Eric Witchey's Blog: Shared ShadowSpinners Blog , page 14

Writer? Or Author?

by Elizabeth Engstrom

I have two jobs. The first is as a Writer. I am a writer when I am putting words down on paper. Or dreaming up a plot. Or thinking through my characters’ difficulties. This is my main job: telling stories. That’s what writers do.

My second job is as an Author. My job as an Author is simple: Acquire fans, one at a time. That’s it. It’s that simple. Not easy, mind you, but simple.

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When I get up and go to work, I am a writer. I work until such time as the words no longer show up. And then I do whatever little end-of-writing ritual I do, and then I take a break and put on my author hat.

As an author, I update my website, I post reviews to friends’ books, I post about my work on Facebook and Twitter, I explore avenues to publicize my work. I also take care of the business side of my profession with contracts and royalties and paying more out in bills than comes in (not always, but usually).

Author business takes less time than writer business, because the stories, the characters are with me all the time. Part of the problem with having a home office (also the fun of it), is dashing in here at all hours with an idea, just to make a note about a plot device, turn, or solution that I don’t want to forget by the time I get in here to work. Even when I’m reading, I’m writing in my head. So I’m always doing writer stuff, even when I’m doing author stuff. Or wife stuff. Or garden stuff. Especially garden stuff.

Being a Writer is hard. Being an Author is harder. It’s my job as an author to tell everybody who will listen that they ought to spend $10 or $15 or whatever of their hard-earned money to read what I have to say. That’s not easy for me to do, and it’s not easy for most authors to do. This is why artists of all kinds have agents. An agent can say: “This is the best thing I’ve read in ten years!” to a publisher. This is not something I can, or would, say about my own work. And yet, if I don’t stand up for myself, who will?

Occasionally the question comes up: “Do you consider yourself a writer, or an author?” The answer is quite simple as I have defined the roles. We are all writers. Being published makes me an author. I spent many years dreaming about being a published author. Doing the writer work is the only way to get to the opportunity to do the author work.

And being an Author is a badge of honor that I hold dear.

The Trouble With Omniscient Voice

[image error]By Lisa Alber

Since the fall, I’ve been working on a standalone mystery I’m calling The Shadow Maiden. It takes place at a girl’s school, hehe, has a gothic vibe, and features a back story that’s complex enough to need a secondary story line.

For the back story, I’m dabbling in omniscient voice. Ay yi yi, talk about masochistic! I’ve been fooling around with omniscient voice off and on since 2006 when I first tried it out in a workshop taught by Elizabeth George. I got hooked on the challenge of it, I guess.

There are many reasons not to use omniscient voice:

It’s not exactly in fashion in the publishing world.
If you don’t watch out, you’ll end up in head-hopping third-person point of view.
It’s challenging in the most subtle way ever because although the narrator can tell the reader anything—because the narrator knows everything—you can’t be inside the characters’ heads in the telling. It’s kind of like knowing a person so well you can talk about what she’s thinking, but not her exact thoughts.
Maintaining a consistent voice that’s not any of the characters’ voices will drive you effing bananas.
We’re used to reading novels that read intimately—first person or close-in third—so writing from a more detached perspective feels awkward.
Why make our writing lives harder than need be?

Given all that, then WHY oh why this infuriating choice on my part? (FYI: The main story is in first person, so we’re intimate with my protagonist Tessa. The secondary story will probably be about thirteen chapters out of fiftyish.)

First, my sense of the story (which I hope I can convey) includes a presence that hovers over Grayvale Mansion (girl’s school inside a mansion, hehe), the surrounding lands, and the local lore. I imagine this as the voice of my omniscient narrator who understands how certain events in 1986 in the life of the mansion and its inhabitants (including Tessa) come to bear on a crime in the present day.

Second, on the practical side, omniscient voice provides an ensemble method of sharing what’s going on with many characters at once, which is what I need. Otherwise, I’d have to use alternating third-person points of view—which is the done thing these days, don’t get me wrong—but I’d rather only have two voices in the novel: Tessa’s and the omniscient narrator. Otherwise, the second storyline will read too splintered for my taste. (Is that complicated, or what?)

Anyhow, all this is to say that I’m having a ton of fun writing my new novel. We shall see!

