After the big hooray

I find very few moments of peace to use for writing, let alone time for thinking these days. My daughter has some special issues and that sometimes makes for a difficult week (or month, depending). When it all hits the fan, writing is NOT my top priority, and even if it were, it simply is not possible.

You may have a child like this, too. One who needs special attention, and a lot of it, and often for extended periods of time. A child is a greater calling than a book or article, a richer reward in every way than a million-selling book, or a NY Times best seller (does that even count these days?), and a much more wonderful "product" at the end of our lives. To feed into the life of another can be difficult--and sometimes for great lengths of time, unrewarding. But in the end, I fully believe it is the most important endeavor of my life, and that keeps me plugging away.

So, right now I don't have a lot to say about my book, and my book is not gaining many words. This is a season of working through, hanging on, and wrestling with difficulties. But it is also a season of great laughter, because my daughter is one of the funniest people I know. And humor helps the whole family get through the windy spots.

When the winds calm a bit more, then I can turn back to my book, but in the meantime, we will batten down the hatches and weather the storms.

the big hooray

There is just nothing like a really productive day at the keyboard--one that produces hundreds of words that are actually useable and advance the story. It's the satisfaction of getting moving after a string of very slow writing days. Some days the story just bursts out and heads on down the road; other days, it drags its feet and keeps backtracking, zigzagging, then squatting in the middle of that road. Those days I search for ways to kick it in the behind. "I do not have writer's block," as my heroine tells her publisher, "I have too many choices."

Today, my MC (main character--an abbreviation I'm stealing from Becky Levine--do check out her blog http://beckylevine.com/) wraps up a meeting with the hero, and gets a phone call including devious plans from her best friend, as well as one from her irritating stepmother, who is the intended victim of the devious plans.

We move onward with hope. A character who had no name now has one, a question about what to do with a certain plot element becomes clearer, and my heroine is left smiling, "an evil smile, filled with victorious malice." She's not an evil character, but it's fun for her to enjoy the thought of getting her stepmother wrapped up in confusion and situations that will discourage Stepmom's current intentions. How does one write an evil laugh here? Nya-ah-ah. Let the fun begin.

Now, if I could just solve the mystery of why my typeface sometimes changes font and size on its own, although it looks fine in the composing window! I've no idea how to get an answer from blogspot, although I've filed a question in the discussions. AAAUGH!

I'm writing my wish

I moved to the Silicon Valley of California in 1983 after grad school in Oregon, the state I consider my home state. Military brats get to choose their home states, since they often don't feel they really belong in any particular spot. There were no jobs in Oregon, so...I ended up in Calif. That said, my heart belongs to a tiny town in the Willamette Valley that has only 800 people. It's boomed up from about 700 when my family settled there after my dad retired from the Air Force. I never really lived in Scio--just sort of camped there between terms at OSU and U of O, so my idea of what the town is, is probably rather romanticized. I remember the six-party phone line when we first moved there in 1968, and the friendly people at the two grocery stores, the P.O. (we were general delivery at the time), and the bank.

Scio is the model for Baxter, Oregon in my book. But I needed a private college, so I selected Linfield College in McMinnville--just for its looks. In my mind, Linfield is the perfect Preston College for Anna's journalism department. I love the brick buildings, the white pillars, the grassy lawns. I even took photos to use as inspiration when I write about Preston. As far as I know, Linfield is nothing like Preston. I am taking abundant liberties with both Scio and the college to mold them into Baxter, Oregon and its Preston College. In actuality, I have only stolen my *impressions* of these places, since I never spent a lot of time in either, and certainly was never involved in the town politics or the newspaper in Scio--and I have only driven through Linfield. Nothing about Baxter is really Scio. Baxter is bigger, has more shops and, of course, the college. But I hope that Baxter will feel to readers the way Scio feels to me. Small, cozy, friendly, full of pickups and normal people. It is a place where you have to slow down on back roads because there's a tractor in your lane. It's a place where just outside of town, you can drive up on a hill that gives you a view across a beautiful green valley, and where there used to be several covered bridges scattered like little jewels over wide streams. I love Scio and its environs, and I'm working to make Baxter the kind of small town my readers will love. It's the place I wish I could live.

