Linda Maye Adams's Blog, page 82
August 6, 2016
The culture of the beginner
Just about everything that you find on writing pretty much everywhere has a very specific focus: Beginning writer. Sure, there are a few resources that go beyond beginner, but they’re harder to find. You have work at it.
And those writers usually get blasted by the beginners because it’s not something easy to learn. I picked David Gerrold’s Worlds of Wonder from the library and was amazed. It felt like he was talking to me and not explaining things to a beginner.
Reviews from writers chastised the book for not doing step-by-step instructions.
Sigh.
I don’t think writing fiction is something where you can get step-by-step instructions. The creativity part doesn’t work the same way for everyone. I remember reading The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing where the writer tried step-by-step instructions. I read them, went “What the heck is a ‘unit of action,’ and was done. Of course, it was outlining, and that never worked for me anyway. But I’m sure there was someone who read it and thought it was just for them.
That’s the nature of the creative process. It has its own ebbs and flows.
I dropped off writing message boards largely because of the culture of the beginner. Once I got better, I started noticing that people didn’t always like that I knew a little more than they did. This is from a post by Kristen Lamb on her experiences with that:
The more successful I became, the more skilled I grew, the more resentment I encountered. But still I persisted because I couldn’t give up on my “friends.” I tried harder, gave more….and was a mess.
One of the things I ran into was that I wanted to learn from people more experienced then me, so I thought everyone was like that. A lot of people want someone to hold their hand and tell them what steps to follow so magic happens.
Writing is the only place where an individual who is clearly an expert by the number of books they’ve written and the years they are writing are informed by this culture they are clueless and don’t know what they’re talking about. Meanwhile, the beginner who is working on a first novel passes around a list of tips that are really wrong (the kind that would get him rejected) is touted as an expert and lauded by his peers.
Just something to think about.
Filed under: Thoughts, Writing
August 5, 2016
August 4, 2016
Filing, filing, filing
I’ve spent the week cleaning out my files. This was the result of reading a book called Organizing Solutions for People with AHDH. I’m not AHDH, but I am right-brained, so there are some similar organizational challenges. Filing has been a particular headache because it always seems so overly complex, and honestly, the last thing I want to do is spend a lot of time on it.
The book focuses on simplifying filing, and also getting rid of what I don’t need. That’s where I’ve been—going through what I do have and purging. I’ve had horror stories with filing, so much so that at one point I purchased a filing system.
The system was color coded and worked pretty good, but over time, I began to find it overly complex. Instead of using it, I started to pile because that was easier.
I’m cleaning out those piles now. And hitting the folders in that filing system, and in most cases, getting rid of it.
I’m also finding old documents buried in the files, like receipts from 2004. Yeah, it’s about time I got rid of that.
It’s been surprising to see how easy it’s been to accumulate papers because I might need them one day or I wasn’t sure what to save. I was reading some message board posts the other day about someone taking very detailed notes from a conference so he could refer back them, and I found a file folder of notes from workshops I’d taken 3 years ago and never touched.
Sometimes it’s best not to let it get in there in the first place.
Filed under: productivity Tagged: Filing, Organizing, Right-Brained
August 3, 2016
One of the early books I read
One of the earliest books I read was the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Michael Landon put it on TV in the early 1970s, and I watched the adventures of Laura and her family every week.
These are some photos of the real Laura throughout her life. There’s even a photo of Laura when she was a little girl!
Filed under: Blogging Tagged: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House on the Prairie
August 2, 2016
Mars a Shining Star during Desert Storm
This last week the founder of the Mars candy company died. It reminded me of how Mars bars were a shining star to a lot of us during Desert Storm.
I’d been in Saudi Arabia just under a month. Time’s different when you’re at war. I know I was there six months, and it felt like years. Our meals were the same day in, day out. We had the same breakfast each day, and dinner repeated itself every three days. Lunch was whatever MRE we could get.
Then it was Thanksgiving, and the military brought in all this wonderful food.
But the most exciting thing for me was finding Mars Bars on the display table. There’s a scene in the original Battlestar Galactica where the ship emerges from a dark void and the stars appear. It was like that, knowing home was still real, even if it was far away.
Filed under: Food, History, Military Tagged: Battlestar Galatica, Desert Storm, MRE, Thanksgiving
August 1, 2016
2017 Desert Storm Reunion Cruise
Just a quick plug for the 2017 Desert Storm Reunion Cruise, which is in February, 2017. Perfect time for a cruise if you’ve got cold weather like we will in Washington, DC.
