No one tells you this but...

...laughter should be a part of revision. 

This past weekend, I spent hours and hours pouring over the copy-edits for Operation Yes, dealing with em dashes and line spacing and even re-writing two key scenes. 

Part of it was exhilarating: it's going to be a real book! 

Part of it was terrifying: it's going to be a real book!

Part of it was tedious:  Who wants to consider every last comma placement? Not me.

Part of it was embarrassing: I had spelled "gray" as "grey" over and over and over as if I were secretly British. Although my daughter made me feel better by saying that "grey" looks more "gray-ish," if you can follow that.

Part of it was annoying: why does the Chicago Manual of Style not want air force to be capitalized except for when referred to as the U.S. Air Force?  I understand the logic of it, but aesthetically, it bugs me. But if I tweaked each instance of capitalization, then the manuscript as a whole appeared inconsistent. I guess that's why style manuals exist. Sigh. 

But the whole process, as exhilarating, terrifying, embarrassing, and annoying as it was, started with laughter because my editor had tucked into the package a Captain Underpants eraser. Nothing like a flying guy in undies to make you lighten up a bit.

I used that eraser a lot as I changed my mind on various issues. But it always reminded me to smile.  As did my editor's occasional non-editorial notes like: mmmm, pudding!  (Sorry, Cheryl, but that makes me think of  you as Homer Simpson. Which is so ridiculous that it makes me laugh. Again.) 

P.S. After I had mailed off the copy-edit package to the land of Will-Be-A-Real-Book-Soon, I decided to check out a new gym in the area: L.A. Boxing.  Every muscle in my upper body hurts today, two days later. But what I remember most was that as I tried to follow the instructor's combo drills, flailing at the mitts on his hands, ducking when I should've been hooking, crossing when I should've been jabbing, weaving when I should've been punching, I laughed. Several times. It really felt good.

What I'm Reading: The Magician's Book

From the introduction: 

"A lot of people remember the bliss of their earliest reading with a pang; their current encounters with books offer no more than faint echoes of what they once felt. I've heard friends and strangers talk about the days when they, too, would submerge themselves in a story, surfacing only to eat and deal with the minimal daily business of childhood. They wonder why they don't get as much out of books now. If you dig deep to the roots of what makes someone a reader, you'll usually find the desire to recapture that old spell."

Maybe that's what makes a writer, too. I admit that it's hard to completely lose myself in a book these days--I'm either admiring or critiquing or learning from it. As a child, I read so deeply that my mother once had to sprinkle my head with her watering can. But when I write, and it's going well, I do feel under that spell. I also realize that I've always told myself stories---elaborate sagas in which I released Spock's inner emotional life and natural passion (I must really, really trust you guys), or terrifying tales about that loose bedroom window screen or yes, how I would meet Tumnus the Faun and have mercy on his Witch-tortured soul. I just didn't always write those stories down. (Thank God!)

Like Lucy, I have no idea whether I'm going to find the back of the wardrobe or the snowy branches of Narnia each time I sit down to work. But who can resist looking? 

You can win a signed author's copy of The Magician's Book from Laura's official site if you share a photo of a Narnia-like place. How perfect.

A Poll: Juicy Memories or Big Questions?

Over Thanksgiving, I had a conversation with my sister and my mother-in-law about writing. Both of them said that questions about the past, and specifically, questions that sparked memories, inspired them to put words on the page. 

No. Not me. I despise writing exercises like:  Describe the ceiling of the first room you remember sleeping in.  Tell about a time when you should have stopped talking, but didn't. List all your favorite toys, in the order you received them. 

 I would rather write about what could be, not what was.  I know my sister and my mother-in-law are in very good writerly company. Generations of writers have drawn upon memories to spark new stories.  But I still rebel. What inspires me (no surprise to those who read this blog regularly) are the Big Questions.  

When does winter end? Am I living my life for an audience? Why is a bicycle? What happens when a shadow crosses a reflection? 

 

I think I'm in the minority, though. To investigate this, I'm running my first poll. It's in the sidebar there. Vote for Juicy Memories or Big Questions.  

I'm fully prepared to be labeled odd.

52 Seconds

Take a minute to read this short article in the Washington Post about the story decisions behind Jim's proposal to Pam on The Office. It made me think about the choices writers make---what to show and what to obscure, how to expend your storytelling firepower, and why honoring the viewers (or readers) should be your guiding principle.

