible stories that lead the people to this spot and this horrible fate. How many fascinating stories will never be lived or told because people weren't allowed to live their lives in peace.

Me at the Lennon Wall - Prague

Taken by my lovely travel companion, Wendy. This is a wall in Prague where, during the days of communism, young people would graffiti images of John Lennon. He inspired them. The tradition continues to this day, even though the government routinely white washes the wall. It only provides more room for new folks (like me) to add their own tributes to Lennon.

Interesting how popular art like this can be so moving, so inspirational. I not only had to add my phrase, I wanted immediately to listen to Lennon's music and start lobbying for peace.