Enter Author Stage Right

A couple of weeks ago, I watched (most of) Iron Man for the first time. Yes, I’m behind in the Hollywood scene. Having a toddler and living with your parents will do that. Anyway, one of the highlights for me was Stan Lee’s traditional appearance. I know, it’s geekiness unleashed. I can’t help it, though. Stan Lee…M. Night Shyamalan…Alfred Hitchcock…Stephen King…I get a kick out of directors and writers who slide themselves into the story in sneaky little ways.

That’s not to say I’d be a fan if they inserted themselves in the story too much. I’d be much less thrilled if Stan Lee entered the story as Iron Man’s full-time mentor instead of a passing comment on the stairs.

Movies, of course, are an entirely different case from books. If an author inserts him or herself into a book overtly, it’s rarely charming. (I’ve never actually read a book where I found it anything but annoying, but I’m leaving open the benefit of the doubt.) On the other hand, I’ve never read a book where an author placed himself in a cameo similar to the names I mentioned above. It might be interesting to see how that worked. Hmmm…

It’s a different story when the author successfully inserts her own thoughts into the characters’ thoughts and opinions. I happen to think Shirley Rousseau Murphy does it well. You know they’re her thoughts, but they fit so well with the characters, you only notice the insertion if you think about it. Again, though, it only really works if the reader happens to agree with the characters. Too much opinion, I think, will turn the reader off if world views don’t happen to align. I know it’s happened when I read other books in the past.

Then I think of writers like Orson Scott Card, who disassociates himself to a sometimes astonishing degree. I just finished his novel, Enchantment. In it, the protagonist is a Ukrainian Jew who spent the first decade of his life in the USSR. As I read the book, I found myself wondering at times, “What happened to the author to make him dislike Christians so much?” Then I pulled myself back to reality and remembered that the author is a Mormon who was born in Washington State and now lives in North Carolina. He doesn’t dislike Christians; he successfully associated with a character who distrusted them, often with good historical reason. It was brilliant, and I admire him for introducing me to another worldview that made me examine my own.

When it comes down to it, though, we all insert ourselves into our writing to some degree. It’s nearly impossible not to. We are our writing. Our writing reflects, if not our entire personality, then some facet or some angle of ourselves that can’t help reflecting onto the pages of a story. We may not be our characters. We may not even like our characters. They may not hold our opinions or share our Myers-Briggs personality type. Still, something of the writer remains.

So, maybe I don’t have to make a cameo in my own work. None of us do. My work is me. Your work is you. That’s more than enough.

Ramblings and Reflections

It seems I haven’t written anything for this blog in a while.

I have the worst of all reasons. I’ve been in a slump. Yes, an unproductive, self-pitying, paralyzing slump. I suppose it happens to the best freelancers as some point or another. At least, I hope it does. I’ve done little writing. What has managed to emerge from pen and PC has been gut wrenching and, well…blah.

I have been thinking, though. Sometimes I think too much. Yes, sometimes I need less thinking and more writing! Some of this particular thinking has gelled some productive results for me, though.

Ever since blogging on Christina Katz’s purity of intention prompt, I’ve been noodling that idea in my foggy little head. What are my intentions? What drives me? Where do I want to be in a year…five years…ten years…twenty? What things, if I never accomplish them, will leave me bitterly regretful?

As a result of all that introspection, I’ve come up with three areas I absolutely want to pursue.

1. Fiction. Fiction is my first love both in reading and writing. Fiction, more than any other writing form, sets my nerves tingling and my blood humming. It gives me an emotional high that few other things in life instill. Yet, in my everyday routine, it is the writing form that most often falls to the bottom of my to-do list.
2. Devotional. My faith defines who I am; it’s only natural to share that with readers. I’ve delved a little into devotional writing on my Lessons from the Shadowland blog. It’s tough going as I realize more and more how little I actually know or understand, but I’ve realized it’s something I want to continue, to dig deeper into my faith and cause others to do the same.
3. Child Lit. I started out with one random picture book idea that seemed good (and has been dismissed by six agents so far). Once the floodgates were opened, though, I saw that there might be more than one, or even two, picture books in me. I’m now polishing a second text before seeking representation and roughing out a third. I love reading with my two-year-old, and I think I have my own stories to share with her…and with children everywhere.
   

The big question that remains is whether I should concentrate on making headway in these three areas exclusively or whether I need to continue with other projects—marketing, editing, tips and how-tos—in order to pay the bills while I slowly plod along toward my dreams.

Question status: asked but unanswered.

Personal Perspective: The Best-Laid Plans

Things don't always go as you plan.

