Meeting Other Writers

It's possible I'm the only writer in the world like this. It's possible that I'm just judgmental, cynical, and socially awkward, and therefore, the only writer in the world who experiences this. But it's also possible I'm not alone, and others among you have the same weird thought processes that I do.

So on Saturday, I went to a Murder Mystery Dinner. The dinner was being hosted by a friend of a friend, and I wasn't an original invitee, since I didn't know these people. But at the last moment, another girl backed out and they needed a girl to replace her. So my friend was like, "I know someone who would love to come!" and thus I got to go to a Murder Mystery Dinner where I knew one couple out of seven people.

Anyway, when I got there I was introduced to one of the other attendees with the following, "Bittersweet, this is Other Writer. Other Writer writes novels. Other Writer, this is Bittersweet. She writes novels, too."

So I shook her hand, but I was thinking, "I wish he hadn't said that." Because I don't like being introduced as a writer or talking to other writers. Because you never know when someone is a real writer or not.

I don't mean a published writer, because that's easy to check. I mean someone who takes writing seriously, who works on it like a craft to be honed but also works on it because not doing so is literally impossible. A lot of people call themselves writers, but I would say only a small portion of them are real writers.

So yes, basically when introduced to other writers, I think "I'm a real writer. Is this person a real writer? Or are they a fake writer?"

I would rather not have that conversation at all, and my first plan of action is to always evade. Change the subject. Do anything else but have them reveal that they got impatient with the publication system to they epublished. (Which isn't to say that there aren't real, good writers going the epublishing route. It's just that, a lot of people e-publish because they don't care to take all the time to hone their craft and are impatient with the fact that writing is a craft, an art, that you must work hard at to become good at).

But I couldn't evade, I was asked point blank what I was working on, so I answered that I was working on the first revision of the book I had just finished. When then caused the girl's husband who was listening to say "oh, you just finished" a little mockingly, as if by saying that I was being high and mighty. In my mind, that was a warning flag that she wasn't a real writer. Which isn't fair. Some writers write one really good novel and that's enough. They spend their entire lives working on it. That's one way to do things. But I would like to make a living as a writer one day, so that's not the way I choose to operate.

The girl I was talking to then said she had been working on the same novel for the past seven years, which then put off another warning flag in my head. Another unfair one, since if you actually count how long I've had the story of Descent in my head, it's been TEN years (though I wrote the first draft just this past year in ten months). And technically, I've been working on Spirit Riddled drafts/revisions on and off for the past six years.

See? I'm being totally unfair. When I meet a writer, I judge them against this measuring stick that even I can't meet. It's ridiculous. Why did this happen? How have I become so judgmental against my own kind?

Turns out this woman is really rather nice. I think I could be friends with her. I don't know where she is in her writing career, but it's unfair of me to judge her so harshly without having read anything she's written.

So yes, I guess the moral of the story is I am judgmental, cynical, and socially awkward. But what I would like to know is if I'm the only writer who has this problem? Am I the only one wary of meeting "my own kind"? The only one who sometimes thinks I'm the only real writer in a world full of phonies? Have any of you dear readers had similar experiences?

Year of the Dragon

So today is the Chinese New Year and its the Year of the Dragon!!!!!

Why is that important you ask? Well, maybe its not, but its appropriate, since the last Wheel of Time book comes out this year.

If you've been reading this blog long, you know I love the Wheel of Time. My fictional crush is a character from the Wheel of Time series, and my favorite living writing is finishing the series. I've been reading it since I was eleven, so all of the characters are like old friends.

Wow, I've been reading the Wheel of Time since I was eleven. In less than a month, I turn twenty-five. I've been reading the Wheel of Time for over half of my life, and this is the year it ends.

So this is a year of excitement and trepidation, because something that's been so much a part of me will be over.

I can still remember being eleven, and my dad coming home with The Path of the Dagger, and saying this looked like a book I would like. I remember looking at the cover and thinking, "Wow, this is so cool!" And I remember sitting on the floor in the living room in the really crappy house we lived in at the time, as my mother sat on the couch and read the prologue of The Eye of the World to me out loud. (She insisted on reading the series before I could, to make sure it wasn't "too adult". But she was so impressed by the prologue, she just had to read it to me right then.)

