Exercises For Writers; or, Keeping Your Fingers -- And Brain -- Nimble

I've been doing some yardwork recently -- trimming the seriously-overgrown hedges, which had gotten up to 15 feet tall or more, back to a more reasonable 6 foot height. As you can imagine, such an exercise generates more than a little bit of what we in suburbia euphemistically call, "yard waste." We are fortunate here in that our usual trash pickup service will happily pick up and haul away "yard waste" that has been either a) neatly bagged, or b) tied into bundles of sticks that are not more than six feet long. Since we're talking branches that are potentially ten feet long or more, we went with option b) (especially since option c) rent a wood chipper from Home Depot and turn the branches into mulch, was foiled by the fact that our trailer hitch has gone AWOL).

In the process of turning all of those loose sticks into bundles, I had a chance to practice my long-disused macrame skills, knotting twine around them. I was pleased to see that my fingers still remembered the skill they had learned at age nine, but somewhat troubled to find that those same fingers are not nearly so nimble as they once were, now that it's some number of decades later. And that got me to thinking that perhaps practicing my mad old macrame skills might be A Good And Useful Thing, because it might help keep my fingers nimble. And nimble fingers are a good thing for a writer to have, aren't they?

And that, in turn, got me to thinking of other sorts of non-writing exercises that might be good for writers. I participate in a biweekly icon contest on LiveJournal, where the object is to create 100 x 100 jpg or gif images for use as userpics on LiveJournal. (For some examples of ones I've made, as well as some I've, er, "collected" via the internet, check out my Flickr account.)

I think working creatively in another medium, especially a visual one, is a good exercise for a writer. Not only do you get to flex mental muscles that don't get used for writing, but you get to express yourself in an entirely different way. I take photographs for the same reasons.

But another way my icontest helps keep my brain nimble is because I'm using it as a way to teach myself how to use graphics editing software (in my case, GIMP, because I can't afford Photoshop). Two weeks ago, the contest challenged us to use textures, which I had never used before. So I learned something new, which in turn has me looking at graphic images in a different way: Now I'm constantly on the lookout for images that would make good textures. I can't help but think that exercises that make me look at things differently are good for my brain.

Related to photography, I have an exercise that I've been wanting to try, but haven't gotten around to yet, and that's a "photo scavenger hunt." As I've seen it described, participants are given a list of words, and are challenged to take photographs that embody each of the words. So, for example, the list might contain the words, "red," "happy," and "new." In response, the photographer might present the following pictures:



Red



Happy



New (a young friend playing with the new telescope he got for his birthday)


I think it sounds like fun. Perhaps I'll try to come up with a "scavenger hunt" list to pass around at an upcoming group outing, just to see what people do with it.

The other thing I've been doing lately is playing strategy games, like backgammon, against my computer. A month ago, when I started playing, I lost most of my games. But over the course of a month, I've remembered some of my old favorite strategies, and learned some new ones. Now, well, I still don't win them all, but percentages have improved.

These are just a few examples of exercises I think would be good for a writer. What sorts of other things do people do to keep their creative and/or physical muscles in shape?

Multitasking; or Can Writer Head and Edit Head Ever Work Together?

It's summer, and I've agreed to take part in a summer writing challenge.

The problem is, my brain got stuck in Edit Head.

You see, at the same time, I was also trying to wrap up a second draft of "The Daughters of August Winterbourne." I thought to myself, "Well, I'll write every day until I meet my word count quota, and then I'll spend a little time editing. No problem."

Yeah. It sounds easy enough. But in practice...

In practice, my Edit Head took over and was trying to edit every new sentence to death as I wrote it, bringing progress on my new writing to a grinding halt. In the meantime, it was also getting distracted by the new story, and losing focus on the editing tasks at hand. Which meant that neither project was getting very far very fast.

In fact, for a couple of days, I opened up both documents, stared at them a bit, and then went off to play backgammon with my computer instead. So, yeah, not very productive. (Well, I did hone my backgammon skills a bit. But it was a loss from a writing standpoint.)

I finally gave up and focused on the editing task first. As a result, the second draft is all but finished (I'm debating whether to add my chapter breaks back in yet, or whether I should wait until I've finished the next round of edits; I'm currently leaning toward the latter).

And, not surprisingly, once I'd finished that, the next section of the new story fell out of my head and into my keyboard, with only a minimum of fuss from the Edit Head.

Which makes me wonder: Are the two modes, writing and editing, truly incompatible? Or is it simply that I haven't practiced switching back and forth between the two very much? Would more practice improve this ability? Or would it just make me want to tear my hair out?

