Recurring themes: the dark side

Hey all,

In my last post, I talked about recurring themes, how the ideas or subjects that come up in our work again and again can be a great way to process and grow as people and writers, a way to identify our personal voice, and a way to identify and promote our place in the market.

This time, I’d like to come at it from a bit of a different angle and point out some of the downsides of playing the same notes over and over.

The main issue I see is stagnation, both personally and as a writer.

To give a personal example, we’ll take Machine (collective sigh from regular readers). When I wrote Machine, I was processing through a lot of stuff from my middle school and teenaged years (heck, I still was a teenager), which at the time, was healthy.

Except, as I kept editing it over and over again (it took me a long time to learn how), I got stuck in a bit of a personal loop. It wasn’t until I set Machine aside and got some distance that I realized how close those ties were and what was really happening.

But that’s really for a different blog post, of which there are already many.

Which brings me to the second part of stagnation, which is stagnation as a writer.

Something that I’ve seen visual artists do that I really admire is to do a kind of inventory of their characters to make sure they’re drawing different types of people. Basically, they either do a big line-up or line-up of faces of their different characters, and then compare them, looking to see if, for example, they only draw one kind of eyebrow or lip or even race, body type, or height. The point, besides wanting to be more creative and/or diverse in their character designs, is to find where they aren’t pushing themselves as artists, where they are falling back on what they know or are good at.

I think we, as writers or artists of any kind, can and should do the same thing.

For example, one of the recurring themes I listed in my previous post was antagonistic partners. And I do love writing them. A lot. But if that’s the only kind of relationship I focus on, I’m missing out on something, not just as an artist trying to convey the full richness of human experience, but also as a writer trying to grow.

There are other concepts or ideas I lean on frequently besides that too, such as being captured by the enemy or timid male leads. And that’s not to say any of those are bad things, but if I were to stack up the individual pieces of my novels in a line-up, well, a lot of those suspects would start looking eerily similar.

And once you start doing that, well, outside of very few genres, predictability is no friend to the writer.

So what’s the difference between a good recurring theme and a bad one?

Good question.

I’m not entirely sure I can lay out hard and fast rules for it myself yet either, but a few guidelines I would suggest would be:

1. Consider whether the idea you are exploring is either new or at least from a new angle. If you are re-hashing something you’ve already done, that’s probably not the best. If you are building on or refining an old one (a la Miller from my last post), that’s better.
2. Consider whether your element is a theme you’re building on or a plot device you’re over-using. A twist can be a useful tool. Use it too much though and you start getting groans in the theatre (I’m looking at you, Shyamalan).
3. Consider who is being served by your use of this element. With Machine, I was serving and justifying myself by re-hashing the edits over and over. Even if it had been published, the one who would have benefited most was myself. To give a less vague and more fictional example, consider the writer constantly writing themselves into their work as the main character, every person who has ever rejected them being proved wrong at every plot turn. This helps neither the reader nor the author. Recurring themes should help you grow, the fruits of your labor being passed on to those who learn and grow with you as they read. If you’re only hammering the same nail over and over in the same place, you might want to consider finding something new.

I’m sure there are more indications, most of the ones I’m aware of being identified more through instinct than any specific rule. If you’re not sure, try doing an inventory. Look at the repeating elements across your work and ask the above questions. Ask yourself why you are using them. Is it because you know you’re good at biting wit and a Norwegian forest setting? Is it because you write only characters that look or think like you? Because you only like to write in one sub-genre? What do these questions tell you about you or your work and is the result helpful (it could be!) or not? Then ask yourself what, if anything, needs to change. I know for me, there are definitely areas where I could stretch.

I hope to as I continue to grow.

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So, what about you? Do you have recurring themes or elements in your work? Have you seen good or bad examples of it in the work of others? What rules or standards do you use to determine if a recurring element is helpful or not? Let me know in the comments below, and if you want more content like this, please follow me here or on social media using the links in the sidebar. Thanks for reading!

Lessons from Camp NaNoWriMo, 2018

Last post, I talked about randomly deciding to jump into Camp NaNoWriMo on July 2nd. I set a goal of 30,000 words, hoping to start my long-in-coming rewrite of my primary novel, Machine. I reached my goal with 30,644 words on the 21st.

I also learned some valuable lessons on the way. So without further ado, let’s check them out. These are the lessons I learned from Camp NaNoWriMo, 2018.

I have good instincts

I wrote the first draft of Machine nearly a decade ago.

Since then, there have been a lot of plot problems I’ve chosen to ignore.

So what a surprise it was to discover that not only are the bones not nearly as bad as I thought they were, but many of them are actually good. The deep bones of the story, the tale I want to tell, isn’t awful, and the vast sweeping changes I thought I was going to have to make are actually by and large unnecessary, little bunnies I have to chase down the majority of the problem.

And that might sound a little silly or even arrogant, but for me, someone who has often called her skills into question–especially with plot, this is important, because what it really translates into is confidence.

I’ve spent a lot of time comparing myself to others, thinking I’ll never be a good enough writer, and this experience has shown me, truly, that while I still have a long way to go, I have the instincts. I can tell a story, and it can be good.

I hope this is a lesson I never forget.

My story matters

In a similar vein, I also learned how much this story matters, and not just for me.

For those who aren’t familiar, Machine has always been, in some ways, my story. It’s not autobiographical in a strict sense (though starring in a portal fiction novel would be pretty fun), but there are definitely themes in it that have resonated with me and my life for many years, most importantly in the emotional journeys of the two main characters, Rick and Cog.

