The Divide.

Between good and brilliant.

I don't know what it will take to the bridge that gap. More years. More time. More words. All I know is I'm not ready to be okay with good.
I want to be brilliant.

Lucky for me, I was born with a gene called "I know it all" which enables one to think they are completely capable of brilliance provided they work hard enough and long enough.

It's served me pretty well. Until I interact with other human beings that is...

This Sent A Chill Up My Spine.

I got an email from photobucket today---- photobucket? Uhh...oh yeaaah.---- The site that has visual proof of my vaginal delivering a melon-headed child (he gets it from his father).

So, I hoofed my way over there to delete that shiz before anyone found it and sent it to Oprah ahead of the interview.
Before deleting, I browsed the album to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything important.
And this.

This stopped me.

I remembered a million threads of emotions and actions. Events. Agony.

I don't have words for them. In fact, I used 95,000 of them in an attempt at capturing the feeling for others.

He is standing in our only working bathroom in Baltimore. The floor is broken and sagging. The sink was fifty dollars from home depot so we could have running water. He is shaving his hair for work as a police officer. In case the font is too small-- it reads:

My husband's greatest enemy is not the dealer or the terrorist.

But compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the militia-- all of which are the American dream.

The Differences Between Your First Book and The Other Ones.

Random Climbing Picture for funsies. Porcupine Crack at the New (I think).

First Draft:

First Book: Is this idea any good?
Subsequent Books: Let's see where this goes.

First Book: This stuff is awesome!
Subsequent Books: It's total crap.

First Book: It's crap. I give up.
Subsequent Books: It's crap. I'll fix it in revisions.

First Book: upon completion: pfft. Run spell-check on this bad-boy and call up Oprah, I just wrote a novel!
Subsequent Books: upon completion: *puts in a proverbial drawer* *goes to think about how to fix it for at least a month*

Chapter Breaks:

First Book: End a chapter at the end of a scene. Duh.
Subsequent Books: Split the chapter in a point of tension to keep the reader turning the pages.

First Book: How long should a chapter be?
Subsequent Books: Is that even a question people ask?

Dialogue:

First Book: I have so many passive verbs in my dialogue. I need to edit it!
Subsequent Books: All rules are off in dialogue.

Passive Verbs:

First Book: What's a passive voice? *Googles* Okay. I need to edit out all my uses of was/is/be.
Subsequent Books: A passive voice is defined by the subject receiving the action of the sentence, not necessarily the verb.

Beta Readers:

First Book: Please check my grammar. I'm so worried about my grammar. And my commas.
Subsequent Books: Does this keep you reading? Hold your interest?

First Book: Oh someone wants to read my book! Yay!!! Oh happy day!
Subsequent Books: *goes to snoop over their creds to see if they'll be useful before replying*

First Book: Silence? I didn't even notice. I'm sure they love it.
Subsequent Books: Each day I don't hear, I die a little more inside with the amount of revision I'll have to do.


Query Letter Writing:

First Book: Oh, a query? No big deal.
Subsequent Books: Query Letter Hell. For realz.

First Book: All I need is a great query and I know the agent will love my book.
Subsequent Books: I need a great query, killer first pages and a book that keeps the agent reading late at night.

Overall:

First Book: Am I a good writer?
Subsequent Books: Am I a good story-teller?

On Failure:

First Book: I can't fail!
Subsequent Books: Failure is one step along the road.

Southern Comfort

Random Shit:

• My husband had one of those rare and good moments in policing. He intervened in time to save a woman from getting raped/beaten. I think those moments weigh heavily against the weight of officials.
• Another week and we're heading north for my favorite place in the middle of nowhere. If I have roots anyplace in this world, it's at my grandparents cottage.
• I just realized I've lived in the South for almost ten years. No wonder I feel like I have roots here as well. That's longer than anywhere else I've lived by a good five years.
• It's been over 100 degrees. I took the kid to find the tobacco in the field and he whined that the grass was too hot. haha. If grass is too hot for barefeet, you know it's crispy.
• I'm mulling over a new book idea. My next book. It's scaring the hell out of me, and yet it feels like one of those "I was made to write this" moments. Strange.

