This writing process has been so much harder than I ever imagined! Don't get me wrong, I have experienced all the usual writing difficulties--writer's block, not deep enough characters, cliches, etc. But, lately, I find myself struggling on where I want my writing to put me. I think I need to know what kind of books I want to write, before I actually go through the entire process of writing one! Although I don't have to write to sell, what would be the point? And yet, I can't focus so much on what is popular, what will sell, etc. that I completely lose who I am as a writer.
I've had to sit back and ask myself, who am I writing to? Am I writing just to an editor? Am I writing to other women? Am I writing to anyone willing to read? Am I writing to purple polka-dotted rhino's? It feels that way (to the latter) on some days! I enjoy writing about emotions and people and the depth that make each of us feel and live life to the fullest. So, in some ways, I've been drawn to the genre of women's fiction. I love romance and people falling in love and the deep emotions that go into play in creating those types of relationships. Romance is fun and exciting and high like none else, but do adults today really want to read a romance without sex? And I'll be honest, I won't write sex. I love delving into the depths of human peril and society and figuring out what makes a group of people work or not work. But, I'm not a pro on politics and governments (not just ours in the US, but governments of all type). I don't feel like I'm an expert of any one thing, but love to think and feel all of it. See, I think I stopped making sense after my first sentence. Maybe I should have just left it there.
In many ways, I feel drawn to the stories that my children read. I like to read books that are clean. Does that make me a prude? I don't like books filled with swear words or explicit sex scenes. I don't like things that are graphic. I know that horrible thing happen in the world, like murder and rape, but I don't want to read about them in detail. Maybe its because I read to find an escape, to some degree, and I want that world to be safe and beautiful and inviting and make me a better person because I visited there for a time. If I write books like this, will there be a market? I don't know the answer, and perhaps I never will until I just stop worrying about it and write! Ultimately, perhaps I'm mostly fighting against my fear of failing. What if I pour my time, my heart, my soul into a story only to have it fail miserably? I think it is safe to say that this last sentence is what keeps most people from ever writing the story they long to write! Because I am determined to do this, even if only for myself, then I am going to just do it! So what if I fail. And in a nutshell, I guess the audience I am writing to is myself. I will write what I would want to read and not worry if no one else shares my taste in stories.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Setting Up Your Story
Because I am still early on in my writing process, I am working on outlining my story and planning out each chapter and scene! There are as many different methods and thoughts on this process as there novels already written! Each person looks at this differently and approaches their novels in a new way.
For me, I like to be fairly organized in my approach and have a really good game plan before I let the creative part take over. For many, it may be the opposite. They may prefer to just let the creative juices flow and then come back and in the editing process make sure they have a sound scene.
Recently, I came across a technique that I love. It's noticing the difference between a scene and a sequel and then putting them together to create movement in your story. I am reading a fabulous book called, Techniques of the Selling Writer
Techniques of the Selling Writer and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in finding new and fresh ideas about the craft of writing.
For me, I like to be fairly organized in my approach and have a really good game plan before I let the creative part take over. For many, it may be the opposite. They may prefer to just let the creative juices flow and then come back and in the editing process make sure they have a sound scene.
Recently, I came across a technique that I love. It's noticing the difference between a scene and a sequel and then putting them together to create movement in your story. I am reading a fabulous book called, Techniques of the Selling Writer
Techniques of the Selling Writer and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in finding new and fresh ideas about the craft of writing.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Introduction
I have so many fun things to post here, each day, as I make my journey public! But, for starters, I thought I would write a little bit about how I got started with my dream to write!
It will probably sound really corny and cliche`, but I promise it is true! When I was in the third grade, just about to turn 8, I read the book "Little Women". I fell in love with the book. It was one of those books that left me wanting more and dreaming my own little day dreams about life with Meg and Jo. With all the passion of an 8 year old, I told myself (can still picture where I was standing-next to the third grade door just after recess) that I was going to grow up and be like Jo. I was going to be a writer someday. I knew it in every part of my being, and I couldn't wait to grow up. Now, at that impressionable age, I figured the only thing you had to do to grow up and be a writer was move to New York City and the rest would just happen! It's no wonder why reading, writing and NYC are three of my all-time favorites in life!
Childhood continued on for me, and I didn't do a whole lot to move that dream forward, other than read everything I could get my hands on. I had an insatiable appetite for reading, with the series of Anne of Green Gables and all the Little House on the Prairie Books being among my favorites. Then when I was 12, I decided the time had come for me to write my first book. I was so excited! It was summer time, I was bored and what better way to fill the time than to write a novel! I worked all afternoon, and by night time, I was so proud of my accomplishment! A full 12 pages of notebook paper contained my entire novel!
From that time on, I don't remember life without a notebook or two and a million stories bouncing through my head. I wrote everywhere I went, including during history class. I have several boxes of all the scribbled notebook papers that contain my crude and young attempts at becoming an author. At the ripe old age of 19, I typed (with a typewriter) a manuscript that equaled 261 pages (amazing the details you remember even years later) and sent it to a publishing company. I was so excited! I was so naive! Of course, I was devastated a few months later when I received that first rejection letter. I wanted to quit and give up for good!
Fortunately, I didn't, I couldn't. Writing was such a part of me. Even while I took time to serve a mission for my church, I wrote on P-days, later when I took a job as a legal assistant, I wrote over my lunch breaks, and in the car when stopped at a light. Once I was married and started having babies, it became a bit more difficult to write in an organized fashion. I still wrote, but it was more in journaling things, when emotions would well up inside of me so much that the only way to release them was through words on paper.
