Year: 2010

Ode to an Open Mic

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein I attend a poetry reading and decide that, if other writers can write poetry, maybe I can…what?!? Me, write poetry?

Last night, I attended a poetry reading, followed by an open mic. This particular gig, the 2nd Saturday poets, has been running in Delaware since 1983. That’s right, ’83. That’s a lot of rhyming words under the bridge.

Except that poems don’t necessarily rhyme anymore, and haven’t in a long time. Even I know this.  For the 2nd Saturday crowd, readers don’t have to read a poem at all. Prose poetry is acceptable. Flash fiction is cool, too. Whatever piece of art you’d like to share with the group is good.

I didn’t read last night. I attended the event because members of my critique group are regulars. I also wanted to check out the event because I’ve been asked to do a public reading with a fellow Delaware artist. The reading is not until August, but already I’m considering what to present. How to showcase my work. I’m in the supporting cast of this reading, so that gives me flexibility—I don’t feel the need to share something perfectly polished to impress the audience. I can experiment, maybe read a goofy piece, or a work I’m not sure will ever get published, but is fun to read out loud. Not a lot of pressure on me, because I’m reading to support a friend.

Last year, when Bob Davis and Abby Millager and I did the public reading required by our Delaware Division of the Arts fellowships, we hosted an open mic. Our grants were a show of support from the state and its taxpayers; we wanted to be gracious and give other artists the opportunity to share their work in public. Writers I’d never met signed up and got up on the podium and affirmed, again, that a writer’s desire to share is stronger than  shyness or insecurity or nervousness, or rejection.

I didn’t read last night because it was my first time at 2nd Saturday, and some kind of rookie etiquette told me to wait and see. After Jeffrey Little and Josiah Bancroft, the featured readers, did their thing, a dozen braver souls than I approached the open mic. Some were funny, several were touching, a couple (I confess) were a bit incomprehensible to my unaccustomed-to-hearing-live-poetry ears. One moved me to tears.

There was no pay to read; no published credit or critique. The reader got nothing out of the couple or three minutes before the crowd other than fulfilling the desire to share their words, to participate.

It takes a lot of things to be writer: courage, perseverance, good grammar, a story to share, a desire to say. It takes something else to stand before a group, even in a trusting atmosphere, and read your words. Courage? Ego? I don’t know, but I felt it—and something else.

I wanted to write a poem.

The problem with that is, I don’t write poetry. I haven’t since high school. I’m not sure I know how. I write fiction, non-fiction, some memoir; I write for adults, children, young adults. I’d write for aliens if I knew the right language. But poetry is the foreign land of writing to me, and I have no idea how to navigate it.

And yet, last night at the open mic, listening, I grew an idea. A poetical idea. And now the open mic is speaking to me, too.

This is a surprise, and because of that, it feels like a gift. And to use a cliche, who looks a gift horse in the mouth? This is the allure of art. I listened to poets read, and it made me want to write poetry.

No wonder this group has been going since 1983.

Ramona


Save the Sentences

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein I pay tribute–and give advice on how to brutally edit–the backbone, glue and worker bee of stories–the sentence.

Everybody loves a great opening line:

“Last night I dreamt I went to Manderly again.”

“Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.”

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer’s wife.”

“Mother died today.”

Great first lines are important, and any writer who nails one is already ten steps ahead of the pack. But what comes after a terrific first sentence are many, many other sentences. Not all sentences can be as memorable as those I’ve mentioned above, but every sentence has a job to do in a story. It can be descriptive or declarative; convey an emotion or present a tease; describe a setting or destroy a universe. Whatever its function, sentences are the vehicles that tell the story. Sometimes they are Hummers–big and ostentatious and almost unwieldy–and sometimes they are like my beloved, ancient Mazda–nothing fancy, but absolutely reliable when it comes to getting me where I need to go.

Is this news? No, of course not. If you are a writer and you aren’t aware that stories are composed of sentences then…wow. I don’t even know how to complete that sentence.

So why am I blogging about sentences? Because while sentences are a good thing, there is that old bugaboo known as too much of a good thing. Sometimes it’s called overwriting, sometimes rambling, sometimes shooting the breeze, but whatever it is, a lot of writers suffer from a condition I like to call, in honor of the “too many notes”scene in Amadeus, Too Many Sentences Syndrome, heretofore known as TMSS.

