Outlining Is Hard: A Sneak-Peak At My WIP

I think outlining is hard.

I said it.

I need it, but it ties me up in knots.

I'm about 40,000 words into my WIP and I'm still taking off a few days every week or so to toy with the outline. A suggestion from my genius sister finally helped make this outline into something I can hold on to. She told me to put it in the voice of my main character, from her perspective. Then, she said, "If your character spits the line of text back in your face, you'll know if wasn't really something she would think, say, or do." This worked amazingly for me.

Want a peak at what I wrote tonight?

Tessa’s Story: 
 

I’m sixteen and pregnant. My mother says not for long, but she’s crazy if she thinks I’m getting an abortion just because when she was a pregnant teenager she kept me—and always regretted it. One look at the ultrasound and I know I can’t go through with it. There is a tiny person waving a miniature hand at me, and I could be looking at myself, all those years ago. Mom will be too busy drinking to notice anyway.

I make the mistake of telling my boyfriend, Johnny. He says there’s no way the baby is his. Walks away from me while I crumple into a ball behind Burger Boy. Then the idiot tells the whole school on Facebook. So, now all my friends think his lies are truth—that I’m pregnant because I cheated on him. Then my best friend Brielle’s mom tells my mom everything and she blows up—kicks me out with nowhere to go. If it weren’t for my former dance teacher Julie taking me in to live with her, I’d be sleeping in a women’s shelter, headed for foster care. This world is seriously screwed up, because Julie has never been able to have children, while I’m apparently too stupid to keep from getting pregnant.

I’ve lost most of my friends to Team Johnny. I’ve had to give up dance and cheer. And with my body stretching and swelling to the approximate proportions of a whale, it’s lucky for me I have Evan, my coworker at Burger Boy. He’s the only person who doesn’t look at my belly first, these days; seems to really see me.

Then stupid Brielle and Johnny start dating, which turns my ginormous stomach. And when Julie miscarries after her last try at in vitro, I worry just a little bit that adopting my baby is the only reason she’s letting me stay. I go home to see if moving back in with Mom is an option now that she’s cooled off, but apparently her cooling-off process involved moving without leaving me so much as a forwarding address.

Beer. Beer suddenly seems like a good idea, so I have a couple of drinks at the party where Evan’s band is playing. Stupid? Whatever. I just don’t want to think anymore. Good thing I have Evan and Julie to do my thinking for me. Acting all disappointed in me, Evan drags me home to Julie, who decides to get all parental all of a sudden. I can stay with her until the end of the pregnancy, but only if I do nothing illegal, immoral, or harmful to myself—or more importantly, the baby. By the time the buzz has worn off, I can see that they’re right—not like I’ll admit that to them. 

The next day I go to my twenty-week ultrasound. And I see that baby. That perfect little tiny person. It’s a girl. I’m going to have a girl. I will name her something awesome. A strong name for a strong girl who will never be dumb enough to have sex without protection just because her boyfriend tells her it will feel better. Samantha. Looking at her, I realize something amazing. I don’t have to wait to find a guy who will love me for me, or hold out the crazy hope that someday I’ll have a mother who’s not too busy being broken to love me. I have the baby. She’s beautiful. She’s perfect. And she’s mine. She will love me the most, put me first, and be all the family I’ll ever need. 

If only it were that simple and I could skip right to the perfect ending. Julie's bossing me around these days, getting all serious with curfews and chores and "natural consequences." And Evan's confusing me by being way more attractive and less nerdy than I thought at first. Which makes me think of dizzying possibilities for how to support myself and Samantha with nothing but a minimum wage fast food job, a high school sophomore education, and a desperate hope that my baby will fix the broken parts of me.

The twenty remaining weeks of my pregnancy are plenty of time to figure out how all this is going to work, aren't they? 

Mwahahahaha... Of course that's all you get, right now. Just up to the midpoint—when Tessa's reaction turns to action. The moment where she thinks she knows everything she needs and starts to plan to get it. If you want more you have to read the book.

