Writing with Children

I have been valiantly attempting to restart my personal writing lately. Considering all the interruptions I have from my children, part-time work, planning for vacation (which is a complete time drain but I love doing it), performing my various responsibilities at church, and trying to keep the house reasonably clean and functioning, I don't get as much time as I would like.

Let's see, two sentences a week and I should have my book finished in about ... two thousand years. Seriously, it feels like it will take me that long to finish any piece of writing again.

My mom was consoling me recently. She told me that this is a season, and once the girls are older, I can start committing to my art again. I know that is true, but I feel like this time of diapers and constant attention and unending needs is going to stretch forever. Lest you think I am a heartless parent, I also will admit that the thought of sending my Aubrey girl to kindergarten breaks my heart. I don't want my girls to grow up and start school! I love the sweet baby and toddler age. I just wish I could grab two hours every day to write, and not two hours comprised of ten minutes here, ten minutes there, whenever the girls are distracted; no, two solid hours when I feel ready to write and am motivated, and have no little hands trying to grab the laptop away from me. Right. I guess a lot of people would like two solid hours of prime work time every day, regardless of children.

What it boils down to is this - how badly do I want it? Because I do have free time. Generally, that time is filled with: internet, reading, or television. I love my writing, but it's not as easy as clicking on a show and flopping on the couch for an hour. To be fair, the girls are unnaturally curious about my laptop. Every time I pull my computer out, their hands are all over it. My writing time really does have to happen when they are asleep or being watched by someone else, and that is not a regularly occurring phenomenon. Nonetheless, I could carve out more writing time if I tried. Hitting daddy up to watch the girls once a week, for instance, or begging family to spend a little more time with their grandkids. I will get some sort of schedule hammered out, some day. I will. Maybe after we get back from vacation.

The Self Publishing Dilemma

I used to sneer at the idea of self publishing. Until recently*, I considered it as the last resort of writers, or the domain of those wealthy enough to throw away their money on producing books that a publisher should be creating. I also thought it was just too much work. My biggest problem with the process, though, was that it seemed like no books that were self published were ever taken seriously, or considered true literature. I thought I would rather remain unknown than see my work marred by sub par printing and the contempt of other writers.

*Recently being a matter of weeks, here. I had one of those rare mental reversals which happen infrequently in my life.

Notice the past tense of the last paragraph. Yep, lately my mind has been revolving the idea of self publishing with very different feelings. What caused this paradigm shift?

I was browsing one of my favored websites, www.librarything.com, and stumbled on a group called Writer's Rag and Bag. Idly curious, I scrolled through the threads and found one all about self publishing. Most of the people commenting were authors who only had a few books published, and many of them only had work that was self published. Nonetheless, these people were labeled as LibraryThing authors, and the majority of the comments were intelligent and reasonable (when someone did post a comment that was riddled with grammar and syntax errors, the other group members took him to task for not being professional). Multiple people recommended marketing yourself on places like facebook, Twitter, and Amazon. In fact, it seemed that a lot people had ebooks being sold on Amazon, without earning the coveted esteem of a publishing contract. A realization started to sink in - as technology gains momentum, and ebooks become the norm and paper books a relic (a future that makes me cringe, I assure you, as I am a staunch proponent of physical libraries and the smell of book stores), how long are agents and publishing houses going to be relevant?

The train of thoughts rumbled forward, and I began to wonder why I felt it so necessary to see my books published through the tried and true channels. Was it because of the money? Well, yes, a little bit, but my family is surviving comfortably, and I have the sneaking suspicion that God never intended us to be rich. Was it because of the justification? Most definitely. I would know that my writing has merit in eyes other than my own, and that would be such gratification that I can't begin to express it. Was it because of the possibility of fame? Yeah, that too, but there again, I think my life is better off without much fame or delusions of grandeur. If, on the other hand, I did self publish, I would have the satisfaction of seeing something I wrote in print. My friends and family could buy a copy of my book. I could do a little online grass roots advertising to gather interest. I wouldn't stop pursuing the traditional method (Did I say pursuing? If pursuing means accosting two agents who seemed to fit the novel and being rejected. A better word would be beginning.) but I would at least have something to show for my work in the meantime.

Thus, here I am, in a dilemma. The funny aspect of the whole debate is that either choice means hard work, and that is exactly what I have not been doing with my writing lately. Actually, I haven't been doing much writing, period. Any new move that spurs me to stick with my art is a welcome move. I have a feeling that powers greater than mine led me to that forum on that particular day - I had the same providential feeling when I decided to study education, and looking back, I know God's hand was over that journey every step of the way - and I better take the hint and get writing.

Back to the original intention of this blog: to chronicle my writing, my attempts at publication, and the books that always distract me. Time to persist, Nicole, persist.