Today I’m going to address a particular type of TMSS. I’ve been reading a lot of action-oriented manuscripts lately, and I’m seeing a common problem.

Let’s say you have a character who enters a dark room. You want to convey that the room is dark, so you write,

“Annabelle entered the room. It was dark. Pitch black. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. Her eyes tried to adjust to the inky darkness, but she couldn’t see a thing, because the room was  as black as night.”

Don’t laugh. Those are not quotes, but they could be. Here’s another example:

“David ran, as fast as his legs could carry him, towards the sound of screaming. He pumped his arms and lifted his feet, pounding on the ground. Clouds of dust rose in his wake. He ran so fast, his heart hammered. He panted hard, sweat rolling down his back, as he got closer and closer and the woman’s screams got louder and louder….”

What do these two collections of sentences have in common, other than being examples of TMSS?

They are stalling.

In both cases, a character is about to enter an action scene that seems to involve danger. The woman enters the dark room, the man is running towards the screaming. But while both characters are moving, it is taking FOREVER to get to the action. In the first case,the author keeps throwing in descriptions of the dark, delaying what’s in the dark, or what’s going to be illuminated once the lights flip on. In the second case, the author describes the man and scene very physically as he runs towards the woman in apparent trouble. In each instance, the author stalls the action by throwing in too many sentences between the character and the action. The author adds sentence after sentence to delay what’s about to happen.

Why? Why do authors stall?

Because writing action is hard. Overly describing a scene or giving a character an inane task or overtelling anything just before the action kicks in lets the author ease into a difficult and intense bit of writing. I see this a lot in manuscripts that are, eventually, full of action, but by the time the character reaches the screaming woman or flips on the light switch and sees Norman Bates’ mother in the rocking chair, some of the tension is destroyed, never to be returned.

How do you know if you suffer from TMSS? Examine your sentences and consider these question:

Does this sentence do a particular job to move the story forward?

Does it have a function that is not performed by the sentence before it, or the one after it?

Does it say something new or different, or is it simply repeating something else, in a different arrangement of words?

When I edit a story, this is what I do: examine it sentence by sentence. If each one doesn’t meet the above criteria, I kill it. If I can remove a sentence and the paragraph still makes sense and sounds pleasing, it’s a goner. No lazy, layabout, blowhard, repetitive, stalling sentences allowed.

Killing off non-functioning sentences will remove the clutter in your writing, and will get your reader to the action faster.

So, try it. Read your WIP sentence by sentence by sentence. Now! No stalling!

Ramona




Conundrum in Confluence

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein rising water, one road out to town and twelve crime writers on retreat in a flood zone brings to mind some famous words from The Clash, “Should I stay or should I go now?”

If I ever write a horror novel, I’m going to title it The Narrrows.

For the uninformed, as I was until three days ago, a narrow is “a narrow passage, usually connecting parts of a stream, lake or sea; a strait connecting two bodies of water.” If you are in Confluence, Pennsylvania, a narrow is a one lane road with railroad tracks on one side and a steep drop to certain death on the other.

I’m explaining this because I braved such a road (white-knuckled and whimpering, I confess) to get to the Pittsburgh’s Mary Roberts Rinehart Chapter of Sisters in Crime writer’s retreat this past weekend, where I’d been invited as a guest speaker and workshop leader. As last week progressed, it became clear that it was not a good weekend to trek to western Pennsylvania, but this gig had been planned for a long time, and everyone was eager and ready to learn and write and share (and eat)  and it would take more than a little ol’ flood to stop it.

Ha. Hahahahahahaha.

We’d been forewarned that the Youghiogheny River (or the Yuggogheny, for Michael Chabon fans) might rise and flood the area. Not a big stretch of events for a town called Confluence, when the weekend forecast was rain, rain and more rain, and a record-setting amount of snow was upstream, scheduled for an early melt.

So I drove the four and a half hours anyway, confident that there would be no flooding, or danger, or fear, based on the personal meteorological theory I call “But I don’t want that to happen.”

AKA “denial.” Which was why, when that very brief window of “you can leave now or not at all” came, I chose to stay. We had food, the house was safe, we were a group…what’s the worst thing that could happen? A few days’ delay in getting home?

