Writing in the Snow with Dragons

My weekend: snow, writing, dragons (of the self-doubt variety.)

Revision is SO scary. It can feel like battling a three-headed dragon. You deal with one problem, you make two more for yourself. Everywhere, there are teeth.  But if you look for it, there is also snow. Miraculous, unpredictable snow.

See those silhouettes underneath the dragon? They're fairytale postcards I bought in Germany.  And the gypsy doll is a marionette I found in Prague one bitterly cold winter day.  (So is the dragon.)

Back to work now.

Poetry Friday: God Says Yes to Me

Linda Urban sent me the link to today's poem, which I'd read before and loved and yet had never featured on Poetry Friday. The poem is sweet salve because I feel as if I've been revising my WIP since the dawn of time. When you spend hours on end critically ripping apart your writing, staring at each word and asking it to justify its existence, you become ruthless, jaded, and the master of saying NO to your weak, whining self who wants to sneak out the back and dump the whole manuscript in the trash.

And yet, as writers we must say yes to our work. This poem reminds me that the choices are hard in revision, as author Tanita Davis blogged about so vividly: "like pulling teeth, abdominal surgery, a bikini wax and a colonoscopy all at once."

But then, dear melodrama-loving, short-tempered writer self---Honey!!!--- you must love what you choose.

God Says Yes To Me
by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey

the rest is here

Poetry Friday is hosted today by the ever-resourceful Greg at GottaBook

National Day on Writing Galleries and Jody Call Winners

Happy National Day on Writing! Everyone should be . . .uh....writing. That's what I'm going to do after I post this.  First, some links to celebrations of writing across the 'net.

At A Year of Reading, a video montage of bloggers and writers, sharing their take on the phrase "a lifetime of reading."  Also, an invitation to view A Year of Reading's gallery of writing, in which Franki and Mary Lee asked kidlitosphere members to submit a post about their reading lives.  (Pssst . . . want to see a really cute picture of Mary Lee?)

At Kate Messner's LiveJournal, a gallery illuminating the revision process, featuring the marked-up, tagged, scribbled-on, and tear-splotched pages of several children's writers (including me.)  I admire Kate's blog, because she always has such practical ideas to share with other teachers, students and writers, and this revision showcase is definitely one of them.  (By the way, the teeny omission of the word "to" in the note accompanying my pages is all my doing, not Kate's. We're working on getting that . . . wait for it. . . . revised.)

At Mitali Perkins' blog, "thank you love notes" written by 8th graders. Not edited. Not revised. From the heart. Priceless.

Finally, I want to celebrate ALL the writers who braved their inner drill sergeants and posted a jody call in my contest to win a copy of Operation Yes. You can see all the jody calls here (along with pictures of little green army men taken by my agent, Tina Wexler.)  Hey! That could be my National Day on Writing Gallery!  I'll bet I'm the only jody call post they get.

Alas, only three can win, although all were awesome. In the end, the military judge ruled in favor of these three:  Amber Lough, Marjorie Light, and Maribeth.   Congratulations and please email me your address so I can get your signed copies to you. (Unless you'd like several weeks of boot camp and chow hall food instead.)  Email to: email@saralewisholmes.com and please specify if you'd like the book inscribed to a particular person.

"I hear it's National Day on Writing.

Think someone will write about us?"

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.

On a platter

Editorial letter on the left, manuscript on the right

Looks nice and tidy, doesn't it? The problem is that my mind, the tool with which I will do this round of revisions, isn't. It's scattered and easily distracted and worst of all, stuffed with ego.

So I find myself going through the same emptying rituals I always do:

1) Deliberate time-wasting. I watch "light" TV like Pushing Daisies (about children's books last night! Anyone see the editorial assistant dribble on the rejection letter? Eeeew.) Also, Big Break X and (with my niece wielding the stop-action Tivo remote) Dancing With the Stars.

2) A bit of mindless munching (mini bags of "buttery salt and cracked pepper" popcorn.)

3) Yoga. Sanctioned mind-emptying.

4) Long walk with my dog (helps counter-balance the mindless munching.)

It's also worth stating that I didn't stage this picture for the blog. The manuscript has literally been on that platter for a week. How blindingly un-self-aware I was. Or how brilliant. Either way, Round 2B* of my revision work has been served. I'm not as full as I once was, and it looks tasty.

