Tag: creative writing

  • Why Did I Try Writing a Book in the First Person POV?!

    This past Wednesday, I took part in the Insecure Writer’s Support Group’s monthly blog hop. The prompt dealt with trying new things and surprising yourself with your writing. My response to that prompt lives here. I am not a professional blogger, nor do I aspire to become one. I’ve only been tracking my adventures and misadventures in the writing realm for a couple of months at this point, so that post is long and rambling.

    Since writing it, though, my mind has returned to the question again and again. In what ways have I surprised myself with my writing?  With the hope of releasing that question from my brain (so I can get on with other things), I’m returning to it. This time, however, I have a specific topic to address: Point of View.

     

    What We Read Shapes What We Write

    I grew up reading (mostly) fantasy stories, and they all used either the third person limited or omniscient viewpoint. My very first introduction to the genre came in the form of my mother reading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy to me when I was six. A few pages at a time each night. It was love at first reading.

    As soon as could, I found and read as many books as I could by C. S. Lewis, Anne McCaffrey, Terry Pratchett, and Robert Jordan to name just a few of my early favorites.

    Stephen King's Skeleton CrewIn middle school, I stumbled across a battered old copy of Stephen King’s short story collection, The Skeleton Crew It was spine-tinglingly incredible, and it sparked my love affair with King’s writing. It also inspired me to start writing my own stories.

    I turned into a rabid Stephen King super fan. I mean, I never sent him letters asking for his fingernail clippings or anything. He’s way too smart to fall for that, anyway. Still, there was a time when I wouldn’t drive through Bangor because I didn’t trust myself not to go full-on creeper outside the gates of King’s house. King wrote some of his short stories in the first person POV, but not many.

     

    Trying New Things Lets Us Grow

    Fast forward to now. I’m halfway through a master’s program in creative writing at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They’ve got six concentrations from which to choose. I’m focusing on writing for young people.

    From my limited research, there seems to be a growing first person trend in the YA genre right now. To be clear, I know there’s always been plenty of first person stories in YA, but in the past five or so years it’s exploded in popularity, so much so that I began picking up and reading a bunch of first person YA books to expose myself to the viewpoint and its use in my genre concentration. Sadly, I found that many of the books I read made me want to gag. Many were self-centered, angst-ridden “I, me, me, I me” tripe.

    But, like it or not, first person POV is hugely popular in YA these days. Combining it with present tense seems to be really hot right now. Recognizing my limited exposure to that viewpoint as a reader and a complete lack of experience writing it, I decided to focus on first person as an element of my coursework last semester. What’s the point of a master’s program if not to push yourself as a writer and try to improve?

    Ugh! First person POV, why are you so hard?! Also, what the heck was I thinking?

    At least with third person, I have years of reading and thousands of stories to draw on as I write my own stuff. There are narrative techniques that I find natural and intuitive. I don’t have to think too hard about it as I’m writing. Not so as I struggle to write a book in the first person. Two books, actually, for two different classes. One is a middle-grade steampunk piratical fantasy adventure. The other is a gritty YA wilderness survival story with science fiction and horror elements. Both are presenting unique challenges for me.  Let me repeat myself: what what I thinking?!

     

    Diving Into the Craft of POV

    I own and have read numerous craft books, too many to list, but I took a photo of my collection. It’s over on my “Useful Articles” page. Anyway,

    when I told my mentor (last semester) that I wanted to stretch myself as a writer by trying to write a novel in the first-person viewpoint, she assigned me excerpts from two different craft books to read, then crossed her fingers and whispered a quiet prayer to the Gods.One was a book I already owned, put out by Writer’s Digest and written by Nancy Kress titled Characters, Emotions, and Viewpoint. It’s a great craft book, and it was good for me to revisit it. I hadn’t cracked its pages in over ten years.

    If you don’t own this craft book, your collection isn’t complete. It’s outstanding!

    The other was a craft book I’d never heard of before by an author I was unfamiliar with—David Jauss. The book isn’t in print anymore. I struggled to find a copy on Amazon, and when it finally arrived I thought, “Wow, this thing even looks old. That makes it even more awesome!” I was right, by the way. Alone With All That Could Happen is my new favorite craft book. One of the best I’ve read, and if you checked out the picture of my collection, you know that I’ve read quite a few of them.

    Here’s the rub. It’s one thing to read about a bunch of excellent techniques to develop characters and engage in world-building in a particular viewpoint. It’s another thing to sit down and execute those techniques with any degree of success.

