O'Abby's ways to push your story forward

 There were no questions for O’Abby this week.  I guess everyone is busy doing #NaNo!  Like I am…

We’re well into week two now, and if you’re working at the pace to finish your 50K by 30 November you should be hitting the 20K mark around now.  But don’t worry if you’re not there yet.  There’s still time to catch up.  Personally, I don’t get a lot of writing time during the week, so I tend to blitz my word count during the weekends.  I have also been taking one day off work per week to write, and that’s definite motivation to crank out those words.

Just do whatever works for you and make the most of whatever time you can scratch together.

Around about this time is where I often feel like my story is stagnating so I thought I’d give you a few ideas for ways to shake things up a little in your story.  Ideas for how to push your characters into doing something new that might move things along in a significant way.

•  Someone from the past shows up unexpectedly
• A character close to your protagonist dies
• A potentially life-altering secret is revealed
• Your protagonist loses something valuable
• Some kind of natural disaster occurs
• Someone has an accident
• Someone moves to a new city/country/house
• A monster – human or otherwise – enters your protagonist’s world
• A random act of kindness
• A crime is committed

These are just some ideas that might help push your characters.  They don’t need to happen to your protagonist directly – sometimes something dramatic happening to one of your secondary characters will motivate your MC more than if it happened to them directly.

The point is to shake things up to propel your MC into some kind of action.  And whatever obstacle you put in their way, whatever challenge, make sure it isn’t easy to overcome.  Your characters need to struggle.  They need to make the wrong decisions more often than the right ones.  Every choice they make needs to make things more difficult for them, throw up more challenges for them to face.

Hopefully this will be helpful if you reach a point where you feel flummoxed and can’t move on.  If there are no questions for O’Abby next week, I’ll share some more tips for getting past potential roadblocks to finishing.

I is for Inspiration #AtoZChallenge

Operation Awesome's #AtoZChallenge theme for 2018 is... 

OA to Z! We'll be correlating our usual posts with the challenge letters, plus, each weekend, you'll get a chance to get to know one of our bloggers better.

I is for inspiration! The very first "writing inspiration" quote that I ever wrote down is from Pearl S. Buck:

"I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to work."

At the time I discovered this quote, I was having a hard time finding the desire to write, and these words helped me move past that and make myself write even when I didn't want to. That's changed my life as a writer.

Operation Awesome has some inspiration resources under our Resources for Writers tab. Check them out here!

What are your favorite sources of writing inspiration? Share in the comments!

Gearing up for NaNo....

All right my lovelies. It's almost November....and that means NANO!

I sort of attempt NaNo every year and never quite make it. Well, I shouldn't say that. I've written novels in a month (or less) on several occasions. Not really on purpose. But I have deadlines. And a brilliant ability to procrastinate ;-D Put those two together and you get a writer churning out a novel in a month or less ;-D But I never seem to be able to do it within the actual confines of Nov 1- Nov 30 for some reason.

This year, however, I am under contractual obligation to do so. Well, sort of. I have a manuscript due December 1st. And I have about 40-50k left to write. So...NaNo is falling at the perfect time for me. This year I shall prevail!!! Mostly because I absolutely have to, but still. Whatever works, eh? ;-)

A few of my favorite things about NaNo:

1 - lots of other writers madly trying to squeeze in awesome wordage every day. This is sooo much easier to do with friends :D

2 - This awesome Potato Man word counter! I've seen a lot of word counters but he is soooo fun :D

3 - The NaNo calendars!!! HERE are a bunch of great ones. I usually try to find one that matches the theme of the book I'm working on, for a little extra inspiration. But this year, I'm on the lookout for an Outlander calendar, because I've been totally Outlander (or Jamie, if I'm totally honest) obsessed for years and the release of the Starz show has made it sooo much worse lol So if anyone finds one let me know! :D And if you have links for calendars, leave them in the comments! These are so much fun - I esp love the ones with the funny inspirational sayings :D

So, how about you? Are you doing NaNo? Do you have a favorite part of NaNo or fun NaNo stuff to share?

