Plastic Somethings

While cleaning today, I found an odd-shaped Plastic Something sitting on top of the freezer. It's no bigger than my thumbnail with little grooves and slots where it obviously is supposed to fit into or onto Something Else. Looks important, as if Something Else wouldn't work correctly without this strange missing piece. What that might be, I have no idea.

So I asked Michael if he could help me identify this Plastic Something. He didn't recognize the piece either. We now had a choice -

- toss it and find out in hours (or days or weeks) that the Plastic Something was indeed a vital part of Something Else and now the entire thing won't work and aaarrrggghhh! or...

- keep it just in case we figure out where it came from.

We placed it beside the other odd-shaped Somethings on a corner of his desk. Just in case. As time goes by, we'll realize that whatever it came from obviously works fine without it. Then we can pitch it in good conscience. But for now, it gathers dust with its soul mates on his desk.

The other day I found Word files on my desktop I'd written some time ago and forgotten about. Some were first drafts of short stories which I never polished. There were shorter bits too, snippets of character profiles, unusual settings, and story lines jotted down in 30 or more different Word files.
Don't get me wrong. Some are probably trash.
But others have potential. I've just never taken the time to develop them, or more to the point, to figure out where they might fit in some larger work.

Those pieces of manuscript are like that Plastic Something -  I keep them, just in case I figure out where they belong. After all, Something Else might not work properly without them.

Brainstorm to treasure

In a couple weeks, I'll be one of the speakers at Keystone College's Young Authors Day. My audience will be 50+ students grades 3-12 and their teachers from various schools around northeastern PA. The presentation topic for my 40 minutes of fame? Whatever I choose.
Now don't get me wrong. I like having choices. I'm not a fan of being told what to do, especially in the creative realm. But choosing one topic to engage creative kids with such a wide range of ages is daunting, to say the least.

I asked my daughter Katie, an exceptionally creative and insightful first-grade teacher, to brainstorm with me. What we came up with was the concept that both non-fiction and fiction writers have to do research as part of their creative process. I could focus my presentation on showing the research I'd done for Risking Exposure (and am still doing for the sequel.)

So I sat down this week to work on my Power Point. In it, I likened the process of research to a dig for buried treasure. We use different tools for the various surfaces we encounter, pick axes for rock (secondary research sources), shovels for loose dirt (primary sources.) When we uncover a gem, we hold it in our palm, turn it this way and that, examine it with a magnifying glass to clarify its tiniest details. Only then do we determine its worth, whether we should toss it aside or place it in a silk-lined box for all time.

Hopefully, the kids will be inspired to set off on their own digs and research topics of interest to them.

Hazards vs risks

Over the last year and half, I've been involved in a community project to build a new playground in Factoryville. The completed structure is awesome - including that central tower which stands probably 12 feet off the ground.

So as we worked with Steve Hemmler, a playground designer from Landscape Structures, our concerns about safety and potential risk were paramount. His answer has stuck with me. In effect he said that our job (and his) were to design and build a playground with virtually no potential hazards. But to eliminate risk from the playground design would have meant sacrificing the potential for fun. 

The more I thought about that statement, the more it rang with truth. We all want to participate in activities that are as safe as we can make them. Reducing potential hazards to a bare minimum makes absolute sense.


But virtually any activity which is ultimately fun involves some risk - that's what makes it fun. If an activity is too easy or the outcome is guaranteed simple success every single time, the risk is gone - and so is the joy.



I can apply that same hazard vs risk principle to writing. By never sharing my written work, by hiding it away on my computer, I could have played it safe and completely eliminated the risk of rejection. It would have been completely safe, completely free of the hazard of potential hurt or disappointment.

But it also would have prevented me from experiencing the joy of connecting with readers, of getting unsolicited compliments via email or positive reviews posted by complete strangers.
I'm glad I took the risk and put my work 'out there.' I wouldn't miss this fun for the world.

The most frequent questions, Pt. 3

Will there be a sequel to Risking Exposure? What are you writing now?

When I finished writing Risking Exposure, I was tired. I had spent several years reading everything I could get my hands on about the Nazi era, watching documentaries, etc. Pouring through so much twisting of the truth and outright evil was exhausting, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. My conclusion was that I never wanted to read another thing about Nazi Germany ever again.


