Are You a Re-visionary?

I am!

My teeth have ripped back into the pages, and I am trying on the skins of my characters again after a two month hiatus: I finally got my manuscript back from my critique partner (who also happens to double as my husband and father of my children).

He is very good at telling me what's not working. Ouch.

But thank you! It's ultimately what I want and need to hear. He confirmed for me something that I already knew - my voice was getting obscured by trying to write for a "market".

This novel, India Flips, was originally written a few years ago with the working title of In Your Face, about a 17 year old Goth girl named Godiva who gets roped into being on a Reality TV show. There too, I was focusing on trying to be more commercial, but my editor at FSG didn't like it. I chose not to send it to anybody else and put it in a drawer.

But the story still called to me, and my agent had been suggesting that I write a middle grade book. I thought: what if I kept the premise of In Your Face but changed the characters and made them younger, put more of a romance angle in it? And drums! Yes, we need drums and some good ol' rock n' roll rather than the Goth angle.

So I was off to the races, writing for a "market" because, as you all know, I am eager to be published again. Too eager, because if the characters are 13 turning 14, then they are WAY too precocious.

Writers: all of our drafts are invaluable - no words written are wasted, even though many end up on the cutting room floor. Re-visioning is what makes our characters come to life. We want our readers to be able to slip inside their skins.

So who will read our work if we so it this way, who will it be marketed too?

For me, for this novel, it is too early to worry about that. Way too early! Write the story that wants to be written . . . India is turning sixteen, not fourteen.

I need to focus on writing India's story and listen to her voice, re-visioning her rather than writing what I think people may or may not want to read.

How do you do it? Are you a re-visionary too?

Vacation, Crosswicks, and Re-Vision

Vacation: a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity, usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess or holiday

I don't write when my kids are on vacation, and I am out of my routine.

Therefore, I am on vacation too: a vacation from my vocation.

I have to remind myself that writers need "a suspension of work" too: after all, we are with my mother up in Crosswicks, the family homestead in Northwestern Connecticut. This is where my grandmother set A Wrinkle in Time and the early Austin books. (And even she needed time to decompress and let things marinate.)

The winter has been strange with nary a snow flake - the trees are bare and the grass a yellowish-brown.  Climate change brought us a white Halloween and then sixty degrees in February.

We always have to keep what we think we know in check.

Crosswicks has undergone so many permutations since I was a child, running in the fields. There have been additions and renovations. In my mind's eye, I still see the weeping willow that was in the front yard during my childhood.

This picture, above, shows me that another tree has been in it's place for the past twenty years.

Vision is a funny thing. Can I really see what is in front of me, here and now without my whole life intervening?

This is why re-vision is so important, changing our perspective, our point of view. We have to deal with what's in front of us and accept it. The willow tree isn't there anymore, my childhood is gone but I have so much more than I ever dreamed.

And the author Patricia O'Brien finally makes it under a pen name at the age of seventy.

Who is Patricia O'Brien, aka, Kate Alcott? I was blown away by this article in the New York Times yesterday: this author has thirteen rejections of her sixth book, in large part because her previous books don't have a stellar track record. Her agent sends the same manuscript out under an alias, and voila - she gets a 6 figure deal in THREE days! Talk about a book being judged by it's cover!

The fear-based state of today's publishing industry had Patricia O'Brien re-visioning her career. She (and her agent) gave her book a chance to judged on it's own merit.

This post comes about because I have a very big revision of a manuscript looming large, one in which I am taking a "vacation" from, and will relish sinking my teeth into.

Related articles

• Patricia O'Brien (as Kate Alcott) Sells 'The Dressmaker' (nytimes.com)

EDGES: The One Year Anniversary

My first novel came out exactly a year ago. A sweet book with two teen protagonists, it explores addiction and spirituality on the streets of New York City and the red canyons of the desert Southwest.

A year ago, paranormal romance was trending, so Edges didn't come out with the BANG! I had hoped for. Still, I was/am incredibly fortunate to have been published in this exciting technological era where all of the rules are changing. I am ecstatic that I finally gave myself permission, albeit slowly, to write, and that I have become the person I was meant to be: a writer and a teacher.

I believe that everybody has the right to write - if they want to. Everybody has a story to tell, and we don't all have to be Shakespeare.

The most important factors to becoming a writer are passion, practice, discipline and a little bit of luck. In terms of luck, is it "lucky" to be the eldest granddaughter of Madeleine L'Engle? Of course it is!  But it is also a double edged sword. It might make people listen for five seconds, but it also sets up unrealistic expectations. (And that's not the reason I was published.) I have to sink or swim on my own, I have to have my own authentic voice.

