Sarah Allen's Blog, page 40

Starting a New Project

So, the novel I've been working on isn't...working. I'm disappointed because I finally finished a novel and I thought this false-start thing wasn't going to happen anymore, but obviously it is, and ya know, that's okay, I've finished a novel and so now I know what the final product feels like.

I think the characters are gonna stick around for a while. I'm not giving up on them, by any means. It was the same before, where I had this character that would not get out of my head. This time its more of a family, seen from the perspective of the 13 year old daughter. I still want to discover there story. I just think I've been going in the wrong direction.

This has always been my problem. I start out with characters I adore. I put them in a situation or scenario that fascinates me. I have this like frame or scene in my mind. Then I get stuck. Like I have one or two still frames, but I need a feature length film. I thought I had it, but no.

I've talked about this lots here, about fleshing out a story from scenario to novel-length plot. This time is no exception, and as I've been thinking of a new place to take this family, I have this image in my head of all of them together, and this other character, and I kind of know where they're going and the sort of situation at that moment, but I always have a hard time going from that moment to a novel.

So now I get to ask you again: how do you do it? How do you flesh out your ideas? It will just take some thinking and research and time, but any advice would be fabulous.

Sarah Allen

Getting Back in Writerly Shape

I've been trying to rededicate myself after a few months of writing inconsistency. I have kinda let life (moving across the country, finding a job, etc.) get in the way, and while I am not going to let that happen anymore, its a bit strange coming back to full throttle.

It seems like writing really is a muscle that you have to exercise or it weakens. I haven't really thought about it that way before, but as I try and get back into the routine, I definitely feel rusty and much less satisfied with what I'm producing.

The good side is that there is a simple solution: writing every single day, even if its just a few hundred words. If I'm not working well on the novel that day, then I'll work on a short story. Or a picture book manuscript or song lyrics. Something.

And then we'll be back to normal in no time :)

The Things that Really Matter

I have spent a lot of time lately freaking out about things that are stressing me out that I wish I wasn't spending a second of time thinking about in the first place. I am worried about money, worried that I'm missing out on something I should be doing with my life, worried I'm not doing enough, worried about what people think, worried about how things will turn out.

Time to stop that. The thing is, I'm doing okay.  Everything will turn out just fine. I know I've talked about all this before, but this is just a reminder for me to bring my focus back on the things that really matter.

I have been so worried about work lately, so confused and unsure about what to do. Really, though, that's silly. I KNOW what I want. I want to write, and to make a living on that. The rest is important as far as financially supporting myself goes, but definitely nothing to get anxious and depressed about. When I have writing as the ultimate end goal it directs me in making decisions about everything else.

This means I need to spend more time actually writing and submitting to agents and competitions and less time worrying about day job and comparing my life to anybody else's life.

Writing. Every day. EVERY day.
Being with family, talking with friends, making new friends.
Taking care of my body.
Making sure God is okay with my life.

That is what I need to worry about. That is what really matters.

How Do You Write Emotional Reactions?

[image error] So its official. I've had more than one person tell me that they want more emotional reaction from my main character. Or just, more reaction in general.

I didn't think about this when I was writing, but I think I know what's going on here. I think there are two main reasons people are feeling like there's not enough emotional reaction in certain parts of my book.

First, I guess I subconsciously assumed that the scenario/situation itself would raise certain emotional responses in the reader, which they would then fill in for the characters reaction. Does that make sense? I don't want to say that George is obsessively worried about his daughter right now, I want the fact that he sleeps in the hall outside her door to speak for itself. That already bespeaks a certain emotional state. Am I thinking wrongly here? So, basically, since the reader knows how he or she is reacting, there is no need for me to spell it out for them.

Second, I believe and have always believed that writing emotional reactions, perhaps emotion in general, is very, very dangerous and a fine line. On the one hand, you need emotion in your book (unless you're Hemingway) or people won't as easily relate to your characters. On the other hand, it must be done perfectly or it will stink up your story like rotten cheese. There is nothing that can so easily slip in to cliche, nothing to expose ones amateurity like bad emotional reaction. My sister makes fun of me for not finishing my sentences and I think that comes from the same place; she knows my general meaning, I want her to experience the rest for herself :) Obviously I'm still figuring this out.

Therein lies my dilemma. I stand by my theory that the best emotional reactions are what the readers themselves are feeling, and that I don't want to condescend or fall into cliche by spelling things out for them. That ruins the emotion anyway. However, if I'm getting relatively consistent feedback that parts of my novel need more of an emotional response from my MC, something needs to be done.

