Wordsicle: The Online Novel Writer's Circle

Today's Quote - E.B. White

2007-05-30T06:24:00.000-07:00

Thurber did not write the way a surgeon operates, he wrote the way a child skips rope, the way a mouse waltzes.

Tips on Writing Great Characters

2007-05-22T12:45:00.000-07:00

Check out this comprehensive list of character-writing tips from UK blogger Rob Hopcott.

Assignment #4 - Before I Knew You

2007-05-21T21:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome back...to Tuesday Morning Writing Exercises on Wordsicle.

Today's exercise involves a particular character that you already know well. Decide who that is.

Maybe its the protagonist of your current work in progress. Maybe its a new character that is just starting to form in your mind. Maybe its a minor character that doesn't feel completely real yet. Or maybe its someone very real - someone you ride the bus with or take a class from, if you don't have a fictional character to work with. Choose your character.

Now imagine that person in detail...all the obvious things you know about him or her. His habits, good or bad. What she looks like....Get comfortable in what you already know about him.

Now, think back...to the very first time you 'met' this character...think of the first moment that they became real to you. Pinpoint the first time that this character entered your story.

What was he or she doing, as s/he was introduced? How will your reader's currently 'meet' him or her?

Perhaps Tommy first appears in a scene in which he's fishing at the edge of a pier...a storm is brewing, but he's oblivious...Or perhaps we first meet Lenia as she emerges from a cave, unaware that her life is about to change forever...(If your character is a real person, pinpoint the first time you became fully aware of this person. How did you meet him or her in real life?)

Now for the assignment:

Clear your mind of everything but that initial scene - the introduction of your character. See and feel everything in detail. The room or the barn or the car she's in...the time of day...the temperature. Everything. And when you are completely in the moment...GO BACK FURTHER. Go back...

Imagine what this particular character was doing FIVE YEARS BEFORE YOU 'MET' THEM...Make it up, right now. Imagine him or her -- and what s/he was like before you knew anything about them. Five years before they entered your story. Five years younger...

Imagine the specific day, five years prior...what were they doing, feeling, eating, planning, plotting, wishing for? Was he naive? Hardened? In pain? Excited? Depressed? Studious? Rich? Give him or her a specific history...

In 500 words or less - describe a specific day in the life of your character, as it happened, five years before they entered your story. Don't try to tie the events of that earlier day into your current story (or reality). Just imagine who the character was then, and write precisely and with detail, what they were doing, what they were feeling, etc.

Don't send your first draft. Polish your 500 words of text...then post your writing in the comments trail...

Start now...

Tuesday Writing Exercise UPDATE

2007-05-21T12:41:00.000-07:00

The latest installment of the Wordsicle Tuesday Morning Writing Exercise will be up by 5:00 a.m. on Tuesday (EST), at the latest.

Join in! Comments/selected exercises will be published on the blog...as before.

How we loved 'ya, Miss Snark

2007-05-21T12:38:00.000-07:00

I join hundreds of Snark fans across the globe in wishing the divine Miss S a happy retirement - but more importantly, in thanking her for ever deigning to live amongst us at all.

Thank you, O Snark, for providing insight and inspiration and encouragement (and a slap with the clue gun when needed). It changed my life...and I don't say that lightly.

Slush in peace.

Today's Quote - Maria Lenhart

2007-05-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

The fact that writers will go through so much to remain writers says something. It would be far easier (and nearly always more profitable) to become a real estate agent.

Tuesday Morning Writing Exercises Starting Again

2007-05-18T11:03:00.000-07:00

So - I'm starting the Tuesday a.m. writing exercises again...

I'm selfishly doing it for myself, I admit, as I seem to have hit a stagnant spot in the pond and I'm just drifting in circles now...

So - if there's anyone out there (....hellllloooooo???) - come back on Tuesday and join in the dunking.

We did have a good following for a while...and then I moved right on past my writer's block and got a lot done (on everything but the blog)...so let's try again.

And if we LIKE it, I promise to keep posting, AT LEAST on Tuesdays...

Today's Quote - John Gregory Dunne

2007-05-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

Writing is manual labor of the mind, like laying pipe.

Hooray! I won something!

2006-11-01T08:09:00.000-08:00

It feels great! 'Specially because it came from the Almighty Snark! She liked my "Battle Hymn of the Snarks"...and it was a whole devotion of fun to write...AND it may have cured my writer's block, too. (Yep, I'm the one who was losing confidence just a day ago!) Thanks, Your Snarkness!

