My Mother the Cheerleader

My mom is probably something like your mom. At times annoying, other times wonderful - always bringing up a mix of complex feelings. She's got the ability to make me happiest and angriest and often that's in the same conversation.

And one more thing: she's a relentless cheerleader.

This is why my mom is NOT one of my crit partners. She cannot see when a plot has more holes than the road she lives on. She doesn't see the problem with having a villain who's motivation is weak or murky. Frankly, she thinks I'm a wonderful writer and she's enjoying my book very much and why doesn't everyone else think the same? I take everything she says with a shaker full of salt.

But even so, I need her cheers. I have lots of people telling me what to do differently in my WIP - what's working and what isn't and each CP has ideas on how to make things better -wildly different ideas, of course. CPs are my mirrors, reflections of how my work is perceived. I get to take those reflections and make sense of them, weave them together into coherence. In other words, I have to make it work.

My mom is having surgery today. It's not terribly serious, but when you're 75 any surgery can be serious. When we skyped yesterday and I wanted to hear all about her surgery, her preparations and who was going to call me after the surgery (my mom lives in Uruguay so I cannot be with her and yeah, it's kind of killing me a little) she only wanted to talk about my WIP. How much she liked it, how it reminded her of people she knew when she was little - a cousin here, an aunt there who had some magic in them. I said, 'thank you' and told her that I was really having trouble with it, it was driving me crazy.

"That's okay," she said. "You'll do it. You just have to work."

Of course I only have to work. It's the simplest advice and the hardest to follow when you just want to give up. But my mother believes that what I'm doing is worthwhile. And I can't believe how much that makes a difference to me. My mom believes in me because she has to. But because she does, I will keep working.

I'm amazed that her opinion is still so important to me.

Besos, Mama

Farmers and Writers

A woman stands in a field of corn, running her hands along the silky tops of her ripening crop. A man sits in a cramped dark office, whiteboards filled with scribbled plot notes on one side, tottering piles of research on the other. What could these two people have in common?

A lot, it seems.

Farmers toil, oh man do they toil, without any guarantee that the crop will be good. A lot is out of their hands. Even the best soil, best seeds, best weather conditions of a season can end in blight. A freak storm or a draught can funnel months of back breaking work (and money) down the drain.

Writers do the same thing, farming with words instead of tractors. Toil, toil toil with no clear expectation of success. I'm not even talking about publishing success - writers don't even know if they are going to finish something they love (hands up, how many trunked projects do you have in your digital drawers?) never mind something that is viable. So many things can go wrong when you are writing - and writers are famous for making their own bad weather (I'm talking to you, Evil Inner Critic.)

I started thinking of Farmers and Writers after hearing about a Philadelphia publisher with a business model that resembles a CSA (Customer Supported Agriculture.) The Head and Hand Press is accepting 'shares' ($50) in exchange for a 'literary harvest.' It's an intriguing idea, isn't it? But is it a workable model? That remains to be seen. But it's just another creative way in which publishing is seeking to change the status quo.

Even when writers are successful, published and loved, they can come up against the same stormy conditions, the same plague of locusts or potato blight or whatever. I was reading THE DIVINERS by Libba Bray when I came across this blog post by her - a post where she publicly, hilariously (and I say, bravely) detailed her struggles with writing the second book in this series. I was flabbergasted. I LOVED THE DIVINERS. I thought it was frigging brilliant. I couldn't understand how a writer who made THAT book could ever have any trouble writing anything. I mean, didn't she have it down? Weren't her other brilliant books proof against that kind of struggle?

Nope. Writing is struggle. Creating is struggle. And success or failure doesn't change that. The work is the same.

Happy Harvest.

White Screen of Death

Sparky died this weekend. Well, I don't know that he's dead, but he doesn't sound at all well. I'm ashamed to admit that, before he took ill, I did not name my trusty laptop. My constant companion, my Starbucks buddy, the keeper of all my FEELS and THOUGHTS and WORK. But as he lay pulsating weakly in the hands of Genius Jonathan, I felt the need to name him. Thus Sparky was baptized, because I'm hoping, like the dog in Frankenweenie, that he makes a full, if slightly glitchy, recovery.

Saturday morning, a day I had cleared the decks and the house so I could spend hours writing, Sparky presented me with what is an actual term among Apple people: White Screen of Death. It means your computer is not happy with how it's been treated and it's basically going on a hunger strike.

I'm distraught.

But I'm hoping this obstacle is a gift in disguise. Because I've been stuck. I'm rewriting a book I love and it's complicated and problematic and I love it so much I want to strangle it. I don't have writer's block, words are coming like a deluge. BUT THEY ARE THE WRONG WORDS. So now that all I have to write words with (I'm writing this at the LIBRARY and there's a time limit *sob*) paper and pen and work out my story problems on whiteboard and stickies, I'm hoping that I can find the RIGHT words.

I hate writing in longhand because my handwriting is so bad that it distracts me. I'll write a sentence, then read it and say to myself "Who writes an 'A' like that? it looks like an undercooked biscuit. And the 'r's' are pretty much only a suggestion of a letter."

