Reward for Writing

Okay, so I haven't even been there yet, and I haven't done anything much to merit a reward, but I've found a great looking Portuguese bakery here in LA called Nata's Pastries at 13317 Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks (between Woodman and Coldwater Canyon).

The plan is to reward myself for writing every 10,000 words or so with some fabulous treat. Because I grew up in Hawaii, which has a decent sized Portuguese population, I have a huge fondness for certain Portuguese pastries, particularly malasadas, a simple but delicious deep fried donut rolled in sugar. A well-traveled friend of mine has recommended the "custard tartlets" for tea. I have since found out that these tarts are called natas (photo above), and are the emblematic pastry of Portugal. I heard about this place thanks to a show here on local NPR station KCRW called Good Food.

Can't believe I didn't eat any natas when I went to Portugal! (I did eat malasadas there, thanks to my intrepid travel companion, Wendy, who found some delicious samples at a small town fair we attended in the rain...) Now's my chance. Take a look at the goodies this place has... Yum-hey!

Hmm. I did write four pages of my TV spec last night. Maybe I deserve something for that...?

Harry Potter vs. Star Wars

My friend the Tayster sent me this image - check it out and you'll see how all stories are, well, kinda the same.

Sssh! This is a secret most writers know and readers do not. Look away from the similarities! Succumb to our wiles in retelling the same story over and over!

Outlining and Mind-mapping

In perusing the NaNoWriMo forums, I came across a term about outlining a book I hadn't heard before - the Snowflake method. One Google search later, I found the method here.

As luck would have it, it closely approximates what I've done so far with my novel. I've got a fifteen page outline, which I got using a combo of character sheets from First Draft in 30 Days by Karen Weisner, a six-act screenplay structure I got through my online class at Write Tight Now, while incorporating elements of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. I'm supposed to move on and do an extensive outline now, that approximates a first draft. But I may just start that first draft for NaNo. Anyway, the Snowflake method looks cool, so check it out if you're inclined to outline but don't know how.

Also found free mindmapping software called Freemind that looks like fun to use. I downloaded it and without any instruction just started making a mindmap for a different book idea I've had for awhile. I'm not sure if this will be useful for outlining so much as a way to generate ideas and get the creative juices flowing. It's probably also useful for less creative types who need to brainstorm for their business or research or something. No idea what mind mapping is? Check out Wikipedia's definition here.

Feminism and Romance Go Hand in Hand

A brief break from blogging about writing to announce something we feminists always knew -- according to Science Daily --

Contrary to popular opinion, feminism and romance are not incompatible and feminism may actually improve the quality of heterosexual relationships, according to Laurie Rudman and Julie Phelan, from Rutgers University in the US. Their study* also shows that unflattering feminist stereotypes, that tend to stigmatize feminists as unattractive and sexually unappealing, are unsupported.

This seems like a no-brainer to me. But at last science can back up the claim that feminism pretty much benefits everyone in their personal relationships. Funny how mutual respect between the sexes does that!

NaNoWriMo - I'm in!

After perusing many online forums and asking other writers how they manage to write 50,000 words in a month when they have real jobs, I've decided to sign up for NaNoWriMo, the November write-a-thon where novelists and would-bes like me try to scratch out 50k words in order to "win."

Thanks, A, for the support! Your idea of giving myself some sort of food reward every 10,000 words is great. I think I've found a Portuguese bakery here in LA that makes malasadas. Mmm. Now that's something worth writing for.

There's no prize, except the personal glory of meeting a creative goal. The NaNoWriMo website is full of forums, parties to launch you off, potential writing groups, ways to procrastinate, and so on. It's great! If you've ever wanted to write a novel, sign up!

If you haven't ever wanted to write a novel, thank your lucky stars and go on your merry way. Your life will be all the easier for it.

To NaNoWriMo or not to NaNoWriMo - that is the question.