Here are a few posts I found about omniscient voice:

https://www.nownovel.com/blog/omniscient-narrator-examples-tips/

https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/omniscient-pov/

https://www.scribophile.com/academy/using-third-person-omniscient-pov

It’s Not About The Monster

by Christina Lay

It’s Not About the Monster

Beware of the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world. -Ben Okri, poet and novelist (b. 15 Mar 1959)

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I just finished writing an entirely different post about the TV Show Stranger Things. Then, after walking away from the computer, it occurred to me that I hadn’t said a single thing about the flashy bits. You know, the monster, the cool other dimension, the ick and awe factor, the “strange things”.

Spoiler Alert – If you haven’t watched Season One yet, you might not want to read this

If you don’t know, Stranger Things is an Amazon original series that I would put in the genre of “Cozy Horror”. It is cozy because our favorite characters tend not to die, and good triumphs over evil, eventually. However, people do die, either at the hands of a rogue government entity or at the ick-dripping talons of the monster.

However, it doesn’t really matter how they die or who/what is chasing our heroes around. The source of The Horror could just as well be an infestation of pissed-off dragons, or powerful magic gone awry, or a swarm of giant ants, or an out of control disease. Personally I prefer monsters. What is important in a show like this is the characters, and how they react to The Horror.

In the first post I wrote, I discussed how we as writers might make up for the fact that we don’t have a three-dimensional Winona Ryder who will leap out of the page and bring our brilliant prose to life for the reader. I’m full of admiration for Winona’s skill and her excellent job of bringing Joyce Byers, the distraught mother in Stranger Things, to life. She is a lot of what makes this show so compelling. So as writers stuck with mere words, we can focus on character development, adding layers and depth to our characters by giving them everything from quirks, gestures, odd habits and facial tics to long and murky histories, skewed motivations, poor coping skills and a smorgasbord of emotions that may or may not control their actions. Winona and the true-to-trope hard drinking sheriff with a murky history, skewed motivations and poor coping skills get most of the action, character-development wise. The true-to-trope gang of nerdy and plucky kids are all great, as is “The Chosen One” with the powerful magic gone awry. A couple side characters like the Princess and The Loner/Outsider have some good moments, and even the good-looking Jock/Jerk gets a shot at redemption. They’re all interesting in their way, adding to the fun by roping us in with their charm.

But it’s Winona as the mom and David Harbour as Chief Hopper who really get to face The Horror, which is what this show, and most stories like it, are all about. In facing The Horror, a character is either destroyed or they prevail. There are so many ways either can happen. One, they can get their head ripped off. That is the ultimate failure. But they can also fail to face their fear, they might run away, they might turn their backs on their friends, they might join the enemy, they might deny the existence of the Horror until it shows up and rips their head off. They might choose to destroy themselves, with alcohol or a supremely reckless act, all the while denying those repressed emotions that are controlling them. The sheriff is drinking and denying in order not to face the emotional truth of having lost a child. The mother, on the other hand, steamrollers her many flaws and actually utilizes them in a supreme effort to save her child. Sometimes, it is an asset to be slightly crazy.

To prevail, one must survive the season (or the novel). Beyond that, the hero must grow, realize her own strengths, identify what is most important, listen to her instincts and intuitions, trust in her allies if they exist, overcome all those cleverly developed character flaws, and defeat the monster. At least for now.

Some viewers might disagree, but I believe this is the key to a successful show, not the cleverness or wow factor of The Horror. Don’t get me wrong, I think the monster in Stranger Things is cool. The Upside Down is a creepy and clever concept that they do well. But it would all put me to sleep if it weren’t for the people who are dealing with, reacting to, dying in the face of, and kicking the ass of The Horror. If those people are one-dimensional, shallow, too true-to-trope to swallow, or just flat out dull, no amount of pyrotechnic evil wizardry is going to keep me tuning in.

This brings us to the question of why we do this to ourselves. Why do we like to watch clever, likable, heroic characters be tortured and tested in this way? I think the answer is pretty simple, and it’s why we tell stories at all. We all have a Horror in our life, maybe several. Maybe they’re small horrors, but the world is full of big horrors and it takes very little imagination to conceive of The Horror being visited upon ourselves. A cozy horror TV show like Stranger Things allows to process some of that pent up fear, and it lets us watch “ordinary” characters take the bull by the horns and defeat The Horror. Yes, it is cathartic, and it is just scary enough to let off some of scream steam and, possibly, allow us embrace the happy for now ending and the hope that good not only can but will triumph over evil.

Now Non-cozy Horror, where everyone dies? I don’t know what’s up with that. Liz?

