Letter from Camp! (Camp NaNoWriMo)

So, I am deep in the midst of every writer’s favorite July activity, Camp NaNoWriMo! Okay, perhaps not every writer’s favorite July activity. I can’t even say it’s my favorite July activity, as it is the first time I have participated in it. I have done NaNoWriMo twice and won once—though the time I didn’t win, I was so close. I loved-hated both times, as it was a lot of work, and to be honest, the quality was sub-par. However, that is what revision is for! Camp NaNoWriMo is a little less stressful.

One of the nice things about Camp NaNoWriMo is that you can set your own word count, and you can even choose to edit instead of write (where you monitor time spent and convert that to words at the proposed rate of 1,000 words per hour). I chose to work on revising my novel Charybda, part of which I wrote during NaNoWriMo. Funnily, I had the bulk of the book written and used NaNo as a push to write the last part of the book. The unrevised manuscript of Charybda, in need of repairs and continuity fixes from start to finish, sat on my hard drive patiently waiting for me to finally get around to revising it. It wasn’t until the beginning of this year that I got off my behind (or put my behind in the writer’s chair, as it were) and started to work on it in earnest.

It has been a difficult road for me. I envy the writers who write quickly and require little revision on their drafts. I will never be one of those writers. I’m meticulous, which is good, but self-critical, which is not. It takes me a little time anyway, but I have occasional bouts of depression that bring all of it to a grinding halt. However, I am pleased to report that since the beginning of the year, I have made my way through thirteen or so chapters of the novel!

Camp NaNoWriMo was a fun way to motivate myself to work on my revising even more. I decided that, for me at least, 500 words per hour was a better conversion rate for time spent editing. Then, I set myself a goal of 10,000 words—which, by the by, is the minimum goal—equaling 20 hours of revision time. It sounded doable, and like a goal I might even surpass with a little dedication.

Another benefit of Camp NaNoWriMo is that it helped me realize something about revising. Revising, or content editing, if you will, is difficult to quantify. When you write, you have this nice concrete word count as your measurement. When it comes to revising, all you can measure is the time you spend working. Prior to Camp NaNo, I was setting goals based on the amount of the manuscript I got through—x number of chapters. However, each chapter is different. There was one chapter that took me two hours to ‘fix.’ There was another that took me two weeks. You see the inevitable problem.

I had been resisting the idea of measuring my revision in time, because there are times where it takes me an hour just to make a single change. That can be very depressing. How can one change really count for anything? I would be really hard on myself for things like this. Nevertheless, you have to quantify the work somehow, and it turns out that a time goal is a lot more manageable than a ‘distance’ goal. If not for Camp NaNo, I might not have ever realized this.

Even better, setting a time goal helps me work more efficiently. With the distance goal, I would get distracted and take a long time, so discouraged by how far away the endpoint was that I would give up. With the time goal, I find that the first 20 minutes or so are the most difficult, but once I’m past that, I get sucked into what I’m doing and work much harder than I would have otherwise.

I feel like I finally stumbled onto the answer for which I have been searching for some time now. There is always an abundance of advice on how to stay motivated while writing, but their is little said about the revision process. “Just keep writing—don’t worry if it stinks, you can fix that later.” There is a lot of silence when that later finally arrives. (Maybe there is a lot of advice out there, but I never seem to find it.) The answer for the “fixing it later” is to set small, manageable, quantifiable goals rather than looking at the big messy manuscript as a whole. Perhaps this should be obvious—the adage of eating an elephant one bite at a time has been around forever. For me, the problem was the quantifying of the goals. Now, I have finally settled into this system which works, and allows me to define the amount of work I’m actually doing. It allows me feel good about myself even when a single change takes an hour—because I have spent that entire hour working diligently to determine which change should be made. It gives me time to read the manuscript and make a plan for the next phase, while still feeling good because even if I make no changes, I have set myself up for success. I still get to count that hour as an achievement.

Another thing that has aided me in the revision process is giving myself rewards for achieving goals. At the end of every month, I give myself a prize if I meet my goal. Not just any prize, like going out for ice cream or something. No, this is a prize I’ll work my butt off in order to get. That’s right..a new My Little Pony! I bought a lot of ponies off of eBay, which are sitting in a box waiting for me to free them by achieving my goals. I only get one pony as a prize, though, so there are enough to keep me motivated for the next year or so.  It has worked well so far—there was one month where I did most of the work in the last week because I was so desperate to get that pony. (I don’t know if that’s pathetic or not, but I don’t care.) Now that I have a better system worked out, thanks to Camp NaNo, I’ll be well on my way to successfully earning ponies at the agonizingly slow rate of 1 pony per month. Even if the prize winning process is slow, the revising process has sped up, which is a prize all its own.