Guilty Pleasures

Everyone has their own list; mine might go something like this: a bowl of chocolate ice cream, a mystery on a stormy night, popcorn and Doritos, a chick flick when Mike is away at work ... Actually, I could make a pretty long list. Apparently, I have accrued a number of guilty pleasures for myself over the years that should be enjoyed in moderation (but not always are). I have a whole separate category for guilty pleasures when it comes to reading. These are books that I don't consider substantive or informative or life-changing, just a rollicking good time. They're not works of literary brilliance, they just need a riveting plot and tolerable writing and fun characters. Sometimes I crave one of these fast stories the way I crave sweets.

The one that I just read is The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, by Lauren Willig. This is part of the Pink Carnation series, which are historical romances with an espionage twist. Heavy on the romance, lighter on the history, although that fills in the edges with plenty of accurate details. Let's be honest, though, I'm reading these for the romance, and the history just creates an elaborate setting. The espionage bit is good fun, as I don't like romances that have no other plot device than the love story, they generally fall flat. I'm still looking for a story.

In this fifth outing of the series we have Charlotte and Robert as our primary characters. Charlotte is the Duchess of Dovedale's granddaughter, and has been living with her imposing grandmother for many years, her parents having died when she was little. She is a quiet and shy person, preferring to live in her books than the real world, and a customary wallflower at the parties her grandmother throws (she reminds me an awful lot of my pre-college self, actually). Enter Robert, her very distant cousin, hardly a relative at all, who has finally returned to England. While most, including Charlotte, think that Robert has returned to finally assume his ducal title, his true motives are far different. Actually, he is hunting down the assassin of his former mentor, and using his home front as a cover for some sleuthing. In an attempt to keep Charlotte safe, Robert breaks her heart, but she manages to find her way into the mystery through another angle just the same, and they are thrown together again. As they pursue assassins and nefarious French spies they'll need to work through their past mistakes and miscommunications if they hope to find happiness together.

The novel is just as silly and fun as it sounds. I liked Charlotte and Robert. They were good people, with integrity and strict moral codes, and their romance was appropriately chaste. I know that some readers were upset by the lack of more ... mature ... love scenes, but I'm not looking for sex scenes when I'm reading, and I thought the way the main characters behaved was true to their natures. It was a simple and sweet love story. The espionage aspect of the plot was less involved than in other stories, since Charlotte bumbles her way into it by accident, and Robert thinks he is just hunting down a killer; neither of them realize that national security is at stake until late in the novel. This is a small strike against the novel, which I still thoroughly enjoyed. A perfect book for escape reading. The third book is still my favorite thus far, but this one is a nice installment in the series.

Kickin' It Old School

Forgive the post title - I often like saying things that sound ridiculous coming out of my mouth. On the plus side, it is accurate.

I just finished reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip Dick. Old school, right? Despite my voracious reading of fantasy in high school, I never read much of its sister genre: straight up scifi. I knew about Dick, though, as well as some of the other heavy hitters in the field, and I loved the movie Bladerunner. Since my husband is a bigger fan of the scifi genre than I, we've had this book sitting around the house for a while* and I finally read it.

What struck me the most about this novel was its light touch when dealing with grim content. The plot, without giving too much away, follows a bounty hunter of androids who works for the San Francisco police. In this future, androids are sent as part of the immigration-to-Mars package, and every once and a while one decides it doesn't like being a slave; it kills the owners and escapes back to Earth, where androids are prohibited. Deckard, the bounty hunter, is sent on one of his biggest missions after another bounty hunter is lasered in the back, and from the beginning he starts to have doubts about his morality in terminating, or killing, these humanoids. Dick does an excellent job of showing the mechanical side of humans and the human side of androids. He doesn't give a heavy-handed message about the sanctity of all sentient life, either - I was feeling sympathetic towards the androids, just struggling to live on their own terms, and then he inserts a scene where they cut the legs off a spider, just to see if it can walk with only four. They have no empathy for anyone or anything, and that is a frankly scary trait.

I have to comment on the world he created, an essential ingredient in a science fiction work. If it's not different and technologically enhanced, it's not scifi, but if it's not believable, it's nothing. Dick does a great job of creating a semi-post-apocalyptic society with a reasonable explanation that is not overly explained. Lots of futuristic details you would expect in scifi, like the androids, laser guns, and hover cars, but all blended into a framework of life that is believable, mainly due to the humanity portrayed. The world may be different but people are the same. For instance, electronic animals. Due to radiation poisoning most of the animal life has become extinct. Few real animals survive, and these are prized and expensive; they've become a status symbol. If people can't afford an animal, they pay money for android replicas that are realistic enough to fool the neighbors. How truly and pathetically real.

In case you were wondering, this book is very different from the movie. If you are interested in the scifi genre, this author is a must read, and I think that this book is a good starting point.

*I won't say just how many unread books are lying around my house; it's a symptom of being a bibliophile.

Writing, you ask? Read any good books lately? I reply.