Every November, a movement called NaNoWriMo grips the world of would-be novelists. This a kamikaze attempt to write 50,000 words of a brand new novel in 30 days, starting November 1 at midnight, and ending at 11:59pm on November 30. Looking for motivation and inspiration to write? Check out the website here.

The idea is to kill the evil editor in your brain who tells you that your writing is crap and just get 50,000 words on the page (that's less than 1700 words a day, every day of the month), regardless of quality. That's a short, 175 page novel. There are forums on the site, where you can share tales of your carpal tunnel. At the end of the month you send them your 50,000 words, where their computers count the words, then declare you a winner and send you a certificate. No one actually reads your novel, but you can post excerpts for your fellow writers if you like. It's a great motivational tool. Published novels have come out of the event.

Should I do it? I do have a job, for crying out loud. But I do have the outline of a novel that's screaming to be written. 50k words is about the right lenghth for a YA novel like mine...

Home again home again

...jiggity jig.

I'm back from my trip to England, a bit spacey from a cold and jet lag, but happy to be home after a great trip. I'll be posting photos somewhere on the web soon, once I get my shit together.

A brief precis of events: Wendy's flight cancelled, I spend a day alone in London and visit the Tate Modern. Rain. Dali and Di Chirico make me feel like I've landed on an alien planet.



Sleep in our five-star hotel and eat the free chocolates. Wendy arrives next day, I venture to British Museum and spend far too much money on a bronze Egyptian cat.

We eat well, though London is expensive and the dollar pathetically low versus, well, every currency, let alone the mighty pound. British papers trumpet that "Brit" Spears loses custory of her kids. Off to the Tower the next day for bloody tales of beheadings, the rack, garish gold plate dishes, suits of armor, pikes, swords, and the block.



Malteasers (British malted milk balls) a plenty.

The chocolate in England is just... better.

Off to York via (a very expensive) train. Rolling fields, smokestacks. Four days there to explore Roman ruins, huge cathedral (called the Minster), walk the city walls, drink lots of tea and eat scones. Sunny and "warm," around 60 F.

Scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream. Yum!

Back to London, where I start to catch my cold but nonetheless see two musicals with Wendy - Avenue Q and Spamalot. Peter Davison, the 6th Doctor Who, stars as King Arthur. Tons of fun!

Yorkshire

I'm off to England on Thursday. These are photos of some of the areas I'm visiting, just to whet your (well, mostly my) appetite. The first one is from the North York Moors. The next threee are of the Yorkshire Dales. No, these aren't my photos. I found them in an online gallery. Check it out here.

Outlines, outlines

I'm a firm believer in outlining your story. There are a few successful writers out there who don't outline - Stephen King for example. Aaron Sorkin in TV (although Studio 60 could've benefited from some outlining, in my humble opinion.) And many writers resist outlining with all their might. "It messes with my creative process." "I get inspired as I write!" And on and on. Either these folks have a natural feeling for structure and what works in a story. Or their stuff meanders, wanders, offers up dry patches, and gets repetitive. They don't realize that outlining stirs your creativity - it helps you find out exactly what you want to say and how you want to say it. It's the opposite of confining - it points the way, but also offers endless possibilities.

I don't think JK Rowling outlines. She's brilliant in her own way, don't get me wrong. But Book VII of Harry Potter got seriously dull there in the middle when the kids were camping the woods for months on end. A good outline will prevent that sort of thing by identifying it early in the process, giving you the chance to fix it before you spend all that time writing it. Once you spend days/weeks/months writing several chapters, it's a lot harder to just chuck them or even to give them a big overhaul. So outline!

I just finished a preliminary 15-page outline for the first novel in my proposed teen series, and a two-page 8-sequence outline for my TV spec. Victory!

