Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 4

When You're Having a Critique

1) Always bring the first part of the book, never something exciting in the middle. And I don't recommend bringing a prologue. Not bringing it and hearing feedback could give you useful information about whether or not you need the prologue at all.

2) Be prepared to listen to other critiques. You will often learn more from other critiques than you do from your own because you are less attached to the material.

3) Be ready to hear that what you have on paper needs to be completely rewritten from scratch. Published authors hear this all the time. It does not mean that you are a bad writer. It only means that you are telling the wrong part of the story here. It also doesn't mean that the critique session has been useless. This is really useful information, as you can now figure out where the right place to start is.

4) Sometimes what you find will out is that you need to do more research into your targeted genre, regarding scene length, word count, and viewpoint appropriate for the age group, or that you need to be reading more current books. What we adults read as children would probably not be sold today. Expectations have changed.

5) You may need to start on a new book. This is advice that published authors also hear fairly often. For whatever reason, if you have reworked a book too many times, you can no longer see it clearly and can't make it better right now. Working on a new book is the best way for you as a writer to get out of a rut and to show the things you have learned since you first started work on an older project.

6) Please be kind to other participants. Don't dismiss other writers' work out of hand, and make sure that you always offer your thoughts as yours alone and not as universals.

7) Take notes so that you have a chance to think through everything later, when you're not under pressure.

8) Always remember that you don't have to take anyone's advice (not even a published author's) if you don't want to. There are times when an editor or even an agent offers the wrong advice to an author. You have to figure out what is right for your book. That said, don't immediately dismiss anyone's thoughts without consideration. Most of the time, they are offering good information for you.

9) Common critiques include things like unsympathetic characters, confusing beginning, too much backstory to begin with, and voice problems. Another big problem is uniqueness. Your story needs to be a unique addition to the marketplace. Sometimes the only response you may get is that it just didn't stand out. It needs to stand out.

Writing and Structure

After spending years watching other writers dream about quitting their day job, then quitting it and discovering that they didn’t produce nearly as much as they had expected and in fact, were often less productive than they had been with a job, I think it’s important to speak to writers about structure. There are, in my opinion, 3 kinds of writers when it comes to structure.

1.    Writers who do not easily impose structure on themselves. You may or may not be able to tell that you are this kind of writer before you try to work for yourself, but you might be this kind of writer if you struggle with weight loss goals or you let Netflix just keep playing the same TV show over and over again. You might be this kind of writer if you sleep in on weekends and don’t get much done. You might be this kind of writer if deadlines make you suddenly work a lot faster than before.

2.    Writers who work in a seasonal fashion, where in some parts of the year, they produce a lot of words and in other parts of the year they don’t. Some hints to being this kind of writer might be seasonal patterns in other parts of your life. Do you like gardening in the summer and knitting in the winter? Do you need a lot of outlining or prewriting time for a project? Do you not work well on multiple projects at the same time?

3.    Writers who like structure, easily impose it on themselves, and struggle to take time off of writing ever. You might be this kind of person if you like a specific routine, if you don’t like vacation time, if you tend to have the same habits, and are strict with your diet or other health routines. You might be this kind of writer if you dislike intensely deadlines imposed on you by others and do not like to “crunch” in your study habits for anything.

If you are the first type of writer, quitting your day job may turn out to be frustrating for you. Of course, there are writers like this who learn to impose discipline on themselves. We can change, but I haven’t seen this happen that I can recall. You might simply be better off working around a day job, a few hours most weeknights, and then longer hours on the weekend. There is nothing wrong with being this kind of writer. Many very successful writers still have a full or part time day job because it suits them. If you are this kind of writer, you may take some satisfaction in my personal belief that no one can work more than 3-4 hours a day intensely and effectively on a creative project anyway.

If you are the second type of writer, you may need to make sure that you aren’t letting your fallow time go on for too long. Perhaps get out a yearly calendar and check off what wayposts you imagine you need to be at along the way, like working on outlining and prewriting. Not that writing ever follows these exactly, but don’t completely let it go. I also think you may need to talk to your agent and editor about scheduling deadlines regularly around your normal rhythm. I am not this type of writer but I see many around me who do this beautifully well and they seem to have a grace and ease about it which I envy. But maybe that’s just because they’ve spent years learning who they are as a writer.