Unlike the untold thousands of others, I will not reread the Wheel of Time this year. I reread it recently, right before The Gathering Storm came out. I'll probably only reread The Gathering Storm and then Towers of Midnight. Then once I read the final book, then I plan on rereading the series, so I can read the entire thing in light of the ending. This is basically what I did with Harry Potter and I found it extremely enlightening to reread the entire series when I already knew the end.

If you've never read the Wheel of Time before, I implore you to start now. If you start reading now, you can be done with the series in time for the last book to come out. And you should really read the Wheel of Time. It's fantastic. I love love love love this series.

It's the year of the Dragon! "Let the Dragon ride again on the winds of time!"

The New Schedule!

So I've been thinking about what the schedule should be for a few weeks now. I've had several ideas for different series of posts but was unsure which series could be long term for the schedule. And then a couple of things hit me. So without further ado, here it is:

Monday: Writerly Thoughts

This is the day where I'll discuss topics that relate to my writing, writing in general, and books. This should be a familiar series to anyone who has read this blog for a while. Check out other posts labeled writing or writer to know what I mean.

Wednesday: Women of the Bible

We all know one of my New Year's Resolutions is to have a steady quiet time. I really suck at this sort of thing. I've had this women of the Bible book for a really long time. It's a devotional that focuses on a different woman of the Bible each week. So in order to create an accountability for myself, I will post about the woman of the week every Wednesday, my thoughts about her story like how it relates to my life or things I struggle with or more esoteric aspect of the story.

Fridays: Farscape First Watch
So tor.com has several show re-watches running, where someone watches The X-Files or Star Trek: The Next Generation and analyzes the episodes with knowledge of the entire series and society as it is now. These re-watches are fantastic--I've read the entire Star Trek one--and I would eventually like to do something like that for Stargate: SG-1, my favorite show of all time. However, I am also trying to meet a New Year's resolution of getting in shape (so I can survive the zombie apocalypse). The only time I managed to work out regularly was when I told myself I could only watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer if I worked out while watching it. This was my first watch of Buffy, so the episodes where brand new and surprising--and able to completely distract me from the fact that I'm working out.

Sometimes I like to think I've seen every Science Fiction TV show out there, but the truth is that simply isn't true. Whether its because I didn't get the channel or because I was too young for the content of the show, there are several SF shows I haven't seen, one of which is Farscape. So I've decided that is to be the show I'll watch while I work out.

I know absolutely nothing about Farscape other than the actors who play Valla and Cameron Mitchell from the later seasons of Stargate: SG-1 are the stars of the show. Because I'm coming from such a blank slate on the show, I think there is something to be said to chronicle my initial reactions and thoughts, whether they be first impressions or exclamations at how the plot unfolds.

If I only post Farscape episodes on Friday it will take us a long time to get through the entire series. However, for now it will only be Friday because I have no idea how I'll like the show and I don't want this to become the rant against Farscape blog. As I get into a blogging routine, I hope to one day expand to blogging every day of the week, except Sunday, and then I'll probably post two Farscape episodes a week. But for now, it's once a week.

So that's the new schedule! I hope you guys enjoy it! First Farscape post will be Friday, but otherwise things will start up on Monday!

Killing your...uh...very much loved things

(I know its Wednesday, which means I should post something Western themed, but since I didn't post on Monday I decided to post on Writing today instead.)

I was going to entitle this "Killing Your Babies", but I thought non writers might not get it. They might think I was actually talking about killing your children. Which I absolutely am not talking about or anyway condoning.

I am, of course, talking about your manuscript.

That first shiny idea for a manuscript is very near and dear to your heart. And your manuscript is in many ways like a child, your baby that you've created that you love more than anything. You don't see its warts and wrongs. You think its perfect and wonderful because its yours.

But sometimes, your kid is a punk. Sometimes your kid is spoiled rotten. And sometimes, your manuscript needs to be completely changed.

