Voice

I am going to see the medical equivalent of Dr. House today. I have waited MONTHS to see him. MONTHS. And so off I go . . . and all I want out of this appointment (besides, obviously, it would be nice if the guy could cure me, which I realize is a pipe dream) is for the guy to LISTEN. Listen as in a "nobody puts Baby in the corner" kind of way. Spend a life around white-coated docs and you have two choices. Find your voice. Or get crappy medical care. I chose the former.

THAT voice. The voice that tells them they will not overmedicate me because I have four kids, the voice that tells them I will NOT go into clinical trials and be their guinea pig . . . that voice that tells them to look me in the eye, you bastard, because I am a person . . . THAT voice is somehow the one I bring to my writing. It's the emergence of who I am.

I say over and over that you don't really become a writer until you have something to say. I think it's THAT voice. The one that's there nagging at the edges of you, the authentic one. That's the one you let out when you really discover your voice.

Shout.

Shout it out.

And really, I almost didn't need to write this. Because SHE said it better.

What's your voice telling you today?

No go kick your manuscript's a**.

Voice

These photos are by Baby Girl. That's her in the bottom picture. She has many gifts and talents, but visual arts is the one I think she excels at. Her photos are amazing! And interestingly enough. she will just take her camera and go and shoot things. Leaves. Flowers. Our cat, Pumpkin. Rain. She has no shortage of IDEAS.

Now, if I had an assignment, say, and I was instructed to go sketch something, I would be intimidated by the blank page. I would be hard pressed to know what to draw, and I would likely rely on my usual standby--trees. I have a knack for drawing them, would not embarrass myself by drawing one (i.e., objectively, it would be a decently sketched tree), and my assignment would be done. I'm not like Baby Girl. I would not see a whole huge world just waiting for me to sketch it. (Or photograph it.) I'm not wired that way.

Assign me to write a short story? I'd have to wade through ten ideas to pick the best one. When we did Flash Fiction on his blog, sometimes I would have a busy week and have a tough time meeting the deadline, but I never, ever, ever didn't have an idea--or five.

But that doesn't mean the path from idea to story or novel is an easy one. Usually, it's about me slipping into skin--Voice. I might start and re-start a novel ten times just waiting to inhabit the right skin, the right space to tell it. Just like I imagine Baby Girl waits for the perfect shot.

My daughter has a Voice. Her pictures do. I already KNOW her work. Line up ten photos, and I will be able to tell you which is hers. Voice is everything.

For me, sometimes the Voice just comes with the Shiny New Idea. Sometimes is "almost" there but it's off a tad. I wish I could tell you how it is to discover your Voice. But I can't, anymore than I can tell you how it is I draw a tree. Or how it is she got Pumpkin to stay so still and look so dreamy.

How do you find Voice?

Finding Your Voice

Lurker Monkey and I go way back in the way-back machine. I mean, not high school or anything, but . . . years and years of solid writing, lots of sushi, and some sake. When I first met Lurker, he was kind of quiet sitting over in the glider-rocker in my living room, but at some point, he said something sardonic. I may have raised an eyebrow. And these years later, this is a guy who uses expressions like "cheeky little monkey." So if you visit his blog today, go back a post to the one on pigeons. Or the one just before it on cilantro. And have a laugh.

And that's the thing about voice. Somewhere in the volumes of words you write from those first scribbled-in journals from junior high to the novel you stuck in a drawer, through the poetry, through the weird experimental book you abandoned, through the romance you realized wasn't your style, through the space-age erotic soap opera . . . through . . . through . . . somewhere in there is your natural voice.

When you know a writer, you spot their moments. Sometimes, as is the case with my critique group, you spot the moments that don't even BELONG in the book at hand (sample critique group moment: "This sounds like Erica's life philosophy, not the character's."). But you spot the moments. I have friends who will call me or email me with single lines from my novels and say, "I spotted you!"

In real life . . . I'm pretty sardonic. Pretty practical in an emergency. Pretty straightforward. You want to "hear" me, read Spanish Disco. Want to "hear" me in my more philosophical mind-state, read The Roofer. Want to "hear" me as mother, read Do They Wear High Heels in Heaven. I'm there . . . somewhere. Lines here, lines there.

Do you always have to write as "that voice"? No. A writer can adopt other voices. But if "know thyself" is a smart philosophy in life, it's even smarter in writing, I think. Knowing what your natural voice is, for example, can save you banging your head against your desk trying something that really isn't a fit or even comfortable. It can help you find your groove, your true north. Or in the case of Lurker Monkey, a roasted pigeon or two.

