July 31, 2009

Yesterday on a long Skype call, I talked with a writer friend about what fuels our writing. For me, my favorite books (both in terms of the writing and how well they did after publication) were fueled by some kind of pain or wound. Something difficult that I was going through would spark an idea for a book, and the drive to solve the problem provided the passion and energy to see the story through to completion.

Energy from hurts and wounds and pain can be very useful to you as a writer. But, if you’re just wounded, does that automatically translate into books others will want to read? No. As Bill O’Hanlon says in Write is a Verb, “in order to have your wound fuel your writing process, the hurt or negative energy needs to be turned into creative energy, informing or driving your writing. It’s not enough to be wounded; you must find a way to turn that wound into energy for your writing.”

Pain = Energy for Writing

He quoted many authors (some quite famous) who had tragedies befall them, but they took the pain and turned around to write some of the most gripping books of our time on the very subject that nearly destroyed them. It doesn’t have to be a wound the size of the Grand Canyon either (a child being kidnapped, losing your home in a hurricane, both parents dying from cancer the same month). It isn’t the size of the wound–it’s what you do with it that counts.

Just Let It All Hang Out?

In order for your pain to be useful to you as a writer, you’ll need to step back a bit and distance yourself from it. Otherwise you won’t be able to see the story possibilities in it. You’ll be too hung up on the facts. (”But it really HAPPENED this way!” you protest.) Yes, but facts need to be shaped a lot if you’re going to create a story or article or book from those facts. (The truth of your experience can shine through, despite changing some facts.)

Facts will need to change in order to create well-rounded characters, and the plot still needs a beginning, middle, climax and ending. Things will be added–and subtracted–from your experience to make a better story. If you can’t do that, you’re probably still too wounded to turn the experience into a viable story.

“Make no mistake. I have seen screeds full of anger, self-pity, or hate that I think will never (and should never) be published,” says O’Hanlon. “They are simply expressions of the author’s pain, more like a journal entry than a book. They are self-indulgent and should be kept private… In order to turn that pain and anger into a book, the writing needs to somehow turn the personal into the universal.” In other words, the book needs to speak to other readers in a way that helps or nourishes them.

Identify Your Writing Energy

How can you tell if your pain and wounds might be energy for your writing? Here are four questions to ask yourself, suggested by the author. They can pinpoint sources of writing energy in your life just waiting to be tapped into.

• What do you care about so deeply or get so excited about that you talk about it to anyone who will listen?
• What upsets you so much that you are compelled to write about it or include the theme in your book?
• What are you afraid to write but know is a deep truth?
• Who are you afraid will disapprove of your writing or be upset by it?
• What fears could you write and perhaps work through by writing?

Take some time this weekend with those questions and a journal. Or write them on a card and take a long walk while you think about the answers. You may not be as blocked or depressed as you fear. You may simply be sitting over a deep pool of writing energy that’s just waiting for you.

July 29, 2009

Have you reached a point in your writing career where you’re not as gung-ho as you were? Your fingers aren’t as fast on the keyboard, your neck gets stiff more quickly, or sleepiness overtakes you before you’ve written more than a page?

Maybe you’re in need of renewal.

Like the Eagle

I read a fascinating bit of information about bald eagles today. There comes a time when an eagle can no longer take off as quickly or fly at top speed, when his sharp talons have grown dull, when calcifications have formed on his beak, and his feathers are worn. Did you know that this smart bald eagle takes time to renew himself at this point?

He goes away alone, sits on a high rock close to the sun, and begins to pluck out all his feathers, one by one. (He may have 7,000 feathers! Talk about pain!) Then he finds a stream to clean himself of the caked mud, parasites, and insects he’s collected. When he’s clean and nearly naked, he sits in the sun and waits.