So Spirit Riddled, my completed MG novel, has undergone many changes at this point, but its still not the manuscript it needs to be. And last year I got a lot of really good feedback, but some of that feedback involved things that pretty much surmounted to completely changing the story, to killing my baby.

This is something I've been dwelling on for a while. Which feedback is legitimate and will make the story better and which feedback is simply because the critiquer doesn't understand my story like I do? It's a fine line, a very fine line.

So last night I called one of my friends and we talked for two hours, mainly about my story, and which changes we thought were actually necessary to the story. We also talked about my vision for the story (the story arc that will hopefully cross multiple books) and how I can condense that so it can actually be sold. (No one is going to sign me for an a million book series, lol).

I think the solution we settled on is still true to the vision of my story but addresses many of the concerns of the critiquer.

But as I mentioned before its still a fine line. An author has to balance their true vision with something that can actually sell. Where is the balance? At what point are you giving up your artistry to be sale-able?

Any opinions, any thoughts?

Elementary School Sucked

Last week we talked about how I was a weird teenager and a few teenage stereotypes that I really hate. This week I want to talk about another stereotype. This one doesn't just afflict teenage characters, but children of all ages.

Namely its the stereotype of how wonderful/awful different levels of school are. Elementary school is a time of unicorns and butterflies, utter perfection, and everyone getting along. Middle school is a time of confusion and horror. And high school? High school is utter hell.

I contend that this stereotype is grossly inaccurate.

Elementary school was probably the second worst time of my life. (Second, of course, to grad school, which is, was, and forever will be the most miserable, horrible, awful time in my life. It would take an awful lot to top wanting to cry under my desk almost everyday. And I'm not exaggerating. I cried more during grad school than I did as an infant.)

Stereotypes would have us believe that in elementary school, kids are too young to see differences. That they are pure and innocent and all get along without any problem. But in elementary school, I was an outcast. In third grade, no one in my class talked to me--but at least I had friends who had the same recess period as me. Fourth grade? Don't even get me started. I literally did not have a single friend in my school in the fourth grade. In fifth grade, my two best friends hated each other and made my life absolutely miserable.

All through elementary school I was the weird one. I was the girl who liked to read--heck, for a long time I was resented for being the girl who COULD read. I was reading middle grade novels in the third grade when some of my classmates couldn't sound out words. I was the girl who wasn't interested in boys. I'm fairly certain the girls weren't actually interested in boys. They just thought they were supposed to be. But because I didn't, because I saw boys as friends and classmates instead of boyfriends (whatever that means in elementary school), I was weird.

In elementary school I was stuck in a class of thirty other people that didn't change, except maybe (if I was lucky) at recess. (Note: my fourth grade school didn't have recess. Just PE everyday, so you were stuck with your class during that as well).

Then middle school came. We changed classes. Not just rooms, but we changed classmates. You were not guaranteed to have the same thirty people with you. The classes shifted, exposing me to more kids. And something miraculous happened.

I discovered I wasn't alone.

There were other girls like me. Other girls who liked Star Wars. Girls who liked writing and using their imagination. Girls who were still willing to play games of make believe even though we were "too old". Girls who didn't think I was weird. Girls who liked me.

Finally I had friends.

Middle school still wasn't easy, because I do believe that middle school is a time of transition. Things hurts more in middle school, because you're not entirely sure how you should react to them. You're trying to be grown up and a kid at the same time. Its hard. And there were difficult times. But it was SO MUCH BETTER than elementary school. I can't begin to describe how much better it was.

And it only got better. High school? High school was freakin' amazing. Want to talk about finding people like you? Meet the 300 person band. Meet the other thirty kids who think Latin is cool. Meet a school that offers every club for every interest: Aviation Club, Latin Club, Science Olympiad, Quiz Bowl, Honor Societies, and so much more.

And by high school, I knew who I was. I was (am) a nerd. And I had friends who were nerds. And despite popular stereotypical belief, I was respected for my nerdiness. As I've said before, teenagers aren't stupid. They realize the value of intelligence. And they realize that meanness gets you nothing. But if your nice to the nerd. If you genuinely like the nerd. If you get behind the nerd? Well then, maybe on the rare occasion when she thinks an assignment is grossly unfair she'll do the assignment and then send her homework out to the entire class*. Maybe she'll actually let you copy her Latin homework**. But only if your nice. Only if you respect her. Only if you realize that what she's doing for you is a favor. Not that the nerd is mean. She just requires human decency.

