…or Confessions of a Writing Book Junkie

It seems that whenever I struggle with the writing…no, rewind and correct…when I struggle more than usual with the writing, one of my solutions is to buy and read another book for writers, whether it be something motivational or more craft-oriented. The funny thing is they do usually help. They either reassure me that my struggles are normal and I am not clueless and the best give me ideas of new things to try. Sometimes just the act of changing something helps to clear a logjam.

So now I’m going to tell you about some of my personal favorites.
Debra Dixon, GOAL, MOTIVATION, AND CONFLICT: The Building Blocks of Good Fiction, Gryphon Books for Writers, 1996, ISBN: 0965437108. I usually do GMC charts a la Debra Dixon for at least the hero and heroine when I’m starting a book, and revisit them when troubleshooting weak spots. Sometimes I find the GMC model a bit static–I like combining it with principles from THE WRITER’S JOURNEY.

Christopher Vogler, THE WRITER’S JOURNEY: Mythic Structure for Writers, Wiese, Michael Productions, 1998, ISBN: 0941188701. Vogler takes inspiration from THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES, by Joseph Campbell (which I have not read but plan to) and shows how principles of the mythic hero’s journey can be applied to screenplays, novels, etc… When I read this, I had already completed 6 books and could see that I’d already included many of these elements in my writing. However, the questions posed in each chapter have been useful in helping to brainstorm my current work-in-progress. I think it would also help in pinpointing weaknesses in a draft. I like the way it parallels the writer’s journey with the story hero’s.

Donald Maass, WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL Workbook, Writer’s Digest Books, 2004, ISBN: 158297263X. WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL contains this top agent’s advice for writing the breakout novel, defined as one that brings its author a “dramatic leap in sales over her peers or even ahead of her own previous work.” While the book is useful, I find the accompanying workbook more so. There are exercises for character development, plotting and other aspects of storytelling that are geared to helping one think out of the box. One caveat: one does NOT have to slavishly include results from all the exercises in the final work. I have sometimes seen that result in characters who go beyond edgy to distorted and/or unsympathetic. Maass’s style is very authoritative, but as in all things, artistic judgment is crucial.

Julia Cameron, THE ARTIST’S WAY: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, Penguin Group, 2002 (10th anniversary edition), ISBN: 1585421464. Cameron combines spirituality with creativity in a way that bothers some religious persons. Personally I find it odd that they doubt the connection. Anyway, it’s a 12 week program with chapters on various aspects of unblocking, each with exercises designed to identify blocks to creativity and encourage the participant to explore his/her creativity. There are also two aspects of the program which are ongoing and I find helpful.

One is the Morning Pages. Basically, you fill 3 pages with free writing about whatever is on your mind. I find that venting emotions harmlessly onto the page helps me deal with life. I also discovered through this process that brainstorming on paper works better for me than just mulling things in my head. I’m a writer. Go figure. 🙂

The other concept is the Artist Date. Where the Morning Pages are intended to clear blockages, Artist Dates are for refilling the well. An Artist Date is an activity that pleases the muse: going to a movie or concert, baking, dancing, painting. Experiencing or practicing some form of art different from one’s current project or career. Last April I blogged about an artist date at the Corning Museum of Glass.

Steven Pressfield, THE WAR OF ART: Break through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, Warner Books, 2003, ISBN: 0446691437.
Tough love for writers and a nice complement to THE ARTIST’S WAY. Where Cameron has you try to pinpoint and heal creative wounds, Pressfield reminds you that the work itself will heal you. Here’s a quote from the end: “Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”

For those who are interested, I have some short descriptions of these and my other writing books on my website (click on Writing). As with everything else, your mileage may vary.

I’ll leave you with a question and a warning. What are your favorite writing and/or motivational books? And the warning: Reading books on writing can be a very clever way to avoid the real butt-in-chair work of writing. Don’t ask me how I know that. 🙂

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com

There are writers out there who claim that if everyone followed their processes (often involving detailed pre-plotting and single drafts), we would all write better books more quickly. Personally, I think it’s arrogant to assume that a process that works for one writer is obviously going to work for another.