Please pass along if you know a Desert Storm vet.
Filed under: Travel Tagged: Cruising, Desert Storm
July 31, 2016
The short of it: When the book runs too short
Anne Allen has a post up about when your book runs too short or too long.
I have a long history of books running too short. In fact, it was very discouraging and frustrating for me. Publishers would require something like 80K-90K, and I was hitting at 40-50K.
The craft books were no help. They always assumed you were writing over. I couldn’t even see how someone could write a book that ballooned up to 200K. By the time I hit 50K, I was scratching at whatever I could to get the word count up—often at the expense of the story.
And when I asked for help, I got “Just add a subplot!” like that was a magic fix. No one seemed to get that the story was 40K short. You can’t add a 40K subplot without the reader rebelling. Most of the other tips I ran across would have added maybe 10K. Certainly not 40K.
At the time, I eked my way up to 80K, watching the word count like I was on surveillance. It was also a frustrating experience because when I revised, some things come out and others go in. I might take out 500 words and add 600 words, so the word count would stay the same.
And the novel was a complete mess. Between trying to get to the word count and outlining advice sneaking it, it was a plane crash that took a whole city. Just really bad.
It was so bad and I was so frustrated that I wondered if I could ever write a novel length work. I was ready to give up. But I took Holly Lisle’s How to Revise Your Novel. There was a lesson in there where you identify everything wrong in the book, and all those places where I’d added for word count jumped out at me. I lost half the book.
Back to square one.
It does have a happy ending. I tossed the entire book, started again without that baggage from word counts and outlines. Rogue God was the result of that.
In hindsight, I think one of the reasons I had so much trouble with word count is that I have a natural sense of where the story should end, and it tended to fall right around the 40-50K area. One of the reasons I went over to indie is so I don’t have to worry about word count. I can just tell the story I want to tell.
Filed under: Writing Tagged: word count
July 30, 2016
Gratuitous Volcano Pictures
Volcanoes are one of those cool things that make for a great action story (real life, not so much). There’s nothing like a character trying to escape as the volcano is rumbling and shaking and vents are opening up.
These are some awesome photos of the Kilauea Volcano spilling lava into the sea.
Filed under: Photos, Travel Tagged: hawaii, Kilauea, Volcano
July 29, 2016
Take a peak inside my family’s historical house
My family’s historical house, the Havilah Babcock house, has a website. The house was built by my great-great grandfather (the aforementioned Havilah), who was one of the co-founders of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.
Havilah designed everything in the house, picking the furnishings, the wallpaper—and after he died, the family left it all the way it was. So you can take a peak inside at what Havilah designed.
Filed under: History, Photos Tagged: Havilah Babcock House, Queen Anne
July 28, 2016
Why outlining doesn’t work for everyone
It took me a long time to figure out that most writing craft advice that I find in books and online assumes that you’re outlining. It’s so common that even people who don’t outline don’t realize they’re being told to use outlining techniques.
So much so that one of them periodically creeps into my writing and becomes like a big boulder that falls on the mountain pathway. No way to get around it to the other side other than to zap it with a laser beam into bits and pieces.
My book is in three parts, with each part being a particular planet. I started writing the part that takes place on the second planet and a big boulder dropped in.
It was a simple piece of outlining advice, which is to know what’s going to happen next.
So I plopped in what I thought happen next and the story stalled out. It took me a while to figure out what was going on as I tried to get around the boulder, but far less time in the past. In fact, Scrivener helped because I could visually see scenes and chapters. Part 1 had 13 chapters. Part 2, where I had 3 chapters.
This is a major section of the story, and I was zooming through it like it wasn’t important.
That’s because when I use one of these recommended outlining techniques, it kicks the natural development of the story to the curb and aims at the event, I suppose, like an infantry man charging a hill. It’s more of “accomplish the mission and get that event in there,” not follow the natural course of the story.
The result in the past was a very busy story that made no sense because I kept trying to use all these outline techniques that are recommended for pantsers.
So it’s pretty important to understand what works and recognize what doesn’t. Everyone tends to treat outlining as a once size fits all, when the writing process is completely different from person to person.
Filed under: Writing Tagged: Outlining, Pantser, Writing Process