Writing Exercises

2006-07-05T12:30:00.000-07:00

If you haven't participated in any of the previous exercises...scroll down and have a look. We've had some good participation and great comments. I've personally found it helpful.

Whether you're someone who participated in the past, or someone brand new who'd like to help help create this mini, informal writer's community, leave me a comment below and if there is enough interest, I'll start posting Tuesday Morning Writing Exercises again.

Also - what would help you feel motivated and connected as a writer? I started this blog for myself, but the point is to create something that feels like community, so I'm open to suggestions.

I'm a writer first, blogger second - and I do apologize for the downtime with this blog. I'm trying to post more regularly - and if you like the idea of regular writing exercises, I'll definitely do it!

Today's Quote - Christopher Lehmann

2006-06-23T07:21:00.000-07:00

Rice Krispies happens to be one of my favorite junk foods, just as I regard Michener as superior among junk writers.

Simple Life Smells...

2006-06-12T06:37:00.000-07:00

I'm a city girl. At least I have been for the last 16 years. And now suddenly here I am, cutting asparagus, pulling weeds and watering strawberries. I eat well. But last night I discovered the lesser joys of country life.

At about nine o'clock, Deli the cat (the old gray who normally moves quite slowly) charged down the hallway chirping and yawing. What's up, I wondered? And then I smelled it --

Skunk!

It seems a skunk had had a temper tantrum somewhere near the air-conditioner's intake vent. Yowza! All day, today, I'm wondering - do I smell of skunk? I haven't noticed anyone backing away...but lordy, what a stench it was. Acrid and gaseous, eye-watering...uggh.

I can't seem to relate this to writing - not this morning - no 'pruning as editing' analogies - no riff on cultivating talent with patience and care.

Just UGGH.

Today's Quote - Robert Benchley

2006-06-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing, but I couldn't give it up because by that time I was too famous.

Anger Brings Me Out of the Cave

2006-05-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

Yes, I've been a hermit...writing on my WIP and avoiding the blog. But I've been bitten by the bug that is Barbara Bauer and I've come out of retirement to add my two cents. If you're a member of the online writer's community at all, you already know the scoop. And my tiny blog probably isn't going to help that much. But as Napoleon said, ten voices saying something are louder than a thousand that remain silent (paraphrased).

I want to do my part.

I feel bad for Barbara Bauer in a way. She's obviously smart and educated - a PhD no less - but in this case, she seems to be in way over her head. I'm not sure why she felt the need to call herself an agent instead of a book doctor or lifeskills coach or some other thing. But she did. Maybe it worked for her, financially. There are plenty of desperate writers out there who can be sucked in by kind words from anyone with the 'agent' title placed near his/her name.

I feel bad for Barbara Bau er because the spiritual and psychic effect of the choices she has made are bound to affect her. She can't be a happy person.

But more importantly, if I can help folks understand that she is a person who's job is to make money off 'helping' them, without having any of the connections or sales or facts that actually back up her claim of being an agent, then I want to do my measly part.

And in the meantime - Good luck to Absolute Writers - I'm waiting for AW to move into its new home. I'm shocked that Stephanie Cordray, a web host and former member of the AW community has chosen to pull the plug on their site a) because she could, b) because she wanted to create a void into which she could attempt to insert her own competing site, and c) because Barbara Bauer gave her good cover to do so. She's left 7,000 members of the AW community homeless and unhappy as a result. That's selfish. And just plain wrong.

A little mindless research yielded this earlier story about The Bauer. But now, of course, I'm just procrastinating. Anything to avoid writing.

For much better commentary and commitment to the cause, go see Miss Snark or Making Light. And PLEASE -- keep writing.

________

Technorati Tag
Barbara Bauer

Another WIP for Critique

2006-02-23T12:01:00.000-08:00

Here's another one. These are the first couple of pages from a novel. The writer asks specifically, 'is it clear? does it make you ask questions about what will happen next and if so, what are the things you wonder about? is there anything confusing or anything that stops you as you read? is there appropriate tension? do you want to know what comes next?"

Here's the excerpt:

You’ve never seen this picture, but the room in the photo is large and white like the one we stand in. The windows are similar, too. If you were to hold the photo, letting your eyes move across your father’s face and past the angle of his shoulder, you’d see paint flaking off the walls in lacey strips behind him. You’d see water stains and a wooden shutter hanging by a single hinge. The studio was decaying even then, you see. Not at all like this house.

