It's Like a Movie

I said that procrastination is what got me to this point*. That’s not entirely true. It’s really what I did while procrastinating that helped.

See, while I was obsessing over agent blogs and stalking following writer blogs I was also daydreaming. Once I had my idea—not the craptastic one I originally came up with, mind you—I let it play in my head like I was remembering a good movie.

Over the course of the 11 months I procrastinated (and again when I got stuck on a scene), I got to know my characters. I saw my favorite scenes and how they reacted. I dwelled on what might happen next.

Warning: You might consider me insane for what I’m about to say. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but I’d appreciate it if you don’t call the authorities. With my complexion, straightjackets wash me out.

I’d run through scenes while showering, while washing my hands, while folding laundry. I’d take a nap, throw on some music, and let the story play.

And then I wrote it all down. I wouldn’t say it was an outline (because such an outline would have gotten an F in the high school I went to). But it was a map of sorts. 

This applies mid-draft, too.

It’s easy, when stuck, to force the words. I can’t think of a reason she’d go to that house but, gosh dern it, she needs to be there so that’s what happens next. Usually those are the places in the manuscript beta readers leave marks like this:

HUH!?!?

And no on wants a big fat HUH!?!? in the comments. So step back and let the scene play out in your mind. Watch the “movie” and then watch it again. Watch it until you’re unstuck.

For me, the notes I took while daydreaming were scattered. But they helped me get my mind around the plot, the arc, who these people in my head were.

And now I’m positive, after that comment, you’ll have me committed.

 Do you ever daydream with your story?

*A completed manuscript. A totally flawed, piece of crap first draft, but you get where I'm going with this.

Real Life

The other night I was talking about my manuscript with The Man. It went something like this…

ME: And then there’s the locked room.

THE MAN: Mmm hmm.

ME: She needs to get out of the locked room. Remember, there are no windows, the door’s locked. No vents.

THE MAN: Huh?

ME: She needs to get out, of course. I’m just not sure how she’ll do it yet.

THE MAN: …

ME: Remember?

THE MAN: Sorry, yeah. I thought we were talking about real life for a second.

RTW: From Paris, With Love

Road Trip Wednesday is a blog carnival, where YA Highway’s contributors and readers post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on our own blogs. You can hop from destination to destination and get everybody’s take on the topic. This week’s question:

If you could live within the universe of one book, which would you choose?

I’ll be honest: I wanted to say Harry Potter here. I mean magic? Talking paintings? Quidditch? It’s like Disney but better: It’s literally the most magical place on earth. (You know, if it were real.)

But then I thought: Can I really do better than Kate Hart? Um, no.

So I thought about some of the books I’ve recently read. If I were to be miraculously transported into one of them I think I cry. No, scratch that. I’d scream and then cry. I’ve done this to myself, of course, what with my current fascination with dystopia. Seriously, the characters in the past few books I’ve read live in the kind of worlds that are fun to read about but would massively suck in real life.

And then I thought about Anna and the French Kiss. First, it takes place in Paris. Then there’s this hot boy.

Also, IT’S SET IN PARIS.

Stephanie Perkins did such a great job with the setting in this book that I was transported here:

And here:

So as much as I may enjoy reading about utopias-gone-wrong, I would not trade this:

For this:

Not even if I was guaranteed this:

What about you?

Play along on your blog then head over to YA Highway to share in the comments.

Two-Timer

When it comes to how we read, The Man and I couldn’t be more different. I like to focus on one book at a time. I’m annoyingly loyal to a book, according to The Man, who has to wait until I’ve finished a novel before I’ll read something he suggests.

The Man, on the other hand, is a two-timer. Really, he’s a four-timer or nine-timer. He’ll read almost a dozen books at the same time (especially if they’re nonfiction). He’s frustratingly disloyal. Right in the middle of one book he’ll pick up another and start fresh.

You can imagine his way of reading leads to about two dozen half-read books on his shelf at any time. Plently of them never get finished, which saddens me. (It also irritates me to no end, because more half-read books = more books laying in random spots in the house.)

I always ask how he can remember what’s going on in so many books with so much time elapsing between readings. His answer:

“I can’t.”

Are you faithful to one book or a two-timing reader? Anyone else out there read more than five at once?

Arcs (Or Getting From Here to There)

After six years of watching the T.V. show Bones, my husband turned to me and said, “I’m over it.” And it wasn’t just because there’s something better on at 9 p.m. on Thursday night. (Trust me, there’s not.) The reason: A main character just won’t change.