Many of you know that I have had to table my second book, a companion to Edges called The Land of the Lost and Found due to "lackluster" sales of Edges. (And people, anything short of a best seller is lackluster these days.) I am happy with the sales of Edges, happy that it is being read.

The strategy is for me to move onto another publishing house with something new and fresh, and then publish The Land of the Lost and Found,  timing it with the paperback release of Edges. Makes sense, right?

So I have India Flips, a tween novel. It is about flipping out, flipping for, as well as literally flipping. (In November, for Nanowrimo, I started from scratch, but took the basic premise from another novel-in-a-drawer and completely changed the characters - from ages to personalities.)

I will celebrate my anniversary by going to the gym, and by throwing myself into revisions. And I think it's a good excuse for another contest, don't you? Since it's the season of giving and all.

I have one book (signed of course!) and an audio to give away. And bookmarks! (Everyone who enters will get a bookmark.) You will have multiple chances to have your name in the lottery.

1) Leave a comment . . .
2) Follow this blog
3) "Like" the Edges page on Facebook
4) Follow me on Twitter (even though I am not the greatest tweeter)
5) Give this blog and/or Edges a shout out by re-posting on FB or re-tweeting. Hey, why not both!

I will announce the winner on Thursday, December 15th, so that it will get to you in time for Christmas.

Thank you for reading!

xoxo   your friend,    Léna

Julius Caesar, Suffering, and Revision

Image via Wikipedia

My intention was to write a pithy post combining the Ides of March, Shakespeare and revision, in terms of the importance of making your characters suffer.

But how can I do that when Singin' In The Rain is playing in the background? And frankly, pithy isn't  what I do best. But it is March 15th, and Shakespeare did have the soothsayer warn Julius Caesar: "Beware the Ides of March" AND William was mad awesome at thwarting his characters from getting what they want. (Caesar does NOT beware, hurtling towards his tragic end.)

I am polishing my manuscript and I think I'm done. How could I possibly ratchet up the tension any MORE without being melodramatic? Thinking that I'm "done" most probably means that I am wrong, because we are NEVER done! (Okay, I take that back. Sometimes we are done. We have to be willing to let go in so many ways, and then when you "get published" your words take on a collaborative effort, not only with your editor, but more importantly with your readers.) So, I am looking at it again to make sure everybody is doing what they're supposed to be doing, and NOT getting what they want. But we have to make sure that we're clear on what they DO want on many different levels.

Think of yourself. What are your objectives, your motivations? What stops YOU from getting what you want? It's hard to know, isn't it?

Related articles

• Ides of March: what to read on March 15 (csmonitor.com)
• Beware The Ides of March (mindstimulant.wordpress.com)

Writing Ain't for Sissies

Image by -l.i.l.l.i.a.n- via Flickr

Writing ain't for sissies, but sometimes I think of myself as one. On the surface, it may look like I chose a nice, calm career. What could be better than stringing words together and writing them down? Writers do that, don't they? It's easy for them, right?

Ha! We grapple with words, argue with them, fight them. We reach into the recesses of our soul and put it out there for everyone to opine on. I thought that writers could hide behind their words, but they can't. I can't. Thanks to this blog, I have discovered a new way of writing and discovering, where I can't be anything but myself.

I was surprised by how crazy publishing actually made me, but I think I'm coming out of it now, with renewed vim and vigor.  I know that I'm in it for the long haul, and that I'm not a sissy, even though . . . okay, I won't go all Elmer Gantry on you. (Litany of woes!)

I have so many things to look forward to with regards to getting out there and pimpin' for my book, meeting other writers and book lovers, being part of a world I have only dreamed about.

I had lunch with my agent on Monday to go over my WIP and I got a real shot in the arm because he was so enthusiastic about my manuscript and my growth as a writer. (The last time we had lunch, over a year ago, I started blogging! I wonder what life changing effect he'll have this time?)

I am sinking my teeth into another revision before he sends it out, but this revision is more of a polish, where I labor over word choices, and get the tension as tight as I possibly can. The manuscript isn't surgery: it is as much a stand-alone as it is a companion to Edges.

It takes soooo long to birth a novel where characters and setting intertwine and are multi-dimensional. I don't even count how many drafts I do anymore. And that is the part I can control. I can't control whether it gets published or what people think. A published book becomes a different entity, and as an author, you have to ultimately be able to let that go.

No, it definitely ain't for sissies!

