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Playing Dress-Up

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Originally posted to Flickr as Girl. By Ray_from_LA

Yesterday was Halloween, which in addition to the trick-or-treaters and piles of candy, seems to call out some very strong opinions, especially all over social media. People who love Halloween and people who hate it. I’m probably somewhere in the middle, myself. I love carving pumpkins, chilly weather, changing leaves, and my kids’ excitement. I don’t love the over-priced costumes (we always wind up making our own out of odds and ends we have on hand; this year I had a water spirit, a pirate, and a super hero) and the candy that no one in my family can eat anyway due to food allergies. (I’m also generally pro on the great pumpkin-spice debate issue, but my husband is legit allergic to even the smell of cinnamon, so that’s kind of out in our house). BUT there is one aspect of Halloween that as I was considering the holiday, I realized actually related to a writing issue I was having this week, and that is the fun of playing dress-up, the sheer freedom and excitement of pretending to be someone you’re not for a few hours.

For me, that’s really what writing is: sinking deep down into a character until I know her inside and out, letting myself become her while my fingers are touching the keys . . . letting that connection fill me with experiences and abilities I’ll never have, being carried away to a world I’ve never seen. At root for me, writing is magic. It’s fun, in the same way that hot-gluing seashells to a headband or donning a mask is fun for my kids. I’m immersed in a world where literally anything is possible, where the only bounds are those of my imagination. That doesn’t mean that my writing never takes me to a dark place or a raw or uncomfortable one, but still, even in those moments . . . it’s magic, and there’s just nothing else like that thrill of being fully immersed in a world I’ve created.

And yet . . . it’s that very magic that’s sometimes easy to lose track of along the way in the writing process. Because although it’s true that while writing fiction, we’re bound only by the limits of our own imaginations . . . it’s not as though there are no external pressures to be considered. Publishing contracts, the ever-changing market, sales numbers, reviews . . . and then of course there’s just the pressure, if you’re someone lucky enough to write as a full-time job, to produce a finished book on schedule, because your family is counting on the income. It’s an amazing gift to be able to earn a living at writing, don’t get me wrong, but still, it comes with the price-tag of that kind of pressure attached. [Read more…]

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Heartbeats

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I'm at the stage where I don't really look any different. I feel different. (Oh, belieeeeeve me, I feel different, i.e. starting to feel better but still pretty much at least slightly queasy all. the. time.) I'm also at the stage (early second trimester) where I'm past the 'holding my breath' mentality and moving into the 'cautious exhale'. But it's still too soon to be feeling any of those reassuring kicks or flutters, and it's easy to catch myself looking down at my not-yet-all-that-different … [Read more...]

Keeping Your Hustle Joyful

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I recently read a quote on writing I absolutely loved. It's from Joe Beernink, who said, "Don't write to become famous or to make a lot of money. Write because you love it. Write because not writing for more than a few days feels like you have abandoned a puppy in a mineshaft. Save the puppy." The words resonated with me so much, because that's exactly how I feel. I don't take days off from writing. Ever. Others may feel boxed-in by strict self-imposed word count goals, but I love them. … [Read more...]

3 Tips to Hook Your Reader’s Emotions

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Probably like most authors, I read as often and as much as I possibly can, but lately I've been noticing something about my reading habits: For every book I finish, there are probably five or maybe even more where I download the free sample onto my e-reader, read anywhere from the first page to the entire sample . . . and then set aside, without the slightest desire to read the entire book. Of course, that's probably not so unusual, really. That's the entire point of the sample feature after … [Read more...]

Stories that Won’t Let You Go

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Somewhere around six years ago, I had a story idea pop into my head. As most writers will tell you, that's not exactly an unusual occurrence. Story ideas fly into (and often out of) my mind like flights landing at Kennedy Airport. But this idea felt . . . special. It had that x-factor sparkle that demanded, Write me! Write me now! So I did. And the book just . . . totally. did. not. work. I tried it in first person, I tried it in third person with multiple narrators. I tried a myriad … [Read more...]

