manuscript

Writing Home

~ Carie ~ 3 Comments
A small stack of personal journals
a small stack of my personal journals

“Writing is rewriting.” I know this. I know this because I deleted and changed the first paragraph of this note three times. It’s not making me happy, and I can’t put my finger on why. But as writers, we’re supposed to rewrite. Right? I need to scream “stop” at the top of my lungs. I’ll let the word reverberate a moment in my head while maintaining the calm exterior for which I am praised.

I get caught in a trap trying to make something perfect, and lose myself. I lose my voice in trying to make things right for the “others” I view as the readers. What I forget in the process is these same readers have been drawn to me by the voice and style I present. What we all forget is our voice can change. We age. We travel. We continue to learn as we live our lives. At least, I hope we do.

I used to write in a journal every day. The process cleared my brain of all the junk, grocery lists, and tiny bits of anger and disappointment which lingered in the dark corners. I could then close the book and go about my day without those thoughts present to distract me. Connecting to the page clarifies and sharpens my mind. As an internal thinker, writing in a journal allows me to make those things external—without having to say them out loud. No one else needs to meet the creatures which make their home in my thoughts.

After a personality test this week and a writer’s presentation yesterday which focused on that test, something in my head clicked. I sat down this morning and began to journal again after an extreme hiatus. I had packed away a need, and it hurt me. I hadn’t realized how much. So I wrote all my crappy thoughts down. I found myself flipping through the pages and reading a few of my old ramblings during my designated writing time. Some were funny. Some were heartrending. Most were childish and petty. The best part about each of them is they are not stuck in my head. The thoughts on the page didn’t continue to linger lost in my brain. I swept lots of things under the rug up there as of late. I let my day job and its stressors interrupt me.

My day job is wonderful for more reasons than to pay the bills. I like what I do on a daily basis, but it is my day job. Not my dream job. I’m trusted, I’m respected for my creativity, and now I get to write a blog other than my own. Yet it is still not the independence from the day to day for which my heart pounds.

So I write. I find ways to write. A dear friend encourages me in my search. She seems to understand something is trapped inside waiting for its moment. Whenever it appears, I pray that it meets the expectations of those who are so patient. I pray it doesn’t break me to get it out. Whatever lingers on that page will be in my voice. My words. My thoughts. And no one can stop me from finding it.

Seating Survival

~ Carie ~ Leave a comment

I attended a writers’ conference at the beginning of this month. My brain filled with writing goodness and motivation events such as these impart. I drew new focus on my work. Imagine a business/leadership conference for salespeople, minus the leadership mumbo jumbo and the eager salespeople. We’re a bunch of writers. We spend a lot of time hunched over keyboards or notebooks fighting to get the words on the page. Most of us are introverts. We get lost in our own worlds, but a writers’ conference provides us with information on the industry and an opportunity to meet other scribes.

It was a gathering of comrades from literature to genre (lots and lots of genre) who sought information at all levels—a place to meet fellow authors, rub elbows with agents and editors, gawk over the big names walking amongst the meek, and soak up all the inspiration you could stand. Many attendees were new writers seeking out how-to information. Some were searching for tips to help them hack through another round of revisions. Yet more were pitching to an agent or editor, trying to get initial interest to propel them to the next step in the dream. All of us were relishing in the business and craft of writing.

Yet all conferences—no matter the focus—have a few things in common. They’re the trappings that remind you this is a business gathering. The hotel or convention center. The mediocre coffee. The crowded bathrooms at every break. The chairs.

Don’t be deceived. The chairs end up the bane of every conference no matter how consoled you are when you first see them. “Oh, look. The chairs are padded. That’s wonderful. Hey, even the backs are cushioned. This is gonna be a good weekend.” So not true. Even the cushiest of seats becomes unbearable on day two.

I suffered from writer’s bum for a while after sitting in presentation after presentation. A bored bum can happen to the best of us. After one or two sessions, you start to feel it. The chair is not as comfortable as you once thought. The padding seems a little thin. This one has to be a different model than the last one I sat in. The chairs are the same. I’ll move to a different one. Nope. Your derriere has found the discomfort of the minimal cushion. There is no escape.

You stand in the hall and pace a little during the break, confident you only need to move around. As you sit in the next room, you shift from cheek to cheek to relieve the gluteal boredom. What if I sit at a slight angle? No. The edge of the chair? Maybe, but then again, no. Slouching? Not that either. Your bum is done.

Three days of characters, revisions and pitches. You take everything in and gather the motivation to push through the revisions on your novel. It’s a great experience. You’re hearing writing tips from the likes of Jonathan Maberry, A. Lee Martinez, Les Edgerton, Donald Maass—but your butt. It’s a bit of a distraction.

When I arrived home, I walked the dogs. I had to move, to do something other than sit down. I know I am not the only one.

Rejection

~ Carie ~ Leave a comment

Rejection sucks. It hurts. Rejection is difficult enough in work and love, but the ache is worse when it’s something you created—when someone with a tiny bit of power in the world has rejected your art. The pain, the urge to jump into a defensive mode is stronger. There’s no opportunity for you to shout, “It’s not me. It’s you.” You receive a letter or email, and you’re out of the running. Easy for the rejector. For the rejected, there are scraps of ego to be pieced back together, and the ever-present question, “What was wrong?”