Listening To:

Doing:

I'll be back to editing soon. But I'm enjoying the break.

Full of Fear

In life, I am pretty good at pulling up my big girl panties and getting over myself. 

Drug dealer from New York banging on my door at three am? *deep breath* *rack shotgun behind door*
No Problem.

Seventy feet above the raging water of the Potomac River Gorge? Let's do this...

But man. Writing fills me with fear. Everything scares me about it-- from the basic fear that I'm a talentless masquerader. That the person who told me I write "white trash with uninteresting prose" is right. All the way to the idea that I simply cannot write the book/idea/story I want to write. I've had dreams recently where whole people groups are haunting me because I've not written what I intended to write. I dreamed my husband's family were angry with me. Last night I dreamed my beta reader emailed me this whole thing about how terrible and horrible and juvenile the book was.

Full of fear.

In real life, you ask me to step out of the crowd and I'm like "Hate to break it to you, but I'm already there...". Counter-culture? Pfft...I don't even know the word. I was just born on a different rhythm as the world I live in (mostly because I was born a poor person and right now I'm living in a very rich world).

But ask me to send out a query that is a step away from the mainstream agent query and I'm like "hmm, let me think about it for six months."

Never mind. I just realized there is another area of life I am always full of fear--- parenting. I woke up from my nightmare to spend fifteen minutes thinking about what the hell I was doing with my kids.

I know the solutions to both--

stay on my knees.
never give up.

fail.

 

What Next?

I sent my baby *caresses word processor file* to a beta yesterday night. So, today I woke up with a wide open schedule. Fantastic! I can catch up on everything I've neglected for the last few weeks months years. 


I cleaned the house. Got the kids dressed in something other than pajamas or a diaper. I did the dishes. Did my hair. Folded all the laundry. Had my three-year-old make his bed and clean his room. By the time Dinosaur Train came on (that's 9:30 to all ya'll without kids), I plopped on the couch with uhhh.....


nothing to do. 


Hmm. 


To the fields! To the forests! Jump in the water and sing my chorus!

Frosting Hangover

Happy First Birthday littlest one.

Hill-Billy Noir & Literary Fiction

For awhile, my book lagged. I lagged. I'd written a young adult that probably was a failed concept book. I'd written the first draft of a strange redneck interracial romance that needed gutted. I got pregnant and let the book fester for...oh...nine months. My brain is glue during pregnancy. After I had the baby, I still couldn't figure out what to do with the plot. I knew what it needed, but I hadn't hit on the right thing to make it come together. And I couldn't figure out what I wrote. Young adult wasn't really panning out-- my execution kept veering into a gritty world not typical of gritty YA. My adult book wasn't sure what it wanted to be, though it had two strong characters who knew exactly what they were.

Then, Winters Bone showed up in my Netflix. J and I watched it. And both of us understood the other better for it. I walked away with that story-telling fire re-lit in my soul.

I'd never heard of Daniel Woodrell before I'd read an article reviewing Winter's Bone, the movie. And while doing research to figure out what exactly I had written, I came across the term:

Hillbilly Noir.

I wondered about this. So I looked up the father of this genre and found my way to a copy of Winters Bone.

I've read "literary fiction". I love the idea, hate the execution.  I tried to read The Marriage Plot recently. I wanted to smack myself with a tire-iron after reading the sample pages. Just what this world needs, another book about white, upper-middle class angst. I know, your life is just so sad because you're comfortable, bored and still crazy. And nothing against the Marriage Plot, but the first twenty pages was half info-dump and half college thesis gone bad.
Not my thing.

But when I opened the pages of Winters Bone. I found my chest crushing over the words. When I hit the opening of Chapter Five, I wanted to cry and call everyone I knew about it. It was beautiful. I wanted to read it over and over just to soak in the words. But it was beautiful about things I knew. Ree is walking down the railroad tracks and breaking a path through the snow. And Woodrell captured in glorious and perfect language something I've done many times. Woodrell captured whatever burns in your chest in an ass-frozen morning on your way to work. He wrote something literary and gorgeous about a world I felt like no one in my life even knows existed anymore. I feel like a freak, sometimes.