I’m going to allow my fellow retreat survivors to blog about the caravanning into town, a nd the riding in the back of Dan’s van-o-sandbags, and the mysterious hooks in the van, and the debate about walking the train tracks to safety, and  the jokes about Lt. John’s “unit,” and the many, many murder scenarios we dreamed up because, after all, a dozen crime writers trapped in a guest house with a rising river in the back yard, and the only way out is through “the narrows”? Come on! You can’t make this stuff up.

Despite all that Mother Nature threw at us, the retreat soldiered on. You just can’t stop a group of determined writers.  Or, some might say, optimistic fools, but why get into semantics?

The water receded on Sunday, we climbed back into the back of the van. I sat on the wheel hub, grabbed onto one of the hooks (still don’t know why they’re there) and closed my eyes as we drove over the narrows.

It was a great weekend. I’m very glad I stayed. Sometimes, denial is the way to go.

UPDATE: Here are some posts by other retreat survivors!

Annette Dashofy at her blog, Writing, etc.

Martha Reed, today at the Working Stiffs

Ramona





The Sucks Scale

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein I fondly reminisce about old times with teenagers and how they judge a book.

In my writing world last week, someone posted an urgent request for help–he’d been asked to speak to a group of teenagers. Eek!

Teenagers are scary and misunderstood creatures. But they are also opinionated, vocal, honest and sincere.

I had the pleasure (yes, pleasure) of helping to run a high school book club for a couple of years. The group met at lunch, at the library, which meant I had to bring food.  Carrying a couple of fresh pizzas through the halls of a large public high school was an adventure in and of itself, but that’s another blog.

The biggest challenge faced by our group was getting multiple copies of books to read. Getting the students to read was no problem at all. Many teenagers do not read, it is true; but many do. Those who do are happy to share their opinions. Really happy. Uber happy. Like, SOOOOO happy.

I often wished we could have had authors sit in on our meetings, because how the teens regarded teen characters was so enlightening. In general, they cut other kids NO slack. If a character whined, they were told to shut up. If a girl was vain or stuck up, they wanted her to die. If a boy was cute and nice, the girls swooned. If there was a hint of romance, the boys didn’t read past page 4. If an adult was dishonest, they were outraged. If a younger sibling was annoying, the meeting could easily break into chaos, as each member wanted to share their own annoying little sister story.

The meetings were raw and honest–and a terrific learning experience. The readers were not interested in fair criticism, in helping the author, or in comparing this book to any other. They were interested in vocalizing their honest opinion, and in being heard. I was lucky enough to be in the room to listen.

Here’s how teenagers judge a book, from bad to good.

“This book totally sucks.”

“This book sucks.”

“This book didn’t suck all that much.”

“I liked it.”

I once tried to ban the word “suck” from our meetings. At which point, it eroded into complete silence.

Ah….good times.

Ramona



You’re So Meh

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein I discuss secrets characters keep, and also ask,  if you’re going to give up a long-held secret, can you please let it be a good one?

There was a little bit of a brouhaha in the music world this week, when some news outlets reported the identity of a mystery man.

The mystery man’s claim to fame? He was vain.

So vain, in fact, that Carly Simon wrote a song about him.

If you don’t know the background on this musical mystery, it’s this: Carly had a falling out with some vain dude, and she got payback by writing a song about his vanity.This has always been confusing to me. If she wanted to bug Mr. Vanity, wouldn’t a more successful approach have been to ignore him, rather than write the song and refuse to ID His Royal Vainness for 38 years? Didn’t that just give him more attention, and fueled his already overflowing vanity?

Of course, if she did that we would not have the song, which is an excellent one.  How many songs include “gavotte” in the lyrics? So I will back off on criticizing Carly’s expose’ on vanity, and just enjoy the music.

So, for all these years, speculation has been swirling around, and this week, some of that ended. Maybe. Supposedly, in a new version of the song on her new album, Carly finally reveals Vain Guy by…are you ready?..whispering his name in a song.

Backwards.

Wow. I wonder where she got that idea?

 

To the surprise of many (looking at you guys, Warren and Mick) the name she whispers is David.  Speculation is that David is David Geffen, and she was peeved at him because he promoted Joni Mitchell’s music more than hers. David’s people are denying this. Why…I’m not sure.

Why am I not sure? Because, after 38 years and about half of the news article, I quit caring after I read the name.

That’s the problem with secrets. Once they’re told, they’re just not any fun anymore.

