The Challenge of Non-fiction

Two of my trusted Beta readers pointed to one of the characters in my WIP and wondered if this character was “needed.” When writing a fictional story— every character must have a function that advances the premise, or at the very least provides comic relief. If neither is the case, toss the bums out, much as it hurts. The story will be meaner and leaner and far stronger.

Fiction writers have two options with unnecessary characters—eliminate, or re-write to make them essential. I have chosen, this time, to do the latter. I had a good reason for this side character, but I failed to convey it properly. I’m going to fix this. Besides, I make a better booster than an assassin.

But those who write non-fiction don’t have this luxury. They are, in effect, historians. Mentioning people who don’t wind up being pivotal, or even interesting in themselves, is still something that they must do in places where the very presence of these people must be accounted for posterity.

Here lies the challenge— make the gray types seem interesting. Find a way to connect the dots somehow, even when the connections are flimsy. Make it stick the way a fictional story would, even as you write about real people and events.

I used to think non-fiction stories were easier to write. After all, the story is already there. A writer just has to do some research. This always felt like school homework, something I did with ease though never liked. Then the writer must have the organizational and verbal skills to produce coherency. Non-fiction that reads like a textbook is not wanted these days. It must be written so young readers will not put it down, same as fiction.

As I augment and change my fictional person, I marvel what I would have done if she and the story had had a reality outside my mind.

And I take off my virtual hat to all great non-fiction.

Begin the Begin, or— In the Beginning…

Before I had any books published, before I was agented, before I ever considered I would ever write anything longer than a long picture book text, and before I knew anything about publishing…

Let me begin in the beginning. I wrote, revised and submitted my first manuscript way back in ancient times. I mistakenly labeled my chapter book story in my query. I called it a picture book because, as I said^, I didn’t know better. This 7,000-word episodic story that was inspired by The Little Prince (16,000 plus words, which some still consider a picture book) had too many things wrong with it, and my query had many more faux-pas. But it must have had something right, because only ten days later I got a very nice and encouraging personal rejection from one of the six small publishers I had subjected my offering to.

After that all the rejections were forms. So were the rejections to stories that followed, for the next eighteen months. I learned that truly personal feedback was rare, and I also learned many more things about writing and submitting.

One publisher never responded, but this, too, was common. Even back then.

Years passed. Winters turned to springs and summers turned to autumns. I was forever grateful for that first personal rejection because it kept me going onto better writing and not giving up.

Until today. It’s been a long time since my stamped self-addressed envelopes showed up with regularity in my mailbox. Everyone had moved to E-subbing, and my agent takes care of this aspect now. But today, there it was. My final rejection to that very first submission for a story I sent, ahmm, nine years ago.

Lest you imagine it was a form, as in “clearing the slush” by a summer intern at this publishing house, I will tell you otherwise. It’s a nice personal rejection. It also states that the story is really a chapter book, not a picture book, and that it is filled with “child-like imagination.” But, alas, the house has never tackled this length of story. The response is dated from six days ago, signed by the senior editor.

I am flummoxed, flabbergasted, and flat-out speechless. I don’t know what it means, if anything. I almost let magical thinking take over: the first and the last… Oh, no! Then I got a grip and decided this is a blog post about how slow publishing can be, and how you can never give up. Much more positive.

Back to work.

Fox Update~

For those who were waiting for an update on the family that moved into our backyard, the Family Fox from this post, I'm happy to report they have likely moved to a more spacious abode. We heard their odd wailing/barking/meowing, from dusk to dawn, through the summer nights of June and half of July. Neighbors who've lived in this urban locale for thirty plus years, and have never seen foxes here before, reported sightings here and there. Then they disappeared.

Most likely the culprit was the arrival of Turk.

Turk, if you're curious, is a dog who came to town with his human. Turk’s human moved in to help a friend with renovations to their home. They live next door. Turk has the bark of a Great Dane, and the size to match. I suspect he’s a mixed breed of unknown origins, possibly a horse and an elephant.

