And Now, For Something Completely Different

We went camping this weekend, 7 (or was it 8?) families at a beautiful lake in west Texas. I was stressing about losing the weekend, which is usually prime writing time, to the fun but mindless task of packing, driving, unpacking, cooking, herding kids, organizing hikes, etc. and worried that it would eat into my weekly page goal.

But the opposite actually happened. Getting away from the city and the computer for a few days was the best thing that could have happened. The overdoses of sugar, junk food, hyperactive children and fresh air acted like a kind of spa treatment on my brain, flushing all of the crap out of there so that when we returned last night I was working with an almost blank slate.

I've just started a new section of the book and am switching POV for awhile, and was having trouble settling into the new character's skin. Today when I sat down to read what I'd completed so far, I scrapped the whole thing and started over. The result is much, much better than what I had going into the weekend.

It takes a ton of routine and discipline required to plug away at a book which could never see the light of day, but I'm finding that it's going to be important for me to step back and build in regular "off the beaten path" experiences as well to ensure that the creative juices keep flowing.

Some notable quotes overheard this weekend ... maybe future fodder for a story line or scene:

• 8-YEAR OLD GIRL: "My dog ate my brother's umbilical cord."

• 6-YEAR OLD GIRL: "[Redacted] just hit me."
• PARENT: "Aren't you in karate? Next time he does that, you should karate chop him."
• 6-YEAR OLD GIRL: "That wouldn't be appropriate."
  

Telling Stories

My oldest daughter has been observing my novel writing process with the eyes of a hawk. The other night she sidled up to me as I was working and asked if I would help her write her own book.

"What do you want to write about?" I asked.

"Books."

"What about books?"

"I don't know," she sat down. "Something with magic."

We talked about it for a few minutes and, once I realized she was serious about the project, I helped her outline the book. We created a ten chapter outline on a single sheet of note paper and I quizzed her on what she wanted the book to be about.

"Well, there's this girl, you see, who really likes books. She loves how they take her on adventures and stuff. And then there's this evil wizard who starts making the books disappear. And maybe there's a magic necklace or something that she can use to fight the bad wizard. And then she'll get to read all of the books that disappear. And the girl has a best friend who is a princess. They get to play together at the end. I want a whole chapter on that."

We gradually outlined the thing, settling on a title of "Journey to the Heart of Books," a YA fantasy that will obviously be heavily influenced by her current reading choices of "Harry Potter", "Inkheart" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", and started a manila folder where she could keep her notes and ideas.

After finishing the outline, we labeled ten 3X5 index cards with the title of each chapter.

"Now you need to write down 5 things that should happen in each chapter," I told her, "starting with chapter one. Who is this girl? What's her name? What does she look like? What does she like to do? What is she afraid of? That kind of stuff. Once you're done, move on to chapter two, and so on until you have 5 things for all 10 chapters."

"Then what?"

"Then we can write the book."

After she had the basics, I left her alone to work on it.

Then our youngest daughter sidled up to me as well.

"Daddy? Will you help me write a book too?"

Here we go again.

The Tipping Point

I reached a tipping point in the novel this weekend. I'll be hitting 20,000 words in a few days here, and over the weekend I suddenly had a flash of insight into how the remaining chapters should play out. This necessitated some rework (and painful cuts) in earlier passages, and a complete revision of the outline for several key later chapters, but for the first time it's all been mapped out, from start to finish.

I'm wondering how typical this is for writers and, even as I'm wondering, realize that the range of experiences for writing a book are probably as varied as the types of books out there. It feels great knowing how the thing should evolve, knowing how it should end, etc. But part of the excitement in writing it so far has been diving into the great unknown each day, watching as the story unfolded on the page.

I've also picked up the pace a bit - for the last two weeks I've been going over my weekly quota of 2,500 words by a significant amount (hence the dropoff in blog posts lately).

If I was running a marathon, I figure I'd be on mile 5 or 6 right now ... just getting into the rhythm, with a lot more work ahead. Better get back at it ...

