Jeffrey Ricker's Blog, page 24

Trust your instincts

As you may or may not know, I’ve been working on the sequel to my young adult novel The Unwanted this year. (The tentative title is Prophecy Boy, but that’s liable to change at any minute.) I’ve also been working on a bunch of other things, but I’ve finally come back to the YA book after some time away from it.

In case you’re interested in process (I’m a sucker for hearing how writers approach their work), I’ve reread what I’ve written to date and made a bunch of edits, and as I transferred them from a hard coy to my electronic file, something felt… off. I couldn’t figure out why the changes I’d made weren’t sitting well with me.

The answer came to me while I worked on another project, creating an online class for a website called Skillshare, about how to create an outline for a YA novel. It’s a unit I’ve taught in an in-person class before, and I wanted to see how it would translate to online. Anyway, I had reached the part in the script where I discuss some of the distinctive characteristics that make a novel a YA novel: “As a general rule of thumb, YA novels are often (though not always) written in the present tense to convey a sense of immediacy and/or urgency to the action, and to immerse the reader in the events and the narrator’s point of view.”

I refrained from smacking my forehead. I’d revised everything into the past tense.

It was a conscious decision and I had stylistic reasons for it, but preparing that class lesson made me face the fact that it just didn’t work.

The thing is, I knew it didn’t work. As I wrote new scenes, I sometimes had to backspace in order to change a present-tense verb to past tense. But no, it was something I was doing to make a stylistic point.

Well, I wound up saying to hell with my stylistic point and I’m writing it in present tense now.

I’m used to second-guessing myself, in writing as well as oh so many other things, and I should maybe know better by now, but clearly I have more to learn on that count. My point, and I do have one, is: Learn to trust your instincts. Or put another way, the story you’re telling knows what it wants to be.

Listen to it.

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#FridayReads: More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

Psst. If you like this, you might like my weekly completely unannoying newsletter. This week I sent out a short story that was a finalist in a recent contest. What’s coming next week? One way to find out: Click here to get started.

A writer I know was recently discussing what makes a story great as opposed to merely good. Personally, I don’t think I’m qualified to make that distinction for anyone but myself—and in that case, for me I can tell a story is great when, once I’ve read the last page or the last line, I want to turn back to page one and start all over again.

Adam Silvera’s More Happy Than Not was like that for me. I finished reading it early this morning and wanted to start it all over again. I’ve felt that way about a handful of other books lately—A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz being the most notable.

In the months after his father’s suicide, it’s been tough for 16-year-old Aaron Soto to find happiness again–but he’s still gunning for it. With the support of his girlfriend Genevieve and his overworked mom, he’s slowly remembering what that might feel like. But grief and the smile-shaped scar on his wrist prevent him from forgetting completely.

When Genevieve leaves for a couple of weeks, Aaron spends all his time hanging out with this new guy, Thomas. Aaron’s crew notices, and they’re not exactly thrilled. But Aaron can’t deny the happiness Thomas brings or how Thomas makes him feel safe from himself, despite the tensions their friendship is stirring with his girlfriend and friends. Since Aaron can’t stay away from Thomas or turn off his newfound feelings for him, he considers turning to the Leteo Institute’s revolutionary memory-alteration procedure to straighten himself out, even if it means forgetting who he truly is.

Why does happiness have to be so hard?

The book combines three things I love: a YA story, a queer protagonist, and a world that is recognizable but slightly off-kilter from our own, where what you remember may not be what actually happened. The ending is, not a gut punch, but more like a hand squeezing your heart.

So, what are you reading?

Hump Day Happy: The Force Is Strong with This One

One of the nice things about freelancing and writing is that I can block out time in the middle of the day to take care of things that are hard to do outside of the nine-to-five, and I don’t have to ask permission or check with my supervisor. (Well, I do have one boss, and sometimes he’s a jerk, but I give him a stern talking-to in the mirror and then quickly stop as I think this makes me seem slightly [more] unbalanced [than usual].) That includes doing things like doctor appointments, post office runs, and shopping trips.

This Friday at 10 a.m. it will include a reserved seat to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Most people know I’m a big Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica fan, but I don’t think I talk a lot about how much of a Star Wars fan I am. More than any other science fiction film, TV show, or story, my exposure to a galaxy far, far away was what lit the fire under my love of all things otherworldly. I was seven years old, and before my brother and I saw it, his friend Danny went to see it and came over afterwards and was possibly more excited than I have ever seen a nine-year-old before or since. We saw it four times that year, and for several years after that every Halloween costume was a Star Wars costume. So this is a big nostalgia trip for me.

