Overcoming Writer's Block

The first time I wrote my book, everything just sort of fell into place.  Everything felt brilliant, hilarious, and it was a project I fell in love with.  But when it got rejected over and over again, it was time to adjust some things.  I rewrote my book, doubled its size, and ended it in a completely different way.  Ah...NOW it was perfect.  Again, I sent it out, only to have it rejected once again.  Hmmm...I was sensing a problem.  I sent it out to a trusted friend, and found out some suggestions that would require a total rewrite, and that would introduce a character that I was reluctant to add.  I mulled it over for months, and at last, came to terms with what I had to do.

 Rewriting my book from humorous non-fiction to young adult fiction was no easy task.  Instead of a bunch of funny anecdotes, I now had to have one long, continuous plot.  People had to actually talk to each other, and I needed more characters.  Because I was no longer reminiscing, I had to actually make up scenes and conversations, and that took some brain power, trust me!  There were many, many times where I reached a road block, and I had no idea what on earth I was supposed to do.  I did everything I was supposed to do:  I took a break from it, I did a freewrite, but nothing was working out for me.  I finally decided that the reason I could no longer move forward was because I didn't like where the scene was headed, or I was bored by it, and didn't like reading it.  It's always hard deleting several pages worth of story, but in the end, it was worth it, because I opened up another path, and that ended up being one that allowed my story to move forward.  If you're not in love with what you're writing, no else is going to love it, too.  Sometimes, you have to accept the fact that your plot is dry, or just simply wrong.  You can't be afraid to start over.

Another road block can come from lack of character personality.  By knowing your character's personality, you can let them direct your story.  My favorite parts in my books are when my characters created their own scenes, and where I felt that they were in charge of what was happening.  When I feel like I don't know how my character is going to react to a situation, or don't know what they're going to say, it's time to reevaluate who they are, and develop them better.

And finally, freewrite, freewrite, freewrite!  This can sometimes be hard for me, because I feel like I can only write when I know what I want to say.  I've forced myself to just write what I'm thinking, even if it looks completely dumb written out.  This is my "thinking out loud" process, because I write exactly what's on my mind, even if it's my dumb little inner conversations (please tell me others have them, too!).  I've actually gotten a lot of my problems solved this way, and have developed a more interesting plot.  Most of what I write is garbage, but every now and then, something huge pops out, and that's what makes the freewrite so valuable.  I also like to go through my freewrite, and highlight parts that I definitely want to put into my book, then make a list in chronological order of events I want to have happen.  It's nice having a road map to look at!

I just read an article on writing novels, and it said that if you aren't absolutely completely in love with and devoted to your book, you'll never get it finished.  If you've reached a road block or writer's block, or whatever it is that you want to call it, make sure you're loving what you're writing.  Don't be afraid to start over.  Cut and Paste is one of my most favorite Word features, because I've been able to rewrite without having to start from scratch!

Writing a novel is hard, but with enough passion, it can get finished!  Good luck, and happy writing!

Writing from a different perspective

It's done.  At least I hope it is.

I started my book over three years ago and had two different agents request my manuscript...only to have it rejected by both.  I've rewritten this book countless amounts of times, but this time, I think I may have gotten it right.  I've been told that the market to publish in right now is young adult, but have been hesitant about rewriting my book to fit this genre.  I started rewriting my book about three months ago, flew through it, actually, and was thrilled with how easy it came together.  Characters who weren't even supposed to be in my story suddenly popped up, practically developed themselves, and changed everything.  It's almost as if they came alive.  I'm hoping that this experience makes my book feel more authentic as I come to know these characters.

As I came to a crucial part of my book--more specifically, the ending--I suddenly reached a barrier.  I was incapable of resolving a conflict that had come up.  It was a huge, daunting road block, and I had no way around it.  I lost all inspiration, and tried everything I could to clear the path.  I tried re-reading my book, trying to capture the essence of my characters to find a resolution they might come up with themselves, but suddenly, everything felt like a big failure.  I hated my characters, I hated the idea I had come up with in the first place, and I hated the whole dumb book.  Nothing worked.  I sighed, gave up, and walked away from my book for two entire months.

My husband suggested that the reason I hit a road block was because I haven't been reading like I used to do.  Maybe I might get some ideas by reading again?  But reading takes too much effort, I protested!  But...he was right.  I needed to read again.  I picked up a book called, "Woman in the Wall."  I'm glad I read it, because I was suddenly inspired with different possibilities of conflict resolution.  It felt good to read again, and get my creative juices flowing.