The Thing about Inspiration...

... is this: 

                               Image from www.theoatmeal.com

Or is it just me?

The Magic of 'Reading Time'

I have one child who reads independently and one just starting to sound words out, so when I say every morning, "It's reading time," their behavior is pretty predictable. The independent reader piles up a bunch of books he wants to read by the La-Z-Boy and the new reader does one of two things: tells me he'd rather jump on the trampoline (and proceeds to do so), or brings me a big book of stories to read to him. It looks like this:

On amazon

There's also a giant bag of library books in the corner by the bookshelf and that is a favorite through-out the week.

Gotta love the polka-dots!

Reading time is when the magic happens. Either we'll get an idea that simply must be acted upon...









From reading the Wright Brothers biography to this:

...or we'll discuss whatever new thing we learned, and whether we want to learn more about it. 

But my favorite bit of magic is when my oldest puts down a book he's been reading and picks up the stapler. Because that means he wants a blank staple book. And that means he wants to write a story of his own. And that means he's inspired. 

As Richard Louv said in Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder...

"Reading stimulates the ecology of the imagination." Whatever your writing goals this weekend, pick up a book by somebody else and be...

Do It Anyway

Yesterday I read a great post from Justine Musk that resonated with my personal philosophy: Darling, just freaking do it.

Do it, because not to do it is to die a tiny death.
Do it, because it moves you a little more deeply into the world.
Do it, because it helps you remember who you are.

That's how she says it. It's not an original sentiment, and I think of it more how Ben Fold says it, with more Fraggles:

And if you're paralyzed by a voice in your head
It's the standing still that should be scaring you instead
Go on and
Do it anyway
Do it anyway

Justine and Ben are not only talking about writing, and neither am I. Do the things that scare you. Reach out to people even when it is uncomfortable. Instead of doing nothing, do something. And yes, write even when you don't feel like it.

I needed this reminder right about now, and it works whether it comes from a Fraggle or a fellow writer. Or a Nike sneaker ad, come to think of it.

OK, now I'm off to just do it.

Inspiration Along The Road

(Pacific Coast Highway - Big Sur, CA)

The past several months have been a very inspirational time for me. While most of my writing ideas usually come in the shower, or while driving, recently most of my inspiration has come while I've been traveling.


The idea for my current manuscript, a Young Adult Historical Romance, came while visiting the Field Museum in Chicago this summer. It was impossible not to be bombarded by ideas while walking through this incredible place full of mystery, history, and relics of untold value.

 

(Field Museum, Chicago, IL)

After I finished this manuscript, I knew I needed to separate myself from it for a while. There was months of research involved, and it was an emotionally draining story to write, so I put it to the side to marinate for a while.


November was slowly approaching and I had a lot of friends doing NaNoWriMo. While I thought about taking a break, I knew I wanted to write something new. I had no idea what my next story would be until inspiration struck again during a planned trip to California.


Sure enough while driving along the Pacific Coast Highway in Big Sur (see picture above) I was struck with my next idea. This time the story would be contemporary and in a category I had never written in - New Adult. I'm not sure if this manuscript will ever see the light of day, but it has been tons of fun to write, and it has gotten me out of my YA comfort zone.


So what about you? Where do you draw inspiration from? Family? Friends? Travel? 


I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Books: Light for writers everywhere

I came across this quote recently on Pinterest, and it's so true. Even though we writers still strive to read for the enjoyment of it, each ingested word strengthens our writing abilities by broadening our vocabulary, smoothing out our plot understanding, and gives us a window into what works and what works even better.

image found on Pinterest

That light enabling us biblio and logophiles (bibliophile, a lover of books; logophile, a lover of words) to continue and come up with new ideas and opinions is, basically a light of experience. We can look back at years previous and see how far we've come writing-wise, and a large portion of that new growth can be attributed to reading. Not only that, but I'm pretty sure most of us can recall exactly which book/s we were reading when inspiration struck and gave us the next "a-ha moment". 