Writing 201

All right gang . . . in case you hadn't noticed, I was away for a night. I went to D.C. to visit an old friend I hadn't seen in 26 years who now works for the World Bank (I have such smart, groovy friends!). I love "city sidewalks" at Christmas time. The White House . . . the stores decorated for the holidays, the piped Christmas carols everywhere. It was lovely. Of course I process everything like a writer, so when I found myself in a gay bar at midnight to continue the festivities of dinner and drinks, I observed that the cleanest restroom anywhere HAS to be the women's restroom of a gay bar. It is never used. And of course . . . this observation will most definitely end up in one of my novels. Heck, I would invent a scene just to use that. But now I'm back!

And on to writing. One of the best things about this blog are all the writing pals I have made in cyberspace. It's funny, because the comments each day just sort of scratch the surface. I get emails every day from people who read the blog each day but never comment. [Come on! Join the fun! We don't bite!] I also get emails from readers who are not writers but just like hearing what writers have to say about their process. Anyway, Genius is one of the writers I met via blogs (I actually met him by following a link from Nastasha's blog).

Mark contacted me just as I was departing for my night of escapism and asked if we would have a "conversation" on his blog about Writing 201 over a couple of days. I was game, and so this morning he will post the first one. Basically, we're assuming that most of the writers who visit our blogs have got some of the technical stuff down. They can string words in a row. Those words likely have a subject and a verb in there somewhere. The people who visit our blogs can tell an adjective from an adverb. You get the idea.

But we spend a lot of time at this blog asking . . . what next? How do you go from stringing words to creating a novel . . . and then once you've created said novel, not having a Big Fat Steaming Pile of Meh on your hands. Suddenly, writing is less about your Shiny New Idea and much more about the 201 elements. Things like developing your voice. Having a hook. Creating tension.

Our first "conversation" is on voice. Shockingly, I had something to say on the matter. :-)

So head on over:

http://markterrybooks.com/blog.html

And really? Ladies, I am assuring you. The ladies room in a gay bar . . . the cleanest in the city. And what a delightful bartender.

How Do You KNOW?

I was mid-way through a novel--I'm talking 100 pages from the finish line, when the idea of Spanish Disco emerged. Not just the idea, but the voice. Considering her voice was pretty much like mine, that's not surprising. But still . . . Cassie Hayes took up residence in my head, and I wrote the novel in months. It sold in about five weeks from start to finish of the process. That was my first published novel. my second completed novel.

Since then, I can't TELL you how many Shiny New Ideas I've had. Some I've abandoned. Some I've put aside, knowing one day, I shall return! Some I've written into full proposals and sold. Some I've written into full proposals and not sold.

So how do you KNOW which one to follow?

As I went to sleep last night, Demon Baby piled into my king-size bed, wrapped his arms around my neck, snuggled, shut his eyes, and was asleep in under three minutes. This, ladies and gentleman, is a record for him. He . . . never . . . sleeps. Like many mothers, I was enchanted by my sleeping child and rather than extricating myself from his pretzel-like hold on me, I listened to him breathe, I kissed his fingers, and I generally just enjoyed what, for my life with this child, was a rare moment of stillness. And in the midst of this, Evie, a character from my current Shiny New Idea, started talking to me. Relentlessly.

The ideas I finish are somehow mathematically proportional to the obsession of them. I don't know how the so-called Normals (nonwriters) go through life. I don't know if they have running lines of dialogue and other people's voices in their heads all the time. But I know the ideas that don't let me sleep, the ones that CONSUME me . . . they're somehow different.

So how about you? How do YOU know which Shiny New Idea to follow?

Afghan

When I'm having a really horrid day, I will often intentionally dig out an afghan knitted by my grandmother and flop down on the couch with a book and some classical music and just feel wrapped in a little serenity. Doesn't last long around here, but I like being wrapped in something she made . . . it feels very comfortable.

Yesterday, I told this guy [and visit the link if you want to join the Storytellers and flex your short story muscles] how incredible it felt to be working on something where the voice just comes . . . where it's so comfortable. For whatever reason, that voice often comes to me in a "neighborhood" lingo, the world where my father grew up. The world of The Roofer.

