Sorry I’ve been even less attentive to this blog than normal.  My reason—yes, reason, not excuse or justification—is that I’m starting a new book.  Really just the proposal package, which means the first three chapters, a synopsis, and a cover letter, but doing that requires that I pretty much know where I’m going with the entire story.  Sticking with my typical method, I can’t share too much about the story, but I will tell you that it mixes a Korean boogeyman myth with teen girl lit.  Yeah, that’s right, and I dare you to use that to figure out what I have mind. 

It’s Spring Break at SLCC so I’ve set the goal of finishing the sample chapters by this Saturday.  Three chapters, roughly 7-8,000 words, in a week shouldn’t be too tough.  As of this morning I’m to about 5,500 words and am nearly done with chapter two.  Right on pace.  It’s impossible to know if a rough draft is good or not, especially as our emotions so often lie to us during composition, but I feel pretty good given how new and different this genre and perspective are.  I’m writing from the POV of a 14-year-old Korean-American girl, first person, so there’s a lot that’s new there.  I’ll keep you updated, hopefully with greater frequency once the rough draft of these chapters is finished.

In preparation for writing this new story, I’ve been reading some teen girl lit with a strong voice and powerful, traumatic emotions.  That isn’t all I’ve been reading, but it has added titles to the list that I wouldn’t likely have picked up otherwise.  So here’s a rundown of the books and authors I’ve been reading in recent months and why:

- Sara Zarr.  Sara’s a friend and member of several local writer’s organizations with me, and I’ve been hearing about her work for a long time.  It isn’t the type of stuff I read normally, but this new story gave me a good reason to try her writing.  It’s good.  Very good, in fact, if Sweathearts is any indication.  (And I hear her other books are better.)  So I’m picking up Story of a Girl (her National Book Award nominated debut) and Once Was Lost next.    

- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson.  Another teen book, very strong voice and equally difficult subject matter.  It was very good, though I did feel that sometimes the dark, jaded slant of the protagonist was a little excessive.  Dark humor can lose it’s theraputic value if used too often, which I felt occasionally made this protagonist feel just a touch artificial.  But that’s pretty particular criticism; overall, very well done.

- Dune by Frank Herbert.  I’ve read this book before, of course, but not since I was a teen.  I knew I liked it, but I’d forgotten just how much.  Aside from Herbert’s affinity or jumping heads within a scene (which I sometimes find distracting) and his italicizing thoughts (which always irritates me when done as frequently as Herbert does), it’s a near-perfect book.  Great drama, fine characterization, fantastic dialogue, all communicating really complex and important ideas.  The rest of the series is less cohesive than the first book, but it’s definitely a worthwhile read.  It’s a great study into what it means to be human and how intricately that is tied to our ability to hope.  It will always be one of my top recommendations.

- Kate DiCamillo.  I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m not as familiar with children’s lit as I am adult, and that since I started writing for kids I’ve been trying to catch up.  In that rush, I’ve found no children’s writer that I more admire and even envy than Kate.  The Magician’s Elephant, The Tale of Despereaux, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, all fantastic.  They’re books I wish I had written.  I still want to be Neil Gaiman when I grow up, put now I’d like a bit of DiCamillo thrown in as well.

- Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant.  A Discworld novel I’d not read before, it was typical Pratchett, which means it is anything but typical.  Life is always better with a little Pratchett added to the mix.

- Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations and R.L. Stine’s Welcome to Dead House.  The first I reread and the second I read for the first time in preparation for UELMA a few weeks ago. 

- I just started Dan Wells’ I Am Not a Serial Killer.  While I’m not much of a horror reader, I’m impressed by Dan’s craftsmanship and his ability to tread the very fine line he needs to tell the story without losing sympathy for the protagonist.

- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  Good, well-written story, but I’m not as high on it as many others.  I found that a number of things in the story felt implausible, which made the experience less authentic than I would have liked.

- Next on the list (if I ever find the time) The Gathering Storm by Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan.  Hey, I put them in the order I consider proper given how the book was written.     

