Zoë Marriott's Blog, page 56
March 4, 2011
RETROFRIDAY - INSECURITY: I HAZ IT
Hi everyone! Welcome to my very first RetroFriday!
RetroFriday was inspired by my own love of delving into blog archives, where I've found many treasures. I enjoy it. But I'm aware that others probably don't have the time to work backward through posts from a year ago in order to enjoy my wit and wisdom, and so I decided to do the work for you. A couple of times a month I will dredge the murky depths of The Zoë-Trope Archive in the hopes of finding gold: a post which you probably didn't get to read the first time around, or which you may enjoy re-reading.
Today, in honour of the YA Mafia - a topic which has been alternately amusing and infuriating writers, agents and publishers all over Twitter (read about it here and here) - and by popular request, I bring you INSECURITY: I HAZ IT, a post written after dragging myself out of a nasty depression and realising that in actual fact? The world was NOT out to get me (shocking, I know).
*****
Just in case the blog title didn't clue you in to what I'm talking about today, here's a lolarious poster I made.
On Friday I was reading the Road Trip posts on YA Highway when I came across this section:
When I submitted The Swan Kingdom
to Walker Books they didn't really know what to do with it. But they liked it, and I had all these convincing arguments about how the popularity of Harry Potter, Meg Cabot and Dr Who was paving the way for fantasy aimed at girls and where my book fitted into the market. I talked to them passionately and at length and I think my knowledge of and love for writing really came through because, after some re-writes, they decided to publish it. And somehow...somehow...it did not sink without trace.
I remember promising myself that if I just managed to sell 5,000 copies, I would never ask for anything again, and I can safely say that it surpassed that number long ago. I mean, don't run away with the idea that The Swan Kingdom was a bestseller. Or even a big seller. It wasn't. It sold unexpectedly well, got some good reviews, and my publisher was happy about it. So was I.
Then Daughter of the Flames
came out. We sold that to Walker before The Swan Kingdom was even in copy-edits, so it was the same story. And it did okay. Not as well as The Swan Kingdom, but all right. It was a modest success. Again, the publisher was happy with it. So was I.
And then came The Dark Ages. We shall not speak of them in depth. Suffice it to say that during this period of about eighteen months, many not-nice things happened in my life. My house was flooded. My editor turned down my third book. Family members became ill. *I* became ill. And while I kept writing through this, it was to very little effect. I didn't finish anything, and every time that I nearly did, my agent or my publisher didn't like it.
During this period I discovered Teh Interwebz. I don't mean this was the first time I ever surfed the net - I mean it's the first time I was ever captivated by it. And what captivated me was not internet shopping or YouTube, but the corner of the net devoted to YA writing. It was like a whole other world for me, a world where YA writers weren't working all alone in their tiny boxroom in their damp, building-site houses, with a permanent cough (I was later diagnosed as asthmatic) and going days without speaking to anyone but their dog or people who had phoned them at their crappy office job to shout at and verbally abuse them. A world where YA writers were slap in the middle of a community that seemed full of kindred spirits and dear friends. I watched their vlogs, I read their reviews on Goodreads, I laughed at their funny blogs. I told myself that I found their success inspiring and that they helped me to keep positive and keep working.
But that wasn't the whole story.
I didn't want to feel envious of this group of people, but the simple fact was that they all had things I wanted desperately for myself. Not just their success, but their LIVES. So different from mine. So full and rich and FUN. Book tours and writing retreats, twitters, mutual book blurbs, blogs where a dozen people answered each tiny post as if it really mattered. I looked at my life and found it sadly wanting in comparison. I was working a full-time office job where I was miserable and squeezing writing into every other gap there was. I didn't know a single other YA writer well enough to call them a friend and what was more I had no way to change that.
I couldn't go to the conventions where these guys all met and hung out, or share tour dates with them. I live in the UK. Most of them lived in the US or flew there regularly. Besides, their circle was already formed - they knew each other through writing fanfic or being critique partners or because they shared agents. They didn't know me from Adam. The occasional 'LOL' reply to my comment on one of their blogs didn't mean that they knew me or cared about me.
I began to feel like my entire writing career was, basically, pointless. I began looking at The Swan Kingdom and Daughter of the Flames and thinking 'Why did I even bother? No one likes them. No one's ever heard of me. I wrote high fantasy when I should have written urban fantasy/paranormal romance and I didn't promote enough or connect with the right people and I flushed my chance down the toilet. My life is exactly the same now as it would have been if both those books had never been written. I'm the scum at the bottom of the writing barrel. I ought to just. Give. Up'.
See? B*tsh*t Crazy Lady.
Because...what the HELL? Since when does who I know, or whether or not famous-name-writer follows my blog, or if I got to go to BigDealBookExpo have anything to do with the value of my work? Thankfully, at the point where I really felt the lowest, the lightbulb went on. I realised I had gotten totally caught up in this imaginary fantasy world I wanted to be part of and forgotten the important thing - the most important thing in the world - which is:
I'm a writer.
That's what I am, what I've always been, and what I will be until I die. I love stories. I love books. I love crafting imaginary worlds and living within them, I love bringing characters to life and laughing and crying with them. I love words. I love the spaces between words. I love commas and semicolons and fullstops and even the occasional exclamation mark. Exposition, description, dialogue, action; I adore them. And NOTHING and NO ONE can ever take that love, that passion, away from me...except me.
I think the reason this snuck up on me so easily was that I never WANTED to 'fit in' before. I was determinedly, stubbornly, proudly the odd one out at school. Even when I was picked on and bullied at every turn, I continued to be me, refusing to wear the fashionable clothes, talk the 'in' talk or act like one of the popular kids in any way. I carried on reading books in public, putting my hand up in class and getting A's no matter what anyone did to me. That aloneness, that knowledge of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to act got me through a lot of hard times, but it was based on the fact that those people who tried to make me miserable at school weren't worth imitating or fitting in with, and I knew it.
But the authors whose books I love are admirable. They're worthy of my respect. They're not trying to make anyone miserable, they're just living their lives. It turns out I'm vulnerable to that (probably we're ALL vulnerable to it) in just the same way some kids at my school were vulnerable to wanting to be popular.
It's so silly. Bestselling writers? They're not superheroes in the Justice League. They're individuals, like the rest of us. They all have their sorrows and troubles and periods of insecurity and depression. Being one of them wouldn't fix that about me. And yearning to be something I wasn't and can't ever be - a bestselling American urban fantasy author who goes to conventions and flies all over the world having adventures - was making me hurt myself and, more significantly, my writing. And my writing is the Number One Thing in my life that I should always protect and nuture and make time for, because so long that as I do that, I will be happy.
Guys...if any of you are freaking out right now about how you don't fit into a group, about how your whole life or your writing is pointless or how you should do or BE something else than what you are...stop it. Okay? You are so much more special and strong and wonderful than you realise, and even if no one else in the world knows that I DO.
I might never have met you. I might never meet you. But I know that you are wonderful and you don't need to change in any way that doesn't make you happy. You don't need to be anyone but who you are, or dream any dreams but your own. So the next time YOU feel the B*tSh*t Crazy Lady taking you over? Remember that. Preserve and protect the special thing that makes you who you are, no matter what. And be happy.
RetroFriday was inspired by my own love of delving into blog archives, where I've found many treasures. I enjoy it. But I'm aware that others probably don't have the time to work backward through posts from a year ago in order to enjoy my wit and wisdom, and so I decided to do the work for you. A couple of times a month I will dredge the murky depths of The Zoë-Trope Archive in the hopes of finding gold: a post which you probably didn't get to read the first time around, or which you may enjoy re-reading.
Today, in honour of the YA Mafia - a topic which has been alternately amusing and infuriating writers, agents and publishers all over Twitter (read about it here and here) - and by popular request, I bring you INSECURITY: I HAZ IT, a post written after dragging myself out of a nasty depression and realising that in actual fact? The world was NOT out to get me (shocking, I know).
*****
Just in case the blog title didn't clue you in to what I'm talking about today, here's a lolarious poster I made.
On Friday I was reading the Road Trip posts on YA Highway when I came across this section:
Hannah Moskowitz wrote a thought-provoking post: "Has the internet community changed YA?" Amy Lukavits responded directly with some arguments for both sides. Natalie Whipple and Ally Carter posted on similar topics, both saying you can worry about the online YA community all you want, but in the end, it's the book that matters.And I realised that this is exactly the stuff that turns me into the B*tSh*t Crazy Lady. Exactly. This. Stuff.