     

    The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (and the Hopeful)

    I am particularly bad at going all the way inside my characters’ heads to share their thoughts. Too familiar with outside narrators sharing character insights from a distance, I guess. Most recently, my current mentor gave me feedback that included, “You’ve got a lot of third-person narrator techniques embedded into this scene. Try adding more first-person elements to bring us closer to your main character.”  

     

    Yikes Gif
    Yep. That’s the face I made. Oh, yeah.

    Guess I’ve got some work to do, and while I could get discouraged by that (and sometimes I do get discouraged), I prefer to remind myself that I chose to give first-person a try to see what it felt like, to see what I could do with it. I actively sought to surprise myself. Thus far, I’ve succeeded, and as difficult as it’s been to stretch my abilities as a writer, it’s also been tremendous fun. I mean, come on. Who doesn’t love surprises?!

    Have you ever intentionally attempted something new and different and risky as a writer with the hopes of learning and growing? Tell me about it in the comments section.

    As always, keep writing. Keep creating. Keep striving to make a mark on this world by building and sharing other worlds.

  • Life: It Happens to the Best of Us

    It’s been my experience that a creative person’s goals–fragile, beautiful little things that they are–frequently crash headlong into the mercurial realities of life.

    This morning, as I sit at my kitchen table to do my morning pages, I can’t help but catch sight of the wall calendar opposite me and notice that August 28th is a mere sixteen days away. Time appears to have sprung a leak this summer. Just a moment ago, it was June 16th, and I was attending the end-of-year faculty party.

    Ah, summer vacation. The kids would be in camp all day. Hubby would be hard at work with his stuff down in his studio. I’d have two

    Monhegan Island, Maine
    A visual representation of my mental image of summer in all its leisurely, creativity-inspiring glory.

    months crank out as much work for my graduate studies as possible. Heck, I might be able to knock off every third-semester assignment before the end of August when I had to return to my full-time job of teaching science to high-schoolers. The future looked bright.

    Now, I have less than three weeks before I’m back in the classroom and my creative endeavors become relegated to a dimly lit, neglected corner of existence. What the heck?!

    Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote in 1785, “The best laid schemes of Mice and Men go oft awry.” Isn’t that the truth?

    Now, sitting here, faced with irrefutable evidence that yet another blissful summer of writing has snuck by me, shielded by the dust kicked up by the mocking chaos of reality, a couple of thoughts spring to mind.

    First, I spend perhaps a bit too much time cursing J. K. Rowling for thinking up that damnable Time Turner from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Why, J. K.? Why did you have to tease me with that thing? I’ve never been good at math, but even if I were a genius with numbers I still wouldn’t be able to count all the times I’ve wished for things that don’t exist: the ability to fly, a non-evil and therefore helpful clone, a sable-coated prehensile tail… and now, I can add a time turner to that list. Garr!!

    Additionally, I find myself thinking yet again of the first episode from the 1980’s reboot of the Twilight Zone. In “A Little Piece and Quiet” (directed by Wes Craven), a housewife with way too much stuff in her life and no time for herself digs up a necklace/amulet in her flower bed that gives her the power to stop time completely. It’s fantastic until nuclear war breaks out, and then it’s not fantastic anymore.

    There she is, realizing that her fabulous discovery has just ruined her life.

    Hey, it’s the Twilight Zone. Nothing ever ends well in the Twilight Zone. That’s what I loved about it and still do. The thing is, I first saw that episode as a rerun when I was fifteen or sixteen. That was… a very long time ago, yet it’s still with me. A magical necklace that can stop time! Not unlike that half-alien chick from the TV show of the same era, “Out of This World” (which, in stark contrast to the Twilight Zone, was terrible) who could stop time by touching her fingers together. The time-stopping amulet was way better because of its mysterious and potentially sinister origins.

    Anyway, I think about Hermione’s time turner and that doomed housewife’s time-stopping amulet all the time. If only…

    Well, I’ve finished nursing my cup of coffee. The tea kettle just whistled to let me know the water’s hot and ready for my post-coffee cup of Constant Comment. The kids are awake and ravenously ready for breakfast. And the home-repair project that ate up my entire day yesterday sits waiting to be finished. If I’m to be honest with myself, this day is probably already spent, and I shouldn’t get my hopes up regarding being able to sneak in any creative writing. That said, you never know what might happen. I could be picking roofing nails out of the lawn and stumble across the uncovered corner of an ancient rune-encrusted box containing a mysterious golden amulet. Hey, a girl can dream, can’t she.

    What do you dream about in the harried moments when life devours your creative goals and spits out their shattered little bones at your feet?