When I was a kid, my dad's family would sit around the table after Thanksgiving and tell stories. I looked forward to it all year long. My dad and his cousins were ridiculously criminal stupid growing up and despite finding God, they retained their redneck upbringing with a strong affinity towards the culture of Western Pennsylvania. When I was little I thought my dad knew about the world. He traveled the world and had served his years in the Navy, and under the influence. He framed his disciplinary actions from the service. He bragged about getting jumped by gangs in LA. Now I know he just talks shit like a five-seven redneck from the coal mines and oil wells of Pennsylvania. He was a pastor for half my childhood. And while he gave me a lot, he also felt like God didn't mind a heavy fist, or lying to the law.

When I was eighteen, I worked the night shift at a plastic's plant he worked the day shift on. I complained to him about the men making sexual comments and the shift manager who was well-fucked and far from home. He told me tough it up. So I did.

When him and Phil (my second cousin who loves to call as Santa Clause every which month of the year), get together, it's hours of howling and hooting over running from the cops and, remember when we robbed such and such- gas station? Twice in one week!

I told you they was stupid.

And there would be recent stories. I remembered the snake ones most of all.

Phil once came across a rattler on the way to work, hacked off the head and put it in his lunchbox. When he opened it at work to show everyone, the headless rattler leapt out of the box, the thick stump striking to bite over and over again. 

If I could ever write a beautiful sentence talking about a headless attacking rattler, I'd die happy.

So when I read Winters Bone and I read about coyotes and hunting and making venison stew. When I read about cousins, and worse cousins and cousins you don't talk to no more because they in deeper shit than you want to be around, I felt like I'd met my best friend. I found someone who saw a beauty in a world I grew up in.

And all along that's what I've been writing. Or trying to write. It's why my young adult romance has a main love interest who started getting tattoos from his cousin's kitchen at thirteen. It's why, freshman year of college, after hearing Jerry Falwells "God's Mountain" story for the first time, I sat in my dorm and wrote a short story called, The Devil and Jerry Falwell. (in the vein of The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Devil and Everyone The Hell Else in Americana Literature).
No one was amused by my-- what I thought--- was an amusing take on a ridiculous story.

It's why someone read the opening chapters of Bekah's part of this book and said they didn't read white trash books.

I'm still that person inside. I stash money all over the place even though I'm not poor anymore. (I'm not rich, but I know for damn sure I'm not poor).

Hillbilly Noir.

Source: karenchibana.blogspot.com.br via Sarah on Pinterest

A Post About Climbing (that's really about writing)...

Climbing is my soul-sport.

But it only became this once I learned how to overcome the fear of leaving the ground. Once I learned to trust the rope, to trust the smear of the shoe, the attention of my belay.
I fell in love, and love is often a challenge.

I know this next part will make ya'll think I'm blowing so much smoke out my ass, I could be a five-alarm fire, but listen...

I've only top-roped.

Yeah. Top-roping. Where you are always on the rope. Where you never take that big risk, because the rope is always there to trust. It's like riding a bike with training wheels.

Until this last climbing weekend, when I took the training wheels off and about swore off climbing.

Me leading on Daisy Cutter (5.7)

Come close. I'll tell you a secret about climbing.

Leading (placing the rope as you go) is pretty much the same thing as top-roping.
But it's also completely different.

Top-rope you battle the wall most.
Lead you battle yourself more.


I'll be honest-- in West Virginia I had one onsight that I completed. I almost panicked. The fear is so much bigger. But fear of what? Essentially it's the same. I know how to fall. I've fallen before. I will always be falling. You have to fall as a climber, otherwise you never get anywhere. But it was different. I didn't even trust the things I previously trusted. Suddenly I was scared shitless about the rope. My knots. The bolts. I didn't trust my fingers in a bomber hold. I didn't trust locking my entire arm into a crack! I hung onto the wall when I was anchored to it.