Study Hall

I stumbled across this great website today - Editor Unleashed. With almost daily posts from a variety of industry insiders, the breadth and depth of the information is awesome. If you're an aspiring author looking for insight into how the publishing industry works, start here.

Here are just a few of the articles I'd recommend:

• Write It Forward: how to spread good karma around the writing world
  
• User Experience of Kindle2: thinking about getting a Kindle2? Read this first
  
• Authonomy: the pros and cons of using HarperCollins' "Authonomy" service when trying to get published
  
• How to Build Your Twitter Cred: some good tips on how to ensure your Tweets are relevant, insightful and useful
  
• Twitter Tips: 25 Good Follows for Writers: follow these folks if you're just getting started on Twitter
  

Growing Pains

Nobody's perfect.

Even the modern day messiah, Barack Obama, has a character flaw - he smokes. So when you're writing your breakout novel, screenplay or short story, make sure to give your character a few flaws that they can wrestle with and, hopefully, overcome through adversity.

Some of the best examples of this writing tactic tie subtle (or glaringly obvious) plot points to the character's own psychological and emotional growth.

Here are a few examples:

Fracture:

• Our protagonist begins the film as a rising star in the Los Angeles legal community. He's about to leave the D.A.'s office for a high-paying job at one of the most prestigious firms in the country, when he's dragged into a seemingly slam-dunk case. The problem is, he's cocky, overly focused on making money, and doesn't seem to have a soul.
• After losing the case and seeing his client die at the hands of a sociopath, our hero eats a big plate full of humble pie, managing to find his soul in the process. He quits the high-powered firm, goes back to work at the D.A.'s office, and finds a way to solve the highly complex case and retry the villain on different charges.
• The movie closes with the protagonist preparing to argue his case alone, a phalanx of high-powered attorneys prepared to argue against him. But we're sure that this time, he's going to win ... because his heart and head are finally in the right place.

Little Miss Sunshine:

• The motley group of folks in this film each have some major flaw: Grandpa is a heroin addict. Dad is a failed motivational speaker and life coach who is overly concerned with success and appearances. Mom is in a seemingly loveless marriage and is alone. Uncle Frank, the #2 Proust scholar in the country, has just tried to commit suicide. Dwayne has taken a vow of silence until he gets into the Air Force academy, so that he can escape the drudgery of his home life. And then there's Olive - an unathletic but cheery kid with horrible fashion sense who wants to be a beauty queen.
• When Olive learns that she's been accepted into the "Little Miss Sunshine" beauty pageant, the whole fam-damily piles into a VW bus and takes a road trip to California. Along the way: Grandpa dies, Mom becomes more frustrated with her family, Dwayne learns that his poor vision will get him rejected from the Air Force Academy, Dad's mentor turns out to be a con artist, Uncle Frank reveals that his lover left him for the #1 Proust scholar in the country, and Olive begins to doubt whether she has the talent to win the competition.
• The movie ends with Olive's horrible performance at the competition, a combination burlesque show and pilates act performed to the song "Superfreak". We learn that Grandpa taught her the dance (humanizing the dead heroin addict) and watch as the whole family comes together to support Olive, who is hands down the most interesting little girl at the competition. Dad is no longer concerned what the audience thinks about him and his family, because finally ... after a long road trip in a packed bus ... the family is truly together.

So before you send in the manuscript to your agent or editor, ask yourself this ... do you like these characters? If the answer is a resounding "YES!" - you might have some more work to do. Make the reader have to work to like the character, and make the character earn that respect.

Here's a clip of Olive's dance from the last few moments of "Little Miss Sunshine." Perfect.

Never Judge A Book By Its ... Karate Uniform

I volunteer at my kids' school each week, helping teach karate classes in the after-school program. This usually involves me getting dressed up in a funny-looking pair of white pajamas and trying to get a roomful of toddlers (many with attention spans shorter than a fruit fly's) to stop talking and pay attention to the real karate teacher long enough to soak up some important aspect of Kenpo karate.

We try to mix things up and make it fun for them and mostly the lessons seem to sink in for a majority of the children.

