Sarah Allen's Blog, page 38

10 Weird and Creepy Places to Set a Novel (Part I)

1. Isla de la Munecas


Perhaps the creepiest place I've ever heard of. Apparently this little island in a canal in Mexico was home to one man, Don Julian Santana. He discovered the body of a drowned girl (whether in reality or in his mind, its up for debate) and decided to honor her memory by...hanging up dolls? The result, all these years later, is a island draped with armless, eyeless, decomposing dolls that you can only get to by paying tour guides to take a detour. I'll never feel the same way riding Small World again.

2. Winchester Mansion


So, I've actually been to this place. It is truly bizarre. Apparently a recently widowed Sarah Winchester was told by a fortune teller woman that she must travel west and build. And build. That she would live as long as she kept building, but that if she stopped she would die. See those stairs? Yeah, they go nowhere. Obviously this house is prime territory for ghosts. When we lived in California our house was almost 100 years old and had hidden rooms and a window downstairs with surgical tools embedded in it. So when we visited the Winchester Mansion it was a little too...close to home.

3. Sedlec Ossuary


The Sedlec Ossuary is your average Czech Catholic chapel. Just, ya know, with unique interior design. Yes that is an actual chandelier. Yes, it is made with actual human bones. Apparently in the 13th century holy land was sprinkled on the grounds of this chapel and then during the period of Black death so many people wanted to be buried here that it became sort of a mass grave that was exhumed centuries later to make room for expansion, and then the bones unearthed were used for decoration? The coat of arms is also made of bone. This place has been used in several movies and documentaries. It's easy to see why.

4. Hellingly Hospital

Is there anything creepier than an abandoned hospital? How about an abandoned lunatic asylum? This place opened in 1903 and was used off and on until it was abandoned in 1994. Which is incredibly recent, in my opinion, and, looking at pictures, looks like suspiciously fast deterioration. Sure vandalism hasn't helped, but I don't think spirits of the insane dead have helped either. And hello, it's called HELLingly.

5. Takakonuma Greenland Park

There are quite a few abandoned amusement parks, but not too many shrouded in as much mystery and cover-up as Takakonuma Greenland Park in Japan. It is not on any maps of Japan and there are very few current photos. It was built in the 70's, only opporated for a couple years before being shut down, and is associated with several mysterious deaths. And nowadays its too close to the nuclear meltdown at Fukishima to be readily accessible. Bumper cars, anyone?

Come back tomorrow for part 2!

Sarah Allen

Are you a Long writer or a Short writer?

This is a major problem I have with every piece. Not necessarily a problem with the piece, per se, but a problem with my attitude towards it and stress about it.

I should say off the bat that this is not a good vs bad issue (despite the Glinda picture...sorry, couldn't help myself). Its not an issue of being a "good witch" or a "bad witch." We all just write differently, and each end of the spectrum comes with different issues.

Many of my writer friends are self-professed "long" writers. They fill scenes easily, find interesting new characters to work with along the way, and (I think?) don't typically feel at a loss for words. Their main trouble comes with editing, when they have too much and have to decide what to cut. It's like asking which finger they want cut off.

Then there are those of us on the "short" end of the spectrum. (No jokes, here, okay? 5'4 [almost] is a perfectly acceptable height for a lady). I am most definitely on this end of the spectrum, about as far as you can go. It used to give me doubts about whether or not I was a "real" or "legitimate" writer, because how could someone who wants to write for a living, and loves doing it, have such a hard time finding enough words? I've had lots of time to think about this, and how me being this type of writer is definitely okay and to be expected given other areas of my personality. I ADORE the editing process, and going through an already drafted piece and fixing it up is so much easier and so much more fun than the drafting itself. But in the first draft, I am always worried I won't have enough.

This is something I've talked about before, and its worth talking about again. I'm trying to learn how to not stress about word count at the beginning, and remember that editing is for adding too and I can make it work. I try to remind myself to slow down in the drafting process and feel all the grooves and twists along the path and so I don't end up skipping ahead, going too fast, getting everything in.

So anyway, those of you long writers have any advice or tips for us shorties? I realize that its an innate and ingrained part of our personalities and process that determines which side of the spectrum we're on, and that we can't necessarily explain it. But what are you talking about with all those words? What do you use to take up that needed space?

Sarah Allen

Happy Presidents Day!

Happy Presidents Day everyone! Take the holiday and add some extra to your WIP. Here are a couple characters to inspire you:

[image error] [image error] [image error]

And a song, just because its a good one:


Be happy and write!

Sarah

A Free Film for your Valentines Day

So, I was going to post a link to a YouTube video of the 2006 version of Jane Eyre. I've posted it here before. I cannot tell you how amazing this movie is, partly because I nearly start hyperventilating just thinking about it. But, uh, here's a glimpse.


