It’s Poetry Day on Two Voices, One Song today.

Don’t forget to look into the Library posts while you’re there to see the chat Meena and I have on Sisyphusand his plight. Join the discussion, if you’d like, please.

Sisyphus (Photo credit: Amaury Henderick)

If you haven’t been to the site yet, take the time to look around, drop in comments where you will. Enjoy yourself.

Claudsy

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Happy to be Sad

Writers Museum (Photo credit: estorde)

For the past few weeks I’ve been part of a group that started out calling itself SAD (Submission A Day.) The name has since changed to J2BL. Strange, isn’t it?

The point was for each member to submit a piece of work each day, to always strive toward publication in whatever venue desired. We have member writers of all sorts, and we’ve had great success in our latest endeavor. We recognize that some cannot manage that kind of time table and it’s okay that they only submit once a week, a month, or whenever they can.

We cheer each other on, congratulating the member for each submission, and cheering but supporting when a rejection comes in, because it means that the writer sent something out, took a chance, and is willing to do so again. (We’ve decided to use rejection slips as wallpaper in our office areas to stimulate new growth in our craft.)

We share resources, new venues and their needs, successes (that’s when we celebrate), and all other aspects of this industry we love and can’t live without. Along the way, we help each other. Ours isn’t a competition. It’s more a team effort where each team player is given whatever is needed to succeed. When a member gets an acceptance notification from a publication, it validates all of the members.

In the past week or so, our efforts have steadily come climbed into the higher acceptance zone, which gives everyone a boost in morale. Sure there are still rejections. Those will never go away, and I’ve received my fair share since we started the group. That hasn’t and won’t change.

What has changed is an attitude toward the entire submission process. Whether we’re talking poetry or prose, letting go of a finished piece is never easy for many writers. Each piece is a child. The writer knows, that for that child to be appreciated fully, it must be allowed to roam the outside world. The submission segment of the writing process, for the writer, amounts to putting her small, innocent baby onto the school bus for the first time.

Once the writer has made a habit of seeing a baby onto the school bus often enough, the need to hold onto a piece is broken. And this habit is what J2BL is all about. This is a mechanism to create a submissions habit.

If the past few weeks indicate nothing else, it shows us that we can work as a team to see to the success of each member; to support each other with resources, confidence, and camaraderie. In a world where the term “It’s every man for himself” rings through the streets, our method seems so much better.

I hope for a time when everyone can call such a group their own, to experience the unique closeness of our group, most of whom have never met face to face. I hope that everyone can have someone in their corner, cheering them on, and patting their shoulders when success isn’t instantaneous. Most of all, I hope that everyone learns that life doesn’t have to be a competition, with winners and losers.

This last week, I’ve submitted poetry, essays, and short stories. Today more poetry will go out. I’ve had a short story accepted, and not heart yet on the others. Editor response times vary greatly. Tomorrow I’ll send out something else. Online submissions allow for any day, any time. And for the first time, I’m enjoying the process and the pace. That’s saying something for a writer.

Have a great weekend, all. Relax, if you can. Laugh and enjoy the people you’re with. A bientot,

Claudsy

Guest Blogging with Food

Chris Smith The Diabetic Chef® Autographing his first cookbook: Cooking with The Diabetic Chef® (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This is a quick heads-up for whomever drops in today. I have a guest blog up this morning on Pat McDermott’s all things cooking website.

I disclose my experience with writing a cookbook for the first time. It hasn’t been the hardest project I’ve taken up, but it has been the tastiest. When you develop new recipes that hold restrictions like cakes with no sugar or low sodium meat entrees, cooking becomes a double challenge.

That’s what my cookbook partners and I are dealing with. At the end of the process, and before the last “T” is crossed or “I” dotted, we’re having a Taste-Testing party with our appetizers and desserts, invitation only. That’s a lot of work for senior women with a passion for food, but it’s work that satisfies in more than one way.

If you get the chance today, stop by Pat’s kitchen to see what’s cooking. If nothing else, you’ll find sumptuous recipes with full photos. Food lovers beware. You may be there a while once you walk in the door.

Enjoy yourselves and your little detour today.

A bientot,

Claudsy

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Whether to Outline or Not

 

Every writer has her own process for writing. Some outline at the very beginning, some begin the outline at the mid-point, others go through the manuscript when the first draft is finished just to see if the story doubles back on itself or wanders too far afield. Still others never write an outline on paper, but rather, keep a running outline in mind.

There are different types of outlines for different writers and projects. If a student is fortunate during her school days, she’s taught how to outline a chapter in a book, for instance, as a way to study effectively. She learns about themes and topic sentences; about beginning, middles, and ends; and about writing conclusions that tie up all the loose ends.