Now that I have been inspired, I was able to start writing again, and my story has finally come to an end.  I like where it went, and I like that I learned to brainstorm in different ways again.

As I was looking online to double check the standards of young adult fiction, I came across this really, really good site.  It's a cheat sheet that tells you how to write for young adults, and ways to make sure your conversation sounds authentic.  I figured I'd blog about it so others can take a look at it if they wanted:  YA cheat sheet

Hopefully, if everything goes the way I'm planning, I'd like to continue my story as part of a series.  I have lots of great things I still want to write about.  If it doesn't work out, there may be an upcoming blog entry on self-publishing. :)

The Harvest

Gardening has never been my strong point.  When I was growing up, the extent of my experience included picking grapes, raspberries and blackberries.  Gardening was my Dad's job.  We weren't allowed to weed, due to my sister's accidental picking of the carrots instead of the weeds.  So when I got married and we moved into a house with a massive garden, I was

a bit intimidated when my husband plowed the ground and we planted rows upon rows of seeds.  Since we water with irrigation water, weeds explode about ten million times the speed of others'.  You let a week go without doing anything, and lo and behold, you're suddenly submerged into a jungle.  I wish I could say I'm exaggerating, but I'm really not.  The first year we were here, we had a young infant, so keeping up on the weeds was an adventure, to say the least.  We practically had to dig our way into the garden.

The second year we planted, I once again had a young baby, so weeding took bottom priority.  We had a family reunion here, and I was embarrassed when one of the activities was weeding our garden.  It was thrilling when rows of green were actually revealed beneath the sea of prickly weeds and tangles of morning glory.

We tried again a third year, and once again, we were defeated by the weeds.  Years four and five, we gave up completely.  We planted pumpkins, and that was it.  No more defeat.  There was no more war to fight, and we let nature have her way.  This year, however, we discovered that our green beans we had bottled from four years ago were just about gone, so we knew it was time to plant a garden.  My husband rototilled faithfully all throughout late winter and early spring, so when it came time to plant, we'd felt like we'd gotten control over Mother Nature.

I knew how awful we were at weeding, so I told my husband that I only wanted to do a small garden, something that we could keep on top of.  We planted peas, beans, carrots and tomatoes.  That was it.  Every week, I faithfully spent hours caring for my plants.  This year, our family depended on it.  I hoed down each row, digging up the tiniest little weeds, and was proud to see that for once, my little green plants were growing bigger than the weeds.

At last, it was time to harvest.  Our peas had somehow survived an adorable yet pesky rock chuck, which was eventually defeated by our neighbors' poison.  After an hour of picking, our large, white buckets were filled to the brim with tender green pea pods.  We carried them inside, turned on a movie, and podded peas while watching "Despicable Me."  The kids helped, in a way.  They carried handfuls of pods to their own section of the sofa, then after several minutes, returned the empty pods.  The peas had made it to their stomachs instead of the bowl we were supposed to be collecting them in.  I didn't mind too much, since the whole purpose of planting peas was to provide nutrition for my children.  Eventually, when our bowl was filled with peas, tiny hands, dirty from muddy pods and leaves, scooped up the peas by the handfuls, and shoved them into their mouths.  I tried again to appreciate that they were eating healthy, but felt a sting of annoyance at watching all of my hard work disappear in a matter of minutes.  We ended up freezing only four pints of peas.

Not long after, the green beans came in.  Harvesting them was my favorite part. One of the times I picked, it started to drizzle.  Between the tapping of the rain as it hit the plants, the chirping of the crickets, and the sweet smell of the tomato plants, the experience was unforgettable.  I almost didn't want to go back inside when I was done.  We ended up getting buckets and buckets and buckets of beans.  We were so desperate for them that I didn't mind the hours of work I was faced with.  I had also just gotten a new pressure/canner, and knew I needed to make good use of the money we had spent.  In the first two days, we bottled 60 quarts of beans.  Not bad, if I do say so myself!

Despite all of my weeks of careful weeding, I had gotten caught up in the harvest and all that was associated with it.  Looking back out into the garden, it's hard to see where our rows of plants are, because, once again, they are hidden behind a wall of weeds.  But at least the weeds are outside of the garden this time, and not inside!

