Progressions and Writing Groups

The improvements I've made over the past year or so stem directly from the scolding I got at the Sallas Writer's conference. There I was, among bestsellers, (I sat with Allison Brennan and had lunch with her group of peeps) famous editors (Margie Lawson took to picking on me all day, which was great, actually) and established agents (I talked to Lucienne Diver, one of the agents whose attention I'd craved since I started querying.)

Here's the one thing they all said to me: You have great ideas and a wonderful imagination. But, right now, you are lazy. You need to devote yourself to this. If you do, you can accomplish wonders.

I wasn't insulted. I knew that they were right. I was lazy, trying to make it on talent alone without really honing it. One of my friends/coworkers said, after reading my latest short story: There's a difference between a writer and a story teller. You are a story teller. I'm becoming one. I'm very close. But I have to keep working, keep writing, keep getting better. I'm not what I could be and I'm fully aware of the fact.

With the "unpleasantness" out of the way, I joined the Woodlands Writer's Guild and learned my first hard lesson--as good as it looks on paper, it means nothing if you can't read it aloud. Vee, one of my longtime critique partners, had been telling me to do this for a long time. And I didn't do it. Boy, it was gorgeous on the page and sounded AWFUL when read aloud. Clunky, clumsy, awkward, kinda like me around a beautiful woman. Totally embarrassed after my first read, I went home and got to work.

Luckily, my pups are great listeners. I read aloud over and over again until it flows. I was reading this YA book I have called "The Name of the Game was Murder" by Joan Lowery Nixon. In it, the MC says about an author "his words tumbled and flowed like a river into a waterfall." I thought, "Yeah, I need to write like THAT." and it's been my goal ever since.

So, how do I find out if I've reached that goal? Writer's groups. I haven't read in a while. Right now, I am sharing "the Pit" to get ready for the WD contest. Some people love it as is. Others all say the same thing: leave the character's first name out of it, they couldn't put it down, and that they felt cheated because there isn't more of it.

There is more--the Pit is an offshoot of Electrify Me. I won't say too much more about that story, but it's a flashback to the same MC at seventeen. EM takes place when she's twenty and in college. The Pit shows why she's kinda of messed up in the head, why she has such strong character and morals, and why she and Jennings hate each other. (Jennings shows up in Chapter 13 of the novel.) It's basically a morality play, good vs evil. But within good, there's a little evil. And within evil, there's a little good.

I like to play those kinds of themes and deliberately place them in my characters. Even Evil Erin from Betrayal is only that way because she has no choice--she's a sociopath. She wants to be different, she even tries to be different. But without any concept of right and wrong, without any real feelings, she can't be. She just is. And she does whatever she wants. Naomi from Betrayal is the good guy, but she's just as crazy as Erin. The difference is that Naomi possesses empathy and has a moral code instilled in her by her adopted father.

so, there I go again, with my preachy morals. I can't wait to go back and fix Betrayal. But after I'm done with EM, I'm going back to Somewhere Under the Rainbow, the story for which this blog url was named. It was my first, and it has so much potential for the YA market. Plus I love the character of Lacey Carter. She's a mixture of every girl I've ever fallen for.

Wait; wasn't I being preachy? Yeah, go join a writer's group if you want to be any good. You have a better chance of winning the Power Ball than being the next Stephanie Meyer. Most writers have to work at it. They aren't able to sell an idea and learn how to write better through the publishing process.

Happy writing, y'all.