But within 6 or 8 weeks, something happened. I'd be driving down the road and a character I'd relegated to the 'deleted scenes' folder would pop into my mind. Something a neighbor said would remind me of a dialogue exchange I'd cut. Pretty soon those characters and exchanges were forming new scenes and it became clear - the characters in my deleted scenes folder wanted their story told too. It's my job to give them their opportunity.

What is taking shape is a sequel, although told through another character's POV. No, I don't have a title or a time frame for release. That's actually not even on my radar yet.
I've been researching events which took place in Munich during July 1938 until very early 1939, about 6 months after Risking Exposure ends. I have what I believe to be a framework on which to hang my story. In my over-ambitious mind, I have set a goal of getting a first draft written by the end of 2014. (I may kick myself for making that public.)

The most frequent questions, Pt. 2

Why would a nice person like you write about Nazi Germany?

  I've written (and published) fiction and non-fiction short pieces for all ages, preschool through adult. Risking Exposure is the only one set in Nazi Germany. The others aren't even remotely similar in time or place or even in tone - Chicken Soup for the Soul for audiences seeking inspiration, Highlights High Five for preschoolers, Advance for Physical Therapists for PTs and PTAs, Discovery Years and Thriving Family for parents, Hopscotch for kids, plus a few currently on Wattpad. I think across genres, I read across genres, so I write across genres too.

I love stories, real or fictional, in which an unlikely hero must pull himself up by his bootstraps and become more than he was, in which an ordinary person is forced to rise above her circumstances in order to stand up for what is right.
That means the hero would have to be in a time and place in which doing what's right comes at great personal risk. Nazi Germany was just such a place.

All four of my grandparents emigrated to the US from Germany in the 1920s. One grandmother lived in our apartment building when I was a kid, and the other one moved in with us when I was a teen. So we got a good dose of the language, food, music, and culture of the homeland they loved. When I learned of the Nazi years in school, I asked the same questions many have asked - How could that happen? How could the country which produced my own family, plus geniuses like Bach and Goethe allow such horrors to occur right under their noses?

The answers are complex of course, spanning decades of Germany history and the culture of everyday life in a police state and dictatorship. But in exploring the answers, I found some simple themes which resonated with me -
it was a time and place of blind allegiance to an ideal;
in which some people held more value than others;

in which people were brainwashed by a flood of government-controlled information;
in which the voices of those who spoke against the regime were silenced through threats, violence, or detention.

It was and still is a perfect storm to use as a backdrop for a hero story. That's probably why so many of us writers choose to set our stories there.

The organized mess

During the process of writing Risking Exposure, I learned two things about my writing style. First, if I outline too much, my characters rebel once I start to write. But if I don't create some structure for the book, it meanders like a ship without a compass.
I don't want to go through either scenario again.

I've started researching, organizing, and writing the sequel to Risking Exposure. For weeks, I've had a basic outline in my head. I've documented many ideas into the voice recorder that's always in my dashboard cubby. (I drive a lot.) I've read books and websites and taken notes. I've plunged ahead and written a couple scenes, one of which may become the opening scene. Now the time has come to create something more concrete.

So I spent yesterday organizing my basic plot points at the dining room table. Crazy, but this is my organized plot. The long paper is a timeline on which I jotted notes about historically significant events in late 1938 that will provide a backdrop to the story. The other piles are research materials on a historical figure and a 'way out' for the climax that will make sense in the story.

I also used a story map, and I sketched out one for my main character yesterday. Today's task is to create a voice journal for her, a longer and more detailed one than I had for the first novel. In coming days/weeks, I plan to sketch out story maps and create voice journals for the other main characters as well. This will (hopefully) help me keep track of who they are, what each wants, and how those personalities and wants conflict and intersect during all three acts of the book.

In the meantime, I have to move all this organization aside so we have a place to eat. 

Scratching the itch

I've been feeling the itch to write more. But the practical aspects of living - spending time with people I love, working, taking care of my home and my health, participating in community and church activities, etc. - have left me precious little time to write.


Don't get me wrong. I am involved in each and every one of these activities because I enjoy them. They fulfill me in different ways, connect me to the bigger world and allow me to use different gifts and graces. But I find myself frustrated, trying to carve out small bits of time to jot down notes and read some background material. Honestly, it's not enough time to immerse myself in ideas and characters, and I need that to satisfy my muse.