I’ve been thinking about this because I’m working on a short story that revolves around a secret, but one of those “Do I want to know or not?” type of secrets. My story is about a troubled couple. Halfway through the story, the wife starts doing a new sexual thingy in bed. She doesn’t tell her partner how (or why or when or where) she learned this new sexual thingy, and he doesn’t ask. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. Maybe he thinks she learned it off the Internet, a la Leonard in The Big Bang Theory. I don’t know what he thinks because he’s not my Point Of View Character, but it’s obvious that he doesn’t ask because he really enjoys the new sexual thingy, and he doesn’t want to screw it up. As it were.

I’m not sure if he ever finds out, because I’m still writing the story. The sudden appearance of a new sexual thingy in a relationship is the kind of secret someone might want to  keep forever. Or it might be the kind that someone throws in the face of her lover, in a moment of anger. Or one that her lover, in a fit of jealousy, might demand an answer to, at long last. There may be other options. Whatever happens, my story is going to ultimately be about what this secret does to this couple.

Which brings me back to Carly and *whisper* Divad. After all these years, why’d she give up the secret? That, to me, is a lot more interesting than the identity of the vain man ever has been.

Which brings me to this. Was this what Carly planned all along? To wait until the opportune time to give up the guy, at a time that would make some buzz about her new album, in a Beatlesque manner that would draw attention to her?

So, really, it was all about her, the whole time?

Pretty sneaky, that Carly Simon.

While we’re on the topic, here are some secrets I think were well kept until, of course, they weren’t.

1. What really happened to Fox Mulder’s sister. It’s a good secret because I still don’t know, and I watched every episode of the show, including the one where the Lone Gunmen were blown up. (Oops. Hope I didn’t spoil that for anyone.)

2. Mrs. Rochester in the attic.  Poor Mr. R. Saddled with a mad wife, and he had to dress up like a gypsy, in the same book.

3. The identity of the Headless Horseman in Sleepy Hollow. The ending of the story points to Brom Bones, but it’s really

4. How, exactly, does one gavotte? That one is still a mystery to me.

How about you? Do your characters hold any deep dark secrets? If so, is telling more compelling than keeping quiet?

Ramona




 


It’s all about Winning

by Ramona DeFelice Long

Wherein I report on how to get a new short story, a writing getaway, a little self-promotion,  and a visit an indie bookshop, all out of one little writers conference.

Last Sunday, I reported that one value of participating in writing contests and/or competitions is that, win or lose the contest, you can end up with a new story. So, even if you lose the contest, new writing is always a win.

In the spirit of the Olympics, I’m continuing this winning attitude.

In December, in preparation for the Bay to Ocean Writers’ Conference I entered the Eastern Shore Writer’s Association writing contest. My story was not selected as the winner. But, I added the story to my story bank and I can send it elsewhere so, again, I lost, but I won.

New Story = Win #1.

On Saturday, my writing friend and I drove through the bucolic, snow-covered fields of rural Maryland to attend this conference. It was great. Workshops about plotting, about social networking, about Internet writing opportunities, about the changing landscape of publishing. I learned a lot.

Studying craft = Win #2

Between sessions, I set out some promotional materials and, throughout the day, chatted up some fellow writers about working with an independent editor.

Pimping my biz = Win #3

Rather than drive back at night, my friend and I stayed at a nearby hotel.  We spent the evening and the next morning indulging in some quiet writing time.

Mini-Writers Getaway = Win #4

Before returning home, we took a side trip to the town of Oxford, Maryland, which sits very prettily on the edge of the Chesapeake. It is a most charming town, and is blessed with a most charming indie bookstore called Mystery Loves Company.

Indie bookshop visit = Win #5

So now, a day and a half later, I’m home, with workshop notes, new friends to email, some fresh business prospects and a bag full of mysteries to read.

Can I get a “win win” here?

Any one of these wins would have been great. The fun is cramming as many into a short space as possible. Judging by my level of brain death, and that I’m smiling while writing this, I think 5 wins is pretty good for a single weekend.

Ramona







And the Loser is…Me.

by Ramona DeFelice Long

cropped-ramonagravitar.jpgIn a recent short story contest, I had the pleasure of coming in…I don’t know what place, because only the winner was announced. Which means I could have placed Second or Third. Or 250th, but who’s counting?  The point is, I was not the winner, so why am I calling it a pleasure? Because the contest was sponsored by a magazine I enjoy, judged by a writer I respect, and won by a story that was light-years better than mine.

