Tuesday, July 28, 2009

BYU WIFYR 10: Louise Plummer

Louise Plummer: “The Anxious Writer’s Life”

I’ve never been able to put “writer” down as my profession on anything. Because it sounds presumptuous. Because I don’t spend that much time writing. Instead, I worry about it, think about it, read it.

Even after publishing and receiving good reviews, I don’t feel any more comfortable with the label.

Writing makes me anxious. But not writing makes me anxious, too.

I knew I wouldn’t get much done on my own so I took a class. Success: I produced a 15-pg story. Then, in response to an assignment, wrote a story about Annie and Hennie Sehlmeier. (A family like mine.) Story didn’t work, but I liked the characters and wanted to write a novel about them. Decided to go to grad. school to write it. Didn’t finish it there, but finished it with goal of Delacourt contest.

Publication of 1st novel carries anxiety, too. Will it sell? Worst: am I a one-book author?

I did it again, but not easily or quickly. I usually got most of it done by leaving home for chunks of time.

I’d start with a character with a problem. Play around with ideas, names. (Can’t start writing without the right names!) When I get the right first sentence, then I’m ready to start.

(Story of how she got idea for next novel. Didn’t work out. Moved back, started another one.) What if’s haunt me now.

I’m paralyzed with anxiety, and will be until another novel is accepted.

Writing is an anxiety-producing activity. It is re-examining values, at it best, and this produces anxiety. We search for ways to justify and articulate this readjustment. Writing involves sticking your neck out and being vulnerable.

Kenneth Atchity’s A Writer’s Time: A Guide to the Creative Process from Vision through Revision is what has helped me the most. Atchity writes that secret of becoming productive is learning how to harness anxiety and transform it into productive elation. How writers manage anxiety can become a mark of distinction. Some fail (those who get addicted, depressed, etc.). Challenge is not to avoid anxiety but to turn it into positive energy.

Most of us hate to think—it’s hard. Our brains are thrifty, prefer to keep to known channels. We resist altering those channels or construct new ones. Constructing a new one causes anxiety.

We need to know how our minds work in general and how our own works in particular. Keats called writing “soul-making.” Handout of Atchity’s diagram of how minds work. Right brain, left brain, managing editor. Intuitive: dreamer, outrageous, weird, Goldberg’s “wild mind.” Rational: constructed by society and education. Operates by analogy, makes comparisons, judgments. Slow-moving, sensible, analytical, critical. A writer can’t finish a book without rational mind. Writers need to use both of these. There is conflict there. There must be. Managing editor: constructive interactor between the two. Diplomatic, encouraging, deal-maker.

Most non-writers cope by allowing one part of mind to dominate, usu. rational. We want to fit in. People who let intuitive dominate are in a nuthouse! Writer must not let one dominate. We must tap into intuitive no matter how depressing or contradictory to go there. We must accept that opposing feelings need to coexist.

Writers need to have the initial dream of yourself as a writer, as having things to say. Then your particular project begins as a dream, maybe a hallucination. Becomes an obsession, then a compulsion: I can see myself doing that. I can do that. I will do that.

Will separates dreamers from the doers. From the will the managing editor is born.

Ambition, determination: combination of desire and will. Desire without determination yields pseudo-artists, would-be writers. 2nd stage of dreaming is decision to act. Involves stages of incubation, doodling, setting up timeline. Taking vacations. Writing a draft. Taking another vacation, revising, vacation.

Atchity’s first rule of writing to avoid block: Never sit down to write until you know what you are going to write. This defines writing as the physical act of writing. It doesn’t include incubation, research, doodling, etc. Begin when the book is practically bursting from your body.

If sitting down is intimidating, go outside, do something else. Give yourself a time limit and word count. “I’ll give myself 50 minutes to write 15 words.” Let yourself waste most of it. Say to mind, “Take your time, I know this is tough, don’t hurry.” Then STOP. Don’t write again until tomorrow. Today’s work is done. You’ve removed anxiety. Just that little bit begins a dialogue between the two minds.