Find and Replace

I've been revising my book for the past several weeks now, changing it from nonfiction to young adult fiction.  That in and of itself was a difficult decision, because it was hard to want to rewrite a book that took me two years to finish.  It was hard to decide to change point of view, as well as putting others into the situations that I myself had faced.  It felt like I wasn't being true to myself.  However, I am really wanting to get it published, because I feel like there's some really funny things to share, and so I tried re-writing.  It actually wasn't as daunting as I thought it would be, because I have a basic outline.  The only thing that really took the time was letting my characters converse with each other.  Normally, I've struggled with conversations in stories.  So many people have the talent of telling stories just through conversations, and I've always been one to tell stories through descriptions.  When I wrote my first conversation on page one, I suddenly realized that it wasn't as scary as I had thought, and I learned just how much a character's development depends on what he or she says.  It also creates depth to the story, and can move the plot along without having to come out and say so.

About halfway through my book, I suddenly realized that there was a problem with two of my character's names.  One of them didn't work because it needed to sound similar to another character's name (which in turn resulted in a really funny misunderstanding).  I then realized that I absolutely hated one of my character's names, Buck, and knew it had to be fixed.  As I went about finding and replacing these character's names, I went back to proofread, and found absolutely hilarious typos that resulted from the changes.

*Note:  I changed Buck's name to Brent, and I changed someone's last name from Pine to Oakley

"She giggled as she reached into his popcorn Brentet."

"...she suddenly noticed a figure standing a ways off, leaning up against a Oakley tree."

"Brent came by, and ended up throwing Oakleycones."


I've learned that when doing find and replace, I need to select "whole words only."  Still, it was pretty hilarious to me to find these typos.

The World is our Stage

The stage curtain rises, and the stars step out into the spotlight.  All 7.1 billion of them.  Each actor has been told that they are the main characters, that they determine the outcome, and that they call the shots.  But each actor is pushed aside by all of the extras, whether intentionally or by mistake.

In the play called Life, we know that the world doesn't revolve around us...but we think it should.  Each one of us IS the star of the show.  The problem is that all the other billions of people are the stars of their shows, too.  Each one of us has our own idea of how the world should be run.  For me, cities should be cities, and the country should remain the country.  Open space shouldn't get ripped out for storage facilities, condominiums that bring in hundreds of ever-changing faces, or roads expanded for an explosion of vehicles.  For politics, opinions can be different, but they're supposed to bring the community together, not rip them apart.  Religion should create love between people, not create hateful enemies.  And when I'm driving, I expect a good three seconds of open space both in front and behind my car.  I expect to get mostly green lights, others to obey the speed limits, and not to have to wait for others so I can make a left-hand turn.

This world is changing, but I'm not ready for it.  I hate how everyone is so obsessed with their cell phones.  Human interaction is getting interrupted by a dumb text, or replaced by a meaningless e-mail.  Heads are lowered as fingers fly across keypads...texting while in the company of a forgotten friend, or carelessly behind the wheel.  Conversations that are supposed to be private are shared over grocery stores, behind bathroom stalls, and at the cash register...where the cashier stands awkwardly, wondering whether she's allowed to tell you that you need to either pay or leave so she can ring up the next customer.

I'm tired of people who don't share my beliefs think that I'm wrong, or being uptight, or being unreasonable, disrespectful, or even ignorant.  In my life, as the star of my show, of COURSE I'm right!  I believe things because they make me who I am.  My play is based around my beliefs, because without them, my play would have no plot.  But on the other hand, I understand that THEY'RE right, too, in their eyes.  What frustrates me is that they're the ones who seem to be calling all the shots, changing the scene in MY play that I was actually enjoying.  It's a feeling of helplessness, knowing that if I say something, the audience is going to turn on me, and ban me from my own play that I worked so hard on.

In a play of over 7 billion actors, I know that things are going to get messy, and that things aren't always going to go my way, but I want so desperately to keep the plot the same.  It's hard letting go of a scene that I was so looking forward to, and it's hard realizing that the props I've been given aren't as great as others'.  It's hard seeing someone else take over and direct my play, someone I don't trust, but someone who's trying so hard to make the play into what they had envisioned.