 

 

 

 

 

Reconciling Fiction Techniques in Memoir

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Reconciling Fiction Techniques in Memoir, by Eric Witchey

Something new for my blog this time. Instead of waxing dreary on some topic of my own choosing, I’m answering a question from a person who took a class from me at the Write on the Sound Conference in Edmonds, Washington. The last time I was there, I taught a class that included a brief discussion of a concept I first presented in an article for The Writer Magazine in October of 2011. The concept is the Irreconcilable Self (I.S.).

The writer, a memoirist, dropped me a line last week. The question has two parts. The first part is whether the I.S. the writer is working with is precise enough. The second question is more of a presupposition about whether the I.S. tool can be used in memoire. Also, note that the writer used Wallace Stegner’s book, Angle of Repose, as a reference point. It has been a long time since I read it, so my examples from memory may or may not fit the experience of people who have read it more recently. I did not go back and check the book to verify my memory, which is a swiss cheese muddle of too many stories that often blend together.

The Question:

I’m presuming that the I.S. can apply to a memoir ‘character’ since I’m treating myself as the character? Good. So then, my opposing conflicts of ideals are — ideal notions of country/”smaller” living and (true) community not a neighborhood VERSUS ‘freedom’ of city life and anonymity.

My questions — is that SPECIFIC enough?? Or is it too linked to place and time? Do I need more soul-searching to really get at stronger conflicting notions here? I am conflicted in the idolization of country living vs the reality and want to expose that a little more via my experience, but also have notions and real experiences of longing for that country living.

The Answer:

Hi, again, Writer X:

First, I’ll be teaching an 8 hour seminar on this subject in Eugene, OR in May. I have a couple of memoirists already signed up. You don’t have to sign up for all six classes. You can just take this one alone, but I would recommend this one and the one in June for a full sense of how I.S. works in conjunction with other story elements. The people at WordCrafters can help with accommodations. The classes are set up so people can drive or fly in on Saturday and drive or fly out on Sunday. Anyway, here’s the link.

https://wordcraftersineugene.org/fiction-fluency-2018/ff-seminars/

Second, I always welcome “one-off” emails, but I can’t always answer them. Also, I’ll only answer one or two before I send you a contract to set up a formal relationship as a sort of piano teacher of words. Too many people think of me as a private encyclopedia of writing techniques if I let them, and I do have to fulfill my own obligations in life.

So, no worries. I’m especially happy to hear from people who have read my stories and taken one or more of my classes.

Interesting that you mention The Angle of Repose. Not many writers who contact me have read it. Stegner is brilliant. Before I talk about that, I’ll talk a bit about Irreconcilable Self.

When I teach I.S., especially in a short form venue like a conference (60 to 90 minutes, total), I teach it as a binary form to get the idea across. It can be more complex. The form I teach has two parts and relies on “I believe” statements in juxtaposition—something like this:

“I believe Romantic idealism is the only truth in this world.” Vs. “I believe deeply in personal honor and family honor and pride.”

This would be Romeo.

Notice that I have already put in more than one thing in the second “I believe” statement. The juxtaposition of these deeply held, untested beliefs is what’s important. The beliefs are deep and often, but not always, unconscious. They are, however, untested. The only way the character is able to believe both things at the same time is that the beliefs have not been tested in his or her life.

That’s the short version of I.S.

Now, Stegner. Keep in mind that Stegner is telling several stories. Lyman is narrating. He’s telling both his story and the story of Susan. Susan’s story includes the story of Oliver and Frank. Each of these major characters has an I.S. that generally functions beneath their consciousness and either drives or allows them to act in the ways they do. Each character has their beliefs tested. Lyman’s is tested by the telling of the story and the revelations that come because of that. His I.S. is something like, “I believe I am a good man from good stock” vs. “I believe the world and my family owe me for their betrayals.” His I.S. is tested by revelations and experience. He abandons the second belief, modifies the first one, and reconciles his experience into, “My choices create the love around me.”

Okay, I’m making this up on the fly, so don’t expect “correct” summary descriptions of a novel I read a long time ago. I’m just trying to give an example that might be useful for you.

Frank can’t reconcile his beliefs. He kills himself. That’s, more-or-less, the definition of tragedy. I’d say his belief was something like, “I believe I’m a good and loyal friend” vs. “I believe I love Susan beyond life itself.” Yeah, that doesn’t work out for him. If memory serves, he kills himself.

