Ever have those thoughts of doing something and not understanding what holds you back from completing it? September begins and it is a good time to start new goals, tackle projects on hold, and generally getting back into the routine.
For your reading pleasure: http://www.mid-day.com/news/2013/jan/200113-hatke-news-scotland-library-free-pole-dancing-lessons.htm
You have to love a library that will encourage readers in almost any way possible - so long as the books aren't damaged as tennis table bats.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Friday, August 23, 2013
Thinly Veiled Autobiography
A book brings expectations. When I open a book, it's about a story. When I write, it's the same thing. Each character has a personality and a challenge to overcome.
I know one of the clichéd pieces of writing advice is "write what you know," but that doesn't mean every story needs to be taken directly from the writer's life. There are pieces of truth and pieces of other things woven together to make great fiction. The pieces one person picks out as the truth become the piece that someone else believes can't be true.
From time to time I run into writers who seem to write thinly veiled autobiography. Fiction isn't as complicated as truth. We can't believe what really happened, but we have to believe in fiction. An author needs to tie up the loose ends at the end of the story. Books don't generally run through endless characters for one use - they'll trim them down to use one best friend for several purposes and one antagonist in many cases.
Why do I say seem? I heard a writer not long ago substitute his own name for his protagonist's. Another one talked about his protagonist as "a mix of himself and his best friend" but the protagonist's name was one letter from his own. I've also heard "but it really happened that way."
I wonder if that leads many readers to think that some part of this truth that writers need to express in story must be what really happened. They look at my stories and they look at me and they might wonder. All I can do is try not to let it get to me, and if they ask - tell them it isn't true. At least not what they're asking.
Fiction is fooling the audience into believing something is real that isn't. If I do that, I'm a successful writer. Can I fool you? I hope so.
I know one of the clichéd pieces of writing advice is "write what you know," but that doesn't mean every story needs to be taken directly from the writer's life. There are pieces of truth and pieces of other things woven together to make great fiction. The pieces one person picks out as the truth become the piece that someone else believes can't be true.
From time to time I run into writers who seem to write thinly veiled autobiography. Fiction isn't as complicated as truth. We can't believe what really happened, but we have to believe in fiction. An author needs to tie up the loose ends at the end of the story. Books don't generally run through endless characters for one use - they'll trim them down to use one best friend for several purposes and one antagonist in many cases.
Why do I say seem? I heard a writer not long ago substitute his own name for his protagonist's. Another one talked about his protagonist as "a mix of himself and his best friend" but the protagonist's name was one letter from his own. I've also heard "but it really happened that way."
I wonder if that leads many readers to think that some part of this truth that writers need to express in story must be what really happened. They look at my stories and they look at me and they might wonder. All I can do is try not to let it get to me, and if they ask - tell them it isn't true. At least not what they're asking.
Fiction is fooling the audience into believing something is real that isn't. If I do that, I'm a successful writer. Can I fool you? I hope so.
Friday, August 2, 2013
Pen Names
Have you looked much within the erotica genre? It is littered with pen names and supposed pen names. While that isn't bad, it might say something about our culture.
What I wonder, with the unmasking of pen names on such a frequent basis, is why we choose them. J. K. Rowling thought she was safe with a pen name - and she was for a few months. One leak into the right journalist's ear, and suddenly there is a hunt for proof through experts to check on the phrasing used in each of the books she's written lately - the last Harry Potter book, Casual Vacancy, and Cuckoo's Calling.
Seems like a lot of effort. Right, it's J. K. Rowling, one of the most well-known and wealthy authors in the world. So she's worth it, when maybe a small nobody who publishes a few erotica stories.
But if you make it big, like E. L. James, someone else will want to see right through you.
Does that make some authors strive for the midlist? Does it make some authors pause before trying to send work out? Does it make someone happy to rip off the mask? Happier than the authors who had their bliss removed?
Life as a writer isn't easy. We pursue the stories we have to tell. It is not something happy people do. Happy people go play with their kids and their spouses and go to parties and have fun. Writers stick themselves alone in dark corners and scribble into notebooks. [Those who have entered the digital age might be typing into a computer, phone, or other device.]
Life as a writer with a pen name doesn't get better. Can you imagine trying to tell the people closest to you that you write, you have a pen name, and you don't want everyone to know? Why wouldn't you want everyone to know? It might not be a good move in your career. It might not be something you're willing to share because it's too personal. It might be a reason that most people cannot understand or aren't willing to sit through an explanation.
Some writers have many names. They use them for branding and to direct readers to one set of novels or another. Sometimes they list their different versions of a name - whether they were found out from a secret or if the pen name wasn't a secret at all - on their bio pages. Some writers use pen names to get away from connotations with other real people, other real writers. Imagine if your name were King or Rowling or Roberts - and you wrote in a different genre from the famous writer? Some people will find enough of a reason there to change into a different version of their names.
