What Every Author Who Has Children Needs

Right?

Putting the Screws to my Draft

I'm revising.
Putting the screws to my draft.
Tight.  Tighter.
Watch out!  She's gonna blow!

A Multiple Choice Question

We all want our pain to mean something.  But what if it doesn't?  At least not the way we want it to.

What can you do with your pain?

A.  Hide it.
B.  Numb it.
C.  Beat the snot out of it.
D.  Run from it.
E.  Make it smaller than someone else's.

OR

A.  Show it.
B.  Feel it.
C.  Learn from it.
D.  Give it boundaries.
E.  Make it bigger than someone else's.

But there's one thing not any one of us can do and that is:

Get out of it. 

So, let's get on with it. 

Happy writing,
Rachel

From the End to the Beginning

I'm working on my next book, with the end in mind.  Can't wait to work this out and see what capers these kids get into!  This story is about pretending:  The adults pretend too much (as in everything is fine, when it's not) and the kids don't pretend enough (too busy with 'activities' and not enough unstructured playtime.) 

Finders Keepers is a contemporary fiction 40,000 word novel for the middle grades.  Ten-year-old Amber Hart, an ambitious and popular girl who uses scheming and back-stabbing to mask a learning disability, must start over when her parents lose their home to foreclosure.  She becomes friends with Sam, also 10, whose family are what some people call Doomsday Preppers.  Sam uses his zest for “survivalism” to mask loneliness.  Amber and Sam spend their afternoons making up games and battling imaginary creatures in the woods that separate the picture-perfect suburban Ridge from the more rural-like Old Town; both are in the city of Meadow Creek.  One day as the two play in the woods a helicopter whirs overhead.  Then another.  Amber’s mom tells her she is not allowed to play in the woods anymore, because something dangerous hides there.  What?  She will not say.  Sam’s father tells him the same thing.  But Amber is not a child who accepts “because I said so” as an answer.  She and Sam decide to find the thing in the woods themselves—or not— and prove to the grown-ups their favorite play place is safe, and they should be allowed back in. 

Padma is an “apartment-kid” in Meadow Creek Ridge where Amber and her family moved.  For many years, popular Amber and her friends shunned her simply because she didn’t live in a house.  Apartment kids could not be in the popular clique.  Period.  But when Amber surprisingly moves in next door to Padma, she hopes that will change.  Instead, Amber is shunned as an “apartment-kid," moving Padma no closer to the popular circle of friends.  Smart Padma discovers she can win favor with Amber's old friends, though, by spying on Amber.  She’s being used, and she knows it, but she finally feels liked.

So, when Amber and Sam sneak into the woods, Padma follows them.  She reports back to the popular kids that Amber is looking for something in the woods.  The popular kids devise a plan to scare Amber and Sam.  Adventures follow.  More to come on that!

But what the kids don’t realize—either because the parents aren’t being completely honest with them or are just too busy to know it—there really IS something dangerous lurking in the woods.  And when a child goes missing, the divided town must come together to find her, and reveal a dark secret no one, especially the Ridgers who worry about their homes’ property values, wants brought to light. 

The Writing Pantry

I am going to tell you a secret about moms. 
All moms.
Lean in. 
Listen carefully. 
You won't want to miss this.
Ready?
We HATE cooking dinner.  Despise it.
Almost as much as teachers HATE homework (yes, that's another secret for another day, kiddos.)

We don't hate cooking dinner so much b/c we hate cooking.  Some of us actually like cooking.  When we have the time.  And the energy.  And the supplies.  And someone is there to clean up after us.  And, yes, the family actually eats and enjoys what we've cooked.  Which is probably one out of one hundred dinners cooked in America.

But I thought this blog was about writing, not cooking!  You are right, Sensei.  Inner editor.  Now go back to the inner monologue where you belong!

The secret about writing is not really a secret at all.  I've written about it before.  We don't like to revise.  We want our stories to come to us ready-to-serve.  Pop it in the microwave for one minute and enjoy... sort of.  Nevermind letting stories simmer.  Or finely chopping those details.  Or leaving the yucky parts in the trash. 