The room we’re in now was Donald Browne's library -- masculine, overflowing with visuals, vaguely erotic. From this one spot I can see a Warhol, a little Manet, several gilt-edged collages, the dark little Buddhas (are they jade?) and three or four hunting trophies. African symbols hang in large relief below wide crown moldings. Heavy, copper-colored drapes frame the windows. A low couch of chrome and mushroom leather is stacked with cushions.

In the mirror, you’re bobbing and swaying to the music that blares from Donald’s massive old cabinet stereo. The stately room throbs with deep, incessant back beats. The band’s called Quiver, I think. You’ve explained it to me already. You like the lyrics, but the group is breaking up.

The photo in my hand proves only that your father once posed for me, wearing a rumpled shirt. He looked at me in exactly this way, too, burrowing through the glass lens and the body of the camera and the thin membrane of my eye, just as this flat surface does now, as I look back at him. (I used the little Nikkormat for this one. I developed the film myself, in the basement lab.).

Only widows and orphans are expected to hold onto evidence as tightly as I do. I might be forgiven my little obsession if your father had died that first summer, if I hadn't sat with him at dinner last night, and the night before. I'm not sure who made the rules, but only love that ends catastrophically should be this big, it seems.

“Yo, Jack," I call out loudly, without turning. I hold a small bronze statue out to you awkwardly, behind my back. “Fertility goddess. Extra breasts. Avert your eyes and wrap her up.”

In the mirror, you come up behind me still dancing. You take the figurine. “Yikes! Check out those bazoombas,” you say over the music, and we both laugh.

You set the bronze goddess down in front of a grouping of similar objects that you’re preparing to pack away and I slip the photo of your father back into my pocket. Late afternoon light filters in at just the right angle. The mahogany table glows yellow-orange. The song fades into silence.

“Aunt Catherine?” Even your voice is becoming his. You’re leaning over the table, caught up in the moment.

"Yep?"

“Do you think it would be okay if I brought my camera in and took some pictures of this place? I wouldn’t let it stop me from working or anything. It’s just that sometimes something looks really cool, you know?”

You adjust your little procession of gods and goddesses, stepping back and rearranging until their shapes and shadows fall into a perfect interplay of light and dark. The fertility goddess leads the way, bare-chested and thin at the waist, her arms stretched wide, a curving snake in each hand. Sunlight flickers over the figurines and burnishes the delicate, curved profile of your neck and shoulder and back, highlighting the length of your outstretched arm.

“That should be fine, Jack,” I say.

Today's Quote - Frank Conroy

2006-02-23T09:32:00.000-08:00

Everybody is scared, everyone approaches the empty page with a mixture of dread and hope, and knowing this helps.

New Work on the Crapometer

2006-02-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

BTW, there's also a new posting of a writer's synopsis up on Elektra's Crapometer for review and critique, if you're interested.

A Reader's WIP - For Review/Critique

2006-02-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

A reader has asked for some assistance with a current WIP - I'm not sure of the genre but will see if I can get details. This is from the opening of the book...the writer specifically wants to know; does this feel like a good beginning (it was originally elsewhere in the story, but seemed to gradually move up to the front), do we get a sense of the characters at all, from this? Or are we confused?

But today was hot and getting hotter. Ruby yawned, legs crossed, and fell backwards into a haphazard pile, braids twisting beneath her. She rested the comic she had been reading open-faced on her round stomach, watching it rise and fall and rise.

“It’s magic today,” Ruby heard, Ma’am yelling from around a couple of
corners. Ruby tilted her head back until she could see that broad
Hawaiian-flowered back, upside-down. She thought about this for a long
moment.

“You think so?” she said, chewing on a braid.

“The Egyptians, them were magic,” said Ma’am, “Look outside.”
It seemed, for a moment, as if she was right—air in anticipation. Ruby
couldn’t tell where the sidewalk ended, merging into the shimmering
heat, into the ripe burning air into the cloudless sky cradling the
teetering tops of New York buildings. She scratched an armpit and crawled
upright again, sinking back into her book.

Two hours.

This was a home for the books, not customers, and most first-timers
were intimidated by the row upon row upon bookshelf upon box, of comics
and posters and dried spearmint candy, and the door that always opened
with a silver crash. Ma’am’s counter was connected by a twinning path to
both the backstairs and the entrance, while bookshelves draped and
canopied the wanderer. The floor was a scuffed wooden affair, barely
visible in the dappled shadows, the light twisting around Wonder Woman’s
slight frame.

