Don’t stop writing every day, no matter what! If I’d had a glimmer of how hard it would be to come back, I wouldn’t have given myself so many excuses! Okay, so now that I’m done beating myself up, what made me think of blogging again? Those WordPress guys do send an email once a year saying we’re going to charge some money to your credit card. You don’t mind, do you? I read the email and thought about blogging and quickly went back to revision hell. Yes, I will finish this book!

Occasionally, I do come out of my personalized version of the foggy moors to go to a writing thing. The SCBWI is one of my favorite haunts. I love the Sisters in Crime folks too. I went to Bouchercon in Cleveland last fall. (Unfortunately, that’s where I hurt my shoulder.) This weekend I went over to the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland for the first time in about six years. I don’t often make it to the Maryland Writers Association events but I always read their emails and a couple of weeks ago, there was one about a humor workshop that would be taught by Laura Oliver. One Saturday afternoon off, I decided, would not break my slow writing tempo.

Laura is a great teacher. She had good videos including one of Ellen D. doing a stand-up about procrastination. I’ll enjoy trying out her techniques. She has a book out now too called The Story Within which I’ll recommend to my students because it’s a good inspirational book.

I always come away with something when I go to these workshops, a tip about this or that. What I find is most useful though, is how they feel. There’s nothing like talking with other writer’s to remind you how much you love writing. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Beginning of this year, I just didn’t do it. I let myself wallow in the dumps. Looking back, I imagine that was probably all that I could do and it didn’t seem like a good idea to torture myself with writing when I could barely get myself to work every day.

Second quarter, will I go into the locker room with some momentum? I try but life gets in the way and I’m preoccupied with family issues. I’m not dead in the water. I’m just not moving as much as I should.

Third quarter, I go for the gold. I go to a writer’s conference and even sign up for an agent review. This was gustsy since I’d been fumbling the ball and should have been finished with my revisions. Unfortunately, I wasn’t because of Mom duties and all. The only other time I took my children’s manuscript out into the public eye had been last fall and that hadn’t been pleasant. But we writers are hearty stock. I go to the SCBWI conference and meet a great agent who has great ideas to help my manuscript. The problem is, I’m still not off the bench. I’ve been staggering through this past year, writing a bit here and there, and I’ve lost my writing-everyday habit. What was I thinking?

First quarter, you dummy, I say to myself. How could you not remember how hard it was to get the habit in the first placc. Writing has always been theraputic for me. I learned that lesson from my music. The act of “creating” has always felt good. Emotionally, it’s akin to that high I used to feel when I would run a couple of miles. I should have forced myself to write.

Second quarter, you  dummy, I say to myself. When are you going to stop letting other people get you off track? I should have forced myself to write.

Third quarter, that’s more like it, almost. I’m not in full swing. I need to establish my routine again. I’ve tried varying my schedule to allow for writing at different times of the day but that hasn’t been working. I’m still not done with the blasted revision of the book. This might be a time when I would set the book aside in the past. With a great agent waiting in the wings, at least I hope she’s still waiting or at least open to my submission, I need to finish.

Here’s a link to a blog I received today. http://cast-light.com/2012/09/22/start-now/  

What more can I say?

Had a critique session with agent Molly Jaffa which was great, too. Decided it was not a pitch session and that seemed to work well. She gave me a good critque with much needed advice on how to deal with the beginning and a thumbs up on the concept of the book, thank goodness. I’ve talked to only one other agent about my kid’s book and he was quite a disappointment. I may have been off because my mom was so sick but just didn’t seem like he knew much about what was going on. Hey, even losing her voice, Molly gave a ton of excellent advice to me personally and in her break-out and panel sessions.

Everything is so personal with a regional conference, you end up talking to editors and authors while you’re eating lunch or just hanging around. Enjoyed meeting everybody!Richard Peck was very accessible and I think the kids really missed out when he stopped teaching.  From work on beginning lines and beginning pages to the big picture, loved hearing him talk about micro editing and high concept. Take this bit, if a lead character hasn’t found his voice by page 40, he figures he has the wrong character in the lead. Never heard anyone give that advice before, but yeah, I get it. Also, was invited to a new critque group.

Lots to work on, so signing off now. Always know it’s been a good investment of time when I’m anxious to try out all the good advice!

