Lacey Louwagie's Blog, page 28

March Madness or … My First Crack at NaNoEdMo

Doesn’t it seem like only yesterday that we were slagging and bragging our way through NaNoWriMo? At that time, the prospect of March, or National Novel Editing Month (NaNoEdMo) seemed blissfully distant. Surely I’d have my other writing projects wrapped up by then and could delve into some rigorous revision of my NaNo.

Well, March is here, I’m signed up for NaNoEdMo, I’m already a little bit behind, and I’m slightly nervous about the whole undertaking.

NaNoEdMo is a challenge to put in 50 hours of editing during the month of March. That equals about an hour and a half a day. That doesn’t sound so bad — certainly less daunting than writing a whole novel in a month.

Mentally, it is less daunting to me. I prefer revision and rewriting to drafting, so having that hour and a half of editing looming over me each day doesn’t feel as ominous as the 1,776 daily word output of NaNoWriMo. But it’s hard for me to find time in November to write — and for me, NaNoEdMo requires a bigger time commitment. See, when I’m free of worrying about quality, I can usually pound out the needed 1,776 words for NaNo in an hour; in fact, usually when I write for a whole hour I end up exceeding that. But measuring in hours rather than output for March means there’s no way around it: to win, I have to put in the time.

Still, being free from the tyranny of word-count has its upside, too. There’s no penalty (except less productivity) if you spend 15 minutes on one paragraph, the way I did last week. I allow a range of editing activities to fall into that hour and a half: rewriting and correcting actual text, as well as free-writing to unravel challenging revision obstacles, doing a spot of research here or there that was skipped over in the frenzy of writing, reviewing comments from my writers group to decide what stays and what goes, and even bouncing ideas off my husband.

And already, NaNoEdMo has paid dividends. In just a matter of days, I was able to rework 20 pages and thus conclude my fourth revision of Rumpled — something I’ve been working on for months. And putting in so many hours in a short time-span gives me a much more cohesive vision of my story than editing it in half-hour chunks a few days a week could ever do.

Still, I don’t really know how I’m going to pull this off. I’ve got an online course starting today and my usual freelance and email backlog. I work every weekend this month. I’m going to be working with a friend to put together my new website. I’ve got two speaking engagements approaching, one at the end of March and the next at the beginning of April. I have dishes, laundry, pets, a husband, exercise goals, Lenten practices, two upcoming trips, and my blogging commitments. But that’s the point of these challenges, isn’t it? To prove that you can do it, even though life doesn’t stop to give you a breather. Who says breathing can’t wait until April, anyway?

Retellings, Fan-fiction, and Obsession

In last week’s post, I reflected a bit on my roots as a fan-fiction writer as it related to my latest decision to self-publish. As I think further on the type of writing I’m doing now, I realize that the subject matter and impetus hasn’t really changed all that much, either.

Back when I was thirteen, it was Aladdin fan-fiction that really hooked me into writing seriously. I’d been writing for most of my life, but it was through fan-fiction that I began to successfully finish stories. I loved the characters so much that I wanted to immerse myself in their world again and again and again — and I wanted to stay there long enough to finish what I’d started.

I wrote my first non-fan-fic novel when I was fifteen. By the time I was eighteen, I had abandoned fan-fiction to focus on my own original stories. This was in line with a trend that was emerging in which my fan-fic began focusing more on original characters I had created for the Aladdin universe than on the primary characters themselves. It’s been 13 years since I last penned any fan-fiction, and I don’t think I’ll ever return to it.

Except.

Except that I realized my predilection toward retellings really constitute their own type of fan-fiction. I’ve written three fairy tale retellings (using Sleeping Beauty, Rumplestiltskin, and Rapunzel as source material) and I hope to write more. Two of my other novels, while not retellings in the strictest sense, borrowed heavily from Biblical stories. When I was thirteen, I started writing fan-fiction because, as much as I loved the source material, it just wasn’t enough for me. I wanted more. I wanted not to just consume it, but to create it, to give something new back to the content that had inspired me so much.

That’s exactly what I’m doing with my fairy tale retellings and my exploration of religious themes in my books now. So I guess I haven’t drifted so far from my roots after all.

In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg recommends writing about your “obsessions.” That’s what I’ve been doing, in various forms, since my early obsession with Aladdin. It’s good advice — my obsessions have changed over the years, but my response to them hasn’t. And that’s kept me writing.