But there is nothing about a story that is fast.  Even though sometimes we need to write fast!  That is why I believe writers need a pantry of ideas, bits of dialogue, observations about the world.  Here are a few ways I stock my writing pantry:

1.  Write down distinct bits of dialogue.  These are never copied (plagiarized) from a television show, movie, or someone else's writing.  They are usually from my children, family members, or the kids at the park.  I'm listening!

2.  Memories.  Sometimes a smell or a song or a piece of clothing even will trigger a memory from my childhood.  If I'm smart, I run to my notebook and write it down quickly before I forget the nostalgia of it.  This is probably my favorite way to stock my writing pantry.

3.  Story starters.  I have literally boxes and boxes of "first pages" of stories I've begun over the years.  If I need a kick-start I pull one of these gems out and fall right into the place I left off 10 years ago.  It's magical. 

4.  Observe.  This is where blogging comes in.  I watch people.  A LOT.  It sounds kind of creepy, but it's not really.  Really!  I'm just taking a mental note of how people interact... body language, dialogue, relationships, humor.  I had a friend one time who used to call me when she was a stay-at-home mom, and she used to say the strangest things to her daughter while I was on the phone.  Like, "Alexis, your cheese is not a hat!"  And "Do not stab your brother with your chicken nugget."  I guess she liked to call me at lunchtime.  Those bits of dialogue became part of my writing pantry, but so did the observation that mommies lose about 25 points of their IQ during their children's mealtime. 

So, moms:  stock that pantry because you know dinnertime is coming.  And writers, you would be wise to do the same. 

Happy writing,
Rachel

Space Cadet

Me.
Circa 1980.

Funny.  With heart.

Discovery

Lawyers call it "discovery."
Writers call it "pre-writing."
Editors call it "junk."
It's what every writer knows before the story begins.  The big mistake?  To think "discovery" is important enough to jump start a story.  It's not.  Don't get me wrong.  Discovery is important. Just not in the way I used to think...

In regards to the law, discovery refers to the pre-trial phase of a lawsuit where lawyers explore evidence which might be relevant to their case.  Might be relevant.  In storytelling, it's everything the author knows which might be relevant to the story.  It's the fact that Brick's mother named him so because she wanted him to be strong and mighty, but that she sometimes felt like he was dragging her to the bottom of a very deep ocean.  It's what the author knows but the reader doesn't need to read for the story to move.  It's what I'm guilty of including too much of in my stories.  Guilty.  There, I said it.

Discovery is fun to write.  And necessary.  As a teacher, it's what I often was handed as a "final draft."  Hmph.  Try telling kids their discovery isn't the end.  Of course it's the end!  It's the end of a beginning, that's all.  Writers... all of us, short and tall, young and old, cranky and cheery (oxymoron... who knows a cheery writer in the middle of a draft?) believe our discovery is vitally important.  So, teachers, editors, inner-editors please don't tell us writers that it doesn't matter if Mrs. C had hammertoes as a young dancer.  It does matter... but maybe not to this story.  Maybe that's ANOTHER STORY.

But writers... and I'm speaking to myself here... don't get stuck in discovery.  Move on to making your case for your story.  Because the story is the star.  Hook a reader, reel them in, give them a little line, then reel them in again!  Make them go on an adventure, even if it isn't an exotic location.  Don't give the reader a chance to think, "I'll get back to this later..." because later may never come.  Make the reader wish they had more time to read or listen!  Make the reader need to know what happens next, what decision the characters make, what their next move will be, and surprise them but don't jerk the hook from their mouth with a twist that comes from nowhere.  Like Robert McKee says, give them what they expect, but not in a way they expected it.  Golly, I think that is such a smart way to explain a good ending.  I strive for that... the perfect ending.  But that's another post for another day.

So, go on.  Discover.  Write the notebooks full of stories and character descriptions and weird bits of dialogue.  But don't be afraid to move on from discovery.  You might like what you find there.

Happy writing,
Rachel