For tomorrow: intuitive mind finds a sentence, then another sentence. Manager says, “Thanks, but come back in the morning.” You’ll come up with a new sentence that’s better by tomorrow.

When you’re ready, spend time making an agenda, with a generous deadline for finishing it.

If you find yourself wanting to move beyond that time you’ve allotted, consider expanding the allotment, but don’t go far. Don’t go over it each day. Stop when it’s over. Trick is to find the amount of time that will not make you anxious or overwhelm you.

Atchity thinks beginnings are most difficult. I don’t find that’s true. I love beginnings. I get bogged down in middle. Don’t allow yourself to stop. But you might need to reduce the amount of time you spend with it. Consistency is the key. If you only write an hour a day, you will finish your novel. PLAN YOUR VACATIONS. Don’t take an UNPLANNED VACATION. It’s self-destructive.

Closing in on endings, I always want to write more than allotted time. I allow this only at this point.

Hemingway: stop in a place where you know you’re going to start the next day, where you know what the next few sentences are.

Finding time to write. Talent plus discipline plus time makes dreams come true. Time comes back to those who give it freely. It expends for those who court it. Giving time to do what you love and only you can do distinguishes the happy, productive people from unhappy, unproductive.

Inspiration and muse have nothing to do with your deal with time.

You do it, regardless of whether you feel inspired.

Stop doing things that no one needs to do. (texting, phone. If you want to do it, plan it as part of leisure)
Stop doing things someone else will do if you stop doing them.
Stop doing things that aren’t the things only you can do.
Start doing the things only you can do.
Act instead of reacting.
Even thinking takes time. Some people spend much time daydreaming without making dreams come true.
Thinking about negative things is a waste of prime-time thinking. Say no to yourself when you think dark thoughts. Change the channel. Thought control might be the ultimate time management. Exploit your positive emotions.

If you are an anxious person, use your anxiety in your stories. Have some severely anxious characters. Let them worry, go mad. Write about something you would pee your pants about if it really happened to. Write about embarrassment, etc.

Say to yourself: today I will deserve the label, “writer.”

Sunday, July 26, 2009

BYU WIFYR 8-9: Ann Dee Ellis and Martine Leavitt

Ann Dee Ellis: “Dialogue Boot Camp: How to Talk Teenage”

Dialogue is one of the most powerful tools in YA/ Middle Grade novels.

Clips from teenage shows—listen to dialogue and decide if it’s effective. Sit coms. “Saved by the Bell”—was it accurate? (Lousy) “Freaks and Geeks” (more accurate—minimal, lots of awkward space, shorter lines; “kids just talk in shorter sentences ”)

In the bad example, characters are very stereotyped.

1. Keep it real.
-You need to know your character. What would your character do if someone threw juice in their face ?
Example: Junie B. Jones, and how she reacts in a social situation.

-We rarely say exactly what we think. Dialogue allows you to show a new side to your characters. Because what they think is not what comes out of their mouth. (This creates some very teenage-ish tension.)
Example: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart.

-Sometimes what your character doesn’t say reveals more about them than what they do say.
Example: Olivia Saves the Circus
Example: Looks by Madeleine George

Exercise: write a scene in which your main character shows through dialogue that they like someone.

2. Keep it Simple
-Let your tags off the hook. Use sparingly.
Example: No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy

-Beats allow you to show action, avoid talking head, move time and reveal character (body language). An interruption of the dialogue to add description/action.
Example: Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.

-Trim your face off. Dialogue is not the place to do description, plot reveals, backstory, etc. (There are exceptions. Always do what feels real.)
TRUST YOUR READERS MORE. YOU CAN TAKE THINGS OUT.

-Alfred Hitchcock said that a good story was “life, with the dull parts taken out.”

Exercise: write a scene between key characters using beats instead of tags.

How do you write using teen slang without dating it? Answer: don’t use slang. Use other ways to show it’s a teen. Short lines. Awkward pauses.
Make up your own slang for that book--?

3. Keep it Musical

-Eavesdrop: the song of conversation. Dialogue is musical. Listen to the ups and downs of people’s voices. Use a notepad and make notes of what they say.