As I was writing Pity Isn't An Option, I was looking for the overall feel of hopelessness and lack not in the present time, but from a different time period. I needed to understand how it was when less was more. My grandmother grew up in an orphanage during the Great Depression with seven of her siblings. Their way of getting by was engrained so strongly upon her that she carried most of those survival "skills" into her adult life. Though she didn't speak much about her upbringing to me, her hoarding the most random and simple things (like rubber bands and hotel notepads and No. 2 pencils) proved that it had to have been hard. When I was little and stayed over, I never could get her to allow the bath water to go past my waist; each sandwich I ate where crust was left on the plate hurt her to the core--I could see it in her eyes; and not eating an entire egg was the worst atrocity on earth. It wasn't hatefulness, or bossiness, it was waste. There was never, ever enough, therefore, you did not waste anything.

This was kind of the feeling I was looking for while writing Pity Isn't An Option. In the readerly path I was on at that particular time, about four specific books not only enabled me to feel that lack by providing the light, but showed how differently people react when faced with same circumstances. Out of those four, two really grounded me in that understanding while giving me a sense of families who worked together in spite of that oppression: An Owl on Every Post by Sanora Babb, and A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly.

What about you? Are there any books in particular that have been your light, your inspiration? Why?

Myth and Science Made Mainstream: Thor, Vampires, and The First Martian Colony

Thor is part of ancient Scandinavian folklore.

Usborne Stories from Around the World

But it wasn't until the 2011 blockbuster movie THOR that the Einstein-Rosen Bridge became associated with the mythical god in the pop culture psyche. Suddenly Thor's boomerang hammer and rainbow bridge aren't goofy anymore.

They're freaking awesome.

One of the things I loved about this cinema treatment of an old comic book/myth was the subtle combination of shiny technology and folklore magic. In The Avengers, Black Widow says, "These guys are basically gods."

Basically. But not really.

And in the first Thor movie, Thor says, "Your ancestors called it magic. You call it science. Where I come from they're one and the same."

*sings* Loooove iiiit!

One of the things I enjoyed about Twilight, aside from the intense rip-roaring emotion and curly-haired hilarity of Emmett, was the sci-fi idea slipped into vampire lore that the same evolution or God that brought us the shark and the angel fish could have brought us the vampire and the human.

"Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn't we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don't believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?" -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Why not?

Speculative fiction. My absolute favorite place to play. Whether I'm reading or writing, it's just a wonderland for the imagination, tickling the very edges of our knowledge with the as yet unknown.

It influences our scientists, engineers, inventors:

Self-driving cars, spray-on skin, and even invisibility cloaks have leaped off the pages, gone from science fiction to science reality.

"British Columbia company HyperStealth Biotechnology showed a functioning prototype of its new fabric to the U.S. and Canadian military this year (2012). The material, called Quantum Stealth, bends light waves around the wearer without the use of batteries, mirrors, or cameras. It blocks the subject from being seen by visual means but also keeps them hidden from thermal scans and infrared."

Source: toxel.com

And maybe you don't know about this but I'll bet most of you do, there's a soon-to-be reality TV show all about the first colonizers on Mars, from selection to training to the actual flight and colonization of the Red Planet.


Ha ha! "The search for life on Mars begins on Earth." Brilliant!

Speculative fiction does a great service to humanity as well as being a ton of fun. It keeps us hoping for a better future, and sometimes warns us of technology abuses (cough, cough, Cybermen) that could destroy us in a horrifying echo of excruciating shrieks.

So, okay, some of it's scary. But that's only so we can resolve the conflict with the other side of the creativity coin.

Have you ever been inspired by technology or magic in fiction? 

Pass it on. 