Renewal

During the waiting period–up to forty days–the eagle sharpens his talons and beak on the rock. He beats the calcifications off his beak. He waits for his feathers to grow back in. Much of the time he rests. He may look battered, he may feel weak, but he is being renewed. [Updated note: see comment below about this being a myth. I hope you find the analogy useful, just the same!~~Kristi]

Writers need renewal too. Are you at that point? Have there been one too many rejections or disappointments lately? Have you given it your all for months (maybe years), but without seemingly much progress?

If that’s the case, you may want to carve out some renewal time for yourself before disappointment becomes despair, before the rejections make you give up, before natural tiredness becomes burnout, before brain sludge becomes writer’s block.

Stumped for ideas on how to renew the writer within? One place to start is Monday’s blog post on restoring balance in your life. I mentioned a good resource there. What are some of YOUR favorite ways to find renewal (both short-term and when you need a deeper rest?) Please share!

July 27, 2009

If someone graded you on self-care or self-nurturing, how would you do? Most of us–especially women–would flunk the evaluation. And if you’re also a writer, that can spell trouble.

What’s Your Excuse?

As women, we’re taught to meet everyone else’s needs before we nurture ourselves. And we do so, mostly without complaint, until we drop of exhaustion or illness. We de-value self-nurturing and self-care, putting it at the end of our lengthy list of Things To Do.

Back in 1992, during a particularly harrowing year, I bought a book that I recently re-read. I was delighted to see it has been reissued. The Woman’s Comfort Book: A Self-Nurturing Guide for Restoring Balance in Your Life by Jennifer Louden is chock full of some of the most fun and practical and specific ways you can incorporate self-nurturing activities into your life. The book was written after a year of trauma that left the author unable to write or relax.

As she put it, “I needed to trust what my inner voice was telling me, which was to slow down, take some time to care for me. But I felt too guilty about not being ambitious to heed my intuition. And so a dangerous prison formed: I couldn’t take time to care for myself because I felt I should keep working, but I couldn’t write because I wasn’t nurturing myself. What a mess!”

What’s Your Problem?

One of the best features of the book is a big chart that lists nearly eighty ailments you might have, then the corresponding short chapters that might help that problem. For example, if you feel “deprived,” she suggests the activities in the chapters entitled “Checking Your Basic Needs,” “Comfort Journal,” “A Self-Care Schedule,” “A Day Off,” “Heal Your Habitat,” and several others. If your problem is feeling joyless, you might try the chapters on “Your Nurturing Voice,” “Reading as a Child,” “Seasonal Comforts” or “Animal Antidotes.”

Her ideas are budget-minded (the only kind that work for me), and they are things you can do in your own home. For example, one chapter is on creating a personal sanctuary for yourself. I intend to use a few of her suggestions to rearrange a corner of my office, “walling off” a section with my freestanding bookshelves, moving a small rocker to that corner, adding some plants, a large framed poster of the English countryside, and a small rug to distinguish my sanctuary.

Courage, Fortitude, Boldness

The author claims that it “takes courage to make nurturing yourself a priority. It takes fortitude to meet your own needs. It takes boldness to listen to and trust your intuition.” If it’s been years since you allowed yourself to make self-care a priority, I think her statement is true. I know it was in my own case.

Ms. Louden also asserts that “deserving time to care for yourself is not something you earn…Taking care of yourself is not a reward for getting ten thousand things done today.”

Don’t Wait–Act Now!

There’s no need to wait until you’re burned out with a severe writer’s block to take care of yourself. A little daily self-nurturing goes a long way toward avoiding such conditions. And if you need someone to give you permission to do so, consider it done! I am ordering you to take good care of yourself!

Don’t know where to start? Then I really urge you to get a copy of Ms. Louden’s book and sample some of her fifty chapters of ideas. I know you’ll find something you’ll love!

July 24, 2009

Would you call yourself a contented writer? Are you happy with your current situation and writing progress?

Or are you a dissatisfied writer, striving to better yourself and always pushing hard toward your goals?

