Getting it All Out

I'm the kind of writer who likes to just writewritewritewritewrite until the draft is done before attempting any kind of edits. I've always been rather fond of the pottery metaphor for novels: you've got to get all the clay lumped together on the wheel first, and THEN you can start shaping it into a pretty bowl or vase or what have you. But you have to get all the parts together first.

That's not to say that editing while you go can't work - obviously the first rule of writing is that there is no universal rule of writing. Some things work for some people, and other things work for other people. Sometimes, the same methods don't even work for different novels - circumstances change, deadlines are looming, the characters aren't cooperating, et cetera. For my senior project / work in progress, The Long Road Home, I had to go back and revise what I'd written about a year ago before I could continue. It just wasn't working as it was, and I needed to fix some things before I could move forward.

Since then, however, I've been just chugging along as fast as I can (can I get to "the end"/past 50k by the time finals week rolls around? WE SHALL SEE) and it's been going great. Obviously, my project mentor has been pointing out her concerns as we go along, mostly some hitches in worldbuilding continuity (uuuugh worldbuilding... you make so much sense in my head!) but she's really understanding of the fact that I fix things later. And it's nice to be aware of those problems as they come up; I don't have to run and fix them, always doubling back before continuing onwards, but it's nice to know what I'll have to work on later, and to be able to try and smooth those things out in future chapters so that there's a bit less to revise.

How about you, dear blog readers? Are you the kind of writer who just chugs along forward, or the kind who revises along the way? Will I finish this manuscript before I graduate? What do you think? :)

Making Time

One of the final requirements for a writing major at my school is a class called "Senior Project." Each section is organized slightly differently by the professor who runs it, but what it boils down to is a semester long project of the student's own choosing where they work one-on-one with a professor, rather than in a workshop class setting. It's meant to let us figure out how to handle being a self motivated writer, rather than a writer spurred on by homework assignments and writing prompts.

I am loving every second of this.

There's one piece of writing advice that makes me feel incredibly guilty whenever I see it, and that's "write every day." I cringe when I see it. I actually do. And here's the thing: I do write nearly every day (and the days I'm not writing, I'm reading). I just don't write for MYSELF every day. I'm an overachiever times ten when it comes to grades, and so schoolwork has always come first. But I'm a writing major - I'm always writing something, whether that something is a journal entry or review for class, a literary analysis, an essay, a research paper, or a short story. There's always something.

And yet, even knowing that, even being well aware that I was writing, was learning how to master this craft by doing it and doing it, I still feel guilty about not writing for myself every day. Senior Project is giving me permission to do that. Because it is for a class - a very important class for my major - I structured my whole schedule around having time to write. I am determined to finish this draft this semester, and I'm well on my way to accomplishing that. Because I know myself, and I've MADE the time to write while appeasing my obsessively-good-student side.

I think that's part of the "write every day, make the time to do it" advice that gets left out a lot. You have to really know yourself and how you work in order to carve out that time. If you will actually be miserable if you get up one minute earlier than you have to, don't make your writing time in the morning. Make the time, but do it in a way you can actually keep to that time without torturing yourself.

The point of Senior Project is for us to motivate ourselves, rather than having a professor motivate us. I'm already a very self-motivated writer; I've written novels before this one, I know how I write, I know how this all works. I'm just so glad to finally get the chance, in an academic setting, to really dig into a project for an entire semester, and not feel that I have to prioritize homework over what I want to write.  Because what I want to write IS homework.

And hopefully my project advisor won't be too upset when I come up with an entire novel's worth of material...

Teaser Tuesday: The End of the World

Hello, lovely blog readers! I'm not dead, I promise! I have, as usual when my blog posts trickle to a halt, been incredibly busy this semester - the kind of busy that when I stop to take a break for a few hours (or sometimes an evening) because I can't think straight anymore, I feel guilty about neglecting my mountain of work. Sigh. 

Anyway, enough about my overabundance of homework - it's time for a teaser!!