Photos That Inspire Words

So I'm also a photographer and a history buff, with a habit of ferreting out local ruins and old homesteads and recycling them into my settings. But one source of inspiration is not so secret since it can be seen for miles around: Preston Castle in Ione, California.

And as if Preston Castle (the proper name was the Preston School of Industry) wasn't cool enough on its own, it's been recast in my novel as Wilson Castle, occupying a weak spot on the border between our world and Faerie. All the local legends of ghosts and strange happenings are faeries and monsters leaking into our world in the town of Crow's Rest.

Here's how it's described in the opening of my book:

July air streamed through the car window, coating my tongue with heat and iron-rich dust. Nearly there. . . As we took that last curve on the approach, tree branches arched over the road, blocking our view until there it stood.

A castle, its ruddy bricks warmed by the afternoon light. Looming over the Gold-Rush-era town at its feet, the Wilson School of Industry reformed bad boys for nearly a century before the state abandoned it to vandals and ghost hunters. The usual mass of turkey vultures and ravens soared above, sinisterizing the turrets even more.

There really are vultures and ravens!

 And the inside is a creepy, writer's delight

What about you? Is there a real-life place that you've featured in your writing? Or maybe you've made the pilgrimage to settings of other books like Forks, WA? Share some links in the comments if you have pictures! There's a video I took yesterday over on my personal blog too.

And don't forget our Mystery Agent Contest coming up on May 1st! The agent's wishlist is over there on the top right of the sidebar.

Ordinary, at a Different Angle

Yesterday I was out walking, mostly looking at the sky and trees (I'm always looking for arborglyphs and other unusual tree forms). I almost stepped on this wildflower growing in the dried weeds in a ditch along the train tracks. I'm glad I did not. It's bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis, a native plant I've only seen in identification guidebooks and never in person. It blooms for a very short time -- easy to miss temporally, even when you're in the right spot -- but I didn't expect to find it such a lowly, overlooked location.

In my writing, I've tried to make those same discoveries. I hope to write about ordinary things that no one has seen because they haven't looked at the right angle.

When I was a young writer, fresh from a creative writing program, many of the breakthrough books were from writers with extraordinary backgrounds. Not just memoirs but fiction as well seemed inspired by writers' lives much more unusual than my own humble, relatively drama-free, resolutely domestic life. So how could I write what I know? What I knew was just so small. No one would want to read it.

And so I didn't write it. 

Opening up to fantasy and magical realism helped me. It's not just what I know, but what I imagine, and I write it on a small scale -- the magic of homely objects. That bloodroot growing in a ditch in railway ditch is magical and transcendent on its own, but in fiction, it could be more, perhaps the  trace of a murder along those train tracks years ago.

I'll see where it takes me. And I'll remember to look at the ground right at my feet, and not just the distant sky.

Where's the Love?

I thought I'd start my OA posting history with where I am right now in my writing life. My first novel is due to be released into the wild this November, and for now, it is in the hands of an editor. So I got organized and developed a fantastic idea for a shiny new project (something to keep me busy while I wait).

All of my characters showed up the first day, each dutifully carrying note cards with character traits and arcs and a very clear outline of my expectations. And after the first 1,500 words, they got up and left.

Hello!? I need this first draft by the end of February! My goal seems completely reasonable, and I know I can write awesome first drafts—I've got one simmering as proof! What's going on here?  

Let's call my characters Team A and Team B. Team A has been around for years. They check in at all hours of the day and night, and I can count on them being ready to go at 5am, when I write best. They'll do anything I ask, and I don't argue when they say I'm wrong. Heck, even when I'm pretty sure what they want will be nothing more than a "candy bar" scene, I'm always willing to let them have a little fun. They've earned it!

Team B? They have no clue what's going on. Sometimes I think they sleep in 'til 3pm. Don't they know I'm long-gone by then, picking up the kids from school? Sheesh! And their eagerness to correct me all the time is not helping this first draft, it's putting a screeching halt to it.