I’m not a dog person, but this gentle (if loud) giant has got my heart. He’s also gotten the foxes, raccoons and opossums to flee away, as far as they can get to not hear his woof-woofs. My cats stay away from his yard, and occasionally run into our house in a hurry. This they do when Turk decided to tell them what he thinks of them. They do as cats will, making their fur stand on edge to double their size and appear larger. Poor dears. They don’t impress this mammoth of a dog one bit with their enlargements.

So why do I like this dog? Dogs, to me, are like people. Some just get you.

WOOF!

Claiming Credit – Taking Blame

A few weeks back, writing Facebook friends and colleagues lamented that their adult kids’ failure to acknowledge Father’s Day felt like their failure to parent right.

I thought about some of the personal reactions I got to my post, so pleased with my own progeny for their achievements. Some were of the “you-did-well,-Mom!”

I remember feeling this was not right. My kids’ achievements are theirs. So are their failures.

We have a tendency to claim credit when credit is not due, and after a certain point (for the sake of unified definition let’s call it the age of majority) what they achieve is not our achievement. When they fail to do the right thing, (and I know my friends and myself, we did teach them right and modeled it also) it’s all theirs.

The same for our other babies, our books. My achievements are in writing them, and getting a publisher to take them on. If they are not stellar marketing successes this is more a failure of the marketing at the publishers, whose main role is to publish, i.e. make public. A book that is a mega success is also more a credit to the publisher. The author’s role is limited. Writing a good book is one thing, having it make a commercial splash is another.

It’s about taking responsibility. I am happy for a friend who had overcome adversity, but I have no business being “proud of her.” We use the word proud all too often. It’s best to prick that balloon before it makes us explode, or implode.

The most empowering thought I can offer today— own your own actions. Take neither blame nor credit from others.

 The preacher steps down now.

Deep in Revision Cave

Some who write dread the first draft. I have friends who write and describe the first draft as a plane soaring to the sky only to repeatedly stall in midair. The terrifying sense of doom—an imminent crash— is ever present, only to abate when the wind beneath their wings picks up again.

Not me. First drafts are intense and immensely absorbing. Entering the world of another time, another place, or another person, is a joy. I operate under the illusion that I am taking my riders, er, readers, along with me.

That is until the first draft is finished and my read-through & minor fixes done. Time passes, another read-through and a few more issues solved. Then another clean-up, and it’s time to let another reader in.

Here come my betas, the most generous helpers imaginable, plowing through my mess. I rely on their giving souls to tell me if the ride was as illuminating and exhilarating as I thought it was. I share with one at a time, correcting the manuscript with each feedback, hoping to spare the next reader a few more typos and wrong turns. Actually, I’m hoping there are few things to correct, but remind myself that every suggestion is a pearl disguised as an oyster.

Days/weeks later, and the first feedback comes. Ouch. But okay, I can fix that, and this, and the other thing.

Second Beta feedback. Ouch—Ouch. Why is it so different from the first? Because it is a different reader, duh. Okay, not the end of the world. I can deal with it.

I limit this first beta round to two or three readers maximum. Too many co-pilots will crash a plane; sadly we all know this by now. The goal is a good landing.

 That about describes where I am these days. Focused, and praying that it will be good.

Change= ‘Tis a Fixed Fact of Life

I put off making updates to my website as long as I possibly can, and then put it off even longer. My external excuse is that I struggle with the formatting and technical aspects of my site. It’s much less user-friendly than Blogger here. Inserting an image, or changing placement of such, has caused whole paragraphs to disappear. Or, even worse, to appear juxtaposed over each other in a frantic jumble. The techies in my house refuse to deal with it and I’m too embarrassed to ask again, after they all had declared my site a disaster area.

That is my external excuse.

Internally, it’s a different story. I loath to change because I find change traumatic. Maybe if I don’t make the changes for the world (or the handful who look) to see, they won’t be real.

But change is the third thing you can count on, after death and taxes. It will happen.

Me^ back when… Not anymore!