*Round 1 was the developmental edit, finished in August before I headed to the SCBWI LA conference. Round 2A was the edit of the first third of the book, which required some re-working (and a new chapter!) accomplished last month before we moved on to the entire manuscript's line edits, otherwise known as this month's incarnation, Round 2B. Yes, there will be a Round 3, the copyedits.

NOTE: If I have brain cells left over, I will blog. I need help with the title, for one thing. As soon as I can get a synopsis worked up for you, I'll throw a few titles your way and see what you think.

Champagne and Origami

My second round of revisions has arrived and I must step out of the room. I don't know if I'll be gone days or weeks. I may drop in and out unexpectedly.

Please entertain yourself with either (or both) of the following. I'm told that these feats take several days to master.


Task #1: Open a champagne bottle with a sword.

How to Open a Champagne Bottle with a Sword

Task #2: Take a square of paper, as below...



and make this:


More exquisite origami by Brian Chan here

Alternatively, you may simply sit in your chairs and stare out the window. That often leads to writing, which leads to revising, in which case, I'm happy thrilled excited for you

I'm sorry...it's happening...I must go now...

Good news everywhere

Good news everywhere...

! My roommate for the SCBWI L.A. conference sold her first book. Remember this: Valerie Patterson, author of The Other Side of Blue, because you're going to be hearing about it, come Fall '09/Spring '10. Get the whole scoop on the sale from her agent, Sarah Davies. I hope to be interviewing Val soon, about her first sale jitters and joy.

! Two new friends that I met in L.A. started blogging. From the co-blog Plot This:

Katie Anderson, self-confessed "yoga nerd," writes Relax into the Prose (go! look at that yoga/writing picture.)

and Sarah Frances Hardy confesses in an earlier post that she's the girl you wanted to sit near in Chem, 'cause she takes great notes, and yeah, she's right: here are her notes from Sara Pennypacker's breakout session on "Making Your Beginnings Shine." And don't miss her artwork here. (I love the line drawings.)

! My friend, Mac McCool, has an article about graphic novels in the new Children's Writer's and Illustrator's Market.

! Jane Yolen is graciously offering lovely free bookmarks with her poem "Revision Takes Wings" on them. Check out the comments section of her interview at 7 Impossible Things for the details. Here's a picture of where I have mine prominently displayed on my desk:

Released

How do you know when you're done with a revision of a manuscript?

A) You re-write a paragraph multiple times. Three hours pass. Then you delete everything and reinstate the original.

B) You start adjusting the spacing at the beginning of chapter headings.

C) Your deadline is a welcome restraining order. Step away from the manuscript!

D) You're a different person than when you began. Something wild has been released. The manuscript has escaped the cage you first built for it and left you, its creator, to deal with the aftermath.

If you picked D, you're a drama queen. Just like me.

Retreat Musings: Nuts and Bolts

I promised to share some of my thoughts from my recent writing retreat. Here's a start:


Sometimes, I think people pigeonhole writers as the flighty, imaginative sort. We're good at dreamily gazing out the window, making up things out of thin air. But I think the act of writing (and especially revision) is closer to problem-solving. Writers are the mechanics of the written word! And a great deal of what we do is by trial and error.

Last night, my son called me down to the basement to fix his guitar.

I don't play guitar, I don't know (in any detail) how a guitar works, and I absolutely don't know how to fix one. But I did it, and without Google!

Above is the part that was broken. It's where the musician plugs in the jack for the amp, and it was designed by the devil. (Or maybe that evil coffee mug designer.) The nut and the thin washer underneath had both fallen off, causing the 1/4 inch jack receptacle they support to collapse into the guitar.

Imagine us, one holding the guitar upside down, to make the metal tube slide barely out of the hole. Then the other person would try to grab it, straighten it, and hold it by a fingernail. Then the fruitless attempts to slide either the washer or the nut over the tube without knocking it back down inside. AAAAARGGGGH!

Finally, I called in the needle-nosed pliers. And yes, they could hold the tube out more firmly than a fingernail. But...they were always in the way. It's not mechanically possible to put a washer or a nut over something you're also gripping by an edge. (That didn't stop me from trying, however. Sometimes, I think the laws of nature will bend to my stubbornness.)