Michael and I talked about it yesterday. I think we came up with a way to create a Writers Retreat of sorts. Not a physical place. More like an escape from other commitments which chip away at my writing time. So we're going to try it next weekend, and my hope is for a good 10+ hours of planning and writing.
I wonder if that much scratching will satisfy my itch. Part of me thinks it will ease the itch for a time. But I bet the overall effect will be like scratching a mosquito bite - I'll just spread the venom through my system and overall, the itching will increase. So be it.

Wattpad

A couple months ago, a woman in Writers Group at the Dietrich mentioned a story-sharing website called Wattpad so I checked it out. It's part social media, part writers-seeking-an-audience. Some confident writers use it to connect with readers and gain a following. Some have seen their stories there read over 200,000 times, garnishing tens of thousands of 'votes.'

New writers often use the site to get feedback from real readers on their work. And it offers something to readers as well. The anonymity provided by the internet might give a reader space to offer constructive feedback instead of a more saccharine "that's a nice story."

That same woman from Writers Group mentioned an acquaintance who posted the first couple chapters of her book a few pages at a time on Wattpad. In a few months, she gained about 7000 'followers' of her story. She self-published it and had thousands of immediate sales. Her audience was ready-made and the initial burst of sales was enough to put her on the best-seller list for a time. Was the story really that good? I couldn't say. But her marketing plan was awesome. She essentially used crowdsourcing not to develop the product but to develop the readership, to create a platform. That's exactly what happens on American Idol, The Voice, and a dozen other reality shows. Why not in stories?

If you want to see some of my stories on Wattpad, I'm jeanne42.

The voice journal

When asked to recommend books on writing, The Art of War for Writers by James Scott Bell often comes up at conferences, at workshops, and on blogs. I finally read it last week, and many of his 'strategies, tactics, and exercises' resonated with me. One of the most intriguing was his idea of a 'voice journal' for each character.

He advocates a stream-of-consciousness journal of a character's speech, documenting his/her description of self in whatever form it takes. The list format I used for my characters, bullet points describing traits and likes/dislikes, fell short in guiding me to full characterizations. So I embraced Mr. Bell's advice, closed my eyes, and let Sophie speak through my fingertips.In minutes, this is what I had:

Hi, my name is Sophie Adler. I’m fourteen and I live with my Mutti, my Papa, and my brother Klaus in a 5 room apt over our family’s bakery in Munich. I always wanted a pet, but my parents said no; since we have the bakery right downstairs it wouldn’t do to have an animal prowling around. I talked them into a cat, to act as a mouser in the alley behind our house. Her name is Skittle, because of the way she scurries away whenever someone tries to pick her up. Cats are that way; they want you when they want you, and when they don't want you they skitter away...

Maybe I like Skittle so much because she’s stealthy, living her life fully and completely as a cat, attached but not attached, watching and observing and waiting for opportunities to be part of the family, part of the group, but really a loner inside. She's like me... Quiet, observant, choosing who to reveal self to, who to avoid, scurrying away when cornered, making her own life in front of people and having a separate life they know nothing about.

The fascinating part about this? I've been writing/revising Sophie's story for several years, and I never had a pet in her story. And yet the prospect of a cat as her self-portrait is apt,and one that gives me whole new ways to frame her character and her story.

I feel refreshed; creating a voice journal for each of my characters will help me establish them more fully. That'll make my rewrites more fun.

Next time, I'll ...

There will be a second novel for me - the story is already spinning into shape in my mind, on Pinterest, in some basic notes on my voice recorder and on paper. I'll have some time off this fall,so I'll probably start pulling it together soon. But before I actually put pen to paper (or in reality, create a Word document,) I'll apply the lessons I learned from the convoluted journey of writing Risking Exposure.

What I'll do differently:

1. Put more flesh on my characters before I start writing. I'll write a biography of each character before I start - where/when they were born, schooling, friends, family structure, likes/dislikes, beliefs, quirks, personality type, traits, emotional make-up, intelligence, problem solving ability, strengths, weaknesses. That's far more detail in stone than I did before, and hopefully that'll cut down my need for extensive re-thinking of characters after the novel is done.

2. Put those characters in my setting and see how they act before I write a thing.
Each of us responds to circumstances differently. That's what makes us interesting. That's also what makes readers care about fictional characters and ultimately, what draws us back as readers. A good plot drives a story but a book, a memorable one at least, is about characters we care about.

3. Write out the story question and the pitch BEFORE I outline to make sure I stay focused. This means I'll need to UNDERSTAND my characters and what they want before I start writing. Again, this is essential to writing right.

