If You Are a Dreamer, Come In...

Dreams. 

They're feisty, elusive little things, aren't they? Anne Shirley once said, "It wouldn't do to have all our dreams fulfilled. We would be as good as dead if we had nothing left to dream about." And yet, it can also be detrimental to our poor little souls to have our dreams constantly denied. The book of Proverbs says, "Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true, there is life and joy."

I don't know how you feel about the subject, but I tend to keep my dreams pretty close to the chest. For one thing, I know how vulnerable they are: some of the more fragile ones can be slayed by a single skeptical glance. For another thing, I tend to feel (erroneously, perhaps) that revealing them makes me seem weak, or even more seriously, that admitting I want them shows what a selfish prat I really am.

But I begin to wonder if I shouldn't hold them so close. I wonder if perhaps I ought to let them try their little wings from time to time. Because when it comes to other people, I find that I consider dreams to be among the most precious, sacred things the heart contains. Nothing connects me to another person faster than learning about their most cherished desire, even if that desire seems outwardly ridiculous. Almost always, I find myself saying, "Oh, you should!" Why? Because I believe it is important to dream. I believe it is imperative that we frail, ephemeral humans run headlong after the things tugging at our souls. How could we live full lives if we didn't?

So. Here are some of my dreams:

 

A wee cottage in the country...

 

with one of these,

 

and one of these,

 

and some of these,

 

where I could spend every morning doing this

 

and every afternoon doing this.

But of course, the dream that haunts me most looks like this:

Others I have cannot be captured so easily in images, but they linger just the same, whispering in my ear when I catch a glimpse of a sunrise, settling over my shoulders when I sit around a table with my family, brushing past my ear with the sudden strain of a violin.

Why do I bring all this up? Because I have begun to be convicted in the belief that it is of the utmost importance to encourage one another in our dreams. It's awful to see your dreams "deferred" (see this poem by Langston Hughes), but it is infinitely worse to have them scorned, discouraged, or even simply doubted. (Anyone who has ever had to explain their writing "habit" to a dubious acquaintance or extended family member understands the torment of that experience.) Conversely, the experience of being wholly and unflaggingly believed in is almost as wonderful as achieving the dream itself. When someone you love is willing to stand at your side in the face of grueling hard work and opposition, and say, "I know you can do this," you find, miraculously, that you can.

So I say to you now, do not be a doubter of dreams. Do not look into the soul of another human creature and say, "You can't." Because while it may only cause that dreamer to toughen her skin and overcome another battle against doubt, it might also break her. And this world is broken enough to be getting on with.

What say you? If you feel so inspired, share your own dreams on your blog and post a link here. I would love to come by and say, "You can."

Publication is a Moot Point

I don't think I'm alone when I say I've been feeling the pressure of the un/pre-published life lately. Bills are stacking up. Unfulfilled dreams are starting to get cranky. Unmet goals are rubbing saddle sores into my sides. I've not achieved what I hoped I would have by now.

Indeed, I'm not getting paid to write. I'm not published. I'm not agented. And sometimes these rankling facts infect me with an apathy that makes even writing a chore. Do you know what I mean? It looks something like this:

But here's the thing. It's the main thing. And somehow, in the middle of all my striving and longing and journeying and bleeding and trudging, it manages to be the thing I forget most.

NONE OF THAT MATTERS.

No, I'm not crazy. Let me say it again. None of that matters! Not a bit! Not a whit! Not a Dr. Seussian Snit!

Sure, it'd be great to get paid to write. I'd love to have my books published. And I would be enthralled to work with an agent who liked my writing enough to champion it. But none of those things are the reason I write. None of them are why I started writing in the first place. See where I'm headed yet?

I just finished reading Emily of New Moon, a book by L.M. Montgomery (you know, the wonderful woman who gave us Anne Shirley?), and in it I found a certain amount of refreshment as a writer. As it happens, Emily Starr, the protagonist of the book, also longs to write for a living. But when her teacher demands to know why she wants this, he leads Emily to the heart of the matter--for her, and for all of us. He says:

"Tell me this--if you knew you would be poor as a church mouse all your life--if you knew you'd never have a line published--would you still go on writing--would you?"
"Of course I would," said Emily disdainfully. "Why, I have to write--I can't help it at times--I've just got to."