"Yes, we know it's fiction. But when Jim finally popped the question on the season premiere of NBC's "The Office," millions of viewers instantly forgave the producers for repeatedly bringing together the small-screen soul mates over the seasons -- only to tear them apart again and again.

While the 52-second scene may have seemed sweet and simple, executive producer Greg Daniels reveals it required high-tech special effects, huge rain machines, a month of meetings and a budget that doubled somewhere along the way." The rest here.

At least when I write a scene, I don't have to worry about budget. Mine is always zero.

250 words

My son is writing college application essays. Some are 250 words or less. Ouch. Short is hard.

Which brings up an interesting question: should writers help their kids with writing assignments? Around here, it goes like this:

• They always, always, always do the rough draft with no input from me.
  
• They get to decide when to ask me for advice, if at all. Sometimes, they share work just because they like what they've written and are proud of it. I'm not lying when I say that both of them are far better writers than I was at their age.
  
• The most common thing I ask to see is more detail. Personal, vivid detail. No "I participated in outdoor activities" when "I chased an armadillo" is the colorful truth.*
  
• I encourage them to go at it again. They usually do.
• They can bring any piece of writing back to me as often as they want. I'll read it. We can talk about it. But the work's all theirs.

One more thing. They know how many times writers---all writers---rewrite their work. I tell them. Repeatedly. My husband recently backed me up, telling my son that he re-wrote an important briefing nine times. Nobody in this house ever gets it right the first time. Except the dog. She's brilliant.

*I'm not sure if an armadillo pursuit belongs on a college application, but it's 100% true and one of my son's favorite memories of our time in Mississippi.

P.S. This blog post is exactly 250 words.

East o' the Sunroom, West o' the Moonlit Road

Writing a draft is like making a map. What you are mapping is up to you.

If you imagine yourself outside, you will test roads, find crossways and connections, name streets, and never be satisfied with what you've been told about a place. You will go down ill-used paths until you can look beyond the flat edge of the end of the world---here be dragons!

If you see yourself as map-making inside, you will knock on closet backs to check for hidden passages, tear down walls if you suspect doors behind them, and crawl into tight spaces. You will measure a room in the steps of your character. And lie down on your back to examine the ceiling.

Why?

Because then you will lay out your findings in an organized way so that others may explore the same paths, see things they didn't know were there, visit little known attractions, discover short (or long) cuts, realize one land lies beside another, and perhaps find a trapdoor to a populated underground or a ladder to a long undisturbed attic.

You're asking your readers to risk a mountain because you named it and marked one route. I've dared valleys because someone has gone in before me and assures me they will lead me out. Even a house that I've been inside a thousand times is worthy of rediscovery when someone hands me a floorplan and tells me the history of how the backstairs were added.

Fellow blogger Jennifer Thermes is reading Mapmaking with Children: Sense of Place Education for the Elementary Years and has Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer on her TBR pile. Jennifer creates maps for a living.

What's the last map you drew? Why?

P.S. I love a good map in a book. Do you? Here's a blog post from The Map Room devoted to Imaginary Places.

To Boldy Go and Learn

My daughter says: This is the famous eagle nebula showing the "pillars of creation". The image is a combination of 10 80 s exposures in each filter (B, V, and R). The R filter definitely showed the most structure and detail, while the nebula hardly appeared in the B filter images at all. The new stars forming inside the pillars cause the surrounding dust to fluoresce and glow red.

If you didn't understand any of that, perhaps you need LaunchPad. That's the FREE workshop for writers funded by NASA. Its mission is "to provide a 'crash course' for twelve attendees in modern astronomy science through workshops, guest lectures, and observation through the University of Wyoming's two large telescopes."

Is that cool or what? Nancy Kress blogs her week at LaunchPad here.

I wonder if we could get other interesting organizations to educate writers for free. Like the Oregon Shakespeare festival. Or the LPGA. Or NPR. Even NASCAR.

Nominate an organization to fund a "crash course" in the comments! We can start a write-in campaign. (We writers are good at write-in campaigns.)