My bio, called About Me , continued to mention the next door neighbor’s cat who’d gone to heaven long ago, and not my own three who have been with us for almost two years. Worse, it suggested my two kiddos still lived with us full-time. That is insulting to college students, and if you know any they will verify. Alas, it had to be changed.

Making these seemingly tiny changes, I felt my insides squishing. You mean to tell me the kids have flown the coop? Must be. It says so on your official website, in black and white*. (*Black on blue, really. But you get the point.)

Chin up. I did it. It’s done, and it’s also true. Moving on.

Make a List

I have a friend whose father often said to her, “Make a list! Make a list!” Then he'd add, “Make a list!”

That papa knew what he was talking about, and felt keenly the urge to pass it on.

Lists are not glamorous. If fact, they are downright dowdy. But lists have saved my sanity. If I were prone to drink, I’d say they kept me sober. Goodness, I’ll say it anyway.

I began making daily task lists in high school. My plate was so full that I needed to check things off to keep tabs on how I was doing.

I fell off the list-wagon for some years after that, but discovered, when I became a full time mom, that lists were essential. How else would I know if I was getting anything done? A mom’s work never is.

And it was also the only visible sign I had of doing well. Babies don’t tell you. By way of thanks, they push yet another bowl of cereal on the floor so you can get to cheerfully wipe and pick up.

As my babies grew up, so did my writing. I began writing longer stories. This is where lists became the most crucial of all. Longer stories take many days-weeks-months and (gulp) years to conjure. Only a growing word-count told me I’ve accomplished something that day, and word-counts are, you know, rather dumb things.

This is when I discovered the importance of charting, or the list of major points in the story. I didn't need it for a bang-up beginning. That would come to me almost in a dream, and propel me to tell the story in the first place. It was about midway through when the story’s list/chart became its lifesaver.

The middle doldrums benefit from charting. That thin wire, strung across from the rooftops of the *oh-wow!* beginning to the *Ah-ha!* ending had kept me from falling off altogether and never making it to the end.

When I can see the finish line, or the rooftop of the ending, I glide to it, propelled by its sense-making and glorious feeling of both closure and accomplishment.

It’s the tenuous middle where I'm shaky.

Make a list.

NOBODY’S PERFECT

In one of the best last scenes of anything anywhere, in response to Jack Lemmon who was playing a man disguised as a woman and desperately trying to get out of an amorous suitor’s gushing declarations of love-you-forever-after, the dialogue went something like –

Jerry: Oh no you don't! Osgood, I'm gonna level with you. We can't get married at all.

Osgood: Why not?

Jerry: Well, in the first place, I'm not a natural blonde.

Osgood: Doesn't matter.

Jerry: I smoke! I smoke all the time!

Osgood: I don't care.

Jerry: Well, I have a terrible past. For three years now, I've been living with a saxophone player.

Osgood: I forgive you.

Jerry: [tragically] I can never have children!

Osgood: We can adopt some.

Jerry: But you don't understand, Osgood! Ohh...

[Jerry finally gives up and pulls off his wig]

Jerry: [normal voice] I'm a man!

Osgood: [shrugs] Well, nobody's perfect!

[Jerry looks on with disbelief as Osgood continues smiling with indifference. Fade out]

 In our world today this may seem outdated. Today we have a male’s male who was an Olympian gold medalist in the most demanding of events, the decathlon, coming out as the most attractive sixty-five year old female to grace any major magazine cover. {I marvel less at her femininity than at how she looks at that age, babe.} Today Osgood could marry Jerry in all fifty states and many countries to boot. But in context (the movie was written in the 1950s) it packed a punch. Not about shifting genders, but about how, so very true, we’re all working on something. Nobody’s perfect, darling.

I was looking for a particular editorial letter I got a few years ago, one of those glorious rejections. (You have to be a writer to get this.)  That letter said I should expand a PB to a novel, with specific suggestions. The editor expressed interest to see it if I do. 
I keep all personal and pertinent rejections, and I’ve accumulated quite a few.

Looking for it, I got distracted by some of the other personal rejections in the file. As I read them, I realized, horror of horrors, a typo by one editor. Then another. In the end I found a few such faux-pas in three letters, not by the same editor.