If you are the third type of writer (which I am), you may be an extreme introvert. Your struggles are going to be extroverting to the level you need to to help your career. You may need to spread out your extroverting and work around it. You may also need to force yourself to take breaks that are healthy and to get out a little bit. Your goals may end up being things that normal people take for granted, like talking to a human once a day or going out for lunch once a week with writer friends. These things are also important. The daily word count goal is not the only thing that matters.

I believe that all humans, yes even the creative weirdos, need structure of some sort. Time is something I think humans invented so that we got things done before we died. Animals don’t have a sense of time—lucky them. So if you want to do things, time is not the enemy. It’s your tool, not your master. Use it well.

Saving Your Darlings

Writers talk a lot about how important it is to be willing to "kill your darlings," but we don't always talk about HOW to do that. I can't tell you how many times I've critiqued work by someone who seems theoretically willing to kill darlings, but doesn't know how to do the emotional work of letting go of those sentences that they spent so many hours crafting into perfection. Here are some ideas:

1. Make a separate file for all your darlings to be saved in. This way, you can give yourself permission to still be emotionally attached to them without cluttering up your new draft with old stuff that doesn't fit anymore.

2. Remind yourself that writing is about storytelling. If your story is different now, that sentence may no longer fit. A friend once told me I had written "the perfect sentence." I was sad when I told her I had to cut it out in revision because it didn't fit anymore. She laughed and said that of course that happens, because a perfect sentence doesn't exist in isolation. it's only perfect because it fit with what the story was doing when it was doing the old thing. She was sure I could write another perfect sentence in the new draft.

3. Think about your favorite darlings in the work of other writers. Then try to rewrite those darlings into your own book. Are they any good there? No, probably not. Because any writer's darling is what expresses them perfectly, not you. You may actually be completely unaware of the sentences that are really your best because they are so clear and obvious to you. And this is as it should be.

4. Write a new book. I know I say this a lot, but I'm pretty sure there are people who still need to hear it, so I'm going to say it again. DON'T try to put your old darlings in the new book. Just write the story that needs to be told as clearly as possible, without consciously trying to craft beautiful phrases or sentences in it. It will be a better book based on what you have learned from all your revision before. I promise.

5. Imagine your darlings are old friends you loved when you were in high school. Then actually spend some time talking to your old friends. Are they the same as they were in high school? I hope not. They wouldn't be very interesting people if they were. Your darlings need a chance to grow and change, too. They may be completely unrecognizable in their new state, and that's a good thing.

6. Open a new document on your computer and refuse to let yourself look back at the words in the old document. Tell your story completely new, with all words that come from you now, as you understand the story now. (This may not work if you've memorized parts of your story, but it might help you see how the story needs to change--and the words are the first part in the new book). I know this can be painful and scary to do. Try it just with the first chapter to begin with and see what you think. I know several writers who swear by this method as a revision technique.

That F---@$^#&--ing Stage

Every author gets to that stage in the revision process where you're convinced that the book you're writing is crap. If you don't get to that stage, I would argue that you're probably still working on your editorial hat because it isn't vicious enough yet and it needs to be pretty vicious for you to be successful. Here's the thing, sometimes books need to be put aside. Sometimes you can't save them. But don't give up until you're really sure of that, and you can articulate why.

In the meantime, keep trying things to fix the problems you can see. Your first attempt may or may not be the right one. And revisions also means taking apart your novel and not being sure you will be able to put it all back together. You tinker on this scene here, while the back of your brain knows that all the changes you are making are ruining every other scene in the entire book and you have no idea how you will fix them. Because guess what? A novel is just too big for your mind to get around in any conscious way (IHMO anyway). And so you keep mucking around, changing this and that, hoping that you're moving forward, feeling like you're moving backward.

This is normal. I'm not saying that you're wrong. You're not wrong. The book is crap. It's worse than your first draft because it's all bits and pieces that don't fit together. It may be worse because your attempts at solutions are all worse now than your first attempts. And that's the way it should be.

Writing is like exercise. Exercise destroys your muscles so your body can rebuild them stronger. But it hurts. And it hurts because that's what pain is. Pain is a warning that you're doing damage. And you are. Because you're on the way to more strength. But there's no easy way from here to there without pain.

So, when you look honestly at your book and you realize it isn't what you want it to be, that's a good thing. You should want it to be better. And there is always going to be a stage where you don't know how to get it better. You take out this and that and hold it up and throw it in a pile because you don't know what to do with it. You don't want to throw anything away yet, though, because you might use it later. Who knows what you're going to need later? Certainly not you, the writer.