For a long time, I thought this was a bad thing. I felt I was too close to the work, and indeed in many ways I was. I did have to take a step back and separate myself, because in editing it for as long as I did, I was reliving or at least re-processing things in my past, things I needed to let go. For a while, it got a little unhealthy.

But, now, coming back, I see the value my story actually has.

This came in a couple of stages, one personal which I’m not going to share here, and the other in a much more practical sense. See, Rick, the main character, has always scaled a little young for a sixteen-year-old, and indeed his character was originally going to be only fourteen. For some, that’s been a problem (I have one friend who regularly clocks him in at twelve, haha), so this time around, doing my rewrite, I was going to address it. I was going to make Rick grow up. After all, that’s what I’ve done in the nine-ish years since I started this project. Why, now that I have a more adult perspective on the complexity of humans, shouldn’t my semi-autobiographical character do the same?

But in actually doing the rewrite, in scaling not only Rick but a few others upward, I realized that the story just wasn’t the same. The jokes didn’t transfer, they’d already dealt with a few different issues, and honestly a lot of the drama that came with them being in that younger, more turbulent time disappeared as a result.

That’s when I realized: It’s important to tell their story when they’re in that place.

My story, the processing and healing I went through at that stage of my life, matters.

Because I’m not just writing it for me. I am writing for an audience, many of whom may still be in that place, or at least have been in the past. I want to share and connect with them, and if I can, bring healing, or at least reflective thought, human connection.

So even if Rick scales young, that’s okay. Because his story matters. Now I know it does.

 

Now, that’s not to say Machine is perfect, or that I don’t have a lot of work to do, because I do, but I hope this does inspire you in your own work and encourage you to press on, no matter what your creative project. I’m not going to go into detail about any of the more practical lessons I learned about my craft, of which there were several, but I just wanted to share a bit of my journey with NaNo this year, and encourage you in these last five days.

Have you learned anything during your Camp? What else have you been learning or studying about? Let me know in the comments below and if you want to keep following my journey, please follow me here or on social media using the sidebar links. Thanks for reading!

Camp Nanowrimo 2018

Hey all,

I’ve got a fun/scary announcement to make.

I’ve started working on Machine again.

To be honest, it came somewhat out of the blue.

I told God I wasn’t going to start working on it again until I had the answer to a tricky, longstanding problem from chapter one. I know there’s a lot of reworking to do, but it didn’t make sense to start until I had an answer to that question. Plus, I knew God had some things for me before I started up on it again, so that felt like a reasonable green light to ask for.

Then, talking to a friend about it recently, I had a few sparks, what very well might have been the answer.

Then today, I felt like God wanted me to work on it. I’ve been working on another book lately, diving deep into some edits that need to happen.

But the whisper today was for Machine, and it was so tender, so excited, that I knew it was right.

I’ll admit, I was a little freaked out. I knew God had wanted me to let Machine go for a while. Had it really been enough time? Had I learned enough?

But the call remained. Just try it. Trust me.

So I did.

And, I signed up for Camp Nanowrimo. Similar to Nanowrimo, it’s a call to work on a writing project for a month. It’s not as intense as the November version, with goals you can set yourself, but it’s still a challenge. I thought, if God wants me to work on Machine, I’ll give it a shot.

But of course, what goal to set? 50,000, the usual requirement for Nanowrimo didn’t seem right. It’s too busy in the summer for me to go for that, and I didn’t feel like adding such a heavy load to my stress levels.

Instead, I thought 30,000. That sounded good.

Except then I thought, what if this is a fluke? What if God just wants me to work on it today or I’m wrong in what I’m hearing at all? What if I can’t do it or it gets too hard or hurts? As any regular reader of this blog will know, Machine has always been “the book.” Putting it aside hurt like crazy, and to pick it up again, to fail, would be even worse.

Plus, 30,000 words in a month is still a lot, nearly 1,000 a day.

So I changed my goal. I set it to 20,000.

And I worked and I wrote and pumped out a little over 2,000 words before I felt it was time to stop.

Except, something about that 20,000 still didn’t feel good. It felt like a lack of trust, like God wouldn’t deliver, and, to be more direct, that I wouldn’t. I’m finding trusting God is getting easier. Trusting myself is getting worse.

And something I realized was this.

My results will, to some extent, match my dreams. God can do amazing things, but if I don’t believe He can (or me with Him), if I don’t dream big, well, that’s going to be reflected in what I do.

God wants me to dream big.

But, I also know that timing is important, and it’s quite possible that I won’t have time or strength or energy to get in that full 30,000.

So my goals are as follows:

1. Set the goal for 30,000. Dream big.
2. Trust God. I already tried writing Machine on my own and it turned into a disaster. I know with Camp Nanowrimo, the same will be true. If I try to do it in my own strength, it’s probably gonna consume me, and I don’t want that.
3. Don’t be stressed. Tied very directly into the second item on this list, I’m not going to let stress overwhelm me. If this is what God wants, He’ll provide. If not, if I’m doing it out of my own power, it’s gonna get stressful.
4. Be okay with failure. If I don’t reach my word count, that’s okay. It’s a stretch goal, and it’s honestly just might not happen. That’s okay. I’m still learning, God’s still with me, and it’ll be fine.

And, just in case you’re wondering, yes, I’ve already been learning a lot, as follows:

1. The Machine I thought I knew was not the real story. I’m a little freaked out to discover this, and certain I haven’t found the real thing yet, but I’m on my way to get there.
2. These are real people (well, sort of). Machine, in a lot of ways, was a huge part of my process, an integral part of me healing and growing up from being a kid. Now that a lot of that purpose has been met, the characters in it can truly be who they’re meant to be. There’s a distance between me and Rick and Eyna and Cog now, and while part of that is painful, there’s a greater part of that that’s freeing. I’ve already seen some of the fruits of this in how Eyna responds as a character. I’m seeing it in Rick too, and am sure it will come up with all the others.
3. We’re all growing up. I wrote the first draft of Machine in high school, almost a decade ago. I’ve grown so much from them, and now coming back and re-writing it, not just editing it, I’m seeing that my characters have grown too. Even though they’re still the same age, my understanding of people and story is making them richer, deeper, and yes, even a tiny bit older (Rick always skewed young. We’ll see how he does now). I’m discovering them more, and it’s great.