Some, but not all. Next time you pick up a book and read through the author's page, are you going to wonder if that was the name the writer was born with? And, really, does it matter?
What I wonder, with the unmasking of pen names on such a frequent basis, is why we choose them. J. K. Rowling thought she was safe with a pen name - and she was for a few months. One leak into the right journalist's ear, and suddenly there is a hunt for proof through experts to check on the phrasing used in each of the books she's written lately - the last Harry Potter book, Casual Vacancy, and Cuckoo's Calling.
Seems like a lot of effort. Right, it's J. K. Rowling, one of the most well-known and wealthy authors in the world. So she's worth it, when maybe a small nobody who publishes a few erotica stories.
But if you make it big, like E. L. James, someone else will want to see right through you.
Does that make some authors strive for the midlist? Does it make some authors pause before trying to send work out? Does it make someone happy to rip off the mask? Happier than the authors who had their bliss removed?
Life as a writer isn't easy. We pursue the stories we have to tell. It is not something happy people do. Happy people go play with their kids and their spouses and go to parties and have fun. Writers stick themselves alone in dark corners and scribble into notebooks. [Those who have entered the digital age might be typing into a computer, phone, or other device.]
Life as a writer with a pen name doesn't get better. Can you imagine trying to tell the people closest to you that you write, you have a pen name, and you don't want everyone to know? Why wouldn't you want everyone to know? It might not be a good move in your career. It might not be something you're willing to share because it's too personal. It might be a reason that most people cannot understand or aren't willing to sit through an explanation.
Some writers have many names. They use them for branding and to direct readers to one set of novels or another. Sometimes they list their different versions of a name - whether they were found out from a secret or if the pen name wasn't a secret at all - on their bio pages. Some writers use pen names to get away from connotations with other real people, other real writers. Imagine if your name were King or Rowling or Roberts - and you wrote in a different genre from the famous writer? Some people will find enough of a reason there to change into a different version of their names.
Some, but not all. Next time you pick up a book and read through the author's page, are you going to wonder if that was the name the writer was born with? And, really, does it matter?
Friday, July 19, 2013
A Struggle Within
I've never had a lot of family, and my friends have filled those voids for me. Which is good, because it seems like the family members I can manage to coexist with are far away or passed away.
I know I've been quiet on the blog lately, and it is all a struggle within my mind. There are good days and bad days and days when I wish I wasn't me and days that I wouldn't be anyone else for anything.
My home has always been within fiction. The stories I want to share are always bubbling free. The problem is that the story I want to tell these days isn't fiction. That said, I abhor memoirs. And yet as I turn the pieces together, nothing else will fit. Some stories do not translate to fiction. I also refuse to go the route of saying, "Here, read this pile of fifteen stories to understand." And it would take an unknown number of stories, because fiction simply doesn't translate the same way nonfiction does. Coherence of story matters. (At least, to me.)
The other struggle with writing a memoir is that I don't remember everything. I see flashes here and flashes there and only creative nonfiction would fill in the gaps necessary to make it understandable.
Is it worth telling a story that gets more complicated the more you remember? It's bad enough a friend of mine looked at me this week and simply stated, "You're complicated." I'm pretty sure that isn't a compliment, but thanks, dude. Doesn't matter if I try to be an open book, if I try to be someone simple. It doesn't work for me.
Honesty may be the best policy, but less can also be more. Simple questions should have simple answers. I know it always frustrated my father when he would ask me questions that seemed like it would have a yes or no answer, and I'd come back with something like green. All I can say is, it made sense at the time. To me, and me alone.
This month, today, both are significant to me. I struggle with mental illness, and the first signs of it (at least, confirmed from someone outside myself) were about seventeen years ago this month. Diagnosis followed slowly, about seven years ago. It's forever, and yet it's yesterday. I know I've been irrational with a side of paranoia lately, and I'm hoping to move past that for a time. How much is always unclear.
Maybe the memoir idea will fade and I'll be able to concentrate on editing that story I've been meaning to finish.
I saw a quote today by Terri Main. "You are a writer. The 'normal' ship sailed without you long ago."
I know I've been quiet on the blog lately, and it is all a struggle within my mind. There are good days and bad days and days when I wish I wasn't me and days that I wouldn't be anyone else for anything.
My home has always been within fiction. The stories I want to share are always bubbling free. The problem is that the story I want to tell these days isn't fiction. That said, I abhor memoirs. And yet as I turn the pieces together, nothing else will fit. Some stories do not translate to fiction. I also refuse to go the route of saying, "Here, read this pile of fifteen stories to understand." And it would take an unknown number of stories, because fiction simply doesn't translate the same way nonfiction does. Coherence of story matters. (At least, to me.)