When I submitted The Swan Kingdom
to Walker Books they didn't really know what to do with it. But they liked it, and I had all these convincing arguments about how the popularity of Harry Potter, Meg Cabot and Dr Who was paving the way for fantasy aimed at girls and where my book fitted into the market. I talked to them passionately and at length and I think my knowledge of and love for writing really came through because, after some re-writes, they decided to publish it. And somehow...somehow...it did not sink without trace.I remember promising myself that if I just managed to sell 5,000 copies, I would never ask for anything again, and I can safely say that it surpassed that number long ago. I mean, don't run away with the idea that The Swan Kingdom was a bestseller. Or even a big seller. It wasn't. It sold unexpectedly well, got some good reviews, and my publisher was happy about it. So was I.
Then Daughter of the Flames
came out. We sold that to Walker before The Swan Kingdom was even in copy-edits, so it was the same story. And it did okay. Not as well as The Swan Kingdom, but all right. It was a modest success. Again, the publisher was happy with it. So was I.And then came The Dark Ages. We shall not speak of them in depth. Suffice it to say that during this period of about eighteen months, many not-nice things happened in my life. My house was flooded. My editor turned down my third book. Family members became ill. *I* became ill. And while I kept writing through this, it was to very little effect. I didn't finish anything, and every time that I nearly did, my agent or my publisher didn't like it.
During this period I discovered Teh Interwebz. I don't mean this was the first time I ever surfed the net - I mean it's the first time I was ever captivated by it. And what captivated me was not internet shopping or YouTube, but the corner of the net devoted to YA writing. It was like a whole other world for me, a world where YA writers weren't working all alone in their tiny boxroom in their damp, building-site houses, with a permanent cough (I was later diagnosed as asthmatic) and going days without speaking to anyone but their dog or people who had phoned them at their crappy office job to shout at and verbally abuse them. A world where YA writers were slap in the middle of a community that seemed full of kindred spirits and dear friends. I watched their vlogs, I read their reviews on Goodreads, I laughed at their funny blogs. I told myself that I found their success inspiring and that they helped me to keep positive and keep working.
But that wasn't the whole story.
I didn't want to feel envious of this group of people, but the simple fact was that they all had things I wanted desperately for myself. Not just their success, but their LIVES. So different from mine. So full and rich and FUN. Book tours and writing retreats, twitters, mutual book blurbs, blogs where a dozen people answered each tiny post as if it really mattered. I looked at my life and found it sadly wanting in comparison. I was working a full-time office job where I was miserable and squeezing writing into every other gap there was. I didn't know a single other YA writer well enough to call them a friend and what was more I had no way to change that.
I couldn't go to the conventions where these guys all met and hung out, or share tour dates with them. I live in the UK. Most of them lived in the US or flew there regularly. Besides, their circle was already formed - they knew each other through writing fanfic or being critique partners or because they shared agents. They didn't know me from Adam. The occasional 'LOL' reply to my comment on one of their blogs didn't mean that they knew me or cared about me.
I began to feel like my entire writing career was, basically, pointless. I began looking at The Swan Kingdom and Daughter of the Flames and thinking 'Why did I even bother? No one likes them. No one's ever heard of me. I wrote high fantasy when I should have written urban fantasy/paranormal romance and I didn't promote enough or connect with the right people and I flushed my chance down the toilet. My life is exactly the same now as it would have been if both those books had never been written. I'm the scum at the bottom of the writing barrel. I ought to just. Give. Up'.
See? B*tsh*t Crazy Lady.
Because...what the HELL? Since when does who I know, or whether or not famous-name-writer follows my blog, or if I got to go to BigDealBookExpo have anything to do with the value of my work? Thankfully, at the point where I really felt the lowest, the lightbulb went on. I realised I had gotten totally caught up in this imaginary fantasy world I wanted to be part of and forgotten the important thing - the most important thing in the world - which is:
I'm a writer.
That's what I am, what I've always been, and what I will be until I die. I love stories. I love books. I love crafting imaginary worlds and living within them, I love bringing characters to life and laughing and crying with them. I love words. I love the spaces between words. I love commas and semicolons and fullstops and even the occasional exclamation mark. Exposition, description, dialogue, action; I adore them. And NOTHING and NO ONE can ever take that love, that passion, away from me...except me.
I think the reason this snuck up on me so easily was that I never WANTED to 'fit in' before. I was determinedly, stubbornly, proudly the odd one out at school. Even when I was picked on and bullied at every turn, I continued to be me, refusing to wear the fashionable clothes, talk the 'in' talk or act like one of the popular kids in any way. I carried on reading books in public, putting my hand up in class and getting A's no matter what anyone did to me. That aloneness, that knowledge of who I wanted to be and how I wanted to act got me through a lot of hard times, but it was based on the fact that those people who tried to make me miserable at school weren't worth imitating or fitting in with, and I knew it.
But the authors whose books I love are admirable. They're worthy of my respect. They're not trying to make anyone miserable, they're just living their lives. It turns out I'm vulnerable to that (probably we're ALL vulnerable to it) in just the same way some kids at my school were vulnerable to wanting to be popular.
It's so silly. Bestselling writers? They're not superheroes in the Justice League. They're individuals, like the rest of us. They all have their sorrows and troubles and periods of insecurity and depression. Being one of them wouldn't fix that about me. And yearning to be something I wasn't and can't ever be - a bestselling American urban fantasy author who goes to conventions and flies all over the world having adventures - was making me hurt myself and, more significantly, my writing. And my writing is the Number One Thing in my life that I should always protect and nuture and make time for, because so long that as I do that, I will be happy.
Guys...if any of you are freaking out right now about how you don't fit into a group, about how your whole life or your writing is pointless or how you should do or BE something else than what you are...stop it. Okay? You are so much more special and strong and wonderful than you realise, and even if no one else in the world knows that I DO.
I might never have met you. I might never meet you. But I know that you are wonderful and you don't need to change in any way that doesn't make you happy. You don't need to be anyone but who you are, or dream any dreams but your own. So the next time YOU feel the B*tSh*t Crazy Lady taking you over? Remember that. Preserve and protect the special thing that makes you who you are, no matter what. And be happy.
March 2, 2011
THE IRON WITCH GIVEAWAY WINNER
Last Wednesday on The Zoë-Trope
I interviewed the rather awesome author Karen Mahoney (
whose blog and website you should really check out
) and also offered a giveaway of my copy of her debut novel THE IRON WITCH
. Which I know you all want because just look at that cover! *Lusts*I've been urged to post the result for this giveaway early by certain people who showed signs of actually bursting from the suspense. Which, you know. Euw. Messy. That stuff doesn't just come out with Vanish.
So as soon as I'd finished walking my dog, bathing the mud off my dog, feeding my dog and cats and slurping a large mug of tea to help me recover from the above, I popped over to the random number generator and typed in the stats.
*Drumroll*
The winner is...
MEGHA!
Which I'm delighted about because, frankly, she was one of the ones who I thought might just explode all over the place. No one wants to have to clean that up.
Megha, please email me with your postal address as soon as you can, and I will send The Iron Witch
to you, along with a few secret bits of swag. Congratulations. And thanks to everyone who entered for spreading the word.For all you who are drooping over your keyboards now - never fear! Next week I will be interviewing another fabulous author person - Cat Clarke - here, and doing another giveaway, this time of Cat's stunning 2011 debut novel ENTANGLED
. There's everything still to play for!I'm seriously spoiling you guys. I don't even know what you did to deserve all this. I suppose it's 'cos you're just so darn cute. Anyway, I'll see you on Friday, when I will be dredging the archives for a RetroPost from last year. Take care 'til then!
February 28, 2011
MONDAY ROUND-UP
Hi guys! Monday again, and I hope you're all having a sterling day, or at least one that you can live through.
First today, of all I want to remind everyone about The Iron Witch giveaway. If you haven't entered yet, get your butt in gear and clickety on this link RIGHT NOW. I pick the winner on Wednesday, so there isn't much time left.
In other news, I'm still deep in the grip of my FrostFire rewrite here. As a result, today I'm going to do a little round-up for you of writing links that I personally find useful.
1) FIVE WRITING MANTRAS THAT BEAR REPEATING. Inspiring words from SF author James Maxey.
2) ON INSPIRATION. Useful common-sense advice from bestselling YA fantasy author Cassandra Clare.
3) WHEN THE WRITING ISN'T WORKING. Comfort and help from YA fantasy author Jackie Kessler.
4) FIVE THINGS THAT DEFINE MY WRITING. A thoughtful post from me about the themes I like to explore.
5) CHARACTER PRIORITIES AND JET PROPULSION. Some solid points from Dystopian YA author Veronica Roth.
With any luck, you'll get as much excitement and interest out of these as I did.
