On Creativity and Screwyness

I've been thinking lately about the phenomenon of creativity. If you are a creative person, you tend to live in the world of possibility. If you're like me, you think of scenarios all the time, involving imaginary or real people in your life. You also tend to ruminate; to go back and re-process things that have happened, trying to interpret or pull further implications from it and speculate on various symbolisms and possibilities and "what ifs."

Creativity has traditionally been linked to... let's face it. A lack of sanity.
I've worried about this myself. I've had a lot of people in my life--beloved figures of example--who were brilliant, and really struggling. One example that immediately comes to mind is a man who was great friends with our family. He sang with my dad often. Had a beautiful, fervent, inspiring voice... he sang, you listened. He could have made a big audience for himself with his voice, but never could quite get it together emotionally. He really struggled, and ended up taking his own life just a few years ago.

Maybe that's why so few people make it big artistically. You've got to have the combination--the brilliance AND the executive functioning.

It makes me wonder how many truly brilliant, inspiring people have been unable to reach the wide audience their skills deserved. I mean, this guy I"m talking about... the world would only have been better if more people could have been inspired by him. He certainly changed my life, and the lives of all he touched. I wish, I wish, more people could have been changed by him.

I think of people like Vincent Van Gogh, who was famously unstable, but so talented he broke through anyway. And we all benefit from his inspiration today. I think of Sylvia Plath, who wrote such catchy, beautiful, arresting words, and ended up a victim of her own brilliant mind.

I'm not anywhere close to as talented as these people I mention. And the mental burden I carry is also quite a bit lighter. But, let's face it... I'm still screwy.

Living in the not-real-world most of the time has consequences. You forget things you should remember. All the time. I have such a poor memory of my childhood, of events that occurred even three years ago. Often the best way for me to remember things is through writing about them--my creative talent--but when I'm not writing about them they are fuzzy, hazy, hard-to-grasp images, my memories.

IN real time, I live in a pretty fuzzy world, too. I'm made aware of this often... I drive very very cautiously because often if I don't, I get in trouble. Over-cautiousness is my defense against my own lack of connection to my surroundings. And still I fail occasionally.

Buildings that have stood on my daily routes suddenly bloom up into being on occasion... I realize, suddenly, that they're there. I didn't notice them before that. Conversations I have with people suddenly click with me days later... I realize what someone meant when they said such-and-such, and what they wanted from me. This can lead to interpersonal difficulties.

For crying out loud, I am, in fact, a bit screwy.

I struggled a lot as a teenager because lack of connection to surroundings, in real time, can lead to social problems. I had a few, forgiving, close friends, but mostly I was frightened of social interaction because I was constantly afraid I would offend people accidentally by responding in a way that didn't make sense to them, because i'd gotten the conversation wrong, or mistook a meaning. The other day in Relief Society, I misunderstood completely the instructor's question and puzzled her; when I responded that I'd mistaken her question, she took it for correction. Oh, this is my life.

I think this is why I make friends slowly. They have to put up with non-sequiturs, fuzzy logic, misunderstanding and eventually learn that I do have good intentions. I really treasure those relationships where this has come to pass.

I often feel that I"m navigating a river full of rapids, with everything around me slightly dimmed--noise, sense of touch, sight... I see through a bit of a dark glass. I'm very, very grateful for those who are willing to look past that and love me for who I mean to be.

Anyway. Creativity and screwyness. It's a thing. I would never give up my heart--writing, stories, memories, thoughts that branch out in crazy directions and connections that make me happy. But it does make life dangerous at times.

Anyway. This is a shout out to those of you who don't fully live in real-time, in the real-world--I feel you, my screwy brothas and sistas.

Writing Update and Request for Input

A few people have asked me how the novel writing's going. Those on facebook are aware of my querying and slew of rejections, seasoned by an occasional personal note from an editor telling me they enjoyed my pages but it's not from them, and also the very occasional request for pages.

I had a pretty big-time agent request my full, and then come back with, "I really enjoyed it. But it's too sweet and too YA for me and those I work with." In other words, (and in the words of a friend) "not enough sex or violence." I think. I think that's what she was saying.

At this point, I've finished (counting the current project) 5 manuscripts since Mile 21's publication. Two are LDS fiction novels that my current publisher, Cedar Fort, hasn't been able to find a place for. Two are fantasy novels that General agents haven't been willing to risk their resources on. So what I'm doing right now--I'm taking one of the fantasies (The "too sweet" one) back to LDS publishers, because I realized after that feedback, that an audience looking for fun fantasy but with a preference for clean literature is probably my best bet for that manuscript.

So, last week, I submitted it to Shadow Mountain. We'll see what comes of that.

Also, a few months ago I was contacted by Covenant Communications (another LDS publisher, not the one I worked with on Lightning Tree and Mile 21) that my manuscript Butterfly Years made it past a couple of tiers of evaluation and they'd sent it to their outside readers, and I ought to hear back in a few months. It's been a few months, so I anticipate I'll be hearing from them soon. If they want to publish it, I'll be ecstatic. I love that story. And while I'd like to take my writing outside of the niche of LDS fiction, I still love writing LDS fiction as well.

This is the life of a writer. You publish, you don't publish. You write something nobody wants, you write something else nobody wants, you keep trying until you hit a sweet spot of Market and Trends and Audience and someone is willing to take a chance on what you've written.

Anyway. I've written a few different types of fantasy stories. I started with my behemoth--the epic fantasy I've played with and written several versions of from the time I was fifteen or so. It ended up being 200,000 words, and I know it needs some editing, and I think I know how I can fix it. It got a couple requests for pages, and ultimately was passed on by my list of agents to submit to (about 120 long). Then I wrote something shorter, something fun and funnier and more commercial, and got the almost-break of that big agent as well as a couple requests and a lot of encouraging rejections. I had fun writing it, but ultimately, struggled. It was so silly and fluffy and honestly, while I love reading stuff like that, and I enjoyed writing it, I felt a bit sugared-out after finishing, if you know what I mean.

So the next thing I wrote (my current project) I decided to do something more serious. Knowing fully it probably wouldn't easily be marketable, I decided to write a literary fantasy story along the lines of Madeline L'Engle. And I really enjoyed writing it. A lot. Man. This is the genre of my heart--fantasy that explores the human experience. But anyway, I doubt a lot of people will be requesting pages because it doesn't easily slide into any genre. IT's got 17 year old characters, it's basically a hero's journey, and it's pretty introspective and kind of unusual. Most of the story is two characters on a boat fighting their way through an Alice-In-Wonderland type scenario. SO while I enjoyed writing it, I'm pretty sure not many people will be reading it. I'll still submit, of course, and try. But not a lot of high hopes there.

And that's OK.

I needed it. It was palate-clarifying, if that makes any sense. After trying so hard to write stuff that appeals to an audience, I needed to write something for myself to remind myself I love to write and why I'm a writer.

But now it's time to try something commercial again. I need to find exactly the right sort of story. Something that will appeal immediately to editors and agents and strikes the right chord in the market right now. I'm just not sure what that is. SO I'll be doing a bit of research before I choose my next story.

To that end, I'm going to ask. Those of you who love reading fantasy. What do you think is missing in the market right now? What do you wish you could read, or read more of, that isn't out there? What do you like most about what *is* out there right now? Let me know. The thing about writing is, writing itself is just a joy. So whatever I end up writing, sugary or spicy or serious or fluff, I might as well be writing what people want to be reading.