Well... I have to write the book and then my agent has to love it and pitch it and sell it and someone has to publish it. And then you have to read it... please.

Now that I'm happy with my outline, I've got to get my nose back to the grindstone and keep cranking out prose for my self-imposed deadline in May. 

But first I have to sleep. As for the book, like Scarlett O'Hara, "I'll think about that tomorrow."

Secrets Of The Universe

Writing fiction is interesting. You want to tell a satisfying story. You can only do this if you can create a satisfying arc for your main character. Which means taking them from one point to a different point where they have learned an important lesson or grown in some meaningful way, and demonstrated their growth through their actions. Essentially, along the way you need to teach your main character the secrets of the universe. Yesterday I was teaching my main character that love is unselfish. That when you truly love, you are willing to sacrifice for the people you care about.

You don't spend that kind of time considering these kinds of moral values without being changed. It's one of the things I love most about writing. Yesterday night I was sick. I felt miserable. And I wanted to go to bed. But my husband had worked late and the house was a wreck. Remembering the lessons I'm trying to teach my main character, I spent an hour sacrificing sleep, and cleaning so Cody could come home to a peaceful house.

And it was satisfying.

Like a character arc that really works!

We'll Run Out Of Stuff To Write When We're Dead

A writing friend commented on Facebook the other day that she had so much left to do on her book. I made the offhanded comment that we always have so much left to do, and we'll run out of stuff to write when we're dead.

I've since thought about this comment. It says a lot about my new way of looking at writing. For years, I've been an on-again-off-again writer. If I don't write for three or four days, I'm done. The very thought of opening my manuscript is paralyzing to me. But the minute I actually force myself to start writing again, the other me takes over. The one who wanted to become a writer in the first place.

Consistency, for me, is the key.

And if I stop to think too much about the big picture, I get overwhelmed and freak out and stop for two or three days, which can become two or three months without even trying.

My point is, if I'm a writer, I write. Every day. But it doesn't have to consume every thought, every relationship, every interaction.

So, for me, learning to turn it on and off is important. And learning that as a writer, every day I do my time, and then I also live my life. And then the next day, I write again. It doesn't matter which piece of the puzzle I'm working on if I don't think so hard about the whole picture. I can navigate between projects, focusing on whatever is most pressing. I can switch to revising for my agent, and back to working on my WIP without initiating a writer's block breakdown

And I'm not planning to ever finish. The goal is not to be done. The goal is to write.

(Responsible, Real-World Heather chiming in here: Obviously we have to finish certain manuscripts and revisions on deadlines... but like Scarlett O'Hara, I'll think about that tomorrow. Nothing kills my creative flow like the demand that I be funny, poignant, and articulate on a schedule. If I think about it in a pressure-free way, I am my most productive.) 

And we're writers. So we'll run out of things to write about when we're dead. And even in heaven, I hope I can spend a little time each day with the heavenly equivalent of my laptop and characters and glorious, delicious words.

Writing Journey: From First Attempts to Agent!

Fair warning: You are about to embark on reading the longest blog post of my bloggerly life. It may bore you. If you don’t care about how this writer started writing—with all of the mind-bogglingly verbose details—skip this one and come back for a normal post another day.

This started out as a guest post for Monica, my awesome coach from The Writer’s Voice—the contest responsible for helping me find my agent—and turned into a history of my life, at least as pertains to writing. Monica got the edited version. I got to keep the beast. Aaaaand, here goes.

Sometimes writing can be frustrating—a conversation with no one talking on the other end. You spend your days creating drama and solving problems for pretend people. This particular brand of nerdery can leave you lonely.

In junior high school in Canada, the majority of my social life happened in my head, with characters whose dramas were so much more life-and-death than mine. They were going to die in childbirth, or crossing the plains, or of a broken heart. They rode in buggies, or walked the halls of castles.

Meanwhile, back in real life teenagerville, I was just wondering what to wear, who I’d eat lunch with, and if any boy would ever acknowledge my existence.