Nonfiction Monday: The Artist's Way

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron is a classic, and I almost didn't think it worth blogging about, since so many people know about it already. But if I'm going to use Nonfiction Mondays to post about writing books that inspired me, it would be wrong, wrong, wrong to not feature this one. (Yes, I know I have ignored NF Monday the last month or so, but I love the idea of it! Help me get back on the bus.)

First, if you're a creative person and you haven't read The Artist's Way, go do it now. It'll take you twelve weeks, and I don't want to hear any whining about that. The reason this book works is because you can't gulp it. It's the first (and maybe only) workbook for which I did all the work. True confession: I treat writing exercises like I treat cooking magazine recipes. Fun to read, but who has time to do them all?

But for this book, I actually rationed my reading, not allowing myself to read more than one chapter a week, which gave me time and space to fully participate in the questions and exercises. Most importantly, I wrote daily in my spankin' new spiral notebook for twelve straight weeks. All my other attempts at diaries, writer's journals, and notebooks had failed. They failed because I hated writing in them. I felt pressure to have them be "literary." I wasn't using them; they were using me. Now I know that notebooks for writers are really dumpsters. And I love my ratty pages like I love a best friend. I no longer write daily pages in a separate journal (Cameron calls these Morning Pages) but because of The Artist's Way, each and every new project begins with a new notebook, in which I scribble with abandon.

The second big thing I took away from The Artist's Way was the concept of Artist's Dates, the technique of scheduling time to refill your creative well, lest it run dry. I know when I'm in trouble creatively. It's when I suddenly notice that I'm cutting myself off from beauty, from originality, and most specifically, from other artist's creations. It's as if I think that because I'm not working as hard as I would like, because I'm failing at this Writer Thing at the moment, I somehow don't deserve to view heart-stopping art, or read literature-that-makes-me-weep, or view so-lovely-they're-painful movies. Instead, I'm flipping through TV channels, scanning the newspaper, and playing way too much Scrabulous. Art Dates, because they're scheduled, snap me out of it. Remind me of what's important. Open my heart back up when I've closed it up tight.

But---I'm confessing some more---I've gotten complacent. I stopped scheduling. I figured I loved Art (I'm including all forms under that capitalization) so much that I wouldn't forget it, ignore it, ration it. Foolish, foolish me. I did go to the Hopper exhibit, and it was fabulous. But that's it. And that was months ago! I need to date more often!

Here's an idea for a future date: I have a soft spot for fountains, and for A Midsummer Night's Dream. So this excites me. I may need to go down there and see it in person. Thanks to Endicott Studios for the link.

But that's June. What about now? What about this week?

See? That's why The Artist's Way is a classic. It still makes me think. It still makes me question my life. It still makes me change my life.

Still true, five years later

While digging through an old notebook, I found a yellow index card. It's a list that I copied out of my journal, from an entry dated January 23, 2003. The entry says:

"Reading Beyond the Words by Bonni Goldberg---she has lots of good ideas/different perspectives on the writing life. Yesterday, I read her section on 'Reasons to Write.' I haven't felt much reason to write lately, mostly because I've been discouraged about the lack of an audience. Why speak if no one is listening?"

Here's the list that followed, which I tucked into my novel notebook, so I could look at it when I was faltering:



To save your eyes, I'll retype my scrawled writing.

Why I Want to Write

1) To ask questions

2) To find connections

3) To respond to beauty/mystery

4) To enjoy the thrill of paradox, of struggling to contain two ideas at once

5) To be intimate with the world/with other readers and writers

6) To remember my life


P.S. Bonni Goldberg is involved in some very interesting projects.

Nonfiction Monday: Books that Invite Me to Sit Down and Talk With Them

In one of my workshops this past weekend at the CNU Writers Conference, I talked about being part of the Eternal Conversation, which is carried on, regardless of the span of years that divide them, between writers and readers. Here's a short list of nonfiction books about writing---books which, when I read them, always fill me with the urge to join the conversation. Read with a pen and notebook handy!


Books that Invite me to Sit Down and Talk with Them

A Sense of Wonder: On Reading and Writing Books for Children (Katherine Paterson)

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life (Anne Lamott)

Characters and Viewpoint (Elements of Fiction Writing) (Orson Scott Card)

Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (Leonard S. Marcus)

Dreams And Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children (Susan Cooper)

Finding Your Writer's Voice: A Guide to Creative Fiction (Thaisa Frank)

Take Joy: The Writers Guide To Loving The Craft (Jane Yolen)

The Art Spirit (Robert Henri)

The Courage to Write: How Writers Transcend Fear (Ralph Keyes)

The Elements of Style, Illustrated (William Strunk, Jr.)