Of plants and bridges and research

What plants will win a spot in my book? I have a landscaper (or IS he?) hero, advising my heroine on plants in her yard. Granted, this does not further the plot, except as an excuse for the two of them to meet, and meet again, and talk, and wander around the backyard together, and for her to notice his green eyes and other attractions. But I can't just stick any old plant in the ground!

My story takes place in Oregon--the Willamette Valley, specifically. I live in California--in the South Bay area--Silicon Valley. Plants grow better one place than another, so talking to a landscaper here can only give me input on how he approaches his business, not on any plantings. As for my personal gardening expertise: I seem to be able to kill plants in two different states with equal skill (or lack thereof). So, ages ago, I contacted a Master Gardener in Oregon. Neil was very helpful, but I really wasn't ready to ask too specific a question. Now I am, and hope to be able to reach him again, or find someone equally cooperative. Ahhh, research.

My favorite research email was from a city engineer in Portland, OR who gave me the rundown on the bridges in that city. He was a godsend, although I originally worried that he might interpret my email as being from a terrorist who wanted to clog up the city commute. Luckily, nothing untoward happened shortly after he sent his answer to cause him to notify Homeland Security. Sometimes writers ask weird questions. I'll bet if someone were really paranoid, mystery writers would show up on all sorts of alert lists for some of the stuff they research.

down time

I find it fascinating what comes to you when you sit and stare at the wall for a while.

Recently, I have been occupied with an upcoming confrontation between the sisters and their stepmother, wondering about dialog, letting my mind wander. Then I checked my email and got an absolutely hysterical note from my niece about some problems they had with their realtor's lack of communication. Her statement to the realtor was sooo rude, it's perfect for what Yvonne would say! As I've mentioned before: writers are thieves of other people's words and actions, so...I'm stealing my niece's comment. It's just too funny, being just the sort of thing most of us would long to say, but wouldn't unless the gloves really came off. When you let your mind wander, sometimes God delivers the best stuff right to your inbox! For it is by grace that we are saved, and by grace we write our novels. (Apologies to the Apostle Paul.)

editing, rewriting, and reconstruction

Any writer who's accomplished anything tells us they rewrite and rewrite and sometimes throw the whole thing out and start over after all that work. I figure by the time anyone is published, they must make about 25 cents an hour on the deal--if that. Evan Marshall in The Marshall Plan Workbook, a book about structuring not just your novel, but your writing career, has a great first section that brings home the financial reality of most writers' lives: "Any of us can name writers with healthy six-figure incomes who have no need to undertake any additional work to support themselves. And as an agent I can tell you that many writers who are patient eventually work their way up to advances and royalties large enough to live on. But to expect this kind of monetary reward from your novels one, two or even five books into your career can be a big mistake."

FIVE books in? Heck, I'm only a half a book in and I already know there's no money here unless someone buys it for a film. I'm not writing the kind of book that is going to be a crazy, trendsetting novel. I'm writing a romantic comedy, a mostly light, sometimes thoughtful expose of a looney woman who has to write fiction, deal with her relationship with her father, and juggle a day job. In that sense, it's mostly biographical. Except that she's nothing like me in personality--or is she? I've discussed that before. I never know how much I'm revealing about myself, but I do know that I have to finish the book before I can start the real work on it--editing, rewriting and reconstructing in part. I already did the part of throwing most of it out, so I hope I can skip that this round.

The value of friends

The critique group met again this morning. I read my latest few pages and it was pretty quiet. When that happens, I usually assume they are all struggling for the most creative way to tell me it sucked. This morning, however, they really liked it. They pointed out a couple of things that needed tweaking, but I felt quite gratified by their accolades. There are so many times I think, man, I just don't want it to be mediocre--if it's going to be mediocre I want to skip it. Thank God for a critique group whose motto is "Friends don't let friends write mediocre books." And friends give friends the encouragement to carry on with a process that requires continual persistence.