I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year, but I have done it (and won!) twice. I highly recommend it. If you’re trying to develop a writing routine, or if you want to write a novel but never make time, NaNoWriMo could be the catalyst you’re looking for.
I tried to open my text editor program. It wouldn’t open.
I tried to work on my current draft of novel #2. The word processor wouldn’t open.
I tried to open my other word processor. It wouldn’t open.
Then I tried to restart the computer. Nothing happened.
So I came here, and am typing it into the ether. I feel I’ve made a good faith effort to work on my novel today. It’s not my fault the universe isn’t cooperating.
#59 in my book challenge for the year was Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. A brief reminder that these mini-reviews are part of my annual book and movie challenges, which I initiated to remind myself of their importance in my life, and to let others know parenthood doesn’t preclude books and movies.
I enjoyed Prose’s novel A Changed Man last year, and was surprised to find her non-fiction book was also a compelling page turner. I had trouble stopping at the end of chapters. Prose harks back to a time when learning literature was done with close readings that largely eschewed the biographical details of the authors. Her approach embraces the study of literature before postmodernism, which came along and shook everything up with its inclusion of Foucoult, Lacan, and the insistence that we look at everything through different “lenses”. Her approach also harks back to a time and an approach that were more about loving literature than taking it apart and tearing it down, as discussed in this article by a professor of English.
Each chapter focuses on an aspect of fiction, such as character, sentences, paragraphs, and more. For each topic, Prose offers many excerpts and analyses of famous works. The book finishes with a list of “Books to be Read Immediately”, though I did miss an index that would have tied each work on that list to where she cited it as an example in the book. I found her writing and the book both accessible and challenging. In the wake of it, I feel both discouraged (how am I ever going to write as well as the writers she named?) and encouraged (nothing for it but to practice).
Interestingly, Prose even took a book I’d recently not enjoyed, Sense and Sensibility, and pointed out a skillfully done aspect of it that made me better appreciate that book. While Prose’s book is directed to writers, it will also be appreciated by those who love literature.
I type 1-handed, w/ baby Guppy in sling. He cries if I put him down. Soon Drake will be home from preschool. I’ve learned to do many things w/ kids around, but writing isn’t one of them. These last few weeks, with Drake not napping and Guppy napping sporadically, I’m wrangling one or both from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., with few, and all too brief, exceptions. My husband G. Grod gets home from work about 6 p.m., so the last hours of the day are tandem parenting, but it’s a struggle to get even the basics done lately, and I’ve had to put writing off again and again.
My boys haven’t been napping, I had to pack for a weeklong visit to family, and at the last minute I decided not to take my laptop, hence my lack of recent posts. I flew out with my husband and both boys, then G. Grod returned to work, and I stayed longer so the grandparents could have more time with the kids. While packing, I was daunted by the thought of taking my laptop, various liquids–baby Tylenol, children’s Tylenol, my eye drops, two containers of baby food, and two juice boxes–AND the boys by myself through security, so I left the computer behind. The flight back went mostly well, but Drake’s listening is sporadic, the security guy confiscated the juice boxes, and Drake cannily refuses to wear the monkey backpack/leash we bought. It wasn’t easy.
Before I left, a friend said to me, “Have a good vacation.” I responded that I find family visits different from vacations. While family visits can be enjoyable, they usually don’t have a high enough ratio of relaxation to obligation for me to feel restored enough to call them vacation.
Hard on the heels of my post about not buying books before I am able to read them, or even before I’ve read them, I bought a book last night that I haven’t read, and don’t intend to read soon. Jodi at I Will Dare wrote that Mary Gaitskill was doing a reading last night, so I grabbed her books that I own (Two Girls, Fat and Thin; Bad Behavior; Because They Wanted To) and the issue of Harper’s that had her essay on rape, which blew my mind when I read it, and tried but failed to lay my hands on my copy of her essay from Vogue on Little Women.
I had been so virtuous for so long, not buying or even putting Gaitskill’s new novel Veronica in my library queue, because I had not yet read her last story collection, Because They Wanted To. But sometime within the past year, I read an article that said she was one of a handful of talented writers who can barely make a living, and since I agree with the talented part, I thought I should put my money where my ethics were, and buy Veronica. So I did, directly contradicting nearly everything I wrote earlier this week, except for how good I am at rationalizing.
Gaitskill was a good reader, and seemed a little shy in front of the audience. Her writing was mesmerizing, and she had interesting things to say about how she wrote Veronica years ago when she had an emotional idea about the book, but wasn’t able to finish it till she had a more intellectual handle on it and could tackle the manuscript holistically. She has arresting white-blonde hair, and wore a pin-striped brown suit over boots that looked both fashionable, and sharp enough to poke a good-sized hole in someone’s shin. And her outfit was a good reflection of how she seemed: smart, talented, with an edge.
