Building Wings for a Rough Draft

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury

That’s a bit what it feels like to start a new novel – which is what I’ve been working toward for several weeks now. I haven’t actually started typing out the rough draft yet, but I’ve been looking over the edge of that cliff and gathering what I’ll need to build my wings. I’m jotting notes on my new story, gathering my ideas on sticky notes, torn-out notebook pages, and whatever is handy. I’m asking and answering questions like: “What does the protagonist want most? Need most? Why can’t she get it? What are the stakes, i.e. what happens – or doesn’t – if she doesn’t get what she wants/needs?” And on and on. Those notes are my feathers and balsa and glue, the material I’ll build my wings with, once I make the leap into the rough draft.

A few years ago I went to the cliffs in La Jolla, just north of San Diego, to the spot where the hang gliders jump off. They arranged their “wings,” strapped themselves in, took a running leap, and soared up and out over the beach on the air currents. It must take a lot of trust and courage to jump off the cliff the first time. Maybe it takes a lot of trust and courage every time. I know it does to leap into the rough draft of a new novel. Every time.

Orson Scott Card, in his introduction to Speaker for the Dead, wrote, “You see, the work of a storyteller doesn’t get any easier the more experience we get, because once we’ve learned how to do something, we can’t get excited about doing exactly the same thing again – or at least most of us can’t. We keep wanting to reach for the story that is too hard for us to tell – and then make ourselves learn how to tell it.”

I’m encouraged to know that even Orson Scott Card finds writing a challenge. So did the prolific author Phyllis A. Whitney. In a 1961 article, “Letter to a Young Writer,” she wrote, “I am faced now with writing a book about Istanbul, and I haven’t the faintest notion of how to go about it. The idea scares me to pieces. The one advantage I have over you is that I have been through this so many times before that I know I can do it.”

So. Yes. Okay. I know I can do it. But I’m not quite at the jumping-off point just yet. I’m in what writer Joy Cowley calls a story’s “gestation period.” She says, “The time to write a story is when you can no longer contain it.” It’s time when the energy in all those scattered thoughts and notes starts to take on a flexible weight and form. Although the wings are not built yet, I’ll stand at the edge of the rough draft cliff, holding the feathers. Then I’ll feel an updraft. And leap!

Happy Reading! Happy Writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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If You’re Not Happy Now . . .

In college I had a professor who told our class, “If you’re not happy now, you never will be.” It was one of those wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee moments, and so simple, you’d think we would know that. But since our founding fathers etched “the pursuit of happiness” into our national DNA, we tend to treat happiness as something that must be searched for and chased after, something out of reach, to be found only at the end of some race or journey or climb.

But is happiness even the goal? Well, maybe. Happiness ranges, of course, from contentment and satisfaction to ecstasy and euphoria. Nothing wrong with any of those feelings. In any form happiness is a state most of us want to return to again and again. I guess it’s the pursuit of it that strikes me as tricky. It’s like pursuing a mirage in the desert or trying to get to the end of a rainbow. Besides, it seems to me that human growth is dependent on and happiest with something to work for – which means it’s the process of working toward the goal that provides the greatest satisfaction.

In terms of writing: Publication, good sales numbers, and good reviews are certainly worth celebrating, but they’re temporary spikes in the happiness level. Maybe some authors get enough joy-energy from the spikes to fuel them in between. For most of us life is a daily butt-in-the-chair, fingers-on-the-keyboard, head-in-the-work affair (complete with the uncertainty of what the future holds for any given project). The euphoria that comes at the finish line is just a blip. Then it’s back to the process. I’m grateful when other writers remind me to find joy in the journey, because if I’m not happy now . . . Here are some of my favorites.

It’s a privilege to have “work that’s enlarging your soul while you’re going to work every day.” Susan Fletcher

“It’s the producing that satisfies, the daily work itself, and the knowledge that you’ve found a craft which will profit infinitely from a constant application of discipline and attention.” Kenneth Atchity

“Writing is not a race. No one really ‘wins.’ The satisfaction is in the efforts, and rarely in the consequent rewards, if there are any.” Joyce Carol Oates

“You can never control whether your writing efforts will be successful, but you can control whether they will be enjoyable or satisfying.” Jane Smiley

“It’s the doing of the project that counts, not how others will value me or the project later.” Tomie de Paola

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for its own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.” George Bernard Shaw

So maybe instead of pursuing happiness, we can find happiness in the pursuit.