Embrace Opposite Traits

To be honest, if you want to enjoy the writing life–if you want to enjoy the process, and not just the final product–you’ll have to find a way to embrace both contentment and the urge to grow and  improve. Why? Because BOTH traits are important to your well-being as a writer and directly influence your career.

At Peace with Writing

First, you need to be grateful for what you’ve learned as a writer. If you’re a student, or you’ve been writing on your own for several months or years, take a look at your earliest stories and articles. You’ll groan, or maybe grin, at what you considered great writing back then. You’ll see how much you’ve learned about the craft of writing as well as the business of publishing. You can be grateful that your skills aren’t what they used to be!

Giving yourself credit for how far you’ve come is important in keeping your spirits up. We melancholy writers are too quick to get down on ourselves, our abilities, our ideas, and our publishing record. This critical mind of ours (so very valuable during the editing phase) can also be our greatest enemy if we don’t “think about what we’re thinking about.”

It’s probably true that you aren’t where you want to be as a writer (I’m not either!), but be thankful that you’re not back at the very beginning. Take note of your progress with writing skills, marketing skills, how deeply you read, your new blog, and how your lessons are improving. This is being content as a writer. “Whatever is true, whatever is right, whatever is excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things.” (Philippians 4:8) It will allow you to enjoy the writing process.

[Caution: don't confuse being content with being complacent.  A complacent attitude says, "I've arrived. You can't teach me anything. I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I can coast from now on."  A complacent writer stops reading and studying and working at his craft the minute he emails his final lesson or makes his first big sale. Complacency keeps you stuck in one spot--and eventually you start sliding backwards.]

Striving to Grow

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the desire to mature in your writing, and the inner gumption to press forward and make it happen. It’s enjoying your progress while at the same time moving forward to learn even more.

It’s being consistent in your learning curve. (By consistency, I mean devoting a certain amount of time almost daily to your writing growth. Maybe it’s thirty minutes of reading writers’ blogs or writing magazines. Maybe it’s studing a good writing craft book.)

If you didn’t set any writing goals for the year, it’s not too late to do so. If you did set goals, re-visit them. See how you’re doing. (I just did that. I’m ahead in two, behind in three, and several dropped off my radar altogether. Guess who’s going to be doing some online marketing magic while she watches a movie tonight!)

Juggling Act

Like so many things in life, you have to find the balance here. You want to enjoy your writing life, and that means learning to be content in whatever stage you’re in. BUT you don’t want to be so content that you become complacent.

On the other hand, you want to have enough “drive” to make steady progress in your career–but not end up “driven.” Trust me on this–”driven” is no fun. It comes with ulcers and headaches.

How do YOU maintain the necessary tension between these two points? I’d love to hear your ideas!

July 22, 2009

Typically, my writing students are excited two times: at the very beginning of the writing course and again at the end (because they are graduating and/or being published.) Book writers are also excited at the beginning of a project (when their idea and characters are new) and at the end (when the final draft is complete or it’s sold.)

But the middle? Middles can be miserable.

Part of the Package

This week I had two students, both talented and one already published, who wrote to me to say that they were no longer excited about writing because it had become difficult. “This is harder than I thought it would be” is something I frequently hear. The student usually wants me to explain how to make it easy again, how to take the work out of the writing.

I think this comes from a real misconception about writing. Writing is like having a good relationship with someone. It’s exciting when you first meet, it’s satisfying after years of sharing experiences, but the middle is a mixture of joy and tests (or obstacles.) It’s just part of the package–and it’s the same with writing.

Where the Rubber Meets the Road

Lately I’ve been blogging about not giving up as I’ve read Joyce Meyer’s new book (appropriately titled Never Give Up!)  See Never, Never, NEVER Give Up! and Are You Quick to Quit?  This morning I was reading about starting strong and finishing well.

“Between the beginning and the end, every situation or pursuit has a ‘middle’–and the middle is where we often face our greatest challenges, hurdles, roadblocks, obstacles, detours, and tests. People who are easily led by their emotions rarely finish what they start. They give up when the project is no longer exciting and all they see in front of them is hard work.”