Obviously, there aren't any easy answers to these questions. But it is something that I will continue to ponder.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? How did you resolve the issue?

Decisions, Decisions; or How Do You Know When You're Doing It Right?--Part 2

I discovered I had more to say on this topic, so we're revisiting it this week.

My second edit of "The Daughters of August Winterbourne" is all but complete. I have to edit the epilogue, and then I'd like to give the last couple of chapters a once-over to make sure I didn't take out anything that should have been left in, or vice versa. During the course of this edit, I've trimmed out almost 40,000 words, to bring the total words down to around 150,000. I was aiming for 100,000, but this may be as close as I can get, at least for now. On the whole, I'm reasonably pleased with this edit; the writing is now much cleaner, and a lot of excess verbiage has been cleared out to let the story shine through better. After letting it rest for a couple of weeks, I plan to skim through one last time looking for superfluous passages. Then another couple of weeks of rest, and I can hopefully start going through on my "beauty pass", wherein I add back in some of the small details to help with setting and characterization, things like smells and sounds and such. And then, maybe, the book will be ready for the light of day.

I'm still struggling with two important questions, though:

1) Am I starting the story in the right place?

I begin the story with Celia Winterbourne landing her father's airship the day before she goes off to college. Would it be better to skip that and go right to her arrival in Oxford? If so, how do I work in some of the detail from the current beginning? I think it's important to show up front how passionate she is about airships and flying them. One thought would be to have her fly the airship to Oxford, but since she's supposed to meet two of the characters with whom she interacts throughout the book at the train station, I'd have to figure out a different--but equally effective way--to introduce those two characters. It's a bit of a puzzle. For the time being, I'm inclined to leave things the way they are, but I may end up changing my mind after all.

2) Am I telling the story from the correct POV?

So there I am, 9/10ths of the way through my second edit pass, when I start to wonder...would this be a better story if I told it in the first person? Would Celia be a more compelling character if we could see the world through her eyes, instead of at one remove?

Part of me says that yes, it would be a better story if written in the first person. I'd be able to tell you more about Celia directly, instead of having to rely on what she shows the world. But part of me likes the third-person POV for this story; plus, in the next volume, the narrative track splits between Celia and another character, with a few other characters stealing a scene here and there. If I switch to first person, I'll lose that.

But just for comparison purposes, here's the first draft of the first two paragraphs as originally written:

The airship Sophie's Lightning gleamed golden in the late afternoon sun as it hung over the grassy meadow just outside the village of Windmill Hill. The errant breezes from the ocean would have made landing the craft a challenge for a lesser pilot, but Celia Winterbourne had been piloting her father's airships since the age of eleven. Eight years of practice had made her skilled in all the craft's nuances. Her fingers flew over the control panel, pulling levers to make minute adjustments to the rudder and the seven small propellers that helped guide the airship.

The control deck was open to the warm August air, giving Celia excellent visibility on three sides. There were window panes that could be put up in case of inclement weather, but the day had been so fine that she felt no need for them, even when the ship was cruising high above the English countryside. Taking careful note of the landing markers as well as the windsock, she made yet another adjustment to the starboard-side propellers, swinging the tail of the ship slightly to port. Perfect! A touch to another control, and the graceful ship set down precisely beside its dock, with only the most gentle of bumps to tell her they had landed. She grabbed a green flag and waved it out the front window as a signal for the waiting attendants to come anchor the ship in place.

And here are the same paragraphs re-written in first person:

The grassy meadow outside the village of Windmill Hill looked lush and soft in the late afternoon sunlight as Sophie's Lightning hovered over it in preparation for landing. Seated at the pilot's station, I kept my hands close to the ship's controls. I've been flying Papa's airships for the past eight years, since I was eleven, so I knew from experience that no matter how clear and still the day, breezes from the nearby ocean could always cause problems on landing.

As if reading my thoughts, a stray gust caught the Lightning's tail and swung it to port. I touched the control to send increased power to the aft port steering propeller, and the airship obediently swung back into line. I smiled. "Good girl," I said, patting the control panel in front of me.

The control deck was open to the warm August air; I'd decided that it was too nice a day to put up the glass window panes, even when we were at altitude. Besides, having the windows down gives me better visibility, at least on three sides, and when I'm piloting, I like to see as much as I can.

I looked down and took note of the landing markers, as well as the windsock, and noticed that the ship's tail still wanted to swing to port. I made another adjustment to the control; then, before the breeze could catch her again, I set the ship down precisely on her landing marks. I felt only the gentlest of bumps to let me know that we were down, and I sighed. Our summer idyll was over; I grabbed the green flag to signal the ground crew to come tether the ship down, but at the same time, I couldn't help feeling a little melancholy. In all likelihood, it would be next summer before the Lightning and I would be aloft together again.

