#teasertuesday

More for the short I'm working on. Let's call this an 'apocalyptic love story' of sorts.

Anissa had no clear memory of rain. Thick clouds of moisture and bolts of white light were mere phantom flashes from her dreams, like the dim recollection of straits and streams time had parched of water and life. She looked down at the dry, cracked surface of the empty creek and a momentary shudder took her as she saw Harding laying facedown and unconscious.

She heard the men behind her as she walked toward his body, but would not watch them. Pitiless cowards, she thought. They left Harding here to die, these men— men he’d once called brothers, men who’d followed the now cataleptic man into a mission no one could survive. He’d been their leader and Anissa thought, perhaps, leaving his thin body in the dry earth was a punishment. Judgment sent for his failures, for theirs at believing victory was at all possible.

Anissa began to brush back the dry hair from his face, but resisted. The comfort and familiarity of their bodies touching had long been lost to her. Time and survival had stolen the ease and frequency in affection and now she found herself frightened, unsure. He seemed so different to her, a foreign shape that held only slight resemblance to the man she loved. But when the closed slit that was Harding’s swollen lids opened to reveal bloodshot eyes and a labored moan released from his throat, Anissa forgot her hesitation, ignored her discomfort and touched him.

His skin felt hot, was rough, blistered and Anissa’s fingers slipped against the sweat and blood on his body, the smell of him like the burnt odor of coal and sulfur. She struggled to roll him into the pushcart and tried to forget how he’d once been, how she could never manage to bear much of his weight those drunken nights, years ago, before the skies dried and the End began its decent. She carried him home with a strength she’d never possessed, perhaps stealing what remained of his own, leeching the remnants of power left from before his mighty fall.

Guest blogger Ebony McKenna

This week, I'm honored to have Ebony McKenna guest blogging for me. I 'met' Ebony on #scribechat (why aren't you joining us? It's too much fun to miss) and she very generously agreed to gives us all her two cents on Inspiration. I hope you enjoy her wonderful post as much as I did. Don't forget to comment and pick up a copy of her wonderful novel, Ondine: The Summer of Shambles.

Thanks so much, Ebony, for playing along!


Inspiration:

I hate to break it to you, but there is no guaranteed way to ‘get’ inspiration. It’s either going to come or it won’t. Which is a dreadful way to begin a blog on the topic because you’re all looking at me, thinking, ‘come on woman, inspire me!’

But there is a way to encourage inspiration to come your way. You have to turn the computer or laptop on, open the file, put your fingers on the keys and start typing.

If you’re not , you won’t be open to inspiration when it strikes. Or creeps up on you. Or worms its way into your heart. I’ve found time and again this habit works for me. I make a start - sometimes with no idea about what comes next - and sure enough, something eventually comes to me.

It took me about seven goes just to work out how to start this post! I wasn’t sure how to start. So I took my own advice and just started. Then when I had a decent paragraph, I knew that might go somewhere near the top and the rest might follow. How am I doing so far?

Inspiration is like snark hunting. You’re never too sure what it is, and everyone has a different idea of how crazy and dangerous it is, and you never really know what you’ve got. BUT, you have to be in the hunt in the first place if you want to get one.

Which means removing distractions where possible. Hold off on emails, twitter, facebook, bebo, myspace and all that until after you’ve written. You can check them later, as a reward for writing. (Note to self, take own advice from time to time.)

Set aside a regular time each day to write. This is a difficult thing to do, because it means being selfish. It means telling the family you need to write. It means writing for yourself - and giving yourself permission to put yourself first - ahead of even your day job, or of mopping the floors or doing the laundry or walking the dog. Work helps pay the bills, but it can sap our emotional strength. So how about writing before work, or during a lunch break or on the train too or from work?

Are there any jobs around the house you can delegate. Seriously?

In the long run, what would you like to be known for? A great writer or a great housecleaner. Because you can be one or the other, but not both.

Feeling inspired yet?

Are you inspired to get up that bit earlier, while the house is quiet, so you can get straight into it? This is not so much about inspiration as motivation, but the two go hand in hand. If you’re motivated enough to write, you’ll find the inspiration begins to find you.

Always carry a notebook and pen wherever you go, because an overheard comment, funny incident, obstacle or event can provide inspiration. Plus, if you’re daydreaming and crash into someone, you’ll have pen and paper to exchange insurance details.

E-hem!

Sometimes reading a particularly good book inspires you to want to be that good. Or, reading a particularly unworthy book might make you angry enough to do better.