It gets worse before it gets better, is all I'm saying. Sometimes it just gets worse and there is no getting better, at least not at this stage. But that's good. That's an important part of the process of you becoming a better writer. And isn't that the real goal? You're not doing this just for one novel, are you? You're doing this because you're turning into a muscular super-hero hunk of a writer who can do anything. Yes, even fix this book.

Are Your Writing Habits Killing You?

Writers aren't the only people to have weird work habits. I've met writers who have "lucky" chairs that they need to write in (they believe) in order to do good work. I know writers who can't write at home, only in a coffee shop, or a hotel room. I know writers who need to have coffee or Diet Coke to write. Or a particular brand of candy.

Here's the thing: it isn't true.

In fact, not changing your habits may be holding you back from a new creative landscape. And more importantly, not changing your habits may be killing you.

You can learn to write while walking on a treadmill desk and getting a lot more exercise and decreasing your risk of premature death. You can change your food habits and start eating fruits and vegetables while you work. You can get rid of caffeine if your doctor suggests that your health is suffering because of too much use of it. And guess what? You can make even bigger changes.

You can stop the script in your head that tells you you aren't good enough. You can push people out of your life who are toxic to your creativity and personal life. You can write books you never thought you could write before. You can write "like a man" or "like a woman." You can increase your word count if you need to. You can learn how to manage public appearances if those are holding you back.

You can change.

I'm saying this as someone who hates change almost all the time. And yet, I can also learn to embrace it. I have changed my writing location recently, from a closed basement room to an open living room couch. It still works. I have learned to write on airplanes and in hotel rooms. I have learned to be braver than I thought I ever could be. And all of this is good for my creativity.

Changing where you write or what you do while writing is GOOD for creativity. You will find yourself writing different things than you would have before, and you will become a different writer and a different person. If you are worried that you are in a writing rut, do something to get out of it. Change your own habits. And if you are frustrated because writing seems to have stolen the best part of your non-writing life, don't let it. You are in charge. Write your own story the way you want it to go. That's what writers do best.

How do you write with little kids around?

1. Treat your writing as a job and other people will follow your lead.
2. Hire child care. It's a business expense.
3. Wake up early/stay up late.
4. Learn to write amidst chaos, at the kitchen table, managing your family.
5. It's good for your children to sometimes be told, "Mommy/Daddy is working now."
6. Set boundaries, sometimes literally with a closed door in your office.
7. Become a nap Nazi. (It doesn't matter if your kids actually sleep).
8. Get your spouse to trade off with you.
9. Buy/pay for services you don't have time to do (cooking, cleaning, car pooling, etc.)
10. Accept imperfection in trying to find a balance.

And one last thing I said was that there are times in your life (not many, but still some) when you may truly not be able to get in any writing. If this is the case for you, don't make yourself feel bad about it. Plan for a future where you will have time to write. (I call this Life Block.)

Author vs. Writer

I'm going to riff on what my agent Barry Goldblatt​ says in this great interview http://scbwiconference.blogspot.com/2015/07/barry-goldblatt-difference-between.html (by the way, I'm pretty sure that when he talks about the author with six kids who are trained not to open the basement door while she's writing--that's me).

So many writer's conferences end up being author's conferences instead (or publishing conferences). And many writers get tired of answering questions about publishing. How did you find your agent? How much did you get paid for your first book? How do you do twitter/facebook? Do I need a website? What about my second book? How do I promote myself? When do I quit my day job? What do I look for in a good contract?

These are all author questions. And I know being an author is important. It's real work. You have to do it. You can't just close your eyes and ears and expect your career to go ahead for you. But I speak as one who spent too much time confusing my career and my passion for writing, so please don't make the same mistake I did. You need to work on putting a different hat on (mentally, if nothing else) when you are an author and when you are a writer.

When I go out and do a book tour or conferences or signings or talks of any kind, I am an author. I am promoting myself. I dress in a special set of clothes that I have as an author (not my regular jeans or short and race T-shirt and no shoes that I wear when I am writing). When I send emails to my agent and editor, there is a distinctly different tenor when I write as an author (Did my check come? What events do I need to do? When is the deadline for this book) and when I write as a writer (*whining* I don't know if I can do this? Is my writing any good? I need a rest. My life sucks right now.)

