Picture Book writer
In my last post, Meet Me In Hell, I neglected to mention that I ditched The Blue-Eyed Twin because I had a better angle on the same storyline. All is not lost; I rescued the 3 main characters and moved them into a much better novel.
Just thought I’d let you know that. I didn’t want you to feel badly for me. I’m excited and energized ~ even more than the last time I was excited and energized about my last new novel.
Okay, have you noticed a pattern here? About every 8 weeks, I declare: I WILL POST ON A REGULAR BASIS FROM NOW ON. And then I don’t. Good thing I’m not signing away my First Born Son, or the 2nd Born, or the 3rd Born, or even the 4th Born with these promises. Then I’d be out of kids! Then I might get more blogging done… but my posts would be all sad and weepy, and you’d quit reading me anyway. So much for good intentions.
All right, no more promises, just more posts, as often as possible. So, here’s today’s Mind Blowing Story:
I’m officially ditching The Blue-Eyed Twin, all 18,000 words of it.
Monday I met with a doctor, a geneticist, and his genetic counselor to get some facts straight for the novel. They were extremely knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, and forthcoming. For 24 hours after my meeting I didn’t speak much. I was processing what they told me. Suffice it to say that I learned the premise of my story was weak. So I changed it. Remember: We hold the lock, and we hold the key! (That’s one great thing about fiction, but it also applies to real life.)
Today is back to square one. Have you ever done that? “Control, A, backspace” is what my son @Elliott_Krause calls it. (He’s 3rd born, the Iowa MFA student.)(Yes, I’m proud.) It’s defeating and liberating at the same time.
I owe a huge debt to Writer’s Digest magazine. In the current issue, one column about interviewing experts for your novel suggests doing your interviews sooner rather than later… so you don’t have to ditch 18,000+ words if your premise is flawed. What if I hadn’t read that, hadn’t interviewed the docs until much later? Thank you once again, WD.
So, I’d better get back to the drawing board, with my notecards, timelines, and character charts. Here we go again! Skippin’ along the yellow brick road ~ the opposite direction of Hell.
My last post (below) was about losing friends and being okay with it. My primary point was that as we grow, change, move on, it’s only natural that we’ll lose touch with some friends. I mentioned the theory about how people enter our lives, perhaps teach us one of life’s lesson, or at least are there when we need someone, and then it’s likely that, in time, we’ll go our separate ways. But, I must admit, I was thinking about the people from my past who had faded away and what they had done for me.
How narrow-minded! What about all times when I/you have touched someone else’s life? If you look back and think of a lost friend, wondering why you connected with her, why for a brief moment in time she was important to you, perhaps it is you who taught her something. Sometimes we are The Giver instead of The Taker.
I am repeatedly fascinated by listening to others’ memories (especially when they involve me)(it’s a little like looking at group photos and focusing mostly on myself). What’s most shocking is what moments stick out in their memories, and how that differs from what sticks out in my mind. Sometimes a friend/parent/spouse/child will tell a story about an event that I cannot for the life of me recall.
People remember moments that strike them the hardest emotionally. That’s my theory about memory; I’ve never heard this from any experts, but it seems logical. We rarely remember random Tuesdays, unless something dramatic happened. We remember highs and lows.
As a writer, it’s important to realize that readers will remember your stories if there are extreme emotions—good or bad—e.g. The Joy Luck Club, A Prayer For Owen Meany, Sophie’s Choice, Anna Karenina, Hoosiers, The Color Purple, and on and on and on. Those moments in your story should not be rushed or minimized. You must make them memorable!
Tomorrow (during my regular blogging hours), I’ll be driving to Chicago to visit my son. Six hours, in a car, alone, and back again on Thursday… Almost heaven.
I actually like driving long distances alone. The obvious reasons: I get to listen AND sing out loud to whatever music I want; I can chat on the phone when I choose, not worried about waking fellow passengers; but, mostly, I get to think! Driving alone is great for my WIP. In the past, I’ve jotted down dozens of ideas while (carefully) driving 70mph down lonesome highways. Hopefully this trip will be just as productive.
