Only Rocky Ground Will Test Your Balance.

Over the past several weeks, the writers at Novel Matters have hit on tough topics such as self-publishing, disappointing sales results, writer’s block, and other challenges of the writer’s life.

From the beginning of this blog, we’ve attempted to offer responses to the question, “Why write?” and, more particularly, “Why write fiction?” Over time, the answers have ranged from the sublime: Art for art’s sake! To the mundane: I write because I must. To the dreary: I’ve no idea why I write, I’d stop if I knew how.

Perhaps our reasons for writing change like our socks and underwear. Likely, we make up our excuses as we go along until eventually we’ve been at it so long that turning back, rather than continuing, is the absurd choice.

Part of me wonders if writers don’t suffer from the same affliction as gamblers. Just one more crack at it. One more hand (idea), one more pull at the slots (alluring character), one last spin of the wheel (novel) and then I’ll stop.

Except “stop” doesn’t mean stop, it means “win.”

One more shot at this book-writing thing and I’ll hit the big time. Donald Maass will ask me to dance. Amy Einhorn will salivate just hearing the premise. Readers will line the streets waiting for my autograph. Paparazzi will fall out of trees attempting to photograph me in a bikini.

Okay. Maybe not that last one.

If we’re honest, we all have a fragment of our soul that believes literary success—maybe even fame, but at least a pay cheque—is around the next corner. We’re addicted to the idea that our little book might be The One.

This mildly crazed part of us isn’t the piece that rules in the clear daylight. Certainly not. We have sensible reasons then. Good ones like art for art’s sake, and I write because I must. It’s only at night when we can’t get to sleep, or worse, are woken out of a deep slumber, that the niggling dark part of our soul pipes up and whispers, “Psst. Have I got a hot-topic premise for you. A sure-fire bestseller. Better turn that light on, kid.”

If you’re thinking I disparage this part of my soul, you’re reading me wrong.

It’s that unreasonable hope in my soul that keeps me typing when all reason tells me to get up from my desk and get a job at Taco Bell. A real job. Respectable. The kind that comes with a regular pay cheque and the self-respect attached to it. It keeps me reading, writing, improving, studying the industry. It keeps the ideas flowing when common sense would have stanched the flow ages ago.

After awhile—years—that unbalanced corner of our soul becomes the one thing we count on when we face relentless reality and rising odds. It becomes the only truly sane thing about us as writers.

I may never be a great writer.

Then again, I might be.

In Anton Chekhov’s The Sea Gull, Nina is a young actress who, after two heartbreaking years, returns to the Sorin estate with the knowledge that she will never be a great actress. She speaks to Konstantine—a writer who is in love with her, but whom she does not love—about her losses, which include her youth, career, and an infant son conceived out of wedlock. Near the end of her monologue she says: “Now I know, I understand. Kostya, that in our work . . . acting or writing . . . what matters is not fame, not glory, not what I used to dream about, it’s how to endure, to bear my cross, and have faith. I have faith and it all doesn’t hurt me so much, and when I think of my calling I’m not afraid of life.”

The unreasonable corner of a writer’s soul is the faith that makes it hurt less, that makes us not afraid.

That’s why artists were given the provision of owning a dark, crazy portion of our souls.

Shuffle through the loose bits of your soul for this difficult to find scrap. And, if you find it, embrace it. Strange as it is, unreasonable, and unseemly, it’s destined to become your best friend.

Are you in touch with your inner crazy? We’d love to hear about it.

What the Carpe?

We're past the half-way mark for 2013 and maybe you're wondering, What's all this Carpe Annum stuff? What does it mean for me and what should I be doing to Carpe Annum --Seize the Year!

The six of us made a choice at the end of 2012: that 2013 would be the year that each one of us took control of our careers in new, important ways. We wanted to share that gusto with you this year and we hope each time you've visited the blog or our Facebook page you've come away encouraged, challenged, and ready to face your next blank page.

So, here you are writing your heart out, Carpe Annum-ing all over the place but no one seems to notice. Publishers aren't clamouring to sign you to a six book deal. Agents yawn in your general direction. Even your critique group seems a little cool when you read your work aloud. What's the point of all this Carpe if no one is rewarding you for all your efforts?

Good question.

The point is that publishing, being agented, or being the darling of your critique group was never the point of Carpe Annum. Confused? Here's a checklist to keep you on the Carpe Annum track:

1) I've stared down my fear of telling the truth. Biggest obstacle for every writer of fiction is, perhaps not surprisingly, the fear of utter truth telling. The whole human experience white gloves to red knuckles, sunset kisses to warts on your knees. If you've kicked the habit of hiding behind pretty words and faced raw humanity head on, you've Carped your Annum, baby.

2) I've stared down my fear of agents, publishers, editors, etc. They are just human beings with a job to do, same as you and me. No one publisher holds the keys to your writing career. No single boo-boo on your proposal is going to cause an agent to laugh hysterically and toss your hard work in the trash. It's nonsense to waste time and energy fearing a system that is in place to assist talented writers. If you've been patient, professional, and kept your cool in the face of the query/proposal/one-page two-step, you've Carped your Annum, baby.

3) I've stopped comparing my writing to other writers. Comparing only brings bad things: jealousy or pride, despair or false security, writer's block or pages of purple prose. You're not a better writer than he/she is, you're not a worse one. You're you. Forging your own path. There is no time to waste wondering what another writer is working on. There is only your path. If you've stopped comparing your work to another writer's work, you've Carped your Annum, baby.

