True Confessions, pt 3

Me at Shakespeare's Birthplace

After the geek-out confession posted, I received a tweet from someone wanting to know why Shakespeare didn't make the list. Well... Shakespeare is his own post. That's fitting for the man who is the only author to have his very own classification number in the Dewey Decimal System. Shakespeare, and Shakespeare alone, is 822.33.

Here's a secret for my Austen friends: I started reading Shakespeare before I read Austen.

And a secret for my Shakespeare friends? I still haven't read nearly as much of his works as I feel I should have.

That's why I devised a plan shortly after my return from England last spring. I will read all of his plays in reverse alphabetical order. The one exception is that I'm planning to read all the histories in one go, chronologically. (I am willing to be talked out of that madness, if anyone would care to knock some sense into my head.)

More than any other author, Shakespeare formed the English language. I used to own a little book called Coined by Shakespeare, which detailed all the words and expressions he invented. Granted, he had the good fortune to live in a period when the language was still fairly elastic, but I think there's something to be said for that level of creativity and imagination, no matter what era he lived in. If the word he needed didn't exist, he simply created it.

I may not be able to invent words, but I hope I can be even half as imaginative as he was.

True Confessions of Nancy

There's been a lot of blogging and talking about Jane Austen, Mr. Darcy, and His Good Opinion lately. That's not over, not by a long shot, but I thought it was time to throw some other topics into the mix. In that vein of thought, I'm calling Tuesdays for the rest of the year "True Confessions." Each week will feature something new that you might not know about me yet.

Today's confession:  I Am A Geek.

Yes, capped like that because it is so, so true. I am the geekiest of geeks.

I was recently asked what other interests I have besides Jane, and the irony of the question made me laugh. I collect interests the way some people collect stamps, only mine are always, always related to story telling somehow.

In middle school it was Zorro.
High school and college, Star Wars.
Then a series of television shows: JAG, Alias, The Pretender...
Lord of the Rings
Stargate: SG-1


I watch the shows, read the books, buy the DVDs, check out extra materials from the library. I write fanfiction (obviously) and I read it as well.

And, upon occasion, I buy merchandise.

I've confessed, now it's your turn. What things do you geek out over?

Great Expectations

The first weekend of August, I went to the Oregon coast with my family. When we went to the beach that Saturday morning, it was grey and misty--typical for the Pacific Northwest. Since we're all born with webbing between our toes, we didn't let the damp get to us. Rain or no, the ocean was amazing as always.

As it happened, the skies parted that afternoon and we had a sunny drive down the coast to another small tourist town. We stopped along the way to enjoy the beautiful day, because we know they don't come along very often.

Later, while in a tourist shop, I entered a conversation between the clerk and some tourists. They wanted to know where a certain restaurant was, and she happened to give the wrong answer.

"Actually, that's in Newport on the historic bay front," I corrected.

"We were in Newport earlier and we didn't see it. But then, it was so busy we didn't really stop to look around."

"I'm not surprised, on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon like this."

The wife then looked at me in shock. "Really? It's a little windy, isn't it?"

"I suppose, but look at the sun! At least it's not cloudy or raining."

Her jaw literally dropped then, I kid you not. "Is it usually like that here?"

After holding in my laughter and reassuring her that yes, it does usually rain on the Oregon coast, I started thinking about expectations. The weather disappointed her because she expected sunshine, no wind, and (presumably) slightly warmer temperatures. Meanwhile, 70 and sun thrilled me enough that I'd have put up with gale force winds.

When we write, do we let our expectations get in the way of the joy we can take in the process? We expect our book to automatically be as good as one that's been edited and revised multiple times. We expect to have the same mastery of craft as someone who's been writing for years.

Let's take a step back. Are we writing? Is our story coming together in a way that at least bears a slight resemblance to our original idea? During the rough draft, that's all we can expect.

I am not for a moment saying you should settle for that in your end product. Writing, and even self-publishing, is not about slapping a cover on a shoddily written and edited manuscript and calling it a book. However, writing is a process, and you can't expect the product at the end of stage one to look like it will at the end of stage fifty. Manage your expectations, and you'll be able to enjoy each part of the writing process.

When to Adjust Your Goals

Three weeks ago, I announced to the world* that I would finish my draft on June 15th. For those who don't remember my editing process, that means I committed to completing two editing passes--big changes in purple ink, and smaller adjustments in pink.

June 15th has drawn ever closer, and my progress did not keep up with the steady march of time. Other things fell to the wayside, things like sleep and exercise. I forgot a promise I made to a friend, because I was so focused on finishing this draft. I had a sneaking suspicion that I had bitten off more than I could chew.

Yeah, something like that.

So, Tuesday night I made an executive decision. (As an indie author, I am my own executive.) "Finish the draft" now means getting through the purple revisions. That's the hardest part anyway--I've been flying through the pink edits like nobody's business. If I can at least make it the whole way through my novel and  have a solid, working draft, I will be happy.

Tune in next Thursday to see how I did.

