Tag Archives: IWSG

Numbers… IWSG September 2, 2015


Today is the first Wednesday of the month, which means it is IWSG day. The once-a-month blog hop started by Alec Cavanaugh . IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click the words to visit)

Today’s cohosts are:  Heather M. Gardner, Christine Rains, Dolorah at Book Lover, Julie Flanders, and

Murees Dupé  

Once upon a time I wrote a story.  It was a very good story, at least to my mind.  I got the idea for the story when a major character in a series of mine, seized by enemies who for all he knows want nothing more than to kill or capture him, gives his name to his captors.  It is an important name and, historically, might have given pause to anyone thinking of tangling with him.

 I wrote, “Their expressions made him think of the fable of the man who encountered a thirty cubit crocodile.”

HOW big is it???

The ways of inspiration are strange to outsiders.  I started mulling over the notion of a thirty cubit crocodile (a cubit being 21 inches in dynastic Egypt) and I had an idea for a story involving just such a beast who intrudes into the life of a needy man.  In the course of helping the man, it manages to turn the man’s world upside-down.

 At thirty thousand words at this moment, it is a nice novelette and an enjoyable addition to the series. 
And then I thought of a certain publishing contest.

 You submit your work, and if it is approved they obtain a photo of you (something I would worry about later), a blurb and a pitch, and they put it up online for those who might like to look at it, vote on it,and puff out their chests for volunteering to. 
This is doable.  Elegant, in fact.  And heaven knows it’s good story.  Thus far.

 The problem is, the submission must be 50,000 words.

It isn’t such a problem, if you think of it.  Beautiful manuscript not lost, story moving along nicely…  We should all have such problems, shouldn’t we?

The thing is, I have to take that story and add two-thirds of its length.  Twenty thousand words needed to qualify  for the contest which, God same the mark, I very well might not win.

Words can’t begin to describe the annoyance.  

 Yeah, well, we all have things to do, don’t we?  20,000 words equals twenty sessions of a thousand words each.  Or ten sessions of two thousand words each.  Heck, just in this particular animadverting session I have managed to generate just about five hundred words.

 And that brings me to the phrase that helps me when I am trying to come up with numbers:

Just Spit It Out


 I know very well that I’ll be adding and subtracting, polishing, deepening…all the things that, for me, make writing so rewarding and fun.

 My problem is that I get hung up on the notion of numbers and end up not producing any.

 The answer?  See the red letters above.  Write the words.  Break the ice.  Get cracking.

 Will I enter the contest with my crocodile story?  I might.  Then again, I might not.  It does need some additions, and I can see at least five more chapters at about 1500 words apiece. If you do the math, it’s do-able.


 If, that is, I can get myself to put away the calculator, open up the laptop, review the piece, and just go to town.  I think I can.

 **************
Visit the other blogs on this wonderful hop.  I guarantee, the other bloggers have a lot more to say, and a lot more on point.  (Cough!)

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Losing it – Really! (IWSG Post for August 5, 2015)


This is my monthly post for

IWSG started and continued beautifully by Alex and his friends and cohorts. It is a wonderful group, and the insights, reassurance and laughter have been priceless. Why don’t you try reading it?


Destruction…



Little stinker
This post illustrates a very important insecurity that I have about my writing. What if it is (shuddering at the thought) lost, destroyed, sent off into the ether, blown to bits, burned up or just plain fouled up? What then? I’ve been writing for years. I have manuscripts that are older than my family, started when I was still a little stinker of a child. I’ve saved them. Every word.

So… So what if it is all Lost?

The easy thing is to remind myself of why I write in the first place (see this blog post ) That’s why I’m doing it. And, if all I wrote was destroyed, I’d have to soldier on. Moby Dick was lost (pity Melville found it)and he wasn’t destroyed. I know of a lot of manuscripts that were lost, starting with Gibbons’ The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, accidentally burned by a friend’s illiterate servant who mistook the written word on paper for paper to be used to light a fire. Gibbons was charming about it, no one was hurt, and the book was rewritten.

Kerflooey!

Well, something like that sort of happened to me. Did you notice how the post looks a tad clumsy? Text and color not as usual? Photos wonky? Not up to my usual mediocre style? Well, there’s a reason for that, and a lesson.