For me this conversation was like a knock over the head. Never mind that I've said this very thing many times before (I have to write! I'll go on doing it forever whether I get paid for it or not!); somewhere in the wild scramble for the prize of publication, I'd temporarily lost sight of it.

But I didn't start writing because I wanted to be published, or because I thought it would make me rich and famous, or because writing somehow impresses people. I didn't even start because I loved it--although that certainly plays a helpful role. It was because the stories in my head were all but leaking out of me, suffocating me with their need to be told. It was because I HAD TO.

And I think that's what we have to remember. Because that's the only thing that will keep you happy in your work. Doing it because you must--and because you love it. And if publication happens along the way, well... that's a lovely bonus.

What do you think? Why did you start writing? Do you find yourself getting distracted and consumed by dreams of agents and editors and publishing contracts so that your writing takes the back seat? Please share!

Have I Mentioned How Much I Like Quotes?

"The research is the easiest.  The outline is the most fun.  The first draft is the hardest, because every word of the outline has to be fleshed out.  The rewrite is very satisfying."  -Ken Follett

I'm with you, Ken.  I'm with you.

Anyone else with him?

On Typing THE END.

You might have noticed that I've been rather scarce around here for the last few months.  Here's one reason:

This means that I work at a plant nursery, and spring is our equivalent to the Christmas season. 

But here is the the main reason:

This is Siria Nightingale.  She's the protagonist in my WIP, and she's done a fairly good job of keeping me singularly occupied since December.  Turns out, her story was one of those utterly consuming ones that doesn't let you rest until you've sat your little self down and told it in full.  But here's the good news: Today I typed the words, THE END at the bottom of Siria's word document.  This means I can relax a little bit, because revisions are not quite as consuming as first drafts tend to be.

But that brings me to the main point of this post.  I have a few questions for you all.  

If you are a writer, here's your question:

When you type THE END, what does your next step tend to be?  How do you personally approach the massive undertaking of revising, editing, and polishing your manuscript?  Do you use beta readers?  And if so, how do you find them, and what do you ask them to do?

And if you are a reader, here's yours:

What do you expect out of the ends of books?  What has made you feel most satisfied when you close the back cover of a book, and what makes you want to open the front cover right away and read it all over again?  How do you feel about cliffhanger endings?  In a series, what kind of ending makes you ache with satisfaction, even knowing that you have more books to read before you know the whole story?

Please share!  I have loved hearing your responses to previous questions, and I find the variety of opinions fascinating.  Happy Monday to you all!

You're Weird: Motley Monday

Once upon a time, I read an interview on Rachelle Gardner's blog with author Matt Mikalatos which was all about embracing your inner weird.  (You can read that full post here.  And I'd highly recommend it.  It's great.)  At the time, I was feeling ultra-serious about whatever it was I was writing, and thinking things like, Oh gosh this had better be so-so-so good or I'll never ever get published, and, I've got to buckle down and be serious and write in the way that people will want to read because I'll be doomed otherwise and no one will ever read my... blah blah blah.

And I remember this interview being a turning-point for me.  You see, it's always the exceedingly simple things that rattle my brains and club me upside the head with epiphanies.  I'm never boggled by the complex things; usually my little mind embraces those without flinching.  But the simple ones?  No, the simple ones tend to leave me dizzy for days.  And this was one such.

The essence of the interview was this: don't be afraid of the weird things that make you you.  And don't be afraid to saturate your writing with them.  Because it is that side of yourself, those oddities which truly make you unique, that will set your writing apart.

Now, some people are naturally more weird than others.  And that's just fine.  But whatever level of quirk you have inside you, don't be afraid to let it show.  Because, as it turns out, the world doesn't really want normal.  The world wants weird, and the world wants you. 

Take this quote (a new favorite of mine), and post it by your writing desk:

"Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness." -Allen Ginsberg

 

And then cross-stitch this one on a pillow, and sleep on it every night:

EMBRACE YOUR INNER WEIRD. 

