Private v. Public Stories: When to Hold Back

We’re talking about those old files, old stories, old passions that are hidden in your file drawer. Here are four manuscripts that should stay in your drawer.

Your first manuscript. No, you are not allowed to air your first attempts at writing fiction to the world. No. Don’t do it. Let your squeaks and squawks forever remain hidden.

The intensely personal mss that is “true to life.” As I talked about last week, it’s very hard to turn life into fiction. It’s especially hard when the life issue is a difficult, emotional one. Yes, write about those things; writing is a type of therapy for some. But before you try to sell it as fiction, be sure you’ve turned loose of the exact events, the exact language, the exact dialogue, the exact characters. You must loosen your grip and serve the needs of your Story. It’s so hard when the event is so emotional, but you must do this. Otherwise, sell it as a memoir, or turn it into a self-help book for others in the same situation. I’m not saying you can’t write about your life; I’m not saying you can’t publish something about strong, difficult events. But if you want this to be a novel, a piece of fiction, maybe it needs to just stay in your file drawer.

The mss your spouse/family hates. Your first critics are your family and for good reason. When you publish fiction, you enter the public arena and that means your family is dragged along, for better or worse. Just a warning: do this at your own risk.

Any mss that you can’t imagine with your name on it. You know that feeling of getting a new book and seeing your name on it? (Or at least you can imagine that feeling?) Can you also imagine seeing your name on a book and getting a sinking feeling? Any story or novel or nonfiction topic that will cause a sinking feeling in your gut–leave in your drawer. This could be because of the topic or the quality of the writing. Only put out your best, manuscripts for which you can stand tall and proclaim, “I wrote this.”

COMING AUGUST 15:. The Book Trailer Manual. Click to read about it.

A 5-part series.

How Valuable is Your File Drawer?

You are writing fiction and building a career. One of your valuable assets is your file drawer, your rejected stories. I have 2 four-drawer file cabinets full; plus, my flash includes many partial or complete manuscripts and ideas for stories that never made it to a hard copy to file. What do I do with all that effort in story telling, those past fragments that haven’t yet made it to print?

Appreciate the old stories for bringing you to this place. Writers develop skills as they practice writing, But often early manuscripts deal with the same ideas, emotions, themes, character types, plot types that you will deal with later in your career. The practice material in your drawers (or on your computer files/hopefully backed up on your flash drive) is valuable simply because it was practice material. You couldn’t be at your level of writing without all that practice.

Old stories can tell you who you were. I don’t know who said it first, but you should “pay attention to what you pay attention to.” Flipping through old files, re-reading old manuscripts tells you what you were paying attention to at different time. Think about why it interested you at the time and why your attention has turned to other things now. Does re-reading old stories bring back some of that passion and interest? Do you wonder why you stopped caring so passionately about that idea? Are you amazed at the topics you once wrote about? When you flip through, what catches your attention now? Knowing who you once were may be the thing that tells you who you will be tomorrow.

Wealth of ideas. Re-read your old story with an eye and ear toward ideas. It’s a great prewriting tool. Maybe something in the old files will:

• Spark a new story
• Spark a new character
• Spark a new plot or plot twist
• Make you fall in love again with a certain voice
• Make you fall in love again with a genre

Re-Purpose your old story.
We’ll talk about this more this week. For now, I”ll just say, those old files are valuable! Make sure you’ve backed up everything!

COMING AUGUST 15:. The Book Trailer Manual. Click to read about it.

Relaxed, Happy, Confident Snowboarder

I’ve been caught up in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics this week. Last night, one of the featured stories was Shaun White, the amazing half-pipe snowboarder. What stands out to me is his joie de vivre, his joy in his sport and in his life. That outrageous long, red hair, his infectious smile, the casual plaid of the US snowboarding team — Wow!

And then, he dropped into the half-pipe for his first run. Snowboarders must do one pass without any tricks, just a plain jump to show they are in control. White’s plain jump was this slow, tremendous leap toward the starry night, then he hung there weightless for a moment before dropping back into the half-pipe for the tricks his fans were looking for. But it’s that plain jump that held me: the sheer height of it, the reach beyond the grasp of the other boarders.

Then, when he’d already won the Gold Medal on the basis of his first run, he had a chance for a second run, a sort of victory lap. His coach told him to do whatever tricks he wanted. He joked, “Maybe just a run straight down the middle.”

No. White did the run he had planned, including his special “Sean Snake” or “Big Mac” or “the double MacTwist 1260″ or the “Tomahawk” (as White dubbed it, after a steak he’d eaten in Vancouver): it’s an impossibly difficult trick, in which the boarder flies over the half-pipe and flips head over heels twice, while packing 3 spins sideways into that jump. Wow. On a give-away, a victory lap, he gave it his all. And bested his own score by two points.

Elmore Leonard on One Million Words

It reminds me of my friend, BB. He’s been writing about four or five years now and just sent me a couple new chapters for review this week and I was blown away. BB is an Elmore Leonard fan (to the utmost!) and BB tells me that Leonard said you must write a million words before you find out what you want to write and how you want to write it.

Well, this time BB’s writing was confident, strong – like Sean White was last night. BB is finally saying what he wants to say and saying it how he wants to say it. Wow!

Hold Nothing Back

It reminds me of Annie Dillard’s essay, “The Stunt Pilot,” in her book, The Writing Life. She begins her book of journal entries about writing like this:

When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner’s pick, a wood-carver’s gouge, a surgeon’s probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. Is it a dead end, or have you found the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or at this time next year.

