Best Book? On Writing! IWSG August 2021

 

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous  Alex Cavanaugh. To find links to other IWSG contributors, click here. Thank you to the August co-hosts: PK Hrezo, Cathrina Constantine, PJ Colando, Kim Lajevardi, and Sandra Cox.

This month’s optional question: What is your favorite writing craft book? Think of a book that every time you read it you learn something or you are inspired to write or try the new technique. And why?

I am not a horror girl. I avoid anything delivering nightmare potential. In high school, friends dragged me to the movies to see Stephen King’s Carrie, which I watched mostly through my fingers. When a friend badgered me to pick up King's Salem’s Lot the summer after my sophomore year of college, I put up a good fight. Sadly, she was relentless, so to get her off my back I began the book, becoming unnerved enough to throw it across the room unfinished. It lay there in the corner for a long time.

In light of that, it doesn’t seem likely that my favorite book on writing would be King’s On Writing, A Memoir of the Craft, but it is. Second place definitely goes to Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott and I've learned tons from Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg and Pen on Fire, by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. With that said, though, I turn to On Writing for inspiration, a quote, or simply a jump start when I’m feeling stalled. The book is so approachable, so entertaining, with voice and clarity and simplicity. Reading it is like taking a class from your favorite teacher, the one who so loves his subject matter his enthusiasm bleeds right through you.  

I’m still not a horror girl. But after blathering on to my dear husband some years back about how much I loved On Writing, he enticed me to read King’s (non-horror) 11/22/63.  Boy, howdy. Not only can Stephen King teach about writing. Man, oh man, can he write!  

If, like me, you hate horror but want good reading, try this link for non-horror stories by Stephen King.  I'm happy to say there are several I've missed. Yahoo! Looks like I've got more books to read.

For other good other books on craft, click here for a post on Book Riot, where you’ll find a list of 100.

What’s your favorite book on writing?

 

What Would it Take? IWSG July 2021

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of the amazing and generous  Alex Cavanaugh. To find links to other IWSG contributors, click here. Thank you to July co-hosts: Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, and Louise – Fundy Blue.

July’s optional question: What would make you quit writing?

Whoa. This question stopped me hard. As soon as I read it, I was deep into my brain answering—albeit flippantly. What would make me stop? The loss of my two hands? An unrelenting coma? My ultimate demise? But later that morning, as I drove to work, I pondered more seriously. Really. What would it take? I lost my father and within hours, sat down to write a eulogy because writing about him and choosing what to include soothed my aching heart. When my sister was terminally ill, I expressed my heartbreak in poems. I lost my job of 23-years and blogged my way out of the shock. When my husband passed away last spring, a day later I could do nothing BUT sit down and write about him. In truth, for a long while it was impossible to write anything that wasn’t about him, but eventually I could, and now that writing allows me to feel some semblance of normalcy. So, what would it take? I’m not sure I want to know, to tell you the truth.

Frustration, of course, comes along with “business” of writing. For me, most recently, that has involved researching agents who seem like a real fit for my novel and discovering they’re closed to queries. Then there are the rejections that appear in my inbox. It’s hard not to feel discouraged about those, or for example, when I became a finalist in the #revpit twitter contest this spring, but didn’t win. There was the contest I did win, which earned me an agent read on the first 50 pages and ultimately, feedback along the lines of: “Great writing and compelling characters but I’m severely limited in the adult projects I take on…”

There’s a one-step-forward-five-steps back, nausea producing, hopes-up-only-to-plummet-down cycle most writers experience, and I suppose, at some point we all ask ourselves if it’s worth it to stay on the ride. Darned if I know, but like Dorie the fish, I just keep swimming. The writing always brings joy, and as long as I keep trying, success beckons, even if it remains ever off in the distance.

What would make you stop writing?

 

Waiting and Sharing - IWSG June 2021

It's IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of  Alex Cavanaugh. To find links to other IWSG contributors, click here. Thank you to co-hosts for June:    J Lenni Dorner, Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, Lee Lowery, and Rachna Chhabria

This month’s optional question: For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?

For me, wait time on a first draft depends on the project. If I’m writing an essay or a blog post, I hammer out a first draft and then wait a day or two, even sometimes as long as a week to look at it again. On return, necessary improvements become obvious. If deadlines allow, I wait again and do a final edit before sending it out.

With novels, it’s a whole different story (Lol—pun not intended but left in anyway). I tend to write chronologically from beginning to end. Whether it’s my first draft or my 12^th, I usually go at it for several months. When I’m done, I give myself a week or so before starting back at Chapter one. I don’t feel like I need that much more time, because after writing or editing 80,000 plus words, when I return to the early story, I see it with fresh eyes. The exception is when it’s time to read a draft chapter or two to my writing group. I share pages with them chronologically too, and with wait time between readings they usually get a part of the story other than what I’m currently editing. Once I see the consensus in their comments, I go back to the portion I read to them and implement the suggestions.

This past month when I read pages to my group, in spite of my best efforts, they called me out on repeating a piece of information again, again, and yup, there it was again. I also used the word “coffee,” something like thirteen times. How did I miss that? They nailed me on both of the issues and I fixed it all, which helped me make that part of my book better.

Do I wish it took me less time to come up with a decent draft? Sure. But in my case, taking a breather before looking again and getting a group critique results in better work, so I’ll stick with the practice.

What is your writing process like?