One more thing of note is that I have changed my terminology when referring to what I am doing to my manuscript. I had been calling it editing, which is not completely inaccurate. I am, after all, content editing. But since editing can also refer to line editing—going through line by line and fixing grammatical and stylistic errors, my subconscious was confused about what I was really doing. I would feel bad that I wasn’t at the final stage of perfecting the work. Now that I have changed to the term revising, I feel that it is a more accurate reflection of what I am doing. It also takes off the subconscious pressure that comes with the word ‘editing.’

It has been an enlightening summer, to be sure, and I feel that the rest of my year will be filled with even more successes.

What helps you out with revising your writing?

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The Number One Rule of Writing

Trust yourself to put that first word on the page.

Trust yourself.

That is all.

What, were you expecting it to be something far more elaborate and detailed? Perhaps something rigid and defined?

Well, there certainly are a lot of rules for writing, and they are all very useful rules to keep in mind. Things like: use proper grammar; avoid contractions in formal writing; avoid redundant adverbs and eliminate weak verb-adverb pairs; use 'said' as your default for speech tags; do not have your characters constantly say each other's names; have a defined beginning, middle, and end; raise the stakes for your characters and put them in jeopardy...

The list goes on and on and on. Rules about POV, rules about style, rules, rules, rules, rules.

The only hard and fast rule of writing is that there are as many rules as there are writers.

What do I mean by that? I mean that every writer out there is going to have their own idea of what makes writing good. Writing rules are subjective. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm a sucker for the rules. I believe there is such a thing as good writing and bad writing. However, which is which really depends on who you ask. There is a sort of 'canon' idea of what makes for good writing, but people work outside of that all the time and still have success.  Bad writing exists, but not everyone agrees on what makes writing bad.

The commonly agreed upon reasons for bad writing are: weak plot, weak and flat characters, inconsistent style, poor grammar, and similar things. But again, people still disagree as to what is what.

So, here you are, trying to navigate the waters of being a writer. You will be given conflicting advice. How do you know which is right, which is the way to go?

This is where trusting yourself comes in. If you can't trust yourself, who can you trust? Even if you follow all the supposed rules that you have read about, if you don't trust yourself, your writing will be weak and shaky. Do you really need to do something that breaks a rule, because you think it will make your story more powerful? Break that sucker.

Trust yourself.

Because you will never be as good at being your favorite author as that author is. But you can most definitely be the best at being yourself. And to do that, you will have to trust yourself.

It is not easy. I still struggle with it every day. It is especially difficult when you are editing something, and when a self-imposed deadline looms over your head like a Sword of Damocles, threatening a sense of failure.

I try to remind myself that there is no failure as long as I keep plugging away at my work, as long as I do not give up, as long as I do my best...

...as long as I trust myself.

So keep the rules in mind--because rules are useful and will make your writing stronger--but remember to trust yourself, even if that means stepping outside of the rules.

That is the number one rule of writing.

Mary Sue Who?

Image courtesy of Petr Kratochvil at PublicDomainPictures.net

I know some writers who, more or less, live in fear that their female protagonist is a “Mary Sue.”

Ah, the dreaded, hated Mary Sue. Once you’ve heard what the expression means and have seen the pure contempt and derision that awaits, it’s natural to want to avoid the phenomenon. 

So, what exactly is a Mary Sue?

The term was originally coined in fan fiction circles to describe overly perfect female characters, particularly ones who were also badly written. You know, a female character that is all confidence, can fly, can make time turn back by singing, can make men melt with a single glance, and so on and so on. Oftentimes, the Mary Sue is also incredibly beautiful and is basically talented at everything. She becomes the center of the whole storyline and, to be honest, is more or less living out the author’s dream life. Like Barbie, but in storytelling form.

Don’t worry – there is a male equivalent too: Gary Stu. But to be honest, I frequently see guy characters called Mary Sues anyway.

So, there’s a lot of negativity surrounding the concept. There’s a lot of vitriol (acidic hatred) toward Mary Sues, and particularly towards the ones who write about them. It’s no wonder that many people are terrified of discovering that their protagonist is a Mary Sue.

But here’s the thing: outside the scope of fan fiction, I don’t think that the Mary Sue actually exists. Part of the definition of a Mary Sue is that she usurps the importance of the characters from the show – and since people who read fan fiction want to read about those characters for some weird reason, they’re not overly amused by Mary Sues. 

Without that key part of the Mary Sue definition, I feel like the concept loses a lot.  Yet I still see people grousing about it when it comes to original storytelling.

“Oh, Yukiko from Stormdancer is so overly perfect – what a Mary Sue.”