In any case, this is a Hump Day Happy of one item, but there we are. Well, actually, it’s about two somewhat related items, because this video is also kind of awesome:

Okay, one last thing! My friend Ruth Daniell was interviewed by my other friend Francine Cunningham and it’s over here and it’s awesome so watch that too:

Okay, One! Last! Thing! Tomorrow is Bree Sharp‘s birthday, so I’ve been listening to this:

Happy birthday, Bree! (David Duchovny, call me!)

Just finish

So, I ran a 15K race this past Sunday. I almost didn’t. My ankle has been bothering me for a while (that’s a story for another time, though, and it would be a boring one anyway). For the past few months the most that I’ve run at one go has been 10K, and that’s been about 50/50 running and walking. I did finally get a new pair of running shoes a few weeks ago, though, so I figured what the hell, why not give it a go? If it came to it, I’d walk most of the route and call it a day.

Of course, it would turn out to be a gross, rainy day. Even though it’s the middle of December, it was also in the mid-60s, which upped the gross factor accordingly. I thought, there’s no point in trying to run this. Just consider it a long walk and leave it at that.

And wouldn’t you know it, once things got going, I ran the whole way.

When I’d signed up months ago, I’d estimated my pace somewhere between nine and nine and a half minutes per mile. Not spectacular, but respectable. When I’m walking, I average maybe a 15-minute mile. My original estimate would have had me starting in the first corral of runners, but again, I said the heck with it and backed off to the fifth corral with a couple friends, just a couple spots ahead of the walkers and the baby strollers.

Did I set any personal bests as far as my speed for this run? No. I haven’t even looked up my time, but I figure it was somewhere around an eleven-minute mile average. It could have been more or less and I don’t think I would have cared. The weather was cool but not too cool, drizzling a little but not pouring, the course was mostly flat, and there was a breeze but not a headwind. As far as running weather goes, it wasn’t perfect but it was pretty darn good. I had my music cued up (non-stop Kylie on shuffle turns out to be a good tempo for jogging) and I worked up enough of a sweat to feel like I got a workout but not worked over. My ankle’s a little sore, but I’m not limping.

What does this have to do with writing? Hell if I know, but I’m hoping I can approach my work-in-progress with the same take-it-easy tempo, at least through the end of the year. Try giving yourself a break and see if your work output changes—but maybe more important, see if giving yourself a break from the pressure and expectation lets you enjoy it more again. I know I enjoyed my run more when it didn’t seem like such a chore.

And I got bling, to boot!

#FridayReads: Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett (and #GiveABook!)

I’ll blame the fact that it’s the most wonderful time of the year for why I’m so slow to read things lately. As you may recall, my reading goal this year was to read more books by writers of color, and my current read is Jam on the Vine by LaShonda Katrice Barnett, which I picked up after hearing her at the Saints & Sinners Literary Festival in New Orleans. I’m going again in 2016, and I always look forward to it, both for reconnecting with fellow writer friends and also finding out about new books like this one. As someone whose career started in journalism, I was especially interested in reading her debut novel:

Ivoe Williams, the precocious daughter of a Muslim cook and a metalsmith from central-east Texas, first ignites her lifelong obsession with journalism when she steals a newspaper from her mother’s white employer. Living in the poor, segregated quarter of Little Tunis, Ivoe immerses herself in printed matter as an escape from her dour surroundings. She earns a scholarship to the prestigious Willetson College in Austin, only to return overqualified to the menial labor offered by her hometown’s racially biased employers.

Ivoe eventually flees the Jim Crow South with her family and settles in Kansas City, where she and her former teacher and lover, Ona, found the first female-run African American newspaper, Jam! On the Vine. In the throes of the Red Summer—the 1919 outbreak of lynchings and race riots across the Midwest—Ivoe risks her freedom and her life to call attention to the atrocities of segregation in the American prison system.

I’m hoping that by posting this here, it’ll encourage me to finish reading it by next Friday so I can post about another book. I’d like to read at least one more before the end of the year. It seems that whenever I pick up this or something else to read, though, I’ve been thinking to myself, You know, you really should be writing. After the momentum of November, anything less feels like hopelessly slacking off, and I know that’s not true, to say nothing of the fact that writing without reading is like cooking without eating.