It’s either the sound of silence, or the sound of me sucking.
I’m feeling a little bitter today. I applied for an annual writing mentorship earlier this spring, one I applied to a few years ago, and heard nothing back. This time, I felt I had a strong manuscript and application. I knew the competition was difficult. I didn’t expect to win, but I knew they recognized many writers in each category. The winners were just announced, though, and I didn’t make the list of four winners, two finalists, or twelve honorable mentions. There were 90 applicants; 18 were recognized. So my writing and manuscript (again, even after much work) weren’t deemed worthy of recognition, and weren’t in the top 20%.
While this is discouraging news, there are two possible responses. One is to take it personally and give up. The other is to humbly admit that I still need to work on my writing, and get to it.
Guess which one I’m picking.
Toddler will not nap
Five month baby on the move?!
Oh my goddess, help.
The toddler did eventually nap, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing and posting this today.
For more motherhood haikus, visit Haiku of the Day, the site of Kari Anne Roy, author of Haiku Mama. The friend who gave me the book noted, and I agree, that it’s funnier now that I have more than one kid. I’m not sure why; perhaps because illusion and romance have worn off, and a sense of humor has become one of the best survival tools.
A reader, N., wrote that she had finished an outline for a novel, and wondered what next steps to take. I am no expert, just another writer trying to get published. Writing, I suspect, is like just about everything else on the planet. Every person does it differently and has different things that help, or hinder.
I started the manuscript I sent out during National Novel Writing Month in 2002. NaNoWriMo is a contest of sorts, in which writers are challenged to churn out a 50K manuscript in 30 days. Nothing matters except word count. NaNoWriMo was useful for me because I’m terrible at finishing things, so I thrive on arbitrary deadlines (see my book and movie challenges.) I picked a topic, created some characters, and started typing. No outline. No plan. Just a vague idea and a crazy-ass deadline.
After I had the 50K rough draft from NaNoWriMo, I took classes at the Loft Literary Center. I took 3 classes (the same one twice) and got a new draft out of each. The current draft is, I think, the seventh one. The manuscript changed significantly with each draft.
National Novel Writing Month is one way to write a novel. It worked for me in 2002. It did not work for me in 2004. I wrote 50K, but so far I have yet to turn those 50K words into a useable manuscript. Another option is to take classes at the Loft Literary Center. I recommend the longer classes rather than the shorter workshops, since the signal to noise ratio is better. Still another piece of advice I’ve found helpful came from local writer, Kate DiCamillo, who writes 2 pages a day. She says it’s good not only for getting writing done, but also for working through writer’s block.
For more ideas, consult any book on writing. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is useful, if only for the assurance that there’s someone crazier than me out there. Some people swear by Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones, others by Stephen King’s On Writing, others still by Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I recommend checking writing books out of the library rather than purchasing, since what works is so individual. Finally, for any person juggling novel writing and motherhood, I found this helpful (previously noted here):
My advice for young women writers is just do it. Don’t wait for some ideal point in your life when you will finally have “time to write.” No sane person ever has time to write. Don’t clean the bathroom, don’t paint the hall. Write. Claim your time. And remember that a writer is a person who is writing, not a person who is publishing. If you are serious about it, you will realize early on that (particularly if you expect to have children) you can’t take on a high-power career in addition to writing. You probably can’t be a surgeon, and have children, and “write on the side.” (On the other hand, you could marry a surgeon, thereby solving the whole problem.)–Lee Smith
I strive to post five times a week, but this week I am feeling thwarted, though perhaps by my own hand. Yesterday we had a friend of Drake’s over for a playdate, while I attempted to do six loads of laundry, mop the kitchen floor, make some progress reading Jane Eyre, and resurrect–and more importantly, de-crustify–the high chair now that Guppy is on the verge of so-called solid foods. Unsurprisingly, I was unable to read or write online, especially since Guppy’s idea of when to wake from his nap differed greatly from mine.
I’ve turned off the comment feature. I was getting hundreds of spam emails a day. Additionally, this recent article, via Arts and Letters Daily, reminded me that good online discussions rarely happen organically in the comments section. Any comments can still be emailed to me. I love to hear from you, even if I am tardy to respond. (How long do you think I can use the new-baby excuse? He’s five months, now.) They stand a much greater chance of a reply, and I will post interesting follow-up discussions that arise out of email.
A friend asked me recently why I chose to write a young adult novel. I responded that I’d always been a fan of the genre, and that my story centered on a high school girl, so that usually made for a YA book. When I gave it more thought, though, I realized that my answer wasn’t entirely accurate. In my very first draft of the novel, the main character was a woman in her twenties. I wrote the backstory of a relationship she’d had in high school. The backstory got very long. As I kept writing, I found I didn’t want to return to the original story. The backstory turned into the main story, and because it was set in high school, the novel became for young adults. Realization one was that my novel had NOT always been YA, rather that’s what it turned into during the writing of it.