“Skye is a total Mary Sue. I really expect better from Agents of Shield.”

“Agent Carter is such a Mary Sue. What’s up with that, Marvel?” (Marvel’s Agent Carter)

“I can’t stand Korra. She’s a Mary Sue.” (The Legend of Korra)

“April from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has become nothing more than a stupid Mary Sue.”

“Katniss is a Mary Sue. Why do so many people like her?” (The Hunger Games)

“Twilight Sparkle is a Mary Sue.” (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic)

Okay, seriously – I lost faith in humanity the minute I saw that last one. (Thanks, late night YouTube-ing.) Yes, there are people who literally think that Twilight Sparkle – from a show targeted at people under the age of 7 – is a Mary Sue.  Seriously.

And you know what I see happening in all of this?

There is real contempt for strong female characters. Really. I’m sure that Buffy had similar claims leveled against her. So did River from Firefly. Possibly Janeway from Star Trek: Voyager. It’s getting to the point where even little girls are going to have to hear this kind of negativity about their favorite resident alicorn – since Twilight Sparkle is smart and magical and can always save the day. (I know some little girls who idolize that pony, and it is totally adorable.) You know, I kind of made light of the Super Bowl commercial yesterday where they discussed the concept of “like a girl” being an insult (especially since it was sponsored by Always®), but there is something to be said for it.

It doesn’t make it any better that sometimes male characters get called Mary Sues, such as the protagonist from Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind.  I still think there is a kind of latent sexism about it. This idea hinges on the concept that if women aren’t portrayed as prissy, insecure emotional basket-cases, then they are a Mary Sue. And like telling a guy he does something “like a girl” is an insult, calling a male character a Mary Sue is supposed to be even more insulting than calling a female character one.

I don’t identify as feminist, so the fact that I think this ought to tell you something.

And if that’s not what people mean, that girls have to be prissy and not strong, then we seriously need to stop using the term outside of fan fiction circles. We have a whole world of classic descriptors to discuss the problem. Really, the problem is that the character is presented as too perfect. Perfection is uninteresting. It’s flat. If your character is already too perfect, there’s nowhere to go, really. There are great terms for this: one-dimensional character, flat character, uninteresting character, and so on. Yet these aren’t considered insults on the level of Mary Sue, despite the fact that they mean basically the same thing.

So, don’t live in fear of your character being a Mary Sue. Don’t live in fear at all. Just make sure that your character isn’t flat. You can do this by incorporating the old Aristotelian concept of “The Fatal Flaw.” If you haven’t already, you’ll probably be learning about good old Aristotle’s “rules” for writing plays. One of them is that the character needs a fatal flaw. In most cases, the Greek tragedies had hubris (overwhelming pride) as their fatal flaw.

For example: Yukiko’s flaw is that she doesn’t listen. It gets her in trouble. (Granted, I have to agree that Yukiko wasn’t a super-complex character, but she wasn’t perfect.) Skye’s fatal flaw is that she is too trusting at first (and it really is almost fatal). Agent Carter’s fatal flaw is loyalty. Yes, that is a flaw, especially in an espionage, back-stabbing setting. Korra’s fatal flaw is a combination of hubris and self-doubt. April’s flaw is that she constantly overestimates what she is capable of. Katniss’ fatal flaw is her desperation. Twilight Sparkle’s flaw…

Twilight Sparkle doesn’t need to have a flaw, people. She’s a character for a little kid’s show. Kids actually need to have heroes without flaws; they need to have the understanding that there are greater powers out there that can save them, people that they can aspire to be. Flawed characters are for older audiences. I can’t even believe that people get so worked up about My Little Pony. It’s an entertaining show – I’m not arguing about that. But the first rule in storytelling is KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. Please, let the little girls have their perfect alicorn princess that they want to grow up to be just like. Seriously.

And for the record, if Twilight Sparkle had a flaw, it would be that she is obsessive-compulsive.

Should you aspire to make your characters interesting, and not overly perfect? Yeah, absolutely. But if someone tells you that your character a Mary Sue, ask them what they really mean by that. If they say it’s that the character is too perfect, then it’s a valid complaint (unless you’re writing a children’s book). Ask what they think might make the character more interesting. Ask yourself how you could make the character more interesting.

If the reason is that the character has a bunch of guys vying (competing) over her, then just ignore it. Love triangles have been around for centuries. If people don’t like that, then the issue isn’t that the character is a Mary Sue, it’s that your critique partner doesn’t like love triangles.

So, let’s stop using the Mary Sue moniker outside of fan fiction circles, okay? It actually has validity in fan fiction. Outside of that, it’s just claptrap that allows people to say something negative without expressing why.

Now, I know that some of my readers here do write fan fiction. So, how do you avoid writing a Mary Sue character?

It’s actually pretty easy. Firstly, don’t let the character upstage the main characters from the show. If you’re telling a story from an original character’s perspective, that’s fine, but still keep the overall focus on the main characters. Secondly, make sure your character has a fatal flaw of some kind – some personality hitch that is a constant obstacle to her/him.

The most important thing to remember, in and outside of fan fiction, is that if somebody calls your character a Mary Sue but can’t tell you what they really mean by it, it’s a comment you can safely disregard.

All right. That’s enough ranting. I’d really like to start a discussion on this, so feel free to share your thoughts, especially if you disagree with me. I welcome debate as long as everyone is respectful about it.

Fire away in the comments! 

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Why Won't Anyone Read My Stuff?

Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Something you may encounter a lot as a young writer is that when you try to get somebody to read what you have written, people will give you a flat out no. Even worse, they’ll say that they are going to read it, but then they don’t, or they start to read it and then never finish it.

If you’re lucky like I was, you’ll have a best friend who not only read the stuff you printed out for them, but kept your story in their desk drawer for over ten years. (Love you, S.!)

Sadly, the younger you are, the more likely it is that you’ll experience this lack of interest in your writing. Even more sadly, I actually did this to my sister multiple times when she was writing stories. “No thanks, not right now…” “Maybe when it’s finished…” “Sorry, that doesn’t sound interesting…”

In retrospect, I wish that I hadn’t brushed her off.  I wish I’d read her stories.  In the Great Computer Crash of 2000-whatever, all of those stories got lost, so now I can’t read them. I just wish I’d realized sooner that I was doing to her what others were doing to me – the things that truly hurt me. It drove me nuts that my older sister wouldn’t read my story, especially since I took the time to read her Star Trek: Voyager fan fictions.

I’m writing a novel here! An actual novel! The least people could do is read it.  Nobody takes me seriously.

But I never took my younger sister’s work seriously, even though she read my story. How’s that for hypocrisy?

So, if you’re a writer whose siblings don’t seem the tiniest bit interested in your writing, let me offer a little bit of perspective for you.

These are your siblings we’re talking about.

You know, the people who can’t stand it if you like the same music as them? Or the people who fight with you over who gets the front seat of the car, who gets to play the new computer game first, why one of you is allowed to wear makeup/use the ride-on lawn mower/watch scary movies at a younger age than another one of you is…

…and you expect these people to take an interest in your writing?

When all of you are older and moved out of the house, you’ll probably find that you have an easier time getting along. Then, you might find that they are willing to look at your writing, if you still want to share it with them. But in the meantime, as much as it sucks, remember that it’s almost a universal constant that you’ll have a hard time getting along with your siblings.  Don’t look to them for validation here.

What if your friends at school aren’t interested in reading it? That could kind of make you feel a little down – even my own friends don’t want to read my story.  However, do you and your friends have identical interests? If your story is a zombie vampire slasher and your friends prefer things like The Fault in Our Stars, they probably don’t want to read it for the same reason that they wouldn’t want to read a zombie vampire slasher novel, probably even if it was written by Nicolas Sparks.

It feels personal.  A lot of these things feel personal. But they aren’t.  It’s a question of people’s interests. As much as it sucks to realize this, it can be kind of liberating. The problem isn’t you.  It’s that you’re asking the wrong people, sort of like the Omaha Steak Company trying to market their product to vegans.

What about your parents? If you’re like I was and have a really close relationship with your parents, it can sting if they’re not interested. But…if you’re writing a romance and your dad only likes zombie vampire slashers, it’s not that he’s uninterested in your work – it’s that he’s uninterested in romance.

This leaves what’s probably the most frustrating thing – people who say they’ll read your stuff, but never do. (Or they start, but they don’t.) They keep saying that they’re too busy, but you start to get the feeling that they are just brushing you off.  It’s super easy to take this personally. This is one of those things that really hurts. It’s one thing for people to say ‘no,’ but it’s another for them to say ‘yes’ and then act like they didn’t mean it. This can feel like they lied to you.

I’m going to give you the single most difficult piece of advice ever: don’t take it personally. 

Everything about it feels personal.  But you have to understand: you only have control over yourself. You can’t make them like or read your story, but you can choose your reaction to them.  Will you feel hurt? Yeah. Angry? Yeah. You still have the choice to hold a grudge or just let it go.  Confrontation probably won’t end well, especially if it’s somebody close to you. 

So, put on your Queen Elsa dress and start singing “Let it goooo…”

Way, way easier said than done. Especially if they don’t make an Elsa dress in your size. 

If you give them enough time and space, they’ll probably finish reading it eventually. And if they never do, they never do. Let it goooo…

 

You have enough things to worry about without fixating on this. Remember that your circle of acquaintances is not representative of the world at large, so don’t worry that NO ONE will EVER like your work because nobody but you seems interested right now.  Trust me. At some point, you’ll be able to belt out, “The cold never bothered me anyway.” 

Do you feel like people around you simply don’t take interest in your work? Share your thoughts or any questions in the comments. 

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Always Believe in Your Writing (While You're Writing It)

Image courtesy of Graur Codrin at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Orson Scott Card, well-known author of the Ender’s Game books, has this to say on the topic of a writer’s self-image:

Writers have to simultaneously believe the following two things:

1.       The story I am now working on is the greatest work of genius ever written in English.

2.       The story I am now working on is worthless drivel.  (109)

He says this is how a writer should think during the submission for publication process, as a way to stay motivated and positive. 

It’s best if you believe both these things simultaneously, so that you can call on Belief 1 when you’re deciding whether to mail the story out, Belief 2 when going over the story to revise it, Belief 1 when choosing which market to submit it to, Belief 2 when the story is rejected (of course, I expected to get this back), and Belief 1 again when you put it back in an envelope and mail it to the next-best market. (109, emphasis original)

However, I think it has some very good applications for the writing process itself.

 If you’re a young writer who listens to a lot of writers who are older than you, you’ll probably hear at least one of them say something like this: “Oh, yeah, I found something I had written when I was in high school.  It was absolutely terrible.  It was so terrible that I laughed the whole time I was reading it—and it was a little embarrassing, because I remember at the time thinking that I was just the hottest writer ever.”

Actually, that’s what you’ll hear me say.  The first draft I wrote of The Tower Key was worthless drivel.  But at the time, I seriously thought I was every bit as cool as J.R.R. Tolkien.

This might make a young writer feel self-conscious.  If older writers think their work was terrible when they were your age, then is there the possibility that your work is terrible? 

The answer is yes.

And no.

This is where Card’s principle comes into play.  I, however, would like to present a modified form of it:

Always believe in your writing (while you’re writing it).

Say that a couple of times.  Let it really sink in. 

When you are writing, you’ve got to believe in yourself.  You are the bomb, you are the single greatest writer who ever lived, people will be knocking down your door for autographs, and you’ll be swimming in so many acclamations that people centuries from now will still weep with joy at the mere mention of your name.  Because you are that cool. Write the way you want to; have confidence in your writing.  With every key stroke, believe that you really are writing “the greatest work of genius ever written in English.”

However, notice that little parenthetical note: “while you’re writing it.” While. This means that when you are done (and have allowed yourself a week or so of glowing victory), you have to stop believing blindly in the quality of your work. Card would say that you should switch to believing that your story is “worthless drivel.”  While I get what he’s saying, I think that can create an unhealthy pattern of all-or-nothing thinking. 

What I would say is that you should simply stop blindly believing in your work.  Instead, you switch to interrogating it, the way a prosecutor would in a court room.  You cross-examine it.  You no longer trust that it is super-duper awesome.  You become aware that your super-awesome story is actually not so totally awesome after all.  You might, depending on how long you go before going back to cross-examine it, find it to be embarrassingly bad.  

After you’ve interrogated and cross-examined and otherwise discovered your story is not the hottest thing in the history of all things hot, you need to switch to editing and re-writing.

Re-writing is writing.  What’s the rule for writing?  When you’re writing, you go back to believing in your work.  Sure, it was bad, but just look at all these awesome changes!  This story was pretty promising before—now it’s going to be so amazing that the Dalai Lama is going to have glorious religious visions while reading it!

Once you’ve finished editing and re-writing, you switch back to being an attorney cross-examining a witness. You don’t hate your work or think it’s worthless, but you don’t trust it, either.

The idea is to repeat this process until even the skeptical mindset says, “Yeah, this is actually pretty decent, and I’m proud of this.”  You want to be proud and confident, but not operating under any delusions of grandeur. You do still need to espouse the idea that you can always improve.

Nevertheless, you should honestly believe that what you have is pretty solid.  Then, you can restart the process, following Card’s guidelines for submitting your writing for publication.                                           

Always believe in your writing (while you’re writing it).

If you don’t have this positive attitude while writing, it is really easy to get so depressed that you quit writing for months at a time.  At least, that’s how it is for me.  My default setting when writing is “mean, nasty critic.” Once I learned how to embrace this idea of believing in myself while I was writing, I found that my productivity soared.  It really is amazing what self-confidence can do.  Then, when it’s time to evaluate the work, I let out my mean, nasty critic for a play day.  Once I’ve evaluated my writing, I shut the critic back up in its jail cell and go back to my positive attitude.

If I’m writing and run into a rough spot, or I keep thinking that maybe what I’m writing is awful, I find it helpful to repeat the rule to myself like a mantra:  Always believe in your writing (while you’re writing it).

So, if you’re worried that your writing project might be terrible, don’t.  Is there a chance you’ll look back on it and dislike it? Yes.  But that doesn’t matter while you’re writing it. Tell your mean, nasty critic to shut up, because you’re busy writing something that will give the Dalai Lama a religious vision.

Because yes—you are that awesome.

Do you find yourself doubting your writing abilities?  Do you think that this advice might work for you? If not, what are some steps you can take to boost your confidence while you are writing? Share any thoughts or questions in the comments.

Work cited: Card, Orson Scott. How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 1990.

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The Evolution of a Writer

Image courtesy of Stoonn at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

My sister F. is celebrating her birthday today!  So, in honor of the serendipitous occasion, I am sharing the story of her journey as a writer. There is a lot to be learned from her example, and I'm so proud of her that I couldn't resist the opportunity to boast about her a little.

Whereas I got a late start on writing at the ripe old age of 14, F. embarked on her writing journey sometime around the age of 7 or 8.  She just had to one-up me like that.  Of course, since she she is about 7 years younger than me, we started writing around the same time.  Naturally, as older sisters are prone to do, I accused her of "copying" me.

Anyone with younger siblings can attest to the horror of discovering that your brother or sister has an interest similar to yours.  I don't know how I survived. </sarcasm>

Her early stories definitely read like they are written by a 7-year-old.  First and second graders are not especially known for their writing abilities, though they tend to excel at writing sentences like "The dog barked," or "The squirrel ran up the tree."  And even then, "squirrel" was a word that I didn't have down until about third grade or so.  That's a tricky word for a very young writer.

Mostly, her stories were about her and her friends having fantastic adventures. There was one where she and her friends were all out in the middle of a field one day, and a massive tornado picked them up and scattered them all over our home state.  So, F.'s character would have to go around, rescuing them one at a time, and then they would start the journey home. I seem to recall that there were at least 12 different versions of this story at one point.  There was one where my older sister and I were involved, but we both got amnesia, so it was up to F. to save the day.

I don't exactly remember how F. spelled the word "amnesia," but I remember we were all greatly amused by it.

Her stories weren't limited to her friends, though.

We lived in a rural area and we had a barn.  As such, we also had barn cats.  And F. was obsessed with cats.  It was like a mini-paradise for her—a fluffy, meowing paradise. She actually had created this fantastic lore for the cats, and it was one to rival Richard Adam's rabbit lore in Watership Down. There was a hierarchy amidst the cats; there was a cat heaven.  There was even a rite of passage when the kittens passed into cat-hood, called "comimming."  F. would come inside from playing with the cats and declare something like, "Keeper [one of the cats] was comimmed today!" 

As she got older, her stories became more focused on cats (and occasionally, other animals).  Her writing style was still immature, but we had finally convinced her that    she   didn't    need   multiple    spaces   between    words.  We had also taught her by this time that different speakers each get their own paragraph in dialogue (for tips on writing dialogue, check out this post I did a while back).

The more she wrote, the more her skills improved.  The older she got, the more her skills improved.  In her early teens, she started writing this story called "The Race to Defend Mankind," which was about these two sects of dogs.  One sect wanted to destroy humanity, the other wanted to preserve it.  She still inserted herself by name. My older sister and I also merited a place in the story, though I think only my older sister L. suffered from amnesia this time.  I think that L. may have been brainwashed by the evil dogs, turned into a pawn in their sick game for world domination. Sadly, we lost the documents in a computer crash, so I can't verify any of this. 

By the time she was sixteen, this story had evolved significantly. She had replaced the real-life characters with fictional characters.  The story was so detailed. The conflict was believable.  And while yes, it was about dogs, it was not a silly story.  Anyone who thinks that stories with talking animals are childish should read either Watership Down, Animal Farm, or the Redwall series. It was a really great story.  She had a lot of mentoring from me and my parents as she exercised her writing abilities.

Sadly, a serious battle with illness prevented her from ever finishing this.  She's been dealing with it since then.  She tried starting another story recently, but she's just been too ill to work on it.  Now, she mostly writes poetry, and she's found that she's much better at writing poetry than at writing prose. Her poetry is beautiful and evocative.  It's a heart-wrenching look into the effects her illness have had upon her.  I am so proud to say that my sister is a writer.

There is a lot to be learned from F.'s journey as a writer.  While she started young, with very little writing skills, it took her well over ten years to become a mature writer.  Even now, she can still improve.  I found that while I started from a better place in terms of competency with writing in the English language, it took me close to around that long to settle into a solid writing style.  Even now, I can improve.

There are phases that every writer passes through.  It begins with stories where the main character is the author, or a very thinly veiled version of the author.  Then, the author begins to write stories where the characters are truly fictional, with their own backgrounds.  Storytelling skills—not just grammatical skills—improve steadily.

Perhaps some writers evolve faster than others.  Regardless of the timeline, however, my sister's story should be an encouragement to every developing writer.  Time and practice will take you to the next level.  Finding a mentor will help take you to the next level.  In the end, you might learn that your writing abilities are better suited to a different form or genre than you write in now. Of course, you might not. However, if you find yourself drawn to another form of writing, that may be the style that is best for you—and your writing skills will soar higher than ever before.

Her story should also teach you that there is never a hurry to be a writer.  Life intervenes and slows you down sometime, but you can still persevere in your writing.  You might not be the next Christopher Paolini, whose first book was published before the age of twenty, but that doesn't preclude you from being a world-changing writer.  J.R.R. Tolkien's first book, The Hobbit, wasn't published until he was in his forties.  The Fellowship of the Ring was not published until 1954, when Tolkien was in his sixties.  Much of his other work has been published posthumously (after his death)—most recently, his English translation of Beowulf.

F. and I will continue to evolve as writers as the years wear on, regardless of how long our journeys are. So will you.  Your journey could take you anywhere, and even if it's slowed by illness or other life changes, you will continue to become better and better.

If you're a writer, when did you first start writing? How has your journey progressed? Share any thoughts in the comments. 

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"That Doesn't Count."

Image courtesy of Ambro at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

If you're anything like me, you tend to dismiss your accomplishments as something insignificant.  You might have an inner dialogue that sounds something like this:

"Wow.  I got absolutely no writing done today."

"What are you talking about?  You re-read a section and made a few editorial changes."

"Yeah, but that doesn't count." 

It's an unfortunate habit of mine to engage in all-or-nothing thinking.  If I don't reach whatever goal I have set for myself, I feel as though I have done nothing.  So, if I write 100 words on a day I planned to write 500, I feel like a failure.

Recently I was talking with a friend, grousing about how I felt like a failure because I hadn't completed my novel.  She told me about all of the other things I've written, and that I should be proud of them.

Guess what the first thing out of my mouth was? It doesn't count.

The thing is, every time you write, even if it's something small, you are strengthening those writing muscles.  It counts.

Do some editing and only change a few words? It counts.

Work on a fan fiction piece instead of your original piece? It counts.

Write one sentence? It counts.

If you refuse to let the little things count for something, how can you ever be proud of the big things?  The big things are just made up of lots of little things.  If you get in the habit of dismissing your small accomplishments, you'll start dismissing the big ones, too. I speak from experience on this.

So, celebrate all of your accomplishments, even the little ones.  Even if you've written something that will never be usable, you've had fun and practiced your writing.  Be proud of that.

Don't sell yourself short. Everything you do counts.  Because one day, all of those little things will add up into one big thing.

That definitely counts for something.

Do you tend to dismiss the positive, or are you good at being proud of your accomplishments? Share your thoughts in the comments.

"That's Nice." (On Not Being Taken Seriously)

Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

When you were a little kid, did you ever hear an adult say, “That’s nice” to you?  Chances are that you did.  You were probably going on and on about something that was really important to you (even thought it wasn’t important to anyone else), and your longsuffering mother said something like, “Oh, that’s nice.”  You could hear it in the dismissive quality of her voice that she wasn’t really paying attention to what you had to say, and you could tell that she didn’t think she needed to take you seriously in any way.

My mother said that to me countless times.  In her defense, if she’d paid attention to every single thing I told her (especially while she was driving), she would have gone insane long, long ago—the slow, excruciating insanity of being constantly regaled with the never-ending yammerings of an attention-deficit child.  By no means am I even suggesting that she should have given me her full attention; I was a kid, babbling about kid stuff, and I still count myself fortunate that she never told me to shut the blank up. 

At the time, I absolutely knew that she wasn’t paying total attention to me.  But I had important stuff to talk about, darn it, and I was more interested in just talking than having her totally engaged.  As long as I knew she was giving me a marginal amount of attention—and bless her, she knew exactly where to input the right, ‘uh-huh,’ ‘oh!’ or ‘really?” to keep me satisfied. (I love you, Mom!)

There were other times, though, when I really did want to show adults my capacity for awesomeness (usually in the form of bizarre and unidentifiable crafts), and they said—you guessed it—“That’s nice.” 