I thought about how we writers become apoplectic at the thought of having sent a letter or a manuscript with even one misspelled word or a confused homophone. 

But there they were, the their for there and they’re.

All right. I know. I've been guilty of this and worse, especially in online posts  where I didn't give myself the time* to come back and re-read after a bit before posting.  
*(It should be mandatory, BTW. But it would also kill the chat boards and social media sites if everyone waited an hour and then re-read their typed wisdomisms.)

 We are admonished to be careful with our submissions, and we are. We are writers, after all. Words are our thing.

But they are editors, for Pete’s sake. What’s with the typos?

And then I thought about this last line from SOME LIKE IT HOT.

I hope I’m extended the same courtesy, but for now I begin by doing it to others. Nobody’s perfect.

Me and the Blank Page

Oh, hum. A lament about what to write about.... Another one?

For some reason this is not a problem I have struggled with. Truth be told, (passive voice, I know. Phooey—rules!) I don't run out of things to say or stories to tell. This is not my problem.

 But who is listening?

So I sit (or walk, or vacuum) and think about you, the imaginary reader. What were you doing just before you bumped into my blog? What would add value to your mini-break from the things you must attend to, your own work, (official and unofficial) that which you care about and will get back to as soon as you click this page away?

And then, suddenly, the endless chatter inside me is silenced. The page goes blank.

I have no idea.

This is when I remind myself that Steven Spielberg said he makes the movies he’d like to see, and Stephen King said he writes the books he’d like to read. No matter that they're both Steves, sort of. They're also right.

And I get back to my internal clatter. Now I managed to write yet another post, and it entertained me.

And all’s well with the world.

It’s a Jungle Out There

Remember the frantic repetition from MGM’s The Wizard of Oz— “Lions and tigers and bears, OH, MY!”—?

It’s beginning to resemble my back yard.

In addition to deer, (& their babies) and raccoons, (and their babies) and opossums, and squirrels, and small snakes, and crows, and swallows, we now have…

---FOXES!

And we live in the city.

The Mama doe chased my cats away from her babies, who were larger than my cats. The foxes, on the other hand, played (yes!) with my cats. They rolled on their backs on the ground, teasing as dogs do when they frolic about, and then played chase. But I imagine that if any of my cats were to approach the den where this pair of foxes has their babies, the parents would get ferocious and forget about play chasing. They'd likely cause real damage.

What a jungle!

On our part, we watch from the distance our small yard allows, no more than twenty feet, and try to photograph our guests with a zoom lens. 
We assume their habitat must have been nearby, and somehow got disturbed. Because until this spring none of these wild animals ventured into our small back yard so close to people. It is definitely unusual for foxes to come out for hours in the middle of the day, and let us get this close.

I do worry about my cats. I make sure they have a way to come inside in a hurry. But still…

Of the whole menagerie of uninvited guests, it’s the foxes that captivate me. They are monogamous, and raise their kits together, male and female sharing equally in the care of their young. Call them perfect!

They typically have six to ten kits at one time. I haven’t looked for their den, so as to not disturb their family. But three young'uns have been spotted at one time, playing with tennis balls left behind. They push them with their noses to one another. I kid not. The next thing you know I'll be reporting their newly invented tournament. Stay tuned.

I remind myself they are wild, and must stay that way. We do not feed nor offer our guest room to them. I hope they leave soon and find a home where they can properly roam.

The other day one of the foxes stopped by my window, not even three feet away from me, and we looked at each other.

“No cookies for you,” I said. The fox cocked its head a bit and kept looking.

“Nah-ah,” I repeated. Fox lowered its tail, and a second later was gone. Had it not returned with its mate the next day, no one would have believed me.

I hope we all have a happily-ever-after picture book ending. Oh, my.

Fail Better

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.”

Samuel Beckett

A famous quotation. What in the blasted barnacles does failing better mean? This sounds profound, but is it?

Anne Lamott wrote in Bird by Bird that most of her writing students come to her classes not to learn how to write but how to get published. She doesn’t teach how to get published, and barely teaches how to write. What she does do is share her experience of struggle, perseverance, and failure. She is an engaging and successful writer, so reading about her fails is inspiring.