Just a While Longer

If you’re on the verge of quitting writing, I would encourage you to give it a try a bit longer. Face the challenges and be determined to overcome them. Find ways to make the middles fun! They can be every bit as rewarding as beginnings and endings–it just takes more work. Don’t be satisfied with “just trying” something, but see it through to the end. At least 90% of the time, you’ll be so glad you did.

I know there are rare instances where the only wise thing to do is to give up (on a career choice, a relationship, or a story). Be sure that choice is the exception to the rule though. Don’t be quick to quit writing when it stops being fun for a while.

Best Predictor of Success

Many new students will ask me, “Do you think I have what it takes to succeed as a writer?” I used to believe that I could tell within a couple of lessons. I have found over the years that I was wrong. Too often the students I had earmarked for long and happy writing careers quit because it grew difficult, and they were used to instant and easy success.

On the other hand, students that were mediocre at the beginning have gone on to publish well! I have a shelf of student books to prove it. They studied, they learned, they took courses and got critiqued if necessary. They submitted and endured rejection slips–but they persevered. And I’m proud to say that their books are impacting the world of children in very positive ways.

Enjoy the race–and keep your eye on the prize!

July 20, 2009

On Friday I wrote about refusing to give up and pushing through obstacles if you really believe in a writing project. Over the weekend, I read a story in Joyce Meyer’s Never Give Up! book about how the Brooklyn Bridge came to be. It was news to me–and it was accomplished by two men (father and son) who believed in the dream when all others laughed at them.

Double Tragedy

But that wasn’t all. The father was killed when the project was only a few months underway. Three years later the son was injured, suffering brain damage that left him unable to walk, talk or even move–EXCEPT one finger. He worked out a system of communication with his wife using that one finger.

Over the course of eleven years, he used his one finger to give his wife instructions to pass along to the bridge builders. The bridge was finally completed in 1883. (If you’re interested, you can read the entire inspirational story and see more photos and historical facts about this amazing feat.)

Most of us haven’t encountered discouragement or setbacks of this magnitude in our writing lives. Let’s keep things in perspective. Usually we’re battling disappointment or trouble getting started or lack of family support. Next time you feel like quitting because the writing life has become difficult, remember the builders of the Brooklyn Bridge.

July 17, 2009

“By perseverance the snail reached the ark.”

              (Charles Spurgeon)

This is a tough time to begin a writing career. It’s a tough time to continue writing! I haven’t heard any really good publishing news from my writer friends for a long time. I sense discouragement. I even heard one long-time writer say he was going to give up if he didn’t sell another book soon.

How Do I Keep On Keeping On?

“You will never get where you want to be in life without being willing to sacrifice and push through the obstacles and adversities that stand in your way,” says Joyce Meyer in her new book, Never Give Up!: Relentless Determination to Overcome Life’s Challenges. “Your obstacle may be an attitude, a set of circumstances, a relationship, an issue from your past, a thought or mind-set, a feeling, or a bad habit.”

What obstacle is standing in your way to getting published during this difficult time? Lack of training so you can bring your writing up another level? You have choices ranging from expensive MFA programs to free online writing courses and e-books. Are you impatient, expecting fast results in an instant gratification society? You may have to find ways to work on patience–and write while you’re waiting. Or is the obstacle pushing against you fear of failure, writer’s block, or some other writer malady that keeps you from producing? You have to find ways to push back–and keep pushing!

Telling It Straight

There isn’t an easy way to have the writing life of your dreams. It takes hard work. No matter how enjoyable it is, it’s also hard. And until you take consistent action steps–make real lifestyle changes–nothing much will change for you. Your writing dream will remain just that: a dream.

“Do you want to be in the same situation this time next year?” Joyce asks. “Or do you want something different? If you want to have something different, then you’ll have to pay the price on this end to have what you want on that end. You will have to spend some of this year moving toward your goals for next year.”