4) I've stopped comparing my success as a writer with another writer's success. See above.

5) When people ask me what I do I tell them, "I'm a writer." When they laugh, I laugh with them and then say, "It is funny. But I'm still a writer." If you've started thinking of yourself as a writer, you've Carped your Annum, baby.

How many can you check off? Which ones are you still working on? In what other ways have you Carped your Annum, baby?

Persistence is:

I'm too far gone.

It's not like I can now don high heels and sit behind a desk and work in an office. Not anymore.

I'm too far gone.

I've persisted this long as a writer and in doing so I've ruined myself for most other kinds of work. Not that I'd be terrible at it, but I'd be terribly unhappy about it.

I'm too far gone.

Persistence takes you down the road of too far gone. It's the daily investment that does it. The daily deciding, "I'm a writer" and then, just to prove it, writing something. After a while (the amount of time is indeterminate, different for everyone though I suspect it falls within the lines of more than a year, but less than a lifetime), you realize you've given so much of yourself to the writing that you cannot walk away from it.

Persistence is working on the same manuscript for years, perfecting, editing, (sobbing a little), rewriting, putting it out there, reeling it back in, editing, rewriting, (sobbing a little), putting it out there again.

It's not just that you can't stop writing. It's that you can't let go of the story you are working on. Good enough isn't good enough. You need to understand it fully, bring it to the point of being utterly free of it's cocoon and is adorned in its true artistic identity.

Persistence is taking the blow of "No" from the publishing industry and making it work for you. Digging into the whys of rejection and emerging from the tunnel of doubt with a stronger story.

I recently got feedback on a novel I'm shopping that puzzled me greatly. But I trusted the person's instincts and decided I needed to understand what she meant and how I could fix the problem. I was clueless, so I decided to take a page from the film industry and ask people to be part of a test audience. The response was overwhelming and I eventually had to cap the group in order to keep the numbers and feedback manageable.

I don't know any other writer who has done anything like this, but I'm doing it anyway. You see, I'm too far gone. Too committed to this story, to an island off the coast of Maine, and the people living there to stop now. I must bring the story to fruition, hang the cost.

Persistence is combing through the responses (which started coming in less than 24 hours after I sent the manuscript out to my readers), teasing out patterns found within the many responses.

You have to find the patterns. The individual answers alone are not enough to make substantive changes. From the beginning, a few patterns within the usable responses (two responses were outliers to the survey, so beyond my target audience that their feedback--though appreciated--was unusable) and my mind began the chase, tearing off into high grass, hunting the elusive answers to the problem spots.

Persistence is hound dogging a story, never giving up even when it has cost you years (and because you've already invested years), even when another story is knocking on the door of your brain pan. You stay with the story, nurturing it along inch by inch.

I'm too far gone to do anything else.

What will the outcome be?

My novel.

I will have written a novel I can be proud of.

Finish the sentence for yourself--Persistence is:

Ding Dong, Persistence Calling

Monday's Roundtable discussion was an attempt to define success as it pertains to writing. The fact that we couldn't nail down one right answer tells us how ambiguous success is in the life of a writer. Is it multiple contracts, large advances, royalties, movie deals, fawning agents, adoring fans, respect from peers, merely having written?

It's all of those things and none of those things.

 

Bonnie said, "Success [as it pertains to writing/art] is probably best measured in persistence." I have to agree with that. I began this writing journey 27 years ago, almost to the day. I dabbled as a writer long before that, but the day I sat down and began to write my first novel is when the writing life really began for me. So far, it's been:

 

                                                                                 

one big roller coaster ride
three steps forward, two steps back

up

and down

high

and low

exhilarating

and discouraging

nothing like I expected it to be
 

Nothing. Like I expected.

 

I wish I had a jarful of the naïve hopefulness I felt as that first novel progressed -- you know, the one that will NEVER be published, thank God. But, oh, the anticipation I had for that novel. I truly believed it would launch my "career" -- you know, the one I'm still waiting for. I could not have foreseen the mountain of rejection letters I'd amass from that one piece of work (double entendre intended). And I'm glad I couldn't. Because if I had, I'd have quit before the lead on my first pencil became dull. And I'm immensely grateful I didn't quit. First, because I'd have never come to know any number of people who have come into my life as a result of my writing, which includes all of you. Second, because the stories I've written have enriched me, and they've enriched others. Regardless of the scale, there's satisfaction in that. Does my portrait of success look the way I'd like it to after 27 years of hard labor? Not hardly. But while I don't have quite a jarful of naïve hopefulness, I still have some. I still hope that my next offering will reach a wider audience, and my next, and my next. That's the beauty of persistence. It's its own reward.

 

We have a saying in my family: "There's honest, and there's brutally honest." And usually when we say it, it's with one eye on my husband, who falls in the second camp. No, wait, he doesn't fall into the second camp, he spearheads it. But I've learned there's real virtue in that. There are no false suppositions that way, and false suppositions can blindside like little else.

 

So I want to be brutally honest with you today. Most of what you envision in the way of success for your writing you will fall short of. J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins are the exception, not the rule. But listen to me. Aim. High. Anyway. Because you have something to say, and you say it in a way no one else can. You will improve with each book you write. You will touch readers. You will make a difference to someone -- even if it's to you alone. I live by the philosophy -- reluctantly, I'll admit (I've got to stay brutally honest) -- that it is my responsibility to use the gifts God has given me, but it is God who gives the increase. I wish I didn't have to include that last phrase. I wish it were all up to me. If it were, we would all have the success of a Rowling or a Collins. Because, shoot, why not??