The climb pictured above was even worse. I didn't finish it. I got to the final bolt and said-- nope. (I did lead two middle bolts). It was a 5.7, a grade I'm solid at.
After that climb, I went up a 5.10 on top-rope and worked through the crux, taking multiple falls, but getting it.

It's all mental.

My skills are there. I know what I'm doing. I've practiced. I'm there.
But I won't send it if I can't overcome my fear of a fall and keep moving up the wall.

And this moment in my climbing life came at the same time in my writing life.

How Proper Soul Got its Name

I started with:

Midnight Urbanites and the Sparkly City. It was the name of the blog I sometimes wrote on while living in Baltimore. I love the title, but not for this book. But the title was something I wanted to write about. My Baltimore ghosts exhumed for fiction...

I made a quick stop at Midnight Urbanites. Someone said it sounded like a cult, so I scratched it. Didn't feel right anyways.

Then I think it was Take Me Home. Mostly because I had John Denver on repeat. Take Me Home will always be the name of that draft-- the one that is only Bekah's POV, would offend Muslims and the Nation of Islamists everywhere, and the reader is totally, 100% in the dark the entire duration of the book.
Yep. Thank goodness for excellent, gracious, and kind beta readers.

For a long time, while undergoing major revisions, it was Needs A Title.

Then it became, Still Needs A Title.

Finally, I hit on what felt like a placeholder, but a good placeholder-- Black Mountain Ash. I combined the Black's (protagonists), their chunk of mountain and "ash" plays a significant role. It felt good. Very good. So good I could definitely query with it if I couldn't find anything better. A variation I hit on, with more literal punch, was Black Mountain Crank. I thought crank was much more kick-ass. Ash more subtle.

The only thing I didn't like about it, was it made me remember Cold Mountain was sitting on my bookshelf unread for the last two years. Boo.

But it was good. I figured it would get changed later on though...

Me and J were talking about climbing one day recently. We'd just gotten back from New River Gorge and Prana had posted this video on their facebook, where Chris Sharma (the best climber in the world right now) is talking about the how climbing is a combination of finding the right strength, the right line and the right mental strength to climb at higher levels.. it's very similar to a piece of climbing lore about a climb, Proper Soul

Back in the nineties, Steve Cater wrote a guidebook for the New, which said

 "undoubtedly a 5.14 line will go up here, it's just a matter of the proper soul, finding the proper line."

When Brian McCray put up the line on Endless Wall, that would become the first 5.14 in the Gorge, and an instant classic, he remembered this line and named it Proper Soul.

But the quote will always be remembered with the name. And it sums up everything climbing is and everything life is for a climber.

the proper soul, finding the proper line.

This line especially sums up  Bekah and Logan's story. And it became Proper Soul, which feels exactly right.

(I know editors may change this, but that's fine and I understand it's part of the business)

Here is Chris Sharma's onsight of the actual Proper Soul (5.14a) at The New River Gorge:



And my creative time wasting while revising:

P.S. I actually have a copy of the guidebook Steve Cater said this in-- and on the back it has a little stamp that says it's Y2K approved. Bahahahaha.

Proper Soul- Casting

Of course-- we all cast our novels, don't we? I still remember reading *blush* Stephanie Meyer's casting picks on her blog.

There is nothing that wastes time better than browsing the internets for pictures of people. And lucky for me, this particular set of people have not been easy to find...

My Main Characters:

Logan was/is very difficult. If you pay attention at all, you may notice a stunning lack diversity in our visual media. This is bad for black people (there seems to be about 20 black actors in Hollywood that everyone uses) and even worse for other minority's.

And let's not even go into culture's value of white beauty even in minorities. A few years ago I would have called "bullshit" to stuff like that, but I've changed my mind. It's real and it sucks.

So Logan doesn't really have a face  I can find. I think the closest to my head is Troy Polamalu.. (click for a picture).

