Story is Dreaming With Eyes Open

Have you ever awoken dream-tossed; rattled by the visceral content of your mind left to roam wide and free in the night?

Mornings like that used to frighten me until I realized human beings ought to be startled by how far out the fences of freedom are set. They are a long way out, so far in fact, it takes more than a lifetime to reach them. Understanding that settled some things for me; cut some fetters from my wrists. Waking dream-tossed, amazed or horrified by the stark presentation of my deepest humanity, is, I now see, the entire purpose of story.

When I wake from a naked encounter with my dreams, I have actually woken from a hidden part of my own story: The bits I can't manage to focus on while awake will mosaic together the missing pieces of me as I dream. When I wake, I have lived through chaos and upheaval without leaving the comfort and safety of my bed.

Then, books.

Story stands us up in the eye of alteration and disruption without overturning our waking lives but managing, mentally and emotionally at least, rearrange the furniture.

Life after encountering great story (be it one we read or one we write) cannot remain identical to what it had been before. The shock of story stains us bright colours, throws open the window and transforms us into prisms that toss stories onto the walls almost against our will.

The more books, the more colours.

Repeated, intentional encounters with story have the accumulative effect of growing us as people, but not to the end we might have thought. I once believed story could help me find completeness, fullness as a human being.

Now I wonder if there is such a thing as completeness, capacity of fullness, an end point to be reached while there is still dirt beneath our feet, a story trail to follow, and another night of dreaming ahead.

Lessons From the Cheap Seats Part II

I'm a slow learner.

When it comes to being a writer I'm the slowest.

If this were a road race, you'd be tempted to run back to where I was and poke me with something sharp.

S.L.O.W.

As in it takes me years to do what other writers manage in a matter of months.

Like writing a novel.

I've been working on this one novel for about 3 1/2 years now. Awhile ago, I thought it was finished.

I was wrong.

I gathered it back to myself, edited, reworked much of it, then thought it was done.

Wrong again.

I repeated this tedious process several times.

I was certain the novel was finished. Complete.

New York has proven I was, once again, wrong.

Rejection bites.

And returning to the novel I was so sure I had already finished felt a great deal like humble pie. Which is fine, I eat that stuff regularly. After so many years as a writer, I have no ego anymore.

So, this is where things were for me when I was invited to have dinner with a group of highly successful and very well published authors. (This was the weekend I spent riding on Lesley Livingston's coattails.)

Mostly we didn't talk about books, writing, or the publishing industry. If someone mentioned what they were working on, or asked someone about their new book, it was titularly--an aside--and the conversation moved swiftly past and onto more exciting topics like hockey, living in France, embarrassing relationship faux pas, and the time I punched out a mime in New York City.

They didn't treat me like a failing wannabe author (which is very much how I felt about myself).

So, when Guy Gavriel Kay turned to me and said, "Tell me what's going on with this book you've written." I pretty much barfed out the whole ugly truth. Years of writing and getting it wrong. Years of NY agents saying things such as, "You're a fantastic writer, but pass."

He nodded several times and said simply, "That's not at all unusual. It sounds like you're going to do very well someday."

That was it. That was all he said.

And it was enough. Because he was Guy Gavriel Kay. I read his stuff in when I was in high school. He has eleventy-hundred novels published. And he basically said, "You're normal. Keep going."

I'm a mess. My work is a mess. I continue to rework the same novel I've been working on since the dawn of humanity (it feels like),  I've been rejected and/or ignored by some of the best in the business.

Normal.

I keep going.

What keeps you going as a writer?

Carpe Annum--Can the Smack Talk

I'm  having a blast with the Carpe Annum--Seize the Year! theme. There's a giddiness that comes close to inebriation in letting the shackles fall to the ground, shrugging off the old way of thinking, and following the simple path of your own creation.

I call it a simple path not because it's easy, but because a home-grown path is likely one less riddled with rules, rankle, and recrimination than those created by industry.