She perfected the better and best failing.

The stories we follow and the tales we tell are not really about failures. They are about overcoming first failed attempts. The more dramatic and the higher the stakes, the better the fail, er, I mean the ultimate success.

We really have no narrative of failure. Not the real kind. Not in literature and certainly not in the popular culture. True better failures are banned in storytelling. Even our narrative of history is the story of the victors.

Our failures are the stories of ultimate success. “If at first you don’t… try again.” We live on hope.

I know of no alternative. I intend to do better, not fail better, thank you.

CAT WISDOM

The French sociological positivist Hippolyte Taine said it perfectly:

“I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.”

I have nothing to add because adding, in this context, would amount to the idiocy of the philosophers. Thus, I’ll let the cats do some of the talking—

And—

And finally, to prove the point—

Did you pet yours today?

BRAVE BREWING WORLD

It’s a new lingo. ‘Splain it to me, Lucy~~~*

*Quoting from I Love Lucy really dates me.

Just the other day I asked a techie how the word "cookies" came to be the tracking inserted by websites, as opposed to the things we make and bake with flour and sugar and spice. Techie didn't know, but launched a long explanation that was full of yet more Computerese.

Language is a flexible thing, never set in stone. Volumes of interpretation followed even the Ten Commandments, the original of which were set in stone. It’s a moving thing. And that’s good, because so is life.

But things have been moving so fast, and faster, that the temptation to get off the bus and unplug is growing. I'm getting tired of feeling like an idiot instead of the wise old crone I imagine myself becoming someday.

Few things are more unattractive than trying to pretend to be hip and with-it when your bones are creaking and your mental screws are showing hints of rust. I prefer those who respect their age and time. But this means being left out of the conversation.

Or maybe we can have our own? Let the rapid-rollers feel left out, for once.

Ok, maybe looking back won't do it. Those days had their issues.

No solutions here, just a mini-rant followed by a sigh. Got to go and click some likes, and then link this post to a tweet.

How Old? I Mean— How-Old.net ?

In late April Microsoft unveiled a site that for no charge or sign-in will let you upload photos of anyone and have the wizard of facial analysis tell you how old said person appears to be. Not how old he is, but how old he appears.

The thing seemed harmless if vacuous. But days later reports from search engines and Microsoft indicated that all over the world, at homes and offices everywhere, nothing productive got done the day www.How-Old.net was unveiled. Seems everyone was uploading photos all day and gasping at the instant analysis of appearance and age. Microsoft also revealed that most photos were of self. Selfies, in fact. And one per person was not enough. Folks uploaded more and more until they got the result they wanted, or fell off their chairs in exhaustion.

I don’t make a secret that I am not a nubile nymph. Age is now easily found on the Internet, though I would caution this is not as authoritative as you think. Mine appears to be two distinct ages— somehow DH’s slipped onto my online ID and so there is more than one of me out there, age wise. I assure you that the (much) older one is my better half, and the real me is fifteen years lesser. But this aside is about real age, not appearance. The new app is about appearance, and in specific photos.

I had to join the rest of the human race, the vainer among us and possibly not busy enough, and try this new app out.

If there are two of me age-wise out there on search engines, there were many more when I started playing. A few of the photos yielded results that got close, but the range was amazing. Using only clear photos taken within the last two years, I am apparently anywhere from thirty-three to seventy-one years of age.

I’m as vain as the rest, so I decided to quit while ahead. That is, after the HowOld.net said I appeared to be thirty-one. Wouldn't you? Except, of course, if you are twenty-nine.

Well, it was fun, in a masochistic sort of way. Mindless, too. But it brought home how far technology has to go to tell us real things about ourselves and others. Even something as technologically possible as face recognition and a quantifiable attribute as age are not there yet.

I’m doubtful they ever will be.

Say Nay to the Naysayers

You've heard all the “can't-be-done”s to last you a lifetime. Now it’s time to push ‘em back.