Logan is of mixed descent. He's a rough guy with a rough background. He shouldn't look like a romance novel hero... (original picture for both Logan and Bekah are from a tumblr blog and is on my Pinterest).









Bekah was the easiest to find. As a white, blonde girl I had none of the Logan problems. This is Doutzen Kroes, and while she's a little too pretty and supermodel fabulous (Bekah should have a touch more Appalachian grit in her face), she's got the look I pictured for Bekah.









The Antagonists:

There isn't a true, traditional evil villain. But Bekah's Uncles are fluidly acting as a antagonist through the entire narrative.

William Jeffries takes these amazing photographs that convey a gritty, dark and yet very human tone. I recognize something I know well in these photographs and I think they capture the spirit of what these characters are. As follows....Frank (Shadow-- Junior), Theodore (Trigger) and Jeddidiah (Jed).

Source: 500px.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: 500px.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: 500px.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Because superiors are so much more stressful than criminals, especially this superior, Special Agent Jeanine Fairchild:

Actually, this lady looks way too nice-- in my head I picture a certain female Police Sgt. who is pretty much evil personified for me. I'll refrain from saying more on that subject so I don't land myself in jail or on anymore watchdog lists.

Random Characters:


Reggie:

Source: tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Diesel:

Source: piccsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

I plucked this picture off Flickr thinking of both Bekah's little sister (which is a sum of like ten words in the entire book), and of Bekah as a child. It shows the farm setting, the country in the face despite the pretty girl,  the braids, and the Mennonite floral. All important elements. 

Source: flickr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

At the same time, I found this picture (I think on the same day), that represented that great dichotomy in Bekah's existence. Also, it made me think of what Deana would have been at the same age. I think one of my favorite lines is when Bekah is out in Baltimore with Reggie and thinks:

I smiled and pretended I hadn’t seen, making a mental note to scratch the bars and stars sticker off my Nalgene. God Almighty, I did not want to argue politics and southern history here, that’s for damn sure. 

Source: flickr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

My Career Plan

Let's pretend for a moment...

Let's pretend I sell my big-girl book for a half-decent (re: not insulting?) amount of money.

Once I receive an offer of representation from an agent, I'm getting my husband to switch his overtime to comp time (all his overtime goes into days off). Then, once the book sells and comes out-- it will be time for the....

drum-roll please


BOOK AND CLIMBING TOUR AMERICA: PROPER SOUL EDITION.

(this supposes there will be further editions)

Now, I've done my research. I know big book tours are like, not really that good for authors anymore. But you know what? It's a fantastic excuse! Since it's not a "big" thing anymore, there will be no problem scheduling  my hope-one-person-shows-up book readings/signing/awkwardness for bookstores outside America's greatest climbing locales.

Source: thevintageblues.blogspot.com via Sarah on Pinterest

There will be an RV.

I think I'll bring my kid brother along to help with the kids.

I'll blog our adventures (that's the only thing I'm actually buying with the $30 dollar book advance-- a new camera).

And it will be glorious. Oh so glorious. Three weeks? A month? However long it takes to keep up a schedule of climbing/book thing/climbing/driving/book thing/climbing/driving, etc.

I can even pretend this will all work as part of a larger marketing scheme-- since PROPER SOUL introduces the reader to the rock-climber world.





Source: Uploaded by user via Sarah on Pinterest


Other random "career goals" (okay, I put the joking in to demphasize how serious I am about making writing a career)

- Get on 98 Rock without being in the Jugs for Plugs segment. My husband will not like this, but the listeners of 98 Rock (Baltimore's rock station) are my target audience for the book, and they love all things Baltimore, so this one makes sense.

- Go on Oprah. Haha. Totes kidding.

-Do a lot of climbing and have like ten people who think I'm cool because I'm pretending to be kick-ass on America's Classic Moderates (this one in North Carolina is so on my tick list)

-Do a blog tour while J drives the RV.

- Meet David Simon/Ed Burns and cry my thanks for how much money they saved me in therapy/marriage counseling by ever deciding to write/make TV.