Self Publishing … Without a Clue

Artwork inspired by Rumpled, from my sister Krystl.

Like almost any author in today’s literary landscape, I’ve explored the idea of self-publishing. Although I used to scoff at it, I’ve softened toward the idea over the last several years — not because of one-in-a-million success stories like Eragon and 50 Shades of Gray, but because I, like many writers, am feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the consolidation of big publishing houses and fewer and fewer people holding all the cards when it comes to traditional publishing. And now that we have the option to go directly to the reader … why don’t we?

Back when I was a teenager, I established quite a following as an author of Aladdin fan-fiction, and my one piece of Gargoyles fan-fiction didn’t do too badly, either. At the time, I was so excited by the ability the Internet gave me to reach readers directly — as far as I was concerned, it was just as good as being published. Because the whole point in being published is in having readers, right? Maybe even fans. And I had readers, many of whom became fans.

Now, publishing seems to be following that content model more and more, and I’m going to experiment with it again, too. Still, there are two obstacles (besides my own pride and the feeling of “legitimacy” that come with traditional publishing) that scare me most:

The fact that self-published work isn’t taken as seriously as traditionally published work; and
The fact that I hate marketing, even when I really, really love what I’m marketing.

As for #1, I admit that I’m one of those people who doesn’t take a self-published book as seriously as a traditionally published one. And the main reason for this is that I’ve read so many really bad self-published books, books that felt like early drafts rather than finished ones. But I feel fairly confident in my ability to create a polished product — and I know that, especially with ebooks, there are a lot of readers who don’t know or care which books are self-published and which aren’t. I know there are a lot of readers willing to take a chance on an ebook by an unknown author because the price is right.

As for #2, well, I don’t really have a plan for that.

But I’ve decided to explore self-publishing in ebook format with my novella Rumpled, which is a retelling of Rumplestiltskin. The reason is because it’s an awkward length to submit to short story or to novel markets at about 24,000 words, and there are few dedicated novella markets. And although I’ve always loved fairy tale retellings, it seems now the rest of the world is getting on board with this passion, as evidenced by the proliferation of young adult retellings featuring everything from Cyborg Cinderellas to werewolf-hunting Red Riding Hoods, not to mention TV series like Grimm and Once Upon a Time, or movies like Snow White and the Huntsman, Mirror, Mirror, or Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.

So if ever there was a time to encourage people to take a chance on an unknown writer with a retelling of a fairy tale, now seems like the time to do it.

If anyone knows of good resources for self-publishing or promoting ebooks, I’d love to explore them. Thanks!

On Fixing Roofs, Breaking Bread, and Women’s Ordination

You couldn’t expect me to stay silent about the Vatican’s latest statement against women’s ordination, could you? Head over to Young Adult Catholics to read my response.

Creativity … Where Does it Come From? (Thanks, Dad)

Dad and the custom guitar.

For Christmas, my dad created a custom guitar shaped like a rifle for my brother-in-law to display in his gun shop. The custom guitar was a work of art in itself. But while he was building it, he took video and then edited a series of YouTube videos about the process. Although Dad was an “early adopter” of technology when I was a kid (we were one of the first families in town to own a VCR and video camera), after our first camcorder went kaput sometime in the 90s, he didn’t take any more video. So as I watched the videos he put together about the guitar creation process, I found myself marveling not so much at the problem-solving and creativity and skill needed to create the guitar (all of which are substantial), but the additional creativity and problem solving that went into making the videos.

Before now, my dad had never used video editing software. It wasn’t around the last time he worked with a camcorder. And I’ve worked enough (although still not much at all) with Windows MovieMaker to know that editing video is time consuming, slow work. I’ve often had ideas for videos that I’ve never followed through on, mostly because very little besides writing can motivate me to put in that kind of time and precision.

So I found myself wondering what inspired my dad to put in this kind of time. A desire to document and share his process, certainly, but considering how hard it is to “get noticed” on the Internet, I don’t think that was the main motivating factor. What struck me was that the main motivation behind the video series was simply the process of creation itself — the learning of something new, the puzzling out of how to make an idea into a reality.

And that’s when I realized how alike my dad and I are.

