Category Archives: Writing

Posts about my writing process.

I’ve been thinking about words…

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Aurora, Grief, Hauntings, Life, Writing

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and how they sometimes back up in the brain, preventing the flow of ideas.  There’s  a fricking Hoover Dam inside my head, and not just in the usual word-block way.  This summer has been rough for a lot of people in my life, including me, and the continuing bad news has helped construct a large part of the stoppage.  Health issues, relationships problems, unexpected expenses (you ever have those pop up like weeds in what you thought was a neat little garden patch of a personal economy?  Yeah.)

And it’s been so damned hot for days on end, and the destroyed crops and dried up lakes and streams have given a sepia tone to what is usually the lushest time of the year.  Wildfires have consumed homes–not just of people but of forest creatures as well–and smoke has made the air hard to breathe.

I’ve been stumbling along, trying to achieve steady-as-she-goes again.  I’d like to report that my unwavering cheer has brightened the days of all around me, but though I try, I’m an Amy, not a Beth (I’ve might have squirreled away some of those breakfast goodies before I got to the Hummels’ hovel.)  One foot in front of the other, things will get better, we all go through rough patches–these have been my mumbled mantras.

And then July 20th, my late mother’s birthday, actually:  People who had looked forward to the new Batman movie went to a theater in Aurora to see it and some of them were killed and others were wounded for making that choice.  Because of sheer bad luck they crossed paths with a maniac who’d been collecting guns and ammo and decided to crawl out of his hole to make his presence known.  God only knows why.  Reams of news reports will try to nail down every detail so we can know why, and books will be written and the ongoing arguments about gun control will go on.  We’re already haunted here in Colorado, and we know how this will play out.

I’m left with a river of words backed up in my head, a river of sorrow and rage and frustration and soul-deep fatigue.  I’m so sorry for the blameless people who just wanted to enjoy a movie. I grieve for their friends and families who are going through hell.  I grieve for all of us who struggle to understand another of these obscene events.

I want this summer to be over and for rain to fall on parched land and for the air to be clean of smoke.  I want there to be peace in the land.  I want the dammed up words to flow again.

You turn around twice and…

07 Thursday Jun 2012

Posted by in Avoiding writing, Life, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized

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…almost a month has passed!  This is not how one takes over the world through blogging.  But it’s summer, and time has taken on the illusory consistency of syrup, flowing slowly, allowing moments for nurturing flowers (along with the weeding!).  And visits from relatives (along with catching up on chores so no one finds out how slovenly my life is!).  Ambition stumbles over notions of lying in a lawn chair.  The brain begins to hum golden oldies and eyelids lock at half-mast.  Even reading slows as really pondering the written word requires unlocking those lids to escape from the sun’s rays.

Huh?  Where was I?  Oh, yeah, so I’m still totally going to take over the world through blogging, but we had some bodacious thunder storms last night and the sky’s getting cloudy.  Maybe I ought to turn off the computer in case of lightning and find a comfy, safe spot with the dachshunds until we know for sure about possible weather events.  We could think about the importance of such things, and maybe catch a few zzzzzs.

Yeah, that sounds good.

We loved you so…

14 Monday May 2012

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There’s a tinge of the bittersweet to Mother’s Day, even during the joy of talking with the children, as I miss my mother and mother-in-law and grandmothers.  This year held an extra pang with the recent loss of Maurice Sendak, whose books have enriched our world.  As I read them to my kids–so many times–their phrases became common usage, and he added to the lyrics of our family song.

How many times have I put a glass of milk in front of someone at the table chanting, “Milk for the morning cake!”?  How many times have I “roared [my] terrible roar and gnashed [my] terrible teeth” at one kid or another, taking away the sting by quoting Where the Wild Things Are as I do it?

The pages in Sendak’s books “became the world all around,” but more, they showed the walls inside us, limned and leveled by words and pictures.  Max wants to be “where someone love[s] him best of all,” and doesn’t that sum up everything?  Especially when an undeserved supper is served and it’s still hot.

The most disturbing of Sendak’s works is Outside Over There, and each time I read it–I bought my own copy so I could have it near–I rediscover an account of what I think of as the primordial feminine.  Someday I’ll find the words for what that book evokes in me, but not today.

So goodbye to Maurice Sendak, who evoked ideas for my own writing and left me wishing I could do so as deftly and deeply as he did.  He enhanced my motherhood as well as my children’s childhoods.

We ate you up, we loved you so.

Screw the confetti, anybody got a drink?

02 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in Ghosts, Hauntings, Random Thoughts, Writing

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I just finished the last dot-the-Ts, cross-the-Is revision.  320 pages of deathless prose.  EDGE OF THE SHADOW is a lovely pile of pages.  And the ongoing tradition I’ve always had was played out again today: every single time I’ve completed a book, something’s gone wrong with the printer during the last gasp.  This time it was the toner that ran out two chapters short of a complete print-out.  I have no idea why this should be so but I’m almost awed that something similar has occurred every damned time.  Continuity is a humbling force.

