The Writing Desk

Book Recommendations

2012-01-19T08:18:00.001+01:00

I don't usually do book reviews, here on the blog or elsewhere. The reason for this is mostly that my opinion of a book tends to seem so incredibly subjective and personal that it wouldn't be useful to anyone outside my head. For example, I read John Green's new book The Fault in Our Stars a few days ago and if I tried to talk about it, I would start jabbering about how much I was sobbing and how fragile I still felt days later and how the book broke my heart. And it would sound like I didn't even enjoy it very much. Which would possibly be the most inaccurate impression of a book ever put into a review.

However, while I don't enjoy writing reviews very much, I do love recommending books that I loved. And I read and loved a lot of great YA books in 2011. So here's a few of them that were my favorites with a tidbit of completely subjective information about them for anyone who happens to be looking for something to read. Please note that these are not necessarily books that were published in 2011. I just happened to read them last year.

"Revolution" by Jennifer Donnelly
Andi, heartbroken by the death of her younger brother, is forced to accompany her father to Paris where she finds the journal of a girl who lived during the French Revolution. As Andi becomes obsessed with reading the two-hundred-year-old diary, the two girls' stories are told in turns. I was impressed by how Donnelly handled the two voices, making them distinct and connected at the same time. The book was achingly beautiful and impossible to put down. One of my absolute favorite books of the year.

"Deeper Than Blue" by Jill Hucklesby
Thirteen-year-old swimmer Amy loses her best friend and her leg in an accident. The story deals with the aftermath of that accident: pain and loss and picking up the pieces. To be honest, I didn't expect anything exceptional from the book. But what I found was beautifully poetic language mixed with three-dimensional characters with lively and sometimes funny voices. A very satisfying read for me.

"Sweethearts" by Sara Zarr
When Jenna's only childhood friend Cameron, who disappeared years ago, returns, she is confronted with her past and her carefully recreated self-image begins to crumble. Sara Zarr has a way of portraying emotion that invariably makes me cry at some point. Her books stay with me for a long time after I finished reading. "Sweethearts" was no exception.

"21 Proms" edited by David Levithan and "Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd" edited by Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci
Sometimes I like to read short stories. It's a good way of reading when you have attention-span issues like I did at times in 2011. And it's a great way of discovering authors you hadn't heard of. Usually, in a collection of short stories, there are some good ones and some that I don't like very much. But in the two books above, I either liked or loved almost every single story.

And just in case you are a Harry Potter fan, I finally read Melissa Anelli's "Harry, A History" and it made me happy in a very geeky way. A thoroughly enjoyable read for anyone who has some connection to the HP fandom and a book that includes some interesting insights in the publishing world surrounding the Harry Potter phenomenon.

I also read a lot of other great YA novels in 2011, including books by John Green, E. Lockhart, Gayle Forman, Maureen Johnson, Stephanie Perkins, and Sarah Dessen, but most of those are very well known. And if I told you what I thought of them all, you wouldn't believe me anymore if I said I didn't do book reviews. ;-)

What were your favorite books of the year?

Week Four

2011-11-25T08:19:00.001+01:00

Hi guys!

My posts are getting later each week... I blame NaNo and the moving chaos! ;)

This week I have good news and bad news.

The good news is, I reached 50k in the weekend and finished my novel at 52k on Sunday! Yay! Today I should be able to let the illiterate NaNo robots count my words and get my winner's certificate..

The bad news, though, is that I wasn't happy at all with how my book ended. I tried to come up with an interesting climax for days, but nothing worked. As it turns out, I just didn't plan well enough and all my lovely character conflicts were too easily resolved with a few anti-climactic conversations. It all felt pretty boring.

But I reminded myself to think of this book as an exploratory draft. It showed me what doesn't work, and when I am ready to go back to it, I'll know what I have to change in the rewrites. I foresee a LOT of rewrites for this one, though. Still, all a first draft needs to do is exist, and that it does. ;)

Since I was feeling a little deflated and there were still ten days of November left, I started writing something else. It's not going to be a novel, though... Just a little story to entertain myself and stay in the flow of writing. It's about twin brothers who were separated when they were kids and only find each other again when they are eighteen. More awkwardness! (I love awkward character moments more than anything.)

It's funny how every NaNo (and every book, really) there is a new set of joys and troubles that I didn't expect... Certainly keeps things interesting. ;)

I hope all your books have great climaxes, and I wish all of you who are still racing toward the finish line the very best of luck!

Angela H.
Anna M.
Brooke Busse
Charity Bradford
Elizabeth Davis
Elizabeth Poole
Fida Islaih
Huntress
Jen McConnel
Mia Hayson
Miranda Hardy
Nyxie Moon
Tessa C
Zoe

Week Three

2011-11-18T12:28:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone! I realize I am really late on the blog chain this week... There were so many other things to do this week that I had to reserve what little time I had left for my writing. The happy result of that is, though, that I am now 45k into my novel! 50k is near, but my guess is that the story will perhaps need another 10k after that.

I had a moment this last week when I suddenly realized I hadn't actually figured out the climax of the story yet. (It was a moment of panic.)

But with the help of my dear friend Liz I figured at least part of it out, and now I am happily writing again. Still not quite sure how everything will end, but at least I am moving in some direction.

In anticipation of my usual post-50k slump and lack of motiviation, I have decided that once I hit 50,000 words, I will go back to my One-Word-A-Day Rule . Hopefully that way I will be able to complete the first draft within the month, before I disappear in moving chaos entirely in December. ;)

I hope all your drafts are going well!

Angela H.
Anna M.
Brooke Busse
Charity Bradford
Elizabeth Davis
Elizabeth Poole
Fida Islaih
Huntress
Jen McConnel
Mia Hayson
Miranda Hardy
Nyxie Moon
Tessa C
Zoe

Week Two

2011-11-08T17:49:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone! I hope your novels are going well!

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my last post and a big sorry that I haven't been reciprocating! My first week of NaNo was a bit crazy, with lots of stuff to do and a family visit over the weekend. Also, I am a bad, bad blogger. And a worse social networker.

In terms of word count, week one was a success, though. I managed to get a good head start and am currently standing at 23,051 words. The novel is behaving, too. I had a brief moment last week when I wasn't sure where I was going with the plot, but I figured it out.

Because some people asked, my novel is a YA fantasy about a girl who, together with her best friend, teases and bullies a boy at their school. Then her mom remarries and suddenly she and the boy are stepsiblings. Awkwardness galore! There's magic, too. And pranks.

Week two in NaNoWriMo is known as the most difficult week. I've personally never had this problem. My slump comes when I hit 50k early but am not done with the book and have no set goal to work toward anymore. Anyway, this week two could be difficult because I am pretty sure I am getting a cold right now. Throat ache, wooziness and all.

So, keep writing everyone and don't get sick!

Because it's not helpful. But you knew that.

Angela H.
Anna M.
Brooke Busse
Charity Bradford
Elizabeth Davis
Elizabeth Poole
Fida Islaih
Huntress
Mia Hayson
Miranda Hardy
Nyxie Moon
Tessa C
Zoe

Ready, set, write!

2011-11-01T16:19:00.000+01:00

Happy First of November everyone!

I hadn't planned on doing it, but in the end I did stay up until midnight last night to start writing. There's something special about waiting for the minutes to pass until you're allowed to start writing... I just didn't want to miss out on it! But I was tired, so I only wrote 413 words before giving up and going to bed.

I continued this morning and am now proud to say I have written 3513 words. It was my goal to make a good head start today because I will be busy in the weekend and am not sure how much time I will have for writing then.

My novel is doing well. I think I have found my FMC's voice, and I had a lot of fun with a rather mean prank that takes place in my second scene. Now I'm working on scene no. 3 and it's time to introduce the love interest! :-)

I hope everyone else is having a good first day of NaNoWriMo too!

Check out everyone else's posts in the blog chain here:

Angela H.

Brooke Busse http://brookerbusse.blogspot.com

Charity Bradford http://charitywrites.blogspot.com

Elizabeth Davis http://www.lizwritesbooks.com/

Elizabeth Poole http://writerelizabethpoole.blogspot.com/

Fida Islaih http://fida-islaih.blogspot.com

Huntress http://spiritcalled.blogspot.com/

Lena Hoppe http://lenalothanas.blogspot.com/

Mia Hayson http://literaryjamandtoast.blogspot.com/

Miranda Hardy http://www.mirandahardy.blogspot.com/

Nyxie Moon http://creativedawdle.blogspot.com

Tessa C http://tessasblurb.blogspot.com

NaNoWriMo Is Near!

2011-10-29T17:07:00.002+02:00

Yes, it's that time of year again.

It's getting cold and foggy outside, the leaves are turning yellow, and I am desperately trying to figure out which of two-and-a-half story ideas to turn into a novel this November.

This year's National Novel Writing Month will be particularly challenging for me, since I am going to move to a new apartment in December. I maybe have to do some of my noveling in between half-packed boxes. But then again, last year's NaNo was not exactly easy for me either, and I did not have as many distractions then. So I will just try to relax and have as much fun as possible!

This year I will take part in a NaNoWriMo blog chain that the lovely Elizabeth Poole and Charity Bradford came up with!

The idea is that every participant posts a progress report on their NaNo novels (or other projects) every Tuesday in November. You can read more about it here! So, you go and check out some of the many links I managed to sneak into this post, and I shall return to freak- um, I mean, figuring out my plot.

Recharging

2011-08-24T08:38:00.001+02:00

I am finally done with the complete rewrite I started in May. Since I kept little more than two of the characters and the basic premise of the first version, this rewrite was very much like a first draft. I kept to my At-Least-One-Word-A-Day Rule and wrote for 89 days straight, reaching a final word count of just under 75,000 words.

(Re)Writing this book was fun and a great experience, and I do believe I managed to improve the story, not break it. Phew! But now it's time to take a break.

I don't just need this break to catch up on all the things I neglected while I was writing (how *did* the apartment get so messy anyway?). I need a break to recharge.

Recharging every now and then is very important. Creativity isn't some endless supply of ideas from a mysterious source. You can't have output without input. You need to experience life so that you can turn those experiences into ideas for your stories.

If you just keep creating without ever taking any time off, you'll burn out eventually. How quickly this happens is different with each writer. I am beginning to learn that I will start to feel mentally and creatively drained if I try to write or edit two books in a row without taking any time off in between.

I do the following things to recharge:

* Rest. Also known as goofing off. Looks very lazy and pointless to the outside world, but (and I'm not kidding) it is very important. Being creative is hard work for your brain, and you need to give it some time off sometimes.

* Get fresh impulses. Read all those books on your pile. Read what you feel like, too, not just what you think you should read. Read outside your genre. Watch TV, too. Listen to music. Go out into the world and see stuff, like exhibitions, plays, a forest, people, dogs, and cows.

* Do creative things other than writing. Writing is something that happens mostly in my head (I don't count the typing here), so I like to do stuff with my hands to balance things out. I am trying to learn how to draw, and every now and then I'll try something new in arts and crafts. If you have other hobbies, now is the time to catch up on them.

* Note down ideas as they come to you. BUT don't actively try to develop them into books. Because, you know, that wouldn't be taking time off.

And that's it! Hopefully, by the time November comes around I'll have recharged sufficiently and found a shiny new idea so I can start my next first draft during NaNoWriMo. And, you know, edit the book I just finished.

Dealing With Distraction

2011-06-20T13:04:00.000+02:00

Last week I wrote about how my new At-Least-One-Word-A-Day Rule has helped me keep writing despite plenty of distraction.