The 8-sequence idea comes from Pilar's screenwriting class at On The Page, and I don't want to steal her stuff, so I won't detail it here. I ended up using it on my novel too. I'd already done the 15 page outline, but I went back and did a smaller, 8-sequence "beat sheet" (as they call it in the film/TV biz) in two pages, just to make sure that the structure of the outline worked. After all, you can do outlines until you're blue, but what good are they if you don't assess them and revise them in order to see what works? The good news - my outline works. I think. But the smaller 8-sequence beat sheet made me realize that I had a major turning point for my character lurking in there that I hadn't really zeroed in on. I've seen this in other people's writing too. A big, life-changing event occurs to the protagonist, and the writer just slides right past it, barely taking note. Beat sheets, outlines, structure - they all help you identify these moments.

The basic idea is that your character has a goal. (I need to buy milk to put on my cereal.) The character does something about that goal. (I walk to the store.) Complications ensue. (At the store, I drop the carton of milk, and the cute grocery clerk helps me clean it up, and it's love at first sight.)

From those complications, a new goal emerges (I want this guy to ask me out), the character takes action, (I return to the store the next day with my best friend to scope him out and flirt) , and another complication ensues (we meet him, we flirt, but he asks my best friend out instead of me). And so on. Now add on top of that, a structure - like the Hero's Journey, or Syd Field's 3-Act template, or Pilar's Eight-Beat template, and you've got a story.

The Hero's Journey is famous, but the basic idea is that a certain structure underlies the myths that last through the ages. This structure is useful in shaping a modern day story that will really work well for a modern day audience - and for future audiences. That structure is basically:

1. A call to adventure, which the hero has to accept or decline.
2. A road of trials, in which the hero succeeds or fails.
3. Achieving the goal or "boon," which often results in important self-knowledge.
4. A return to the ordinary world, again as to which the hero can succeed or fail.
5. Application of the boon, in which what the hero has gained can be used to improve the world.

As Campbell said in his book, Hero with a Thousand Faces:

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

Your story doesn't have to involve supernatural forces for this structure to work. Almost every successful story you can think of, whether it's The Wizard of Oz, Chinatown, or The Great Gatsby, fits.

So now I'm off to write my huge, formatted outline for my novel. It'll be anywhere from 50 - 100 pages and really be a sort of first draft. And I'm also off to work out the scenes of my TV spec and get a more detailed outline for that. When I sit down to write these pieces, I'll know what I'm doing. New ideas will occur to me, and revision to the outline will occur. But I've got a map. Now I can figure out which path between point A and point Z I want to take. I usually favor the scenic route.

I'm off to England next Thursday. Yep. England. Two days in London, then a farm in Nottinhamshire, then York. I'm a lucky so-and-so, aren't I? But I'll be writing during the down times, taking that big fat notebook so I can keep moving forward. And perhaps do research for the next book!

Getting notes...

If you've ever wondered what it's like to get notes from an agent, or a development or network exec. Click here.

Write that TV Spec!

So I've chosen to write a spec TV pilot for my screenwriting class at On the Page. I was leaning toward making it a feature, but Pilar said that she thought the idea was fresher as a pilot, since she'd never seen anything like it on TV, but had seen features like it.

Here's the thing about writing a spec TV pilot - it's really really hard. You have to introduce an entire cast of characters that people will want to see for an hour every week, show the "franchise" - which is what viewers will see every week, tell an outstanding story, all in 50 pages. Crazy. You need five act breaks that will keep viewers interested through a commercial break. You need a strong protagonist with a complex background you only hint at. You need to keep it affordable. It needs to familiar enough that it doesn't alienate readers, but it needs to something new and fresh.

It's ridiculous! But that's part of the fun.

On the Page Rave

My friend Pilar has been teaching screenwriting and getting paid to be a screenplay consultant for nearly a decade. I've been tempted in the past to take one of her classes, and recently Pilar made me an offer I couldn't refuse - help her out as an assistant (which mostly involves folding up tables after class) and I can take the class for free. Her company is called On The Page. And Pilar rocks. Fair disclosure - I helped write her publicity materials when she was first starting up. Doesn't mean I don't speak truth! I do, I do. I know that now for sure because I had my first class with Pilar this past Saturday.