So, I came to the creative conclusion that this issue is not about my skills as a writer (thank goodness). It's about the relationship I have with this new set of characters. They don't know me, I don't know them. I assumed they'd have the same work ethic as Team A, because, you know, I'm the author! I am not going to change what I've been doing successfully for years and years. Am I?


So, Team B and I got together for a pow-wow session and here's what I learned:

1. Where Team A was love-at-first-sight, Team B is more like an arranged marriage. We're going to have to get to know each other before we can expect to make anyone truly happy.

2. Team B is tired of being compared to Team A.

3. Team B doesn't reject my overall plan, but they don't trust me with the details.

4. With every wrong assumption I make in this first draft, they lose respect and motivation to participate. (Apparently, I've been wrong quite often)

5. They want more freedom and I'm not trusting them to stick to the plan. (Yeah, that's true.)

6. They don't like acoustic guitar, nor do they like silence. They want upbeat dance music during writing sessions (ugh).

7. Relaxing candle scents make the two youngest characters gag.

8. They don't care if my work space is organized, and get annoyed by the unnecessary delay if I take a moment to put things away. So basically, if I'm not ready when they are, they're not going to be ready when I am, just to make their rebellious point. (This one makes me mad—total lack of respect.)

9. They like chaos and crowds of people. If I can't find them when I need them, they will NOT be waiting in the orchard next to the river for a private pep-talk. They will be at the mall with their friends, one in the arcade, the other in the food court, texting her best friend who's sitting at the same table.

But the most important thing I learned from this WiP time-out, is that I'm trying to write this first draft as if it was a final draft, wasting precious time guessing at details I can't possibly know yet. The point of this draft is to test the overall plot and get to know the characters, to see how much stress each one can handle. Because nothing is set in stone at this point—not my writing routine, the PoV, personality traits, voice... not even the main character.

I never thought I'd say the characters aren't important, but maybe Team B should play elsewhere while I work out these first draft details—that way I can test some ideas without being ridiculed to death. (I swear they're worse than the "internal editor". SO dang picky.)

Right now, my only goal is to write the bones. I'll be more than happy to let the characters add heart, soul, and flesh to the story on the very first round of editing, after I've gotten to know them on a more personal level. I might even let them add a few scenes as incentive if they'll agree to keep quiet for now.

Anyone else having first draft issues, where everything is an obstacle and there's no love or motivation to make it work?

And here's a funny thing... this quote found its way to me today. ‎"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action," Frank Tibolt

As of this moment, I would reply with, "But action seems so pointless when there's no inspiration."

Fake it 'til you make it? 

Seeing Differently: Where Ideas Come From

Where do ideas come from? I'm getting ready for Picture Book Idea Month, which is about opening your mind to story ideas -- seeing the world as a story to be written. But to be a story, an idea isn't about just recording the world -- it's about seeing it differently and describing it in a way that's simultaneously fresh and recognizably true.

It's easy to see the difference in picture books. An anecdote is something cute or funny that you see your child do or that you remember from your own childhood. A story is that anecdote transformed -- bigger, neater, funnier, more universal, more specific, better. It's making that anecdote magical, even when you're writing contemporary realism.

Ideas for novels are more complicated. Sometimes they start as an original idea -- a blast of inspiration, even in a dream. Sometimes it's a twist on a trope. Sometimes it's a "what if" from looking at the ordinary world in a different way.

The story of DEADWOOD was inspired by one of those little "what ifs." I noticed how certain trees in the park were carved with messages and names, some of them really old. I didn't even know what kind of trees they were (beeches). I didn't know that the messages have an anthropological name (arborglyphs). But I wondered, "What if the messages were mystical? What if they were a channel for magic? What if the tree could use them to communicate?"

That idea isn't a story, and it certainly isn't a book. I need plot, character, setting, voice, dialogue, description -- but all those things came from seeing something ordinary and looking at it in a different way.