Anyway, I’m sure there are more lessons to be learned here, but I think I’ll leave it there for now. I’m not sure I’ll get in a second July post while I hammer out these 30k words, but I’ll try to keep in touch when I can.

Thank you for reading. If you want to track my progress stay tuned here, on Facebook, or Twitter (links in the sidebar). Thanks for the support, and as always, questions, comments, and stories always welcome!

My favorite gif

A gif for Natalie

How I like to imagine God cheering me on.

Writing by faith: timing

Hi All,

Something I’ve been learning a lot about lately is how to include God in my writing, specifically how to write with Him. I’d like to write a couple of posts on how this has been affecting my life, so I thought I would start with timing.

Let’s talk about it.

When I was in high school, I remember getting super knotted up in editing or writing and just driving myself crazy with wanting to move forward. I would sit at my desk for hours knowing things weren’t working but unable to step back because I just couldn’t stop. The drive to keep going, to fix things, was just too real.

When things got like that, it was always an indication to me that I needed to take a break, that my writing was taking up too large of a portion in my life and that I needed to step back to breathe. Usually, that meant taking a few days off to cool down, sometimes a little more, sometimes less.

Now things don’t usually get nearly that bad. Some of that has simply come with time, the common realization most writers have that sometimes you really do just need rest, a break, or time for your brain to think. Everyone has bad writing days, and that just comes with the territory.

But there’s another layer to this that I’ve discovered, and tapping into it has really helped me whenever I feel stressed out. That layer is trust.

What I mean by that is this: God is the God of all time. He knows what I need, my deadlines, my stories, and my mind. If I put Him and His priorities first, if I listen to Him about when I need to write and focus or rest and wait, I will get done everything that I really, truly need to get done.

If that sounds a little wishy-washy or naive, let me give you an example.

My writing group meets approximately once a month. Since I’m in the middle of editing the first draft of the novel I’m currently sharing with them, that often means I’m trying to edit just ahead of that deadline, with about three weeks to re-write and fine-tune a chapter before I hand it in for review. I also blog twice a month here in addition to whatever world-building, plotting, or editing that needs to take place based on previous feedback. I write 3-4 days a week, 2-3 hours at a time, which gives me about 48 hours a month max. Subtract time for bad writing days, Facebook surfing (*slaps wrist*), or life coming in, and you can start to see how time gets away from me.

So a couple months ago, I was trying to get my chapter in, and the chapter was just not gelling. I was teetering on the edge of panic mode because I didn’t want to miss the deadline (though to be fair, if I don’t have a chapter in, it’s really not a huge deal), it was a busy week, and I wasn’t sure when I was going to have the time.

I had two options: A. Let the deadline consume my thoughts and stress write my way through to the end even when I knew things weren’t working or B. Trust God would give me the time and solutions I needed to get everything done even if me being present for other people, family, friends or activities meant I wouldn’t have as much writing time.

I chose option B.

And, guess what? It worked. In the final hours I had to work on the project, inspiration struck, and I handed my chapter in minutes before having to leave to go to something else.

That experience has been a useful reminder to me since then that God’s timing does work. I don’t have to stress myself out that I won’t get everything done. God knows what I need and if I do things His way, trusting Him, He’ll take care of the rest.

And that’s great in the short term. People meet deadlines all the time, but what about the larger scope?

Let’s talk about that, too.

Enter, as ever, Machine.

About the time I was going to leave for my DTS, I was really struggling with that terrible beauty of a book. I’d been working on it for about eight years, and it seemed the more I worked on it, the less happy I became. Plot problems I’d tried to bury kept popping back up like the undead, character decisions and moments seemed clunky or wrong, and my hope that I was ever going to get it where it needed to be had worn tremendously thin.

It was all I had ever wanted to publish as an author and after nearly a decade of hard work, I was ready to throw in the towel.

Then DTS, transformation, abject desperation, and grace.

During that time I realized just how much I’d been doing alone, how much I’d kept God out.

I also realized just how much was knotted up in that book, and how unhealthy some of that was.

As in high school, I needed a break.

And I did take a break, sort of, for nearly a year. I realized Machine had to be re-written, and even made that announcement here.

But the more I thought about it, the more frustrated I became. Several key issues at the start that I’d largely ignored still needed answers, and none would come. I thought I stumbled upon one at one point, but even that would destroy the whole second novel, one of the strongest books I’ve written to date. Something still seemed off, so I decided to wait.

And as I did, I realized something: I still had more to live before I was ready to write that book.

Which is kind of where I still am with it, waiting for that inspiration to come.

Now for those writers of you out there, you might be worried, thinking, “Never wait for the muse to come, you just have to sit down and write!” And that is true, often, that you just have to sit and do it, but with Machine, that’s not quite right. Because I know that in this case, I really do just have to wait. There are more experiences for me to live before I’ll be ready. Who knows what day that will be. I hope I’ll recognize it when it comes.

Letting go of Machine was and sometimes still is one of the greatest struggles I’ve ever faced. I’d heard so many stories of people who had thrown their first book in the drawer and never pulled it out again, feared for so long that if I let it die, God might not bring it back. Choosing to set it down was one of the hardest, scariest decisions I’ve ever made as a writer.

