Mette Ivie Harrison's Blog, page 42

What You Do Best May Not Be What You Do Best?

"Sometimes we as writers get feedback from those we love and trust about one area of writing that we succeed at. It may be description. Or great villains. Or incredible world-building. Or a great magic system. Or great scientific realism. Or a great main character. Or a perfect climax. Or anything. You get the idea.

Writers get little enough feedback that I suspect we are more likely to listen to and repeat it to ourselves than other people. And that can be a problem. If we hyper-focus on one area of writing to an extreme, it can cause us to believe that this one area of writing matters more than any other area."

http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=mette_ivie_harrison&article=057

When Your Manuscript is Ready to Submit:

You have let it sit after the thrill of finishing the first draft (two months or more).

You have had at least one other (non-family member) read the book and give you comments (other than—I love this, good job!).

You have done at least two rounds of revision based partly on what other people think needs to be fixed from the book and partly on what you now see is wrong with the book after rereading it several times. If you can't see anything wrong with it yourself, you may not be realistic enough to get published.

You have read at least three books published in the last year in the same genre as the book you wish to publish and think it stands up well to the other books.

You cannot think of anything left you wish to change. If there is something left you feel uncertain about, fix it.

You have read it completely through one last time before either hitting send or printing it out and mailing it.

Things You DON'T need to submit a manuscript:

Pay for a professional copy-editor to clean up your manuscript (this does not include paying a professional to give you a developmental critique, which can often be a good idea).

Make it absolutely perfect in every way. As good as you can make it is close enough.

Love it more than your first child.

On Heroes and Villains

My husband has been frustrated lately with the rage of highway billboards with a photo of a “hero” of one kind or another on them, and then a tag-line about how to follow this person's wonderful character. The problem for him has been that he knows altogether too much about most of the heroes. As a student of physics, he admires greatly the mind-blowing theories of luminaries like Einstein. But this does not lead him to be blind to Einstein's massive character flaws. And just about every great physicist he has studied.

The more he and I have looked into most heroes, the more we discover the hidden darkness. For instance, the great Hoyt father/son duo which is up on billboards often obscures the reality that the Hoyt parents were divorced over the very issue of these constant races. The mother felt that her husband was constantly endangering their son's life. Which he was and is. Yes, the son has expressed the desire to continue doing this. But how much of the father's desire to keep doing this is because of the personal glory he gets from it? How much of the son's desire to keep doing this is because of the way his father trained him to expect pleasure in dangerous thrills?

The older I get, the more I have come to understand that all of my best features can be looked at upside down and seen as terrible, dark flaws. When I was a teen, I was sure that my focus on achievement was my greatest virtue. I also thought that my ability to do everything at light speed was wonderful. But I realized at some point in my late twenties and early thirties that my need to rack up a list of achievements was likely the result of a severe case of anxiety. The achievements had been compensating and acting as a blind to my real questions of self-worth. As for my light-speed ability to do everything, this was in part a form of OCD, where a hyper-focus on doing the next thing in my list was a way to avoid thinking about deeper, darker worries in life.

Am I a hero, then? Or am I a sick, twisted freak?

For me, the ability to hold simultaneously in my mind the reality that I am both a hero and a villain is what makes me the writer I am today. Not one of my heroes is free from a kind of villainy. Prince George in The Princess and the Hound is driven to goodness because of the terrible moment in his childhood when he sees a man being burned at the stake and does nothing to save him. Does this make him less heroic? I don't think it does. It just makes his heroism come from a dark place. In The Rose Throne, Ailsbet is driven by her father's rejection toward excellence in music. She is sometimes rather detached from the politics going on around her simply because she has invested all of her self-worth in her music. She tends to be abrasive when in contact with others because none of them value music as she does and it is difficult for her to relate to them. Does this make her a hero or a villain? Both at the same time, in equal amounts.

In my own new book, Ironmom, I find myself slightly embarrassed by the publisher's blurb:

From the personal tragedy of a stillbirth to a first Ironman and beyond, ordinary stay-at-home mom of 5 kids, Mette Ivie Harrison learns life lessons about accepting herself, moving on, pushing to become better, and bringing her family along the way.

The publisher lists all my many accomplishments in triathlon, 4 Ironman competitions, 6 ultramarathons, a national ranking of 163, and on and on. But there is a darker reality hidden behind all of this. Yes, I started training more seriously after a stillbirth. Yes, I dealt with my grief by running. But I also used triathlon as a kind of drug. It was an addiction which I have had to wean myself from in the years since.

From the journal I wrote in 2005, right after the stillbirth:

I went out walking today, in the dark. It felt wonderful to breathe fresh air and to feel not myself, not the person that this terrible thing happened to. I could almost pretend that the past year was gone, that I was the woman I had been.

