The weather has just turned cooler where I live and with it I notice the light in the afternoon has a different quality. In the summer heat it’s difficult to imagine these brisk, golden days will ever arrive and when they finally do I greet them with joy and a renewed sense of purpose.
Have you ever picked up a book and read back cover copy that sent shivers down your spine? You know what I mean: stories located in a peaceful country garden filled with sweetpeas and butterflies, or the brooding castle that bristles with medieval weaponry—these are the settings that tell you what adventures lie in store.
You are probably familiar with the coloring book craze, which as writers we are allowed to view with irony and in some cases, despair. I have avoided even leafing through the coloring books for sale next to the real books filled with words partially because of that irony thing, mostly because I don’t have time to color. I also don’t have the time to meditate , take a yoga class, shop for healthy food or call mom.
Arguably, the most popular episode of the 1950’s sitcom “I Love Lucy” was the episode “Job Switching” in which friends Lucy and Ethel took a job in a candy factory. In that episode’s celebrated scene, they had to hand wrap individual chocolates moving along a conveyor belt into a packing room. They were able to keep up until the belt sped up resulting in a hilarious scramble to prevent any unwrapped candies from getting by.
As writers we may be sitting too much. We know there are options but we can’t quite make the leap. We hear about standing and writing but can’t afford a standing desk. We hear about the great standing treadmill. The balance board. They all sound fantastic but we either 1. Can’t get ourselves off the couch or 2. Look at the daunting price tags for every item or the space they would take up in our tiny house.
Most writers, sooner or later, will hit the problem of the Sagging Middle. The story pacing slows—the plot might even bore you a little bit now—and you don’t know what to do about it.
Greetings! Hope your summer reading and writing projects are coming along nicely. If you’ve been busy with other summer activities you’ve still got a few weeks to read a novel or two or to pen a rough draft before fall arrives. I’ve personally been in the process of moving into a new apartment and am only now getting to some projects I’ve been planning.
When I was brand spanking new to novel writing I entered a local writing contest. Looking back I realize I entered for the wrong reasons. I wanted to win. I wanted a pat on the back. I thought that everyone who read my entry would Oooo and Ahhh. After all, it was a scene I had worked on for years and I thought it was really good. What constituted “really good” for me and now are two different things.
I came across this quote on a bookmark the other day and was mindful of it the next time I went outside to sit on my back steps. There is a positive and grounding force in connecting with nature and I believe it feed and nurtures our creativity.
A few months ago I decided on an exercise challenge. After two years of bi-weekly handstand classes I still could not balance on my own in the center of the room. After asking experts I was told, “you need to practice every single day no matter what, for a minimum of two minutes a day. If you do this, in six months to a year you’ll have your handstands.”
In the past I’ve discussed my evolving style and methods as I continue to learn the art of comics and the graphic novel. When I look at my past books I can see clearly how my drawing is changing to suit my voice. This graphic novel, Queensgate, contains mostly my hand-drawn frames, and I’d incorporated traced pictures of photographs I’d taken on my first trip to London.
Before my novella was changed into a novel, I begun to think about querying agents. I researched everything I could about how to write query letters and studied samples from published authors. Most of the samples suggested adding a paragraph at the end of your letter to tell a little about yourself and your writing experience.
Sometimes writing is like being in a trance. How else can it be explained? When people have experiences, like taking the kids to the zoo for the first time or falling in love; we remember them. We may even remember what our lover was wearing the first time we laid eyes on him or her.
Most writers know from the outset that this is a very solitary pursuit they’ve chosen, that there’s no other way to create than to spend long, often lonely hours at the keyboard or over a blank page, struggling to find just the right word, phrase or image.
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