This is the opening chapter (it's a short chapter) of the short novel I'm working on for my class. Long time blog readers might recognize it, as the idea came from a short story I wrote about a year ago, although there are quite a few differences in the new version - namely that the protagonist is about two years older, and that it's now a novel instead of a short story.

In any case, I hope you enjoy it!

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Brixton

London

November, 1940

            The air raid siren did not scare Sophie Miller any longer. 

            Never mind that it was cold and the middle of the night; the siren went off, whooping across the darkness like some sort of alien bird, and Sophie obeyed its call. She and her mother got out of bed, pulled on socks and slippers and dressing gowns at coats, bundling up against the possibility of a long night in the tin-and-concrete Anderson shelter. The air outside was bitingly cold, and it did not yet smell of dust and smoke and burnt things the way Sophie knew it would sooner or later. So far, there was no sound aside from the siren and neighbors clattering towards their own backyard shelters.

            Sophie and her mother crossed the yard in silence – there was nothing that needed to be said – and clambered inside their little vegetable-covered Anderson shelter. She switched on the torch then, hoping that the batteries would last till the end of the raid this time, and reached for the overstuffed suitcase that was settled beneath the little wooden cot inside the bomb shelter. The suitcase held anything she and her mother had, in a fit of fancy, deemed important – a layer of legal documents settled at the bottom, covered by pictures of her father, favorite earrings, a carefully wrapped tea set that had belonged to Sophie’s grandmother, and books. Sophie took out one of the books and clambered onto the cot beside her mother, letting half the blanket be wrapped around her as they snuggled together while Sophie balanced the torch between her cheek and her shoulder and the book on her bony knees and began to read. In a voice that was at first heavy with sleep, then louder as the sound of the siren was replaced by the eerie soft roar of plane engines and the distant soul-shattering crashes of bombs, she read from the evening’s chosen book – this time it was Twelfth Night – relishing in the feel of the familiar syllables falling from her lips and the warm weight of her mother’s shoulder pressing in to hers. 

            The explosions that battered the world outside their tin can shelter grew closer, and Sophie had to raise her voice again and again to make herself heard above the noise and above the panic that threatened to overtake her as each explosion sounded more and more near. 

            And then the earth itself seemed to shake. 

            The force of the explosion knocked the pair off the cot and onto the hard, cold floor, which was where they stayed, gasping and clinging and frightened, for a good long while. There were more explosions outside, although none so close, but Twelfth Night lay forgotten on the floor, and the glass of the torch was cracked, keeping them in darkness. 

            When at last the all-clear signal sounded and Sophie creaked open the door of the Anderson shelter, she had expected to see what she had always seen: the back door of her little house in Brixton, where she had spent all her life, with its grey painted siding and blue painted windows. She expected to see the fence along her yard and the shadow of the neighbor’s houses. But all of that was gone. 

            Her mother put her hand on Sophie’s shoulder in what was probably meant to be a comforting gesture but was in reality a vice grip as the two of them stepped into a wholly alien landscape. There was a great, gaping black hole where her house had been, stretching across the street, leaving the back wall of the house to stand precariously on its own. The windows had shattered, and the curtains that her mother had made were beginning to catch fire. 

            It was as though Sophie had closed the door on the world she’d known and opened it on an utterly new one. Had she been able to speak, she might have echoed Viola and said “what country, friends, is this?” because it was not Brixton. 

            It was not home, and it would never be home again.

Teaser Tuesday: The Long Road Home

Hello, blogsphere! It's been a long time, hasn't it, especially since the last Teaser Tuesday? This semester (and my 18 credits of DOOM) has really been kicking my butt - I've not been writing much, I haven't been blogging (obviously), I haven't been reading other people's blogs (my apologies), et cetera, et cetera. I'm home on Thanksgiving Break, though, so I get a little bit of a reprieve - and you get a teaser! - before I head back into the madness that is college.

This is the opening of my new project, which I am currently working on for my historical fiction class. I'm going to continue with it after this semester is over, though. When I finally forced myself to start writing this, words just started flying from my fingertips, and I was reminded that I do really like writing after all. It was a great feeling.