Now I will foist my literary child upon those kind souls who’ve agreed to read it and give me honest feedback, bless them.  I’ll have time to figure out my step-by-step plan to publication.  That means getting my two mysteries formatted for e-book phase, and determining how to go about getting the previously mentioned EOS into print, be it electrons or ink or both.  Research!

For right now, I’m quietly happy to have it done.  It’s taken a long time but I still love it, now more than ever.  I’ve had a lot of fun researching ghosts and their haunting ways.  Sitting in my third-story study, I’ve more than once heard strange sounds and found myself frightened by the words I’ve just typed.  Heh-heh.  Good times.

Okay, we can throw some confetti around, but hold the flashmob

14 Saturday Apr 2012

Posted by in Random Thoughts, Writing

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Yesterday–Friday the 13th–I crossed the finish line, slid into home plate, delivered the secret message to the troops–unfortunately the cliches keep coming.  I don’t know if anyone noticed, but I stopped writing posts, kept my FB appearances to a minimum, attached the electroencephalograph sensors to my head, and got to the end of the book.  (Throw confetti here.)

Yes, I have to wander backward to fix some bits here and there–set up a couple of plot elements that don’t show up until the middle, don’t you know–but I got to the last page.  I got to type THE END at the bottom, and sit here and think, “Is that all there is?”  (It’s been a long time since I finished a book by bursting into tears and calling all my friends.)  But I did Tweet & put a brief mention on FB.  Some attention must be paid.

It wasn’t till later that I poured a glass of wine and toasted the gods of writing.  And felt thankful for being a writer instead of a wealthy financier.  (I’m stupid that way.) Today I’m re-potting some plants and enjoying the warmth ahead of the storm headed our way.  I won’t look at the last chapter until Monday.  I’ll start putting in the set-ups and checking for mistakes. If the writing gods are merciful, it will be a quick run-through.  If they aren’t…I’ll jump off that bridge when I get there.

Circumvention, like circumcision, means shortcuts–ewww!

23 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Avoiding writing, Random Thoughts, Uncategorized, Writing

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Never look a gift analogy in the mouth. (Seriously. Too gross.)

After the last post, so filled with angst and obscure Word issues, I hit “Return” a few times, typed in “Chapter Twenty-Five,” and kept going. There’s more than one way to skin a Header command. (Geez, that sounds even worse than the post title.)

The new Last Chapter continues wending through the moors of invention, and, after consulting the runes, I’m back to scaring myself because the only way I can wrap up the book is to pull ghosties and ghoulies out of the closet–as in storage, not sexuality. Today, whilst receiving a wonderful massage–thanks again, Karen–and gently pushing out of my mind the guilt from not posting here often enough, I realized I’ve passed up many possible blog posts about my writing process.  I’ve been hiding it in the closet, too, along with discarded characters, weak descriptions, and failed plot elements.  It’s so dark in there, I have a hell of a time even finding the damned process.

I’ve thought it better to occasionally sound as though I know what I’m doing than to let people see the disorganization and interruptions, the endless flailing for a decent sentence, the bizarre rituals to crank up what passes for my imagination.  Writing has always been for me a hodgepodge of hard work, wishful thinking, and some small talent. Regardless of what happens in the book business itself, the effort to put words on the page remains the same. Every time I get in a tizzy about self-publishing vs. pursuing agents, or how I need to format my two mysteries into e-book mode, my word-count slows and I feel bad.

The blog is a quick way to short-circuit angst and redouble my efforts to bring Wisdom Court to life. Every writer I know ultimately gives as advice the old, true saw: Plant your ass on the chair and your hands on the keyboard.  Write. We can’t sell what we haven’t finished.

Cue the confetti–wait!

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in 19th century novels, Writing

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I kept going, through wind and rain, through snow and what looks like spring now, but I know in my heart is actually Colorado’s dreaded Faux Spring.  (Hearts have been broken, plants have been trashed, lives have been forever altered, all thanks to Faux Spring.)  I would finish that last chapter come hell or bizarrely rampaging Republican candidates, I promised myself and virtually thousands of blog-followers.

Alas.

I reached page 328 yesterday and recognized in horror the chapter was finished. Unfortunately, I still had a crap-load of information to give my thousands of readers, primarily how the god****** book ends. (I warned you all at the beginning that I am a devotee of 19th century novels and I have to get in their little quirks now and again.)

I wept quietly for precious moments, all the while pondering the insanity of ever writing one word more. Verbal dexterity is a highly overrated commodity, I murmured into the silent air of the Garret.  When no one murmured back, I printed out The Chapter, and placed it atop the obscenely high stack of pages already threatening my desk. Then, God help me, I began to format the–I shudder as I type this–Last Chapter. The one in which I tell my thousands of readers how the god****** book ends.  And wouldn’t you know…I can’t get Word to put the page number in the proper place inside the heading. And after snaking my way through the miniscule mazes of the interminable menus offering this option and that, I can’t find any simple suggestion to tell me what to do, which means I’ll have to ask the IMac gods, and they’re so superior in their little cubicles with their pictures of Ren and Stimpy, and their tiny copies of the Desiderata tacked to their foam-covered walls.  Just because I’ve been working on The Last Chapter so long that I’ve forgotten how to start another chapter. Pah!