There are different kinds of distraction. For example, right now I have lots of stuff going on in my life that I don't really need to do much about but that keeps my mind very busy. There are LOTS of thoughts competing with the book I'm trying to write. So even when I have an entire day to myself, and I sit there in front of the computer, more often than not my thoughts stray away from the book and toward all the other stuff.

I fight that - and my One-Word Rule has helped. But I have been writing very slowly because of it.

There's another kind of distraction that most of us deal with: all the things that we can do instead of writing. Like surfing the internet. And eating. And checking our email. And surfing the internet. And checking Twitter. And eating some more. Maybe even do the laundry?

What helps best against that kind of distraction is some discipline. But when I am dealing with all those distracting thoughts as well, it becomes even harder to fight the urge to check my email for the five hundred and twenty-third time.

So today I did something a lot of writers do on a regular basis: I grabbed my netbook and went to write in a café. The reason I usually don't do that is yet another kind of distraction: noise and other people. But today I knew I was not going to get anything done if I had any chance of procrastination.

My netbook, for this very reason, is not set up to go on the internet, and all I have on it are writing programs and dictionaries. So once I had reached a big department store's fifth-floor café (which is relatively quiet and serves nice fresh fruit juices), all I could do was write.

The result?

On Friday, I wrote 116 words. On Saturday, I wrote 217 words. Yesterday, I wrote 27 words.

Today, I've written 1,041 words. So far. So maybe, just maybe, I should do this more often. ;-)

How do you handle distraction? Do you ever write in cafés?

One Word A Day

2011-06-13T10:30:00.000+02:00

There are times when writing regularly is difficult. Maybe your family needs you or your day job gets in the way. Maybe you have big life decisions to make or your confidence in your writing took a hit. Whatever the reason, it can be hard at times to write every day. And if you haven't worked on your story for a few days, it can be even harder to get back into it.

I've had plenty of real-life stuff distracting me from my writing recently, but since I started the complete rewrite of my current novel about four weeks ago, I have written every single day. I managed thanks to a very simple trick.

I have implemented a new rule that says I have to write at least one word a day. Just one.

A lot has to go wrong so I can actually claim I didn't have even the time to type 'the'. Or 'then', or 'but', or even 'mysteriously.' And once I've sat down at the computer or with pen and paper and started thinking about which word to write, usually at least a sentence comes out. Or a paragraph or two. Sometimes an entire scene.

And even if it is just one sentence, I have worked on my novel. I have looked at the story and thought about it. It won't be any harder to start again the next day.

So if you are finding it hard to write every day, I encourage you to try my at-least-one-word rule. It feels silly and pointless at first - as if one word or no word makes no difference - but it can work. Because the important thing is not that you write a lot of words every day. The important thing is that you write at all.

How to Write Real-But-Not-Too-Real Dialog

2011-06-06T09:08:00.003+02:00

I hear from lots of writers that they struggle with writing good dialog. It's not something I find particularly hard myself - though I don't claim to be an expert by any means. I write most of my characters' conversations intuitively, by listening to their voices in my head. But here are the few tidbits of advice I tend to give when asked.

Basically it comes down to this: Be realistic, but not too realistic. (You'll find that most useful advice comes in vague, balanced terms like that. I know it would be easier if someone shouted "Follow this one golden rule and everything will be perfect!" but that's not how the world works. Usually you need to balance out the extremes. But let's get back to dialog, people who don't skip over philosophical excursions in parentheses.)

Dialog should be realistic. You don't want your readers to be constantly reminded of you, the author, putting words into your characters' mouths. You want them to believe that the characters are actually speaking themselves.

This means that the way your characters speak should fit them as a person. Most teenagers in casual conversation with their friends will not use perfect grammar and difficult vocabulary. In fact, almost no one does that, ever.

Once upon a time I transcribed interviews for a university project and let me tell you, despite the educated group discussion going on, there was hardly a complete sentence to be found. In informal speech, we leave out tons of stuff all the time. And it works, because language draws most of its meaning from context anyway.

Think about how your character would talk. Is she in a formal or an informal setting? Is she talking to a friend or her mom or a teacher? How old is she and how educated? And listen to how you and other people talk. Pay attention to what is actually said and how much of the meaning is assumed.

How you do your dialog can also make a difference between tell and show. Compare these two examples:

A. "It's late," he said. "Should we go to bed?" -
"I don't want to go to bed yet," she said. "I need to convince someone on the internet that they are wrong."

B. He glanced at his watch and then nodded toward the bedroom. "Bed?"
She made a shushing sound and shook her head frantically. "I can't! Gotta tell this moron on the forums that- Argh! What's he saying now?"

The other important part of being realistic is making sure that your characters would actually say the things they say. It is not dialog's job to present all your exposition. Don't have your characters state things purely for the benefit of the reader. If your character says something, he needs to have a good reason to say it within the story.

People do tell each other things they already know, but they don't generally state things that go without saying. Don't have a character enter a scene and declare, "As you know, the two of us haven't seen each other in a long time because I was off working at a five-star hotel all summer while you traveled around Europe with your aunt. It's good to see you."

In general, anything that (could) start with "As you know" tends to be a bad idea. If they do know it, why are they saying it? Your characters need to have a good reason to say these things, and if they don't, find some other way to include the information for the reader.

That said, you don't want to be too realistic either or your dialog could become too difficult to read.

Remember those interviews I mentioned above? Well, I didn't count the uh's and um's in them, but there must have been hundreds. We do uh and um when we speak. All the time. But you don't need to put that in your fictional dialog. In fact, we even tune it out when we listen to someone talk. It's irrelevant, so our brain ignores it. If you see it in writing, it's much harder to ignore and can quickly become a burden. So use your written uh's and um's very sparingly.

Likewise, if you follow my advice above and abandon grammatically perfect sentences for fragments that depend on context, make sure that you do provide that context. You don't want your readers to have to guess what those guys are talking about, right? You need to make sure that the meaning of the dialog is clear.

Here's an example.

"Marmalade!" he shouted.
"Do not open that window!" she said.

Doesn't make any sense? How about this?

"Marmalade!" he shouted, spotting the neighbor's fat cat through the glass.
"Do not open that window!" she said.

So that's my advice for writing dialog. Please share your own tips and tricks in the comments!

Practice Makes Perfect

2011-05-30T09:15:00.002+02:00

What I said last week about how it's okay for an opening scene to suck actually counts for the entire writing process - and other things in life.

The first draft of any book tends to suck. And that first story you ever wrote, when you were eight or twelve or fifteen? That probably sucked, too. Because nobody starts out with perfect results.

Go to a museum and look at some beautiful paintings. You think the artist just picked up a paintbrush one day and began producing masterworks? No, they, like everyone else, first had to learn the craft. They had to practice. And practicing means that you keep working on it, even though your results still suck. Because that's the only way you'll get better.

I will never be a great artist, but I do enjoy drawing. For many years I stayed away from drawing and painting because I didn't think I was good enough at it and my results never came close to my vision.

But then I realized this: If I don't draw, I will never get better at it. If I do draw, I might suck a lot, but there is a good chance that my drawing will improve over time. I just have to do it anyway. I have to give myself permission to produce crappy drawings that look nothing like what I had in mind. And then try again. And again.

It's exactly the same with writing. You can't sit down and learn how to write a book from studying theory and technique and then grab a pen or keyboard and produce a perfect novel. Just like with painting or sculpting or dancing, you have to actually practice the craft. You have to write. A lot.

In retrospect, I am grateful that for several years during my teens, nobody read the vast majority of what I was writing. I wrote a lot back then. Most of it was fragments, beginnings, snippets of dialog. And most of it was prhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifetty bad. But I had the time and space to practice without pressure. http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

I also occasionally wrote a "serious" short story which I would edit, print, and show to family and friends. But I honestly think I learned more from all the completely uncensored, unedited, easily discarded writing I did in private. Because I was allowing myself to try anything out and see if I liked it.

So, don't be afraid to do something you suck at. And don't be afraid to produce crappy first scenes or drafts or books. You have to start somewhere.

And because the great Maureen Johnson says all that so much better than me, do go and watch her "Dare to Suck" video if you haven't yet.

My Opening Scenes Suck

2011-05-23T13:34:00.000+02:00

They do. Every time I start a new first draft, I do what I shouldn't and think about how very important that first impression is. How an agent or editor or potential buyer in a book store will judge the quality of my writing by those first few words. I think too much about all the pressure riding on my opening scene, and more often than not I am tempted to stop writing and come up with a different opening.

But the thing is this: You do have to write a first scene. And if you're anything like me, you won't know exactly what the ideal first scene is before you have written the entire book anyway. More often than not, the opening will change again in revision. Perhaps multiple times. That's okay.

And it's okay for the first attempt to suck. In fact, I am beginning to feel that it is absolutely necessary for the opening to suck at first. It's like tunneling into a hidden cave filled with treasure. It's messy, dirty, and tiring. But it's necessary. You can't just magically appear inside.

In that first go at the first scene, I am writing my way into the book. I don't know every detail yet. I am not sure where I am going. And I won't know unless I write that scene. I can't think myself into the story purely in theory. I need to write to get there. So I am going to write a sucky opening scene, and hopefully the second scene will be better and the third will be really focused. And by the time I write the last scene, I will know how to fix that opening.

That's the hope.

Do you ever despair over your opening scenes? How do you deal with it?

Objectivity vs. Subjectivity

2011-05-18T09:14:00.001+02:00

If you scroll down on this blog, you'll find a little Shelfari bookcase on the right. In it you'll see some of the books I've read. On Shelfari you can give books up to five stars to show how much you liked them. That's what it says: One star means "I hated it" and five stars means "I loved it". And yet, every time I give a book less than four stars, I worry that people will think I am judging the book's quality, saying that it was badly written or should have been something different. But I'm not. All it means is that I personally liked or didn't like a book. The reasons for that have nothing to do with quality and everything with taste.

You'll find lots of people who'll tell you that you should strive to be objective and put your personal feelings aside when reading. To judge a book not by your own taste but by some set of objective rules of good writing. I disagree.

See, I don't believe in objectivity. I don't think you can ever entirely escape your own biography, your own body, your own mind - all the experiences that shape how you see and feel things. More often than not, a claim of objectivity only serves to disguise your subjectivity. I think it is more honest to accept that your views are subjective and act accordingly. I know not everyone will agree with this. I had disagreements about this with more than one scholar during my time at university - people who said that in scientific writing, you always need to claim your findings as fact and never say "I think" or "in my opinion" or show any other doubt that you may be wrong. I have always disagreed with that. I believe it is just my opinion (no matter how well researched), so I'd better be honest about that.

Take the Twilight series. Literally over a hundred million copies have sold of those books. That's a whole lot of people who liked them. Yet, if you go online, you'll find tons of people stating that the books are terribly written, full of clichés and two-dimensional characters. In fact, it sometimes seems that "Twilight" and "Stephenie Meyer" have in certain circles become almost synonymous with "bad YA writing". Now, you don't have to like those books. But would you really say you think you are a better judge of quality than millions of other readers? That all those people are just wrong or stupid?

I read a YA book once that I didn't like very much. I felt that it was more tell than show, and I could never get myself to really feel for the character. The character's emotional development seemed to have been copied almost verbatim from psychology textbooks, and important events were mentioned in passing. I didn't think it was very well written. Then I went online and looked up some reviews of said book. And sure enough, there were plenty of readers who loved it and who described how much they felt for the character and how exciting the story was. Were they wrong? Or was I?

Neither, of course. It's just a matter of taste. It's not a matter of good or bad quality. It's just a matter of whether I liked it or not.