 

So keep writing. Keep improving. Keep hoping. Persistence is the name of the game.

 

In the end, Madeleine L'Engle got it right:

You must once and for all give up being worried about successes and failures. Don't let that concern you. It's your duty to go on working steadily day by day, quite quietly, to be prepared for mistakes, which are inevitable, and for failures.

 

Digging Deep Without Hitting the Gas Line

Sharon encouraged us to dig deep as writers. It amazes me how frequently my “fight or flight” instinct kicks in on behalf of my characters.

Over the years, I’ve gotten better (I hope) at recognizing those moments and steering into traffic instead of swerving to the curb. Here are three reasons and three techniques for digging deep in your writing.

1)   Speak to your reader. Reason one for digging deep as a writer is so that you can reach out to your reader and say what they need to hear. You can’t do that if you skim the surface, write tip-of-the-brain plots and scenes. It’s the difference between a chat around the water cooler, and a conversation that runs deep into the night.

       2) Stop lying to yourself. Last year, I wrote a blog post about how reading fiction brings us closer to our true experience as human beings. “Fiction is the story of you living a different life in order to be able to see yourself in a new way and make sense out of the life you are living.

You’re broken.

You’re hiding it.

And it’s making you crazy.

Fiction says, “Welcome home.’”

A writer will never truly become a writer until she can face her humanity full on and tell the truth without trying to justify it.

3) The more personal the pain, the more universal it is. That stuff you’re ashamed of? So are we. We all have those charred marbles rolling around in our souls, those broken off pieces, long dead yet still so powerfully able to bend us low. Those questions you have—more like doubts, really—yeah, we’ve all got them. The skilled writer takes the reader by the hand, walks her into the pain, and teaches how to stare it down. And don’t you want to be that kind of writer?

Here are three techniques for digging deep.

1)   Listen to the scene. You’re writing and things are flowing, then BANG, you hit a wall. The words dry up and you’re scrambling to push through to the end of the scene. Most often the reason your creative tap turned off is because you fudged a deep truth, a difficult reality in order to preserve your emotional distance from the scene. Go back and pin point where you hedged or skimmed when you knew the right thing to do was tell a stark truth. Likely, it will take the scene in a different direction (maybe even the story) then you intended, but your intentions don’t matter. The story matters.

2)   Read your work aloud. There are a million good reasons for doing this frequently: you spot typos, missing words, misspellings. You also will hear places where you’re lying to yourself. Say the words aloud and if they are true, you’ll hear that truth ringing clear. Fudged, shallow words? You’ll hear that too.

3)   Kill off the bad nouns. “Terror”, “horror”, “hysteria”—kill them all. I’ve read sentences like, “Her heart filled with dread.” Um. Gee. That’s too bad. Maybe she should look at getting that fixed. Now, before you jump on the “here’s how to show and not tell” bandwagon, let me stop you there. People’s hearts filling with dread is never the point. It’s too late by then. What’s important are the few seconds just before her heart filled with dread. What was going on then? What clues were in the room that let her in on the fact that dread was knocking on the door? Write that. No pat phrases, no emotional shorthand.

Here’s your Novel Matters Assignment, should you choose to accept it: Write/read through your WIP—as much as you dare—and follow these three techniques. I follow them and its made a huge difference in my storytelling. Share your additional ideas/experiences in the comments section!

If This Is What I Want As A Reader. . . A Novel Matters Roundtable

I'm trying to catch up on my TBR pile. I don't read long fiction while I'm writing a  novel because, inevitably, the novel I'm reading gets tangled up in the one I'm writing making for messy re-writes. This readathon happening at my house has made me realize that I've been living a double life. One as a reader, the other as a writer. What I look for in a novel and what I write (particularly in that lousy first draft) suffer disconnect. It's time to bridge the thinking gap and bring the reader and writer in me together!

If this is what I want as a reader: A story that introduces me to can't-look-away characters I fall in love with the moment I meet them,

 How come as a writer I: Piddle around with the opening of the story, adding all kinds of backstory, moody and unnecessary details about the weather, or long narratives from a god's-eye-view that don't bring the characters close?

Here's another one. If this is what I want as a reader: Complex novels that deal with human struggle on several levels at once.

How come as I writer I: Try to make myself think that a single problem should have a single answer? It's good for a novel to have a central question (theme), but it's yawnsville if I write as if the question has only one good answer.

Alright, ladies, 'fess up with your reader/writer disconnects. I'm not alone in this, am I?

Oh boy, Bonnie, I'm right there with you, but I'm asking the question a bit differently. As a reader, I don't pick up genre fiction. Yes, I read historical fiction, although I prefer near-history, but not historical romance. I'm most interested in a good story historical or not with complexity, like you, that challenges me to look at what I thought I knew differently. I do try to write those stories but never as well as I want to.

I'm ready to start my next project. All through the marketing of my present release, I've been frustrated with having to pigeonhole the story into a genre of two categories and seven keywords, so readers can find it. What I write doesn't fit the prescribed vocabulary of marketing. I'm so tempted to chuck it all and embrace a genre. But which one? Shouldn't I write what I read, even if I don't do it as well as I want to?

So, Bonnie, I'm definitely conflicted, and I'm at a crossroads. Please send chocolate.

Wow, this is more difficult than it sounds, but I'll give it a try.