Could this be a sign? An omen of other frustrations lurking in the days ahead?

I’m afraid to consult the Runes.

Of bulbs and shoots, of sparrows and jays

12 Monday Mar 2012

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Writing a blog–like dieting and other self-improvement projects–begins with good intentions but falters now and again as life staggers onward.  My current update is that I continue to work on the beloved last chapter. I’ve made progress, but, to quote Louisa May Alcott, all is not yet in “apple pie order.” Let’s just say I can smell the cinnamon.

Whilst I’ve been working the world has turned to almost-spring. Tiny shoots are reaching skyward, and soon I will be able to wonder what the hell I planted hither and yon across the yard. My granddaughter’s school sold bulbs as a fundraiser last fall, and I was generous. I’d not heard of some of the flowers, so it’s unlikely that I’ll remember their names as they appear. I’m just pleased that the squirrels didn’t eat them all.

This morning our camera-shy bluejay swooped in for seed, then drank from the birdbath with great gusto. Some say jays are obnoxious birds, but I enjoy their various calls. And they’re so colorful, especially now, before the trees leaf out and the flowers bloom. The bird feeder we installed last spring has given us much entertainment. We mostly have sparrows dining at “Just Bring Your Beak,” but chickadees and the occasional robin stop for a bite as well. I’ve yearned over the years for hummingbirds to visit, but despite honeysuckle vines growing in front of the porch, they never have. Hummingbird moths used to arrive every summer, but I haven’t seen them for several years.

Now I must turn away from Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,/A box where sweets compacted lie. [George Herbert] and get back to work. 

May your springtime renew your spirits.

I’m scaring myself

24 Friday Feb 2012

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More wrestling with the beloved, blasted last chapter.  I’ve danced around it so long because I want it to be wonderful and frightening. Not sure about the wonderful (secretly hoping, of course) but I keep scaring myself. Can’t explain why since that requires revealing everything that comes before–just to get the full impact of the spooky stuff, don’t you know.  I’m scared enough that I’m writing this instead of that.  <Shiver> And equally frightened that what creeps me out won’t evoke the same reaction in hardened readers.  <Big shiver>  And, as I proceed I see a faint possibility that there might be another chapter looming at the end of this (I swear to God) last chapter.

<Biggest shiver>

Wrestling with the last chapter

31 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in 19th century novels, Technology and Writing, Writing

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I’ve been revising the last chapter of my current novel for five months now. Not proud of that, let me tell you, but it’s the truth. As usual, there’s more than one reason for the god-awful paralysis that’s got me frozen on the edge of completion.

Edge of the Shadow is the first of the Wisdom Court trilogy. The story arc for the three novels follows associates at the women’s institute in Boulder as each works on a heart’s-desire project with total support, all expenses paid. (Did I mention there are eerie, disturbing things happening there?) Shadow sets up everything for all three books, and has to do it right. The climax has to make the reader want to run out to get the second book immediately. I’ve rewritten the damned ending so many times that I’m not dead certain it does that. I can’t tell you how eager I am to work on the second book of the trilogy–I’m at least 200 pages into A Signal Shown–but that first one has to be finished.

I keep letting myself get distracted with the New World Order of publishing. Like this blog, for instance. Plus I’ve been showing my face on Facebook & Link(ing)In, and tweeting now and again. (I think I may be too long-winded for Twitter.) I’m intrigued by the possibilities of all the networking, but the rule is, finish creating the product before you start marketing it, right?

It’s been a long time since I was published. Scavengers (1987) and Obstacle Course (1990) are mysteries set in Denver’s Capitol Hill. Bridey’s Mountain (1993), co-written with Mary Jo Adamson, is a saga set in Colorado. After Bridey, life got in the way big-time with family illnesses and such, and while I kept writing sporadically, I didn’t get near publishable quality for a long time. (That didn’t stop me from sending out Edge of the Shadow versions too early, thus burning bridges with some of the agents I knew. Stupid.)

My imagination is teased by the possibility of creating a shell for the trilogy. By that I mean I could use this blog and the Wisdom Court blog I’ve been messing with to write the back story of the women’s institute–a hang-out zone for readers. One of my favorite things in reading/writing is 19th century novels, and I’ve spent my entire writing career cutting the stuff that goes into those books. I’m talking about the descriptions, the Dear Reader asides, the plot cul-de-sacs I’ve always loved to read.  Admittedly, current tastes don’t run to that and the faster pace and pared down prose are de rigeur for fiction. Still, I ponder what fun it would be to indulge myself in what I like, particularly if I decide to publish the trilogy myself. (And then I remember the old writing advice about how you should always “kill your darlings,” [because they almost always stink] and feel a puritanical guilt about indulging myself.) Sigh.

So, it’s time for a resolution, because what the hell else can I do at this point? I will finish Chapter Twenty-four of Edge of the Shadow. Within the next month. And then I will decide whether to send out agent queries one last go-round. (I recommend QueryTracker.org as a source of agents and advice for approaching them.)

I’ll let you know how it goes.