My computer went kerflooey (conked out, blew up, took a long walk off a short pier, committed seppuku) – pick one; the effect is the same.

 



The Geek Squad!
I tried to get it fixed but with no luck. It is gone, unless The Geek Squad (copyrighted name for BestBuy Tech division) is able to repair it.

The computer had everything on its capacious hard drive, and losing it is (or should have been) a real blow. Except that a few safety features were in place: 
  1. I had backed everything up on flash drives. Several of them. Duplicates.
  2. Microsoft gives everyone one Terabyte (how much? never mind. It’s BIG!) of free memory up in the ether. All my work is saved there. And a few other places. 
Someone said you have to ‘keep on keeping on’ (sounds like Yogi Berra), and that’s what I’m doing I’ve seen the worst that can happen (sort of) and I survived it. When my Cloud finishes uploading my storage, I’ll be fine. I survived.  It happened. and I am okay, though frowning at the learning curve.


I guess I’ll need to find something else about which to be insecure. After I accustom myself to the changes on this new system of mine. It should be fun.
 
Dang! Now to find something else to worry about.

Time’s A-Wasting (IWSG June 3, 2015)



This is my monthly post for IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click for the link).  Alex J Cavanaugh (may his tribe increase) started it and it has, for me, provided wisdom, understanding, laughter, and a lot of thought.  Sign up!  Read!

I used to like a song, quite a few years back, when I was convinced that life was dire and laughter was an accident.  I think it was sung by Connie Stevens.  At any rate, it had a line in it that stayed with me:

(Tick-Tock) If time is so fleeting
(Tick-Tock) Why wait?
(Tick-Tock) Too soon we may find it’s
(Tick-Tock) Too late.

I was still in my teens, was going to be around forever, and like the poet said, I  ‘Shined in my angel infancy’.  I was invincible (well, if my Dad was on my side) I was wise (if I didn’t look too closely at what I did and said) and fabulously talented (like a whole lot of other people).

Time passed, as it will, years passed, and on my last birthday, mulling over things that had happened and would, I hope, happen, it occurred to me that, based on my genetics and my family history, I had perhaps twenty-five (that’s 25) years left to me.

Hm.  That’s not a lot of time to someone who has left their thirties behind.  And I could mention a lot of things that I would love to do, but speaking as a writer, I have to say that my first thought was:  Omigosh!  I have to finish…  And I ticked off, on my fingers, my actual works underway.

That last book of the trilogy I’m working on, with #2 due out soon.  The…let me see…four books that I know of in my Egyptian series.  The notes I’ve assembled for the paranormal mystery set in Philadelphia.  The children’s fable (which, actually, will be coming out in about a month and a half… must get cracking).

And I can dawdle like anyone.  Worse than anyone, in fact.  When would these get written?  And how could I not write them?  I had no time!

No time…

Or do I?

Insecure Writer’s Support Group – March 4, 2015


The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

If, unlike me, you do not live in the Land of Oblivia, and (like me)you are, or think you may be, a writer, the first Wednesday of the month is the time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop. This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alex J. Cavanaugh .

IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click for the link).  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy and  practical suggestions. 
Visit the site – and visit the co-hosts:
Chemist Ken,  Suzanne Sapseed, and Shannon Lawrence!


It is time for admissions.  I’ve been mulling things over and maybe I can give some enjoyment and, perhaps, get some nods, if I make a confession or two.

You see, I have a fundamental problem with ‘bettering’ myself as a writer.  That doesn’t mean I will succumb to it.  It does mean that once in a while I look up and find that pet…fear, if you like…staring me in the face.  It’s like this:

We are supposed to ‘hone our craft’, to read books about our craft, to attend seminars regarding our craft, to participate on discussion boards centered about our craft.  We are supposed to speak knowledgeably about our craft, and use words that indicate our knowledge about our craft (you know…  The stuff that proves that you are knowledgeable): 

“Each book in the series has its own story that opens up the changes to the MC as the events of the book pertain to them.  In the first book, XX is unstoppable in his own sphere.  He is assured, capable, brilliant, unflappable…  But then a chink develops.  Someone loves him and he confesses, however fleetingly, the fear that he only admits to himself when he is drunk awake in the wee small hours of the morning with no one to hear him.  The second book sees the widening of that chink until that moment where the unstoppable, unflappable hero is brought to a standstill and realizes that it is he  who needs support and protection given by others . And the third book… well, that particular weakness is gone, but there is more.  Oh – and the megatheme that over-arches the entire trilogy is the relationship between XXX and YYY.”