Writing Challenge: Switching Narrative Voice

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Now that I've handed in LAND OF THE LOST & FOUND to my agent, I can't sit around and twiddle my thumbs for his response, I need to have another WIP to sink my teeth into. Fortunately, I've got IN YOUR FACE, and I've got my work cut out for me: my writing challenge in the months ahead will be taking this old manuscript with a story I love, and breathing new life into it by changing narratives and tense. Sound simple? It's not!

The manuscript isn't that old - I started writing it after my agent had sold EDGES to FSG (and we all know that it was published two and a half years later!) I wrote another double narrative in the third person past tense. I LOVE double narratives, because I love how it shows different points of view! And I think that it's so important to remember that our perspective is not the only one, as I did in EDGES, showing the different faces of addiction in families.

But it wasn't working for IN YOUR FACE. Now, I don't want to give away too much, but it's based on a trip down to Panama City Beach in Florida to participate in a cheerleading convention, ON A REALITY TV SHOW. How could I have not written it in first person present all along?

I can hear my main character's voice better. She's more alive. It's so different! Such a great exercise! It is not merely changing the she to I, the was to is. Check out the one sentence I was able to work on this morning:

The ride to the airport rushed by in a blur. Memories of things said tugging at her mind, things that she would rather not think about.

Changes to:



The ride to the airport is a blur as memories tug at the corners of my mind.  Self analysis has never been my friend, so I try to focus on my environment, even though we have left Manhattan far behind. I wish that we had stopped in Harlem to buy a mango-on-a-stick or at least some honey-roasted peanuts, but how could I have done that with a camera in my face? 

It's so immediate, and works better for the situation. I am hearing her thoughts. And dialogue is so different too - there's no he said, she said.

The whole manuscript is going to either be cut, or changed, so why am I even working from it? It's like a blanky, I need it for security! I'm tricking myself into thinking I'm just revising, when I am really rewriting and reconstructing.

Maybe that's why I've been procrastinating so much! Today's excuse? My daughter is sick, so I've been cuddling her while she dozes. (I'm supposed to be at the library with Judy Blundell, but she understands.) Right now my daughter is watching The Lady and the Tramp with eyes glazed over, while I at least write something.

Dear Student

Image by Robbert van der Steeg via Flickr

One of my cyber friends, Jodi H, a fabulous teacher in the state of Washington has prompted today's post. She writes:

So one of my students says to me the other day...

"Ms. H, don't you think we over analyze this stuff. I mean really, do you really think all of these authors sit around and THINK about this stuff? Do they really spend hours coming up with metaphors and symbolism and word choice? They just say stuff don't they? Doesn't it just flow out of their heads? Come one, do we really need to talk about WHY and author does something and why it is important?"

I responded with yes, yes they do and yes, yes we do.

Well author lady :) do you have a response for my lovely student?

Dear LS (Lovely Student),
 
I remember thinking exactly the same thing, frustrated by what I thought was over analysis of a book. In class we weren't just looking for symbolism - it seemed like cannibalism, starting with decapitation! I would feel sorry for the author's who had no idea, I imagined, that we were torturing their babies.

I also thought for many years that I wasn't a writer, because "stuff" didn't flow out of my head whenever I wrote. Sometimes it did and it still does, of course. But that is grace. It took a long time for me to understand what the saying: labor of love meant, and I think that ALL writers and artists feel that way about their craft - it is work, but they love it, we love it.

Picasso would paint a picture over and over again, in different colors and shadings, just to rule out everything that wasn't right. It is the same with writers, published or not, who keep at it. I always wrote, but I wasn't  real writer until I fell in-love with revision, until I trusted that I could be embraced by the right words.

I am at the beginning of my writing career, and I wish that I could show you drafts of my work. Edges went through 13 drafts. The first draft did come easily, I have to admit, but it took that long to really find the story. Now I'm no Picasso, but I kept thinking of him with each draft I did. The first one was too blue, the second one too red (and so on.)

I am working on a third draft of a manuscript now, changing the narrative from the third person to the first person. I couldn't hear my character's voice before, and now I can.  It changes everything.

Am I answering your questions? Because I also want to address why you are asking them at all. (And I'm glad that you're asking, even if it's out of annoyance.) I suspect that you are right on the cusp of discovering yourself through critical thinking. I suspect that you are frustrated because you don't realize how important developing your own perspective is. You matter.  You are learning  to discern what works for you and what doesn't in not only books, but in your life. That's worth exploring, isn't it?

Fiction works on so many different levels. 100 people are going to have 100 different reactions to the same book! We can't help but see the world through our own limited experience. The hope is that literature will raise our consciousness, but of course not every book does that for every person.
(I don't like a lot of books that everybody else loves and vice versa!)