On the other days of the week I'm just a regular old dad, dropping off and picking up my girls, attending parent/teacher conferences, etc. Often, the karate kids are surprised to see me in street clothes, and have reactions ranging from "Karate teacher! Time for karate!" to "Karate teacher? What are you doing here?"

These kids think of me as "The Karate Teacher," even though when I think or talk about myself this is the farthest thing from my mind. The uniform has 'branded' me in their minds, and it's hard for me to grow beyond that first impression that it has created for them.

How does this apply to writing, you ask?

When you're writing fiction, sometimes lengthy, detailed character descriptions can get in the way of the story. The reader wants to be caught up in your narrative - they'll envision a character for themselves based upon his or her actions, dialogue, speech patterns, and thoughts. Don't get it the way of that with overly descriptive paragraphs outlining each wrinkle on the character's face.

Give your reader the freedom to "fill in the blanks" and only sketch out the basic details needed to bring the character to life.

Let's Do The Time Warp Again

Yesterday we sprang forward, turning the little hand on the clock one full revolution ahead, and I felt like I was in a time warp. It was too dark when I got out of bed. The light wasn't quite right when we ate lunch. The kids were confused when we put them to bed in the weak half light.

I didn't feel, well ... like myself.

This got me thinking about time, and routines in particular ... and how inextricably our identities are linked to our conception of both. As anyone who follows "Lost" should know, messing around with the space-time continuum can have some pretty trippy results (SPOILER ALERT). Some party-pooping physicists are even trying to prove that time doesn't exist - their theory is that it's simply an aggregate sensation that helps us understand the world around us (much like heat is an aggregate sensation describing the amount and activity of molecules in a specific area).

Next time you're in a writing rut, try this: break your routine and see what this does to either your brainstorming sessions or writing itself. Get up a few hours earlier and try to write then, or stay up a few hours later. Stay out late at a bar or bookstore and people watch. Walk the dog at an odd time of day, work out a few hours later. If you're really dedicated, have your roommate change all the clocks while you're sleeping (and if you do this, email me because I want to hear how it went).

As much as sticking to a routine will help us as authors produce at a relatively consistent level, it's imperative that we keep sharpening our imaginations. What better way to do this than to never let them rest?

Write With Style

Several links today from articles on writing and publishing that I've stumbled upon over the past few weeks:

• Damon Runyon, who wrote "Guys & Dolls", would sit in New York City restaurants and absorb the speech rhythms of the local gangsters and hoods. This great article examines his dual-layered narrative, and his key insight that "American slang is double: first, that street speech tends to be more, not less, complicated grammatically than “standard” speech; but, second, that slang speakers, when they’re cornered to write, write not just fancy but stiff."
• An article on Ian McEwan's life, process and style from the New Yorker:

  McEwan said that he never rushes from notebook to novel. “You’ve got to feel that it’s not just some conceit,” he said. “It’s got to be inside you. I’m very cautious about starting anything without letting time go, and feeling it’s got to come out. I’m quite good at not writing. Some people are tied to five hundred words a day, six days a week. I’m a hesitater.”

  
  
• The Book Cover Archive - where authors can review thumbnails and closeups of published book covers and research details on the artists, designers and publishers who created them.
• A series of brief interviews with authors about the Sisyphean occupation of writing.
  

The Reader

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

~Samuel Johnson

What's the number one tool in the writer's toolbox? You guessed it ... his library.

Read, read, read. Read published books. Read literary criticism. Read book flaps and synopses. Read things you don't like (often - it will break you out of a rut). Look up words you don't understand in the dictionary. Join a reading group in your area. Read the New York Times book reviews.

Deconstruct the things you're reading. Analyze the point of view. Why did they choose first person? Who is this all-knowing narrator who keeps popping in to make those annoying omniscient comments foreshadowing things to come? Can I trust this narrator? Keep track of plot and pacing. Make unseen connections. Buy the Cliff's notes and actually do the homework lessons.

There is a solitary, quiet concentration required to finish a novel that mirrors the writing process itself. Good writers are, first and foremost, good readers - they understand the rubric of their genre, when breaking a rule is acceptable ... and when it's a grammatical mistake. A good writer understands the elements of great literature (even if they're writing in the most restrictive of genres) and uses them accordingly.