-Work hard. Do what my agent/publisher/editor suggest. Do more research on what things *I* can do in order to commit myself to making this book a success, with the knowledge that hard work makes a lot of luck.

- Take the kids to Minnesota and Manitoba with their great-grandmother. For book stuff. *cough* cough*.

This Week

I don't have much to write, but a few scattered things I wanted to post about.

I've been really struggling with getting the opening to Proper Soul nailed. The opening chapter is solid, I feel...

The next two chapters were more difficult. This article helped a lot-- Understanding the Inciting Event.

I pinned a lot of shiz on Pinterest this week. This is what I do when I'm struggling with problems in my writing and don't know how to move forward.

Some sample of my Proper Soul pinning (yeah, I still have to write a post about that):

Source: piccsy.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Source: schoengeistig.tumblr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

See the full board.

I also watched this video-- which was a thousand times better than the actual song.

It was very hard to watch. For so many reasons, on so many different levels. I find this to be one of the most interesting things about my husband-- he is not naive to our system, does not believe in it, but believes he has a role within it.
Does that make sense?
Anyways. The video is good.




And now my kid is up. Sigh.

Music in Writing

Recently I came across a thread about including lyrics in fiction, which was in itself, just a passing topic from someone who probably wanted to include like, Adele, in their writing because it just really resonated with them.

Hint: This is why writers have soundtracks/playlists for their books.

The general consensus was that lyrics and music have no place in novel writing. The rationale was, why would you ever use someone else's words in your story (which is kind of a silly thing to say if you think about it...we are always using other people's words to tell our own stories). And that lyrics without music imparted no significant weight to the text.

The thing is. It's not really like that.

I would totally use my own book for this example, but it's not really that...published. Or well-read. So, I'll use The Hunger Games. I'm sure many people read that series thinking the made up song "The Hanging Tree" was a made up song. Well...sort of.

Do you want to know what reading The Hanging Tree did for a woman from coal country with olive skin, a long braid and a husband who convinced her to bring children into this god-forsaken world? (ehem, me) Immediately I had "Hangman" in my head.





This is a song I sing to my children. A song my son requests. A song that I love in all it's renditions (Led Zeppelin's Gallows Pole, for one). It's not a song. It's a story. It's a history. And it's even deeper than it's American roots. Including a shadow of it in the Hunger Games gave me an even deeper connection to the story and reinforced the shadow of Appalachian culture.

What this is then-- is not, do not use lyrics in novel writing. It's do not waste your words. You only get so many words to tell a story, and you have to make each one count.

New River Gorge: Spring 2012

Do you know how awesome a four-day climbing vacation without children is?

It's so awesome. In ways people without kids just don't understand. God, I didn't LIVE until I had kids. Now I know-- youth is certainly wasted on the young.

Beauty Mountain Road

Before kids: A seven hour drive through the backside of Virginia and across West Virginia was like...whatever. Let's just get it over with that we can start our vacation.

After kids: WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE WHE WHE WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.

Since it's early in the season, we camped at the Army Core of Engineers Campground at Summersville Lake. After Memorial Day this place is booked for the summer, but before Memorial Day it's first come, first served.

It was a great campground, but we were there-- awake-- like four hours total? Which is awesome. If you aren't hurting and dreaming about a soft mattress on your vacation, you've failed.

I'm not super motivated to write about the trip. So here's the summary:

• I on sighted and led for the first time- both which left me hating climbing and feeling pretty damn miserable about myself as a climber.
• Then I figured out the crux of a 5.10 (got 3/4's of the way through and over the crux before we had to leave) and felt better.
• Me and the husband had some great conversations about climbing, fear and our life.
• I discovered that fear is holding me back in my real life, my writing life, and in climbing.
• Nothing feels as good as climbing and hiking all day, followed by cold beer, hot food and a sleeping bag.
• I had a few moments during the vacation that made me feel like my book (re: formerly known as Black Mountain Ash/Crank, but has a new name I will share later) was real and my characters were out there climbing together. It was strange and wonderful.

