A Twisted Path to Poetry

I thought I was a novelist, mainly because stories came to me in big chunks. I wrote until I was finished, and would find a novel-length story had materialized. Then I was told by my helpful friends, that I wrote in shorthand, and needed to expand the descriptions in my stories, and they became series. This was not a welcome piece of news, because, well, when I finished writing one of these behemoths, I was done.

I took a creative writing course to see if I could understand my problem. The professor was a poet, so I learned more than I ever cared to about poetry. One of our assignments was to find a poetry form on the Poetry Foundation website, and compose a poem in that form. I found the form of the double dactyl and became notorious in my writers workshop for my skill at making fun of people. For a second assignment I found the pantoum, and used it to good effect on more serious subjects.

A funny thing happened on the way to the election. Donald Trump’s  pussy-grabbing statement raised all sorts of horrors from my past and made me a very uncomfortable person to be around. I snapped at people for no reason, yelled at other drivers and gave them the finger (not nearly so dangerous here in Vermont as some other places), and otherwise engaged in self-destructive behavior. Then one night, I started writing poems. They were helpful in getting some of the anger out of me and onto paper. I relived some terrible moments of my past, and turned them, for better or worse, into poetry.

I have now submitted poetry to a journal, recommended to me by a friend. It’s only one journal, it’s only 6 poems stretched over a couple of weeks, but it’s a start. And fiction finds a small home in my poetry, but not the sort I was writing and not the sort I would want to write a full story about.

In January, a local poet will be teaching a three session poetry craft workshop at my writers workshop. If I’m going to keep doing this, I’m going to have to figure out the rules. But who knows? I may get some burning hunger to write fiction again. Or maybe just get the right offer.

 

 

Writing Again, But Poetry?

I intimated some days ago that I was writing again, meaning that I was looking at some of my fantasies for new inspiration. But then a funny thing happened. Donald Trump’s 2005 comment about grabbing pussies made the news and turned my world upside down.

I am a 65 year old woman who lived through many of the trials and tribulations of the 1970s and 80s as a woman rising under the feminist movement of those days. To say that I was subject to sexual harassment is an understatement in the extreme. I was also the victim of one sexual assault and two rapes. I did not report any of them, in two cases because the assailants were members of the legal profession in which I was lowly public defender. I will not further detail the incidents, but it should be clear that a woman making charges against two men high in the legal field would have been laughed out of court. I would have been disbelieved and smeared at a level that is no longer present in our legal system, except from certain judges who seem to think that rapists shouldn’t have their futures damaged by a few minutes of fun. They are the dinosaurs of today.

But back to Trump and the effects of his statement. I, like many women, numbering undoubtedly in the millions, suffered the crimes against me alone, and I built internal walls so that I could continue to function without falling apart or lashing out. Many women of my age built walls of different strengths and sizes, depending on the nature of the abuse they suffered. The everyday indignities of being a woman in a “man’s world” we all built walls against. We smiled, and accepted crudities that would stun today’s woman.

But the walls built to hide rape and assault were stronger and more enveloping. I had indeed buried my injuries so deeply that I had not considered them for years. They were part of my youth, and not worthy of spending time on. I had survived and would continue without ever having to review the pain and horror again. Until Trump….

What has this to do with writing? Just this. I have had anger and despair rising up in me in waves, with pain adding a slight piquancy to the mix. I was in danger of exploding at the least provocation, and I knew for my own sanity I had to find a way to tamp it down. I turned to a form of writing which I have used to deal with issues of depression and suicide in the past few years. I have been writing poems. The original ones were wrenching to me, causing me to desire drink or some other means of escape. I knew I was improving when the poems turned more to the failures of Trump as a human being, and less on the damage he had done. But I finally succeeded in writing a witty poem, denigrating Trump as nastily as I could. And with that, although not healed, I am back on a more even keel.

I have done something I’ve never done before. I have submitted some of the poems for publication. Accordingly, I can’t share them with you here. But I’ll keep you informed of any acceptances and let you know if, by any slight, slim chance, they are accepted for publication.