Now some of you may say that I'll never learn anything if I don't look at books more critically. That is not what I am trying to do.

I read a lot, and I think a lot about what I read. I always analyze what works and what doesn't - for me. I constantly strive to improve my own writing, but I don't presume that what I am striving for is anywhere near some sort of universal truth of what makes good writing. It is merely striving for the kind of writing that I like best and hoping that those readers who share my taste will also like it.

Does that sound like I am suggesting everyone just stay in their little boxes of personal taste and never look beyond their horizon? That is not what I am trying to do either.

Just because I don't believe in true objectivity, I do not think you should just be content to stick to your subjective views. In fact, I encourage everyone out there to try as hard as they can to understand other people's subjective views. If you hate a book that others love, try to understand what they love about it. And if you love a book, try to understand why others might not. Just don't assume that either you or they must have it completely right or completely wrong.

I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with almost everything I've said. But that's only to be expected, right? ;-) It's just my opinion, anyway.

What's your opinion? Do you think there is objectively good writing? Who gets to decide what that is? How do you talk about books you liked or didn't?

Here We Go Again

2011-04-18T08:33:00.001+02:00

I used to think of complete rewrites as emergency measures for books that really sucked. Something people who write very messy first drafts do. Something you do when the book is terrible but there's a good idea in it. Sort of like a brain transplant.

Now I'm thinking about my very own first complete rewrite, and things are starting to look different.

There's this book I've been working on since November 2009. I wrote it. I let it rest. I gave it to critique partners. I printed it. I edited it. I let it rest again.

I'm pretty sure it doesn't suck. I still like it, after having worked on it for a year and a half. The betas liked it, too. Sure, there are some problems. But until now they seemed like minor issues that, after the first revision, could be solved with some tweaking and polishing.

The more I think about it, however, the more I realize that all that tweaking and polishing would only make it an okay book. Good, but not the best it could be. To make it the best it could be, there need to be deeper, structural changes. And since the current version has a complicated scene pattern with three first-person narrators any substantial changes point me toward a total rewrite.

There are other reasons, too. The genre is not quite right. Some of the subplots don't work as well as they could. Thanks to my multiple first-person narrators, moving scenes around is extremely tricky.

Polishing it to make it the best version of what it is right now would be easier. But in writing you don't benefit from taking the easy way out. If you know what you have to do to make your story the best it could possibly be, then you go and do that. No excuses.

Never having rewritten the same story, I am not sure what I am getting myself into. What do I change and what do I keep? How do I preserve the essence of a great idea and characters that I love without getting bored by writing the same book twice?

I don't have any answers. Not even a clever guess. But I suppose I will find out, through trial and error. Which is all that writing really is anyway.

So, here I go again into charted-yet-uncharted territory. Wish me luck. And do share any words of rewriting wisdom that you might have in the comments!

Surprise Yourself!

2011-03-08T18:02:00.000+01:00

Lately, my brain has not been very cooperative with my desire to develop a new project. It's not writer's block per se, but more a frustrating difficulty with concentrating on pretty much anything. Focusing has become a struggle. I know at least in part what my problem is and how I am tripping myself up. What I don't always know is how to snap out of it.

A few days ago, however, I read an article about how the human brain learns and what makes studying easier. It mentioned that anything that is new and surprising has priority for the brain, so spontaneously taking your kid to do her homework in the (dry) bathtub can suddenly make those Spanish words stick in her memory after all.

Today I decided to put that principle to the test in my story-development efforts. I (virtually) grabbed my friend Elizabeth and made her play a new brainstorming game with me. I picked one of the characters I had already thought up but didn't tell her which one. She made up a situation and described it for me, for example being at school with your nemesis coming towards you. Then I took my character and put her in that situation and tried to come up with ideas how she would act and feel. The element of surprise forced me to be creative and jump-started my brain into giving me new sparks of ideas. It worked very well, and I now have a bunch of new ideas to work with.

So, if you are stuck for whatever reason, try creating a surprising or silly situation. It could be a game that forces two characters together without you actively picking them out. Or it could simply be a change in your story-developing routine. Whatever you decide to do, a surprising situation can help shake up those lazy brain cells and make all kinds of things happen. Give it a go!

Birthday Blogfest

2011-01-25T16:50:00.002+01:00

My dear friend Elizabeth is hosting a birthday blogfest today. Check out everyone's contributions by going HERE. Below, you'll find my scene, written just for the blogfest. I hope you enjoy it!

***

I expected my fifteenth birthday to suck, but I didn't think I would spend a large portion of it barricaded inside the bathroom.

The irony of it all was that I had locked myself into the bathroom so I wouldn't have to hear what everyone said (or yelled), and yet here I was with my ear pressed against the chipped blue paint, listening intently.

"There's the Serpent coming up the drive," Dad was saying.

"Don't call her that!" Mom said, and I could hear her slap him on the arm.

"Even if I don't say it out loud, you know everyone's thinking it," said Dad. "Including you."

When Dad was right, he was right. Even Mom knew that and shut up. I did hear what sounded like another slap, though.

The Serpent was my grandmother. My mom's mom, and the scariest woman to ever have walked the earth. Obviously I had not invited her to my birthday. But the Serpent had a tendency to turn up anyway.

I heard the distant sound of a mighty woman's boots on gravel, the door bell, and then Mom's fakest cheery voice.

"Hello mother!"

"Sweetie," the Serpent said in her deep voice. "You look lovely. Why do you try to hide it behind that hair cut?"

I couldn't hear Mom scowl and pout, but I knew she did.

"Margaret," Dad said stiffly.

"David," the Serpent replied in the same manner.

"Now," the Serpent said then. I could hear her rub her hands together, and instinctively held my breath. "Where is the birthday girl?"

"Um," Mom said. "Around here somewhere. Why don't you come into the living room?"

I heard steps and some rustling and a door being shut. And then nothing, except very muffled voices. I sat on the edge of the bathtub and tried to think hard. Which was difficult, because I was panicking.

The problem with having locked myself in the bathroom was that they would figure out where I was really quickly. And then Mom would plead with me through the door, and then Dad would shout a little, and then Mom would shout more, and then, if I knew her at all, the Serpent would probably use force to break down the door or smash the window or try to smoke me out.

If I opened the door, it would creak, and everyone would hear. So climbing out the window seemed like the best shot I had.

While squeezing out the window I tore my favorite shirt, and when I dropped to the ground I kind of hurt my foot while it was squashing one of Mom's favorite roses. But I was already too freaked out to care much about either of those things. I just made for the shed as fast as I could, circled it, and paused to catch my breath behind it. Then I ran into the forest, my foot hurting and my heart pounding.

What we called the forest was no more a forest than my grandmother was an actual snake. It was just a clump of trees with a fence going through them, which was where our garden ended and Matt's family's garden began.

Matt was sitting on said fence, his dirty sneakers resting on the lowest rail. He didn't say anything until I had reached him.

"Aaaaah," he said then. "I see... You are fleeing from a monster!"

"Shut up," I said and sat next to him.

"You definitely look like you've seen a monster," Matt said. "Pale, sweaty, and-"

"Thank you."

Matt grinned in response to my icy stare. Then he dug a bag of licorice out of his pocket and handed it to me. I didn't know whether it was a peace offering, a birthday gift or just pity food. I didn't ask. I just put a black triangle in my mouth and sucked on it.

"Honestly," Matt said. "I don't get why today is such a big deal for you guys."

"It's my fifteenth birthday," I said quietly. "It's the day they check for the Gift."

"I know," Matt said, rolling his eyes. "It's not like you haven't been obsessing over it for months. I'm just saying, I don't get what the fuss is. Who wants to know the future anyway?"

I didn't say anything, but I knew the answer. The Serpent did, and that's why she needed to stick with the traditions and check me for the Seeing Gift on the appropriate day. She needed to know whether her own vision was correct. Whether I would be a great Seer, like her. Unlike Mom.

"If your grandmother can see the future," Matt said, "why does she have to check you to know? Can't she just look into the future and see it there?"

"It doesn't work like that," I said. "She has already Seen that I have it. Now she needs to check it to know that she was right."

"That's just silly," Matt said.

I wanted to argue with him - even though he was right - because that was what we did. But I didn't get to say anything, because that very moment a twig snapped in the undergrowth and then another. I almost fell off the fence, but it was too late. The Serpent marched straight towards us, with my parents at her heels.

"You silly girl," the Serpent said. "Why are you hiding out here? You cannot run from the future."

Maybe not, I thought, but you could, and should, run from the Serpent. Always. Except that now I was stuck between her and the fence. And her big, paw-like hand was reaching for mine.

"No," I said and hid my hands behind my back. "I don't want to know."

"Please, sweetie," Mom said, and Dad rolled his eyes.

"I don't want to know about the future," I said.

"You will know anyway," the Serpent says. "It's better to be prepared. Believe me."

I shook my head.

"Give me your hand. You have to find out."

I kept shaking my head. It was her who wanted to know, not me. I was going to be a lot happier not knowing whether I had the Gift or not. I liked life being full of surprises, and I did not want to spend it wondering whether my visions were correct or not.

But I didn't stand a chance against the Serpent. She grabbed my arm and pulled it out behind my back. And nobody did anything to stop her. Her hand gripped mine so hard it hurt.

And then I felt cold. A wave of icy nothingness swept through me, and I Saw.

I Saw a space without trees. It had walls instead, and people, and a table with a birthday cake. The cake had fifteen candles on it, and letters in the icing. They read, Margaret 15. A girl stood in the middle of the room, with an old woman in front of her.

"No, Grandma," the girl said. "I don't want to know."

"You have to," the old woman said and grabbed the girl's hand. And I felt sorry for her, forced like me.

The girl's eyes grew wide, and her face grew pale. And then she spoke.

"I see a girl who looks like me. My daughter! She will be a Seer, too."

I blinked, and the scene was gone. The girl, the cake, the walls, all gone. Instead, there was the Serpent and my parents. And the forest.

"What did you See?" the Serpent asked with a triumphant smile.

"I Saw you," I said. "You at your fifteenth birthday. But you were wrong. You said Mom would be a Seer."

The Serpent narrowed her eyes at me.

"I was," she said. "I thought the girl I Saw was my daughter, but it was you. How did you know?"

"I Saw it."

"That's not possible," the Serpent said.

"Yes, it is," Mom said. "Some Seers See into the past, not the future."

"Pah!" the Serpent said. "That's not a true Gift! The past has already happened. Anyone can learn about it!"

And she turned around and stomped back through the forest toward the house. Mom and Dad gave me quick smiles and then hurried after her, presumably to keep her from knocking anything over in her frustration.

I sat back on the fence.

"Huh," Matt said. "That was... interesting."

"It really was," I said.

"So, are you okay with seeing into the past?" Matt asked.

"Yeah. I could be a historian or something."

"Nobody would believe you," Matt pointed out.

"Probably not."

No, probably not. But that didn't bother me. I dangled my legs and thought about the fifteen-year-old Serpent. She hadn't been particularly scary then. Maybe she wasn't so different from me, deep inside.

"You want some birthday cake?" I asked Matt, and he nodded, and we went back to the house slowly and without any panic whatsoever.

I did pluck the squashed rose on the way and hid it behind some empty flowerpots. Mom was the Serpent's daughter, after all.

Going Backward

2011-01-05T09:49:00.001+01:00

It's been over a month since NaNoWriMo, and after having survived two long trips to visit family and friends, two holidays, and a bad cold, it's time to look back and draw some conclusions from the experience.

