ON WRITING - Part 2 Burn Your Thesaurus

I'm going to take the easy way out on this one.  King's next bit of advice is regarding the writer's toolbox.  It should have levels, he claims, and in the top level should go your vocabulary.

Reader, and commenter, and writer, and all around awesome guy, Michael Winchell, wrote a great post over at Project Mayhem about this very topic.  I'm going to point you to read that.  You can find it here.

All that I'm going to add is that nothing screams newbie like reading a draft of a novel that the writer has clearly gone through with a thesaurus and upgraded the words.  Sometimes it's good to hotfoot it somewhere, or to sprint, dart, hurry, or dash.  But usually it's appropriate to simply run.

I greatly admire the vocabulary and general knowledge of Stephen Fry.  He's intelligent, witty, and it all seems to come to him so easily.  He's got so many tools in his toolbox.  I have fewer tools in my toolbox.  Though I love words--their origins, meanings, etc--I simply don't have the skill for retaining them that someone like Fry does.  So when I sit down to write, I use what I have.

I'll admit that occasionally I go to the thesaurus on my computer.  However in those circumstances it's generally because I've echoed a word three or four times on the same page, not because I'm looking to upgrade my vocabulary.

The truth is this:  if I wouldn't say it in real life, I don't write it.

ON WRITING - Part 1 Take Your Shit Seriously

I was a reader long before I was a writer. I read widely, so widely that I daresay there isn't a type of book (fiction and non-fiction) that I haven't attempted to read.  And that does include a stray romance novel that I found tucked away in the back of an airplane seat when I was young (back then I was excited by the provocative nature of such a book, with its scantily clad characters, but ultimately bored).  I still read quite broadly for enjoyment.  Currently I'm reading a book about Patti Smith, a book about parallel universes and quantum mechanics, a fiction adult book called THE HOUSE OF TOMORROW about an old woman obsessed with Buckminster Fuller and the grandson who defies her for a love of punk rock, and a YA book written by a dear friend (THE DARK WIFE by Sarah Diemer, available now!).  Some of those books, I read to learn the craft.  JELLICOE ROAD, for example has been a huge influence on my writing as of late.

But I credit one book more than any other with putting me on this writing path.  Stephen King's ON WRITING.  I've talked about its influence before, but every time I find myself stuck, I return to it.  Recently I did so and decided to blog what I learn as I learn it.  Who knows how many parts there will be.  Some will be long, some short.  If you have a copy, read along.  If not, go buy one.  And, as always, feel free to share in the comments.  I'd love to know what you all took from the book.

I'm starting with the second part of the book because King's biography, while illuminating and entertaining, isn't the part that called to me.

King starts out writing about telepathy.  That the reader and writer share a type of bond. It's a bond that traverses space and time.  The written word is a way for a writer to transmit his thoughts into the future.  The better at it you are, the further your thoughts will go.  Shakespeare was such a master of language and character that we still, with little interpretation, get him.  But King isn't concerned with your legacy...yet.  He wants to make the point that writing is serious business and that if you're no going to take it seriously, not to bother.

This meant something important to me.  For years, I'd procrastinated.  I'd skip writing because I wasn't inspired or I didn't have time or I didn't have the correct desk or chair or computer or paper or or or or....

The excuses were endless.  But that book wasn't going to write itself.  I couldn't call myself a writer if I didn't sit down and write.  I was approaching 30 when I came to that realization.  It was time to put up or shut up.  And I'm not even talking about being published.  You can be a writer and never ever seek publication.  I'm talking about simply finishing a book.  Up to that point, I hadn't done it.  But from that moment on, I sat down every day and wrote.  Sometimes only a paragraph came out, but the more serious I took my writing, the better I got at it.

I finished one book.  Then I finished another.  Then I finished a third and sold it.

To this day, I write 5 days a week without fail.  I wake up in the morning and write.  When I'm tired, when I'm hungover, when I'm not in the mood, I still get up to write.

Because here's the thing, even if your entire book is nothing but one long string of penis jokes, if you don't take yourself seriously, no one else will either.

Blog Chain - Silver Linings

We're back on the blog chain and this round's topic was chosen by Michelle H. who always manages to crack me up.

Be positive! Name some of the positive aspects of your writing --- be it a compliment from a mentor, friend or crit partner to anything special you learned concerning your writing skills.

She couldn't have chosen a better topic for this round.  Writing is difficult, published or not, and it's helpful to remember all the good things.

1.  Friends.  Last week, Margie sent me these AMAZING pastries that I gobbled my way through.  When our schedules sync we manage to Skype, she's always there to prop me up when I fall or listen to me complain.  I hope I'm even half the friend she is.  By my nature, I'm an introverted person.  I don't make friends easily, but through being published, I've met some of the most amazing people.  Margie, the chiefest among them.

