Caution: Introspective Writer Ahead!

       The call this morning from one of my dearest friends about the much deserved impending success with her first (yes, first!) book has sent me spiraling into a funk of introspection. While not yet reaching a definitive conclusion, I do realize I have arrived at the crossroads where Put Up or Shut Up Street meets Nope, Just a Wannabe Boulevard.

       Like so many people, I want to be a writer. I even go so far as to call myself a writer in several profile descriptions on social media even though I have yet to professionally publish anything. I have the dream but have come to realize that’s the easy part. Writing is art; it is craft; writing is WORK.  Writing is work that goes far beyond developing story and character. Right now, after finishing a final edit of my first book the writing almost appears to be the easiest part.

       Now, I must find a publisher. Not just any publisher but the publisher I feel will be the right fit for my book. There are query letters to write and a synopsis. I must sell myself and the product I have poured my heart into for months to someone who is flooded with these types of inquires every day from other writers who believe in their story just as much as I believe in mine. Somehow, I need to present my book more cleverly, more adroitly than the last query letter the editor read or any of the hundreds she will read after mine.  But, something is stopping me from taking this next step and I cannot determine what it is.       

       Yes, of course I don’t want to be turned down, turned away, refused for publication but it is only a rejection letter and there are thousands of stories of famous books which were repeatedly turned down before finding the right publisher. Time is a factor right now. I have a week before I undertake another very significant journey, this one academic.  Am I afraid I cannot devote the time I need to realize success in both of these endeavors? Maybe. I feel though, there is something else looming, a larger shadow over all of this that is keeping me from writing that synopsis or starting a query letter. It could be fear of failure, certainly but maybe the bigger fear is I really am just an imposter.  

The Rip-Tide of Emotion

            It has already been a most unusual summer, filled with emotional highs and lows, beginnings and endings that have provoked feelings in me I want to incorporate into my writing but haven’t worked through the process of finding where they belong in my own life yet, let alone on a page. In writing about them now, I thought about parceling them out―separating the ups from the downs ―but I experienced them together and will try to share them in that way.

            I finished a personal journey in June which took more than three decades when I graduated from college (finally!). It was a buoyant weekend and I was blessed to be surrounded by friends and family, people I truly love who were lovely enough to share the overwhelming experience with me. Even in all the joy that surrounded me I felt a shadow of sadness that my parents were not physically present but I did feel them with me since I always carry them in my heart. This ending gives way to preparation for another beginning: my Master's program begins August 1! 

            As I was getting ready to visit much of the same family last week to attend a family wedding, my sister called to tell me one of the nicest people I have ever known had died. We graduated from high school together and she was absolutely the quintessential All-American girl. Always smiling, Homecoming Queen, outstanding senior girl and you didn’t hate her for it! She was the type of person you could not see for ten years but still feel her warmth and kindness the minute you embraced her again. I do not live in my hometown any longer but would be visiting at the time of her service so I could attend. I didn’t. I couldn’t wrap my head or my heart around saying good-bye to someone my own age. The coincidences of life threw me into the path of members of her extended family and former classmates at the mall of all places as well as the long-awaited family wedding. Remembering her life and talking of her death under the white canopies ringing the dance floor where my darling niece and her new husband danced was bittersweet. Her ending and their beginning dovetailed under the stars, each breaking my heart in a different way.

            Just as summer isn’t over, neither is the emotional riptide it has brought. My nephew’s wife is expecting their first child. She generously let me place my hand on her lovely rounded tummy and feel him kick at dinner one night. I am going back up in a week to attend baby showers, ready to welcome the pulse of a new life into the family. Two weeks later, we will get together again to celebrate a beloved aunt’s 90^th birthday.

            I know this ebb and flow has a place in my writing and I am anxious to find it, just as soon as I find its place in my life. 

50 Shades of Grey-Its More Black and White Than You Think

                          

         I am late coming to the 50 Shades of Grey party. Not to imply there is a group mentality about the trio of books because I believe they can be very divisive among readers and writers alike. It isn’t really erotica, it’s too hard core, it’s too soft core, it victimizes women, it empowers women, it’s poorly written, it is the best thing I’ve ever read! Pick a bandwagon and someone has jumped on it in relation to this book. It’s even won popular culture credibility being parodied on Saturday Night Live as well as by Ellen DeGeneres. That a book about a man who contractually negotiates his sexual relationships with women is stacked by the hundreds on a table at Costco is in itself an oddity; but that the President of the United States has even made a joke about the First Lady reading it creates an even odder juxtaposition-when is something more popular than it has a right to be?