I guess kids are like sponges. I used to go to NYC with him and hang out all day with his buddies in a bar when I was as young as five or six. It's a bar that's now gone, the kind bar that's tough to find now--in an actual endangered neighborhood of former tenements. I learned a lot of bar tricks--like juggling coasters. I saw drunks with their heads on the bar . . . missing teeth. The bathroom had a single bar bulb and often smelled like puke. Ahh, those were the good old days of my childhood. I adored every single second of it. EVERY second. It was what we did on Sundays. It was better than anything my father ever did with me. Better than Brownies. Better than playing catch. I'd dare say, it was better than Disneyland.

And somehow . . . when it's time to find a certain street voice, it's like wrapping that afghan around me. It just happens. It's a rhythm, a patter, a way of even moving when I type, even, a certain way I cock my head.

My guess is we all have an afghan voice. It's the one we slip into so well that we just type and after a half hour wonder, "Well, where did all THAT come from?"

What's interesting to me, though . . . is that some writers don't KNOW they have an afghan voice. They haven't quite found it. They work at genres they have no feel for (if you have ever read a work in progress of someone attempting YA who really has no feel for young people, then you know what I mean). Their VOICE, their afghan voice is "right there" and so obvious, except, perhaps, to them. I can rattle off two blog writers I think would make awesome middle-grade writers. That's not what they're writing . . . but I think they have it in them.

So . . . what's your afghan voice? Which world do you slip into effortlessly?

A Tale of Two Manuscripts and the Kings of Leon

So I was asked to read two manuscripts (not by any followers of this blog, so breathe easy). One was charming. It had a concept perhaps done before, but the writing was cute and sparkly with characters I cared about. The other . . . to be honest, I read it three weeks ago, and I cannot recall a single thing about any of the characters except one person's profession. Occasionally, dialogue was enough to make me smirk or laugh (in a good way, it was supposed to be witty), but . . . in the end, I finished and thought, "Why did this novelist write this? What did he have to say?" It felt like a big blank to me.

Which brings me to my new obsession:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHhhcKxflMY

I was listening to this song yesterday with Oldest Daughter and recounting a Rolling Stone article in which the journalist said that Caleb was, as the band was forming, encouraged to add studio musicians, and instead insisted on his two brothers and a cousin. It could have been career suicide (he was an unknown), but the boys' background in the Pentocostal church and strange upbringing (no formal schooling; just traveling in an Oldsmobile to revivals with their preacher-father) probably meant the family was who he felt comfortable around. To which Oldest Daughter replied, "It was him they wanted. His voice is unique and no one in music right now sounds quite like him." And she's right. There is, beyond garage boogie--Southern gothic--grunge metal something, an unusual quality to his voice. The label wanted Caleb. And if it meant the other boys coming along for the ride, that was okay.

Which brings me to the tale of the two manuscripts.

I have conceived of, easily eight different ideas this year for books. Probably more. All "hook" concepts, playing with voice. I don't KNOW, but they all feel pretty unique. All high-concept. But it's a question of voice and follow-through. I mean, concept is okay--but what are you going to DO with the concept. As I write and explore, I am constantly looking for what's different. What makes my story unusual and why am I the one to write it?

The type of music the Kings of Leon make has been done before. But not quite the same way. So it was with the manuscripts. One somehow took a premise of a mystery chick-lit and made it her own. The other . . . I can't think of anything in the voice that made me pause and think, "This guy is fresh. This is original."

There's a lot of chatter about bringing your A-game now that the market is depressed, and the book biz is scrambling to reinvent itself. I would hope (though I know it's not true entirely) that it means everyone is nailing the basics of storytelling as far as back story dumps and characterization, and plotting, and conflict. But A-game, I am consistently feeling, is that not quite quantifiable voice that makes an editor pause and think, "This is fresh."

Thoughts? Do you think uniqueness is elusive? What's special about what you're bringing to your A-game?

A Song

I've been up since 3:00 a.m. It's now 6:00. The reasons are myriad. The bottom line is I am a chronic insomniac. I didn't used to be . . . but I sure as heck am now. So I am sitting staring out my office window, and the sun is just starting to rise and the world is gray, but that soft gray of dawn, optimistic and peaceful.

So if this post makes no sense . . . you'll know why. ;-)

Right now in my living room, there are two guitars, a violin, and a tuba. Upstairs is a drumset. In my office is a piano. There are two other violins around here somewhere. When Oldest's boyfriend is here, his cello is often upright in its case in the living room like a visiting friend. It's no wonder that Demon Baby wants to play an instrument.

So yesterday, I practiced guitar and he BEGGED me to let him play it. I sat next to him and held it up, and he slapped my arm playfully.

