Thursday, March 18, 2010
Went to a retreat with an editor
What a great event! My friend Mette Ivie Harrison arranged with her editor Ruth Katcher, who is now at Egmont Publishing to meet with several Utah authors for a day-long retreat and I got to go. It was an honor to be with so many truly talented and professional people. We got to talk with Ruth, one on one, and she gave me some good advice about going to New York and what to wear at the Mystery Writers of America and the Edgar Awards ceremony, as well as some ideas about my latest book that I'm working on. Looks like a revamp is in order.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Children and writing
Many, many years ago, I had dreams of being a writer. However, I also had dreams of having a family, and, quite honestly, the pull of being part of my own little family tugged harder than did being a writer. A line from a Harry Chapin song illustrates my feelings exactly, “All the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.” And children was what I was able to accumulate—six of them. I found that being a mother was harder than I thought possible and I’m afraid I wasn’t always good at it or physically up to the challenge. Children need and demand a mother 24/7. I remember staggering through a day after more than one child had woken in the night with terrible needs and thinking, “Three hours of sleep is good. Three hours is good.” I also remember feeling immense frustration at the limits of my rather weak body. For instance, imagine trying to juggle bags of groceries and keeping track of three small children who liked to run away as I maneuvered through a parking lot and tried to open the car door. I just didn’t have the physical strength and it almost brought me to tears. But, oh, the rewards—“all the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.”
I also had this pull to be a writer. Nap times became important writing times. If I could manage, then 5:30 a.m. became a good time to write, but, quite frankly, I was often too exhausted to write, so I read—a lot. I even read to my children. There were times when we read every afternoon. Over the years I wrote a few novels. Good practice but none were worth much.
A friend of the family, who was a successful writer, scolded me for wasting my creativity on being a mother. I never believed him. Indeed, I scoffed at his ignorance about the importance of family over the importance of writing. Later he had children of his own and I never heard another word about loss of creativity from him.
Still, I wanted to be a writer, so I wrote. I wrote a lot of drivel and I wrote some imaginative stuff that had promise, but didn’t quite cut it. I even sold a few short stories. All that practice made it easy for me to write short articles. I became quite facile at shooting out short magazine and newspaper articles. Give me the information and an article appeared in minutes. Facility with words comes with practice. So does the discernment of what makes good literature. Did I mention that I read—a lot?
My sister-in-law, Janice, introduced me to the rich and growing world of children’s literature. Children’s literature has come of age. When I was a child, I was restricted to a few animal stories, dogs and horses, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and then in junior high I discovered Robert Heinlein and science fiction. Fantasy and science fiction are passions of mine, but now I drift over to science fiction and fantasy in middle grade and young adult literature. Oh, and I even write it, and have had some published, as those of you who read this blog know. What fun.
“All the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.” Years have passed. My children write. I read what they write and am in awe—their blogs and their short stories and their novels are magical. Imagine—my children write.
I also had this pull to be a writer. Nap times became important writing times. If I could manage, then 5:30 a.m. became a good time to write, but, quite frankly, I was often too exhausted to write, so I read—a lot. I even read to my children. There were times when we read every afternoon. Over the years I wrote a few novels. Good practice but none were worth much.
A friend of the family, who was a successful writer, scolded me for wasting my creativity on being a mother. I never believed him. Indeed, I scoffed at his ignorance about the importance of family over the importance of writing. Later he had children of his own and I never heard another word about loss of creativity from him.
Still, I wanted to be a writer, so I wrote. I wrote a lot of drivel and I wrote some imaginative stuff that had promise, but didn’t quite cut it. I even sold a few short stories. All that practice made it easy for me to write short articles. I became quite facile at shooting out short magazine and newspaper articles. Give me the information and an article appeared in minutes. Facility with words comes with practice. So does the discernment of what makes good literature. Did I mention that I read—a lot?
My sister-in-law, Janice, introduced me to the rich and growing world of children’s literature. Children’s literature has come of age. When I was a child, I was restricted to a few animal stories, dogs and horses, the Bobbsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and then in junior high I discovered Robert Heinlein and science fiction. Fantasy and science fiction are passions of mine, but now I drift over to science fiction and fantasy in middle grade and young adult literature. Oh, and I even write it, and have had some published, as those of you who read this blog know. What fun.