And yet, I have peace about it. I trust God will bring it back. I know that this is one of my passions and that God knows and cares for my story. In fact, when I ask Him about it, the main emotion I get back is usually excitement. He has plans for Machine, and I know without a doubt that I can trust it in His hands. He can’t wait to get started on this with me…whenever it is that I’m ready. I believe this with all of my heart.

In the meantime, there’s been healing. Things I thought were dumb or would have to be removed or redone, God has restored, reminding me why I love and care about this world and these people in the first place. I’ve had ideas about how to market my books; had people speak specific, encouraging things over me about my work, sometimes out of the blue; and even had a general restoration of my passion for these stories. I’m working on another project that I love, thinking fondly instead of despairingly about my other works, and in the back always wishing and hoping for the day Machine comes back.

It’s been a long journey, but I know I can trust Him. The rest will come with time.

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So, how about you? Do you believe in God’s timing? Have you had experiences with it? What about times you’ve been impatient? Have you ever had to let go? Tell me in the comments below, and if you want more content like this, follow me here on the blog or via the social media links in the sidebar. Thanks for reading!

Meeting Miss Eyna

 

I have recently discovered the value of the character sheet.

Have I done them before?

Sure.

Have I done them well?

Ehhhhhh. Hubris, thy name is young writer.

But enough of these one-line paragraphs. Let’s get into the meat of this post, starting with a little background.

The first draft of Machine was finished in late 2009. Back then, I was still in high school and confident that I’d be breaking out onto the world stage of writing within the next year or two. I had a charming hero, his enigmatic love interest, and his angsty, tortured partner to stir up conflict. What more could a novel need?

Well, as it turns out, a lot. Like a world that had more than glancing work put into its creation, a focused plot that had been thoroughly checked for holes and, as we’ll focus on in this post, characters that had been fleshed out, the worst offender (or perhaps victim) of this last one being Eyna (said love interest), who up until a couple months ago, didn’t even have a last name.

Why was she so bad, you might ask? What made her so flimsy when viewed with a critical eye? Well, as it happens, the very same mystery that I so loved to give her.

“You don’t need to know that,” I’d complain whenever readers asked a question (sorry Mom).

“She just does,” was my battle cry.

If you’ve been in this business any amount of time, you can tell that this was not a good approach. And consistently, readers knew. Sure I had ways to explain it away, ways of thinking about her that made sense to me, but looking back now, I realize that they were simply romantic notions of what I wanted her to be, nothing nearly so sturdy as to support a human life. And, even if a reader isn’t supposed to know something, the author should, and needs to know (sorry, Mom). I’ll give you that one for free.

Which brings me to now, where, as with most things Machine related, I’ve really started to put in the work, starting with, for Eyna, a character sheet.

I use a modified version of the Epiguide one found here, and it’s been really useful so far. Some of its most noticeable benefits have included:

• Forcing me to create backstory in areas I wouldn’t normally consider
• Forcing me to nail down the key backstory elements I do consider, including timelines, events, and effects
• Helping me understand why characters are the way they are through past events, family, and habits

This has been particularly useful as I consider my rewrite. For example, in the old version of Machine, Eyna secretly does return Rick’s affections, a fact that doesn’t become apparent until later in the book. It is for this reason that she chooses to go along with the group as they head out on their adventure.

Now, knowing a little bit more about her (and after feedback), I’m not sure that still makes sense. I’ll probably have to come up with an entirely different reason for her to join the group. Maybe she won’t even have known Rick before at all. But, because I’ll be working from a character sheet, with a character instead of some fluffy photoshop piece, I’ll actually know why she goes with, she’ll have real reasons, and my book will be stronger as a result.

And, as a bonus, making character sheets is simply fun.

Working with my modified version of the above guide (mine having just a few added questions specific to my genre/book/plot tracking purposes), it takes a little more than an hour to complete one sheet, allowing that I might skip a couple questions here or there to finish later. By the end of that hour, I’m usually pretty mentally tired (I think the most I’ve been able to do in one go was one and a half sheets, and that with a bit of a soup brain at the end), but I’ve learned loads about my characters that I didn’t know before.

For example, Eyna, my formerly enigmatic love interest, loves chemistry.

Axle, the grumpy antagonist within the group, likes crosswords.

Thade likes sculpting. Fel enjoys fashion. Noss has a father that she worries about a bit much.

All of these things have been surprises. None of them would have come up within the course of the book itself.

Doing character sheets is a blast, and it will give you a better book (to say nothing of more fodder to pull from as you’re looking to make your plot sing). If you’re a pantser like me, you should make them at least after your first draft, and, if you’re a plotter, probably before.

So hello, Miss Eyna. It’s been a pleasure to meet you.

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How do you approach character development in your work or organize your other creative projects? Have you ever had experience with characters suddenly changing or growing as a result? What did you learn? Tell me in the comments below, and if you liked this post, feel free to follow my blog or any of my other pages using the links above. Happy New Year!

A change in perspective

Hey guys,

In continuing the fall theme of talking non-stop about my Machine rewrite, I want to talk to you all today about, well, as the title suggests, a change in perspective.

There’s a thing about most writers that might be a little surprising and/or creepy to non-writer folk. It’s that most of us like to see our characters suffer. Pretty much any kind of poisonous torture we can come up with, we’re probably going to pile it on.

There’re a few reasons for this of course. First, conflict drives story, so without problems, we don’t have anything to write about. Second, since we’re usually better at dealing with fake people than real ones, it’s sometimes part of how we cope with or process our emotions (or run our wheels when we’re bad at that).