Before I go, I want to put something to you all. I've been blogging since June last year, and a lot of my early posts were basically seen by me and about four others. And some of those were good posts that I'm proud of. So I'm considering re-posting some of those early articles now, to allow new readers or sporadic readers who've missed posts, to see them without having to trawl forwards through the blog archive to do it. How does everyone feel about that? Even if you did read the posts the first time around, would you find it interesting to get a chance to re-read?
Well, that's all from me today. See you Wednesday, when I'll be picking one lucky winner for The Iron Witch!
First today, of all I want to remind everyone about The Iron Witch giveaway. If you haven't entered yet, get your butt in gear and clickety on this link RIGHT NOW. I pick the winner on Wednesday, so there isn't much time left.
In other news, I'm still deep in the grip of my FrostFire rewrite here. As a result, today I'm going to do a little round-up for you of writing links that I personally find useful.
1) FIVE WRITING MANTRAS THAT BEAR REPEATING. Inspiring words from SF author James Maxey.
2) ON INSPIRATION. Useful common-sense advice from bestselling YA fantasy author Cassandra Clare.
3) WHEN THE WRITING ISN'T WORKING. Comfort and help from YA fantasy author Jackie Kessler.
4) FIVE THINGS THAT DEFINE MY WRITING. A thoughtful post from me about the themes I like to explore.
5) CHARACTER PRIORITIES AND JET PROPULSION. Some solid points from Dystopian YA author Veronica Roth.
With any luck, you'll get as much excitement and interest out of these as I did.
Before I go, I want to put something to you all. I've been blogging since June last year, and a lot of my early posts were basically seen by me and about four others. And some of those were good posts that I'm proud of. So I'm considering re-posting some of those early articles now, to allow new readers or sporadic readers who've missed posts, to see them without having to trawl forwards through the blog archive to do it. How does everyone feel about that? Even if you did read the posts the first time around, would you find it interesting to get a chance to re-read?
Well, that's all from me today. See you Wednesday, when I'll be picking one lucky winner for The Iron Witch
!
February 25, 2011
WRITING ROADBLOCKS
Hi everyone, and happy Friday! My re-write on FF is starting to heat-up and it's getting where I don't really want to stop writing at all, so today's post will be short, but hopefully sweet.
The topic of writing roadblocks was inspired by regular commentor Megha, who asked me a couple of separate questions in various comments, which I've smushed together to make this:
"Do you ever feel that your plot is too... big? Too much? I'm scared of starting my novel. It has been planned and plotted properly, and now I'm too scared to start. It's not writers' block, I know. And I know that all the writers go through this. My planning's done. There's nothing LEFT to plan about. I need to start, but I can't."
This is a writing roadblock.
Megha is right - this does happen to most writers at some time or other, for various reasons. In my case I'm usually scared the story is too SMALL, rather than too big. I worry that not enough happens, that I haven't made the right choices to stretch my characters, that I'll just run out of stuff to write after 30,000 words. I worry that it's all flawed because I've missed some huge, vital conflict that would have made everything worthwhile. Hence this Post-It stuck in the first page of my FF notebook:
But being scared that the story is too big, that it's too ambitious, that you won't do it justice, that it'll be too long...those are crippling fears too (I know, 'cos that's The Scary Place I've posted about here, and which I usually enter at around the 50% mark of my manuscript).
These roadblocks are hard to break through specifically because they don't come from the logical part of your brain. They're not based on anything you can put your finger on. They just appear out of nowhere, causing a nebulous sense of dread that makes us feel we'd do anything, even scrub the bathroom clean with a toothbrush, to avoid actually writing.
This isn't about writer's block in the sense that I think writer's block normally has one of several concrete causes (which you can read about here). This is basically about your own fears, your conscious and unconscious worries about writing, getting all snarled up and taking all the fun out of everything. And there's only one cure. One way to kick that writing roadblock to the curb.
If you've read many of my writing posts before, you probably know what I'm going to say next.
The one way to destroy a writing roadblock is to write.
It will NOT go away on its own. You won't wake up one day and find it's miraculously evaporated. You may wake up on many mornings thinking 'This is the day! Today I will write!' and then find yourself making excuses, procrastinating and pottering until it's midnight and you need to get to bed, but that's obviously not very useful. You will never be able to escape the sense of horrible forboding until you punch through it and actually write. And the longer you leave it? The harder it gets.
I know it's horrible! Believe me, I know! But taking charge is the only way.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:
Put the plans/notes/story outlines/folders of maps you've made for this story away. At this point you're using these as an excuse to avoid writing. They've become part of the problem. Put them at the bottom of the draw. You are forbidden to look until you actually NEED to check a fact or remind yourself of something. Leave your normal writing place. If you've been sat in the same room in the same chair, or lying on your bed, or sat at your desk, every day, stewing over his for hours at a time, your brain has now incorporated the location into your sense of dread. Go somewhere else. Somewhere you would never normally associate with writing. A new coffee shop. A corner in the library. A friend's house, if they can be trusted to leave you alone. I find trains very good for this, personally. Anyway, chose a place and go there.
Set yourself a time and stick to it. Tell yourself that you will start writing at precisely whatever-o'clock and that you will write for a certain, set amount of time. Make it manageable. It's no good saying you'll get up at 6:00am and write for three hours. You'll fail and feel even worse. Give yourself a reasonable start time, and a reasonable writing period. Half an hour is a good stretch to start. Remind yourself that you're just scribbling. You're just writing to fill up the blank page at this point. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't even have to be good. I find it useful to use a pencil and paper when doing this, because it looks messy and smudgy and reminds you that it's just scribbling, not actual writing. But if you normally write with pen and paper, maybe you'd want to switch to a laptop, so long as you're okay taking it with you to wherever you've chosen to write.
You don't have to start at the beginning of your story. You can plunge straight into that awesome scene from the middle that's been teasing you. You can write a long, rambling speech from that noisy character who keeps muttering in the back of your head. Whatever you want to write and which seems fun. Don't set yourself a word or page target either. You just need to scribble for the required time.
That's all.
As soon as you've started writing again, as soon as you've defied the dread and the worry and the stressing-out and put pen to paper for fun again, you remember why you actually wanted to do this writing lark to start with.
Don't go too fast - don't put pressure on yourself when you start to feel better. But don't let yourself off the hook either. Keep doing your half-hour scribbling sessions until you get to the point where you're starting to over-run, to not want to stop. Then stretch yourself with forty minutes. Maybe think, 'Today, I'm going to use my forty minutes to play around with opening lines. Opening paragraphs for the first chapter. Hmmm...'
Then one day you'll find you've written for two hours straight and that you've got a first chapter staring at you.
Writing roadblock? Dust.
Right - time for me to get back to my precious. Hope this was helpful everyone - and have a great weekend!
The topic of writing roadblocks was inspired by regular commentor Megha, who asked me a couple of separate questions in various comments, which I've smushed together to make this:
"Do you ever feel that your plot is too... big? Too much? I'm scared of starting my novel. It has been planned and plotted properly, and now I'm too scared to start. It's not writers' block, I know. And I know that all the writers go through this. My planning's done. There's nothing LEFT to plan about. I need to start, but I can't."
This is a writing roadblock.
Megha is right - this does happen to most writers at some time or other, for various reasons. In my case I'm usually scared the story is too SMALL, rather than too big. I worry that not enough happens, that I haven't made the right choices to stretch my characters, that I'll just run out of stuff to write after 30,000 words. I worry that it's all flawed because I've missed some huge, vital conflict that would have made everything worthwhile. Hence this Post-It stuck in the first page of my FF notebook:
But being scared that the story is too big, that it's too ambitious, that you won't do it justice, that it'll be too long...those are crippling fears too (I know, 'cos that's The Scary Place I've posted about here, and which I usually enter at around the 50% mark of my manuscript).
These roadblocks are hard to break through specifically because they don't come from the logical part of your brain. They're not based on anything you can put your finger on. They just appear out of nowhere, causing a nebulous sense of dread that makes us feel we'd do anything, even scrub the bathroom clean with a toothbrush, to avoid actually writing.
This isn't about writer's block in the sense that I think writer's block normally has one of several concrete causes (which you can read about here). This is basically about your own fears, your conscious and unconscious worries about writing, getting all snarled up and taking all the fun out of everything. And there's only one cure. One way to kick that writing roadblock to the curb.
If you've read many of my writing posts before, you probably know what I'm going to say next.
The one way to destroy a writing roadblock is to write.
