I was lucky enough recently to get the gracious beckylevine to look at my WIP (BTW, she should change her name to Becky Divine), and she gave me an incredibly helpful critique.  It's like she wrote the book on how to give critique.

I had gotten to a point where I was really a little bit lost as to what will happen next and how to lay the path for the ending or even know what the ending will be.  So her guidance came at just the right time.  Now I have a list of concrete, actionable tips to get me moving forward again.

This is all great, right?  It is.  Really.  But at the same time, I thought knowing what I need to do would make the whole process of writing this story easier.  In a way, though, it gets harder to see all the elements that need to be woven in.  It isn't just about pretty sentences and some cool ideas.  It's structure, tension, character development, plot development, diction, dialogue, voice.  It's seeing the big picture without losing sight of the little moments.  It's surrendering yourself entirely to the fictional world you've created while remembering that ultimately you will be striving to deliver a marketable product.

Um, well making pretty sentences comes fairly easily to me.  All the rest of that stuff: hard work.  I'm glad to see where the gaps are; now I have a map for this journey.  As for where my destination is and the route I take to get there, I guess that is still up to me.  And that's the hard part.

Wow, it's been over a month since I dropped a post on this blog.  I've been very busy with real life things and not so much fake life things in the world of my WIP.  But the funny thing about the fake life I am creating is that it still has to be real.  I am nothing like the protagonist of my current story (I say current as if there have been past stories and will be future stories, but really it's just this one so far).  She is impulsive; I'm a planner.  She is introverted; I'm an extrovert.  Even according to Meyers-Briggs personality and work style typing, she is an INTP, while I am an ESTJ - if you don't know what that means, suffice it to say we have no letters in common.

So how is it that I know what she's going to do when I put her in a certain situation?  When she confides her secret to her growing-ever-distant best friend, and he turns around and tells her dad, why do I write the scene five different ways and finally land on her going pscho-killer on the guy in front of their parents?  And how is it that I know that's what she would really do?  You know, if she wasn't fictional and all.

I don't have time to really figure out how all that works, so maybe other writers can explain it to me.  Until then, note to self: writing trippy.

We had a great full manuscript critique session tonight at writing group, and afterwards it struck me how we have come together as a group.  I feel like our group has evolved into like a "team in training", only we're not running a marathon, we're working on novels (well some of us are working on novels, and others, like me, are just working on getting past the next page, to say nothing of having a complete work to finish).

It's so encouraging to see someone else finish his or her manuscript.  I mean really finish it before my eyes.  I was there when he read the first chapter to us, and I'm reading the completed draft now.  Wow, there is no inspiration like watching someone else accomplish what I aspire to do. 

And there is solace in hearing other people hit their first bump in the road, struggle through the middle, re-think their entire story (phew, it's not just me, I'm not defective, I don't completely and utterly suck).

Having the creative energy of the group gives me the fortitude to keep writing when it seems like the words are all dried up.  Just like with training buddies, there are days when I'm writing less for me and more out of obligation to the group.  If everyone else can put in the time, then I'll do my part, even if I'd rather be watching a Friends marathon on TV.  Sometimes, someone will scribble a little note in the margin, "I can't wait to find out what happens next."  And that's enough to get me over to the next word, the next page, the next chapter.

Until each one of us crosses our own finish line.  Even though we are doing it one by one, it feels like we are all crossing that line together.

These days, when I get ready to write, I find myself playing a few rounds of word games first - maybe PathWords or Lexulous (aka fake Scrabble) on Facebook, then I pull up some melancholy playlist, make sure I have a big glass of water at my side, and slog away at the computer for a few hours.  Then a little light reading (or careful reading if I'm reading a manuscript for my critique group), and I'm off to bed.

My husband can always tell when I'm getting to write because my writing ritual unfolds like clockwork.  And it got me wondering what other people do to get themselves ready to write?  What gets you in the mood and brings you to that creative sweet spot where you can coax the right words out of your brain and onto paper (or a MS Word doc)?