This trip to see my son is long overdue. The highlight will be dinner for just the two of us-in a big family, alone time is hard to come by- good food, good wine, and good conversation with a great kid… er, young man.
The fact that he lives in one of the greatest shopping cities in the country is just a bonus.
Talk to you all on Friday.
CLUES:
Rapunzel
Lighthouse keeper
Air traffic controller
Karolyn
ANSWER:
People in high buildings who watch other people!
I live on the 5th floor in a condominium—high enough for a good view, low enough to see the people who walk and drive by. We live in downtown Des Moines, which may sound like a joke to some of you, but actually it’s quite nice. (In another post, I’ll brag about this great city.) Today I’d like to talk about People.
How strange we are! For the most part, we all have two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head. Our faces have two eyes, one nose… oh, you know the rest. But how is it that humans, even babies and pets, can distinguish one human from another so accurately? We’re not THAT different. A centimeter here, a millimeter there, different colored eyes, and PRESTO: You’re a super model! Or a serial killer picked out of a lineup!
Ok, so maybe that’s not very profound to say, but the more you think about it, it is. Billions of us have been on this earth, and occasionally someone will say, “You look like so and so,” but never exactly. One would think there’d be less difference especially as our races intermix.
They say natural blondes will eventually be extinct, and it makes sense to think that skin color will moved towards cappuccino, so have you ever thought about what people will look like in 50 or 100 years? Now add in global warming and imagine how our clothing might evolve into more of a uniform to protect us from the elements. New Presto: Automatons!
That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? I don’t think anyone today would like that, but it may be such a gradual change that the people of the future won’t notice the difference, they may even embrace the new clothes—Silver Armani Jumpsuits, anyone?
For now, I’m glad that I don’t look like anyone else, although… I would love to have skin the color of Halle Berry’s.
It’s difficult to keep up with me, I know, but I take full blame. You are busy. You are involved with highly technical and weighty issues every day. Me? I sit home and read and write most days (the days I’m not getting pedicures), and I haven’t been blogging regularly.
I am lucky to be married to a wonderful man who hates winter. Further adding to your reasons to hate me, he’s retired and takes us to Costa Rica for the worst months of Iowa cold—all of them. We came back this year on April 1st. Since then, I’ve noticed, my blog frequency and quality has slipped into the doldrums. For this I apologize.
I have excuses, but I hate excuses, almost as much as my husband hates winter. All I know is that in reviewing my posts that were written in Costa Rica (see archives from Jan, Feb, Mar, 2011), I noticed they were really funny. (At least I thought so.) Since then? Not so much.
The good news is that I’ve been very productive in my writing career since I’ve gotten home but in different ways from my productivity levels in Costa Rica. In the 10 weeks we were there this winter, I wrote 45,000 words on my novel, developed a Twitter habit, created a Facebook Fan page, and so much more. My production since I’ve been home has been more “big picture” stuff, albeit of less blog-able interest. I’ve also recently found the erudite blog by Kristen Lamb about social networking. She has promised me fame and fortune if I blog more! (Just kidding, kind of.)
And so, dear friends and family, all 10 million of you, give or take, I will once again attempt to blog more often—three times a week from now on. Oh, the pressure! BUT, Ms. Lamb insists that I shall not bore you all with blog posts on writing… anything else is acceptable, but my deepest passion (other than my husband) is off limits. I cannot tell you about how lightning has struck me and I am closer than ever to success. You’ll just have to trust me, and I’ll just have to produce that novel I’ve been talking about, the one that caused my meltdown 10 days ago, the one where I blogged about not working… well, people, it’s working. And THAT is why I haven’t been blogging as much.
Oh, the irony.
(HOOK) Yesterday I had a meltdown. Not the check-me-into-a-hospital kind of meltdown, just a rant-on-Twitter, lock-myself-in-a-room, go-through-a-box-of-Kleenex kind of meltdown. I realized I was married to the wrong title!