If this is what I want as a reader:  Complex plots that are interwoven between compelling characters,

How come as a writer I: write novels with simpler plots, focusing on the problem of one major character? Answer: because complex plots are dang hard to pull off! I don't take the time to develop all, or most, of my characters to the same level. But when you think about it, each one has his or her own drama going on, his or her own catastrophe, his or her own long-fought-for success. Each character should have the potential of The Main Character, and yet I narrow the scope of my stories when it comes to the supporting cast. I know that about myself, but the problem is that I'm not good at juggling. Maybe with my new WIP I'll be more mindful of what's going on in the lives of my other characters and see how good I can become at weaving.

I love this exercise, Bonnie - thanks for bringing it up. So my question is: If what I want as a reader is characters who take my breath away (think Corrigan in Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann) - well, I do start with the character, and with practice, may yet write a Corrigan one day.

I'll start over, and better this time: If what I love best is a high wire act*, a lavish risk that achieves the spectacular when it succeeds (think The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak) then why do I take so few risks when I write? I'm working on becoming fearless.

Pray for me.

Okay, so I want exotic, mysterious, suspenseful, rich, multilayered characters and settings. I want people with secrets and secrets with landscape. I want the rug pulled out from underneath me at least twice and as I sit rubbing my bum, I want to tell myself I should have seen it coming. And then step on another rug without looking at it.

That's what I want. That's what I try to write. But I certainly don't do it up to my own expectations of the writings of others-- or of myself.

Writer's Fear

Where does all the fear come from?

The results are in: Writers are one freaked out group of people. 

What are we afraid of? According to the comments on Wednesday’s post the answer is: plenty.

We’re scared of the foundational questions that form the bedrock of our decisions to even pursue writing in the first place. Let’s start on that shaky ground.

Should I Art? Writers (all artists, really) are faced with the unspoken—and sometimes voiced—questions posed by our culture the moment we choose a life of art: Are you sure? Don’t you want a paycheque? (That’s paycheck to you Americans.) Don’t you know art is just a hobby?

Margaret Atwood created this handy reference chart of writer’s fears about what people think about our books and us as people.

What people say	What Writers Hear
1. I always wait for your books to come in at the library.	I wouldn’t pay money for that trash.
2. I had to take you in school.	Against my will. Or: And I certainly haven’t read any of it since! Or: So why aren’t you dead?
3. You don’t look at all like your picture.	a. Much worse.
4. You’re so prolific!	You write too much, and are repetitive and sloppy.
5. I’m going to write a book too, when I can find the time.	What you do is trivial, and can be done by an idiot.
6. I only read the classics	And you aren’t one of them.
7. Why don’t you write about _______?	Unlike the boring stuff you do write about.
8. That book by _______ (add name of other writer) is selling like hotcakes!	Unlike yours.
9. So, do you teach?	Because writing isn’t real work, and you can’t possibly be supporting yourself at it.
10 That story of MY LIFE - now THAT would make a good novel.	Unlike yours.

If we manage to push our way through the maddening din of the cultural pressure to abandon writing and put on a suit and tie, we immediately slam into the next major fear: Who am I that I should I art? 

Ah, yes. Self-doubt. Isn’t it true that I do not possess the skill/talent/education/cunning good looks of a true artist? Alas, I lack.

Well of course you lack. That’s why you art. Art isn’t about getting your poop in a group first and then approaching the craft from a God’s eye view of having accomplished something. Art is the journey. 

So we slog through and manage to create art. And guess what happens? Rejection. And not even real rejection. Rejection we conjure in our imaginations and somehow convince ourselves will absolutely happen if ever the art we’ve created is shared with the world/agent/publisher/editor/next door neighbour/Mom. 

Should we manage to leap over the fear of rejection fence (which we got over simply as a matter of repetition. We were rejected and rejected and found ourselves still living), we meet up with Fear Of Success, Otherwise known as Second Book Syndrome. 

Everyone gushes after a new author. Hopes are high! Then the book releases, your third cousin emails you that it wasn’t half bad, and Wow! You’ve got a contract for a second book. But what if your third cousin doesn’t like your second book as much as your first? No time to think about it now! You have a lifetime to write your first novel, and six months to write your second.

Now we’re really afraid. Writer’s block is our new best friend. We squeeze the words out as if from an empty toothpaste tube. We’re so close to the story that every word we write looks wrong. We stare at a word and it just looks weirder and weirder the longer we stare. We being to doubt that English is our Mother Tongue. Half way through the second novel we realize we don’t actually know how to write a book. 

We switch into auto-type, madly plastering the page with words, as many as we can think of as quickly as possible (and update our facebook page with our process: 25,000 words today and I blew out my keyboard!) even if the words come out in no particular order because 

We

Have

A

Deadline  

Sure, having a deadline makes you look like a superstar on social media—Oh me, oh my! My fab editor is waiting on my manuscript. Tee hee—but the reality of deadlines is they suck the fun out of the creative process for many writers.

The only thing worse than a deadline is a lack of a deadline. This usually means we’re still steeped in the first couple of fears listed above. 

Here are some cures for your writer’s fear:

Realize that writing is work. Do the work. Don’t complain. I'm lucky enough to know Joy Jordan-Lake and call her friend. In a recent email discussion (we were talking about our fears as writers) she observed: “Writing is like home renovation alternating between sledgehammer and tweezers”

That's the secret. Do the work. 

Self confidence isn’t necessary, but gumption is. If your knees are shaking and you feel like you’re going to throw up, you’re probably doing the right thing.