It's been a while since I hit my LJ blog, and I'm happy to say it's because I had a little bit of a breakthrough on my WIP.  After re-visiting the same three pages over and over, I decided to try writing the chapter in present tense, and not only did the words start to come more easily, but I think they're better words.

I went back and re-wrote four other chapters in present tense, and I was surprised to find that what happens in the story actually changed because of the tense change.  Part of it was that it exposed parts that always seemed forced to me, but I never figured out why.  Another part of it was that now that things are happening as my MC is telling the story, she doesn't have the luxury of filtering what she's telling the reader.

I suddenly find myself at the bottom of a hill of work with the desk job, so I don't know if I'll be able to keep up the progress, but wish me luck.  And if you have any insight into what the magic is behind something like a change in tense, please share.  I'm always trying to get from "unknowingly competent" to "knowingly competent" (heck, sometimes "knowingly incompetent" is even a step in the right direction).

Thanks to everyone who responded to my previous post.  After reading all the comments, I decided that I needed a break (if you can call the spare trickle of writing that I've been doing something that could be interrupted) from writing the story to get to know my protagonist better.

In that vein, I've been ruminating about her, what makes her tick, what she wants.  When I first got the idea for my WIP, I imagined a slightly different character, and after some really good feedback from my critique group, I realized that she started the story too developed.  It was like she time traveled back to the start of her story after about 30 years of hard living.  So I really had to figure out what she was like in her youth.

I got some great suggestions in the comments last time, but I would love to hear how everyone gets to know their main character.  Is that person you (hopefully it's pretty easy then)?  Do you model your MC on someone you already know?  What other exercises do you do to get inside the MC's head?  Here are some great suggestions I've received so far:

• Letters from your MC (to you or to another character in the story)
• Have your MC "sing the blues"
• Give yourself sleep suggestions before going to bed (for example, "how does my MC cope with her anger?") and let your imagination figure it out while you dream
• Spend some time writing back story, even if there is no intention to include it in the WIP itself

As for me, what ended up giving some breakthrough insight was doing a personality-typing test (such as Myers-Briggs) in the voice of my MC.  I have to give my soul-sucking corporate desk job a shout-out for making me do one of these as part of a team-building exercise every time my department was re-organized.  It helped me to understand myself better, and it did indeed help me to understand my MC better.

By the way, I did try all the other suggestions, too, and I did discover many useful nuances to her character as well.  So what other exercises, tips, or tricks would you like to share on the secret to really getting inside the skin of your characters?

I've been struggling lately with my WIP on all fronts.  I got to page 42, and from there, it's been writing and deleting and re-writing the same 3 pages, with the story moving forward differently each time.  And it occurs to me that I am an incredibly undisciplined writer with very little skill in the exercise of writing.

Back in school, all the creative writing I did was done in pretty much two drafts.  Draft one: write.  Draft two: fix typos and grammatical errors, use thesaurus as needed for repetitive words.  That seemed fine for poetry and short stories, but obviously it is much harder to apply that approach to writing a novel (which, by the way, I refuse to call it a novel, because I'm not confident enough that I'll get past page 43 at this point - let's just call it a story).

So I need a little help - how does one keep moving forward on a novel?  How do you stop yourself from "what iffing" a dangling plot point over and over?  While you're at it, tell me how you come up with a plot.  This word is strange and frightening to me.

One friend from my writing group suggested I take each chapter as a short story in and of itself, with a beginning, middle and end, and string the chapters together.  But I'll take as many suggestions as I can, because page 43 is intimidating me, and I need to get past it.  Thanks.

Dear AM Jenkins,

Please stop writing.  That way, I will not find myself awake at 2:00am, anxiously turning the pages of your books, feeling like I have to, have to, HAVE TO know what's going to happen next.  I won't be crying while I sit on the toilet, feeling some unnamed emotional ache that I never knew I had.