Steady in Your Goals

I made a goal, on this blog, one year ago this last January. If you don't count rewrites, I accomplished that goal by November. If you do, I completed it today. I wrote, rewrote, and polished two novels. One Epic Fantasy and one LDS Contemporary.

I'm going to just come out and say it... Fantasy is grueling to write. Grueling, and perhaps more wonderful than anything else. The LDS contemporary came so much easier and quicker and the rewrites were not nearly so extensive. Of course, it was also about half as long. The grand total: about 290,000 words in eleven months, and then polishing and rewriting in another five.

Man. What a trip it's been :) Two thousand words take me about two and a half hours to write each day. I think it's important and worth it and all that, but I'll feel better about it when it starts giving back to my family. That's where I'm at right now, but I'm not hanging my writing on it. I'm a writer, period. I keep writing. Right now, I have three polished (I believe, wonderful) as-yet-unpublished manuscripts. One of them (LDS historical fiction) failed to find a publisher. I'm setting it on the back burner for now. These two will be in the process of submission for quite a while... several months, even if I get a quick "yes" on my LDS contemporary novel from somebody. And it's possible that both of these will not find publishers as well. They're both kind of outside-the-box. Epic fantasy is hard to sell when you don't have big sales to back up the fact you can sell books. And the LDS novel isn't your typical romance-or-inspirational-fiction... it's kind of complicated.

But right now I can say, these are good books. ANd I know that some day people will read and enjoy them. In the meantime? I try the next idea. I've got quite a few ideas to try. I'll try them all, one after another, and become more and more accomplished at writing, and somebody will want something sometime. The odds of being picked up get better the more you have to offer. It becomes increasingly likely that someone will want something of yours if you continue to produce a variety of quality products.

(I don't like to think of my books as products. That's my marketing brain kicking in. As a writer, though, I have to think like that if I'm ever going to sell anything to anyone.)

I guess, to sum up: goal accomplished. I feel wonderful. In a way, even more wonderful because I've kept going with little encouragement from those I'm selling my books to. That means I'm a writer. That I do it for the creativity, for the love of storytelling.... not for the audience and (ha!) certainly not for the money.

I think that the best way to be lucky, if you need luck, is to keep steady in your goals. To keep working hard. The longer you work hard, the more you do, the more likely it is that someone will notice and appreciate your hard work and decide you're worth taking a chance on.


This week I will be writing summaries, chapter outlines, and query letters. And then I will be submitting, everywhere. Faith is the other part of it. You work hard, and you have faith in yourself, and you put yourself out there.

The Long and Winding Road of Today's Writing Career

I finally got my epic fantasy in final draft form, and I feel wonderful about it.

I have been writing that story since I was fifteen years old. I've written about 4 different full manuscripts of it. This particular version makes me very proud, and I'm resting on it. It is such a good feeling to get this project out of my head and into peoples' hands. Beta readers have come back with overwhelmingly positive feedback already, too. And all I can do other than that is

Submit. Submit. Submit.

My goal right now for this project is to do one submission per day. I end up doing about 2 per week instead. Stuff happens.

I'm currently working on another project that I have already finished multiple times. A story about emotional healing, romance and the Monarch Butterfly migration. I love it. This second version has lots of drastic changes--I changed the gender of my main character, for instance, and the entire setup changes as well. It's pretty funny. Going back to it with a fresh perspective after taming the behemoth of the epic fantasy, I'm chuckling a lot and pretty happy with it.

I'm a good writer. I believe I can accept that as truth now, without being accused of undue pride or whatever. I'm not a perfect writer, and I definitely need a lot of refining process to get my books in shape, but I think I write stories people like. It's nice, and important, to know that.

In the end, no matter who wants or doesn't want my stories, I guess the point is, I'm a writer anyway. I write because I love it.

After I get Butterfly Years off my plate, I'm going to go ahead and start a new project. Something sweet and fanciful and funny and fun and shorter and less epic than my other projects. Something more marketable. I figure another thing I can do to sell my epic fantasy is, sell something marketable first. So..... on to that facet of trying to accomplish my goals. In the meantime, keep submitting the epic fantasy, and hopefully find an LDS publisher for the LDS contemporary.

I read somewhere that writers nowadays can expect their writing careers to take several unexpected turns, and to have to "start over" several times. I'm experiencing that. I've published two novels and won the Whitney award, and now here I am with nearly three finished manuscripts, and unsure if I have a place for them.

I think that patience is a big huge piece of the process. Patience and diligence and continued work on honing craft, trying new ideas, and putting yourself out there. It feels exhausting at times, but everything in my life is exhausting so that's not really anything new :) the nice thing is, just about everything in my life is also incredibly fulfilling.

Waiting.

My writing goals have gotten me pretty far this year. I made a resolution to start writing 2000 words a day in January, and since then I've completed one manuscript at around 100,000 words and am about two thirds through another, which will probably end up being 200000 words. I'm glad... these are both stories I love, and have had weighing on the back burner for a while. I feel like I have one more I have to "get off my plate" before moving on to fresh, new, stuff.

But I don't know where any of them are going, is the problem. My publisher, Cedar Fort, turned down my most recent manuscript, a historical fiction, because they said that it did not have enough of a hook and tension through the beginning. So I re-sent it out to a bunch of readers, and have tweaked a bunch of stuff.

And i sent it somewhere else.

There's not a lot of places you can send an LDS fiction manuscript. So I'm kind of waiting to see what happens... what comes next will determine some pretty big writing-career-y decisions, I think.

But I sort of trust the Heavenly Father is in this. I can feel him in this. So I'm not worried, just... waiting.

(Cue Inigo Montoya: "I hate waiting.")

It's at moments like these that you have to remember you're writing because you love it, not because you have an audience. Hooray for writing, I love it. Now, hopefully there's an audience somewhere, too.

I'm going to have a few more poems published, and I'm entering some short fiction stuff in contests, and I'm helping a friend with his biography. I'm reading and reviewing LDS literature on A Motley Vision. Those things also keep me going and motivated (and busy.)

But yeah... I hate waiting.

2000 word update

I am doing ok with my 2000 word goal, except for a couple things: when the kids are sick, it all goes out the window. Also, DavyJones is keeping me up at night and there have been a few mornings where I just couldn't manage it. And... Saturdays have fallen off the table. Now that it's summer. I forget how insanely busy Saturdays are during summer. Especially with the yard, and play practices, and other summer activities... and finishing the greenhouse. Which I will post about soon.

Still, right now I'm at 96,000 words with my LDS contemporary novel, and about 85,000 words of my fantasy. The LDS novel is almost finished. I can feel it winding to a close. The fantasy... maybe we're at the halfway point. I was right--it is an epic fantasy. Hooooow to get an agent to read it, when it's my first book? I guess I have to market to agents who deal in epic fantasy? Are there such things for people other than Robert Jordan?


Anyway. Thoughts. You could send some my direction, too... I'd welcome input.

I'm Not the Only Crazy One

People often ask me how I am a mother of eight children and also a writer.

Last weekend, I got to meet lots of writers. Lots of them women. I sat at a table with four people--the head editor at Covenant Communications, her husband, and two younger women who were (as yet unpublished, but clearly, talented and motivated) writers. I didn't know anybody in the room, at least, not personally (a few I have communicated with online) because I have never been to a writer conference. In my life.

This particular group, LDS Storymakers, is made up of those who write LDS fiction, but also those who are LDS who write general fiction. Brandon Sanderson was there.

I told these girls, who I had never met, that I'd never gone to a writer conference before because I keep having babies. And immediately they nodded, and one kind of rolled her eyes and said, "yeah, a lot of our sessions this conference were interrupted by crying babies." And the other said, "I mostly felt sorry for them, because they paid to go, and they're not getting anything out of it." And the first replied, "Yeah. Babies are more important. They should come first."