“All the dreams of open spaces come alive in children’s faces.” Years have passed. My children write. I read what they write and am in awe—their blogs and their short stories and their novels are magical. Imagine—my children write.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
So, I was asked to contribute to Laurie Pawlik-Kienlen's e-book,Quips and Tips for Achieving Your Writing Goals. . You can find her blog at The Adventurous Writer. I wrote the following for her
1. What are two obstacles that prevent you -- or writers you know -- from writing books, sending query letters, building blogs, or getting published? (not writer's block, please -- there's lots of info out there on that).
a. I guess the self-confidence thing is a given, such as the self-confidence to submit manuscripts to publishers. So is being organized and making a schedule. But I thought of something most people don’t consider—health and fitness—or in the negative—being sick and weakly. Taking care of myself physically puts the right chemicals into my brain so I can think more clearly and have the energy to write, especially since my best writing time is early morning. Of course, chocolate is also motivational, but as much as I love chocolate, I have to admit that it doesn’t quite cut it nutritionally and it has that nasty side effect—fat.
2. What are two (oops, three) practical tips for overcoming those obstacles? I'm hoping for more than the same old (but valid) "get your butt in the chair and write" advice, please...I'd like to offer more creative tips.
a. Back to the health and fitness thing—taking a walk or going swimming or on a bicycle ride by yourself, alone, no one else, and not listening to music is great for thinking things out. Writing itself is good, but it goes zipping along much better if you’ve done the pre-writing exercise of going over possible twists and turns and character development in your head while you get the juices pumping in your brain through exercise. This doesn’t mean you can’t use the quiet times to meditate and help solve problems, too, but sitting for too long makes you stagnate and your ideas will stagnate, too. Besides, if you are fit enough, you can do suggestion number two, which follows:
b. Second way is to access your brain’s natural rhythms. Before you go to bed at night, read over what you wrote that day or what you want to continue when you start to write the next day. Go to sleep. You brain does this lovely thing while you are asleep. It tries to organize your problems and since you just went over some problems, your brain has something to work on. THEN, and this is a big THEN—early the next morning you get up, throw on a bathrobe, turn the computer on, go to the bathroom and go right back to the computer and start writing on what you were thinking about the night before. The trick is to write before anything else can interfere—no kids, no other work, no doing the dishes, no looking at your email, nothing but writing. If the flow goes well, you should get two or more hours of solid writing before you’re hungry and brain dead enough to need breakfast.
c. Then there is my personal favorite, which makes it no chore at all. If I’ve been writing and get to a sticky place, I get on my motorcycle and ride a couple of hundred miles through the mountains and canyons near my home. I can think and I’m all alone and far away from a phone and when I get back, it seems like all my problems have magically solved themselves.
1. What are two obstacles that prevent you -- or writers you know -- from writing books, sending query letters, building blogs, or getting published? (not writer's block, please -- there's lots of info out there on that).
a. I guess the self-confidence thing is a given, such as the self-confidence to submit manuscripts to publishers. So is being organized and making a schedule. But I thought of something most people don’t consider—health and fitness—or in the negative—being sick and weakly. Taking care of myself physically puts the right chemicals into my brain so I can think more clearly and have the energy to write, especially since my best writing time is early morning. Of course, chocolate is also motivational, but as much as I love chocolate, I have to admit that it doesn’t quite cut it nutritionally and it has that nasty side effect—fat.
2. What are two (oops, three) practical tips for overcoming those obstacles? I'm hoping for more than the same old (but valid) "get your butt in the chair and write" advice, please...I'd like to offer more creative tips.
a. Back to the health and fitness thing—taking a walk or going swimming or on a bicycle ride by yourself, alone, no one else, and not listening to music is great for thinking things out. Writing itself is good, but it goes zipping along much better if you’ve done the pre-writing exercise of going over possible twists and turns and character development in your head while you get the juices pumping in your brain through exercise. This doesn’t mean you can’t use the quiet times to meditate and help solve problems, too, but sitting for too long makes you stagnate and your ideas will stagnate, too. Besides, if you are fit enough, you can do suggestion number two, which follows:
b. Second way is to access your brain’s natural rhythms. Before you go to bed at night, read over what you wrote that day or what you want to continue when you start to write the next day. Go to sleep. You brain does this lovely thing while you are asleep. It tries to organize your problems and since you just went over some problems, your brain has something to work on. THEN, and this is a big THEN—early the next morning you get up, throw on a bathrobe, turn the computer on, go to the bathroom and go right back to the computer and start writing on what you were thinking about the night before. The trick is to write before anything else can interfere—no kids, no other work, no doing the dishes, no looking at your email, nothing but writing. If the flow goes well, you should get two or more hours of solid writing before you’re hungry and brain dead enough to need breakfast.
c. Then there is my personal favorite, which makes it no chore at all. If I’ve been writing and get to a sticky place, I get on my motorcycle and ride a couple of hundred miles through the mountains and canyons near my home. I can think and I’m all alone and far away from a phone and when I get back, it seems like all my problems have magically solved themselves.
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