For Writers

Hop Down the Rabbit Hole

By on September 21, 2022   /   Articles, For Kids, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, Writing  

Writing is tough.

Writing is tough. At any level. From learning to put one word after another (and in order!) to construct one meaningful sentence to the classic high school essay to writing award-winning books, it isn’t easy. It’s a rewarding kind of tough, though. Challenging but rewarding as most creative ventures tend to be.

The blank page can be a fearsome opponent. The nothingness intimidates. One of the magical rewards of writing is overcoming the mountain of blank space with a word or an idea. The breakthrough lets the creative gears fall in place and allows the river to flow. 

Perhaps as daunting as the blank page is a second barrier to writing. Its roots lie in the way we are taught to write from day one in elementary school. It’s constrained, tightly-focused writing. The expectation a well-written sentence has to come out of the gate and hit the center target with great precision using a minimum of words. Don’t get me wrong, focus is an absolute in teaching beginning writers. What would written communication be like if we all wrote exactly like your favorite five-year-old breathlessly telling the story of how the clown at the birthday party tripped and popped the balloon elephant he was making which scared the magician’s rabbit who escaped and pooped while hopping across the birthday cake? 

So, out of necessity, we are taught to write tight from the beginning. We are taught we must not take a false step off the path or else, like in Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder, we crush a butterfly and scramble the entire space-time continuum. But what happens when we’re ready to take a step and can’t see even a hint of a path? Like with the blank page, we can get stuck. Paralysis by analysis. 

See? Writing is tough.

So, what’s the remedy?

Well, we first need to loosen the thumbscrews of the deeply ingrained idea of user-focused writing. We need a distraction to help us step back and attack the blank page and/or the paralysis of a constrictive focus. Pull back and give yourself some space. That’s what drafting is. It’s finding your way but on a wide and sometimes rambling path.

(Psst, come closer. I don’t want the writing police or your high school English teacher to hear this.) There are also rabbit holes! Yes! The dreaded rabbit hole can help your writing in more ways than you think if you use them with discipline and measure. 

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 640px-Down_the_Rabbit_Hole.png

John Tenniel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The rabbit hole of research is one of my personal favorite places to hang out as a writer. It’s part of what brings me joy as an ever-curious 58-year-old writer. I used to feel guilty about this research rabbit hole obsession until I discovered that, while the rabbit hole can be a distraction if entered unchecked, it was creating path after path after path for my writing. Paths forward, new paths, paths that veered away from dead ends on discarded writing projects. What has always been considered a waste of time and focus became a great creative tool for me. 

The rabbit hole has become a way to fight through blank page syndrome and break the shackles of tight, and often restrictive, focus that is still ingrained in my brain from elementary school. It’s an idea generator, a brainstorming tool, and a source of necessary or (often at the time) obscure facts which may worm their way into future stories. Out of chaos comes order.

Chaos into order.

The tricks to making the rabbit hole work for you as a writer are simple but can be difficult in execution. The first trick is to stay the master of the rabbit hole, whether it’s the internet, the library, a stack of articles, or books. You can’t turn yourself over completely to it and tumble endlessly from researching what kids might have eaten on the banks of the Nile in the Old Kingdom period to find yourself 45 minutes later checking out the latest Beyonce videos and fashions. 

The second trick is a very useful skill. The beauty of a skill is it can be learned, practiced, and mastered. It’s the ability to look at the chaos, organize it into a fashion that makes sense to you, and store the organized pieces for later. It’s like being a sculptor. Take a block of stone, wood, or clay and remove the pieces that don’t belong in the composition. The skill is the ability to manage information. The skill to find the gold hidden deep within the rabbit hole and then establish order from chaos.

As you can see, rabbit holes can be a writer’s friend and a valuable tool in the writer’s toolbox. Writing is tough. Any tools we acquire to help us over the hills and humps that stand in our way are more valuable than gold. Because, in the end, the most important thing in writing is writing that next word and building our stories one word at a time, brick by brick.