And you’ll have to keep pressing on when you can’t see any progress, when you get rejection slips, and when you get no answer back at all. (The “no answer” answer is becoming very common, by the way, in case it’s happening to you too.)

What’s It Gonna Be?

If you love to write–if you’ve dreamed of being a writer–then don’t give up on your dreams. I know it’s a really tough time to be a writer, whether you’re a beginner, a midlist author, or a full-time writer of many years. “You simply have to choose which kind of pain you want–the pain of pressing through or the pain of giving up,” says Joyce. ”I’m convinced there is no worse pain than an unfulfilled, dissatisfied life.”

If you know, in your heart of hearts, that you were meant to be a writer and you want to be a writer, then please don’t give up. The publishing industry has seen hard times before–and probably will again. That’s no reason to quit.

So fall back. Regroup. Plot your course of action to tackle your writing challenges. When the going gets tough, the tough get going…right?

July 15, 2009

About ten years ago, someone said to me, “You write fiction because you can’t handle the real world.”

I was stunned by the accusation. For one thing, my fictional characters were very real to me! And I tackled real situations in my books–often based on actual events. From my childhood on, I’d learned a lot of truth about the human condition from reading fiction. In many cases, I learned more from fiction than from observing my real world.

Do Facts Equal Truth?

In Madeleine L’Engle {Herself}: Reflections on a Writing Life, the Newbery-award winner wrote about “the truth of art”: “Once when I suggested to a student that he go to the encyclopedia when he wanted to look up a fact, he asked me, ‘But can’t I find truth in stories too?’ My reply: ‘Who said anything about truth? I told you to look up facts in the encyclopedia. When you’re looking for truth, then look in art, in poetry, in story, in painting and music.’ Now this student was doing no more than making the mistake of many of his elders, confusing provable fact with truth, and then fearing truth enough to try to discount it. If I want to search for the truth of the human heart, I’m more apt to go to Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov than a book on anatomy.”

I think that people who discount fiction don’t really understand it–or haven’t read much of it. They don’t grasp the power of story to carry truth. They have a bit of a superior attitude, as if reading a biography or a book on unclogging your sink has more merit than a novel.

Truth Learned in Fiction

I still have most of my favorite childhood books, and I still re-read some of them. I loved sharing them with my daughters, and I now love sharing them with my grandchildren. Some truths are universal and timeless (like the lessons on friendship learned from Charlotte’s Web.)

My all-time favorite children’s book was Little Women. I learned a lot of important truths from the March family: how to love deeply, how to grieve a loss and go on, and how to feed the imagination. (I expect the writing “bug” bit me then, as I watched Jo March toiling away in the attic over her stories.) I learned that writers wrote about what they knew.

Life Lessons

If you have a minute, leave a comment and share a book or two from your own childhood that impacted you–and tell why. What truths do you remembering learning in fiction?

July 13, 2009

Writers are told to follow their passion, to write stories and books that move them deeply. Often those very stories come to us in uncomfortable or painful ways, through circumstances in our lives we’d gladly bypass.

Twenty-six years ago, after my dad died, I tried to finish writing a fun puzzle-type mystery. Even though I’d had several middle-grade mysteries published by then, I just couldn’t finish it. Instead, I chucked that idea finally and wrote The Rose Beyond the Wall, a middle grade book where the young heroine’s favorite grandmother dies from cancer.

Tough Times

I cried when I wrote that book, and I cried when the grandmother died. But the book about how people deal with grief was from the heart. It sold first in hardcover to Atheneum, then to paperback book clubs, and was nominated for several children’s choice awards. It’s still used in some hospice programs, although it’s only available as a reprint from an obscure publisher that brought it back into print ten years ago.

“We may regret our circumstances,” says William Stafford, “and no doubt many of us should. But the way toward a fuller life in the arts must come by way of each person’s daily experience.”