  • Finding Time to Write (or, My Endless Struggle)

    Finding Time to Write (or, My Endless Struggle)

    I swear my kids want me to flunk out of grad school. They also might be psychic, because when I sit down at my desk to check email or indulge my Facebook addiction, they happily find quiet and unobtrusive ways to keep themselves occupied (okay, I have time management and procrastination issues). The moment my fingertips touch my keyboard for the purposes of doing some actual creative writing, the little demons arrive at the office door and demand my undivided attention. True, my six-year-old is my primary antagonist in this battle. My ten-year-old less so, but he is not an innocent bystander by any means.

     

    Do I want to build with Legos? Do I want to play a board game? I’m bored. There’s nothing to do. I’m hungry. Can I get them something to eat? No? Well, then, let’s up the ante. How about a game of chess, Mommy? It’s educational, my youngest will point out to me in angelic tones. Do you know how hard it is to say no to a kindergartener pleading with you to play chess, for goodness sake?! You instantly feel like a terrible person for saying no to that one, and my evil little demon knows it.

     

    If by some miracle, I manage to stay strong and say no to all of these requests, there’s always Plan B. Commence with Operation Escalation. They will begin to fight, loudly, about anything and everything. You’re on my side of the couch! I’m using that blanket! I was playing with that! You knocked that down/destroyed that on purpose! You’re cheating at this made-up game that has no rules! You’re punching too hard! The point of the argument is irrelevant, only that the battle escalates until one of them is injured and crying. Oh, yes, they are devious, diabolical strategists.

     

    My husband does intervene on my behalf… sometimes. At other times, though, he retreats to his art studio in the basement and pretends not to hear what’s happening. I don’t begrudge him this. That’s a lie. I totally begrudge him this. In fact, I want to murder him in those moments, even though I simultaneously understand his reasons for it. The problem is that by the time I get home at close to six o’clock from a long day of teaching science to high schoolers, he’s already been on kid duty for three and a half hours, and our kids are human tornadoes in the afternoons. They’ve been pent up inside an elementary school classroom all day. Even the mile and a half walk home does little to vent their pressure-cooker energy. He can boot their butts out into the back yard on days when the weather permits it, but even then, he has to stay alert for sounds of outraged or injury-induced screaming. So, I get why he succumbs to the temptation to go “off-duty” when dinner is done, and the kitchen is cleaned up. That doesn’t mean I don’t mentally curse him to eternal damnation from my spot at my writing desk when I’m looking at a blank page, and my kids are screaming in the other room.

     

    I want to yell at people when they lament that they can never “find the time” to write. Yeah? Well, neither can I. Why? Because it doesn’t exist. There is literally no time to write, no magical empty block with nothing going on where I can sit down with a steaming mug of cozy chamomile tea and put on some relaxing classical music and snuggle in my fluffy PJ’s and write. Nope. If I’m going to write, I must MAKE time to do it. I must set boundaries, barricade the door, and defend my selected hour like the violently seized territory it is. If I let my guard down, that time will be taken right back from me.  There are 101 articles and blog posts that offer use struggling saps tips for carving out time in our busy lives for our writing.  Here’s a good one from Writer’s Digest. I’ll let them tell you what to do, because (if you haven’t figured it out yet) I am a hot mess and shouldn’t be giving anyone suggestions on how to do anything.

     

    Sometimes I literally leave. I pack up and head to the local library or to a coffee shop. That works, but it breeds resentment and strains marital relations, so I leave those trips to do-or-die deadline situations. More often, I will abandon my office space for my bedroom, which has a lock on the door and is upstairs from the chaos. I will put on my headphones and drown out all attempts at Plan B that may erupt below. My husband feels better because he knows that, should a genuine emergency occur, I am still close by. My children seem to be slowly adjusting to the fact that mom is in grad school and that grad school trumps their need for my undivided attention.

     

    Maybe this will be good for all of us. My kids might finally learn how to self-sooth. My husband is learning the fine art of reheating leftovers (though let’s give credit where credit is due: he does 90% of the cooking already because I’m not so great at cooking things that are edible). Who knows? I might actually get my MFA in creative writing. I’ll let you know how it goes, but right now I’ve got some writing to do.

     

    (I’ve been told that bloggers are supposed to end their posts with questions designed to jump-start a discussion in the comments thread. I’m pretty sure no one has stumbled across this secret little blog, but I may as well engage in best practice blogging, right?  After all, when I’m a successful and famous YA author, I’ll probably have to keep an actual author’s blog where I can interact with my thousands of awesome fans… sigh. We have to dream, folks.  Anyway, here’s the leading question(s): are you in a similar position as me?  What things in your life vie for you time and pull you away from your writing?  Are you able to resist?  If so, what are your strategies?  Do share!