This is the From Premise to Pages class, which pretty much guides you through exactly that. The first class was three hours, and it was jam-packed with brainstorming techniques, logline pointers, structural ideas, and so on. It is a workshop, so we all got to throw out our loglines and get feedback. We volunteered to hear comments on our ideas and so on. Very helpful. Whether you're starting out with a theme, a character, or an event, Pilar's class can help you flesh out your screenplay from there.

I'm really looking forward to the next class. Pilar is not only smart, you can tell she's having fun when she teaches. She used to do stand up and act, so she's comfortable speaking in front of groups, is very funny, and can handle anything you throw at her. I feel very motivated and supported. This is what a class should do.

Now I have to decide which idea to move forward with. I've got an idea that could be either a feature or the (expensive) pilot for a TV series. And then there's my book series idea. Pilar's techniques could be quite useful for that too! Oy. Must decide before next Saturday. Any way I go, should be fun.

What is a Book Series?

I've gotten some questions on just what a book series is, exactly. At the workshop I attended, the official definition (by editors of varous YA book series) was:

A series is 2 or more books linked by characters or themes.

Very dry, I know. Examples would include Nancy Drew, Encyclopedia Brown, The A-List, Gossip Girl. Those are all teen books. In adult land, series books are often genre - mysteries, sci fi, or fantasy. Robert Parker's Spenser books, the Kinsey Milhone A is for Alibi books, Agathe Christie's Hercule Poirot books - these are all mystery series. Lord of the Rings, however, is not a series - it's a trilogy with an end point. Few "literary" novels become series.

Series books are beloved in children's lit because kids get addicted to them, which gets kids reading. Librarians and teachers are big proponents of series because kids who don't read stand alone books will gobble up series books.

From a fellow writer's notes at the workshop we both attended:

In coming up with a series, you need to:
Do research and see what's out there
Pick your age group
Pick your genre
Pick your main character and friends
Find your hook, come up with something different.

The hook is all important in book series. Given my Hollywood training, hooks and high concept are old hat to me.

Hook = the high concept or gimmick that frames the theme of the story.

Examples:
1. Three friends who have to spend the summer apart.
Hook: connected by their dreams at night.
2. A child's parents divorce and she moves across country with her mom.
Hook: She turns into different people to cope
3. A child needs to improve his grades or get kicked off his sports team.
Hook: Brings baseball cards back to life to tutor him.

So you take something familiar and make it unique with an unusual twist. It's a coming of age story - on Pluto! You get the idea.

The familiar part of it means 1) your reader will identify with it - mystery readers who like male detectives will like Spenser novels; 2) your editor will recognize the genre; 3) the publisher will know how to market your work.

Yes, you must keep the market in mind when coming up with a book series. These things are money making machines. Study what has sold in the past, then put your own unique twist on it.

The twist makes your work stand out. Folks who read and liked Nancy Drew might try The Hardy Boys, which is basically the familiar Nancy Drew idea with the twist that the detectives are now brothers.

In our next post - how to write a series proposal.

Hot Writing

Ever tried to write when the temperature is in the triple digits? Ever tried structuring your story while you sweat and your cats come out from the bedroom and eye you blearily, meowing in anger because it's so damned hot?

Have I mentioned that it's hot? Well, it's hot. It's over 100 and the humidity is high, and my a/c is struggling mightily to keep my living room a reasonable temperature, with mixed results.

My lovely little MacBook gets so dang warm as I type on it. Surely it would be better for it if I let it rest during this ridiculous heat wave? I can't ask my brain to function in this sort of weather, can I? Heck, I have to go look in on a friend's cats later today in the Valley (the VALLEY, people, where it's even hotter...) so I need to move as little as possible and remain cool in the hours leading up to that event, right? Wouldn't want my brain to explode from the heat. Last night it was still 80 degrees at 10pm. I mean, come on here, folks, this sort of extreme is just stupid!