4. Then I’ll outline. KM Weiland has written a well-received book on outlining and will soon offer a Writers Digest Workshop as well. Good timing for me to get the directed help I need.

5. After that's all done, I'll write. I'll let you know how that works for me.

What I've done right

That list of learn-as-I-go mistakes begs the obvious question: Did I do anything right?

Of course I did. Give myself a virtual pat on the back.

1. I kept my original protagonist, the setting, and her problem. Sophie, Munich, and the fate of the disabled in Nazi Germany are the foundation of my story, and I haven't strayed from that.

2. I researched my setting and her problem before, during, and after my first draft. I've learned more about Nazi Germany than I ever wanted to know, but the best research I did was tactile - I went to Munich with Katie and walked where Sophie would have walked, explored and smelled and tasted until I felt her heartbeat and heard her voice. I went to the Library of Congress and wore white gloves to examine actual era photographs. I opened the crackling yellowed pages of Nazi newspapers and read first-hand reports of the parade at the end of the novel, saw the way it was portrayed to the people, and photographed columns of text to translate at home.

3. I decided to tell the story in Sophie's first-person voice. As soon as I did, she began to speak.

4. I decided the story I'd originally planned was too cumbersome, too complicated, and the fantasy elements felt forced. I ditched the fantasy and multiple story lines in favor of a straight historical fiction story. Honestly, I still like those fantasy elements but they don't belong in this story.

5. I didn’t set a time frame for finishing the book, just a time frame of writing for 10 hours per week.

6. I allowed myself many many rewrites and didn’t hang onto beloved words, scenes, or characters. But I saved the various versions of my story as it evolved, and I plan to use some of my favorite deleted characters and scenes in future stories.

7. I read a lot about writing, attended the Dietrich Theater Writers Group regularly as a reader and critiquer, went to writing SCBWI workshops and conferences, and read well-written books. As I surrounded myself with writers and works that shine, I absorbed.

8. I took in everyone’s advice. But I took to heart only the advice that resonated with me. I'm not writing this book by committee. It's mine and Sophie's.

9. I loved Sophie and committed myself to telling her story, regardless of how many rewrites it took.

10. I kept practicing, kept writing. I didn’t see changes in my writing skill week to week, but gradually, I have improved.

11. I haven’t let setbacks or (many many) rejections get me down for the long term. When I'm frustrated or stuck, I put the work aside for a couple weeks. That freshens my perspective and increases my objectivity. Then I can tackle it again.

Next up, and the last of this series - what I'll do different next time.

What I learned during my ten thousand hours of practice, Pt. 3

Even though I read how-tos and took a couple courses on how to write a novel, I still floundered. A lot.

More of what I realized once I got going:

11. The novel writing course(s) provided general guidance, but no one held my hand to help me navigate this uncharted territory.

12. Revising a finished novel when my characters needed work was REALLY hard.

13. Writing historical fiction took a lot of research, before and during the writing process. As I revise, the research is ongoing. Good thing I'm still interested in that era.

14. Writing fantasy required me to create an entire world complete with rules of operation. The process was more complex than I thought it would be.

15. Writing multiple story lines which converge took far more planning than writing a single story line with a single protagonist.

16. Writing a single story line with a single protagonist was hard enough.

17. Writing novel-length fiction was nothing like writing articles or like writing non-fiction. And most of the rules my English teachers taught didn’t apply, especially when writing dialogue.

18. I had trouble staying focused on the story. I should have identified, in words out the outset, my story question and my pitch.

19. I didn’t know how to write fiction. My ‘deleted scenes’ and ‘early versions’ files are far bigger than the finished novel. And the novel still needs work.

But I'm learning as I move forward, and believe it or not, I still enjoy the process and the challenge. I've gotten to a point where I can acknowledge what I did right, so that's up for tomorrow.

What I learned during my ten thousand hours of practice, Pt. 2

So there I was, with some basic ideas, characters, and a visual display of my outline. I'd just start writing and the story would gel, right? Like the premise of driving at night - you can only see as far as your headlights allow, but as you move forward, it's always just enough.

Right? Wrong. Reality check.

What I realized once I got going:
1. The short articles I’d written had all been non-fiction. I’d never created a character before.
2. The characters I created were cardboard.
3. I’d never written a plot before.
4. The plot I wrote dragged.