…And your listeners look at you and say, “Huh?” and write you off as a nut case.

All these things we are supposed to do to make ourselves better.  Listen, learn, think…  Admit it, they can be uncomfortable.

What if, for example, I crack open John Truby’s book The Anatomy of Story, which I bought recently, and discover that I have been going about my writing, which I love, which gives me a reason to value myself, which has made of many a wasteland of a bad day a time of enjoyment and increase, all the wrong way, that all I do is wrong or wrong-headed or just plain stupid and inept, and I will need to scrap everything?  What if my attendance at seminars and workshops and critique groups leads me to the aghast realization that what I offer for others to read and enjoy not only will not sell, but will be judged laughable by “real” writers and thoughtful readers?

What if I conclude that I am a phony?  That I only have a dream, and that having it doesn’t mean that it is any good?  What if I might as well scrap things and resign myself to holding a place in the might-have-beens?

 
The Tragic Fate of a Might-Have-Been

…We are, after all, talking about insecurities, right?

 
We can linger and peer at them and choose not to venture away from our own little patch of endeavor.  Goodness knows, the temptation is to just leave well enough alone.
 
The movie  Notting Hill has a moment that, for me, expresses the fear of failure:  Anna Scott, the famous star, has decided to submit an argument about why she should get the last brownie, which is supposed to be awarded to the person with the most pathetic story:

Anna: I’ve been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I’ve been hungry for a decade. I’ve had a series of not-nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me. Ah, and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it’s entertainment. And it’s taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this.
Honey: Really?
Anna: Really. [indicates nose and chin] And, one day, not long from now, my looks will go, they’ll discover I can’t act and I’ll become some sad, middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while. 
 
The correct response to this internal dialogue is, as in the movie, ‘Nice Try, Gorgeous.’  And you have a good laugh at yourself and get on with it.
 
That’s what it’s all about , isn’t it?  Acknowledging your insecurities and getting on with it?  That’s what we’re all doing.
 
In fact, Truby’s book is interesting and while I’m learning from it, I’m also nodding my head and saying, ‘Yep.  I’m doing that.  Good to know!’  And I’m looking for a seminar or two to go to.
 
Now excuse me.  I have a megatheme to scrutinize. 

IWSG February 4, 2015




The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

The first Wednesday of the month is the time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop. This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alex J. Cavanaugh .

IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click for the link).  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy and  practical suggestions. 

Visit the site – and visit the co-hosts:
Gwen Gardner, Dolorah, Sarah Foster, and M. Pax!

This month I’m talking about ‘Clone Wars’.  Not the Star Wars type.  I mean the fear people have about copying others.  Bec0ming too much like others, losing their sense of who they, themselves, are.  Getting overwhelmed by something that causes them to lose their voices.

We are told that writers need to read.  That writers who do not read end up shriveling up and blowing away.  So we must read.  Read a lot, read widely, read to enjoy, read to learn, read in order to learn how to write, much as an apprentice used to sit and watch the Master make a masterpiece.

And at the same time, we are cautioned against plagiarism.  Now, I am absolutely against plagiarism.  I have seen some shocking examples lately from groups that expose plagiarism.  Often, someone has cut and pasted something from fanfiction.  You can’t do things  like that.  It is illegal, immoral and stupid.  But what of the person who encounters a way of looking at things, a way of describing things, that he or she embraces wholeheartedly and seeks to imitate.  Not copy: imitate.

 

But what if you find something so overpoweringly fabulous, you end up lost in it, overwhelmed by it,  transfixed by it to the point that you can’t say what you want to say, feel as you think you ought.  You are stunned, almost like someone who has fallen in love at first sight.  I remember the almost stammering reaction I had to the magnificent end of the third episode of Star Wars  (not the prequels – don’t get me started on them).  I felt breathless.