Show up for work. Do what scares you. Face the fear. Then, do it some more. In time, you’ll find you’ve acquired the knowledge, skill, expertise, and mastery you feared you did not possess.

Humanity Matters

“[. . .] craziness and brokenness are so vital to a story,” Katy said on Monday’s post.

We’re just so human. Try as we might to be otherwise, what with our Christmas newsletters and greener than green front yard lawns, we can’t escape our messy, confusing human state.

Hide, yes.

Escape, no.

Enter fiction where, for once in our ever-loving life, we’re allowed to pull back the thin veneer of straight teeth and gold stars at kindergarten, and look straight into the bubbling pot of messy humanity. Really have a good look. Poke around in there, sniff the dirty socks, and cry a little when the way the character breaks apart looks so much like the way we’ve broken apart.

You are broken.

There’s no way around this fact (even when, as parents we fool ourselves into thinking it won’t be that way for our children, that if we keep them whole long enough they will stay that way for life). Somewhere along the way life tossed you like a toy, and something about you broke.

Enter fiction where for once there is someone who is broken and lost and confused and getting it all wrong. Just like us—but just enough not like us that we can bear to look deeply and brush up against our ache. Really feel it, and accept it as part of our experience, part of what makes us who we are. Part of our personal crazy.

You are home to personal craziness.

There is a part of you no one understands—not even you. The fear that wakes you in the middle of the night and pushes you out of bed, down the hall, to check the child sleeping in the other room even though that child is grown and hasn’t slept in that bed for twenty years. The way rain makes you laugh, and how mowing the lawn reminds you of the six weeks you spent with your leg in a cast, and how you can’t remember your Grandmother’s maiden name and that makes you cry. And how you can’t explain any of it to anyone because it doesn’t make sense.

Enter fiction where we find characters that speak the language of our silence. Who ask the same questions our hearts have been wordlessly asking for years we just didn’t know it until we found the story that asked the questions.

Fiction is the story of you living a different life in order to be able to see yourself in a new way and make sense out of the life you are living.

You’re broken.
You’re hiding it.
And it’s making you crazy.
Fiction says, “Welcome home.”

Chasing the Ah-hah

Some people strap a parachute on their backs and ride a bicycle off the edge of a cliff. This is how they get their adrenaline high. Other people write novels. When it comes to the rush of inspiration, the heady wait-a-second-I’ve-changed-my-mind-oh-no-it’s-too-late wa –hoo of free falling crazy, sitting at your desk typing may seem worlds away from hurling yourself into nothing but one hundred meters of thin air, but look again.

The dopamine rush of a bright idea can, in every way, rival the brown-pants dive off a cliff. Heart pumping, mind numb, the writer who is in the grip of inspiration can only fall headlong, hope to manage which way is up, while the rush of something huge, unmanageable, un-tame, hurls us through itself.

Inspiration comes when it pleases, and leaves when it will, often evaporating while we are snagged by the undies on a branch jutting from the side of our cliff. We’re left hanging, nursing the wedgie of a lifetime, wondering if inspiration will come again, wondering what it all means, wondering where we left our safety rope.

The wallop of inspiration is that it allows us to bathe, ever so briefly, in the massiveness of story and all its possibilities. Inspiration allows us to run our fingers through the purpose of story, and hear the beating heart at its core. Inspiration fills our minds, senses, and emotions to overflowing in mere seconds. One moment we were rinsing conditioner from our hair, or weeding the garden, or making dinner, and the next we are transported, thrown off the cliff, and are headlong lost in an unnamable vastness that contains the entire universe and, miraculously, also the minute details of the story we are writing.

Inspiration is too big to handle. The teaspoon of it we experience at any one time is enough to overwhelm us. It takes us over. It throws us from the cliff without checking if we’ve got the parachute strapped to our backs (practiced writers wear theirs always, having learned the hard way what happens if caught unprepared).

Inspiration isn’t the satisfactory click of things falling into place, rather, it’s a precipice from which we launch ourselves. It leads us, not into answers, but into better questions. It shows us what our sensible adult minds abandoned in childhood. It turns our ideas on their heads, inside out, upside down. Shakes loose all that can be shaken. If only we have the courage to keep leaping from high places.

Why does this happen? Where does it come from? When will I see it again? We don’t know, and that’s part of the thrill of it. We. Don’t. Know. And our only hope it to be excited by that. The not knowing has to turn us on. Because if it doesn’t we’ll dry up. This is genesis of all writer’s block: fear inspiration will not come.

You gotta love the not knowing. Long for the long wait. Resist chasing after inspiration even when your legs twitch to run. Wait for rain on a cloudless day.

We don’t own this thing, we can’t control it, we can’t demand from it, and it will defy our every timetable. Grab for it and it will bite you. Worse, it will leave you.

When it hits, it’s never at a convenient time. Never on purpose. It doesn’t roll over us when we are so busy, so deluded by our task of writing that we convinced ourselves it has anything to do with sitting at a desk and typing. Inspiration comes when our minds wander enough that we accidently forget all our rules about safety and what’s right and proper, and we skirt too close to the cliff’s edge. 

Want Ad: MWF Seeks Self Assured Novel for Long Term Relationship

Sometimes I wish finding a great novel was as easy as placing an ad in the classifieds. Wanted: Hunky page-turner for trips to the beach and possible late night trysts.

Recently, I tried my hand at writing a want ad for the kind of novel I am looking for. It was a hopeless mess. But one phrase kept coming to mind:Self-assured. I need that.