Conventional wisdom holds that a new writer should try different things and then once she discovers what works for her, to stick with that process. I agree with that in spirit, but I’d like to go a step further. One should also be open to changing one’s process as one grows as a writer and especially if one hits blockages.

Some very fine authors (Jo Beverley and Julia Ross come to mind) do not do detailed pre-plotting. I think their results justify their methods! I don’t do detailed pre-plotting either. I’ve tried in the past, but I don’t get a good sense of my characters and where they’re going until I’ve put them through situations that force them to reveal themselves.

I also know of some writers who produce beautiful first drafts, polishing as they go. (Julia Ross is one). But for me, to come up with characters, plot, setting and the right words to describe it all in one go would be like riding a bicycle and juggling simultaneously. My own stories develop in layers, improving with each successive draft.

The writing process I have followed for most of my books:

• I start with a kernel of the story: the reason I want to write it. Usually it’s a character and/or a situation that intrigues me. I spend some time brainstorming other elements of the story to fit that kernel. I make a stab at filling out Debra Dixon’s Goal, Motivation & Conflict worksheet. I do some preliminary research into anything that relates to the kernel of the story. I try not to worry about holes, trusting that if I love the kernel the rest will eventually come together.
• I plunge into the first draft, a painful, ugly process of stumbling around in the dark until my characters hand me a light. The result is primordial sludge from which I hope a real story will emerge.
• The story starts to come together in the 2nd and 3rd drafts. This is the point where I ask a few trusted critique partners for feedback. This is also when I usually start to actually enjoy the process!
• I do one or more additional drafts to add more depth and fix problems. I may have my critique partners look at revised scenes, especially if I’ve made big changes or I’m worried about whether something is working.
• A couple more rounds of line editing and hopefully the manuscript is good to go!

This process has morphed a bit. As I started to make the transition from writing traditional Regencies to longer historicals, I found that I was having more and more trouble with the early drafts. I’d convinced myself this was a huge leap rather than a natural extension of what I’d already been doing. My muse fled and writing became a painful chore.

Several changes that have helped:

• I have started to alternate between stories a bit (still with an eye toward closure, of course). What I’m finding that having several stories at different stages of development takes some pressure off the work-in-progress. Also it’s easier to reenter a story that has done some simmering on the back burner.
• The NaNoWriMo challenge is helping me outrun the internal editor. The focus on wordcount has helped me enjoying the process of writing again and worry less about the ultimate product. Of course, the ultimate product does matter, but I already know I’m a good rewriter. As Nora Roberts says, “You can fix a poorly written page, but you can’t fix a blank one.”

As to writing schedule, I strive for discipline. With two young children, I don’t have much evening or weekend time to write, which means I can’t afford to leave things to a big deadline push. I need to chip away steadily. So I write at least a couple of hours every morning (my mind works best then) and then try for a couple more in the afternoon, barring errands, sick children or household disasters.

I realize now that people asked about books on the art and craft of writing, but that could fill a whole new post, so if it’s OK, I’ll save that for next week.

I hope this was interesting and/or useful!

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com

P.S. The cartoon is by Debbie Ridpath Ohi at www.inkygirl.com.

First, the idea: if I’m going to write a novel (or even a short story), something about the idea has to really grab me. It can grab me in an odd way — or an obvious way — it can be a character or setting or twist or something I can’t even name, but something about the idea has to make me excited.

Then I work it over for a while. I pound at it, and try to work out a basic plot. What if this? What if that? But wouldn’t that then…? I may end up with most of the plot, or I may not — some of my novels are more intuitive than others. Sometimes I don’t have much plot beyond the opening, and I go from there. (Though sometimes I think that, for me, that’s always an error. But I’ve done it. Who knows… Jury’s still out.)

Then I write. To write, I need Earl Grey Tea, hot, with milk. And it helps to have gingerlily perfume. Then I sit at my computer and write. (And it helps just a bit to have the book written by someone else.)