NaNoWriMo 2010 was a difficult one for me. After making the word-count goal easily and happily for three years in a row, I didn't expect any trouble this time. Big mistake!

My first idea for a plot died from lack of interest (on my part) about three days before November.

The second idea died four days into November, at which point I scrapped the first six scenes and started over.

That third attempt lasted until November 15th (and 34,000 words) at which point it fell apart under my very typing fingers - and this time there was no saving it.

I panicked for a couple of hours, complained to a friend for another hour, and then picked myself up and started over from scratch with a completely unrelated novel. I wrote as fast as I could (until my wrists started hurting, in fact) and just about managed another 50,000 words before the month was over.

Lesson Number 1: Never take anything for granted in writing.

Every first draft is a new experience. Just because you've written one (or three), the next one is not necessarily going to be easier. It may be, but it may also be a lot harder.

The same is true for those elements of a story you know you are good at. Characters tend to come to me first, sometimes fully formed. Which is a great gift - but also dangerous. It's so easy to assume that the characters won't be a problem and then forget to actually develop them. This is one of the things that went wrong with the NaNo novel I abandoned at 34,000 words. When I started over, I made sure my characters were real people to me that I wanted to spend at least 50,000 words with.

Lesson Number 2: Sometimes you need to take a step backward.

A lot of writing advice focuses on never giving up, on plowing through that first draft no matter how much you hate it. And there is some truth in that: If you give up as soon as the writing gets a little tough, you probably won't ever finish anything. But you also need to know when it's time to let a story go.

If you are deeply unhappy writing your novel (for, say, more than half a day), then I think it's best to stop and do something else. Writing is a privilege and not a duty that pays my bills. If I am unhappy working on a book and the unhappiness won't go away if I try to sort out any plot or character problems, then why should I waste my precious writing time on it? Sometimes it is a better use of my time to give up. Start over. Work on something I actually enjoy. Sometimes, going backward is the only way out of a rut.

My difficulties in November had me realize that I needed to stop taking things for granted, take a good step back and remember how I wrote before worrying about getting everything right and taking learned skills for granted distracted me from writing things that I truly enjoy.

So here I am, with no usable first draft from 2010, still not done editing my one usable first draft from 2009, and with no new novels planned until I have re-familiarized myself with my story-telling instinct. And you know what? I feel so much better now.

Sometimes, going backward is the only way to go forward.

A Happy New Year everyone!

Day Thirty

2010-11-30T07:43:00.001+01:00

It's the last day of NaNoWriMo! If you're behind on your word count, spend every free second today writing. You can make it! If you're behind but have already reached the end of your novel, go back and flesh out your descriptions, add extra dialogue or a new subplot.

Day Twenty-Nine

2010-11-29T11:54:00.001+01:00

After the climax, allow your characters to wrap things up and reflect on the outcome of the story. This should not last for several chapters, but a healthy dose of conclusion and retrospection makes for satisfied readers.

Day Twenty-Eight

2010-11-28T15:03:00.000+01:00

When you set out, what did you want your book to be about? Now is the time to answer the questions that were asked by your premise.

Day Twenty-Seven

2010-11-27T12:28:00.001+01:00

Try to bring all strands of your story together in the climax. If you have two or more goals that your characters need to reach, try making them mutually exclusive (or seemingly so) for a dramatic finale.

Day Twenty-Six

2010-11-26T09:41:00.001+01:00

As you get closer to the climax, try raising the tension a little in every scene. You want your readers to be unable to put the book down by this point!

Day Twenty-Five

2010-11-25T14:44:00.000+01:00

Don't be afraid to hurt your protagonist. You may love them dearly, but a story where there is no real danger (whether physical, mental or emotional) for them, is a dull story.

Day Twenty-Four

2010-11-24T12:19:00.000+01:00

It's late in the month, and perhaps you are sick and tired of the whole NaNoWriMo craziness? Do not stop writing. Eat some chocolate, beg your significant other to rub your shoulders while you moan at the computer screen, do whatever will make you feel better. Change your story or your characters around if you have to. But do not stop writing. You're close to the end. Don't give up now. Just write.

Day Twenty-Three

2010-11-23T17:27:00.001+01:00

Do remember to show, not tell. It's good for your word count, too. "She kicked the locked door and screamed, both with fury at her helplessness and the pain radiating from her toes" has lots more words than "She was angry." Just saying.

Day Twenty-Two

2010-11-22T10:45:00.000+01:00

Getting bored of your story? Take a moment to think about what you love most about your idea and then focus your next scene or chapter on that aspect. Alternatively, add a new element that gets your heart pounding.

Day Twenty-One

2010-11-21T15:09:00.001+01:00

If your characters have to start coming up with solutions for their various problems and you can't think of anything, try thinking about their backstory. What are their hobbies? What did their parents teach them? Where did they use to live? Those things might come in handy now - for your characters and for you.

Day Twenty

2010-11-20T14:54:00.000+01:00

New to my blog and in need of a writing prompt? Check out the 30 prompts I posted last November (click on the 'writing prompt' tag below). (Lame tip, I know. You try coming up with 30 helpful things to say sometime! ;-)

Day Nineteen

2010-11-19T17:01:00.000+01:00

Getting tired of all the writing? Try to write in a different room of the house, with old-fashioned pen and paper, or changing the background and font colors on your computer. A change in the surroundings can help give you a fresh perspective.

Day Eighteen

2010-11-18T13:16:00.001+01:00

Did you introduce any subplots early in the novel that you forgot about again? Go find them now and bring them up again. It'll help your word count and your novel.

Day Seventeen

2010-11-17T15:30:00.000+01:00

If you aren't writing as much as you think you should, try unplugging the internet. Go, get off my blog now!

Day Sixteen

2010-11-16T13:25:00.001+01:00

Still stuck? Try introducing something new into the scene. Have a character turn up unexpectedly, the telephone ring or the weather change.

Day Fifteen

2010-11-15T17:04:00.000+01:00

Getting stuck? Try stopping to write in the middle of a scene, so that you will be thrown right back into the action the next day.

Day Fourteen

2010-11-14T11:30:00.000+01:00

The end of the beginning is not where the story starts (it starts at the beginning of the beginning - duh!), it's where the first little climax should be.

Day Thirteen

2010-11-13T13:50:00.000+01:00

As you get closer to the end of the beginning, make sure you've introduced every person, conflict and concept that your readers need to know in order to follow the rest of the story.

Day Twelve

2010-11-12T11:06:00.001+01:00

If you're a pantser who writes without an outline, it can still be helpful to write one as you go along - to keep track of what you've already written.

Day Eleven

2010-11-11T12:27:00.001+01:00

Got writer's block? Try getting up and moving around. Your subconscious will keep working while you are busy doing the dishes or taking the garbage out, and you might end up with fresh ideas.

Day Ten

2010-11-10T12:12:00.001+01:00

Make sure there is something at stake for your characters.

Day Nine

2010-11-09T10:55:00.002+01:00

Running out of ideas? In the words of my friend Elizabeth, "Plot is just another word for 'What can go wrong next?'" - so think about what might be the worst thing that could happen to your characters at this point...

Day Eight

2010-11-08T09:01:00.000+01:00

Have some conflict or tension in every scene.

Day Seven

2010-11-07T12:16:00.000+01:00

Can't be on your computer all the time? Take a notebook and pen with you wherever you go. That way you can write a few words whenever you find the time.

Day Six

2010-11-06T12:38:00.001+01:00

Make sure your main characters are interesting. If they seem a little flat, give them a few quirks and flaws.

Day Five

2010-11-05T10:39:00.000+01:00

Remember to back up your work! Save it on a flash drive, email it to yourself, print out a hard copy! You don't want to lose any of those words.

Day Four

2010-11-04T09:47:00.001+01:00

Use all five senses when you describe a scene!

Day Three

2010-11-03T11:20:00.001+01:00

Introduce your characters by having them act in a way that's typical for them.

Day Two

2010-11-02T11:06:00.000+01:00

If you don't have a writing buddy yet, try to find one now! Whether it's a fellow WriMo or just a friend who likes to read along as you write - having someone cheer you on or talk you through a plot problem can be very helpful.

NaNoWriMo 2010 - Day One

2010-11-01T09:47:00.001+01:00

Don't know where to start? Start with the first event that's relevant to the central conflict of your story!

About NaNoWriMo...

2010-10-21T18:53:00.001+02:00

In case you didn't know, November is National Novel Writing Month - a huge international event in which thousands of writers challenge themselves to write 50,000 words in a month. I have been participating since 2007 and am currently getting my plot ready for this year.

Lots of people love NaNoWriMo. In fact, 170,000 people took part last year, and the number of participants is expected to rise again this year. There is a great community on the NaNoWriMo forums that writes and talks about writing all year round.

Of course there are also people who don't like NaNoWriMo. And a few of those seem to feel the need to criticize the event as a whole - instead of just stating that it doesn't work for them. I feel that a lot of that criticism is down to misunderstandings and misconceptions, so here are a few things to think about.

NaNoWriMo encourages its writers to kill off their inner editors (or at least lock them in the basement for the month of November) and just write, no matter what. You are not supposed to edit or delete anything. All that matters is the daily word count. Some people take that to mean that, by definition, you are producing something of low or no quality. But there are a few things to take into account here.

1) Those encouragements are primarily directed at beginners and people who shy away from writing a book because it seems too hard. And at those who never finish anything because they can't stop editing or even deleting everything they've written as soon as they lose confidence for a moment. NaNoWriMo tries to teach you to just write every day, no matter how you feel. To keep going and get that first draft done. That's a valuable lesson for any writer, and one that I doubt I would have learned without NaNoWriMo.

2) Most first drafts are crappy anyway, whether you take a month or six to write them. And they all need editing. Even when writing more slowly, some people produce cleaner first drafts than others and some take longer revising and editing their novels. All that really matters, though, is the end product - not how you get there.

3) There are lots of people on the NaNoWriMo forums who post random challenges, tips, tricks and even cheats for increasing their word count. People suggest lengthy prologues, characters who repeat everything they say, have recurring dreams or go off on random adventures - just to pad the word count. But the important thing to remember is that the vast majority of those participants are not writing to publish. They write just for themselves, for fun, for the rush of the challenge. They can do whatever they want with their novels, and no, quality does not play a big role for them. But that doesn't count for every WriMo, and certainly not for the majority of those who want to be published.

Personally, I never put anything in my NaNoWriMo novels just for the word count. I write just like I would any other time of the year, except that I give my writing a higher priority in the day and let the enthusiasm and fun of the collective challenge drive and inspire me. The resulting first draft is fairly clean and only needs, in my opinion, a normal amount of editing.

Some people also point out that 50,000 words in not long enough for a novel in most genres. This is true, and the event's organizers are aware of it. They say they picked 50,000 words because it is a goal that seems achievable for most people. Again, the majority of participants is not aiming for publication, so current expectations of the publishing world are not the most important factors in the design of the challenge. Writers who aim to be published should do the research and be aware that a 50k adult fantasy novel is too short. Also, there is no upper limit in NaNoWriMo. Lots of people write more than 50,000 words and keep going after November. I tend to manage 60-70k within the month and then continue until I reach the end of the book.

Finally, I have heard people complain that, following NaNoWriMo, literary agents and publishers are flooded with the unedited first drafts of countless naïve WriMos (though this is in no way encouraged by the NaNoWriMo staff). While this may or may not be true, I don't think it presents a problem for those of us who know better. There will always be people who rush their manuscripts out there without doing the research. They will receive form rejections, and the queries of the rest of us will look so much better, won't they? ;-)

So while nobody out there is in any way obliged to enjoy NaNoWriMo, I don't think it's fair to assume that it's impossible to produce a publishable novel with the help of this event - only because not everyone doing NaNoWriMo is setting out to do that. Quite a few of us are very well able to write 50,000 words or more of good quality in a month.