Oliver is something like, “I believe I’m an honorable, educated, man worthy of love and loyalty” vs. “I believe one more shovel full of dirt and I’ll strike it rich and save everyone around me.” Or, maybe, “I believe I’m a good husband and hard worker” vs. “I believe my worth is determined by the success of my next project.” I’d have to go back and reread it to do better.

Now, Susan, who is probably the most interesting character in the whole nested story mess, appears to be dragged through events, but she really isn’t. She’s just more subtle. Her I.S. is something like, “I believe in the trendy, romantic idealization of love and the West” vs. “I believe in family values and am a good wife and mother.”

The end position for a character who has resolved their I.S. (transformed) is one of the following:

Experiences force the character to reject both beliefs and die (Frank). I might also argue that Oliver ends up in this position, but he dies emotionally and spiritually.
Experiences force the character to reject both beliefs, but they find a new belief on which to base life choices and actions (Lyman).
Experiences force the character to reject one belief and embrace the other (Susan).
Experiences force the character to find a way to reconcile the two beliefs and live on in harmony with both (Nobody in that story).

Okay, on to memoir.

The chief problem I see when memoirists approach the use of fiction techniques in telling their stories is that they have difficulty stepping back to examine themselves for the underlying psychological, philosophical, and sociological understanding that fiction writers apply when working with made up characters. Finding your own I.S. is like trying to grab your shoelaces and lift yourself up so you can reach a book on the highest shelf. Even if you succeed in violating the laws of physics, you can’t let go of your shoelaces to reach for the book.

The various successful memoirists I have worked with have had to do extensive work in separating themselves from the character who represents them in the story. It’s much harder than making someone up from scratch, but the techniques are the same. For Memoirists, the trick is to do a lot of work figuring out what the core significance of the experience was both for the writer and for the reader. Sometimes, a very clear statement of the experiencing character’s main transformation will allow you to work backward into the land of unconsidered beliefs. Sometimes, deciding to assign an I.S. and then attempting to cause the story to conform to that I.S. will result in either success or failures that provide insights into what was really going on deeper down during the experience.

Regardless, one of the tasks the memoirist must always remember is that no matter what they think the experience meant to them, the end result is only useful if the reading experience means something to the reader. Those two positions are not in any way connected except through craft. Sometimes, they are two completely different meaning results.

I haven’t read your story, and I don’t know enough about it to name the I.S. for you. Frankly, that’s probably a bad idea anyway. However, I can say that once you know it, it is only one of three core control structures I teach. The other two are “arc” and “premise.”

That said, here’s how you described your I.S.: “opposing conflicts of ideals are — ideal notions of country/”smaller” living and (true) community not a neighborhood VERSUS ‘freedom’ of city life and anonymity”

The description you provided could be translated into I.S. form like this:

I.S.: “I believe I will only be whole if I am a known, respected member of a small, rural community.” Vs. “I believe only the anonymity of city life will let me fully express who I am.”

Do keep in mind that at story open the character rarely knows they believe both things. Given the above I.S., I can certainly see how a story that demonstrates this conflict of values and transformation of a person could be told. I can’t, however, really speak to how your character and your character context will manifest these belief systems on the dialectic, tactical, conflict set, scene, sequence, or movement dramatic levels. I think that’s where you’re getting stuck. You have an I.S., but the translation of it into increments of stress and change caused by experience isn’t taking your story “from-to” in a way that feels both true and satisfying to you on the I.S. level. For that kind of analysis, I’d also need the premise, arc, and a synoptic outline that captures emotional change resulting from the conflict for each dramatic scene.

I don’t have time or space to do a full exposition of these ideas here, but I can say that by using the control concepts of arc, premise, and I.S., it is possible to analyze the story along the conceptual boundaries readers use to internalize emotions while reading. Subconsciously, readers look for moments of emotional change. In fact, physiologically, they respond to those moments before they have time to think about them. The speed of emotional response overriding the speed of cognitive response is one of the things that keeps readers in the story. Being able to name the I.S., being able to see how each moment of the story either stresses the character’s belief system or confirms it (which is another kind of stress since things will get worse because of confirmations), being able to incrementally move the stress levels toward a personal, emotional/psychological crisis in which the character experiences one of the reconciliation results described above, and being able to deliver the emotional power of that moment of transformation to the reader in a context that allows the reader to FEEL its value to them is, at core, what all story telling is about.

I’m sorry I can’t provide more insight than this. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep and…

Best of luck and skill to you.