It will NOT go away on its own. You won't wake up one day and find it's miraculously evaporated. You may wake up on many mornings thinking 'This is the day! Today I will write!' and then find yourself making excuses, procrastinating and pottering until it's midnight and you need to get to bed, but that's obviously not very useful. You will never be able to escape the sense of horrible forboding until you punch through it and actually write. And the longer you leave it? The harder it gets.
I know it's horrible! Believe me, I know! But taking charge is the only way.
HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO DO:
Put the plans/notes/story outlines/folders of maps you've made for this story away. At this point you're using these as an excuse to avoid writing. They've become part of the problem. Put them at the bottom of the draw. You are forbidden to look until you actually NEED to check a fact or remind yourself of something. Leave your normal writing place. If you've been sat in the same room in the same chair, or lying on your bed, or sat at your desk, every day, stewing over his for hours at a time, your brain has now incorporated the location into your sense of dread. Go somewhere else. Somewhere you would never normally associate with writing. A new coffee shop. A corner in the library. A friend's house, if they can be trusted to leave you alone. I find trains very good for this, personally. Anyway, chose a place and go there.
Set yourself a time and stick to it. Tell yourself that you will start writing at precisely whatever-o'clock and that you will write for a certain, set amount of time. Make it manageable. It's no good saying you'll get up at 6:00am and write for three hours. You'll fail and feel even worse. Give yourself a reasonable start time, and a reasonable writing period. Half an hour is a good stretch to start. Remind yourself that you're just scribbling. You're just writing to fill up the blank page at this point. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't even have to be good. I find it useful to use a pencil and paper when doing this, because it looks messy and smudgy and reminds you that it's just scribbling, not actual writing. But if you normally write with pen and paper, maybe you'd want to switch to a laptop, so long as you're okay taking it with you to wherever you've chosen to write.
You don't have to start at the beginning of your story. You can plunge straight into that awesome scene from the middle that's been teasing you. You can write a long, rambling speech from that noisy character who keeps muttering in the back of your head. Whatever you want to write and which seems fun. Don't set yourself a word or page target either. You just need to scribble for the required time.
That's all.
As soon as you've started writing again, as soon as you've defied the dread and the worry and the stressing-out and put pen to paper for fun again, you remember why you actually wanted to do this writing lark to start with.
Don't go too fast - don't put pressure on yourself when you start to feel better. But don't let yourself off the hook either. Keep doing your half-hour scribbling sessions until you get to the point where you're starting to over-run, to not want to stop. Then stretch yourself with forty minutes. Maybe think, 'Today, I'm going to use my forty minutes to play around with opening lines. Opening paragraphs for the first chapter. Hmmm...'
Then one day you'll find you've written for two hours straight and that you've got a first chapter staring at you.
Writing roadblock? Dust.
Right - time for me to get back to my precious. Hope this was helpful everyone - and have a great weekend!
February 23, 2011
FABULOUS AUTHORS: KAREN MAHONEY
Hello, dear readers, and Happy Wednesday to you! Today I've got such a special treat that I'm bouncing up and down slightly as I write this (I apologise for any resulting typos).
I had been aware of the buzz surrounding
The Iron Witch
for some time before it came out, mostly as a result of the beautiful and evocative cover, but also because I had heard intriguing things about the storyline featuring a strong heroine and a scrumptious hero. I went out and snagged a copy on the day of publication and I loved it, finding it a beautifully written and unique YA treatment of ancient British folklore skillfully woven with more modern myths of Alchemy.
In a strange coincidence (or was it?) Karen was one of the very first people that I 'spoke' to when I signed up for Twitter, and I soon learned that under her smiley, innocent exterior there lurked a fiendish alter-ego, known to her friends as Kaz.
So what could I do, dear readers, but try and pin this elusive writer person down for your entertainment? Luckily Kaz agreed to find the time in her currently rather hectic schedule to do a mini-interview on The Zoë-Trope, and I think her answers are extremely illuminating, although I'm pretty sure she toned down her eeeevil for the sake of our delicate sensibilities (but it's there, guys. The eeeeevil is there).
Me: Hi Kaz, and welcome to my blog! Anything you'd like to say before we start?
Kaz: First of all, thank you very much for inviting me over to chat! :)
Me: You are very welcome. We're honoured to have you. And now - let the interrogation begin!
Question One: When writing The Iron Witch, who or what was the core of the story for you, the element you loved the most or which was most important?
Kaz: That's such a great first question. I'd say that the core of the story, which only really came out as I was writing, is the question: 'How far would you go to protect someone you love?' That's the question that Donna Underwood, my main character, has to answer for herself, and I wanted to get across to the reader the terrible decision that she has to make – will she betray the secret Order of alchemists she's been brought up with, to save her best friend's life? I think this is a big part of why I love the cover so much: the dilemma is clear to see, showing a girl torn by the decision she has to make.
Question Two: You are British, but your debut novel is set in Ironbridge, an American town. What was the reason for this, and did it present any specific challenges to write?
Kaz: I never even thought about setting The Iron Witch in the UK. That sounds strange, considering it's where I was born and has been my home all my life, but I've always loved the US and it makes sense for me to write stories set there. I'm particularly fond of New England—specifically Boston—so I created my own city, Ironbridge, and set it in Massachusetts. It's a combination of everything I love about Boston and London; Ironbridge Common is a badly disguised Boston Common. ;)
There were challenges, because I had to Americanise (Americanize!) all my spellings and make sure to pick US words over their British equivalents. But I have American and Canadian critique partners, so that helped a lot. Also, I love TV shows like Buffy and Veronica Mars and The Vampire Diaries, and I think that way of speaking is just embedded in my brain somewhere.
Question Three: What is your writing process like? (ie. Do you type straight onto a laptop or use pen and paper? Where do you normally work? Are you a planner or a pantser?)
Kaz: I work best in cafés. I know that's a total cliché, but it's true – I'm currently typing my answers to these questions while sitting in one of my favourite writing haunts. There's something about the bustle of life and people around me that sort of helps me to focus. When I'm researching, planning and brainstorming I write in Moleskine notebooks. (Though, when I say "planning," I don't mean strict outlining.) Writing a first draft is usually done on my trusty Alphasmart. It's perfect because it ensures I can't go online while writing, and you can only see a few lines of text at a time – which stops you from editing too much as you go along. I then download the day's writing onto my laptop and run through it quickly to fix formatting and typos, then don't touch it again until the whole draft is done and I'm onto revisions. Revisions have to be done on the laptop, and that's where I struggle most – I much prefer blasting out first drafts. Rewrites and edits take me aaages.
Question Four: Can you tell us something - any tiny little detail - about The Iron Witch sequel?
Kaz: In The Wood Queen you will find out what really happened to Donna in the Ironwood, back when she was seven years old. You'll also meet some alchemists from the other Orders – specifically the Order of the Crow (which is based in London) – when they all travel to Ironbridge for Donna's trial.
Question Five: If you had to pick a song to listen to right now, what would it be?
Kaz: Oooh… I would listen to 'You'll Be Mine' by The Pierces. I absolutely love it, and keep playing it over and over. It's very magical and speaks of folklore and fairytales – the video is pretty awesome, too.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ach, weren't those amazing answers! And just to make today's blog post even more special, I'm going to give away my copy of The Iron Witch (so that's a UK paperback, obviously) to one lucky reader! I will also include various bits of Shadows on the Moon swag, just to make it more interesting.
That's right, folks, the awesome is unstoppable today.
The giveaway is open to everyone in the whole world. To enter you need to Tweet a link to this blog post, share it on Facebook or in some way spread the word - it doesn't matter how, but please pop a link into the comments.
If you decide to link to the blog in more than one place, make sure you put each link you provide in a SEPARATE COMMENT on this post, or my random-number-generator-fu may go awry. But you don't have to. One link each is fine. The competition is open until next Wednesday.
Go forth and natter, my lovelies!
See you all on Friday, when hopefully I'll be posting about Writing Roadblocks...
I had been aware of the buzz surrounding
The Iron Witch
for some time before it came out, mostly as a result of the beautiful and evocative cover, but also because I had heard intriguing things about the storyline featuring a strong heroine and a scrumptious hero. I went out and snagged a copy on the day of publication and I loved it, finding it a beautifully written and unique YA treatment of ancient British folklore skillfully woven with more modern myths of Alchemy.In a strange coincidence (or was it?) Karen was one of the very first people that I 'spoke' to when I signed up for Twitter, and I soon learned that under her smiley, innocent exterior there lurked a fiendish alter-ego, known to her friends as Kaz.
So what could I do, dear readers, but try and pin this elusive writer person down for your entertainment? Luckily Kaz agreed to find the time in her currently rather hectic schedule to do a mini-interview on The Zoë-Trope, and I think her answers are extremely illuminating, although I'm pretty sure she toned down her eeeevil for the sake of our delicate sensibilities (but it's there, guys. The eeeeevil is there).
