Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!

Teresa Fannin, reader, writer, gardener, chocolate fan & tea drinker

Author: teresafannin (Page 18 of 56)

Open the Gates

08/15/2016 /

Flipping through the channels the other night I stopped at Charlie Rose on NPR. He was interviewing Jimmy Walker  professional golfer and the 2016 PGA champion. No, I’m not a golfer, not any good at it at all. I play golf like a tennis player, which I am. But I do like to listen to people talk about their success–how they got they, what they think it means, and what happens going forward.

The stats for Jimmy are interesting. 187 events without a single win. Wow! Then three wins in 2014 then first major title in 2016. He said he would win big. He said he believed. He said “once you know you can do something, then the gates open.”

I get that. For me the gates have been closed at submission. I should be clear, not by anyone else but me! Because Jimmy is right. He believed. I did not. Did I hear you ask why? No. So. I’m going to tell you anyway. I wrote. I submitted. And I got zip. I did not believe.

I rewrote. I paid for critiques. I went to writing programs. I paid attention. And I got zip. I did not believe.

Then I had this idea. Truly it came from my own lack of will power, my own ineptness and a drive to find a voice for a story I really wanted to tell. I wrote. I paid for critiques. I went to writing program. I paid attention and I got something. Acceptance? maybe. Publication? No.

But I think I got my faith back. I believe. I’m writing good stories. I’m getting feedback that say ‘believe. Once you know you can do something…the gates will open.”

 

 

Judgment…

08/08/2016 /

I preach about critiques. I do. You can find my thoughts and comments on the SCBWI Carolinas conference information pages. In the What Happens in Critique… section I write about preparing, relaxing, listening. In truth, I think critiques can be scary, heartening, frightening, illuminating and mostly cause some amount of distress. After all you are putting out for some brand new eyes, for some relevant industry professional, work you have invested your time and what talent you have. And there is no doubt about it, you are asking for judgment!  Yes, it is just one person. Yes, this is the whole reason why you are there. This is a review of what’s good and what’s not so good. You want to know about  your voice, your character, your plot, the language, and the marketability and how the reviewer sees them based on the experiences they have had. WowZer!

And even more, we pay to receive this judgment! Double WowZer!

Let’s admit there are good critiques and bad critiques. A bad critique is where there is no information. I’ve had one of those with an agent who stated at the beginning of the session that this genre was not something the agency represented. This was my first critique at SCBWI LA.  I blanched. But I had paid for a critique. And thirty plus years of HR management, of interviewing prospective employees for jobs clicked in and I began to ask questions: was the dialogue realistic? what about the main character’s voice? was my language appropriate for the age group? And eventually I pulled out information that helped me go back and review what I had written and what I needed to do to make this story better.

Interestingly enough, it was the same story, about seven years later, that I submitted this year to SCBWI LA. I have tinkered with the story over time–back and forth about whether it is sustainable as a middle grade novel, written two middle grade mysteries that are about [about being the most abused and least valuable word in the English language] as good as I can make them and I’ve sent them out, but I keep coming back to this story, because I love the basis of the story. I love that I can’t seem to find that same basis out there in the market place. And I love that this story gives me an opportunity to have an unreliable narrator tell a story that will have a satisfying yet unhappy ending.

And this critique was a good critique. ‘Gripping opening.’ ‘Engaging action.’ ‘Compelling mystery.’ ‘I liked the way you established the dynamic between family members.’  There was also, ‘develop Erin’s personality’, ‘punch up tactile details’, ‘beware of too much internal/self reflection’, ‘ let readers decode the mystery themselves.’ So lots of positive to sustain me, but lots of suggestions as to why this is not yet done.

And, that’s how I took it.

When I shared with peers the ‘good’ critique’, the first question was ‘did the agent ask for it?’ And my response was ‘thank god, no.’  It’s not ready. I know that. This story, from the time of the not-so-good critique to this one, had not only had multiple drafts and POV changes including a move from a male main character to a female one, but it has several incarnations in setting, plot, motivation and execution. I am pretty sure-especially with the feed back from this critique- that I may FINALLY be on the right track with voice, POV, plot and setting.