Online courses are brilliant at developing craft and giving you the confidence to go on. Because along with inspiration and motivation come confidence. They’re all intertwined. Along with talent, but you can work on that too.

Another way to get inspiration - this works for me at least - is to join a critique group, whether in person or online. Being around other writers always fires me up. In the week before the meeting I usually get a lot written, and the week afterwards too, because the meeting has given me an injection of fresh enthusiasm.

But the other two weeks in the middle can be a bit ‘bleh’. This time around, I’ve managed to work through the saggy two-week torpor through sheer determination. And a steady supply of chocolate.

Lately I have become a hooked on Twitter. I’m drawn to topics like #yalitchat and #scribechat. The questions and answers are often inspiring, motivating or sometimes plain good fun. Plus, writing can be an incredibly isolating experience, but it’s nice to know there are so many others out there doing the same thing. We may be alone, but we’re all in it together.

And how could I forget the best inspiration of all - blind terror? Never underestimate its motivational and inspirational force. I have one book out there in the world, and it’s sold a few thousand copies already (in a very difficult economy, so thank you, every single one of you). But, I can’t rest. I am at the copy editing stages of the second book and I desperately want to get the third book written so I can keep up the momentum. I’ve noticed if people like a book, they want to read the next one. Right now, if you don’t mind. What do you mean it’s not written yet. Get on with it!

Ebony McKenna is the author of Ondine: The Summer of Shambles. Out now with Egmont Books UK and Publisher’s Group Canada. Book two, The Autumn Palace, will be out in March 2011. She’s currently writing book three, The Duchess of Winter.

#teasertuesday

From something I'll likely never publish:

It began simply, the callousness of these desolate days. The winds swept with fiercer gusts, storms grew torrential and violent, the earth rattled, breaking bodies and cracking cement. When the floods left New York and Tokyo into skeletal dregs, when buildings and industry posed no great threat against nature’s brutal assault, Anissa and her people knew the End would come, that their days would not be long. They had only to wait, to watch the skies, to count each breath as they anticipated.

Governments tumbled and fell. Anarchy became the strongest political platform. Men with guns and wealth became the ruthless class, stealing what they could of time, food, Champions— full circle for Anissa’s people, lands taken, rights ignored, atrocities visited upon them again and again.

The purported civilized became the desperate overlords of those they deemed inferior. The poor and the common man brawled back, forming the Resistance— former hatreds, past prejudices forgotten as the Guard rose. Blacks, Aryans, Hispanics, lower and middle classes of every race forgetting their animosity to rage against the Guard who had assumed control, who had murdered and stolen in attempts to reorganize civility to their liking.

The Resistance grew strong, small communities sharing the burden of survival, becoming phantoms saviors of the dying class, fighting against impossible cruelty, immeasurable odds. Anissa and her people stood against the threats, those seeking to destroy what they could not conquer.

Break On Through...

Scribechat is phenomenal for getting the old cogs turning in my mind. Particularly, when said cogs are inundated with technical documents and rereading books that tend to distract me, in the best possible way, of course.

Last night, during our little Twitter chat, which by the way, you should be following, the topic of breakout fiction came up. For those of you who are wondering, this type of fiction, according to Donald Maass in Writing the Breakout Novel, happens when "new work comes along and suddenly the writer's [who may have been only marginally successful prior] book vaults onto the best-seller lists or even achieves a large jump in sales."

I'll give you a few examples:

Once there was a single mother in Scotland, living on benefit, who took a train ride and 'met' a boy with a lightening bolt scar. Nearly twenty years later, said woman has sold roughly 400 million copies of her series worldwide.

And, of course, another instance is Alice Sebold, who writes 'literary fiction.' She twisted expectations and genre by telling the story of Susie Salmon, a fourteen year-old murder victim. This story, however, was told from Susie's point of view after she was murdered.

With Rowling, the publishing industry was turned upside down because she chose to tell her story from a young boy's point of view. She took Campbell and folklore conventions and placed them into the minds of the young. She pulled the boarding school story away from its past and filled it with wizards and witches and all manner of mythical folk and figures. She did this excellently and the result was literary history.

Sebold made a ghost story literary, brought Susie into the fray of critical praise and made no apologies for it. I'll say that again: she turned a ghost story into literary fiction.

Both books left their marks. Both writers wrote the stories they wanted to write, probably, the stories they had to write.

Maas says that what is at the heart of these 'breakout books' generally take publishers by surprise. There is no surefire way to predict which solitary manuscript among the thousands will leap off the shelves. There can be, I believe, a process to it. Quite simply, what could be at the center of the success of a breakout novel is word-of-mouth.

