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?

To the Point: Best-loved Quotes from Novel Matters FB Page

Happy Monday! The Novel Matters posse rounds up great quotes, art, and cartoons about writing, books, and courage to post on our FaceBook page. Every once in awhile, we'll share what we find here.

If you haven't already joined us on Facebook, we welcome you to jump in by going to our page and clicking "like"--and know that we like you too! It's a wonderful place to dream a little, share a laugh, ask a question or just find a bit of inspiration. We update daily, sharing pictures, word of the day, Friday writing hideaways, great reading nooks and all things bookish and writerly. Come and be encouraged! 

What's in a Name?

I know I've mentioned it before, but I proofread for a friend of mine who is a court reporter. I'm in California, she's in Wyoming, but we send transcripts back and forth via email. The hearings are usually boring (though I have read the transcripts for a murder trial or two, and those were not boring). I read a transcript the other day, and when I came across the name of one of the witnesses, I had to stop and laugh. Then I had to mentally flog his parents because, wow, it wasn't nice what name they saddled him with. He's a deputy sheriff and his name is ... I swear I'm not making this up ... Boot Hill.

For those youngsters among us who have no idea who or what a Boot Hill is (this only occurs to because, I'm amazed to say, my own two adult daughters didn't know), Boot Hill was the name of the graveyard in every old western ever made. Wikipedia says: "Boot Hill is the name for any number of cemeteries, chiefly in the American West. During the 19th century it was a common name for the burial grounds of gunfighters, or those who "died with their boots on" (i.e., violently).

I'll just pause here and blow the smoke away from the barrel of my six-shooter.

I can't believe this poor guy, a deputy sheriff at that, goes through life with the name of Boot Hill. Where on earth was his mother when the birth certificate was filled out?! Think of the jokes he gets with every introduction. Nor could I believe that, as he was sworn in, there wasn't a single snicker in the courtroom -- at least none that my friend recorded. Only in Wyoming. And only in real life. Because, as an author, if I wrote westerns, and if I named a character Boot Hill in one of my books, my editor would make me change it. If I had an editor. "Contrived," she would scold, "contrived, contrived."

As I sit at my desk writing my latest novel I have a collage of my main characters before me. When I create characters for a new book, their names have to be just right. I experiment with different names, as if they were a taste to be explored, until I hit on exactly the right one. I always know when I have it wrong, and I always know when I get it right. I love the name of one of the main characters in the latest book I'm working on. I can say that because, honestly, I didn't give her the name. She gave it to me when she introduced herself. That's really how it happened.

I was in a writers' critique group a few years ago with a lovely young woman who was working on an edgy paranormal thriller. Her main character was -- much like the author -- a sharp, attractive young woman named . . . Mabel.

Clunk.

With as much finesse as I could manage, I did my best to get her to rename her character. (Forgive me if your name is Mabel; it's not that I don't like your name, it's that I didn't like your name for that character).I told her Mabel did NOT fit the character. That it conjured up a whole different persona than the one she was striving for. No matter how hard I tried I could not convince her.

So names really make a difference to me. But not until three books ago, when I wrote Lying on Sunday, did I spend much time searching for the right faces to go with the names. Now as I develop my character profiles I spend a day or two navigating through "headshot" sites until I find the perfect image that correlates to the one in my mind for each of my main characters. The benefits are that I feel I know them better than ever before, and it's easier to keep track of their physical attributes, so I don't give someone green eyes in Chapter 1 and brown eyes in Chapter 12. For me it's added another dimension to the discovery process. And after all, that's what a novel is all about -- for the reader and the writer: becoming acquainted with new people and learning as much of their stories as they're willing to share.

But that doesn't mean I have to paint a portrait for the reader. In fact, the more I write, the less inclined I am to give details about physical appearance that aren't necessary to the story. It may be far more important to know that my protagonist has a scar on her ring finger than that she has blond hair or dimples. Here's a perfect example of germane description from one of my very favorite books, Joy Jordan Lake's Blue Hole Back Home:

"I watched the new girl swing her leg out from under her red skirt -- a brown leg, darker at the knee than the thigh, and darker still more at the calf. And I watched the boys watching the brown, or maybe the shape -- I wouldn't know what boys see when they watch -- of first one leg then the other, and not a one of them . . . able to talk. Me, I had a spasm of wanting to stay put myself, of fear that tripped up my feet and made me wish desperately I could miss this one trip to the Blue Hole with our mangy pack and the new girl. Because I was beginning to think what a bad, what a truly remarkably bad idea this whole thing might be."

Trust me, it only gets better from there. If you haven't read, I highly recommend it.