Yeah. Whew. Toby Stephens. The whole movie used to be on YouTube, but its been blocked now (which means AMAZON HERE I COME HOLD ON).

Mmkay. So anyway, I know you need a full-length movie to last you for Valentines day. And by full length I mean 8 hours. It will be some of the greatest hours of your life.

I present, Little Dorrit.

Here We Go Again: Novel Two

So maybe I've had a false start or two since finishing The Keeper, but guys, I think this is it. I have that solidity in my head that tells me this idea can make it to full novel length. It's interesting. I have more confidence about this next idea than I did the last time around, but at the same time feel like there is an even greater chance that this idea will totally fail. So kind of both? Which I think, when put together, means that if this novel does not completely tank, it could be better than the first one.

As it should be. I want every novel to be better than the last, to always be improving. Also, if I didn't feel like this novel was going to be just as good or better, why waist my time with it? So yeah, I'm excited. George will always be my baby. I have just as much confidence in him as I did before, and I want more than anything to have The Keeper be my first novel published and out there in the world. Still querying, still hoping and praying for the best with that one. And quickly. The sooner the better.

And starting novel two. This one is going to be different from The Keeper in many ways. This novel will be Young Adult, staring a fourteen year old girl rather than a forty year old man. Her name is Olivia. She has a sister named Ruth, and they are on a road trip with a few other people. That's all I'm going to say for now. But I'm excited.

I do have a working title, but I'm not going to let that go at this point. I've become pretty superstitious about how much I say before the piece is finished. But I'll keep you guys posted.

Tell me about your current projects. Are you submitting? Finishing? Beginning? Slogging through the muddy middle?

Sarah Allen

Some Awesome TED Talks

I learn so much from TED. I think its one of the greatest things the internet has given us. So here's some of my recent favorites:

I hope these help and inspire you as much as they did me!

Sarah Allen

Pete Docter, SNL and What I Mean by Happy

Fair warning: This post rambles. I'm still just waiting on stuff. Waiting on jobs, grad schools, agent queries, and still working on fleshing out my Novel #2 outline. So there's not much news to report. But lots to think about, and lots of time to do it.

I watched a documentary about Pixar this morning. It was a bit outdated (Steve Jobs was still around and they'd just finished Cars) and I did wish they'd talked about Up. But I didn't realize until now that Pete Docter is the one at least mostly responsible for both Monsters, Inc. and Up! which means THE BEST OF THEM ALL. He is officially my favorite and I want to marry him. Apparently he (with Pixar) has a new one coming out in 2015 and I am already freaking out. I want to write stories like he makes movies. I want to create characters like he created Sully and Carl and Dug. I would beyond happily make my living cleaning Pixar's toilets.

Also a documentary about Saturday Night Live in the 80's. (Ok, ok, so I love entertainment documentaries.) I'm going to say this and I hope it doesn't sound too...whatever. Am I allowed to have something like "Host an episode of SNL" on my bucket list? Because I kinda sorta do. Maybe that is completely horrifically ridiculous, but nevertheless. I want to write books and get a name big enough to maybe write movies and maybe tv shows and host an episode of SNL. Can I be crazy and want that and even hope for it? I also have this genius beyond genius idea for the producers of that show. They should totally start using YouTube stars as occasional hosts. Imagine. John and Hank Green hosting Saturday Night Live. Ok maybe it wouldn't work, and it would definitely be different, but mostly: YES OMG YES.

Sometimes I feel bad for being happy. Is that weird? I feel bad because I can see how I sometimes am not giving my sadder friends what they need, but I don't know how. I can do optimism and encouragement and hope and future-planning, but I get the impression that in the context of what my friends are sometimes feeling or going through, those things are not even in the vocabulary, like, they are completely irrelevant. But then I think, do you not see how these things would make your life better? And then its like, Sarah, Sarah, Sarah, thank you for caring, but it is not about these things making my life better it is about how I am built inside and how the world is and how I am able to function within it and then I'm like BUT BE HAPPY. I've felt this way for a long time, with many people. I firmly believe that we were made and placed on this world to be happy. Maybe that is too simple for many people's life experience? Still, though. I don't believe it should be.

Then again, I sometimes think I give the very false impression that everything is peachy hunky dory and that I've never experienced depression and can't handle darkness and hurt. My dad works for Gallup on this Strengths Finder Test (incredible, the best I've ever taken and I'm not just saying that, and I'll definitely be talking more about it at some point.) This test gives you your top five strengths out of a list of 32 (I think?). Anyway, Positivity is my number 5. So I do think my natural reaction, when anxiety and fear and sadness and dark and hurt come, is to attack them with a ferocious smile and grit and beat until I've found a solution or the dark goes away. I have had plenty of times when this does not work. In the past couple years, particularly. For most of my life I think this has not actually been a very hard fight. Happiness is natural to me and I find it pretty easily. That is true. But these past couple years I have experienced what its like to struggle to even want to be happy and then I panic about not being happy which only makes it spiral. I freak out about happiness being a real fight, feel like it should not be, we should all just BE HAPPY. Which is of course ridiculous and unrealistic and frankly, unnatural. Happiness, often, is a fight. A bloody painful one. But that's okay. I think maybe my natural positivity doesn't mean that I struggle less than other people, but that I believe in the Ultimate Happy Ending outcome of that fight, that it is worth it, that this struggle for and eventual achievement of Joy is our natural state. This fight isn't over until we get there, and we WILL get there.