I won't have to stop reading every few pages of your books to tell myself, "Dang, this AM Jenkins is an incredible writer."  I won't lose my breath over your skill, your ease, the way you coax heartache and laughter and pain from how you string your words together.

I won't look at my own work in progress and think, "Why didn't I write this story in second person?" because your book Damage is so effortless in its second person depiction of a football star tumbling into depression.  I won't wonder how a mother of three in Texas can become a demon possessing a sullen teen boy (in Repossessed) so convincingly, while I struggle with finding my own voice.

I hope you understand it's not personal.  It's just that I need the sleep.  And I need to operate in a world where I don't see how high the standard of writing can reach (and how far I am from that standard).  Let's compromise: could you just go on a vacation for a while?  And when I'm all caught up on sleep, you can resume.  I think that's a win-win for the both of us.

Thanks in advance for understanding.  Now if you'll excuse me, I have one more of your books to finish, because I have to, have to, HAVE TO know what happens next.

Sincerely,
Hula Bunny

Dear Bonnie Becker,

We started reading A Visitor For Bear to my younger one last week (she will be 2 on Wednesday), and I am recalling how much I love that story, not just the story itself, but how much I love reading it aloud to my kids.

I love how my son will tell his little sister, "You need to VAMOOSE!  She's impossible, intallable, unshuffable, Mommy!"

I love how my son clears his throat with Bear.  How both kids blow their nose with Bear.  I love how they both laugh when Bear becomes distraught at finding the mouse in his fridge.

I love making "grumpy Bear voice".  I love the beautiful illustrations (thanks, Kady MacDonald Denton).

I have heard there are going to be more adventures with Bear and the mouse.  So when is that going to happen?  Don't make me beg.  Or tell a joke.  Or do a headstand. 

Because even though one Bear book is good, I like two.  I hope you agree.

Sincerely,
Hula Bunny

I haven't done any drawing in years. YEARS.  But I came across a few drawings from long, long ago.  Quite frankly, I forgot my hands had skills beyond typing.  So I figured out how to scan that baby, and I'm posting it as a reminder to myself that in these tough economic times, here is another free activity I can do for fun.

It seems that when it rains, it pours.  April was a crazy month, and it's only now that it's over that I'm catching my breath.  We experienced extreme weather here in the Silicon Valley, from winds so gusty that a fishing boat got blown into the San Mateo bridge to a brief heat wave that baked the local denizens in 90+ degree heat to cool, gray rains to wash the month away.

My life changes were equally extreme.  To wit:

• Left my soul-sucking corporate job after twelve years (OK, 12 years, 2 months, and 19 days, not that I was counting)
• Got a new soul-sucking corporate job, with much less suck and a lot more soul (but ask me in 12 years if I feel the same) - twice the commute but half the baggage!
• Stressed out overly as I watched my daughter battle pneumonia at the tender age of 23 months
• Lost my beloved, adorable, sweet, and perfect dog after 11 years of companionship

No wonder I never had a moment to blog.  But I'm optimistic about May.  Hopefully no swine flu or dead pets in the next month, and I'll get more comfortable in the new corporate gig.  My goal for the month is to channel my anxiety and grief from April into something positive and creative.

Wish me luck.

I don't really "get" poetry, but every now and again, I try to write a poem anyway.  Happy Friday!



Asunder
by Hula Bunny

Deepest deep
Beneath layers
     of
          earth
A canker in the roots
A fungus, growing, gnawing,
     unseen,
like discontent in the heart.
From
     underneath
the mighty tree fell,
Its aging trunk
cleft
by
sorrow.

© copyright Eileen Tse 2009

I have been remiss about answering susanwrites after she passed the Kreative Blogger award to me.  First of all, thanks Susan, for giving me ups on my little blog and for sending all the fabulous well-wishers over for my birthday!