Facing my Fear of Monsters

After finding the courage to tackle my fear of death and drive the final stake keystrokes into the heart of my very first book, I took my leftover courage and glanced across the yard at the little monster tied up by the shed, waiting for me.

I'd left him totally discouraged. He obeyed every command. He was appropriately mean, scary, snarling and drooling. When I looked over he kind of growled at me from the corner and then went back to sleep. Just like I taught him. I had what I wanted-- a monster WIP that was under control, manageable despite his size and something I totally understood.

But I pursed my lips and my new courage stirred in my chest. My monster was all sorts of wrong.

In controlling him, I'd taken away anything that was interesting. Out of my fear of letting him get to big, I'd starved him to skin and bones.

I had to let him loose. He needed to forage in the wilderness, get his monster groove back and return to stalk my yard with his temperament totally his own.
I needed him to be big and powerful. I needed to wrestle with him on the verge of my limits, using all my skill to bring him into a compromise of submission. I needed to always be fearful he would run away from me to return to his wilderness home. I needed to discipline without breaking his spirit. Oh no wait. That last part is about my three-year-old. My bad.

So today, I got the courage to walk over there and unchain him. He's rolling in the grass right now. I hope he strays from my clearly cut path. I hope he wanders into parts of the dark wood I'm afraid to go.
I hope I have the courage to follow.

Source: piccsy.com via Fer on Pinterest

I love having a blog. Where else can I write extended, crappy metaphors for my writing life? Nowhere else I tell you. NOWHERE ELSE. Because in real life, no one wants to listen to this kind of dribble. But on the internet, the "audience" is inherent.

Facing Down Death

The End.

I am afraid of the end. The true end. Where you got it "right" (finally) and you've done all you can to shoot yourself in the foot sell it.
The end is where you know you can't go back anymore.
Where the people you've created on your keyboard are alive, breathing, and people in their own right.
And now you must kill them.
By typing The End.

And you mourn the loss. You imagine writing a trilogy (because isn't that what everyone is doing these days?). You try and figure out how you can re-write the entire thing again.

But it's truly the end.

It's time to move onto the life and deaths of other people.

So you cry to your friends who will understand crying over an imaginary world, full of imaginary people. And said friends will remind you about your other projects.
You'll sniff and feel like it's okay. You'll remember how much you like these new people you're writing about. And how terribly messy their story is.

And it will ease the sting while you type it.

The End.

A Novel Album

Because an obscure, un-published writer's blog with one reader (Hi!!) is the only place to share ridiculous art projects done during "final read/edit for *if* anyone with a partial wants a full"

Re-visiting an old friend.

Source: travelthisworld.tumblr.com via Anastasia on Pinterest

Lily, the main character of the young adult novel I'm querying, has been with me since I was fifteen.
She started as an awkward, tough dirtbike rider with a crush on her best friend, and an annoying and creepy jerk admirer.
She evolved through a coming of age drama with a makeover that my fifteen-year-old self desperately wanted (because it's every girls dreams to put on the right shirt and suddenly be SMOKIN') and that annoyed me (because if the guy shows interest in you because you suddenly put on a nice shirt, he might secretly like boys...)
Then, sitting in the gas station in Edgewater, MD on my fourth wedding anniversary, she turned into a wakeboarder.
And the annoying, creepy, jerk admirer became the boy she was meant to be with. Funny how life changes your perspective between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.
She grew beyond wish-fulfilment, into her own person. From Lauren (her original name) to Lily.

I got to write about a place I love and give a nod (or two) to my husband's teenage years. Lily made it easy to keep trying-- to keep writing-- and to stay humble and learn. I wanted to tell her story. I didn't know the story when I started writing, but after ten years, I figured it out.

I'm winding down the queries. Only a few people left who either have her or will get a query...
I hope she sells. I hope the sun doesn't set on her little corner of the Chesapeake. But if it does, at least her story's been told.