And I believe I mentioned before that I was on Prom Court. (Which before that goes to anyone's head, was only second string popularity at my school because if you were on Homecoming Court you weren't allowed to be on Prom Court (and yes, that's me in that picture right there. Not too pretty. Not too thin. Way too much hair on my head)). Being Woodwind Captain of the Marching Band, President of the Latin Club, Captain of the Quiz Bowl Team, Treasurer of the Aviation Club, and President and Founder of the Science National Honor Society may have made me a nerd, but it also meant I was pretty well known. In a school of 3,500 getting the votes of a measly 400 band nerds and general nerds actually goes a long way. And my friend AJ (Brass Captain) made his entire English Class vote for me to spite me. But heck, I got to go to Prom for free so I came to terms with it.

But pretty much everyone on Prom Court was in AP classes and other "nerdy" endeavors.

High school was awesome. I had a ton of friends. I had a ton of activities. I was always busy. I never felt like anyone was out to get me (except possibly my one friend, but she was going through some real emotional trauma, so we forgave her for being crazy). (And before anyone contends I must not have been that much of a nerd, below is an image of me and my friends playing Star Wars Trivial Pursuit. We were huge nerds. And yes that's me with the awful triangle shaped head. I cut off all my hair after that prom photo).

I thought it was just me. I thought I was the only one who suffered through elementary school and found rest and acceptance in high school. But its not true. After talking to several friends, I've found I'm not alone and this stereotype is simply false.

In elementary school you're forced to be with all these other kids. In middle school and high school? You can find your people. And among your people, you find acceptance.

So lets get rid of this tired old stereotype and write characters who have friends. Who don't care about stereotypical popularity. Kids who are odd but liked.

*I actually did this once. My senior English teacher assigned a totally unfair assignment, where she kept changing what was actually required everyday. The assignment was ridiculous and at least ten pages of work and she expected us to do it practically over night. So I sent it out to my entire class (via email). And yes, the teacher did realize what was happened. She pulled me aside in class the day we turned it in and asked, "Mandy, did you help people with this assignment?" To which I responded to the affirmative. She gave me extra credit. Go figure. But I would like to note that no one coerced me into doing this. There was no bullying. Heck, no one even asked. But I saw an injustice. I saw unfairness. And I was sort of a superhero when it came to brains in high school, so I swooped in and saved the day.

**I only did this in AP Latin when we had a crazy teacher who refused to teach us other than saying "Go home and translate that", but never actually teaching us how to properly translate it--the tricks of the trade. It was stupid. So every morning before class, the kids in my AP Latin class would meet in the band hall (there was only four of us) and they would copy the homework from me. Occasionally, when I was busy, I made the others do the work instead. Was this cheating? Possibly. But helping my classmates like this, cheating if you will, was my revenge on the teacher for being awful. She spent our class planning her wedding instead of teaching us and made me teach the Latin III kids we shared a class with on several occasions. Another injustice. Another superhero action on my part. I'm positive the teacher knew it was happening, because on most occasions, if I didn't do the homework that meant no one did the homework. So when she walked in and asked the four of us if we did the homework and I said no she would postpone it to the next day.

Teenage Stereotypes that I Despise

My current WIP is a young adult novel, which for those of you who aren't up on writer talk, means its a teen book. In many ways, writing a teen book is much harder for me than writing an adult book. Heck, writing a teen book was hard for me when I was a teen. When I was younger, all of my books were "adult" books. Those were the sorts of books I read and the sorts of books I wanted to write.

Middle grade I understand. Adult I comprehend. Teen? Umm...not so much. And there is one very good reason for this.

I was an unusually strange teenager.

How? Well, let's take one small fact that made me hugely different from the supposedly average American teen. When I was a teenager I believed my parents had my best interests at heart, that they were more experienced and wiser than me, and that I should listen to them. I could have been called many things as a teen but disobedient was not one of them.

