Camaraderie

(photo by Phil Marion.)

I just handed off a manuscript to a few readers to see what they think—thanks Terry, Natalie and Ali—and have just picked up another WIP after letting the first draft sit for a month. So, I’m pretty much in rewrite-mode for the next few weeks.

"Now, what was the purpose of that scene?"

Some year, if I get the timing right, I’d like to participate in NaNo. I’ve written first drafts in a NaNo-like fashion but never with the camaraderie which I sense is part of the experience.

Are you participating in NaNo? If so, how did your first week go? Did you get a lot of support from your buddies? If, like me, you’re not participating in NaNo, what are you working on? And, are you getting the support you need?

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The Fine Line between the Writing and the Writer

I’ve been happily buried in a revision/rewrite for the past ten days on a WIP I hadn’t picked up for over a year.

I remembered writing the first draft of LAST CHANCE, that’s the working title, in about six weeks. Then over the course of a year I revised it half a dozen times and finally gave it to one person to read. I had two other books I was working on, so when the critique came back I read it and then set it aside. I continued working on the two other books, and wrote a first draft of another book.

When I finally picked up LAST CHANCE, I was a little overwhelmed. I remembered being really excited by the story and then deflated by the critique. The critique did a good job of pointing out LAST CHANCE’s weaknesses which was what I wanted, but it also fired a couple of personal jabs my way which kind of threw me off balance.

Now I’m a guy who taught in a school for behaviorally challenged students for 15 years. I’ve been cussed out, lied to, and threatened too many times to count. I’ve even been punched and kicked a few times, but none of it was personal. By that, I mean those kids were going through tough times and for whatever reasons that’s how their anger, fear and frustration manifested.

My point: when someone is supposed to critique your writing, when that’s the understanding, and they start critiquing you instead, it’s not about you, it’s about them. Don’t take it personally.

Is this hard to remember? Sometimes.

Do the memories of those personal comments still get under my skin? A little.

Am I putting to use some of the comments directed toward the book? Yes.

Will I ever seek out this person for another critique? I haven’t decided.

Have I spoken to this person about where I thought the critique went astray? I haven’t and don’t plan to.

Since I started blogging—the above critique pre-dates my blogging-days—I’ve had the pleasure of trading manuscripts with some really great people who’ve totally focused on the writing.

Have you ever received a critique that crossed the fine line between the writing and the writer? How did you handle it? How would you handle it in the future? If you’ve never experienced this, what do you think is the best way to handle this type of situation? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

(This weekend I was interviewed at Frolicking Through Cyberspace. Here’s the link if your interested: Frolicking Through Cyberspace)

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Frolicking Through Cyberspace Interview

Heather Ayris Burnell, author of  the recently released picture book Bedtime Monster, (Raven Tree Press), was kind enough to interview me on her blog, Frolicking Through Cyberspace. If you’d like to read the interview, here’s the link: Interview. 

Thanks, Heather.

And, I couldn’t resist showing off the cover of Bedtime Monster and a short summary:

A little boy doesn’t want to go to bed. He whines. He cries. He throws a tantrum. He begins to grow long claws and a tail. What? A tail? It’s true! This little boy is not only acting like a monster, he turns into one! He growls a scary growl. He grows a tail. But, his parents know what to do. They calmly cuddle, rock, and sing to him. Here is a monster you might actually want to snuggle with as bedtime draws near.

Thanks for stopping by.

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Recording my Writing-time: What I Learned

 

"Okay, just another minute of Twitter, then I'll get back to that novel."

I signed up for the writing-time log experiment for two reasons. I thought it would be fun. And, I thought I’d learn something.

Here’s my log for the past week:

• Sept. 27  4 hours
• Sept. 28  3 hours
• Sept. 29  2 hours
• Sept. 30  5 hours
• Oct. 1     5.5 hours
• Total      19.5 hours

I logged the times I left my writing to do other things for more than five minutes. So, October 1^st’s entry looks like this for writing time:

• 5:00 to 5:20
• 5:30 to 6:20
• 6:30 to 6:50
• 7:30 to 8:15
• 10:45 to 11:40
• 12:45 to 2:30

A couple things I learned:

• Twitteruptions last longer than I thought they did.
• When I know what I’m writing toward, I stay at the keyboard longer.

The middle of my week I had some very light writing days. I’d lost my way in my story and needed to find it again. I spent more time on Tuesday and Wednesday walking, running, and doing other life chores that I knew had to be done anyway.

I do think you have to put in the time in order to produce the words.

But sometimes backing off and giving the story some space is more productive than pushing forward.

Friday was my longest writing day, but it felt like my shortest because I knew where I was going. I think backing off on Tuesday and Wednesday helped me to see more clearly where I was going.

My word count on Friday: 4200. 

I’m pretty sure that Friday’s words made up at least a third of my word count for the week.

If you want to see more writing log blog entries go to Patti Neilson’s blog. She has a list.

This week I hope to finish this first draft I’ve been plugging away at since mid-May.

What are you working on this week? And, have you ever kept a writing-time log? If so, what did you learn from it?

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A Brief History of how I came to be a Writer

I came at writing slowly.

As a kid I spent most of my free time playing or watching TV. I liked to read but not in an obsessive way. And I didn’t write unless I had to for school.

My senior year of high school I had an English teacher who really knew how to bring books to life through discussion, and I discovered that I liked thinking deeply about books.

In college I started keeping a journal, but only wrote in it sporadically about girls I liked but was too shy to ask out, or about what life is all about, or about how I needed to get off my butt and do something, anything.

Sophomore year I decided to major in English because I had to major in something and didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life besides go camping and backpacking.

My last two years of college I wrote lots of old-style rhyming poetry, modeling the poets I was reading, and had two poems published in a student literary journal.

When I moved to Alaska a few years later and was living in a cabin outside of town, I wrote some really bad short stories about a guy living in a cabin where not much of anything is happening.

Yeah, writing what you know doesn't always work out.

Fast forward a few years: I’m teaching English in an alternative school and I discover Young Adult Literature. I start bringing home books by the arm-load, searching for a few my reluctant and struggling readers will connect with, and I fall in love with the genre.

Now that I’ve got my students reading, I’m looking for ways to turn my students on to writing so we start writing scenes using characters from the novels we are reading.

My students like doing the assignments, but I love doing the assignments.

I’m not sure I would’ve started writing YA if it weren’t for my students. Now, I’m hooked.

How did you come to be a writer? Did you love writing from an early age or did you discover it in a more roundabout way?

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