Monday, February 28, 2011

"Write What You Know"

Okay, I just had to pimp this out when I found it. Delaware Dangerous, a writer's retreat. But this ain't your grandma's writing retreat. No siree, they provide 12 hours of gun training, 6 hours of knife training, and 6 hours of hand-to-hand combat training by trained professionals.

WHAT?

I'm a strong believer of "write what you know." However, this doesn't mean you should limit yourself to only writing about what you know. It means expand your horizons and learn about new things so you can accurately protray them in your writing.

And honestly? Hours and hours of research won't compare to holding a gun in your hands.

Your character doesn't care about what type of gun they're using or the number of bullets it can hold or the amount of colours you can get it in on eBay (unless they're the type to care about that.) If you're character is in a life or death situation, they're going to be focusing on what it feels in their hand, the punch of the bullet firing, the sound it makes. (As well as running for their life.)

Real world experience, when you get down to the nitty gritty details, is what makes literature come alive.

Go, if you can afford it. And if you can't, I really encourage you to head out and experience what your character has experienced. People are extremely helpful if you just ask. If your character likes riding horses, go out to a ranch or riding school and talk to the people about what it's like to ride a horse, how to fasten a saddle, how to care for it, ect. Nothing compares with hands-on experience.

(Disclaimer: If your character is a serial killer... hands-on experience is not advised. Please seek professional help and do not blame the writer cowering behind the computer screen.)

"Write what you know" should not be a limitation. It should be an excuse to get out there, learn everything you can, and apply that realism to your writing.

Peace,

-Katie

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Dork Alert!

So, Shell is officially on submission. Which is great. I feel incredibly relieved, but at the same time... not. I think it's because I'm a control freak. With the querying system, I was in control. I sent out the queries, I did the research, I got the responses. Having someone else do it for me is stressful.

So besides working on my new project, I've found myself drifting back to a passion that I don't always pay attention to: making dolls.

I really love doll making, though after they're done, I don't really want them around anymore. It's something to do to occupy my hands while I'm watching TV or I have some time off. When I wrote my last book, In The Eye Of Death, I got into one of my frenzies and made some dolls based off of two of my main characters, Jonah and Alexis. My plan was that if my book ever sold, I would do a giveaway with the dolls along with a signed copy of my book. Of course, In The Eye of Death went into the trunk, and the dolls took up residence on my bookshelf.






There they are! They're hand made, of course. I know it's really dorky to make dolls out of your own characters, but I worked really hard on these guys.






Here's Jonah, my MC. (He doesn't really stand, but he leans quite well) His shoes are made out of foam board with a bit of paint that I added to try and put some detailing in (Won't be happening again. It just looks bad.) He does have a jem in his chest (part from the book) and he is 100% cuddly and soft. Except for his shoes and hair, of course. Though I am proud of his hair. I used golden felt and then added some touches of red paint to give it some dimension. I quite like his hair.






This is his love interest, Alexis. I didn't stuff her head quite enough, so she looks flat. She also looks smaller compared to Jonah. (I blame his massive coat.) Both of their faces are drawn free hand with black marker. (Extremely stressful when you can't draw it out first in pencil.)





Here's Jonah with his hood up. He is very cuddly. (And a great listener!)





Alexis with her bandana drawn up a bit. They look really white in the photos, especially Alexis, because her hair is near-white, but they actually don't look that bad in real life.


So those are my little secret, dorky joy! And just because I can:





This is Marta, she's my baby. Such a camera whore. She doesn't like the flash, so she always closes her eyes, which makes her look like some weird anime cat.


So there you have it. What do you guys think? Do you like my dolls? Would you enter a contest with them as part of the prize or would you prefer to just feed them to your dogs?

Peace,

-Katie

Friday, February 18, 2011

Birthdays

So, my birthday's coming up. On the 20th, I'll be turning 19. I feel way older than I am. (Probably because I hang out with so many writers who are usually much older than me. Then again, my mother always said I acted 30 when I was 10, so you never know.)