*AKA Facebook

Taking chances

Last month, fellow author and blogger Julia blogged about an exhibit she saw of Dale Chihuly glass. She was particularly struck by the artist's trust in his audience: There are no walls or barriers protecting these fragile pieces from the public. If something were to happen, irreplaceable art would be destroyed, but apparently he views that as an acceptable cost. His goal is to allow the public to truly interact with his work.

From trust, it's only one small step to taking chances. I believe I'm pretty transparent in my work. I think and talk as Darcy when I'm writing, so there's little room for me to be vulnerable myself. But taking chances... seizing opportunities that I'm given... I could do better there.

In the Jane Austen's House Museum, there is a pianoforte that guests are welcome to play. I looked at it longingly several times, but my keyboard skills are similar to Elizabeth's: I would not play at all amiss, if I practiced more. There were other people in the museum, strangers. Could I play in front of them, expose my lack of skill to their critical ears?

In the end, I shied away. I felt a mild pang of regret when I left the house without touching the instrument, but it wasn't until I read Julia's post that I realized I'd let an opportunity slip through my fingers. Who cares how well I play? I could have played the pianoforte at the Jane Austen's House Museum!! Why didn't I?

This is my year of taking chances. Self-publishing is a huge step into the unknown. Will people like my book? I don't know. All I can do is write (and edit, and rewrite) the best book possible and then put it out there. I know if I don't, I'll regret it--just like I regret not playing the pianoforte.

A certain sameness

Every city I visited in England is situated on a river, and I managed to walk beside all of them at least once. Of course, picturesque riverbanks just invited photographs, so I came away with quite a collection.

When I looked at my pictures after I got home, I noticed a certain similarity to them.

Winchester

Stratford-upon-Avon

 

Bath

Windsor-Eton

Do you see it? Every single picture features a willow tree. True, there were willow trees along all the rivers, but couldn't I choose something else to frame the photo?

I notice the same thing when I'm revising. During my last project, I actually wrote, "Find someplace other than the library!!!" across the top of a chapter in block letters, because every other important scene happened there.

In the Netherfield portion of HIS GOOD OPINION, my setting of choice was a garden walk. Any time Darcy needed to think--something he did far too much of--he took a walk through the gardens. By the time I reached the last scene, I knew as I wrote it that it would need to be moved. (Another garden scene?) shows up right in the MS.

Now, for all you members of Over-Thinkers Anonymous, this is not something to worry about during your rough draft. You notice that even though I caught it, I still went ahead and wrote the scene.

However, when you hit the revision stage, things probably need to be reworked. In my writing, if multiple scenes are set in the same place, it's often a clue that I've written the same scene more than once. That was the case with HIS GOOD OPINION. Like I said, there were way too many scenes where Darcy wandered off to think. Is he a thoughtful man? Yes. Does any man think that much about love and relationships? No. Therefore, I cut the love bit out of the first scene and then combined the second two into one.

The other possible reason is (sorry to say) laziness. This was my excuse in my earlier project. I didn't want to think about the setting any longer, so I didn't create other places in that world. I'm not one of these writers who can build whole cities out of nothing. My best work is with characters. Painting the backdrop for them to live on is tedious work to me, and sometimes that shows.

I'm working on both of these flaws. When I get to Pemberley, I will spend some time just thinking about the estate and the house itself. How many floors, how many rooms, what would the rooms be used for? If I have a clear idea going into that section, I'll have a much easier time moving things around and describing them.

What about you? Do you find yourselves leaning on a setting the way writers sometimes do a certain word or phrase?

Change your focus

On Monday, I shared a little of my approach to photography: take as many pictures as possible, and hope some turn out well. There is a dark side to this, however. I can be a little... obsessive. At times, I'll fixate on an image I must capture on film, and nothing can shake me from my purpose.

In England, I found myself drawn to the flowers. Even though our climates are very similar, somehow more things were in bloom there than at home. Stratford-upon-Avon was particularly beautiful. On my first afternoon, I walked out to Anne Hathaway's Cottage.

The walk itself is lovely. Magnolias were in bloom, as well as other trees I can't identify.

However, I became obsessed with this:

And when I say obsessed, I mean I have 16 other shots, all of about the same quality. For some reason, I could not get a clear shot of this little flower, no matter how hard I tried. It wasn't until I looked at them at home that I realized the problem. Take a look at this example:

Do you see what happened? I wanted a picture of the flower in the middle, but my camera wanted to shoot the one on the edge. The resulting image is blurry and unsatisfactory.

How often does that happen when we're writing? In the middle of revisions, it can feel like we've reworked a scene 14, 15, 16 times, all without affect. It's only when we take a step back and look at what we're trying to accomplish that we realize we've been focusing on the wrong things.

Perhaps the chapter needs to be rewritten from another character's perspective, or maybe the entire scene should take place later in the book. Whatever it is, once we adjust our lens, we're able to write the scene we didn't realize we needed to write.

PS: Please, for the sake of my sanity, don't tell me how I could have gotten a clear picture of that flower. I think I'd throw my camera at the wall if I found out now.