Adios.

A week late, true, but here it is.  My presentation to the Utah Educational Library Media Association last Friday went as well as I could have hoped.  It’s always a bit nerve wracking to deliver a new presentation, and this was the first time I’d ever given this program on archetype and abandoning canon to develop narrative literacy in elementary schools.  The session was pretty well attended and participation was excellent.  We talked about parallels between Goosebumps and Great Expectations, then I broke attendees into groups to find archetypes in a variety of texts, and then I used that to jump into the theory.  The attendees seemed very pleased with the experience, which makes me pleased with it.  In the future I’ll be looking to give the presentation again to educators and librarians.  If that includes any readers of this blog who may be interested, contact me if you have an event at which you’d like me to speak.  And just for the record, either James or I is stalking the other.  You can’t keep crossing paths this frequently without someone putting in some effort to make it so.  I’m just saying.

Now a quick conference announcement: The American Fork Arts Council Conference for Writers is coming up.  Here’s all the information as I received it.

American Fork Arts Council Conference for Writers
Saturday April 24 2010 9 a.m. – 4 p.m.
Historic City Hall, 31 N. Church Street (50 East), American Fork
8-9 a.m. Registration
9-9:10 Welcome (Plenary)
 
KEYNOTES
9:10-9:40 Keynote #1 Ginger Churchill, “What I Wish I had Known as a Beginning Writer”
9:40-10:10 Keynote #2 Ally Condie, “My Journey to National Publication”
10:10-10:40 John D. Brown, “Aiming for National Publication”
 

INTRODUCTIONS of editors and authors
10:40-11:05 EDITORS: Derk Koldewyn, Granite

AUTHORS: Shannon Guymon, Linda Jefferies, Caleb Warnock
11:05-11:20 15-minute break
11:20-noon BREAKOUT ONE
Upstairs room “Crafting the Novel” with Shannon Guymon, John D. Brown
Downstairs One “Finding and Working With an Agent” with Ginger Churchill, Ally Condie, Caleb Warnock
Downstairs Two “Taking Your Questions about Publishing” with Deseret Book and Granite Publishing
  
Noon-1 LUNCH “Mix and Mingle with Authors and Editors”
 
1-1:40 BREAKOUT TWO
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “What Deseret Book is looking for now”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to Write and Publish Picture Books”
Upstairs room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 1: First Principles & Story Concept”
Office room Caleb Warnock “10 Things Every Writer Should Know about Copyright”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “What Granite is looking for now”
Downstairs Two Ally Condie “Writing Young Adult Fiction”
 
1:40-1:50 Ten-minute break
 
1:50-2:30 BREAKOUT THREE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 2: Character”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Genres of Children’s Books, from Board Books to YA Novels”
Conference One Derk Koldewyn of Deseret Book “National Publication with Shadow Mountain”
Office room Caleb Warnock “How to Write the Query Letter”
Downstairs One Granite Publishing “Publishing Options with Granite”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “How to Write Romance”
 
2:30-2:40 Ten-minute break
 
2:40-3:20 BREAKOUT FOUR
Upstairs Room John Brown, “How to Write a Story That Rocks Part 3: Plot”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “How to be a Writer and a Mother Too”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Writing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Write a Synopsis? I’d Rather Gouge My Eyes Out!”
Downstairs One Ally Condie “Succeeding as an LDS author”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Writing Nonfiction”
 
3:20-3:30 Ten-minute break
 
3:30-4:10 BREAKOUT FIVE
Upstairs Room John Brown, “Writing Scenes: The Basic Units of a Novel”
Conference Two Ginger Churchill “Querying Agents and Publishers”
Conference One Linda Jefferies “Publishing Poetry”
Office room Caleb Warnock “Okay, You Were Rejected – Why, and What to Do Now”
Downstairs One “How to form a critique group that works”
Downstairs Two Shannon Guymon “Succeeding as an LDS Author”
 
4:10-4:20 PRIZE GIVEAWAYS, GOODBYE
 
REVISED (MAY CHANGE)

What do you call a bunch of librarians?  A pack?  A mob?  I hope it’s not a murder (it is for crows, you see).  Next month I’m presenting at the UELMA (Utah Educational Library Media Association) Spring Conference, where I’ll begin the session by pointing out that Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and R.L. Stine’s Welcome to Dead House are essentially (in terms of archetype) the same story.  I’ve never known any books to generate such antipathy in elementary educators as the Goosebumps books, so I’m a little worried that the session will end prematurely in some violent episode. 