Once I realized my faulty memory about that, I also recalled I had not “always” been a fan of the genre. I read some YA when I was a young adult, and some YA much later, like Francesca Lia Block’s books. I liked children’s literature long beyond when I was technically a child, and I oversaw the children’s section for the year I worked in a used bookstore. But “always” was an overstatement that brought me to realization two: I became a fan and reader of YA because I was working on a YA manuscript, which has only been since November of 2002. I’m not obsessive or completist about it. I occasionally visit the Young Adult Library Services Association home page; it has good book lists. I also read Avenging Sybil, a weblog about young adult novels, and more specifically about portrayals of female sexuality in YA.
It was interesting that my brain had created this revisionist history. Perhaps it is my age, coupled with the fatigue of caring for an infant. Or perhaps, like so many things in my life now, my manuscript and my affection for YA novels have become so important to me that I have a hard time remembering life before them.
I was so pleased that I’d gotten into a writing groove on my current novel and was racking up the page count by two a day. But my writing group met Monday, and agreed that I’m still not on the right track after three starts. The bad news is that I don’t have either a frame or a story arc that work, so I can write 2 pages a day till the cows come home, and just be spinning my wheels. The good news is that I trust my writing group enough not to get defensive and second guess it. I agree that the new novel isn’t working, and am going to take some time off from it. Perhaps if I read and write other things, my subconscious will work things out.
June 16 was the four year anniversary of Girl Detective. I’d hoped to have an updated version of WordPress, new description, new links, the works. As you can see, things look the same. I’ve never been great at deadlines, but I do hope to get to some of these soon. In the meantime, you can check out the previous anniversary-time posts. Starting a weblog has been one of the most significant things I have done for myself as a writer. I have a regular writing practice now, which I never did before. I have one novel sent out, and am working on another. I don’t think those would have happened if I didn’t hack things out here on a regular basis. Thanks for reading, and welcome to year five.
June 16, 2005
June 13, 2004
June 16, 2003
The First Post
One of my favorite times as a writer is when it’s my turn to hand out to my writing group. The week before I hand out is one of the most difficult, because I’m reading someone else’s pages to comment, plus working on my own pages. (Theoretically I am doing this on all weeks except my handout weeks. I’ll be honest; that’s not always the case. It has been the past several weeks, though, since I adopted my 2-page-a-day goal.) Once I hand out my pages, I have a week off. I don’t work further on my own pages, because I’ll use the group’s feedback before continuing. And I don’t have someone else’s to read either. I’m still reading and writing, of course, but during my week off, it’s all for fun.
I’m afraid in my fatigue fog of last night I may have made my two-page goal sound somewhat easier to achieve than it actually is. The good thing about two pages is ….
Please, excuse me while I go up and comfort Guppy for the–wait, wait, he’s stopped crying.
I just finished my two pages. They were first-draft ugly, and probably would be considerably shorter if I applied any editorial effort at all. If they come across as disjointed, it’s likely due to the three or more times I ran up two flights of stairs from our basement (current writing haven) to Guppy’s bassinet to re-insert his Nuk and pat his tummy to get him back to his nap.
Yesterday was even more of a challenge. Drake woke screaming, so loud and so long that he eventually woke Guppy down the hall, who added his voice to Drake’s. I tried to calm Guppy and learn what it was that had upset Drake. Over the course of 45 minutes, I administed some Motrin, nursed the baby, held both boys on my lap to read books, and convinced Drake to get back in bed to finish his nap. Neither boy was able to go back to sleep, but they were able to stay quiet for a total of about fifteen minutes within thirty so that I could finish my two pages.
The good thing about writing two pages is that they’re short enough to withstand numerous interruptions, and can likely be completed even if one or both boys has trouble during naptime.
Children’s author and Newbery Award winner Kate DiCamillo used to say at readings that for years, she called herself a writer but didn’t write. When she finally got serious about it, she set herself a two-page-a-day goal, and has been doing that, with eventual great success, ever since.
My own fiction writing habit has tended to follow a feast-or-famine pattern. It is only recently, in the months following the birth of my second child, that I realized I had to set a small, realistic goal (oh, Freud, why do I always type it as “gaol”?) to make any progress, post-Guppy. I borrowed Kate’s 2-page-a-day idea. And it’s working.
On many days I have just enough time while the boys nap to write two pages and a quick blog entry. Some days I even write–gasp!–three pages. I’m making progress, and the confidence I’ve gotten as the page numbers pile up is very heartening in my current state of sleep deprivation.