I have a hard time making sense of the world. I struggle with what other people seem to grasp so well, so quickly. Small talk is nearly impossible for me. When someone asks me a question like, “How have you been?” I over answer. Worse, I tend to ask questions that make people screw up their faces and shrug their shoulders at me. My mother tells me that I’ve never seen the world the way most people do. She says this in a proud and delighted way, which makes me feel better about it.

Imagine my delight upon opening a novel and discovering within mere paragraphs a mind and imagination I could relate to. I was a kid of maybe 9 or 10, and Judy Blume had done me the favor of writing a novel called Otherwise Known as Shelia the Great. A story about a girl who over invents herself (lies) in order to be noticed and liked. I don’t remember the story as much as I remember the thought I had when reading it, “Finally, someone who speaks my language.”

It wasn’t Sheila the Great talking my language, it was Judy Blume. And without knowing it, I had fallen in love with the introspective novel—those titles we refer to collectively as literary. I searched them out. And, having found them, I searched for myself in their pages. I didn’t approach novels in order to get lost in them. I was hoping to be found.

That’s what it’s all about in a way, isn’t it? Looking for bits of ourselves that had been somehow scattered to the four literary corners of the world. Not that we knew that, not for the longest time, but when we discovered this fact, didn’t we shudder feeling exposed and excited? It was a bit like being spied on. And it was beautiful. And ugly. Or at least as ugly as we believed ourselves to be at the time. Now that we’ve read more, we know better than to call ourselves ugly. Warty, maybe. Flawed. Sometimes broken. But literature won’t leave us self-loathing. It teaches us that self-loathing is merely one of a million options for how we can choose to live.

The novel of self-discovery is one that offers neither the rose-colored glasses nor the fog of despair, but the adjustable lens of a telescope. Through it we can bring a distant moment into sharp focus and see it for what it is. The reality of the thing. But the grace of it is we can blur the lens too. Take in small frames of truth, only as much as our eyes can hold at one time. The novel will wait for us. We will go back to it, thumb its pages, reread that bit near the middle. It’s not asking us to judge, only to look, and in looking, see, and in seeing, understand.

Understanding is where grace shines. It pries into the cracks forming on the surface of our doubt. It whispers words so softly we can only guess at their meaning. It rolls us over so we can see things from another angle. And it never once tells us what to think. It only asks that we do think.

How could I condense these thoughts into a want ad, 20 words or less, seeking my perfect novel? What would your want ad read?

Beauty in Exile

Sharon and Katy have set a graceful stage this week. And the discussion has been empowering. I’ve read every comment with interest and I’m impressed by the energy and verve behind each one. Clearly writing is an art of passion for each one of you.

Many of you know, I like to dig around behind ideas and the thoughts that generate them (I bet you do too), and so the Friday wrap up of the topics of sweet spots, literary writing, and beauty will focus on some thoughts about the kind of knowledge, understanding, and chutzpah a writer might need to dive headfirst into beauty.

Katy referred to the terrifying state of ‘noble exile’, and while this sounds romantic on paper, in reality it looks a great deal like loneliness. Like your work being passed over while another writer excels. It might look like you ranting in your underwear at a computer screen because you haven’t got an agent to rant at. But lets hope it doesn’t come to that. Before you pitch the fit of the underappreciated in your under-roos, consider the benefit of this exile: the time and freedom to find out who you truly are. A truism: Writer know thyself.

The literary writer is the one who understands just enough about his or her own nature to be leery. They don’t trust easy answers because they can’t find any inside themselves. And they’ve looked. Everywhere. Beautiful writers don’t spin gold; they dance with dross until the gold shakes out. Exile gives you the time and perspective to learn the steps.

Exile gives you time to discover your true inspirations. Everyone can get behind a sure winner, that bestseller that’s just been made into a movie, that book everyone is buying. But given enough time and honesty (see above), a writer can begin to develop his or her taste. Alone with your thoughts, you can examine books that inspire you to experience beauty and why. The goal? It’s not to emulate the writers you admire; rather it is to strive to be as fully impacting as they are.

One of the comments left on Katy’s post: “I’m among you wrestling this angel.” Exile teaches you how to throw a solid right hook. Through experience, it teaches you the power of the struggle. Of why you struggle and don’t give up. Or, it teaches you that this struggle isn’t for you—that you were made for other things. Because sooner or later, the writer who strives for beauty comes to understand that the struggle never ends. And somehow makes peace with it.

Noble exile means you take the time (we’re talking years here) to learn how to ask the right questions. The ones everyone else wishes they could ask aloud. It gives you courage to stand up and say, “Excuse me, is any one as afraid as I am?”

There is courage inside that questioning fear. The courage to giggle when people talk about “branding” themselves as an author. They tinker with a catch phrase while you, the exiled one, understand what branding truly is: having a clear vision of who you are and what you care about enough to write about.

Exile is difficult. Many throw on their sun hats and run back to sweet civilization. Those who remain watch the trails of dust kicked up on the road and envy the comfort that awaits that writer. But, if they stay in exile long enough, they begin to hear the rhythmic beat, the music of beauty. Until one day it sings: Be fearless in your writing, in your vision, and when you have done all else, stand. Don’t back down. Don’t listen to the voices that come against the deep knowing you have about your vision as an artist. No market for your writing? So what. Write anyway. And let your feet begin to dance.

What about you? How's your dancing coming? Or does it look more like a wrestling match? We'd love to hear from you.

