Insecure Writer's Support Group: Stage fright, anyone?

Thanks to the ninja awesomeness of
Alex J. Cavanaugh for hosting this group for people like me.

Hey! I haven't done this in a while... it's not that I haven't had insecurities, it's just that... blogging took on a different shape and color for me for a while. And I think it still has that new shape and color, but I have something to share today and it's the right day for IWSG, so I'm going to take advantage of the alignment!

I wrote a short story. It was part of the www.7daystory.com challenge. You write a story in 7 days, going through all the revision stages, until on day 7 you release it, submit it to appropriate places for possible publication.

It's just a cheesy little story though... at least that's what I keep saying to myself. Who would ever want to publish this cheesy little thing? I should just file it away and never show it to anyone besides my husband and Lori, both who thought it was sweet.

So that's my insecurity. I have this paralyzing inability to face "judgement" (I guess in the writing world we call it criticism). I'm afraid of rejection, of the possibility of failure... so much so that I just haven't even bothered to look for places that I might be able to submit a little story like mine. I'm not even looking for actual feedback from people who might be able to help me make my story's ending pop a little more (which is what I think the main problem with it is at present). Nope, instead I'm freezing up and filing it away and doing nothing.

Sigh.

You can sign up for Insecure Writer's Support Group and take advantage of the awesome support in this writerly/bloggerly community, too. Do it! You'll never regret it! And thanks in advance for the support!

A to Z Challenge: K is for Kinesics

(I totally fell to pieces during April's A to Z Challenge... but I promised to follow through no matter how long it took to get to the end. So here's an installment, for your reading pleasure. Thanks for sticking with me!)

When you're writing, every pen stroke/keystroke/pencil scribble should exist to support the characters and/or the plot. Every stroke has meaning, down to the painstakingly selected word so imbued with context and flavor that you could not possibly avoid using it to describe your MC's eye color.

Which is why you really have to be a student of kinesics for your active prose to come alive.

Oxforddictionaries.com defines kenesics as:

• "the study of the way in which certain body movements and gestures serve as a form of nonverbal communication."

As with any and all literary concepts, the key here is balance. The art of kenesics is to find a way to convey meaning with a movement. But you can't just show us your characters' movements. You also have to give us meaningful context for the movements. Here's an example from (who else?) J.K. Rowling in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:

   "I'm going to wash," Harry told Bill, looking down at his hands still covered in mud and Dobby's blood. "Then I'll need to see them, straightaway."
   He walked into the little kitchen, to the basin beneath a window overlooking the sea. Dawn was breaking over the horizon, shell pink and faintly gold, as he washed, again following the train of thought that had come to him in the dark garden...
   Dobby would never be able to tell them who had sent him to the cellar, but Harry knew what he had seen. A piercing blue eye had looked out of the mirror fragment, and then help had come. Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it.
   Harry dried his hands, impervious to the beauty of the scene outside the window and the murmuring of the others in the sitting room. He looked out over the ocean and felt closer, this dawn, than ever before, closer to the heart of it all.
   And still his scar prickled and he knew that Voldemort was getting there too. Harry understood and yet did not understand. His instinct was telling him one thing, his brain quite another. The Dumbledore in Harry's head smiled, surveying Harry over the tips of his fingers, pressed together as if in prayer.

The actions in this scene are relatively few, but they are powerful in their simplicity. Harry washing his hands after just burying his loyal friend... this is a symbolic act of sorrow as well as resolve. By the time Harry clears the dirt away he has a better picture of what he needs to do next in his quest to defeat Voldemort. There is no need for excess here... no mention of turning on or turning off the faucet, or rubbing his hands together, or wiping his face. Those actions would convey a different emotion than Rowling wants for Harry here. The quiet, contemplative act leaves you with a sense of Harry's resolve.

Here's another moment from earlier in the book, between Ron and Harry:

   The sword clanged as Ron dropped it. He had sunk to his knees, his head in his arms. He was shaking, but not, Harry realized, from the cold. Harry crammed the broken locket into his pocket, knelt down beside Ron, and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder. He took it as a good sign that Ron did not throw it off.
   "After you left," he said in a low voice, grateful for the fact that Ron's face was hidden, "she cried for a week. Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone..."
   He could not finish; it was only now that Ron was here again that Harry fully realized how much his absence had cost them.
   "She's like my sister," he went on. "I love her like a sister and I reckon she feels the same way about me. It's always been like that. I thought you knew."
   Ron did not respond, but turned his face away from Harry and wiped his nose noisily on his sleeve. Harry got to his feet again and walked to where Ron's enormous rucksack lay yards away, discarded as Ron had run toward the pool to save Harry from drowning. He hoisted it onto his own back and walked back to Ron, who clambered to his feet as Harry approached, eyes bloodshot but otherwise composed.

Kinesics is a practice closely related to beats in dialogue, in that they both contain character action. The point is to understand which actions will be the most effective in gathering up the emotional context of the scene and delivering it to your readers.

No Cicadas Here

It's weird to be disappointed about something like dodging the bullet of a cicada swarm outbreak, but Noah and I were really looking forward to the Brood II emergence this year.