That means I'm coming to you guys! This is very similar to when I asked about writing vocal tone and facial expression, and in many ways I'm asking the same question, just in different words. So how do you do it? How do you write emotional reactions? Some people make it work, but I refuse to go the "quickened pulse" and "chilled spine" route. Maybe give me some examples from your own work, if you're willing.

I also think I'm going to look very, very closely at some Wallace Stegner and Marilynne Robinson to see how The Bests do it. That might be an interesting exercise.

Your turn :)

Sarah Allen

My Schedule Rule for Getting Stuff Done in 2013

The past couple months have been decently productive. I've been writing a little bit, working, so pretty average I guess. But I absolutely know I could be doing so much more.

My work/life schedule is pretty inconsistent. My mind doesn't work well that way, and I've definitely been using it as an excuse. I like it best when I can parcel out my day and be like this is work time, this is gym time, this is writing time, this is playing time. When my schedule is all wibbly-wobbly then I can't do that quite as well.

Except I'm going to try. Here's my plan, my rule, and we'll see how it works. What I'm going to do is just take it day by day. Every morning or every night I will get a schedule set for the next day. My days might not be consistent, but taking it day by day I can still parcel out my time however that day will let me. I can work around a weird work schedule and anything else that comes up and still get in the work out and writing time that I desperately need.

This year I would love to have, every day, one hour for working out, half-an-hour to an hour for online networking/submitting, and an hour, bare minimum, for straight up writing. I'm also going to try doing a few things online to make a little extra moulah, and I'll try parceling out some time for that too.

There are always days that plain and simple crazy happens, and normal schedules go to pot. But if I can get in the habit of keeping to a day-by-day schedule every day possible, I know I will end this year feeling much better about myself. There is SO much I want to do, and this is the best way to get it done.

Here's to finding happy structure, exciting stability and manageably explosive productivity in 2013!

Sarah Allen

The Known and Unknown of 2013

As we get ready to go into the new year, I feel a bit like I'm standing in a forest with five or six gates surrounding me, waiting to see which one will open first. Like I've rolled the dice and am waiting to see where it lands.

I could, miraculously, get accepted into one of the 10 graduate schools I've applied to. That means that this year could take me to Texas or Louisiana or Florida or Michigan or Wyoming.

I am looking seriously into applying to Teach for America, as an alternative to graduate school at least for a year. That means I could end up in San Francisco or Las Vegas or New Orleans.

It is quite possible, in fact probable, that neither of those paths will pan out. I've done and will do my utmost to make them work, and I pray that they will. But its also wise to be prepared with alternatives, and who knows what will actually happen?

If neither grad school or Teach for America works out, then everything becomes an option. Do I stay in Virginia? Do I find friends to go with me on an adventure? Where? What do I do about job?

What if I get an agent and a book contract and a book tour in Europe and never have to work again? We can dream, right?

So, anyway. Lots of options. I'm learning to cope with the uncertainty, and trying to prepare for every scenario. There are some decisions that I will just have to make as they come, and that will be okay. It will work out.

It will work out, because there are a few things that are the priority, the dream, the goal, in any of these scenarios. There are a few things that I need to work on every day and if I do then good things will happen, even if its completely unexpected.

Write. Every day. I need to do better at that this coming year. I would love to have another novel and a screenplay at the end of it. Maybe a short story collection. I've been pretty okay about keeping up on submission rotations, but I could be even more aggressive. Another important thing is keeping up here in the cyberverse, learning from smart people, keeping up to date on the latest in the book industry, navigating, marketing, friending.

Whether you're path is pretty secure for the next year, or whether you have no idea what its going to bring, do the important things and I think we'll all be okay. I think this is gonna be a big year.

Here we go!

Sarah

p.s. So what do y'all think of the new layout? I had fun :)

Why Les Miserables will win and why I won't be buying it.

Okay. Hmmm, ahh. Okay.

Do you ever come out of a movie with an analytical essay forming in your head?

First of all, I should say that it was absolutely incredible, stunning, and I loved it. There were moments that I can't even...Anne Hathaway who are you...?

But thoughts.

A few things bothered me. Why a new song? Cute, but unnecessary. I ADORE Helena Bonham Carter and Sascha Baron Cohen but I wanted the Thenardiers to be sillier. They were still hilarious though. And how can you NOT do the Castle on a Cloud reprise with Jean Valjean and little Cozette? Out of all the little musical tweaks (though there weren't many, bless them) that one bothered me most.