"You can go back to your office now."

"I'm afraid you'll drop the guitar and break it."

"I'm very careful."

"Famous last words, Demon Baby."

But he insisted. My office opens onto the living room so it's not like I was far. So I went back, sat down, and listened. He had the guitar across his lap like a lap harp, and he plucked notes very carefully and quite musically. With some twang to it. And he sang a song. For a four-year-old, it was a song of love.

"I'm playing my song for you, and when you hear it, you will stay with me forever, because you know we're meant to be, just playin' my song."

I actually was quite impressed. It was a heartfelt song that he pretty much wailed in a bluesy way. And I thought about it. Every single one of us is born with a song. Sometimes it gets squashed way, way down in our soul. But if we're lucky, we have people around us who want to hear it. I think that's why I have so many instruments in my house . . . so my kids know I always want to hear what's inside them.

And when I go to schools to talk to kids and they ask for advice, I say, "Live more. Grab at life and hold on, and experience new things and learn new things, so when it's really time to write your first novel, you have something to say."

I have a feeling teachers aren't always happy to hear that advice. Love more, have more passion, embrace some healthy risk . . . we're usually so concerned with getting them all to conform and pass tests and no one says LIVE. Really, really live. And love. A lot.

And then it really is time to sing your song. And whatever it is inside, THAT is your voice. It's this distillation of all your experiences into a song only you can sing. It can be elusive, and it seems like writers sometimes search for it. But it's there already.

I know Demon Baby doesn't see the world like most 4-year-olds. And most kids his age aren't sitting naked on a couch, plucking a guitar and singing the spontaneous blues of trying to hold onto a woman. But that's his song. And I hope whether he becomes a writer, a singer, a musician, or an astronaut, that he'll remember he has that song and decide to share it with the world.

As a writer, you have a song only you can sing. So have you discovered your voice yet?

Sliding into Bed

When I moved to Virginia from Florida, I bought a new bed. My old one was a mattress and box springs I had inherited from my parents, I think. It was hard as a rock and miserable. Not to mention . . . old. It was time for a new bed. I ended up getting a pillowtop one, a glorious comfortable bed that Demon Baby has to scale like a mountain to even come snuggle with me. I have never taken this bed for granted since. I can travel, I can visit other people's houses, I can sleep in other beds, but mine, frankly, rocks.

Recently, Crohn's disease has decided to make an appearance. It's not horrible. Once I got over the natural "feel sorry for myself for half a minute moment," I was mentally okay. I'm sort of housebound a bit . . . and my joints hurt. The worst of it are afternoon fevers, when I have the chills. So pretty early in the evening lately (sometimes even in the afternoon), I've been . . . sliding into bed. There is something comforting about sliding into my comfy luxurious bed and pulling the covers around me and just resting.

Which brings me . . . yet again . . . to writing. You see, recently I wrote a short-short story. It's 426 words to be precise. And it's very dark. And recently, too, Oldest Daughter unearthed some of my poetry. Some poems were published, some not. They're in an old file folder. In tone, the shorts story and the poems are much like The Roofer. It's a type of voice, and Oldest has been encouraging me to return to that voice. She even wants me to enter a chapbook competition. She likes that voice. That writer.

It's strange . . . writers all eventually, if they stick with it long enough, arrive at the place where their manuscript is solid. They show; they don't tell. No back story dumps. Following Elmore Leonard's advice on the use of adverbs. The whole nine yards. Rejections at this point will very often boil down to either something structurally or about the concept that doesn't work for an editor . . . or, I think, voice. We're told to develop a voice. But no one can tell you HOW.

In short, why is one author's detective story "derivative" and another's "powerful"? That, my friends, is voice. It's elusive. It's not something that can be taught, and if you haven't tapped into it before, you may not even know what I am talking about.

Voice is like sliding into bed. It is this place for a writer that envelops and feels beyond comfortable. It's the sweet spot. It's a lot like breathing, I think. Not to sound like a shaman or some other spiritual particular . . . but it is like a spiritual experience. It's tapping into a part of you that IS the writing. Channeling something, maybe.

Like sliding into bed . . . you know it when it happens and it feels like home.

Thoughts? Have you found your voice?

Proposal Time and Voice

I have Magickeepers II to turn in this month, and I have rewrites for Star-Crossed (to be published by Penguin) due at the very tail end of this month. And then . . . it's really proposal time.