My simple path this year includes backing away from all the smack talk that happens in publishing. I'm as tough skinned and opinionated as ever, but instead of yapping my head off online about, for instance, what I think about Jerry Jenkins starting a vanity press where hopeful writers can lay down ten grand to have their book published (ooh, bet ya want to weigh in on that, eh?), I'm saving my energy to forge my own path.

That is what I think is at the root of all the smack talk you hear floating around the industry: different writers making choices about their work and then feeling the need to defend their position.

I'm all for the first part: make your own choices about your work.

Want to vanity publish? Self publish? Keep knocking at the closed doors of traditional publishers? Something in between?

Go. For. It.

As long as you are making the choice you need to make, and you've thought out the long term consequences (inasmuch as that's possible), and you're not motivated by fear--do what you need to do.

Hold the phone.

Fear.

The greatest foe of creativity.

This past week I've done some career stuff that has me pretty afraid. I had to make hard decisions that, while simultaneously fighting a stomach bug, had me shaking in my boots (oh, okay, I'm a writer so I was shaking in my bedroom slippers.)

Fear is everywhere.

Fear of missing that opportunity with that agent.

Fear of messing up a relationship with a publisher.

Fear this. Fear that.

Fear wants you walking on tip-toe, holding your breath.

Fear keeps you focused on the "what if" and the "I can't."

Fear tethers you to the rules that no longer work for you.

Fear will keep you from producing honest work.

Fear begins every sentence with "What will so-and-so think?"

Fear smack talks other people's choices.

Truthfully, it doesn't matter what I think about other people's publishing choices. It's not my decision. The only thing I need to worry about is how to wrestle my fear to the ground. That should take all my creative time and energy and I'll have none left over for dissing other people's walk.

And once I get that sucker under control, I'll be able to look around and see that everyone else is doing the same thing: fighting their fear. And all I will be left with is admiration, and a sense of honour to be among these courageous souls.

Carpe Annum with courage and grace, friends.

Don't Be a Writer.

What a week we've had on Novel Matters. Patti kicked us off by helping understand how important it is to protect our writing time. Writers write, right? Sharon blew our minds with the

ethos of writers - multi published authors who were universally slow to wear the badge. Both posts got me thinking about being a writer. And it occurred to me that maybe being a writer isn't the point.

When it comes to writing fiction, there are six billion things to know and learn. I counted. Stayed up all night once just counting and counting.

Inevitably, the question arises: What is the most important thing? What matters most when it comes to fiction. It's a good question, one I've been thinking about for awhile now. And I'm going to share my answer with you.

Yes, I have an answer.

Really. I do.

Stop smiling, I'm serious.

In order to tell you my answer, I first need to tell you a story.

Once upon a time I was sitting at a kitchen table reading part of a manuscript. Across from me was the author of said manuscript. She watched me read, picking her nails, crossing and uncrossing her legs, trying to be quiet while I read.

All the time I was reading I was thinking this writer wanted my opinion on the quality of her writing and what I thought of her work in general. I was wrong. She wanted something very different. Very impossible. But I didn't know that at the time, so I put the manuscript down and started talking to her like a writer. She nodded, yes, yes, all well and fine, good, good, I agree with you.

I pushed the pages across the table. She pulled her hands back fast, like the papers might be poisoned. She wouldn't touch them. "Should I keep writing?" she asked me. "Am I good enough? Or should I just forget it?"

I pulled the pages back and glanced through them again. I understood what she was asking. Her writing was good. Technically, nearly perfect. Her transitions were smooth, her characters well defined. She had nice, clean descriptive and her grammar was enviable. Nicely done.

But.

Hmmm. What was missing? Something.....oh......something like - a plot? No, no, that wasn't missing. She had a plot all plotted out with plot points and pointed plotting. That wasn't the issue. Some else, less tangible, but important. More important than anything else.

The story. Something about the story itself. No, no, it was a good story.

Hmmm. What then? Why was I so willing to put the manuscript down and not pick it back up? Let's go over that again:

Writing skill ............... Check!