I am penitent, I am ashamed, I confess: my lack of writing has been atrocious lately. Shortly after I created this blog, in the hopes that it would encourage me in my writing discipline, I simply short circuited. I can point to a lot of external factors. We decided to sell our house, moved into temporary lodging with a friend, bought and moved into our new home, and then found out I was pregnant. Whew. When I encapsulate it all in one sentence it sounds even more overwhelming than it was. The problem, of course, is that I still had plenty of time to read books and watch television. It's just so easy to become distracted from any attempts at writing more regularly, and as soon as I flounder off track, I contentedly trundle along my new way without a worry for writing in my complacent mind.

Books are wonderful distractions and time fillers, and when I can't seem to find a minute to work on writing, I can find ten or twenty or more to read a good story. Since this blog is about both of my hobbies in the literary world (the one I pursue intermittently yet doggedly, and the other that I can't stop myself from falling into every day will I or nil I), the next few posts will be about some of the books I've read recently. I'll be writing about my reading which has kept me from my writing, which sounds very Borges and I'm sure he could make a fabulous story about it.

Why don't we wander in the complex interlacing worlds of writing and reading a bit longer? I'll describe a book I just read that is about writing, written by an agent who was once an editor and also a writer of poetry. The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice for Writers by Betsy Lerner. (Thanks for sending that book my way, Anne!)

The book is divided in two sections, one about writers, and one about the publishing process. Her insight on writers is humorous and incisive. She is a writer herself, so she has that inside perspective, yet she has worked with so many other writers as an editor and an agent that she can also step outside and show what the world sees. The six chapters detail different types of writers, from the self destructive addict to the neurotic megalomaniac. Her point was that all writers tend to share some of these traits, to greater or lesser extent. And, in truth, I found many truths that applied to my own writing life, even though I am a far cry from a professional, nor have I devoted my faith and love to writing to the same extent as others, even Lerner herself. The second portion was also fascinating, as she details the many trials and tribulations that face a book after being accepted but before the physical copies hit a bookstore shelf. To be honest, the thought of all a writer and her work has to face before the book is an accomplished fact is daunting, but if I ever even reach that stage I'd be grateful. I enjoyed this read, and I think it helped spur me in my own writing ambitions. Highly recommended for all readers and writers out there.

Now I should go attend to my other writing, but a monsoon storm is finally brewing outside my house, and "Murder She Wrote" is calling my name. Choices, choices.

A High School Fantasy

Let me warn you - the following excerpt is bad. Really. It makes me cringe when I read it. And then I remember that I wrote it and I cringe some more, with a little embarrassed snicker thrown in. What can I say? I was in high school. I was crazy about fantasy, empowered women warriors, evil creatures and magic, and romances that always began with hate and ended in love. Wait, reading back over that sentence, I realize that I haven't changed all that much ... only I would phrase myself with more sophistication and subtlety these days. I was a tad heavy handed back then.



Wow. Shades of Lord of the Rings, much? And what man would even say something like "you should let men handle this situation"? She didn't notice the huge entourage accompanying the golden carriage? I won't even touch on the execution of the writing, except to say, Holy repetitions, Batman! All that aside, there are some cute ideas here, like the secret female bodyguard to the queen, and her knowledge of dark tongues. Also, I can't deny that the imaginative ideas flowed much more freely when I was less worried about trivialities like style and verisimilitude. Ah, teenagedom.

A Few Good Tips for the Struggling Writer

1. Hang with your writer buddies. I have a surprisingly large amount of friends who also like to write - well, maybe not too surprising since I met them mostly through writer's groups and conferences - and they are always great for a self esteem boost. After all, they know the ups and downs, they've lived them, they've been there, man. Plus, you have a bunch of ready made volunteers who are eager (at least willing) to read your work. Just don't only talk about writing with them, or they'll think you're using them.**

2. Look back over your old work. Wait, scratch that. First, save your old work, even if it is horrendous. Second, read it again years later and savor the improvements.

3. Start a blog. Then you'll be writing on a (supposedly) more regular basis and that will remind you that you have other things you're supposed to be writing and then you will procrastinate on your personal writing and then you'll work on your blog ... It's the whole "If you give a mouse a cookie" syndrome. Okay, maybe not, but that was fun to write. Actually, some of you might accuse me of being just as lax in my blog updates as I am in my story writing, and that is true of late, but I have an excuse. I've been meaning to scan something in to post here and didn't want to bother with digging it out. See, I was thinking about some old stories I found and how they made me laugh out loud and how I should share them on this blog. Remember tip #2, looking back at old work? Ah, it all ties together now. Anyway, I'll be scanning those pages in and posting them tonight. Enjoy!

** I have to give a special accolades here to some of my friends who have been constructively supportive of my writing by reading whatever I throw at them and supplying me with comments. Melanie, who is a busy college professor but always reads my work, and Anne Loving (I mean Lilly) who is an editor without being paid as one. Seriously, her page by page comments are priceless and wise and a tremendous help. Much thanks, chicas!