I owe a lot of my early writerly journey to my best friend through junior high. She was unique, imaginative, and a ton more fun than the popular kids who were obsessed with Guess and Esprit and Beaver Canoe. Yes, indeed… I lived in Canada. And Beaver Canoe was a seriously coveted brand. The cliché blows my mind, too.

Anyhoo, Christy and I shared the wonderful writerly world of make believe. And she made it okay for me to enjoy it. In a way, she was my first writing group. We hung out at Heritage Park, a pioneer theme park where you could go and pretend for a few hours that you were in another world. We even dressed up a few times, and people thought we were park employees. I remember eating lunches from Christy’s picnic basket on the lawn of the manor house, wandering out to the lighthouse, and watching the ferry departing. I populated our stories with characters and dialog, while Christy made sure their wardrobe was well-designed and their houses impeccably decorated. I hope she went on to be a fashion designer or an architect.

I never lost the need to tell stories. From childhood when I’d narrate my sister Kathryn off to sleep every night with the plots of my novels, my scribbling in notebooks has kept me marvelous company.

I took a brief break from writing and reading for pleasure in college and in my first years of teaching, although my French major and English minor kept me immersed in classic literature.

It wasn’t until my first two years as a stay-at-home mom that I finally wanted to write again. I spent my days with a delightful toddler, but she didn’t talk to me much, and I needed more than just my relationship with her to sustain me. Enter my good buddy, NaNoWriMo.

I’ll admit straight out that I have never once succeeded in making the full 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo, but I owe the rest of my career as a writer to setting the goal and working to meet it. And to learning that writing is more than planning and outlining and imagining. Writing is more like… actually… writing. Moving your fingers on the keyboard as words come to life under your fingers. Experimenting with voice and description and dialogue. Creation, pure and simple. Exhilarating, thrilling, compulsive, and exasperating.

My first NaNoWriMo netted me 25,000 words of an epic fantasy novel. I didn’t do much outlining. I just wrote until I got bored or frustrated, which was when I skipped to the most thrilling scenes. I never went back and did the drudgery of writing the boring parts. (It didn’t occur to me until later that if there are boring parts, you shouldn’t ever go back and write them. If there is some empty space in a book, you should definitely fill it with something that makes your arm hair stand on end.) Eventually, figuring out court intrigues, battle scenes, and what to feed my medieval princess for breakfast forced me to try to write what I know.

NaNoWrimo #2 yielded a very rough 25,000 words of JUST THIS ONCE—A book about a perfectionist teen working to get into Yale from her broken-down trailer while she tutors a rich, popular sports hero who is the perfect person to help her embrace her fears, open her heart, and learn to accept her life.

I ended up with six chapters of telling—not showing. I’d toy with my readers in paragraph after paragraph, describing scenes they’d never get to actually read.

(See following approximate though exaggerated passage from NaNoWriMo#2)

Whew, thought Main Character. That was a raucous good time we all had doing that hilarious project for history class. Everyone was laughing so hard at jokes that the author is too lazy to think up or write here. My goodness, I’m still blushing when I think of all the serious chemistry I felt with Romantic Hero. He was so intense. Seriously. We felt something magical. Guess you had to be there.

Umm… yeah.

Four years and almost no writing later, I found myself commiserating with my friend Juliana that we were writers who didn’t write—a sad waste of our talents and interests. And we decided then and there to form a weekly writing group. During the two-and-a-half years that followed, I finished my contemporary manuscript, co-wrote a middle grade mystery with my husband, revised my contemporary manuscript, had another baby, and started a new YA novel.  Without my writing group, I doubt I would have finished my first draft of my first book.

Last year I queried my MG mystery to 20 agents. I received 12 form rejections, one personal rejection, and seven no responses. I felt like no one would ever care what I was saying from my solitary living room on my little laptop. I also queried JUST THIS ONCE to several  small publishers, who all rejected it. One told me that they loved it, but were no longer marketing this genre to their readers. One told me thanks, but no thanks. My favorite rejection letter said that my writing was exceptional but that they felt that my story had no hook, was not unique, and that I should limit my MC’s internal musings and learn to write authentic dialogue.