The responses to a writer asking if a book is any good is very different from an author asking if a book is any good. A writer needs reassurance and encouragement. An author needs to know if it will sell, which is not at all the same thing as "good" in some cases (in some cases it is). A writer needs to spend time alone, goofing off, reading and writing whatever is fun. A writer needs to ignore the laundry and the dishes and sometimes the other people in her life. An author keeps things together, makes lists, and is organized. An author knows how to be gracious to fans, how to read people well enough to do an expert presentation. And how to get enough sleep that night to do it again in the morning.

For me, most of the time, I cannot combine being a writer and being an author in the same day, sometimes in the same week. I rarely find it possible to write at night while on book tour, but if I do, it's because I put in earplugs and ignore the world for a while. I'm not nice when I'm writing (as my kids can testify). I'm not "mom." I'm not "eager to listen and be gracious." I'm intense and focused and I have to finish this scene before you can talk to me or there will be trouble!

When you confuse being an author and being a writer, you start to see the world differently. You spend too much time thinking about how much money this book will earn. You limit your choices because you're thinking about what is marketable. You tell yourself you don't have a track record so you can't write what you really want to write. Sometimes you are cautious, and I don't think writers should ever be cautious, though I definitely think authors may need to be.

It's Not a Crazy Dream

Talking to an aspiring writer recently, I felt strongly how important it was for writers who have "made it" to some degree to be encouraging to people who are starting out. I don't always feel encouraging. Sometimes I feel pretty cynical about the state of the publishing world. I see writers I think are brilliant being rejected or giving up careers in writing for something that, well, actually pays them. It makes me crazy.

But I still remember the days when my parents, probably more out of ignorance than malice, treated my dreams of becoming a writer as about as possible as dreams of becoming a shark. And if I hadn't had writers around me I actually knew in person who went from unpublished to published right before my eyes, I don't know if I would have ever had the courage to keep writing and keep dealing with the rejections.

Truth: The biggest difference between writers who get published and writers who don't is persistence.

It's not:
1. Talent
2. Knowing someone
3. Having money to go to conference or to pay editors to fix your books
4. Luck (though luck helps)
5. A new trend

So I will say to you what I said to this young writer friend of mine.

Whatever your idea is, it's not crazy. It's not a bad idea. It just needs you to spend time on it. It needs you to really go with it, to throw your whole self into it, and to trust your own imagination. It may or may not be the work that gets you published. That's not what matters right now. What matters right now is believing that you will make it.

You will make it if you keep at it.

I won't promise you will be a best selling author. I can't guarantee you will make a living at it. But your work is worthwhile. There are people out there who want to read it when it's ready. And if you decide it's not ready, you can choose to move onto something else. There's nothing wrong with that, either. You have lots of ideas, and they are all good ones.

You can do this, no matter who has told you before in your life that you can't, that you shouldn't try.

How to be a Lazy Writer

Americans are busier than ever. And everyone thinks they want to write a book. Or dreams about writing a book. Not now, but sometime in the future, when they have enough time. Ha! I mean, sure, go for it. But . . .

I think a lot of people have no idea how long is really “enough” time to write a book. Because it doesn’t really have to do with having enough hours to sit down and type things into a computer. And that’s the problem with people who want to have a direct connection between time spent on a project and the result. Writing isn’t like that.

Here are all the things that I need to do as a writer that don’t “count” as writing time, not really, because they aren’t about sitting at the keyboard and typing. These are the reasons why “real” writers only spend a few hours a day (or a week) on actually typing. It’s why writers seem lazy, and why writers have to seem lazy to be successful.

1.    Watching television, reading books, enjoying other forms of art.

2.    Doing nothing, dreaming, sleeping well, eating well, spending time with family, hiking, being alone.

3.    Engaging on-line with other writers, getting angry at the world, at politics, at the past, at the future.

4.    Reading non-fiction on topics that interest you, without ever intending to put them in books. Just because you’re curious naturally and you want to know things. Lots of things. Things that have no relationship to each other, except that they interest you.

5.    Going out to lunch with friends, laughing, crying together, processing life and love and tragedy in your head over the course of years.

6.    Writing books that never sell, not because you don’t want them to sell, but because they were experiments that didn’t work and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no obligation on your part as a writer to sell everything you write. It’s selfish, maybe, but some books are just for you and not for an audience. Some books are practice.

7.    Writing other things, some that you don’t get paid for—not because someone gave you a chance at “exposure” so you’re writing what a corporate entity tells you to write, but things you care about and aren’t ready to get paid to write.

8.    Writing for someone else, because it can be enormously helpful to see what works on a practical level to convince other people to do something, or to believe something.

