When I’m writing my novel, I love it.
But when I’m away for too long, doubt sets in and I’m filled with everything that’s wrong with it.
With a novel in progress, distance makes the hard grow colder, so stick close to your novel until it’s done, nurture it every day, and you’ll be less tempted to break up with it.
— Eve Messenger
Blow the party horns, toss the confetti, my blog just hit 300 followers. In the three and a half months since launching this blog (with a post that I later deleted–there’s a learning curve, okay?), I’ve learned far more than I ever imagined I would. I’m grateful to everyone I’ve crossed paths with: to the readers who’ve visited and commented and to the writers who’ve entertained and enlightened with their own wonderful blogs about writing, reading, and life.
On this special day, I would like to recognize…
My 300th Follower!
Thank you, redheadedbooklover, for taking my blog over the top. You seem like a genuinely nice person, and I really like the books you’ve reviewed.
Smart, Savvy Book Bloggers
As always, Josie’s Book Corner, in whose reviews I’ve found a treasure trove of YA books.
Carolyn at A Hundred Thousand Stories, who went above and beyond to help find a particular kind of book I was looking for a while back.
Fabulous New Writer Friends
During the often solitary pursuit of writing, it’s a comfort and an inspiration to be able to connect with fellow writers.
As always, familyrulesbyplainjane, a genuinely kind person and an eloquent writer.
Kristina Stanley, who’s taking the publishing world by storm.
Jennifer F. Santucci, a gifted writer with great ideas.
Wallace Cass, funny and really talented.
Dale E. Funk, who genuinely writes from the heart.
Yes, and I’m nervous and excited about it all at the same time. After weeks of fear-fueled procrastination, I called my local police department–on their non-emergency line, of course. My intimidation only grew as I spoke to the first officer: a stern-voiced woman with a disconcerting ability to speak while barely opening her mouth. I explained in a very scattered way that I was calling as a local resident and writer (yep, that’s the word I used 🙂 ) with a question about police procedure in a missing persons case.
(Note: The book I’m working on is not a crime story, but it does contain an important incident involving the police, and I wanted it to be accurate.)
As she patched me through to the detective division, my palms really began to sweat. My thoughts at this point were: I’m not worthy; the detectives are busy solving crimes; I shouldn’t be troubling them with a petty writing question.
But then I told myself: it’s just one question, and I repeated this aloud to the next person I spoke with, Sharon, who surprised me by speaking in a lilting Scottish brogue. (I’ve never heard a character on a cop show speak this way, and since that’s pretty much my only exposure to police detectives, I was surprised.)
I’m not going to say getting an answer from Sharon was easy. If today’s call was any indication, law enforcement officers do not like giving definitive answers to questions like:
If there’s a missing person whose vehicle is taken into evidence and there’s no obvious sign of foul play, how long might it take for the vehicle to be returned to the family?
Sharon went off on several tangents (I took notes anyway), and I kept reeling her back in with comments like, “That makes a lot of sense. What do you estimate the range of time might be for a vehicle to be returned to the family?”
More tangents. More variations of my question. Then, at last, an answer:
In a missing persons case, if a vehicle is taken for evidence, detectives and CSI officers try to process and release it back to the family as soon as possible. If there’s no blood stain or other evidence of homicide, the vehicle might be returned to the family in as soon as a day.
Eureka! What a relief to finally have an answer to my question; the uncertainty had really been bugging me and was putting a crimp in my plot timeline. Now, as I dry off my sweaty palms, I want to share that I am also proud of myself for taking another step in my journey toward becoming a successful published author. For those of you who’ve read my blog, you know this is my mission and my dream.
— Eve Messenger
The truth? I feel on the verge of tears today.
Because of a dream.
Or, rather, because of feelings the dream evoked.
In the dream, I flit around the house getting ready for work. From the other side of the closed bathroom door, my mother (the one who raised me from the time I was an infant) says, “I’m here.”
And her voice is smiling.
The realization shocks me awake. I had forgotten my mother’s voice could smile.
Because in my life I have so rarely heard it.
I should call her, I think.
When I was seventeen, I moved out of my parents’ house, and I made it a point to call and check in a few times a year and send my mother a card on her birthday.
My mother has never acknowledged my birthday.
On the rare occasions that I mention to close friends how volatile being raised by a depressed, rage-filled mother could be, they ask me why I’m not more resentful. (I’m not sure.) If I’m feeling particularly safe and confessional, I’ll reveal my mother’s most extreme behavior: ignoring me for days when my father was away on business; cornering me in a bathroom wielding a knife; dragging me from the house by my hair saying she was taking me back to the adoption agency. And even more rarely, I might tell a friend how, at the age of ten, I broke down the bathroom door to scoop up my petite mother, barely conscious, and walk her around the house like I’d seen people do on television shows when someone attempts suicide through overdose.
My mother lived.
