Characters First

When I write a story, I begin with the characters, because without them there would be no story. The story is theirs; it’s my responsibility to get the characters and story on paper.

In the current story, Avatar of the Maker, there are three main characters: the sheltered but headstrong eighteen-year-old Leah Inhofer; her devoted half-Archetype boyfriend Baird Wilkens; and Luke Dunstan, a six-thousand-year-old Archetype.

From there, I want to know what their motivations are. Leah’s is to be independent, which seems contradictory to having a child on the way. Baird’s is to support Leah, however possible; another goal is to find his way into a human adulthood. Luke’s goal is to keep a calamity in the Archetypes from happening, weighing potential harm to Leah and her unborn child with harm to humanity if she doesn’t act.

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It’s necessary to get their speech cadence, their mannerisms, their word choice, all the things that make the characters distinctive and alive. Luke keeps pulling his blond hair back in a ponytail and letting it loose. Baird ducks his head sometimes because he’s shy. Leah talks emphatically; Baird talks in a slow drawl. Leah braids her hair tight. Luke’s accent is Yankee.

When I feel comfortable with these, I feel much more comfortable putting in the plot.

Stopping in the Middle

When you’re unhappy with your first draft

The good news is that I have been writing more on my latest novel, which makes me very happy.

The bad news is that I’m dissatisfied with what I have written. Such is the lot of writers.

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Why am I dissatisfied? (This should be cathartic!):

  • Reveal of Leah’s talent too quick
  • Not enough of the relationship between the main characters
  • Overall, unremittingly dreary

The bones of the story seem sound, but some of the surrounding structures (the muscles?) aren’t holding up the promise of the story.

What to do now

Many writers at this point would tell one to keep plowing through and wait to revise until one has completed the first draft. I am ignoring this advice.

I am distracted by what is missing in my characters. I am bummed out with a story without laughter in-between the heavy stuff (and there’s plenty of heavy stuff in this one). If one’s feelings about the content impede the writing, I think rewriting those so many chapters is not only wise but necessary.

This means my progress will not be going forward, but rippling outward. I can accept this.

In the meantime, I’m trying to promote my work. It’s hard for me because I’m not the sort of person who feels comfortable with self-promotion. But here is my author’s website, which has a blog post about all the writing I have out there. Here’s the page.

Happy reading!

Contempt

What the overturning of Roe vs Wade comes down to — not protecting the unborn, not improving the supply of children to adopt, not any moral stance.

It comes to contempt of women. “How dare you sleep with me!” the voice demands of a woman, as if he did not sleep with her. “I should punish you for this transgression.” It is contempt for women that extends back to the tales that became the basis for the Garden of Eden.

I, for one, am tired of the contempt. And angry. I am angry.

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I am not alone. Women are angry because of being marinated in this contempt all our lives. You, the individual man reading this essay, may not be one of the guilty parties. Women are still subjected to contempt as a low simmer.

I am hopeful of my anger. Compliance has not solved the problem — in fact, it increases the contempt I am exposed to. Maybe my anger will clear the way for resolution — or maybe it will foment a fight. Either way, I will feel the power of facing the contempt.

Action = Opposite Reaction

Actions might have unexpected results that are the opposite of the intended results. Milton Friedman, renowned neoclassical economist, would say that the unexpected results would be probabilities, not possibilities.

Romania tried the “no birth control, no abortions” laws (and Clarence Thomas has signaled for birth control to be on the axing agenda). Even with the threat of death, birthrates did not go up. Romania couldn’t legislate birth. The fear of raising a child in an oligarchy prevailed over the fear of death.

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China legislated a one-child policy. This led to a nation of unacknowledged daughters in the country and a shortage of females. Matrimony is a woman’s market; men are finding themselves short of money to captivate a woman’s heart. An unintended consequence.

In the US, angry voters who feel disenfranchised will overwhelm the gerrymandered conservatives. People vote for the status quo unless it sneaks forward to destroy the rights they have become used to, and then they will fight back. More people will vote, having an issue to fight for. Anti-choice states like Missouri may lose much of their populations, which will lose House seats. Companies may boycott Missouri, losing much of its revenue.

Maybe this will lead to National Healthcare, to stymie all those who want to box children and families into an impoverished circle. The grass roots women’s networks will exist again. Women will fight together. We may even see the Equal Rights Amendment passed.

All the tense “good faith” of politicians has crumbled. From this, although I grieve, good things can begin.

That Stuff

My confession

“I don’t write THAT stuff.”

I could hear the inflection in the writer’s voice, even though she had typed and not spoken the words.

What stuff was she talking about? Sweet (as opposed to sexual) romance books. This attitude is not uncommon with the romance writers I have encountered, to where I have left a group of writers because of words dripping with disdain.

I don’t write the opposite extreme — Christian romance — either. I want sexuality to be important to my characters, just not necessarily on the page.

I obviously haven’t found my tribe.

Here’s my confession: I don’t write sex scenes. No steam, no lemon, no insertion, no moaning, no dirty talk, no bodily fluids, no humping.

Black and white image of female buttocks on black bacground

Why don’t I write sex scenes?

If you have preconceived notions about me, these might contradict your thoughts:

  • I have a perverse sense of humor and an open mind.
  • I enjoy reading sex scenes, as long as they’re not over-the-top or badly written.
  • I’m fascinated by my characters and wonder how they’d react sexually.