If it doesn’t, I’ll claim much more than a foundational sameness between Great Expectations and Welcome to Dead House; I’ll argue for the following texts being riffs on the same elemental story: Pride and Prejudice, The Harry Potter Series, The Graveyard Book, Holes, Much Ado about Nothing, Fablehaven, A Wrinkle in Time, The Tale of Despereaux, Last of the Mohicans, Dracula, Dune, Little Women, The Illiad, and the books of 1 and 2 Samuel from the Old Testament (the story of King David).  And just for the record, I am NOT making a comment on the veracity or lack of such of scripture.  Archetypal theory is about narrative, not fiction; it addresses the structure humans apply to everything, including facts and events, in order to construct meaning.

Sound implausible, all those books being the same story?  Well, if you’re not a librarian you may have to figure out how and why this is true on your own.  Then again, once I have a presentation in my toolbox I’m not one to let it rust in there.  If things go well I’ll see about doing the presentation other places.  Then the world can share in the wonderful knowledge that Mr. Darcy is Darth Vader, Japanese Kabuki is only technically and cosmetically different from classical Ballet, and not only do all the world’s great religions believe very similar things, but that these things are taught using the same story that undergirds life.

I’ll let you know how things go next month, as always.  But next on the docket is LTUE!

A few days ago Scarlet Knight (now to be known as Carolyn, who is a very nice lady I met in person last week) asked this:

Okay, Clint I have a question for you, and you can answer it any time. You mentioned that you focus in on a writing area you want to improve on and then work on it until it is better. I am curious about the whole process you take with this. As a writer, I want to improve upon my writing and am wondering the best way to do this. Thanks! =)

This doesn’t seem to need an entire essay, so I’ll answer you here on this post, Carolyn (and who says that’s less rocking than Scarlet?).  So, my basic methodology for improving my writing.  Hmm.  I guess it would go something like this…

I just wrote the methodology I used to improve my writing skill and deleted it.  Really, I got to step seven and realized that what I’d written, while perhaps witty, wouldn’t do anyone reading this the least amount of good whatsoever.  So instead of telling you things I’ve tried, I will tell you what I eventually found worked for me and what I suggest others do.

1) Read.  It seems simple, but this is where you have to start.  You read not so much to acquire skill with language (though that’s vital too) but because reading trains your mind into the method of story and communication.  It also lets you into particular discourse communities.  What I mean by this is that different groups have different versions of language; a teenage daughter and her middle-aged father both speak English (or Dinka or whatever), but they don’t speak the same English.  Similarly, readers of traditional romance novels speak a different language (a symbolic system for communicating thought and concept) than readers of epic fantasy.  It is only by reading within a genre, contemporarily and classically, than we as writers can become fluent in the ideas, values, and shared meanings of our readers.  If you don’t read (and engage in other forms of story consumption), you never acquire the storyteller’s taste.  If you don’t read in the genre in which you’ll write, you do not understand your reader, so you can’t create a meaningful experience for her.  (This all stems from reader response literary theory, which isn’t all that complicated but I don’t have time to cover it here.  Just remember this: your reader will take your text and build their own version of the story.  If the pieces you give them are too alien or old hat, they cannot build a treasured final product.  You need to know your reader to give them narrative material they can build with.)