Happy reading! Happy writing!

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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Squinting Into the Fog

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” – Thomas Jefferson

I like the dreams of the future too. It’s just that they’re wrapped in fog, so while I squint into the coming days, I can’t see very far. “The past, at least, is secure,” said Daniel Webster.

So here’s what’s secure in my writing life, and what sits ahead in fog:

1. I have Advanced Reading Copies of Throat of the Night. Hooray! Promo begins, heading toward the March 12 release! For e-reading reviewers the e-galley should be available to download from Netgalley by the end of this week. I’ll post info on Facebook and Twitter when the galley is up. If you’re a blogger-reviewer and want an ARC or more info, contact marissa@jkscommunications.com.

2. I’m giving away five ARCs of Throat of the Night at Goodreads.

3. I’ve assembled all the pieces that will go into the making the Throat of the Night trailer. Our process is to write the short text (between 25 and 35 words) describing the story (hopefully in an intriguing way), gather possible pictures (both stills and video), select music, then begin piecing the trailer together. It’s amazing fun!

4. I’m still rewriting my middle-grade fantasy. It’s divided into “Part 1,” “Part 2,” etc. Got the first couple of “parts” done (out of about eight parts).

5. I started a new novel, a fantasy – don’t know if it’s mid-grade or YA yet; maybe “low YA.” I have the basic plot down, and I’m pretty sure I know how it will begin. I’m eying the advice: “great writing + phenomenal idea = a chance of success.” It’s the phenomenal idea I’m targeting, so I’m doing a little more muse work on that front before I start the actual writing.

6. Last but not least, my agent has my contemporary YA, and I hope to hear from her soon. What she says about it may rearrange this entire list, since my writing life works like cooking a huge meal – something is simmering on every burner of the stove. I stir whatever pot is boiling at the time. If the contemporary comes to a boil, the other projects will move to the back burners.

It seems my foggy future is due, at least in part, to the steam from those pots. I have no way to predict which one will boil first, so I just keep stirring and squinting.

Speaking of the fog of the future reminds me of an encouraging quote that’s popular among writers: “Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” (E.L. Doctorow)

Hmmm. Edit that: “The Art of Living is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” As long as you keep moving forward.

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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The Four-Letter Word “Quit”

It’s the Q word. I – and many other writers – wrestle with Captain Q all the time. But is Q a villain or a hero showing the way out?

We’re taught to be tenacious and persistent and never give up. And it’s true that, barring beginner’s luck, those who succeed are those who don’t give up. I can also guarantee that if you give up before you succeed, you will never succeed. Samuel Butler, an English poet in the 1600′s, said, “Everyone has a mass of bad work in him which he will have to work off and get rid of before he can do better; and, indeed, the more lasting a man’s ultimate work, the more sure he is to pass through a time, and perhaps a very long one, in which there seems to be very little hope for him.” That’s where tenacity comes in.

Interviewers often ask writers, “What piece of advice would you give to beginning writers?” Writers often answer, “Keep writing. Don’t give up.” When we read about famous writers and the number of rejection letters they received, we’re encouraged to keep on keeping on. I recently read a short article in remembrance of Donald J. Sobol, author of the Encyclopedia Brown series, who died in 2012. His first book was rejected by more than 20 publishers before it finally sold. In his talks to writers, he encouraged them never to give up.

Julian Fellowes, writer of the Downton Abbey series, was interviewed in the February issue of The Writer magazine. When asked what qualities a successful writer needs, he answered, “Actually, tenacity is the quality that you cannot do without. . . . I’ve known very talented people who do badly, and I’ve known not very talented people who do well . . . The one quality that all the ones who do well have is tenacity. They just don’t give in, and they keep plugging away.”

But is there a time to let go? Is quit a dirty word? There’s an old cowboy proverb: “When your horse dies, get off.” Not a bad piece of advice. When my older son was learning to water ski, we forgot to give him one crucial instruction: When you fall, let go. His first time up, he fell and hung on. As he was being dragged through the water with his head submerged, we in the boat were yelling, “Let go! Let go! Let go!” He did.