I'm sharing some photos from my tree blog as a fun example. I started taking pictures of arborglyphs, then I started noticing that a lot of trees (bumpy London planetrees especially) look a lot like people -- generally grumpy people. Here are a few of my favorites -- they might take a little imagination and squinting, but once I started looking, I started seeing them differently.

And that's what writers -- and photographers, and all kinds of artists -- do. The thing, person, or experience that washes over others can be a source of inspiration.

Contemplative tree, Belmar, Nj

Cartoon tree. Looks like Bart Simpson. Wynnewood, PA

Cubist tree. Eyes on same side of head. Wynnewood, PA

Skeptical tree. Philadelphia, PA

What I Learned From A Bachelorette Party

So. A friend of mine is getting married later this week, and last night, she hosted a bachelorette party. There were no Magic Mikes in attendance. We weren't in a nightclub or in Vegas or InTheMiddleOfNowhere. My friend opted for dinner by the sea, accompanied by the ladies in her family and girlfriends. I thought it was great of her to want something on the low-key side--it gave us tons of chances to just... talk. 

At one point, my friend's mom asked everyone in attendance to do a sort of roundtable and dispense advice for the bride to be. Most people told her to make Patience her new best friend, and to never let an argument live longer than it should. 

I told her to cling to surprise. To keep things unexpected, not monotonous. But not just for her marriage, but for herself as well. I want my friend to be happy, and to me, happiness comes from magical things like love (romantic and non-romantic), art (of all kinds), and Channing Tatum experiences I haven't had yet but am willing to pursue.

Don't fall into a rut, folks. And when you do, remember That Thing You Haven't Done Yet But Are Aching For. Then go ahead and do it. :)

Now tell me: how do you keep things surprising and fresh in your writing?   

Never Give Up. Never Surrender.

"You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence."

Octavia Butler

Writing is hard. If anyone says anything different then I want what they're having. *grins* But, despite the (occasional) hard moments, you write. You make the time to sit at the computer to type those words day after day. You edit, rewrite, query and go through the rainbow of emotions that accompany it. 

You smile at requests. You file away the rejections. You shelve manuscripts you love. You write scenes and dialogue on scraps of paper/cereal boxes/text messages. You balance your real life with your fictional ones. You write. You persist. And that is the important thing. 

Never give up. Never surrender. 

You are a writer.  

Things That Make Me Go WOW...and Grab a Pen

Okay, bear with me through the fangirl gushing for a paragraph or two - I promise there is writing related stuff coming :D

Has anyone seen that Sherlock series on PBS (or BBC depending on what side of the pond you live :) It comes on right after Downton Abbey)? Like Downton Abbey, I resisted watching it despite glowing reviews from my friends. And like Downton Abbey, once I saw one episode I was completely hooked and found a way to watch ALL the episodes, seasons 1 and 2. And I'm completely bummed I have to wait until next year (most likely) for season 3.

The show is, simply put, brilliant. There are so many twists and turns - and not just regular twists and turns, but COOL twists and turns. The situations are serious, the dialogue is awesome, and the characters make me laugh and sometimes cry.

When I watch something like this, I sometimes sit back and just think, "Man! I wish I could write like that!" It makes me want to pull out my WIPs and rewrite them, or add to them, or just amp them up in a million different ways. It makes me think harder about the twists I put in my own stories. It makes me try harder to be more original, to surprise my readers more, to make them care more about my characters.

The hubs will sometimes ask me why I'm watching shows like this instead of writing. I do it because of all the reasons above. Sure, it's an enjoyable way to procrastinate :) But it's also a wonderful inspiration and motivation to make my own writing BETTER.

Have you ever watched anything that just made you think - Oooo that makes me want to be BETTER?

