Cicadas

Macy recently heard that the best blog entries are short. Uh oh! Silly me. If you haven't noticed by now, I tend to be long winded but I'm going to keep it to two glittering paragraphs tonight.

The subject? Cicadas. A couple weeks ago I mentioned the cicada invasion over at my Alys on Love blog. Let me just say things have changed. We went from fascination and devotion to the cicadas, so much so that we had to carefully remove them from my tires and driveway before pulling out to avoid smooshing them to my dogs eating them up, my son riding over them with his tricycle, the neighbors complaining about the noise and the so-called "cicada pee", five-year-old, Samantha,(who has always been afraid of bugs) picking them apart with her tweezers and telling Dante to eat them without the wings. The mating still provides some interest (Mommy, why are they stuck together?) but over all, the honeymoon is over.

The tie in? My fascination with my first novel evah has followed much the same cycle. Ha! I'm now picking it apart with the tweezers. And I'm sure everyone is quite sick all the noise.

Cheers and happy writing,
Alyson

p.s. All right--that wasn't glittering, but it was short and sweet, no?

Butt-kicking

Tom Hanks said, “You learn more from getting your butt kicked than from getting it kissed.”

Yes. I think you do.

But, isn’t it nice to get that kiss every once in awhile?

I think in writing, you get your butt kicked a lot.

First of all, it is a very solitary experience. Others frequently don’t understand why we do it. It’s a compulsion that few feel. So much butt kicking occurs before you ever get a sale or even an accolade that you simply wonder sometimes if it’s all going to pay off in the end. However, most writers – real writers – are visionary. Despite disappointments that their families don’t comprehend, despite sacrifices that make little sense to loved ones, despite losing too much sleep and drinking too much caffeine, writers who make it possess a fortitude that would make them successful in almost any endeavor.

And really, when the butt kicking commences, what is the most valuable skill you have? Fortitude. That ability to will shaky arms to push you back into a sitting position so that you can reach the computer keyboard and continue.

The second big butt-kicker is criticism. Writers should expect to get a lot before they ever get a pat on the back. It’s like having a loaf of dry bread and only one spoonful of peanut butter. You got to eat a lot of the old yucky stuff before you find a slice with taste. But that tiny, smooth, creamy reward laced somewhere in the middle is enough to push you forward.

The first time I ever submitted anything for others to read, I had a loaf of the nasty stuff shoved down my throat with no water at all. It happened long before AotP was even a thought -- long before I met the community of friends I have here who criticize but also lump in the peanut butter, too. (And a few morsels of chocolate every now and then, as well! What a great group!)

Anyway, I posted fifteen pages of what I really considered to be among the best romance writing anywhere (ah, the naiveté of a beginner), and I received just about that many pages back in my first crit – all problems that I needed to correct. The last sentence of my crit – my molecule of peanut butter – said, “The hero is kind of yummy. He shows some potential.”

I’ve since shelved – in a deep dark corner – that unfinished story. But the book of whoop-ass in that crit was probably the best thing that could have happened. What if some poor, sweet soul had kissed that scene with ‘it was wonderful’, when in reality it sucked. Well, I’d still be that writer “with some potential”.

Sometimes, I kick my own butt. When life is very busy and taxing – a normal day for me – I kick my own butt with guilt that time finds itself on the bottom of the hourglass and I have yet no words on the page. I look at my day and say, “Where could I get five extra minutes to write?” And really, even with only five minutes a day, won’t the book get finished someday? Of course. But, I’m a now, now, now person, so I keep kicking my butt. It’s good for me.

Pen to paper. Just write. Even crap. I can fix crap. I can’t fix a blank page.

I’ll start where I am. I’ll enjoy the journey. Yeah – because black eyes, bruised ribs, and sore muscles are preferred over kisses. Not really. But I learn more from them. I learn when to duck, when to strike, when I’m most prolific, when my idea is one to run with rather than ignore, when I have something kissable.

Hit me. Kiss me. Just tell me to write.

Macy.

The elusive voice thingy

I was pretty much thinking I had nothing to write about today. I've been rolling around what I wanted to say and coming up with nothing all day.

I've been writing alot again. Well, today I only got 1100 words, but I played alot. One thing I learned in Barbara Samuel's Girls in the Basement class is that play is good for the muses. And, frankly, with the schedule I've kept all my life, I haven't done enough of it. I've felt guilty when I did. I'm trying to change that.

I could write about play, but I won't. I'm going to write about voice -- that elusive quality that everyone says they want from new writers but which no one can adequately define.

The whole gang here is planning to take Barbara's voice class in August. I can hardly wait. It's like knowing what you want for Christmas several months out and then just being stuck looking at pictures of it while you count down the days.

In thinking about voice, a question was recently posed to me. Actually, a few. I'll pose them to you.

Why are you writing?

That one was pretty easy. I have stories to tell. Imaginary people run around in my head, and they want me to give them life. Who am I to say "no?" (Yes, to most non-writers this seems a crazy concept, but for all of you who write, you say, "Yes, I know the feeling.")

Then, why now? Why not at some other point in your life?

That question is harder. I've thought about writing forever. However, being the practical girl, there were always things that HAD to be done. The WANT TO's seemed to get put off. I moved this up to a HAVE TO, instead of a WANT TO. There was a point when I realized I'd cut myself off from the highly creative part of me. I wasn't whole. Writing fills the spaces that were empty. It sounds both simple and vague. It is. It's one of those intangibles that's hard to put into words.

Why write?

("Ok," I said, "uh, I already answered that.")

No, really, you haven't. Why write what you write? What drives you to tell your stories the way you do? What is the reason behind the stories? What's your big picture?

Oh, my theme. My over-riding theme. Hmmm.