But then there was the need to push myself harder and harder. The hills felt so good, when my breathing came fast and furious and I could feel my heart beating fast and the sweat begin to rise on my head, under my arms, between my legs.

And that is even better than being the person I once was. There is an anonymity in intense exercise. You are a machine, no longer a mind or a heart.

The dawn strikes, and the feeling fades.

I find myself back at home, on the doorstep, and I am myself again. Tired, heavy, and wrong.

I am not supposed to run for six weeks, but I know that it will not be that long before the walking is not enough. I crave the pain, the sharper the better. Because the pain is not mine. It belongs to the machine.

Some other sections read:

Pain is my new coin. I find a new masochist in me and she is hungry.

There’s a part that urges me to keep going even when it hurts. Because hurting feels good. It’s what is right. It makes me clean somehow. It tells the guilt to be satisfied.

If I hurt myself enough, then no one can tell me that I deserve to be hurt even more. It is my fault, it’s all my fault, and I punish myself.

And:

Sometimes it feels as though exercising has become my way of expressing grief. Instead of crying, I sweat. Instead of becoming angry at the world, I work myself out until I can’t feel anything anymore but the physical pain.

It became clear to me as I reread this old journal that there was a lot less triumph in my Ironman training after my daughter's death than there was masochism, guilt, and sickness. I am sure there are many other worse ways I could have dealt with my grief, but I don't feel superior to people who use drugs or who cut themselves off from family and friends. Quite the reverse. I feel like I am just another one of them, a different side perhaps of the same coin.

If you can write characters who are both heroes and villains in your own novels, you are going to find that your books are far richer than they would be otherwise. Your heroes should have secrets, dark pasts that they are trying to run from. And your villains should not only think themselves heroes, but should be heroes if only the story ran a slightly different way. I love the rich texture of real life, of real people. The more we put that into books, the more we will see life reflected in all its facets.

Writing posts compiled

For students who have been asking me, I've put up some collected on-line essays and blog posts.

Becoming Your Own Best Critic is posts about fear, revision, and other head stuff. http://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Your-Best-Critic-ebook/dp/B00DMMLVEW/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1372278209&sr=8-16&keywords=mette+ivie+harrison

The Business of Writing is about pre-publishing stuff like querying, getting an agent, and post-publishing stuff. http://www.amazon.com/The-Business-of-Writing-ebook/dp/B00DMMM768/ref=sr_1_17?ie=UTF8&qid=1372278276&sr=8-17&keywords=mette+ivie+harrison

The Full Writing Skill Set is about how to structure plot, chracter, worldbuilding, setting. http://www.amazon.com/The-Full-Writing-Skill-ebook/dp/B00DMN0PGG/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1372278299&sr=8-18&keywords=mette+ivie+harrison

21 Reasons You Think You Don't Have Time to write expanded beyond the basic list:

http://www.amazon.com/Reasons-Think-Dont-Write-ebook/dp/B00DMML1GU/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1372278209&sr=8-15&keywords=mette+ivie+harrison

Should You Revise?

If you get an editor who asks you to revise a manuscript, especially if it's a revision without a contract, how do you know if you should revise it according to the suggestions?

Are the revisions minor? Do them.

Are they revisions that get you closer to the book you had been trying to get at, the better book you always dreamed of writing? Do them.

Are the revisions from someone who has helped you become a better writer before? Try them.

Have you heard a lot of people suggest these revisions before? Do them.

Do you feel sick when you think about making the changes, once several weeks have passed after first reading the letter? Don't do them.

Have you already considered doing these changes and couldn't make them work? Don't do them.

Are the changes going to require a complete revision, meaning more than 60% of the words will have to change? I don't recommend doing them.

Does it feel like the editor is trying to make your book into another book? Don't do them.

Does it feel like the revisions would make your book into something you have always hated writing or reading? Don't do them.

Do you initially feel upset about the suggestions, but find yourself thinking about them and being intrigued by them? Do them.

17 Ways to Conquer the Fear that is Keeping You From Writing

One of my students asked me today how I get myself to sit down and get my writing done. I think that a lot of the time, we don't understand what it is that is keeping us from writing. Mostly, it is fear. It isn't usually that we don't have anything to write. So for me, I have found various elaborate systems to get around my fear.

Lie to yourself. Tell yourself that no one will ever see what you are writing on.

Write by hand so that it feels less permanent.

Make sure you do not tell anyone (including close family members, friends or your agent) about your current project until you feel more confident about it. Not always possible,

Have a secret project to work on even while you are working on a contracted one.

Close the door and turn out the lights while you write.

Write a project under a pseudonym (even if it is made up).