The story is set in rural Ireland, the spring after the worst winter of the Great Famine. Because I like being cruel to my characters. Also, Maire is pronounced like MY-rah. Enjoy!

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*snipped*

How to Write Historical Fiction - Tips from Anna Solomon

On Thursday, Anna Solomon, author of THE LITTLE BRIDE, came to my historical fiction class. It was a really fun experience, as it isn't all that often (if ever) that you read a book in class and then get to ask the author questions about it. She had a lot of helpful things to say on the topic of writing historical fiction, so I thought I would share some of her tips with you in case you guys ever want to delve into the world of historical fiction - or are there now!

1. Just because something is set in the past doesn't mean that the tone has to be super-formal. I thought this was a really good point to make, as a lot of people do often see history as a little bit stuffy, but in reality, even though etiquette rules were different, people were still people - not everyone is always formal all the time. Your writing will be much more enjoyable for the reader - and much more fun for you too! - if you let yourself loosen up about it a little.

2. Fiction written during the time period can be really helpful. Obviously, this is easier for some time periods than others, but it is a good way to put yourself in the mindset of people who really lived during the time period you've chosen to work with.

3. In terms of detail, consider how you might say the same thing in a modern setting and how much detail you'd need to get your point across, and use the same amount of detail for your historical work. For instance, if you're saying "he walked down the street," do you really need to tell us about every cobblestone or gaslamp? Unless your character trips over the cobblestones, probably not.

4. Social histories, contemporary newspapers, and contemporary journals are excellent ways to learn more about everyday life in your time period. Again, this is easier to find for some places and times than others, but it's still a good thing to be looking for.

Anna Solomon's visit was really exciting, and she had a lot of informative and helpful things to say. It was great meeting her, and I can't wait to apply some of her research techniques to my next project.

Historical Footnotes

I'm taking a class in Historical Fiction this semester, which thus far has been my favorite writing class here at IC ever. (My professor is also awesome; last night she read from her new book TEN THOUSAND SAINTS, which I have not yet read, but which was blurbed by ANN PATCHETT of all people!! It also involves laser tag on the NYC subway system in 1988, so I now really have to read it.) I'm loving this class to pieces because I'm reading and writing things that I actually want to be reading and writing, rather than slogging through 'important' short stories and pretending I can write contemporary fiction because that's what's expected of me in an educational setting.

So far, in the two novels that we've read (THE BOOK OF SALT by Monique Truong and THE LITTLE BRIDE by Anna Solomon) and, to a lesser extent, in Professor Henderson's own novel, the authors have presented their readers with one of history's untold stories. THE BOOK OF SALT involves the gay Vietnamese chef employed by Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas in Paris; THE LITTLE BRIDE is the story of a Jewish girl sent to South Dakota as a mail-order bride in the 1880s; TEN THOUSAND SAINTS is about the straight-edge scene in 1980s New York City.

One of the most interesting and, I think, important things about historical fiction is that it allows writers and readers to explore those untold stories. It allows us to imagine the lives of those people left out of the history books. It allows us to bring the past alive in a much more concrete way than a textbook that tells us "in 1793, Marie Antoinette was guillotined." Through fiction, and especially through the untold stories of history, we can empathize with the people who lived before us in ways that the 'facts' might not necessarily allow us to do.

History's untold stories are also a great place to find inspiration. All three authors have discussed in interviews (well, all right, I asked Professor Henderson about it at her reading last night, because we talk about it in class all the time) that they stumbled across a historical footnote that inspired them to write their novel. For Monique Truong, it was a mention of "Indo-Chinese cooks" in Alice B. Toklas' cookbook. Anna Solomon was Googling herself and discovered another Anna Solomon on a website about Jewish women pioneers. Professor Henderson said last night that her "footnote" was her husband's stories of growing up in the East Village. I've recently been inspired by the discovery that during the Irish Potato Famine (called The Great Hunger in Ireland), thousands of pounds' worth of food was being harvested from Anglo-Irish estates and shipped to Britain. This was something wholly left out of my previous historical education, and I wondered what it would be like to see all of that leave your country when you and everyone you knew was starving. And even worse, what would it be like to be the ones handing that precious food over?