The word of the day is: balance.
I’m terrible at balancing my personal and professional lives. Am I alone? Extreme? You tell me.
Being a writer, working from home, it is so easy to let others intrude, and/or stop writing to do laundry or water the plants. I’ve made jokes for years about having ADHD, which I know is not a joking matter for some. I’m tempted to seek out a doctor for a prescription for Adderall, but then I’ll just be adding to my list of obligations that keep me away from my desk during my writing hours! AND, I heard that Adderall inhibits the creative processes of the brain. Lord knows I don’t want to inhibit my creative process if I’m trying to write a novel.
Any thoughts, comments, suggestions?
As a writer, it is essential to create characters as complex as real-life people, with likes, dislikes, friends and enemies, joys and worries, with a past and a future (unless you plan to kill them). A good writer will know her characters as intimately as she knows herself, her best friend, her husband, or children.
As a normal person, I wondered how many people, including writers, actually, truly know themselves? Or, better yet, if you were to hand out questionnaires to your friends and family members to describe you, how closely would their answers match your own? Do you see yourself the way others see you?
I have written two novels that my beta-readers describe as “definitely publishable”, and yet, I can’t hook an agent. It has been said that query letters are often so difficult because the writer is too close to his or her own work and therefore can’t talk about it objectively, especially in 250 words or less. I must be one of them. I guess I need to get better at self-promotion and sales!
There are myriad examples of people who behave one way in public and the complete opposite in private. Any man or woman who’s had an affair, is an easy example, but also actors who pretend to be happily married and then suddenly announce they’re getting a divorce. Politicians and back-stabbing friends would be good examples. Two-year olds who’ve learned how to lie and bulimics also qualify.
But I contend that some innocent, well-meaning people often have no idea how they come across to others. Ego is often involved: some people have too much, others have too little. Still others just WANT to be someone they’re not, so they act like they think they’re supposed to, but not in ways that are true to themselves (stiletto shoes, plastic surgery, dyed-blonde hair, a car he/she can’t afford?).
Interesting… this could go on and on. Sounds like a great conversation to have over a glass of wine.
This past week my husband and I went to Boston to visit my oldest son, Ryan, who is near completion of his Master’s degree in Music Composition at the New England Conservatory. He composes “Contemporary Classical” music.
Unfortunately, the inevitable question arose: What will you do post-graduation? (i.e. How are you going to pay your rent and buy food as a young composer with a disdain for commercial music?) The discussion turned (quickly) to how much money a person needs to survive and the importance of following one’s passion.
There is a pie chart, figuratively speaking, about the balance of Talent, Drive, and Money when it comes to raising a “successful” child, which of course leads directly to them becoming “successful” adults. If children are given too much money, it can squeeze out their drive to hone their talents. Conversely, children of little means often are forced to focus on their talents (e.g. good grades leading to scholarships, or basketball skills leading to being drafted by the NBA).
Then we moved on to whether money squelches the highest quality creative talent or lets it shine. Who is more likely to be the next Mozart or J.K. Rowling? Someone who must succeed in order to feed his/her family? Or someone who has no pressure to feed his/her family?
The deeper I get into the world of writing and publishing, the more respect I have for people who are able to complete books while working full-time and raising a family. I don’t think I could have done that with four young sons and eventually my art gallery. It wasn’t until I closed my gallery and my three oldest boys were in college that I dove head first into writing. I am fortunate to have both a husband and father who have been very successful and provided me with the means to follow my passions (first the art world, now writing). And this leads to our conclusion:
Of the figurative pie chart, which element is the strongest for you? In the case of my son, Ryan, and myself, our passion (and hopefully talent) for creating overpowers money. He and I (and my son Elliott who is also a writer) will always compose/write no matter what our bank accounts say; it’s in our blood and our hearts.
But thankfully, for now, we aren’t starving artists.