Oh the Silly Fears We Have

Once upon a time, there was a little girl, and she was afraid.

Of movies. Of sleep. Of thunderstorms. Of the river in winter, swollen, waiting to suck little children beneath the ice.

She got older.

Her fears grew more complex. She began to doubt she would ever have friends; she realized people could change, and she couldn’t stop them; she feared depression, loneliness, inadequacy. She wondered if her writing would ever be Good Enough.

She got even a little older. She won contests. She got articles published. She wrote and read and learned about the publishing industry and wrote; she went to school, gained confidence, got some attention, discovered you could have more than one dream, discovered you could pursue them all. She kept writing.

She stopped being afraid publication would never happen and began to cherish those daily routines, the seasons and cycles that made up life, the romances and lessons learned afterward, the moving away, moving back. She learned to enjoy things as they were. She fine-tuned the dream. Despite all her fears, it seemed she was turning out mostly OK.

Also, she interviewed debut authors.

She watched (but did not participate in; smart girl) the rise and rise and fame and fallout of Twilight. She watched the rise of Alyson Noel. She watched The Hunger Games happen; she watched the end of the Harry Potter books, and saw J.K Rowling step down; she watched Chris Paolini's ascension. Maggie Stiefvater. Kristin Cashore. Lauren Oliver. Beth Revis. Laini Taylor. Veronica Roth…

Rising and falling, rising and falling, some making it. Some just barely treading water. Some of them were just beginning, and she crossed her fingers, and hoped.

They were living the dream, she thought. But if they were living the dream, why, for so many of them--particularly those biggest hitters Meyer and Rowling--did the dream seem to kill them?

The world of publishing is like a happy dog who, in midlife, gets stuck with the new puppy. It's grumpy. It has to share. It rolls over, loses a few bones, growls, goes back to sleep. It learns to adapt.

Writers adapt. They write trilogies whether or not the story deserves it. They write love-triangles that leave nobody happy. Writers get shuffled back to the midlist and off Barnes & Noble shelves. They are forgotten. They write some amazing breakouts; they struggle not to drown in the waves of ensuing fame. On their blogs they cry, "I'm so sorry, I've been so busy. I'm trying. I'll be better. Sorry. Thanks."

She looks at them. She looks at her little writing dream.

She wants, very simply, to write. To get published, stay published. To have the mild success that allows her to keep playing, keep exploring, to become a name, not an icon. Just write and sell books and be happy.

She never wants to write a cliffhanger ending just so people will buy the sequel. She never wants to become so famous in one trilogy that the fame of it crushes her. She never wants to get pinned into just the fantasy genre, just the paranormal romance genre. She wants...she wants...

She wants to write the books that she loves to read. Books like Graceling and The Hunger Games and first Twilight and the very first Harry Potter and If I Stay; Shiver and Lament, the first Artemis Fowl, Warped, Blackbringer, Brightly Woven.

Books that were good because they were good, not because the series was famous, or because someone played tricks.

But she’s not sure anymore. She doubts. She fears.

Maybe it’s not possible, this little writing dream of hers. She fears she'll have to change. That her beloved writing will get stuffed into a niche, or lost in the midlist; she's afraid of plummeting, afraid of fame, afraid of becoming someone who only publishes once every six years, afraid...

This goes on until she reads a book.

A new book. An unknown. A rising star.

It is brilliant, breathtaking; it shatters genres, it defies stereotypes. It uses funky paragraph breaks like Across the Universe, it’s a 400 page debut like Before I Fall, a crossover with descriptions like...

These are the books that make their own waves. They shouldn’t work. But they do. These are the books that stand up and say, "I am something special. I am not a gimmick. Read me, and I'll prove it."

So everyone reads them. And they are awesome. The writers are dedicated. The quality, stunning. They don't "get away with it", because there's nothing to get away with--it is something new, something invented. By them.

It can be done.

Slowly, she puts the book down. Raises her chin. Turns to her laptop.

It can be done.

Take heart, my writer friends! Don't be afraid :)

Truly and always,
-Creative A

Date a Girl Who Reads

"Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.

Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.

She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.

Buy her another cup of coffee.

Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.

It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.

She has to give it a shot somehow.

Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.

Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.

Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilight series.

If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.

You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.

You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.

Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.

Or better yet, date a girl who writes." -- Rosemarie Urquico (via Monica Bird)

I am sharing this because it's gorgeous, and it's true, and I love it. And that was one too many reasons not to share.

Truly and always,
-Creative A

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece: Featured Book Trailer

Saw this trailer today, and loved it. I think it's a great example of how simple trailers can be--although it had film and actors, the sets were everyday, and there wasn't a single special effect. What really caught my attention was the twist at the end. Nobody points it out, but you can't miss it; the inherent conflict leaps out at you.






See what I mean? Gorgeous conflict. The book's Goodreads blurb never would have caught my interest, but this trailer did. And if you break down the elements, they are easily reproducible in cheap, simple terms--

1) Child actors could be a younger sibling, your own kids, children of your good friends or relatives.
2) The film could easily be replaced with still photos of a boy coloring, the mantelpiece, the swingset.
3) The setting--house, park, muddy road--are also found just about everywhere. Your house. A park or school playground near where you live. The muddy road is a bit more specific, but a stream, cornfield, etc would work as well.
4) Music -- this is the kind of generic song you could find online for free with little hassle. Not all music videos need dramatic soundtracks (or old fashioned songs.)

In other words? You could do this. I could do this.

Food for thought.

Truly and always,
-Creative A

Murdered Darling Monday #1

Murdered Darling Mondays is a Teaser-Tuesday spinoff that I'll be hosting once or twice a month. Interested in the concept behind this feature? Check out my introductory post.



Today's teaser is from MIRRORPASS, draft 1, chapter 3.
Cut in draft 2.


* * *


It was better if she looked down, or better yet, kept her eyes closed. As long as Aria kept her focus inside – didn’t look out where the sky ballooned, where buildings rooted in the ground, and mutants limped along the faceless land – she was okay. As long as she didn’t look.

But Aria couldn’t resist. It was beautiful, horrible, and fascinating all at once.

She told herself, This is the earth. It is below me instead of above me, but it is still earth. Like in the glass gardens at home. That is the sky. You’ve had sky above you before, this is just bigger. It is still the same sky. That is the sun…it is above you instead of below, but it is still the same light...

She dug her fingers into the dirt. It was spongy, moist. Aria looked down at her hands with the sudden fascinated thought that she’d never touched dirt before – not real dirt, only the matted artificial stuff used in oxygen gardens, or the dust that gathered in the air filter. Aria had always imagined that real dirt was chalky and dry. She’d seen the Industrial workers from time to time, their clothes stained and fading, faces covered in dull smudges.

They said that Industrials loved dirt the way Academics loved space. Lying here now, her skin cooled by the earth, fingers tangled in roots, nose filled with the richness of composting plants, Aria thought maybe she understood. It had a quality she’d never felt before. Space was ethereal – this was earthy.

Aria couldn’t imagine being an Industrial, a land-crawler. How could they bear to scrabble around like that? Did they ever feel this isolation, this insignificance?

Overhead, the door banged.


* * *

What made this a darling:

This scene used to be one of my favorites. It's the first time Aria ever goes outside, and literally the first time in her life she's stood on solid ground. It had huge potential as a scene. But at this point, only three chapters in, I didn't know a lot about Aria's world--just that it was "backwards" from our own. I had to sit down and really think through what "backwards" meant and how this would leave Aria feeling. It was intense, and in the end, I came up with a really unique perspective for her (not to mention the concept of Landcrawlers--suddenly I had a lower class! My society was born!)

Why it got murdered:

This is the only redeemable section from a three- or four-chapter mess. In my first draft, Aria ran away from the two people who I wanted to become her friends. Getting her to trust them again wasted a lot of time. Plus, their relationship was always a bit sketchy from that point onward. On top of THAT, I needed Aria to be more proactive--less running away, more running toward. So in draft 2 I cut that entire sequence and had Aria ask her friends for help, instead. It sped up the entire story and works much better.


MIRRORPASS is a YA SF novel currently undergoing edits. To learn more, check out the WIP page.