Eric

 

For the love of…

By Cheryl Owen-Wilson

I thought it appropriate to discuss the topic of love in this month of February, a month where you can’t escape the concept of it, no matter how hard you might try.

I have yet to meet a writer who hasn’t used a writing prompt. Thus my title—For the love of…and is it any wonder that the topic of love, is written about and published more than any other genre given its many variations?

Let’s look at a few—For the love of…a spouse, a child, a parent, a friend, the job, money, yourself, a worthy humanitarian cause; anger (yes one can fall in love with one’s anger). For this particular writing prompt the list is literally endless. We have at our fingertips a menagerie of topics to explore and write about.

However, as I shared in an earlier blog, when I personally attempt to write about romantic love, someone always has to die. Yes, no matter how many times I’ve tried there is never a happily ever after for my lovelorn characters. I must insert here, for those who don’t know me personally, this is not the case in my own life. In my own life, I’ve been happily married for 28 years. Okay, there were rocky times, how could there not be with eight children (big surprise—this is the love I mainly focus on in my fictional and memoir writing—a mother’s love, or lack there of), two parents working full time, and no “Alice” to have meals prepared at the end of the day (for you youngsters Google “The Brady Bunch”)? But isn’t that what true love is? In going through the gauntlet, aren’t you supposed to find the “Holy Grail” at the end?  Well, at any rate, the happy survival of a long-term marriage is just one of the many scenarios of this thing called, love.

I also use prompts when looking for new painting ideas. Here are the results of the, For the Love of…paintings. One of them even elicited a poem.

 

For the Love of a Cold Heart

“Ice Heart” and Original Painting by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

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For the Love of the Universe

“Cosmic Heart” and Original Painting by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

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For the Love of Clouds

“Heart Sylphs” and Original Painting by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

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For the Love of a Music

“Singing Heart” and Original Painting by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

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For the Love of Searching Hearts

“Crawling Hearts” and Original Painting by Cheryl Owen-Wilson

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Crawling Hearts

Crawling hearts skitter across my floor.

Their breath beats like thunder, as they shout—”forevermore”.

Their tendrils reach out, seeking to find,

a love that does not bind, yet is intricately intertwined.

A love, that knows its own soul,

without taking a heavy, breaking toll.

A love, that will last beyond this world,

taking into each day, a hope, easily unfurled.

Crawling hearts skitter across my floor.

Through their long search, they came knocking at — MY door.

“Tell us, does it exist?”

Their pleading whisper, brushes my face, with a warm mist.

“Tell us, will we find that ONE to connect to?

That ONE who will forevermore, be true?”

“That ONE, who will bring us happiness,

as we revel in loves undying, sweet bliss?”

“That ONE, who will make us complete,

as we dance to the rhythm of our united hearts’ beat?”

“That ONE, who when the long day is done,

will wrap us in their arms, as we watch the setting sun?”

Crawling hearts skitter across my floor,

disconnected bodies, searching forevermore.

They search for answers to questions as old as the universe.

Questions, that for centuries they have rehearsed.

“Where do our answers hide?

Has true love really died?”

I reach deep within—My own heart,

for words of wisdom to impart.

My reply is simple, but true.

“To find the love you seek, you must first love YOU.”

“For how can we offer this great gift to another?

When our very own heart, has yet to be our lover?”

Crawling hearts skitter across my floor,

seeking to escape my simple metaphor.

 

What are your favorite writing prompts?

 

How a Writer Might Live Forever

By Cynthia Ray

The world is fascinated with creativity and how it works, perhaps because it has an almost magical quality to it, where ideas and inspiration seem to arise out of nowhere.  Science continues to study, research and even map the brains of creative people, uncovering new and amazing things about creative expression.

Research has validated what many cultures throughout time have known, that creative expression can make a powerful contribution to health, well-being and healing.

That making art and participating in creative endeavors, whether it is photography, collage, music, dancing, painting or writing has mental and physical health benefits is now accepted as a scientific realty.  Creating art and music enhances health and wellness, and specifically, expressive writing is linked with improved immune system response.

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One does not have to be especially creative or artistic to reap the benefits.  Anyone can journal.  Writing is an excellent choice because it doesn’t require any special equipment to begin, all you have to do is open the computer, or pick up a pen and piece of paper and let it flow.

In addition to positive changes in our mental and emotional states, creative expression and expressive writing effect actual physical changes in the body, enhancing immune response and speeding healing from trauma and injury.

