Crafty

The Vonnegut quote Claudia included in her most recent blog resonated with me, being the crafty grrl I am. (Ooh! Just had an image of my grave stone: "Here lies a Crafty Girl, Dreaming of Wool" So sweet!) I've always loved making things by hand, learning new arts and crafts. And tho' I am good at some of the stuff I try my hand at, other stuff - not so much. But in the doing of it all, I do feel like I'm settling into my rightful bones. And I know that getting to that joy is only a needle, a pencil, a thread away.

Quilt by Annie Mae Young

But even though I know that I can pretty much always be creative, there is a fear I'm currently living within.

For now, I have done what I can do on my current WIP. Uncountable drafts. Trimmed 40,000 words. With my fellow Scribblerati's help, grown tremendously as a writer. (Nestled within my pile of scratch paper are pages from my early drafts of Once We Were Bears. When one surfaces to the top? Oh, how I cringe, reading my first, floundering attempts at writing.) I am proud of what I've done. Even if I never see Beryl in print, writing her into existence as kept me more sane, more happy than I would have been without her. And I know I'll always be proud of what I've accomplished - I wrote a book. I freakin' wrote a goddamn book! Not everyone can say that.

But what if this is it? I've tried my hand that this craft, loved doing it, got a finished product, but what if that well's dry now and it's time to move on to the next medium. My writing groupmates are inspirational with their writing down their many, many ideas for their next stories, with their being a good ways through next novels as they finish the editing on last one. Not me. I do have one idea, but the inner critic is awfully loud right now. And I don't have a flood of ideas. Just that one little drop.

I tell myself that it might just be my personality - I really like finishing something completely before I move on to the next project. But I am sensing glimmers of hope: as I've been drawing to a close with Beryl, I've noticed images floating to the surface of my consciousness. Pears fragrant in their ripeness. Tiny scrawls of writing along the curve of flower petals. A rippled pool.

How to live with fear and not be stymied by it? Well, for one, I'm gonna try my idea out on Scribblerati. And I'm gonna keep listening to the burbling until I can make out the words.

Cutting Characters

A poem by Austin Kleon, author of Newspaper Blackout. (The text reads: so/they look/as they did when I was 10/the Old King/and his queen/ my parents/ The size of/Egyptian/ sculptures, all/ Secrets/ that/ I didn't know)

And a nice image for my past month of editing.

I've just finished cutting five characters out of Once We Were Bears in an attempt to fix a problem that had been worrying at me and that my beta-reader confirmed: many people die after the middle section, making that one and the third feel disconnected. I'm pretty sure the character-cutting hasn't solved this; any future reader may very well still feel as though characters they spent time with are just dropped. It's just that now there are are fewer named characters for whom that will be the case.

So the problem's not solved. BUT, making these cuts did shorten the middle section considerably. I'm now at about 92,000 words (down from the all-time high of about 130,000). That feels good, as I'm now closer to the upper range for a middle-grade novel.

What was interesting to me in the process of making these cuts were first, it was actually very easy to excise these characters. It always takes a long time for me to get through the whole (because I read it aloud as I edit), but I didn't have to substantially change that much. Which says to me that these characters may not have been all that central to the story in the first place. And second, I was never really in love with these folks. Mostly because I felt like I'd never really nailed down their names. There's something that happens when I've got the right name for a character. Only then do I have the character. And I just didn't have these five. So, tho' I may not have fixed the big, bad, I think the novel is more trim and fit in its present state.

RIP, Lexie, Alex, Zander. Sleep well, Mikey and Rebekah. If I find your true names in dream, I'll write you anew.

On Not Being Able to See the Trees, Let Alone the Forest.

I've been working through a Beta Reader's comments for the last month. And I am stuck.

In the past, I've often put aside readers' comments when they've suggested changes that felt too big. I'd think, "Perhaps what they are suggesting would work, but I'd rather do that sort of major reworking on the suggestion of an editor/agent. I'll get this as good as I can get it within my own vision, send it off, and if an agent is interested but wants a shift in direction, I'll more seriously contemplate major rewriting then." Sometimes I worry I'm just being lazy: "ACK, change too big, take too long, just put that one aside." But being more charitable, I also think I'm following the inner voice of the story when I accept or reject my peers' suggestions.

And why I'm feeling particularly lost at the moment is that my Beta Reader put her finger on that inner voice and pushed until it was screaming at me: "Lisa, there is a major problem here! I've been trying to tell you this, why haven't you been listening? The lovely and very, very smart Sofia agrees! Now will you believe already?" And what Sofia and Inner Voice are suggesting scares me, because I don't yet know how to fix the problem. The story is so written into my cells, that I don't know what it becomes if I completely rewrite the middle section. A crisis of imagination. A serious crisis of imagination.