Hmmm, guess I needed to get a little philosophical on y'all today. Rambly philosophy isn't the easiest to get through, so thank you if you've actually read this.

I hope you are all Happy with a Capital H.

Sarah Allen

What I Learned from Actually Writing a Novel

[image error] People say all the time that no matter how many craft books you read, how much writing advice you learn, there are certain things you just don't learn or grasp about writing a novel until you've, well, written a novel. So maybe its futile for me to tell you guys about my experience and what I learned because you probably already know this stuff and will learn other things from your own experiences and I'm going to have to figure out a whole new set of things for this next novel anyway. But maybe it might help a little, so here goes.

Logical flow in an extended narrative. What I mean by this is that as I've been getting feedback from readers, one relatively consistent comment seems to be that certain reactions or plot sequences are not natural. They don't flow logically from the situation. I believe this comes from having a long narrative that I've outlined, and knowing steps A to B to C, because then when step C needs to take a little longer or detour straight to step E, because that's the most natural flow, you don't see it as well. Does that make sense? Hopefully all the issues have been fixed, but now I know that you can NOT let an outline or predetermined sequence of events get in the way of natural character reactions.

Fluff scenes and Action scenes. This ties in to logical flow. I was so worried about reaching word count that before I even started I filled in my outline with "filler" scenes to make sure I had enough. So I ended up with several scenes I needed to trim down or chop entirely and a lot of other sparser areas that needed to be expanded. I think this happens in most first drafts, because we think we know what's important and follow our outline instead of the characters telling us what really matters. I'll try and give an example without giving away too much. My main character has relationships with characters A and B. Both are very important to him and say a lot about his character, but his relationship with character A is much more important to the forward action of the story. My outline was focused much more on character B, which means I had to take out a lot of B and add a lot more A. Hopefully all for the better. And I didn't need to worry about word count in the first place.

So those are two related things I learned via trial and error in the process of writing a novel. Hopefully I've fixed most of the problem areas, and will continue to do so. But this means that as I start novel #2, I will be very conscious of keeping my characters reactions and decisions very logical and realistic, and letting those choices and emotions guide the narrative. I still need an outline (I'm one of those writers) but I'm going to let myself be much more fluid with it, and add and delete scenes from it as I go. Because the character is the true director of the story. The outline will make sure we know where we're going, but the characters are the ones deciding how we get there.

Sarah Allen

3 Building Blocks of being a Writer

Hey all! I'm over at the blog of the kind, lovely and generous Julie Luek. Check us out! Hope your day is fantabulous!

And just for fun, here's a pretty picture :)

[image error]
Have a good one!

Sarah

Up All Night

I always do this thing where I tell myself I'm going to get my blog post written during the day and I sort of try and think of ideas and then its midnight and I'm watching Chopped and the post still isn't written but by then I'm too distracted and tired to think.

Tonight is no exception.

I love talking to you guys, even when its tired midnight ramblings. You guys get me. You guys are patient with me and my one-track minded whining. (I am still waiting for agents. I am still anxious about getting in to grad school. I am still really really ready to be out of squeak by money mode and be mentally ready to really focus on writing and blogging and vlogging and submitting. Soon. Soon.)

That's just how life has been for me lately. A lot of waiting for agents and school and jobs. I think I've finally got a new project idea that has strong enough bones to hold a full novel, and now I'm just adding a bit more meat and then I can really start. So it's a lot of dice rolling and a lot of waiting to see what comes of it. Maybe it will all converge in a beautiful pool of rainbow awesome and I'll get an agent and an MFA acceptance and a perfect job all at once :)

Life is so interesting. Tonight its Biggest Loser with Mom and as cheesy as it is it really is an inspiring show. Not merely physically; all these kids got here because of loads of emotional and mental garbage and even if we carry it differently its totally cool to see how much happier and healthier and powerful and capable we become when we just get rid of all that junk and focus on what's important.

Is "waiting" just another way of excusing mental baggage? I wonder. There's no reason not to keep working, keep writing. I am, but I definitely think I could use more Yoda. "There is no try, there is only do or do not."

So there's my rambly post and I'll leave you with my rambly latest vlog and we'll see what happens in the next few weeks and in the meantime, let's Do.

Sarah Allen