9.    Being part of a writing group, so you have a frequent chance to read other work in the midst of creation and to talk about or just breathe in what works and what doesn’t. Or what works pretty well, and then better, and then superbly well.

10.    Doing things you hate, working with your hands, doing work that feels like it is “beneath” you, but isn’t. This work sometimes gives you space to think and sometimes just makes you feel, makes you more human because it’s work that writers have a tendency to forget about, but is a necessary part of any world and should never be forgotten in writing.

All of these are part of the reason that it’s impossible to create really great art on a deadline. Yes, the world of publishing demands that we do it anyway. Yes, great writers are often capable of gritting their teeth and making magic happen under certain practical, business constraints. But on a deep level, it is also true that great art is a miracle and it doesn’t happen when you pressure it. Sometimes, the pressure destroys the art.

My best work has always come from a place that is very personal. It has come when I was working for me, not for someone else. It has come when I stopped caring about what other people think, particularly people who have control over my paycheck. Art is for me, not for them, and it’s not controllable. It bubbles up where you don’t expect it. It happens when you have time to doodle. It’s one of the reasons that being fired or being rejected often produces something great, because you have time now to redirect yourself, and space to do something unexpected.

Being Brave and Speaking True

I’ve been surprised recently at how many people compliment me when I talk about my personal experiences that led me to write The Bishop’s Wife. I feel sometimes like all I have to do is slice open a vein and bleed on stage for people and they’re happy. (I know it’s more complicated than that, but . . .) I think part of this reaction is that honesty is so rare. That is precisely why it is so valuable.

Why is being honest so rare?

Well, despite the fact that we throw around the idea that we should be honest with everyone, that “honesty is the best policy,” yada yada, it isn’t true. Trivial honesty, the kind of honesty that goes along with reciting facts in order, or being able to do simple math, is lauded, I suppose, but it doesn’t cost much. Parents are always telling children to tell the truth and punish them for lying. But my experience as a parent leads me to believe that children who lie well are the ones who are best off socially. We expect people to tell lies in social situations all the time. Specifically, we expect them to be adroit in learning when people want to hear which parts of which truth. As someone who has multiple autistic family members, I see this more clearly perhaps than most people do.

Lying well is important in business and in politics. That honesty is valued in art is something that is very difficult to believe and even harder to actually produce. It’s why there are actually not very many true artists around, relative to the size of the population. Art is not the same as entertainment, though it can make you laugh at the unexpected revelation. Art means learning a different set of values, ones that don’t get you very far in the business world. It’s one of the reasons that artists tend to be crap at managing their own money. These skills do not go together often. Learning to be honest often leads to disastrous business consequences.

One of the things that artists do is to expose uncomfortable truths. If as an artist, all you do is tell uncomfortable truths about other people, well, I can’t say I admire that terrifically. I’d call that satire mostly. It means holding other people at a bit of a distance and enjoying their foibles, but not revealing yourself. The best artists are the ones who are willing to be truthful about themselves. That means being the opposite of a politician, who spends a lifetime massaging the facts about the past so that they appear in the best possible light in every circumstance. A politician works on making sure that no one is offended, while an artist works on making sure everyone is offended—self included. A politician has a motto that everyone can agree with. An artist may say something simple, but it can be tricky to take any phrase out of context without stripping it of meaning.

I think the more I learn about really writing well, the more I realize it means exposing myself in the most fundamental way. It’s no wonder that I sometimes want to hide after an intense writing session. I can’t write in a room with other people for fear that they may read what I have put down before I am ready for it. I revise and revise in part because I want to make it better, but also because I am trying to get ready for the big moment when I stand naked before the world, and fiddling with words is my way of doing that.

As a writer, I’m not trying to get people to vote for me. For all writers sometimes talk about “sympathetic characters,” a writer isn’t trying to get readers to fall in love with characters, either. Not really. That’s a distraction, a side show from the real one. A writer wants readers to fall in love with a voice, to be unable to look away from the truth, to feel as if this has happened to them because they read about it. That’s why there’s nothing safe about writing. It is always about you, no matter how you cloak it, in fantasy, or in history. It’s all about now. If that sounds narcissistic, maybe it is.

You see how I accepted that? As a writer, you have to deal with criticism without rejecting it immediately. You have to accept it all as a true reaction. I know some people say that it’s not personal, but it IS personal. As a writer, that is part of the job. Everything is personal. It makes you fragile and strong at the same time. It is about you. The more you try to escape from that, the saner you may be. But the more you embrace it, I think the better your art is.