Sometimes it takes more courage to quit than to carry on. You have to be bold to face your own disappointment as well as the criticism (real or perceived) that others level at you. It’s hard to turn around and go back to “the road not taken.” But the word quit comes from the Latin quietus, which – yes – means, “quiet, at rest.” Sometimes that’s what we need. Solomon said, “There is a time for everything . . . a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away . . .” (Ecclesiastes 3:1, 6). There can be a time to quit.

So how do you know when that time is? Specifically for a writer: How do you know you’re on a dead horse? I just read Ann Patchett’s The Getaway Car: A Practical Memoir About Writing and Life. She suggests that people who want to write should sit at their keyboards for an hour a day and write. Do not get up. If no ideas come, sit there until you have an idea or the hour is up. Do this the next day and the next day and the next day, for as long as it takes to start writing. I say that if you can do this, then you’ve got a chance. Keep going and see what happens. If you can’t do what Patchett suggests, then look around and see if realistically there’s a better, more productive and satisfying path.

It’s a personal decision everyone has to weigh: Do I keep on, or do I quit? Better yet, ask, “Do I keep on, or do I transition?” Quit suggests a cessation of movement. Transition suggests continued movement. So do you keep on, or do you transition? They’re both valid choices, and choices only you can make. Either way, quiet rest, at least for a while, is not a bad thing.

Happy Reading, Happy Writing, Happy Life!

(P.S. No, I’m not quitting writing. Or transitioning. But I do struggle with the option every day.)

© 2013 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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Shaking the Globe

Snow globes fascinated me when I was a child. Really, anything in miniature could draw me into its world – tiny villages, doll houses, even picture book illustrations. But the snow globe had movement. For a few minutes, as the tiny white flakes drifted down and changed the landscape below, the scene came to life. And I made it happen. By shaking things up. Maybe that’s one reason I enjoy writing stories. I create the landscape, people it with characters, and shake things up.

Of course stories reflect real life. Although I didn’t create the world I was born into, I do get to create the space in the bubble around me. In fact that’s all I have. True, my bubble, my very own life size snow globe, touches others at times, but it’s not anyone else’s globe. Nor is their snow globe mine. Forces beyond my control may shake my globe – I may sometimes feel as if my globe has shattered – but in reality, my globe stays intact, and I get to choose how to view the new lay of the land. Do I see a problem or an opportunity? Do I complain and blame, or do I accept the challenge and figure out how to move forward?

When my sons were young and I gave them a chore they didn’t want to do, I’d often say: “You can complain and cry about it, or you can say yes and get busy. Either way, you’re going to do it.” In the end, you expend less energy just getting busy. It also feels better than ranting and complaining.

Actually “complain or get busy” is at the heart of everything I write, whether it’s fantasy or historical or contemporary, whether it’s YA or middle-grade. My main character finds his or her globe shaken and has to grapple with a new landscape – psychologically, emotionally, socially, physically, or all of the above. Trekking the new landscape, the main character does more than he ever thought he could do; she matures in ways she never envisioned. Because it’s not about the shaking. It’s about character. It’s about growing up. It’s about becoming strong instead of miserable.

So when my personal globe shakes and the snow swirls, I get to decide whether that’s a problem or an opportunity. When yours shakes, you get to decide. Each of us gets to choose whether to rant or to explore the new lay of the land. Because it’s not about the shaking. It’s not about the snow. It’s about you and me growing up and becoming strong.

Happy Reading, Happy Writing, Happy Life!

Happy New Year!

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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My Wish for Your Holidays

Happy Holidays! I’m wishing you:

H ope
A ll the ideas you need
P ages of good reading
P lenty of creative thinking time
Y our ideal writing or reading space

H ealth
O penness to embrace new challenges
L ove and laughter with family and friends
I nspiration
D iscoveries that bring you joy
A nswers to your story questions
Y ummy snacks to fuel you
S weet Satisfaction in all you do!

Happy Reading! Happy Writing!
I’ll see you next year!

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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Endurance Training for Writers

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into story.”*

I’ve recently added a new component to my workouts: guided aerobic walking using a weighted Walkvest. My coach, Debbie Rocker, is on CD, helping me work on endurance. Of course I naturally transfer her coaching to my writing, because that’s endurance work as well.