And we have fun at the same time. :-D

My Posting Schedule...

2010-10-07T16:11:00.001+02:00

... does not exist.

As you may have noticed, I don’t post every day. I don’t even post every week. Actually, my last post is over a month old. Am I a lazy blogger?

Well, I’m not a blogger at all, I’m just a writer who also blogs. Working on my novels will always have the highest priority. Blogging is something that only happens if I still have some time left at the end of the day… and a good idea!

That’s the other thing. I started this blog to share my brief moments of wisdom with other writers – because I learn so much from other people’s perspectives and insights and want to give something back to the community that’s helped me grow as a writer.

So I won’t write anything *just* to be blogging. I will only post when I actually have something (hopefully vaguely intelligent) to say.

All that said, for the month of November and to celebrate the madness that is NaNoWriMo, I will post daily tips and tricks to help you get your novels rolling, get unstuck and finally get to "The End".

The Times Are A-Changin'

2010-08-28T10:11:00.001+02:00

Have you ever got stuck in a story during the planning phase or early in the first draft? What am I saying, of course you have. Unless you are some sort of fiction writing superhero, in which I case I would like to know what the secret of your superpowers is. I'm scared of spiders, but if being bitten by one would keep me from ever getting stuck... But I digress.

Even lacking superpowers, there are things you can do to get unstuck. One of them is changing the point in time at which you start telling your story. It seems to me that one of them most common reasons for me to get stuck and bored is because I'm starting the story too soon or too late. Usually too soon.

Say a big part of your story is about the relationship between Plucky Heroine and Hot Guy. You start by introducing Plucky Heroine and then have her meet Hot Guy. They slowly get to know each other. And somewhere around this point you get the feeling that the story is so dull it will put you to sleep even while you're typing away. You lose interest. You get stuck.

Here's a trick I use to get unstuck: I move the beginning of the story to later. Perhaps it opens right at the moment when Hot Guy treads on Plucky Heroine's toes and I can introduce her while there's already something interesting happening. Or perhaps they have known each other for a year and the story starts when something new happens between them.

Sometimes we tend to think of the beginning of a story as a bit before anything happens. But a story should always begin when something interesting is already happening. You want your readers to be hooked from page one. So make sure page one comes at a point of the story where there is conflict and tension. You can sneak character and setting descriptions and backstory into the action. You don't need separate chapters One and Two for them.

Similarly, sometimes you may get stuck because the most interesting thing actually happened in the backstory and the 'now' is only trying to resolve the consequences. If that is the case, try going back in time and setting the story when the drama actually took place.

Playing around with when your story should start can often solve a lot of plot problems. And even if you decide to keep your original starting point, exploring different possibilities can give you a fresh perspective on your characters and their story.

Failing that, you can still go look for a helpful spider, of course.

Originally Me

2010-08-05T09:38:00.002+02:00

My good friend Elizabeth blogged about the importance of originality yesterday, and that made me think.

Many writers have a hard time coming up with something original. We see the books that are out there, and we want to produce something that is like them: published and popular. So perhaps, subconsciously, we try to come up with a good idea by copying and comparing.

I used to think that good, original ideas were somehow separate from myself - like objects, to be found in the world outside my head. My own ideas seemed too obvious and somewhat dull compared to those of others. In order to write a book that others liked, I needed to come up with something more original than that. But by 'original', I really meant, 'like those books out there.'

But originality is not something that is 'out there'. Originality can only be found within yourself. For an idea to be original, it has to be your idea.

Your own ideas, likes and dislikes don't always seem very original because they are so familiar to you, but for the rest of the world, they are as original as they can get. Because they're a product of your brain and not theirs.

Mix elements you like but that you usually don't see mixed in published books. And write about the things you really care about. That's originality.

Let's Play Pretend

2010-07-08T10:55:00.004+02:00

Writing games can be a fun way to exercise your creative muscles. My favorite writing game has always been Fictional Correspondences. A school friend introduced me to it when we were about twelve years old. One day she handed me a letter - but it wasn't from her. It was from a made-up girl who lived in a made-up place. First I wrote back as myself, but soon I was bored with that. I wanted to make something up myself! So we started over. I created a set of islands and a character called Sophie Wiesel. And thus the game began...

We exchanged fake letters for a while and later I played on my own, sometimes writing just one side and sometimes both. Yes, I was a lonely, geeky teenager who wrote fake letters to herself and spent afternoons making fake stamps. Don't feel sorry for me; I enjoyed myself.

In more recent years I have started to play Fictional Correspondences again the way it was meant to be: with two players.

The rules are simple. Each player makes up a character and then those characters send each other letters. You can have a story in mind that you would like to tell or just see where it goes. You can play for as long as you both have ideas.

You can use email to quickly send letters back and forth, or you can do it the more elaborate and slow way that involves faking your character's handwriting and crafting stamps.

In addition to being fun, Fictional Correspondences is a great way to do worldbuilding and a good exercise in character development and voice. If you don't usually write in 1st person, try letters as a way to explore a new POV and put yourself in your character's mind.

Exchanging letters with someone else provides new impulses and questions for your character that you might not have come up with on your own. This can help delve deeper into his or her back-story and explain your setting better.

To me, it's still the most fun of all writing exercises!

Progress Report

2010-06-02T10:30:00.002+02:00

Sorry for the long absence! The last few weeks were a bit crazy, and on top of that I caught a nasty cold that I'm still struggling to get rid of.

But in between I somehow managed to complete the first stage of my revision plan. I went through all 102 scenes in my novel, summarizing what happens in them and trying to see if there is enough conflict in each of them. It's helped me see what is actually in the novel and where there might be problems with logic or pacing.

I've also written a 150-word pitch - as early query-writing practice and to remind myself what the core of the plot is.

When Nathan Bransford blogged about the one-sentence pitch, I tried my hand at that, too, but found it infinitely harder. Only a few days after Nathan's post, I went to a high-school reunion where a couple of people asked me what my novel was about. Of course my mind immediately went blank, and I stammered incoherent nonsense instead of making people curious about the book.

*cough* There's a reason I am a writer and not a ... speaker. *cough*

Now it's time to get going with the second, and much harder, part of my revision plan: actually rewriting bits that don't make sense.

I'll do my best. ;-)

An Interview

2010-05-12T14:54:00.003+02:00

I've had the pleasure of being interviewed by my good friend and fellow writer Elizabeth. Check out the interview here at her awesome blog. She posts great advice and way more frequently than I do...

Realism in Fantasy

2010-05-02T12:05:00.004+02:00

The May/June edition of Vision: A Resource for Writers is up, and in it you'll find another article of mine. In this one I'm talking about some things you can do while worldbuilding to make your fantasy setting seem like a real place. Read it here, and be sure to check out the rest of this wonderful magazine as well!

My contribution to Charity Bradford's Baking Blogfest can still be found here. I need to go and catch up on everyone else's scenes... So many great things to read and so little time! *sigh*

Baking Blogfest!

2010-04-30T09:57:00.005+02:00

Charity Bradford is hosting a baking scene blogfest over at My Writing Journey on May 1st, and I almost forgot to sign up! I love baking and cooking, so I think this is a great idea and I just wrote a fun little scene for it... Look for it in this post tomorrow!

UPDATE: Here is my baking scene...

***

"Are you serious?" Adam asked from the window sill.

I slammed the mixing bowl on the table which was as good an answer as anything I might have said. He rolled his eyes and pulled his knees up to his chin. I opened the book and browsed through the stained, sticky pages until I found the recipe.

"Why would you want to spend a perfectly nice afternoon in the kitchen?" Adam whined. "It's sunny. We could go to the park. Play some ball."

I looked up. His face was hard to read against the light, but I knew what it looked like anyway. The forehead creased. The eyes pleading. The mouth annoyed.

"I have to go and pick up Lisa soon anyway," I said.

"Why can't she just stay with your grandma?"

"Because."

"Your grandma could bake her a birthday cake."

"But she won't."

In fact, she hadn't even remembered it was Lisa's birthday. I had reminded her, and ten minutes later she had already forgotten it again. I didn't want to leave Lisa alone with her all day. Especially not today.

"I know it sucks that your mom is in hospital again and all that," Adam continued. "But you should still have some fun. Besides, you're the little brat's brother, not her dad."

Adam didn't have siblings, so he couldn't know how much I wanted to kick him for that. My hands were shaking as I took a bag of sugar out of a cabinet. Letting him suck me into an argument wasn't going to help me now.

"I'm going to do this," I said. "So either shut up or go."

Adam stayed where he was. I measured the sugar and poured it into the bowl. The tiny crystals glittered in the sunlight that streamed through the window. It probably was nice out there.

"It says to 'cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy'," I read out loud.

"So?" Adam asked.

I dropped the butter on the table. It made a sound like I'd dropped a big rock instead.

"Oh. I guess they mean soft butter."

"You don't say! What do I do now?"

Adam shrugged. Not my problem, he was thinking, I wanted to go to the park.

Because I couldn't think of anything else, I took a knife and cut the hard lump of butter into small chunks. Mixed with the sugar, the result was anything but light and fluffy. I stared miserably at the sugar-coated butter lumps. If Lisa's birthday sucked, it would be my fault.

Adam was looking out of the window. Why didn't he just leave? Why did he have to sit there and make me feel bad for doing the right thing?

I took the eggs and tried to remember how Mom used to crack them open, her fingers so quick and skilled. She used to do it over a small glass bowl, tapping the shell on the rim. I got one of the bowls and tried tapping the egg on it. At first nothing happened. When I tapped harder, the egg exploded over my hands and the bowl. At least most of it landed inside. I spent a while picking tiny pieces of eggshell out of the slimy mass.

"That's disgusting," Adam said.

I almost threw the bowl at him. My hands shook again, and my throat felt swollen, like I couldn't breathe.

"Shut up," was all I could say.

The next two eggs worked out a little better. I still had to fish for eggshell, but I could see that I might get the hang of it. I mixed the eggs with the rest, trying to squeeze the butter into submission with the spoon. There was no picture or description in the recipe of what it was supposed to look like at this point, but I was absolutely sure that my lumpy mass was not it. I mixed harder, but it didn't make much of a difference.

My egg-stained finger on the page, I read on.

"It says to sieve the flour," I said. "Why would you have to do that?"

"Just dump it in," Adam said. "What's the difference?"

I was tempted for a second. It was not going to work out anyway, was it? There was no way this mess could turn into a cake that would make a seven-year-old happy. I was tempted, too, to give up and go to the park with Adam.

But I couldn't.

I measured the flour, added baking powder, and got the sieve.

"Better to follow the recipe," I said.

Adam groaned.

"How much longer is this going to take?"

My hands shook again, and I accidentally dusted the table with flour. It looked like it had snowed. My stupid throat closed up again.

"Just go... if you... just leave me... you don't know what... just... piss off, okay?"

My cheeks were burning with the effort of getting words out that actually made sense. It was no use.

Adam raised his hands.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Okay? I'm sorry."

I turned back to the bowl and tried to get the sieved flour and the now egg-coated sugary butter lumps to form something that resembled cake batter.

I wished that Adam would just leave and go hang out with guys who didn't have little sisters and sick mothers and no fathers. Guys who could do whatever they wanted on sunny afternoons. Guys who didn't understand anymore than he did why it was so important to make sure your little sister had a reason to smile on her birthday.