Do you like the idea of Murdered Darling Mondays? Want to join me? If you decide to participate in this feature, feel free to linkback in the comments, and share the murdered darling love!

Truly and always,
-Creative A

Protecting the dream, part 2: When You're Ready

Publishing is a very mysterious world to people. I know, because when I was a teenager interested in publication for the very first time, it was a mystery I couldn't seem to solve. No one had a clue how it worked. All anyone could tell me was: Writers are people with books in bookstores who get paid money to keep writing.

The problem with this is, it doesn't account for all the people who aren't yet published. Still, this is how people tend to think. So if you introduce yourself as a writer, but your books aren't published, and you're not making money, well--what are they supposed to think? You're the girl who wishes she were a writer?

This makes me feel just a teensy bit insecure.

Writing is one big dream. You have to fight for the dream, of course. But you also have to repress it, stuff it back into that drawer; you have to plug away and keep working before letting that dream out into the world. I love the way Erma Bombeck put it:

“There are people who put their dreams in a little box and say, ‘Yes, I’ve got dreams, of course I’ve got dreams.’ Then they put the box away and bring it out once in awhile to look in it, and yep, they’re still there.”

You need to keep this dream safe. And sometimes the people you have to protect it from are the very people telling you to pursue it--because you're not ready to pursue it. Not yet. It's not ready.

So I have my caveats. My little layer of perspective. I will happily give anyone my work to read, so long as I get to explain myself first.

Of course, there are situations where you can't do this, such as when sending it out to betas. Or when your book reading gets played before the whole class, like mine did.

Or when your book gets published.

You know Tahereh Mafi, the debut author of Shatter Me? It's new and it's making big waves, and Tahereh's humorous blog was making waves before she was ever even published. Which is why I love it when she says things like this:

"i meet people and they say things like "omg i just googled you!"
i say goodbye to people and they say things like "omg i'm going to google you!"

i'm not exactly sure what people hope to impart when they say these things to me; no doubt they think they're complimenting me in some way, and so i try to be cool about it and manage to nod and smile and before pulling a paper bag over my head. because in truth, these exclamations make me want to go home and hide all my google-bits and build a blanket-fort under my desk and live there for the next 10 years.

but then (!)

just as i've put the finishing touches on my hermit-nest (!)

i'll get a really wonderful email from a reader that makes me so happy that for a moment, i don't even mind that my google is showing. i'll put pants on that day and actually leave my house...and haul myself to a bookstore...there, i will inevitably find myself in front of the Young Adult section, standing there in my unbearably self-conscious skin, wild-eyed and crazed, suddenly acutely aware of just how much my google is showing." -- (full post here.)

In my audio class, I felt exactly like my Google was showing. I felt like I hadn't dressed modestly enough or that I had a physical deformity, or possibly, that I reeked of BO and they could all smell it. I didn't feel ready. Listening to them listen to my production was torture--measuring every awkward line of dialogue, every over-dramatic word choice, every time I didn't get to the point--I died a thousand little deaths.

Faintly, I thought to myself, why is this so hard?

When will it be ready?

Then it smacked me in the face. Never. It will never feel perfect or ready or covered up enough, or safe. I will never be able to write in such a way that I don't need caveats, because everyone is different and you can't make them all happy, and even published writers like Tahereh Mafi with all her big waves are still afraid of their google-bits showing.

And what I realized is this. You have to recognize that some people won’t get it, this dream of yours. Some will never understand. That doesn’t make your dream any less valid. And, on the other hand, some people will get it. Even before you’re published; even if they don’t know about the publishing world. For no reason other than your raw potential, they will appreciate what you’re trying to do.

I will be forever grateful to my classmates for the way they reacted. Like they were professionals. Like they could judge quality, and I had wowed them, and they were interested in knowing more--because somehow, they had been hooked by whatever good bits were shining through the bad bits of my production. They asked me intelligent questions about the publishing industry, and my plans; they wished me luck. They said, "hey, what was your bloggy thing called again? I want to check it out."

I never got to thank them.

So if you guys are reading this?

Thanks a million.