This type of outline for story, essay, memoir, etc., can create an extensive piece of work. Detail is fantastic, if you have the time for it. Often a writer doesn’t have such a luxury as time and must develop the quick and dirty outline template for specific types of manuscript.

A template is a format, pre-staged, which allows the writer to plug in the information for use in the article or story. For instance, with travel writing there are a possible seven types of templates, each dictated by a specific type of travel article.

Once the template is ready, the writer has only to fill in the blanks provided by the template. Oddly enough, this type of template needn’t be a physical one. It could, just as easily, occupy a page in a notebook used for writing specs. The critical issue is to have specs for use in a particular type of article, such as a destination article.

Mysteries, westerns, romances, and fantasies can all use templates, albeit short ones, to get particulars in place so that the writer knows the direction intended, people involved, and final results. Any kind of genre is able to use a template; because, in fiction, there are a finite number of plots; in non-fiction, criteria follow particular channels of information presentation to be effective.

“Organic” writers—those who sit down and start writing without planning anything beforehand—often never use an outline; at least, consciously. Instead, they allow their subconscious to drive the story to its conclusion. The process can seem chaotic to the wordsmith who is meticulous in planning a story.

NaNoWriMo is a challenge for all writers, but those who work from an organic perspective do well with it. For them, revision is the time for taking the story apart, moving sections, rebuilding point connectors, and devising a smooth road for their words.

Allow preliminary scenes to build the story outline. Tagging along behind the organic writers are those who create individual scenes that stand alone while developing the story. Scenes sometimes erupt in the writer’s mind, demanding to be put down on paper. These scenes may have nothing to do with what’s gone before and have no obvious relationship with the mental plotline the writer is using.

Many of these writers create an outline with these scenes. This type of outline allows the writer to see the story in broader scope than a simple line draft. A scene outline shows the writer big chunks of action, dialogue, character development, etc. Writers who think in pictures can get great satisfaction out of this type of planning, since it encourages an intimacy with the story that is often lacking in other types of outline structure; it requires real writing, not just a listing of points.

Character outlines can help build subplots that work effectively with the overall story. Any character has depth if the writer looks for it. Taking the time to explore principle characters through this process can help find both flaws and virtues in each character. In order to be perceived as real by the reader, depth of character is necessary.

Flaws, attitudes, deep moral beliefs also help steer the character into subplots if the writer allows for it. Asking the character pertinent questions about the whys, wherefores, how’s, and all the rest of her life can find answers that take the story to interesting places with exciting results.

Outlines can be as elaborate or skimpy as the writer chooses to make them. If you talk to epic fantasy writers, you’ll probably hear about all of the different types of outlines each uses to keep their overall story straight. You’ll also hear about how many times those outlines are revised to take into account unexpected changes that come up during the story writing process.

Fluidity is the name of the game when using these devices to help the writer stay on point. Each outline will change to some degree after it’s written, just as every story changes during revisions. The importance of this listing of targets to hit with your writing, whether kept as mental notes or in a notebook the size of Kansas, shows itself when the story is finished, polished, and submitted to the editor.

Whether Ready or Not

 

“Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred… Ready or not, here I come.”

That’s how most of us remember playing Hide and Seek; a bunch of giggling and squealing kids racing around, desperate for a hiding place, one slightly peeking “it” person with head buried—not too seriously—within her arms against a tree/wall, and an anticipated thrill of the hunt.

Being a writer is very much like that game played during childhood. We never forget the rules of the game. We continue to chase, with the anticipation of the hunt, counting days instead of seconds until we hear back from a publication about a submission, and squealing with delight when we make a connection with an editor who likes our material.

We understand that, sooner or later, we’ll get caught peeking when we shouldn’t. Editors tend to frown on those writers whose patience runs out before their manuscripts have had time to go through the editorial process. The ability to wait without fussing keeps editors happy.

The game is played the same way, regardless of which aspect we’re facing.

The game parameters that cover territory available for play are decided first. For instance, if we’re doing a preliminary work-up for a new story, novel, essay, or other lengthy prose piece, certain devices and work gets done first. Synopses, character studies, full outlines and the like are usually thought out to some degree before actual writing begins. It’s understood that these will change as writing continues.

Some writers, like me, have done preliminary work in their heads and will wait until after their writing begins before nailing down specifics in an outline. Other writers jot down entire scenes as they pop into the mind and string those scenes together into a loose story later, as a kind of first draft. However the writer chooses to design their work requires planning, whether subconscious or not.

During the writing process, bits of research necessary to the story can be as wily as any good Hide and Seek player. Winkling out the precise information needed can be tricky and time consuming; like racing from one likely hidey hole to another, looking for the last kid hiding. It takes forethought and planning about the likeliest search pattern to dispel one’s frustration in the search.