Unfortunately, it never happened. In fact, we have yet to hear the whir of a cicada here at all. I think I remember that last year it was around this time in the summer before the cicadas made an appearance.

I'm from the South, so cicadas are a mark of summer, and to have to wait for them so late in an already short season  makes me feel like something is missing.

So instead we'll have to content ourselves with some images I captured over the past few months and haven't yet posted.

Oh, and tell me what you're reading now! I'm reading Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (thanks Margo, luv, for the recommendation of Shadow and Bone).

Buddha head-stand at Storm King Art Center

Noah contemplating Andy Goldsworthy's wall

Not quite spring when I took this

Lichtenstein's Mermaid

A turtle laying eggs in our back yard

Blue heron fishing on our pond

A flash of inspiration

A Shire Segue... thank you internets

It's just too good not to share :) Flying Feathers!

A to Z Challenge: J is for Jargon

(I totally fell to pieces during April's A to Z Challenge... but I promised to follow through no matter how long it took to get to the end. So here's an installment, for your reading pleasure. Thanks for sticking with me!)

The Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (11th Edition) lists the first definition for jargon as confused, unintelligible language.

While this definition holds true of a lot of first drafts (and quite a few of this blog's posts, admittedly), the definition I want to focus on is "the technical terminology or characteristic idiom of a special activity or group."

What more special group is there than your novel's cast of characters? How often to you find yourself writing dialogue (or exposition) that makes complete sense to you, that falls well inside the normal speech patterns for your characters, only to hear from your beta-readers that they have no idea what your characters are talking about?

Especially when you're writing fantasy, unique terms and phrases to describe objects or states of being are necessary! But the problem is how to introduce those terms, that jargon, without throwing your reader into a tailspin of confusion as they try to decipher exactly what your characters are trying to say.

Once again, I turn to the talented J.K. Rowling to illustrate what I believe to be a top-notch example of how to work jargon into accepted language for the reader.

"Where was I?" said Hagrid, but at that moment, Uncle Vernon, still ashen-faced but looking very angry, moved into the firelight.
"He's not going," he said.
Hagrid grunted.
"I'd like ter see a great Muggle like you stop him," he said.
"A what?" said Harry, interested.
"A Muggle," said Hagrid, "it's what we call nonmagic folk like them. An' it's your bad luck you grew up in a family o' the biggest Muggles I ever laid eyes on."

If you do this too often, unfortunately, you're going to overwhelm your reader and cause them to fall out of sync with the story. But! For the important terms, it's worth experimenting with ways to sneak the explanation in.

One thing to note about the definition of the word muggle here and all it's nuances the importance of characterization in helping to paint the picture of the term. Rowling has spent chapters by this point characterizing the Dursleys and their relationship with Harry so that when Hagrid labels them muggles, the implications of such a word reach far beyond nonmagic. So much so that when you hear the word muggle, do you not immediately thing of Dursley?

Take some time and create a list of the jargon you employ to build your world. Which meanings are obvious to your readers? Which are creating unnecessary confusion? How can you craft your narrative in such a way that the meanings of the words stretch beyond the literal definitions?

Reading with intention

Not my house

Hey! It's been a while, I know. Well, here I am, back again. Did you miss me?

It's been a few months now since my reading schedule got a mind of its own. I'm a freelance editor, you see. What that means is that sometimes for months at a time people hurl manuscripts at me and my job is to read them and assess them or correct them or provide suggestions on their improvement... as fast as possible.

Now don't get me wrong. I love this job. It's the most inspiring and exhilarating thing I can think to do with my time and I get paid to do it!

But somewhere along the way a line has to be drawn in the sand. Somehow, amid all the not-yet-published-works-of-amazingness (or not-so-amazingness), I need to be filling my brain with something that reinforces what makes a book a work of amazingness... because otherwise the image of the ideal starts to liquefy.

And so I start flailing about for something to read that is either a classic or current market favorite. It's a good thing my house is stacked full of books. I'm  never far from something to read.

Susan Sontag says, "Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer." For anyone who desires to improve in the craft of writing (or editing), a conscientiously built reading list is a must. I struggle at maintaining this kind of discipline in my own reading life, largely because I am an emotional reader. I think that explains why I keep re-reading Harry Potter. I am attached to those characters at a deeply emotional level, and so returning to them and the world that J.K. Rowling created is a comfort that I cannot resist.

Still, I recognize the need to branch out, and so while flailing for books, I'm also casting about for inspiration. One of my favorite places to turn for reading list fodder is Margo Berendsen. She never fails to have a recommendation that tantalizes. The most recent recommendation of hers that I read and loved was The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson.

I also snagged a copy of the Indie Book Awards list from BEA (Book Expo America) this year, and I'm eager to try out a few of those authors as well.

Currently I'm reading a biography of Zelda Fitzgerald by Nancy Milford (from my flailing about)... and next in my queue is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (a Twitter inspired choice).

But what about you, dear reader? Where do you find your own inspiration? What books have left you bursting with emotion? I'd like to add them to my list!