Keep yourself surrounded by good reviews, nice cards, or other things that remind you of your successed.

Remind yourself that anxiety is just energy your body is storing, ready to be used. It feels the same as excitement. Try to think of it as excitement.

Write out your fears, or the negative words that echo in your mind, and then crumple them up and throw them away.

Learn how to divide your mind so that you don't pay attention to the fearful parts while you write.

Develop a routine, same time, same place, same drink, same music, which you always repeat to get you into a “writing mood.”

Write something easy to get started.

Tell yourself you are only going to do a little editing today. Then maybe if you feel like it, you can move on to writing more.

Write someone who has told you that you are a bad writer into a story and make something bad happen to them.

Do some yoga or deep breathing exercises.

Write a story for your inner, frightened child where a fearful child conquers fear and triumphs over evil.

Write your Newbery acceptance speech. (Or maybe not).

16 Ways to Conquer the Blank Page

Turn off the internet.

Start writing a letter to yourself about the book you want to write.

Take a book off your shelf and start typing in the first page of that book.

Go back to the page you wrote before and edit it.

Go back and reread what you wrote the day before.

Set a timer and force yourself to sit in your chair (with no internet) until it goes off. If you have to sit long enough in boredom, you may find yourself suddenly able to write.

Draw what you think will happen next.

Talk—out loud—to your characters and complain to them about the blank page.

Find a photo on line of a character or landscape for your book and simply describe the photo.

Write what wouldn't happen next in your book.

Write a line your character would NEVER say.

Type the phonebook.

Write about the sound of silence.

Reread a book or watch a movie that you hate. You may find you suddenly have something to say.

Starve yourself of books or movies, any source story. You may find you NEED to write to fuel the part of you that can't get story any other way than through yourself.

Write a list of questions that you have for your book.

Good Enough is Not Good Enough

I always believed when I was unpublished, that my best strategy was to try to write a book that it was impossible for someone to turn down. The idea that you only have to write a book that is good enough to get published is wrong. If you are angry about a book that was published that you think is terrible, and you think—I can write something that good—that isn't good enough.

If you want to be published, my advice to you—my best advice—is that you write well enough that people will come to you to ask you for work to publish. You want to be writing so well that when an editor reads your manuscript, it makes him/her say “I have to publish this book.” You don't want to be the book an editor uses to fill a slot. You don't want to be the author who gets lost in the shuffle after publication. You don't want to have a career that is over after one book.

When I was a teenager, I had a swim coach who used to brag that he once beat Mark Spitz in a race. Well, it turned out he beat Mark Spitz ten years after Spitz was in the Olympics. Lots of people had beaten Mark Spitz at that point. He was no longer Olympic class. It was a low bar. And that's not the bar that gets you to the Olympics.

Set your sights to the writing Olympics. Don't just try to be published. Try to be the best book of this kind ever written. Try to be so unique and so incredible that you knock the socks off readers. You want to be in this for the long haul. You don't want to publish one book. You want a long string of great books. Don't you?

Writing For the Long Haul

On how I have survived low these long years as a writer, and what my definition of success has become:

http://simner.com/blog/?p=4553

Monday Book Rec: Karen Joy Fowler's We are Completely Beside Ourselves

It is not often that I read a book that I truly wish I had written, not only because it is so perfect, but because it says everything that I wish that I could say about being human, living with family, finding yourself, dealing with your obligations with the past, and making friends when you yourself are a damaged person. The last book that was like this was Holly Black’s Doll Bones. The book before that was The Boy In The Suitcase. And now this one.

So let me make this simple: You want to read this book. Go and buy it right now. Stop reading this review. If you are smart and you think a lot about how humans are humans and how animals are animals, this is a book you will have to talk about.

I can’t actually tell you what the plot of this book is, because I would ruin it. I am normally not aware of spoilers, but in this book, it’s really important not to talk about anything remotely related to the actual plot of the book. It starts and seems to be a book about a college student who has a quirky, difficult family that is mostly estranged, and who has a father who is a psychologist. I keep wanting to say more than that, and keep deleting it. I suspect that if you enjoy good writing, you will keep turning pages even if there are those little niggling hints that there is something wrong going on that the narrator is not telling you.

Karen Joy Fowler is brilliant. I knew that already, from other fiction I have read of hers. She is pretty much an automatic buy. And this book will only make me sadder because I don’t have anything else of hers left to buy. I will have to start getting more copies to pass around to friends and insist they read. Yup, this is one of those books that everyone will talk about while you are trying to listen in, but they will stop as soon as they realize you are there. And you will never be able to join in the conversation until you read this.

Again, go buy this book. Set out a lot of time so you can read it all in one big gulp. And then buy a second copy for friends. On second thought, just buy two copies at once.