Six Tips for When Rejection Happens

Rejection happens. To everyone.
You interview for a job you’re perfect for only to find it went to the boss's nephew.
That dreamy guy you've been obsessing about starts dating your best friend.
The agent you're pinning your future hopes on turns you down.
The editor who asked for a full manuscript decides to pass.
Ugh.
Rejection happens. To everyone.

A writer needs to come to terms with fact as quickly as possible. It’s a matter of survival in this industry. I was in conversation with a well known writer, who is married to another well known writer. I mentioned a recent rejection. The response? Rejections don't stop when you get well known. They just get more humiliating.

Oh. Goody.
Have the six of us on Novel Matters suffered rejection?
Yes.
Will you?
Yes.

Here is a quick reference list to refer to when literary rejection rears its big, hairy, ugly face.

1) Repeat this mantra: It isn't personal.
Sure, it feels personal. Rejection stings, sometimes hurts a great deal. You spend countless hours, days, weeks, years crafting a novel, and to have someone read it and say no hurts. But agent or editor said no to the project, they did not reject you as a person. Agents and editors derive no joy from knowing the people they say no to feel rejected and hurt. The reasons for saying no to a project are legion: The economy, the agent’s present workload, a shift in the kinds of books the house is looking for, personal taste, resources available, a dynamic market always in flux. Notice how none of these reasons are aimed at you and me - the writers?

2) It doesn't mean you are a bad writer
Not all rejections are created equal. If you are getting feedback from editors and agents who praise your work, yet are still rejecting it, try to understand that this industry is all about two things: Fit and timing. Your book could be fantastic, but that doesn't mean that every publisher is the right fit for your book. There are many reasons why a good book isn't a fit for a specific publisher, or agent. Agents and editors ensure they take on projects they are passionate about. They want the opportunity to go to bat for a book they love. It needs to be the whole meal deal in order for them to throw themselves into the fray to represent it. And remember, an editor is one voice in a publishing house. An editor might LOVE you and your work, but still be unable to sell it to the committee.

3) This is no time to panic
The way you handle today's rejection will play a part in tomorrows acceptance. If you lash out in an angry letter or blog post because you feel certain the agent, editor, or publisher will benefit from a piece of your mind, your actions will be remembered. Not in a good way. That negative impression will be difficult, maybe even impossible to overcome. You are entitled to your feelings, but keep your choice words and opinions to your most private places. Kick some boxes, scream into a paper bag - then get a hold of yourself as soon as possible.

4) Get support
Still feel too depressed to get out of bed even after you've kicked a box and screamed into a paper bag? Time to enlist some support from your inner circle. The small, close group of people in your life who understand and care about you. The people who won't go blabbing about how badly you handled being rejected.

5) Have a plan B, C, D, E, F and G.
Most writers have a dream team - a list of the industry professionals they would sell their little brother for a chance to work with. The only problem with these lists is they often include the names of industry pros who are also on everyone else's list. But, your book may not be a fit for that dream agent – but is for another, equally fantastic agent. It pays to create an open and flexible plan when submitting to agents and editors. The person you think would be best, may not be the best fit for you and your work.

6) Have a concrete plan for improving as a writer.
The best writers are the ones who understand the road of craft is never ending. But improving as a writer happens by taking specific, purposeful steps. I understood my need to improve most strongly after I became published. At the moment, I'm reading one book on literature as art, and another on reading with purpose. I'm studying deeply and at length. Rejection happens, but I can buoy myself with the knowledge that I am engaged in concrete steps to improve as a writer. That my dedication to my craft will, in time, pay off. As long as I hang on.

Do you have a plan for dealing with the sting of rejection? Felt the power of an editor's furious red pen? Dish!

The Good Friday Blind Spot

"Could not a book with just a masterful sliver of God in it carry the fullness of His message to the mind [. . .]?" Latayne asked on Wednesday.

My biggest mistakes as a writer have happened in the moments after I decided

I knew the whole story. When I thought I understood where the story must go and why. In those moments I relaxed into cliched phrases, pat answers, short cuts, and the easy way out. When I believed I knew what the story was "about", it was as if I had set a pot on the stove and simmered the contents to reduction. And in the dense mix there was no longer room for characters to speak and act their own truth. There was only slavish devotion to the singular point of my positive message. My desire to impart truth strangled the art of story, drained the mystery out of faith, and delivered a stillborn idea.

I'm learning to approach my writing with fear and trembling. I am a writer with faith, but I do not know the fullness of His mystery. Jesus came to earth, but I have no idea what it is like for God to slip into skin which sweats and burns and callouses. He was betrayed, but what is it to look into the eyes of the man who will sell you yet love him so intensely you will die for him? Jesus sweated blood in Gethsemane, but what is it like to teeter on the edge of spiritual and physical no-man's-land, to forge with your life a trail no one has walked before?

I'm learning to stop fooling myself into believing the life of faith is easily explained. That is can be summed up with a happy ending. That victory looks anything like we think it must.

I'm learning that the moment I believe I know the whole story - novel, or faith - is the moment I need to repent, and go a different way. The way where victory is not easily recognized, where success looks like losing your life, and the happy ending is no longer the point. I must abandon my pot of reductionist ideas, and embrace the vast wilderness of a love that costs us everything.

Let us get so lost as writers, as people, that we are willing to be led through the wilderness.

We at Novel Matters wish you a blessed Easter.

Spring Cleaning the Writing Life

Spring has finally arrived in Northern California. We think. We hope. After record rainfall and cold, a small rise in the mercury has everyone dressed in tanks, shorts and flip flops, which don't hide the goosebumps.