And I continued to cower, or rage silently, or try to be perfect, all the while still feeling compassion for her because, even as a child, I knew how broken and fragile she was beneath her rage. Between bouts of fending off her screams and blows, I nurtured her.
I’ve been told that, as a coping mechanism, abused children develop a sort of situational amnesia, like soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder. I know this to be true. I block out bad things even without meaning to, sometimes when I don’t want to, and out with bad memories often go good ones.
Like the way my mother’s voice could sometimes have a smile in it, the way that tiny, shiny part of her soul could occasionally peek out despite her own traumatic childhood. Pretty mother primping in her vanity mirror, combing black hair back from her heart-shaped face, revealing her widow’s peak; applying foundation and deep red lipstick. Talented mother singing, dancing. Fiery mother tearing up playing cards when Dad managed to (finally) beat her in a game of gin rummy. And my favorite: gentle mother who sang me to sleep with a Japanese lullaby while stroking my hair.
My dream made me remember good things.
And bad.
The cruelty I suffered at my mother’s hands.
My resentment.
My guilt over only calling her once after she severely injured her knee in a fall a few weeks ago.
So this morning, after the dream, I called my mother: eight o’clock California time, midnight Japan time. A television played in the background, and my mother sounded distracted. But we spoke.
I made my call as the dutiful daughter.
And I still feel on the verge of tears.
Thank you to writer Wallace Cass for nominating me for a Liebster Award. With a desire to meet other writers online and to gain insight into my journey toward becoming a successful published writer, I started blogging about three months ago. If my blog were a baby, it would just now be learning to raise its head and chest when lying on its stomach; open and shut its hands; and follow moving objects. In other words, I’m still getting the hang of things, and it’s nice to be acknowledged.
According to the Liebster Award rules, I must now:
Now *drum roll, please* the new nominees for Liebster Award are:
Eclectic Scribe
Kristina Stanley
Kelly Deeny
Dale E. Funk
Stephanie Flint
Glitter Afficianado
Linda Maye Adams
Jay Dee Archer
Here are your questions, nominees. I’m curious to read your answers.
1. How important do you think it is to network with other writers?
2. Do you ever read books more than once? Which ones?
3. What’s the scariest or most challenging thing for you about writing?
4. What is the most amazing thing about writing?
5. Where is your favorite place to write?
6. When’s your best time of day to write? Why?
7. What are three of your favorite words?
8. What’s one thing that would tell you you’ve “made it” as a writer?
9. In terms of writing or reading, what’s the best thing anyone could say to you right now?
10. Do you have any rituals, superstitions, or preferences related to writing or editing?
11. In the face of all the rejection that comes with being a writer, what advice would you give to someone to help them stay on a path toward achieving their dreams?
Recently, I’ve had to face the cold, hard fact that I do not write simple plots. Very “not simple” plots, though I will stop short of calling them complicated. In coming to terms with this, my first instinct is to get very, very nervous, as in: how in the hell am I going to weave all these plotlines together into a cohesive story? Sure, the plot makes sense in my head, but piecing it all together on the page is another matter entirely.
So how do I avoid getting tangled up in plot threads? Since I don’t personally know any professional writers To ask, I turned to my good friend Google for advice.
One of the first things that pops up is “Calendaring Your Story,” an article by writer Mindy Obenhaus. One of the things she says that really pops out at me is that she is “a visual person, not to mention somewhat detail-oriented.” That’s me, too. I am most comfortable processing information visually, so when it comes to plotting a novel, it makes sense to create a visual representation of my plotlines, a timeline that shows all the major plotlines side by side.
But how?
Obenhaus apparently uses a calendar, a large, desk-sized one. Other writers create Word tables or Excel spreadsheets. Still others use flashcards, a different color for each plot thread. And there are surely plenty of other methods crafty writers have come up with for calendaring their plotlines. (If you have any ideas you’d like to share, please feel free to comment.)
Then I remembered that at a company I once worked for we entered departmental events into an online calendar, with each department displayed in a different color, a multi-person event calendar, something like this:
Maybe this could work for calendaring plotlines, thought I.
So I tried it.
Now the “heavy lifting” begins. I’ll need to really think about each major milestone and decide precisely when it should occur so I can put it on a calendar. I KNOW (as hard as I try to resist this) that calendaring my plot lines will make me much less confused than I was with my first two novels. As convoluted as those first drafts were, I’m thinking surely this will be an improvement.
Lately, I’ve run across way too many YA book reviews that decry the extreme unlikability of main characters. Are writers making their protagonists too unlikable? Sure, writing an engaging main character is a complex process–we like our protagonists flawed and thus more interesting, but isn’t it also important for them to be likable enough to root for through an entire novel?