It's hard to share the stage with actors who have a different vision than me, who are in a bigger hurry than me, who have more spotlights than me, and whose voice carries further than my own.  But still, here I sit, in a small, small corner of the stage, continuing on with my scene whether others actually notice or not.  The show is going on as it always has done, and the name on the director's chair will continue to change.  The play of Life will never keep to one scene, because how would the characters develop?  With the villains, tragedies and triumphs, it's what keeps the audience interested and on edge.  And when the final curtain falls, we will all take a bow, whether we've fallen or remained standing, because we were the stars.  All 7.1 billion of us.

The Trouble with Boys

What are little boys made of?  Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails...and nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble!  A couple weeks back, I awoke to use the bathroom, only to find that someone had drawn all over the bathroom wall.  I'm not talking about a simple line or two.  I'm talking preparing-a-canvas-to-be-displayed-in-an-art-museum type of scribbling.  This took a serious amount of time and effort.  I could tell by the circular patterns just who the culprit was...until Spencer noticed the word, "hi" written as well.  I was shocked.  There is no way Jacob would have done that...and yet, the pencil autographs all over his bedroom wall from months earlier said that he did.

It was time for a little talk.  Jacob denied the graffiti.  I showed the word "hi" to him, and told him that no one else knew how to spell.  He was utterly shocked.  "But I don't know how to write 'hi'!  I only know how to write the words they teach us in school!"  Surprised, I took Gabe into the bathroom.  After much pushing, he finally admitted.  Then, it was Jacob's turn to be surprised...and ashamed.  "That's not fair!  He's smarter than me!  No...I'm just joking.  I've got more brains than him because I go to school."  It's hard to be mad at one kid when you're doing everything you can to stop from laughing.

After a while, I was able to lecture Gabe on why we don't draw on the walls.  I was just dumbfounded that at age 5, he decided to do it suddenly.  He may have used a bit of crayon on the doors at age 2, but that was just one or two times.  Why the sudden regression?  After a lot of soapy water, I was able to scrub the wall clean, and all was forgotten...until YESTERDAY happened.

I thought I had been going slightly crazy when I suddenly caught a whiff of paint in our house.  Odd, since it's  not a common smell, but it wasn't logical either, since we hadn't been painting.  I pushed the thought aside, and just assumed that something in our house smelled bad, like a dish rag or something.  Since it was a nice day outside, I talked to Spencer about bringing Gabriel upstairs to go play outside instead of taking his nap.  We decided that since he had been up the night before with a bad cough, we should just let him sleep, and hopefully get better.  About an hour later, I left the house to pick up Jacob from school.  When we returned, as soon as I walked in the door, I was blasted with paint fumes.  Before I  could say anything, Spencer asked, "Does our house smell like paint still?"

"Yes, and it's really bad now."  As Spencer headed towards the stairs, I suddenly knew what had happened.  "Oh, no...what's Gabe been doing?!" I shouted.  We rushed downstairs, and found that instead of sleeping, Gabriel had been busy at work...redecorating.  His feet were painted gold up to his ankles, as were his hands.  I glanced at the walls, and red paint streaked across one wall.  The kitty litter box was improved with a generous helping of my expensive laundry detergent, seasoned with a bit of red spray paint.  Okay.  Not too bad.  But then Spencer walked into Jacob's room.  I quickly followed when he mentioned some of the things that were painted.  How he stayed so calm, I'll never know, because when I entered, I began hyperventilating.  In the doorway was piles of detergent powder.  His mauve carpet was covered in gold paint from where Gabriel stood, painting his feet.  Papers from the floor and dresser had been painted, as well as Jacob's alarm clock, ceramic lion statue, and treasure chest he had gotten from his birthday.  His magic set box was all gold, as was a huge ugly spot on his favorite stuffed animal.  His enormous leopard had been painted red, as was his sword, pillow case, and sheet.  His bedspread was painted gold in spots, his red journal was now gold, and his walls were streaked with both red and gold.  Clothes that had been left on the floor were forced to participate in Gabe's madness, as were a few stray afghans from Jacob's bed.  It was terrible.  It was awful.  But...Gabe's work didn't end there.

As we ventured into the other rooms, we discovered their play kitchen that was going to be sold at our summer yard sale now had a big red spot on it (as well as piles of laundry detergent inside).  My microfiber recliner that was going to be sold was covered in sparkly silver paint.  Our huge swivel computer chair, also for the upcoming sale, now had a red spot on it, as did our computer speakers and printer.  Somehow, the computer moniter had been spared.