The word endure comes from Latin indurare, which means “make hard” or “harden.” Endure now means “continuing to exist,” or “to undergo without breaking.” In Rocker’s words, endurance in a walking workout means “going all the way . . . staying strong on the road.” For me it’s becoming strong enough to stay on the road. In endurance training “you challenge yourself, you work purposefully with intention, you create a powerful position from the inside out.” And you find your endurance zone, your endurance level. Once you reach your endurance zone, you challenge yourself to stretch a little more, go a little farther, work a little longer, or add a little weight (not to your body, but to what you carry as you walk).

While endurance training in a physical activity helps your body work more efficiently, endurance training in writing helps your mind and muse work more efficiently. When I was studying for my MFA in Writing at Vermont College of Fine Arts, my first adviser told me that I was a good writer, and I could get by, but if I challenged myself to work hard, I could be better. I could aim for excellent. I’m not there yet, but I’m in endurance training. Each book I write is a challenge – which is exactly as it should be. As Susan Fletcher, another of my advisers, once told me, “Every book teaches you how to write that book.” Each new story you write brings new challenges.

Writing a novel is endurance training. It teaches you to go all the way, to stay strong on the road of the story. A writer works purposefully with intention and creates a powerful position from the inside out – from the inside of self onto the pages of the novel.

Something else I noticed: The shape of a story echoes the shape of a workout. You start a walking workout slowly and increase the difficulty incrementally. Periodically you plateau and then back off, letting the heart rate lower a bit. Then you raise the bar and increase the heart rate again. After the most challenging peak of activity, you slow the pace and cool down. The shape of most stories follows a similar pattern, starting with a warm-up, your intention to go the distance and take the reader with you (a “this is what we’re here for”). Then the tension varies – rises, backs off, rises – until it peaks at the climax of the story. After that comes the cool down. As Rocker says, “ease your way home.”

“Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into story.” So writer, know why you are here, bring it all to the novel, and ease your way home.

Happy Reading, Happy Writing, Happy Life!

*Quote adapted from William Barclay by replacing his glory with my story.

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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The Most Important Thing

Once upon a time I was a storyteller – the spoken word kind, with audiences of real people sitting before me, listening. In the early ’90′s I trained at a workshop at the International Storytelling Center in Jonesborough, TN, and I practiced and studied the art for a few years. While telling stories in person and in print are two different animals, they have some principles in common, one of which is MIT, which translates into real life as well.

MIT is storyteller Doug Lipman‘s shorthand for “Most Important Thing.” Lipman suggests that a storyteller who is learning a story to tell should ask, “What’s the most important thing for me about this story?” The key is for me. There may be many important things about a story, but what grabs the teller about this particular tale? Why does the teller want to tell it? The answer to that question is what the storyteller should try to convey in the telling. Translated for the writer, “Why do you want to write this story? Why does the story grab you?” (If it doesn’t grab you, it’s hardly worth considering. Find a story idea that resonates with you.)

So is the MIT the same thing as ‘theme’? It could be, especially in a short work like a picture book. On the other hand, novels often have many themes, and a writer may not see them all until the story is written. The MIT is one thing, not many. However if MIT is not a theme, it is at least “the point of the story.”

Knowing the MIT helps a writer create a rough draft. If you can come up with a simple sentence that describes your story – the protagonist, the antagonist, and their struggle, which is their MIT (the valuable thing they want or don’t want) – then you have not only a guide for creating the blueprint of your story but also a foundation to hold up the story once you start actually constructing the scenes.

MIT helps tremendously in revisions. Holly Lisle, in her course on revising a novel, advises writers to consider their rough drafts, asking how the rough varies from what they intended to do with the story. Go back to the MIT: Why did you write the story in the first place? What’s at the heart of it for you? Maybe you need to revise your simple sentence now that you know the entire story. Maybe in the writing, you found a different MIT. It’s not carved in stone. Whether you go back to your original MIT or create a different one, in revision the MIT sentence becomes a measuring stick for each scene you wrote. As you reread the rough draft, ask, “Does this scene deal with my story’s MIT? Does it move the story toward resolving the issues around the MIT?” If not, the scene should be changed with the MIT in mind, or it should be deleted.

But the value of MIT goes beyond storytelling. Translated into real life, MIT can center and stabilize you. Your personal MIT is the core of your values. Values are simply the beliefs most valuable to you. So the principle of the MIT can guide you in choosing what to throw out and what to keep – not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally – in short, in every area of life. You may find it helpful to write your MIT in the form of a personal creed – one sentence you can post and repeat to yourself when you feel you may be getting off-track. But don’t carve it in stone. Don’t clench life so tightly that you paralyze it. Hold life with a loose hand so it can breathe. Because your life is a story. It’s a story you live, creating it as you go. It’s the MIS – the Most Important Story that you’ll ever be privileged to live.