So, if I’ve got time for one more book before we kiss this year goodbye, which one would you recommend?

(Also, notice that #GiveABook hashtag at the top? That’s because every time you use it on the Twitter until December 24, Penguin Random House is donating a book to the literacy nonprofit First Book, up to 35,000 books. So, there’s that.)

Thowback Thursday(ish) – No Wrapping Required

As a bit of a follow-up to my last post, my friend ‘Nathan makes an excellent point: The best gift you can give a writer this holiday is word of mouth. That can be writing a review, like ‘Nathan recommends here (and that is such a good thing to do!). Or maybe you want to ask your local library to stock a well-loved book (or a well-loved writer’s latest book) for circulation. You might take the opportunity to recommend a book in person to a friend or, as I did recently, give them a copy.

The thing that helps writers and their books thrive is awareness. Pass it on!

'Nathan Burgoine

This is a kinda-sorta Throwback Thursday post. I was online yesterday and a bunch of people were discussing reviews (specifically how reviews in some parts of the world were very spare—like how there are dozens of reviews on the “dot-com” version of e-tailers, but less on the “dot-ca” mirror site). The conversation moved to discussions of why, and someone pointed out that there was a healthy contingent of people in her area of the world who didn’t feel comfortable writing reviews.

Which brings me back to my ‘Throwback’ post.

Every year on my birthday, someone will ask me what I’d like for my birthday, and I always reply that I really don’t need anything. I’m forty, I’m happy, we don’t need more “things” really, and other than your time or well-wishes, I’m not sure what to ask for.

Except one thing: noise.

Books can live or die by word-of-mouth. And…

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Hump day happy, awesome friends edition

It’s that most wonderful time of the year, when you have to figure out what to buy people. I’m easy to shop for this year: I don’t need anything… except maybe for number eleven on this list.

Here’s something in no way related to writing, but is related to how many fantastically talented friends I have: Airlie Trescowthick named a Tomorrow Maker for her contributions to Australian agriculture, in particular her website The Farm Table. Good on ya, Airlie!

Other awesome things about my friends: Ngwatilo Mawiyoo nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

You know who else has been nominated for a Pushcart? My friend Ruth Daniell!

And you know who’s a finalist in the Saints & Sinners Short Fiction Contest? My friend ’Nathan Burgoine! (Also check out the interview with the dishy Jeff Mann in that same newsletter.)

My friend Steven Reigns is leading the Lambda Literary Book Club in Hollywood starting in January, and he’s kicking off his stint with We the Animals by Justin Torres, which is a fantastic book. If you’re in that area, check it out; even if you’re not, read the book.

Speaking of Lambda, my fellow Lambda Fellow Nicole Dennis-Benn (her debut novel is coming out next year!) has a wonderful coming-out essay at Electric Literature.

Also, my friend Nicole Boyce’s story “Veneers” was the most-read story on Joyland Vancouver this year.

And if that’s not enough reading for you, check out this essay about the false dichotomies between popular fiction vs. quality fiction and genre vs. literary fiction where Lincoln Michel attempts to bring some actual data into focus on the topic.

Make the Most of Your Wilderness Years

Back in my twenties, when I’d just graduated from college and was working at my first (and then second) job, I don’t think I did any writing worth talking about. Did I even write at all? I feel like I must have, but I would have to go page through my old journals to confirm that.

Well, heck, why not? Let’s step into the wayback machine!

My epitaph: “He had such nice penmanship.”

OK, a couple observations: 1) Wow, my handwriting was a lot neater twenty-two years ago. 2) Wow, my life was boring. Apparently, the biggest news of the day was my Lyle Lovett CD had a scratch, I’d just adopted a kitten, and my adult cat was playing too rough with him. Gripping stuff, I tell you.

I’ve come to think of that time as my years wandering the wilderness, writing-wise. Things were kind of a muddle for me back then. (Right, as if they still aren’t.) I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I’d been “practical” and gone to journalism school instead for my undergraduate degree. (Trust me, it seemed practical at the time.) I knew all about the inverted pyramid and Associated Press style, but I don’t think I knew anything about telling a story apart from keeping it short and hitting the five W’s—which is not bad advice, even if it’s incomplete.