So…  it could be bad.  But it could be good.  Okay, I get that – but why is it so important?  What could I possibly gain from that – and what do I stand to lose?
 
What do you stand to lose?
 
I think of the great books I’ve read, some of which are actually acknowledged to be great books. Watership Down, Eagle in the Snow, The Lord of the Rings, The Rose of Old St. Louis (not a classic book, but an indispensable), The Dean’s Watch, Green Dolphin Street,  and many more.  They made me see things with new eyes, to stand back and evaluate how I felt about tings, what moved me.  Some left me breathless.  With each of them I felt as though I were looking at my world through new eyes. 
Did I feel overwhelmed?  Not really.  I think it was more a feeling of finding what was right, what was true. 
I found a quote I love:

“Expose yourself to excellence, and you will be excellent. Expose yourself to mediocrity, and you will be mediocre. Read the right books, watch the right shows, eat the right foods and engage with the right people. The rest is just a distraction from excellence.”

http://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=103850

IWSG December 3, 2014 – Riding the Riptides




The Insecure Writer’s Support Group

The first Wednesday of the month is the time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop. This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alex J. Cavanaugh .

IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click for the link).  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy and  practical suggestions. 

Visit the site – and visit the co-hosts:

Heather Gardner, T. Drecker from Kidbits, Eva E. Solar at Lilicasplace, and Patsy Collins!

Dodging a Curve-ball

I am working on a story set in Paris of 1834.  I mentioned it before, recently.  One of the characters is a seven year old boy named Larouche.  At the start of the story, he has found a home and some employment as a stable boy in an Inn in the Montparnasse area of the city.  He has become friendly with a medical student named LeMat, who encourages Larouche to come to lectures with him.  While  Larouche is waiting outside the Hotel-Dieu, the big hospital in Paris, he witnesses a knifing, and, being street-smart and good-hearted, tries to  help the victim.

It is not going well…

     No one was paying attention to the man on the ground. Larouche ran forward, paused to stare at the spreading stain beneath him.  Blood!  “Shit!” he breathed, dropping to his knees beside the man and putting his whole weight on the man’s arm.  He could see red welling up, below his shoulder, soaking the shirt and spreading on the pavement beneath the wheels of an approaching carriage.
     There was too much blood.  Larouche clawed the cap from his head, clapped it on the wound, and leaned on it again.  It was not enough: the fabric was sodden.
     “Help!” he shouted above the sound of hooves.  “Anyone!  Bring me some cloth!”

It worked fairly well.  …and then my problem stepped in as the street-smart little boy, over his head, gets the help he asked for:

     “Here,” said a voice above him.  “Use this.”
     Larouche took the folded length of cloth, drew back from the wound long enough to set the wad in place, and leaned his full weight on it again.
     He saw a pair of boots before him. 
     “May I assist?”  The quiet voice made Larouche look up in time to see a man nod to one of the bystanders and then drop to his knees beside him.  Intent, dark eyes above a strong nose.  Arched eyebrows and a humorous mouth now pursed thoughtfully as he eyed the unconscious man and then turned to Larouche.  “What is your name, young man?”
     Larouche frowned at the bloody sleeve.  The flow seemed to be lessening under the pressure of the cloth.  He looked up at the man.  “Thank you, Monsieur,” he said.  “I’m Larouche.  Are-are you a surgeon?”
     The man’s mouth eased to a smile.  “I am.  My name is Larrey.  Help should be arriving shortly: I requested it before I joined you.”  He watched for a moment and then sat back on his heels.  “You seem to have an aptitude, M. Larouche.  In fact, you seem to have saved this fellow’s life.  I’ll stay here with you and assist if you feel I am needed.”
     Larouche raised his eyes and found himself relaxing and returning the smile.  “Thank you, Dr. Larrey,” he said.  The man on the pavement moved.  “C-can you see if he will be all right?” 
     “I will show you what to look for, Dr. Larrey replied.
 

That isn’t a bad scene, if I say so myself, though it is very new and needs to be tweaked and repetitious words removed.  It follows nicely with what I knew about the boy, Larouche, after writing about him for several years.   

