writing
The Spellers, the Non-spellers, and the Spellbound
Myth: Writers don’t need to worry about spelling because their editors will take care of it for them.
Truth: Writers care about their ideas and communicating those ideas clearly to their readers. They use every tool they can to explore their ideas, in draft after draft, often inventing a new process for each novel they’re writing. They cut and shift around chapters, write in and delete characters, streamline plot threads, lop off endings, try new ones, and get lost in research of obscure facts. They confer with… Continue reading
Ripples
When you throw a stone in the water, the ripples spread outward in predictably widening circles. When you throw a stone in a novel, it has ripple effects, too, especially if the stone kills somebody off. This makes sense as long as I’m writing from the beginning to the end of a novel, in order, but sometimes when I’m revising, I add an event later in the book and realize I have to go back in, earlier, to set it up. In such a case, I’m working… Continue reading
The Lady in the Tree
She grew with the rest of the tree, part of its wooden trunk, content to support the limbs and leaves above and suck up the sap from the roots below. She was tree, mindless and free. Bugs crawled over her belly. Birds hopped over her, scouring for the bugs, but she felt no tickle. Winters came and passed while she felt no chill, and spring with its new leaves brought no joy.
Yet all that time, her shape was forming. She was gradually separating… Continue reading
The Night Tipping Point
Moon
Her brain is fried, and she’s been sitting in the same chair for hours and hours. The house is quiet, it’s late, and the responsible adult in her tells her she ought to quit writing and go to bed. But she doesn’t. She hangs on, rereading sentences, pondering words, taking a long time to make small decisions and knowing as she labors that she’ll unravel the decisions in the morning at a stroke. In time, she starts to type with her eyes closed, so she… Continue reading
Courage
Visiting family in Minnesota this past weekend, I was delighted when my little nephew presented me with a gift: a winged figurine called “Courage.” He’s a sweet little guy in preschool who knows me primarily as the aunt who tickles, and I was touched that he thought of me at all, let alone in terms of spontaneously picking out a present for me. And courage, of all things! It’s exactly what I need just now.
My latest step of going forward with my writing has involved deleting… Continue reading
Adding the Unicorn
I don’t add unicorns to my novels, but sometimes I can tell that a scene needs something more. The stakes need to be higher. A surprise needs to occur. A bone needs to get snapped. Last week, I tried adding a dead sister to my novel. For a whole day, I played around with how that could tie certain threads together and add resonance to family scenes, and then I realized I was crazy. It would mean telling an entirely different story from the… Continue reading