And then! And then!! I had the brilliant idea of slipping the washer and the bolt over the end of the pliers BEFORE I stuck the end in the hole. AND I didn't grip the tube; I inserted the pliers and kept the tube from slipping back into the guitar with pressure from the inside. Voila! The washer settled over the tube, then the nut, too. We screwed it tightly back on. I did the Happy Triumph Dance of Mechanical Genuis. (Please do not tell me if you already knew the answer five paragraphs ago. I'm still impressed with myself. )

Anyhow, it made me think of my writing retreat, and the sessions where we'd all gather and read our work. Time after time, I was impressed with my fellow word mechanics. These writers were willing to do whatever it took to make their story WORK. There were stalled manuscripts, and whole books that had to be re-built from the ground up, and loose parts, and maddening boxes of pieces that were supposed to go somewhere, but just didn't fit.

And yet, we all worked for the solutions with stubbornness of good mechanics. We shared tools with each other. (Cool! A storyboard!) We asked for test runs. (Could you try that in third person?) We didn't let each other give up on what needed fixing.

Because as Laini said: the only tool a piece of writing has to use against you is intimidation. You, on the other hand, have way more than needle-nosed pliers: You have a keen sense of smell, able to detect word crap. You have an ear for when a story engine is running smoothly and when it's not. You have a heightened vision for seeing a character's deepest desire. You can taste the right opening for your story when it rolls off your tongue. You can find your way out of the deepest plot thickets by touching your fingers to the keyboard, over and over and over.

Those tools, plus lots and lots of trial and error (and yes, some stubbornness) are the nuts and bolts of writing. Thank you, fellow retreat writers, for letting me witness the work of mechanical geniuses in action!

Me and E.B., running with scissors and playing with glue

Oh, yay! E.B. did it, too...

"Scenes that are out of place leap out at me. I have to cut and paste because they don't belong where I've put them. E.B. White calls this "transposition." He was a big cutter and paster. He felt that manuscripts often have serious flaws in the placement of their material..." --From The Shape of the Novel, at The Tollbooth

I write scenes out of order all the time. It's ridiculous---like my brain is in another time zone.

But it's not as hard as you might think to manipulate the space-time continuum. It just takes days of determined effort. Mwahahaha!

Story Robot

For my revisions, I'm doing some research into improvisational theater. I found the best blog! It's called Story Robot. (Sorry, Laini. I know you are Not a Robot.)

Anyhow, these posts made me laugh. And think about story. They may be about theater, but I think they apply to writing, too.

Head in the deep fryer moment.

The commitment meter.

Why connections make you laugh. (Link to "eight minutes of lyrical origami, folding history into a series of coincidences surrounding that most surreal of hours: 4 o'clock in the morning.")

Just what I needed.

He does comics, too.

It's all in the manuscript

Stop me if you've heard this before.

It's all in the manuscript.

I've certainly heard it before. Many, many times. Because that's what my dear friend and writing mentor, Doris Gwaltney, always tells me whenever I whine.

ME: I'm stuck.
SHE: It's all in the manuscript.

ME: I don't know how to fix this.
SHE: It's all in the manuscript.

ME: I need a pedicure.
SHE: It's all in the manuscript. (What, do you write with your feet?)

And dang it! I heard it again over at The Tollbooth, attributed to Tim Wynne Jones.

What does it mean?

It means that even if you've only written one sentence, you have the kernel of your story, right there on the page.

Say you write this melodramatic statement: "Molly kicked the statue and burst into tears."

ME: Who's Molly? Who or what is the statue? What surrounds it? How long ago was it erected? Why is she crying? Is that usual or unusual? Is she alone? What preceded the kick? Is she barefoot or wearing sturdy boots?

YOU: Oh, so you're saying...
ME: It's all in the manuscript.

I know, I know. You normally don't get stuck after one sentence. It happens later, a few chapters in, or after a rough draft runs out of steam. But the principle is the same.

I can't tell you how many times I've been up against a wall, and gone back into my manuscript looking for a clue, any clue as to how to move forward. And there it is! The detail I wrote "just because." At the time, I thought I was being a good writer by being specific--- adding depth and color with that throwaway remark about the aunt who always gives bad presents on Valentine's Day. But now! Now, I seize on it, and ask WHY?

And the next thing I know, that aunt has sent our main character a large, anatomically correct, rubber heart in the mail. (Not really. But you get the idea.) And see? I used this image once, earlier, and here it is again.