Clean manuscript ......... Check!

Good plot ................... Check!

Yet, the thing just laid there, like a dead mackerel, staring up at me with its one good eye.

Then it hit me! (the answer, not the dead mackerel)

She was a skilled writer, not a skilled story teller.

I grinned at her. "You are the only one who can decide if you should keep writing. My advice is to stop writing and start telling stories."

Have you ever picked up a latest bestseller and thought, "Jeepers, this isn't the best writing I've ever seen?" If you have, you're probably a writer - because no one else is worried about the writing. Readers want a great story told in an interesting way. They want to be engaged, have fun, get lost, fall in love, feel something new, and forget time and place.

But doesn't great writing help all of that to happen? Yes, of course it does. But good writing means seamless writing - writing that is so good the reader can forget about it and just have a ball in the story.

What's the most important aspect of writing? Storytelling. How you tell the story matters more, carries reader further, and, in the end, sells more books than technically great writing ever could.

Want to test my theory?

Find a familiar story to tell. Could be Goldilocks and the Three Bears, could be an old fashioned ghost story, could be a famous work - something you like. Get a friend or two or three gathered around. Then tell the story. I mean tell it, all hands on deck, no holds barred, tell the story. Make mental (and later concrete) notes on the people's reactions. Did you hold their attention the entire time? Did you hook them with your opener? Did they laugh when you thought they would? Did they smile at an unexpected time? Did they cry?

Later (say, in a week or so) ask your friends what they remember about the time you told them that story.

No one is going to say, "I remember that you used just the right words at just the right time and your characterization was spot on, oh, and when you got to a tricky part in the plot you made it so easy to follow!" Nope, they won't say that. They'll say, "Oh, that was so fun! I love that story."

Writing is the means. The story is what matters.

I wonder what would happen if we stopped trying to be writers and just worried about being story tellers?

Tell me a story.

Sharpen Your Red Crayon

I was five. The line between reality and make-believe hadn't yet been stacked with stones and set with mortar. My mind played with the stories I heard or saw on television. One particular story earned me a spanking.

In the cartoon, a child drew buildings on a wall. When he finished, he stepped back to admire his handiwork. Observing wasn't enough. He opened one of the doors to enter another world.

Hmm.

My sister was playing at a friend's house. My mother peeled potatoes. And I owned a red crayon like the child in the cartoon.

The only wall big enough for my "town" was next to the front door. The clapboard siding made straight lines a challenge, but I've seen my kindergarten artwork, and I had difficulty with straight lines on paper too.

Like the cartoon boy, I stepped back and admired my row of buildings. I'd been careful to draw the doors big enough to walk through and multi-paned windows to look back to my world. My heart plummeted to the basement when a turn of the doorknob didn't open up another world.

I ran to my mother for sympathy.

Mom stood with hands on hips and shaking her head. "Patti Ann! You shouldn't draw on the walls. Those are made-up stories. You can't walk through walls. Now, follow me."

Oh.

When I sit down to write, there are still voices clamoring to tell me what I can and can't do. If I listen to them, all I'm left with is my rational self who must make sense of everything and squeezes all that is golden out of the imagination. I start second-guessing myself, saying things like, "Is this where I want to start the story?" or "That character would never do that."

There will be plenty of time to ask these questions with a WIP. But first, writers must trust themselves and be daring enough to shush the voices. I start this process by praying. This is time to banish fear with some Holy Ghost involvement. And then I give myself a pep talk that sounds something like this:

You're in your play clothes. It's okay to get dirty. Today, you can be a pirate, a snow queen, or a girl struggling to keep her family together. You're bold. Rash. Daring. Afraid of nothing. Sharpen your red crayon. You have worlds to discover!

As a reader, what books have left you breathless by the author's ability to take you to amazing places that were real, imagined, or a little of both? And I'm not talking about geography only. Emotions and events can be destinations too. And for writers: How do you quiet the voices and unleash your creativity? You do hear voices, don't you? I can't be the only one!