Most importantly, I wrote a new story to enter into the contest. Even though it didn’t win, I was happy with that story. I sent it through my critique group for pummeling and polishing and now it’s in my story bank. I can submit it elsewhere. Without the contest, I would not have written it. So although I lost, I really won.

Right? Right.

I’ve blogged before about the value of applying for an artist grant or fellowship. This post is a cousin to that one–some nuts and bolts about entering contests. Lately, several of my editing clients have mentioned contests, so I thought I’d share some ideas and points to keep in mind for those brave souls frantically getting their entries ready.

To verify my street cred on this topic, let me announce that I won my first writing contest in the fifth grade–a patriotic poem competition sponsored by the local Veterans of Foreign Wars. My winning entry began like this:

“The grand ole flag of the USA,  Flies in the wind of a windy day.”

Yes, it drips with the hokey, but the VFW didn’t mind, and I won over every other patriotic fifth grader in the state. I was invited to an awards dinner, where I was presented with a framed certificate and a $50 savings bond. (My first paying gig!) I also had to read the poem aloud.  (My first public reading!) No one warned me about this, so I had to do it cold.  (My first panic attack!) BTW, I brought along my dad. (My first date! :-))

What I recall most is walking away from the podium on shaking knees, and a kind-hearted vet stopping me, shaking my hand, and telling me that he’d fought in the Battle of the Bulge, but I was braver than he was for  reading in public. I’m sure he was BSing me, but I appreciated it at the time (and still do.)

I’ve entered and won and lost other writing competitions. My prizes include cash, medals, engraved Revere Ware bowls, certificates, free critiques by the judge/s, comped tuition to conferences, gift certificates, a sterling silver page marker (that I cannot use without thinking would make an excellent murder weapon) and my personal favorite, publication.  Most of the time I enter myself; sometimes, my story or article gets entered after it’s been published. Sometimes I write new; other times I enter a story in my story bank if it fits the contest.

I only enter a few times a year, which means I lose much more often than I win. If I were a mathematical type of person, I might figure out my win-loss percentage and be discouraged by the dismal number. Luckily, I’m not a mathematical type of person, so I ignore the odds. If I see that a publication I like is hosting a contest, I enter. Win or lose, I’ve never regretted the effort, so there really is no such thing as losing.

So that’s the pep talk. How about some pointers?

Ramona’s Top Ten Rules for Entering Contests:

1. Follow the stated contest rules.  Duh, you say, but there’s a reason for deadlines, word counts, number of copies and so on. An easy way to get disqualified is to break a rule, or send to the wrong email address. For snail mail, double check if the deadline is a date received or a postage date. If the reading is blind, make sure your name is not on the entry. Don’t make a mistake that will waste your time and effort and get your entry kicked without being read.

2. Make sure your entry is appropriate. In other words, don’t send a genre story to a literary magazine’s contest. Don’t send an adult novel to a contest for juvenile fiction. Don’t send a whodunit to a magical realism contest. Don’t send a poem to a prose contest….you get the picture?

3. Research past winners. Many contests will post links to past winners on their websites. Read  those stories. Don’t try to imitate winning stories, but you can enhance your chances if you can get a feel for what the publication or sponsor likes.

4. Research the judge/s, if posted. Same as #3. Don’t try to write like the judge/s, but do see if you can figure out what kind of writing the judge/s like.

5. If the contest has a stated theme, write to the theme in a meaningful way. For instance, if a contest has  a “water” theme, don’t just set your action at a river bank. Try to incorporate the theme in the story as more than setting. Water has purifying powers, but water also erodes the earth. We can’t live without water, but we can drown in it. Also, don’t try to plug a theme into a story  unless it truly fits. If you are entering a contest with a theme of “alienation,” don’t pull out a story you wrote about cancer and just switch the words. Respect the contest enough to create something appropriate, or pass.

6. Make your entry pretty. By pretty, I mean no coffee rings, crumpled edges, and such. But don’t make it too pretty, a la  scented pink paper, unless it’s the Elle Wood Story Contest. (I made that up. There is not, to my knowledge, a Legally Blond Writing Contest.) Clean copy, white paper, readable font. ‘Nuf said.

7. Make sure your entry is polished. No typos. At all.

8. For a novel contest, send a beginning.  If you are not confident enough in the beginning of your novel to enter it into a contest, it’s probably not strong enough to engage a reader to buy it.  A grant app or contest might ask for a “writing sample.” This does not mean samples of your writing, as in a page of this, a few pages of that. The judges want to see that you can sustain the narrative of your choice. Send the best beginning of your best work that is appropriate for the contest.