The absolute beauty of this, besides getting you moving again, is that if you do it often enough, your manuscript winds up as one incredibly tight, believable, and well-constructed piece of art that makes sense, no matter what angle you view it from. The pathways all connect. Things that matter to the lifeblood of the story are there, and only those things, because you've stayed close to the heart of your story. (Sorry, I know I'm stretching the cardio-puns here. )

So, trust yourself. If you wrote that your character loves peas, find a way to use that again. If you mentioned a bird singing, what kind of bird, and does it come back, and if it does, does it follow a regular pattern?

Shoes matter. The spot on the front sidewalk matters. The friend's dog matters. They all matter because you say they do. Otherwise, WHY would they be in your story?

So, get looking! It's all in your manuscript. Because if it isn't, or if you whine, you'd better start thinking of a way to use this rubber heart. Because I'm going to send it to you.

Shhhhh

I was going to confess this week to something truly weird about my revision process...and now I find that someone else has been brave enough to post a picture of themselves doing the exact same thing!

Go right now and read Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast's interview with author/illustrator Tricia Tusa. And when you get to the picture of her cocooning, please don't laugh. Because I do that, too.

Well, I don't pull the covers over my head, but I do get in the bed, put a notebook and pen by my bedside table, and take a nap. I usually take a short nap (20 minutes) every day anyway, but while I've been revising, I find I've become a serial napper. I pace, write, go lie down, get up, pace, take notes, go lie down.

I'm a physical person; I know that about myself. I have to run, box, do yoga, dance, move my body in some way in order to be sane and happy. But somehow, I missed how important the simple act of lying still was to my revision process.

Revision can seem like such a whirlwind of activity. Rip out every worthless adverb in that paragraph! Move enormous blocks of text from one chapter to another! Strip away the useless veneers! Throw out the junk! Build new structural support!

Yeah, I agree. All that needs to be done. But I'm taking a nap anyway.

Context and Randomness

Should you be able to take a random page out of your book (or any book) and have it make sense? If you can, does that mean that you're telling too much, and not showing? How much of your story should rely on what has gone before? All of it, right?

Then how do those authors do it: read a scene from the middle of their books? I know, I know...they do a little setup, and then they read. But I've tried to do it, and the setup gets longer than the actual reading! So I give up and read the very first chapter, every time.

I look at the manuscript I'm working on now, and I think: if someone read page 93, would they have any idea what's going on? I want to say that most experienced readers would. But I also hope that any reader, no matter how clueless, would get something out of it, too.

It's like a really good comic strip, like ZITS. You could never read it, then see it one day, and totally get it. But it's even better if you've been reading it all along, like I do.

Which is a very long way of getting round to saying: Hey! Did you read ZITS today?

Jeremy and his dad are playing catch.

Frame: Dad?
Frame: Yeah?
Frame: This is great. Yeah.
Frame: (Mom) You had a meaningful conversation with Jeremy?? How???
(Dad) First you have to get over the idea of using words.

That's what I mean right there! By page 93, you shouldn't have to be using so many words. The more your readers understand, the less you have to say. One small action carries with it the weight of all the pages before it.

At least, I think so. What do you think?

Alterations

OK, I know they call it spinning class because you spin your bike wheels around, and don't really move anywhere, although your legs burn and your heart thumps and you leave looking like a saltwater drenched rat. But as it turns out, my brain wheels were also spinning during class yesterday.

It happened this way: I had reached the end of a certain stage in my revisions last week, and took a minor break to help my daughter move, which turned into a longer break due to uninvited germs romping through my body. But somehow, though it all, that busy tailor in the cellar of my mind* kept sewing. So, as I was sweating out the last germs of my illness in spin class, she suddenly said, "HEY! Look at this!" She held up a lovely vision of how to shift a major piece of my manuscript from one spot to another. The seams of the plaid fabric lined up perfectly and everything. I was so impressed.

You should also be impressed with my sewing metaphor, since I don't communicate well via needle and thread in real life. I tried sewing curtains for a patio door once and when I got to the end of a long, long seam attaching two panels together, there was a six inch difference in the two sides. I'm not kidding you. Six whole inches. I gave up and hung a sheet over the door for the last few months we had in that house before we moved. Shameful, but true.