My mom had a really hard time with Russell Crow. In the moment he didn't actually bother me, but the more I think about it the more he does. (Though to be fair my opinions are very malleable to my mothers). I don't think he was terrible like my mom does, but looking back the character of Javert doesn't stand out at all and becomes sort of a non-entity, when that is the opposite of how it should be, and how it is in the book. In fact he and Jean Valjean are my two favorite characters in the book, so basically I think they missed out on a lot of potential from bad casting, at least as far as Javert is concerned.

Amanda Seyfried as Cozette was another non-entity for me, but that one doesn't bother me as much because Cozette is a non-entity in the book too. She's just not that interesting, so whatever. However, this is the first time I've liked Marius. In the book I very nearly hated him because he basically just ruins Jean Valjean's life and in the play he's just a weenie. But in this movie? Adorable.

I am not going to be buying the sound recording anytime soon, but that wasn't a big deal to me. I went in not expecting the singing to be Broadway quality but the acting to be tear-your-heart-out, and that was about accurate. Actually the best voice belonged to the Officer who warns the rebellion before they are obliterated. ("Give up! You have no chance.")

Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway. I...they just prove that divine (yes divine) talent and art is the most gloriously painful experience, painful precisely because it is so beyond normal human experience. Doing Fantine's entire song in one long shot, only one extremely close-up frame? Genius, and very nearly too much to take.

That is why Les Miserables will win, and why I won't probably won't be buying it, at least for a while. It is genius and beautifully directed and filmed and Anne Hathaway and Hugh Jackman will win ALL THE THINGS. But it's not one I could watch again soon, because it is that hard to take. I wouldn't pull it off the shelf for a fun movie night type movie. But every once in a while you want to be stabbed by something so glorious, so gut-wrenching. Maybe then I'll buy it.

Not With a Bang: Choose Your Own Apocalypse Blogfest

Chuck of Apocalypse Now has a question.

How do you think it will end?

I subscribe to the quiet end of the Apocalypse spectrum. Eerie in the vein of Twilight Zone or Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

It starts with a soft rumble, maybe a flash of light, though not a blinding one. You are in your basement when it happens. For a second you feel a bit dazed and lose track of yourself, but you shake it off and are fine.

Wondering what happened, you walk up the stairs. Your mother, who was in the kitchen, is not there. The oven is burning the lasagna she was making.

Then you walk outside. For as long as you can see there is nothing but flat, unbroken ground, white with what looks like salt. There is nothing, not a tree or hill or mountain, to break the horizon. Your neighbors houses, the playground across the street, the bell-tower of the church half a block away, even your mailbox, is gone.

You don't know how long you stand there. The urge to call out for someone comes in waves, and maybe you do it once, but half-heartedly, because you know there is no one there.

At the farthest edges of the horizon, towards the north, there may or may not be a spot of black shadow, a something, something different than the blank white. You stand there for another unknown length of time, watching, and the black something doesn't move but it doesn't go away.

Now you face a decision. Do you wait here to see if something happens, or move towards the black shadow?

It will make all the difference.

Then I know its Christmas

We may be in a new place this year, but there are still certain signs.

Increase in the number of quotes from The Grinch per day, although we do quote it year round. Of course when I say we I mean you.

Back ache, greasy table, dough under my fingernails from the Russian Teacake making assembly.

My brothers complaining about listening to The Osmonds.

Albert Finney in Scrooge. He is kind of a genius. (The Grinch and Ebenezer Scrooge would be my favorite Christmas characters. *facepalm*)

All of us trying to guess who each other has for 12 days of Christmas. Trying and usually failing to keep your person a secret.

Watching all the old 50's Christmas specials with Mickey Rooney and remembering how unintentionally creepy they are. When you sit on my lap today, a kiss a toy is the price you pay.

Still to come: chili bread bowls for Christmas Eve dinner, opening new Christmas pajamas, and my favorite part, all of us waking up ridiculously early and waiting in someones bedroom until we can go wake up my parents at 8:00. Maybe that all sounds like I'm 5, but I don't care.

It's Christmas.

Things I need to hear after this weekend.

I've never felt more emotionally sick about something in my life. I really have nothing to say, so let me leave you with things I need to hear, and maybe you do too.

The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things… The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things, and make them unimportant.-The Doctor
Serve God, love me, and mend.-Benedict, Much Ado About Nothing
If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence.-George Eliot, Middlemarch
I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me.-Shadowlands
One thing I have learned hard, if indeed I have learned it now: it is a reduction of our humanity to hide from pain, our own or others'. To hide from anything...Be open, be available, be exposed, be skinless. Skinless? Dance around in your bones...I am not exempt, no matter how I may yearn for the old undemanding darkness under the stone.-Wallace Stegner, All the Little Live Things
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.-Luke 17:2
Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.-Luke 18:2
Jesus wept.-John 11:35

And this: