Bright Lights, Big City Pt.1

(^^^borrowing a little Gary Clark, Jr. for some inspiration there)

Well, hey y'all! I'm back!

I know. It's been a long, long time, and you probably thought I fell off the face of the planet. In blogging terms, yes, yes I did. However, I now have some wonderful experiences to report back.

This past weekend, I flew up to NYC for the Writer's Digest Annual Conference. You see, back in April when I thought graduate school was not going to happen, my lovely roommate and best friend Sara convinced me that I needed to get out there and try to go to one of these conferences. After all, that's where Veronica Roth met her agent. A Cinderella story after all!

So I signed up for this madness called Pitch Slam at the conference. In a nutshell, this was speed dating with agents. I had three minutes of face-to-face time with an agent representing my genre of work, ninety seconds of which I could pitch my novel. Then I had to do it again and again and again. FOR AN HOUR.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My new friend Shadow at my cousin's house. She didn't want me to leave.

Friday, I flew out of Charlotte early in the morning and arrived at the lovely Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan around 11, a feat which seemed to me, really awesome. 1.) I haven't been to NYC since 2001 and 2.) I've never taken a trip completely alone before, and that's what I was doing. While I was very excited for the conference, I was also as anxious as a cat. I hadn't slept the night before and spent all week trying to perfect my pitch while drinking too much wine.

Some light reading for the plane. Also, ELEANOR & PARK ruined me. Go read it. It's fantastic. Rainbow Rowell is amazing. The end. 

OMG, I'm official. 

I wasn't pitching until Saturday after lunch, so that meant I had plenty of time to psyche myself out about what was coming.

That afternoon, I was most excited to see Chuck Sambuchino speak during the Pitch Perfect Session about what to expect the next day. After listening to everyone's questions, I realized no one else had any clue what they were doing either. In fact, they seemed more confused that I was. Chuck schooled us on the elements of a solid pitch:

A log line: one concise sentence that describes your book. 

The details: your title, genre, and word count 

The Pitch: 

1. Introduce your main character. 

2. Tell us something interesting about him and tell us what he wants. 

3. Introduce the inciting incident (what's driving the story--why did you start where you did?)

4. What's the main conflict? (Basically repeating the log line.) 

5. What are the complications? 

6. Give an unclear wrap up. 

7. Make sure to include the stakes throughout: if the main character fails, what is at stake? 

And bam! There's your pitch. I was relieved that much of mine already had that. You can read what I pitched over on my Works page. It's the same thing.

The lobby of my amazing hotel. 

I'm so fancy. 

After the Pitch Perfect session, I stuck around for a panel on Ask the Editors and Ask the Agents. Some interesting notes here: Don't use a Q&A as a way to pitch your novel and/or badger the agents/editors as to why you haven't been published before. It's in poor form. There was one highlight though: the 70 year-old woman asking the senior editor of Harlequin how much erotic content was too much. If you have to ask, then it's probably too much. 

My swanky hotel room

By the time the keynote speaker began that night, I had a headache like a bulldozer and was so hungry I wanted to gnaw my arm off. I hadn't eaten most of the day because of said nerves. The fantastic Dani Shapiro gave a wonderful speech about facing the blank page and giving yourself permission to call yourself a writer, something I have most definitely struggled with. Now I basically want to read everything this woman has ever written. The combination of her beautiful words and my low blood sugar nearly had me in tears. I went up to my room, ordered a $35 cheeseburger, took a shower, and passed out for seven hours straight.

My pitch revision would have to come the next morning.

***********************

I've split this post into three parts which I'll be publishing throughout the week because it's simply too long.

Routines Suck, But Are Necessary

I've been inspired recently reading Stephen King's On Writing (check out my gushing review here), particularly by the writing regime King "prescribes."

He spends the morning working on the current composition, writing with "the door closed" until he's reached his arbitrary goal of 2,000 words. He saves naps and correspondence for the afternoon, and spends the evening enjoying his family, reading, and working on whatever revision he cannot ignore.

Sounds like heaven, right?

That's four to six hours a day focusing on writing, in some way, shape, or form. I admire his perseverance (2,000 words a day is like EXTREME NaNoWriMo writing) and envy the freedom he has to do what he wants.

Learning to write well takes practice. You must fail on a daily basis. That means writing all the time. Every day. Though the 21 day rule might not be true*, it does appear that habit forming activities have a sort Pavlovian response. Creating those behaviors is key to molding the habit, refining it, and keeping it. This is why as writers, we need to write every day.

Unfortunately, parts of my days are eaten up with this pesky little thing I call my job, so I take my writing time where I can get it. Here is my writing routine:

1. I write early in the morning, which is something I've heard in writing classes and read in advice books again and again. Not all of us are morning people (thankfully, I am - my eyelids start drooping at about 11 PM and I naturally wake up around 7:30 AM), but the morning is a great writing time. Nothing's happened in your world yet - no nagging obligations or pressing responsibilities. Your mind is clear, your imagination piqued (waking up from a strange dream can be a huge motivator for me). Use your morning time wisely.

2. I created fun associations with writing to help ease me into the mood. Instead of at my desk, I write at the kitchen table where I can spread out my papers. Before I start writing, I brew a pot of coffee. If I feel like it, I erase the previous day's quote from the chalkboard wall, spend a moment browsing writing quotes, select the one which most reflects my writing mood that morning, and write it on the wall. That's where you see those pictures in my Weekly Wrap posts. It all feels very silly, but I enjoy it. I roll right out of bed, put on the coffee, take Boo out, feed her, and sit down still in my PJs. There's nothing fancy about it.

3. The only thing I don't necessarily agree with in Mr. King's prescription is sticking to a solid word count, especially 2,000 words. That's a mammoth feat to conquer each and every morning**. I just aim to write something, anything. It can be a blog post, a new story, a writing exercise, new material to add to the manuscript, something. I sit down and make myself do it and I don't get up until I do.

That's it. It's very simple, but I have found in the short time I have kept this routine that I'm naturally chipping away at my revision, I'm writing more than ever, and it has started to become a habit. I feel guilty on the days I don't have MORE time to write. If I have the time after work or class at night or in the afternoon, I utilize those precious hours as much as humanely possible. If I'm working the lunch shift at the bar, I get up earlier to create time.

At first, I felt rushed and like I was setting myself up to fail each morning, but instead, it's done the exact opposite. My brain now wakes up ready to drink that first cup of coffee and get going.

Try it! I believe every writer should find what works for them, but I do believe that committing to the craft on a daily basis is crucial. You can't wait for the lightning strikes of inspiration***. They're pretty, but rare and you'll spend more of your time waiting for them than actually getting to the task at hand. You have to write when you aren't inspired, when you don't feel like it, when you didn't sleep the night before.

It's all part of the process and if you do, I think you'll find you improve every day. Happy writing days, y'all!

-E

So, writers, what's your secret? Do you have some quirky routine that you follow or ways to get the words flowing? Share below! 

*Looks like it takes us more than 21 days to form a habit - about 66 instead. Hang in there, folks!
**In college with my first manuscript, I somehow cranked out between 2,000 to 4,000 words a day. Momentum was a much different monster though and the writing was slow.
***But if you get one of those strikes, don't you dare waste it! They are precious, but few and far between.

Chapter 11 - Write Without Fear

Again, I apologize for the long lapses between posts.  August has been filled with weddings and trips and classes and work.

Last time, I wrote about having writer's block.  And I am first to say: I was wrong (Hear that, Mom?).  Writer's block is another one of the convenient excuses I can hide behind like lack of time or inspiration.

It is fear.  Plain and simple.

Fear of ending.  Fear of not living up to the grandiose expectations that I have built up in my head for how I want my writing to be.  Fear of actually having to put this thing out into the world one day.  This is Step One.  Write it.  If I finish, it's been written, and if I have a first draft, soon I'll have a second and then people will be putting it in front of them and the judgments will come.

It is an old notion: if I don't try, I won't fail.  It is a cowardly move, for sure.  I am slowly learning to let my writing stand on its own two feet.  I can't cripple it from the get-go by never finishing.  Let me let you in on a little secret:

Everyone writes crappy first drafts.  Professionals and amateurs.  Everybody.  (And if there is someone who writes a perfect first draft, we don't talk to her anyway.)

The beauty of a first draft is no one else has to see it.  A first draft is a diary; a first draft is your dirty little secret.  You take your first draft and you mark the hell out of it.  You massacre it and the final product looks nothing like that awful piece of prose you put down.  If you're lucky, in the end, what you have is something that comes close to what you imagined in your mind.

Every writer wants to do a story justice.  But what about the characters? we moan and cry.  We aren't painting them in just the right light.  

So what?

Keep writing and it will come.  The important thing with a story is 1. starting and 2. having the courage to finish it.  I can pretty much guarantee that perfect little snippet you've written a thousand times in your head will not match up to what ends up on the paper.  The beauty is that with time and careful inspection of your work, the final product is exactly what it needs to be.

My advice?

Write.  Just write.  Don't comb over the details looking for out of place commas or even plot holes.  Put a bandaid on it and let that little bit of magic come.  Writing is something like channeling for me.  It's a groove, often like running.  You have to warm up and stretch.  You have to give yourself time to let your strides lengthen until you reach a sustainable pace.  Sure, it's painful.  You have moments where you feel like you are constantly running uphill.  You are battling to get the next word down, to find the right detail.  You have to remember no one else is watching.  If it's shit, toss it.  However, you may find that upon revision there are some good kernels in there you can tease out.

I am still guilty of these things, but I am learning to write without fear.  I had a moment the other morning while reading some of my Fiction Writing class's assigned essays and I thought, Good Lord, I am not this good.  I will never be this good.  I pulled up the manuscript and started looking at it, hating all the parts I'd once loved.

Then I made myself stop.  I'll never finish anything if I let myself be paralyzed by fear.  I may have to humble myself a little bit (I am not Hemingway and I am not Steinbeck; I don't aim to be), but that doesn't mean that what I'm doing doesn't have value.

Honor it.  Block out the negativity and let the words come.  Free write.  Associate.  Observe.  Ask questions of your characters.  Challenge them.  Make them grow.

As a young writer, it can be a lot to take in.  There are so many rules, but if you write a lot and you read a lot (the two most basic rules for becoming a successful writer), you will find that you already know a lot of them.  You see examples of what to do and what not to do every day in what you read.

Writing can be a lonely road.  You lay bare parts of yourself normally kept hidden and you offer them up to the world on a platter, asking for acceptance.  Many times, you won't get it.  But I believe with talent and perseverance, one day, it will come.

-E

And if you can't write, like they say at NaNoWriMo, just add ninjas! 

Chapter 9 - What I Know

The late day sunlight sent little leaf shaped shadows across the wrinkles in the creek.  Her feet stood on the edge, dipping the toes in, and she watched the water pass silently.  The water here was magical somehow, some sort of soothing essence which always calmed her.  

She remembered summer mornings racing through the fresh cut wet grass barefoot to the creek where the rope swing hung from a high branch.  She thought of the tree bridge downstream where she was convinced for several months fairies had lived . Upstream was the "waterfall", as they had always called it, and farther up from that was the fort her father built between two trees.  

The creek held many memories, and she watched it flow down and away from her.  In her hands, she clasped delicate white flowers like gardenia whose petals she periodically plucked.  She would drop a petal into the stream and watch it glide on the surface of the water over unseen rocks and past exposed tree roots until it disappeared from sight.  Then she would drop another.  The sunlight twinkled in little pockets and she forlornly wondered if it would be the last time she ever saw this place again.

Normally, the sounds of splashing and laughing children filled the creek where the embankments hid them from the watchful eyes of their parents, but for now, she was alone.  A soft breeze rustled through the leaves overhead and the rope swing with the knot at its end waved back and forth like a cat’s tail. 

Her mother would be calling soon.  She was always calling her up from the creek, telling her to wash up in the mudroom, and for goodness sakes’, would you please put some shoes on.  But this time the calling would be different.  It would be to a car where they had packed all their things, all the things that made up their life crammed into a car, and they would leave the creek behind.  

It is an old adage - one argued and endorsed by many writers.  

Write what you know.  

Sometimes it is helpful.  A lot of my writing, whether I want it to or not, centers around my experience growing up in the South.  It's a flavor, a feeling, that certain magic of the first fireflies coming out at dusk while murmured voices from the porch carry across the yard.  

Also, it begs the question: how do sci-fi writers get anything done at all?  

Chapter 8 - The Devil's in the Details

Details, details, details. 

For me as a writer, it's a blessing.  Something can catch my eye and instantly, words start flowing in my head.  Inspiration sometimes strikes as a dinky trickle or a ragging river.  For me as a person and particularly as a girl, it can be frustrasting.  I'd like to use a personal story to illustrate this. 

I remember a lot about my (only) ex-boyfriend.  And yes, I believe first loves always stick with you, occupying a place in your heart you can never truly erase them from.  It doesn't have to be a bad thing.  Years later, I'm sure I could pass him on the street, we would acknowledge each other, and I would walk away knowing we are now strangers.  That's what happens when a broken heart heals; it bounces back strong and resilient, ready to throw itself headfirst into the next promising relationship. 

But when it's still mending, every single detail of a relationship can be agonizing.  As someone very concerned with details, I romanticized him.  Instead of remembering how he made me feel, I knew the small things and I cherished the stolen moments.  Even now, I could paint him like a picture.

He had sandy hair which grew long and curled right behind his ears and eyes the color of the ocean.  He had brown freckles in them too, more on one side than the other, always slightly off-balance, his symmetry just to the left.  When he was drunk, which was often, his slight lisp became more pronounced.  A childhood spent growing up at the beach and surfing made him tan and lean, almost like he'd been hardened by the waves.  On his chest where his ribs came together in the center, he had a little divet like an upside-down V and I remember sitting on my bed when we were breaking up, pressing my crying face into him and feeling my nose butt up against that spot I'd traced lovingly so many times before. 

Over the summer when he went home to his parents' and to work at the beach, I would visit on the weekends.  We'd drive around without shoes on with the windows down in his beat up green car, listening to songs with eight minute guitar solos and trying not to knock over the buckets of cleaning solution and chlorine tablets in the backseat.  When he was working his pool cleaning job, I'd tag along.  We'd visit beach houses and mansions and pretend we were as rich, jumping into hot tubs and pools of all shapes and sizes when no one was home.  I remember popcorn shrimp and french fries from a little shack on the beach road and the 4th of July where I sat cross-legged drawing circles in the sand with my back molded against him, watching fireworks explode over the water and shower the breaking waves in fantastic colors.  Red and blue and gold and green.    

When his father, the commercial pilot, suggested we take their four seater for a ride, he gave me his crooked smile and slipped into the front seat.  We'd been together for months and I never knew he had his pilot's license until then, but that was how he was.  Humble and surprising.  We flew low over the coastline all the way to Cape Hatteras, watching the cars and people scurry about their lives below us like ants.    

See?  It's very easy to look at the past and see it in shades of black and white.  After the ashes settle in the wake of a break up and the heart mends, you only remember the good times.  It's hard to gain perspective on what it was really like because all I can remember are the details. 

For relationships, it may not be the best habit I have.  For writing, this hypersensitivity can be a blessing.  The details and little moments are the vehicles I use to create an emotion, tell a story, or construct a scene.  In the editting process, I go back to what I've created and parse out the pieces that count, that really say something, but for the writing process as a whole, it helps give shape to what I'm trying to do.  It makes my story concrete and full. 

This may be a very roundabout way of saying "show, don't tell", but it's how my brain works when I'm writing.  Typically in a story, I know the beginning and the end.  I know the characters and maybe some of what happens in the middle, but fleshing out the rest of it is all about the details.