2) Write.  This seems as simple as #1, but it’s just as important.  To develop skill writing, you can’t spend all your time researching or reading books on technique and composition, or reading, or revising past works.  The fact is, every one of us has a lot of bad writing in us before we reach the well of good stuff.  The only way to get through the bad is to spew it out.  Writing lets you find your voice, which essentially means the style that most effectively communicates your perspective to others in a meaningful way.  You have to search to find this, and so any writing that communicates to others is helpful.  Write letters, and journal entries, and essays, and short stories, and poetry, and anything else you might conceivably show another person.  Any time you write something with the intent of being read, you develop your skill.  With that established, here are some sub-points about writing:

• 2a) Write the form you most want to write.  Mostly, this means novels, as far more writers aspire to be novelists than essayists of short story writers.  You’d be surprised, then, how many spend little or no time writing in the form they aspire to make their career in.  If you want to write novels, write novels and finish them.  Perfecting three chapters can’t make you a novel writer.  Writing one crappy novel, beginning to end, is far better.  Likewise, if you want to write short stories, write them.  Or essays, or poetry, or whatever.  Write what you want to publish, and devote as much time as possible to writing in this form.
• 2b) Write in other forms.  If you want to be a novelist, don’t avoid writing short stories.  Try poetry.  Write in a number of different forms, from 100,000 novels to 250 flash pieces to on-the-fly blog posts.  Write in a number of different rhetorical situations and you’ll learn that each demands something a little—or a lot—different.  This will hammer into you the consideration of your audience and awareness of writing for rhetorical effect. 
• 2c) Use short works to experiment.  Novels are huge investments of time, so I encourage people to try new tactics and compositional choices in short works, such as stories or essays.  Another benefit of this is that a short work can be composed according to Poe’s “Unity of Effect,” meaning everything in the entire piece is in unified service to a single overriding principle or theme.  Thus, if you wanted to explore the potential of short, choppy sentences of description delivered in bunches (as I did in my short story “Modern Woman”), that choice becomes the dominant technique of the whole piece.  This makes it really easy to explore the possibilities of any one compositional element.  By writing a number of short works specifically designed to develop techniques, you can focus greatly on each tool in the toolbox (King’s metaphor), improve it, and then adopt it into your ever-evolving skill, style, and voice.
• 2d) However you experiment with your voice and style, make sure you consciously develop the following techniques: writing across the point of view spectrum (especially in first and third person, present and past tense, with third person close as well as more distant, and with a narrator of some sort—not omniscient); writing with little or no exposition; writing exposition in a way that is enjoyable (much harder to do than most think); writing from the perspective of adults and children, and people of different genders, classes, nationalities, etc.; writing the same scene from multiple points of view; writing a plot in a single point of view where the character is aware of things happening “off screen” as it were; writing a story that cannot be told from a single point of view; write in every different genre you’ve read in and has interested you; write fiction and non-fiction; write primarily dialogue; write primarily word-for-word thought; write primarily action; write both what is going to happen stories (dramas) and why/how did this happen stories (mysteries); write alliteratively; write without using alliteration; write using dialect; write in different time periods; finally, write anything you’ve never written before if it seems different, interesting, or intimidating. 
• 2e) Finally, write in imitation when you are starting out.  If you read someone whose writing you adore, copy it.  Really, word for word if you like.  I liked to try to write as much like them as I could, from diction to theme.  For example, most formally educated creative writers have a Hemmingway/Carver story somewhere in their history (including me, though I’m not a model of advanced education).  I also have Austin and Dickens stories, and even one Joyce story.  What draws you to writers is their strengths, and imitating them will change you in these areas.  You’ll never write like they do—though you may end up writing just as well or better.  You’ll find that as time goes on, you’ll find less and less of other people’s writing so fresh and new that you want to imitate it.  This isn’t because the writers out there are losing their touch; it’s because you’re gaining your’s, and you’re not as easy to impress as you once were.  At this point, your own style will be mature enough that it isn’t affected by the gravity of the larger planets in the system of literature. 
• 2f) Most importantly, don’t ever be satisfied with your writing before you’ve agonized over it.  If you write without really caring about producing your best work, it doesn’t sharpen your skill.  This is the difference between most aspiring writers and those who are destined to make it: whether or not they waste time.  If you write five books, always straining for your very best, your fifth book will be vastly better than your first.  I promise.  If you write fifty books in satisfaction, the fiftieth will, for all intents and purposes, be the first book.  Demand that you improve your skills.

