All posts by Amber

You Do NOT Have To Save the World

Antics, Events, My Reads, Writing, , ,

On VivaScriva.com, a blog about critique and the writing process, I recently blogged about using Publisher’s Marketplace to get a handle on what kinds of manuscripts are and are not selling in today’s YA market.  (Get the nitty gritty details here.)  These patterns are still dominating my thoughts.

Even as the number of titles featuring zombies, dystopias, ghosts, murders, etc have surged, peaked, and ebbed, I’ve notice one thing that doesn’t seem to be changing.  There are a whole lot of main characters who have to, at least according to the log line, SAVE THE FREAKING WORLD.  Think Bruce Willis plus asteroids for the YA set.   Confession: I’ve written log lines like this for my own book.  (Hangs head in shame.  Plans to revise.)

As a fan, I love epic fantasy, but as a reader and writer, I’m captivated by fully-fleshed, step-off-the-page-real characters.  Hence my love for THE FAULT IN OUR STARS by John Green and CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein.  The characters in these books are heroic.  They are heroic because they live richly and die bravely.  They don’t have to save the world.

Real teens live many lives–protected and dangerous, religious and not, lonely and social, quiet and loud, painful and triumphant–but very few of them have to single-handedly deflect an astroid from hitting Earth and thus save all humankind.  They just don’t.

They often have to survive terrible things and books can buoy them up.  (If you weren’t immersed in the loud and raucous #YAsaves conversation last year, this link will get you up to speed.)  They also like to have fun (one of the reasons I often prefer spending time with teens rather than adults).  Fun in real life and fun in reading.

Last night I attended to book launch for POISON, the debut YA novel by the late Bridget Zinn.  The tag line reads “Can she save the kingdom with a piglet?”  That’s right!  WITH A PIGLET!  What follows is about as far from the doom-and-gloom of the recent rush of teens-killing-teens as you can get.  Think THE PRINCESS BRIDE–good, silly fun.

It’s a good reminder in these dark days of YA that we can write stories about characters who don’t have to save the world.  All they–and we–have to do is create authentic lives, whatever that may look like.  And like Bridget, we should try to leave something good behind.

My heros (and genuinely FUN adults): the YA literati of Portland launching Bridget’s book with cupcakes and good cheer

 

I love THE 500 HATS OF BARTHOLOMEW CUBBINS

Antics, My Reads,

I’ve had Dr. Seuss on the brain of late (like the rest of the kidlit and elementary school world, I suppose).  When most people think of the good doctor-ish doctor, they think about his mastery of rhyme and meter and his scrumptastic made-up words.

And yes, yes, yes, I love all that (especially the spooky pale green pants with nobody inside ’em), but it is, perhaps, easy to forget that Master Seuss was also a master storyteller.

So today I offer you THE 500 HATS OF BARTHOLOMEW CUBBINS.  It’s got a perfect story arc, great characters that evoke strong emotions, and lots of beautiful, symbolic pairings (the view up and the view down the valley, for example).

This is one of my favorites by Dr. Seuss and this is the actual tattered cover of the copy I’ve had for nearly forty years.  Pages are starting to fall out and I guess I’ll have to replace it but as the kids and I were reading it last night, I thought:

You can look high and low,
You can look far and near,
But the book that you want,
Is this one right here!

This weekend, my husband and I attended our kids’ school auction, which was a Dr. Seuss themed extravaganza.  Here’s a peek at my whimsical, Seussical attire.  Too bad it’s hard to make out that I chalked my hair pink.  I’m sure Dr. S would’ve approved.

My particular kind of crazy

Antics

I’ve been throwing around the word “crazy” this week.

I lobbed it at the friend who thinks it would be a good idea to speed walk 26 miles in the desert with a loaded pack (aka the race called the Bataan Death March).

I flung it after my kids as they walked to the bus this morning wearing a rainbow afro wig (the son) and oversized, black-rimmed glass with attached plush unibrow (the daughter).

I claimed it myself as I acknowledged that having a flock of 14 chickens producing 8 eggs a day and consuming many pounds of super expensive organic layer pellets may have been excessive and financially imprudent.

(I have many more ludicrous and uniquely Amber oddities that those who know and love me tolerate, but which I leave undiscussed for your own protection.  There are things you can’t un-know!)

And I’ll apply the term to this Magnificent Frigatebird, which evolution has preposterously endowed with an inflatable red pouch that males use in enticing ways for the satisfaction of nearby ladies.

I first saw this bird when I was 24 years old and traveling alone in Costa Rica.  I’d gotten up before dawn to hike from a field station in the jungle to a remote  beach on the Penisula de Nicoya.

Squeaking, chittering, buzzing, and whistling rose with the light.  I shivered, walking underneath a troop of howler monkeys, dark, looming shapes in the morning mist.  I was young and alone in a world of wonders.