But, all this thinking about birthdates made me wonder if characters deserve birthdays. If you don't plan on throwing them a party, what's the point?

I'm going to wave my "characters are people too" flag here. Because I suck at writing characters. I'm 100% a plot writer. Some of my earlier books, my MCs were cardboard cutouts. (Yet my side characters were fully fleshed out. I think I may need a psychological analysis.) But after a few trial and error books, I realized characters were never going to just "come to me" like my plots did. I had to work on them.

So what do I do? I create the most extensive character interview sheet out there. (If there's one that's more extensive, I don't want to see it. Mine's three pages long.)

I hate starting a new book because it means I have to run my MCs through my interview process. While very helpful, it's also time consuming and incredibly boring. But birthdays are on there! Because I feel it really helps get a grip on who that character is. Especially in an urban setting.

Just think back to elementary/junior high/middle school. Kids in the same classes are all about the same age, so when you're that age, you use the dates of birth to determine who's older than each other. (There was a girl who was born on Feb 4 in my junior high, and because she was born 16 days before me, she was definitely the "older kid." It traumatized me, since being born in february, I was used to being "older" than all the other kids.)

Why should this matter? Because depending on where your character was born in the year, it's going to determine how the other kids in their class see him/her, and how s/he views them.

For example. A friend of mine who was born on Dec 23 was always seen as younger than everyone else. Because when she was turning fourteen, everyone else was turning fifteen. That can frustrate a kid. (Especially when you just turned 17 and all your friends just turned 18 and you can't go to the bars with them for another year.)

In the long run of your urban fantasy, is it really going to matter? Probably not. But I like to think if you're ever in a situation where a reader, or a critic, is asking you questions, those small details show you've really thought about your book, and you know what you're talking about.

Peace,

-Katie

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

You are a Reject.




Ladies and gentlemen, you are a reject.

You've been rejected by agents and editors alike. Rejected by teachers, by pretty women/men in the bar, by friends and lovers and future friends and lovers.

You've been rejected because, quite frankly, you're just not good enough.

You're too fat. Too skinny. Too tall. Your story's too long. Too short. Your character's not active enough. They're too active. They need to switch genders. They're too cynical. They're too upbeat. They're not real. You're not real. Your story's just not "real" enough.

You pour your heart and soul onto the pages of your books. You spend years perfecting each chapter. You kiss it and send it off into the world, where some naiive intern stamps a big red NO on it and sends it back with coffee stains and four missing pages.

You're hurt. You're pissed. You want to seek revenge with flamethrowers and rabid ninja squirrels.

But you can't. Because you're a reject.

But things get better. You get an agent. Things are great! But they aren't. Because you've got to revise. But that can't damper your mood! You sit up tall, pound out revision after revision, synopsis after synopsis, draft after draft. And you hand it to them, all nice and shiny. You believe in it. Your agent believes in it. You believe in yourself.

But you can't forget: you're a reject. So it'll come back from editors with coffee stains and big red NOs.

It's not good enough. The writing's too dry. The writing's too plain. Your MC's obnoxious. They're not obnoxious enough. You need more action. You have too many fighting scenes. This doesn't work. It'll never work. It's unrealistic, stupid, moronic, anyone could've written this. It's dribble. It's not good enough.

You're not good enough.

Until you are. Because then you find true love. An editor! You're happy. Your agent's happy. Your editor's happy. Everybody shares cake and muffins and rainbow ponies because we all believed you could do it and you did it and yay! And then you revise. With new vigor. You write and rewrite and read and reread because it has to be perfect. Because you have to be perfect.

You're no longer a reject. Because you aren't. Because you made it.

Except you are, and you didn't. Your book's on the shelves and people love it, except for the people who don't. And they won't. They don't get it. They don't like your love interest. They hate your point. They don't agree with the subtext you never wrote. Your plot is perdictable. People are reviewing it on Amazon and your stars dwindle by the day.

You're a reject.