But he stayed, dangling one leg off the window sill and watching me with his face still dark against the light.

I added milk to the mixture, sweating now from the sunlight and the battle with the spoon. And I kept mixing and mixing, stubborn and desperate. It seemed like getting this cake right was the only thing in the world I could do to make anything better.

Miraculously, the lumpy mass slowly turned into something smooth and sweet, even if there were still small lumps in it. I sat, exhausted. Adam slid off the window sill.

"That doesn't look too bad," he said.

I took a deep breath and poured the batter into a baking tin. I glanced at the recipe and then my watch.

"There's just enough time for this to bake before I have to go pick up Lisa."

Adam nodded and left the kitchen. He was going to go to the park without me, I thought. But as I stopped rinsing the mixing bowl, I heard the water run in the bathroom and then Adam returned. He sat on the window sill again with a sigh.

I looked into the oven. The thing actually looked like cake now.

"Are you done?" Adam asked.

"For now."

"Let's play some cards."

As the cake slowly rose in the oven and made the kitchen smell of better times, we sat at the table and played. I still wished I had a friend who understood. But at the same time, I was glad that Adam was as ignorant and selfish as he was. I needed the comfort of his ordinariness just as much as Lisa needed that cake.

A New Adventure

2010-04-14T10:43:00.003+02:00

Here's something I don't always like admitting: I have completed the first drafts of four novels but I have never completed revisions on any of them. I always got discouraged and overwhelmed and went off to write something new instead. But everyone who knows something about writing will tell you that you can't be more than a hobby writer if you don't revise. And they're right.

So the time has come for me to finally go through with it and bring a novel to actual completion. My NaNoWriMo novel from last November has been resting since I finished it in January. And even though months have passed, I am still excited about it and can't wait to go back to spending time with those characters. Which must be a good sign.

I have read different advice on editing and revisions but I will try to figure out my own method first. Following one method out there to the letter usually doesn't work out well for me. Instead, I like to pick out bits and pieces that appeal to me. And I tend to ignore advice if it doesn't seem right for me.

For example, I know that I will need to rewrite at least one scene, but I went and printed out the entire manuscript already anyway. I cannot look at the computer screen and see what exactly is wrong with a scene. I need to have it on paper. So I rushed ahead (according to other people's methods) and printed it before revising the big stuff. If I need to, I will print rewritten scenes again later.

Besides, seeing my 250-page manuscript in print is making me all kinds of excited and happy. Look how pretty!

I used to be just terrified of revisions. Now I'm both happy and scared at the same time. It's a daunting task, but I know it can be done. And it needs to be done. Wish me luck!

Birds and Bees

2010-03-25T09:04:00.001+01:00

I doubt there are many writers who haven't been asked this question at some point in their lives, typically by a non-writer: Where do you get your ideas from? And what are you supposed to answer when ideas seem to lurk in everything there is, from paintings, songs, and landscapes, to thunderstorms, dogs, swimming pools, and snowflakes? I have come up with story ideas during walks, watching movies, waking up from weird dreams, and seeing people waiting for a tram.

Some of us may have preferred places for inspiration, such as in the shower. German author Erich Kästner said in the introduction to "Emil and the Detectives" (1929) that he could think best while lying down on the living-room carpet, where he noticed that the table legs looked like school children's calves in brown stockings. He also wrote that catching ideas was unlike catching dogs - with ideas, if you got hold of the neck, you only had the neck. You then still had to assemble the rest of the creature, legs, ears, belly, tail.

But where do they come from? I remember asking myself that very question when I first started writing.

I've always been imaginative, even as a young child. To this day I am being reminded of the explanations I came up with for every-day phenomena that my parents struggled to explain. Like the one about the pictures on TV being rolled up tightly so they'd fit through the cables.

But my early writing, when compared to the books I loved to read, was flat and empty. I remember looking at it and wondering how my beloved authors came up with all that detail that made a story come alive. I tried very hard to put detail into mine. One of my old story notebooks from when I was fifteen or sixteen begins with the following:

We went to my father's colleague's vacation home for a few days. Mr. Johnson was already waiting for us. We were greeted cordially, then Mrs. Johnson showed us our rooms. They were upstairs. I went up the stairs last. My room was small but cosy. In one corner stood a freshly made bed. On one wall was a wardrobe and opposite of that a table and chairs. I unpacked my bag und went downstairs. The others were sitting in the living room, by the fireplace, drinking tea. I sat down. Suddenly the door opened and a young man came in. He was a little out of breath, and his cheeks were red with the cold. His dark-blond hair shimmered. His pale skin was smooth. He was very handsome. He was wearing jeans and a red sweater. Mr. Johnson said, "This is my nephew." ...

Are you still awake? No, I didn't think so.

The problem was not that I didn't know where to find ideas. Nor did I have trouble imagining the scene. In fact, I still feel it glow when I re-read it. Not because anything is glowing on the page, but because I remember how I pictured it.

And I could tell that my writing was dull. I just didn't know how to change that. Then, a year or two later, I was writing something else and suddenly realised that things had changed. My writing had changed. It was full of those details now that make stories come alive instead of slowing them down. Where had they come from? I had no idea. They were just there.

I still don't know where exactly my ideas come from. In fact, I think, the question is wrong to begin with. Ideas are always there. They don't need to be found. They are already in all our heads.

But what we have to learn, is to put those ideas on the page in an interesting way. To select and combine and compose. I learned that from reading and writing a lot - until my subconscious started to do the work all by itself, and it seemed as though the ideas were coming from some magical place.

Even though I know that, I still don't know how to answer the question when it comes. People tend not to believe you when you say that the ideas are already there, in everyone. Because they don't feel like they have any. I know; I used to feel the same. So sometimes it's easier to stick to the explanation with the birds and the bees and say "I get all my ideas in the shower."

Map-Making Adventures

2010-03-19T09:30:00.006+01:00

I have not been writing much the last few days. It's not writer's block so much as writer's lull. I'm not quite sure how to proceed with my current WiP. So while I'm waiting for certain outlining issues to be resolved, I'm spending more time than usual on worldbuilding.

I have a potentially planet-sized fantasy world with many countries, cultures and languages. Every time I develop a new country, I draw a map. All my maps are on different sheets of paper and some are at different scales than others. Now, I know where each country is situated in relation to the others, but I have never attempted to draw one map that includes them all.

Until now.

Yesterday I bought some A2-sized drawing paper and set to work. It doesn't seem like too hard a task, but there are two serious problems with this endeavour: 1) I'm actually not good at drawing. And 2) my brain doesn't comprehend numbers.

Problem 1) led to the fact that the none of the pretty fjords of my northernmost country look exactly how the should in the scaled-down version - no matter how hard I tried. I can draw fjords. I cannot copy them free-hand.

Problem 2) means that even though I calculated everything three times with the help of a calculator AND counted centimetres on my ruler AND made grids from tracing paper, I still ended up with a westernmost country that is now missing its tip because I'd reached the edge of my huge A2 sheet too soon. And I don't want to start over because I really, really don't want to draw those stupid, tiny fjords again.

I also realised quickly that I won't be able to fit very many of my countries on the same sheet. And I can't make the small countries even smaller or they'll just like ugly little blobs. With crooked, miniscule fjords.

But, despite the misshapen fjords and the missing tips, looking at a map with four or five of my countries all in proper relation to one another is pretty cool.

Writerly Wisdom

2010-03-11T09:09:00.002+01:00

Lately, it seems as though people are talking about writing rules everywhere I turn, not least in this Guardian article. So I feel tempted to post my own writing advice. I won't call them rules because every writer is different and no piece of advice will apply to everyone. But here's my few pieces of writerly wisdom.

1) Write a lot. Yes, everybody tells you that already. There is a reason they do, though. You do have to write a lot to be(come) a writer. Writing is an art that you have to practise. Just like you have to practise playing the piano or sculpting great statues or cooking perfect meals. Even amazing child prodigies practise whatever their natural talent leads them to do. I wrote through most of my teens without sharing much of it, without even learning anything about writing techniques from any other source than the piles of YA novels I read. There were no rules and very little advice. And yet I learned a lot, through practice and emulation. Reading about writing is great. But actually writing (a LOT) is far more important.

2) Enjoy writing. You hear a lot of writers whine about how hard writing is. And yes, it is hard at times. Finding the time and discipline to make progress on a project can be hard. Editing can be really hard. Self-doubts can interfere with your creativity. But you should still enjoy writing more than it troubles you. If you don't, why would you bother? Writing is rarely something you are forced to do to pay the bills. Nor something your parents expect you to do. It is far more likely that you choose to write in spite of those things. Remind yourself of that whenever you lose the joy in writing.

3) Don't write boring scenes. I used to try and force myself to write dull filler scenes that I thought were necessary for the plot. Guess what? Scenes that are boring to write are usually boring to read. If you are bored with the scene you're writing, change it. There is always an interesting way to convey the information that advances the plot. Find it. That's what good writing is all about.

4) Know what your story is about. Know what your plot is, but also know the purpose of the plot. Every scene you write should serve to answer one or more story questions. I used to think of stories only in terms of "introduction", "middle" and "end". Nowadays I try to think of stories in terms of "central conflict" and what each piece of the story contributes to showing and resolving this conflict. It makes for a more focused result and also helps against boring filler scenes.

5) Don't be solitary. Lots of writers, especially older writers, tell us that writing is solitary work. That may have been true once and is still true for some writers, but I don't find that it is the case for me at all. Having writer friends, alpha and beta readers, and being part of writing communities all help me to be a better writer. I can learn from others. While alpha readers are not for everyone, I love having someone who reads along as I write - as a cheerleader and a guide who keeps me from falling into major plot holes. Being part of writing communities on the internet has ensured that I knew where to go when I began researching agents and publishing. Sharing the process with others gives you a support network that you are unlikely to find among non-writers.

That's my advice. What is yours?

The actual writing DESK

2010-03-07T13:13:00.004+01:00

After eight gruelling, desk-less months, this blog is being written at an actual desk again. I don't care about the sacrifices I had to make (i.e. a blister on my right hand, a splinter in my left hand, and having my office in a corner of our bedroom). I have a desk again!

It's not just that I childishly WANTED one. It's not even just that I didn't feel like a proper writer, without a desk.

I needed a place to work. I needed to give writing that place in my living space, as well as in my life. I write because I want to, and the transition from hobby to job is not an easy one. No one gives me a schedule or an office or (much) money at this point. If I want writing to be my job, I have to MAKE it my job. And that means giving this activity the room it needs. My new desk helps me not just see it that way but live it, too.

1: NaNoWriMo postcard on my not yet hung-up pin board.
2: Picture of Significant Other, who deserves plenty of praise - he paid for the desk.
3: Mini bookmark calendar with paintings of reading women.
4: Jar of pens with NaNoWriMo sticker.
5: A card from a dear friend, reading "pencil and a dream can take you anywhere".
6: My writing journal.
7: My copy of "Stein on Writing" by Sol Stein which I am currently reading.
8: Fridolin, my trusty laptop on which I do most of my writing.
9: Poetry magnets which I used to make silly labels for my drawers.

Article in Vision

2010-03-01T11:58:00.004+01:00

The March/April edition of Vision: A Resource for Writers is up. You can find my article here.

Be sure to check out the rest of the magazine!

Whoops! Blogfest

2010-02-22T08:10:00.004+01:00

Here's my scene for the Whoops! blogfest. I made this up on the spot, so I hope it A) makes sense and B) you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

You can find all the other contributors and their scenes over at Laurel's Leaves.

