Beeeeeee Yourself

So as I sat down to write this post, I accidentally clicked "new blog" instead of the little pencil button used for creating posts. Yep. It's been that long. *face palm*

What have I been doing with my life, you ask? Writing. Lots and lots of writing. Between the Day Job and the Writing Cave, I haven't made much any time for blogging. And I figure that's okay, because in the end, I write to publish books, not blogs. Well. I suppose I'm going to publish this post as soon as I finish it but… well you get the point.

I've actually been putting this post off for awhile. I mean, what could I possibly say after so long of an absence? Well, I've been thinking a lot of self-doubt.

We all have it. I bet you even J.K. Rowling had it when she decided to write a novel for adults. Write something that isn't Harry Potter? How? The key is to not let it get the better of us. We have to be brave, look our ugly internal voices in the eyes (or mouths?) and not give up. Because that would be the easy thing to do, wouldn't it? Just give up. You wouldn't have to laugh nervously when someone asks you what you're doing with all your free time since you're too busy to hang out with them. You wouldn't get caught zoning out in the middle of a conversation because someone said something to dislodge your writer's block. And maybe for once, just ONCE you could do all your laundry AND fold it.

(Yes, that's all clean. This happens to other people, right?)

The thing is, we don't write because it's easy. We write because we're writers. It'd be like telling a fish not to swim. But even knowing that, it doesn't mean there's not that little voice in the back of our heads whispering that we're crazy for trying.

Here's the thing I've been struggling with lately: accepting my voice. Don't get me wrong. I like my voice. It's what makes me, me. But you read these great books with sexy, edgy voices who aren't afraid to "tell the truth" and sometimes I'm a little envious. I'd like to be as brave as that. So I start thinking, how can I make my book edgier? Maybe I'll kill my MC's mom, or maybe I'll give her a tattoo, or a nose-ring...

This is why we write in drafts.

I'm not an edgy person. My dark side gets about as dark as dark chocolate. And I have to remind myself that that's OKAY. That's not me. If I tried to be edgy and gritty when my MC and I are not, well for starters, it would sound ridiculous, as you can see. But also, it wouldn't be my truth. And that's what we have to remember. Write what feels right to you. That's not to say don't push yourself or broaden your horizons, but don't try to change your voice just because something's in style. Do that and it will sound absurd. It will sound forced. Besides, don't you want to be able to look at your baby and say with pride, without a shred of doubt, "I WROTE that!" with no one else's words but your own?

As Genie said in the Disney masterpiece, Aladdin, "Beeeeeeee yourself." :-D

Do you struggle with self-doubt? How do YOU silence it?

Conference Aftermath

So for those of you who don't know, I spent last weekend at DFW Writer Conference. I had a blast, made several new friends, and got to do some actual learning again. If you're considering going to a conference, I'd recommend checking this one out.

Me and Kelsey, one of my new DFWCon BFFs

I love conferences because it's one of the only places where I can totally nerd-out about writing in person. Twitter, Facebook, email, Skype, they're all great but there's just something about seeing other writers in person, looking them in their non-pixalated eyes and seeing a kindred soul - *clears throat* okay, I'll stop with the mush. So I love conferences. I've made that pretty clear. But boy are they EXHAUSTING.

I've spent this entire long weekend (thank you, Vets for this extra day) just recovering. Well, getting my requested materials ready to send out and recovering. For anyone considering a weekend conference and not thinking about taking that following Monday off… I would advise you to think again. It's not just the physical fatigue of not getting those two weekend days to sleep in. There's a lot of mental and emotional fatigue that  I'd forgotten had taken a toll after my first conference.

Because here's the thing. Writers are great, right? I mean, we're probably the coolest people on the planet. We spend our free time MAKING THINGS UP. Some of us, the lucky ones, get to do it for a living. But it's a very solitary activity, even with Facebook and Twitter and whatever else you use to keep in touch with your writer friends, the ACTUAL WRITING happens alone, locked in your room with headphones on (for me, anyway). And it's REALLY easy to forget that you're not the only insane person out there doing this. You forget about the competition. And let me tell you, there's a lot of it. Conferences are perfect reminders of this.

And it might take you a few days after you get home and settle back into the real world to remember: this is a good thing.

If you're lucky, you'll have made a few new friends at this conference and maybe agreed to swap manuscripts, and it's always good to have another pair of eyes looking at your stuff. And more people who know your writing means more cheerleaders, and who doesn't want those? But realizing the competition also provides you with a unique opportunity to reexamine your own stuff and see what you can do better. Personally, I always find that critiquing someone else's work offers that "lightbulb moment" of understanding what you did wrong, or what you could be doing better.

Be glad for your competition. They're also your allies and will undoubtably make you stronger. So rest up, conference friends. We've got a lot of work to do!

Have you ever had a moment when you realized just how much competition there is out there? How did you deal with it?