It was interesting... here I was, sitting at a table with them, holding my baby at this fancy dinner where I had won an award for my writing. And here they were saying things about how babies should come first and it made me think. Is my baby coming first?

Well, yeah. He was there with me. He was seeing everything I was seeing, enjoying everything I was enjoying (arguably even the food, since he gets that secondhand.) (Haha. Sorry if that grossed you out.)

Does being a writer mean I'm putting my children second?

Quite often, this is the sight I see while I am plugging away in the morning, trying to get 2000 words in.

Do you see the edge of my laptop, there?

My babies learn to nurse while I am also typing. My kids learn to wait about ten seconds after they ask a question for me to set the laptop aside (temporarily) and answer it. They learn to be quiet upstairs during a key two hours of the morning. They can be there, they just have to be quiet. Loud means go outside. Fresh air is good for kids.

I don't just type at the exclusion of my family. I will type, and answer a question, type and help with a math problem, type and take a break to change a baby's diaper. Type and take a moment to lean back, stretch, sigh and ask for a hug.

Then I finish, put the laptop away (unless I'm also writing a quick blog) (like right now) and focus on tasks like cleaning, cuddling with my toddlers, making meals. And driving people places.

At this particular conference, two mothers were honored. One came to the front leaning on a cane, hugely pregnant, clearly exhausted. She talked about how, after she signed a contract with Deseret Book for her second novel, her husband was immediately called as Bishop, and her kids were put in Year-Round school. She talked about how she struggled, and thought about the ramifications of breaking her contract. And how, in the end, she prayed, and asked for help. And Got it. Heavenly Father blessed her endeavor because it was worthy of blessing. Therefore, consecrated. Therefore, acceptable in His sight.

The other was Rachel Ann Nunes. You've heard of her, I'm sure. If you've read any LDS fiction at all you have. She has written dozens of books, and she stated, up at the pulpit, that many of them were written with a child on her lap. I am sure she's been criticized plenty of times in her life for putting her family "Second." In fact, she talked about it. I guess my question for those people (generally other women) who would criticize her would be, have you ever read a book by Julie Ann Nunes? Did you enjoy it? Did it contribute something to your life, or the life of your daughters?

One of the presenters talked about how many people (particularly mothers) might say, "I can do this later. I can do this when...." (the babies are older. The kids are in school. The kids are out of the house). But some just do it. And I think it is a personal choice... one that you pray about. I have often felt worried that I was sacrificing something I shouldn't be... that my books should be helping support our family, at least, if I am going to make this "sacrifice." I recieved some inspiration recently that has made me completely rethink that mindset... writing is a blessing. My writing blesses others, it blesses myself, and also blesses my family. My kids know who I am, and my daughters then form their own aspirations. They see me accomplishing goals and they know that they can do it, too.

And they are all writers. They see it as a normal part of life. My kids will sit down at a computer and spend hours typing stories. It amazes me to see, so directly, how my own example filters down into my kids.

I felt, watching these women speak, very proud to be able to count myself among those who have written novels with babies nursing and toddlers in their laps.

I am not the only crazy one. That picture above is my favorite sight in the world. Both of them.

The Journey of Rewrite

This is the manuscript (untouched since I got it back from Deseret Book and Covenant and Cedar Fort... see, the rubber band's still around it) I set aside about five years ago. It is titled Butterfly Years.

I wrote Lightning Tree right after that, and learned about how plots are important. But Jeffrey actually really loved this manuscript. It's probably his favorite.

I have a plan in my mind of what to write. I decided, three Chabert novels. But also rewrite all the manuscripts I'd already written, now that I know how to write. Zoommates, a novel about BYU and a group of roommates, became Mile 21, in a very, very loose sense. By Rewrite, I mean, change the story, change the characters, and retain a small piece of the original concept.

With Butterfly Years, I have changed the main character's gender, personality, situation and motive. I retained one character, with some minor adjustments, and completely revamped the plot and storyline, but not the trajectory.

This story required a whole lot of research. I had to re-do a majority of it, but I've gotten to a point in the story where I can re-use a lot. And it is a blessing. I pulled out the old manuscript this morning. ANd I realized, I really, really love this story. I loved it in its original form, too.

There's the old and the new.

Writing really is a wonderful journey.

2000-Word goal (and general writing) update

I thought I'd write another update on how things are going with the 2000 word goal. I will say this: I have missed a few days. When our friends the Lovelesses came to visit, I did not write. And a couple days when DavyJones kept me up nearly all night with his cluster feeding, I did not write the next day.

And yeah. There were a couple days where I was feeling pretty cruddy and to comfort myself I just cleaned and hugged my babies. I'd say I've not written... maybe seven days or so, out of the three months since I started this regime. I am pleased to say that, at this point, three months in (almost exactly, I started on the 26th of january) I am 58,000 words into my epic fantasy manuscript and about 70,000 words into my LDS Contemporary manuscript.

I didn't realize until just now how much more of the Contemporary LDS I have written. I think it's because the way my days are set up, I'm supposed to write the fantasy on Saturday, and (predictably) I have missed more Saturdays.

I feel like I'm almost at the "race to the finish" stage with the contemporary fiction. I think, about 2/3 through. The fantasy... I feel like I may be nearing the halfway mark.

So overall, I'm kind of on target, and i can only attribute that to the fact that I tend to go over with word count each day. How does it feel to be doing a NaNoWriMo equivalent each month?

Well, I'm doing it, and my kids aren't dead, and I'm not yet insane.

No, actually... it has been wonderful. It feels wonderful to be pushing myself like this. I get more done, and my story flows better because I am writing it in bigger (and I think, more natural) chunks. About half a chapter per writing session, I think. That works well for the way scenes tend to shift/things tend to go for me. And I have a sense of power... I can do this. It's not that hard. WHen I'm done writing two at once, guess what? I could write one novel in a matter of months. It makes me feel so much more secure as a writer... this is a habit I can develop and it can make it so that I could meet rigorous deadlines. It is developing me as a writer.

The big piece of news for the week, however, is that tomorrow I will be headed to the Whitney Gala. I have never attended a writing conference, and here I am going to this fancy dinner thing where they give out awards, and the reason why I am going is because my novel Mile 21 is one of the Whitney Finalists, in the General Fiction category. I'm really not expecting to win, but I am going to the dinner just in case I do, because it would be kind of rude not to be there if I won. It's sort of like when I won first place the countywide poetry contest when I was a senior in high school, and happened to ditch class the day my Creative Writing teacher announced the winners. (I was ditching so I could finish reading Heart of Darkness for my AP English class that day.) (Yeah, I know it's no excuse.)

Anyway. I'm pretty nervous to go. I haven't actually met most of these writer people I interact with so frequently online. And I am not used to eating with fancy forks, or wearing fancy dresses... and I'm not sure what to expect. I'm trying to think of it as a big adventure, and a getaway for me and Jeff, and I'm focusing my mind on the food, which should be delicious.

It will be great.

Oh, and one of my poems was on Psaltery and Lyre today, and another was on there last month. I need to write more poetry. I don't make enough time for it. It really does help me write with more grace and spareness, though... and I love it. It is the center of my heart.

I'm behind on reviews. I still need to read the rest of Braden Bell's most recent, Luminescence, and then write up my usual combination of review and rambling essay about it for A Motley Vision blog.

Also, I need to finish helping my critique group friend, George, trim down his fantasy manuscript.