You tell me: do you let yourself into the things you write naturally?  Or is it a struggle for you sometimes?  What methods do you use to turn off that critical inner editor and allow your true weird self to shine through in your writing?

Staying in Love (With Writing)

The world wide web is positively brimming with advice. And for writers, this advice sometimes seems to be leaking from every electronic orifice in existence. What's more, it usually is not faulty or bad advice; the tips one finds online are often fabulous, helpful, and insightful--born out of hard-earned experience and bloodshed.

It's tempting sometimes to read everything with the attitude of a dehydrated camel: drinking it all in with the determined intent to store up and use it later. I am continuously finding myself thinking things like, Of course! That's the problem! That's why I don't have an agent yet! and then immediately setting myself to the task of reorienting my writing habits to accommodate whatever new tidbit of advice or knowledge I have just found.

But here's what I've discovered lately: it gets overwhelming.

When I was in highschool, I played softball. (Yes, it's amazing, I know.) Before I began to play at such a competitive level, I had had very little technical training. My batting, for example, had never been critiqued; but even so, I was a fair enough hitter. In fact, I had a respectable store of home-runs on my record. But on my high-school team, there was a certain way of batting that every player had to learn--regardless of how well one could hit on one's own.

It transpired that I was absolute rubbish at the new technique. But I pressed on at my coach's insistence; learning her method, drilling the old way out of me until... I simply couldn't hit at all. Either way. An infield grounder on average was my best hit, and I bid farewell to anything better than shallow right-field on a good day. All the advice and training my coach was convinced would make me a better player actually killed both the promise of any improvement and the talent I had come in with.

Now, I'm not saying that we shouldn't try to learn writing techniques from those who have gone before, or those who have more experience. We should. Those methods are full of wisdom, and have been tested and deemed successful. But we also shouldn't focus so much on what we think we should be doing that we lose all the natural writing instinct we came into this job with. The instincts and talents born out of an unsullied love for reading, or a pure desire to tell stories. Because when we lose those, I believe we also lose our ability to write with passion and love.

Also when I was in high-school, I wrote my first book. And I won't say it was good (it wasn't), but I loved every minute of it. I wasn't concerned with making it publishable, or writing a story readers would adore, or appealing to agents and editors. I didn't even think of trying to publish it. All I thought was that I had a story I needed to tell, and that I had to get it down on paper or die from the effort of holding it in. I wrote in a spiral notebook which I carried everywhere, and I stole every possible moment to scribble down words in it.

It was intoxicating, that kind of storytelling.

Lately, I've lost that passion. With the desire to publish has come an obsessively ambitious drive that sometimes makes it difficult to write purely for the joy of writing. I want to criticize everything that drops onto the page, search it for all the elements I feel I should include in a publishable story. I shove out my natural impulses in favor of the advice I have read. And it is all good advice. But that advice should not come first. I believe, first and foremost, we should tell a story organically; the way it comes most natural to us. And then, we should try and test it against the methods and elements we believe it should include.

Because how else can we write with passion?

What about you? When you write, do you ever find yourself caught up in a list of To-Do's, trying to include a billion things you know should be present, rather than just letting yourself write? How do you handle it? And if not, how do you keep out the extra stuff and allow your instinctive writer to take over?

Reasons You Should Write

To the Universe:
Cc: The World, The United States of America

To Whom it May Concern,

Here are some reasons you should write books:

1.) You must.
2.) You can't help yourself (see #1).
3.) You have stories bursting out of you.
4.) You'd feel like a wormy raisin if you didn't.
5.) You're damned good at it.
6.) You're cursed or blessed (see #1 and #2).

Here are some reasons you shouldn't write books:

1.) You're already famous and think you might as well.
2.) You think it sounds like fun.
3.) Your mom says you'd be a best-seller.
4.) You have a cool idea for one.
5.) You've done everything else, and want to expand your resume.
6.) You're an ex-supermodel (see Tyra Banks).

Thank you for your time, Dear Universe. Please do something about this.

Yours most sincerely,

Hanna C. Howard

(With a respectful nod to facepalm.org)