Which is a really rough draft, but enough of one to show me that the story could conceivably be told in first person -- but that it would change the character of the story. It would still be a good story, but it would be a different story. Since there are a lot of things I like about the story the way it is now, I think I'll leave it in third person (unless someone comes up with a compelling reason to do otherwise).

Again, how do you know for sure whether or not a decision is right? The answer is that you don't always. Sometimes, you have to try it both ways and see which you like better.

What other sorts of decisions have you faced as a writer? How did you make your decision? Have you ever changed your mind later?

Summer Writing Challenge 2011; or, How I Plan To Spend My Summer Vacation

June is here once again, and with it, the Summer Writing Challenge. My friend Branni got me into this last summer: it's a "set your own goal" writing challenge, with two teams competing to see which group can have the most members meet their goal. We both thought it would be a good challenge for us. She was having trouble getting motivated to write due to health issues, and I had finally recovered enough from NaNoWriMo to want to start writing new stuff again.

Sadly, Branni passed away this past March. I almost decided not to take part in this again this year because she wouldn't be here to do it with me. But after some soul searching, I decided to do it after all, because I know that if she were still here, she'd want me to do it with her. Perhaps I'll ask her husband if it's okay if I come over and spend a couple of hours writing under their apple tree, where she and I wrote last summer.

I've upped my word count goal a little over last year's--then, I aimed for (and completed) 50,000 words. This year, I'm shooting for 60,000, which, over the course of three months, comes to a little over 600 words a day. That's not a bad goal, and it's one that will hopefully still leave me enough brain power left over to complete my edit of Book 1 of the "Daughters of August Winterbourne" series.

I have two projects in mind for this summer. The first is to complete the "suburban fantasy" story I started last year. It involved a tribe of fairies who move into the garden of a widow who's trying to sell her house, and the effect of a faerie circle on property values. I'd originally thought this would be a novella, but I'm thinking it's headed more for novel territory. It was at about 20K words with a third of the story told, so I might actually be able to bring it in under 100K for a change. (Stop laughing, Beloved Husband! I know where you sleep!)

Should that piece come in shorter than I expected, or should I get really ambitious and wrap it up before the end of summer anyway, I'd also like to continue to work on my response to one of our writing prompts from last August, which I blogged about here. It was an intriguing beginning to a story, and I'm frankly dying to know how it all comes out. And the only way I'll ever know is if I write it. Right?

So that's how I plan to spend my summer. How about you? Does anyone else have writing goals for the summer

Decisions, Decisions; or How Do You Know When You're Doing It Right?

I'm about 3/4 of the way finished with my second draft of the first volume of the "Daughters of August Winterbourne" series. And in the course of editing, I've had to make some pretty tough decisions.

One decision I made just today was to delete a small section that was told from the POV of Nicholas Fletcher, the main character's love interest in the story. I really loved the section, and it ended with one of my favorite lines from the whole story:

As Sophie's Lightning sailed on through the night, Nicholas Fletcher tried to convince himself that it was the cold wind that brought tears to his eyes. He almost succeeded. Almost.

It's a great line, one that shows us a great deal about Nicholas' character, including the fact that he is not good at lying, even to himself.

However...at that point in the story, being in Nicholas' head would force me to reveal information that I was not yet prepared to reveal. It lessened the impact of a later reveal, one that is pivotal to the story. So in order for that bit to work, this bit had to go.

Editing is a difficult process, one that isn't made any easier by the fact that there are no signposts, no maps to point me in the right direction. Unlike the Sudoku game I have loaded on my computer, the text does not light up red to let me know when I've made an incorrect choice. It's all based on one of two things: My own instincts, and the advice of my critique group.

I'll write more on the second in a week or two, but let's talk about the first for a few minutes.

I found this quote today, and it really seemed to fit:

“Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words. “
--Mark Twain

How does one develop the instincts to know what changes to make, and which bits to leave alone? As with most skills, practice helps. I find that the more I edit, the easier it is to spot things that just don't belong in the story. For me, this happens on two levels: Whole scenes/subplots that aren't needed in order to tell the story, and lines or paragraphs within a scene. I may not get everything on the first pass--in fact, I'm guaranteed not to--but with each subsequent pass, I weed out a few more things.

For me, distance also helps. I don't know about anyone else, but when I finish a story, I'm convinced that if it's not the best thing ever written, then it's at least the best thing I've ever written. Every word is perfect. Nothing about it should ever be changed.