The idea is to share seven things that you love.  I am not sure if they are supposed to be seven different things that I love or a list of seven things in a category (7 songs that make me smile, etc).  Birthdays are a milestone for reflecting on who we were, who we are, and who we are becoming. 

So after a little introspection, I find myself having to rescind things that I have declared about myself in the past, namely:

Untruth #1 - I will never have children.
This is the big one.  I said it on many an occasion.  I don't have the patience or nurturing character to raise a child.  I am too much of a wimp to handle the discomfort of pregnancy and the pain of childbirth.  I'm going to screw up any child I raise.  I was wrong on all accounts (well, jury's still out on that last one).  I have not only one, but two children now.  And they have taught me that I do have nurturing maternal instincts, and they have shown me that I have patience and strength.  In fact, with every passing day, they test me on exactly how much patience and strength I have in my reserves.

Untruth #2 - I will never be as pretty as my mother.
Every woman has mommy issues, right?  Please say yes.  My issue (at least the one I'll talk about today) is whether I would ever live up to my mom's beauty.  A lot of people say my mom is hot.  She is petite, thin, beautiful, with a head of thick lustrous black hair that refuses to go gray and flawless skin.  And me?  Well, I look like my dad.  However, try as hard as I can to focus only on my blemished skin, my blocky face, my big legs, and my flabby gut, there is incontrovertable evidence that I am not a complete hag.  I've learned that we are all at our prettiest when we focus on what we have going for us, not what we don't like.  So scratch what I said two sentences ago, because I have big eyes, nice cheekbones, full lips, a tall frame, broad shoulders, and a pretty decent rack.

Untruth #3 - I'm not cool enough to make a lot of friends outside of my inner posse.
I've been humbled by the number of well-wishers who have visited my LJ and FB pages with birthday wishes.   And not just people, but cool, creative, smart, fabulous people that in the past, I would say are way out of my league.  My close circle of friends are awesome people, too.  We've been friends since we were awkward pre-teens (in some cases since before that), so I always figured that I lucked out by making friends with those cool cats before they really fully came into their coolness.  I never thought that I would be able to meet people who are already uber-cool and become their friend.  And yet, I've done just that.

Untruth #4 - I have no business singing or dancing.
Don't get me wrong, I still have zero talent for singing (think yowling cat) and my get-down can be a hot mess.  But I love just busting out a move to a good beat and singing along to my favorite tunes in the car.  It's not about being good at it, it's about the joy I get from doing it.  As long as I'm having fun, I give myself permission to suck as some things.

Untruth #5 - I let fear drive the big decisions in my life.
I always regretted being too scared to study abroad, to major in Art in college, to take the low-paying job in the movie industry (vs going the "safe" route of high-tech soul-sucking corporate desk job).  Fear of failure and fear of the unknown pinned me to the things that felt comfortable and easy.  But in this time of uncertainty in the world, I'm making hard decisions and taking risks (like trying to write a novel, having kids, etc) with little trepidation.  There's no such thing as the sure thing these days, so take a deep breath and go for what you want.

Untruth #6 - I'm too fat to pull off nice clothes.
My sister-in-law has a gorgeous body; you could put a garbage bag on her, and it would look hot.  No such luck with me.  I used to not care what I wore because I figured it's not going to look good on me anyway.  And I couldn't buy the nice things for myself until I lost 20 lbs.  So what, I have to look like a schlub now because I can't resist Trader Joe's Sublime Ice Cream Sandwiches?  I don't think so!  The point of nice clothes that fit well is not to make the clothes look good; it's to make you look better.  And we all deserve to look better today, especially those of us who can't pull off wearing a garbage bag.

Untruth #7 - I'm not a jewelry girl.
Who am I kidding?  What girl doesn't love diamonds?  The truth is I'm a forgetful, clumsy, fidgety girl who is afraid to lose/ruin beautiful and expensive pieces of jewelry.  But per untruth #5, I'm not going to let fear drive my life, so hubby, if you read this, feel free to buy me diamonds any time you want.