The moral of the story.

Find what works for you. 

Find what brings you joy in doing creative things. 

Do those things. 

Repeat.

 

Alex Lehner, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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A Case for New Beginnings

By on September 5, 2022   /   Articles, For Writers, Writing  

Writing Excuses is in its 17th season!

For years now I’ve listened to a podcast called Writing Excuses. It’s a show that focuses mainly on writing technique, and it’s hosted by a plethora of veteran authors, one of whom is the very talented Brandon Sanderson. A few seasons back, Brandon made a comment about deleting the early chapters of a manuscript and rewriting them completely (in fact, Brandon talks about this often and even includes many of the deleted scenes on his website).

As a writer who barely scrapes together enough time to write a first draft at all, the idea of deleting entire chapters was (okay…is) pretty terrifying. All that work, all that setup, all those precious words just…gone. 

I have beginnings on the brain this month largely because I’m a middle school teacher, and September is a month of beginnings. New classes, new students, new Spongebob Squarepants socks. As I think about it now, there have definitely been school years that could’ve used a better introductory chapter. Life, of course, doesn’t allow us to delete and redraft, but as a writing technique this is something I’m warming up to.

Maybe you’re like me — balking at the thought of trashing entire sections of a manuscript. With that in mind, I’d like to make a case for new beginnings by highlighting a few authors who aren’t shy about laying their work on the chopping block.

The 10% Rule

In his book, On Writing, Stephen King recalls early advice from an editor that suggested his second draft should be 10% shorter than the first. The idea that much of editing is deleting transformed King’s writing and helped propel him to the success he has today. Writer and editor Erin Whalen digs into the details of this strategy on her blog, and it’s definitely worth a look.

Short Chapters

Another wildly successful author who’s recently branched out to middle grade is James Patterson. In countless interviews and articles about his craft, Patterson’s notoriously short chapters are often highlighted and pondered. So much of what gives Patterson’s books the punch and the pace they have is his willingness to sometimes say as little as possible. The underlying mantra here is not too dissimilar from my own mindset when I have to stop by a fellow teacher’s classroom on my way out at the end of the day — get in, get to the point, and get out!

 

Murder Your Darlings

This is perhaps one of the most well-known ideas where writing and editing is concerned, but just to be clear, no one is advocating for actual murder here. The phrase, which has taken various forms and been attributed to several different authors (William Faulkner among the most famous of them), centers on the idea that sometimes deleting the things most precious to us is the best way to advance a story. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule (Margery Bayne at the writing cooperative does a great job unpacking this idea more fully), but the takeaway for me, both as a writer and as a human, is to edit objectively. Getting swept up in the emotion of something is a surefire way to keep stuff around that probably needs to go, whether it’s chapters in a manuscript, junk in the attic, or toxic people in my life (but just to reiterate, actual murder is bad).  

The writing graveyard isn’t as scary as it sounds!

Whether you’re writing a new book or just starting a new season in life, a willingness to remove the unnecessary and even start over entirely is profoundly helpful. I’ve already got a few chapters in my new manuscript that need to go, and thanks to techniques like the writing graveyard, I don’t necessarily have to toss anything permanently (though I suspect some of it should definitely be tossed permanently). 

Best of luck as you embark on new beginnings this fall, and feel free to drop other editing strategies in the comments. Happy writing!

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When a project is finally complete: some thoughts on the imminent release of my debut novel

By on August 22, 2022   /   Articles, For Writers, MUF Contributor Books  

Started knitting this sweater July 2021, completed July 2022. It fits perfectly 👌(Which never happens when you’re short, so yay! 😀)

My sweater

Sometimes it feels like everything takes me a long time to accomplish. Knitting this sweater-jacket took me a year! A story I often tell myself is that things take me longer than other people. But when I’m being more honest I know that often within this are choices that I’ve made. During the year I was knitting this sweater I also crocheted a kippa, knit a cardigan for my daughter, learned how to darn, continued to work on an ongoing not-yet-completed needlepoint project, started knitting a hat and started crocheting a toy giraffe.