Is this enough of a mental shift to jolt me out of my plotting snafu? Will Sparky live or will I have to sell something (like a kidney) to afford a new computer? What do you do when technology fails you? And do you have pretty handwriting? If so, I want to see proof.

Review: ELEANOR & PARK

ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell

Oh. How I love this book. I don't usually do book reviews because I'm crap about being objective. I have very strong reactions to books - and if I don't, that's an even bigger problem. So, please don't look for a coherent, clear-eyed account of this book's strengths and weaknesses. Instead, let me tell you how this book moved me.

Eleanor is a misfit in a time when being a misfit was in no way cool. She's the wrong size, wears the wrong clothes and is angry. Maybe her biggest sin is that she isn't 'nice.' That just means that she is truthful about how she feels, she doesn't pretend to have softer, gentler feelings than she has. And for a girl in the 80's that is practically unforgiveable. Park doesn't quite fit in their small town either. He's half American, half Korean. He's into alternative music and he's small, effeminate in a high school dominated by jocks. This isn't a John Hughes movie. The underdog doesn't suddenly get their heart's desire after some mild discomfort. 

Eleanor's mother is not on her side - staying in an abusive relationship even though she knows it jepaordizes her kids. This is one of the many things I think Rowell does so right. Eleanor's mother doesn't come off as a stereotypical abused woman. She's not stupid and she's not evil. She's complicated, she's trapped even though she's complicit in that trap. And Eleanor is poor. Dirt, can't-afford-toothbrushes-or soap kind of poor. Rowell does a beautiful job of showing the embarrassment and shame and fierce rebellious pride that Eleanor can't hide. 

When Eleanor and Park connect it's through art. Comics (The Watchmen, in fact. Oh man how my 16 year old self would have been all over Park like a mongoose on a snake. But I digress.) then through music. 

I grew up in this time period, it's not an abstraction for me. The bands that Park listens to, I listened to. So every musical reference in the book - from the description of the heart-stirring opening chords of Joy Divisions Love Will Tear Us Apart, to the Prefab Sprout t-shirt Park wears, all of it tugs at me, brings up my own memories, acts like a time machine directly to my sixteenth year of life when love felt like danger and salvation. As I read, I tried to ask myself, if I wasn't so invested in the time period, the details, would I love this book the same way? Maybe not. But I do know that the writing is exquisite. And I've never seen dual POV used so successfully. Usually, when I see dual POV in YA I wonder what obstacle it's being used to overcome. But with Eleanor & Park, the dual POV was essential. It was a main line right into their heads, their hearts. And the description of the music is what convinces me, finally, that even if the music connecting them was old-timey swing or Norwegian Death Metal, I'd still have fallen madly, deeply in love with Eleanor & Park. 

They get together and you know it's impossible. The suspense builds because you know it can't last, you know, logically that (see previous 'this is not a john hughes movie' note) love doesn't conquer all. But you hope like hell. At the end, Rowell doesn't disappoint. She leaves us with hope. And with Eleanor, worthy of her queenly name, a heroine that is strong just because she holds on to who she is.

Read Like It's Your Job

Because, when you are a writer, it is your job. Yes you have to write, bum in seat, pound out the words. But you must read. It's fuel.*

you will trip over books in my house

you really will

Nothing gives me greater pleasure than declaring my book and audiobook purchases as a business expense on my taxes. I feel like I'm cheating the system (but I'm not, I've asked my accountant) because I get to do something I adore and it's absolutely a vital part of my writing job. I imagine that, if I were an agent, I wouldn't love reading so much, because there are things I'd have to read (query letters, partials, fulls) that I may not enjoy. But as a writer I can be the titular magpie and read whatever shiny thing catches my eye. It all goes in the hopper.

I read constantly. I usually have two or three books on the go at once - one audiobook and two ink + paper books and sometimes something on the kindle as well. Some reading is for crit partners and beta readers, but most falls into two categories: My genre/peers and My interests (which is not always what I write at all.)

One thing that's helped me stay on track is the Goodreads reading challenge. You can see my books here. and see how I'm progressing on my reading goal of 40 books this year.

Here are my favorite books from the last six months. In the coming weeks I'll be reviewing each of them. And when I say reviewing, I mean spewing such reader/writer love and awe and gushing that you'll need an umbrella.

ELEANOR & PARK by Rainbow Rowell
WILD AWAKE by Hilary Smith
THE ONLY ONES by Aaron Starmer
IN THE SHADOW OF BLACKBIRDS by Cat Winters
WHEN YOU REACH ME by Rebecca Stead
CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein

So, what are you reading? What have you loved this year and what's been a disappointment?

*when I say fuel, I absolutely do NOT mean plagiarism. This is something I hear from new writers - the fear that if they read too much, and in their genre, they might accidentally swipe something they read somewhere else. My short answer to this is - read so much that you are AWASH in words. That your brain is churning with words from lots of sources that you can't even begin to lift a phrase, sentence or paragraph. My long answer is coming in another blog post soon. :)