The issue that arose, that I am writing about, has to do with the new character’s name and history and its effect on the story.

Dominique-Jean, Baron Larrey

Larouche was near a  hospital when an emergency came up.  He needed help, and so I sent a doctor his way.  I knew a little about Dr. Larrey, so I put him in.  And then I learned a whole lot more.

Dominique-Jean Larrey was Napoleon’s Surgeon-General.  He revolutionized battlefield medicine.  His humanitarian work with all wounded earned him unanimous respect.  He is credited with being responsible in part for what ultimately became the Red Cross.  He was fearless, humorous, a father of several children, a devoted husband who died at nearly eighty within two days of his sweetheart, whom he married before he became famous.  He stood off a mob of rioters during the 1830 riots when he was the Surgeon-General of Les Invalides, the big French Veteran’s hospital.  Indefatigable, kind, approachable…  And he was in my story.

Uh…

Dr. Larrey stepped into my story and became a sort of catalyst.  He approved of Larouche, who in his turn admired the students of Medicine.  And who, incidentally, idolized Dr. Larrey.

     LeMat put his glass down.  “Larouche, do you know who it was that assisted you, gave you a tour of the Hotel-Dieu, and liked you enough to invite you to visit him at Les Invalides?”
     “He said his name was Dominique Larrey…”
     LeMat shook his head.  “That is right.  Baron Larrey is a Commander of the Legion of Honor, and he was Bonaparte’s Surgeon-General.  He was wounded at Waterloo.  He is now the Surgeon-General of Les Invalides.  …And I think he is one of the finest men in France.”
     “Oh.”  Larouche digested this and then raised his slightly frowning gaze to LeMat.  “D-do you think he was just being nice?”
     “He was certainly being nice,” said LeMat.  “To himself!  Don’t sell yourself short.  You’re a remarkable boy and you’ll be a good man.  Now excuse me while I drown my envy in another half-glass of wine!  A private session with Baron Larrey!  I could grind my teeth with envy!  Say!  Do you suppose he would let you bring a assistant?”

All well and good, except…

The story was set in my mind, and had been for some time.  And I had thrown myself a curve ball.   The possibility for change and deepening of the story were there and very obvious.  It would involve disturbing those securely written parts.  I am facing what-ifs and let’s-try-this.

Would things change very much?  it could be a lot of work!

Well, yes.  And it could deepen the story.  Frankly, from what I read about Dominique Larrey, the presence of  a true hero like him could only make the story better, if I did my work right.

…and I did say, most recently, that I wanted to be the best writer I could, didn’t I?  Isn’t that what we all want to be.  The best, not necessarily the most rested or leisurely?

Then I guess I’d better get cracking.

http://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=103850

Iwsg November 5 – Just do it #IWSG


THE INSECURE WRITER’S SUPPORT GROUP

The first Wednesday of the month is the time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop. This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alex J. Cavanaugh .

IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click for the link).  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy and  practical suggestions. 

Visit the site – and visit the co-hosts:
LG Keltner, Donna Hole, Lisa Buie-Collard and SL Hennessy

Art work by Ben Southan

Over the past months, I have been wrestling with all sorts of writing-related questions.  For me, at least, they never come one at a time, small and easily dealt with. 

Instead, they cluster around the door of my thoughts like wolves and go rushing in if I let them.  Fighting them off is tiring and usually an exercise in futility.


There are questions regarding my writing in general:

  • Is it good? (Pretty important, actually… )
  • Is it the best I can do? (See above)
  • I’m tired: how can I write anything good when I am exhausted? That requires a little extra thought.


Then come the questions regarding works in particular:

  • Will it sell? (Speaking strictly from the ‘art’ standpoint, this should not be so important a question, but we do tend to equate quality of writing with saleability, whether or not we recall our earlier sneers at various best-selling offerings that appear to have been cranked out on a conveyor belt by someone who, we say, has prostituted his or her talent to profitability)


Questions regarding the flow of my writing and the value of my current WIP:

  • Does this WIP follow well after its predecessor? Does it pick up the threads and weave them convincingly? 
  •  Is it bad? The predecessor was really good, so why does this one stink? (I’m getting ahead of myself, but if I were not – at the time I squall this to the heavens – really tired and off my game, I would admit that a story with three years of effort going into producing it is naturally better, at the moment, than one that is just underway. And I would also acknowledge that, this being a series, I am building on the structure that I hopefully perfected in Volume I and will bring to a thundering, triumphant conclusion in Volume III.)
  • …and why, oh why, is Volume III, nearly completely visualized, so much more seductive than Volume II, which I have had to insert between I and III?