Ruby played jungle games here, sometimes, on the slower afternoons.
She took her shoes off first, but always left the jacket on. It was a
gift from her father, maroon red, with a double march of buttons down the
front to mid-thigh, hiding all but a hand-span of dress. Crawling, ears
perked for lions or bears, she would hunt, emerging hours later eyes
ragged, hair wild, claws wicked instead of human paws. Once, Ma’am closed
and forgot her, leaving that wild tigress to curl beneath a swollen
moon, the jungle bed softened, breathing slowed, by dreams of silent
super-men.

“Ruby, honey?” Ruby pulled herself out of the wretched streets of
Gotham.

“Ruby?” Ma’am yelled again.

“…Yeah?”

“Take care of the store, only for a bit, will you please? I’m running
to the attic for lunch.” Ruby nodded, turning back to her comic.
There’d only been two customers since she’d arrived, and she knew Ma’am would
be back there for a while, reading her son’s journals and going through
boxes twenty or so years old-- a one o’clock habit of hers. Ruby
settled deeper within her nest and propped her feet up on the bookshelf
before her.

Today's Quote - Leslea Newman

2006-02-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

You cannot write and rewrite simultaneously. Writing involves keeping a steady forward motion. Rewriting involves going back over what you have just written with a friendly but critical eye. You cannot go forward and backward at the same time.

The First 10 Lines - #1

2006-02-21T17:28:00.000-08:00

This is a new feature, called "The First 10 Lines". Periodically, I'll post the 10 opening sentences from a debut novel that was published in 2003 or later. I'm playing with a couple of ideas here...Miss Snark's advice to look at recently published first novels, and literary agent Noah Lukeman's writing advice in his book,The First Five Pages.

If you've already read the work the excerpt is from, please let us know if the ending is foreshadowed in the first few lines, or how far into the story we are when we 'arrive', or any other structural elements you think are interesting. And what did you think of the book, overall?

If you haven't read the novel, please comment on whether or not the ideas, language or characterizations hook you and make you want to read on, what you expect from the novel, whether or not you're surprised that it sold, etc...Or critique it, as if its from a colleague's WIP.

The first excerpt is from Accidents in the Home by Tessa Hadley. From what I understand, Hadley wrote secretly for years, while her children napped. This first novel was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award. Here are The First 10 Lines:

The weekend that Helly brought her new boyfriend down to meet Clare, Clare’s younger brother, Toby, was also staying with them, following them round with his video camera, making a documentary about the family for his college course.
Clare gave the camera one quick, exasperated glance when the doorbell rang and the guests arrived. The food should have been ready but she was still chopping hurried amid a debris of vegetable leavings, her fingers stuck with parsley bits.

--Oh, Toby, stop it!

Her deep glance at the camera--she has looked at the lens and not at Toby, as if it were his eyes--is caught forever on the tape. She is wishing she had time to change into the nicer clothes she had planned. Her hair is in a short, thick, black plait on her shoulder fastened with a rubber band. She looks tired. When she is tired (she believes) all those things that at her best make her look like an intellectual make her look like a librarian; small eyes, neat straight brows, thin lips, a square, high forehead. She has good skin but it is pink and hot because she is flustered. Her glance is naked and hostile, her last moment of free expression before she has to put on a smiling face.

Today's Quote - Philomene Long

2006-02-20T22:23:00.000-08:00

My advice is to hold your pen as if you are holding a small bird in your palm. Not so loosely that it flies away, not so tightly that you crush it.

Assignment #3 - The Commitments

2006-02-20T21:41:00.000-08:00

Lately, the writers I know have been talking about process. What works, what motivates, what compels, what holds them back. A couple of successful writer and artist friends have offered some excellent advice to me recently, which I think makes for an interesting assignment. It's a riff on that slightly new-agey concept of 'speaking your commitment', (which is a little like the idea of coming to call yourself a writer for the first time).

One thing I've learned recently about commitment, is that there is no such thing as not doing it. (And that goes for relationships as well as art.) We are always committed to something - because our actions are our commitments. We're never lacking commitment, but we do sometimes commit to the wrong things.

For instance, the cliched bachelor with a fear of commitment is actually fully committed - to having meaningless relations with lots of women. There's no lack of commitment, its just that he's chosen something other than you to cling to. You see what I mean?

There's also the opposite extreme - the young lovers who passionately 'commit' that they'll never notice another human's existence, they'll never feel attraction to anyone but the current flame, EVER. And that, of course, is just not realistic.

