A Touch of Darkness

I shy away from writing about dark subjects in my blog. It’s strange because I’ve had several dark times in my life. I don’t want people to think I’m pandering for attention, even though the reason writers post their works in the first place is to get attention.

I won’t write dark for dark’s sake, nor will I use gratuitous trauma as a shortcut to character development. Yes, someone’s past will contribute to their character. But I won’t use trauma as the only character trait or even the main one, and only if it’s pertinent to the story. (See also the “fridging” phenomenon—killing a girlfriend character to motivate the main male character.)

Writing about dark topics in my stories is something I must work my way up to every time. For example, the body count in Apocalypse. I had trouble killing anyone, but a developmental editor told me that the last battle had to look hopeless, so I killed eight characters. I also, ironically, edited that book for gratuitous darkness because I had tried the cheap way to make it darker.

Sometimes an entire book is dark. Carrying Light, one of the two I’m currently writing, is a dark novel, being that it’s written at the cusp of the collapse of the United States. Apocalypse is dark, because the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. But it was hard to write these dark enough at first.

In the end, I think darkness needs to balance light. That’s just me; I know there are people who write dark all the time, with lots of death, depersonalization, and alienation. I can’t write there, because all my writing adopts a quote from ee cummings: “The single secret will still be man.”

How It’s Going Book-wise

Kringle Through the Snow is going pretty well. I keep writing on it, and it’s lively and fun. Sierra and Wade are about to have a nice evening analyzing The Grinch. And sitting next to each other on the couch because Shadow Lord, the immense Newfie, will take up the rest of the couch. Shadow Lord has an agenda.

Carrying Light is languishing in the bottom of my To Be Written pile. I just don’t know why that isn’t flowing, except it has nothing to do with characters. I don’t think it is plot. It is picky little details, like “Where is Janice going to work if the gift shop is no longer open and she’s getting no orders for pottery?” I feel sorry for Janice, but the collective can’t fix that problem for a while, for the good of the plot.

Okay, one book at a time, 750-1500 words at a time. I’ll finish the Kringle book first, then worry about Carrying Light. Oh, and fix the other book, the one I want to publish in December. Who, me busy?

All of Me

My husband asked me today if there’s a distinction between “writer me” and “non-writer me”. Do I perceive them as different personas? Do I keep them separate in my mind?

The answer is “no”. Perhaps it is because I don’t use a pen name, or because I’ve been writing for so long. But I’m a writer and a college professor and a partner to one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. And a few other things as well. I don’t see a contradiction in any of them, which is disappointing, because I so love contradictions.

I would hate to think that some other persona of mine was getting the recognition for my hard work. Or sitting at my breakfast table. That would be disconcerting.

What would Lil BUB do?

Yesterday, I watched Lil BUB’s Celebration of Life on streaming media. Lil BUB, a dwarf feline and once the Internet’s cutest cat, died four years ago of an aggressive bone infection. Before that, she was a furry bodhisattva whose very pictures caused millions of people to smile. She appeared in pictures and video, a documentary, her own short-lived TV show, and in live appearances for charity (where I once met her. She really was a furry bodhisattva.)

She was also an ordinary cat with disabilities. Her owner, Mike Bridavsky (otherwise known as “Dude”), said this himself at the memorial service. This little ordinary cat raised over $1 million for cat-related charities through Lil BUB’s Big Fund.

In other words, BUB, despite her size, was a Big Audacious Cat.

I felt inspired by watching BUB’s Celebration of Life. She could accomplish that much in eight years? I’m not as cute as she was, but I can remember to be as audacious. Did she shrink from taking new opportunities? Did she hide from recognition? Did she get daunted by potential failure? (Yes, I know, she’s just a cat. But she’s also a persona, it can be argued. Or a purrsona.)

When it comes to my writing now, when I’m afraid of promoting my work, or thinking of quitting, or discouraged by lack of recognition, I’m going to ask myself the question: What would Lil BUB do?

Playing with the Pen

According to National Pen, handwriting has benefits over typing. From higher cognitive engagement to memory recall, the slower process of handwriting engages the mind more. Admittedly, National Pen may have a bias, given that they’re in the business of selling pens. However, a recent report in Frontiers in Psychology spells out similar findings.

As a writer of novels, I find writing 70,000 plus words by hand painful (literally — arthritis) and the thought of typing all that handwriting into its necessary digital form is daunting. I foresee handwriting the first draft of a novel doubling my process time, and I don’t feel like my writing is suffering that much by typing the story.

I think there has to be a way I can harness the power of handwriting. I used to do free writing when I was stuck with a scene or a character, and I haven’t done that as much recently because I haven’t felt I needed to. But what if I free-wrote before sitting down at the computer as a general practice, to gather my thoughts and project them forward? A writing ritual?

My husband bought me two composition books to start the ritual. I have fountain pens to write with, which gives this more of a ritual air. The idea is to consider and write about the upcoming scene and free-write, then see if it makes getting those words more smooth.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

The Scariest Thing

Bloganuary writing prompt

What’s the thing you’re most scared to do? What would it take to get you to do it?

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Every now and then a WordPress prompt compels me so much that I have to answer it. This one I couldn’t resist, and now submerged in it, I don’t know if I can do it justice.

What’s the thing I’m most scared to do? Knowing me, it’s something that will get me rejected. I still have a lot of baggage over rejection. Despite that, however, I have managed to survive 30 years of course evaluations, hundreds of rejections of my novels, and too many unrequited crushes. In other words, when I look at an opportunity for rejection, I dive right into it. It could be that this time I will not be rejected.