And after you're done reading for the day, go sit down in another solitary corner and write.

Walkabout

Brainstorming is a tricky thing. In the advertising world, we try to bottle the process into a sort of scientific method ... cramming a lot of smart, creative folks into a room and hoping for the best. But brainstorming for a client or a product is very different than brainstorming for a novel (or poem), where the intent is to let the mind wander rather than focus it in on a solution.

In a season one episode of "Mad Men," Don Draper tells a writer to "think about it as long and hard as you can ... examine it from every angle ... put your heart and soul into it. Then go do something else. It will just come to you." (Or something along those lines.)

And mostly he's right. The best ideas come to us when we're busy doing other things: walking the dog, playing with the kids at the park, falling asleep on the couch.

Other than hard drugs, there are several ways to train your brain to loosen up, and to capture the results:

• Go On A Walk:
  Make sure to carry a notepad with you in case the lightning flashes. Vary the time of day. Take the wife, the kids, the dog, a Frisbee, or all of the above ... but make sure you get some time to go off by yourself and think.
• Read Poetry:
  Really great poetry is like a riddle that needs solving. While your mind is doing the mental back flips required to decode whatever the hell that poet is trying to say, you often get flashes of insight that are great fodder for your own poems, stories, or projects.
• Write Down Your Dreams:
  Keep a notepad by the bedside and when you wake up in the morning, write down everything you can remember.
• Learn Something New:
  Learning a new skill (like karate, or transcendental meditation ... even juggling) forces your tired old brain to make connections that weren't there previously. When these connections are made, you suddenly start thinking in new & exciting ways and the ideas begin to flow.

I have to run now, I'm off to my juggling class.

Marry A Reader

Writers can sometimes get too close to their work, losing the ability to objectively see how readers might respond to the obviously brilliant phrases they're throwing down on the page. This can be a good thing ... getting bogged down in what's wrong with your story is the quickest way to slow down your daily productivity.

It can also be a bad thing. Ignoring the 'gut feeling' that something needs fixing can result in chapter after chapter of flat, dull narrative that doesn't move the story forward.

Fortunately for me, I married a reader. I had that gut feeling that something needed fixing in Chapter 4 of the book I'm working on, so I asked Lisa to read the chapter and let me know what she thought. Unaided, she pinpointed the nagging concern I had as needing work.

Writing Tip O' The Day:
Marry a reader, join a critique group or kidnap your best friend and force them to give you objective feedback on your work from time to time. Then suck it up and listen to what they have to say ... though the edits might be painful to make (goodbye, brilliant phrase on page 37), they will ultimately help improve your story.

Travelogue

Back in the day, before the dawn of the series of tubes we call the Internets, writers were forced to get out from behind their dreary writing desks, pack up pen and paper ... and travel to exotic locales to experience new and exciting things which they could then write about in a semi-convincing fashion.

The horror.

Nowadays, when a writer needs to imagine what it must be like to live on, say, an isolated Caribbean island with a semi-active volcano, the only place they have to visit is Google or Wikipedia.

For those of you with a desperate yearning to describe some foreign land in all of its exotic glory, here are a few resources that might help spark some creative ideas:

• The Sunday edition of the New York Times (Travel section) - I buy the Sunday edition of the Times and cut out articles from this section every week. You'll be amazed at the quirky details that these articles contain about food, attractions, customs, history and more. For the cost-conscious, most of these articles are available for free on the New York Times web site, though I prefer to keep a folder with articles cut out for easy reference.
  
• The Economist - For the bigger picture, the Economist magazine is an excellent resource. Here you can track economic, political and social trends and how they affect not just individual countries but entire regions of the globe. This is especially great if you're writing a war novel, historical novel or political thriller.
  
• Wikipedia - Another great reference for pretty much anything. I visit this site several times per day to do research. Often the information contained in the articles will spark ideas for other stories or plot points.

Signing off for today - I'm off to the Caribbean for a few hours this afternoon, before roller skating with the kids down the street.