For me this was a great critique. I have all of the agent’s notes, written liberally on the SCBWI Critique Notes & Talking Points as well as scattered throughout my submission and synopsis. I have the time and the freedom to think more about this story. The time and the freedom to explore our discussion and see if that is where Erin’s story takes me and if I can execute the unreliable narrator with a satisfying but unhappy ending. And, if, at that point in time, I am still agent-less, well then I have the opportunity to submit via the agency’s guidelines, reference this critique and all the positives and how I have worked with the negatives.

So, ‘did the agent ask for it?’  Thank god, no!

 

Kickstart the Process

08/03/2016 /

I’ve slept in until nine am each morning for no other reason but I can. I am not a late sleeper, I am usually up and about, but I think my mind is processing. There is so much thrown at us at a conference, okay, not thrown, served up in delicious bites and set before us until we are so sated with inspiration, promise, hope, joy, guilt, process and objectives that we can barely move.

From first keynote with Drew Daywalt to last with the extraordinary Richard Peck, the keynotes and breakouts were amazingly full, there was the opportunity to take of at least one nugget from each. From nonfiction/fiction mashups to educational landscape to voice as structure to sourdough starter as a metaphor for creativity to market trends and opportunities. My conference notes are a mish-mash of words, phrases, dictums, adages, recommendations, suggestions, and other writer’s and illustrator’s struggles with exactly what I am going through.

Is this a good idea?  What is the basic premise? Can I find it? Can I sustain this thread/premise/throughline for fifty thousand words?  Is this salable? Really? What makes my story standout? Is my character’s voice believable? Realistic? True?

There you go! True!  Out of all of the presentations and conversations both engaged and overheard, what I heard was we must be true. Unsaid but there is that we exist around so much spin, in the news, in the papers, on blogs, on social media.

SPIN is the explanation what happened by distorting reality.  SPIN is the trying to make what occurred palatable. SPIN is the reality of a ‘little white lie’ or a grievous mortal sin that becomes that dark spot in the middle of your soul. We have come to accept spin as a part of our daily lives. Our children are growing up with spin as a overlay– of life, politics, culture, economics, religion, ethics–EVERYTHING. SPIN cripples fact. SPIN interferes with paradigms. SPIN validates confirmation bias. SPIN distorts our conversations and SPIN devastatingly mars the truth.

The question is can we strip away that SPIN? Are we as creative content providers [yuck, what a term] required to find that center, that place where there is no spin, where there is no lie, where there is only what is?

When I was in college we used to sit around and philosophize about truth. We were young. We thought that our truths were accessible and realistic. We believed in universal truths. It is a different world. And so I wonder about that now. I wonder if truth is a commodity, a perception or another spin.

I think what we need, what we crave, like a perfectly seasoned steak, or wonderfully roasted asparagus, or the delicate sensation of dark chocolate, is the search for TRUTH.  We need to accept that our character’s emotions, wants, needs, desires are nothing but propaganda IF the character is not always searching for the way to come out of the story whole, intact emotionally, not necessarily with their wants/desires satisfied, but accessible to the reader–a good ending, a finish to the story.

It was a great conference. It made me think. It made me worry more about my characters. It made me want to be the best storyteller of truth I could possibly be!

 

Why Are We Posting….

07/24/2016 /

….all these vignettes about good things happening between any ethnic, cultural, religious, racial identity group?

Yes, we are in a political season–actually we’ve been in this season for a long time, far too long. (If you are a candidate and propose an amendment that says the election process can be no longer than it takes to grow a baby, by god, I’m with you ).  So over this long primary season people use their FB page to score points in favor of the party/person/ideology they back. My own personal tally is that the ad hominem attacks come more from the progressives than they do the conservative. But then I tend to be friends with those who are more progressive, so that is what I see–go figure! These ad hominem attacks have the unfortunate effect of stifling conversation and creating a bullying environment. How sad.

I spend far too much time on Facebook. I use it as slosh time–a time wasters because I am not prepared or ready to do what I need to do. I ‘slosh’ about in other peoples highlights of their lives or their thinking. It is more interesting and far more mind numbing than solitaire. Sometimes the postings are just banal and other times illuminating in that it points up one of two things. Either the posting show how people want to be seen to the world outside. Or the postings illustrate how individuals think, what they believe, what they are willing to say or comment on for their belief system.