This is why I believe in letting things "settle" a bit before even attempting an edit. When I finish a story, I'm just too close to it. Depending on the story, I've spent the last several weeks or months eating, sleeping, and breathing this story. I've done my best to bring it to life, with characters and plots and consequences, oh my!

But after I've let it settle, it's easier to see that this bit of dialogue nearly duplicates that bit of dialogue over there, and that this scene is very cute and amusing, but does nothing to further the overall plot.

Sometimes, though, even after a story has had a chance to settle, it's not always easy to tell if the decisions I've made are the right ones. At the moment, I'm angsting about whether my story even starts in the right place. I currently begin the story with my main character, Celia Winterbourne, landing her father's airship on the eve of her departure for the Royal Academy of Science in Oxford. It's a great introduction to Celia and her father, August Winterbourne, and their airship, Sophie's Lightning. I've tweaked it such that it has at least some tension in it now. But is this really where the story begins? Or does it begin when she boards the train to Oxford the next morning? Or when she gets off the train a few hours later? Or is there some better place at which to begin the tale?

Sadly, I don't have the magical answer to that question. If I did, I would share, I promise.

In the meantime, the only advice I have to offer is this: Bits are cheap. If you are trying to decide between three possible points at which you could start your story, why not make three copies of it and try all three possibilities, then choose the one that works the best?

How do other people approach editing decisions?

Suspense; or Raising The Stakes

I must admit, I'm in a certain amount of suspense at the moment.

You see, I watch one television show on a regular basis (Supernatural), and because I had plans that kept me out past 8:00 pm last Friday, I missed it last week.

Ordinarily, that wouldn't be so bad. But this week was a double-header--two episodes--AND the season finale.

I. Missed. The. Finale.

Fortunately, these days, we have the Internet, so I won't have to wait until the episodes are re-run in August, or until the DVDs come out in September. But my Beloved Husband and I still have not yet had the chance to sit down and watch the episodes. So we are still in suspense.

As with most television series these days, there needs to be suspense within each episode, but there also needs to be suspense involved in the season's arc. The shorter-term suspense is often, "Will our heroes solve their current case?", but the overarching suspense often involves things that affect the characters more deeply and directly: "Will Jane and John hook up?" "Will Sally get pregnant?" "Will Tom keep his job?" Grave consequences, or at least significant ones, will result for the characters as a result of the answers to these questions, possibly changing their lives.

The trick is that if you want to lure watchers--or readers--into watching more episodes (or reading more chapters), you can't tie things up too neatly at the end of each episode/chapter. You need to leave a few questions unanswered, or at least, have the answers be sufficiently ambiguous that people want to keep turning pages/clicking the remote.

Thanks to my on-line critique group, I've come to see that I don't do that as well as I could. I have a tendency to want to introduce a conflict, and then tie it neatly up before I move on to the next chapter/conflict. And yet, when I don't, the story becomes more interesting. Characters interact less predictably, scenes become more loaded with subtext and subtle meanings, and the pages turn more quickly. The stakes are higher for the characters, and readers are consequently more invested in the outcome.

So that's something I'm working on: trying to keep from draining all of the suspense out of my story at the end of each chapter. How do other people manage suspense in their stories?

Writing Tips from Charlaine Harris; or, The Secrets of Writing, Revealed

Thanks to a friend of mine, this week I found myself in possession of a ticket to see Charlaine Harris, author of the True Blood series, at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver.

The True Blood books have been a guilty pleasure of mine for the last couple of years, ever since my Beloved Husband first pointed them out to me in a bookstore. I've been rationing them out slowly to myself, trying my hardest not to read them all in one gulp. I've been enjoying the television series as well, though since I don't have cable, I'm forced to wait for them on DVD.

So when I had a chance to go and hear Ms. Harris speak, I jumped on it. And I'm very glad I did. She was entertaining and charming and willing to share tips on writing with the crowd.

So here's what I learned from listening to her talk:

1. If you want to be a writer, the first thing you have to do is to read. A lot. Read everything you can find. Keep reading.
2. And then, you have to write. A lot.
3. You have to be fond of your own company.
4. People who spend all of their time talking about the book they're going to write never actually get the book written.

All of which is excellent advice.

And a couple of things I learned by observation:

1. When you love what you do, it shows. When Charlaine Harris talks about writing, she practically glows. You can tell that she loves what she does. She would probably be doing it even if she didn't get paid for it.
2. If you're going to be a bestselling author, it helps to have a great sense of humor and a lot of charm and grace. Ms. Harris has all of these things.

After listening to Ms. Harris, I feel newly inspired to go out and write great things.

Have other people been inspired by meeting authors? What's the best advice you've ever gotten from a writer?

(Thanks again to David Boop for the ticket!)