Ouch! I wonder what they say to authors when they don’t feel their writing is exceptional.

If you never cry at all during the process of trying to find an audience for your work, you are a robot with a heart of stone. But you get tougher and more certain that what you are saying has value, even if you’re still locked in a one way conversation with only your MC to tell you how amazingly witty you are.

Last May my agented writer friend Caryn suggested that I enter The Writer’s Voice contest. I was hesitant to enter because I just didn’t think my manuscript was right for the competition. But my sister called and encouraged me, and I decided to go ahead. What could it hurt, right? I tried and failed to get entered on the first wave of entries, and that afternoon, I tried again. I remember sitting at my computer with my heart pounding and my finger on refresh waiting for the link widget to appear so I could type in my name. And this time, I made it.

Most of the coaches had picked their teams, and only Monica had waited to announce, choosing not to fight with the other coaches for some of the more popular entries. She picked some less obvious choices. When she emailed to say she wanted my query and first page on her team I couldn’t believe it. It was the first positive feedback I’d had about any of my queries. I was excited for her coaching to help me improve my query, but I never thought it would actually be the doorway to getting an agent. Her comments really improved my query and first page.

Near the end of the agent voting, Kevan Lyon and Louise Fury nearly gave me heart failure by voting for me. I sent off a partial manuscript to each of these women, and a third agent who asked for a full.

Two of the agents rejected the manuscript, saying it just wasn’t for them, and Louise never responded. No worries. All part of the process. I’m getting good at the whole not-holding-my-breath thing by now.

But at the end of December I got an alert that Louise Fury was now following me on Twitter. Um… why? Why would this agent who’s had my manuscript since May be suddenly following me? I almost never tweet. Authorial sacrilege, I know. Anyway, I told myself it was probably nothing.

But FIVE MINUTES LATER I got an email requesting the full manuscript. LOUISE FURY loved my voice and was excited to read more. Breathe. Must. Breathe.

So I calmed myself down and sent it off to her. And pretended to forget about it. 

And… she’s an agent, and must have a finely tuned sense for drama, right? NEW YEAR’S DAY! That’s when I got her next email. Three days after receiving my full, she emailed. I was just heading to bed, and Louise thought she should make good and sure I didn’t sleep. Ever. Again.

She said that her team had read my book, and that they thought I was a “seriously talented writer,” (This phrase is burned forever into my brain, incidentally) and she wanted to talk to me on the phone the next day. It is a seriously good thing that I didn’t fall down and die. 

The next day lives on in my memory as one of the most surreal experiences of my life. It was like a fairy tale. I told myself to keep my expectations low for her call. I let myself fantasize briefly about her offering to represent my novel.

Our conversation was better than anything I could have dreamed up.

For every question I asked Louise, her answer showed that she was the perfect agent for me. The way she thinks about my manuscript and respects my vision for my story, while helping me to improve it with clear, incisive feedback is amazing to me. I’ve only been working with her for a month, but we have already been through two full sets of revisions, and she has already helped me so much. Now I’m immersed in my WIP, and my book is in her capable hands while we prepare for the next step—submission.

It’s an exciting journey, though I have little control over where it goes next. I am writing, though, and that’s what matters, right? I have learned that for those of us pursuing the dream, we are closer than we know. The line between an agented writer and someone in the slush piles telling themselves not to give up is a fine one. It’s a matter of finding the right person at the right time who will look closer and see what they are looking for in your work. Simple? Maybe not. But achievable. I know. One month ago I had never had any requests for fulls or partials from any of my query letters. Today I have an amazing agent who is passionate about my manuscript.  

As writers, we often downplay what we do until someone else validates our work. I can’t tell you how many days I’ve worried that I was wasting my time with something that would never benefit anyone but me. And I know many other writers who have felt the same. Don’t give up on your dreams. Just keep networking and querying and believing and WRITING! And don’t give up on yourself because no one is currently reading your work. If you write, you are a writer. You can do it! The one-way conversation is worth it. All the uncertainty and lack of control is worth it.