Think of this way, a hundred years ago when I was a teenager, I fell hard for a certain boy band. (Please don't ask me to name them. I could not withstand the humiliation). I watched their infinitesimal climb from mediocrity to international super-stardom. It was slow, but eventually, their first album inched up the charts and they began to warrant larger venues, win Grammies and supersede their own notions of success.

It happened, because little girls like me, with no real concept of what good music was, told her girlfriends and they told theirs and so on and so on. It happened through word-of-mouth.

Granted, I know the publishing and music industries are two very different animals altogether. Writers, sad as it may seem, don't sell out arenas (unless they happen to be that mother from Scotland) and MTV generally doesn't play clips of writers sitting at their keyboards. Still, the process is the same. Word-of-mouth can be essential in turning a great book into a best seller.

It is, as Maass says, "the secret grease of publishing...it is the engine that drives breakouts."

And how can writers, such as yours truly, who are just starting to flirt with publishing, who are just dipping their toes in the deep waters of the industry, benefit from word-of-mouth? Well, it may simply be my humble opinion, but I believe it all starts with you. It starts with me. It starts when we lift one another up. It starts when we take a vested interest in each other. It begins with networking, it begins with supporting one another in the minutest way. Chat, introduce yourself, attend conferences, but most importantly, be willing to learn from one another. Be eager to help each other out.

One day you may be in a position to give a little advice, make an introduction for someone, some writer, who helped you along your way to greatness. And that small word-of-mouth from you could be the difference between the next breakout novel and the book everyone bypasses on their way to the checkout.

"The more I help others to succeed, the more I succeed."
Ray Kroc

Is Too Much of a Good Thing Too Much?

Writers are neurotic. Now, I don't mean that as an insult, particularly since I count myself in that group, but generally, there comes a time in every writer's career when self-deprecation inches its ugly way into our psyche. This happens, it's been my experience, mostly when we're in the thick of figuring out a plot or revising a work post first draft. We tend to doubt ourselves, we question our abilities. When this occurs, the natural resolution is to seek the advice of other, more established, seasoned writers, editors or educators.

Writing craft books are aplenty. There are books on writing a 'bestseller in 30 days!' or 'unraveling the plot.' Some are real stinkers. Some, however are not. I've read several craft-related books in the past. My personal favorites are Stephen King's On Writing, John Dufresne's The Lie That Tells a Truth and Self Editing for Fiction Writing by Renni Browne.

Those books have taught me, rather quickly, that form and function can be learned. Browne explains the importance of ‘showing not telling’ pretty much on the first few pages of her book, using Fitzgerald as an example. King and Dufresne both tell you from the beginning that they don’t have all the answers and that what works for them won’t necessarily work for you. All advice given in these books are great, invaluable, especially when that neurosis is niggling you, making you doubt yourself.

An issue that can arise, however, is whether or not too much advice—be it from publishing greats or that know-it-all guy in your creative writing class—is simply, too much. Everyone has an opinion. Everyone. I’ve been around enough writers to know that we all have a different approach when it comes to getting a story out. Some like to start at the end, ‘having dessert’ before the main course, (writing your ending before you begin). Some outline. Some would rather cut off their fingers than use an adverb. Advice is abundant, even advice in craft books, but the point, the challenge in taking in all this advice, good and bad, is sorting out which is the best for you.

The first creative writing course I took in college was taught by a highly respected, much published professor who is quite a big deal in our little state. He is a genius storyteller. However, during our first class he told us he would not allow ‘genre fiction’ in his class. No ghosts, no fairies (I know, I was cringing at that one), no fantasy of any kind…nothing that wasn’t based in reality. I could have walked out of that classroom and never looked back. I didn’t. I learned. I listened and what I gained was the nuts and bolts skills of writing a great story. I struggled to write literary fiction for him, probably doing a horrible job of it, but I stuck it out. I continued to take his classes over the next four years because I recognized that he had a wealth of knowledge that I could use once I left his classroom and defiantly wrote as much fairy/vampire/ghost/horror fiction as I could.

It’s the same with reading craft books. If you allow yourself to drown in the abundance of ‘you must’ and ‘this is how it’s dones’ then, yes, that advice will overwhelm you. If, however, you take snippets from all varying opinions and advice you can walk away with an expansive base from which you will build your own style, hone your own voice.