The other struggle with writing a memoir is that I don't remember everything. I see flashes here and flashes there and only creative nonfiction would fill in the gaps necessary to make it understandable.
Is it worth telling a story that gets more complicated the more you remember? It's bad enough a friend of mine looked at me this week and simply stated, "You're complicated." I'm pretty sure that isn't a compliment, but thanks, dude. Doesn't matter if I try to be an open book, if I try to be someone simple. It doesn't work for me.
Honesty may be the best policy, but less can also be more. Simple questions should have simple answers. I know it always frustrated my father when he would ask me questions that seemed like it would have a yes or no answer, and I'd come back with something like green. All I can say is, it made sense at the time. To me, and me alone.
This month, today, both are significant to me. I struggle with mental illness, and the first signs of it (at least, confirmed from someone outside myself) were about seventeen years ago this month. Diagnosis followed slowly, about seven years ago. It's forever, and yet it's yesterday. I know I've been irrational with a side of paranoia lately, and I'm hoping to move past that for a time. How much is always unclear.
Maybe the memoir idea will fade and I'll be able to concentrate on editing that story I've been meaning to finish.
I saw a quote today by Terri Main. "You are a writer. The 'normal' ship sailed without you long ago."
Friday, June 28, 2013
A Writer Issue
Do you ever look around at people you know and think writers might be a dime a dozen? Do you ever think that because you know someone published - one of those elusive author type of writers - that they must be at least a certain caliber of writer?
I know writers, published and not, that have all levels of skill. Self-published has become something of an opening for all writers to be read, to be shared, and to be reviewed. Traditional publishing (in this case anything that pays you and takes care of the details) might be called outdated by some, but it is also an obvious sign that someone has been trying to get published. It's hard, and it takes a great deal of work to find the market that fits your manuscript.
But whether indie or traditional, most writers start talking about their work at some point. We spread word of mouth through our families, friends, and acquaintances. We do book signings and author or book events and we hope that someone likes our work.
Somehow that gets a little more complicated as soon as what you write is erotica. It's not easy to even start with the entire "hi, I write erotica." Sure, I write. Though my best friend had to save her party when I announced for the first time that I got a story published - dark erotica. I know it was the last two words that made everyone silent.
It's just so hard to gauge a reaction like that. I know not everyone is a fan of anything that might be called dark erotica. I also know that even if a person doesn't like that particular story, they generally will say it is well-written.
So how do you go about sharing this with your nearest and dearest? "Hi, honey, today I decided to write a story about sex," might just get you more than you bargained for. At least, that's what some think happens. In some cases it leads to a sweeping generalization that you must be writing porn.
It's difficult to explain the differences between erotica and porn. Many times the words can be used interchangeably, but at least some try to draw a line and stay on one side. I'll admit I've written both, though I prefer the erotica side. Porn has become a word that implies sex for the sake of sex, so as writers we attempt to reclaim the erotica label to give the reader the understanding that there will be conflict, tension, and actual reasons to get into bed together spiced throughout the tale. I believe there is a place for both, and there's nothing wrong with writing either.
However, I do wish that a few less people would take the "I write erotica" admission as flirtation. I don't think the other genres (though perhaps some romance writers can understand it) have this problem. I'm admitting something, and it might mean you're special to me. It also might mean I have a different idea about sex and its role in our society than any person who would use that as a pickup line.
Wait. That might make a fun story. Erotica writer as a pickup line rather than as someone who actually writes it. I'm sure there are enough people with pen names who wouldn't take credit for their own work that it could actually fly.
I know writers, published and not, that have all levels of skill. Self-published has become something of an opening for all writers to be read, to be shared, and to be reviewed. Traditional publishing (in this case anything that pays you and takes care of the details) might be called outdated by some, but it is also an obvious sign that someone has been trying to get published. It's hard, and it takes a great deal of work to find the market that fits your manuscript.
But whether indie or traditional, most writers start talking about their work at some point. We spread word of mouth through our families, friends, and acquaintances. We do book signings and author or book events and we hope that someone likes our work.
Somehow that gets a little more complicated as soon as what you write is erotica. It's not easy to even start with the entire "hi, I write erotica." Sure, I write. Though my best friend had to save her party when I announced for the first time that I got a story published - dark erotica. I know it was the last two words that made everyone silent.
It's just so hard to gauge a reaction like that. I know not everyone is a fan of anything that might be called dark erotica. I also know that even if a person doesn't like that particular story, they generally will say it is well-written.
So how do you go about sharing this with your nearest and dearest? "Hi, honey, today I decided to write a story about sex," might just get you more than you bargained for. At least, that's what some think happens. In some cases it leads to a sweeping generalization that you must be writing porn.