Me: Hi Kaz, and welcome to my blog! Anything you'd like to say before we start?
Kaz: First of all, thank you very much for inviting me over to chat! :)
Me: You are very welcome. We're honoured to have you. And now - let the interrogation begin!
Question One: When writing The Iron Witch, who or what was the core of the story for you, the element you loved the most or which was most important?
Kaz: That's such a great first question. I'd say that the core of the story, which only really came out as I was writing, is the question: 'How far would you go to protect someone you love?' That's the question that Donna Underwood, my main character, has to answer for herself, and I wanted to get across to the reader the terrible decision that she has to make – will she betray the secret Order of alchemists she's been brought up with, to save her best friend's life? I think this is a big part of why I love the cover so much: the dilemma is clear to see, showing a girl torn by the decision she has to make.
Question Two: You are British, but your debut novel is set in Ironbridge, an American town. What was the reason for this, and did it present any specific challenges to write?
Kaz: I never even thought about setting The Iron Witch in the UK. That sounds strange, considering it's where I was born and has been my home all my life, but I've always loved the US and it makes sense for me to write stories set there. I'm particularly fond of New England—specifically Boston—so I created my own city, Ironbridge, and set it in Massachusetts. It's a combination of everything I love about Boston and London; Ironbridge Common is a badly disguised Boston Common. ;)
There were challenges, because I had to Americanise (Americanize!) all my spellings and make sure to pick US words over their British equivalents. But I have American and Canadian critique partners, so that helped a lot. Also, I love TV shows like Buffy and Veronica Mars and The Vampire Diaries, and I think that way of speaking is just embedded in my brain somewhere.
Question Three: What is your writing process like? (ie. Do you type straight onto a laptop or use pen and paper? Where do you normally work? Are you a planner or a pantser?)
Kaz: I work best in cafés. I know that's a total cliché, but it's true – I'm currently typing my answers to these questions while sitting in one of my favourite writing haunts. There's something about the bustle of life and people around me that sort of helps me to focus. When I'm researching, planning and brainstorming I write in Moleskine notebooks. (Though, when I say "planning," I don't mean strict outlining.) Writing a first draft is usually done on my trusty Alphasmart. It's perfect because it ensures I can't go online while writing, and you can only see a few lines of text at a time – which stops you from editing too much as you go along. I then download the day's writing onto my laptop and run through it quickly to fix formatting and typos, then don't touch it again until the whole draft is done and I'm onto revisions. Revisions have to be done on the laptop, and that's where I struggle most – I much prefer blasting out first drafts. Rewrites and edits take me aaages.
Question Four: Can you tell us something - any tiny little detail - about The Iron Witch sequel?
Kaz: In The Wood Queen you will find out what really happened to Donna in the Ironwood, back when she was seven years old. You'll also meet some alchemists from the other Orders – specifically the Order of the Crow (which is based in London) – when they all travel to Ironbridge for Donna's trial.
Question Five: If you had to pick a song to listen to right now, what would it be?
Kaz: Oooh… I would listen to 'You'll Be Mine' by The Pierces. I absolutely love it, and keep playing it over and over. It's very magical and speaks of folklore and fairytales – the video is pretty awesome, too.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ach, weren't those amazing answers! And just to make today's blog post even more special, I'm going to give away my copy of The Iron Witch (so that's a UK paperback, obviously) to one lucky reader! I will also include various bits of Shadows on the Moon swag, just to make it more interesting.
That's right, folks, the awesome is unstoppable today.
The giveaway is open to everyone in the whole world. To enter you need to Tweet a link to this blog post, share it on Facebook or in some way spread the word - it doesn't matter how, but please pop a link into the comments.
If you decide to link to the blog in more than one place, make sure you put each link you provide in a SEPARATE COMMENT on this post, or my random-number-generator-fu may go awry. But you don't have to. One link each is fine. The competition is open until next Wednesday.
Go forth and natter, my lovelies!
See you all on Friday, when hopefully I'll be posting about Writing Roadblocks...
February 21, 2011
WITHER BY LAUREN DESTEFANO
THE BLURB:What if you knew exactly when you would die?
Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.
When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.
But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limted time she has left.
THE REVIEW:
If I had to use one word to describe Lauren DeStefano's debut novel it would be: Troubling.
WITHER is not a thrill-packed adventure story filled with explosions. Ninety percent of the story takes place in one location, and involves a mere handful of characters. We only glimpse the outside world in snatches. And yet for all that, this is story which gets under your skin and quietly itches away there, causing you to lie awake at night thinking about it long after it is finished.
This story takes the common writing adage 'start with the action' to heart, as the first page finds us locked in a dark, enclosed space with sixteen year old main character Rhine and dozens of other girls. The dark space is the back of a lorry. Rhine does not know who the other girls are or where they are being taken. The girls do not talk to one another, or cry to comfort the ones that cry or are sick. They merely huddle on the floor of the truck, lost in the darkness and their own private nightmares. And so we learn the first, and perhaps most telling lesson of WITHER: that there is no automatic solidarity in suffering. That misery and fear do not make the soul stronger. In life or death situations the strong tend to their own survival and the weak tend to die.
If this sounds bleak? It is. My God, it is. I admit that I found the first few chapters of the story difficult to get through, despite the lyrical, flowing quality of the prose. The sense of forboding, of suffocating menace under the glossy surface of the world that Rhine is forced into is palpable. I found myself WILLING the bad stuff to happen, just to get it over with so I could relax. But Ms DeStefano is a cunning writer, and she does not allow this. As a result, I know, had I been reading a physical ARC (rather than an eGalley, courtesy of NetGalley) that I would probably have been tempted to skip forward a dozen pages to try and ease the unbearable tension.
What ultimately makes the story readable - and allowed me to enjoy it despite the ever-present undercurrent of bleakness - is the strength of Rhine's voice. She is a wonderful narator, and Ms DeStefana uses her unique, clear-eyed POV to guide us through the intricacies of the WITHER world with skillfully woven flashbacks, dreams and fantasies. Rhine is in no way a 'feisty' heroine. What she is, is a strong young woman with a great deal of determination and a bone-deep ability to hold a grudge.
One of the things I admired greatly about this book is the way it takes us from speechless, gasping horror at the terrible events of the Dystopia we see to a strange state of almost-acceptance - and then back again. Rhine herself battles constantly against complacency, the very human desire to accept even the most screaming madness and normalise one's own situation. Every time that Rhine smiles and laughs in her new world, we do too - only to jerk back, appalled, when we are reminded that everything about Rhine's life is wrong, wrong, wrong. The story of Cecily, a beautifully drawn secondary character, is a telling clue to the story's second big message: That those who are suffering the most from systems of oppression will often be the ones fighting most fiercely to preserve them. They don't WANT to escape.
Speaking of secondary characters - I think WITHER's are perhaps its greatest strength. From the smallest speaking parts like the loud-mouthed but kind-natured cook to capricious, dying Rose, from tragic Jenna to willfully blind Linden, the secondary cast here are minutely developed and lovingly depicted, creating the sense of a real world even though, as mentioned earlier, the world we see is actually very, very small.
Something else that stood out for me was the writer's handling of a device which would seem by definition incredibly depressing - a world in which men die at twenty-five and women at twenty - and instead used the ticking clock of the character's lifespan to create a sense of freedom, of the joy and beauty of life, of the importance of being true to yourself and taking chances, even when everyone around you is intent on keeping you in a cage (very nicely referenced in the image on the cover, by the way) for your own good.
Despite all the things that I liked about it, for me, WITHER ends a little abruptly, leaving many plot threads dangling loose, and many hints unresolved. It is the first of a trilogy, and as such I'd obviously expect to find myself with questions, but because I cannot judge how Ms DeStefano will handle these it's impossible for me to give this book a full five stars. I just don't know how the story is going to play out.
But it's this very sense of unpredictability which will ensure that I am scrabbling to get my hands on the next book in THE CHEMICAL GARDEN Trilogy the very moment it becomes available.
I want and *need* to know how Rhine's short life will end. And I believe that other readers will too.
February 18, 2011
HOW DO YOU PICK YOUR TITLES?
Welcome to the 67th Road Trip Wednesday!
Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing - or reading - related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.
This Week's Topic: How do you pick your titles? Yes, I know it's not Wednesday. But I'd already written a post on Wednesday before the YA Highway topic came out and I realised that it was such an interesting one. So, never to be left out, I decided to do Roadtrip Wednesday on a Friday instead. Shut up. Okay, then: how did I pick my titles? Well, I've got to admit that titles aren't really my forte. I struggle with them. A lot. And hardly any of my books make it through even the first draft without being re-titled several times. I find it infuriating and distracting to use a title that doesn't feel *right*, and I worry away at the problem like a coyote worries at a paw caught in a trap.