I did have that same experience for the first time maybe about six months ago? It was the younger version of one of my main characters in Miss Bascom which I’m planning on revising again. He was just outside a restaurant a few blocks from my house leaning against a post, looking at his phone. I wasn’t too surprised to see him. I did set the book in my neighborhood and I probably saw him sometime before I wrote the book and just didn’t remember. I don’t normally base my characters on anyone outside of my imagination but I guess it’s natural to remember a “type” or some such. I felt like going over and knocking the phone from his hand because it looked so unnatural to me.  In the early 1980′s, he wouldn’t have been using a cell phone – I don’t think they were even around yet. But there he was, probably sending a message to one of his “girls”. Miss Bascom would have had a fit! 

Anyway, chill friends. A small vacation from writing is a good thing too as long as it’s just a vacation.

I previously did do a little research before I choose her for the SCBWI conference because I wanted to make sure she might be interested in my tween fantasy novel. Some agents who represent children’s books only do YA or middlegrade and some of them dislike fantasy for some reason. I suppose that’s a result of too many neck-biters. Okay, so somewhere between talking to a friend about a make-over for my postage stamp front yard (evergreens are growing over the windows) and deciding if Earl Weaver (you need to be a baseball fan here) is worth cooking in 100+ degree heat, I googled Molly Jaffa.

The few times I’ve queried agents since I dumped my bad one (that was for a mystery I wrote pre-Hopkins), I always take a look at their literary agency’s internet site. If they don’t have one or have a minimalistic approach to a website, I think that’s a good sign that they aren’t looking for clients or if they are, I should probably look for another agent. Ms. Jaffa has a good bit of information on her page – yeah, that probably means she’s looking for clients! Take a look!

http://foliolit.com/molly-jaffa/

Now I remember. She says she likes “fantastical” but no werewolves or vampires which leaves my book in the “okay” territory. And she also likes books that introduce the reader to a new world and “Stories featuring characters with strong passions, talents, or smarts – or characters in search of theirs – resonate with me.” All this is to the good because I already know that she’s a member of ARA -Association of Authors’ Representatives - which is a must.  Also, I’ve heard plenty about the Folio Literary Agency which I take as a very good sign, of course that’s a risk too since this would will be my first published book and I might be too inexperienced for them. I’ve already signed up for the session so I decided I’ll just have to do my best.

From her agency’s website I’m jotting down, no typical fantasy creatures or animal characters, social issues, historical fantasy, main character’s unrealized talents. Her favorite all-time books includes a childhood favorite of mine, A Wrinkle in Time. That’s a good talking point and I’ve been meaning to read, The Astonishing World of Octavia Nothing which might give me a good reference point for my book(s). I put the “s” on there since I’ve unfortunately or fortunately written the draft of book number two  in the series since the idea germinated during Nanowrimo the year after I drafted the first book.

I also look at interviews that show up when I google an agent and keep track of how current those interviews are. There’s an excellent one by O’Neale dated February 2012. I’ve revised enough so I don’t have her typical turnoffs in my manuscript but it sounds like she wants the writing to be “pristine” so I’ll plan on telling her I can’t send the manuscript until I’m done with another revision “scrub.” She sounds very professional which once again is good and bad. Still I like her style and I need to be more professional in my approach too if I’m going to get this book published. She also says she likes to edit a book several times which is fine with me.

At this point, I have a little more background and I’ve decided to take a break and read my most recent Poets & Writers mag and there’s Molly Jaffa again with a great new hair style. The article is about Folio and how the agency works. Once again, the professionalism of the agency impresses me. I’ll need to add something to the pitch to sweeten the idea of working with me if I’m going to have a chance. And I’ve got it! A short conversation I had last November with Lin Oliver at the end of a breakout session at another SCBWI conference. An editor from Scholastic who was listening in certainly did seem like she was interested so that might be a good lead for an agent. I know Scholastic published Harry Potter but I’ll need to check out some of their other titles to see how my book might fit into their list. “My book is a cross between Harry Potter (My main character is also male and has had a rough start in life) and…” Well, maybe not Harry Potter, that does sound presumptuous on my part and the first Harry book is sort of fairy-tale like while mine is more rooted in a contemporary world or somewhere inbetween. 

I have fifteen minutes at this conference but I think that I should be able to do my initial pitch in a one-liner, or at least that’s what I’ve heard. That’s where I’ll start. I have a lot to think about!  Later…

I haven’t done an outline since then because I wanted to keep the spark in my writing but I think that I always end up working on my plot before I’m done. Organic translates into chaos for me. In my classes, I ask my students to write a short bio for their main character, too. This is a great way to keep track of  your characters so they don’t end up with a different hometown or even a different name!  Eventually, maybe I’ll come up with a way of putting a book together that works on every book.  Right now that doesn’t seem to be the right answer for me.  Each book seems to have its own way of growing from those first couple of ideas that I put together.  Until then, I’ll keep trying all of those great ideas that seem to pop up! 