Now I'm starting to feel guilty...

Anyway. Yeah. Writing. Good stuff.

I'm A Writer. (My rant about online vs "real world" communication)

Recently I have had a few different people sort of pick at me for how much communication I do online vs face to face. To which I have a few very practical responses:

1) I am at home all day long taking care of eight children and writing 2000 words per day. If you want to talk to me... you're going to have to text me or message me, and then when I have a moment, I'll message or text you back.

2) I am a huge introvert. I don't like people randomly coming over to my house, I don't enjoy the first stages of getting to know someone, and I do not enjoy large crowds. Talking face-to-face, just alone, is much easier to me than talking with others around. This doesn't often take place face-to-face, because when you're talking to someone, there tend to be others around. But if you're messaging or texting someone, you are messaging or texting just that person, almost all the time.

3) Related to the above, in the first stages of getting to know someone, I am extremely awkward. I don't relax until I know someone well enough to trust that they'll love me in spite of any awkward things i might say, accidental implications my words might have, and strange facial expressions I might make. (Full disclosure here--I make weird faces when I'm nervous and I'm talking to people I don't know.) But writing, I don't have to worry as much in those beginning stages, because I am not making faces, I'm just typing words. I can go back and read what I wrote to make sure it says what I mean it to say. And, I can go back and *review* what I wrote and realize it was OK instead of rehashing in my mind every piece of the conversation and thinking I made a bunch of stupid mistakes or offensive implications.

4) I struggle with auditory processing. I have to concentrate really hard in order to understand spoken conversation. I've never been diagnosed, but I have a sister who has been diagnosed with auditory processing disorder. I have to ask people to repeat things a lot. When I watch movies with a lot of dialog, I need subtitles to read or else I do not understand about half of what is being said. Because of how hard I have to concentrate to understand something someone is saying to me, it is extremely draining to have long conversations, particularly where I'm worrying a great deal that I'm not understanding someone, or they are not understanding me/are liable to take offense at something I say when I don't mean it that way. Jeff says I have "about a three minute buffer" and then he can tell I'm starting to tune out/freak out/not be able to follow as well. And for conversation in general, my buffer level to complete exhaustion might be 30 minutes.


... this all means that written communication is far easier for me than spoken communication.

That does not mean that I think face-to-face interactions aren't for me. I think they are important. I just know that they will be extremely difficult and stressful until I get to know someone well enough, and I know they know me well enough, that they'll be able to understand what i'm trying to say to them and not take offense/infer something from what I said that I don't mean. And until I can relax enough to not care if I have some strange facial tics when i'm nervous... the person loves me anyway.

(In case you're curious, my strange facial tics usually involve eye contact/lack thereof, up to and including rolling of the eyes at strange moments.)

My online relationships are important to me. Because they are also mostly real-life relationships. I talk to my family on facebook. My mom, my dad, sisters and brothers who are all spread out all over the U.S. I talk to my friends on facebook--people I grew up with, people I've met and known at various points in my life, people who were there with me during important moments. I also talk to my colleagues on facebook and through email--writing friends,people with my publisher, bloggers, book reviewers.

I also tend to take care of church responsibilities mainly through group messaging, because I've found it's a good way for several busy people to have a conversation on their own schedule. It has made it so I don't have to have weekly meetings. Also so I don't have to make a phone call, wait for no answer, leave a message, and then miss their phone call, listen to their message, etc. Overall, I bless Facebook Messaging and credit to it my current levels of sanity.

I have also been able to promulgate relationships through online interaction where promulgation face to face would have been awkward to the point of nonexistent. Our friends the Lovelesses are a prime example. Jeff knew Dave well in college. But for couples to hang out together, all the members of the coupleship need to be comfortable with each other. Because Dave, Courtney and I all blog, that relationship was much more easily established--initially between me and Dave, then Courtney as well. And it lead to us all hanging out together, after having talked about more vulnerable stuff in a situation where I (and I suspect the both of them) felt safer. I am positive that we would not have become so close if we hadn't had online interactions to smooth over that initial rough patch of getting to know someone.

My relationship with my father has improved as well.
My Dad and I struggle to talk face to face. Whenever I have tried to talk about something vulnerable with him, with words and actual presence together in one room, it has been very difficult. He can't handle it, I can't handle it. I come away feeling terrible. But we can write to each other and it has opened my world up. Recently, that has been the case with my mother, too. There are several very difficult topics i have tried to address with her over the years, only it never worked out--it always devolved into bad results... usually a big fight, to be honest. But in communications that are written and in real time, we have been able to say things and understand each other. And she recently said something to me that sort of changed a whole lot about how I feel about myself, for the better. It's something I think she has been trying to say to me for a long time, but I just never really understood it, because I couldn't ingest it until she found just the right words to type, that I could read.

Does that make me pathetic? And strange? And dysfuctional?

I hope not, because it is the way Heavenly Father made me.

Once I get to know someone well, and trust them, I would much rather see them face to face than write them. I would much rather be present with them than talking at them through a computer screen. But until then, I struggle. But social media, email, blogging--that has really helped me with the initial struggle.

The way I have described it to people who have been lately frustrated by this is "I'm a writer."

I mean that in a way different, I think, from how people would usually take it. I'm a writer because I can claim that title because I have had things published, yes. But really, the title there is "author." I am a published author.

By, "I'm a writer," I mean... I'm not a talker. I'm a writer.

But if I know you really well, and trust you, then I'm a talker. For me, I think the act of having a real-time, face-to-face conversation about something vulnerable, especially, is perhaps one of the most deeply intimate acts. It means I am putting everything on the line. Judge me, laugh at me, hate me... watch me become emotional, watch me fumble with my words,be offended or disenchanted when you hear me say something accidentally wrong or awkward... I'm giving you that opportunity to "know" me that way because I trust you. And I only trust you that way if I Love you.

The internet has opened a lot of doors for me. I have strengthened almost every important relationship through the means of online communication. I have made acquaintances friends and friends good friends. I have been able to be confident talking to people who are experts in the things I also love, which would not happen in real life. I have been able to discuss difficult and very potentially volatile issues with the people closest to me, instead of shutting down.

I see it as a blessing.

I've had two different people say things to me lately that have really stung. One person said, when I was talking about my friends on facebook, "you know they're really not you're friends, right?"

... yeah. My mom, my dad, my sister. My fifth grade teacher. My old babysitters. Members of choir, seminary, ski team. People who were there in the ward where everything went down with my first marriage. People in my current ward. People I've worked with. People I've cried with. They're not my friends, huh.

The other was "you write all these things, but you know you'd never say them in real life!"

Well, yes I would. If I loved you enough, and trusted you enough, I would.

I feel like the overall message is sometimes "the online you is fake. What you write isn't real. It's fake."

No. It's not. What I write is often much realer than what I say, because when I write, I say what I mean, and when I talk I can't figure out how to say what I mean.

And that is what I think about that.

Fantasy Writing and Subtext: Showing vs Telling when you're worldbuilding

I want to grab my head and moan just looking at the heading I put there.

I believe fantasy is actually very difficult to write. There are people who disagree with me. They believe that fantasy is an easy genre because you can "just make it all up." But these people don't understand what makes a good fantasy story. In writing escapist fiction of any kind, you need to write a world that makes sense--that doesn't give the reader red flags that it is imaginary. It needs to seem real, and so there are rules. When you write historical fiction, those rules center around research. You figure out what is authentic, and you work hard to figure out what is not. You do your very best to include authentic details and social structures and landscapes and towns, and characters whose speech never contain jarring modernisms. For instance, if you're writing in 1850, you should probably avoid analogies or metaphors that involve electricity like, "the shock ran up and down his spine." (that's kind of a lame metaphor anyway.)