The Swan Kingdom
was originally titled Wild Swans after the fairytale that inspired it. But although I liked this title and felt it fitted, there was already a very famous book with that same title. Once the book was accepted for publication my editor and I came up with many title possibilities. For a little while the book was called A Shadow of Swans, but marketing vetoed that. For a while I favoured The Cunning Woman, but my then agent hated it. My American editor suggested Red Fox, White Swan. Eventually my editor sent me a postcard just saying 'The Swan's Kingdom?' And I sent a note back saying 'The Swan Kingdom?' and that was it. I have to admit that I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, but I've never get come up with anything better so... *Shrugs*
Daughter of the flames
was originally called Signs of Fire. And it had that title for a long time in my head before I actually started writing. However, as soon as I got stuck into the story it started to feel vaguely wrong. I'm not sure why. I still think it's an okay title. It just didn't fit.
So I held a brainstorming session with my writing group. At the end of which, I felt utterly bewildered because NO ONE had come up with a suggestion that fitted. I had dozens of scribbled suggestions in my notebook and was trying to make sense of them when, suddenly, the words 'Daughter', 'Of' and 'Flames' leapt out at me. I added a 'the' to improve the rhythm, and, since my publisher loved it, we were set.
Shadows on the Moon
was a tricky book to title. I knew that I wanted the word 'moon' or 'shadow' in the title because both were important metaphors and images in the story. Until about halfway through the first draft the manuscript was called Fair as the Moon (which is a Biblical quote) but although I liked the title, it didn't really feel right to use a Biblical quote for a story set in a faerytale Feudal Japan. And it felt a little too...pretty. A little too NICE. I wanted something that hinted at the darkness in the story.
Friends suggested The Shadow Weaver, but Google told me this was a character from a cartoon. Shadow Spinner was already a book title. For a little while the book was called The Moon Mask, but again, it didn't feel ominous enough. Frankly, I was stumped.
But luckily my subconscious was hard at work. Having decided to make my heroine's father a poet in the story, and the heroine herself a musician, I decided that I would write all my own poetry and songs for the book. One night I was scribbling away, trying to come up with a haiku that would encompass some of the story's themes about love and transformation, when this appeared on the page:
Love comes like stormcloudsFleeing from the wind, and castsShadows on the moon Instantly I knew I had found my title. And of all my book titles, Shadows on the Moon is probably the one I love most, because it's a phrase that is an integral part of the story and which sums up the book's most important themes perfectly. I also think that it subtly hints at the setting of the story. So what about you guys? What titles have you used, and how did you come up with them?
Road Trip Wednesday is a "Blog Carnival," where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing - or reading - related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.
This Week's Topic: How do you pick your titles? Yes, I know it's not Wednesday. But I'd already written a post on Wednesday before the YA Highway topic came out and I realised that it was such an interesting one. So, never to be left out, I decided to do Roadtrip Wednesday on a Friday instead. Shut up. Okay, then: how did I pick my titles? Well, I've got to admit that titles aren't really my forte. I struggle with them. A lot. And hardly any of my books make it through even the first draft without being re-titled several times. I find it infuriating and distracting to use a title that doesn't feel *right*, and I worry away at the problem like a coyote worries at a paw caught in a trap.
The Swan Kingdom
was originally titled Wild Swans after the fairytale that inspired it. But although I liked this title and felt it fitted, there was already a very famous book with that same title. Once the book was accepted for publication my editor and I came up with many title possibilities. For a little while the book was called A Shadow of Swans, but marketing vetoed that. For a while I favoured The Cunning Woman, but my then agent hated it. My American editor suggested Red Fox, White Swan. Eventually my editor sent me a postcard just saying 'The Swan's Kingdom?' And I sent a note back saying 'The Swan Kingdom?' and that was it. I have to admit that I'm still not entirely comfortable with it, but I've never get come up with anything better so... *Shrugs*
Daughter of the flames
was originally called Signs of Fire. And it had that title for a long time in my head before I actually started writing. However, as soon as I got stuck into the story it started to feel vaguely wrong. I'm not sure why. I still think it's an okay title. It just didn't fit.
So I held a brainstorming session with my writing group. At the end of which, I felt utterly bewildered because NO ONE had come up with a suggestion that fitted. I had dozens of scribbled suggestions in my notebook and was trying to make sense of them when, suddenly, the words 'Daughter', 'Of' and 'Flames' leapt out at me. I added a 'the' to improve the rhythm, and, since my publisher loved it, we were set.Shadows on the Moon
was a tricky book to title. I knew that I wanted the word 'moon' or 'shadow' in the title because both were important metaphors and images in the story. Until about halfway through the first draft the manuscript was called Fair as the Moon (which is a Biblical quote) but although I liked the title, it didn't really feel right to use a Biblical quote for a story set in a faerytale Feudal Japan. And it felt a little too...pretty. A little too NICE. I wanted something that hinted at the darkness in the story.Friends suggested The Shadow Weaver, but Google told me this was a character from a cartoon. Shadow Spinner was already a book title. For a little while the book was called The Moon Mask, but again, it didn't feel ominous enough. Frankly, I was stumped.
But luckily my subconscious was hard at work. Having decided to make my heroine's father a poet in the story, and the heroine herself a musician, I decided that I would write all my own poetry and songs for the book. One night I was scribbling away, trying to come up with a haiku that would encompass some of the story's themes about love and transformation, when this appeared on the page:Love comes like stormcloudsFleeing from the wind, and castsShadows on the moon Instantly I knew I had found my title. And of all my book titles, Shadows on the Moon is probably the one I love most, because it's a phrase that is an integral part of the story and which sums up the book's most important themes perfectly. I also think that it subtly hints at the setting of the story. So what about you guys? What titles have you used, and how did you come up with them?
February 16, 2011
LITTLE VOICES IN MY HEAD
Oh, the little voices! They whisper to me, my precious. They whisper in my heeeead...
Freaked out yet?
Well, don't be. You have these little voices too. The difference is that I am *aware* of mine. And the reason I am aware, is because I'm a writer.
What, what, WHAT? Am I saying that all writers suffer from auditory hallucinations and/or are dangerously unstable? Am I saying that EVERYONE hears voices? Stop the crazy!
No, no, my precious. The crazy goes on. This post was inspired by a comment from Isabel, who asked in the comments if anyone else finds themselves mentally 'narrating' their life. That is, as you move through your ordinary day, somewhere in your head there's a constant voice-over of your hair-brushing or your walk to school or your biology lesson, as if it were a scene in a book that you were writing. You find yourself picking out the details that you would chose to describe, the ones you would change, pondering if 'pale gold' is a better phrase than 'honey coloured' for sunlight, considering what scene should follow, etc.
For some of us this voiceover is a constant thing that we are always aware of. For others, it's something that you notice occasionally and are slightly worried by. I'm sure there are also people who never experience this and who are, as they read this blog, edging away from their computer screen and checking the doors and windows just in case a deranged Zolah comes bursting in with an axe.
Let me explain. You know that question? The dreaded question that writers get asked the most out of all the questions in the universe? That one. Where do you get your ideas?
The answer is FROM THE LITTLE VOICES IN MY HEAD.
It's true. The narrating voice that tries to turn your Monday morning bowl of cereal into an exciting scene of cornflake versus Cheerio suspense, that ponders how to describe your P.E. teacher in a way that would make her seem like a possibility for an undercover supervillain, that observes every detail of your daily walk home and speculates on what would happen if the house behind the wall was haunted, or if you suddenly heard someone crying for help behind that tree - that is the WRITER'S VOICE. Or the artist's voice, the actor's voice, the sculptor's voice, the achitect's voice. It's where all the ideas come from.
The thing is, this constant voice-over can be...disturbing. Let's face it, it's not pleasant when in the middle of being horribly sick, you hear it whispering 'Wow, you should be making notes on this, you'll never remember the exact texture of that vomit'. It's worrying, when trying to comfort a friend, that a tiny part of you is thinking 'The way she's crying without making a sound is really moving. I should use that'. It can be horribly upsetting when you yourself are in the midst of terrible grief, to realise that there's a tiny part of you which is standing off to the side memorising it all in case of future need.
The little voice is not an emotional thing. It's DETACHED. It's like a flash-drive plugged into your brain, recording everything without being touched by any of it. It's so detached from you and your emotions that it can even seem a bit alien, like someone else talking in your brain. Because, after all, you would never be so callous as to make mental notes on the way that your sister's face flushes up when she cries, just on the off-change you wanted to write a crying scene. Right?