Why You Shouldn't Self-Publish Your Kid's Book

So I read this article today, and I'll be honest. It made me a little angry. Not at the kids, of course - they don't know what they're doing. At the parents. Though, they probably don't really know what they're doing either, and maybe that's the problem.

Let me be clear. I’m not against these kids writing. I’m all for it, actually. We all have to start somewhere, and I was one of these bright-eyed little ones not too long ago. And I remember the feeling of pride in completing my first novel. But I also remember that feeling of unease.

Even looking down at my stack of printed pages, a hand-drawn cover slipped inside the plastic binder to make the copy I let my mother read seem more like a real book, I knew it wasn’t finished. I knew with utmost certainty, even at the age of 12 that my book wasn’t ready to be published. It needed to be edited, and probably completely rewritten. Now, at 12, I had no idea how to go about editing my own work, and I’d already spent a year writing the darn thing and wasn’t about to waste any more of my not-quite-adult attention span on rewrites. I was done. And it was time to move on and write another one.

But even knowing that, if someone had asked me if I wanted them to publish my book, would I have said yes?

OF COURSE.

More than anything in the world, I wanted to be a published author. It was a dream I’d had since I knew what a book was. And to get to tell all of my 12 year old friends that I was a published author? A real life author with a cover and a book that sold for REAL LIFE MONEY? What kid is going to turn that down?

And here’s where I take issue with this. The books I wrote at that age were… not good. To put it gently. I can ONLY IMAGINE the embarrassment I’d face today if someone had gone along and slapped a cover on them and sent them off to be sold on smashwords and amazon. Because that stuff, it never really goes away. Just today, I saw someone lamenting on Twitter about how even though they’d unpublished their book, smashwords was still distributing it. This stuff sticks, ESPECIALLY now in this digital age.

Everyone deserves the chance to hide their beloved first books in the secret compartment in the top drawer of their dresser, buried beneath their unmentionables. Sure, we hang onto them and take them out, dust them off, and poor through their poorly written pages every now and then. It’s a sentimental thing. It’s humbling. We all want to remember where we came from. But that doesn’t mean I want to show my underwear or my secret compartments to Amazon!! And these kids, they won’t realize it now, but they’ll probably feel the same way in ten years.

Writing, or I suppose any goal, requires a lot of hard work, frustration, adversity, and probably a good deal of disappointment before you can really get good at it. But that’s how it's supposed to be. It’s what makes us reach it. If it was so easy, everyone would do it, and it wouldn't be much of a goal. All of that struggle and toiling away is what makes us better. It’s a process of growing, and it’s a process that these kids are being denied.

Now, let me clarify, I have nothing against self-publishing. I think it’s great, really. I have friends that have done very well with it. But even they weren’t simply HANDED the self-published book. They had to work for it, as hard, if not harder than I’m having to work toward traditional publishing. There’s not a single grown self-published author that I know of who hasn’t faced a good deal of adversity, be it from trying the traditional route and learning that it wasn’t for them, or from small-minded people who call them “fake authors” because they didn’t go through one of the big houses. Most of them have hired editors and have had countless betas and critique partners go through their books with fine-toothed combs.

Now, I haven't read these kids’ books. I don't know if they’ve been edited or critiqued, but I somehow doubt they had more than a few pair of eyes giving them an honest read before they went to the presses. At that age, I didn’t really know anyone else who spent their free time writing. Most of my friends thought I was really weird. So finding peers to be betas would be really hard. And while the internet is great, I don’t know many parents that would want their young teens emailing back and forth with a bunch of faceless writers, prying into their kids’ innocent little heads. Stranger danger, and all that.

Yes. The books will probably be bought. Probably by the same people in Daddy's office who would have bought a box of girl scout cookies to be polite. Does this mean that the book will get read? Maybe. Maybe not. Personally, I grow to resent things that people try to force on me, things I feel obligated to read because so-and-so's cousin's daughter wrote it. And is that really how you want your child's book to be read? Out of obligation, as opposed to enjoyment?

This article makes a point about it not being much different from parents paying for their kids to go to dance lessons, or to take guitar, or join a travelling soccer team. But the thing is, they’re not paying for lessons. They’re paying for the trophies, the gold medals, having the song put on iTunes (I think we’ve all seen what that leads to. Rebecca Black, anyone?) And really, what does buying a trophy teach your kid? That your parents will buy you anything, if you want it enough?

Most towns have SOME sort of creative writing program, whether it be through the park district or a community college, so enroll your kid in one of those for heavens sake! Or I suppose, if you’re a really devoted parent, take them to a writers conference if you feel like they’re mature enough to handle it. That’s where the real learning happens. Because that’s what it’s all about, in the end. Learning. I can pretty much guarantee that these kids don’t know enough about the publishing industry to make an informed decision on which path is right for them. So don’t push them into a decision they know little about and might regret later in life. Help them learn instead.

Dreams Really Do Come True

That's right. And I have proof.

