YA

Rambly Ramblings on Writing, Reading and Feeling Like a Unicorn

annabowling 2 Comments

“Trying to write about love is ultimately like trying to have a dictionary represent life. No matter how many words there are, there will never be enough.”
― David Levithan, The Lover’s Dictionary

Not sure what I want to talk about today, so you’re going to get a freeform ramble, and I am going to trust that I am going to make some sort of sense by the time I’m done. This has been not exactly a domestic tornado day, but it has been a day with a full house, interrupted by Real Life Romance Hero and Housemate heading out a deux on a grocery run. Insert Rant of the Lonely Extrovert here, because even though grocery shopping with the whole household (minus Skye, who stays home because she is smart and also a kitty) can make me crabby at best and anxious at worst, it’s still out of the house and being around people. Alas, being sun-sensitive won out, because it is blindingly bright out there for those of us (aka me) who are pale and not suited to summer, so I am rambling from my favorite seat at the coffee house down the block from our own abode. It’s nice and dark here, within the exposed brick walls, I have an iced smoky chai in front of me, am functioning remarkably well for someone who has been Mentos-free for over a week and it’s time to take a look at the week ahead and what I am going to do with it, writing wise.

At the moment, I’m at the “staring at the twenty-foot high blank white wall” stage, which is not at all uncommon for a Monday, and I know that it does, indeed pass, so not going to stress about that. Note to self: writing about things that do not bother me all that much does not make for sinctillating interesting reading. If I am making myself yawn reading it, then it’s probably going to elicit the same response from readers. Which is not at all what a writer of commercial fiction wants, by any stretch of the imagination.

Had a train of thought there, but lost it. I hate when that happens. I am going to blame the upset to routine. My ideal method of attack is to make a list over breakfast, prioritize, then do all the things, crossing them off as I go. That did not happen today, and I am feeling the lack. I am also feeling vaguely unsettled that three passes through the main library’s romance section did not yield anything I had to take home with me right that second, but I was able to cull an armful of fresh voices and intriguing situations from the YA shelves in a matter of minutes. Under one, actually. I wasn’t counting. After devouring the realm of possibility and, earlier, How They Met, and Other Stories, both by David Levithan, which were a master course in romance (even if some of those romances don’t end well) and emotion, I had decided I’m going to have to devour everything he’s ever written and see what I can mine from it. If this guy can tell a love story entirely through dictionary entries, that definitely counts as innovation.

That innovation was what I found myself hungry for when I scoured the romance shelves. Historical romance is still my genre. It’s still what I love to read most, and what I love to write, and, at the moment, it has me somewhat itchy. Not sure what this is, but acknowledging this itchiness is important. Today, looking at the shelves, I saw, with the exception of older titles, almost exclusively series. I get the popularity there, I really do. There’s a built in following for many writers that way and many readers like the comfort of returning to a known community with familiar characters and such. I do follow some series, but not because they are series. There has to be something else. When I write, I naturally think in standalones, which can make me feel, at times, like a unicorn.

I see a lot of Regency settings. I’ve tried to write Regency. It did not end well, for anybody involved. My critique partner, Vicki, summed it up best. “You hate writing Regency.” She’s pretty smart that way. I do. Perfectly fine historical era, but where other writers get excited about Almack’s and, um, Empire waists, I get nothing. Dial things back a couple of decades to the Georgian era (yes, yes, I know, the Georgian era technically goes up to the coronation of Queen Victoria, but my blog, my rules) and we’re talking a whole different story. Wigs, high heels, embroidered satin, painted fans, makeup that would make Kat VonD jealous, and then there’s the women.

The historical fiction shelves (and boy howdy, do I love that our library system has a special sticker for book spines to designate historical fiction) get my interest from time to time, but my problem there, and I do love historical settings best of all -plop me down anywhere from the end of the Wars of the Roses to the end of the American Revolution and I am one happy camper- is that fictionalized biographies are a very hard sell for me. (Unless the topic is Anne Bonny, in which case, give, and back away slowly, mama’s reading) I’d rather read about original characters living in that world than the actual figures, though the actual figures can serve in supporting roles. I saw a few titles that looked mildly interesting, and I do know that some older historical romances of a few decades past have had second lives repackaged as historical fiction, as have some of the authors of such, but…

…that’s where things get unicorny. I want something new, within my favorite genre. Give me one hero and one heroine, in a fully realized historical world, make them people of their time, take me on an adventure and deliver on that big happy ending. Along the way? Carte blanche. (Yes, yes, I know, technically Regency term. Refer above; my blog, my rules.) The best way to make that happen, I know, is to write it myself, and I’m working on it, but there are days when I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to stab things with my sparkly horn for a while.

This may have been one of them, but that’s where the discipline of routine comes in. Monday’s post goes up on Monday. So, here it is. It’s okay if I ramble, because rambling will take me somewhere that stewing will not (and also, I hate cooked carrots, which stews often contain.) I don’t think I’m done yet, but I do have a date with my plotting board and some sticky notes, so wrapping things for now. See you Wednesday,

Roadblocks and Detours, pt 1

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I’m intoxicated and turned on by people who are really honest about themselves. 

-Neil Patrick Harris

This is not the entry I’d originally planned on, which fits the theme rather well. I am writing now on Housemate’s laptop, because mine now flat out refuses the internet except on increasingly rare occasions. I wrote the actual entry for today on that computer, put it on jump drive and planned to to a really easy copy and paste, only…there’s always an only…there is no Word on this computer. Wordpad refuses to cooperate, and there’s gobbeldygook before and after the actual document. I know when to give up on things like this, because I have enough crazy in my life and want to save some brain for actual writing.