Watching the videos, I thought about the hours I’m putting into making a collection of storied Mix CDs that I’ll probably only ever share with one or two other people. I thought about the novels I’ve been writing since I was fifteen, and the fanfiction I wrote before that — before the Internet was widely accessible and before I knew there was actually a market for that kind of thing. I thought about the dozens of character journals I kept (and which now take up a whole drawer in my file cabinet) for over five years. And I realized that I had Dad to thank.

Despite growing up with him, I’d never before reflected on the impact his quiet creativity had on my own. I’d be more inclined to credit my sisters, for their example and their co-creativity, or my mom, with her hardcore support of imaginative play and creation. But all those years, there was my dad in the background, teaching himself to play guitar, building go-carts, and now, building guitars. All for the joy of the process, and, I think, for the satisfaction that comes from solving a puzzle.

I’m realizing more and more that what I love about writing is the satisfaction I feel deep in the heart of a project, when I feel myself finally able to work loose the knots at the heart of a creative work. My dad worked loose similar knots as he learned to edit video for the first time.

Like anything else, one can debate the impact of nature and nurture on the development of creativity and the expression of one’s self through a specific medium. Like most things, I’m sure the answer is a combination of both; I can certainly think of incidences and circumstances and people who “nurtured” my writing in one way or another throughout the years. But I don’t think I’ve fully appreciated until now what nature has gifted me with — a love of the process for its own sake that I now believe is a direct result of my dad’s genes. And for that, a thank you will never be enough.

On Credentials, Being an Autodidact, and Why I Never Got an MFA

Since I’ve started working with the library system in Sioux Falls, I’ve been thinking a lot about credentials.

Before I moved, I was a Teen Services Librarian at the largest library in a rural area. I don’t have my MLS. When I applied for the job, the description said an MLS was “preferred” — not required. Although others who applied did have the MLS, I got the position because I had real work experience with teenagers. I excelled at the job, to the point that even when I moved away, my boss worked hard to keep me in the position.

Things are different in my new library system. Despite having already proven myself in the actual job, obtaining a similar position here without an MLS appears to be out of reach. I’ve probably enjoyed being a Teen Services Librarian more than any paid work I’ve ever had.   So of course, the question arises: Is it time to consider getting an MLS?

For me, the answer is no. I feel incredibly blessed that I had the opportunity to do the things I’ve done without one. But I’m not going to pursue one now because obtaining a librarian position isn’t my dream. Becoming a writer is.

Back around 2006, I started to feel an itch for something different. I’d been in my current job for almost five years and was ready for a change. I applied to grad school — or more specifically, to one grad school, the one that is most competitive in the field of writing. I didn’t get in. I found myself feeling relieved, and I didn’t pursue grad school again. I realized that writing is one of the few fields where your work can still speak louder than your credentials. Writers with MFAs and writers with only a high school education have both been published and successful. While there’s a lot to learn about the craft of writing, what matters most of all is putting in the time. The real reason I wanted to go for my MFA was so that I could feel justified in putting my writing first. And I had to give myself permission to do that — without paying someone else for it.

I still want to put my writing first, and small and big changes I’ve made in my life over the years have brought me closer to that goal. And I’ve done it without going into the debt that more schooling would require — especially since it seems the main reason MFA students might do better than writers without the MFA is because they’ve been forced to actually produce. And I’ve been lucky in that motivation to write has never been as big an obstacle to me than it is for other writers — blame a strong guilt complex. When I read in No Plot, No Problem that NaNoWriMo had produced more writing than the nation’s MFA programs combined, my choice was affirmed.

Even so, I don’t think writing is what I’m most passionate about. When I ask myself what I would do with my time if I didn’t need to earn a living, writing plays a big part in the life I envision for myself. But what I’d really like to do is just devote as much time as possible to learning. To reading books on religion, history, and culture. To taking community ed and online classes. To exploring. To, essentially, “homeschooling” myself.

So if learning is at the top of the list of what I’m passionate about, it again seems counterintuitive that I have no interest in going back to school. I loved my time in college and always thought that eventually I’d miss school enough to return for higher education. But many years ago, I read The Day I Became an Autodidact, and it filled me with longing. I loved the idea of being able to learn because I loved it and taking control of my own education. And although I did go the traditional route to get my B.A., and although I don’t regret it, now that I’m done with formal education, I’m free to pursue learning for its own sake. This kind of learning will get me very little in way of credentials, yet it makes me happier than anything else.