The sun was fully up as I stepped onto a crescent of golden sand.  The charging sea stretched before me, and a Magnificent Frigatebird soared overhead, slicing an infinitely fine path through space and time.  It seemed to me, as I stood at the very juncture of earth, sea, and sky, that I was also on the verge of infinite possibilities–the edge of everything.

And thus we return to my particular kind of crazy.  I like to feel things and feel them deeply.  I want to devour everything.  I push limits.  I embrace the edge, and if I need to do it in an rainbow wig with an inflatable sex toy on my chest, so be it.

What’s your crazy?

One true thing

Writing, ,

Much of the time writing is NOT fun.  In fact, at a recent writing retreat with my critique group, Viva Scriva, Liz R. and I were discussing the things we like to do more than writing (at least when we’re in the slog phase).  Much debate there was over cleaning toilets (me: prefer over writing; her: less than writing) and laundry (both: prefer), etc.

When I’m deep in a draft (or more typically in revision), my fingers are typing away while I’m thinking things like move that clause to the front, pick a better verb, and describe more viscerally.  I plunk away for a page or two then I check twitter or each a piece of dried coconut (me: prefer eating to writing).  Then I get back to it.  Hours later I’ve laid down a couple thousand words or revised a few chapters.

But sometimes, I find the flow of it.  I become my characters and they take me places I don’t expect.  I inhabit my scene as fully as I inhabit these pajamas and this desk chair.  When this happens, I ride the wave through and often find, much to my amazement, that I have written ONE TRUE THING.  Maybe just a sentence or an exchange of dialogue or a description that captures something’s essence exactly, the ONE TRUE THING is enough to keep me going day after day, page after page.

May it happen for you.

Play + Movement + Service + Friends = HAPPY (the movie)

Antics, ,

I know I blog a lot about being angsty.  I like to rely on Ralph Keyes assessment that if you’re not a bit angsty and anxious, you’re not much of a writer, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to feel better a lot of the time. Hence, I paid careful attention to HAPPY, the movie.

You should watch this.

NOW!

It summarizes several decades of “positive psychology” aka happiness and yields some serious gold.

About 50% of happiness can be explained by genetics. That means each of us have a set point that has a strong genetic component.  I get that my set point for happiness is lower than that of say my uber-exercising, perennially-positive editor friend (you know who you are).  I can deal with that.

About 10% of happiness (ONLY 10%!!!!!!!!) can be explained by wealth, health, and success.

The other 40% — well, it’s up to us.

And apparently the formula is simple.  Play + Movement + Service + Friends = HAPPY

Who’s with me?

Twitter, we need to talk. You’re making me crazy!

Antics,

Dear Twitter,

I love you AND I hate you.  We’ve been together for a couple of years now.  Together we’ve sent over 5,000 missives, but we’ve got to talk.  It’s not working any more.

  • I love it when I get to have real conversations however short or silly with others.
  • I value the links to articles, blogs, links, and quotes I never would have found on my own.
  • I need the camaraderie of other writers in the trenches through word count sprints, commiseration about writing process, and encouragement.
  • I relish the shared silly and mutual geek outs that we share.

But I hate (or at least dislike) some things too.

  • Listening to famous authors, agents, and editors talk to each other about their cocktail plans is like overhearing to the in crowd talk as if the rest of us weren’t present.
  • Hearing the good news, huge deals, and movie options of people I don’t know is demoralizing when I’m down in the dumps.  (When I’m up, I’m into the cheering, and when it’s someone I know, I’ll celebrate no matter how down I am.)
  • Minutia–need I say more?  Don’t tell me about breakfast or your empty kleenex box.
  • Those ads and blatant book sales pitches you send my way do nothing but irritate.
  • But most of all, I’ve realized that you’re only showing me a small slice of the world–writers and their brethren.

In the beginning, when we were swept away by the heady intoxication of new love, I yearned to immerse myself in your flood.  I followed and was followed.  I spent way to much giddy time in your arms.  But now, Twitter, things have got to change.  I need more of what I like and less of what I dislike.  Here’s the way it’s going to be now.

I’ve revamped my lists and used twitlistmanager to put my people where they belong.  I’ve got private lists for my real life friends and for people I’ve made a real connection with online.  Using Tweetdeck, I can have columns for each of these lists.  Skimming them first gives me the connection I so love about you, Twitter.

So I can keep the information flowing (and share the good stuff), I have public lists for writing resources (publishing houses, literary organizations, and individuals that are good aggregators of information) and book bloggers.   I also have a public list of editors, agents, and the literati (big names).  If I feel like scanning, that’s good, but I avoid if depressed.  Since I’m on the advisory board for SCBWI-Oregon, I have a public list of our members because I like to be able to spread the word about this talented group.