Write Through Circumstances

Why use our personal experiences? Our daily lives are full of concrete details, raw emotion, lots of issues, drama, and dialogue. It’s a shame not to use it all! And if you want to write authentic, moving stories that ring true, it’s the best source of material.

In Walking on Alligators: a Book of Meditations for Writers, Susan Shaughnessy suggested this:

“The way to a fuller life in the arts is through your own experience today. Many of us are in circumtances no one would choose. Loneliness, physical disability, financial want, disappointment–we long to escape from these things that won’t ‘let us write.’ But we escape by writing right toward them and right through them, not by trying to go around.”

Take an Inventory 

For the last year or so, there’s been something really bugging me that I can’t fix, and it won’t go away. I’ve done everything I can to just accept it and forget about it–but I can’t. I finally realized this summer that until I fictionalized it and wrote about it, it probably wouldn’t. So I’m writing about it now. And believe me, as heated as the subject makes me, I’m writing this with a lot of passion!

What’s going on in your own life right now that’s unwelcome, yet might lend itself to a story or novel? Think about your own life, and also the lives of your children, neighbors, spouse, and friends. What is causing you (or them) problems today? What about these issues makes you angry–or sad? What are you learning in your circumstances?

Remember: the way to write authentic stories is to write straight toward them–and through to the other side!

July 10, 2009

There’s magic in a well crafted picture book, magic that lasts from one generation to the next. Maybe that’s why so many writers want to create picture books. Students sometimes ask me for advice on writing picture books, and one how-to book full of great advice was sent to me a few weeks ago.

Because my publishing has been mostly with middle grade novels (and no picture books), I asked a writer friend who’s had picture books published to review this for me and ask if she could recommend it. Her review is below:

Writing Picture Books: A Hands-On-Guide from Story Creation to Publication by Ann Whitford Paul

Review by Lupe Ruiz-Flores

This 2009 248-page Writer’s Digest book, written by the award-winning author and poet, Ann Whitford Paul, goes into depth just like the title implies: from story creation to publication.

Beginning writers and seasoned published writers as well will find this guide an easy-to-follow genuine gem. The playful illustrated cover draws you into the magical world of picture books. The Table of Contents has titles like: Before You Write Your Story, Early Story Decisions, Structure of Your Story, Language of Your Story, Tying Together Loose Story Ends, and concludes with After Your Story is Done. The chapters focus extensively on the craft of writing, including how to make a dummy book.

A unique feature in the book is a blocked message at the end of each chapter called What’s Next?, which lets the reader know what to expect in the upcoming chapter. Then another blocked message, Before You Go On, briefly summarizes the chapter you’ve just read and also recommends writing exercises to practice before continuing. Always at the end of this summary, the reader is encouraged to read a new picture book. The list of recommended picture books is awesome.

Like a Workshop at Home

The author offers a wealth of information and examples for using different techniques in writing a picture book.  She points out what keeps a good story moving.  In each chapter, the author takes you through the writing exercises, step by step, creating a story, exploring different ways to tell your story, coaching you along the way. It’s like being in a writer’s workshop with one of your favorite authors. Experimenting with tenses, using different points of view, changing the story location, changing time periods or human characters into animal characters are just some of the possibilities mentioned in the book to help make your story a great one.

The section on creating memorable main characters was intriguing.  The author stressed the importance of doing an in-depth character study and knowing your character inside out. An outline on how to do this is included in the chapter. I found this especially enlightening because I’ve heard comments that character development in a picture book is not that important. Wrong!

Regardless of which level you’re at as a writer of children’s books, you will pick up something new by reading this book. From story structure and language, to finding the right critique group, to submitting to the right publisher, to finding agents, to coping with rejections, to using writing prompts, this reference book is a tool that every serious children’s picture book writer should not be without.

Lupe Ruiz-Flores is the author of three bilingual picture books. She is currently working on a middle-grade book. Visit her Web site at: www.luperuiz-flores.com and her blog at www.luperuiz-flores.blogspot.com .

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