2.  Immortality.  Sometimes people write to tell me how Deathday affected them.  A line they loved or a character they felt was particularly real.  Most people love Nana from the book.  And that makes me glow. She's loosely based on my own Nana and I think that in some small way, that means my grandma will live on forever.

3.  Confidence.  Growing up, I always thought I was one of those people who was good at many things and great at none.  I'm not a great writer yet but every day, I think I could be.  The last couple of years have given me the confidence to devote myself to something wholeheartedly.

4.  When I finish a book, no matter how bad it is, I get that rush of completion.  Everyone wants to write a book, few people actually finish one. Published or not, just finishing is amazing.

There are so many things that writing brings to my life.  It helps define who I am, yet it doesn't define me.  It's amazing, my friends are amazing.  I'm lucky to be able to do it.

Well, check out the awesome Michelle M. for yesterday's post and then tomorrow see where the stupendous Sarah finds her bliss.

Subverting Expectations

Formulaic stories work.  The old boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back, is a formula that has served books and movies well for....well, even Shakespeare was in on the game.

As an audience, when we see a set of circumstances, we begin to have certain expectations.  We know the formula and connect the dots.  Which is fine.  There is a certain comfort to be had from knowing what your'e going to get.  You just know that if the boy screws up his relationship then either he'll do something fantastic and get the girl back OR realize that the girl he was chasing wasn't the girl he really wanted.  As an audience, we expect those things.

As writers then, our job is to give the audience what they want but some how manage to subvert those expectations, giving them something fresh.

This weekend, I saw the movie Bridesmaids.  First off, it was hilarious.  I haven't laughed that hard or that loud during a movie in forever.  And I wasn't alone.  There was a mom and her daughter in front of me, howling.  There were a group of guys cracking up.  The movie appealed to every age, gender, race.  It was that good.

I won't give any of the plot away, but at about 2/3 of the way through the movie, I said to myself that A would happen, leading to B and then C.  Well, we got C but not even remotely as I'd imagined.  We kind of got B too but it looked more like M.  Not sure what I'm talking about?  Neither am I.  Okay, seriously.  If this movie had been a regular formulaic summer movie, A, B, and C would have happened and I would have left with a smile.  But the writers of the movie gave into my expectations but subverted the route we took to get there in a satisfying, hilarious way that turned out to be better than I could have hoped.  That's what's making this movie a word-of-mouth blockbuster instead of just another throwaway romcom..

People always say that it's not the destination but the journey.  That's also true in writing. The destination id definitely important but the journey you take to get to the end can determine whether you're book is good or whether it's Bridesmaids.

Oh, and it wasn't just me.  I was telling M about my expectations after and he chimed in, that he'd thought the same thing was going to happen.  Those formulas are so burned into our minds that everyone recognizes them.

A Monster Calls

Friends of this blog know that I'm a huge Patrick Ness fan.  He blew me away with his Chaos Walking trilogy, which if you haven't read, you should.  Now.

So to say I was excited when his next book was announced is a bit of an understatement.  The book is based on an idea from author Siobhan Dowd who sadly died before she was able to bring it to fruition.  Ness states in the introduction that he wasn't going to write a book in the voice of Dowd because doing so wouldn't honor the author or the idea.  Instead, he let the idea and characters created by Dowd carry him away.

Here's a description of A MONSTER CALLS from Goodreads:

The monster showed up just after midnight. As they do. But it isn’t the monster Conor's been expecting. He's been expecting the one from his nightmare, the one he's had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments, the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming... The monster in his back garden, though, this monster is something different. Something ancient, something wild. And it wants the most dangerous thing of all from Conor. It wants the truth. 

I ordered it from England because I couldn't wait.  I wasn't sure what kind of book I was getting but when it arrived, I was blown away by the beauty of the cover and the illustrations inside. Honestly, the black & white illustrations provide a somber tone to the book that elevates this to something beyond a mere book.

A MONSTER CALLS isn't anything like the Chaos Walking trilogy.  However, Ness' humor and insight are all over it. I've only read one of Dowd's books, THE LONDON EYE MYSTERY, and I can say that while her voice isn't as present, she is in this book's DNA.  It's a real testament to both authors.

The story itself isn't what I expected.  It's like a cross between Shel Silverstein and Neil Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK.  It's about a boy whose mother is struggling with cancer.  A monster arrives one night at 12:07 and informs the boy that he'll tell 3 stories.  Once done, the boy will then have to tell one story of his own.  One truth about himself.  The prospect of which scares the boy senseless.  There are plots involving his grandmother and bullies at school and a girl.  This is such a short, sweet, complicated book that I was left in tears and in awe at the end.