When I started writing with the intention to publish, I heard that someone who did not grow up with English as a first language should not expect to do what I set out to do. I heard this from those who supposedly were on my side.

When I set out to find an agent, I heard that since I had published before with small presses, I should not expect to get an agent, as they prefer so-called “debut” authors. This, too, came from helpful voices.

I was warned by writing friends that literary agents are likely to be expensive/uncommunicative/run away with the store. No wonder I took forever to make a decision to look for one.

They were wrong, wrong, and wrong again. But I spent too much time listening to their voices while ignoring the can-do ones. After all, the positive voices came from the how-to books, and they were selling something, right? The can't-be-done voices came from well-meaning friends and colleagues, and they cared enough to tell me the truth.

Only days ago DS graduated from our best public university with a double major, completed in four years. Good he’s young and wasted no time listening to the naysayers. They would have told him that "because of budget cuts" it’s hard to get the classes you need to graduate in four years with a single major, that double majoring will leave him without a social life and in a state of depletion, and certainly no time to also work part-time to help with expenses.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. There he is, saying no to the naysayers—

--And heading to get a graduate degree in Paris, France. Oh, yes. They told him Americans are rarely accepted to such.

I’m not just another proud mama, (well, I’m that, too) but a humbled one.

 Pushing away the negative voices, whether outsiders’ or my own, is something I will work on every day.

You don’t Know What You Don’t Know

…Until You Know It

Would you like to know the future? I mean, if a genie granted you the wish to see your timeline on this earth, would you take it?

We live on hope. Hope is an even more important fuel than food. 

You never know. Anything can happen. You could win the lottery. Or sell a book to a great publisher. The book could become a bestseller. The book could change the world, the way Uncle Tom’s Cabin did. The world could become a much better place. Or you could win the lottery. I know, I said that already, but I felt like repeating it just in case a genie was listening. You never know.

You can toil and try and do, and never publish again. Or publish something that will unleash venom in some unstable person. Unstable person would purposely run you over with their car, and you could lose a limb, or more. A loved one could be in an accident, or get sick, or— I don't want to go there.

Helping a friend with metastatic cancer has brought this point home for me. A friend who never smoked and took good care of himself is wracked with lung cancer. You never know.

I know cancer survivors who told me that, while they wouldn’t wish it on anyone, they now appreciate every moment. If only they had known what they now know they would have been in this state before, and without the cancer, thank you very much.

The one thing certain is that everyone will die. To quote the guy who helped me change a tire on the freeway long ago, “Ain’t none of us getting’ out of this here thing alive.” But then he added, “While we’re here we got to help each other.”

People of faith have even more, because hope goes beyond the boundaries of this world. But the mystery about what is next, in this world or the next, is the one thing certain. 

Because you don’t know until you do. Would you want to?

Is Twitter for Twits?

I recently joined Twitter, more out of curiosity, (and a tiny soft suggestion from my agent) and immediately found it overwhelming. It was less than a smidgen of a second later, and I was already in a sheltering mode sending all notifications to my look-at-it-later folder.

It felt like an unfamiliar jungle, and I couldn't remember why I tried it in the first place. 

A few weeks have passed, and I am coming out from under the chair. Gingerly, carefully, I'm picking my head up to glance, but only in small increments.

You see, I remembered that this was my reaction to joining Facebook. I had a page, an account, and it was practically dormant for ages. I made peace with it and like seeing others’ photos there.

I had this reaction to Blogging, which seemed to me fit only for those with too much time on their hands, both on the reading and the writing ends. I committed to a regular schedule, and slowly it became something I love to do. Of all the virtual socializations I felt dragged into it is now my favorite. But it wasn't at first; it took (I should be honest here) at least a year to feel it was more a necklace than a noose.

This is not an endorsement of Twitter. I still don’t get its charms. But it is an endorsement of trying something. It’s about doing it long enough to know what its charms may be before you know how, or if, you fit in. Because, obviously, millions of Twitter users have. I know some of them personally and can vouch they are not twits.

Try it. You may or may not like it. But trying is a positive act.