I’d thought of bringing up the window and retyping the original post here, but I’m not going to do that, because, well, I don’t want to. This is my space where I can talk about what writing is like for me, and right now, it’s aggravating. I don’t want to retype what I already wrote. Going over and over and over the same thing because I once put those words on the digital page and therefore am obligated to…no. Not doing that. Well, maybe in part, but I’ll paraprhase, because I am cranky.

Paying attention, this year, to my own process, not what “should” work or what others think I “should” be doing, but what actually works for me (and by that, I mean gets and keeps me writing) has reminded me that, when something doesn’t work for me, that’s because it’s not right for me. Not that it or I am wrong or bad, but merely that square pegs do not fit in round holes, and no amount of pounding and cursing and forcing is going to make that happen. Put the square peg in the square hole, round peg in round hole, and we can all get on with our days, happier and more productive, and with a lot less cursing. Probably.

There’s a new session of Camp NaNo going on (coming up?) and…I will not be camping. Am not camping? Either way, for me, it’s a no this time, because Her Last First Kiss needs me exactly where I am, on the floor with my legal pads and sticky notes, elbow-deep in the guts of a story and cast of characters that are taking me on the sort of adventure I’ve wanted to get back into for years. Breaking up the fallow ground of what a story “should” be and letting the characters lead me. Taking a shovel to that ground and digdigdigdigdigdigdigdigdig until I hit the vein of the story, of the characters, of the journey we’re going on together.

It’s an interesting one, to be sure. Wrangling domestic tornadoes and dealing with persnickety electronics remind me how much I want this, and exactly what I am willing to do to get this story, and the novella, all the way to The End and out in the hands of readers. Some of those things are things I didn’t expect.

I’m not reading a lot of historical romance at the moment, which bothers me, but doesn’t. I am inhaling a ton of realistic YA, my story brain craving the deep emotions and intimate voices. I’ve seen four episodes of the first season of Game of Thrones, which makes my heart sing and do happy dances from the sheer beauty, the high stakes, the fact that nobody is safe and nobody is nice and the story world is wide, wide open for anything to happen. I still prefer my romantic couples not to have met in the womb, but watching this gets me excited and invigorated. I want that energy to carry over to historical romance, those rough edges, the sense of high emotional stakes and a grand scale. This morning, I finished reading We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, and wow. Brilliant, brilliant book, and, though it absolutely has its feet in a contemporary setting, it read like a historical, a little brown about the edges. GoT has the same feel for me; yes, it’s fantasy, but it “reads” like historical for me, and that’s where I’m watching from when I go into it.

All of these things go into the idea soup that feeds what I’m working on now, and what I’ll be working on after that. I need to take in what I mean to put out, easy as that. Trying to please every reader is not going to work out, but pleasing my readers? That, I can do. So I do what I know works for me. I write in layers. I talk. I have big furry messes of sticky notes and legal pads and cross things out and write things in and oh no, well, that changes everything, let’s backtrack and get it right…and that’s where the magic happens. I’m not beating my head bloody against a brick wall, but telling my stories, my way, and that’s actually fun. Even if I have to jump around among four machines to get a single document into gear. I know why I’m here; I’m  a storyteller, and the stories need to get from my head to readers’, so that’s going to happen, whatever roadblocks present themselves.

I like to write a lot about identity, about characters who get to a place where they don’t let others tell them who to be, but find confidence and strength in who they actually are, who they actually were all along. Works for me.

Video Blog Q & A

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Monday’s post on Tuesday again, small (very small) improvement on camera technique (hey, I’m still learning, but at least no big giant head this time) and my first time answering reader questions in video form. The most common questions I get asked are:

  • What are you writing?
  • What are you reading?
  • Do you keep a journal?

First two answers are pretty straightforward, the last one less so, and answer number one is actually more what I write in, but it’ll do for now. I am trying to be more conscientious with updating my Goodreads currently reading list, but it’s usually fairly accurate.

“What are you reading?” is an interesting question to ask someone who reads a lot, because that doesn’t always only mean books from a bookstore or on Kindle. I am also beta reading a historical romance by a wonderful author I am honored to know personally, and critiquing a futuristic romance for another writer friend. There’s also First Look assignments for Heroes and Heartbreakers. There are magazines, notably RT Book Reviews, Romance Writer’s Report, and Art Journaling for me. There’s first time reading, rereading, skimming, planned reading, reading that just happens, looking over my own older notebooks or files for bits of tid I’m going to need, or for a boost when I see how far I’ve come. There is a reason my first ms lives in a storage unit in another state.

If I’m watching a movie or TV episode on my laptop or the DVD, I like to have captions on, and there’s a fair deal of reading even when I play Sims 3. Reading blogs, reading email, reading Facebook posts, reading instant messages, reading pretty much anything that comes into my field of vision. Street signs, pizza boxes, anything. It’s an occupational hazard for the reader/writer, so narrowing it down to only books makes the answer a lot shorter, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg.

Hauling out the notebooks in which I am writing is about as close as I’m going to get, right now, to talking about what I am writing in them, at least here. I do need to talk about works in progress, but selectively, to one or two writer friends. Then I babble, sometimes incoherently, they listen, and reduce all that babbling to the root of the matter, or ask questions that help me figure things out.

Did I mention I love questions? Questions are the best, often unlocking doors I not only didn’t know were locked, but didn’t know were there. So, questions are fun, and always welcome.

Maybe next week, I will have the camera at a non-funhouse mirror angle.