A Writer's Advice Taken - OR - My NaNoWriMo Quest

On his website, in answer to the question "Do you have any advice for writers?" Chris Cleave (author of the phenomenal "Little Bee") writes, in part, "...think of yourself as a storyteller, rather than a capital-W Writer or a capital-N Novelist."

I've been working on an idea for months now.  I've jotted notes, written paragraphs, organized chapters, even created an outline.  Thought I had it all figured out.  So last night, as I continued my NaNoWriMo quest (National Novel Writing Month - check it out here), I remembered Chris' words, and decided to give it a try.

Stilled my fingers.  Closed my eyes.  Pictured myself sitting in a cozy chair, telling a story to a good friend.  And began typing.  400 words later I hit on something.  And realized that it had worked.  I actually had butterflies in my stomach.  This is exciting.  If you ever find yourself stuck, try this technique.  Sometimes, we find ourselves trying to mold our story/essay/book/poem into a pre-created mold.  That doesn't always work.  Instead, clear your mind of rules and expectations, and just...tell your story.

I am now at 2,900 words and still telling my story ; )

Got any good tricks for writing or writer's block?  What's your secret to getting an idea down on paper?

The Value of a (Critique) Group or How Big Did You Say It Was?

I like the idea of groups.  Google+ calls them Circles.  Facebook calls them Friends.  There is value in connecting with peers, family, friends, like-minded individuals (you get the idea).

I have been lucky enough to be included in a new Writers' Critique Group (thanks Linda!)  Five women from various backgrounds, ages and stages of life, who bring their own unique writing styles and personalities to our little cluster of soft-backed, sturdy chairs (if you read Sioux's recent post, you know why this group of ours requires a certain functionality in our seating).

I am honored to be a part of this group.  I talk a lot.  But then, I can't help it.  Their writing excites me.  It excites me to read it, it excites me to think about all the ideas and the possibilities, to be exposed to different genres and styles.  And because I come from a Marketing background, I am all about the concepting, the group ideation, especially when it involves chocolate cake (thanks again, Lynn!).

If you find yourself in the enviable position to join such a group.  If you decide you'd like to start one, or be a part of one, or just check out what all the fuss is about, you should definitely do so.  I personally guarantee that it will help your writing, and increase your confidence in what you bring to the (coffee) table, but you just may find a group of people that you enjoy being around. You'll certainly spend a few hours a week (or month) honing your craft. If you're lucky, you'll laugh a little (thanks Tammy!), and you just might stretch beyond the boundaries of your comfort zone and try a new genre or two.

A few pointers for joining (or starting) a critique group of your own:

1. Surround yourself with writers who are at or near your level of writing.  Some might be stronger, some might not have as much experience, and each of them might write for a different genre (fiction, no-fiction, memoir, etc.). This way, you can learn from each other.

2. Come prepared.  Bring a copy of your piece for each person in the group.  Double space to allow room for group members to write comments.

3. Have a game plan.  Set aside the first few minutes of your first meeting to go over the plan.  Will you each read aloud from your work?  Will everyone read your work silently?  Who should start the critique? Should you work your way around the circle so that each person has a dedicated time to speak, or just speak out when you have a thought?  Is the person being critiqued allowed to speak - or only listen?

4.  Create limits.  On the size of the piece you are bringing: I way overstepped mine last night and brought 5 pages.  My apologies, girls.  I think 2-3 pages is quite enough, and I promise to follow this rule in the future! And also on the time you meet: approx. two hours should do it. One hour just isn't enough, and 3 hours...well, who has 3 hours?

5. Use the sandwich approach.  It's helpful to sandwich your critique of someone's work between two positive comments (i.e. "love your writing style!  Your dialogue isn't really working for me, it doesn't sound "real," but your ending is great).  Having been through several college writing courses, I've developed a fairly thick skin, and personally, I don't need niceties (unless of course they are truly sincere and worthy) and really believe I am in this group to learn something - I want my work torn apart so I can put it back together stronger and hopefully ready to shop out.  That said, it's always nice to get a compliment, and if you're just starting out, it can be very helpful.

Ever been in a great writing group? If you've got ideas, thoughts or advice from your own experiences, I'd love for you to share in the comments below...

To Andre Dubus: Happy Birthday. And Thanks...

Today is the late Andre Dubus' birthday. I acknowledge this because Dubus was the first author whose short fiction I read, and loved, and felt I understood. I'd read short stories before his. In fact, let me take you back to 2004. Creative Writing (Fiction) class with Prof. Steve Lattimore. I'm a 32 year old writing major. I love to write, I love to read, but I am just now learning to study a work of fiction, to think about it, to take it apart and piece it back together.