With fictional characters–as with real people–“engaging” and “likable” are subjective, to be sure. In Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train, for example, some readers find the protagonist Rachel so incredibly flawed that she’s just too pitiful to root for; others, like me, find her compelling and sympathetic in her way. The truth is, no characters in The Girl on the Train are heroic in a classic sense, but the story still works. That’s just good writing, so kudos to Paula Hawkins.
So…what makes a character likable? Here’s my list. Tell me if I missed anything.
What Makes a Character Likable?
1. Must feel extremely passionate about something.
2. Has at least one person she’s willing to fight for.
3. Isn’t too perfect.
4. Has a troubled life.
5. Isn’t overly whiny about her troubled life.
6. Has a special talent, skill, or exceptional personality trait.
7. Sees the world in a unique way.
8. Is aware of her own flaws and grows or changes in some way. (added by blogger eclecticscribblings)
9. BONUS: Has a sense of humor, especially about herself. (added by blogger Aedifice)
In other news, I’m falling madly in love with my latest work in progress, a contemporary YA with time travel and a ghost. Had to share. 🙂
— Eve
To further my mission to become a successful published author, I’ve been delving more deeply into the online world of writing and publishing (mostly through blogs and Twitter), and have learned a lot, especially about agents, query letters, and great new books to read. Along the way, I stumble across unfamiliar terms, so I decided to post some of them here for the edification of newbies like me and for the amusement of pros who’ve probably known them for years.
Agent/publisher time – This always means U.S. East Coast time, as in, if an agent tweets, “We’ll be answering questions on #askagent at 2pm,” s/he means 11am PST. (I learned this the hard way.)
ARC – Advanced Readers Copy. (By the way, I recently and happily won my first free ARC, Hide and Seek, by Jane Casey.)
#askagent – highly informative twitter hashtag for writers wishing to ask agents questions in real time
HEA – Happily Ever After
Klout score – the reach and engagement of your social media platforms
OTP – One True Pairing. Yeah, it’s a romance thing.
PB – picture book
SimSubs – simultaneous submissions, as in when a literary magazine allows writers to submit stories also being shopped to other publications.
TBR – to be read (as in, “I’m really excited to read the books on my TBR list.”)
TSTL – Too Stupid to Live (in regards to the characters that are just, well, stupid, or weak)– added by blogger Michelle
Upmarket – literary fiction with commercial potential.
WF – women’s fiction.
Okay, tangent alert: what is it about the label WF that is so wtf? While I’m usually one who blindly grab books off fiction shelves regardless of genre, I do appreciate the need for genre classification and have been known to look up genre tags to see if a book is something I might be interested in. However, “women’s fiction?” Really? Human conditions portrayed in literature by men are never categorized as male fiction, so why the sweeping label on women’s fiction that does the same?
I find the sweeping genre classification of the last term, WF, somewhat troubling, so I explore that here a bit beyond a simple definition. I’d be interested to hear your views on it, too. Feel free to share any other writing/publishing acronyms you’ve run across.
Author Randy Susan Meyers intelligently explores this question in ‘Women’s Fiction?’ ‘Men’s Fiction?’ ‘Human Fiction?’ I highly recommend it.
My three favorite reads this summer were The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, and The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black.
Neil, Rachel, and Holly, thank you – you not only captivated, thrilled, and entertained me with your wonderful stories but, by your example, you proved to be wonderful writing teachers. Here’s what I learned.
Neil Gaiman – The Graveyard Book
Omniscient POV
– Make sure there’s tension with very high stakes from the get-go.
– Cleverly reveal characters and events in ways that allow readers to put together clues and figure out for themselves what is happening, like an inside secret between author and reader.
– Do a little historical research then let your imagination soar.
Rachel Hartman – Seraphina
1st Person POV
– Know your world so well you don’t have to explain it. Start the story in a way that reveals your alternate world in all of its differentness without confusing the reader.
– Have a clear understanding of the desires and weaknesses of each of your characters, not just the main ones, so that each one shows growth by the end of the story.
Holly Black – The Darkest Part of the Forest
3rd Person POV
– Set up the story in vivid detail, making the reader think they’re stepping into a normal teen world but then gradually revealing that this is not, in fact, a normal world at all. That kind of creeping revelation is so satisfying.
– Be a keen observer of human nature.
b&w art by Steph-lol – DeviantArt.com
Why save a rejection letter?
It’s an example of my tenacity! Evidence that somewhere in the world, someone has read my work.
But it’s a rejection letter, a generic one at that.
Rejection – dejection. The editor didn’t think your story was as amazing as you did.
A rejection letter is evidence of my ineptitude.
But some response is better than none at all. I’ll save it in a computer file.
Why? In saving a rejection letter, am I hanging onto something negative that might taint my writing in nearby files?
Or maybe…
I’m thinking about it too much.
On to writing the next piece, plotting the next novel, submitting the next story.
I’ll deal with what to do with rejection letters the next time I receive one.
I’m okay with that.
For now.
Eve Messenger 