Letting Go by Deborah Blumenthal

Several years ago, I had a book doctor look at one of my novels. After she read it, she called me.  

“You must be a very nice person,” she said.

We had never met.  All she knew about me was that I had written a book about a fat girl.   

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Well,” she said. “You don’t like bad things to happen to your characters.”

That sentence alone, I realized, was worth her fee. Like a mother who always prided herself on turning in pot handles, plugging up the electrical outlets, and covering the sharp corners of the square coffee table, I was routinely trying to safeguard my fictional characters from harm. In other words, I was doing exactly what a writer should never do. I thanked her for uncovering a major weakness in my writing.

Writing involves conflict. Things have to go wrong, at least before they go right. Your characters have to get in trouble. They have to make the wrong decisions. They have to screw up. They have to fail. They have to get their hearts broken and their ribs cracked, they have to cheat on tests, they have to cheat on their lovers, they have to get drunk and get high and then get into their cars and drive, even the wrong way into oncoming traffic.  Yes, the characters are your children, but you have to cast them out into the world you created for them and watch their lives unfold without hovering over them like helicopter parents.

It’s still not easy for me.  I can’t create characters I don’t love. And if I love them, I want to protect them. But kids have to get colds and flu to challenge and build up their immune systems, so writers shouldn’t fear the Ebola virus, at least on the printed page.  You want your readers to bite their nails and feel their hearts pounding, even if yours is slamming too.    

Deborah's latest young adult novel, "The Lifeguard," will be published in March of 2012 by Albert Whitman & Co. 

Never Fear

by Carleen Brice. LMN will be showing Sins of the Mother, the movie based on my first novel Orange Mint and Honey Saturday 10/15 and Sunday 10/16.

Halloween is coming up, but we writers don't need a special day to scare ourselves. Would that we only got the shivers once a year! Every writer has that moment (or moments) when they worry about their work. Will I finish? Will it be good enough? Do I have anything to say? Will my husband, mother, best friend still like me if I publish this? What if I fail? And on the list goes. Self-doubt is part of the creative process. Actually, a better headline for this post would be:

Fear, dear writers, but write anyway.

As I work on the rewrite of my next novel, I'm dealing with some fears of my own, so I asked some author friends how they deal with their inner Doubting Thomas or Thomasina. Grab a handful of candy corn and read some of their inspirational and funny answers below.

For more advice on conquering doubt, please check out my guest blog post on Writer Unboxed. It goes up on Friday, October 14 and includes interviews with three life coaches who are also authors. (If you're a writer, you really ought to be checking Writer Unboxed regularly!)


Fear vs. reality

I think it's about realizing that fear is just a feeling. It's not the truth. I used to think that being afraid meant, ‘I can't write.’ Now I know it just means I'm afraid. With more experience, you learn to tolerate the fear and accept it as part of the process... but certainly not the final word on the work itself. – Attica Locke, author of Black Water Rising

The "Doubting Thomas" will never go away completely, but you can learn to ignore it (the NLP technique of changing the sound of the voice to, say, Mickey Mouse, works great) or balance it with more positive voices. Meditation is a great way to learn the difference between your internal monologue and sensations...and the real you. – Steven Barnes, author of Shadow Valley and co-author with Tananarive Due and Blair Underwood of the Tennyson Hardwick mysteries.


Even the greats suffered

I think every writer has it. I remember reading the letters of Faulkner and Steinbeck and Hemingway (back when I was teaching) and they definitely had moments of self-doubt. So, it helps me to know that. And then I generally try to just put my head down and plow through it. I give myself permission to write total dreck, knowing it will be edited out during revisions. I remind myself that I write for the pure joy of it. For the sense of accomplishment for having written. Sometimes I pull out the letters I've received from readers thanking me for my novel, telling me it helped them or resonated with them. That's a definite confidence booster. But the most important thing I can do is sit down and write. Whether it's a good paragraph and a great chapter or a scene that does exactly what it was supposed to do. I'm a writer, so I write. – Judy Merrill Larsen, author of All the Numbers 

I remind myself that self-doubt is natural. It's normal. It's part of the process. Show me a writer who has no self-doubt, and I'll show you someone who doesn't understand what good writing takes. - Connie Briscoe, author of Money Can't Buy Love