9. If there is a page or word count limit, send as close to the limit as you can. For example, if there’s a 10 page limit, 5 pages is too short; 8 or more is better; 10 is best. Try to stop in a logical place that either brings a scene to a close or leaves off at the precipice of something interesting. Likewise, for a short story contest with a word count limit, send a full story. Crop if necessary. If the contest is for 10 pages, don’t send 10 pages of a 12 page story.

10. Be brave! Try something new and different. Judges will be reading lots of stories. How can yours stand apart? One of the best pieces of writing advice I’ve ever received came via a contest judge. She liked my story (and I was awarded) but she said that it would have been an even better story if I had not ended it quite so neatly and cleanly. She said to think of what would happened to the characters if the problem I’d written had not been solved.  I thought about it and changed the ending–to a much better one. That judge, and the above mentioned veteran, are two people who’ve helped me to be brave about writing.

Those are my Ten Rules. Anyone have others?

Also, if anyone needs some well wishes for a contest, let me know and I’ll jab my voodoo doll with a white pin on your behalf.

Enter away–and bon chance!

Ramona

UPDATE: I am receiving questions about where to find contests and contest fees. Next week, I will revisit this topic with those questions in mind. Stay tuned!


 

“Who Dat?” for writers…

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein I ponder the correlation between my writer friends who seem so discouraged this week, and the wild rumpus in Louisiana over the miracle that is the Saints headed to the Super Bowl.

Please notice that I put “Who Dat?” in quotes because I would not want some large sports entity to claim that I am claiming I invented that phrase. I didn’t–and I’ll just let the Louisiana governor, attorney general and other elected officials make a legal fricasse out of whoever tries to wrestle it out of the cold, dead mouths of Saints fans.

Anyway.

I have noticed a disturbing theme the past couple of weeks in emails and writer blogs that I regularly read. People are feeling low. Discouraged. Not sure where their plot is going. Not sure there is a plot to go anywhere. Sick of their heroines, tired of their heros. Sick and tired of this whole novel writing thing.

Since my sister has been sending me daily updates of the various parades, parties and fais-do-does from la Louisiane, it struck me that a little writerly pep rally might be in order.

Writing is like being a Saints fan. (Work with me here, s’il vous plait.) I can’t claim to be much of a football fan, or one of the johnette-come-latelies jumping on the winning bandwagon. But I did grow up in Louisiana, and I did graduate from LSU, so I hold those up as my qualifications to make this analogy.

Way back in 1967, the Saints started out in a blaze of glory. On the very first play of the very first game, a Saints player ran back the kickoff 94-yards for a touchdown. Yay!  After that shining unforgettable moment, however, it was years–no, decades–of losses. Losing season after losing season. Nicknamed the “Aints.”  Fans wore paper bags over their heads to show their disgust. The team’s record was so dismal at one point, a local sportcaster swore he’d walk down Bourbon Street in a dress if the Saints ever made it to the Super Bowl.

How is this like writing? How often do you start a new writing project, and it seems like it’s going to be a snap! The voice is right, the set-up is great, the first scene flows from your fingers like rum from Captain Jack Sparrow’s bottle. But then the momentum ends,  or the adrenaline rush is over, and you’re slogging through the great wasteland of Act II. Or, worse, you’re not even slogging so much as writing about how hard it is to write. And the next thing you know, you feel like a Saints player, like this book is never going to come together, you’re never going to get it finished, you’re never going to go on to the next project. The payoff for your hard work seems impossible–and it’s just not fun anymore.

This is what I kept hearing all last week. Why, I don’t know. Winter? The start of tax season? Post-holiday blues? I don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is to get the momentum going, the adrenaline pumping, the (choose football metaphor of your choice and insert here, because I’ve run out) and get back to work on writing.

For practical advice, here are a few ideas that work for me. I would love to hear what works for others.

– Change location: If you write at home, go out to a coffee shop, the library, your dining room table. Someplace where the scenery is new. Or someplace where there is no scenery, if that’s a distraction, and no Internet.

-Exercise: A walk, an exercise DVD, a couple dozen jumping jacks or sit-ups will get some endorphins going. I heart endorphins.