Finally, Twitter, I think we need to branch out, maybe open our relationship a little.  I’m planning to spend more time with other hashtags, ones that have nothing to do with writing.  So if you catch me winking at #archery, #muaythai, and #nordic, don’t get jealous.   Perhaps it can even add a little spice to our life!

With love,

A

 

Dealing with failure in a business full of NOs

Writing, ,

Choosing the writing life means choosing to put yourself up for rejection over and over again.  Why do we do this?  Are we lunatics better suited to religious practices that involve self-immolation?

I don’t know why.  But it’s hard to get rejected, reviewed, and critiqued day in and day out.  Sometimes I roll with it.  Sometimes I despair.  If you are in the despair phase, here are some places to turn.

Dave Gessner offers us the middle finger approach, which I heartily advocate.

Though I am not particularly proud of it, one way that I respond to being told my work is unwanted is by getting angry, rejecting my rejections… So what do we do with this energy, angry or not?  One thing we can do it write.  Better, sharper stories than before.  We look rejection coldly in the eye and say, “No, that’s not true,” or sometimes “Yes, maybe that’s a little true….I’ve got to get better at that.”  We write regularly, daily, with a calm fury.  We show the bastards.  

READ MORE HERE.

In a decidedly more therapeutic vein, agent Rachelle Gardner offers these five suggestions:

  1. Reframe the failure and look at it as simply part of the process.
  2. Accept that any endeavor worth trying will involve some risk and experimentation, and hence, failure.
  3. Use every failure as an opportunity to reassess what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Figure out how to do it better next time.
  4. Realize that if you’re not failing sometimes, you may not be taking enough risks or pushing yourself hard enough.
  5. Just keep getting back up, knowing you’re smarter now than you were before the failure.

READ THE ENTIRE POST HERE.

Finally, I offer this suggestion.  Remember that you are not alone.  Find your people and commiserate.  Read the worst rejection letters.  Pick up THE WRITERS BOOK OF HOPE by Ralph Keyes.  Join Kristen Lamb and the #myWANA peeps on Twitter.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE.  (I’m there with you in a fetal position, slurping whiskey from a sippy cup and sticking a pen in my eye.)

When writers read: inspiration, encouragement, or despair?

My Reads, Writing,

In recent weeks, my pile of books-I-want-to-read-because-I-want-to has been greatly neglected.  As some of you know, I continue to be dogged (or whaled) by 493 pages of Herman Melville’s weird-not-really-a-novel treatise on whaling, Moby Dick, which I have been trying to finish for five months.  (Thank god for the Moby Dick Big Read.)  In addition, I’ve had a number of work-related manuscripts to read for colleagues as well as reading for research on a new nonfiction project.

I think my eclectic reading of late has been good for my writing because it is so different in content, style and approach.  It helps avoid issues of syntactic persistence, about which I’ve blogged elsewhere.  However, I have missed disappearing into a truly extraordinary piece of fiction.  So it was with relish that I opened John Green‘s The Fault in Our Stars.

It lives up to every starred review and glowing commendation, but I can’t blog here about how I responded to this book as a human, especially in the wake of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary.  Too much is raw and painful for me.

Rather than dissect the inner workings of my broken heart, I want to comment on how what I read influences my writing life.

Sometimes I read a book and I am inspired to try and write something that good.

Or I am encouraged that I have the ability to write something at least as good as that.

Or I wish I’d written that book (and believe that I probably could have).

Or–as in the case of The Fault in Our Stars–I despair at ever writing anything even a fraction as true and perfect.

Sigh.

Maybe I should stick to being a reader.

 

 

 

Ideas into stories–the compost/rock tumbler approach

Writing, ,
Photo by Kevin Fleming

Perhaps the question most frequently asked of authors is Where do you get your ideas?

When I heard William Gibson speak,  he said that he imagines he has a compost bin attached to the back of his head.  He throws things in there–articles, snippets of conversation, images, experiences–and eventually they knock together enough to transmogrify into something new.

When Laini Taylor launched DAYS OF BLOOD AND STARLIGHT, the wildly inventive sequel to DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE, she talked about how stories are born when many ideas crash together.

Sometimes I carry ideas around in my back pocket for a very long time.  One in particular–a scene with a broken-winged heron–has been very persistent.  I tried to make it into a picture book, which earned me my “worst critique ever” experience.  (After reading it, Big NY Agent told me that I couldn’t write.)  I rewrote it a bunch of times, but it never really worked.  I think it’s not a big enough idea to graduate into “story” status.  It needed transmogrification.

I was gleeful when I realized that–with a complete overhaul–the heron and the emotion behind the image could be woven into the novel I’m currently writing.  The idea will emerge from the head-bin completely different than went in but it has not been lost.

It’s at times like these when the writing process becomes alchemy–a little bit of magic in real life.