History books (and yes, also things like Google and Wikipedia) are full of those footnotes, practically waiting for someone to stumble across them and become inspired by them to write those untold stories down. The next time you lovely readers are in need of a new idea, pick up that history text you were bored by once. Maybe there's something waiting there to inspire you.

Unreliable Narrators

The topic of the unreliable narrator comes up quite frequently in college writing classes. We'll read a novel or a short story - always of the 'literary' variety, of course - and in class, the professor will ask if we can fully trust the narrator and there will be a strange mixture of quiet nods and quiet headshaking, with no one or very few people wanting to actually answer the question. The answer is usually no, as over the past month or so of digging quite deeply into literary fiction I've decided that one of its defining features is extreme closeness to the protagonist*, so by nature of that the reader cannot believe everything that is said. If everything is seen solely through the lens of one character's perspective (sometimes two), not everything that that character thinks or feels will be the truth.

But what about a character who deliberately misleads the reader? Someone who lies all the time, perhaps, or someone who has a lot to hide.

I played with this idea a little bit in Letters to Oliver, but although individual characters did not necessarily have the whole story, the reader did, because the reader was privy to all of Emily's letters and could see what things she was concealing from which people. That's my favorite part about the epistolary format, and something I've talked at great length about in my historical fiction class - when we view a character through what they write down to send to another character, what they conceal, from whom, and why says even more about them than what they do say.

But I'm in a bit of a predicament now. I need to start working on my final project for historical fiction (which I think will also become my next novel project, if it goes well), and the main character, Maire, might possibly be a pathological liar. However, I have no idea how to pull this off in third person format. (Or regular first person narration, really, but that's less of a problem because I hate writing in first person that isn't epistolary.)

Do you guys have any suggestions? Recommendations for books or stories I could look at? Stern comments telling me that I am out of my mind and should drop the idea altogether? Anything you have to say would be most welcome.

Also, a related question: how do you feel about unreliable narrators in fiction? Do you like them? Hate them? What's your preferred format - a narrator who is unreliable to the characters around them but not to the reader, or a narrator who obscures everything for everyone involved? Have you ever written such a character?

All right, I think that's quite enough questions for your Tuesday. Have a lovely day!



*The point of this post is not to discuss literary vs. genre fiction. That is a can of worms I have to open on a near-daily basis in class and would rather leave quite alone.

Teaser Tuesday: The Snow Queen

Yes, it's Teaser Tuesday! No, this is not from the secret wip. What I have been working on is a short story for my Fiction II class. We had to choose a fairy tale and adapt it. I chose Hans Christian Anderson's story The Snow Queen, and I would love to get some feedback from you guys. You know that I never write contemporary, and I've never tried something like this, so while I like the concept, I'm a little unsure of myself here. I don't workshop for quite a while, so any feedback you feel like giving me is most welcome.

Here are the first two pages or so. I hope you enjoy them!

The Snow Queen

The first day Kade wasn’t in school, Grace didn’t worry. He had been skipping school a lot lately, more and more as the weather got colder, the fierce wind ripping through Manhattan’s streets and sneaking under upturned collars and snug-fitting hats like bony fingers. It was an ice-cold caress that Grace tried to ignore, but this winter, sometimes it seemed that Kade was drawn to it.

She had confronted him about it, once, when he had missed two days in a row at the beginning of November. She had gone to his apartment, one door over from her own, intending to give him a teacher-style lecture about missing school and falling behind on homework and tests, about how that would affect his future in all sorts of bad ways now that he was in high school. But she wound up giving him a different lecture, when she discovered that he was alone in the apartment, sitting on the window ledge in his t-shirt and shorts, leaning into the cold gusts of wind that blew down their street. It might have been funny, if he hadn’t been tipping forward, millimeter by millimeter leaning farther over the dizzying edge, second by second creeping towards a seven-story fall.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Grace had shrieked, without thinking.