When we entered Gabe's room...nothing had been altered.  The little stinker destroyed all but his own room. At lease we know he's not all crazy. :)

I was so mad, I forgot to yell.  I sternly scolded him, but I was in such great shock that real anger never really came.  As part of his punishment, I ordered him upstairs and into the bath, where his job was to scrub all the paint off himself.  That was when he realized with great distress just how permanent paint actually is.  When it came time for bed, he was the new owner of a freshly painted Spiderman comforter, and Jacob got his clean one.  Again, he felt the impact of his actions.  I felt hopeless, wondering what on earth had happened to make him do all of this.

With all of the chaos that our little boys bring, Spencer and I decided that it's pointless for all of us to try to suffer through Sacrament meeting together.  Our new plan was to trade weeks with one staying home the first hour with the younger boys while the other goes and takes the sacrament with the older two.  Last week was my turn to go to church.  I was confident with the set-up, and had each boy sit on either side of me.  I had packed a bag full of activities to keep them quiet and entertained...but Gabriel had other things on his mind.  He's going through a defiant stage right now where he doesn't like being told what he can and can't do.  Especially by an adult.  Needless to say, sacrament meeting was a total disaster.  Between him crying, whining and shouting out that I was making him touch my private part as I hugged him near to whisper to him to quiet down, I finally had had enough.  We left in complete humiliation, with the entire church echoing out with Gabe's cries.

If Fate had any mercy, this would be the extent of our problems.  But with so many little boys, that's just not possible.  Last week, Jacob and Gabriel decided to aerate our grass with Spencer's shovel.  Jarod has decided against napping, and instead, takes off all of his clothes and screams at the top of his lungs while lunging clothes and toys across the room into Caleb's crib, who, by the way, is now at the age where he likes joining in on the chaos.  Caleb's mischief comes not only from spilling his sippie cup drink all over the house, but pulling out diapers from his garbage can, and flinging them around his room, which open while airborne.

It's funny how life has a way of changing happily ever afters into what-have-I-dones.  And while I'm being buried alive in all of this insane chaos, somehow, a mother's love overcomes all obstacles.  I guess with the little things in life, such as Jarod asking me for lettuce for the first time in his life and not only eating it but asking for MORE, it gives me the strength to face another day.  Life, no matter how challenging or painful, will always provide some small, tender mercies.  It's just a matter of being willing to look for them.

Flash Fiction Entry

A while ago, I entered a flash fiction contest.  I've had some ask me what flash fiction is, so I'll explain.

Flash fiction is a super short story.  Different contests request different word counts, and the contest that I submitted to required 250 words or less.

Below is the story I submitted called, Steam.

Yes, I'll admit that The Race is cheesy, but with all that's been going on in the world, I thought a change for the better was what I wanted to do.  Sometimes, we all need happy endings in our life. :)

This is a really fun challenge, and since it's free, you should give it a shot next year!


Steam

The hard tip of the green bean fell into the metal bowl by my feet.  My red painted porch was littered with the ones that had bounced out. Snap!  Snap!  Snap!  I quickly broke a handful of beans into thirds, dropping them into an almost-full bucket.  Across the street, spectators from the high school football game roared to life, their cheers echoing in the cool evening air.  A loud horn sliced through the commotion. Touchdown, I suppose.

I wiped my wet and dirty hands onto my jeans, then brushed some strands of hair away from my eyes.  Two hours of snapping beans meant an hour and a half of bottling them.  I loved the hot, sweet smell of cooking beans that saturated my house on summer nights.  The steaming of the pressure cooker took me back to the old times, when Tom was still alive, and little ones swarmed my feet like ants to honey.  I regret now ordering them outside with a stern finger, eager for some silence and space.

They say that nothing big ever happens in this town, and I guess they’re right.  Nothing big to the right people, anyway.  But for my little family, a cell phone and a speeding SUV were monumental. 

I don’t need to bottle beans anymore.  It’s just me, and I’ve grown tired of eating them.  I guess I do it for the memories.  I stand up, stray bean tips falling onto the porch, and I stretch my aching back.  I pick up the bucket, heavy from my day’s labor, and swing the squeaky storm door open.  As I enter the kitchen, sweet, hot steam envelops me, reminding me of the arms of my little family, and the hugs I’ve been missing out on for four long, eternal years.