Hydra by John Singer Sargent

How do you cope?
As with all questions posted on this wonderful hop, these are nothing new. 

Like the Hydra in Greek Mythology, though, they  do tend to come back every time you think you have killed it.

It’s a condition peculiar to writers.
(I remember the story of a young actress telling the great Sarah Bernhardt that she never, ever had stage fright.  La Bernhardt said, ‘Well, ma petite, when you become a real actress you will!’)


What is the answer?

Well…
November is NaNoWriMo time. We are supposed to write, write, WRITE!!! for thirty days straight and come up with 50,000 words. I am not participating this year because I have committed to get Volume II (of The Orphan’s Tale) whacked into a shape where I will not die of embarrassment when I send it to my editors at month’s end and then, heaven help them, to anyone who volunteers to be a beta reader. Publication is tentatively slated for Spring 2015. But the concentration on writing itself swung my attention toward the answer to this and just about any angst-related, insecurity-generated question that a writer can face:

Just write. 

  • Write what comes out the ends of my fingers.
  • Close my eyes and write. 
  • Wake up and see what I have written and laugh hysterically and resolve NOT to do this at 11pm on a weeknight. 
  • Realize that I am not carving things into a block of marble. I am putting out words, and words can be tweaked (the part I personally love the most).


But I’ll write. That is what a writer does. 
And just producing the raw material, which I can squint at, groan over and ultimately fix, somehow, for me at least, smooths away the worries. 
When I an clicking into productivity and actually doing what it is that I live to do, I am invincible, at least in my own mind.

Then I’ll go over what I have written. Use my wordsmithing abilities and work on it. I’ll just do it. Mark things up, rewrite, groan.

I’ll be too busy to be insecure.  And I’ll be writing, which is, after all, what I live to do.

http://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=103850

IWSG October 1, 2014 – Insecure Writer’s Support Group


#InsecureWritersSupportGroup entry for e-book – Asking for Help

First Wednesdays are the time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group blog hop. This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alec Cavanaugh . IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group (click for the link).  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy and  practical suggestions. 

Thanks to the co-hosts for October 1:


You Have to Ask for Help

It doesn’t matter how fabulous you think someone is with his or her craft, it doesn’t matter how enjoyable, engrossing, beautifully written the work is, the writer always has an Achilles’ heel somewhere. 

In my case, I have a shyness – though I think the word is ‘fear’ – regarding asking for a beta read, a read-through, a review of a chapter.  I tend to get caught up in the flow of the story, the action… 

…Okay, now what?

Composing a story is, for me, as exhilarating as running before the wind on a sailboat.  But the wind will die down and you have to put the boat away.

So…  I have a story, and I’ve worked on it and worked on it and polished it, and I’m pleased with it (I’m pretty picky, actually), but another pair of eyes really is needed…isn’t it?

Heck, the story is good, the characters are well-rounded, I love them to death, and they convey the story so very well.

…I think…

But what would happen if I gathered my courage in both hands and, clearing my throat apologetically, actually asked for a beta-read from someone other than a friend who, though a fabulous editor is, after all, a friend who loves me and loves my work.  Yeah, yeah, that one does say when something stinks, but still…  Is it just the really bad ones that are mentioned, and the others are allowed to slip by because, after all, I’m an old, longstanding friend.  Is the input valuable at all?

They’re faking it because they don’t want to hurt my feelings (sob)

(By the time this thought occurs to me I am in full cringe mode, and I find myself thinking, what if I really am absolutely mediocre to terrible, and my friends only read me because they don’t want to see me cry?  And if the others read my work they would tear it to shreds because they don’t know me, don’t love me, and have never been my friends?) 