For instance, I planned on working while I was on "vacation." A professor once said there was no such thing as a vacation for a full-time freelancer, because everything is an opportunity to discover new writing topics. I took that seriously. So, for our two-week trip to see my husband's family in Buffalo, I took along my novel hard copy, my general-purpose notebook, my note-taking notepad, my journal, my laptop, my USB cord and my flash drive. I had visions of Internet connections in hotel rooms and friendly libraries. I pictured myself saying, "No, I really can't watch the movie, I have work to do," with firm conviction. I imagined side trips to discover new and interesting topics for magazine articles.

I might as well have spared my car the extra load.

With three twelve-hour driving days in each direction (yes, that equals SIX days on the road, just like the song), a toddler, normal in-law craziness, a jam-packed activity schedule and time-zone lag (yes, it happens even without jets), it was all I could do to keep from blowing my lid.

I did make it back to Oregon on schedule. That left me back on track to drive to Milton-Freewater and shoot some photos for an article I'm trying to sell. It was a wonderful day, with a more relaxed drive than I've had in recent memory, a fascinating conversation and the chance to sit through a free folk concert. I planned to give myself the following, and last, day off, and get back to it full force on Monday.

Then I came home and came down with a cold.

The speed and severity of the onset were for the record books. Got home from Milton-Freewater: fine. Three hours later: sniffles that had nothing to do with the movie I was watching.

Again my plans were laid aside as I spent the next several days getting over a pretty nasty cold. Here it is, Wednesday, and I'm only just beginning to form coherent thoughts that don't involve Kleenex.

And, you know what? There weren't fifty phone-message from editors who wanted that story only if they could have it three days ago. My clients weren't irate at the two-going-on-three-week setback in their project. No one shot themselves because one of my four blogs wasn't there for them to read. The gelato is still getting made. (Okay, so I had to don a dust mask and drag my diseased carcass into the kitchen to accomplish that, but who cares.)

The earth is still here, serenely spinning away.

Given the fuzzy nature of my thoughts right now, this blog post doesn't have a profound point. If it leaves me--and perhaps you--with one thought, though, it's that the world doesn't actually stop if we do. We (writers, women, mothers, humans) don't often give ourselves permission to hop off the hamster wheel and actually sit still. If we push it long enough, though, God and nature will force downtime upon us. It may not be as we would have envisioned...or planned...or preferred...but it will happen.

So, don't be afraid to take a bit of hiatus before you've reached that breaking point. If your best-laid plans are anything like mine, the globe will still be twirling when you get back.

Emotion and Experience: Laying It on the Table

“To be able to reproduce a feeling so that others could recognize it, and perhaps understand it for the first time, one had to have some idea of what it felt like in reality. To show that one knew meant revealing what one had felt. Revealing oneself too nakedly did not come easily to a private man, and if one did not reveal oneself, one never became a great actor.”*

Dick Francis wrote those words about the art of acting. I think he knew of what he spoke; I think he spoke from personal experience as a writer. Think of the writers you admire, of the great writers whose work you have read. If they grabbed your soul…how did they do it? Did London hold back when he wrote The Call of the Wild? Was it comfortable for Emily Bronte to write of the darkness within Heathcliffe? Did Dumas check his experience at the door when he wrote of Edmond Dantès’ quest for vengeance? Probably not.

That doesn’t mean they experienced every minute detail they wrote about. It simply means they experienced enough to pass on the realistic, gut-wrenching flavor to the rest of us. It means they were willing to expose themselves enough to let us see that reality. To whatever degree their work was inspired by their own feelings, something of those writers is in those characters. That’s what makes them larger-than-life; that’s what makes them great.

Let’s try an example closer to home.

I have a history of depression. (How’s that for laying it on the table?) It’s a “mild” form of the disease, so I’m not nor have I ever been suicidal, but I have been in some very dark places. It was that emotion, that experience that I poured into my very first short story, Grace. I also consider Grace my best story to date. It won first place in a MOTA contest and received honorable mention from Writers’ Journal; it was published both times. When someone asked me how I could portray my character’s suicidal depression so well, I was nonplussed. It was simple. I could show it because I knew it.

Not that I consider myself a London, Bronte or Dumas. I’m not even a Francis. The principle, though, is the same. That piece of work shone brightly because I knew the darkness about which I wrote…and I was willing to show it.

It’s not comfortable to bare your soul to the public. You leave yourself open to criticism, rejection, anger and psychoanalysis. If you want to take your creative writing to a higher place, though, that’s what you have to do. I’ve used examples in fiction, but it’s true for almost any writing form…fiction, poetry, essay or feature writing. If it’s something other than the bare bones, if it’s a piece that allows personality or opinion to reveal itself, then you’re taking a risk. And it’s in taking the truly great risks that you experience the truly great rewards.

*Smokescreen; Dick Francis. Simon & Schuster, New York; 1978. Page 82.
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