Don’t compare yourself

We should all try to be the best we can be. But there comes a time to take our "inner critic" off the clock. I'm not endorsing complacency or mediocrity, but give yourself some slack. We have to stop comparing ourselves to others, or to impossible, self-imposed standards. There will always be talented, smart, successful writers out there, but so what? We have to remember that their talent in no way diminishes ours. – Virginia DeBerry, author (along with Donna Grant) of several novels including What Doesn’t Kill You and Uptown

"Doubt is the big machine." That's from Victor LaValle's novel Big Machine. I don't have any easy answers other than to say that anxiety can paralyze me if I let it. I just try to keep my head down, eyes focused on the page. The moment I look up--at other writers, at reviews, at sales numbers--I lose my balance. I also remind myself to smile, have fun. – Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of the New York Times best-selling Wench

Wallow a moment, then keep writing!

I would love to give you something profound. However all I can say is: ignore that voice and keep stepping. You were given this writing gift for a reason. – Beverly Jenkins, author of too many romances to count, including Night Hawk.

From the first time I sat down to write my novel, I’ve been plagued with doubt. I keep writing. The doubt never stops. Sometimes I succumb, giving myself a cutoff—one day of wallowing—and nurse it with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s New York Super Fudge Chunk ice cream. Then I read and reread the affirmations I keep in my office, so that when I sit down to write, I can shove that devil off my shoulder and keep doing what I love. – Jacqueline Luckett, author of Searching for Tina Turner and the forthcoming Passing Love

I sit and let myself feel sorry for myself for a bit and then I start to wonder, what else would I do if I didn't write? And I can never think of anything so, I get back to writing until the next time. – J.D. Mason, author of several novels including Somebody Pick Up My Pieces

Every project reaches what Joseph Campbell refers to as the ‘dark night of the soul,’ the moment when it seems that it won't work, can't work, and it was a mistake even to try. This is when your previous experience comes in--remembering that ‘you've been here before.’ I've published 25 books, and every single time I hit this ‘wall.’ My favorite way through it? I talk to my ex-wife, who was with me at the beginning: "Toni?" I say, "do I hit a point every single time where it feels as if my work is turning into puree of bat shit?" "Yep," she answers. "Every single time." Bless her heart. We all have those moments, and we all need to create rituals to get through them! – Steven Barnes, author of Shadow Valley, and co-author with Tananarive Due and Blair Underwood of the Tennyson Hardwick mysteries

I think of Doubt as the biggest gatekeeper. Like in order to get anything written or published, first you have to go toe-to-toe with Doubt. And it's like a videogame. It doesn't matter how many times Doubt beats you, you can always man-up and fight again. It's not over until you put the controller down/stop writing. So whenever, Doubt is starting to defeat me, I remind myself, that it defeats most people, and that's why a lot of folks will never get published. The writers who keep on coming back for more are the only ones who will ever win the game. – Ernessa T. Carter, author of 32 Candles

Be an instrument of the Divine

Doubt happens when I compare myself to other writers. So as a faith writer, when I doubt, I do a God thing. I talk to God, asking him to replace fear with faith—to quiet my voice so I can hear his. Then I sit down and write about it. In fact, I’ve sold a lot of commentary this way. So I take to heart William Zinsser's advice in On Writing Well: “Trust your material.” Still great advice. I mean, what better topic for a faith writer than doubt?” – Patricia Raybon, author of I Told the Mountain to Move and God’s Great Blessings

There are many ways to write a book and for me it was a matter of allowing myself to be used as an "instrument of the divine." In one day, four different people said that I should write a book. The next day, I took that idea into my morning meditation and the answer came back, "yes, write a book." I rushed downstairs, turned on the computer, wrote 6 pages…it was a struggle. The next day during my morning meditation, I said to God, “if you want a book, you write it”! I turned on my computer and waited …then I just started typing the words I heard. At the end of the day, I had 20 pages of just words with no paragraph spacing. Every day for the next five days the writing came like this. Finally, in my morning mediation I asked if I could be shown where this was going. It was like the “celestial editors” showed up. The 100 pages were sectioned off into paragraphs, chapter titles and subtitles were added. Everything written to that point was perfectly logical. I finished the book, Awakening of a Chocolate Mystic in just two weeks. The first time I got a chance to see what I created was when I read the book as it was about to be published… up to that point, it was just a bunch of words. – Robin Johnson, author of Awakening of a Chocolate Mystic

Hi All!