Third, and perhaps most importantly if we’re in a healthy place, is because facing struggle is what makes a character grow.

Enter Cog, stage right.

Betrayed and ousted by his family for wanting to do the right thing, despised by those he now serves, partnered for life with a ninny, he’s gone through way more than almost any of my other characters and certainly suffered the most of my trying to ramp that up.

Which, in of itself, isn’t necessarily bad.

Nor will I say that in the coming days that suffering is necessarily going to be much less. Almost if not all of the things I’ve just listed are still going to be true come the rewrite.

But somewhere along the line I lost sight of that third reason, the real why behind his suffering.

It’s only now that I feel like I’m finally getting that back.

There are a lot of ways you can describe good writing, and often in ways that are very broad. For the purposes of this post, I’ll borrow from one of my favorite authors, N.D. Wilson, and split the categories into what he describes as “faithful” and “unfaithful,” or that which “honors Him and imitates Him and imitates His tastes, hates what He hates, loves what He loves” and that which tries to “vandalize His art or steal it or use it, appropriate it for some other purpose, profane Him in some way or borrow it and try to pretend like it’s not His.”

Me trying to twist Cog as much as I can like I have in the past, putting his identity in his pain (oh hey, just like I’ve done with myself before…go figure…) is unfaithful.

I’m not quite sure when I realized this. I’ve ruminated often on how entangled Rick and Cog are with me and my relationship with God (see, well, much of this blog), how important Machine has been to my spiritual walk. I even vaguely remember recognizing the connection between Cog’s identity in his suffering and mine, a thunderclap revelation that I was justifying his behavior because he had somehow “suffered enough to earn it.”

But having that view change in actionable ways, to get to how I think of him now, has been a much subtler transformation, and all I really know is that now things are different.

When I used to think about Cog, the first thing that would come to mind was him snarling. Some spiteful comment on his drawn back lips, walls up, ready to lash out at anyone fool enough to get close. As he always has been, he was the personification of me in late middle school, the one who deserves to bite because they’ve been burned before.

Now the first thing I think when I think of Cog is him laughing, smiling. I think about Rick looking over and smiling too, remembering how they used to be. I have dreams for him now, possibilities, a future and a hope. Will he get married? Have kids? Where will they go or what will they do? What will he be like as he gets older? What will he remember and think? Which opportunities will he take advantage of? Which will he let pass by?

I don’t want there to be spoilers here, but when I think about Cog now, the future is good. I can only hope when I get to the rewrite itself that that shines through.

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What about you? Ever had your motivations for a project get twisted? In what ways have you positively changed and how did that affect either the outcome of or how you felt about a character or project? How would you define good writing and do you find the above categories helpful or not?

Machine reboot: hopes and fears

Hey everyone,

So as you may know, I’ve got some big plans for this fall, mainly starting a complete rewrite of my main novel, Machine. I first wrote about this announcement in March, but even in that amount of time, a lot has changed. Some of that is tied to the rewrite itself, where I think the story is going to go or what I think it’s about, but I’ve also had more time to think about what that really means, and some of the hopes and fears that I have wrapped up in that.

In the interest of honesty, here’s what they are.

Fears

I don’t want to spend a lot of time on these, but I think it’s only fair to admit that leaping into this is scary. There are a lot of reasons for this, many of which are tied up in the usual writer fears of not being good enough or failing.

More at the crux of the issue though is how this all relates to my relationship with God. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this, whether or not He likes Machine, whether He wants it to succeed, if He sees value in it at all.

I’ve also, for various reasons, really struggled in being willing to surrender Machine. And I’m glad that I’m at that point now (or at least a lot closer), but it also brings up a slew of new anxieties. Did I wait too long to surrender it? Do I need to let it die? How do I even write this new book with God guiding my hand?

What’s nice about most of these is that I can recognize how silly they are. Better yet, I’ve been getting better at, you know, actually talking to God about them, and have been greatly encouraged as a result. I’m still a little worried I’ll fail, that I may never be good enough, but I’m also learning to restructure how I think about failure, what it is, and I know that above all, I’ll never know unless I try.

So now that that’s out of the way…

Hopes

My biggest hope for this is to create something with God.

It’s not as though I’ve never done that before, but opening myself up with Machine, well, it’s definitely going to be different. And while that’s a little scary, it’s also thrilling, and I can’t wait to see what God does.

I’m excited to invite Him into what is probably one of the most intimate and precious areas of my life. I’m excited to see what He has to say, and the beauty and wonder that’s going to result.

I’m excited to see what Machine has always been meant to be. I’m excited to approach it with a renewed attitude, to see what Rick and Cog were always meant to become, what the backbone of the story, the skeleton, is really meant to be.

I’m excited to research and study and puzzle out the works of the world. I’m excited to lay down the foundation, hammer out frameworks and structure. Even things like government, education, medicine, the military. I’m excited to go exploring and see what God and I figure out.

I am hopeful to have this book vastly improved, to work out so many of the kinks that have plagued it for so long. I’m excited to smooth out transitions, fill in plot holes, iron out wrinkles. I am hopeful to come up against struggles and excited to work my way through them.

I am hopeful to end up with a book I can market, one that I could sell.

I am hopeful to see Rick and Cog healed and made whole, to see their stories as they truly are.

I’ve had a couple of encouragements in these areas as I’ve been talking to God about them. The first was a mental picture I had, two outstretched hands with Cog in their palms. He looked somewhere between a new toy and a baby version of himself, something reborn.

The second was a phrase that ran through my head the other day, “Papa, tell me a story.” It’s a massive shift in attitude, a surrender, and a plea. I believe that God will answer.