As a writer, how much time do you spend naming your characters? Like me, do you ever feel you haven't quite got it right? What's your favorite example of the perfectly right name for a character in a novel you've read. Or a perfectly wrong name? I'll start. For a perfectly right name, it doesn't get any better than Uriah Heep in David Copperfield. For a perfectly wrong name, I'll stick with Boot Hill.

No Postage Required: My Top Five Epistolary Novels

When Sharon wrote about the lost art of letter writing (sniff) on Monday, I couldn't help but be reminded of my love of epistolary novels. Reading novels written as letters or diary entries is delicious. It's like finding a bundle of letters under the bed or in the wall and reading with unrepentant glee. The author, if they're skilled, writes as if she's forgotten her audience is there and writes only as one character to herself as in a diary (monologic) or two characters back and forth (dialogic), or many writers sending letters, telegrams, and emails to one another (polylogic).

Here are my FIVE all-time favorite epistolary novels:


These is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine 1881-1901, Arizona Territories by Nancy Turner

In the first entry, Sarah is seventeen with poor grammar and a penchant for telling larger-than-life stories about her trip to the heathen land of the Arizona Territories. Her family carries along its future in the form of pecan saplings. Her voice matures over the years as she writes about settling into such a wild land--the good and the bad that shape her. What I loved about the story was the author's ability to grow her character over time. (monologic)


Alice's Tulips by Sandra Dallas

Alice Bullock is a newlywed when her husband up and joins the Union army and leaves his bride with her formidable mother-in-law on an Iowa farm. Alice tells all to her sister in lively letters that reveal a changing relationship with her mother-in-law,  accounts of local quilting bees/gossip, and the rigors of rural life. (monologic)

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis

Mr. Lewis wrote the original Letters as a serial for an Anglican magazine. He didn't enjoy the experience and promised never to use the epistolary form again. I'm so glad he completed his commitment. Screwtape, a senior demon, mentors Wormwood who has just been assigned a "patient." The power of the letters is their up-side-down look at the spiritual realm. Lewis manages to mentor his readers in the subtlety of evil with his satire. A classic. (monologic)



The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

My first impediment to reading this novel was its title. I still can't say it without reading the title off the cover. Once I forgot the title--easy for me--I fell in love with the story. The co-authors manage to write an engaging story set just after WWII with multiple voices--letters flinging hither and yon. The main character is writer Juliet Ashton, looking for her next writing project. Along comes a letter from a man she doesn't know because he discovers her address on the leaf jacket of a beloved book. He hopes she can help him find more of his beloved author. A friendship ensues, around books, and Juliet's life is changed forever. The satisfaction  in reading this novel came from the voyeur (of the nicest sort) experience this story provides.


                                                   
 The Diary of Mattie Spenser by Sandra Dallas

Yep, two by the same author. In this novel, Mattie is surprised to be the choice of her Iowa town's most desirable bachelor. She marries him within a week and heads for the Colorado Territories in the 1800s. What she experiences is a distant husband and the hardship of carving life out of the prairies. I may love this story because it's about Colorado, my home state. Although never convinced of my ability to settle anything, least of all a prairie with "too much sky," this book convinced me I am a 21-Century woman who better not complain about traffic in Denver. Some of Dallas' motivations are weak, but this is a powerful look into the isolation of prairie life for women. (monologic)

So those are my favorites, but if the list had been longer, I would have not had trouble filling it with more titles. Do you enjoy the epistolary novel? Why so? Which epistolary novels make it to your list of favorites? I need to add more to my list, so please be generous with your titles.

A lost and dying art

I have a pen pal. More about that later.

When I began writing back in the 80s, I wrote by hand, using a mechanical pencil -- which always kept a sharp point -- and college-ruled binder paper -- because regular-ruled looked so fat. Loose sheets, not a notepad. Those were my pre-computer days, the days when penmanship and punctuation mattered.

My writing habits didn't change overnight with the purchase of my first computer. I found that blank screen -- which was less than half the size of my current monitor -- daunting, intimidating ... lineless. It glared at me, daring me to fill up a page.

So I continued to write with my mechanical pencil on loose-leaf, college-ruled binder paper, and when I had a chapter the way I wanted it I'd type it into my word processing program, which was and is, always and only, Word Perfect as opposed to Word. Don't get me started.

Eventually I got to where I could type the rough draft into my computer and do my edits on the screen. And perhaps a year, maybe two, later I began to actually compose while sitting at my keyboard. Oh, how that revolutionized my writing. I'd never go back.

In the last two or three decades, life has been computerized, mostly for the good. But we've lost something in the process. In this futuristic reality in which we live, we send birthday greetings to friends via Facebook -- thank you, Facebook, for those weekly reminders! -- rather than sending physical cards as we used to, in which we might even write a little note with our very own hand. We text our family and friends, when we used to pick up the phone and have a real live conversation. We punch our grocery lists into our i-Phones. And worst of all, we email rather than write honest-to-goodness letters.