Except when you really make it. And this time it's real. You've got a movie deal! You're a bestseller! They're teaching your books in college classes! You're a legend! You wear turtlenecks and square glasses because you are an artist. You made it. You're accepted. Past lovers and friends are begging to have you back in their lives. Of course, you won't let them. Because now they are the rejects. Now they know how it feels.

Except you're still a reject.

Because the kids in those classes hate your book. They'd rather torch the pages than sell it back to the school. Literary snobs discuss the poor quality of your worldbuilding over wine. Nasty emails pile up in your mailbox from groups who think they're offended by your prose.

And you're a reject again, because you always were.

Except when you're not. Because maybe, you weren't. Maybe, even though things are hard, and you've got no mythical movie deal or snobby turtleneck or editor or agent and it's just you, the reject, sitting at your computer and counting your rejections as they pile and pile and never end. Maybe even though you're none of these things and all of these things, it's okay.

Because accept it: you're a reject. I'm a reject. We're all rejects. We're too skinny, too fat, too tall, too literary, too genre-y, too this, too that.

We're rejects. Rejected and rejected and rejected and rejected. And maybe that's okay.

Because you there, the reject, you'll pick up your socks. You'll look over your piles of NOs from those silly agents and interns and editors and you'll say "No" right back. You'll say, "This won't stop me. I'm THE Reject. I'm the ultimate Reject! I've been said no to in every language, every way, every font and gosh darn it, that's not going to stop me!"

So you put the rejections aside. You pin them on your walls because you are the Reject. These NOs are battle scars. They hurt and ache with old pain but you are the Reject, and this won't stop you.

So you'll rewrite your query and rewrite your book. You'll make your MC more active, more passive, more sarcastic, less edgy, more this, more that.

And it STILL won't satisfy them. And you'll write another book, and another, and another. And you'll get better, and you'll get more praise, and you'll get more rejections. And you might pass a landmark or two, and you'll keep pushing onwards. And it's hard, but it's okay, because you're always learning, always getting better, and each day is a new day. You're a new you. You're a new Reject.

Because no matter what you do, or see, or write, or taste, or look, or draw, or feel, or say, or scream, or smell, or fling, or dance, or cry, you'll always be the Reject.

And as long as you keep going, keep pushing on, you'll be okay.

Because it's when you stop. When you quit. When you surrender. When you GIVE UP, that you've rejected yourself.


Peace,

-Katie

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Slang and the fine line between sounding like a Tard or a Teenager



If you're writing YA, one of the most important things is to master the language. Teenagers can smell forced dialogue from a mile away, and it's a huge turn off. (Of course, it's a turn off for any novel.) Unless you master the balence between slang and realistic dialogue, you've not only decreased your chances of being published, but your chances of connecting with your readers.

Being eighteen, I think I have an understanding of teenage slang. At the moment, I'm in the middle of reading the Unidentified by Rae Mariz. It has a very interesting premise, and while I'm enjoying it, there have been a few things that have put me off, including some of the slang. Mariz does use replacements for swears and changes slang to fit in with her world. (The replacement I can remember off the top of my head was "Fawk off." )

I'm quite enjoying the book. Until I came to a passage in which the narrator, Kid, writes: "I lol'd."

...

Yeah. I lol'd.


Lol'd.



.... Wait for it.


*twitch*

Hold on.


*twitchtwitch*


Okay. I'm aware that 'lol' has pretty much become a word all on its own. Teenagers and adults alike use it, and it's become a staple for online and text conversations. I know what Mariz was going with this, and for a lot of people it wouldn't even faze them. But I think there's a fine line between where slang should be used and where it should just be left aside in YA fiction.

For one, slang is always changing. What works one year won't necessarily work a couple of years later, when your book comes out. Not to mention what kids in Vancouver use isn't going to be the same as what kids in New Orleans use.