Truly and always,
-Creative A

A Wealth of New: 2012 Resolutions

Happy New Year!

I know yesterday was technically the first, and therefore, the day to post resolutions, but I was trapped in the car and had to wait. But trust me. I have resolutions. Good ones.





My lovely mother keeps cautioning me not to over-plan, not to get ahead of God, and I understand her concern—given the fact that I have an idea of what I want to do this spring, this summer, and all this fall into winter, well; it certainly looks like I’m overplanning. But most of this has to do with a semester-based schedule. So it’s true, I do have a good idea of what I’ll be doing. As for the actual breakdown of those events—it’s all open to possibility. I can tell you that I am terrifically excited. Here are some of the things I hope to work on.

MIRRORPASS

I’d planned to kick MIRRORPASS edits into high gear last fall, but after beta edits, I realized I needed definite goals. I got a Mead Composition book and wrote down everything—from scene edits, to line edits, to which drafts I would use to tackle what problems—that remained to be done.

So my first three resolutions look like this:

• Finish MIRRORPASS edits.


• Do prepwork (polishing, researching agents, writing the synopsis) for submissions.


• Put MIRRORPASS out on submission.

The deadline: March, 2012, exactly three years after I started. I already feel unprofessional for taking this long. I’d love to make three years my cutoff point.

Writing and Blogging

• Get back on my blogging schedule.
  
  Before finals hit, I was posting once or twice a week, but the real trick was writing everything ahead of time and pre-posting. It worked great. Now I just need to get back on board.
  


• Redesign the blog template. This correlates with some business goals I have, so I’ll talk about it more there.


• Begin and either complete, or nearly complete, one or more of the following novels:
  
  
  
  
  • The Eternity Shift – YA dystopian. Tuck Everlasting with an alternate ending.
  
  
  • Shutterbug Meets (Invisible) Girl – MG? YA? I’m not sure yet. Peter Pan meets Penelope with a dash of Cold Case. (Don’t laugh.)
  
  
  • Untitled time travel story – MG SF. When You Reach Me with the intensity of Back to the Future.
  
  
  
  I am more and more convinced that it’s time for me to start writing again. Not just editing, not just twiddling, but really sitting down and hashing out a whole novel. There’s a business side to writing that I’ve neglected. Which brings me to my next goal:
  


• Treat writing like a part-time job.
  
  I’ve had a hard time getting on a writing schedule. Thinking of it like a part-time job has helped me—it adds balance. Yes, writing is a job. No, it’s not my only job. It holds a certain amount of weight and can’t be allowed to cut into my personal time—but I can’t be a “bad employee” and skip work whenever I feel like it, either.

Business

• Set up a writer website.
  
  This is way overdue. I have a ton of ideas for the new site, but I’m a little intimidated by the work. I need to figure out hosting. Design the site. Redesign *Headdesk* to match. It’s a big project.


• Set up a portfolio and business website.
  
  I’m a freelance web designer/multimedia specialist. Did you know that? Yeah. Me neither. I thought I was just a college student. But when I started praying about work and provision in November, I got a surprising chorus of design job offers from a variety of sources. I can’t even begin to explain how much of a God-thing this was. It’s not just an answer to prayer, but a direction I feel Him leading me in. So. Wow. Okay. Business website it is, then.

Life Goals

• Get that gym membership. Lose weight.
  
  Years ago, I lost a ton of weight. But ever since then I’ve wanted to get rid of that last 25 pesky pounds and develop some muscle tone. I’ve always wanted a gym membership, and with all the work happenings, I hope it’s finally time to get one.


• Keep better rising and sleeping hours.
  
  I’m horrendous at this. My life works so much better when I’m up early, but I have trouble with the evenings, and it always throws me. Since I have early classes this semester I’m taking it as an opportunity to improve.

And finally, while my blog is meant to be about writing, and not my spiritual life, I do feel like my spiritual life effects other things enough that I need to add this final expectation of mine for 2012:

• God is taking me on an adventure. I want to jump into it with everything I’ve got.

How about you guys? Any resolutions or plans? If you blogged about this, feel free to post a linkback in the comments.


Truly and always,
-Creative A