Musings of a Novelista

Master Writer

Karen — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 10:43:42 +0000

Wow, what a CRAZY week it’s been!

My weekend is going to be great because I’m FINALLY getting furniture delivered my house this afternoon. For those of you who have been following the blog, you may remember when I donated most of my furniture to a single mother and her family in February.

So now after four months, I’m going to be able to start writing in my brand new office. I can’t wait! I’ll be sure to post some pictures soon.

Did any of you get a chance to watch Master Chef on Fox this Tuesday? The premise is to take the best home cooks in America and through elimination competition, turn one of them into a culinary master.

It was an emotional show.

First, most of these people have other lives, other jobs but cooking is their passion. It is what they love to do more than anything.

I thought about us as writers how it’s almost like the same thing. A lot of us do other things in our lives but we all are passionate about writing. We love it more than anything.

Watching the qualification rounds on Master Chef, it was easy to spot which ones were ready to take it to the next level and learn more to become a culinary expert.

I started to think about cooking and writing. It’s the kind of thing where it seems *so* simple. Cooking? It’s just taking some spices and mixing it all together right? Same with writing. It’s just pages and pages of words.

Anyone can do it.

But we know that it’s not that simple. A dish cooked with passion and made from the heart tastes totally different than a dish cooked from a box with instructions. The same with writing. Simple words on the page read flat if they don’t have the passion of storytelling behind them.

It takes more than just writing words on the page. It also takes dedication and perseverance to learn the craft. To make the words on the page transport the reader to another place physically and emotionally.

It takes a lot to be a Master Writer.

I hope that all of you have a great weekend! I’ll be spending some of my time working with my new furniture and enjoying my new office. And I’ll get some writing done as well.

Dealing with Distractions

Karen — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:07:47 +0000

Ha, this post is a little later than usual because I had one of those 14-hour days yesterday at the day job. And the long hours will probably continue until this problem is fixed.

So my writing took the back seat to what needed to be done.

One thing that I’ve been working on this year especially is being flexible and not becoming bitter when this happens. As I’ve said before on this blog, sometimes the day job must come first. It’s what allows me to live and pay my bills.

Writing is my passion, but unfortunately, it doesn’t pay anything at this time. And I have to remember during times like these that it’s not the reason I do it. I do it by my compulsion to tell a story. I do it to grow in my craft. And I do it because it is something that I love.

So when distractions take over in life as they sometimes do, I always try remember that it always calms down and I will be able to come back to my writing.

The writing will always be waiting for me.

So back to the drama that is my day job.

If any of you have any tips for dealing with distractions and stress, feel free to share. I need some tips on how to come back to my writing after having this major distraction.

Hot Writing

Karen — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:51:10 +0000

In the midst of my revisions, I’ve been reading a great craft book, A Writer’s Guide to Fiction by Elizabeth Lyon.

In the book the author talks about two particular writing methods:

Hot writing. The method of getting the first draft done as quickly as possible. Not stopping a.k.a NaNoWriMo. Overcoming the fear of the blank screen by creating words without revision.

Meticulous writing. Careful writing. Revision-heavy. Several revisions of a page before writing the next page. Polishing every word until it gleams. Slower pace but less revision.

While both have their advantages of getting a novel done, they also have disadvantages.

Hot Wwiting may net a lot of words, but for some writers, the act of polishing and revising a whole novel can be too overwhelming. This is why many NaNoWriMo novels stay under the bed.

Meticulous writing may result in a lack of freshness because of over-writing or over-revising. Plus the quest for perfection can can prolong completing a novel for months or even years.

I’ve tried both and I’ve discovered that I really can’t do hot writing for a whole novel. While I do get a good draft, I usually end up trashing almost two- thirds of it and revising the rest. And with meticulous writing, it sparks my perfectionist bent and I can easily get caught up revising a chapter or a scene. Plus I’ve learned the hard way that until I’ve completed the novel, that polished chapter may still change or get cut out completely.

So for me what’s been working for this novel is a hybrid of the two. Hot write a scene and then revise. For my list of new scenes I’ve identified, I may even hot write several of them and then revise.

It’s still a work in progress.

Which one works best for you to complete a novel? Hot writing or meticulous writing? Or do you do a mixture of the two?

The Ant Nebula

Karen — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:19:36 +0000

For the new subscribers of the blog, I sometimes go off-topic on Fridays and share my geek love of all things space.

The Ant Nebula is one of my favorite pictures from the Hubble Telescope.

This nebula resides in our galaxy between 3,000 and 6,000 light years from Earth. NASA released this image in Feburary 2001.

To me, what is most interesting is that this plantery nebula shows the last stage in the life of a Sun-like star, which gives us a clue of our own Sun’s fate when that time comes.

Okay, enough of my space geek fest.

I hope that every one has a great weekend and that all of you get some writing done on your projects.

Novels are Fluid

Karen — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:55:23 +0000

I remember my early critique days. I would get all of these suggestions but I was closed off to them.

I would say, “They don’t understand!” or “This is the only way this story can be told!” or even “What? I’m not doing that!”

It took me a while to realize that my novel is not something rigid.

Novels can change.

Novels are fluid.

I believe in order to grow as a writer, you have to be open to the different avenues your novel can take you during the creation process. You have to be open to new ideas. And ironically some of the suggestions that you react most negatively to are usually the ones you need to give close attention.

For instance, the novel I’m working on started out as a middle-grade with 3rd person POV. I was going to make this happen! I didn’t want to write another novel in 1st person POV. I didn’t want to write YA because I was a MG writer. I fought this for about a year until I realized that my critique partners (God bless them for dealing with my stubbornness) were right.

This novel is stronger because it is a YA with 1st person POV.

Of course, you may not and should not change every idea that is suggested by your readers and/or critique partners. But what you should do is really be open to all possible avenues that your novel can take.

There does come a time when a novel must take a stable form, but until you are finished writing and revising, if something is not quite working or if you are getting suggestions that niggle the back of your mind, give them some serious thought.

Be open to changing your novel.

In the end you’ll end up with stronger writing while learning something in the process as well.

Have any of you changed your novel for the better? Were you stubborn like me or did you embrace the change?