Oh heck. I'm procrastinating, and procrastination makes no sense. Still, I don't know how tropical authors manage. Perhaps they rely on trade winds, when all we have here in Hollywood is everlasting sun sun sun and a blast furnace of warm air zooming up out of Mexico. I'm praying hard right now the God of the Canadian Low that weathermen tell us is ambling in from the northern Pacific as we speak. Blow, Low, blow! Bring us back down to something reasonable and I promise never to mock Canada again. For at least a day or two.

Plotting

Here's the deal with plotting a book series - there's a TON of it.

1. I have to plot out the overall arc of the series. That is, what big 'ol story will my main character go through over six or seven books?

2. I have to plot the first book, which has many suspense elements and is thus, to use a technical term - "plotty".

3. For the series proposal I have to give synopses of at least two more books, possibly more. So, even though I don't have to plot them out completely, I need a strong idea of their plots.

S'all making me plotz.

Book Series

One spot to make real money in kids books is in book series. You've probably heard of the Goosebumps books, although you probably haven't read them. These days big sales come from Young Adult series focused on upper crust girls and their sex lives -- series like The A-List and Gossip Girl. Also big - vampires and werewolves with a twist in books like Twilight, and faeries in books by Holly Black. Chapter book series kick ass too - the Katie Kazoo series has nearly 5 million books in print.

I'd like write something good, don't get me wrong. But I'd also like to make money writing.

So I'm thinking about a book series. I think I have a kick ass idea (not to be shared on the interent, thanks anyway!) and am forging ahead.

The other good thing about books series? You don't have to write the whole first book to get it bought - just a fabulous proposal and the first three chapter. I'm gonna churn that out in a couple of months, if my insane schedule permits. Wish me luck!

Kaena Point

Have I mentioned lately that my home state of Hawaii is beautiful? On my last trip there I went to a beach I've never visited before - Kaena Point, at the far Western tip of Oahu.

Makaha used to be the last beach park to hang out at that end of the island. But they've added a lifeguard stand, parking lot, and bathrooms to the crystal clear waters and white, sinking sand at Kaena. A soft wind blew as white clouds scudded by, and the turquoise water deepened to purple where the reef began.

On a Saturday afternoon in July Mom and I were two out of maybe ten people there. Ssh! Don't tell. Just visit and keep the sacred beauty of it as pristine as you can.

Found a great quote on writing from George Orwell. The last couple of sentences strike me as, well, amazing.

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives there lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness.

One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand. For all one knows that demon is simply the same instinct that makes a baby squall for attention. And yet it is also true that one can write nothing readable unless one constantly struggles to efface one's own personality. Good prose is like a windowpane.

SCBWI Conference Mania

So I just spent four days at the big ol' Los Angeles conference for the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Four fat days of lectures, workshops, parties, networking, lunching, schmoozing, clapping, laughing, fighting off drowsiness, excitement, nervousness, and hard work. On the fourth night I went out for pie with my best friend and was totally hyper. I giggled and made faces and in general just acted very silly. After all the focus demanded by the conference, I guess I let my inner doof loose.

Highlights for me included:

The Keynote by Walter Dean Meyers, in which he talked about how it's a passion for detail that lead him to become a writer. He really made me think about why I write and what makes writing good versus bad. And he's right - finding the RIGHT details to include about your character and what she's doing and how she does it - that's key.

Emma Dryden's passionate Keynote about the adventure of writing.

Agents Kate Schafer and Tracey Adams talking about their different styles of agenting. Later I attended Kate's "Advice from an Agent" workshop and was blown away when she mentioned an obscure book as one of her favorites - Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden. "Any John Marsden fans out there?" she asked. "Yes!" I said, though I don't think she heard me.

These are fabulous teen novels about a group of young people in Australia who go camping without their parents. While they are off in the bush, the rest of their country gets taken over by a foreign power, and they must first struggle to survive before they begin an underground resistance movement.

I loved this series so much that I pitched it to a producer I was working with at the time. She loved them too and went into a bidding war with another producer for the TV rights. Alas, she lost. But I immediately loved Kate for loving that book. Amazing - the power of a great novel.