(I’ve forgotten how much I like this book, her writing.)
But for me, it’s the last chapter that shines. Dillard take a ride in a small plane with stunt pilot Dave Rahm. She writes a glorious description of his skill in flying through the sky with twists, turns, barrel rolls, owning the sky. The one thing I remember the most, though, is her assessment of Rahm’s skills as a pilot: he’s good only because he holds back nothing. He gives it all.

Dillard suggest that great writing comes from the same joy and willingness to give it all: Hold nothing back, she says. Not that special turn of phrase, not that emotional commitment, nothing. Give it all. And trust that the next time you need something special, it will be there.

Sean White, my friend BB, Dave Hahm, Annie Dillard – they give it all in the service of what they love. And it’s a joy to watch them fly.

The Writer’s Challenge: Can I do the same?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
Really. I don’t know.
All I know is that I want to get up every morning and challenge myself: Give it all.

COMING AUGUST 15:. The Book Trailer Manual. Click to read about it.

This month my daughter and son-in-law (newly weds of three weeks) decided to move halfway across the country. They had discussed it for a while, but the decision was abrupt because they either had to renew their house’s lease – or not.

They came through town and stayed here two days, a Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, Daughter sent off resumes to school principals; on Friday, a principal called and set up an interview on Monday. Saturday, they traveled 20 hours to their new city.

Photo from fraying at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fraying/3368195979/

They found housing through Couch Surfing. Monday’s interview went well, so she was asked to teach a sample class on Thursday. That morning, before the interview they signed a year’s lease on an apartment and she showered in the new apartment before teaching the sample lesson. She was invited back for a final interview on Monday, after which they called her references and she was offered the job – one that exactly suits her.

In ten days flat, they went from one city to the next, found a job, housing and are set up while her DH enrolls in school and looks for part-time work.

Wow!

And I ask myself: am I willing to take a comparable risk in my writing career. Yesterday, I took steps to try something different, to do a different sort of writing than I have ever done before. With my daughter’s inspiration, I’m taking a risk.

Are you? What risks have you taken before in your writing and how has it paid off? Have you written the novel you were scared to write because you might not do it justice? Have you sent to editors/agents you were sure would never buy from you or take you on?

COMING AUGUST 15:. The Book Trailer Manual. Click to read about it.

What Do Writers Do All Day?

I’m just back from Illinois where last weekend, I taught a Novel Revision retreat to a fantastic group of writers. One of the humorous things that happened: One writer had a chapter in which a character wrote about a condominium, but the character couldn’t spell, so wrote, “. . . the condom. . .” When the author later decided to cut the whole chapter, it became a password for the retreat: Cut the Condom Chapter!

Then, I did a school visit at a local school yesterday.
Today, I’m trying today to prioritize what needs to be done.

• Speaking. I’ve been asked for proposals to speak at two upcoming events and those must be done today.
• Planning Fall Retreat. I’m still the director of the Arkansas SCBWI Fall Retreat. (The dates are September 25-27 — hold the dates and look for details soon!) Today, I will be talking to the editor we’ve invited to iron out details.
• Writing. Well, I’m still just a couple chapters away from finishing my WIP! And I have plans for another novel mss that I’m anxious to get to. Plus, there’s the odd picture book thrown in here and there. And a structured approach to finding ideas.
• Publicity. The paperback version of The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman comes out in May and I need to do several hours work on publicity for that.
• Life. Oh, yes, I have a life! Besides grocery shopping, cleaning house, etc. there’s also the looming tax deadline of April 15, my daughter’s wedding in May, and my son’s graduation in May.

How do we juggle all this? And people ask me, what do you do all day, since you don’t work?

COMING AUGUST 15:. The Book Trailer Manual. Click to read about it.

10 things to do while waiting 8 months to hear from an editor on a requested revision

Waiting

What would you add to this list?

1. Check your email every 15 minutes. Alternately, leave your email program on and the volume set to high, so that it bellows at you, “You’ve got mail,” and you can run delete the spam.
2. Daily, write anguished letters to the editor about how you know you should have fixed that lazy verb in paragraph 11 of page 121, but you just didn’t notice it until seventeen days after you sent it. Let the letters stack up in the fireplace for the weekly ritual of burning them.
3. Make a large X through the day on each of the 21 calendars in your house. When husband asks if he’s forgotten an important day, just sigh and walk away. Enjoy the flowers he brings home.
4. Haunt online forums for any mention of the editor’s activity on other manuscripts. When you discover other activity, cry all night long.
5. Pick up the phone to call the editor and put it down undialed at least a dozen-dozen times a day. When you develop repetitive stress disorders in your hands and arms, purchase a Blue-tooth.
6. Swear to your best friend that you will absolutely die if you don’t hear today. Cough violently to convince her this is true.
7. Write an essay comparing this waiting period to sitting in a corner of a rattlesnake pit waiting for one of them to warm up, uncoil and notice you. Anything, any scrap of notice is better than this utter silence. Rejoice when the essay is published in the Artic Writers and Snakelover’s Newsletter, and spend the $1 payment on breath mints.
8. Read an editor’s blog about how busy she is and feel the sympathy of a statue of rock salt. However, link to the editor’s blog from your blog and make sure your public sympathy is evident.
9. Wait with every fiber of your being to see if Scheherazade’s curse will strike you: if there is no acceptable story, you are dead. Read and re-read every story of the Arabian Nights that you can.
10. At the end of 7 months, 29 days, start a new project that fascinates you and captures your heart. In fact, it captures your heart so much that when the editor calls two days later, you don’t even recognize her name.

What is YOUR favorite way to wait?

If you like this tongue-in-cheek list, you might also like this one about honest critiques.

COMING AUGUST 15:. The Book Trailer Manual. Click to read about it.