I don't want to spoil this book by saying anything else except that Patrick Ness has once again earned my utmost respect by writing a touching book that tears out your heart and puts it back together again. He's a rare author and A MONSTER CALLS is a rare book.

Boys Are Not Stupid

I was reading a particularly terrible book that I will not name.  The writing was clunky and it was all tell and no show.  It was like, "He was angry, so angry but the girl in front of him was very, very pretty."  Okay, that's not a direct quote, but it's actually fairly close.

I was quite annoyed by how poorly the book was written and went to look up reviews for it.  The reviews were mostly positive.  I thought I must have been reading a different book.  So I drilled into the reviews to see why people liked it.  Maybe the book magically got better after 100 pages.  What I saw pissed me off.

Many of the reviews had this sentiment: this isn't a great book but boys will like it.  The reasons they listed for boys liking the book were the blood, the action and the distinct lack of overt smooching.

All I really want to say to that is yes, those things may appeal to some boys.  They appealed to me, which is why I bought the book.  But having aspects that appeal to boys doesn't excuse a book for sucking and sucking hard.

There are so many well-written books out there that would appeal to boys, that I don't understand why people would give a pass to a terrible book simply for having things in it which would also appeal to boys.

Boys are not stupid.  I wish people who write books would stop treating them like they are.

A Series of Dreams

I adopted Maxx from a shelter that had saved Maxx from being euthanized.  Two families prior to me had adopted and returned him.  He was blind from birth and only a year old.  There were times after I brought him home that I thought about returning him, but I couldn't.  He was so badly matted that he'd had to be shaved down to the skin.

For two years, Maxx drove me nuts.  He was loud, annoying, needy, and I loved the shit out of him.  He made my life difficult in so many little ways, and yet none of that mattered when I walked through the door and he'd lazily wander up to meet me, his face half-matted because he'd been sleeping.  I'd pick him up and he'd hug into my shoulder.   He barked during all the good parts of my TV shows, he constantly hid his toys under the couch so that I had to fetch them, and he hated walking on wet grass.

I used to daydream of the day when I wouldn't have to worry about finding a sitter for him when I went on vacation, or when I could make it through an entire movie without him needing to be walked.  Now that he's gone, I hate coming home alone.  I have someone wonderful to come home to, but there's something special about a dog.  Even a dog as annoying as Maxx.  He's irreplaceable.  I never thought I'd miss him so fucking much.  That dog was one of a kind.

Blog Chain - We All Float Down Here

I was thinking about IT and Pennywise the Clown.  Don't know why.

Anyway, after some time off, I'm back on the chain, and happy to be back :)  This time around, Laura wants to know:

What keeps you going (either trying to get an agent or to get published or finish that WIP that’s kicking your butt) when you know the odds are stacked way against you?

I keep going because I'm too dumb to stop.

It's really that simple.  Sometimes I know I should.  I have a day job.  It pays well and I'm happy.  I could grow old in it and never need to write again.

But I can't stop writing.

There's a disease where a person has excess iron in their blood.  They have to periodically give blood in order to keep the excess iron from building up in their system and wreaking havoc.  That's how I feel about words.  They're inside of me.  I have too many of them.  If I don't get them out, scratch them onto the page, they'll crawl out of the cracks in my skin.  They'll drive me mad.

It's hard to love something that makes you so crazy, but I think it makes us crazy because we love it.

That's what keeps me going:  stupidity, need, madness.

It's better than drinking. Better than...nah.

Check out what keeps the amazing Laura going, and then tomorrow head over to the fantastic Michelle's blog and see from where her well of hope springs.

Karaoke God

First off, thanks to everyone who was thinking of Maxx.  He's on the mend, scared of the new house, but loving all the space.  My days revolve now around whether he poops, but I'm just happy he's alive.

When I was little I loved to sing.  In 5th grade, I had a part in a little school musical.  My mom cried when I sang.  I used to ride around in the car with her singing along.  I had a pretty voice.  Then I hit puberty.  I didn't love singing any less.  I did a high school musical, sang in chorus, and even auditioned for a couple of local musicals.  As I grew older, I didn't love singing any less.  I did karaoke, sang in my car, and bedeviled my neighbors with 1am renditions of my favorite songs.

No one every asked me when I was going to record an album or go on tour.  For me, singing is something I love doing.  I'll sing any chance I get.  And I'm not terrible.  I'm just not good enough to go professional.  That doesn't make me love it any less.  It doesn't make me sing with less passion.

It's okay to love doing something, to love it with all your soul, and still treat it as a hobby.  It doesn't make me any less of a singer that I don't ever plan to do anything with my singing beyond performing in my local shower.  In fact, I think knowing that I'm not good enough to sing professionally allows me to enjoy it more.  I don't have the angst of worrying about "making it."  I can love singing for singing's sake.