That brings me to daredevil stunts like skydiving, bungee jumping, and juggling chainsaws. First, I can’t juggle, so eliminate that. I have no desire to bungee jump, and I’ve experienced a controlled free-fall simulator. The only thing that will get me to do daredevil stunts is peer pressure, and I think I’ve aged out of peer pressure. I’m also a low-adrenaline person, so I seek naps more than thrills.

Back to rejection. There are things I’m scared of right now that fit under “rejection”. I’m afraid of reading my work aloud in front of strangers. I am afraid of selling my books at a real conference (but this is my Big Audacious Goal for the year). By facing the fears, fears become Big Audacious Goals. What’s the worst that could happen?

I am not fearless; just brave.

What are you afraid of doing?

Animals in Writing

Every now and then, animals find their way into my writing. The current book I’m writing, Kringle Through the Snow, has a highly intelligent Newfoundland named Shadow Lord. The other book I’m writing, Carrying Light, has the preternatural cat Bergeron. The last book I wrote, Kringle on Fire, has a not-so-bright orange cat named Doofus.

At this point I’m supposed to talk about why I put animals in my stories. I think humor is a big part of it. Shadow Lord is so big and so well-behaved, yet he still detains Sierra long enough for Wade to talk to her. Doofus loves everyone like a drunken bro, even the child in the middle of his terrible twos. Bergeron flies — sometimes causing a traffic jam, in front of people who are not to know of her existence.

If I had to find a similarity among these pets, it’s their ability to communicate with humans. In pet-like ways, of course. Except for Bergeron, who speaks with telepathy to other telepaths. How many of you would like a telepathic cat? I’m not really sure myself. How many interruptions a day would I tolerate, especially if the transmission is “I’m starving! I can see the bottom of my food dish!”?

I should mention that another reason to include animals is because it makes protagonists look more soft-hearted. Unless the pet is a wolf, and then it accomplishes exactly the opposite.

Animals as characters can make for fun in writing and in reading. I’m going to have to write them in more often. Kittens, anyone?

I’d like to own a writers’ retreat

I’d like to own a writers’ retreat. I mean, it’s nice to go on a short trip to a hotel that has places to sit in the lobby, or a cafe with a cozy table, but I dream of having my own writing retreat for whenever I need it.

One example would be a camper I could park at the local RV park (at our neighboring Mozingo Park) and get away from it all sometime. A writing retreat camper wouldn’t be too big, but big enough that I could make coffee, take potty breaks, and nap.

Of course, if I’m dreaming, I might as well dream big. When I dream big, I think of a schoolie, or a school bus converted to a camper. These campers are long, and everything is fit into an aisle. I saw one for sale today, and it was selling for $80,000 down from $115,000. Maybe if we win the lottery.

Sometimes I just want a she-shed for the back yard. I can pretend I’m in a retreat, and I can go home anytime I like. Again, the price is prohibitively high and my yard too small.

So I guess I need to retreat into the office again, which is small and cluttered, but it’s mine.

Using Templates to Shape a Book

I use templates to remind me of the shape of a book as I’m writing it.

Templates are scripts of a sort that one can use to structure writing to fit readers’ expectations. Readers expect a story structured such that the action rises to climax and then subsides. Other techniques can be added to this, such as interactions between a character and other characters to highlight tensions.

Well-written book guides offer plotting systems. Save the Cat Writes a Novel is an example of one, and one I highly recommend as a method to organize one’s plot. But I go one step further with templates that writers can load into Scrivener, the writing software I use.

One of these is Romancing the Beat by Gwen Hayes. In twenty chapters, she lays out a romance novel’s structure with uncomplicated prompts for the reader. For example:

The column at the left shows the chapter outline with evocative titles. In the notecard view here, you can see each chapter’s prompt. When you are in chapter view (writing the chapter), you will see the full prompt in the upper right corner area called synopsis (seen below).

This is my go-to for writing romance novels. My go-to for writing fantasy novels is a template that no longer can be found on the internet (or if you can find it please let me know so I can give the writer credit). It’s based on the timing of Save the Cat templates, but it does the math for you. It looks like this:

In the left-hand column are the basic parts of the book, and the number of chapters is their relative weight in the book. Given roughly equal chapters, these distributions of chapters should give you the recommended pacing.

The template also gives guidance:

At the far right, there is a description in each section for what should happen in a section.

These are the templates I currently use for writing. I like using templates because I’m a plantser — someone who likes some structure but likes to flow within the structure. These templates allow for that. I write my chapter synopses within the guidance of the template and I’m ready to write.

Realism in Fantasy

I write fantasy romances and romantic fantasies. Obviously, fantasy is part of what I write. But does fantasy mean unrealistic?

Not really. Fantasies have their own internal rules so that they don’t stretch realism past incredulity. For example, any magic user will not be invincible — that will make the story unrealistic. The character has to have magic for a reason, which the writer can reveal as simply as “he’s a magic-user” to a long, descriptive back story.

There has to be internal consistency to the magic system. Readers will balk at inconsistencies, especially convenient inconsistencies that favor the hero or villain. If you defy gravity, do so consistently.

I write contemporary fantasy, which means a lot of realism as modern culture, geography, physics and the like. So there’s a lot of reality around the fantasy, but I still have to make sure there’s some internal consistency in the structure. Nephilim fly, Archetypes teleport. Humans don’t get more than one gift from the trees. Archetypes can’t teleport split-second and everyone’s gifts have practical limits. Gaia’s presence does not pass beyond the borders of the Garden.

World-building accomplishes a lot of these rules and boundaries. I do a lot of world-building in conversations with my husband in conversations like: “Do you think Forrest can knit wool if he can knit bones together?” (We decided yes.)

Fantasy is more fantastic when there’s a point of reference, when there are winners and losers (even with the possibility to change in the story), and no power goes completely unchecked.