Kade had turned, surprised to see her, and he wobbled; Grace flung herself forward and hauled his thin frame back through the window, letting him topple onto the floor of his bedroom.

“I like it,” he’d said, grumbling as he rubbed at his head where it had banged on the floor. “I like the cold. It’s like the wind is calling me when I sit out there, asking me to come with her-”

“What are you smoking?” she had asked, automatically turning to his desk, pulling open a drawer to search for something offending, some monstrous white powder that was tearing her childhood friend away from her.

“You’re not my mother, Grace,” he snapped, shoving her away from the desk. “And you don’t care what happens to me any more than she does. You just don’t want your friend to be crazy, to be found broken in a pile on the street because you don’t want any stain on your perfect future-”

“Well, excuse me for saving your life!” she shouted, storming off, making sure to slam the door behind her.

So the first day didn’t worry her. Not when the January wind was coated in snow, when she knew those fingers would lovingly tear at his skin, when the wind would be calling him in a voice that glittered like sun through ice.

But then one day became two, which melted on into three, then four, then a whole week. By Thursday, she was worried, and not just because the seniors were more inclined to knock the stack of books out of her hands when Kade was not around. He had disappeared before, but never for as long as a week.

Friday afternoon, she crept down the hall to his apartment and knocked softly on his green-painted door, a packet of missed assignments tucked under her arm. No one answered the door, and after waiting for five minutes, she turned the knob and let herself in.

Kade’s parents were not home – they were almost never home – but Kade was nowhere to be found either. Grace left the makeup work on the kitchen table and poked her head into Kade’s room. It was a mess, with clothes and books thrown every which way; she found one of his favorite paperbacks sitting in a corner, the cover bent, as though he had tried to find some comfort in it but had hurled it aside. His window was wide open, icicles beginning to drip down towards the sill, and Grace shut it, shivering, not daring to look at the pavement below. Surely if he had fallen, she would have known. She lived next door, as she had all her life – surely someone would tell her.

Just Do It

This happens to all of us: sometimes, we just don't have an idea. Sometimes the words just aren't coming and there's no trick in the world that will allow us to get around that and squeak them onto our Word documents. Sometimes we just need to take a break and let ourselves relax before diving back in or starting a new project.

But then, sometimes we can't afford that break. Sometimes, we need those words RIGHT NOW.

As a writing student, someone who has to continually turn in my work for a grade (and believe me, I am incredibly hard on myself when it comes to grades), there have been quite a few occasions where I am staring at the computer screen at midnight the day before a story is due. And it's not because I've put it off till the last minute - it's because I just don't have an idea. I just don't know what to write.

And you know what? The only thing to do is just do it. Just write. Something. Anything. The results are going to vary - I've handed in one mediocre story because of this, but I've also handed in one pretty awesome story. It happens. And when you're being workshopped that week, you have to hand in something, because the results would be disastrous otherwise.

I had to do this again just last night. I wasn't excited about a prompt, but the story is due tomorrow and I'll be in class until 8pm tonight. So I just wrote it. I'm not sure it's quite what I was supposed to do, and I will probably send it to my writer friend and fellow Ithacan Sarah and complain about how awful it is and spend a long time tonight staring at it trying to tweak it. But you know what? I wrote it. There are some good points to it. And I'll have something to hand in in class tomorrow.

The thing about writing, especially writing for a grade, is that it can always be better. There is always something you could have changed or done differently to make the story shine just a little bit brighter. And it can always be fixed. With most of the projects that carry a lot of weight, grade-wise, I am required to revise them.

But you can't revise something if you didn't write anything in the first place.

So if there's a time when you have a deadline looming large and nothing to write, just sit down, grab the first idea that comes along, and write.


*I apologize if this makes no sense whatsoever. First thing this morning, I handed in some very important paperwork and I am now so nervous/excited/terrified that I feel a bit ill. Is it going to be like this until October? Gah.