***

Okay, so I was running past the sign that says "No running." I didn't have much time to ponder the irony of that fact or worry that Mrs Kvukat might see me. I had to catch the little ones before they caused any more mayhem than they already had.

I caught up with Lanas first, grabbing him by the back of his shirt. He stopped dead and squealed something about me strangling him. As if! I let go of the shirt and grabbed his tiny hand instead. Then I pulled him along after Lila. She was the real problem. Nothing but trouble, all her teeny tiny three years and two months.

"I'm never going to take you anywhere ever again," I told them after I had rescued an expensive book out of Lila's chubby hands. As though taking the little ones to work had been my choice. "Be quiet now. And no running."

I took them each by a hand and marched them back to the play area in the children's book section. Why couldn't they be happy playing with building blocks like normal kids?

I would have watched over them until Mrs Kvukat had called me back to work, but just as Lila was about to maul her brother with a wooden toy car, I spotted a customer with dark curls depositing a shopping bag on Mrs Kvukat's antique reading chair.

I wrenched the car from Lila's hand and ignored her wailing as I hurried to snap at the dark-haired woman. I was putting out fires everywhere today.

"Miss," I said to the woman's back, trying to sound polite and at the same time attempting to hear whether Lila had killed Lanas yet. "Miss."

No reaction.

"Miss!"

She turned around then, and I realised why she hadn't felt addressed. She was a he. Definitely a he. So much a he that I wondered how I could have made that mistake. The hair wasn't even that long.

I tried to hide my blush behind a frown, which is not the kind of thing that ever works. It just makes me look ridiculously embarrassed.

"Uhm, sorry, sir," I said, which obviously just made things worse. He wasn't much older than me either.

"Yes?" he asked so patiently that I briefly considered asking him to look after the little ones during my lunch break. I'm cruel like that.

"Will you please not put anything on that chair? It's an antique. It's only to be looked at."

Why Mrs Kvukat had thought it a good idea to display her precious antique in the middle of a shop without so much as a sign to tell people what it was there for was beyond me. She had signs for everything else.

"Whoops, sorry," the guy said. He returned a book to the shelf and picked up the bag. "It was just because I wanted to look at a book."

Lila and Lanas hat gone eerily quiet. That couldn't mean anything good. I squirmed.

"How about using your other hand?" I suggested pointedly, gesturing at his left side.

"Uhm... I kind of don't have one on that side."

He lifted his arm briefly. The sleeve flopped down somewhere around the elbow.

I had nothing to hide my deep crimson blush behind now than words. And obviously words hide blushes even worse than frowns do.

"Oh, then you can't, I guess. Well, better to be one-armed than armed, right? Ha ha, get it? One-armed, unarmed? Ha, better for me anyway. Else you might shoot me."

He stood there, smiling patiently and only very slightly embarrassed. Still, I probably would have jabbered on until I had nothing left to do but shoot myself.

What saved me, ironically, was Lanas' high-pitched scream. I tagged a hasty apology to the end of my ridiculous monologue and raced to save him from the evil that was his sister.

I came just in time. Lila was apparently threatening his life with a menacing plush dog.

Mrs Kvukat joined us, her usually tidy hair ruffled with frustration. I couldn't blame her.

"Will you please go on your lunch break now?" she asked. "In the spirits' name, take the children with you. And don't come back before three. I have work to do."

I obeyed before she could ask me to not come back at all. I dragged the kids to the park where I chased them around until they were too tired to be much more trouble.

As we slowly walked back to the bookshop, Lila half asleep on my arm, we very nearly bumped into the one-armed guy. He smiled benignly.

"Sorry about before," I said to him. "I shouldn't be allowed to work with people. I may have a disease."

The corners of his mouth twitched slightly.

"Man, you have a disease, right? And it cost you your arm and you feel terrible every time someone mentions it. Especially when they mistake you for a woman. Right? I'll never get my foot out of my mouth now."

He smiled more broadly.

"No one's ever mistaken me for a woman before."

I moaned and shifted Lila's weight on my arm. Lanas pulled at my other hand.

"I should get back," I said. "Before the little monsters get grumpy or, worse, wake up again."

He grinned at me.

"Do you often have to look after your siblings? Well, be glad you're not their mother. My brother and I used to torment our parents more than each other."

"Huh," I said.

"What?"

"I am their mother."

"Whoops."

He, of course, looked a lot better when he blushed than I did.

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Let's call it quits."

Another blogfest

2010-02-18T15:03:00.005+01:00

Because the last one was so much fun and this one seems to be made for my ever-blushing female characters... I've decided to participate in another blogfest this Monday: The Whoops! Blogfest hosted by Laurel's Leaves.

Now... gotta find or write a scene to post...

New article coming up!

2010-02-17T09:18:00.003+01:00

I have sold another article to Vision: A Resource for Writers. It's about how to create original fantasy names quickly. It is not up yet, but I will let you know when it is. Please check out the magazine, though. It is a great resource for all things writing!

My contribution to Courtney Reese's Love at First Sight Blogfest can still be found in the post below. I'm having a great time reading everyone's scenes - though I still have a lot of catching up to do.

In other news, I keep changing my mind which novel to work on. Sometimes plots just seem to fall apart the more I try to make them work. So for now I'm doing some worldbuilding and developing new ideas.

Love At First Sight Blogfest Post

2010-02-14T13:53:00.003+01:00

Here's my scene. Enjoy!

***

I hated being in space. Just one whiff of the artificial air was enough to make me want to go back to sleep. Despite the vastness and whiteness of the room, I felt claustrophobic.

"Please make your way slowly towards the exit and keep your papers ready."

The clear voice sounded as sterile as the floor beneath my feet looked. I gripped the edge of the pod harder, as if that could stop my head from spinning.

"Sir?"

"I'm fine," I said. "Just give me a second."

I set my feet further apart and began to push myself up, the edge of the pod digging into my palms. My knees wobbled like jellyfish, and I sank back down.

"Do you require medical assistance, sir?"

"No, thank you. I'll be fine. In a minute."

The figure, blurred and fragmented by my compromised vision, moved away slowly. I looked around while I waited for my body to recover. The room was empty. Of 344 passengers aboard the Sky Dolphin, I was once again the last to come out of stasis.

I tried again to stand. This time it worked. Sort of.

"Sir? Are you not feeling well?"

Why hadn't she gone?

"I'm okay."

I swayed a little.

"Please sit back down while I alert medical."

I heard the beeps of a communications panel as I made my slow way towards the exit.

"I have a human male with severe stasis hangover."

"Location?"

"Docking bay 2. Freighter Sky Dolphin. Stasis room number... Hey! Wait, sir! I'm going to have to ask you to-"

With one hand against the wall of the corridor I made it down to customs. Two men and one woman guarded the gate.

"Name?" one of them barked.

"Jovan Attannao."

"Papers."

They looked at them much longer than necessary. But by the time they let me pass, I had recovered enough to walk more steadily.

I tried not to think of the fact that outside these sterile, windowless corridors there was nothing. A deadly void. Five more hours and I'd be in a real place again. Someplace with pleasant air, firm soil and real sunlight. Even if it was from a different sun than my own.

I checked the time. Three hours and forty-seven minutes until my shuttle left. Not enough time to book quarters and sleep. If I'd been able to afford that.

I studied the cryptic signs that marked the elevators. There were still bright spots before my eyes, no matter how often I blinked.

I saw that I had got it right when I stepped out a few floors above and saw tables and chairs. Perhaps they served Kerandian fruit juices here. I hadn't had those in years.

I half turned to walk towards a table, but someone blocked my path. I stopped so suddenly, I swayed a little again.

"Do you know that I've had to chase you all the way up here from the docking area?"

The angry voice belonged to a young woman. She stood with her slender hands at her hips, her blue-grey eyes sparkling at me like river pebbles on a sunny day. Her fair hair had been piled up to an untidy bun at the back of her head.

"I told that person I didn't need medical assistance."

"So? You might have had the courtesy to wait anyway. I wouldn't want your death on my conscience."

I had to laugh. Was she serious?

"It's only stasis hangover. I always get it. I'm going to be fine."

Her angry look faltered and faded away. She pouted a little and scratched her head.

"Still. You probably need to rehydrate."

"Really? Well, guess why I came here."

I gestured at the café tables. The bold motion made me almost lose my precarious balance. The woman's arm shot out, and her slender fingers closed around my wrist like iron.

"Let's sit you down."

I allowed her to lead me to a chair.

"Why do nurses and doctors always talk like that?"

A hint of pink rose into her cheeks.

"I'm not one. Nurse or doctor, I mean. I just help out until I can afford to leave here. The talk is... contagious, I guess."

She dropped into a chair opposite of me. Her pebble eyes scanned the room for a waiter and, when she had found one, her arm shot up in such a self-confident way that we were served almost immediately.

The waiter was a skinny, gangly Frion with greenish-brown skin. He grinned at the woman.

"What can I get you, kyah?" he asked in a clumsy accent.

"Two glasses of merrah juice and a bottle of water. The water is for you."

She looked at me, and even though her eyes were everything but warm, I felt as though the sun shone on me. The waiter didn't bother asking me if I was okay with that.

"What did he call you? Kyah?"

She made a sound of frustration and stretched her arms until her joints cracked.

"They all butcher my name here. It's Ciea. Kee-ay-ah."

"I'm Jovan. Jovan Attannao."

"You from up north?"

"My mother is, yes. I grew up on the Faunlandic coast."

"What are you doing out here?"

"Attending my brother's wedding."

"Lovely. I hope you know that most Kerandian weddings consist of three days of fasting and silent prayer."

"I don't care. I just want to get off this station."

The waiter returned with our drinks. Ciea pushed the water across the table at me.

"Drink," she ordered. "All of it. You still look really peaky."

"I'm okay."

"If you get this all the time, why do you put up with stasis at all?"

"Couldn't afford a cabin."

Even if I had been able to afford one, I would have preferred stasis. What was a bit of blurred vision and some dizzy spells against two months of staring at the walls of a windowless room in space?

"You can work for a passage on most freighters. You know, do boring stuff like make the officers' beds or annoying things like trying to escort unwilling patients to sickbay."

I withstood the urge to stick my tongue out at her. Something about the way she moved, her hands always busy with something, made me not want to look away. But I did anyway.

"They wouldn't let me. I have implants in my left leg and a bunch of allergies. And my stasis intolerance... There's always something that's against regulations or policy."

"Well, then you'll just have to put up with stasis."

"That's what I'm saying."

I drank the water and sipped from the juice. The taste disappointed me. I had remembered it differently. Perhaps it was the artificial environment. It would taste better with the sun shining on it.

"Your brother is lucky you put up with all this just to be there for the wedding."

"I kind of have to. I'm the only one."

"What about your parents?"

"They were against the whole thing from the start."

"Yikes," Ciea said and shivered. "How can parents be so... harsh?"

"It's not easy for them."

They were protecting themselves against the pain that came with this sort of distance. I almost wished I could have done the same.

I checked the time again. Three hours and twelve minutes.

The air seemed to darken. I glanced up at the lights even though I knew there was nothing wrong with them. There was nothing wrong with the walls either and yet they seemed to close in around me.

"I... should go," I stammered and stood up too quickly.

I hadn't quite made it up yet when I began to go down. The floor raced towards me, and the room went black.

I came round in a bright place with a doctor bent over me. I tried to sit. A firm hand pushed me back down.

"Take it easy."