In Fantasy, you are creating all the rules. You don't have real things to go back and refer to. You're making everything up, which means you have to think hard about every application of those rules in characters' speech, actions and abilities. In their environment. In the way people and whole, made-up societies or perhaps even civilizations or galaxies of people interact with each other and their environment.

You have to think everything through in excruciating detail, and there's a much higher probability that you can give a reader a "red flag" or create a plot-hole or inconsistency to make your entire story seem improbable. Those "How it Should Have Ended" youtube videos point out problems like this in movies we have all watched. The suspension of disbelief needed to create a good fantasy story requires a lot of planning and thinking and creating. We call this World Building.

There are a lot of articles and essays on this subject. Fantasy writers work hard at world building, and so it's natural that when we start to write our story, we get caught up in our world and forget that the entire point of a book is plot. And characters. Characters, though, aren't enough to make a story worth reading--plot is essential. The world you build is very important, but if you get too involved in description at the beginning of your fantasy story, you slooooow dooooown the plot. To the point where the reader (unless they are a very seasoned reader of fantasy or are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and skip paragraphs) will set your book aside. Yes, they love being caught up in a world. But they need movement. They need a current that takes them through the world and makes it exciting and gripping.

How do you manage to include enough detail to describe this world, its magic elements, its alien social structures and landscapes and also (like with any other story) characters and backstory, but still hook the reader at the beginning and keep things moving fast?

H. G. Wells is fantastic at this. If you read one of his stories (the Time Machine is a good example), you finish it feeling like you've just read a 500 page Science Fiction novel. You're completely shocked when you realize the story you've read, the world you've experienced with all the characters and action and social commentary and alien lifeforms and those poignant, aching moments came about in the course of around 100 pages. It is pretty mind-boggling.

So how does he do it? How can you do it?

My friend read the first three chapters of the fantasy manuscript I am working on right now and reminded me of the answer (and gave me a name for it when I didn't have one before, though I knew the general principle): subtext.

In general terms, subtext usually refers to messages sent, and inferences made, that aren't actually explicitly stated. For instance, in dialog, the way a phrase is worded can make a character seem bored, or angry, or impatient, or however they are, without the author saying "such and such character was bored" or using the ever-popular (and-overused) descriptive-tags-method: e.g. "she said boredly." (not a word, btw.)

In fantasy, the subtext is also your world. For instance: (I'm using examples from my own story. Sorry)


Shem breezed in and took off her coat.

“You smell like the sea,” Madiglen said, handing Shem the porridge pot and a ladel. “You look like it, too.”

Shem began ladeling portions into a dozen bowls, adding cream jasmine honey on to each. “I know. It’s the hair. Like a hurricaine.”

“A lovely hurricaine,” Madgilen agreed, and placed a hand on top of her cloud of curls. “Are you feeling good about tonight?”

“I’ve put it off three months already. I’d better feel good about it,” Shem replied. “We are due for a superior moon this month, so there won’t be a better time.”

“It will help, but your confidence will make the biggest difference. Remember that.”

Shem sighed and ducked out from under her hand.

“Just make sure you don’t skip any chakras. I’d suggest three meditations, and don’t indulge in any heavy foods today.”

This scene occurs on the first page of my story, when I should be doing some pretty intense world building. But see how I'm not taking time to explain about the chakras; I just mention them casually the way anybody living in this world would. SO the reader infers that Shem and Madgilen are involved somehow in some kind of meditative practice--something I could have explained, but didn't. We also realize from this paragraph that they live by the sea, they live humbly, there are about a dozen people living there. We know Shem has unkempt curly hair. We also learn some things about her relationship with the convent mother--it is a lot like a mother and daughter. We know something is about to happen, and that Shem has put it off, and therefore, must be nervous about it, and that it will happen tonight. I didn't have to explain any of this; I just had the characters act it out and pay attention to small, relevant details.

Subtext means you let the world come into focus for your reader through the everyday actions, dialog and (very small) observations of the main characters. (Too much observation is the same thing as over-explanation by the writer, only filtered through the main character.)

It is very tempting, when writing fantasy, to explain a whole bunch up front, sort of the way a playwright gives "Setting" at the beginning of a play, but you cannot do that as a storyteller. Those scene-setting descriptions are for professionals doing a job. The reader just wants to escape; they don't want to have to do all the work of imagining a bunch of things up front and then remembering those things for the rest of the story. And they will struggle to remember if these things aren't interwoven and significant to the plot.

Let's say you walk into a room. You could either:

a) pause in the doorway and categorize every detail in the room, then walk in and sit down.

b) walk into the room, gaining an overall impression as you enter it, then observe details as you walk: the ground under your feet, the chair as you sit in it, the table in front of you after you sit and it comes into view.

The first example is like info-dump--giving the reader every detail about something before things happen and details become relevant. In the second example, details come into focus *as* they become relevant. You notice a floor you're walking on because you don't want to trip. You notice a chair you're about to sit in because you need to make sure it's something you can sit in--not broken, or fragile or covered with valuable antique embroidery, for instance. You notice a table in front of you because it's right there.

In fact, maybe you choose between two different chairs in the room as you walk in, and that choice says something about you. If you write it that way, that's three birds you've killed: action, scene setting and character development.

Only someone like like Sherlock Holmes could walk in a doorway and make a bunch of detailed, random observations in rapid-fire succession, then file these away in his perfect memory-bank for future reference as action commences. Your reader is not Sherlock Holmes. Generally speaking, readers, like writers, are pretty much normal people with normal memories and average ability to focus. Most of us need details slow-fed to us, and we won't remember many of them unless they're made relevant through connecting them to something important--i.e. plot and character development.

Most of us need our details half-chewed for us through subtext. And it's a fun skill to develop. Think how tricky you are, fitting a dozen details into a paragraph, with the reader none the wiser they've just been info-dumped on. We're sly, skilled creatures, us fantasy writers.

2000 word goal: what the numbers mean

My 2,000 WPD (word per day) continues to be a success. Usually I end up with a bit more than 2,000 words, so that's even better. I realized something the other day. At 2000 + words per day, six days a week? I'm NaNoWriMoing every month. (2,000 x 6= 12,000 per week x 4= 48,000 per month and add on the extra 2,000 because of extra days in the month/extra words=50,000.) That sounds crazy to me. And honestly, it doesn't feel like it to me. I feel like I've upped my pace a bit, and it has been a little stressful with ther baby nursing all day--my house kind of gets neglected and my kids miss me because I am in my room nursing a lot, but I think with focus and 2 hours a day? Done. (my babies nap about one and a half hours a day. Done.)


Anyway. That doesn't mean I'm writing a novel per month, though. NaNoWriMo operates on the premise that 50,000 words = 1 novel. Which kind of isn't true. If you want to publish with a publisher, you're looking at 65,000 as a minimum to qualify as a novel. If you are writing for adults, 85,000 is the minimum (some will argue otherwise) with about 100,000 as the sweet spot.

So, that's two nanowrimos.
And I'm currently writing two novels at the same time, so that's four nanowrimos before I finish a book. So... four months. And then it usually takes me about two months to rewrite, get a few people to read it and re-rewrite. So four more months. So ETA on these books is about 8 months until I can turn one in to my publisher/market one to literary agents. And eight months is about how long it usually takes me to complete one. So this is about right for my goal (to finish 2 in the time I usually finish one.)