And that’s what brings me back to writing — it’s a pursuit that allows wide exploration of many, many diverse fields, and the opportunity to synthesize what you’re discovering, and somehow make something new to give back to the world. So while I don’t see a Masters or Doctorate degree in my future, I do see piles of books, study groups, online classes, community ed, travel, museum visits, and notebooks full of scribbles. And that future looks lovely.

Writing Groups, Critiques, Scrivener, and Long Drives

Photo courtesy of Jim Brekke — unfortunately, I forgot to bring my camera on the trip.

I’ve had an incredibly enriching weekend for my writing life. On Friday I put my dog in the back of the car and made a 7-hour trek up to my old stomping grounds in Duluth, Minnesota. Along the way, I stopped to visit a friend that I met at writer’s camp when we were both 15, and I received some more valuable feedback for my Rumplestiltskin retelling. I’m excited to put it through another round or revisions this month, and possibly start submitting it this year. I’m particularly interested in submitting this to ebook markets because of its awkward length (it’s neither a short story or a novel at about 28,000 words.) If you know of a market that might be a good fit, I’d love to know about it!

My friend has also just finished her degree in graphic and web design, so we got the opportunity to brainstorm the webpage I want to set up soon for my freelance work.

In Duluth, I met with my speculative fiction writing group in person for the first time in almost a year (one of whom has just started her own blog here). What a treat! There’s so much more laughter when I get to be there in person and can catch everyone’s facial expressions and the nuances in their voices. I submitted the first eight pages of my Rapunzel retelling, and it was eye-opening to have some thoughts other than my own on the piece. It’s always fascinating, and enlightening, to see what other minds and eyes find in the words you’ve written. I’m realizing more and more how complicated this revision is going to be. But I’m still looking forward to it!

Which leads to a few more of my thoughts on using Scrivener for writing. I didn’t like that there wasn’t an easy way for me to export just part of the document to another format (.doc or .rtf), so that to convert just a few pages to submit to the group, I had to either copy and paste them or export more than I needed and then delete everything that wasn’t ready for review. Also, the font conversion was absolutely appalling when I opened it in Windows, with weird spacing issues every time I used an apostrophe. So I’m still on the fence about whether using Scrivener for rewrites is a good fit. (I do think the conversions would have been a little cleaner if I hadn’t already stripped formatting to import the document into Scrivener in the first place.)

HOWEVER, I also used Scrivener for brainstorming and outlining a set of concept albums I’m working on when I had to wait for new tires to be put on my car Friday morning (and thank goodness, because I needed those good tires to get me through Winter Storm Luna on my drive home last night). And I LOVED Scrivener’s features for this part of the creation process. I loved being able to create a notecard for each plot development, with the option to include as much or as little information about the scene as I wanted. And I love how easy it is to move ideas around and resort them as I develop the story around the music I’m using. This isn’t a writing project per se, in that the songs will tell the story and I”m just stringing them together, but it’s still too big for me to hold in my brain. And right now, Scrivener is holding all those details quite nicely, and making this step of the process very easy and energizing rather than overwhelming. Because the initial creation process is always the most daunting to me, Scrivener might be just what I need to get through it with less stress.

While in Duluth, I stayed in a bedroom above a friend’s shop out in the woods. Quiet, private, and the perfect place to read Thomas Merton and journal about my return to the city I love more than any other. And of course, all that driving time isn’t bad for getting the creative juices flowing, either. The hardest part is finding the time to implement them all once I’m back home.

Compassion: The Hardest Pill to Swallow

My newest post is up at Young Adult Catholics, which contains a few of my reflections on Karen Armstrong’s 12 Steps to a Compassionate Life. Also, we’ve had an upsurge in new writers over at the blog with much of relevance and beauty to say — so glad to be in such good company!

On Letting Your Writing Leave the House

Back in 2007, I made a decision that is continuing to pay dividends. I decided to let my writing leave the house.

For years I’d been journaling and writing novels and had even submitted a couple times. I’d sent a few letters to the editor and had begun to feel both that it was part of my calling to start writing for social justice, and that it was important to my development as a writer to start writing for a real audience. So, a little worried about what I might find to say twice a month, I volunteered to become a writer for the Young Adult Catholics blog.

I’ve already written about how my involvement with the blog led to the book deal for Hungering and Thirsting for Justice. It also led to me writing an article for Dignity USA about being bisexual and Catholic. And that’s what led Marie from the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing to me.