  • Scrivener: It Helps Me Produce

    Scrivener: It Helps Me Produce

    There are tons of writing platforms out there, and I’ve found that writers have some seriously strong feelings about them.  I’m no exception. For me, it’s all about Scrivener.

    For a long time, I wrote my stuff in Google Docs, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would pay extra money for some fancy-schmancy writing program.  Google Docs was good enough (said my inner crotchety old geezer). But then, in 2015, I took part in my very first NaNoWriMo event.  I won it, too.  Aw, thanks so much, imaginary reader.  That’s so sweet of you to say.

    Anyway, as part of my “winnings” I received a 50% coupon for Scrivener, which is already a pretty inexpensive piece of software at full price.  At $20.00, I figured I had little to lose, and I’d heard plenty of people rave about its functionality, so I gave it a try.

    Notebook with multi-colored writing and a blue fountain penLet me be clear.  I will never give up my fountain pens and my notebooks, both of which I collect like someone with a problem.  Whatever.  Some people collect Hummel Dolls.  Some people collect Beanie Babies.  I collect fountain pens and notebooks… and a few other things, but that’s a whole different post.  When I am feeling stuck for ideas or just creatively drained, nothing greases the hinges and swings wide the doors to my imagination like writing with a gorgeous fountain pen loaded with some of my favorite ink in one of my favorite notebooks.   So great of an advocate of this strategy for breaking up creative writing blocks am I that I regularly buy and distribute fountain pens (pre-inked with some of my favorite inks obtained via the Goulet Pen Company).  If you’re ever in Boston and you’re a pen enthusiast, by the by, you must treat yourself to a trip to the oldest pen shop in the country–The Bromfield Pen Shop.

    My obsessive love of fountain pens aside, however, I get most of my writing done on my mac, and since my 2015 NaNo win, it’s all been done using Scrivener.

    Screen shot of the Scrivener corkboard featureI love the corkboard feature for organizing my chapters.  I love its pre-generated templates for character development.  I love its split screen, its compile feature, and its project analytics.  Holy cow, do I use the words “look” and “gaze” and “glance” a lot in my first drafts.  There are hundreds of other features embedded into this program that are also super wicked lots of awesome, but the feature that caused me to fall in forever love with Scrivener is its Project Target feature.

    I can set a total word count for a project, a deadline, and tell Scrivener which days of the week to include in its daily word count calculations.  When activated, it gives me those two lovely progress bars that you can see in the featured photo at the top of this post.

    This feature won’t motivate everyone.  My husband looks at it and groans, “That would drive me nuts.”  Different strokes for different folks, buddy.  I’ve always responded well to extrinsic motivators.  Plus, my brain loves watching that bottom bar change color from fire engine red to grass green over the course of a writing session.  It fills me with a sense of accomplishment.

    Now, that might strike some folks as vacuous and stupid.  It’s quality, not quantity they could argue.  True, but if you’re not getting the quantity, what are the chances of getting any quality?  If something helps me be more consistent and more productive in my writing, then by gum I’m going to use it, and Scrivener’s Project Target features does just that.

    Do you have favorite technique or strategy for generating more words when you write? Is it a piece of writing software?  A favorite spot you like to go to write? A favorite music playlist?  Perhaps a favorite pen and notebook?  I’d love to know what other writers find motivating.

  • Coincidence and Coffee

    Coincidence and Coffee

    I had an interesting day yesterday.  After going way too long without visiting a dentist (and I do mean WAY too long), I finally found a great place and got the whole family in for a cleaning and general check-up.  My new dentist made my day when he informed me that I had no new cavities, something of a miracle in my mind.  I had, unfortunately, lost a filling at some point and that needed replacing.

     

    After dropping the kiddos off at camp, I needed to find a place to park myself for a couple of hours until my late morning appointment with the drill (and laser–turns out dentists are “drilling” teeth with lasers now).  That’s how I found myself in a delightful little coffee shop in Ipswich, Massachusetts.  I’d never been before, but it was close to my dentist’s office so I decided to give it a try.

     

    About an hour into my stay (thank you, coffee shop people for letting me hang out in your fantabulous establishment after purchasing a single regular coffee), I got up to buy a refill.  Guilt had nothing to do with it; I drink far too much coffee, that’s all. As I approached the counter, the current customer turned around to leave and, low and behold, it was a former student of mine whom I hadn’t seen since she graduated twelve years ago. (I’ll keep her anonymous by calling her Jane.)  Jane is on my short list of students who left a big impression on me, big enough so that I’ve thought about her on more than one occasion over the years.