I have found something interesting. I tend to have certain word-count breaks. Usually I'll have various levels of "feel done" stages. I want to quit at about 750 words. I want to quit again at about 1200-1400 words and then breaking my goal of 2,000 usually leads me to around 2,200 or so words per day. It's like I have a 700-750 word chunking thing going on in my brain. SO I get through 3 of my "chunks" for this 2,000 word goal.

I have been surprised to find that I experience a lot less writers' block, writing this amount. It seems (to me) to smooth me over some breaks in scene or narrative that are difficult to pick up the next day. And I think it also gives me a better overall grasp on the flow and big picture of my story, because i'm writing it in bigger chunks.

I have found it to be exhilarating.
Now, I need to figure out how to manage my time better.

BRT (Bunch of Random Things)

This is just going to be a bunch-of-random-things post.


So this is day eight of my 2000 word experiment. So far, I have done just fine. My writing has ranged from 2000 to 2500 words daily and I'm still able to get other stuff done. Not much other stuff, because I'm pretty much stuck nursing this incredibly cute infant around the clock, and I can't get much done anyway.

Speaking of incredibly cute infant:

I think his blog name might have to be DavyJones.

Anyway, he loves the nursing. Loves it just about every half our. This baby came out clusterfeeding and hasn't stopped for one day. Except for one day when I think he was feeling sick, and I got very worried about him. But he's doing just fine and is happy, and his brothers and sisters love him a lot.

I have realized that writing, for me, is at this point a part-time job. I have enough stuff going on (drafting fiction, networking, poetry, marketing) that we're talking a few hours a day minimum. So I need to make myself a good plan, how to do this and still be an acceptable mother. I think it will be much easier when this baby is no longer quite so needy and can go a couple hours between feedings, but it is still important for me to figure out how to do the writing thing while also keeping house clean, kids schooled, laundry done, etc. I love my kids, but lately feel so much like i miss them. Because if I go where they are, they maul the baby. Like, hang all over him, lean on him, climb on top of him (in Chumba's case) so I have to go somewhere away from them to feed him... which he wants to do, as I said, all the time.

... our greenhouse is now completely enclosed. We still need to caulk up the little holes, and next spring, put the cement board and insulation on, and mortar the cinderblocks. BUt ideas are brewing, and I'm excited, and it is beautiful. Seriously. I love seeing the outside, and from the inside, it's such a restful place.

Well, that's all for now. Thanks for reading.

Change of Projects, Change of Pace.

Lately I have felt worried about my writing career. LDS literature is what I've had published so far. It's what I have written that has been accepted and sent out there into the world to be read by people. And now people are kind of niche-ing me. Or starting to. I've had interviews lately on Modern Mormon Men and Motley Vision and Mormon Artist, and in each of these interviews I have been asked why I chose Mormon Lit as my venue. Well, it sort of chose me. That's what I've published so far.

Lately I have thought, well then, I need to make that my focus. I'll write three more LDS stories and give them over to my publisher. But when I'm done with those, I'm going another direction.

My feelings have changed suddenly. I have been editing two manuscripts. One of them is my sister's. One is a friend's. Both are fantasy.

See, my first love? It's fantasy.

Fantasy is what I breathed growing up. And it wasn't just writing, it was games in the backyard about fairies and monkey people and hags and good and evil and poor kids with magical abilities and rich people with lots of jewels, orphans with royal birthmarks, people who make their clothing out of flower petals.

Growing up, fantasy was my favorite. The Book of Three, the Black Cauldron. Dealing with Dragons. The Alanna books. The Ordinary Princess. The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, The Stolen Lake. And all those scholastic or apple paperbacks about wishes that come true or dragons hatching from eggs or teachers being aliens. So, I have written and lived in fantasy from the time I was too small to really be writing yet.

Up until I started writing seriously, with more focus and intent, giving myself a word count and everything, my less-than-serious forays into novel writing (three abandoned chapters, five abandoned chapters, sketchbook full of maps and character descriptions and drawings of characters and places and people, ideas that accumulated in word documents and then got scattered and lost because there were so very many word documents containing ideas) was all fantasy.

Today I got a great idea about how to start the fantasy novel I have been rewriting for the last fifteen years. I did my most recent rewrite of it after Lightning Tree, and Cedar Fort rejected it due to some content. I would have gone on to submit it elsewhere if I didn't know it still needed a lot of work (including the content Cedar Fort objected to. I'm still not sure how necessary it is to my story. Trying to decide.) But today, I got an idea that I think will solve all of that. You have to start a novel at the correct point in the story--that was my problem. I started it in the wrong place.

I also realized that I was writing the story like it was a YA fantasy. This story is an epic fantasy. Totally different. For one thing, an epic fantasy can be longer, so I don't have to think "Okay, how do I tell this entire story in the space of 350 pages." And for another, it's kind of expected that in epic fantasy you meet a lot of people and go a lot of places.

Try telling an epic fantasy in the space allotted to a YA novel. If you're a fantastic writer, you might be able to do it. I'm betting H.G. Wells could do it. I'm not a fantastic writer yet, however. I'm just a pretty-ok writer.

Anyway, I got this idea for a starting point, and the idea just boiled over in my head. And I felt, today, more excited than I have felt about writing in a while.

I kind of need to write this one, maybe. Next. Not after my butterfly story about the guy who ages out of the singles' ward and the third in my planned trio of Historical LDS novels. I've been saying that to myself for a while in the same way you say to yourself, salad first, then dinner, then you can have your dessert. But the thing is, if it's what I love to write most, and it's what's taking over my brain right now, why am I making myself do other stuff?

I am niche-ing myself and drying myself out as a writer. And I'm feeling discouraged because while the audience for LDS fiction is very loyal and wonderful, it's not very big. I can't go ahead and tell all my Facebook friends, "buy my book, you'll love it!" Because some of them wouldn't. I have tons of friends who love fantasy, and a smaller number of friends who love Mormon fiction. Not even most of my Mormon friends read Mormon Fiction.

And while I do love Mormon fiction, in fact, love it enough to write it even though I know I won't find a big audience, my first love really is Fantasy. And man, I need to get back into it.

So. Plans changed, I think. I'm going to launch myself back into the deep-blue of fantasy. I'm going to draw pictures and maps. I'm going to think about amazing places and impossible people and the mysteries of the universe. And then when I've finished this story, I'll probably enjoy going back to the funny, close dearness of an LDS contemporary fiction story or the driving curiosity and deep, aching issues and mysteries of an LDS Historical Fiction.

Am I allowed to do that? Write everything? Will that confuse people?

I don't know. I'm just writing what I need to write... sorry if that's confusing.

Stuff I'm Learning About Writing: Start Slowly?

I just finished final draft edits on a manuscript and sent it to my publisher. I think, after finishing a novel, the temptation to "take a break from writing" is very high, simply because you've just exerted a lot of teary, bloody, sweaty writing effort and you feel you need a break. One trick I've learned is, instead of taking a break from writing altogether, which has some risks (writer's block, stagnation, habits dying)I take a "break" by working on something else; something vastly different. Maybe not even a novel--maybe poems. Or maybe (as is the case right now time for me) working over someone else's manuscript.

This manuscript has sat in the dockets for over a year. I owe this guy one because he took one of my manuscripts and meticulously went through and commented on every page, sometimes every paragraph. Now, if you're a new writer, you might not see the gift that this truly is--for someone to go over you manuscript and say every single thing they feel could be improved. It can feel soul-crushing if you're just barely footing it into the whole serious writing thing, because writing at that stage takes so much motivation, and really, you just need lots of encouragement. But after you've written for a while (and particularly, after you've been published and realize how very unsympathetic at times an audience can be) you see the treasure of a close, good critique.