1) You need to make sure that if you choose to use slang, make SURE it is 100% transferable. Using bad slang messes with your dialogue and can pull a reader completely out of your story. There were times when reading the Unidentified when I had to stop and figure out what she meant. Sometimes I didn't even realize she was trying to use slang.

Mariz's use of lol doesn't break this rule, because as I've said before, it is extremely well known. But that wasn't the problem I had with her use of it. The problem I had was that she used it in her narrative. Even though this was in first person, I felt it was a real cop out on her end. First of all, I have never heard a teenager use "lol" in real conversation unless they were trying to be ironic. Not to mention the people that do use it to be ironic say it around their friends, not to themselves.

So where's the line with slang? What's okay to use in narratives (first person or otherwise) and what isn't? I think it comes down to two different kinds of slang.

--> Internet slang. Things like lol, rofl, emoticons, shortcuts like 'u' or 'w8.' Using this slang is very effective if your characters are texting, writing emails to one another or otherwise. It can be used in dialogue if your characters are trying to be funny. Nobody says "lol" out loud with their friends in place of laughing out loud. But if a friend makes a bad joke that nobody laughs at, a character that says "lol" in response could be seen as a jokster or sarcastic. I believe that internet slang should not be used in naratives. It's very rare that it can be pulled off, even in first person.

--> General slang. This is the most effective type of slang, and in my opinion, far more fun. Epic fail, boss, lame, gay, fag, ect. These casual words are effective in dialogue, texts, and narratives. This is also great for making up your own slang. (For example, in the Unidentified, the kids would say "Oh Google" instead of "Oh God" which I found was really awesome.) Of course, for making up your own slang to be effective, you have to really make it obvious that it is slang in this universe. You don't want it to pull your readers out of the story so they can figure out what the hell you're trying to say.

General slang can be used anywhere, and I highly suggest that if you intend to use slang. Internet slang should be reserved for texts, emails and so on. Kids don't use internet slang when they talk to one another. They don't think in internet slang. Think of IS as living in the fingers, whereas GS lives in the brain. A kid might think to themselves, "That show was so lame, dudes." Not, "lol it wuz so lame, dudez :D"

2) If you're going to use slang, make sure you know what you're saying. When a character has scored high on their favorite game, you don't want to have someone say, "Dude, that was fagalicious!" when you mean "Dude, that was epic!" (Not that I think anyone would mistake the two, but, you never know.)

3) And finally, less is more. Seriously. You don't need to overload on slang. Most teenagers talk like normal human beings. Slang is like swearing: peppered here and there can make it awesome, but too much and you've spoiled your whole manuscript.

The last thing you want to do is pull your readers out of the story. If readers understand what you're trying to convey and it doesn't faze them, consider it a success.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I Wanna Hear Yours: Do You Lend Out Books?

Quick update on my pub status if any of you are still interested: We're going on submission any day now, and I just recieved an email last night asking me to revise my synopsis.

Kill me now.

I keep telling myself that this is good-- I really need to practice my synopsis writing skills. I can master this! I mastered query writing, didn't I?

God, kill me now.

Anyway, I wanna know your thoughts on lending out books. I think we've all done it, once or twice, and we've all been burned by having our books ruined or lost. A dear friend of mine is an obsessive book collector. She'll even buy books from a series she doesn't like because she has to have the whole series. She loves reading and I love her for it. But she 100% refuses to lend out books. She's been burned a few times in the past, and now she won't let anyone touch her books. Not even me. Yes, I know. Gasp.

I'm a little different. I'm a book collector. (Not to her extent) I lend out books all the time, but only the books I love love love. I want to share that love, and have someone else I can talk about it with. So I lend out my books. And... then sometimes they don't come back. But since I'm a book collector, I will go out and rebuy the books that other people have lost, because I love them so very much. I don't worry about the money I'm spending-- for me to love it enough to lend it out, I really don't mind suporting the author twice over. Though I have limited who I lend my books out to people who I know will return them.

So, you've heard my ramblings. I wanna hear yours.

Do you lend out books?