I have at least four books I can legitimately pull together and do proposals for. I also have a lingering comedy that I STILL own the website for because I am convinced it's going to sell when the comedy climate is healthier.

I am sure there is some thought that once you are published consistently, you can sell "anything." Which is completely false. It's a different rejection process. Usually the reasons are about market . . . or concept . . . not writing, in particular, or even flaws in what the editor is seeing.

So then it boils down, for me, in determining what to put out there. I was thinking about it this morning, and my process generally looks something like:

• Make sure it's got a hook. An unbelievable, grab you in twenty words or less concept.
• Characters that aren't familiar. No (for me) detectives, or cops or anything that doesn't have an unusual spin. If it's not an unusual character (in my case, I've had compulsive gamblers, adult children of the Irish mob, a Vietnamese-American child of someone who dropped heroin on Cambodia after the Vietnam war, for example), then it's the spin that counts.
• 5-7 pages for a synopsis.
• Being sure of what's selling, what's hot, what's fading.
• Most importantly, being positive I am the only person who can write this story. That it has my unique imprint and voice.

I think the last one is about the writing. Why does one writer's book stand out on an editor's pile? I think, often, of Joe Barone's novel. I'm sure he won't mind me saying . . . he's not your typical publishing story. He's an older published author, after working as a minister. For those who say ageism and so on exist in publishing (and indeed, I think it does), Joe is pretty inspiring. So what landed him his publishing contract? I think the final bullet point on my list. He has the most original character--a man committed to a mental institution who calls himself Roy Rogers.

What about Stephen? He landed a publishing contract without an agent--while living in GERMANY. With an AMERICAN publisher. Tricky feat that one. But his story? I would be willing to say his background as a cartographer . . . means the final point is precisely true for his first published novel. (Even if he can't play Scrabble to save his life.)

Me? I think my eccentricities, my family background, my full and pretty adventurous life, my philosophies and interests . . . mean I am for sure the only one who can write dialogue the way I do. My voice is mine.

Thoughts?

Just Get On With It

This . . . from CNN:

Madonna is following her husband into filmmaking, with her directing debut, "Filth and Wisdom," due in theaters a couple of weeks after "RocknRolla." Her film centers on a Ukrainian cross-dressing punk-rocker and his roommates, a ballerina-turned-stripper and a humanitarian pharmacist.
Ritchie said Madonna did not seek any advice from him, and he did not volunteer any.
"With filmmaking, I think it's one of those things you should not read books on. You should just get on and do it. Then you have your own voice."


I loved this movie. I liked the "voice" of it.

I am pretty comfortable with my writing voice. It's mine and mine alone.

So thoughts on Guy Ritchie's advice?

Voice

Last night, I shared with two friends two different pieces of writing I am contemplating working on. The pages I gave my friends are little more than 15 pages of one, 5 or 6 of another. What struck me is that you would never know in a million years the same person wrote them. They asbolutely bear no resemblance to each other.

One, a coming-of-age late-YA set in a mob family, is my voice. It tumbles out of me. It's me. Not my exerpiences, but bits and pieces of stories and fragments, but it just spills out of me--I can write ten pages in an hour without blinking, without trying even. The voice is my own. Me. I can't explain it, but me.

The other, also a late-YA is mine--but me pretending to be her. Until I AM her, but she is not me. That's what it is. She's not separate from me, but instead I'm her writing the book. Some people call it channeling a voice. I call it the Method technique--much like inhabiting a part on the stage.

But here's the thing . . . both voices are in some way very honest, I think. It's not about inventing a world for me, but instead BEING in that world and writing about it, if that makes any sense. I am not separate from it, but in it, living the voice in my head.

So the other day, I got one of those writer newsletters in my email box. The writer was well-known and I started reading the excerpt, and then stopped. And it wasn't the hook, it wasn't the setting. It wasn't the opening line. It was the honesty or the voice. I didn't believe it.

I can describe my process here. I can explain how yes, I can write 20 books across four genres, branch into YA, and have every voice be different. And yet still mine. But I can't tell someone else how to do it. I just know that this is the best way I to describe what it's like for me. And I just know if you can't establish a unique voice, you might as well pack your toys up and get out of the sandbox.

Thoughts?