I used to love Bones. I promise it wasn’t just for the will-they-or-won’t-they tension between Booth, the buff FBI agent, and Brennan, the genius anthropologist. (Although, let’s be honest, that didn’t hurt.) No, the storyline was interesting. The cases were cool.

And then it got stale. The Man of all people started boycotting it, and that my friends is where this lesson begins.

Here’s a two-second catch-up for people who don’t watch the show:

 Dr. Temperance Brennan (code name: Bones) is a world-renown anthropologist who can’t relate to the living. Agent Sealy Booth works with her, solving crimes involving dead bodies. They love each other. They won’t get together. Sexual tension. Flirting. Gooey dead bodies.

That’s about it.

So, after six years you’d think Bones would have warmed up to the goofballs on her team or the totally normal best friend she somehow wrangled or the hunky FBI agent who loves her? You’d think she’d at least learn how to deal with people, right? Wrong.

After six years, she’s still the same Bones.* And that’s the problem. While every other character on the show has grown and changed over the years, Bones is still Bones. She’s still rude, only sees situations as either rational or irrational, is often narcissistic and selfish.

When I asked The Man why he was boycotting Bones he said it’s because after all this time, she never learns. And—and I quote—“I’m sick of her.”

That’s right, the guy who thought G.I. Joe was a decent movie is sick of Bones because she hasn’t grown enough. I agree. Her arc looks something like this:

We want our characters to change, become better people, or just become slightly better people. She doesn’t have to get a personality transplant (something I want to talk about soon), but she needs to grow in some way.

Or else your readers (or viewers) will start rooting for the bad guy or the other girl. Or they’ll just shut the book.

*I do realize that in last night's episode she acted like a normal human. Maybe one of the writers was looking over my shoulder as I wrote this. In which case: creepy. And also, please get Booth and Bones together. Kthanksbye.

RTW: Blurb It

I decided to take part in YA Highway’s Road Trip Wednesday because, frankly, Wednesday doesn’t get the love it deserves on this blog.

So, Road Trip Wednesday (RTW to those who speak only in acronyms) is a blog carnival where YA Highway’s contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question and answer it on their own blogs. This week’s prompt:

Give a blurb for your favorite book or one of your own.

I won’t blurb my own book because you know how that would end up: “I may never read again so as not to tar my memory with prose less beautiful than this.”

Right.

So how about I blurb a couple books I’ve read recently instead?

First up, Paper Towns by John Green:

“I laughed until soda came out my nose. I cried like a pregnant woman at a baptism. I decided I should have dated a dork in high school.”

And Paranormalcy by Kiersten White:

“White’s perky-yet-tough narrator Evie convinced me that tasing people is fun. Too bad the cops disagreed.”

Check out everyone else’s here.

What's In A Name?

I don’t have any children, but if I ever do, I hope I spend as much time considering their names as I did the names of the characters in my book.

(Although, naming children freaks me out a bit. At least with characters, you know the personality you’re attaching to the name. You can slap an Egor on a smokin’ hot dude and know he’ll turn out OK. For kids? Choose the wrong name and you could doom them to a lifetime of misspellings—see Tracey versus the ever-annoying Tracy—or worse. Fifteen years down the line you could be crying at night, Why didn’t I just stick with Kate?!?)

But, right, characters. I knew I had a point here. When I started brainstorming and taking notes on my current WIP, I knew the main boy character’s name would be Eli. When I got the spark of the idea, he was there as Eli. I never considered he might be a Mark or Luke or anything else. He was Eli.

My main character? She kind of went through an identity crisis. In all of my notes, she’s called Wren. I liked the name. It seemed to fit her. But as I went along, I realized she was not a Wren. In fact, I couldn’t even think of her as Wren anymore—it just didn’t fit. (That’s why half of my notes talk about her as Wren and the other half reference her as Alex—not to fool would-be idea thieves, as you might imagine.)

Once I switched her name to Alex she seemed real.

And it’s important. As much as I’d like to think I could name my goody-goody character Lucifer without having readers think of Satan while reading my book, I don’t believe that’s the case. We all have certain memories attached to names that color the characters before the author has a chance to.

That’s why it has to be perfect. That’s why it needs to be deliberate.

That’s why Wren didn’t belong in my story.

How do you choose your characters’ names? Ever misnamed one by accident? Even more important: Ever named your child something and wanted a takeback?