What's also strange is that I often see fabric, beautiful swathes of intricately decorated cloth, in my mind's eye. Sometimes, the fabric is made into amazing clothing. I'll wake from sleep and remember a dress to die for, or a truly hip trench coat, or even a chic purse. It's so weird. How can I dream these things, hold them briefly in my head in order to admire them when I'm barely awake, and yet have no way of ever turning these visions into reality? You'd think the envisioning was the hard part, right? But no, just like writing, it's the MAKING that's hard.

So thanks, industrious little tailor. But I still need to thread the needle, and poke it in and out about a thousand times, sewing each word to the page until every seam matches.

*From Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: "There in your unconscious, where the real creation goes on, is the little kid or the Dr. Seuss creature in the cellar, arranging and stitching things together. When this being is ready to hand things up to you, to give you a paragraph or a sudden move one character makes that will change the whole course of your novel, and you will be entrusted with it. So in the meantime, while the tailor is working, you might as well go get some fresh air."

Blah.

Sorry, guys. I'm sick today. In theory, I could lift my fingers enough to blog, but I'm too busy alternating shivering with burning up.

I do want to point you to Laini's blog, where she has an interesting discussion going on about what to do on tough writing days.

Penalty! Never read the title of a blog post first! Move down a step!

I found a book I can read while revising.

The Willoughbys

It's making me laugh on nearly every page, and because it's meta-fiction, it helps me think about my own fiction, rather than lose myself for days in another writer's created world. Sometimes, you don't want immersion. Sometimes, you want conversation. Conversation with a wicked intellect, a writer not afraid to poke you in the eye, and say: hey all you politically correct children's writers, loosen up. Look what you can get away with!

I mean, come on---listen to kids at play. They're imaginative, ruthless, and astoundingly good at entertaining themselves with games that would make a grownup cry.

And the scene where big brother Timothy bullies his siblings in the Stair Game with ridiculous, arbitrary, and selfish rules so that he can always win? So dead-on that I think Lowry must have played that very game. Recently. Like in writing this book.

And she's winning.

P. S. I'll probably get demoted two stair steps for changing the subject, but I added a box to my sidebar which allows you to subscribe to my blog posts via email. Just put your address in the box, and it will be delivered, rain or shine. :)

I've also added my blog to my Facebook profile, in the Notes section. Plus, a nifty widget that's supposed to scroll the latest headline from here. (Right now, it's displaying, but refusing to scroll. I'm calling in Timothy.)

UPDATE: I took down the blog posts in the Notes section. Apparently, Facebook claims to own copyright for anything you post there. Uh, NO.

The non-scrolling widget is still there, still not moving, but it will link through to my blog feed, which provides a way for Facebook friends to follow me over here.

Kissed by a Cow

How are revisions like being kissed by a cow?

Please leave your answers in the comments because as desperately as I would like to relate this post to writing or books, and as neck-deep in revisions as I am at this moment, and as recently as I have been quite close to some Holsteins---even I don't know the answer.

I just wanted to post this picture from my recent trip to Tennessee.




All that's missing is my devilish laugh.

Oh, wait! I thought of something bookish: Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type.

But you can do better. How, I ask you again, are revisions like being kissed by a cow?

What procrastination looks like

Today, I'm debating whether I should work on my revisions, or Make An Anatomically Correct Brain Cake.

Arguments for making the Brain Cake:

1) Instructions include the lines:

"4 drops of red, 4 drops of yellow, and 2 drops of green makes a good grey matter color."

and " Work one cortex (area) at a time."

2) I don't think I would eat it, but I could.

3) Neuroscientists might be in the neighborhood, going door to door, looking for just such a thing. Or aliens. Think how helpful an anatomically correct brain cake would be to invading aliens.

Sigh.

Revisions it is.

Even More Revision Tips Wednesday

Not so much tips, as observations....

1) My house gets cleaner when I revise. I feel the need to straighten my outside world as I work on the interior one of the manuscript. I used to view cleaning as procrastination, but now I see it as a) thinking/processing time and b) the only way certain cleaning tasks will ever get done. My baseboards aren't gleaming, but they sure are happy that I noticed that they exist.

2) Negative thinking has its place---for about a week. I can growl, feel sick, whine, and think the worst of myself. Then I have no time for it. None.

3) The Dog Whisperer is a great show for writers. Cesar says to visualize what you what to happen and then make it so. (Sounds flaky until you see him do it, time after time after time.) He's also great at psychology and character motivation. It's never the dog; it's always the owner. Training a dog changes the trainer; revising a novel changes the writer. Why else would I be doing this?