Happy Reading, Happy Writing, Happy Living!

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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A-musings: Writers on Writing

Humor is a coin of rare value, minted with a laugh on one side, truth on the other. I found the following rare coins in my pockets, gifts from writers past. I hope they enrich you, too.

On Writing:
“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” – G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936

“The profession of book writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.” – John Steinbeck, 1902-1968

“Only a mediocre writer is always at his best.” – Somerset Maugham

“Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; – they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.” – Charles C. Colton, 1780-1832

“It is the glory and merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all.” – Jean De La Gruyere, 1645-1696

“I don’t want to be a doctor, and live by men’s diseases; nor a minister to live by their sins; nor a lawyer to live by their quarrels. So I don’t see there’s anything left for me but to be an author.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1804-1864

On Reading:
“A book is a mirror; if a monkey peers into it, then it will not be an apostle that looks out.” – George Christoph Lichtenberg, 1742-1799

“A learned fool is one who has read everything and remembered it.” – Josh Billings, 1818-1885

“There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.” – Charles Dickens, 1812-1870

On Critics:
“There is probably no hell for authors in the next world – they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.” – Christian Nestell Bovee, 1820-1904

On the Borrowing of Books:
“Please return this book; I find that though many of my friends are poor arithmeticians, they are nearly all good book-keepers.” – Walter Scott, 1771-1832

When you flip the coin, I hope it lands tales up for you.
Happy writing! Happy reading! And Happy Thanksgiving!

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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Old Beliefs Die Hard

Have you ever found yourself following an old belief, even though you knew cerebrally that the belief was misguided or just plain wrong?

Old beliefs seem to be baked into us. Which is okay if the beliefs are correct, but often, they’re just not. “Bundle up before you go out in the cold or you’ll get sick.” “Always stretch before you exercise.” “If you’re upset, you’re just tired, so go to bed early and get some sleep.” The truth is, germs cause illness, not cold weather. Stretching before exercise has recently been proved risky. And while sleep does help us deal with problems, it doesn’t do away with them. Sometimes we have good cause to be upset, and the cause is not lack of sleep.

But more subtle beliefs are just as hard (or harder) to slough off and often return to challenge us, even if we know better. One of my challengers is, I suspect, common to lots of writers (and probably people in other fields as well): the belief that some authors have a certain spark of creative magic I don’t have. Not literal magic, of course, but a secret, a key, an ingredient that propels them to success.

My old belief results in (1) comparing myself unfavorably to writers who are more popular, or who are supported better by their publisher, or who are younger, or who have ideas that rock the publishing world, and (2) sending me on a search for the magic, the key, the secret, the one insight that will put me in their company. As a consequence of (1), I see myself as unworthy and unable, or as the victim of the system. As a consequence of (2), I waste my time on a wild goose chase, following pathways that lead nowhere.

For a long time I chased that goose, searching for the key to get in, the one piece of knowledge that I don’t have, the puzzle piece, the connection that would put me over the top as a writer. I believed that if I just found that missing piece, then whatever I wrote would come easy. I would be right on the mark. I would be successful. My search eventually circled me back to where I started from.

Back at square one, I found two old, plain keys that were there all along. They’re not even close to magic, and they certainly don’t guarantee that I’ll ever land right on the mark or that I’ll gain instant success, but they do open a door that exposes the missing pieces in my work.

So what are the keys? Hard work and persistence. A piano teacher once told me she would much rather teach a less talented student who worked hard than a super-talented student who refused to practice. The truth is, most of writing is practice, and it does not come easy, even for established, best-selling authors. True, as with any art or skill, writing gets easier with experience, because the basics come more naturally, but each work has its own fresh challenges.

Speaking of challenges, I admit that old beliefs still challenge me. Even now that I know the keys are hard work and persistence, I still have the impulse to put successful authors on a pedestal and think they know some secret I don’t. Yeah, I know it’s not true, but some old beliefs die hard.

© 2012 Karyn Henley. All rights reserved. Photo courtesy morguefile.com

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