Calling time-out

First – major congrats and humble bows to Gerry Mac who put the entire Syracuse community on his back last night and won the game against Georgetown. It was amazing.

Next – we had robins in our yard this morning. Of course, it is supposed to snow later this week, but we’ll take hints of spring where we can find them. The farmers down the road are tapping their maple trees. The earth is waking up.

I have loved reading all of the haiku you guys sent in. Wow! I hope the prompt got your muses busy.

That’s what I need right now – a busy muse. So I am calling a Creative Weekend. No more hotel reservations, no more email or taxes or anything that is not fictional or creative. My muse is hungry and it is time to feed her.

See you Monday.

Writing Question #2

I’m wondering, do you start at the first page and write each scene in order until the end? I often find I’m inspired to write a certain scene, so I jump ahead to it, which can mean that my events in between don’t end up flowing, so I feel like I’m constantly rewriting scenes and always tell myself, if i would just write from start to finish – in order – maybe this wouldn’t happen. What do you think?

I start at what I think is the first page and go from there. Once I am through the first draft, I ALWAYS wind up moving scenes around and sticking in new scenes and throwing some scenes out. And sometimes I change the opening completely. FEVER 1793 used to have eight additional chapters preceding what is now Chapter One. And TWISTED had a very different opening way back in Draft One.

Sometimes I will see a scene or chapter further in the book than the one sitting in front of me. I do not hesitate to jump to it. You can always write “Chapter Four: Something happens”, then move on to Chapter Five, if, for you really know what you want to put in Chapter Five. But if, as you say, you feel that jumping around interferes with the flow of your story, then experiment with not jumping and see if that helps.

We had my parents over for dinner last night. The dog (formerly known as the Creature With Fangs) gave my mom a massive wet dog kiss. My mom giggled and laughed and looked totally blissed out. So now the dog is the Creature Who Can Do No Wrong. Mom calls her the Granddaughter with Long Ears.

Other things on my to-do list today:
Study picture book manuscript – decide if it can be salvaged.
Follow the men’s Big East tournament.
Think about WIP2 plot issues.
Taxes.
Hang with Stef and Charlotte. (Here’s a link Stef sent me last night for anyone fed up with crazy consumer culture.)
Go to the library!

Writing Question #1

I just wrote a post about how today will be filled with the joys of pulling together my taxes, but I realized it was stupid so I deleted it.

Instead, I’ll dig out one of last month’s writing questions: “How does an idea become a whole story?”

::pause to stare at screen::
::types something:: ::deletes it::
::looks for another question::
::grits teeth and decides to deal with it::

This is a big question. In fact, there have been several books written in response to it. You’ll find a couple here.

Let me try to craft a short answer.

It helps to recognize the limitations of an idea. A watermelon seed in your hand doesn’t do you much good, unless you want to spit it at someone. A watermelon seed planted in well-balanced soil with good drainage at the right time of year, properly watered, weeded, and guarded from bugs and critters, will produce a decent watermelon you can enjoy. Your story idea is that seed – nice to look at, fun to think about. But you need to know going in that turning it into a story or book is going to require Work.

When I have an idea, I first focus on the people related to the idea. PROM, for example. The idea was to explore some issues that surround the ritual of an American prom. I started with the main character, Ashley Hannigan. Decided she would come from a working class family outside Philly, loving, but a little crazy. I spent a couple months thinking about and writing about her character, trying to figure out who she was. When I thought I understood her, I gave her The Big Problem – she hates the prom. Then I complicated it – she is forced to help save it. From there I imagined a series of complications, set-backs, and triumphs.

I don’t want you to think this all just pours out of my brain on to the page. I am not sure how other authors do it, but it tends to be very, very messy for me. Picture a person trying to decorate a room in total darkness. That’s what writing feels like to me a lot of the time. I flail around in confusion and doubt, trying to remember where I put everything. I fall down a lot.

This is why I recommend young writers start with short stories first. Novels can be a real pain – all those people! All that stuff! All those pages! Argh!

When you are writing or revising your story/novel, remember that every scene, every sentence needs to do at least one of two things: either give the reader more information about a character, or move the plot along.

Does that help?

In which the author recounts disaster and searches for her suitcase

It’s time to pack again and hit the road. I leave tomorrow for a long flight West. If you live in the upper left-hand corner of America, you’ll find me here:

Thursday – on an airplane all day
Friday morning – Mt. Baker JH/SH, Deming, WA
Friday afternoon & evening – preconference activities
Saturday – 2006 Bond Children’s Literature Conference, Western Washington U., Bellingham WA
(Here’s a nice article about the gig, and the wonderful woman who runs it, Nancy Johnson.)
Saturday night -Sunday – red-eye flight home. Ack.

Yesterday was horrible. Why? Background first: I am an Apple (PowerBook G4) user, one of the crazy drooling fanatics who irritate people condemned to use Microsoft. But in order to communicate with the rest of the world, I use the Word and Powerpoint (Microsoft products) – the versions which were specifically designed for Apples. So far, so good. I keep my AutoRecovery set to back up every 3 minutes, so in case of disaster, I would at worst lose only 180 seconds of work.

My computer had a seizure yesterday (yes, this happens to Apple users… about once a year). “No problem, I have AutoRecovery,” I chirped. I rebooted, humming a happy tune, and waited for Word to reopen my document. When it did, eight hours of changes, including three new scenes, were gone. Vanished into the ether. Forever. Poof!

We’ll skip the details of what I said at that point, and what I said for the next hour as I combed through files and logs in a vain search for my lost words.

What happened? AutoRecovery had gone on strike eight hours earlier. Why? Who knows. Maybe because I called Microsoft, “Microdweeb” a couple days ago. That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it. I really went over the edge, emotionally, fell all to pieces and thought Very Dark Thoughts. It had been years since I felt that bad. Decades, maybe. Thank goodness for my incredibly strong and loving husband, who calmly went around the house picking up all of the shattered pieces of my soul. He wrapped them into an afghan and brewed chamomile tea. When I emerged from this coccoon, he gently suggested I get back to work before I forgot everything.

Moral of the story: Choose your significant other wisely if you are going into the arts.