A note on failure

Hopes aside, I would like to make a couple of things clear.

Mainly, that just because I am excited and because I do think I have the go-ahead from God does not make me certain that this will mean Machine will be a success. Part of restructuring how I feel about failure has also included retooling what I consider success. And it’s possible that for all of my hard work, for all of the years I have sunk into this project, it still might not pan out. It may never be good enough to be published, and if it is, it may not ever make money.

But hopefully it will mean getting closer to God, better learning to hear His voice, processing through His timing, His will, His goals and work in my life. I do hope Machine will be commercially successful someday, I wish that for all of my books, but I am also willing to admit that it might not be in God’s will or that His timing may not (probably won’t) match mine. So whatever happens, I want to express gratitude for God, all He’s done in my life, and all He will do with Machine and everything else. Thank you, God.

 

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So, what about you? Have you ever had to completely tear down a creative project and start over? Something else? What were your hopes and fears, and did any of them come true? If you have tips or stories, tell me in the comments below!

Lessons from Magic School Bus

I recently finished reading my main novel to my writing group, and at our last meeting, we did a final debrief on it. Final consensus? The writing itself is great, but some of the bones, well, they don’t always fit. Especially in regards to some of the world building elements and more importantly, well, what the book is about. Now, I’m already planning on rewriting the book, having come to this same conclusion months ago myself, but some of those weird bones, those world-building extras have been specifically on my mind as of late.

Which brings me to this clip from the childhood classic Magic School Bus. (You’ll have to travel to YouTube for it, but please come back!)

Machine, in a lot of ways is and always has been like Carlos’ instrument. Great concept, lots of ideas…bloopy sound. In the rest of the episode (included at the bottom), the class learns about sound, how it’s made from vibration, how it bounces off of surfaces, that adding extras that disrupt the vibration is a quick way to ruin an instrument.

And boy have I had extras.

Some of them got cut early, some of them affect the plot, some of them, well, let’s just say deep roots are hard to cut.

So, now that I’m planning a rewrite, how am I deciding what to keep and what to axe?

So glad you asked.

First, by listening to feedback. Some of the first changes I made in Machine were because of reader feedback. Now, it’s always wise to take critiques with a grain of salt, to consider its source and how that relates to what you want to accomplish, your audience, etc., but if everyone but you thinks it doesn’t work, that’s probably a clue it doesn’t work, no matter how much of a “true artist” you are (been there, done that). If you really want to keep it, consider what it does for your story, why it’s important, and why other people say it doesn’t work. Maybe the problem isn’t with the idea itself but in how it’s presented. Alternatively, look at different ways the same thing could be accomplished. Could the plot/world element be toned down, tweaked, or replaced by something better? Talk to your critique partners and work through it together. Most importantly, don’t bite their heads off (sorry, Mom…). They can see things you can’t, and they’re trying to help.

Second, test your mind’s eye. If you’re on a planet where everyone is ten feet high and has six arms, but you’re picturing them as six foot six with two, there’s probably a problem. Also look out for whether or not you’re actually using your extras. Does it advance the plot for them to have extra arms? Do they actually use them? Does it affect their culture, clothing, tools, etc.? If not, you probably don’t need them (or need to tweak your plot to make sure they do).

Third, check for purpose. Similar to point two, if your extras don’t have purpose in the plot, you probably don’t need them. More specifically, if they aren’t advancing the plot, they’re probably slowing it down. One of the things I did in Machine over the course of sharing it with my writing group was to go back in and make sure I was calling attention to my extras because they were having trouble keeping them in mind. And they liked that I was doing that, but in the end, they were also confused as to why I did it because none of those extras made a real difference to the story itself. It was shifting attention away from where it needed to be.

Four, search your motivations. If you’ve been working on your project for a long time like I have, it’s easy to lose objective focus. This can take a few different forms, the main two being fixedness and sentiment. The first is the idea that things are the way they are because that’s the way they’ve always been and therefore should remain so. The second is the idea that because you like something it deserves to stay (a close cousin to this is “because it looks cool”). Both are rich enemies of creativity and improvement. Both can be equally difficult to root out. If you find yourself thinking “it has to be this way because…” or not wanting to get rid of something even when you suspect it’s not good or could be better, you might have them on their hands. Another motivation to dig out is fear. If you’re hiding behind an extra to avoid reality or research (for example, they don’t have, says, dogs on your planet because you don’t know anything about dogs), you might have a fear problem.

Fifth, make a list of pros and cons. This was the last step I took in making some of my current decisions regarding what to keep or lose. This is partly because I felt like a lot of my extras could make the bar for the previous points, and partly because I needed that hard proof to confirm that really, as I suspected deep down, they couldn’t. Hey ho, sentimentality. This is a really practical way to root out some of those hidden factors, too. For example, on my lists of pros, most of them had things like “Easy way to set mood” or “Advances plot,” but when I really looked at them, I realized that “Easy way to set mood” was really code for “Lazy shortcut to create mood” and that the plot advancements these extras made could really be accomplished through more simple and practical means. On my cons were even worse reasons, mostly tied in to fears of getting things wrong. So if you’re on the fence, make a list, and most importantly, be honest.

Sixth, relax, because you can always change things back. Because editing is like throwing stones in a pond and can create a lot of unexpected ripples, it’s easy to get cowed into not wanting to change things. But your job is to throw stones, to make as many ripples as you can until you reach that perfect resonance with your story, that perfect mirrored lake that says what you want to say. So in the wise words of Miss Frizzle, “Take chances, make mistakes, and get messy,” because your novel deserves it. Bonus, once you do, you’ll get that thrill of victory that Carlos does somewhere around the 21:10 mark in the video below when he finally gets it.