And strangely enough, most of my friends were the same. Perhaps they weren't as obedient to the extreme that I was (if I recall correctly, one of my friends did lie about going to that concert that one time and pulled a classic "I'm spending the night at so-and-so's house" trick. But that's really the only example of disobedience I can think of).

However, since I was so obedient, I can't recall a single time my parents said no to me when I asked to do something. I had no curfew because I so rarely went out, and when I did go out if the event required that I couldn't be back until three in the morning my parents understood. I was trustworthy. I wasn't going to get into trouble.

Because you can get into sooo much trouble at a LOTR movie marathon.

So when some people read my WIP they respond, "Teenagers don't behave this way." To which my response is always, "Uh, I was a teenager four years ago....", followed by, "Do you believe that because that's what TV tells you how a teenager should behave or because you know teenagers who behave that way?"

I suppose because of my strangeness there are a couple of teenagers stereotypes that really really frustrate me, because I've seen no evidence of these stereotypes in my life.

1. Every fifteen-year-old girl is fretting about her first kiss--because it has to happen by the time you're sixteen. Umm...yeah. I didn't date in high school. Out of a friend group of around eight girls, only two dated in high school. I have friends who are college graduates who still haven't dated. So yeah. I'm fairly certain this isn't as big a deal as books/movies make it out to be. And please, please, please do not "update" this by saying every high schooler is worried about their "first time" having sex. Because this is absolutely not true. Some are, sure, but NO ONE I was friends with was. It's hard to worry about sex when you've never even held a boy's hand, and we were all highly logical. The risks did not outweigh the benefits.

2. Teenage boys are incapable of rational/logical thought when confronted with a hot girl. I never once saw this. Ever. My teenage guy friends were highly logical. My favorite example is that one of my friends was offered by his girlfriend, sex as a way to celebrate their six month anniversary. Not only did my male friend turn her down, he broke up with her. He recognized that sex in high school is not always the most wise decision. He was thinking with his brain...and not so much other body parts.

3. Algebra sucks. Please. Can we move past this? Algebra is EASY. And before you "update" this to make it "calculus sucks", can we please recall that Calculus is in fact EASIER than Algebra? If you want to complain about matrix multiplication, be my guest. You want to complain about all those stupid trig tricks you have to memorize? Go ahead. But calculus? Algebra? Really? Really???? Can we move beyond 1980?

4. Popularity. Every belief you hold about popularity is wrong. A) Not everyone wants to be popular. B) If you went to a large school like I did "popularity" is literally impossible. The odds of seven thousand students all knowing the same five are ridiculous. C) Beautiful, mean, hot girls are not the popular ones. Ever. All the girls I know who got elected to popular things were in fact really nice. Beautiful, yes, still true, but definitely the nicest people ever. Meanness is a straight track to being hated. Teens aren't stupid. D) Being a nerd doesn't mean you can't be popular. I was Captain of the Woodwind Section, Captain of the Quiz Bowl Team, President of Latin Club, and Founder and President of our chapter of the Science National Honor Society. And I was elected to prom court. So yeah. Take that supposed social norms. Basically, all of this is to say that the '80s were a long time ago. The Breakfast Club is no longer true. Get over it.

So these are just a few of the stereotypes that bother me and that I didn't see reflected in my years of high school, oh so long ago (2001-2005). Anyone else out there have stereotypes that really annoy them? Anyone else realize that teens aren't just emotion driven creatures of hormone?

Plotting

When it comes to writing, I've always considered myself a "pantser" or a "gardener". For the uninitiated, let me explain.

All writers essentially fall into one of two camps. They are either pantser/ gardeners or plotter/architects. Pantser/Gardeners tend to write by the seat of their pants, or in the secondary metaphor, by having an idea and the nurturing it without being entirely sure what its going to grow up into. Plotter/Architects like to plot everything out before hand and plan everything out.

Though I sometimes make crazy excel charts that relate to my stories, they're rarely plot related. Usually they keep track of characters and their histories. My excel charts might "plot" out the lives of my characters that led them up to the story, but I never actually plan out what the story might be. I generally have a point A and a point B. I know where to start and where I want to end, but what goes on inbetween is up for grabs.