It’s persuasive – and why are the unpleasant things persuasive?

So, why do I have this shyness about stepping forward and asking other writers to read my work and (gasp!) maybe do a beta-read?  Maybe let me know what they think?  Why am I like this?

A beta-read offer!  YIKES!!!!

I mean, really, it’s silly, isn’t it?  To have this horrible fear that if I ask for help (read ‘Beta Read’) someone might say, “Sure.  I’ll do it.”

It is foolish to indulge such nonsensical fears, even though they are  normal.  I know jolly well that I can take it.  I’ve had nasty reviews and come away with some good criticism that I could use.   …Or am I afraid that I am going to bore someone, and they will say that my writing is frivolous and stinks and I’m bad news.  Let’s face it: I write historical fiction (alternate historical fiction, if you want to be strict).  No paranormal, some  love stories, but not, strictly speaking, Romances in the modern term.  I hear people talking of their work and think, Gee, they’re with it!  But me– 

Diana at work composing

No vampires, no Heroic Fantasy multisyllabic names, no zombies, no dystopia, no horror (unless you have a horror of em-dashes). 

I’m not cutting edge.  I don’t necessarily want to be.  I just want to be the best writer that I can.

The way I look at it, I can either go back to Business-As-Usual and fight my way through to a finished product, wearing out my friends and advisers (another insecurity, by the way: how long will they be able to stand me?)…
Or I can take a deep breath, step forward, manuscript or flash drive in hand, smile shakily at those people facing me who all write so well…I think… and say “I need help.  Can someone do a beta-read?”

Actually, that is the very best thing to do.  Not to seek help leads to stagnation. 

…Could be nice…

SHORT BIO: Diana Wilder is a writer of historical fiction, with elements of mystery, adventure, romance or fantasy. Her books include the four volumes of The Memphis Cycle, set in Egypt, as well as the first volume of her trilogy,
The Orphan’s Tale, set in 1830’s Paris. 

She blogs at http://dianawilder.blogspot.com.

Permission is granted to use this post in The Insecure Writer’s Support Group Guide to Publishing.

Check out the hop.  There are some fabulous posts to savor:

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IWSG August 6, 2014 – Write! #IWSG


First Wednesdays come very quickly, far faster than other days.  It is now time for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group post. This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alec Cavanaugh . IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group .  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy and  practical suggestions. 

I was speaking recently with someone who is disheartened.  He is experienced, and while he is only recently published, he has written for years, and through the years has honed his craft.  He tells good stories.
 
But there are others that he sees, those who put out products that – to him, at least – do not have a whole lot of merit.  They crow of their successes, they flaunt what he thinks are fabulous sales numbers, while he has nothing to boast of.  He just does not fit in.
 
I replied that some of the great writers did not fit in.  They did what felt best to them and never lost sight of who and what they were, and the source of their joy.  He is a writer: he should write and follow his own path (taking advantage of the aid offered, of course.)
 
I sometimes break into (pretty bad) poetry, and for this post I decided to offer this bit of doggerel, which expresses my musings on my friend’s questions:
 
What am I?  (With a nod to Jean Valjean and a bow to Shakespeare)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
 
Alas, that I should take this wearying path
That windeth through such perilous wilderness,
And with this throng;
‘Tis certain that my steps herein shall lag
Through many deserts without hope of aid
with choices wrong –
To follow my own heart, or heed the cries
Of those who claim to know the secret pass
That leadeth to the land of fame and wealth –
‘Tis sure they lie and knoweth not their way –
 
…Or do they?
I fear that perils loom on ev’ry side,
My own heart tells me that they menace me
With thoughts of quick success, such as might wreck my gift –
And leave me with no hope.
So then, I think: what am I to do?
The urge within me says to simply write,
To let the words flow from me to be read;
To glory in the spate of thought and act
Capturing the joy of times long past
When telling tales held me in joyous thrall –
But is it right—?
But is it right?
The question still remains, and so I ponder it.
As I have pondered through all the passing years;
Who am I?
…And the answer comes:
 
What have you sought to be through years of waiting?
The glad times you sought words and let them dance,
The tales you spun,
The way your heart had sung
And you knew the path was true.
And all else to the side.