I worked hard on my papers in high school because books and words  fascinated me, but I also needed good teachers to show me the way, to tell me what to look for.

But never what to think.

From reading, discussing and writing, I learned not only about story structure, but who I was, what I believed in, what I thought. If I disagreed with something, I learned to say so, and to present a pretty good argument. I saw the power of words and respected them. Words are a powerful tool, and they can be your tool too!

LS, "writers" aren't the only ones with a monopoly on words. You will be able to find your own, I promise.

Diving in

Image via Wikipedia

Ahhh! I am diving into a revision of The Land of the Lost and Found and it feels so good! Finally! (And there - I also revealed my working title!) I have been waiting all summer to get back to my manuscript, and now, for the first time in months, the kids are in school all day, all week! The bus will be dropping them off in about half an hour, so I figure that this is the perfect time to blog.

I was intrigued by Natalie Whipple's blog post last week, where she talked about putting the cart before the horse and the temptation of acting like a writer at the expense of being a writer.

So this fall, I will be playing the role of reclusive writer, and not just social networker, mom, wife, house renovator. I have quite a few renovations on this manuscript to do. Yesterday, instead of editing the opening pages, I wrote completely new ones. We're starting with a party folks! (Of course, that could all change.) I have given myself a personal deadline of mid-October, so that means I will be living and breathing my characters. Walking in their footsteps. How would Bruno brush his teeth? How would Willow wash the dishes?

In other news, Barnes and Noble has bought a small amount of EDGES, which is good news, but only in the NYC area, which is not so good news. So that means, I really need your help to spread the word! Word-of-mouth is still evidently, the best way to sell books, and as my friend and the assistant editor on this book Beth Potter believes, "it will be championed by indies and librarians," which is what will give it longevity. Will you be my champions?

Time to meet the school bus!

I Heart Revision

The school lunches are made, coffee is set up for the morning, and my husband is lying on the bed next to me crunching on an apple and playing Civilization on his laptop. I can't concentrate (on Jonathan Ames' extremely fun and captivating novel, The Extra Man - yup, taking a break from kid-lit) with all of this crunching going on, so I open my own laptop, and rival his crunching with the heavy tap of my fingers on the keyboard.

Confession: I never learned how to type. I am a lame-o two fingered typer/writer. I know, I know. I could learn - but that's the confession; I haven't gotten to it yet.

I finally logged in about a thousand words today on the Work in Progress (WIP) after days of staring at a blank page and being lured by other things (yes blog, I mean you!) and obligations to family, friends, and actual PAID work.

Being in the middle is hard. I am slowly inching my way up to 2/3rds of the WIP, so I've been in the middle for quite a while. I had coffee with my friend Daphne Grab the other week and I took the risk and told her what WIP was about, and she was so supportive and encouraging, she breathed new life into me. "It's okay," she said simply. "You can write about that." I am reminded that it is voice and craft that matter the most.

What do I do? I went back to the beginning and started filling in the details, working on the characters, constantly reminding myself that the story is there, no matter how fantastical or outrageously dramatic it sounds in my head, I need to make it ring true.

My closest friends have shared with me stories from their lives that you wouldn't believe if you read it. (And I've shared with them - EDGES now is completely fictional, but my first draft had some autobiographical aspects. "But that really happened to me!" I told my husband, the fierce editor he is. "That doesn't make it believable," he said.) Yet the facts speak for themselves. But in fiction, the facts don't just speak for themselves - you need complexity of character and motivation for actions even when - especially when - those actions are unconscious.

I think I know where I'm going now, the story is beginning to take shape. And I can't say what it's about yet; I don't want to jinx it. Teaser: this goofball here has chosen another difficult topic. Ha!

So . . . I really wasn't having fun with it for a while, but the story is begging for me to tell it. I'm trying to listen, really I am.

And sometimes I have to stop listening. I just have to stare into space for a while, go for a walk, take a yoga class, talk to friends, play/read/have fun with my kids and husband, so my heart and my ears can open again and my lame-o typing fingers can help the characters say what they need to say and do what they need to do. If I do that, then the two thirds will become a completed first draft sooner than later, I'll be having fun again, in the flow of the world being created.

Please. Because then comes my favorite part of the process.

Revision: It's like working on a puzzle - you have all of these pieces, but where do they fit together? Which are the wrong pieces? Where do you find the right pieces? I love revising, it's the best, I think I'm going to be a bigamist and marry it.

Now I'm really goofing off, but it's late, and I know you'll forgive me! Head hurts, eyes burning, must sleep! (And the time is totally wrong on this post - all of my clocks say that it's ten to midnight!)