I would love to get an answer. I want to know how to improve my craft. I understand what I write does not appeal to everyone, but it’s not bad. (My ego will make an appearance now.) I am pretty darn good at what I do. I’m not great. I know that. There are no “great American novels” buried in my head, but there are fantasies and trips through distant worlds. There are characters with which you’d want to belly up to a bar, and that bar would be something of my creation.

If you couldn’t tell, my book submission was rejected recently. The first rejection of a piece stings. I’m lying. It’s more than a simple sting. It’s death by scorpion. There’s a pinch at the first line of justification, “It’s not that you’ve written a bad book, or necessarily written badly.” Ouch. You’re right. You don’t know if I’ve written a bad book. You read only the first fifteen pages. That little gem was followed a few lines later with this, “This experience for you isn’t even rejection. It’s a delay.” What? Hurts like rejection.

In all of the “softening the blow” mumbo jumbo, there was nothing concrete to help me. It was a nice rejection, a soft leather glove swiped across my cheek instead of an armor gauntlet. Yet it leaves behind the same pain and confusion.

I’m in an angry stage at this moment. I waffle between acceptance and anger. A sea which never seems to settle. The letter has driven me forward. I refuse to accept what I do isn’t good or good enough. Isn’t that what rejection should do?

Swimming in Mental Drama

Image ~ ~ Carie ~ 1 Comment
Orin Zebest-Rio Vista, CA
Orin Zebest-Rio Vista, CA

I try to do too much. It’s my normal. What am I to do if no deadline exists? Without the busy-ness, my brain takes a dive into the pool of depression. In reaction, I isolate myself—only drifting further into dangerous waters. So I am busy. On purpose.

At work, I am in the heart of holiday. We are building Black Friday, rebuilding Black Friday, getting Christmas underway, and preparing for the frenzy of New Year’s. At home, I am ready to move back. I face a flurry of walkthroughs, city approvals and financial data. With my current book, it’s time. I am pushing through revisions. I am fighting to get the pictures right on the page. I am carefully picking through word choice. Or I think I am.

I shut down this week. Tuesday night, toward the end of class, the instructor said something that struck me wrong. Somewhere in the dark crevices of my grey matter I lost it. This level of frustration is unlike me. I can file away any emotion for examination later, but this one. I dove head first into a mental tailspin, too stubborn and angry to pull myself out.

I have written before about revision. I told you to let go, and I meant it, but this one off-hand statement set off every alarm. I cannot clearly tell you why. My just-roll-with-it attitude stopped dead in its tracks and prepared for battle, but there was no one to fight. I had to seek help, and quick. Otherwise, my manuscript would end up in a heap of deletions—last man standing in the Alamo.

As humans (not as that ethereal thing known as a “creative”), we need help. We need outlets for all of the stuff running around in our heads. Other creatures do not sit around questioning themselves. They do not contemplate the pitch of their howls. We do.

So my advice this week is to not be afraid. There will be a moment of dark, but it’s not as bleak as you believe. Like my drive to be busy, help is everywhere. I met with an editor today. Their words settled me. They gave guidance. They offered light. That’s all I needed. I needed to stand face-to-face with the fear my writing is unworthy. I needed something to settle the beasts.

The Hell of Revisions

~ Carie ~ Leave a comment
Books and Boots
Books and Boots

I’ve been working on a novel for the last year and a half. More so learning the trade and the potential of my abilities. Abilities I thought were so striking and creative have been encouraged, judged, praised, condemned, and are now being put to the final test. I’m in Revision Hell.

I now see that my first draft of this particular piece was one big ol’ brain dump, and maybe my brain is not the best and the brightest. From examining what I sat down and read through a few months ago, my brain is a remedial reader with an attention disorder. That’s okay. I can objectively say, looking back with the knowledge I gained, that every large work I’ve done to date has been a fight to get the story on the page—to get the pictures out of my head. The problem is I am attached to these ideas. They are my creative brainchildren. I protected them from every slight and offending remark because they are so much a part of me.

No more.

The book I am working on at the moment has become an unruly teenager. Full on bad attitude and unwillingness to bend. Ha. I’m tougher than that. A little tough love would do it some good. I am ready to get the revisions done and kick the overgrown kid out of my house. This pompous little piece of work needs to get out and start proving itself on its own.

That’s how you have to see the process. When you start, the idea is grand and wonderful. You look forward to nurturing the seed and completing the first draft. It is a great accomplishment when there’s a thick pile of double-space pages neatly tucked in a box. I can imagine it now—the smell of printer ink and the feel of the warm paper. My idea has been given life. Some people stop here. They guard it and protect it from the outside world. I know I did. But was I right in doing so? If you stop at this point, the idea on paper will never truly flourish. It will never grow to influence another. It will sit in a box or on a flash drive until it dies hidden away from the judging eyes of the world.

Get past that. Walk away. Give it breathing room, then come back and see it for what it is. It’s still just an idea. What could be better? What problems does it have? How can you fix it? And the scariest of all, what does someone else think of it?

Revision is not about reviewing for passive phrases and adverbs. It’s not simply running it through a spell check. This is about getting in there and tearing it apart. It can be stronger. How are you going to do that? It can have more depth. How are you going to give it more emotion? It’s hard work, because this is your child, but you can do it.

I’m going through it now. I am throwing out entire portions of the manuscript. Characters are being set aside because I realize I had them in place for only one reason. I see the holes for what they are now. I will make it the best I can, and then I will send it out into the world. I can’t promise I won’t be hurt when that first criticism hits, but I will be in a better place to understand.