Archives

writing

Leave Out Any Extra Words That You Don’t Really Need

First Pass Pages of Promised

Or as Strunk & White put it: “Omit needless words.”  I love that maxim.  It never fails to make me laugh, like I’m wise to an inside joke.  It’s so incredibly concise!  I embrace this advice as much as I possibly can when I’m revising.  Early drafts are all about ideas, coming up with them and expanding upon them.  Characters, plot, and setting must come first.  But eventually I go around a corner where I focus on the… Continue reading

Losing Tempers, Mine and Hers

I’m revising a scene today in which Gaia loses her temper.  I don’t like losing my temper.  It makes me unjust and unable to think clearly.  I fight not to say hurtful things I’ll regret and yet I also want to be honest about my rage.  In the moment, I want to lash out, and since only people I love have the ability to truly make me furious, they’re my targets.

Since I don’t like myself when I’m in a flare of anger, I don’t like… Continue reading

The Inchoate, Fragile, and Strange

Starting a new book is an exciting time of discovery, but also a solitary one, at least for me.  I’ve had several kind friends ask me lately what I’m working on.  It feels impolite to say I can’t really talk about it, like I’m holding out or I don’t trust them, but distrust is not why I don’t talk about my ideas.

The problem is that the ideas themselves are so fragile and shifting that by trying to summarize them into something coherent, I’m changing what they are.… Continue reading

Doubling Up

Novels on the Dock

I usually work on one book at a time, but now something else is happening and I feel like I’m cheating on myself.  It’s the strangest thing.  I recently started a novel I’ll call Rainy Roof, and it completely engrossed me.  I loved the character and the weirdness of it, and it was challenging to write.  My agent asked me for pages, so I sent him the opening chapters.  Then, the anticipation that I’d get feedback soon made me pause,… Continue reading

Q. When Did You Start Writing?

A.  Seventh grade.  Didn’t everything start in seventh grade?  I had no idea then which assignments might turn into habits or which habits would turn into life-long pursuits.  If you had asked me, I might have told you I loved playing violin and drawing more than writing. True, I woke up early to read books before school, but I also enjoyed being in the school’s musicals.  It was a big deal when our class had a roller skating party, and I proved a lot of… Continue reading

Revising, Again

I’ve written about revising before, so I’m not certain this adds much.  I just want to say I love this stage.  I’m in draft 6 of Promised (Book 3 of the Birthmarked trilogy), and now that I’m more and more convinced I have all the scenes I need and that they’re in the right places, I can finally work at the level where I’m questioning each word.  It’s a little like working on a very long poem.

Promised, Draft 6

So much of character emerges here in… Continue reading