This excert from an article titled Make More Art-the Health Benefits of Creativity illustrates the effect.

“The act of writing actually impacted the cells inside the patient’s body and improved their immune system. In other words, the process of creating art doesn’t just make you feel better, it also creates real, physical changes inside your body.”

Another scholarly article documents how one experiment with expressive writing worked, and the amazing positive results.

“The researcher had students write about their deepest thoughts and feelings on an important emotional issue, with the only rule being that “once you begin writing, continue to do so until your [15- to 30-minute] time is up.”  Dozens of replications of these types of studies have demonstrated that emotional writing can influence frequency of physician visits, immune function, stress hormones, blood pressure, and a number of social, academic, and cognitive variables. These effects have been shown to hold across cultures, age groups, and diverse samples.

There are only a few examples, and here a couple of additional articles to puruse if you are interested in learning more about Writing to Heal and the health benefits of expressive writing.

Since I work in healthcare, I receive notifications of interesting health topics almost daily, and last week, I was sent a link to a study where researchers identified the top 10 things that contribute to an individuals likelihood to live longer.  They were surprised to discover that the top two contributors to reduced mortality were having a close friend or person upon whom you could rely, and talk to, and connection with others in a real way. the NY times article says:

“In a study of 7,000 men and women in Alameda County, Calif., begun in 1965, Lisa F. Berkman and S. Leonard Syme found that “people who were disconnected from others were roughly three times more likely to die during the nine-year study than people with strong social ties,” John Robbins recounted in his marvelous book on health and longevity, “Healthy at 100.”

This major difference in survival occurred regardless of people’s age, gender, health practices or physical health status. In fact, the researchers found that “those with close social ties and unhealthful lifestyles (such as smoking, obesity and lack of exercise) actually lived longer than those with poor social ties but more healthful living habits,” Mr. Robbins wrote. However, he quickly added, “Needless to say, people with both healthful lifestyles and close social ties lived the longest of all.”

 Writing is magic, and so is loving connection-the combination is potent.  My take away is this:  Writers could live almost forever if they spend part of the day writing, and the other part connecting with real live humans.

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Waiting for Inspiration

By Elizabeth Engstrom

So here I sit, facing the blank page again.

The house is quiet, I’ve had enough coffee, I’m sick of social media. I am ready to write.

But what shall I write? Shall I tune up—yet again—that old broken short story that I’ve messed with for years? Shall I pull from the trash that old novel that I have pulled from the trash several times already and work on it? (Seriously. It’s back in the office closet. It needs to be in the trash.)

Or should I imagine something new, something fresh?  Yes, that’s it. That’s what I’ll do.

But what?

I know what. It’s what I always do, and it works.

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Most people will go to the garden, or take a walk, or bake something, or worse, turn on daytime television. Inspiration will rarely come to you when you’re doing something other than sitting at the keyboard. Occasionally, I’ll get inspiration in the shower or on a walk, but that almost always involves a work in progress that has hit a snag.

For the fresh idea, I have to be sitting here, right here, ready to go.

And if nothing comes, if nothing in the past few days has piqued my interest sufficiently, then I begin my 10-minute free writing exercise. Timed. Internal editor off.  I just write whatever comes into my head and through my fingers to the keyboard. Most times it’s drivel. Sometimes there comes a germ of an idea.

At the end of the ten minutes, I stop, take a sip of coffee, read the crap I’ve written and see if there’s a thread there that could be pulled up. Sometimes no, but most times yes. And then I proceed, internal editor activated as usual.

Do these things always end up as stellar short stories or novel-length work that can take up to a year of my life? No. But it keeps the writing and imagination machinery greased and working. And keeping the skills alive is  mandatory.

Not everything I write is publishable—far from it—but if the ratio is 90%/10%, then I best be getting on with that 90% of unpublishable stuff so I can get to the good stuff.

I get up in the morning, and I go to work, like everybody else. I don’t wait for inspiration.  I can’t afford to.

Sometimes I have to go hunt it down.

Deadline Heaven and Life Management Skills Hell

[image error]By Lisa Alber

Our fantastic webmistress of the ShadowSpinners world, Christina, sent me a nice email just now pointing out that yesterday makes twice in a row that I’ve missed a blogging deadline. The funny thing about deadlines is that I’m quite good at making them.

So, what’s my excuse this time? Why am I preoccupied enough that this blog has slipped my mind?