I'd love to pass this award on to someone else, but I really don't know a lot of bloggers outside of Susan's introductions (and they've already been tagged).   If this exercise sounds fun, have at it!

You tease me with your intriguingly named "London Fog" Tea Latte, described as:

"Full leaf black tea with citrusy Italian Bergamot and a hint of lavender. Sweetened with vanilla syrup and topped with steamed milk and velvety foam."

You charge me $3.25 for a Tall.  And what do I get?  A cup of Earl Grey tea with steamed milk and vanilla syrup (note: tea is not any hotter and vanilla flavor is non-existent, lavender flavor apparently the figment of a very creative marketing guy's imagination because all I tasted was standard Earl Grey).  Earl Grey tea bags that I already had at home.  That I got for $3.99 for 20 bags.  Or that I could get for $1.95 at your store under the less glamorous monicker of "hot tea".

Shame on you for swindling me out of an extra $1.30.  And shame on me for buying into your crap.  Never again.   At least with your espresso, I can try to convince myself that I can't make an equally aromatic cup at home.

If one fewer Tea Latte is sold because of this post, then it will have served its purpose.

 

Yes, I still love frozen yogurt, but the onset of winter (always delayed in California, not the biting, paralyzing cold that the rest of the country gets, but still cold for us wimps who call wearing a hoodie over a t-shirt "winter layering") has dampened the craving.  However, we had a nice, if brisk, sunny day today, and I was feeling good, so I hit up another new favorite spot: Culture Organic Frozen Yogurt.   If you read my last fro-yo post, I extolled the virtues of Fraiche Yogurt, which I still love (chocolate-plain swirl with ollalieberry puree and shaved chocolate...killer!). 

Where Fraiche is all about their independent, house-made yogurt, Culture uses Strauss Creamery plain yogurt as their base, producing a tangy, not-too-sweet fro-yo.  But what sets them apart is their creativity with the toppings.  They feature toppers like honey-glazed pumpkin seeds, baby chocolate meringues, and house-made granola.  And if that sounds too granola for you, they also carry one-of-a-kind toppings like warm apple crisp and pear-white chocolate cobbler.

My yogurt fix for today? Chocolate and tangerine yogurt swirl with pumpkin seeds and chocolate meringue bits.  The tangerine yogurt was a stand-out, especially with the meringue, which actually tasted like a gourmet version of chocolate Cookie Crisp cereal.

Everyone's favorite writing buddy susanwrites is teaching a class on poetry, and her calls for poem suggestions prompted me to pull out an old poetry anthology from back in the day.  To my surprise, a hard copy of an assignment for a parody fell out from between the pages.  This little nugget was done on my old Mac II in my junior year of college.  I have a soft copy.  Saved to a 3.5" floppy disk.  So basically, this hard copy is all that is left. 

In the interest of posterity, I am going to re-print it here.  I hope you enjoy my long lost parody of T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"...

The Love Song of Wolfgang Puck
(with apologies to T.S. Eliot)
by Hula Bunny (circa 1993)

Mettez une tasse de farine dans la sucre.  Ajoutez
une petite cuillere de vanille et deux oeufs, frappe.
Melangez bien.  Enfin, ajoutez une demie tasse de
chocolat amer.  Frappez avec un CuisinArt. (1)

Let us go then, you and I,
When the neon stretches out across the sky
Like a turkey laid upon a carving board;
Let us go, through certain over-crowded dining halls,
The shopping malls
Full of rundown Dairy Queens and Taco Bells
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Aromas that smell of a hearty bouillabaisse
Waft down alleyways
To lead you to an overwhelming question...
Do not ask, "That scent!  Oh, what is it?"
Let us go and make our visit.