5. I had no idea where to really begin my story and wrote about 10 different opening scenes. Most occurred earlier in the story than the previously attempted opening.
6. Writing a scene from a single sentence on an index card may have worked if the characters had been fleshed out. Mine hadn’t been, and they didn’t get flesh until I started writing about them. Then they got mouthy and demanded changes to the plot I’d planned for them.
7. Writing the plot on index cards might have worked as well, but again, those darn characters took over the action and I had to do their bidding.

I took down the index cards and their long paper framework and burned them.
8. I tried plan B, to write the story ‘organically’, just let it grow from the seed of the story setting and problem.
9. Writing organically takes me a really long time, because it’s mostly false starts and wrong turns.
10. It’s hard for me to discipline my mind and keep it on track when I write organically. I need the structure of an outline, and my outline was crap.

Tomorrow - more of what I realized once I got going.

What I learned during my ten thousand hours of practice, Pt. 1

Malcolm Gladwell famously said that the key to success in any task is logging ten thousand hours of practice. His belief is that perseverance pays off, and I see the logic in that. It jives with the tongue-in-cheek answer to the NY tourist question, "How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" "Practice, practice, practice."

There's an acronym for this concept in the writing world: BIC, butt-in-chair. So as I began to write a novel, I knew I'd need to put in some serious time before I'd have a story worth reading.

I've learned much during these hours in the chair, and over the next few days, I'll share some of the insights I've gained.

As with any new project, I started with a baseline of ideas, assumptions, and skills.
What I thought when I started my novel:

1. I had a good idea for a setting and a problem.

2. I had a couple basic characters and spent a little time thinking about them.

3. That was enough to get me started; I’d work out the details as I went.

4. I wrote an idea for each scene on an index card and stuck them in sequence on a long roll of paper. All I had to do was take down a card, write that scene, and move on to the next.

5. Writing this novel would be like writing the short articles I’d written; it would just take me longer.

6. I’d start at the beginning of the story and write straight through until the ending.

7. I’d write a historical fantasy with multiple story lines and multiple protagonists converging into a climactic whole.

8. I enrolled in a novel-writing course when I started, so that would help me work through the bumps.

9. I knew how to write fiction because I liked to read fiction.

Tomorrow: What I realized once I got going.

Lessons and stone walls

As my ideas for another book start to gel, I'm applying the lessons I learned from writing my first book. These lessons were learned the hard way - the best way for me - through mistakes that cost time and effort.

1. First and foremost, I need to spend more time fleshing out my characters before I start writing. Most of the rewriting and editing I've done is because my incomplete character profiles led to confusing character actions or dialogue.

2. I need a more thorough outline, one that integrates the plot and the characters more fully. I developed what I thought was an outline but in actuality, it consisted only of plot points. Once I put characters into those situations, they didn't act as I planned and I had to tear up the whole outline (or in my case, tear down, since I had the outline taped to the wall) and start over. And again. And again.

3. I need to discipline the temptation to get side-tracked from the main point of the story. I now keep the Story Question and the Story Pitch taped over my desk as reminders of 'what my story is about.'

4. I need to do lots of research before I start. This is something I actually did right (!) with Risking Exposure. I read, watched documentaries, traveled to Munich to walk where Sophie would have walked and to study 1930's maps in the city archives, all before I started the real work of writing the story. My research has continued of course, as I needed details to be added to my ever-changing story.

In that vein, I've started some basic research for the story percolating in my head (see my post about Pinterest.) It involves stone walls and the bad news is my knowledge about them could fill a thimble. The good news is the Brooklyn PA Historical Society hosted a lecture on this region's stone walls by Ken Ely, a local enthusiast who teaches about and restores old walls as an avocation. He used dozens of slides to share his passion for these beautiful structures, describing their original purpose (to define property boundaries and keep livestock in), their construction and common features, as well as their restoration and preservation as part of our local heritage.

I learned that beneath the simple beauty of the stone wall that separates our property from the mountain behind lies a complex balance achieved through someone's investment of time, effort, and a vision of the completed task.

Which is also what I need to invest in my stories.

Photos and Pinterest and Problems, oh my!

I've been a member of Pinterest for a few months, but I haven't done much with it. The other day, I read an article in Writer's Digest about one author's experience in using Pinterest to create a board of her fictional character's clothing. She then provided a link on her website to the Pinterest board so readers could see the items for themselves.