So, what about you? Have you ever had extras get in your way? What about sentiment or fixedness? How did you find it, and what helped you to cut it out? Let me know in the comments below!

https://vimeo.com/109149389

 

Starting over, a novel approach

Hey all,

So, I’ve got a huge, slightly scary, but mostly super exciting announcement to make.

Are you ready?

I’m going to re-write Machine.

What? That’s crazy! I’ve been working on it forever!

Yeah, I know.

But the problem is, for the longest time, I’ve been working backwards. Terrible first draft aside (kind of hard to miss that step), first I was polishing, then in stages I started making small changes, then larger ones, and even larger ones until now where I’m finally willing to admit that maybe the bones I’ve been trying to jam together for so long just aren’t meant to work that way. And I’ll admit that’s kind of frustrating (and significantly more embarrassing for as much as I’ve run my mouth about my little monster), but now that I’m starting to let go of it a bit more, now that I’m more willing to admit I was wrong and to let God and the advice of others in, it’s actually getting a lot more exciting, not only because I’m rediscovering the potential of something that I’ve increasingly been seeing as hopeless, but also because I’m finding some of the bones that do stick together (and where some of the other ones that don’t might actually go).

And it’s great.

So, if you’re looking at a massive rewrite like me, what does that actually look like?

Well, let me tell ya. Basically, (or at least at a first stab since this kind of edit is still new to me) I’m actually doing my work in order.

First, I’m going to do world-building. That’s the stage I’m in right now, figuring out weather, politics, education, creatures, etc. I’ve made some progress on this front already. Several problems I’ve had basically since the beginning have started to shift and crack, others resolving completely. I’ve also made some surprising discoveries, both about the world itself and the characters that live in it. Honestly, though it’s been daunting sometimes, it’s also been really fun. I used to be afraid of locking anything into solid fact because I was so worried about getting it wrong, so afraid someone would question me and I’d have to change things (if you’ve ever had to deal with my unwillingness to edit before, I am so sorry. I’m getting better!), but now I’m really discovering how much fun research can be. It’s exciting to see how these different aspects can lock into place, and even though it doesn’t always work like I’d initially expected or hoped, it’s also been fun to start deconstructing story elements I’ve (sometimes needlessly) clung to, to ask the important questions about how things relate to make sure this story becomes the best it can be, which brings me to my next point, which is…

…taking a good look at my plot. Before I plunge ahead with a rewrite, I want to take time to think about what this story really is, what it is I’m really trying to say. God is helping me a lot with that (when I listen, which is still hard), and I’m trying to take the time, though I’ll admit I’m not super far on this one yet. I am asking a lot of questions though, and taking advantage of some advice I just read from Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird. Speaking about the first stories we tell, she says, “Beginners … always write blatantly about themselves…even if they make the heroine of their piece a championship racehorse with an alcoholic mother who cries a lot.”

And while Machine certainly hasn’t been about either of those two things specifically, it is a lot about my story (something I’ve mentioned before on this blog), my testimony, and when I consider that, it helps me to figure out not just what Machine is about, but where I want it to go, where I want to go. Because the fact of the matter is, if you’re writing about yourself and your main character gets hit by a bus or winds up a hermitic alcoholic, that doesn’t bode well for your own personal outlook, and as I’ve been looking at how Machine reads, I’ve been finding more and more telling things about how I perceive myself, especially when I look at the arc of it over time. And that’s not to say that I’m going to make this truly autobiograpical, even in an allegorical sense, but as I keep pushing towards more love, compassion, grace and especially hope for myself and others–especially the others I want to reach with this book, I think it’s going to show.

The other half of this step is to take a close look at my structure, what works and what doesn’t. Machine was the second-ish book that I wrote, the first in even more dire need of a rewrite, so I’ve learned a lot about plot in the books I’ve written since then. I’ve also heard a lot more from other authors, agents, etc., on what publishers are looking for, and gotten feedback that I think I’m finally ready to start taking into account. I’ve started taking better notes with my critique group and will soon be ready to get feedback from them on the whole thing (well, a few months down the road, but soon for the book publishing world, haha). I’m also considering taking some classes, or at least getting some extra books from the library about things like structure, and we’ll see where it goes from there.

Step three is going to be, rather obviously, writing it. I don’t know yet if it’s going to be a full re-write or if there are going to be pieces I’m going to be able to keep, but hopefully after steps one and two I’ll have a clearer picture.

After that, I’m going to take a look at it, see what needs to be fixed, fix it (rinse and repeat those maybe a couple of times), and then polish and scrub. You know, all of the steps I’ve already been doing out of order for the last eight or nine years, haha.

So, I’m not sure yet how long all of this is going to take. Life has been crazy, and though I’d like to say I’m going to be determined enough to plow through this all by next spring (or at least have a first draft), I just don’t know that that’s true, and with another book or two that are not in such desperate need of makeovers, I might be switching gears to start working on them while Machine takes a backseat to simmer. As ever, time and the Lord will tell.

In the meantime, I’m going to be working on some short stories, gathering feedback, researching, working on some other projects (like Twice Born!), and of course, blogging. As to the rest, we’ll find out! Tally-ho!

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So, do you have any advice? Any times you’ve had to start over or do a lot of back work on a big project? What did that look like? How did you do it? Did you have other things that inspired you or kept you going on the way? Tell me all about it below and if you’re not already subscribed, follow me here, on Facebook or Twitter to keep in touch.

Thank you!