Well, I haven't been writing forever. What I have are incomplete stories and ideas -- lots and lots of ideas that I can't wait to put to paper. However, as I explore these ideas and what the stories are really about, I actually do see a "why".

I write quests, journeys, missions to find out. I write about looking for something you don't have, about finding meaning in chaos, about revealing what's in the dark corners. In every quest, there is a distinctly evil entity and a distinctly good one. Not black and white, light and dark. More like black and gray. The hero/heroine isn't completely in the white. They are iffy. But part of their journey is discovering that they are the good guys and that they have the power to defeat the bad ones. Even my personal blog says, "Writing is a journey. This is the story of mine." Journeys are why I write. I want to tell the story of change and discovery and the ultimate triumph of good. To me, love is the highest good.

It makes sense why I write romance, huh?

I don't think my journey to discover this voice thing is over. It's only beginning. But, I've begun my quest.

Begin yours. Why write the stories you write? (Don't tell me that it's because you love history or vampires or good sex scenes.) Why do you write your themes? I really think that's a key to your voice.

What's your reason for writing? What is it you're ultimately trying to communicate?

Macy

Good enough?

I stayed home from work today. I cleaned up around here for awhile. (It's an ongoing task since workers are still in and out on a daily basis.) I also wrote some. I edited several pages. When I got stuck on exactly what I wanted, I put down the green pen and moved on to the synopsis.

I find writing a synopsis helps when I'm not exactly sure where I want the story to go. Somehow, just writing all the main points makes it clearer. At 1000 words into what really amounts to a rough summary more than a synopsis, I took a break.

I was frustrated. It just never seems that it's quite good enough. I'm this way about alot of things. Fortunately, the more comfortable I become with a job, the more I'm able to determine what's important and what I can let go. In the bill-paying job, I tend to be very non-perfectionist. I'm better than good-enough, and that's all that's expected.

However, with writing for publication, I feel this intense need to be perfect, to have the perfect manuscript. My characters need to be perfectly motivated. The villain needs to be perfectly revealed at the perfect time with the perfect clues dropped along the way. The heroine and the hero need to kiss at the perfect time, and I need to lead up to that moment with the perfect nuances.

But it goes deeper. I need the perfect word. I've been known to read the thesaurus for a half hour, playing with meaning until the perfect word appears. I've been known to repeat a sentence out loud, playing with word order and choice until the perfect cadence is developed.

I won't throw out any more examples of my quirky tendancies lest you run screaming that I need psychiatric help.

You see, though, writing is new enough to me that I haven't figured out those places where imperfection can hide. I know they are there, but I think I have yet to discover them. That means that I currently erase 900 words for every 1000 I write. I have to sit back and let the ideas come in their own sweet time instead of plowing forward. I have to test out all sorts of ideas. I have to rewrite...alot.

I have to find a reasonable way to work throught the frustrations that accompany imperfection because it's all imperfect now. I have to go through this quest for perfection until I know what it looks like in my own writing. Then I can figure out where to back off and how I can give myself a break.

Why do I do this? Why have I always done it? Today, in my frustration with imperfection I decided to do a little self-discovery and find out.

I looked as far as my Meyers Brigg personality type: INTJ.
About 1/2 of 1% of the population. Lucky me. (sarcasm)

Here are some things you should know about the INTJ.

1. No idea is too far-fetched to be entertained. INTJs are natural brainstormers, always open to new concepts and, in fact, aggressively seeking them. (Well, this is both good and bad for a writer. Brainstorming is good, but you have to know when to stop. Hmm.)

2. Likes looking at information from a global viewpoint, spotting patterns and relationships, that lead to an understanding of the key issues. (This is great. I generally "feel" like I can get a global view of the story, but those pesky details....)

3. INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. (Problem: How do I know when it's perfect or at least good enough?)

4. (but, wait, there's more...) What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply, often ruthlessly, the criterion "Does it work?" (Bigger problem: How do I -- the creator of my story -- know if it works? And what works for one person, doesn't always work for another. So, who do I please? The best and most reasonable answer is myself. Yes, but who else? I can please myself in many ways. What one of those is going to please my readers, editors, publishers, etc.?)

So, having at least identified the problem, I now have to come up with solutions. (Even if you keep reading, you won't find those. I haven't discovered them yet.)

It really is okay, though. I'm one of those people who embrace the journey, even the unpleasant parts. It's all about learning, and even the things that go wrong show me what not to do next time.

Today, I read an article in the most recent edition of Writer's Digest. The article was an interview with Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and most recently, Paint It Black. After reading the interview, I think I'll buy Paint it Black. It's not the type of book I usually read. It's more literary, and unless I'm in the mood for something like that, I tend to read escapism commercial fiction. However, Fitch said some things in her interview that nailed what I was thinking about today.

She said, "If you hold yourself to high standard, there's always the disappointment that the book on the page isn't the book in your mind. It helps you to have a fair scoop of realism. You have to let go of what you want to do and just say, This is what I'm able to do. Some people's aspirations are very high, and whatever they do they're deeply unsatisfied with. That's a terrible trap for artists and writers not to be able to enjoy something that's imperfect, because everything in the physical world is imperfect."

She also said, "In the arts, your weakness becomes your signature. The fact that your work is imperfect makes it interesting."

Yes, to the first quote. Maybe, to the second one. I'm still debating it.

Obviously, perfectionism is an issue for me, much the same as power is for Alyson. (I'm glad we aren't covering my achilles heel this week.) However, in such a competitive industry, it seems that getting it as right as possible is a benefit.

So, I really do want to know: Does the fact that your work is imperfect make it interesting? If so, maybe I should try to perfect imperfection.

That's all the deep, rambling stuff for now.

Macy

PS. Read the full interview conducted by Mary Curran-Hackett in the April edition of Writer's Digest, pages 54-57.