3) Learn at the theoretical level.  Whether you take classes at colleges and universities (where you must promise never to let anyone dictate to you what is or is not “good writing”) or read books on writing (this is how I learned), take the experience of others and learn from it.  Try to develop a keen understanding of writing, and language, and story, and the business of publishing.  All of these will one day evolve into active knowledge or the knowledge of practice, but understanding the theory and concept is helpful as well.  Don’t every take anything you hear as law.  The only writing rules (with a few exceptions) that are truly sacrosanct are the ones that work for you.  Thus drink deeply of the methodology you hear from others, but only adopt and internalize what you find works for you through experimentation and your own sense of objective.

4) Critique other writers.  While being critiqued is helpful, especially when you start out, training your critical eye is most important.  When you are in a critique group, learn to be honest and astute in your feedback without being overtly critical.  Learn to recognize the difference between what isn’t working and what isn’t your favored style or voice.  When you find something that isn’t working for you, demand that you figure out why.  Don’t take the position that certain things are just bad or good; think in terms of effect.  What compositional choice in the writing produced an undesirable result?

5) Join writing groups.  Associating with people with the same interests is important for reinforcement, encouragement, and networking.  Often these groups sponsor lectures and workshops that can be very helpful.  The more interconnected your approach to developing your writing skill (meaning the more ways you approach your evolution as a writer), the more likely you are to develop.

6) Don’t attach yourself too greatly to any one piece of writing.  Your objective should be to become a master writer and storyteller (even if we never reach this level, it must always be the ultimate goal), not to write the next great American novel.  Never, ever conceptualize your skill and identity in terms of a single work.  Your foremost goal should always be developing yourself and your skill, which will mean moving on from one project to the next.  Don’t devote ten years to perfecting one manuscript, because it won’t happen.  Write ten good manuscripts in ten years, and I promise you the tenth will be better than the first ever could have been, no matter how much work you put in.

7) Set your goals.  Decide what it is you want from your writing.  Then look at all the other options that this will cost you.  You want to publish and make money?  You’ve given up your right to total control of your creative endeavors.  Want to write a niche subject that fascinates you?  Understand that your chances of living off your writing, no matter its quality, is almost nil.  Whenever we truly make up our minds on something we discard other options.  Ours is a culture that values having many options, and likes to pretend that they all are equal.  You cannot do this if you want to truly develop as a writer.  You need to decide what it is you really want, accept that you’ll have to give up some things to get this, and then pursue it with all your vigor and ability. 

Lastly) Defy discouragement and complacency.  The only way we ever stop developing is to give up, either entirely or abandoning the rigor that refines us from a lesser ability to greater advancement.  The moment writing becomes easy, in any aspect, you can be certain you’ve stopped developing.  Don’t aspire to comfort; seek improvement.  Satisfaction in writing should always be “this is as good as I can do right now, so I’ll move on to a new challenge and new learning experience.”  In short, never lose the need to be and do better.   

I hope there’s something in here that helps, Carolyn—and anyone else reading this.  If you have questions or want clarification, please comment.  I can’t stress this enough: I believe almost every single person has the capacity to publish.  Writing skill is learned through work and dedication; it isn’t a matter of raw talent.  I know Stephen King disagrees with me.  Many others do as well.  But I am confident that through good old hard work, the people who read this can develop professional level writing skills.  That’s a promise.  I take comfort in this is because, in the long run, I control my own destiny.  The reason I’ll be successful is I can outwork my competition.  Any of you that can do the same will have success as well.  It’ll be nice to meet and share old stories from the top of the hill.  See you there.