Tamora Pierce, who wrote some of my favorite fantasy novels, talked about all the many sources she uses for inspiration. Her quote from another writer: "The immature artist imitates. The mature artist steals."

And my favorite - the Writing the Series Workshop with Bonnie Bader and Judy Goldschmidt from Grosset and Dunlap and Price Sterns Sloan. This was two mornings spent learning how to put together a proposal for a book series. After the first day we had homework, and I worked late into Sunday night, determined to make my proposal kick ass. I figured that it ain't often you get to pitch directly to an editor and get feedback. So what the hell. In the second session, as it came near my turn to read my series concept, I could feel my heart start to beat very loudly and very fast. I'd written it in the voice of the protagonist. Would that work? I thought it was pretty damn good. Was I wrong?

Turns out, I was right. Bonnie and Judy said that my proposal was a good example for the others to follow. They liked it! They really did! I just need to really hone the voice. I was shaking by the time I was done. I couldn't really hold my pen to take notes on what they said, so thank goodness most of what they said was positive. After they moved on to other people, I finally calmed down. Whew! So now here I go - I'm gonna rewrite this proposal, come up with three slick, fabulous chapters to submit, and go from there. Very exciting.

I also really enjoyed the Golden Kite Awards luncheon, which included a singing contest and great speeches from Sarah Pennypacker, Larry Day, Walter Dean Meyers again, and Tony Abbott. I'm forgetting someone else very cool, but they all rocked, and our table bonded over the shared fear of singing, and over the ridiculous and fabulous singers from other tables.

Overall grade for the conference: A.

But I'm exhausted and exhilarated. You've got to work, baby, work! And even in college I didn't sit listening to speakers for eight hours at a stretch. Work is less intense, and my job is pretty damned demanding.

I'll be there next year. Wish I could afford the upcoming NYC conference!

Crazy Life, Peaceful Life

I got back from spending a peaceful July 4 in Hawaii to madness! The fun sort of madness that is my life.

Before I Hawaii I had a karaoke birthday party (for me) and much drunken singing, presents and cards and good wishes from friends took over a weekend. I actually got up and sang - twice. The first time, seriously, I must've sucked. I couldn't hear myself at all, so we all know what that means. The great thing about karaoke is that you're pretty much guaranteed that someone out there is worse than you are.

Then off to stay with my parents (a few nights with Mom, a few with Dad) in Hawaii. Have I mentioned lately how wonderful Hawaii is? Too bad it's so dang hard to make a living there. And my busy, social, fun life in LA reminds me that I'm lucky to live there. But still - even with the beach covered with stinging portuguese men-of war (blue bubbles of death! Well, not death literally, but it hurts like hell if they sting you) at Bellows (best beach ever!) it was paradise.

My Dad snoozed under the ironwood trees, hat over his face. A sunburned haole guy talked to a tow-truck driver as they dug his SUV out of the powdery white sand. A woman in a flowered one-piece threw sticks for her black lab to chase while her two little girls ran around digging men-o-war out of the sand and throwing them in a bright red plastic bucket. The sun beat down, but a soft breeze ruffled the waves. A continuous roar/hiss of the turqoise ocean pulsated pleasantly. Peace. Bliss.

The next day - malasadas! (Slightly crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside Portuguese donuts deep fried and rolled in sugar. Seriously ono. That's Hawaiian for delicious.)

After a few days of this - back to LA. A quick clean up of my apartment, large hellos to the cats, and then a delightful visitor (one of my oldest and best friends). Then - another crazy weekend! Wine on a good friend's patio in the candlelight on a warm summer night, trading jokes and confidences with a group of close buddies. Brunch with more friends the next day, a movie with another huge group of friends (the new Harry Potter, which was pretty good). Then work the next day.

Whew!

What is it about summer that brings out the need to convene and confide? The heat brings out sweat and the urge to reveal oneself, to hang with your community, to sip wine, listen to the crickets chirp, and ponder the meaning of life. And then to crack a rude joke and laugh like a hyena.

Crazy life, rich life!