-write out passages from your favorite novels. Take note of sentence length and structure, when there is dialogue, how much dialogue, the visual effect on the page, the music of the text.

Look at the variety of sentence length in your writing.

-read your own writing out loud (or have someone else read it)

-Relax and have fun. Dialogue should be fun.

********************************************

Martine Leavitt:

Things I need in order to write a book:

1. Likeable character. But she needs to have a flaw. But this flaw should be something we can live with.

What are the reasons why we will like your character?

-physical attractiveness (key in romance novels) (This is the cheapest one)

-altruism (Example: The Life of Pi, Slum Dog Millionaire) If character does something for pure reasons. (Example: Stanley in Holes spares his mom the details of what life is really like there.)

-Courageous (Frodo)

-Cleverness (Dr. House) (greatest wizard in Wizard of Earthsea)

-big dream or plan (Eregon)

-self-deprecating sense of humor (Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson)

-in jeopardy (rabbits in Watership Down)

-loves someone or is loved by someone

2. I have to be able to answer these questions:

This is a story about . . .
It begins when . . .
The main character wants . . .
she needs to want both a concrete and an emotional desire. Emotional one involves a change so that character is a different person by the end of the book as a result of the events of the story.

[2 kinds of story: 1) a lack (character wants something); 2) balance is upset, character wants to restore it (character wants something)]

Example: Harry Potter wanted to learn how to control powers, be a Quidditch hero, vanquish Voldemort (external); sense of family (internal). Frodo wanted to destroy the ring (external); go home (internal).

They may or may not get what they want. It could be a happy or sad ending.

3. Plot.

-Why can’t the main character have what she wants? This needs to be a big reason, or else there’s no conflict and it’s boring.

-What will happen if the main character doesn’t get what she wants? This needs to be huge. Give more and more consequences as the story goes on, or make them stronger.

(break the big want up into smaller wants as steps to get her what she wants)

-how does the main character struggle?
Some say she should try and fail three times. This is 90% of the book.

-when is it hopeless? The book is driving towards a moment in time when it is hopeless.

-how does it end? Does she or doesn’t she get the objects of desire? What is surprising about the ending?

So, you get your story planned. Then you work the plan, writing a little every day. Don’t give up for ten years. After ten years, if you haven’t succeeded, start a new book. This one will go faster. If you never give up, you will publish it. Once you’re published, you’ll discover the best part was writing it. Talent is a dangerous word. If you believe you have it, you might not rewrite enough. If you believe you don’t, you might give up to make way for those who supposedly have gifts from the Gods. There are no gifts from the Gods—only hard work.

Ursula Le Guin quote about when people ask her how you learn to write. “ Same way you learn to play the tuba. You go out and buy a tuba, get some music, take some lessons, sit down to play—day in, day out, until one day you can play the truth on a tuba.”

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Yes, I'm still alive

Dear blog,

I'm sorry I've neglected you--but only a little. You see, although there have been things I have wanted to ask you (could someone please tell me what the phrase "any dream will do" means in Andrew Lloyd Weber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat? What is he really trying to say? "Yes, I've made a musical about a biblical subject, but don't go thinking that that means I'm a believer or anything. This topic means nothing, really. Any dream will do"?) and things I wanted to tell you (I'm studying like mad for the GRE, which I've signed up to take in September. Can't believe how many vocabulary words I've been using all the time, thinking I knew what they meant when I really didn't--cringe!). And, of course, I've felt the weight of my unfinished business of providing you my notes on the BYU WIFYR conference.

BUT the fact is that I've been happily busy and have had hardly any interest in spending the time to visit my blog (or anyone else's, for that matter). Not busy with anything all that interesting--just life. And I've always tried to keep my promise to myself not to let the documentation of life ever get in the way of the living of it. (Hence my tendency to forget to bring the camera to important events.) So--there it is--I still love you, but take my negligence as a sign that I am happy and living well.

And I promise to get back to the BYU WIFYR notes very soon. Some of the best are yet to come.