Fear of Failing

Writing is like a wonderful meal. The anticipation that comes with the starter of the idea. The wonderful main course of writing, creating that story into being. Then, finally, the delicious dessert of editing and polishing until full. But being a writer comes with a side-order of worry.

We worry about plot holes, adverbs, character development, purple prose, and the million other things that go along with writing.

But perhaps the thing that worries us the most is failure. That one word haunts us. Pulls at the edges of every fresh story idea. Every new WIP. Each draft of edits. Every query we send out.

But maybe we shouldn't fear failure. When I read this on Nova Ren Suma's blog, I knew I had to share it with you. Why? I'll let these wonderful words from Sara Zarr explain:

I’m inspired by failure.

Which is a good thing, because right now I’ve got a first draft of a new book in front of me, and it feels like a massive pile of FAIL. (I should note: this is my book.)

This, I know, is a somewhat distorted version of reality. Oh, there’s good work here, the bones of something. And, in places, muscle, flesh, blood.

But it’s far from a success. And that’s exactly where it should be right about now. I’ve been doing this and observing others doing this, or things like this, long enough to know that every book, every painting, every dance, every song, every screenplay, every movie, every craft project lives most of its life as a failure.

The creative process, and the creative life, is mostly full of moments between the idea and the being done, the spark and the blazing fire, the shimmering magic and the finished piece. We’re always living in the gap between our vision of what could be and what might be, and what is.

Even typing that paragraph kind of breaks my heart. I want the writing life to be made of more moments of capturing the vision, and fewer of feeling it slip through my fingers, uncatchable as time.

I need all the reminders I can get that I’m not alone in that gap, that this is the nature of the work, this is what it is: learning to live with a certain degree of failure. (I’m intentionally using the cringe-inducing, scary F word. You know how some social, ethnic, or religious groups have “taken back” certain words, claimed them, and made new meaning? That’s sort of what I’m doing here.)

So, I seek out any place where I can hear other creative people talk about their failures and their fears. Those places include documentaries, interviews, essays, articles, blog posts, and maybe even tweets from fellow writers who, in 140 characters or less, reveal their moments in the gap.

When I hear Bob Fosse say that every time he choreographed a new show, he didn’t know how to move dancers across the stage…

When Anne Lamott writes about the completely confounding process of writing her second novel…

When John Lasseter talks about being fired from Disney before going on to make Toy Story—which, by the way, was a disaster in its first version, as was Toy Story 2, and also p.s. Monsters, Inc. didn’t “find its center for a very long time” and then became the highest grossing animated feature at the time…

When I remember that Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple… (Steve Jobs! Kicked out! OF APPLE.)

When I see artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude endure a quarter-century of obstacles before they were finally able to install The Gates…

When I read that the masters painted over their own work time and again when they felt their first attempts weren’t worth the canvas…

When I hear demo versions of just-okay songs that became gorgeous favorites…

I’m reminded:

Without risking failure, maybe even running headlong into it, there’s no chance for discovering something new and beautiful. Without wandering off the trail that the rest of the world is trudging on, we don’t know where we can go, what we can do, what’s out there beyond our current vision.

I’m reminded that the point of creating isn’t control.
The point isn’t saving yourself from embarrassment.
The point isn’t preserving an image of yourself dear to you, and/or dear to others, or earning out your advance or gritting your teeth as you check to see if your ranking, wherever, is ticking up.

The point isn’t avoiding failure.

We can’t. It’s inevitable. Those who finish what they start persevere through it, blow gently on those embers, tend to that first love, protect the shimmering magic, in hopes of…

…Insert your hopes here.

Maybe: To enflesh some truth—maybe beautiful truth or maybe not-so-beautiful truth—and the experience of living in this world, or a world in your imagination. To translate vision into whatever the medium of your craft is, for whatever your reasons are. To understand? To be understood? To ask questions well? To explore, maybe. To entertain, to show love, work out your demons. Or—gasp!—to have fun.