Peace,

-Katie

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Writer's Block

Hey everyone out there in interwebzland. I'm through revisions on Shell and am working on its sequel. Unfortunately I absolutely suck at beginnings, but I've gotten past the first few chapters and things are finally moving swimingly. Shell will be going on submission soon to editors, which is really exciting.

The only thing I have to say about the process so far is this: if you have to write a synopsis, consider shoving a railroad spike through your foot. I guarentee it's less painful.

Anyway, onto today's topic. Every writer in the world has heard of writer's block. That nasty plague that renders writers wordless. No one's really sure what it is, why it occurs or how to cure it, and many writers debate its existance. Normally I'm the first person to jump on the bandwagon and proclaim that writer's block does not exist. However, after I finished Shell, I was hit with what most people would consider a huge dose of writer's block. For about four months I couldn't produce anything productive. I tried to work on the sequel to Shell, that didn't work. I tried to write different projects, that didn't work. I tried BIC, I tried waiting for inspiration, I went for walks, wrote in other places, nothing would work. My brain was completely dead. And the worst part was I wanted to write, but when I sat down at my computer absolutely nothing would come.

I've had similiar afflictions in the past. Sometimes, after a few months, I would sit down and write and it would work. The words were back and I went back to work as if I hadn't taken any time at all. Sometimes if I sit down to a new project, I get writer's block. I'll try again and again, but when I sit down and develop my character or plotline a bit more, it all flows perfectly.

What is writer's block exactly? The McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine says: "An occupational neurosis of authors, in whom creative juices are temporarily or permanently inspissated." Sounds pretty acurate, right? But why do we get this block? What can we do about it? Why do so many artists of all kinds complain of a block when it comes to their work? Why do writers and painters get this block when accountants or marketers don't?

But accountants and marketers do get blocks. It doesn't matter what job you do, sometimes stress, emotion, outside influences or whatever make it impossible for us to do our jobs. Have you ever been at work, put your head in your hands and said, "I can't do this"? Whether it's stress from the job, from a sick loved one, if you're feeling down about relationship issues or if you have a mental illness such as depression it can be really hard to get anything done. But we trudge through, because at the end of the day we all need our paychecks.

But with artists, it seems to go to an extreme. We can't do anything. We can't function. It's driving us crazy because the drive to write is there, but there's absolutely no words that seem to work together. Every sentence is clunky. We don't feel right about anything. Why? I believe it's because artists, especially writers (though I say that because I'm not a professional in painting or music, in fact, I suck at all other forms of art) mostly work in the subconscious. Things just come to artists-- a painter catches a flash of a picture, a writer sees a scene. And as the painter and the writer work, snippets come to them. It develops largely in the subconscious while the conscious mind figures out what works and what needs to be tossed.

I'd like to think that when we're crafting a story, our subconscious knows how things should work. The "muse" (if you want to imagine it as a seperate entity from yourself) will stop working if there's something wrong with your writing. Every time I've gotten writer's block in the past, there was something going wrong. I was overworked/stressed, a part of my plot just wasn't working out, my characters weren't developed enough, I was starting from the wrong place in the story.

From what I've learned, writer's block isn't just a random affliction. It's your muse telling you that something is wrong with your story.

On the subconscious level, you know it's not working, but you haven't quite figured out what's not working. So your mind shuts down, you can't form sentence, and budda boom budda bing, you've got writer's block.

So my cure: figure out what's wrong. It could be that you're really overworked and you just need to wind down. It could be that something in your story just isn't jiving. Whatever the problem is, there's going to be a different way to solve it. That's why there's no easy cure to writer's block, because writer's block is a fancy way of saying "I have no idea what the f*cking problem is!"

Professional writers don't get writer's block as often as newer writers because they're so familiar with their stories and their craft that they fix the problem before their subconscious decides to give them a wake up call.

In order to fix your block, you need to become more aquainted with yourself as a writer. Figure out what's plaguing you, and how to fix it. And most importantly, never stop writing.

Peace,

-Katie