The women dine on macaroni
Talking of Caffe Borrone.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellowtail that lies atop a bed of rice,
Garnished with pickled ginger on the side;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a luncheon to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to cook and bake,
And time for all the types and sorts of gadgets
That frost and decorate your cake;
Time for fish and time for veal,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of the mid-day meal.

The women dine on jumbalaya
Talking of La Pastaia.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Tuna ahi?" and "Quiche Lorraine?"
Time to take the pasta out to drain,
With the sauce just a little bit too plain -
[They will say: "My, but her recipe is faulty!"]
My salad dish, croutons seasoned but not too salty,
My chowder rich and creamy, accented with a hint of poultry -
[They will say: "But how her food is paltry!"]
Do I dare
Disturb the cheese souffle?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which in a minute can go either way.

For I have known these meals already, known them well:
Have known the dinners, breakfasts, lunches,
I have measured out my life by weekend brunches;
I know the scallops steaming in the half-shell
Beneath the herbs and spices from the Indies West.
I should have baked the king crab's claws
Scuttling across the floors of Lucky's.

No!  I am not Julia Child, nor was meant to be;
I am an amateur chef, one that will do
To grill a lamb chop, toss a salad or two....

I grow full... I grow full...
I shall unzip my trousers to let my belly roll.

Shall I indulge in dessert?  Do I dare eat a peach?
I shall try the white chocolate mousse, then work it off at Reach.
I have heard the waitresses singing, "Tip us!  Tip us each!"

We have lingered in the chambers of the feast
By bus-boys clad in aprons red and brown
Till indigestion shakes us, and we drown.

(1) This recipe is from Better Homes and Gardens, which features various dessert recipes.  This is taken from the recipe for Nuages au Chocolat, a fluffy chocolate dessert not unlike a chocolate souffle.   "Put one cup of flour in the sugar.  Add a teaspoon of vanilla and two eggs, beaten.  Then, add a half cup of bittersweet chocolate.  Beat in a CuisinArt."

</lj>

© copyright Eileen Tse 1993

susanwrites

</lj>

At a recent critique group meeting, I discovered that one of the members belongs to three different groups that meet weekly.  Let me say that again: THREE weekly critique groups.  I don't know how anyone could sustain going to that many groups.  I can barely make it to the one I go to once every three weeks, let alone three every single week.

As we sometimes do when there aren't too many readers, the topic of conversation in between readings drifted to technique, exercises, reference materials that people have found useful in "honing their craft".  One woman recommended a book that she found instrumental in helping her prep for applying for the Stegner fellowship at Stanford.

And that's when I started feeling like a fraud, the deluded corporate drone who hacked her way through an English major almost 15 years ago and thinks she can hold company with this circle of serious writers. 

I started to wonder if any of my comments would be of value to these folks who obviously spend a lot more time and effort in their writing and are earnestly striving for publication.   Were my comments the ones that people read over and over to boost their self-esteem (with my kudos) or to pinpoint the bits that aren't working (with my constructive feedback)?  Or were my comments the ones that go to the bottom of the stack, never to be reviewed again?

The next week, I got an email from Mr. Three-Groups.  He asked our group for some additional feedback on a chapter he previously shared.  Apparently someone in another group had trashed that chapter, and he wanted to fix it if it was off, but he hadn't heard any negative feedback from our group and was asking for us to do a read-over.  I offered to critique it for him, looking just at the aspects that had gotten slammed.  I re-read the chapter twice and replied with my feedback.

Imagine my surprise when he sent me a thank-you note.  "Thank you for your detailed response.  It was just the type of feedback I needed.  I really appreciate it!"  Yippie!  Self-flaggelation may be suspended until the next crit group meeting; score one for the imposter.

I hit a wall on my Cassie story and decided to do an outline to give myself some clarity.  Now I am realizing that of the three story arcs, only one has an ending.  The other two that I thought had endings are unresolved.   I was confusing "no more ideas" with "the end".   Those two story arcs are still in the muddling middle, as susanwrites likes to call them.

How do I get myself out of this predicament?