This guy...  Jarno Smeets had the audacity to dream of flying. I'm sure we've all been there, thrown a penny into the fountain, wishing we could fly. But none of us have actually tried to make that dream come true. Outside of jumping off the garage roof, or past the age of 10.

I have a distinct memory of sharing a wishbone with my mother as a small child. After winning the split, she asked me what I had wished for. I grinned sheepishly and she asked if I had wished I could fly. I didn't need to nod for her to know my answer. She saw it in my face. And then suggested that maybe next time, I shouldn't waste a wish on something that would never come true.

But this guy did it. He ACTUALLY did it.

And it got me thinking. This guy dreamed of flying and made that dream come true. It makes my goal of being a published writer seem... realistic. I know, I know, that's crazy. (I'm sure all of you aspiring writers out there understand) But if he can fly, why can't I publish a book?

There will always be people reminding you to wish for the practical, and while it's good to wish for those things too... don't let them kill your dream. Dream big. This guy did, and look where it got him. Some 30 feet in the air.

Watch the video of the flight here.

The Season

Well... Halloween’s over. Not sure about you guys, but we take that holiday very seriously in my house. Maybe it has something to do with my deep-rooted love for costumes… maybe. I might have been the kid that wore her cowboy costume to school on a day that wasn’t Halloween. Dead winter, in fact. I remember because it was a pain in the butt to trade those chaps in for snow pants at recess. But that brings me to my next point. Now begins The Season.

I can now absentmindedly hum Christmas carols at work without sounding like a complete premature nincompoop. I still can’t sing them mindedly until after Thanksgiving, but that’s alright. Only three weeks.

I’ll be honest though. I got in the holiday spirit a little early this year. At work, we were sent one of those catalogs full of Christmas card options. I flipped through it one day on my lunch hour and there was this one picture that jumped out at me. It’s probably the most cliché scene ever. One of those Thomas Kinkaid types, with a snowy farmhouse at sunset and sleigh rides. But it wasn’t really the scene that got me. It was the sunset. The orange glow setting below the silhouetted snow-covered trees. It reminded me of winter nights at my dad’s house, sitting on the vent, trying to get warm and looking out his large back windows at the sunset. We didn’t own a farm house or have sleigh rides pass our front door. But that was my sunset.

Have you ever stumbled on something cliché that even though you knew it was cliché, it made you a little nostalgic? What makes a cliché personal? Is it your own experiences, or is it something in its delivery?

The In-Between Time

I’m back! Well… actually I never left. I’ve been lurking in the blog shadows – not nearly as creepily as that makes it sound.

Anyway, adjusting to the working world and still finding the time (and energy) to write is tough. I’m finding it difficult to exist fully in both realms – that is, my imagination and the real world. When Imagination takes over, it takes over completely. But I can’t let it the way I used to. I have to exist Monday through Friday until five in the real world. And slipping behind the veil again is not as simple. I don’t know about you guys, but for me, it takes me awhile to settle back into myself (having acted the part of a normal person all day) before I can drift off into Christine World – as the people who witness the transformation like to call it. Not that I mind acting like a normal person all day – it’s fun. And a refreshing breather from my own head. It’s easy to get lost in there.

And in some ways this writing break has been good for me. I was feeling a little overwhelmed by all the editing and needed a pair of fresh eyes. I started up again last weekend and I’m pretty pleased with the progress I’m making so far. But really, I’m just glad I have something to edit. I’m not quite ready to start writing again yet. I’ve got several new story ideas rolling through my head and as soon as I decide to latch onto one, I just know it’ll suck me in completely. And I’ll admit… for now, I’m enjoying this freedom.

Do you take advantage of the time in-between stories? What do you do with it? Or is the call of your next story too strong to take a break?

Why Do You Write?

*WARNING: this post may contain sentimental themes inappropriate for cynics

The simple and probably boring answer would be because I have to. That I can’t help it. And while that’s all good and true… for me, it’s more than that.

I have one sibling. She’s ten. And happens to be every bit as much of a bookworm (read: nerd) as I am. *cheers*

I’ve been staying at my mom’s house for the past week. There are many advantages to this. Free food… not having to cook said free food… clean laundry… and my sister. We started reading a book together last weekend, taking turns chapter by chapter (yes, using strange voices). So far, it’s proved to be a very good book, and has enchanted my sister so far as to inspire her to draw pictures of the main characters, and start writing a new story of her own.

This is why I write.

And maybe why I love writing children's fiction. Adults are better at disguising their inspiration, or talking themselves out of it. But with kids, they get an idea and just go for it. They’re a lot braver in that sense. And so much more willing to try new things. And that’s why I write. To inspire others. Because I still feel that sometimes. And I know there are very few feelings that rival this falling-so-deeply-in-love-with-a-piece-of-art-that-you’re-inspired-to-create-your-own thing. And I hope that some day some kid will feel this after reading one of my books.

Why do you write?