What is essential, I think, in organizing those snippets and expanding them, is to have dialogues with others who have a vested interest in the same genre you do. Like minded writers and editors or even readers will help you. Network. Discuss. Branch out and listen. Not all advice may be golden, but all advice can be applied to your own interests. The information overload you fear will engulf you can only do so when you don’t know yourself as a writer, when you’re too afraid to listen to that instinctive voice in your head.

Listen to others, take in what they have to say, but ultimately, the voice that you should hear above all others, is your own.

If you’re still concerned, still leery, I invite you to join myself and a great bunch of writers on ScribeChat’s Book Club to read and discuss craft books. July’s book of choice is Betsy Lerner’s The Forest for the Trees.

Hope to see you there!

Finding your genre

I've always looked at genre with a glare. In all honesty, I've never given it much attention, because my ultimate goal is to be a writer that simply tells a good story. Think of the imaginary blessed spawn of Neil Gaiman and Toni Morrison. That's who'd I want to be. Unfortunately, I'm discovering, whilst a newbie to the 'business' of writing, it's a bit difficult to wrangle that covetous form.

Many literary agents are focused on certain genres. It's understandable. Why promote a genre you don't necessarily care for? I get it. But the idea of genre was so much on my mind, such a constant when I wrote that I began to find myself focusing on it. I'd change a character's voice, edit out things they might say, behaviors they might have in order to conform into the genre niche. It's a terrible practice, one that I've had to monitor. So, in thinking of this, I, being a good little English nerd, took to the research. What constitutes genre? Who is my audience if I'm writing YA? MG? Fantasy?

What I discovered is this: right now, it really doesn't matter.

So what if my protagonist is still a teenager? Her age doesn't necessarily define who I'm writing for. More to the point, at the stage I'm in (11k words), genre is the last thing I should be focusing on. Like with many things I tend to let filter into my mind, focusing on genre and not the development of characters or the course of the plot only deters me from my goal of telling a good story.

The bottom line is this: if I want to be that Gaiman Morrison hybrid, I have to forget about all things except telling the best story, written in the clearest, most endearing voice imaginable. Mix those things up with a great plot, a strong narrative and I may just end up with the story I want to tell. Oh, and the fairies. We mustn't forget those fairies.

So, question to you, anonymous reader, where does genre fit in with your writing process? What literary marvel hybrid are you hoping to be?

Observations

SO...once, Diana Gabaldon said, on her blog, that the difference between her first novel writing process and those of her colleagues was that while they researched and researched, she researched and wrote. Guess who got published first?

I try to follow the same principle. Current WIP is something I've never done before. It takes fairy tales, folklore and some elements of mythology and sets it up in a contemporary setting. Easier said than done, particularly when my graduate courses contained very little Folklore/Mythology courses and a plethora of 'The Romantic Period,' '17th Cent. Non-Dramatic Poetry' AND more tech writing courses than you could possibly imagine. Hence, my ardent need to read, read, read on the history of fairy tales, myths and folklore. And yes, I am most certainly writing during this process.

Currently, I'm reading "Clever Minds: The Secret History of The Grimm Fairy Tales" by Valerie Paradiz. It's a great read. Honestly. It has also opened my eyes and it has left me with a huge revelation: The Brothers Grimm were complete douchebags. I mean, really. According to Paradiz, the long purported ideal that the brothers went to great lengths, speaking to 'plain folk' all across Germany to collect and write down fairy tales and folk stories, is complete and utter fantasy. Never happened. The brothers, apparently, gathered much of the stories from WOMEN. Women who were educated. Women who did all the compiling, did all the gathering and organizing.

They did collaborate with scholars of the time--men-- and out of the women who told the stories and did the leg work and the 'scholars,' guess who got acknowledged by the brothers once the anthology was complete? I bet you know. Go ahead and be annoyed. I am.

What I'm discovering is that there was a direct correlation between the brother's life experiences and what tales made the final cut. My annoyance at their misogyny aside, I am happily absorbing all of this information. Characters are being drawn, yes, even the douchebaggy ones, and I find myself so very excited by the work I'm doing.

Next up is "The Hard Facts of The Grimms' Fairy Tales" by Maria Tatar. You noticing a trend here? I know, I know, but I feel it's high time we have a feminist interruption of certain aspects in these very patriarchal stories. Oh, yes, I know it's been done before, but I'm hoping that my very unique, original plot will be welcomed among those that have come before me.

Please, my lone, probably rarely active reader, if you have any further suggestions, I welcome them. Am off to spend some more time with the brothers. Can't make any promises that I won't curse their names further.
T