 Hi Everyone! For the record, I want that picture to be left justified, but it's late and I'm on the road, and I can't figure it out so I'm just going to leave it like that. :)

How'd I get started as a writer.  I think, in a way, I was always a writer.  And I think that's what most writers will tell you.  When I was 7, my favorite activity was sitting in my room and making up stories and writing them down.  This was the same when I was 17, and 27, and luckily for me and my career, 37.  I started out in college as an English major but then I thought that since I spent so much time reading and writing anyway, I should learn something else and so I switched over to Art History.  Which was really nice, as it gave me something other than books to love and talk about and learn about.  I've never lost the love I gained for art and it shows up in most of my books.

After college, I wanted to write.  I wanted to write a novel, but I didn't feel like I had anything to write about.  So I did other things, I lived a really fun life in New York City. I worked in magazines and in the art world and then, at around the time I turned 30, it slowly started to hit me: I had a novel to write.  I took every class I could, at NYU Continuing Ed and the New School and wrote in all my free time.  Eventually I had a first draft of my first novel, If Andy Warhol Had a Girlfriend, based not so loosely on the decade I'd spent waiting to write my first book.

The best advice I have for aspiring writers?  In this order: READ, write, take classes, meet other writers (online or in person) and stay in touch with them and talk to them a lot about writing.  To this day, ten years into my career as a novelist, I couldn't do it without my writer friends, or without reading, everything, all the time.  Do those things.

And in other news: that picture up there, that I can't get left justified?  It's the cover of the mass market edition of my second novel, PUG HILL.  This is the cute, little paperback version and it comes with good extras like a readers group guide and the first chapter of the sequel, A PUG'S TALE.  And, as ever, it has the Metropolitan Museum of Art, angst, public speaking, New York City, and pugs.  It's coming out on November 1.  I hope you'll get a chance to check it out...

Till next time, 

x Alison

www.alisonpace.com

Get classy by Brenda Janowitz

SCOT ON THE ROCKS

As an author, I get asked quite frequently about how I got started.  Everyone's got a story in them, and they want to write a book, just like I did.

Only problem is, no one ever seems to want to do the actual work it takes to write a full length novel.  When asked about how I wrote my book, I always begin by telling people that I started with a writing class.  That's usually when the eyes glaze over.

But the truth is, no matter how good of a writer you are, a writing class will arm you with the tools that you'll need to write a full length novel.  Lots of people can write, but you need to learn the rules if you want to actually write a book.  And what's more, a writing class will introduce you to a new group of people-- people with a similar goal to yours.

Classes I'd recommend are mediabistro.com and Gotham Writer's Workshop.  Both have classes online and in person.

I'm also a huge advocate of Alex Sokoloff's Screenwriting Tricks for Authors, which has become my Bible, along with her blog, The Dark Salon.  I used to think I knew a lot about three act structure and how to structure a novel, but Alex breaks down three act structure even further-- into eight distinct sequences-- and just by reading her story breakdowns, I've learned so much.  And the bonus?  She teaches classes online, too!

Are you one of those people who's got a book idea in you but just hasn't sat down to write it yet?  What's stopping you?  Sign up for a class and then go from there!

I’m the author of Scot on the Rocks and Jack with a Twist.  My work’s also appeared in the New York Post and Publisher’s Weekly.  You can find me at brendajanowitz.com.

Do We Need to Explain Why We Write?

by Marilyn Brant

Writing a novel is such an emotionally intense and mentally involving task that, much of the time, we writers are so caught up in juggling the details of story structure and craft that we lose focus on the ultimate big picture: Why are we writing this book in the first place?

For me, days, weeks, even months go by and I don't think about this huge, unstated question. Oh, no. I'm too busy pondering whether the point of view I'm using to narrate my latest project is, in fact, working effectively. Or wondering if the plot and turning points that I've laboriously beated out (thank you, Blake Snyder) are, actually, succeeding in escalating the conflict like they're supposed to... I spent most of the summer puzzling over the time period and the setting of my current manuscript, asking myself -- and just about anyone who stood near me long enough: "Hey, do you like this idea? Does it make sense? Is it as interesting as I hope it is?"

These aren't bad questions, of course. But, at some point, isn't it more important to ask myself instead: "Who else cares about this? Why does this story matter? Will any narrative choice I make mean anything to anyone but me? Is going to all the trouble to write this book worth it?"

In my opinion, there is a long and a short answer to that for each of us as we face our various projects.