Well, yesterday, that all changed.

For the past week I've been working hard on my story "The Descent of Chris Chappell." You might have noticed that the word count on my Works In Progress page has increased by 10,000 words. I did not "plot" out per say this first 36,000 words; however, I did write it in a different fashion then I normally do. When it comes to chapters, usually I just sit down and write and then break where it feels right. But this time when writing, I know what event I wanted to reach by the end of each chapter. It was strange.

So yesterday, I reached "the event" that I had been working towards with this 36,000 words, the event I decided was a huge change/twist in the plot and would therefore mark the end of the "first part" of the story. I then sent out the story to my critiquers. I don't want to go much further until I have feedback, in case I need to make huge changes.

However, I was feeling restless. I wanted to know what was going to happen next in my story. I knew where I wanted my story to end, but I had no idea how I was going to get the characters from the end of Part 1 to the climax of my story. There were things that needed to happen and the characters needed to change and develop for those things to happen. And I couldn't see it.

But I did have some ideas. So I thought "heck, why don't I write my few ideas down?" So I broke out some index cards and colored markers. I assigned each character a color, even non-main characters, and started writing down my ideas on each notecard. As I wrote my ideas down, more ideas came. But I had to keep track of them all, when my ideas would happen in the plot. So I started laying the notecards out chronologically. But I had too many cards for my desk! So I started taping them to the wall.

And suddenly we got the monstrosity you see in the picture above. My entire novel plotted on notecards.

It's insane. It's crazy! I've never done anything like this. But it feels good. Now when I next sit down to write, I know exactly what I should write.

Granted, these cards don't cover everything that will happen. If I had written out everything that was going to happen, I would have written the novel. But they cover all the big plot points that essentially each chapter should be working towards. And I completely discovered how the climax is going to work. It's crazy how some things clicked together. Crazy how things I "just made up" because they seemed to fit clicked together to make the climax work at the end. I mean that's how a story is supposed to work, but it's still amazing.

I don't know if I'm going to forever change my ways and become a plotter/architect, but for this story, I think it has definitely helped me see the way forward. Who knows! Maybe this is the start of a new era in my writing.

If you're a writer reading this, are you a panters or a plotter? Have you ever tried writing using the other method?

Voice

Today is our first official writing Monday, so I'm going to talk about something that's been plaguing me, as a writer.

I'm working on this new story, The Descent of Chris Chappell. Well, it's a new old story. Remember? It's the one I had the sudden shock of inspiration for? The one I offered up for critique at Miss Snark's First Victim?

In summary of those two posts, there is this story that's been in my head for a long time. Then last March I suddenly changed the main character POV and wrote 10,000 words in one sitting. I submitted part of it for critique and got rave reviews. It was fantastic. But the story hasn't progressed much since then. It's stuck at 20,000 words and has been for a while.

Originally I was writing the story from a female character's POV, and for some reason I really struggled with this. When I switched to the male character's POV, everything was just easier. For some reason, I found Chris's voice, even though he is a crazy, slightly evil character. But Marilla? The girl who is like me in many ways? Her I just can't figure out.

Yes, I switched to a mainly Chris POV, but I need to keep Marilla's perspective as well, simply because a lot of the story happens from her perspective. There are plot points that Chris can't see. And it's a Marilla chapter I'm currently stuck in. I can't get past it.

I plan on taking Brandon Sanderson's sage advice and just plowing through it. I can't remember the post or tweet exactly, but Mr. Sanderson essentially advised to write even when you don't feel like writing. Sure, it might be complete crap, but you can go back and fix that, whether through a revision or a complete rewrite. So that's my plan. Starting today, I'm just going to hack through this awful chapter.

I have no idea why I find it so hard to write Marilla. I understand her completely. I know everything about her from her motivations to her future. Perhaps Marilla is too similar to me, perhaps that is what makes her hard to write. Strange that I can find a psychopath male's voice but not one that is similar to my own.

Anyone out there have advice for what you do when you're blocked? Or when you're really struggling with a character?