I blinked. Ciea was standing a little behind the doctor, her lips pursed and her forehead creased. When our looks met, she raised her eyebrows.

"I'm fine," I said, as if stubbornness could cure anything.

"Yes," the doctor agreed. "You're fine. But you need to take it slowly. You could have hurt yourself in that fall."

I took that to mean that I hadn't.

"Listen to your friend next time."

Behind the man, Ciea performed a little dance to celebrate that she had been right. Her limbs moved gracefully.

"Could you please stop horsing around, kee-ah?" the doctor snapped.

Ciea rolled her eyes, her lips silently mouthing the syllables of her name. Kee ay ah.

"Let's try sitting up. Slowly."

I sat with the doctor's hand on my back. I no longer felt dizzy.

"Drink this."

I obeyed. Ciea was leaning against a cabinet, her fingertips playing with each other.

"How do you feel now?"

"Better," I said. "Thanks."

"Good. Be a little more careful next time, especially since you know how badly you react to stasis. Okay?"

"Okay."

I checked the time. Sixteen minutes until my shuttle left.

"Whoops."

"What?" Ciea asked, coming closer as the doctor stepped back.

"I gotta run."

"Don't!" the doctor said. "Walk slowly."

"Okay then," Ciea said. "Have fun at the wedding. Try not to feel too hungry. Or bored."

I nodded and left the room. I had to ask two people before I was on the right way to my shuttle. The walls blurred for a different reason now. How could time speed up so much? The seconds flew by me like stars.

Only one more hour before I was in a real place again. So why did I feel so sick now?

I was already half-way there when I turned around. I did run now, no matter what the doctor had said. Despite the speed at which I moved, time sped up even more.

I tore the door open. The doctor stared at me.

"What's wrong now?"

"Where is she? Ciea?"

"Went on her lunch break. She's just out of the door."

I slammed the door shut and looked around. There, her blond head was just disappearing around a corner.

"Ciea! Ciea!"

I caught up with her, gasping for breath and seeing bright lights dance before my eyes again.

She stood and faced me. Her eyes shone and her hands went up to her hips again.

"You're going to miss your shuttle," she said.

"I don't care."

She just stood there and waited until I had stopped panting. This time it was me who seemed to spin, not the world. I circled her like a planet circles its sun. I grasped the wall again, artificial though it was, to steady myself.

"Are you still going to be here eight weeks from now?"

"Yes."

Was she laughing at me? Did I care?

"You sure?"

"Yes. At my current income it will take me precisely four months and two weeks before I can afford a flight out of here."

"Okay. Good."

"Let me know when you're back," she said. "You can buy me a drink next time."

I checked the time again. One minute until my shuttle. My heart stopped racing. I felt better than I ever had in space.

"I could buy you a drink now."

Love at first sight!

2010-02-10T15:01:00.003+01:00

This weekend I'm taking part in my first-ever blogfest. Go check it out here!

I'll post a scene in which two characters fall in love on Valentine's Day... Awww, isn't that romantic?

That is, if I can get to a computer that day. Because, romantic or not, I'll be out of the country and about 600km from my boyfriend... uhm, yeah.

Writing prompt # 13

2010-02-04T17:36:00.001+01:00

alone in a crowd

RIP, J.D. Salinger

2010-01-29T09:51:00.001+01:00

Salinger died at the age of 91 this Wednesday. Even though he died of old age at the end of a long life, the passing of an author I cared about always makes me sad.

I read The Catcher in the Rye in high school, and it was one of the few books I was forced to read that I truly loved. I always loved books, and unlike many of my schoolmates I was always excited when we set out to read another book. Often I was disappointed when the books that were picked for us were either dull or simply over-analysed until I hated them.

Not so with The Catcher in the Rye. Like most teenagers who fell in love with this book, I could relate to Holden Caulfield in that difficult in-between state of adolescence. But it was not just teenage angst that connected me to this book.

What struck me then and what I still appreciate now, is the clear voice of the narrator. Reading The Catcher in the Rye was like listening to a real person tell me his story. And when I later went on to read Franny and Zooey, the same thing happened again, even more so. I only read The Catcher in the Rye once or twice, but I reread Franny and Zooey every year into my early twenties.

This is what I hope to have learned from Salinger: how to write characters that speak with a strong, unique and realistic voice that allow readers to truly feel them - whether that makes them love or hate the book.

Ideas, Compromise, and Passion

2010-01-28T09:27:00.001+01:00

I have ideas all the time. Of course, sometimes I have panicky moments when I feel as though I can never come up with anything new to write about. But those are just that: panicky, neurotic moments. I actually do have ideas all the time. Good ideas, too. And yet it happens regularly that I set out to turn one of those ideas into a novel, and I fail. A few thousands words in - and I lose all interest.

It happened to me with my 2YN project. The characters were interesting and well-rounded. There was plenty of good conflict, both internal and external. There was a plot that made sense, with scenes that I was excited to get to. And yet I was bored by it. There was nothing wrong with the idea or the plot, but I couldn't get the thing written.

I could blame the pace of the 2YN course, which clearly wasn't my own pace. I could blame NaNoWriMo, which provide glorious distraction for about three months. I could blame myself for not trying hard enough. But there is another issue at the core of this problem.

There are two types of ideas: 1) Ideas for books that I would like to read and 2) ideas for books that I can write.

For example, when I watch a fantasy movie (and it's a good one), I get the urge to write a novel that has that epic feel to it. I want life-changing quests and castles and battles and horses and princes and knights! I enjoy watching (or reading) this kind of setting. But when I sit down to write a book, I couldn't care less about epic battles. Even if I have ideas, I cannot write them without boring myself to sleep.

For me to be able to turn an idea into a novel, I need to feel much more than just interest or enjoyment. I need to feel extremely passionate about every aspect of the idea. It's not by far enough to have a character I love. I have to love the plot, too. I have to be head-over-heels in love with the entire project.

Sounds obvious? It wasn't to me.

See, I used to assume that what I felt passionate about would certainly bore or annoy others. So if I wanted to write for other people, I had to compromise and devote only a small portion of a novel to what I really cared about while the rest had to be about 'things that readers in general would enjoy'. As it turns out, though, I am not capable of getting through the first draft of such a compromised idea. I just can't do it. If that means that I can't write something that other people will enjoy - well, there's nothing I can do about it.

But luckily the opposite is true. Once I stopped trying to compromise, once I poured all my heart and soul into a novel and wrote just for myself, I started getting wonderful feedback from readers. And I realised that not only did I manage to finish my drafts, I was also writing a lot better when I was in love with every single aspect of the story.

So, don't hold back. Don't compromise. Write what you care about the most. Write what makes your heart sing, your eyes well up, and your muse dance around the room with you. The result will be a story that is alive because you felt all of it as you wrote it.

Writing prompt # 12

2010-01-25T15:54:00.002+01:00

frail and almost broken

Concluding NaNoWriMo

2010-01-19T11:07:00.001+01:00

A very belated Happy New Year, everyone!

I finally finished my NaNo novel a couple of weeks ago. I was ill at the end of November and after that I had a hard time getting back into it. But I kept writing, even if much, much more slowly than during those first two weeks of November. Then Christmas hit like a... uhm, big, colourful thing filled with crazed last-minute shoppers and a lingering cough. And then, at the very end of my novel, I got stuck multiple times while working out the dynamics of the climax. But I got it right in the end (with the wonderful help of some friends) and eventually was able to put the words 'The End' underneath this 92k monster of a novel.

NaNoWriMo was another wonderful experience this time. I realised how much I have learned this past year - not least how much better I write when I let everything go and just write what I really care about.

Now "Spilled Milk" is getting its well-deserved rest while I am trying to come up with a new novel to complete the 2YN class with (the old one died of neglect; sad, I know). I am also editing my second novel, which I wrote between NaNoWriMos 2007 and 2008. I am going over the second draft now, and I plan to start querying agents with it sometime this year. Wish me luck!

NaNoWriMo Dare # 30

2009-11-30T12:28:00.001+01:00

... still need words? Explode something else! More pirates! Zombies! Ninjas! Finally, a kiss (or more...)! Make your characters race with you towards the end... only they have to do it with a fire-breathing dragon at their heels! Go! You can do it!

NaNoWriMo Dare # 29

2009-11-29T20:29:00.001+01:00

... have someone take off in a hot-air balloon.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 28

2009-11-28T15:49:00.000+01:00

... but he was too late to...

NaNoWriMo Dare # 27

2009-11-27T08:36:00.001+01:00

... set something on fire.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 26

2009-11-26T11:49:00.000+01:00

... have a character use an orange to raise someone's attention.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 25

2009-11-25T15:35:00.001+01:00

... have someone encounter a ghost.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 24

2009-11-24T14:49:00.001+01:00

... wait... is that... a pirate!!??

NaNoWriMo Dare # 23

2009-11-23T17:07:00.000+01:00

... someone tells a lie.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 22

2009-11-22T17:22:00.001+01:00

... have someone shout "No! It's poisoned!"

NaNoWriMo # 21

2009-11-21T15:26:00.001+01:00

... have someone's suitcase burst open just as they are about to board a train.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 20

2009-11-20T14:18:00.001+01:00

... if she hadn't turned the book upside down, she never would have found out that...

NaNoWriMo Dare # 19

2009-11-19T16:23:00.001+01:00

... and suddenly the lights went out!

NaNoWriMo Dare # 18

2009-11-18T18:20:00.001+01:00

... someone made a mistake and now they have far less time than they thought to...

NaNoWriMo Dare # 17

2009-11-17T14:45:00.000+01:00

... time to kill off a minor character!

NaNoWriMo Dare # 16

2009-11-16T13:44:00.000+01:00

... find a reason for your MC to purchase a box of coloured pencils.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 15

2009-11-15T16:39:00.000+01:00

... someone's bicycle (horse/car/canoe) gets stolen.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 14

2009-11-14T12:52:00.001+01:00

... include references to three different types of birds in today's words.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 13

2009-11-13T16:09:00.001+01:00

... have someone fall off a chair.

Yaaaaay..!

2009-11-13T16:06:00.003+01:00

I reached 50k just now! I got there even sooner than the last two years...! Which isn't surprising, considering that I've had the most time to write this year.

My novel is not by far finished, though, so, after a celebratory moment of catching my breath and posting a dare, I shall reset my inner word count goal to... something above 50,000 words and write on!

NaNoWriMo Dare # 12

2009-11-12T14:57:00.000+01:00

... have someone pass out.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 11

2009-11-11T14:32:00.001+01:00

... have someone say "If only I had a zebra!"

Nearing 40k now...

2009-11-10T16:21:00.002+01:00

I had an 8k day yesterday. I've never written that much in a day before. My boyfriend found a grinning, blinking, monosyllabic writing zombie in my place when he came home... :-o

So now I am at 38,690 words. And only somewhere in the middle of the novel...

NaNoWriMo Dare # 10

2009-11-10T16:20:00.000+01:00

... something explodes!

NaNoWriMo Dare # 9

2009-11-09T13:02:00.001+01:00

... someone drops something that really, really shouldn't have been damaged.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 8

2009-11-08T13:49:00.001+01:00

... have two of your characters literally bump into each other on the street.

NaNoWriMo Dare # 7

2009-11-07T11:45:00.001+01:00

... someone catches a wild animal that escaped from the zoo.

20K!

2009-11-07T11:42:00.002+01:00

20,675 words, to be precise. I had a tiny bout of writer's block last night but managed to work through it today (with a little help from a friend).

:-D

NaNoWriMo Dare # 6

2009-11-06T12:45:00.000+01:00

... someone catches a cold.