Some data which might explain things but I doubt will:

  • I’m almost sixty, which probably means I’m slowing down. But nah …

Why I write fade to black, closed-door, no explicit sex romance/romantic fantasy:

  • I’ve seen too many sex scenes that have taken me out of the book, i.e. miles of orgasms, heroic stamina, characters whose prowess becomes their dominant character trait. I’d read that for humor, not for a straightforward love affair.
  • I don’t want to get distracted from the relationship piece. I want to focus on the beginning of enduring traits rather than the short-term lust.
  • I don’t want to feel voyeuristic. I know they’re imaginary characters, but I’ve formed a bond with them and I feel this sense of respect toward them.
  • I like to use my imagination and assume my readers like the same.

I stew about this

My dilemma about writing explicit sex scenes may go back to a distinction I ran into a couple weeks ago between escapist romance and literary romance. I want to write compelling fantasy-romances/romantic fantasies about complex people in a world not quite like the one they entered. To do that, I have to write the way I write and hope it catches on.

I used to have a mystique. Honestly. Back in college, I hung out with a rather fanciful group of people who were into alternative spiritual paths and science fiction, and they painted me in equally fanciful terms. Now, mind you, I was about as overweight then as I am now, so my persona wasn’t beautiful. But being a little older than most of them, they regarded me as a wise woman. (I was not that wise either.) I definitely had a mystique: Where did all that knowledge come from?

Now that I’m about 30 years older and finally wiser, I no longer have this persona, a self that conceals as well as reveals. A cloak of otherness is not something I possess. Instead, I am a rather plain, overweight college professor who doesn’t even have the mystique of a college professor. I appear as a woman in her late 50s who either smiles too much or not enough depending on where you encountered me. Often, I say “wow” and get excited about what people are talking about. It’s the anti-mystique: This is who I am.

I mention this because this would be a great time to have a persona, especially one with a certain mystique. I’m a writer, and I think people expect this from their writers. Writers are not like the rest of us, the reasoning goes. They are creative. They are Something Else. A fantasy writer like myself should have one foot firmly in the fantasy realm, teasingly inscrutable. Instead, I’m like a seven-year-old in a candy shop.

Ok, maybe that’s a persona, but a writer’s persona? A fantasy writer’s persona? The seven-year-old in the candy shop is probably closer to how I see my writing as anything. Look at the miracle that just happened! See the storms on the horizon! How are they going to get out of this?

But it’s not … mystical enough.

Oh well.

On a Trip to Kansas City as a Writer

Why am I in KC?

I’m on an internship trip overnight, getting some away time in. I saw three interns yesterday, and will see another this morning. It’s part of the job of being their internship director. It’s fun seeing where my students are working.

I’m thinking about writing as I sit in a coffeehouse (Opera House KC) waiting for one of my favorite stores to open. I need some spices at Planters, and to look at gardening gadgets. I will also shop for Asian foods and eat Ethiopian for lunch. Life is good.

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Thinking about writing

As I think and drink lavender latte, I realize that, for me, thinking about writing isn’t thinking. It’s more like a sense of interest that envelops me, and I feel like following that interest in writing. Maybe that’s been my problem, thinking that thinking about writing was what I needed. No, I need to be a writer and follow that up with what I need to do to write.

It sounds bogus. First, be a writer; second, write. It’s not, in a way I have trouble explaining.

But it’s that way.

Now that I want to write again

The desire to write is returning. I’m not sure I’m ready to pick up the problems with Avatar of the Maker yet; I may actually go toward Walk through Green Fire, a romantic fantasy of the quest variety and an older woman’s love story. Or I can write something new, although I haven’t had that inspiration yet.

My perverse mind (No, not that kind of perverse!)

What is leading me to write? Not an awakening inspiration, as I am still struggling with the muse in my life. No, it’s something that happens to me whenever important work comes my way — I want to write again. If I have all the time in the world, my brain goes torpid and luxuriates in bed. If I have deadlines or appointments, my brain suddenly explodes with the desire to write.

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I think it has to be the type of work where I’m involved with my 9-5. When I spent the first couple of weeks this summer working in the garden, I didn’t feel compelled to write. But now that I have internship visits this week, now I want to write.

How this works

There’s a lot of pressure to write when one’s a writer. If one’s a self-published and self-paced writer like myself, there seems like there would be less pressure to write, but the desire to soar is always there, and it plays against the rejections and setbacks of being a writer.

When all one has is the drive to write, unchecked by the rest of reality, the setbacks can loom big, and failure taunts in the silence. As part of a more complete, even a more pressured life, I think about writing the way others think about vacations. I daydream, and then I write.

Off to write.

Self-Isolation

Hey. How did I get into this hole?

I’ve been talking around the problem for a while. I have been isolating myself. It has been a slow process that began not with COVID, but with an annual evaluation that didn’t go as well as I thought (three years ago). Then there was a lack of success in getting my book out and some harsh judgments on my part about my personality (which is a little loud, a little weird, and more than a little awkward.)

An insidious slide

I judged myself more and more on everything, sliding from “I do so many things wrong” to “I am wrong.” I avoided people in person, then avoided people on Facebook, afraid to do or say or be stupid.

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This seems to be an odd thing for a fifty-something woman to go through, I know. But a fifty-something woman whose brain is wired to be depressed? We don’t think of how much our emotions influence our perception of reality. And it’s an insidious slide, especially for someone like me, who can suppress problems pretty well.

The way out

I’ll be honest, I’m struggling here. “Nobody likes you” is a hard thing to argue against, and
“Just write on Facebook” is daunting. The thing about adulting, however, is that you’re the only one who can fix your own problems. So I turn back to 1) cognitive journaling and 2) taking risks. What’s the worst that happens if I put a note on Facebook?

I don’t imagine too much of a struggle once I get back to journaling (that’s the problem — I’ve been avoiding it). I will schedule once a day whether or not I think I need it. And I will try to get back into those things that draw attention to myself (talking about my writing, talking about gardening, talking period) and get connected with people once more.

Time for me to join the human race.