Confessions of a Recovering Plotter

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E.L. Doctorow famously said, “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” I've always loved that quote on writing because it's so vivid and atmospheric, but for me, at the beginning of my writing career, it wasn't especially true. In the age-old plotter vs. pantser debate, I would have said that I was a plotter all the way. I loved outlines. L-o-v-e-d them. I would not only outline the book in detail, I would … [Read more...]

Chasing Down Inspiration

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Thomas Edison famously said, "None of my inventions came by accident. I see a worthwhile need to be met, and I make trial after trial until it comes. What it boils down to is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration." In my experience, that is somewhat true of writing books, too, in that all the inspiration in the world won't save you if you can't sit down and do the often hard work of getting the words onto the page. I feel like I've talked often in my posts here on WU … [Read more...]

What’s Your Truth?

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Usually-- well, almost usually-- I have my Writer Unboxed posts done in advance of the day before I'm scheduled to post. This month, though, I'm kind of glad that the time got away from me, because otherwise I wouldn't have been able to craft my post in response to Larry Brooks' excellent article from Tuesday, The Big Lie About Writing Compelling Fiction. If for some reason you weren't spending your 4th of July hanging out here on WU and haven't had a chance to catch up since, I highly … [Read more...]

Bad Writing Habits and How to Break Them

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This is somewhat embarrassing to admit in public, but we’re all friends here at WU, so I’ll go ahead: not long ago, one of my books was being made into an audiobook, and during the recording process the producer pointed out how many times my characters nodded in agreement to something. I don’t have an exact count, but it was a kind of horrifying amount of nodding I had going on. Like, to the point where you would have thought I was confused as to whether I was writing about a bunch of … [Read more...]

Summoning the Muse

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Some days when I'm writing, I wake up in the middle of the night and can't fall back to sleep because I feel like an entire swath of my story-- a scene, a chapter, sometimes even more-- has just been downloaded into my head. My mind is so filled with lines of dialogue, descriptions, and plot points that I can almost feel my brain creaking trying to hold it all, and when I sit down with my computer my fingers fly over the keys, frantically trying to capture everything that's so crystal clear in … [Read more...]

Are Your Characters Talking?

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The title of this post isn't actually a rhetorical question. I'd love to hear what other writers have to say to the question: do your characters talk to you while you're writing their story? Because I know that answers vary. I know authors-- wildly successful authors-- who will give you a funny look and an, Uh, no, because they're . . . fictional? response if you ask whether they hear their characters' voices. I know other authors-- also wildly successful-- who swear that they've had entire … [Read more...]

Audiobooks 101: a Beginner’s Look at the Process of Getting an Audiobook Made

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By now, most writers are at least somewhat familiar with the basic logistics of indie publishing. Today, though, I wanted to talk about another venue that indies have for sharing their stories that may not be as widely known and thought about: audiobooks. If you've published an indie novel or are planning on publishing one-- or like some authors I know, retain the audio rights on a traditionally published book-- you have the option to have your book made into an audiobook and sell that, too. … [Read more...]

When The Spark is Gone: 4 Ways to Bring Back the Joy of Writing

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If you’re a writer— professional, part-time, aspiring, or something in between— then chances are you got into the job because, not surprisingly, you love to write. My husband and I were just this week talking about doing the job that you’d do even if you were never payed for it— and definitely writing is that for me. I write seven days a week, year-round, simply because even on the hard days I couldn’t love it more. But we all have experienced those hard days: times when we feel like we’ve … [Read more...]

There’s No Wrong Way

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Do you remember those old commercials about "There's no wrong way to eat a Reese's?" I was going to say that the same can be applied to writing: There's no wrong way to write a novel. Except that there probably are wrong ways of going about the process, if the novel never actually gets written. I suppose it's more accurate to say there's no right way to write a novel-- or rather, there's no single right way. I can't tell you how to write a novel. I doubt anyone can. That's not to … [Read more...]