Here's the thing, though. Humans only use a tiny part of their brain capacity. The part that they do use is a constant, flashing lightshow of sensations and impulses. The average brain is processing millions of information fragments every second of the day. Your grey matter is listening, smelling, feeling, tasting, reacting. It's keeping your heart pumping, doing your homework, carrying on a conversation with your friend, listening to the TV, eating this omelette, wondering if the dog needs a bath. All at once!
If you don't train yourself to make use of any added pieces of brain capacity you can (even in the form of a Voice in the Head) how on earth will you ever manage to notice any story ideas floating past in the middle of all the information that is flying at you every moment you are conscious? You won't, is the answer.
The ideas will be there. They're everywhere. Ideas are like dust motes. You can't breathe without stirring millions up. But most people are so busy getting on with their lives that they don't notice them. THEY DON'T EVEN SEE THE IDEAS THERE. That's why Where do you get your ideas? is the most popular question writers get asked. Non-writers think ideas are rare, precious, fragile. They're not. It's the ability to actually *see* the ideas that is rare and precious and fragile.
Everyone's born with it. Few keep it into adulthood. Entirely well-meaning people, like your parents and relatives, will try to crush it. Many teachers crush it all day long with one hand tied behind their backs. Friends who want you to fit in will crush it under the weight their expectation. None of these people realise what they're doing, of course! Most would be horrified at the thought. It's just that they want you to focus, concentrate, act normal, stop day-dreaming, pay attention, get outside and play in the sun, stop telling stories...eh, you've probably heard them all.
So here it is. If you want to be a writer, if you want to be able to see the ideas drifting past you, if you'd rather not be 'normal' thanks very much? Hang onto the little voice in your head with both hands, and your fingernails. And your teeth if necessary. Pay attention to it. Feed it by opening your eyes to the world around you. It will repay you a thousandfold.
If not? Resign yourself to asking other people where they get their ideas from, and seeing the look of resigned boredom in their eyes as they struggle to explain.
How many of you hear that little narrating voice? And who's willing to admit to it??
Freaked out yet?Well, don't be. You have these little voices too. The difference is that I am *aware* of mine. And the reason I am aware, is because I'm a writer.
What, what, WHAT? Am I saying that all writers suffer from auditory hallucinations and/or are dangerously unstable? Am I saying that EVERYONE hears voices? Stop the crazy!
No, no, my precious. The crazy goes on. This post was inspired by a comment from Isabel, who asked in the comments if anyone else finds themselves mentally 'narrating' their life. That is, as you move through your ordinary day, somewhere in your head there's a constant voice-over of your hair-brushing or your walk to school or your biology lesson, as if it were a scene in a book that you were writing. You find yourself picking out the details that you would chose to describe, the ones you would change, pondering if 'pale gold' is a better phrase than 'honey coloured' for sunlight, considering what scene should follow, etc.
For some of us this voiceover is a constant thing that we are always aware of. For others, it's something that you notice occasionally and are slightly worried by. I'm sure there are also people who never experience this and who are, as they read this blog, edging away from their computer screen and checking the doors and windows just in case a deranged Zolah comes bursting in with an axe.
Let me explain. You know that question? The dreaded question that writers get asked the most out of all the questions in the universe? That one. Where do you get your ideas?
The answer is FROM THE LITTLE VOICES IN MY HEAD.
It's true. The narrating voice that tries to turn your Monday morning bowl of cereal into an exciting scene of cornflake versus Cheerio suspense, that ponders how to describe your P.E. teacher in a way that would make her seem like a possibility for an undercover supervillain, that observes every detail of your daily walk home and speculates on what would happen if the house behind the wall was haunted, or if you suddenly heard someone crying for help behind that tree - that is the WRITER'S VOICE. Or the artist's voice, the actor's voice, the sculptor's voice, the achitect's voice. It's where all the ideas come from.
The thing is, this constant voice-over can be...disturbing. Let's face it, it's not pleasant when in the middle of being horribly sick, you hear it whispering 'Wow, you should be making notes on this, you'll never remember the exact texture of that vomit'. It's worrying, when trying to comfort a friend, that a tiny part of you is thinking 'The way she's crying without making a sound is really moving. I should use that'. It can be horribly upsetting when you yourself are in the midst of terrible grief, to realise that there's a tiny part of you which is standing off to the side memorising it all in case of future need.
The little voice is not an emotional thing. It's DETACHED. It's like a flash-drive plugged into your brain, recording everything without being touched by any of it. It's so detached from you and your emotions that it can even seem a bit alien, like someone else talking in your brain. Because, after all, you would never be so callous as to make mental notes on the way that your sister's face flushes up when she cries, just on the off-change you wanted to write a crying scene. Right?
Here's the thing, though. Humans only use a tiny part of their brain capacity. The part that they do use is a constant, flashing lightshow of sensations and impulses. The average brain is processing millions of information fragments every second of the day. Your grey matter is listening, smelling, feeling, tasting, reacting. It's keeping your heart pumping, doing your homework, carrying on a conversation with your friend, listening to the TV, eating this omelette, wondering if the dog needs a bath. All at once!
If you don't train yourself to make use of any added pieces of brain capacity you can (even in the form of a Voice in the Head) how on earth will you ever manage to notice any story ideas floating past in the middle of all the information that is flying at you every moment you are conscious? You won't, is the answer.
The ideas will be there. They're everywhere. Ideas are like dust motes. You can't breathe without stirring millions up. But most people are so busy getting on with their lives that they don't notice them. THEY DON'T EVEN SEE THE IDEAS THERE. That's why Where do you get your ideas? is the most popular question writers get asked. Non-writers think ideas are rare, precious, fragile. They're not. It's the ability to actually *see* the ideas that is rare and precious and fragile.
Everyone's born with it. Few keep it into adulthood. Entirely well-meaning people, like your parents and relatives, will try to crush it. Many teachers crush it all day long with one hand tied behind their backs. Friends who want you to fit in will crush it under the weight their expectation. None of these people realise what they're doing, of course! Most would be horrified at the thought. It's just that they want you to focus, concentrate, act normal, stop day-dreaming, pay attention, get outside and play in the sun, stop telling stories...eh, you've probably heard them all.
So here it is. If you want to be a writer, if you want to be able to see the ideas drifting past you, if you'd rather not be 'normal' thanks very much? Hang onto the little voice in your head with both hands, and your fingernails. And your teeth if necessary. Pay attention to it. Feed it by opening your eyes to the world around you. It will repay you a thousandfold.
If not? Resign yourself to asking other people where they get their ideas from, and seeing the look of resigned boredom in their eyes as they struggle to explain.
How many of you hear that little narrating voice? And who's willing to admit to it??
February 14, 2011
READER QUESTIONS
Hi all! I hope everyone had a good Monday, or at least a better Monday than me, since I spent the whole day with a wet flannel over my face trying to convince myself that popping one of my eyes out with a spoon would not ease the splitting headache that was driving me slowly and quietly insane.
Yeah. Ouch.
Anyway, I've had a few reader emails in the past few days so I thought I'd answer the questions here, as is my custom. First email comes from a young person whose name I *think* is Sevin, although the email came from a different name? Sorry about this, Sevin, if I've gotten it wrong.
"Do you ever think you have the best idea that will never fail, and that it will finally be the one that you follow through with, but it ends up, well... Failing? Like.... You never get around to completing it? Because that happens way to often with me."
This post sort of already answers this, but the short answer is Yes. And also that This Is A Really Common Problem. Lots and lots of people start stories and can't finish them. I was starting stories with what I thought were amazing ideas from the age of about eight, but I only managed to finish one when I was sixteen, and didn't manage it again until I was about twenty. To help break this Never Ending Story Habit, you need to:
Make sure that the idea you've got is really well thought through, and can sustain a full book.Give yourself achievable goals, like writing a page a day, or two pages three times a week or whatever works, and sticking to it. Push forward, pushing through the boring bits and the blocks and the days when you want to give up, until you reach THE END. Because you can't fix a book you haven't written yet. The next question came from twelve year old Megan, who asked:
"I keep having these great ideas for characters or plots for books, but then I forget them before I have time to write them down, because they always come at really random times, like in the middle of a maths test or in the car or something. Do you think that there's anything I can do to maximise my chances of getting it written down? I love writing stories, but I never seem to be able to draw them out, and they end up being quite short. Is there anything I can do about that either?"