– Hands-on help: Try some (or all) of the techiniques in many, many how-to books on writing. A few I’ve found helpful are Writing and Selling Your Mystery Novel by Hallie Ephron; Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass; Don’t Murder Your Mystery by Chris Roerden; Book in a Month by Victoria Schmidt. A background exercise might help you discover something new and interesting–and inspiring–about a character.

-Attend a literary function–a reading, signing, workshop. Be around like-minded people. Picture your book on the shelf. Picture yourself in the signing chair.

-Whine to friends and eat a lot of chocolate. If you do this one, you might need to follow up with suggestion #2.

-Go to a parade. I hear that, on Tuesday, a bunch of men in dresses will be marching down Bourbon Street.

The point is, not to give up. Not to stop writing. Because, really, in your heart of hearts, that’s not what you want. Right?

Anyone else have tips for the discouraged among us?

Bon chance.

Ramona

PS – Since I didn’t include any visuals above, let me include one here, the flag of Acadiana. See the pretty fleur de lis’ on it?








Quoth the Raven: A Toast to the Toaster

by Ramona DeFelice Long

…wherein a half-century plus of tradition and tribute comes to an apparent end at the gravesite of Edgar Allan Poe.


Last Tuesday, January 29, was the birthday of Edgar Allan Poe. He’d have been 201. Try to picture all those candles.

But candles have not been the tribute of choice of one Poe devotee. For more than sixty years, a mysterious visitor dubbed the Poe Toaster appeared at the gravesite of the master of the macabre. On January 19, in the early morning hours, the Toaster paid his tribute. He wore a black cloak. He left behind three roses and a half-bottle of cognac. Every year, since 1949, the same traditional display. That’s a lot of flowers and booze, but who is more deserving of both the toast and the mystery than Poe?

If you live in the Mid-Atlantic region and read a newspaper, you’ll know that speculation about the Toaster has run rampant the past few years. It’s like Deep Throat—some people surely know his identity, but those people aren’t talking. I hope they don’t. I don’t want to know. If the Toaster wanted public recognition, he’d have sought it. He didn’t, so I respect that and hope the mystery of his identity will remain honored.

But that’s not to say the Poe Toaster does not deserve credit. Sixty years of doing anything consistently, particularly something that requires you to prowl around Baltimore in the wee hours in January, deserves some kudos.

So here’s to you, Poe Toaster. If you are to appear again nevermore, a grateful salut for your devotion.

 

Sidebar:

The Toaster may have retired, but Poe continues to enthrall writers, both with his work and his mystique. I wrote the above post in my public library. When I was finished, I was curious about how many Poe works were included in the county collection. The monitor nearly blew up when I did a general search on Poe, so I limit searched and limit searched and limit searched until I came up with a list of fiction works about Poe. That’s right—only fiction written about Poe. Here are a few of the titles. If anyone has more or would like to recommend, please do so.   A Poe Reading List is a good resource for the next midnight dreary.

The Pale Blue Eye – Louis Bayard

Entombed – Linda Fairstein

Not Quite Dead – John MacLachlan Gray

The Murder of Edgar Allan Poe – George Hatvary

In a Strange City – Laura Lippman

The Lighthouse at the End of the World – Stephen Marlowe

Poe & Fanny – John May

The Poe Shadow – Matthew Pearl

The Professor’s Wives Club – Joanne Rendell

For Edgar – Sheldon Rusch

The Mask of Red Death – Harold Schechter

Nevermore – Harold Schechter

The Facts in the Case of E. A. Poe – Andrew Sinclair

An Unpardonable Crime – Andrew Taylor

The Abuse Excuse

by Ramona DeFelice Long

RamonaGravitar...wherein I manhandle a character, and then question myself as an author and my choices in abusing people, even fictional ones.

My WIP’s main character, “M,” had a moment this week. A bad moment.

M went to see this guy she should not have gone to see, as amateur sleuths are wont to do. M has lost people she loves in what everyone, especially her know-it-all brother the sheriff, insists were simple accidents. She’s convinced of the opposite, but no one believes her. And it doesn’t help that some people say that she’s cursed. No. Not helpful at all, that one.

So, she goes to see This Guy, the husband of a friend and someone she should avoid for about a thousand good reasons. But she’s sure he knows things about the accidents, so she questions him. And things get a little hot. So hot that she very nearly slaps him. By very nearly, I mean she raises her hand to the proper pre-slap position, but stops herself. Hitting This Guy will bring her down to his level, and she may be cursed, but she’s not a lowlife. So, she lowers her hand and walks away.