Writing and Rewriting

My writers workshop had a retreat on Saturday at a lovely place in North Hero, VT. It was at the home of one of our members, Riki Moss, who is a bodacious sculptor and wonderful writer. As a woman with an artful eye for decor and a wonderful husband to assist in making this home a haven, she was exactly the right person to host this retreat. For a number of reasons of a personal nature, a few of us were arriving with no recent writing and no clear way to go on what we had with us. The idyllic setting seemed to inspire us, and several of us made unexpected progress.

Some of the writers are nonfiction writers, and discussions with them at our wrap-up (before a lovely potluck dinner) got me to thinking about my eternal rewriting of my first novel, Fantastical Trips. The memoirists convinced me that I might better approach my main character by making her first person, as I would be able to delve more deeply into her character and her reaction to being magicked away from her home world. I was only 15000 words into my most recent rewrite, so I took the bull by the horns and wrote first person on Sunday.

I am 4500 words into the first person rewrite after two long sessions at it, one in the morning, and one after I gave up on the Red Sox. As a first draft, it’s moving smoothly and I find I have more ways of showing the uncertainties and qualms of my character. The fact that she falls in love almost immediately with the cat people, known as felixities, actually gives room for some humor, and interesting discussions. Maybe, just maybe, I’ve found a way to finally tell this story that has been haunting me for over two and a half years.

Writing again?

I am about to start writing again, after a year plus of politics. I found over the past year that the part of me that generates plots and characters is the same part that is energized by political hope. While the elections are not until November, and I will still be putting in some time on local candidates, I will have more free time and less drag on creativity in the coming months. I’m starting slowly, editing a bit of what I’ve already written, and I’m reading a lot. All writers need to read to recharge their batteries and see how others do it.

I have two projects needing my attention. I’ve been writing a story in the same world as Ascension of Peary that actually takes place some thirty years before Peary. I have also pulled out my first novel Fantastical Trips and have put in the first 15,000 words on its rewrite, all before or during the political campaigns. I’ve gotten very useful feedback from my writing group on the main flaw in my writing, and I’ll get to see how hard it is to correct that problem. Oh, joy.

The simple fact is that I have been told for the past two years what the problem is in my writing, and it’s simply that I go too fast, not taking time to stop and fill in the reader on the movie in my head. I do very well at action scenes and dialogue, but setting and description, not so much. So I will put my writing hat back on, and commit to writing a certain amount of time each day, with new advice front and foremost. We’ll see how long that lasts!

NaNoWriMo 2015

I believe I warned you earlier, but if I have not, today I have started NaNoWriMo 2015. For those of you unaware of this charming endeavor, the letters stand for National Novel Writing Month. The theory is that one commits to writing 50,000 words in the month of November on a book, preferably new, with the assumption that one will put one’s Inner Editor on hold, in detention, on vacation, or wherever you send it when it’s in the way. The main purpose of this practice is simple. It is training to put oneself in front of the computer, the typewriter, the pad of paper, or the dictation device, for a set period of every day. It is to develop the habit of writing, and writing everyday.

This is a refresher course for me. I participated in two camps (Camp NaNoWriMo) in the spring and summer of 2014. I wrote very well for several months after the second one, in between editing and rewriting and all the other day to day tasks we undertake when trying to complete a book. So they worked. But over the last several months, my life has been divided between the writing world (represented by my writers workshop) and politics. It’s rare for me to get personally involved in politics, since I virtually never am committed to any candidate in particular, and use the smell test to vote. I vote for the one I don’t have to hold my nose so hard to vote for him/her.

I lost the habit of writing for Bernie Sanders. I committed gobs and gobs of hours to his cause, volunteering several days a week at his headquarters here in Burlington. And a funny thing happened. As I was so involved, the urge to write disappeared. I would pick up my WIP after a successful day of work for my favoritest candidate ever, and have not a glimmer of an idea where the story went next. As I am a pantser, I need a character to tell me what to do, and they could not be found. Since I have the better part of 28,000 words on my current story, this is an awful dilemma. I care about the story, and I’m vaguely interested in continuing it, but the characters have stayed mum for the past four months.