Storyteller…
Tell your stories.
 

I have been rediscovering my gift, and the joy that using it gave me.  I think we lose sight of it, of the reason we are writers.
In A Chorus Line, Cassie, who had done some solo work, exclaims, “God!  I’m a Dancer!  A Dancer dances!“
We’re writers.  All else is to the side.  Without the writing we are nothing.
…So let’s write!


Check out the hop.  There are some fabulous posts to savor:

http://www.linkytools.com/basic_linky_include.aspx?id=103850

Pulled In Different Directions IWSG June 4, 2014


Welcome to the first Wednesday of June, IWSG day.  This is the once-a-month blog hop started by Alec Cavanaugh . IWSG = Insecure Writers’ Support Group .  We share our insecurities and support each other with empathy, sympathy or practical suggestions. 

Pulled in Different Directions

There is a saying in academic circles: publish or perish.  In other words, if you are a professor and you wish to be taken seriously and have your career blossom, you had jolly well better write something that is published and met with acclaim.  So (in academic circles, or at least the ones I am familiar with) you see a lot of scrambling and panic and despair if the proposed publication does not somehow make the grade. 
       I have heard time and again that in order to be read, a writer must write.  This is not as simple as it sounds, at least to me.  It is taken to mean that a writer must present his or her reading public with a steady stream of writings so that, one book being devoured, another is ready to be savored. 
       People have contacted me recently and asked when the second and third books of a trilogy will be published.  This is a tremendous compliment, and very gratifying, but it introduces a sense of urgency, a sense of ‘time’s a-wasting’.   
(‘I’m in a hurry to get things done, so I rush and rush until life’s no fun.  All I’ve ever got to do is live and die, but I’m in a hurry and don’t know why’ [Alabama])
So what do you do?
In my case, faced with the thought that my last work was published in October of 2013, I scrambled to get book II of the trilogy ready.  It was blocked out, it had some good flow to it.  Book III was better, longer established. I had realized that the story had a center part between Volume I and what had originally been Volume II, and it needed to be developed.  I started it in earnest six months ago, working on an old timeline. I set a December publication date.  I plotted and pantsed and typed and went over and over what I had, and then I sat back and took stock.  The story was there…and it wasn’t very good.  It was exhausted, stale.  The words were there, the thoughts were there, but writing that book was like trying to run up the side of a sand dune.  Forget the thought of dancing.
I know my own (current) capabilities.  I knew I could bring it in by December.  But at what cost?  My own exhaustion, certainly.  Worse, that stretched, dry, rushed endeavor would be a waste of my readers’ time.

The projected work, elegant in its concept…

They wanted to know what happened to a specific character.  Book III brings a very satisfying resolution, with a lot of adventure, suspense and laughter along the way (he’s that kind of kid).  But people would have to slog through Book II before they hit that resolution.   And that was where the problem was:  If a reader was opening Book II and expecting something like this:

How could I possibly even think of producing something like this?

Finished in a hurry…  Sort of.  Happy author?  Uh, no…

The fact is that I couldn’t. 

And that led to a revelation that should not have surprised me.  I can’t put out something that is consciously hurried.  It is an insult to the story and to the reader to withhold my best effort.  And – let’s admit this – it is disrespectful to our own talents and abilities not to endeavor to produce our very best.

Yes, the passing years will (I hope) bring improvement.  Something I wrote twenty years ago, that made me happy, may not be satisfactory now that I have lived and practiced and grown those twenty years.  But at that time it was my best.

So what is going on with Book II?

I contacted my editor and told him that it would be badly rushed if I pushed for a December release.  (He agreed.)  I took down any mention of the projected December date.  I took a deep breath, uploaded a mobi version of the working manuscript onto my Kindle and started adjusting it.  Tweaking wordings, contemplating the possible plot passages…  Opening myself to the luxury of writing an excellent story, fit to follow the first and lead to the third.

I have something small and fun that I can polish in my spare time and put out in December.  A fable that children and happy adults might enjoy.

And I can savor creating something beautiful.  That is, after all, what we writers live to do.  Isn’t it?

Check out the hop.  There are some fabulous, unhurried posts to savor:


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