The Rock That Is Higher: Story As Truth (Madeleine L'Engle)

Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art (Madeleine L'Engle)

The Courage to Teach (Parker Palmer)

To Know as We Are Known (Parker Palmer)

How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (Michael Gelb)

99 Ways to Tell a Story (Matt Madden)

Nonfiction Monday: The Art Spirit

The Art Spirit by painter Robert Henri
is probably not a book you're going to read straight through.
After all, its title page describes the contents as:

Notes, Articles, Fragments of Letters and Talks to Students,
Bearing on the Concept and Technique of Picture Making,
the Study of Art Generally,
and on Appreciation

But it's perfect for dipping into when you need a jolt of wisdom and a fresh way of looking at whatever it is that you're wrestling with.

"Sometimes we do grip the concert in a human head, and so hold it that in a way, we get a record of it into paint, but the vision and expressing of one day will not do for the next.

Today must not be a souvenir of yesterday, and so the struggle is everlasting. Who am I today? What do I see today? How shall I use what I know, and how shall I avoid being victim of what I know? Life is not repetition. "

I don't know about you, but reading that is both encouraging and frightening. Each day stands new. Artistically, you are neither bound by nor excused by what you've done before. Art is invention. Beauty is discovered. Life is not repetition.

The Nonfiction Monday roundup is here.

Happily Ever After

Do you know what happens when you say yes?

You wake up scared the next day. I know this is silly. Everything is great. All will be fine. Except that I have a zit on the side of my nose.

Isn't that the way it goes? There is no good-beyond-belief news without a little freak-out fear mixed in.

What am I afraid of? Oh, I don't know. Maybe the possibility that I will suddenly discover that I have forgotten how to sentence a put together. (See? It's happening!!!)

I also know (because I've been there myself) that there is no hearing about another person's good fortune without a tinge of "But what about me?" This is especially true when you are working as hard and as truly as your heart will stand, and you still haven't gotten to where you want to go. Yet.

So, the Zit on My Nose would like to say to you (and me):

Don't lie to yourself. You do want it. And I promise you that when you do get it, you will want more. When you get that, you will be scared. Deal with it. Deal with it however you need to, but do not wimp out and lie to yourself. About wanting it or being scared. Because the Zit always knows.

It is possible to write with a talking zit on the side of your nose, isn't it?

Isn't it???

Non-Fiction Monday: Walking on Alligators

Walking On Alligators
by Susan Shaughnessy

Normally, I'm not a fan of writing prompt books. As fun as they seem when I first pick them up, and as full of writing promise---read me! I'll inspire you!---the reality is, they don't usually...well, prompt me. To write, that is. I rebel against the given assignment. I roll my eyes at suggestions like: Write about your character's favorite color. Yes, it might be interesting, and even practical, to think on why my character loves firebrick red, but that doesn't set my pen to flying on the page.

Walking on Alligators is different. For one thing, its subtitle is: A book of mediations for writers. Right there, I'm happier. Just like I prefer enter to begin, I prefer meditations to assignments.

Each entry begins with a quote---another point in its favor, since I love quotes---and ends with a mediation.

Here's one example:

Quote: I am gifted with a bad memory. Because of that I can look at my stuff with a singular freedom. ---Paul Weiss

Meditation: Today, I'll remember how forgetfulness will help me. I'll budget time before my deadline for cooling and revision.

Now, that mediation is practical. It's saying something that I've heard many times before---let your drafts settle. Become less attached to them before you revise. But I never thought of my bad memory as a gift before. (Although my husband does say that the reason we've been married so long is that I can't remember anything long enough to hold a grudge.)

And that simple mediation is going to make me think all day long about forgetfulness---not just my own, but my characters. What do they forget? Why? Do other characters notice what they forget? Is forgetfulness always bad? Must it be reserved for the neglectful parent or the deliberately amusing, preoccupied mad scientist or artist? We all forget things---why is that not portrayed as normal?

P.S. Here's another review. It's also marked Highly Recommended, here, at Cynthia Leitich Smith's website.

The Nonfiction Monday roundup is here.