 

 

 

Taking it from the top

This post is actually one I wrote sometime last month, maybe earlier, and never posted. I wanted to give it some time to gel and apparently just let it go, but since I’m actually still thinking a lot about this and it holds true to my current situation, particularly in how I’m learning to approach larger works on the whole, I’m just going to post it for the most part as is. Without further ado then, a blast from the fairly recent past, this blog post:

It’s funny how often I’m asked for advice that I can freely give and yet will not follow myself. If asked, I could tell you the signs of a good spiritual life, yet find myself with an often dismal prayer life, could tell you how to be a disciplined writer, yet am constantly strung up with Facebook and Twitter (conveniently linked, if you don’t follow me yet, by the way), etc., etc., but perhaps the worst travesty of all of these (prayer life notwithstanding as work in progress), is the irony of having actually, officially taught on editing and still finding myself such a dismal example of the craft. And while I might argue this to be yet another mark of God’s divine timing in my writing life rather than just a mark of my own laziness/pride, acknowledging once again how terrible it would have been for me to have met with success beforehand, I must admit that now, so late in the game, I’m finally starting to clue in on the importance of the editing advice I would so readily give (that advice having developed only recently itself in no small way as a direct result of having struggled so long and hard myself previously to now) given the opportunity.

You see, despite a decade of buffing, shearing, dusting, pruning and even sometimes flat out hacking, I still have a lot of questions about Machine and its world, questions my writing group will (thankfully) call me out on if I don’t do it myself (or if I choose, as I have so often done in the past, to ignore them), and problematically, I don’t always have the answers. World mechanics, certain characterizations, even large pieces of history have previously been unaccounted for in this, my largest and most  worked over work, and the longer I try and have tried to ignore them, the more I have realized that my readers, to say nothing of myself, will not stand for such a passing over.

The problem stems in no small part from the fact that this is the book I learned to write in (as mentioned before), and am still, in many ways, learning to write in. I started my writing career all those years ago as a large fish in a small pond, self-assured of my success by lackluster  criticisms from fellow students and far less lackluster, but by equal necessity not as in-depth as an editor criticisms of teachers, to say nothing of my own confidences. With such guarantees of success as my own naivete and good creative writing grades to gird my mind against criticisms (and by the same unfortunate conditions, a great deal of good advice) of any kind, it took me years, at least a dozen read throughs and several rejections from agents before I even started to realize that editing might be more than smoothing out the kinks of a (so I thought at the time), near flawless skeleton. It took me even longer to realize I should be taking pieces out entirely, and now, ten years down the line, it’s strange just how often I still finding myself trying to dust off a crooked spine and hips and wondering just where the problem started.

Of course, if I’m being strictly honest with myself, I know where the problems are, the reason Machine still limps along like a retired racehorse in places where it ought to be stretching its legs to soar. They’re in the same questions I’ve had all along, the ones I’ve ignored, looked past, or simply not put the work in to solve.

So what am I going to do about it?

I’m finally going to solve them.

Scrivener, I will say as a completely free plug, has done wonders towards this already, even when I was only just starting to find the usefulness of taking notes (for those unaware, it’s a program for creating and organizing drafts and resources, it’s plenty affordable for what you get [$40, though I got mine for sale at half off through AppSumo] and is a wonderful thing). Writing down facts about my world, my characters, and even keeping track of questions I still have (or being forced to answer the other ones people put to me) have all been incredibly useful strategies to help me towards this end as well. A lot of my problems stem from not knowing enough about my world (at least on paper), so writing them all out, facts about the world, the politics, the economy, history, or even a map, all of these will help me to figure out whether or not certain things are realistic or not or even flat out possible within the world I’ve created.

This TED-Ed video from Kate Messner talks a lot about what it takes to create a logical and consistent world.

Big surprise, previous til now, I haven’t really done any of these things for any of my books, at least to a large degree.

It’s just not how I ever functioned as a writer. I’ve always just written what comes into my head as it comes, and up until fairly recently, I never thought I needed notes. I thought my head was big enough to hold all of that stuff, which if I’m being fair, is at least somewhat true.

Now, I don’t say this to discourage any potential agents who might be reading this from working with me (in fact, feel free to reach out if you’d like), but rather to encourage, to encourage myself to follow through on fixing these problems, to encourage myself to be honest with where my work stands and the steps I will need to take to get it where I want it to be, and to encourage any other writers to do what they have to do to get their work where it needs to be (and to let them know they aren’t alone if they’ve missed a few steps as well).

Because the thing is, I do have the answers. Maybe not on paper, but I do have them in there, somewhere deep inside. I’ve just never taken the time to write them all down (or dug deep enough to find them), and that, more than anything, has been my mistake.

As someone who is for the most part self-taught in her craft (in the higher education and or mentored sense, not to give no credit to the positively phenomenal teachers I’ve had in grade and high school, college professors I liked and tremendously helpful teachers and authors at the conferences and workshops I’ve recently started attending), I will admit that sometimes it is very easy for me to get discouraged, to be frustrated that it has taken me so long and cost me so much heartache to get where others have gotten with what often appears to be little more than classes and helping hands (bitterness and jealousy too are problems I face, as you can see, problems I have in fact had to apologize for even recently), but there is also a certain beauty in self-discovery, a certain untouchable scope to see something you have so singularly poured into finally bloom. And while I wouldn’t dare to say I’ve done this on my own, or that God, my family and friends (to say nothing of teachers, readers, other authors and the countless others who have touched my life) haven’t helped me get here, I will say I am finding a new level of appreciation for the time it has taken to get here, an ability to treasure the process I would heretofore have so disdained.

So, yes, I have a lot of work left to do, yes I do need to finally take those steps back and put in the higher level work no matter the cost to those fine details and frills I’ve spent years in crafting and carving, but it is also totally, totally going to be worth it, and I can’t wait to get started.