Only You

So much to post, where do I begin. Oh yeah. At the MOST important thing. THE GIANTS WON IN OVERTIME!!!!! All is right with my world today. As an aside, I think it's fairly telling that even though they usually break my heart, I have remained loyal to my Men in Blue all these many years. My heart is bursting today. And in honor of it, Baby Girl and I are going to get our nails done today . . . and she will have the wonderful salon owner, who thinks she's cute as a button, paint her nails blue and white. I will try to post a picture tomorrow. If you think I am shutting up about the Giants until Superbowl . . . well, gang, you just don't know me. I've got two glorious weeks of unadulterated joy to bask in.

Two . . . for those writers participating . . . don't forget to get your butt over to Mary's blog today. Even if you're not participating, you can send us gluttons for punishment a word of encouragement or two. And email her tonight with your page or word count. I have a dinner party tonight, so it's entirely possible my count will be pitiful for the day. We'll see.

Three, a quote about writing from Elie Wiesel:

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

In March I am giving a presentation on writing for the young adult genre at a conference. And while I happily agreed to do it . . . (and if anyone feels like driving to the Richmond, Virginia area to attend, give a yell) . . . when I start putting my presentation folders together, I am often struck by how inadequate it is to try to explain to people how to write what sells, how to write for a certain genre, etc. Because even though I have a command of the mechanics of it all, even though I have worked as an editor for years, as a writer for years, I am ever aware that the real magic happens when writing calls to you. And the thing that will elevate your writing is that story that ONLY YOU can write. It will never be about seeing what's hot in the marketplace and then writing that story. It will always be about writing YOUR story, informed by your life and experiences and passions and interests.

I once mentored a writer who wrote a phenomenal book about a detective, but we all know that's tough to sell. I believed in him, this writer, but I also knew the detective hadn't quite gelled. I couldn't really come up with anything that I, as reader, could say to someone if I was to describe the detective other than "family man, really smart." And THAT isn't going to sell. The plot was great . . . and I genuinely liked the detective, but there was a "so what" editorially.

So the writer started adding quirks. He toyed with the detective being a gambling addict. A recovering alcoholic. X or y. And in the end, I didn't think it much mattered because the writer was tacking traits on instead of somehow digging really, really deep and finding something that ONLY he could write.

When you start tweaking tics . . . start tweaking nuance, I usually feel you are dooming a book. The specialness has to come blazing out of the gate with a roar. The story only you can tell. I can't teach that.

Thoughts? Do you write from that place? The story only you can tell?

Wrong

Sometimes, when Demon Baby sleeps, I peer through the bars of his crib and hope one day I am not peering through the bars at him here. But, given his high degree of intelligence, I am thinking even IF he one day rips off the Federal Reserve, he'll be the criminal mastermind that gets away and lives in the Caymans. And in the meantime, I like watching him sleep.

And there's another thing. You see, when it's time for him to go to sleep, I take him upstairs and I read him a book. Usually, there is a tremendous amount of negotation on precisely HOW MANY books he gets. I aim for 2. He aims for 22. We meet in the middle.

Then, I put him in his crib. I have him fold his hands and I give him a prayer to recite. Something along the lines of "Angels watch over me. Help me to sleep well and grow. Amen." On bad days, something more like, "Angels, help me to be a good little boy, not a follower but a leader, but less gray hair for Mom in the meantime." Something simple. Easy. A conversation, not rote.

Then I lie down on the bed next to him, and we hold hands through the bars. (Like I said, sometimes I wonder if one day it'll be Plexiglass, but for now . . . .) And then usually in about five minutes, he falls alseep. Completely peacefully.

Now, every parenting book in the entire universe will tell you this is THE most screwed-up way to get your kids to go to sleep. But in my GUT, something tells me he will be a tiny little Demon Spawn for so short a time, it'll be over in the blink of an eye, and there is no way I would rather him fall alseep than to feel someone he loves holding his hand until slumber takes over. When morning comes, he storms into my bedroom like a Demon Baby out of Hell, and climbs into my bed for a cuddle, though lately, I am usually off walking, in which case, he picks a sibling and climbs in with them for a snuggle.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. They have whole BOOKS devoted to how wrong this is. FERBERIZE 'em! And you know what? F*ck the books.

Which applies to writing.

You see, for everything you want to try (writing your first book in first-person, starting with dialogue, whatever) . . . someone, some book, some writing teacher, hell, some BLOGGER will tell you it's wrong. I may even screw up once in a while and say something is the wrong way--but I don't think often. Usually, my response is "it's all in the execution." Because it is.