Anyway. I've been returning the favor, taking it two chapters a day with his manuscript. And after that, I have my sister Caitlin's to look at. It's been a refreshing change that surprisingly (or not surprisingly) has motivated me to start unwinding some spring-growth on my next two stories. Outlining one, and slowly coming up with events, characters, and conversations for another. And you know what I've realized?

It's really, really great to go into a new story slowly. Giving myself time to get to know the characters. Allowing myself to stop short after just a paragraph (because I *am* still getting a quota of writing in by reviewing his manuscript, and don't have to feel guilty or worried about stopping and stagnating.) Being able to just stop because I'm not sure I know what comes next, or what "feels right" for a character, and not being threatened at the idea of completely rethinking things and revamping all the pages I've written so far so that a character evolves before the story gets to that 70-page mark where my stories usually gel and then having to go back and re-work 70 pages-- it's been a nice thing.

Some people say that the end of a story is the hardest part to write. I would disagree, possibly violently (if I tended to be the sort of person who disagrees violently.) The beginning of the story is where you get to know your characters, where you start your plot threads. If you start in a wrong place, you can sometimes discover this way further into a story than you'd like. And it takes a while to get a really solidly great thing going. No matter how good a writer you are, I'd argue that actually writing, that process, is what starts the real development of a story. Which means... you're writing it *as* it's solidifying and becoming better. Which means you may need to revamp, revamp and revamp at the beginning of the story. OFten, for me, the beginning has periods of time where I feel like I'm working reaaaally, really hard to get up a hill. Then you get some momentum going, and it clicks, and things start to run smoothly. You've hit the track and things glide, and eventually, seem to go faster than you can even keep up with. But just like breaking a path in snow is far more difficult if you're at the head of the line, breaking that path at the beginning of a story is sometimes discouraging. Dogged determination and 1100 words a day has sometimes been the only thing to get me over the hump.

But right now.... it's actually a very good feeling. Hammering away 1100 words a day can take a toll on writer's morale. I still love that routine, I still feel very accomplished and powerful and happy when doing so, but feeling "fresh" and "new" and all that. It's something I need in my writing career right now. Forget all the worries about copies sold, marketing, what Cedar Fort will think of this next manuscript I've slaved over and... just play. Savor details. Savor creating characters. These things, they are the love in it all, the thing that makes it delicious and something I could never leave behind or cut out of my life.

So that might be my new thing. I'm going to start slowly this time and see just how much better it works. Maybe I won't have to slice apart 70 pages at the beginning of my story this time. That would be VERY refreshing.

Interview of R.I. Drembic, author of The Knights of the Caers

Hi.

Today I'm doing something a little different.

I'm interviewing a fantasy author!

About R.L. Drembic:

R.L. Drembic has loved reading from an early age. It wasn’t until shortly after
high school that he got the idea for a book of his own. Inspired by a friend’s
courage to try and get her own novel published, Drembic began writing and has
continued through his college career. Drembic has plans for a dozen more books
and hopes for a chance to share these adventures with avid readers everywhere.

About Knights of the Caers:
An ominous storm brews over The Northern Kingdoms. Edric, a young man, has wandered through the kingdoms alone and forlorn for years, ever since a tragedy forced him to leave his village. A fateful encounter brings Stephen to his campfire with inspirational news; war looms on the horizon of the realm of Osmér and King Herus has called for skilled swordsmen to come to the Knight’s Academy. The news brings Edric some desperately needed hope and he risks everything to escape the past that haunts him.

The novel has been described as gripping, the plot as twisty, and the characters, endearing.

OK. So here's the interview!


1) What is the genre of your book? What has made you choose this genre for your writing?

The Knights of the Caers is an Epic Fantasy. I chose to write in this genre because I have always found it to be the most exciting and enrapturing genre in my years as an avid reader. I believe that reading a good book should be a means to transport the reader to a new, amazing world where they can experience an adventure that they could never have in real life.

2) I noticed from your blurbs that your story has a historical bent. Did you do research?

The novel doesn't actually have much of a historical bent beyond ships and weapons common before the renaissance. Originally, it was set in medieval times, but as I wrote I slowly added fantastical elements starting with orcs, then a little magic, then elves and dwarves, and so on. I quickly decided to set the story in a completely created land because I believed that all the research required to do one in a historical setting would get in the way of creativity; and it is the creativity that makes a story good.

3) Do you love plotting or character development more? Which of those have you had to work on as you grow as a writer? Or are you great at both?

Writing this novel, and working on my others, I definitely focus more on plotting. I love creating a thrilling, twisting plot. There are strong elements of character development throughout the story that are what make the characters real and inspiring, but the focus is on how the events help or harm character development.

4) What do you feel is the most valuable writing skill you have gained in writing this book?

I would say the most valuable skill that developed is the ability to write more fluidly while making the imagery descriptive. As you read the book, there is definite, noticeable improvement in this aspect throughout.

5) Tell me five interesting or strange things about yourself.

I started writing this novel at 18.
By the time I graduated high school, I calculated that I had probably read over 1,000 fictions books.
Although the first novel took me about a year to complete (6 months for the first third), the first draft of the sequel only took me about 4-6 weeks (2 weeks for the first third).
I have six other books in various stages of the writing process as well as ideas for a half dozen others based off characters introduced in The Knights of the Caers.

Thank you, R.L. Drembic!

If you want to know more about this author, here is his facebook page.

And for those interested, here's where you can purchase a copy of Knights of the Caers. And you can have a sneak peek at the first few chapters here.

On Accepting & Enjoying Praise, or Actually Allowing Yourself to Consume the Fruits of Your Labors.

This is such a hard one for me!!

I'm tempted to just not write anything, and ask people to comment and tell me how they manage it. But since this is my blog & I'm the one writing this post, I guess I'll write something.

Last night I read an awesome email from one of the advance readers of Mile 21. She said she *loved* my book (just like that with the asterixes)and cried 2/3 of the way through it, and that she felt her blog was the perfect audience to review it. She gushed for a bit. And I was very complimented because she's not the type to gush. I got that warm, happy feeling...

for about three seconds.

And then the usual secondary process took over--concern. Worry. Fear, that she's overestimated my story or that I've somehow set the bar too high with this story and that soon, very soon, I'll disappoint her with my lack of writing ability or my lack of coolness or my next book which will almost certainly be boring.

OK, I know that has Satan written all over it. (Or whatever you call it in your line of thinking--bad Karma, Negative Thoughts, bad Chi etc). And I need to stop.

The thing is, how do you enjoy such things without worrying that you'll be prideful if you do, or get complacent, or that you're taking credit for more than you should (I feel like a lot of my writing is actually kind of through the grace of the Spirit), or that you're really just riding a fluke & you're going to end up disappointing yourself or others if you don't immediately let off a bunch of disclaimers?

The thing is, I really, really love the idea of people loving my story. I write so that people will read stories they love. I want them to love them so, so badly. To be caught up in them, moved by them, changed by them; to make people happy or think harder or even change a little. So when it happens, how come I'm not over the moon? Ecstatic? I could really use that sort of positive energy fueling my writing/life. I have a lot of stuff I do. I work kind of hard some days. I could really use the fruits of my labors. I could use those positive-energy calories to sustain me through the leaner, frustrating times when I am completely insecure in a project and feel dragged down by the burden of my own expectations.

