Not Insanely Bad Rough Draft

After writing the rough draft of Black Nectar by writing, writing, writing with no stopping for editing or revising, I was scared to read what I had written.  Thought I would open up over two hundred pages of babbling mess and run away to hide.

But guess what? Surprise of all surprises, I like what I have written. For some backwards crazy reason, the stuff is pretty good.  The revisions I am now making on it are minimal. Why didn't someone tell me this wild way could actually work? Or maybe I was told, but like my inner teenager, I did not listen.

Writing the rough draft straight through was brutal. Felt like I was creating words by pulling them directly from the inner lining of my teeth.  My back ached and my forearms screamed at the end of each hours long session.  There was no rest for this weary writer. Only mockery that I thought writing a story could ever be an easy venture.

Sometimes in the midst of plucking out the keys that would form the words that told the story, I would remind myself that this was fun. That this was the career path that I had leaped to with love and joy in my heart.  Are all writers this delusional? Or do we have a split personality? One that believes writing to be fun, and the other than knows the wickedness of an addiction that has me clutching a story plot out of thin air.  Where did this madness come from?

Perhaps I could stoop to the level of blaming my mother as she possesses the writing addiction also. But I am too old and no longer naive enough to blame Mom for my issues.  Besides, she would just laugh and roll her eyes and let me know I was being ridiculous.  Writing addiction is not an inherited disease.

So in this past week of discovering that the rough draft to the sequel to Red Nectar is not something that I will run away screaming from like I did when I went to see Heath Ledger playing The Joker (he was scary!), my joy has been extreme.  I could just kiss every word that actually sounds not half bad in the way that it was placed in the creation of a new story.

Next story that I write with the hunker down and right the rough straight through method will be met with a glimmer of hope at the end of each chapter.  I will know that the efforts do pay off.  There can be gold within the time spent picking out the story.

Now I just need someone to critique it for me so that I know I am not just lying to myself. Telling myself that it is a decent young adult novel so that I won't fling myself over the Coronado Bridge after all the time and pain invested.

Rough drafts, revising, critiques. Let me remind myself again that the entire process is joyful and easy.

Heather Leigh

Being Thankful

Some friends and I are doing a twenty-eight day being thankful process through The Magic by Rhonda Byrne.  Everyday, we are given some thing to do that will enhance our mode of being thankful.  The reasoning is that if it is hammered into us for four straight weeks, SOMETHING will have to stick and we will be happy campers for the rest of our lives.

Well, truth is, I've done this last year and it helped me immensely.  It became an ingrained system of being thankful for every situation that I encounter.  But over time the toy of gratefulness was not as shiny and pretty as it was when I first unwrapped it. So we are re-opening the gift of her book and doing it again.

It can be a creative challenge to figure out how to be thankful for EVERYTHING that comes my way. For instance: this weekend I came home overly tired and when my sons started arguing about who was going to take the dog for a  potty break, I yelled at them.  How do I be thankful for that?  Well, the look of shock on their faces at my raised voice told me that they were not accustomed to being screamed at. So, okay, I am not a total failure as a mother, just an occasional one.  And one who can say I'm sorry a few minutes later, so I am doing okay as a person, too.

 When I have to clean up dog poop? I'm thankful for having a wonderful Australian Shepherd.

When the car almost over-heated? I'm thankful for a mechanic neighbor who came to look at it and found it was a cheap and simple repair job.

When I have to wait another year for the next series of 'Sherlock Holmes'? I can be thankful that the darned show exists--there is something about those quirky characters that makes me love that show.

When I realize that my movie star crush, Alan Rickman, and I will probably never meet in this life-time? I can be thankful for all the movies I can watch him in (thank you Jane Austen for Sense and Sensibility).

As an author, being thankful in this time period is easy breezy lemon squeezy.  There is a plethora of opportunity in the self-publishing kingdom.  And social media is everywhere for promoting.  Thank you, thank you, thank you for Kindle Publishing and CreateSpace.  Next I'll be trying out the soon-to-be-opening Nokbok, like a library for on-line readers. Oh, and Goodreads, can't forget them.

We all have mucho to be grateful for. And if you are finding it too difficult to be thankful for a challenge in your life, appreciate that 'this too shall pass'.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this blog!

Heather Leigh

Roughing It With Scout and Ellie

Scout and Ellie, the characters from my middle grade chapter book, just finished telling me their story in rough draft form.  They were on a crazy adventure of getting Ellie ready for the Miss Dainty Flower Beauty Pageant. Can you imagine watching a beauty pageant and seeing an elephant come on stage as one of the contestants? Walking in a fancy dress, then bathing suit, and finally juggling peanuts?