Ours was a small class; about 10 students sitting around a big table, in a 2nd floor classroom in an old, white house that had been converted to house the English Department. Each class, we'd assemble to discuss the previous week's assigned story. And each week, I sat quietly, listening to my peers (many of whom were 10 years younger than I was) dissect and discuss the story. How are they getting that out of this story? I would think to myself. I either liked it or I didn't. It either held my attention or brought on a case of ADD whereby I'd have to reread full paragraphs.

But several weeks into the class, Lattimore assigned "The Fat Girl."

I got it. Finally. Not because I could relate to the main character (those of you who know me will laugh at that thought), but because Dubus had a gift. He created characters who were neither all good, nor all bad. His protagonists were regular people with regular problems, real emotions. They screwed up, they made mistakes, but they each had a fair shot at redemption. Dubus made us like them even more for their humanity.

After Dubus, Prof. Lattimore fed us Raymond Carver ("Cathedral), Tim O'Brien ("The Things They Carried) and Graham Greene ("The Quiet American"). Smart man. Really great stuff from truly talented writers.

But I digress, Dubus did so eloquently what I can only hope to do someday. And that is to tell a fantastic story in short form (a very difficult task, I assure you) that makes us feel, think, hope, cringe, gasp, smile...even cry. And most importantly, to remember.

I am grateful to Prof. Lattimore for introducing me to such talent (or am I? These are big shoes for any writer), and grateful to Andre Dubus for helping me, finally, to get it.

Tiny Hypocrisies .... Big Truths

OpenSalon.com has a call out for essays on the topic: Tiny Hypocrisies.

Got one?

I certainly do. The "tiny" part, I'm not so sure of...but the Hypocrisy's true enough. One in particular. But damn, do I struggle with the truth. Only as a writer, mind you.

I pride myself on being a very honest person. Maybe that's because I don't lie well (not since I was sixteen, anyway...I had a knack for it back then). My hands get clammy, my face turns red, I stutter...If I could lie well, I have to admit that I wouldn't be so honest. See? There I go again!

But I digress. Truth is the crux of a writer's world. Truth is what makes the words come alive, the emotions jump off the page...it's what gives our essays and stories soul.

And here is my struggle: as a writer, how much do I reveal? Some writers are just so good at it (Chris Cleave comes to mind). Some writers can throw down the deepest, darkest secrets with such...confidence (Jean Whatley comes to mind) that it can not be denied. You don't read writing like that and think, "Can you believe that? Where are that woman's morals for God's sake!"

Why is it that I am always checking this moral compass of mine? If it's not pointing due North, if I've told even the tiniest of white lies, I can't so much as look in the mirror. What the hell is that?

Catholicism.

Right.

But again, I digress. One of my college writing instructors (Steve Lattimore) once told me that the best stories are ones where the writer puts the protagonist up in a tree, throws rocks at him, and then gets him down. Well, in this "tiny hypocrisy" I am the protagonist. I certainly found myself up in a tree. And the rocks? They hurt.

But what Prof. Lattimore didn't tell me, was what happens to the protagonist once he climbs down from that tree. Do all the other people in all the other trees look down on him for having gotten himself up there in the first place? Should I care? As my grandmother used to say (I imagine she still might, if the situation called for it), "Pobody's Nerfect."

Pobody's Nerfect. There ya go.

Do you hear that racket?

There is as cacophony in my head. Drums pounding to the rhythm of my heart, stress pumping through my veins to the beat of the blinking cursor on my blank page. With each thuh-thump, a new series of words courses: tuition payments, gas prices, career success, summer schedules, editors' deadlines, essay topics, tweets, blog posts...the list goes on and on. I am feeling a sense of overload. How can I feel so...busy...when it seems as though nothing's getting done?

I was driving between my office and the park for boot camp yesterday when suddenly the racket got so loud it distracted me from my own thoughts. What the...? Then a fat, brown, winged bug hit my windshield and bounced off. Half a dozen more were zooming past the row of traffic ahead of me.

Then I realized that buzzing cadence in my head had gone external - the cicadas in the county are louder than my own humming stress.

I was cutting the lawn last weekend when I felt a hundred pairs of eyes on me. Bug eyes. They were all over my cedar fence. I don't know if they are always this brown color, or if they camouflage themselves, but I couldn't see them at all until I was pushing the lawn mower right up against the fence. It was like a cheap horror flick!

But I digress, at least those damn bugs'll be gone in another two weeks. Then I'll be left with the pulsing rhythm of my own deadlines. And maybe that's a good thing. It drives me to get things done, and to sit up and take notice when things aren't getting accomplished.