As a mother, I trust my gut. Nearly 100% of the time. I've never read a book on mothering. I don't buy self-help because nearly every self-help author I ever edited was pretty much on the upper end of the human toxicity scale. They can just talk a good game. I go with my gut, not someone else's. When Demon Baby wants his toenails painted, I paint them. I paint them black so it's more "manly" to appease certain family members, but I don't think I'm scarring the kid for life because he wears Pirate Toenail Polish (which is what Demon Baby and I call it).

As a writer, I trust my gut, too. I "know" innately when something's not working. I can edit people's work. I can "teach" writing. But I can't teach gut instinct.

The only way to learn to trust it is to write. A LOT.

When I was 16, I thought every short story I wrote was worthy of publication. Most of it was self-involved torturous drivel. As I continued writing, I learned I had raw talent, but that every story I wanted to tell wasn't necessarily worth telling. In other words, though I never saw a therapist, writing was acting as my therapy. Who wants to read that? For God's sake, I sure don't. I learned to cut through the crap and find a STORY to tell. With every passing year, my instinct grew. I learned craft, I became an editor, I began ghostwriting and writing for magazines. I edited more and more . . . and . . . the craft only helped hone the instinct.

So, like falling alseep with Demon Baby, I think sometimes you just gotta go with your gut. There isn't "wrong." Sometimes . . . there's just that still small voice. The more you trust it? The louder and more confident it becomes.

Thoughts?

Heart and Head

Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head.
~From the movie Finding Forrester

I write with my heart. I don't know any other way than to sort of spill out what's jumping around in my head, begging for release, onto the paper. It's like finally letting go of a "good cry" (and sorry, fellas, if you don't know what that's like, but for a lot of women, a "good cry" is extremely cathartic--we may even rent sad movies in order to have one). Sometimes, it's as if I have this fury in me, and I have to just regurgitate it and get it out and then, and only then, can I sigh and relax. It's hard to explain, but that's my best attempt at describing my process. That's what writing my first draft from the heart is.

But then the head takes over. I spent well over a decade editing other people's manuscripts before I sold my first novel. I learned how to get rid of passive voice, how to shape and hone someone's words. My own words. I learned, from much banging of my head against my desk (thank you, Jon Van Zile) to ruthlessly delete words that didn't propel my scenes. To cut whole chapters that just sat there, doing nothing but showing off pretty words. I learned to edit with my head.

I know a writer who once bitterly resented that she could not get published. She was writing what was "hot" (at the time, it was chick lit), and she could craft a sentence. Three top editors in a row passed on her manuscript--and all three said variations on the same theme--"no heart," "paint by numbers writing," and "I didn't care about any of the characters." This writer could target market, but the heart piece was missing. I could see it--I kept saying "dig deeper"--but you can't really SHOW someone how to. It's a process in which you find your passion for the work and stop chasing publication by creating what's "hot" for instead what "speaks to you."

On the flip side, I have seen enough horrid manuscripts that come through the slush pile to know that heart's not enough. You can see the person poured their soul into their work. It feels naked and autobiographical as you read it. There's rawness there. But it's so poorly executed that the head's missing completely.

They go hand in hand. It's what I aim for in everything I write.

Thoughts?

Voice

Tonight, I went to hear my 17-year-old daughter play violin. She is the concertmistress of her orchestra, and she played a Bach fugue and then a beautiful piece called Mountain Spring. I watched her from the audience, tears streaming down my face. You see, when she was three years old, she saw a woman playing violin on PBS, and she turned to me and said, "That is what I am going to do with my life." As the mother of a gifted kid, I was kind of used to these dramatic pronouncements, even at a young age. But for a YEAR she pestered me for lessons, and eventually, she was accepted into a young strings program at a university (she was four and played a violin 1/32 of the usual size). And that was the beginning.

I cannot tell you the sacrifices a middle-class family makes to have a child study classical music in our arts-starved school system. Lessons as much as $150 an hour. A violin hovering near $10,000, plus the BOW. Driving sometimes 10 hours to special music camps. Camps that cost $1,500 a WEEK. I have probably taken ten years off my life sacrificing and working hard for her to have her dreams, and my significant other, who is not her biological father, works two jobs--weekends he sleeps two hours a day--as we get ready for the college audition season and all the money that entails flying her to auditions--as well as tuition looming.

But none of that matters because when I heard her play, I saw all those years go by in a blur. All the sacrifices vanished. The dark circles under my eyes disappeared. I saw a beautiful young woman of poise playing her violin. But even more, I heard her E-string.