My sister visited this past Christmas, and after the initial busyness died down, she said, "Let's go someplace quiet." So we stole away to my bedroom, and in a hushed moment shared by two sisters, she brought out a stack of letters she had run across after a recent move. Half were from our father, who had died 33 years before; the other half from our big brother, Johnny, written while he was serving in the Army, in Germany, in 1969-70, who died tragically in 1972, two short years after his discharge and marriage.

What a treasure, letters written in a hand as familiar as the faces we still miss.

And now we send e-mails, e-cards, e-everything, and our hands are e-empty.

But now, I have a pen pal, a fellow writer whose age is right in the middle of my own two daughters, and who lives in Australia -- or more specifically, Tasmania. I'm speaking about our own Megan Sayer! When I received that first letter a few weeks ago I was beyond delighted, and was reminded how important real correspondence can be. It's been years, literally, since I received a hand-written letter. (I received another one yesterday from Megan, in a Beatles birthday card!) But that first letter got me thinking about all that we miss, thanks to our technology.

The amazing and talented Ken Burns did a documentary series a number of years ago on the Civil War. It's truly a work of art, revolutionizing the whole concept of "documentary." In it he used passages from a multitude of historical letters, citing everyone from President Abraham Lincoln to the lonely private on the battlefield, away from home for the first time. People from all walks of life, including slaves, and even those written from the battlefield were beautiful in their language and sentiment. Even the grammar and punctuation were perfect.

And so help me, there wasn't an LOL in a single passage.

Technology is wonderful. I wouldn't want to write another book the way I used to. But between the letters my sister found, and the letters that now arrive from Australia on a regular basis, I've determined to pick up a pencil from time to time and write real words on real paper, and do my part to retain a lost and dying art. I want someone, somewhere in the future, to pick up a letter and see a certain style of penmanship, and be reminded that I lived and that I loved them.

When was the last time you received a letter? Or wrote one? Does it even matter? Will you take the challenge and write someone this week?

Raise Your Standard

"Most people don't know there are angels whose only job is to make sure you don't get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss your life."  - Brian Andreas

One of those angels for me was a professor I had in college, who used to tell us, shout at us  all the time, "Pay attention!!!" Thank you Christa Allan for reminding me in your excellent Carpe Annum interview on Monday.

This professor is the reason why watching The Dead Poets Society always feels a little bit like going home. He was my Mr. Keating, and while he never, as I recall, whispered "carpe diem" to us, that was the message.

2013 is our "Carpe Annum," our time to take hold of our lives and our careers -  and I hope it's yours too.

But please remember to also seize the day, to grasp it long enough to catch the color, feel the texture. Please, especially watch the people.  Go to the grocery store and stare at the people in line long enough to learn their secrets. (Stealthily, averting your eyes just long enough to not get caught.)

I recently read a book that has me looking at every person I meet with X-ray glasses, and it has revolutionized the way I see other people.  The ways we get it wrong when we judge each other. The ways we buy into the image reflected back to us and misjudge ourselves.

The book is The Boy Who Was Raised As a Dog, by Bruce Perry. I dare you to read it.

Paying attention is a way of planting a flag in the soil of each day, and declaring: "This is my life, all of it, and it all matters, the shiny bits and the grass stains."

Today I hope you raise your standard high

Lower Your Standards

American poet William Stafford had a controversial approach to writing. He instructed his students to “lower your standards and keep going. When it gets hard, don't stop - it is hard because you are doing something original.”  After the writing flow is staunched, then it is time to raise the standard during the rewrite process.  William’s son, Kim Stafford, wrote of this in his father’s biography, Early Mornings: Remembering My Father, William Stafford. 

Me, I’m afraid to write junk. It doesn’t mean I haven’t done it – just not intentionally. My inner critic whispers to me that my worth is tied to performance. It is communicated from birth at home, church and school, and especially in college.  Writing junk is unacceptable – a product of laziness. A waste of time.  So says my subconscious.

There is nothing wrong with writing good prose from the get-go, but unless you know how to disengage from perfectionism, you can ruin your ability to tap into that place where true creativity happens.  Starting out with high, insurmountable standards creates thresholds impossible to cross which throws your abilities and creativity into shadow.

In order to create a safe place for this lowering of standards to occur, I must first lay the ground rules. Most importantly, I promise that no one else will ever see it and I keep that promise.  Next, I have permission to toss it if it truly stinks like a rotten fish.   

Not long after the death of his father, a friend of Kim Stafford’s pointed out that in medieval warfare, lowering one’s standard meant offering truce.  When you offer truce to your opponent (the blank page) you are open to what may come and you disarm your inner critic.  

Are you afraid to write junk? Do you trust yourself enough to lower your standard in truce? We’d love to hear.