Heh… I’m telling you this as a writer who doesn’t have and may never have a book deal. I’m your friend, on my laptop frantically trying to help another MC out of this or that disaster. And hoping that someday someone besides my critique partners will ever know that she figured out the secrets of life and found love.  Speaking of which… I’d better get back to work. Hasta!

Falling in Love

I'm starting to think of books as romances. Love affairs. Starting a new book is like a new romance. You're all tingly-twirly with excitement. It can keep you up at night—in a good way. You sometimes lose the threads of conversations because your characters are talking in your head. You would rather be in the story than thinking about any other thing.

Then you get a little way in, and maybe you take your story for granted a little. Feel some frustration at little annoyances. You still have moments of inspiration, and moments when the story carries you away... but your feet are more firmly on the ground. You realize this will take commitment, dedication, loving care.

There comes a point in the middle where you hit some serious walls and have to decide to stay. Is this story worth it to you? It's taking everything you've got to give, and you're not even sure you have what it will eventually require if you're going to end things in a way that satisfies you.

But if you push through the hair-tearing middle part, or the darkness before dawn...

Eventually you have something beautiful. Something satisfying and rewarding and peaceful.

That said -- I'm in new love phase with my current project, and I can't stop thinking about it. I just want to sit and write and read what I've written and smile and think and sit and write.

So I'm out of here, because blogging is pulling me away from my new sweetheart.

Art for Validation

Listening to playtime with my seven-year-old daughter and her cousin today was revealing.

They were pretending to be artists. Great painters, hard at work on their masterpieces. But the whole time they were painting, all they could talk about was how they couldn't wait to get online after and see all the praising comments everyone was making about their art.

Since neither girl has ever been a famous artist with wild amounts of online critiques about their work, I can only assume that playing at creating art for the acclaim of the internet comes from watching me over the last two weeks as I submitted my manuscript in an online competition. Riding high as it got accepted, and praised in comments, and biting my nails as requesting agents begin to reject it.

It hit just a bit too close to home. It made me think about why I write. Is it for the feeling of creation? For the potential money that may someday come my way? For the words of validation that may come from my readers?

And am I passing on to my children that what you do is only any good if someone tells you constantly that you're awesome?

Sobering. I like to be praised as much as anyone. But I think today was just a moment to step back and hope that I'm taking the time to revel in the act of creation, in the creative process. And remember that the words—positive or negative—of agents and publishers and readers can't make or break the experience for me.

Rejection Fuels Creativity

...or it can send you into a dark place of despair where no writing occurs. But it's your choice. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I just got my first rejection on a full manuscript. A couple of tears later, all I can think about is querying and writing on my new project. So exciting to be at this place. At the beginning of a journey for my recently completed novel, and at the beginning of a different sort for my new work in progress.

The only trouble is, which book to write next? I'm facing a tough decision. Write what EVERYONE is encouraging me to write, or write the story that is pulling at my heart. How's a gal to decide? Which would you write?

Sixteen-year-old Tessa George has two decisions the day her pants will no longer button up. Run away from home, or tell her mother she never had the abortion. Running away will mean living with Julie, an infertile former middle-school teacher who's got her own plans for Tessa's baby. While her former best friend is dating the baby's father, and everyone at her former school thinks she's a tramp, Tessa has to decide how to deal with her growing waistline, and Tessa and Julie both learn what motherhood really means for them. And Tessa falls for someone new. Who is ready to be her friend. And is pretty much terrified of anything else.

or

Willa Cather Fox was named by goofy lit-professor parents who gave her a mortifying moniker and brainful of literary references. She must use this special talent as she races with gorgeous Robby Freemeyer and computer nerd Scott Finch in a race against the clock. They've got 24 hours to stop disgruntled Russians from nuking the USA and to figure out whether they should kiss each other.