Here’s a link from Martina Boone that has some interesting tools.

http://diymfa.com/2012/06/11/plot-vs-character-leaving-room-for-magic-guest-post-by-martina-boone/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+diymfa+(DIY+MFA)&utm_content=Google+Reader

My literary (adult) novel came back recently and I’m anxious to get back to it for revisions that will take the quality of the book up a notch.  I had an idea this weekend about how to handle the point of view which was long over due! Still, for revision sake, immersion in the genre I’m working on at the time helps keep me on track. I’ve been reading YA and middle grade. The best so far is the Hunger Games. I was completely overwhelmed by how Collins pulls the reader through the story and glad to see that a best seller was so well written. It’s been a while since I’ve been so impressed. I was even thankful for the Kindle app which allowed me to pull down the last two books when I couldn’t get to a book store. Last summer I did read George R.R. Martin’s books (fantasy) since I remembered when he won the Omni short story contest so well. That’s been some time ago when I was single and living in Chicago. My sister’s first husband let me borrow his copy of Omni. (I was very poor!) He was (is?) a voracious reader but was more interested because George was his Northwestern roommate. With his success on HBO, I was curious about the books.  Quite a wonderful, complex world he’s created but honestly, those thousand page books should be edited down, don’t you think? 

The first two dreadful books that I wrote before I went to Hopkins were mysteries. My mom liked them but others thought they needed a lot of work but I did come close to getting one accepted by a small publisher and had a read-thru by a larger publisher. Some day, I may revise them and put them out into the electronic world for those voracious mystery readers. I was hoping that I would be done with the tween book and have early fall for my revisions to Infidelity because I want to work on a mystery during NANOWRIMO. I started one last year and just couldn’t focus because of my mom. May not be able to drag myself away from Infidelity (first drafted in 2007). We’ll see.

This is a very me-me-me post! Just remembered that I still haven’t responded to one of my students about her story and that is well over a month ago- ouch! I’ll do that tomorrow. (Today, I’m off to play with one of my musical groups at Fort McHenry for the 1812 celebration)  I had two reasons for this post – first, one of my new followers commented that he would like to know what I write. (My published works are short stories and poetry in literary mags and anthologies.)

The second reason was because of an article I read in the Guardian this morning. It’s an article about economics and made me think very Margaret Atwood-ish. Infidelity does gently question the American Dream. I have thought for some time that I would like to write a sharper-edged story – not so far in the future as some of Ms Atwood’s books and not about technology. More about how much is enough. That will be an epic I imagine so best not to work on until I’m retired and also not subject to rules about writing about the government!   http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jun/15/how-much-skidelsky-money-sandel?CMP=twt_gu   Take a look!

This is where I’m supposed to say that I’ve already put in three hours of writing. But no, I didn’t write even though I’m late sending my sample for a critique session in July. I read email, I read Twitter, I read Facebook and focused on Jay Gatsby and my niece’s wedding pictures. And I can’t say that I don’t have any ideas, I’m full of them. So, what am I doing updating my blog?????  Talk to you later…

I’m not sure how much any of these books influenced me but I am glad that at least part of the time I read “good literature”.  My plots might be stronger if Nancy Drew books had influenced my writing the most, but I don’t think I could say the same for my prose. The other day while I was reading twitter posts, I ran across an article, I think it was in The Guardian, where once again an author was reminding writers to read. The advice is so obvious that I think we sometimes forget how important it is. Here’s a list that I like from a few years ago that includes many of my “postmodern” favorites.  Enjoy!  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/07/the-mostly-complete-annotated-and-essential-postmodern-reading-list.html

Quite a while ago, I went to a reading by some mystery authors at Johns Hopkins where one of the presenters had written a book with child abuse in it. Having children of my own, I couldn’t even begin to read his book after his talk. Not surprisingly, many “how-to” books discourage writing about such topics even if the actual acts appear off stage.

I guess that this little discussion is a reminder for my class notes that when you’re trying to talk about creative writing topics, it’s very hard to separate them.  I usually do tell my little classes that everything works together, so feel free to go back and change your character, plot, whatever, when you see that it doesn’t all fit together. I’ve written a number of draft novels and I can tell you that when it becomes “whole” you can tell. That’s when I have been known to do my Dr. Frankenstein act!

More tomorrow when I talk about what I intended to talk about today – how to teach characterization.