A few weeks ago, Marie was referred to me via Dignity USA to discuss her work on creating resources for religious institutions that specifically addressed the needs of ministering to bisexual persons. She wondered whether I knew of resources or of out bisexual clergy who would be willing to serve on the project’s board. I told her that I, unfortunately, didn’t know of any clergy that fit the bill and that I felt my plate was too full to serve on a board right now even if I did fit the description. I did pass some resources along and asked that she keep me in the loop as the project developed.

Last week, she contacted me again because she said my name continued to come up in regards to the intersection of a bisexual and Catholic identity. She wanted to talk to me about a way I could be involved that was “time-limited.” We set up a phone call. I expected her to ask me to share my experiences, perhaps to use as pull quotes in the guide, or to write something, both of which I was totally willing to do. But I didn’t expect her to offer to fly me to New York City so I could attend a one-day meeting with other people of faith to create a theological statement that will be the basis of the faith and bisexuality work they continue to do.

But that’s what happened. And I couldn’t be more thrilled.

When she told me that I kept coming so “highly recommended,” I joked that I was probably just the only out bisexual Catholic in the world. She chuckled and said that might be true. But I know it’s not just that. I know I’m not the only one.

But I might be the only one who is writing about it. And by writing about it, I say to the world, I exist. And what’s more, others like me probably exist, too. And by telling people that I exist, I make myself vulnerable, and in some ways I’ve paid the price for that. But it’s also allowed people to find me who care deeply about the same things that I care about. And by finding each other, we can hopefully make the world better for others.

When I put the phone down, I kept marveling at how none of this would have happened if I’d kept my writing and my thoughts to myself. How none of this would have happened if I’d refused to write “for free.” More than ever, I believe that true writers must love writing enough to write for free, whether it’s in a journal or a novel that nobody sees or a blog that thousands of people see. That writing will pay dividends — whether in benefits to mental health, your checkbook — or even in helping to create the world you want to live in.

Scrivener: My New Writing Toy

Recently, I’ve begun playing with a new writing toy: the software program Scrivener. It’s a tool developed for the brainstorming and drafting stage of longer writing projects, whether novels, screenplays, or dissertations. It allows you to keep your research, various media files, and notes all in one program. And my favorite part? It allows you to tag each scene with a “notecard” and description, and THEN it allows you to rearrange said notecards, with the changes reflected in your master document. Goodbye, Copy & Paste!

I’ve recently fed my Rapunzel novel into Scrivener, after I followed the advice for revising in No Plot, No Problem!, which was to read through the novel and make a notecard for every single scene. (Incidentally, reading this section in Barnes & Noble YEARS ago was what made me want to get the book in the first place.) You make notecards for scenes you need to add, too. And of course, you can theoretically throw out notecards for the scenes you plan to cut, although I haven’t been that brave yet. Oh, and I ran out of notecards during the process, but little pieces of paper worked fine as a supplement.

Then I fed all those notecards into Scrivener, as tags on each scene. Transferring the notecards into electronic format took about two to three hours total. That may seem like a gross waste of time, especially when I’m trying to get at least a few scenes of the story ready for my writers group by the end of this week. But I didn’t find the time wasted at all, because it allowed me to continue spending time with the original draft in three different forms (my first read-through, making the initial cards, and then inputting them into Scrivener.) Each time I went through it, I came up with new ideas for the revision, and became more sure about which sections were working, and which ones weren’t. I hope this will pay dividends in a smoother revision process, but perhaps Scrivener will just distract me with all its features! Still, it’s given me a new burst of enthusiasm for drafting and brainstorming, so if it doesn’t do anything else, that alone makes it worth the hour it took to learn the software.

Since I use a Linux operating system on my “writing” computer, I was able to download the Linux beta for free here. If you’re on a MAC or Windows operating system, you can get a free trial download (30 days). That’s enough time, if you dive right in, to decide whether it’s worth the $40. And if you sometimes make a little money off your writing, you can even tax deduct that.

As I continue to explore the program further, and get into the nitty gritty of actually writing with it, I’ll have a better handle on whether it’s a good investment for writers or just another potential distraction (there is something to be said for nothing but a blank page screaming to be filled, after all). If you’re a writer who has used Scrivener, I’d love to hear your opinion. And if you haven’t, stay tuned for more of mine.