What Do You Bring To The Page?



As a writer, I've wondered what do I offer my readers? Do I possess what it takes? What do I have to say that anybody wants to hear?

Lofty volumes of prose line many library shelves. Some deliver profound messages, soothing to the ears. Some hold you spellbound with intrigue or humor. And then some curl the hair on the neck as you quickly turn the page to discover the killer. Besides constantly polishing your knowledge of the writing craft and striving for the title of great storyteller, there's another element to this writing thing.

The author's ability to share knowledge, life experiences, and enlightenments within the context of a story. To make it matter.

What have you learned or experienced in your life that you bring to the page? Many of us bring our writing degrees, our teaching degrees, our years of contributions to magazines, lit mags, newspapers, and we bring awards. Oh, so many writing awards. And, that's wonderful. Commendable, in fact. But that's not what I'm talking about.

To quote Dorothy Allison (one of my favorites.) She made this profound statement at the Maui Writing Conference many years ago. " ... writers come to the page for many, many reasons. In fact many of us do come in the hope of justice! We do come in the hope of balance! We do come with an agenda of love! But I'm telling you now, lots of us start with a desire for genuine revenge."

Do you bring revenge to your written pages? Anger? Truth?

"Are you saying there has to be some deep, dark reason why we write? Can't I just write for fun?"

Of course you can, and many do. But once again, in my humble opinion, the writing that lasts for generations is written from the cobwebbed corners of a writer's mind. Those basements and attics where the writer fears to tread, but goes anyway.

"But," you say, "I write humor."

Ah, yes. Dissect that humor. Much of our humor also comes from pain. You know that old cliche spoken in the midst of anger and frustration ... "We're going to laugh about this later." Laughter through tears ... it's a powerful emotion. Take it to the page.

"Do you mean, then, write what you know?"

Not just what you know, but what you feel. What you've seen. What matters. The gut-wrenching moments in your life that cut deep into your heart. Write about that. Write about the scars. Who gave them to you, and how you healed, or how you still suffer from those scars. Give your character a piece of your life story that you want to share with the world. Dig out the best and worst of your memories, and include them in your stories. Write not just what you know, but what brought you out of a dark spot. What event turned you inside out, not just what made you uncomfortable. Write your passions, your desires, what moves you. Write that.

Those are the guts of a good story. Bring that to the page.

Blessings to you and yours.

The Simple Secret To Writing

I've been thinking the more writers read how-to books, web sites, and blogs on writing, the more confused they can become. The more it stifles their energy to sit down and write that next story.

Most writers don't fear the first draft. We know it's a draft. It's not for public consumption. But what happens between writing that first draft and finishing the book? Hoping to find a nugget of truth, we pour over blogs and web sites and books that tell us what we "need to know" about pacing, voice, character development, on and on ... until it stops us in our tracks.

Writers are artists. As a whole, the doubt and fear we battle is like walking into a swarm of hornets. We just know we're going to get bit.

What happens as a result of that fear? If you are a writer, you've felt it. You know what I'm talking about.

But here is something to consider. Even Donald Maass started somewhere. And I'll bet he'll tell you he's still learning.

You've already gathered enough knowledge to write. You know the middle of the story matters, to show and not tell, to kill your darlings and prologues and keep backstory to a minimum. So while you're in the process of creating, as you write your next story, don't read any more blogs, how-to books, or web sites that tell you how to write. STOP IT.

Stop second-guessing yourself. Just write the story. Let it pour out of your heart. Weep over the keyboard. Burn the midnight oil until you've finished the second, even the third draft. Put your soul into it. Then, my writer friend, you have something to work with. To revise. To hone. To make beautiful. Then you can submit for critique, or to a professional editor for revision. Then you can refresh yourself in a how-to book as you EDIT.

Remember, there are a ton of "experts". Intimidation is a monster. Even the most seasoned writer questions their own talent from time to time. The secret is ... get the story out of you first. Overcome the fear of writing by writing for yourself first. It's the simple truth.

Blessings to you and yours.

Why Writers Plow Their Literary Field

I took a look back at my blogs and found this one. In the midst of writing The Sanctum, my soul was screaming. I've come a long way since then. I'm proud to say this novel has also come a long way, and will be released as an e-book within a few weeks. This field is now ready for harvest.