Of course, the house is a mess, and there are piles of things everywhere. But I’m writing. I’m also proving what I’ve found in the past, which is that writing begets more writing. I’m at no loss for things to post about on the blog, and my current draft of novel #2 is coming along nicely in its 2-page increments.
This draft is my third start of novel #2. The first draft and first start was during NaNoWriMo 2004. I let it sit till I felt ready to send out novel #1 to editors, then picked it back up. My writing group and I agreed that parts of it had potential, but it wasn’t a sequel to #1. I started again, trying it from the point of view of a new character. It still didn’t feel right until I introduced a second voice, then a third and a fourth. Now I’ve got four characters telling the story, and I feel a fifth is on the way. Parts of my original draft are salvageable, but most of the current draft is new. Right now that feels fun and exciting, not like work, so I’m pretty sure this draft is heading in the right direction at last.
I have grown tired of sarcastic humor. It’s a given in much of the blogosphere, but I wish authors would rely on other methods. They could even–gasp!–not try to be funny, and instead write in a straightforward manner. I’m not referring to the Onion/McSweeney’s et. al. but rather to the type of short, factual posts that I sometimes have to re-read in order to glean the information buried in the snark. Perhaps I’m impatient and befuddled from lack of sleep, but I’m increasingly annoyed by what I perceive as adolescent posturing. (Sorry, no links. The sites I’m thinking of are ones I like, in spite of the bitchiness.)
One of the questions that has come up at most writing classes and conferences I’ve attended is, “What about self publishing?” Often the question is being asked by someone whose work has been repeatedly rejected by the mainstream publishing industry. Here is a good entry at Slushpile (via Bookslut) that discusses self publishing.
Repeated rejection does not have to mean that one’s writing sucks. Many famous writers have amusing rejection stories. Kate DiCamillo received hundreds of rejection letters before her Newbery Honor book, Because of Winn Dixie, was pulled out a slushpile and published. Jerry Spinelli, another Newbery award winner, waved a giant sheaf of rejections at a talk I attended. Turns out those were the ones in a corner of the garage that got overlooked when he purged the boxes and boxes of other ones, once he got successful enough not to need them as reminders.
Repeated rejection, though, might mean that one’s writing sucks. And if it does, self-publishing, or publishing on demand, is not going to improve the chances of getting published in the mainstream media, which is what nearly all writers want. It is simply going to annoy or embarrass people who have to listen to the writer go on about how the mainstream press doesn’t recognize genius but is only looking for the next big thing, blah, blah, blah. And it is going to give those people who do have a good and legitimate use for self publishing or POD stigma by association.
The sentence in the opening paragraph of the Slushpile entry sums it up well:
In the right conditions, handled properly, with realistic attitudes, self-publishing can be a viable business decision for certain people.
There are well-documented uses for self publishing and POD, particularly in niche markets. If a writer has a specific book that meets a specific need that either is very small or not yet recognized, then self-publishing can be a good way to meet the need forever, or to establish that there is a need to those who don’t yet recognize it. An example of the former is a writer whose book about a local wartime event was sold through the local historical society. There was a small, steady local demand. An example of the latter is the writer who commented at Slushpile about a series of Harlequin-type romances for gay men. Self publishing helped prove there was a demand, and earned a contract with a mainstream publisher.
But most writers, and here I include myself, should keep writing, keep trying to improve their writing, and keep trying to get that writing published by a regular publisher.
I sent a copy of my novel manuscript to an editor last week. Printing a good copy of the novel took several tries and way too many sheets of paper. Here’s what I learned from my mistakes:
1. First, consult a reliable source for the recommended format for manuscript submission. There are many details, and they are not all common sense or intuitive. Don’t fret that there is more than one authority. Pick a recently published, reputable one (I used my Children’s Writer’s Market) and format before you print.
2. Run spell check. Then run grammar check.
3. Do an eyeball check of every page before you print. I found a paragraph break I’d missed, plus I had several chapters end at the bottom of a page, followed by a blank, wasted page. I eliminated those hard page breaks. I also adjusted the page formats to eliminate widows and orphans–hanging words at the end of paragraphs or hanging sentences at the top of a page. (There is no consistent definition of either, so both words encompass both things.)
4. Check to make sure you have an adequate supply of paper, several times that of your page count.
5. Do not mix paper stock; it looks sloppy and makes the manuscript unwieldy because the pages don’t stack neatly.
6. Print out the first five pages as a test to check things like page numbering, and other header/footer information, which can vary on even and odd pages. Confirm that your pages conform to the recommended format from your reliable source in #1.
This is not a quick process, or one that should be rushed. If you have done all of these, hit print. Then review the printed manuscript page by page to ensure it is correct. Then, and only then, send it out.