The answer is—deadlines! Yep. Coupled with a tendency to be chaotic. In December, I spaced out about this blog because I was feverishly finishing up my Labyrinth of Souls (yay!) novel for a December 31st deadline. So excited about it—can’t wait to tell you more. That and holiday stuff and regular work deadlines were enough to put me under.

And this month? A Feb 1st deadline for a short story that will appear in an anthology in about a year. You’d think a short story wouldn’t be that big a deal, but they are for me since I don’t write them that often. That coupled with my usual seasonal affective disorder and even more regular work deadlines was enough for this month.

However, since I have a new day planner for 2018, I’m going to write down a standing reminder for the first of each month: Check Shadowspinners blog posting deadline. Doing it now … Did it!

Despite not being up on everything in my life—for example, my garage door broke over a month ago; just got it fixed yesterday—I’ve been in heaven with these deadlines. I have a sense of purpose in life anyhow, but deadlines give the purpose a nice ooomph. I like that, especially when I’m having so much fun with the writing projects. Both the LoS novel and the short story were a blast to write because they were outside my usual voice and story space.

Now I’ll be returning to my regularly scheduled writing project: the next mystery, a standalone set in California in a genre I’m calling “California gothic.” I can relax a bit with this one, but the truth is that there’s always something to cause static, isn’t there? This month it will include money stuff because my wee dog Fawnie needs double knee surgery (poor thing!) and that’s expensive. So I’ll be working more than ever.

One of my goals for 2018 is to minimize static and chaos. That sense of not being able to keep up, of having life itself feel too complicated and rushed all the time. It’s an ongoing process of improvement, for sure. Here are my top four strategies, for the moment, subject to change:

Less social media. Social media increases static, wastes times, and distracts. Enough said.
Write things down. Said day planner – yes, actually use it in a proactive way. Chunk out sub-tasks so things don’t feel so big. At the end of the day, give it a look to see where I am and plan for the next day. This it time management 101 stuff, but I’ve always gone by the seat of my pants and kept things in my head—which increases static big time. Writing it down releases it.
Embrace a few routines and rituals. I’m not into routines or rituals—I tend to free-wheel it through life. I get bored and restless. I need variety and to change it up. That said, a few small routines could help streamline my life. For example, readying the coffee, food, clothes, etcetera, for the next day before I go to bed. That way, I’m not muttering around in daze when I could be getting straight to the writing.
If it’s a little task, like sending an email, just get it done then.

You’d think I haven’t been functioning well as an adult for eh-hem number of years. I have to accept the fact that I’m getting older and can’t keep everything in my head anymore, plus life is that much more complicated these days. What’s “normal” is ever a-changing!

What strategies do you employ to lessen static and chaos in your life?

Do The Hop

by Christina Lay

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If you’re a writer looking for low-cost marketing opportunities, there’s no shortage of options. With so many social media platforms, apps, websites and companies offering all sorts of promotional services, deciding on what is an effective use of your time and resources can be overwhelming. I am personally in a constant state of whelmed, especially now that I am promoting a series of books on behalf of ShadowSpinners Press and not just my own. This requires me to reach across genres, constantly in search of that blog, ezine, reviewer or tour company that can help me get the word out to the right set of readers. It ain’t easy, and is very much a matter of experimentation, not to mention that results can be hard to determine.

One activity I’ve found to be consistently worth my time is participating in blog hops. For those of you who have no idea what that is, a hop is usually set up in one central location (a dedicated webpage or perhaps a feature on an author’s blog) where the links to all the participants’ blogs are listed. The idea is that the reader can go to one location to find many authors in one place. Often the hop is united by genre, sometimes holiday specific flash fiction, or even a cause, like the Hop Against Homophobia. Often they take place once a week on the same day all year. Sometimes they are an annual event.

Most of the blogs I’ve participated in require the author post a short excerpt from their work. I find this to be by far the least painful form of blogging, as it requires minimal effort to assemble a post. Also, an excerpt is the best way for a reader to decide if they are interested in reading more. But there are more benefits to blog hopping than marketing. Below are the main reasons I’ve kept this up even while other promotional activities fall by the wayside.