I haven't found my way through, but I figure the only way to find my way through is by writing. Right now I'm trying a medium fix - keeping the middle section close to what it has been, but trimming it down, mainly by merging and deleting characters. But I keep getting stuck by not knowing if what I'm doing is for the good. And that is a new experience for me. Whenever I've taken on Scribblerati suggestions, I can sense as I'm writing that I'm taking the piece to a new level. It's a tangible feeling of rightness. And I haven't been feeling that over the past month and so I have no idea whether my changes have any value. (Thank the stars and the moon for my writing program, Scrivener, which allows for very easily creating new versions and reverting back to older ones. I keep myself going by telling myself I'm just playing - these changes don't have to be real ones, Lisa, we're just having a bit of fun here and experimenting.)

It's odd. Trying to trust the Inner Voice, and feeling at the very same time that I've completely lost my ability to self-evaluate my writing.

Perhaps it's time to follow in Shawn's footsteps and start from scratch...Oof.

When Do You Know It's Time To Move On?

I have lost track of the number of full revisions Once We Were Bears has gone through. Which is to say it has been uncountably many.

One of my New Year's Resolutions was to "move Beryl into the world." I'm quoting from the fragments of intentions I developed last January when I took advantage of a generous offer from my massage therapist: a free, New Year's yoga session for her clients. Some wicked challenging poses, a variety of thoughts on values, goals, and courage, and then space and silence and time to write.

In that stillness an image came to me: blackbirds flying.

I'm getting close to letting Beryl take flight, but I'm still holding on, fiddling with the small stuff before sending her out to Beta Readers. How small? Well, let's just leave it at the fact that I'm currently running a search for the word of. Yes. OF. (I use it a lot, and sometimes the line works better without it.) But seriously? Of?

So, yeah, I suppose it's about time for those birds to fly.

And what better time for blackbirds and endings and moving on than autumn?

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The opening image is the paper cut art of Nikki McClure, whose calendar I buy every year for myself and those close friends and family unable to make monthly use my bathroom in order to see the beauty she creates with a piece of paper and an X-acto knife.

Before and After: A Mirror into the Editing Mind

A few posts ago, I blogged about editing my WIP down to a more reasonable size. This time, I thought I'd give an example of my cutting, with line notes. A bit of background: Beryl (my bear in girls' clothing) has been posing as a student at Wood's Hall to gather information on humankind. She's found out, in a manner of speaking: one of her favorite humans, Meridel, the school librarian, realizes that Beryl thinks she's a bear and commits her. Facing an extended stay in a Psych Ward, Beryl calls her slice-of-weather guardian, Auntie Claire, to help her escape. Giant tornado! The hospital, town, and school destroyed! Months later, Beryl must deal with the emotional aftermath:

Scat it all down a well.

I know I said I wouldn’t write about it anymore. But it’s happened again. (Unnecessary) I’ve just woken up from another nightmare. Insiders’ faces, the ones I knew, who I thought were my friends, who I cannot think on without the stabbing pains. In the dreams, those faces weave in and out of images from my travels. Blood dripping from jaguar fang. Snake coiled tight. A shark whipping up the waters. I’m still drenched with sweat. Won’t be able to fall back asleep now.

I need to figure this out.

They can’t hurt me. They’re dead. I don’t have to be afraid of being trapped anymore, or worse: being killed at their hands. I know this; so why can’t I just accept it? (Blah sentence)

No, wait. Now that it’s written down, I see it. What’s not right.[what’s wrong]. (Two less words! Says the same thing!) )I’m not afraid. That’s not the taste, the scent of what I’m feeling whenever the trap snaps shut inside me. Not fear. Pain. A hurting pain, a deep, hurting pain. (Thought this sounded better with the cut - crisper) But not caused by a scrape or a bruise or a cut or a….

I’m hurting. I’m hurt--

Oh. My. Dirt Clod.

I’m sad.

That’s what it is. (Doesn't really need to be said.) I'm sad that I killed my own jailers. I’m scatting sad I had to destroy those who were going [wanted] to destroy me.

Perfect. Just Perfect. They trap me. And then they make me feel bad for what I had to do to escape? Now, doesn’t that just take the chocolate cake.(Wrong emotional tone)

Why’d they make me do it? Why did they make me care about them in the first place? Why’d they have to be all friendly and sweet and funny and silly and smart? Lexie and Meridel and Mikey and Xander and Rebeka and Alex and Mr. Begin? I liked them.

I LIKED THEM!

I cared about them and I lived with them. (What comes later says all this, but in a much more specific way, truer to Beryl's voice) We were a pack. We were a covey. And then they make me destroy them by capturing me and why oh why oh why would they do that to me?

I Hate Them!

My process has been to go through each scene. After I've cut, I read the scene aloud and find more to delete. I can tell I've been working for too long when I'm not finding much; if I come back later, I can see what I've missed. Note that I haven't cut out all the repetition: I've got three examples of riled up animals in the dream, "why oh why oh why...." Sometimes saying more is truer to the story and makes for a better telling. But often, it's just grey and deadening.

Current count: 102,623, down from 128,119.

Feel free to suggest further trimming, if you see any fluff.