I have fun writing about the antics of this human-like elephant. Although I write an outline of what the pair will be doing in each chapter, Ellie is the wild card that keeps the outline from getting too specific. Truth be told, I don't know what she is going to do, or how she is going to react to each situation until I am with her in the chapter.  Going to get her nails painted? Oh, sounds innocent enough. Until there is another store she decides to visit along the way.  And how will she react if laughed at, loses, or wins?  She is like that inner raw emotion inside of us that we don't know quite how to control.

Scout gets stuck with helping her get ready for the contest.  All that poor kid wanted was a new toy. He didn't ask to get dragged into Ellie's emotional roller coaster life.  But then again, roller coasters can be fun.  Just hope this one doesn't get going too fast and fly off the rails.

This weekend will be spent recharging for the next writing adventure--revising the rough draft of the sequel to Red Nectar, the young adult novel about Emily, girl with dangerous telepathic powers.  She's not crazy wild like the elephant, but I do enjoy watching her mature.

Revising is easier than writing the rough draft.  It's more like fine tuning a piano that already exists as opposed to building one from scratch.  Well, maybe it is just as challenging but in a different way. In writing a draft, I don't worry about the details. I just figure they will get the magnifying glass treatment later. So now is the inspecting and fretting time. The time to make sure my 'i's are dotted and the 't's are crossed.

Wonder what I will end up doing this weekend? I have an outline of events to cover and will probably stick closely to them.  Because to my misfortune, there is no elephant in my life to screw everything up.

Heather Leigh

Long Live Coincidences

I read a facebook post recently in which someone wrote that writers use coincidences as a cheap and easy way to get out of a difficult plot situation.  At first I thought that sounded like a half-way true remark, but then realized that life is full of coincidences so why wouldn't they be a part of storytelling?

For instance, yesterday, after leading my dog over to do her morning business in the McDonald's grassy area (we live in an apartment with no poop place), I ventured over to my car to attempt to learn why it had, almost,  over-heated the day before.  As I was peering under the hood, hoping that the location of the radiator, and where and how to check the coolant level, would jump out and announce itself, a neighbor walked by and asked if I needed help. I had only been standing there for 30 seconds and he was walking by on his way to work. I've never met this neighbor.  Turns out he works in an auto parts store and knew all about radiators and how engines work and had way more knowledge of the automobile than my narrow vantage of where the gas goes in.  With in a couple of minutes, I learned how to check the coolant level, about the reserve thingie, and where to buy the necessary fluid; it was almost empty.

So if that was not a coincidence, than I need to relearn that basic word.

And haven't we all experienced those random, lovely happenstances in which the seemingly impossible suddenly works out because of some accident of fate, being in the right place at the right time, or stumbling on a new situation at just the correct moment in our lives?

So phooey and blah to those who think coincidence should be shoo-shooed out of books. If they happen in real life, they need to be in stories.

Heather Leigh

Advice We Can Use

Yesterday I received the news that an editor was interested in a story I'd sent in but that it lacked character motivation.  To any authors out there reading this, you know how exciting this is! To NOT receive a form letter of rejection and be told exactly what is the missing link between being published and slipping from a slush pile and into the trash is a huge gift.  Advice that makes sense from someone who could be my next editor is like winning a mini-lottery. YEY!

Advice is one of those funny creatures in life.  It most often comes without being asked for, is seldom recognized as a gift, and is fully contaminated by the viewpoint of the giver.  But when it works, it can be manna from heaven.

The unsolicited kind can bring out our inner dragon.  To be told what to do and how to do it when we never asked to be told can relinquish uncontrollable scary monsters with in us.  The type of monsters that spit out fires of retorts, sarcasms, and childish temper tantrums.  It can take all of the mustering with in to pull together our adult responses and either thank the advice giver, or politely state that the advice was not requested, thank you anyway.

The other side of the advice coin is that it could come at a time that it is needed in the recipient's life.  There's that saying about when the student is ready, the master will appear.  And I am assuming the master will be dishing out unasked for advice.  A master will know how to flavor the advice so that it will appeal to the needy student and cause him to relish what he receives.

Comedies often portray mothers as the givers of unwanted advice.  Perhaps because most of us feel tied to the outcome of our child. When our kid does something wrong, we can feel like it is a reflection of our parenting--that we will look bad.  So if mom can control what the offspring are up to, we look like the mom of the year.

I try to stay away from tying my self-worth to what my kids accomplish, but I too have back slipped into force feeding advice more than once in my career as a mother.  I don't worry too much about my fault comings, though.  My teens are always the first to point them out to me, so I never have to wonder.  But I do have to be able to listen to them and acknowledge when I have crossed the line.