     

    So, BAM!  There’s Jane, and we’re both looking pretty stunned to see each other.  Her, because she was home visiting family; she lives out in the western part of the country these days.  The night before, she’d stumbled across a bunch of old science papers and lab reports she’d done for me as a sophomore, tucked away in a box in her mom’s attic.  For my part, I was stunned because I had never before set foot inside Zumi’s until that day, and to have picked the one day she was in town to give that coffee shop a try left me a bit flabbergasted.  The coincidence of it all was remarkable.

     

    We did the speed-dating version of catching up with each other.  She was good.  I was good.  I’m still teaching at her old high school.  She’s director of education out west.  I have kids.  She doesn’t.  we didn’t chat for long.  Both of us needed to get back to our now completely separate and busy lives, but it was a marvelous surprise to see her again.

     

    Sometimes, life throws unexpected but delightful moments like that our way.  This was one of those, so let me take this moment to say Thank You to the Universe.  I try to keep myself open to the world and take whatever it gives me.  Yesterday, it gave me a new scene in my current WIP and a bit of nostalgia.

     

    Have you ever experienced an uncanny coincidence?  Was it positive or negative?  What did you take away from it?

     

  • Who am I and what’s this blog all about?

    Who am I and what’s this blog all about?

    Hello world!  Here is my very first post for this project.  Yes, I’m calling my blog a project.  Deal.

     

    Let’s start with the second question. What’s the point of this blog? Ugh, you may be thinking.  Yet another author’s blog, another blog about writing. Sort of, I guess. It’s definitely not an author’s blog, not yet anyway. Maybe that will become a part of it one day, if I am so lucky as to get something published. And this blog isn’t specifically about writing, though as a writer that is my primary lens.

     

    You won’t be finding a bunch of sanctimonious writing tips, or click-baity crap about “secrets to writing great [x]” or “ten mistakes that will get your book turned down” or anything else like that.  What the heck do I know about that stuff?  I’m in no position to be giving tips to anyone, about anything.  You might as well ask the pigeon to drive the bus.  Besides, there are a gazillion websites and blogs and author’s pages out there that already give you that stuff.  This is one I find particularly entertaining (though the language is definitely NOT kid friendly).

     

    This blog is about creativity, about being a creative person. The up’s, the down’s, the genuine difficulties of trying to be a creative individual living in a consumption-focused world.

     

    And, you should know that this blog is mostly for me. If that sounds selfish, too bad. It is selfish. Last summer, I started up a masters program at Lesley University in creative writing. My focus is on writing for young people, because I have kids and they are my target readers (now and in the future). I love them. They’re great. They drive me nuts.

     

    After sixteen years of teaching high school science and writing fictional stories in my spare time as a hobby that I loved very much, I decided to jump the shark in my life and try to pursue creative writing more intentionally. I’m a novice writer, just like every writer is at the outset of their* writing career.

     

    I’m jammed full of ambition and excitement and enthusiasm and ideas and nerves and anxieties and doubts and frustrations; I’m a hot mess.  It’s great. It’s terrible.  I’m sure it’s a familiar state of existence for anyone bold enough to live a creative life.

     

    This is some scary stuff I’m trying to do right now–switch things up, climb out of my rut, do something new and different. Most of my family, friends, and colleagues don’t get it. Not really.  Sure they smile to my face and nod politely. Some of them even refrain from asking backhandedly (or openly) discouraging questions. But I’m doing this anyway, and I thought it would be nifty to document this phase of my life via a blog that others might potentially stumble upon as they peruse the vast digital spaces of the internet.

     

    Like I said, it’s tough trying to be a creative person. It can be intensely frustrating and difficult. Creativity is, on the whole, undervalued by pretty much everyone. But I identify myself as a creative person. My husband is a creative person, too. We support each other. That’s what creative people have to do. We have to support each other. So, maybe by putting my own experiences and thoughts and mental musings here, I can in some way offer support and affirmation and encouragement to other creative-minded individuals. You don’t have to be a writer. You could be a painter, a sculptor, a photographer, and woodworker, a glass blower, a potter, an oral storyteller, a teacher, a librarian, a musician, a composer. You name it; the list goes on. If you value art and the act of creation, I applaud you. Keep creating. We need you.

     

    Now, as for that first question. Who am I? Well, you’ll have to read my blog posts to figure that out. Heck, I’m still not sure of the answer myself. For now, let’s just say that I’m a work in progress, a WIP if you will, and leave it at that.