Connect with other writers: Writing is a lonely endeavor, and workshops and conferences can be few and far between. Regular participation in a hop can lead to virtual friendships with like-minded writers (and readers!). Not only can you commiserate, ask questions, and share victories, a virtual connection can lead to much more. My hopping has earned me an interview on USA Today online, guest spots on numerous blogs, chances at group marketing, sales, reviews and connections with authors who’ve contributed to this blog.
Spy on other writers: You don’t have to visit many blogs to figure out which writers have it going on. Their websites are professional, their content is engaging, and they are always friendly and willing to reciprocate. When I find a writer whose presentation I admire, I check out what they’re up to. What other hops do they participate in? Who hosts their website? What sort of promos do they run? Who creates their book covers? What does their newsletter look like? There are all sorts of things you can learn just by looking around, and a hop is a great place to find active, professional indie writers.
Motivational Editing: There’s nothing like putting your work out there for all the world to see to get you to do that critical bit of proofreading and editing. Most blog hop posts are short, so you really get to hone in on those few precious words. The hop I most frequently participate in, Weekend Writing Warriors, limits excerpts to ten sentences. Because I’d like to get a satisfying mini-scene into the post, I often find that I can cut a sentence or two and make that paragraph stronger and more exciting.
Motivational Writing: If you’re the kind of writer who needs a little push, knowing you need that scene or those ten sentences or that piece of flash written in time for the hop you signed up for can really get you going, especially at 10 PM the night before when you’d rather be binge watching Paranormal.
Find books to read! Writers are readers, believe or not. I’ve purchased many books based on excerpts I read on hops, and have even become addicted to a series or two. These from Indie writers I never would have discovered otherwise.
Keep that blog active: As I said before, posting an excerpt is easy-peasy compared to crafting an article from scratch. Every writer knows they have to have a website, but then what? How do you keep it from sitting untouched for months at a time? Commit to an ongoing blog hop, and you won’t have to rack your brain for ideas.

Here’s a list of a few hops to check out. And if you don’t find one to suit you, you can always start your own.

www.weekendwritingwarriors.com

http://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/snippetsunday/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/RainbowSnippets/

 

 

 

Why is Writing Fiction so Difficult?

by Matthew Lowes

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Years ago I taught a creative writing course, and I began the first class by writing a mathematical equation on the board. I suggested that the great difficulties of writing fiction could be understood through this equation. It was partly just a way to shock students into thinking about and seeing something in a new way. But the equation itself was a result of my own inquiry into the question: why is writing fiction so difficult?

At first consideration, it doesn’t seem like it should be. A friend of mine once remarked when I complained about some writing difficulty: “What’s the problem? Just make something up.” And indeed, in some sense this is good advice. He was only joking, but his comment actually helped solve my problem. When all is said and done, we are just making up stories. But like any good lie, you would like it to be believable … and like any good truth, you would like it have an impact. And to do this, you have to keep your story straight.

A piece of fiction may start with a character, a setting, an event, an image, or any number of things or aspects of these things. The story then builds with another thing and another thing and all the interactions and connections of these various elements. For the sake of argument, let’s call each one of these things, be it big or small, a story point.

The first one is easy. Take anything — the queen of a small island that is sinking into the sea … a young artist sent to the front lines of long and futile war … an ancient city on the edge of the desert … a fleeting glimpse into a stranger’s eyes — or just make something up. Like flashes from half-remembered dreams, these points bubble up from the subconscious, and a thousand stories begin to form.

One point, however, does not a story make. You have to add another point and another and another. And not only do the accumulation of points have to build tension and conflict, but they also all have to somehow exist harmoniously with each other. Each point that you add forms another connection, not only with the previous point, but with all previous points. And it turns out you can express this with an equation.

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What this shows (I think … I worked this out with some help many years ago) is that for each new point added, the number of connections increases by a number equal to all the previous points. So with two points you have one connection; with three you have three; with four you have six; with seven you have twenty-one; and so on. By the time you reach fifteen points there are over a hundred individual connections. It doesn’t take a math whiz to see that the number of connections increases exponentially as you add more points.

Furthermore, this equation is only accounting for single direct connections to all other story points. If you want to count all possible connections through other story points, the numbers get truly astronomical — mind boggling! But you get the idea. There’s a lot to keep straight as you move forward. Luckily, it seems our minds are somewhat tuned to do this narrative processing work. Nevertheless, in any given story, and especially a novel, there’s a lot to keep track of.

And that’s just the telling a good lie part. If you want to include the good truth part, we’re going to have to add another dimension — a dimension composed of layers, consisting of all these same points on the level of theme, voice, writing, metaphor, character change, plot structure, mythic underpinnings, and so on and so forth, up to and including the ineffable.

That’s why writing fiction is so difficult.

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