When I finally put it all together, I learned the cold hard truth that when someone says, “That’s nice,” it means they don’t take you seriously. Of course, it’s all in the inflection.  If somebody nods approvingly, like a guy looking at a really cool car, and says, “That’s nice,” you know they think it’s pretty darn awesome.  But the inflection I’m talking about—I’m pretty sure that you can already hear it in your head.  You’ve heard it before.  You know the one I mean. 

As a little kid, it was to be expected.  I knew that grown-ups thought about grown-up things, and kid things weren’t interesting to them.  At least they gave a nod in my direction. 

So, when I started writing at the age of fourteen—something I was really, seriously passionate about, and I started to get the same “That’s nice,” I was sorely disappointed. I was trying to write books, and all of the adults in my life really liked books. To be fair, my parents eventually figured out that I was serious, around the time that I declared I was going to college to study English. 

If you’re in that same boat right now—that feeling that nobody takes you seriously—hang in there.  Chances are good that the important people in your life will eventually realize that you mean business. Even if they don’t, there are lots of people who will—other writers.  There are some great forums on the internet for people who like to write.  My personal favorite is Mythic Scribes (you’ll notice that I link to them in the sidebar; they have a blog as well as forums), which is specifically for fantasy writers.  Other sites are out there, such as Scribophile (a peer-review forum for all genres).  These types of things are great for solidarity and moral support. 

Trust me.  You’ll need it. 

Once you get out into the wide, wide world, you find that there are lot of people who won’t take you seriously either.  I can’t tell you how many people I’ve told that I am a writer, and most of them say, “That’s neat,” in exactly that same dismissive inflection.  Those who seem to have interest will ask if you’ve had any books published, and if the answer is no (as is my case), they become dismissive.  This is true even if you’ve had several short works published, as I have.  For some reason, people are especially dismissive of poetry.  

It’s kind of sad that people are so dismissive of your passion for writing—unless, of course, you have a published book.  Even then, if the book is self-published, it might not be enough to convince people.

Sometimes, however, you do have the opportunity to open somebody’s eyes, and change their perspective not just on you, but on anyone who says they are a writer. 

A little over a year ago, I was training a new co-worker at my job.  We were making small talk and getting to know each other, and it turned out that we had a common interest in reading.  We talked about our favorite books and such, and somewhere in the conversation I mentioned that I was a writer, working on a fantasy novel.  She said, “Oh! That’s cool.” 

She didn’t use the dreaded inflection, though.  I thought that she really meant what she said, really believed that I was a writer, and really believed it. 

Sometime later that week, I had brought my 300-plus page manuscript to work with me, so that I could edit it during my breaks. When she saw me working on it, her jaw dropped. “Oh my gosh!” she said. “I didn’t know you were actually a writer.” 

I was floored. I said, “I told you that I was a writer.” 

“Yeah, but I didn’t think that you meant you were a writer writer.” 

You see, there are a lot of people out there who talk about wanting to write, or only write very little, or haven’t completed a 300-plus page manuscript.  Apparently, the co-worker’s brother fell into this category.  She didn’t think he was actually a serious writer—a “writer writer,” whatever that means. There are a lot of people who have this same idea about writers; they won’t actually believe you when you say you’re a writer unless you have massive amounts of writing to prove it. 

This is so unfair to beginning writers.  If you just started writing a month ago, but you do write on a regular basis, you are a writer.  If you are planning and outlining a novel or story, you are a writer.  Yet in many people’s estimation, you aren’t a “writer writer.” So when you say that you’re a writer, you will frequently get the “That’s nice” response. 

It’s completely bogus, of course.  The only requirement of being a writer is that you write.  Do you write poetry? You’re a writer—called a poet. Do you write manuals? You’re a writer—called a technical writer.  Do you write novels? You’re a writer—called a novelist.  Do you write newspaper or magazine articles? You’re a writer—called a journalist.  Do you write blog posts?  You’re a writer—called a blogger. Do you write fan fiction or write for your own personal amusement?  You’re a writer—called a hobby writer. Do you write licensed fan fiction? You’re a writer—called a franchise writer. (Don’t believe that there’s licensed fan fiction?  Go check out the section of your local bookstore that’s full of Star Wars novels.  They’ll claim it’s not really fan fiction—but I prefer to call a spade a spade.) 

The truth is, even if nobody in the world takes you seriously, you don’t need their approval to be considered a writer.  Write, and you are a writer.  Even a writer writer. 

Take yourself seriously, and you won’t need anyone else to do it for you. 

And that, my friends—that’s nice.

Do you feel like you need the approval of others to consider yourself a writer?  What do you think makes somebody a writer?  There is actually a raging debate on this in writing circles, so any viewpoints on the subject are welcome; all I ask is that you be polite when sharing your opinion. Share your thoughts in the comments!

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