I was proud of her. So proud, in fact, that it took me a moment to see that keeping her on the high ground completely flat-lined the action of the story.

You know that dramatic arc illustrated in workshops, where the line climbs higher as story tension mounts? My arc was shooting upwards and then it plummeted, because M is too damn nice for her own good, and for the good of the book.

I had to reverse the plummet, had to get M off her high horse and back into the fray, to do… what?

She couldn’t hit him. That was already decided. But, what if I made him hit her?  That would fit his character. And it would reverse the plummet.

So, I tried it. She stopped herself from slapping him, but instead of letting her walk away, he hit her.

No, wait. Not hit her, as in punch her. He wouldn’t go that far. He grabbed her arm. Hard. She pulled away. No, wait. She tried to pull away, so he gripped harder. He yanked her closer. Then he told her off. No. No, he did more than that. He threatened her. Her and her loved ones. Then she pulled out of his grasp. Or…instead, she tried to pull away, but he dug his nails into her arm, so she had to twist out of his grasp, and his fingernails scraped her arm. Better yet, his nails gouged in her arm, leaving a trail of bloody marks.

Whoa. Now we’re cooking. This lights a bunch of new fires. This Guy seems capable of violence, which is news to all. The grab will leave a mark. If her brother the sheriff sees this, he’ll go ballistic.

But, do I want him to see it? Or do I want M to hide it, because she was not supposed to see This Guy in the first place? And then there is This Guy’s family. There are children in the house. If she gets This Guy in trouble, will he take it out on someone even more innocent? And what about her friend? Has This Guy ever manhandled her?

Yeah, baby! Danger. Violence. Threats. Hard choices. All good stuff, and all I had to do to accomplish that was knock M around a little.

Pause.

This is not the first time I have abused a character. I’ve written a guy getting pistol-whipped. I’ve written a girl who runs off with a couple of guys who make her “do things.” I’ve written a young boy who can’t swim thrown into the Gulf of Mexico by a drunken shrimp boat captain. I’ve written a man repeatedly bitten by a snake. I’ve written a boy forced to fight his two adult uncles. I’ve written an unstable person who inadvertently hurts an animal. I’ve written a woman psychologically abused during an affair. I’ve written a young man who survives a shooting that kills his father. I used one bullet there—through the boy and into the father—to make his survivor guilt a heavier burden.

In all of these, the point of the story had been the abuse. Never, until the moment with M, did I write an abusive moment because I needed an exciting plot point. But after my initial relief of fixing the scene died down, I wondered if I’d just written myself into a moral dilemma. Was this unbearably callous? Abuse a character to advance a plot? Where had that come from?

But here’s the odd thing. In the story, it had happened. It was unexpected, a surprise to everyone, but he’d done it.  He grabbed her arm. That genie was not going back into the bottle. It was written and there was no going back. Why? Because it felt right to the story. Because, in real life, things like this happen.

When I work with new writers, one of my standard suggestions is to remind them about missed opportunities. Sometimes action offers an opportunity to make a story richer and deeper. Sometimes it offers an opportunity to talk about what not everyone feels comfortable talking about.

There are writers, and readers, who refused to write or read women in jeopardy, or kids in jeopardy, or animal abuse stories. I get that.  If there’s torture or graphic violence in a story, I’m gone. While I doubt anyone would consider my arm-grabbing scene as graphic violence, there are those who might give me grief for going there.

But I did. And now I have an opportunity to elevate the story by asking some questions that  a woman in real life, in this situation, would ask.

Starting with, what does she do now?

If This Guy had punched her, the answer would be simple. She’d go to her brother. But This Guy grabbed her arm in a heated argument. A grab is different from a punch. Or is it? Does it mean he lost his temper, or that he’s a woman beater? If she doesn’t tell anyone, and he hurts her friend, is that her fault? Or would that make things worse? Now that she knows he’s got a scary temper, what is her responsibility? But wait, she’s a victim. Why am I assigning responsibility for something that is not her fault?

I am still pondering the answers to those questions, but not to what happened. Violence happens, and we as authors should not be afraid to write about it. With one simple change in a scene, questions opened up, difficult questions that real women in real life face every day. Those questions can’t be asked, or answered, if a character always takes the high road and walks away.

What do you think?

Ramona