Time to focus on finishing up those three essays in my "WIP" (work in progress) folder...

Tweeting for Two

I’ve been looking into an iPhone app that will allow me to tweet to two different twitter accounts. I’m tired of logging into one, tweeting, maybe copying a tweet, then logging out, logging back in under my second account, etc. I can’t be the only one with this dilemma.

Certainly not. I have a personal twitter account. And I manage my company’s twitter account. I also have a blog, geared towards my own freelance writing. In this post-recession world, it’s par for the course to have an employer, work for yourself and manage a social network or two on a personal level. If I can speak from a woman’s perspective for a moment: It’s something we have known for many years. We are mothers, we are employees, we are employers, students, teachers. We are talented and driven, insisting that we can (still) have it all. Hell, many of us need to have it all, lest we can’t afford the rent now that we’ve been laid off, or our hours have been cut, or we are finding ourselves in a one-income household (read: divorced) with kids heading towards college (read: tuition).

So, we’ve created a brand for ourselves. A personal brand on Facebook, where we post comments about our kids, our social lives, our weekends, our hobbies. Then when the economy started to tank, we put our skills to work. For me, that meant writing resumes and cover letters for friends and family. It also meant the small freelance writing career I’d started on the side years ago was suddenly booming, as corporations let go of entire departments to save overhead and turned to folks like me to help them get things done. Compared to a full-time employee with a full-time salary and benefits, I am the perfect solution. An hourly rate paid on a project-by-project basis, no overhead, no bennies.

This blog overlaps my personal and freelance professional worlds: I write journal-style about my life as a mom and a writer. I don’t, however, crossover into marketing territory, preferring to leave that to my full-time career as an Account Manager with a small marketing agency. Not only do I manage clients and projects, but I also handle our agency’s social media footprint, recently adding a Twitter account to the repertoire.

Hence, the search for a Twitter app that will allow me to kill two birds (I can't help it, these puns just write themselves) with one stone.

Is it important that I keep these worlds separate? Or does my name become synonymous with both my agency life and my freelance life? The marketer in me is not as well known as the writer, the mom. Can these worlds combine? Do I begin blogging on communication, not only as it relates to parenting and writing, but as it relates to marketers and brands? Or is it time to start a new, third blog?

But I digress...I did find the app I was looking for in Twitbird. Two accounts simultaneously – and free! Looks like I might need to upgrade to Twitbird Pro – that should hold me…until I reach the 16 accounts limit. Yes, I am a marketer. I am a writer. I am a mom. I love each of these parts, each of these personas, and just like a good brand can not market using one format (read: facebook) alone, neither can (or should) I. Because all of these parts of me add up to one person with a great deal to offer. And if I can do it all with a little bit of grace and style, and not too much stress overload, then why not?

Golden Tickets

Season 10 of American Idol kicked off last night. For those who truly do have some talent, and might just need some direction and a few good connections to make it happen, the show is a huge opportunity.

What I wouldn’t give for American WRITER. I’m watching these guys and girls who are “goin’ to Hollywood!” and I know how they feel. I felt that way when I sold my first article, and with every publication since. To be recognized for the one thing that you love to do, your dream, is a heady feeling.

Throughout these past 10 seasons of Idol, there have been those few voices that gave me goose bumps, made me hold my breath, even brought tears to my eyes. For writers…and lovers of the craft, it’s the same way with words. It's that line in the middle of a story that stops us, makes us think, won’t let us forget. That’s why I write. That’s what drives me. To get that one feeling, that one thought across. That’s what it’s all about.

I'm at the point with my writing where I've gotten that "Golden Ticket" to Hollywood. Now what? Will I continue to push out a few essays a month and be satisfied with the few pieces I sell, the small checks that come in the mail? Or do I realize that I have an opportunity now to use my success to propel myself forward, to push myself to tackle new formats, different genres, bigger publications.

I earned my BA in Writing at Webster University in 2005. How I'd love to go back for my MFA in Creative Writing. Speaking of college, one of my old professors, Steve Lattimore, described the best stories as those where the writer “puts the protagonist up in a tree, throws rocks at him, and then gets him down.” Steve is speaking at St. Louis Writer’s Guild next weekend. I took his Creative Fiction Writing class, and had the privilege of getting my work torn to shreds by him.

This is one speaker worth your time. Truly. His workshop, “Missed Opportunities and Misunderstandings in Writing Fiction” is Saturday, Feb. 5, 10:00 am – Noon at the Kirkwood Community Center. A golden ticket to this event is free to STLWG members, and just $5 for non-members. See you there!