The long answer is undoubtedly a complicated equation involving an analysis of our writing goals, our resources, our ability to reach readers, our desire for some of the fantasies that typically come with the writing life (regardless of whether or not we end up achieving them), like being seen as famous, earning our idea of a good fortune, winning honors and awards, battling Death in our ever-present fight against our mortality, or feeling the rush we get by challenging on paper a personal fear. Essentially, by some semi-objective means, we try to determine how capable, connected, valuable and relevant our stories are in the eyes of our target audience. How meaningful our work is, at least as deemed by the society in which we live.

The short answer is...I don't know.

It's kind of like asking if Love is worth it. You can try to measure the quality of the relationship by whatever scale you value most (how attracted you are to that person, how smart or kind or wealthy he/she is, how often you laugh when you're with him/her, which ideals you both share, etc.), and you can answer the famous Ann Landers question -- "Are you better off with him or without him?" -- to try to get at the very core of what draws you to the relationship. But, when it comes right down to it, we all know it's still a leap of faith. That, ultimately, we have to come to terms with our own lack of absolute certainty in regards to what we hope is our Love of a Lifetime.

Maybe that's why, as writers, we throw ourselves so wholeheartedly into the details of the writing craft. THAT is something we do know (or, at least, we're fairly confident people like Robert McKee and Anne Lamott have some idea ;), and it gives us hope that there are things about our calling that we can know for sure. ("Yes, third person point-of-view is definitely the way to go for this piece. No, no, don't put the first turning point in that scene...")

In the end, we may or may not leave a literary legacy behind, we may or may not earn much money or many accolades for our work, and we may or may not even know all of the deep-seated reasons that drew us to writing stories in the first place, but I don't think we should have to justify our passion for writing any more than we have to justify falling in love with our spouse.

Why do we do this? Why do we write?

Somewhere inside of each of us, we know why. And though we may work hard to express every nuance in every sentence within our manuscripts, and we should be held accountable for those story choices by our readers, I don't believe we owe anyone an explanation about what drives us to set pen to paper in the first place. We may choose to share, of course, but I feel it's as personal a question as revealing a childhood secret. As much of an individual stamp as our writing voice. And as unique and hard-to-define as we are.

What do you think?

Marilyn Brant is the award-winning women's fiction author of According to Jane, Friday Mornings at Nine and the upcoming novel, A Summer in Europe (Kensington 11-29-11), about which Publishers Weekly said, "Brant's newest distinguishes itself with a charismatic leading man and very funny supporting cast, especially the wonderful elderly characters with their resonant message about living life to the fullest." She also writes light romantic comedies and has release two digitally -- On Any Given Sundae and Double Dipping. She eats a lot of ice cream.

A Learning Experience

by Therese Fowler


A college student who's an aspiring fiction writer got in touch recently, hoping to interview me for a project she was doing. Along with the questions she asked about what it's like to be a novelist, she wanted to know whether I believed creative writing could be taught.

What she was really asking, it turned out, was, Should I study creative writing? Will it help make me good enough to have a writing career?

Back in 2002, not long after I'd invested two years in my first effort at writing a novel, I began to wonder the same thing. I'd written an entire story beginning-middle-end (an accomplishment itself; you aspiring writers, don't let anyone tell you differently), revised it, revised it, revised it, and was in the midst of my second descent into the fiery pits of hell--er, agent queries. What I got back, in those days of SASE replies, were lots of form letter rejections in my mailbox. Dozens of them. But amidst those were a few encouraging letters--and, one day, a phone call from a very successful agent, a dream agent. When she said her name, I thought I might wet myself. (Yes, that's how it is at that stage, oh my...)

She'd read the novel. She'd liked a lot of what she read. The writing was solid, the voice was fresh. But it was clear to her that I still had some things to learn about how to tell a story in writing. Things like...building a plot. Small thing, but kind of important.

"What do you recommend?" I asked, the phone receiver clutched in my hand like a lifeline.

"Oh, there are some great books that address plot. You might also consider a writing group or workshop. Whatever makes sense for you. And then, if you revise it, I'd like to see it again."

She didn't say, "Go get an MFA in creative writing."

Because the fact is, most authors don't have MFAs. Don't need them, don't want them, can't afford the time and/or the money it takes to get those three letters that no one even gets to put after their name. You finish the degree program and you are not Dr. Great Writer, MFA. Not even Ms. Great Writer, MFA. Really, not even Ms. Great Writer, though of course there are some writing programs that seem to project exactly that expectation (but that's a subject for another post...).