Two questions in one! The second question I have, by a stunning coincidence, already answered above! And the first is answered here:
Basically, get a notebook. And if you can't have a notebook in your maths test, scribble some notes on a piece of scrap paper, or the back of your hand, or whatever. Just write it down. Make time. Or you will forget - that's just the human brain. But don't worry too much about those ideas that slip away. There are always more ideas. Trust me. Always. And sometimes the ones that run away come back later and that's when you know they're really special.
Final email came from Linda Lau, and reads:
"...can you tell me how you got the swan kingdom idea and the flame of the daughter? do you think you can recommend any books to read? did you write any other books beside the swan kingdom and the daughter of flame?" Which puzzles me a bit because the email came through my website and all the information to answer these questions is already there. *Shrugs* Assuming that you didn't have the time to read those pages, Linda, or maybe you found the website difficult to understand, I'll put the links to the The Swan Kingdom and Daughter of the Flames pages here, and the Books I Love page too, as well as the Shadows on the Moon page. Hopefully that helps! Right, that's it from me today - except to say that in the midst of my lying in a darkened room groaning and dreaming about goblins drilling spikes into my head, I think I may have had a genius idea about FF. Or rather, I realised a mistake I may have made, and if I change it, everything might get better. I'll figure it out tomorrow; wish me luck. Right now I'm going to moisten this flannel again and turn off the computer and the lights. *Whimper*
Yeah. Ouch.
Anyway, I've had a few reader emails in the past few days so I thought I'd answer the questions here, as is my custom. First email comes from a young person whose name I *think* is Sevin, although the email came from a different name? Sorry about this, Sevin, if I've gotten it wrong.
"Do you ever think you have the best idea that will never fail, and that it will finally be the one that you follow through with, but it ends up, well... Failing? Like.... You never get around to completing it? Because that happens way to often with me."
This post sort of already answers this, but the short answer is Yes. And also that This Is A Really Common Problem. Lots and lots of people start stories and can't finish them. I was starting stories with what I thought were amazing ideas from the age of about eight, but I only managed to finish one when I was sixteen, and didn't manage it again until I was about twenty. To help break this Never Ending Story Habit, you need to:
Make sure that the idea you've got is really well thought through, and can sustain a full book.Give yourself achievable goals, like writing a page a day, or two pages three times a week or whatever works, and sticking to it. Push forward, pushing through the boring bits and the blocks and the days when you want to give up, until you reach THE END. Because you can't fix a book you haven't written yet. The next question came from twelve year old Megan, who asked:
"I keep having these great ideas for characters or plots for books, but then I forget them before I have time to write them down, because they always come at really random times, like in the middle of a maths test or in the car or something. Do you think that there's anything I can do to maximise my chances of getting it written down? I love writing stories, but I never seem to be able to draw them out, and they end up being quite short. Is there anything I can do about that either?"
Two questions in one! The second question I have, by a stunning coincidence, already answered above! And the first is answered here:
Basically, get a notebook. And if you can't have a notebook in your maths test, scribble some notes on a piece of scrap paper, or the back of your hand, or whatever. Just write it down. Make time. Or you will forget - that's just the human brain. But don't worry too much about those ideas that slip away. There are always more ideas. Trust me. Always. And sometimes the ones that run away come back later and that's when you know they're really special.
Final email came from Linda Lau, and reads:
"...can you tell me how you got the swan kingdom idea and the flame of the daughter? do you think you can recommend any books to read? did you write any other books beside the swan kingdom and the daughter of flame?" Which puzzles me a bit because the email came through my website and all the information to answer these questions is already there. *Shrugs* Assuming that you didn't have the time to read those pages, Linda, or maybe you found the website difficult to understand, I'll put the links to the The Swan Kingdom and Daughter of the Flames pages here, and the Books I Love page too, as well as the Shadows on the Moon page. Hopefully that helps! Right, that's it from me today - except to say that in the midst of my lying in a darkened room groaning and dreaming about goblins drilling spikes into my head, I think I may have had a genius idea about FF. Or rather, I realised a mistake I may have made, and if I change it, everything might get better. I'll figure it out tomorrow; wish me luck. Right now I'm going to moisten this flannel again and turn off the computer and the lights. *Whimper*
February 11, 2011
DIVERGENT BY VERONICA ROTH
Happy Friday everyone. You may remember that a while back I was lucky enough to win an ARC of DIVERGENT by Veronica Roth from her blog. On Wednesday I read the book, and today I sat down to try and review it.THE BLURB:
One choice can transform you.
In sixteen-year-old Beatrice Prior's world, society is divided into five factions – Abnegation (the selfless), Candor (the honest), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent) – each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue, in the attempt to form a "perfect society." At the age of sixteen, teens must choose the faction to which they will devote their lives.
On her Choosing Day, Beatrice renames herself Tris, rejects her family's group, and chooses another faction. After surviving a brutal initiation, Tris finds romance with a super-hot boy, but also discovers unrest and growing conflict in their seemingly "perfect society." To survive and save those they love, they must use their strengths to uncover the truths about their identities, their families, and the order of their society itself.
THE REVIEW:
Upfront confession - I don't generally like Dystopian novels much. Or rather, I haven't liked a lot of the recent crop of Dystopian novels much. I've found most them of them a little samey in their focus on societies where people are not free to love or make personal choices as to prospective life partners, and the resulting forbidden romances (especially since our CURRENT society often forbids people from loving who they chose, and many people don't find it odd at all). However, having visited Veronica Roth's blog I was cautiously excited about DIVERGENT, as it seemed to promise something really different, a book that made an effort to examine themes of personal choice a bit more deeply. I entered a competition on the author's blog for an ARC and somehow, won.
I am so, so glad that I did. DIVERGENT is an incredibly strong debut. No, that's not doing it justice. It is an incredibly strong *novel*, full stop. I found it ridiculously compelling, and read it in one sitting in just under four hours. Frankly, short of applying strong glue to the cover I can't see how the author could have made this book any more unputdownable.
I think the brilliance of the novel lies in three things. First, the author's ability to create truly well rounded and textured characters. Second, her intense sensory writing. Third, her absolute ruthlessness in testing both of the above to their limits.
It's been a long while since I read a book with such a strong cast of real characters; by which I mean, people that I believed in, people that seemed completely realistic even amidst their warped Dystopian world. People who *remained* human and sympathetic even when they made mistakes, did terrible things - or acted with shining selflessness and bravery. Ms Roth's main character Tris is a perfect mixture of flaws and strengths, moral ambiguity and idealism, bravery and self-preservation. I felt I could always rely on her to do the right thing, not in terms of good and bad, but in terms of what a character with her traits and in her situation WOULD do. I've read so many books lately where the narrators might as well be signposted as BAMFs with neon flashing lights and yet seemed to have no true strength, no inner resources. Smart mouths, switchblades and leather pants do not a kick-ass heroine make. Tris is a kick-ass heroine precisely because she doesn't need to act tough. She just IS. I loved that about her. I loved it so much that if I ever meet the author in real life I am going to snuggle her, even if she tries to get away from me (sorry, Ms Roth!).
Here we have friends and family members who have their own inner lives and agendas, enemies that are frail and flawed, and a love interest WHO APPEARS TO BE A REAL BOY AND NOT A SPARKLY MARBLE CUPCAKE ADONIS! I didn't swoon over Four for a second. I fell in love with him, quietly and deeply, just as Tris did.
When twinned with the author's gift for creating a tangible physical experience for the reader (I felt what Triss felt, smelled what she smelled, shivered when she did, pricked my ears when she did) this would already have put this novel head-and-shoulders above the competition. But Veronica Roth also has another ace up her sleeve, which is that she puts her characters (and by extension, us) through the wringer both physically and emotionally. I could literally feel Tris's character being stretched to its limits. There were moments in this book where I wanted to curl into fetal position because the experience of reading it was *brutal*. But not in a torture-porn way, which is a fine line, and one that I hate to see crossed, especially in YA.
So DIVERGENT is a thrilling, action packed read, with spare and beautiful writing and wonderful characters. It is also a profound examination of human nature. Ms Roth's book dwells deftly on the costs of bravey and self-sacrifice, on the difference between strength and cruelty, on the dangers of both prejudice and idealism. Hyper picky witch-writer that I am, I wouldn't change a thing about it. It's rare that concept and execution come together as perfectly as they do in this novel. I'm thrilled that I got to read it early and I have all my fingers and toes crossed that this book gets both the critical and commercial success that it rightful deserves.
A keeper, and one that I know I will re-read many times in years to come. Highly recommended.
NOTE: Due to the attentions of a troll and his spambot, I've been forced to turn on word verification for comments. Sorry, all. I hope you can bear with it.