So, how does all this translate into writing? Its important to acknowledge our commitments, good and bad. To bring those unspoken choices out into the open.

ASSIGNMENT #3: Speak your commitments to the rest of the group. Write them out, in 500 words or less and post them in our comments trail. Just write, in plain English, your current actions related to writing, (good or bad), with a bit of a worthy goal added on for good measure. Then, go public! Here are the rules.

DON'T set unrealistic goals. Don't say that you'll have published your first novel in 90 days, or that you'll write for eight hours a day, or that you'll give 98% of your first advance to charity.

DO be specific. For instance..."I'm committed to keeping a notebook in my purse so that when I come up with an idea for a title or overhear an interesting dialogue, I can write it down"...or..."I'm committed to identifying myself as a writer when I meet new people"...or..."I'm committed to spending 45 minutes a day putting words on paper, without judgement or editing"...or..."I'm committed to readiing Wordsicle or the Crapometer only after I've written 800 words on my WIP"...or...(well, you get the picture).

DO be honest about your current negative commitments, too. Like "...I'm currently committed to ignoring my friends and my bills...I'm committed to messing up my life while I focus on writing..." or "...I'm obviously committed to avoiding rejection by not submitting my work..." Once you put it down in black and white, maybe you'll find a way to change it.

Remember - your commitments can always change. Just be aware of your process. When you're ready to alter your commitmnet, write the change out. Commit to where you are, now - you can always decide later to write more...or less...once you see how you do.

For now...just define how your actions and goals as a writer translate into commitments - and share them with your colleagues here. The act can be enlightening - and hopefully motivating!

Fear of Writing

2006-02-20T09:14:00.000-08:00

A reader says:

Think it's a minor fear of the big blank page...or something. The desire/need to write is there, yet I can find a hundred reasons why NOW isn't a good time to sit down. Wait! the dogs need more water in their dish! My oven needs cleaning! ...I can't believe I let this much dust build up on the top of my refrigerator! ...etc.

I've had those 'fear of writing' phases, too. I think of it as a kind of 'fear of intimacy'. Maybe it comes from being afraid of where I might go if I start to write, of what kind of emotion I might open myself up to, perhaps even of the truth that is in me that I try to avoid.

The same reader goes on...

if i keep talking in circles on here then I dont have to go edit my WIP that I suddenly decided I hated two days ago. I like it again today, but... well...yanno.

I also completely understand the love/hate relationship with a WIP. There are times when I think, "goddammit, I'm bloody brilliant", followed immediately by "what the hell am I thinking? acting like I can write or something? its embarrassing. I should just stop now...before anyone else knows that I thought I could do it..." That last part intensifies to the point of being unbearable, the day after a partial has been dropped in the post. I imagine the staff at Selected Literary Agents rolling their eyes and laughing at my overwrought prose as they open the package...arrrrggggh.

It was incredibly freeing for me to find that even the most celebrated writers have admitted to feeling that same surge and plummet of emotion. I thought it was just me...

Today's Quote - David Bradley

2006-02-20T09:01:00.000-08:00

...you have to keep close to people who see you as a writer. In this sense, new friends may be the best friends.

Plotting Against Ourselves

2006-02-17T15:48:00.000-08:00

A reader posts the following:

I see the first draft as a very, very detailed outline, and writing it is often drudgery because, well, you have to write, from scratch, every day--my quota is 2,000 words a day and 10,000 a week.

Of course, that was with my first novel, maybe this time I will have a different view.

My big problem right now is plotting. I have a list of characters I like, I understand the conflicts, I understand the themes, the setting--I just wish I could get a handle on the climax before I move on the chapter 2. I like knowing where the thing is going.

But, I haven't figured it out yet, so I'll just start writing and see where it leads.

Ken, I'm with you...I have to write to see where it goes, despite my absolute determination to know it all in advance. Even if I think I know, the characters and the situations develop in ways I hadn't planned for (just to spite me).

I also thought novel number two would be different, now that I've 'gotten the hang of it'. But I'm still not sure exactly how it will all work out. With the first one, the entire plot changed dramatically, when I suddenly realized that the real story, the real conflict, should be happening about 17 years later in my fictional world. The original 'defining conflict' was trivial backstory...and now takes up very little of the book.

Good luck, and just wondering - do you meet your quote everyday? How about those of you who have mentioned discipline as a particular challenge? Do you set goals (manageable, realistic goals based on your own circumstances) for yourself?