In regards to the editor's advice, I grabbed it like a relay baton.  Yesterday was spent developing character motivation for Piper in the children's picture book called, What Piper Peppertree Discovered.  Let us pray to the gods/goddesses of the world of publishing that soon you can read this book and give me some advice as to whether or not I accomplished the goal of clear motivation for why Piper does what she does.

Until then, I have plenty of other books you can read to let me know what works and what is a dismal failure. Just be gentle with me. As with all writers, I am a beginner.

Heather Leigh

Meditating On My Cats

In my author profiles, I always give credit to my cats for their muse abilities.  To be sure that I am using this word correctly, I just looked it up in that big honker of a book on my shelf called the dictionary.  Here is what Webster says about muse: 1.  to think or meditate in silence. 2. to say or think meditatively.

While I always thought of a muse as someone who gives inspiration, this true definition is actually more fitting than I had realized.  When I am getting too much into a story, one of the cats will sense that it is time for me to spend a moment in this world--not the world on the computer monitor.  And I need to be in this world not just in thought, but physically as well. In other words, I need to pet them.

Yes, I do have the pronouns of the last sentence in the correct place. Cats have little need for us human beings. It is us who need to feel their fur and appreciate the softness of earth.  We must take breaks, reset our brains, and be present to each moment.  Makes for more efficient writing.

In recognition of my writing about Girl, our fat black cat, she just opened a bottom cupboard she had been sleeping in to kick out a jar.  The cupboard is generally kept empty for her as this is a cat house and her desires rule over our need for jar space.  She knows she is being written about.

So when it is my time for reconnection with the real world, either Girl or Playful will saunter up beside me and MEOW at the appropriate noise level to get my attention. If I am not fast enough, the noise will get higher.  They are thorough in their jobs and will not stop their cries until they feel my hand rubbing down their backs and stroking their chins.  Those animals are exceptional at their jobs.

Next, our Australian Shepherd, Sydney, will follow his companions and offer her head for scratching. And while I will include her in the attention, her motive is not to serve as muse. It is to get petted. Same outcome, different motives.

People suggest to me the idea of setting a timer to be sure and take breaks at regular intervals.  These are the people who do not have a companion cat.  In my sincere pity at their lack, I thank them for their advice. I don't wish to brag that cats make much more personal and loving interruption getters than a mechanical timer.  Oh, those poor souls.

Perhaps there should be a cat muse rental service geared toward writers.  Those of us who work alone at home, typing away the day, should be an easy sale.  Feel free to create this business idea of mine into a money maker. Just let me know how the cats do.

Heather Leigh

My Month As A Novel Prisoner

I read a cartoon once in which a husband was consoling his crying wife.  He said, "Honey, I know you really wanted to win that Pulitzer Prize in literature, but I think you need to write the book first."

The National November Writer Month, NaNoWriMo, pushed me over the edge last month and forced me to write the sequel to my young adult novel, Red Nectar.  The goal was to write a complete novel, 50,000 words, in November. Thank you to every person involved in that glorious company!!!

There were no excuses for me to make each evening as to why the book had not been worked on for days at a time.  I could not say that the kids needed me to make elaborate dinners, that the baseboards needed cleaning, or the dog needed a third walk for the day.  Could not even say the cats needed to be pet for another half an hour.

There was only word count to fulfill every single last day of that entire month. It was relentless. Write, write, write.  Do not move my rear end from the seat or allow a moment of fingertips from straying away from the keyboard.  Eat? That could be done between chapters for three minutes at a time. And who needs to shower when you don't go outside and sweat?  My arms may have been frozen in place for unnaturally extended time periods, but letters were forming on the screen.

Every night came the ritual of updating the new word count onto the NaNoWriMo.  There was no hiding from the mockery that came when I had once again not met my self-imposed daily goal. The graph shouted out how far below the line I was in being able to finish on time.  By the last two days of November, I would have needed to write 4,000 words a day to be a victor.

But yesterday, I did finish.  Because I was able to get so close at the end of the month, the motivation was high for me to stay within the depths of writer's purgatory and complete a rough draft of Black Licorice, second part of the trilogy of books about Emily, telepathic teen living in a world that will torture and even kill those with her abilities.

Yey! I did it!

And not only did I succeed, I learned a new way to write that I will continue.  In simply writing the first draft without editing what I did the night before, I remained a part of the story. There was no stopping to think of what would happen next.   I did not worry, fret, or grovel at the mountain of mistakes a rough is prone to.  I just wrote.

Now I can go back and have a book to edit and revise and make super pretty.  There are only improvements to make on an imperfect structure.  Do you get the way this frees me up?!  The structure is already there!!!

Bless you demanding, whip carrying, sadists from NaNoWriMo. You are beautiful creatures in deed.

Heather Leigh