But in 2002, I had a twelve-year-old and a nine-year-old, both of whom I hoped to be able to send to college right after they finished high school (not when they were in their 30s, as had been my personal experience--and of course my parents didn't pay). I really, really wanted to be a novelist, a professional, full-time writer who earned a decent living. When people asked me, "What do you do?" I would be able to say, "I'm a writer," and be identifying not only my occupation, but my career.

So, in order to hedge my bets in as many ways as I could figure out how to do, I applied to grad school hoping to learn plot and whatever else came along. I didn't have a writing credit to my name. I'd never taken a writing class. All I had to recommend me to the faculty was a well-rejected manuscript and a burning desire to learn to be a better writer. If I got in, then completed the program, I'd come away with at the very least some extra credentials that would, I hoped, allow me to get a teaching job while I kept working at my ultimate goal.

Three years later, I'd written another novel (twice), figured out plot, completed the MFA degree, taught a couple semesters of undergraduate creative writing, and had gained representation by my first choice of agents. Nine months after that, I'd written one more novel--Souvenir, the one that would launch my career. Today, nine years after that agent's phone call, I'm in my fifth year of writing full-time, at work on my fourth novel, which is under contract, and my sons are both in college.

"So you see," I told the student, "every writer with even a little innate talent can, with instruction of whatever flavor, become a better writer. But you won't know for sure whether instruction will make you a better writer, a good enough writer," I said, "until you try. If a writer is what you really want to be, do it in whatever way makes sense for you, but do it."

A coda: It's not only about writing. In 2005, the same year that I was finishing grad school, Steve Jobs spoke at the Stanford University commencement. He'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a year earlier; as you know by now, he died yesterday. In that speech, he told the graduates many useful things, but among them was this message: "The only way to do great work is to love what you do... Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."

Try.

*********

Therese Fowler is the author of three novels, the most recent of which is Exposure, recommended by the New York Times, USA Today, and Family Circle Magazine. She's doing her best to adjust to her new empty-nest status by regularly posting photos of any of her four cats on Facebook.

I HEART LIBRARIES

Last week, my kindergarten son's school newsletter announced that the library was going to be open after school for parents and kids.  Not exactly believing my good fortune, I questioned his teacher at pick-up on the designated day. She confirmed I could go up, only slightly taken aback by my enthusiasm. I rushed into school  announced to the guard where I was going.  She wasn't sure parents were allowed up, but I was only armed with permission from the teacher and she relented. And then we were there in the library. The only ones. The librarian was shutting down and she said we could stay because the parent coordinater would soon be there. Would she need to turn the lights back on or would the natural light be okay? You bet it would.

My kids thought this was bliss and so did I.  We sat on the rug and read book after book. They kept asking me why we were they only ones there and I said I didn't know. I couldn't imagine why there wasn't a line of parents down the hall and a bouncer at the door.  I mean this was the library. I'd been smiling every day that my son came home after a library visit. I had been dying to get in there myself and take a look. For as long as I can remember books were friends and the library was a haven.

We had the place to ourselves for awhile. Only later did a few tween girls show up and start quietly reading some books of their own. No one made much noise These were girls I could totally relate to. When I was about 10, I volunteered at the local library in my city. I know I organized and put books back on their shelves, but mostly I enjoyed having access to the special area behind the information desk where I could sit and just read.  These are happy peaceful memories of adolesence.  And it's pretty amazing that all those words can live together in one sentence.

At my son's library there was a teeny little part of me that, recognizing the Papa clan's enthusiasm, heard the word "nerd" repeating again and again in my head, but I fought that.  I used to get in trouble in class for reading books under my desk, thus drawing more attention to the reader (nerd) that I was. I don't want my children to ever be ashamed of their love of books. So we chose to celebrate this exclusive privilege we had to be in this special place. It was better than any velvet roped VIP room.

And since we were talking about what our education was and how and why we became writers, I have to say that the reason I am a writer is all this time spent in the library.  I hope it will also provide the education to my kids for whatever they chose in life. Though now I am a strong supporter of ebooks and ereading, libraries will always make me a little bit breathless and a big bit in awe.

Ariella Papa's ebook Momfriends will hopefully be available in a library soon.  In the meantime, you can find it wherever ebooks are sold.  Visit her at ariellapapa.com