 

Sure it would have gone faster if I’d just concentrated on this one thing. But it suited me to complete several smaller projects while I was working on this larger one. There are several reasons for this:

1. It’s very satisfying to finish something. It makes me feel in control and that I’ve accomplished something.

2. It’s fun to start something new! Choosing colors and patterns for a small project that I know won’t take me too long offers a break from the longer project.

3. Starting and completing a smaller project deliberately prolongs the longer one; it can be bittersweet to say goodbye to something I’ve been working on for a long time.

 

 

My book

I wish I could say this is an exact metaphor for the journey of my debut novel, Honey and Me, which I wrote the first draft of 10 summers ago! It has been a long journey with this novel. And unlike knitting a sweater, it hasn’t always been a matter of how much I worked on it or if I put it aside for a little while to work on something else, or that I worked on it alongside other writing projects. Yes, I have been working on other projects which I hope I get to share with readers at some point, but Honey and Me’s journey was mostly not a question of choices of what to focus on, and many aspects of it were far beyond my control.

Which is comforting in the sense of thinking about a writers journey: no matter how much you will it or want it, it is not under your control how long it might take an agent to read your query letter, and if they decide they want to read your whole manuscript, you don’t have control over how long that takes them. When you do get an agent you can do your best to take their suggestions to get it ready for submission to editors, but you have zero control after that in terms of if/when an editor reads your work, sends it to the editorial committee, makes an offer… And even once you get the magic offer, a whole journey begins anew, again with many aspects beyond one’s control.

What you do have control over

But what you do have is control over the quality of your work. Barring life circumstances that might get in your way—health, other jobs (in which I include running a home, raising children, caring for elderly parents…)—when it’s in your lap you have control over when and how long it takes to write, rewrite, revise, incorporate editorial notes. You have control over what you put into it. You also have control over how you try to get it out into the world. No one can see it if it stays as a file on your computer. Sure, you can’t be rejected if you never give anyone the opportunity to reject it. But then of course you can’t have the opportunity for someone to say, ‘wow I love this so much, let’s go on this journey together!’

Belief in your work

Even when I just couldn’t quite get to where I was trying to go in the journey of Honey and Me, even when there were roadblocks, stumbling blocks, dead ends, and scenic routes, I believed wholeheartedly in my story, my setting, and my characters, Milla and Honey. If I hadn’t, I don’t think I would have had the capacity for perseverance and tenacity that finally getting to see my book about to be published required.

What happens when the sweater is finished?

Now I get to wear it! I can’t wait. What happens when my book is published on October 18th and it goes out into the world—into readers hands? I don’t know!
I can’t wait for readers to read it. I can’t wait to talk about it with people. I can’t wait to go into schools and do author visits and presentations (but oh my god am I nervous about that. Excited! But nervous.)

Will they like it?

My sweater is for me. Someone might see it and compliment it. But basically if I like it and get use out of it, I’ll be happy with it. My book is a different beast altogether. Actually, it’s not a beast, and it’s not a garment either. It’s very much itself: a book.
Making art and specifically writing a book is a complicated enterprise: yes, we write for ourselves, because we have a story to tell, because we have art to make. But we write with an audience in mind. We want an audience. We write to tell readers a story. We write to give readers something.

What if they don’t like it?

What if reviewers say it sucks?* What if no one finds out about it? What if the tree falls in the forest and no one hears?

I don’t have the answers. I don’t know if seasoned published authors have the answers either. For me right now there’s this interplay going on between wanting to be seen, and wanting to hide. Wanting to talk to tons of kids and have public speaking opportunities (both of which I LOVE to do), is fighting with the feeling of wanting to pull a hoodie up over my head.

So all I can say is wish me luck and stay tuned! Honey and Me comes out with Scholastic on October 18th 2022 and is available for preorder wherever fine books can be found.

* but OMG, Kirkus has given it a starred review!!!! ⭐️

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