Whatever the answer is for you, there’s going to be a lot of failure along the way. In a way, “failure” is just another word for “the journey,” for not being there yet but on the way. It’s the road we walk on to get wherever it is we’re trying to go.

Today, I’m looking at my draft and its large and small failures, and I know: if everyone I admire and respect, everyone whose work has endured for more than five minutes, everyone who has come out with something beautiful, has struggled in this same, frightening gap, I must be on the right track.

The Incredible Knowledge of Writers

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I am in awe of you.

Yeah, you. Everywhere I look in the online writing community, somebody is sharing a new tip, sometimes very complex ones, studying the writing craft, and passing on the knowledge. It's probably the most challenging time in the history of the world to be a writer, as far as competition goes.


I see a lot of talent in you. Sometimes it intimidates me.

Challenging as it is, it's also an exciting time to be a writer. I don't think it's ever been easier (or rather, more accessible) to learn about writing well. Every shortcoming I still have as a writer can be addressed if I only take the time to research it. And I don't have look beyond your amazing blogs to find my answers.

You are awesome.

You remember obscure information you Googled one time just to make your bat swarming scene more realistic. You understand what a character arc is, how conflict is different from creating tension, and how to check your characters against real people to write authentic reactions.

You continually inspire me by reminding me over and over again that JK Rowling had a slow start, and look how successful she was. You know Stephenie Meyer's how-I-got-published story in detail and which details aren't typical so I can feel better about taking FOREVER to get published.

In short, you use your acquired knowledge for good, sharing and paying it forward every chance you get.

Thank you for being on this journey, what sometimes feels like a mass exodus with no destination (Promised Land, where are you?). You remind me every day that not one of us makes it on our own.

And really, I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Have a great weekend!

Just Do It!

So the conversation is the same. You mention you are writing, write, have written a novel to a friend, colleague etc., then the words come... "I could write a novel, but I don't have the time."

My reply: 

Okay, I really say that neither do most people who write. 

I'd love to say most of my time is spent being goofy:

Or dancing:

But it isn't. So I say a writer works, goes to school, has families, cleans, babysits, shops, and goes to the gym. We do the million other things everyone else does, but we also write. The difference? We make the time. 

We shut out the real world for our fictional one:

We sacrifice the family meals, friend time, our evenings and weekends off to write. We record our favourite shows instead of watching them (I counted 5 episodes of True Blood, 6 Vampire Diaries, and 3 Glee episodes waiting for me to watch because I was writing/editing). We steal five or ten minutes in the day to get a few words down. We take notebooks everywhere just in case inspiration strikes.

We don't always have the time, but we make it.

So I say to anyone who tells me they want to write--just do it. If you're waiting for the perfect time to start, I promise, it won't come. Be bold. Be brave. Write now.

*Okay, some of my "writer time" is spent being goofy. Some dancing. Some procrastinating is done looking for fun things to post on blogs/Tumblr, but there is writing in there somewhere.... Most of the time.... After cookies. Promise ;)

Writer Love!

In the spirit of Valentine's Day, on Monday Operation Awesome is showing love to our followers with a super awesome query critique give-away -- thanks to the generosity of actual living, breathing Mystery Agents!

And in honor of our contest in honor of our followers, I'm offering up a little love to the writer who inspired me to be a middle-grade writer. Be warned: This post is not very original.

I decided to write for kids after I read Harry Potter, the series that launched thousands of kid writers.

I was a latecomer to the series about six years ago, but when I read JK Rowling's books, everything clicked. I had been a writing major in college, but it wasn't the right time. Later I tried a few adult novels, but they weren't the stories I wanted to read, much less write. Then I picked up my first middle-grade novels since my own middle-grade years, I remembered what had made me love writing and reading in the first place.

In the past few years, I've read hundreds more children's books, and there are many titles I admire more than Harry Potter. But JK Rowling got me started, and for that I owe her much love.

Express love to the writers who influenced you. Who got you started on your current path?