April 8, 2010
I've been plowing my literary field this spring. My office is a mess. I've written scenes for my next novel; they're splayed across a long, skinny table as I work relentlessly on this story. I'm concentrating on my research and pulling it in as needed. In a few weeks I'm visiting a wolf sanctuary. If my suspicions are correct, wolves are not what they have been portrayed. A critical piece of the narrative, the wolves represent the strange and the misunderstood. That which needs protected. Not destroyed.

As I roll deeper into the story, I'm finding--once again--my characters have voices of their own, totally separate and apart from mine. It's a bizarre metamorphosis. I look down and suddenly my fingers are those of a thirteen-year-old girl, fair and fragile. Within minutes, they turn old and masculine. They're covered with tobacco that clings to my arms like pine resin. They belong to a black man who types as fast as the wind. He's got a few things to say. Because it's 1960, and the times, they are a changing.

A scene change and my hands belong to another character. They're slow and angry, and hot to the touch. Dangerous. They belong to a man, this time he's white and wrinkled. The fingers pound the keys and occasionally they ball into a fist. But just like that, they fade into another set of hands and suddenly I'm needing to get up and find my own fingers again. I need coffee. A break. It's not easy allowing these characters to flow through you and come out your fingers. It's not easy.

I have to laugh. I think I've read and studied every good book on writing from here to eternity in the past twenty years. But nobody can teach you how to tell a great story. Don Maass has come about as close to anybody I've heard, but in the end ... I've learned it's almost a spiritual thing. My explanation is that we have to become somebody else.

We have go inside the man/woman/boy/girl/animal we're writing about. Look at the world from their eyes. A good storyteller can write it down and make it believable. But a great storyteller can become his or her character and make it real. I can only hope that in the end, that is my accomplishment.

One does not write to fulfill a fantasy. Or to become rich. A real writer writes until their eyes dim and burn, until their skin goes puckered and droopy, until their finger bones unhinge and scatter. Until they shrivel up and fade away. Take away a writer's pencil or keyboard, and you strip the soul away. A writer is many people, patiently waiting for their turn to tell their story. A real writer writes because if they don't, they go mad and become a conglomerate of all of the characters stored inside them.

That's it. It's how God made me. I can't help it. I plow my literary field and life goes on. Until one day when it stops. Hopefully, by then, every character inside of me will have had their chance to use my fingers.

Blessings to you and yours.

STORYTELLING REVIVAL!

It's revival time! Back to drama. Television with plots and wondrous characters!

Hallelujah!

It's a throwback to the days when I stayed home from church on Friday nights to watch Dallas and Falcon Crest. The days before Tivo and the Hopper. The days when you couldn't fast forward, replay, or pause to salt your popcorn. The days when only the hint of sex was enough. When you had to pay the price of a movie admission to see a head exploding as it was shot off by a lunatic's gun. When you had to get off the couch to change the channel on a television that stuck out three feet from the wall. But, oh, the primetime drama series of those days!

It's revival time. The glory days of TV are back ... and it's called Downton Abbey.

Free of commercials, the story moves quickly and you find yourself not only caring for the charcters, but falling in love with them. High tension, plot layers, and a strong theme, Downton Abbey offers up drama on a silver platter, complete with white-gloved servers and well-dressed dinner partners.

My favorite is the Dowager Countess, played by the award-winning actor, Maggie Smith.

"Grief makes one so terribly tired."
"People like us are never unhappily married."
"Lie is so unmusical a word."
"I suppose she has inappropriate costumes for every activity."

Running a close second is Lady Grantham, played by Elizabeth McGovern. If I could go back in time and be anybody, it would be her. But the writers have created a beloved character in the way of Lord Grantham's mother. At the very least, television has returned something that I (for one) have been missing -- Sunday night excitement. Looking forward to that nine o'clock hour reminds me of revolving my Saturday nights around The Love Boat and Fantasy Island.

Storytelling. Its revival is here. The drama of the old-fashioned 'eighties mini-series is back. We're sick of reality shows with no story. We're fed up with violence our children should never see, CSI intrigue that's no longer intriguing, and open-heart surgeries in our living rooms. Give me big hats, couture of the 'twenties, crystal and linen luncheons, and the love affair between the classes. Sound boring? It's anything but.

And I'm loving every second of it.

Don't ya just love good writing, no matter its form?

It's revival time, and I don't even mind the sawdust this time.

Blessings to you and yours. (Oh, and the pictures? My family circa 1920)