As a child, I remember my mother's spring cleaning every year, though our house was already spotless. The furniture was moved for a thorough dusting and vacuuming, the wooden floors were waxed and polished, the windows cleaned with vinegar and newspaper, the cobwebs removed from attic to basement. She washed every rug, blanket and quilt and draped them on the clothesline to dry in the mottled sunshine. Cabinets were cleaned out and the Contac paper replaced, even under the kitchen sink. The broken, useless and out-of-date were tossed. By the end of the week, the house had a great freshness and exuberance after the long winter.

I would love to continue her tradition (I see merit in it) but I'm lucky to accomplish the basic weekly cleaning that keeps our house livable. If I were to choose one area to freshen, it would be my writing space, and I'm not just talking about my desk. I'm thinking that a good spring cleaning could extend to my writing life, as well.

I'm thinking of the box beneath my desk with the dusty files of just-begun stories I toyed with when I was trying to find my writer voice, as Sharon mentioned in her last post. Or the numerous revisions of the manuscripts that quietly and naturally expired before publication. Copies of revisions for books already published. The resources - now out of date - that I'd gathered for a series I wanted to write, but now realize isn't the direction I want to go.

Copies of old writing magazines. Shelves of books on writing, the writer's life, writer's devotionals, essays on the writing, how to get published, how to market, market guides, dictionaries, thesauruses, pocket dictionaries and thesauruses, word finders, synonym finders, baby names, and even more baby names. An old computer that died in the middle of my last manuscript. Tapes & CDs of writers conference sessions. Binders with worksheets for the tapes & CDs from writers conference sessions.

Why would a person keep all of this stuff, aside from the too-busy life that doesn't allow for much deep cleaning? Does the clutter define me as a writer? I've begun the task of cleaning this out several times, but the job turned out to be overwhelming and I ended by packing it all back in the tubs. Keeping a few indicators of the writer's journey makes great sense. We need to see the progress we've made. But at some point, this clutter can hold a person back. It can whisper, "This is you, now and forever. No freshness can penetrate." It can speak of failures and misguided attempts to define ourselves when we were just wandering and trying to discover who we are.

So, aside from ridding ourselves of the obvious junk, how do we spring clean the writing life? It could begin with something as simple as changing up a subscription from a writing magazine we no longer read cover to cover with something new. Perhaps we begin our writing time composing or reading a poem. Maybe we try submitting an article or personal experience piece to a magazine or story collection, something that has a beginning and end so we can see the results immediately, even if it's never published. Or we begin our autobiographies, keeping the bigger picture of our lives in mind.

We rid ourselves of the negative self-talk that keeps us in doubt of our calling and makes us question the time we sacrifice for it. We treat our writing as a job and reestablish our boundaries. We consider our writing time an appointment we keep with ourselves. No one else needs to know the reason.

With the changes in publishing, we may need to forgo the vision we had of publication and be open to something new, or be willing to change our trajectory altogether. We need to ask for a new vision of our futures as writers from the One who knows the best desired outcomes for us.

Can you think of more ways to spring clean your writing life? I would love to hear!

Literary Fingerprints

On Monday, Debbie spoke about anonymous writing. A feeling most of us are familiar with, if for all the wrong reasons. In her post, she mentioned Don Foster’s idea of the literary fingerprint; the DNA from our pen that would convict any one of us of authoring a piece of writing. He was likely referring to habitual wording and phrasing, moldy metaphors we lean on. But, as I read Debbie’s post, I wondered if Foster was referring to voice – that ill defined, yet sought after attribute of writing no one understands but can only point to when it is present. If something of the writer sticks to everything he pens, certainly voice would be the glue. I’ve written and taught about voice in fiction. After several years of writing, I thought I might know something about the subject. Turns out I don’t. I’m not unhappy about the revelation. Writers are never bothered by being wrong. We know how to rewrite. And we know being absolutely right is the death of art.

Still, it surprised me when Roger Rosenblatt, in Unless it Moves the Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing, dismissed the subject of voice with a metaphorical wave of his hand. “Voice is merely the latest cliché to signify good writing. Its predecessor was ‘authority’.”
One man’s opinion. So what? Except that it sat right with me. I understood what he meant and why there was no need to talk about it any further. Voice is simply a way of saying that writer believed in herself.
In theater we call it stage presence. In film it’s scene stealer. That actor who chews the scenery, and makes us believe he is the character.

Voice is writing with an assurance that translates by osmosis to the reader. It has nothing to do with POV or which tense you tell the story in. It’s not about diphthongs or Irish accents. It’s plunging into story without timidity or throat clearing. By sheer perfection of word choice and sentence structure the author conveys her absolute confidence to the reader. An elbow nudge and wink from the captain of the ship. Authorial authority. Rosenblatt says, “Voice is the knowledge of what you want to say. After that, it becomes any voice that serves your purpose.”

Maybe that’s why he swatted the topic aside. It’s simply an outcome of years of perfecting the craft and art of writing enough to allow yourself to write like you mean it. And there’s no talking about that. There is only doing.I like the thought that my literary fingerprint may one day be confidence, not that my story is perfect, or even right, but that I deserve the opportunity to tell it my way.

I recommend Rosenblatt’s book for reasons I can’t articulate. Not because it will teach you about writing a novel, but it presses the writer's consciousness into your grey matter and you come away with a heightened ability to express what you’ve always known.