It was time to take the bull by the horns, or whatever your chosen cliche is. With NaNoWriMo approaching, there was a fall-off in the number of hours of work at HQ caused in large measure by the opening of offices in other areas, including several states and DC, which meant that we were no longer doing everything for the campaign. And while this is a very good sign for the campaign, not so much for a gung-ho volunteer. Hmmmm, I wondered. Did NaNo just appear at the right time?

So I signed up, and started to write again on my story. Well, I’m over 2600 words for the day, taking this break to share with you. Amazing how easy (HA!) it is when I actually start it. It’s bedtime, and I’m going to call it a day. But the wheels are oiled and the engine is beginning to turn over. Look out, world, I’m coming at you again!

Bad knees and adult coloring books

I haven’t been writing much lately, either here or on my fiction, because of the two items in the title, a bad knee and the discovery of the salutary effects of coloring books. My left knee developed, about a month ago, a twinge that rather rapidly ramped up to the knife-in-the-knee level of pain. After a few weeks of acetaminophen (generic Tylenol), I caved and went to a physical therapist. Of course, the morning of my appointment, I awoke pain free. It was symptomatic by the time I arrived, but not nearly as bad as it had been. He evaluated me and found definite irritation in both the meniscus and the medial ligament, which runs up the inside of the knee. Stretching and icing are the prescriptions for the first week. Only time will tell if the knee healed at the threat of PT.

The coloring books are a self-inflicted injury. I got a marketing email from Amazon with the picture of an adult coloring book in it. It was not a flowery one, but rather one of animals, and much to my liking. I ordered it, and awaited with bated breath. Imagine my surprise when I received two copies. I had apparently ordered it in April but not completed the sale and so it was already in my basket. I gave the second copy to a friend, and marched over to the artist supply store on the second floor of the building housing my writers workshop.

The proprietor, a charming woman, sold me some very good colored pencils in a nice packet of 12 different colors. They weren’t enough, and Staples had a pre-school sale on Crayola pencils, so I went and bought 24 of them for $3.00. I thought I was set, but the Crayola colors duplicated several of those I already had, and I was disappointed in the number of colors I had. A friend then bought me a 50 pencil collection, and I discovered––Horror!–– there is a difference between good and mediocre pencils. Sigh.

I have been coloring like crazy for a few weeks now, hoping to spur my creativity on. It sounds like a wheezy engine, my creativity, about now, but with drawing up a storm, I feel as if I’ve made enough progress to be productive at the writing retreat I’m going to on Saturday. Here’s hoping, because I made a rather silly commitment.

I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo this year, and may disappear for the month of November as I try to get 50,000 words down on paper. If you don’t hear from me, don’t start worrying until the first week of December. I should be coming up for air about then.

Ascension of Peary

My first book, Ascension of Peary, has been up loaded to KDP and is available here for pre-sale. The actual date of availability is September 18. CreateSpace and I are working on getting the paperback ready, and I expect to get my proof in the next few days. Once I tell them it’s all hunky-dory, they will push buttons, and fire up their gizmo, and start preparing the book, I have asked them to make it available on September 18 also, but your guess is as good as mine whether it will be available before that date or not. It will in all likelihood be available on that date, since I doubt they will screw up the proof at all.

I am still writing. I actually have a few in progress right now. The two most likely contenders for next book are: Fantastical Trips, which I had as my cover page for the first year of this blog, and nearly threw away in disgust this past June; and a prequel to Ascension of Peary which occurs some thirty five years before that book in an entirely different part of the empire. I haven’t named the second book yet, or rather it has two names, neither of which is suitable for the book as it is developing.

Fantastical Trips is being completely rewritten, which is a good thing. It bore too many of the hallmarks of a first novel, weak characterization, sloppy story-telling, amateur writing, and unappealing dialogue. Having made it through the process with Ascension of Peary, I have learned a lot more about the craft and the inadvisability to try only editing as a cure for Fantastical Trips’ numerous ailments. Only a fresh start seems to offer what this manuscript needs. I’m only ten thousand words into it, but the characters are already more lively and interesting than they ever were in the prior iteration. Rather than rushing into the primary conflict in the story, and rushing to its conclusion, I am taking the time to develop the world and its inhabitants through action and dialogue. No guaranties, but it already reads more smoothly, and is more entertaining. Whether that’s enough remains to be seen.