I’m not good at the 140 character thing. I don’t want to get trapped in another social media program, far too many are out there,  so I use Facebook.  And here’s what I wonder. Why are there all these posting about when good things happen, especially when it is between black and white, muslin or jew? Why? And I must add, I see this more profoundly on the pages of those who espouse a more liberal or progressive ideology. It’s almost like they are saying “See, we can love one another. See, this story right here proves it. It proves we are right.” And I think of Shakespeare and the ‘protesting too much’.

And I wonder if that is some deep guilt [silly me] because the progressive policies of the last sixty years are not working–see Baltimore, Chicago, Fergueson. At the beginning of this year black unemployment was at 8.3%. While white unemployment is 4.5%, Hispanic unemployment is 6.3% and Asian unemployment is 4%. Labor participation rate is the lowest its been in 40 years. Lowest is not a good number in this case.

Right now the argument on the conservative side is that relations between identity groups is the worse it has ever been. The narrative on the progressive side is it’s not as bad as you think if we could just control guns and the police. If there was just a little respect for those minority identity groups we would all be fine.

When I see a person post overly much that a conversation will solve all ills, that there is all this  ‘good news’ and ‘wonderful sparks of humanity’, I wonder if they understand what they are admitting? If things are so great, why? Why do you continually have to single out individual stories? And post these stories, over and over and over. Face it. If you have to keep reminding me, over and over again, that things are great, my bet is no, nope, they are not. So stop posting!

 

May you live in interesting times…

07/18/2016 /

I was ironing. No, it’s not a huge deal. I actually like to iron. I find it to be very relaxing, especially if I am not doing it to pack and travel. It is a rote sort of activity. I iron in the kitchen. No TV, no radio. Just the task at hand. I can do a great job and still let my mind wander.

Usually this is a time when I think about stories. I am a huge fan of books. But I am a bigger fan of stories. I think it’s because, when I read history, lol, history during my lifetime, I am amazed at the variations of story that are taking place while I was, am, living.

But this particular time ironing I became stuck on the tumult of this year, 2016.  The bombings, the protests, the killings of individuals as well as the ambushes resulting in more deaths. It’s also hard to ignore the words that are strung together, sometimes followed by a hashtag or emojis.  Black lives matter. Yes. Blue lives matter. Also, yes. Our President recently asked us to ‘temper’ our language. Did he consider that in 2009 when he said ‘And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy’?  Or when he, before any trial or facts were available, said, ‘Trayvon could be my son’? Yes, I am picking on the President. He is after all, our commander in chief, the head of our sovereign state, our face to the world. He is my president as much as he is yours, at least, I would like to think that.  He is the most visible. Our comforter in chief. I recognize that it is not him alone. We are caught in a cycle of negative words from pundits, newscasts and political blogs, that are a result of fear, inequalities, uncertainty, of social stress that is beyond bearable.

We have a presumptive candidate, an outsider, who says brass and uncensored statements, who shocked the world, yes, the world, with his rise to the nomination. We have a presumptive candidate, the consummate insider of political machinations, who was no shock at all,  who was described by the director of the FBI as having evidence on a private server ‘that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.’  These individuals want to be the commander in chief, the head of our sovereign state, our face to the world. What have they done to ‘temper’ their language? What have they done to deescalate the fear, uncertainty, social stress?  Do we chose a unknown or a person who has demonstrated inept and ineffective handling of our state secrets?

Did all of this make the time more tumultuous? Or are they a result of the tumultuous times? A chicken and egg argument. Are there solutions? Or, are we stuck in this cycle? I have no idea. But I do think, no, I know, that hashtags and emojis, along with pundits and newscasts and political blogs are not going to get us back to the ‘melting pot’ we once were. The melting pot that allowed us to fight off oppression and totalitarianism abroad. The melting pot that made us the strongest economy in the world. The melting pot, that by it’s very name and composition, said that this is an exceptional country.

« Older posts Newer posts »

© 2025 Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