Excuse me? Oh, is that you, Bertie? Where’d you come from? (And why don’t you go back there?)

Of course it is I. No one else could blog with such exquisite grace. As to where I am from, you know that perfectly well — London, two centuries ago. As to why I repeatedly fail to return — it is merely because whatever time-travel mechanism brought me here seems to have vanished.

As to why I am here now — I had the overwhelming feeling that the Risky Regency Readers were sadly missing my presence. That, coupled with the blatant falsehoods you were telling, drew me here.

Falsehoods? What falsehoods?

You forgot to mention all that moaning and groaning and complaining about how little you write, and how much you should write.

They don’t need to know that!

Too late!

Ahem. One thing I have found that is useful, is my Alphasmart. I sit on the balcony in nice weather and write. No email to distract me, no YouTube, no solitaire. No temptation to revise when I should be drafting.

On a good day (no comments needed, Bertie!) I can write about ten pages. I try to draft fast, and then do all the editing and revision later.

No comments needed? I am always needful. Or if I’m not needful, I’m at least decorative, which is much more important.

If I need to do research, I generally do that before I even begin drafting — at least, the major things. If I come across things I need in the progress of drafting, I know I really should make a note and do the research later, but I usually just do it then. (I’m always afraid it will seriously change the plot!)

Oh, come now! How much was the colour of the upholstery in the Theatre Royal Covent Garden going to change the plot of My Lady Gamester? Not one whit, and you know it. And yet you stopped everything to find out.

Have you been spying on me, Bertie?

Now that you’ve limited my TeleVision time, there’s nothing better for me to do.

I do beg your pardon, readers of the blog! My post today seems to have been hijacked by an exquisitely elegant egomaniac, and I can tell I’m not going to get any more serious work done today.

Oh, yes, and that will be such a change for you.

Hey! That’s it — no pie for you. And no James Bond!

Pardon me, ladies and gentlemen. I need to go reason with my landlady. She’s gone off in a huff, and I really do want to find out just how elegant this new Bond is. And I need my pie.

Bertram St. James, Exquisite

Signing my post? The cheek!

Cara
Cara King — www.caraking.com
My Lady Gamester — the name is James, Atalanta James

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving. I don’t actually subscribe to the notion that one should think about the positive only once a year. Experts would probably recommend we do it more often than that, but as my Risky friends and our more frequent visitors know, I’m one to stress and obsess and worry about everything. So once year seems a lot!

However, I have a blog post to do, so I will force myself to think on the bright side. It is probably good for me. 🙂

Here they are, in no particular order, just 10 of the many things I have to be thankful for.

1. That I’m in a good marriage which has only gotten better over 18 years.

2. That I have healthy and happy children who actually enjoy scrambled egg dinners when I’m too busy writing to prepare anything fancier.

3. That there’s a DSW (Designer Shoe Warehouse) within two hours of where I live. (Sometime after I turned forty a latent shoe gene kicked in.)

4. That Jane Austen lived and wrote her stories. Ditto for Georgette Heyer and every modern romance writer whose stories I treasure.

5. That I have seen 6 of my own stories reach publication.

6. That I have already written over 30,000 words during this year’s National Novel Writing Month. See the nifty bar graph on the Nano website!

7. That the processes for creating wine and real ale were invented. (How could one celebrate or deal with relatives over the holidays without them?)

8. That I have a couple of critique partners whom I can trust to give me their honest, intelligent opinions of my stories and who believe in me even when I don’t.

9. That chocolate was invented. (This picture is of The Chocolate Girl, by Jean-Etienne Liotard, c.1743-45.)

10. That I have found such good and talented friends in this Risky Regency community of ours. (Sorry, can’t help getting just a little gushy here.)

So what are you thankful for?

Elena
LADY DEARING’S MASQUERADE, RT Reviewers’ Choice, Best Regency Romance of 2005
www.elenagreene.com