The prequel to Ascension does not involve any of the characters from Ascension unless there is a brief appearance of the third emperor’s son at some point in the latter reaches of this tale. That remains a possibility. Instead, I’m giving the origin story of some individuals who will show up in the sequel to Ascension, so that they don’t appear suddenly out of whole cloth when I write the sequel.

So in some sense, I have three books in progress, with the two sequels already planned and partially written for Fantastical Trips also waiting in the background. This ignores the steampunk murder mystery I have partially written and almost completely figured out which will see the light of day someday. I expect to be busy, which means I will likely not be blogging quite so much.  But, dear readers, I will do my best to keep you apprised of my works in process as they come to the fore.

I hope you read Ascension of Peary. I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on it and whether you want more. Advice will be gratefully accepted as each volume comes to its own publication date. I honestly don’t care whether you buy or borrow the book or books, but I hope you find them entertaining enough that you want to have your own copy. I also hope you will recognize the target audiences for my work, generally between twelve and eighteen, and will offer it to those you know in that age group. I should add that a precocious nine year old boy has been reading some of The Ascension of Peary and has been delighted by it. He is always asking for more, and he will shortly have his own copy.

The Formatter

Oh, dear, the end is in sight. Tomorrow I send Ascension of Peary to the book formatter. He will build the ebook and the CreateSpace book for me, I will review them. If they work, I can upload the ebook immediately. The CreateSpace book will have to wait for the cover artist to format it for the number of pages in the print book. In any event, they won’t be available for sale until 9/18, although once they’re accepted, they will be available for pre-sale. I’m very nervous and edgy, though I suppose this is reasonably normal.

There is some good news on another front. I have started two other books in the world I created for Ascension of Peary. One is moving better than the other, and I presented the first chapter to my writers workshop this past Wednesday. I was stunned by the number of positive reviews I got, with some raves, and most saying they wanted to read more. Some said it was the best I’ve written yet, which suggests that Stephen King is correct when he says you have to write a million words before you can call yourself a writer. I figure that’s about where I am now in my fiction writing.

Goodness knows, I’ve written plenty of words in a legal context over the course of my career. I may have to subtract all the legal words from the fiction words to get the true number of how many words I’ve written. All that legal stuff was anti-writing.

The writing saga continues

As I said in my last post, I’ve been writing a new story in two versions from the perspective of the two major characters. It is the origin story for griffins on the world I created in Ascension of Peary (more about that below). I took the first chapter from each version into my writers workshop with the hope that my friends could help me decide which version to pursue. They, of course, gave me the answer that I didn’t expect. They suggested that I combine them into one with separate chapters for each character. That’s what I’ve been doing today, and it was going smoothly until I hit a chapter that should be labeled both. I guess I have some rewriting to do.

Also in the last post, I was bemoaning the fact that I had five WIPs and no inspiration on any of them. I thought at the time it was the sequel to Ascension of Peary, but it appears that the griffin story is drawing my imagination. The baby griffins are awfully cute. The story involves their rescue by two twelve year olds and a few adults and their assistance in solving a double missing person case. It’s not coming quite as easily as Peary, but at least it’s moving.

Speaking of Peary, it is still at the editor, and the first feedback I’ve gotten is that it is going more slowly than she expected based on the sample I sent her. Apparently she has some concerns about word usage and language. I suspect part of it is my tendency to use words not in general parlance. I have a larger vocabulary than many people, and certainly larger than most mid-grade and YA readers. As my workshop mates have said before, it tends to take one out of the story to have to run to the dictionary three times on a page. If that is all, I can fix it. What she doesn’t know is that I’ve already fixed it once for the same issue on the advice of my beta reader. I even changed some words after that in my final read-through before I sent it on to the editor. Oh, dear. What have I let myself in for?

Easy Synonyms

Nicholas has given us a wonderful quick chart of synonyms for certain overused words!

Nicholas C. Rossis

A handy guide for when you’re writing that first draft and the thought of describing a face as pretty fills you with more dread than submitting your book to an agent.

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