            Are Christian Grey action figures complete with authentic spanking motion in the works? Will there be a 50 Shades of Gray theme park where visitors progress through various red themed adventures to emerge on the other side in a vanilla colored world? Absurd? Yes; but not more so than the overhyped phenomena surrounding this trio of books. Before my point is interpreted as merely 50 shades of purple, as in sour grapes, don’t get me wrong I would love to be able to craft a story that could equal the success of these three volumes whether that be erotica, biography or any other genre. If that will ever happen in my lifetime is doubtful. My point is not the success of the books it is the manner in which they are being portrayed.

            The idea of titillation isn’t new in the world of women’s fiction. Jacqueline Susann, Harold Robbins Sidney Sheldon and Judith Krantz created not only literary uproar but best-selling careers when they allowed readers to slip under the covers with their sexual fantasies. This idea of soft-core erotica did not originate with E.L. James as some would like you to believe-she is just the newest incarnation.

              50 Shades of Gray is also not the first book to highlight the redemption and damage which is possible in the name of love. Yes, Ana redeems Christian. Just as Jane Eyre redeemed Rochester and Elizabeth Bennett redeemed Mr. Darcy. But the damage Christian Grey has inflicted on his collection of exes should not be overlooked. His pleasure was inflicting pain. Yes, they were always free to leave but as James’ books demonstrate at what cost? Just as Heathcliff and Catherine destroyed one another and poor Tess destroyed herself, the domineering, obsessive relationship Christian Grey requires leaves broken souls in its wake.

            50 Shades of Grey isn’t a new idea whose time has come-it’s an idea that is being recycled, repackaged and resold to a public that has forgotten or lost sight of the revolution which began hundreds of years of ago to allow women (and men) to be lost in the fantasy of a story.

I can say that in six words or less!

          Engaging in a writing exercise recently on writing sentences challenged the author to take a simple three, four or five word sentence and revise it in fifteen words, then thirty and finally 100 words. Each draft had to include the original three to five word phrase. Adapted from a similar exercise in Stanley Fish’s book, How to Write a Sentence, the point was not simply to pad the sentence with the necessary number of words but to increase the meaning and content of the original phrase.

            This brings up several points of the craft. Most authors have heard the advice to write simply and cleanly. When does that rob the story of depth or color or imagination? In an essay in the New York Times, author Annie Dillard advised, “Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients…What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”

            Which sentence tells the reader more-“Hair lay in the sink” or “Andrew’s knuckles cracked raw from the bleach he used as he scrubbed the gleaming white porcelain bowl, frantic in his desperation to the remove any remnants of the shimmering golden ghosts, lingering reminders of her fragile presence, harbingers of his infidelity, clarions trumpeting his moral and masculine shortcomings, fine blonde threads knotted  into a noose of accusation he felt sure were a warning someone had seen the comely young woman arrive at his suite, saw his hands tighten around her delicate porcelain neck then witnessed his cold-hearted disposition of her lithe remains, a crime he felt flawless until he returned to his room and saw strands of her blonde hair lay in the sink.” It is an unfair comparison on the surface, but illustrates the point when do we decide when a sentence says too little and when does it show too much?

            Each author has to gauge for themselves to nature of their own sentences and what they want to communicate to a reader. Dillard explains it this way; “The sensation of writing a book is the sensation of spinning, blinded by love and daring. It is the sensation of a stunt pilot’s turning barrel rolls, or an inchworm’s blind rearing from a stem in search of a route. At its worst, it feels like alligator wrestling, at the level of a sentence.”

            Three sentences with just over fifty words, a perfect sentiment.

Caution-Meandering Plot Ahead

           I am having trouble getting a story off the ground; not an unusual thing for anyone who writes I know but I am not sure what to do. I have characters I like very much and an idea which won’t go away. I know what the second to last chapter will be and have written the ending but so far, about eight chapters into it, cannot seem to assemble the pieces into a place I feel will reach the conclusion.

            In searching for direction, I turned to a wonderful book of craft essays by accomplished authors from Tin House Books called The Writer’s Notebook. It was a gift from a dear friend, another fledgling in the tall grass of prose. Writer Rick Bass, in his essay When to Keep It Simple, addresses the choices a writer faces “when a story isn’t working as well as it could be-or when it isn’t working at all-.”

            Bass’ advice in this situation is wise and resembles the Winston Churchill mantra which is now a pop culture phenomenon “Keep Calm and Carry On.” Bass prescribes “stay calm and go back to basics, to try to show, in gestures, images and descriptions as simple as possible, what it is you’re trying to convey and not to try to do it all once, but break it down into pieces-when you have to.”

            So, today I am going to go back from beginning and simplify. Try to streamline the direction and hopefully move the characters into the path which will advance my plot. Easily said, surely not easily done but that’s the challenge of this art, isn’t it? 

Heroes

Oh we can beat them, forever and ever
Then we could be heroes, just for one day
                                                                     David Bowie

           With the upcoming release of the movie The Hunger Games based on the first of the trio of books by author Suzanne Collins there is a great deal of talk about heroes-or heroines as the case maybe. For the sake of brevity, I will call them all heroes.

            Comparisons of heroes-Hermione Granger, Bella Swan, Katniss Everdeen, among others-is frustrating to me. Some things are too obvious to be stated (like these three wildly popular book series featuring these strong female leads are all authored by women) and others much too different to stand comparison (a teenage wizard, a girl risking her life to love a vampire and a teen living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland).So don’t separate this unlikely trio of literary stars, but unite them under a banner of equity rather than inequality. 

            Hermione, Bella and Katniss offer strengths and weaknesses as female leads which are distinct to each character’s situation and circumstance.  Each is intelligent and thoughtful in their own way; all three risk their lives to defend those they love and all three are faced with life-changing decisions or events which they are unprepared for due to youthful inexperience. Mentally and physically each character is tormented and tortured and survives. This would be the one unifying quality for all three-they survive through their own inner strength and an acquired mental toughness. This should be what is taken away from the reading of the books in which each of these young women is featured. Each one makes mistakes, every one of them suffers, all three love, all three are victorious at some point due to their own wits and in the end they all survive.

            Don’t spend time picking apart the characters by pitting them against one another. Join them in a trifecta for the strength of heart and compassion they all exhibit. There are too few female characters who gain the spotlight to divide and conquer them amongst ourselves. Spotlight each for their unique abilities and attitudes, draw them together and celebrate so that there will be even more literary heroines like Hermione, Katniss and Bella. 

(Self) Publish or Perish

            Had the opportunity to attend a very interesting presentation by literary agent April Eberhardt this weekend discussing the pros and cons of self-publishing. One of her most interesting points was those who choose to self publish must raise the bar in all aspects of the endeavor in order for the industry of self publishing to gain credibility.

            Eberhardt sounds like a dream agent-worrying about the best interests of the author’s she represents and presenting all options open to them once they have a manuscript worth publishing. She said she does not push her clients in one direction or the other, but she does try to make sure they understand the differences and frustrations inherent in traditional publishing, e-publishing and self publishing. Eberhardt is planning to launch a self-publishing imprint specializing in works by women authors

            Expense and formatting appearing to be the two biggest challenges for those who choose to self-publish, although services exist to help the newbie author navigate these obstacles. As with all undertaking, Eberhardt said there is definitely risk without a guarantee of reward in self-publishing; but it is an avenue through which an author can get their book into the hands of readers more quickly and self publishing currently affords the author the most personal control over the design and marketing of their book. The world of self-publishing needs to be infused with high quality products, both in writing and design, so the process begins to be taken seriously and viewed as a viable, respectable option. 

Voice and words

            School hasn’t started yet, which gives me time to write another 2012 post!  In trying to find and define my writer’s voice I believe my inner Regency era heroine is wrestling for dominance with my inner Steampunk  Princess Wannabe. Of course, they are both often bested by my Baby Boomer reality and at any given moment I am not sure who has control of the keyboard.

            I am looking forward to the start of a freelance writing class this term and an internship editing written materials about medieval art objects in the Portland State Library special collections. There are one or two other opportunities I am hoping I can provide links for in the next two weeks or so. A writer/friend said the other day Portland is a great place to be for an aspiring writer right now and she was so right!

            Same said wonderfully intelligent writer/friend gave me Merriam-Webster’s 365 New Words a Year desk calendar to provide daily fodder for my writer’s brain. What is my favorite word of the first six days of 2012? Poppinjay: a strutting supercilious person!  Coming in a close second is omnium-gatherum: a miscellaneous collection, as of things or persons! 

Resolution

        It is almost impossible to believe it is January 1, 2012. My posts have been so random I feel almost ashamed to post any resolutions. I will pay more attention to you this year, dear Blog! You will not be ignored any longer. I will post, link, and gadget through the New Year! My other heartfelt commitments for the New Year follow and I wish all a peaceful, successful and prosperous 2012 in whatever personal form it may take. 

In 2012 I resolve:

To write every day even if it is only a snippet of dialogue or a suggestion of a definition!

To read more than what is simply required so I am not run over by the train of academic brain atrophy!

To learn about my craft as a writer by practice, training and observation!

To risk by entering contests, submitting articles, writing more book reviews, exposing To Signify to more readers, to do whatever it takes to be able to say truthfully yes, I am a WRITER!

To challenge myself to introduce Patience and her sister Prudence and the dark and otherworldly William St. Gray to anyone in the reading public willing to meet them!

To grow no matter what the defeat or obstacle!

To love it all; the pain, the joy, the sorrow, the humor of every single part of every day as it adds to the experience of who I am and the power it brings to the writer I want to be!

I owe so much to a very special, very small group of people I love for their support and belief in my ability to do this; I thank you for 2011 and cannot wait to share what’s ahead in 2012!