Once all the players are accounted for within the writing search, a huge chunk of the work is completed. That chunk, comprised of precise words and phrases, information for accuracy, and the most effective organization of the material, determines the rest of the hunt.

Polishing the copy, finding the best markets for submission, whether to agent or publication, and writing either query letters or cover letters take the writer to that moment of true anticipation about possible outcomes. Soon only patience and distraction will take over. A need to write something else will emerge to move the writer back to the keyboard.

Playing Hide and Seek this way never grows dull. It can be exasperating, tedious, inexplicably easy, and all stages in between, but never really dull. Perhaps that’s why those of us who knew from an early age that they needed to write can never put it away. The game hides within us, seeking expression, whether anyone ever reads our words or not. We must still play.

 

Whether Right or Wrong—Write

Tension abducts the shoulders and arms. Fingers twitch ever so slightly as they rest on the keyboard. Eyes see only a blank desert before them, boding ill for any who traverse that lonely stretch of white.

Why is it that beginning a piece of writing looms, as guillotine over neck, waiting for the blade to drop? How can a simple exercise of putting words to paper or computer exact such a toll? Writers have debated the issue for years, probably centuries, and definitive answers remain elusive.

Having suffered from this debility a time or two—okay, read that as every day—I can only suggest my personal reasons for suffering and the relief measures I take to combat those reasons.

10 Reasons for Avoiding the Keyboard

1. No one is interested in anything I have to say.
2. What I have to say has no value.
3. What’s the point of putting myself out there?
4. I don’t have the talent that it takes to make it as a writer.
5. This dream is a waste of time I could be using elsewhere.
6. I’ll never gain approval from anyone for writing, so why do it?
7. Getting something published takes too much time.
8. I have too many other things to do with my time than sit here pretending to be a writer.
9. So I have a story idea. It will never sell.
10.  Only my friends ever read my stuff. I’m going out and enjoy the sunshine instead of being cooped up in here writing drivel.

Did any of these sound familiar? I’d bet that you’ve experienced at least five of these in the past three months.

Doubt is a normal human response to anything that exposes us to criticism. After all, no one likes being criticized for anything. Avoidance is the common remedy for dealing with criticism. If a venture is never begun, never made available for others to see, no one has an opportunity to criticize you for anything.

Taking Charge of Self-Doubt and Fear

Children are taught both self-doubt and fear of disapproval when they’re seldom praised for their efforts. Adults who’ve lived without much praise for good performance, good effort, etc. constantly seek out the missing approval. That, too, is a normal human motivation.

This constant seeking of approval can lead down a road to success or continued failure. The signpost for the direction taken, I think, is the one that reads “YOU’RE HERE—FEAR”

If fear is allowed to control you’re actions, it controls your life and your freedom. Whether you become agoraphobic or not doesn’t matter. You’re still hiding inside a locked room—the one you’ve made for yourself and your aspirations.

I created a motto for myself today and shared it with another writer this morning. It is: “If you never begin, you never arrive.”

Will the world end if your story isn’t equal to one belonging to Dickens, Heinlein, King, or Hemingway? If your poem isn’t of the same caliber as Tennyson, Whitman, Browning, or Frost, will people pound on your door, demanding that you cease writing immediately?

Of course not!

My Relief Measures

Over the past three plus years I’ve developed a few relief measures that get me writing whether I believe I’m a “real” writer or not. Try on a few of them. See if they work for you. If not, take a likely candidate and modify it for your own circumstance.

Remember: “Fear is the little mind killer, I shall not FEAR.” (Paraphrased from Paul Atreides of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”)

1. Think of writing poetry as immersing yourself in a memory. Writing it will capture that memory in a way nothing else can.
2. Write that children’s story or article for your niece/nephew. They’ll first love it because you wrote it. If they keep asking for it to be read, you’ll know it’s good. (“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” began this way.)
3. Write back cover blurbs for the story or book that keeps running through your mind, the story that haunts you but you’re terrified is too “out-there.”
4. Do some brainstorming with a friend who has an active imagination. Keep throwing out ideas until you feel comfortable with a storyline and then transfer your notes to the computer. You’ve just begun your writing process.
5. Take the time to sit and think about whatever project is waiting for you. Life tends to get frantic at times, forcing the writer to feel as if her particular house of cards is ready to collapse with every breath. Slow down and think for a while. Unless critical deadlines are set regarding the project, you have the time to ponder your approach, your intent, and your criteria. Use it wisely.
6. Finally, take workshops when available and affordable. Take online courses in that area of writing that you prefer. Many are excellent university courses and they are free. You’ll work your keyboard into the desktop, but it will be worth every moment. You’ll come out of the experience with renewed confidence and drive.

There you have it; doubt and fear, each on a half shell. Neither half shell can work without the other being present. The writer can arm herself with the knowledge and practice to defeat both of these naysayers. Good luck and happy writing.