I'm going to make it a goal to figure out how/why it's appropriate to enjoy people loving my books.

& I'd love your suggestions and experiences on this topic. At this point, I'm completely baffled as to how I can be a good/humble person/writer and do this.

Being a Pretend Extrovert

Writing is an interesting thing. Generally writers (I think) are people-watchers. Because we aren't all that social, we watch people. I have friends who regularly post things about how to know if you are an introvert, how to care for an introvert, why being introverted is the new awesome. Introversion is like, a fad right now. And I find it kind of embarrassing and self-indulgent. But it doesn't make things any less true... perhaps part of the reason the fad took off so spectacularly is us Introverts (see my self-indulgent capitalization there) have spent most of our lives wondering what's wrong with us, or feeling like we're somehow missing or lacking in some strength or quality, that we don't enjoy large, loud parties or run for class president or make friends with everybody.

As a writer, we all run into this at some point, too. Why do I struggle to hand out bookmarks at book signings? Why do I have a problem selling my story, even though I love it and really do think other people will love it? Why don't I schedule a dozen book signings per year and walk out of the bookstore completely unfazed I've sold less than half-dozen copies because the experience of talking with and meeting scores of people was fulfilling enough?

There are writers who love that kind of thing. Who are that magical blend of creative/introspective and extrovert. I'm not one of those. I think most of us writers aren't, in fact.

I'm dreading this whole book launch thing at the same time as I enjoy planning it, enjoy collecting reviewers over the internet, (written conversations = so much easier with strangers than face to face)I actually dread the actual thing.

I've realized that one thing that is expected of me is to gain a "following" online. In fact, one article I read actually said that I'm supposed to gain "stalkers," people who get addicted to my life and follow it like some kind of lurid TV series or soap opera or something. Well, unfortunately, I'm not really that exciting. With this blog, my purpose has never been to gain a "following" but to express things and have real conversations with others. I can think of it that way on this blog, on twitter, on Facebook and feel more OK about things.

The other day, my Father-in-Law said something that stung a bit. I mentioned I'd said something on Facebook that I had forgotten to pass on to family by word-of-mouth, and apologized. My father-in-law then said, "well, we all know how much you LOVE facebook." Like i'm some kind of teenager who posts statuses about what she eats for lunch and if I get enough likes I'll tell you whether I'm in love with you or not, and post self-portraits constantly with self-obsessed or manipulative captions.

Oh sigh.

Well, I love you guys, anyway. The people who tend to read my stuff and comment tend to be people I'd be friends with in real life. So.... I can handle it.

How This Mother Loses It.

This has been a grueling ten days or so. Last weekend I traveled down to see my sister & sing with her in the Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City. I was tired every night because we kept making 30-45 minute trips in the car after making a day-long trip in the car. Each night I was so tired, I felt kinda sick. I came home feeling the same way.

The week after, I kind of didn't get a break at all. It was full of trips to the lake with my kids, extremely hyper Young Women activities & ice cream afterwards later into the evening, back to school shopping, a long temple date-night friday night including going out to dinner (which was fun, but by the end of the meal I was leaning my head on the table wishing I could sleep right there as Jeff finished up and paid the check) and my birthday, which I spent all day cooking for (that's my birthday present to me. Sushi & my favorite casserole, Chicken Devine, & my favorite pound cake. Which was delicious. But maybe I shouldn't have over-reached so much.... saved it for next week... something). That Saturday night I attended the wedding reception of some dear friends with my children. And then when we came home, I finally flipped to the Young Women lesson I was supposed to prepare for Sunday and found it was on Dating & Standards (touching on chastity). I figured Heavenly Father knew I'd not had a spare moment all week, and that I was exhausted... I prepared the best I could, asked if one of the bishopric members could sit in since that's kind of an important lesson, and prayed hard for inspiration. It went well, I think. The bishop touched on it during BYC and bore his testimony about how glad he was we talk about these things in YM/YW. And I came home kind of on a spiritual high--what a great experience it was to teach something so important to the YW and feel the right words came out & they understood.

And when I woke up the next morning, I could not bring myself to get out of bed. I was so tired. I felt sick. I'd had a cold slowly coming on all week, I felt it in my head and chest, and I... was so tired. I did go downstairs to help with breakfast and ended up snapping irritably at 2 children, and realized I really did need a time out. I was not adding anything good to the situation in my exhausted state.

Forgot to mention (on here) I'm 19 weeks pregnant.

I spent the day mostly in bed. I got up to prepare snack & lunch, to moderate & mediate loud arguments, to direct children to do their chores, to come down once in a while to make sure people were happy. I left my door open. But I stayed in bed. Toward the evening I started feeling a little better, but still too tired and irritable to venture into the noisy, popcorn-strewn living room for FHE where they were watching Shrek Four. I just needed to sleep. I lay on my side and edited my manuscript until Jeff came to bed, instead.

The next morning I woke up feeling more refreshed, still tired, but capable of doing stuff again. Also feeling guilty (of course) for spending the previous day in bed. I walked into the living room, smiled at my kids who were shrieking and laughing and dancing to the demo music on our electronic keyboard turned all the way up, and called, "OK guys! Time to do your morning chores!"

One of my children who shall remain nameless pouted theatrically. "Whyyyyy," she moaned.

"Well, what would happen if I said that?" I told her jokingly. "If I got up and just said, "whyyyy do I have to do all my jobs?"

her response: "You don't very much at work at all, Mom."

I think I could have let it go... brushed it aside, if weren't still so tired. And if it weren't for the smirk.

You know. That smirk.

I waited ten seconds, then walked up to the child, took her firmly by the arm, and lead her to my bedroom, where a giant pile of the kids' clothes resided in the middle of the floor. "You can sort these," I told her. "By yourself." And then I shut the door behind her.


The rest of the kids quietly and obediently filed downstairs and went about their morning chores (tidying up the dining room, dishes in the sink, table wiped & cleared & floor swept) while I unloaded the dishwasher and started on the morning dishes.

About half an hour later, errant child ventures downstairs. "We left your job for you," I informed her, pointing to the table & counters strewn with remnants of breakfast. "Do not wipe them on the foor or you will be responsible for picking them up off the floor."

When errant child announced she had finished, and I observed to my satisfaction the counters & table were gleaming, I nodded & pointed down the hall. "Go and tidy the library now," I said.

Child's lip was trembling a bit at this point. But she walked into the library without complaint.

When she came back into the kitchen saying she had finished the library, I had a paper ready for her, with a heading, numbered from one through twenty five.

"Now sit down and fill out this list," I said, setting it on the clean surface of the dining room table and sliding a chair over.

Wordlessly, child sat and filled out the paper.

About 20 minutes later, child showed me her list and threw away about five crumpled kleenexes.


And that, folks, is how this mom loses it.

(afterward we had a long, serious talk & I gave her a hug. But you'd better believe i'm saving the list for next time.)

Writing the Dark Stuff

As some who've read Lightning Tree know, I write about controversial issues in LDS history, but I have worked hard to keep my storytelling about the main story--about the journey my main character takes, and if historical events come into play they come through the eyes of my character, and they are relevant only in how they affect my character. In Lightning Tree, Maggie, my main character, was a child when the Mountain Meadows Massacre happened. At the time, it was not a topic discussed openly among those who she would have known and associated with. I don't portray it specifically except in her dreams and flashbacks, which reflect her worries about Pa Alden, who *was* involved with Mountain Meadows--how much, she doesn't know until the story is nearly done.

(This article orginally appears on my professional writing blog... if you're interested in reading more go here. (bratty of me, I know.) :)