Here's the thing. Over the years, I have learned a tiny bit about violins. Enough to converse with musicians. And I know an E-string when I hear it. And I know my DAUGHTER'S E-string when I hear it. In the 12 violins or so in the chamber orchestra, I could pick her notes out. Yes, she was concertmistress in the first chair, but even if she had sat further back, I knew her string. If you have never shopped for an expensive violin, you might not know that not only does every instrument sound different (hers is an 18th-century Italian), but every BOW on every violin sounds different. And then every player sounds different playing said different violins. And I knew her sound. In fact, if you lined up three players playing the same Bruch concerto (her audition piece), I KNOW I could pick hers out blindfolded. In a heartbeat.

Which brings me to writing.

To me, the whole point of writing is to have a distinctive E-string. Okay, it's not the same thing, exactly, but I would hope if you picked up one of my books you could tell it from the book next to it, never mind if you saw my name on the cover. I know a Neil Gaimain, usually by the third paragraph.

THAT is what you are trying to do. Find that voice, so distinct, the story only YOU can tell, with the VOICE that is yours alone. And then play that E-string for all it's worth.

Thoughts?

Peace,
E

P.S. To my daughter . . . I love you, and I believe in you, and will be here for you until the end of time and then some. And you have a gift. Let it shine. I love your "voice" on that violin.

Discovering Your Voice

People who know me in my real life find it rather remarkable that for the first thirty years of my life, I was petrified of confrontation, and rather quiet in a way. Once I discovered my voice, so to speak, well, I haven't shut up since. I found my courage and then I ran with it. Whether it was working as a mentor to unwed teen mothers in horrific neighborhoods where I feared drive-bys, or quitting a comfortable job so I could have my own editing business, or having four children despite the doctors telling me I shouldn't, I blossomed and found my voice and inner courage. I figured out who I was.

But what about voice in your book? I actually think it's a very similar process, in a way. To me, voice is the very character of your book. Just as in real life, my "voice" makes me uniquely me, makes my soul and essence what it is, your book's voice, or your character's voice, is the very essence of the manuscript or work. It's that which makes what you are writing completely yours.

To use the expression we've been tossing around here the last couple of days, without a strong voice, your book is just a heaping pile of plot. Voice is the color, the nuance, the thing that makes that pile of plot become something extraordinary. It's your vision.

I think of it in film terms because I am a huge movie buff and very visual. So think of your favorite movie directed by a director whose visual style is unmistakable. For me, I'll use DAYS OF HEAVEN. It was directed by Terence Malick and visually, it is one of the most famous and beautiful films ever made. It won the Academy Award that year for cinematography. Now, I could tell you the plot--a poor farmhand convinces his lover to marry their rich boss so when the boss dies, they can claim his fortune. Simple enough. But it's only when you see the sepia images of the fields and the sky and the farm, and the images of the 1916 Texas Panhandle that you can begin to grasp this monument of a movie. The stunning filmmaking is the voice of the director poured onto celluloid.

In my own work, The Roofer, the storyline is rather simple. A writer does a long, in-depth piece on the Irish mob, wanting to expose my heroine's father as a murderer. Instead, in America's mob-obsessed culture, a movie is made based on the piece . . . and the men in the book are embraced as heroes. But the entire story of the magazine piece, its fall-out, and the lives of the men portrayed are told in a first-person narrative of the daughter of the most infamous of the mobsters over the three nights and day of his wake and funeral. Simple enough. But what makes it MY story, my book, is Ava's voice. She has been brought up amongst these men, loves them all dearly, but has been through so much by her association with them, and thus she tells the story in an almost deadened voice as nothing surprises her anymore. Her voice, her longing for a normal life yet her inability to ever imagine that for herself, is what makes it "her" story, my story, my writing. I chose her to tell the story, not her brother, not the mobsters. Because I knew I could BE her and tell it.

What if you find you can't nail the voice? What if the voice isn't unique enough? I think it's a matter of choosing your POV wisely, and then knowing that person so deeply that you FEEL it. For me, and this is only me, I have to be in the pain, be in the joy, be in the angst. I guess, when all is said and done, I am a "Method" writer, much like some actors are "Method" actors who never drop character.

How about you? How do you find your voice?

Peace,
E

AND EVERYONE VISIT SARA HANTZ'S BLOG--link on the right--SHE IS LAUNCHING HER FABULOUS BOOK THIS WEEK!!!!!! PRIZES, GREAT DISCUSSIONS, AND LOTS OF FUN. CELEBRATE WITH OUR SARA!