It's difficult to explain the differences between erotica and porn. Many times the words can be used interchangeably, but at least some try to draw a line and stay on one side. I'll admit I've written both, though I prefer the erotica side. Porn has become a word that implies sex for the sake of sex, so as writers we attempt to reclaim the erotica label to give the reader the understanding that there will be conflict, tension, and actual reasons to get into bed together spiced throughout the tale. I believe there is a place for both, and there's nothing wrong with writing either.
However, I do wish that a few less people would take the "I write erotica" admission as flirtation. I don't think the other genres (though perhaps some romance writers can understand it) have this problem. I'm admitting something, and it might mean you're special to me. It also might mean I have a different idea about sex and its role in our society than any person who would use that as a pickup line.
Wait. That might make a fun story. Erotica writer as a pickup line rather than as someone who actually writes it. I'm sure there are enough people with pen names who wouldn't take credit for their own work that it could actually fly.
Friday, June 14, 2013
Thoughts about Friends
Make new friends, but keep the old
One is silver and the other is gold.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
So often these little sayings are bandied about to children. Do we grow up believing them? Why, then, is everyone so surprised when someone acts nice and treats another with respect and care?
As children approach adulthood, we hear other phrases:
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Blood runs thicker than water.
It is always the people closest, whether family or friends, who feel the fallout when someone vanishes from daily life, whether it is from a move to a new home or a death. While we are told as youngsters to cherish those close to us, we are also split apart from them as we get older.
It seems simpler in books. If you don't like the sister, write her out. The best friend has become too much of a frenemy, so you write her into a new romance to leave the protagonist bereft of even the competitive spirit of their relationship. The romantic interest becomes boring, and you pen in another hobby like skydiving.
Yet it leaves me wondering about the people left behind. If my character moves, she knows what she's leaving behind and she faces what comes next. If her friend moves, she thinks she'll keep in touch through Herculean efforts. In real life, each of them finds a new daily norm and settles into a routine with people who are local. Give the moved girl a marriage in a bit of time (with the traditional name change) and she'll be all but unfindable.
My brain is centered today on the concept of trying to find the way back home for a protagonist who left at a young age. She might be recognizable to some of the people who knew her well, but perhaps not. Her motivation isn't the most innocent, and she's going to encounter resistance before she finishes her plan.
Yet what would it take to make someone unrecognizable? How many years before the memory has faded from those closest to her? How much can a name change before they assume she is someone else? Think of people who moved away from your past, or the people you left if you were the one who moved: even with social media we can't always find the people who meant something to us.
I suppose what I'm wondering today is, what does it take to completely disappear?
One last thought: All is fair in love and war.
One is silver and the other is gold.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
So often these little sayings are bandied about to children. Do we grow up believing them? Why, then, is everyone so surprised when someone acts nice and treats another with respect and care?
As children approach adulthood, we hear other phrases:
Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
With friends like these, who needs enemies?
Blood runs thicker than water.
It is always the people closest, whether family or friends, who feel the fallout when someone vanishes from daily life, whether it is from a move to a new home or a death. While we are told as youngsters to cherish those close to us, we are also split apart from them as we get older.
It seems simpler in books. If you don't like the sister, write her out. The best friend has become too much of a frenemy, so you write her into a new romance to leave the protagonist bereft of even the competitive spirit of their relationship. The romantic interest becomes boring, and you pen in another hobby like skydiving.
Yet it leaves me wondering about the people left behind. If my character moves, she knows what she's leaving behind and she faces what comes next. If her friend moves, she thinks she'll keep in touch through Herculean efforts. In real life, each of them finds a new daily norm and settles into a routine with people who are local. Give the moved girl a marriage in a bit of time (with the traditional name change) and she'll be all but unfindable.
My brain is centered today on the concept of trying to find the way back home for a protagonist who left at a young age. She might be recognizable to some of the people who knew her well, but perhaps not. Her motivation isn't the most innocent, and she's going to encounter resistance before she finishes her plan.
Yet what would it take to make someone unrecognizable? How many years before the memory has faded from those closest to her? How much can a name change before they assume she is someone else? Think of people who moved away from your past, or the people you left if you were the one who moved: even with social media we can't always find the people who meant something to us.
I suppose what I'm wondering today is, what does it take to completely disappear?
One last thought: All is fair in love and war.
Friday, June 7, 2013
In Case of Editing-
Send help. Lots of help.
Somehow I just have trouble to figure out how to stay on it, to stay focused, to stay with the forward momentum.
I don't know why I can't figure out what it takes to keep me editing. Tomorrow is another day to try again.
Somehow I just have trouble to figure out how to stay on it, to stay focused, to stay with the forward momentum.
I don't know why I can't figure out what it takes to keep me editing. Tomorrow is another day to try again.
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