But then I came across this line, toward the back of the notebook: “I want the people in my stories to be like the people in an Edward Hopper painting.” So maybe I was thinking about it a little bit.

Still, there were months and months at a time where I wrote nothing. It seems like I wasn’t working on anything, and I remember why: I thought I had nothing to write about.

That’s probably true, if that one snippet from my journal is any indication. I didn’t have a lot of life experience to draw from. I hadn’t gotten any tread marks on my heart (yet). I hadn’t bought a house and adopted a dog and run a marathon and hurt my back so badly I thought at some point I probably wouldn’t be able to walk (oh yeah, my thirties were going to be just awesome).

On the other hand, I think now about how much time I wasted, as if I had limitless amounts of it ahead of me. (Hey, I was in my twenties, and I think that feeling sort of goes with the territory. So, even if you’re reading this now and you’re in your twenties and I tell you—Guess what, that thing you think about how you have all the time in the world? Well, you don’t—that’s totally going to fall on deaf ears and I think it’s supposed to. Anyway! Moving on.)

I have little doubt that most of what I might have written at that time would have been just awful. I was timid in so many ways, I have no doubt that would have been the overriding tone in anything I produced. Do I regret not writing more back then? Yes and no. No, because it wouldn’t have really resulted in anything I would have been happy to show someone else. Yes, because that so wouldn’t have been the point.

I could have really used the practice. That’s what you’re supposed to do in the wilderness: Explore! Turn over rocks, run your walking stick through the weeds and see what you find. Even if I had nothing to write about, I would have been training myself how to write. I could have been writing to find out what I did have to say (even if, at the time, it was not much). I think it would have been a worthwhile effort, even if it produced nothing I could have called a story.

Eventually, I had to spend time in the wilderness hacking away at words, trying to figure out the lay of the land. Instead of going at that in earnest during my twenties, though, I put off most of it until my thirties, when I realized the urge to write wasn’t going to leave me alone. By that point, I’d started wandering through the underbrush and hadn’t even realized it until I was well and truly lost.

We are way too good at convincing ourselves we shouldn’t bother, and it’s hard to turn that off. We put so much pressure on ourselves that everything we do has to be perfect or publishable or going somewhere, when maybe just the doing of it is the point.

And today isn’t a bad day to start, either.

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Hump Day Happy, Post-Thanksgiving Food Coma Edition

If there’s one thing making my day this week, it’s that I survived Thanksgiving without gaining any weight. Of course, now that the downhill slide toward Hanukah, Christmas, and New Year’s is picking up speed, it’s probably a good thing I haven’t gotten rid of all the jeans that are too big on me. Also, seeing this sign at my host’s house made my day. I get a heck of a lot done when I’m missing.

Right, moving on! Here’s what else is keeping me amused this week:

Getting married? Have your dog shoot your official wedding video. Personally, the only downside is that since the dog is doing the filming, not many shots of the dog. (Seriously, though, try to keep a dry eye through this.)

I’ve been delving into the lessons and projects offered on Skillshare and am working on some new design skills (my secret identity when I’m not a writer is editor and graphic designer). It’s pretty awesome and not very expensive.

If you’re a freelancer, would you ever go back to work full time? Here are some tips on what you’ll need to know.

That thing I mentioned earlier about getting a lot done when I’m missing? This Chrome browser extension called StayFocused helps a lot in that arena.

Finally, here’s a delightful interview with my friend Zac Hug, UBC MFA (OMG LOL WTF) alumni. Dig the scarf!

ICYMI: Inspiration is not the first step

We tend to approach things in reverse when it comes to creativity. We think we have to be inspired first before we start working on something. We can’t sit down and start writing, for example, if we don’t know what our story or novel or essay is going to be about. So we try to figure out how to tap into inspiration, or we read articles about the habits of the most successful writers and listicles of the must-have tools that will make our efforts that much easier and that much more likely to succeed.

Meanwhile, we’re not writing, and we think we’re not very creative, either.

In case you missed it, this is something I wrote over on Medium in response to a prompt (yes, I still do prompts every so often [I enjoy them almost as much as I enjoy parentheticals]) about creativity and inspiration. The original prompt was: “What is your unique way of finding inspiration in everything around you? How do you see the world differently and how does this impact the way you are creative?” You can go read it over there, (and if you do, please click the little heart-shaped Recommend button if you found it at all worthwhile for you).