So I thought - hey, I could do that for my novel Risking Exposure set in 1938 Nazi Germany.. I already had photos of Munich on this blog. Why not pin them to a new Pinterest board and add other photos I got through my research trip to the Library of Congress and several historical websites? Voila ~ the Pinterest board called Sophie's World was born.

To add to the collection, I pinned a photograph of a section of my reference bookshelf

as well as my 1930-era camera that served as my reference for Sophie's own.

Simple, right? Until I tried to link the Pinterest board to this blog. I created a link, but can't get the Pinterest logo to appear, not even after a dozen attempts. ~Sigh~
I'll figure it out again another time.

In the meanwhile, click on the link at the top of the right hand column to enjoy Sophie's World.

Understanding Palin, Everett, and Lincoln by their words

Matt Lauer on Today interviewed Sarah Palin this morning. Palin jabbed at her usual targets, using her pet phrase "go rogue" and more cliches than I could count. This time she added a new catch-phrase, calling the press the 'lamestream media.' Another Palin-ism to be tweeted around the world.

Time for me to use the remote.

I flipped to the History Channel, to a program about the aftermath of the Battle at Gettysburg and the creation of the national cemetery there. It seems that, at the dedication ceremony, the main orator was Edward Everett, former president of Harvard and a respected politician. Everett spoke for two hours - two hours!- delivering an eloquent speech. If his audience was anything like us, his points were forgotten in a communal stupor. Next speaker up, President Abraham Lincoln. He faced his probably glassy-eyed audience and delivered his two-page, two minute long Gettysburg Address, capturing the essence of the sacrifice given by the soldiers at Gettysburg and reiterating the importance of holding true to America as one nation.

The contrasting styles weren't lost on me. Palin's cheeky attempts to create buzz words, Everett forgotten diatribe, and Lincoln's succinct, insightful, and memorable words are writing lessons of the nth degree.

This blog post has no title.

Apparently, I stink at titles.
On my novel's journey from concept to final edits, I've given it about 10 different working titles. I've tried short titles "FOCUS," long titles "WHAT I SAW AND WHAT I DID ABOUT IT," and everything in between.

The most recent title, "THE LAST PINKY TOE PROMISE," went right out the window with my latest edits. Both the agent and editor who generously shared their insights questioned some specifics of Sophie's avoidance of the truth, including her technique to 'make' promises null and void by crossing her pinky toe inside her shoe. I cut that piece, and the story truly does read cleaner and more focused without it. Too bad; the title was memorable and certainly unique.

So this morning in the shower, I brainstormed for a title. No soap. [insert groan here] Later, I took some sage advice from the Write and Publish Fiction website. I wrote a brief summary and then listed all the nouns and all the verbs. Then I created lots of noun/verb combinations. The result?
I struck out again.

Something just turned like, embarrassing

Somewhere in my many hours of self-editing and revision, I read about wordle. The designers call it a 'toy for generating word clouds' from text a user pastes in. Basically, the words are scrambled into a geometric pattern, and words used more frequently in the text appear larger than words used less often. It's a quick and easy way for a writer to check for overused words.

So I took my entire manuscript and pasted it in. Some words figured prominently, as expected: Sophie, photos, Papa, letters. But some seriously weak words were just as large: like, something, just, turned. How embarrassing.

Thank God for the 'find' function on Word, because I found over 100 repetitive, boring, and just plain awful uses of those words and changed most of them to stronger words. For some, I rewrote the whole sentence to avoid those flimsy words.
The result? The new wordle cloud shows predominantly characters' names, plus the words photos, camera, and eyes. That's better, much better.
I hope the ultimate result is an improved manuscript.

The muse speaks, I hope

Advice to writers is everywhere - in books, magazines, on the internet. It'd be easy to spend all my 'writing time' just reading blogs, taking courses, etc. but much of the advice is redundant. Leave it to Lin Oliver, the funny, energetic co-founder of SCBWI to put this at the top of her advice-to-writers list: Take lots of showers.

Lin's point is absolutely right. The muse, the inspired subconscious that tells the story, can't be forced. It speaks during routine tasks, showering yes, but also while chopping onions, driving, etc. It's important for me to remember that while I'm trying to work through revisions on my novel. I can't force the changes, they have to be unleashed from the place where my conscious efforts have tethered them.

Thanks to Bookshelf Muse for sharing Lin's list.

Now I'm gonna go take a shower.