Soon after the birth of my third child, I decided to go back to school. I was able to take online classes and still be at home with my young family, as my husband was busy with law school. I took every English and creative writing class I could get my hands on. I thrived on reading good literature, analyzing it and writing about it. A fire began to grow within me that was even more unquenchable than my love of reading as a child. I thought about the writing craft while my kids played at the park, I had a notebook stashed in the diaper bag while they played an McDonald's, and my imagination took me to a million other places than there. I fell in love with stories like The Lottery, Paul's Case and Those Who Walk Away From Omelas. I gained new friends in Flannery O'Connor and Charlotte Gilman. I wanted to write like them. I wanted to stir emotions the way they did to me!
I continued to read, and study and write! But now it was different because I had professors reading what I wrote. Some of them loved my work, some of them did not. I remember one professor in particular, that hated everything I did and graded me accordingly! I was convinced he had it out for me. I learned then that writing and art are subjective! It doesn't mean you quit!
Even with the birth of three more children, including one who had significant health problems, developmental delays and required a lot of work, I still wrote or thought about writing and mostly read about writing! I have lots of books on the craft of writing, but several are my dear friends! I turn to them with every case of writer's block. I will be referring to them often on this blog and share the exercises that help me the most!
And here I find myself, a few weeks from turning 38 with still the same pipe dream of becoming an author! I don't live in NYC. I don't have agent's numbers on my speed dial and I am still waiting for that first letter of acceptance from a publisher! It doesn't matter. If I have learned nothing else it's that writer's write, and if I ever want to see my work in print, I have to do just that! Even if it means writing a million words before 100,000 words are turned into a novel, it is what I will do! Someday, I will realize my dream. And if I don't, I just hope that my children and grandchildren will enjoy the boxes of notebook paper and the hard drives of manuscripts they will be left!
It will probably sound really corny and cliche`, but I promise it is true! When I was in the third grade, just about to turn 8, I read the book "Little Women". I fell in love with the book. It was one of those books that left me wanting more and dreaming my own little day dreams about life with Meg and Jo. With all the passion of an 8 year old, I told myself (can still picture where I was standing-next to the third grade door just after recess) that I was going to grow up and be like Jo. I was going to be a writer someday. I knew it in every part of my being, and I couldn't wait to grow up. Now, at that impressionable age, I figured the only thing you had to do to grow up and be a writer was move to New York City and the rest would just happen! It's no wonder why reading, writing and NYC are three of my all-time favorites in life!
Childhood continued on for me, and I didn't do a whole lot to move that dream forward, other than read everything I could get my hands on. I had an insatiable appetite for reading, with the series of Anne of Green Gables and all the Little House on the Prairie Books being among my favorites. Then when I was 12, I decided the time had come for me to write my first book. I was so excited! It was summer time, I was bored and what better way to fill the time than to write a novel! I worked all afternoon, and by night time, I was so proud of my accomplishment! A full 12 pages of notebook paper contained my entire novel!
From that time on, I don't remember life without a notebook or two and a million stories bouncing through my head. I wrote everywhere I went, including during history class. I have several boxes of all the scribbled notebook papers that contain my crude and young attempts at becoming an author. At the ripe old age of 19, I typed (with a typewriter) a manuscript that equaled 261 pages (amazing the details you remember even years later) and sent it to a publishing company. I was so excited! I was so naive! Of course, I was devastated a few months later when I received that first rejection letter. I wanted to quit and give up for good!
Fortunately, I didn't, I couldn't. Writing was such a part of me. Even while I took time to serve a mission for my church, I wrote on P-days, later when I took a job as a legal assistant, I wrote over my lunch breaks, and in the car when stopped at a light. Once I was married and started having babies, it became a bit more difficult to write in an organized fashion. I still wrote, but it was more in journaling things, when emotions would well up inside of me so much that the only way to release them was through words on paper.
Soon after the birth of my third child, I decided to go back to school. I was able to take online classes and still be at home with my young family, as my husband was busy with law school. I took every English and creative writing class I could get my hands on. I thrived on reading good literature, analyzing it and writing about it. A fire began to grow within me that was even more unquenchable than my love of reading as a child. I thought about the writing craft while my kids played at the park, I had a notebook stashed in the diaper bag while they played an McDonald's, and my imagination took me to a million other places than there. I fell in love with stories like The Lottery, Paul's Case and Those Who Walk Away From Omelas. I gained new friends in Flannery O'Connor and Charlotte Gilman. I wanted to write like them. I wanted to stir emotions the way they did to me!
I continued to read, and study and write! But now it was different because I had professors reading what I wrote. Some of them loved my work, some of them did not. I remember one professor in particular, that hated everything I did and graded me accordingly! I was convinced he had it out for me. I learned then that writing and art are subjective! It doesn't mean you quit!
Even with the birth of three more children, including one who had significant health problems, developmental delays and required a lot of work, I still wrote or thought about writing and mostly read about writing! I have lots of books on the craft of writing, but several are my dear friends! I turn to them with every case of writer's block. I will be referring to them often on this blog and share the exercises that help me the most!
And here I find myself, a few weeks from turning 38 with still the same pipe dream of becoming an author! I don't live in NYC. I don't have agent's numbers on my speed dial and I am still waiting for that first letter of acceptance from a publisher! It doesn't matter. If I have learned nothing else it's that writer's write, and if I ever want to see my work in print, I have to do just that! Even if it means writing a million words before 100,000 words are turned into a novel, it is what I will do! Someday, I will realize my dream. And if I don't, I just hope that my children and grandchildren will enjoy the boxes of notebook paper and the hard drives of manuscripts they will be left!
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Writing Ramblings
As I work on writing my book, I have decided to keep this blog to record all of my writing exercises! Often I find it necessary to get the creative juices flowing. I thought it would be fun to keep them all here and encourage anyone else who wants to write along with me, to do so! Happy Writing!
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