Safe Haven

There are certain words that should not be used together. (No I’m not talking about “we’re out of bread pudding,” though those words most definitely should not be used together.)

I’m talking about words that don’t make sense if you speak English. Which I do.

When I was in journalism school, I took a copyediting class that changed the way I wrote. And it also changed how I edited, which I think made me a more thorough yet less likeable editor.

Anyhow. Two words were nails on the chalkboard to my professor and are now nails on the chalkboard to me: safe haven.

I cringe at the mention of a safe haven. I want to scribble all over the word safe whenever I read the phrase. I want to scream, “A HAVEN IS A SAFE PLACE!” at the top of my lungs.

Sure, this sounds ah-mazing: It was her safe haven.

But what you’re really saying is this: It was her safe safe place.

Even Word, which never fails to underline grammatically correct phrases with its annoying squiggles, knows this is wrong.

So for the love of everything haven-like, drop the safe. Or change it to safe place.

The final end.

The In Between

The first draft is done. Those words flew out my brain almost faster than I can type. (Almost. I’m a speedy typist.) And now…

… I wait.

… I congratulate myself.

… I tell my sister.

… I tell The Man.

… we do a happy dance.

… I eat an extra dessert.

… I decide that one scene needs to be longer.

… and the scene where you-know-who does you-know-what needs to go.

… I realize there are a lot of blanks I’m going to need to fill in.

… I understand that my love interest is boring.

… and I need to give him more of a personality.

… if I bother editing.

… this sucks.

Right. So I’m going through the in-between moment where I’m staying away from my WIP for several weeks. Yet it’s constantly in my head, which is annoying at times. (Like when someone’s trying to have a real conversation with me and that someone expects a response.) It’s at this time that the self-doubt sets in.

Maybe it’s horrible. Maybe it’s boring. Maybe it’s the most horrible and most boring novel EVER WRITTEN!!!! (Yes, that’s a four exclamation point kind of emotion.) Then I realize that 1) Walden is the most boring book ever written and I’m sorry if you love Henry David Thoreau, but it’s a fact. And 2) I must write better than a celebrity (coughcoughSnookicoughcough) and I feel better.

And then my sister says she loves it. And I feel a lot better. Even if it’s just my sister.

I will edit this. I will right the wrongs. I will add and subtract and dish out personalities like Halloween candy.

What do you during your In Between? Read? Start another story? Watch bad TV? Hibernate?

Freedom to Suck

The hardest part of starting a novel for me was letting go of my perfectionism and being OK with my utter suckiness. At the start—back when I was clawing my eyes out over the first chapter—I couldn’t move on until every word was just right.

But then I saw this video from the All Powerful Maureen Johnson. I thought, “Hm, wildly successful authors have sucky first drafts? Seriously?”

And then I watched it again just to be sure there were no footnotes that said “Ha Ha—loser! My first drafts never suck. If yours do, you’re not cut out to be an author! Ha ha ha ha ha ha.” I imagined that last part scrolling across the screen as Maureen Johnson repeated the word suckitude.

Good thing she was not kidding. Her writing sucks at the start. Other writers have said their writing sucks at the start. Natalie Whipple just posted something on this yesterday and guess what? Her writing sucks at the start. So why can’t I let mine? (Let’s be honest: It’s going to anyways.)

Maybe there are geniuses out there who sneeze onto a piece of paper and 20 years in the future eager lit students study it for their thesis. But most people are not geniuses. I am not a genius.

I will suck at first. I’m okay with that.

Are you?

I Hear Voices

Not literally, okay? I know, you were probably worrying about me after that title. I swear, I’m totally sane.

I’m talking about music. At my day job as a nonfiction writer, I can’t listen to music. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing an article about diabetes, superfoods or eye shadow trends. I can’t do it. Something about hearing voices while I try to lay down the facts and reference multiple documents of transcribed interviews makes my writing suck. And my head explode. I could deal with the latter, but sucky writing? No way.

Anyway, when I started writing my current WIP I vowed to do so in silence. The Man had other thoughts.

He cranked the game so loud I had to plug my ears with headphones just to drown the announcers out. And then I realized I liked listening to music while writing. It got me in the mood. After a while, I barely noticed it. Now I need it.

The Man likes to say this revelation should be credited to him, like he knew all along how much music would help my writing.

I let him think that. He’ll be cursing his brilliance when I start revising and he becomes a widower.

What about you: Music on or off? Any songs I should add to my playlist?