Multiple times. *rolls eyes*

       

Without Rocks There Would Be No Words

Climbing and writing have been parallel journey's for me. I never set out to "be a rock climber" just as I never thought "I want to be a writer." They've just been on the edges of my entire existence.

I remember the first times my hands touched rock and pulled, just as I remember the first times my hand touched a pen and put words to paper. But it was playing. Always playing. Never a passion. Not a love. Just something I liked and always had plans to do more of someday.

Until I had my first baby. Having my son was like the earth stopped spinning and then reversed directions. Everything was the same, but then again, everything was different.

A little over a year after I had him, I went out climbing for the first time in a few years. Great Falls National Park on a steamy July afternoon. The chalk was gummy. The climb supposedly easy. My legs quivered. My hands slipped. It took me twenty minutes of hang-dogging to ascend the 5.6 on a top-rope.

And when I touched the bolts at the top, something huge shifted into place for me.

I fell in love with climbing. I committed to falling. To failing. To being a climber with no apologies for my fitness, lack of fitness, lack of technical skill, skill, time in the harness or any other component. I fell in love with what I was on the wall, what it revealed about the world around me, and the bond it built between me and my husband.

And at the same time, I realized I could do the same with writing. That it was okay to fall in love, commit and possibly fail at something.

The thing is, once I committed to the inevitable failure and accepted who I was in both climbing and writing, it became easy to learn, easy to grow and gain skill.

Oh sure, sometimes I look over my shoulder and see the gorgeous and hard-bodied ascending the 5.13d beside my 5.9 project. And it's easy to open a book and find a writer who does something so beautiful with words it crushes into my soul and erases any pride in my own work. But those are good things in their respective roles. It humbles me and inspires me to work harder, work smarter, and appreciate the road behind me.

There is still so much ahead of me. So many more words to be written. So many more climbs to be climbed.

Climb (and write) on.

A Climbing Post

I've run up on a wall in my writing. Dangling on my rope, sucking my blood and chalk covered fingers as I bitch to the belay about some stupid hold and my stupid fat-ass and why wasn't I born a better climber? A crux, if you will, on the third or fourth pitch of my epic first ascent.

Okay, bad climbing analogies aside-- I've called a time-out on my adult project to hopefully gain some more writing neuron connections. I need some time and maturity to continue pushing towards the finish.

Plus, it's that time of year, and I have a siren call:

This lovely corner and semi-roof thing going on, is calling my name so loudly, I can hear it in my basement three hundred miles away. It's the reason every time I go down the basement steps I'm swinging over to the training board to try and pinch my fingers and hang from the sloper. It's what I see when I close my eyes at night and think about West Virginia.

Four Sheets to the Wind (5.9)

Fun. So much fun. Except, I haven't finished it. There's this move here-- right here:

 I have to stub my toe into a tiny indentation in the rock, dig my torn fingernails into a sloping swell, and transfer all my weight into the traverse out of the crack, up to the roof.

The roof will be the hard part, but I couldn't get past this technical move last time.

Of course, I was twenty pounds heavier than I am now and I was only four months post-partum. At the time four months post-partum felt like a decade and clearly I was in fighting form. Until I look at photos and see what looks like a five month pregnant belly and stains on my shirt from leaking breastmilk. So no, in retrospect, four months to climbing awesomness worked out for me about as well as starting running a week after delivering (which didn't work out for me at all). Live and learn!

It haunts me. In a delicious, exciting, fun way.

*goes to hang on the sloper*

Everytime I want to eat, I go watch climbing videos on youtube. When I want to drink, I read the guidebook. I'm in training mothereffers.

Okay, let me reign the weirdness back in.

Basically, I am sitting in my basement, smelling the pine-sol scent of freshly mopped floors, with a toddler who is recently potty trained during my writing down-time and I'm dreaming of sending my projects.

All of them.

That Season

Sand in my car. Sand in my bathroom. Sand in my shoes. Sand in my shorts.

Grubby hands with cheeze-its. Grubby hands with cold grapes. Sand on the sippie cups.

Sunscreen, water and a twist of tobacco.

Sweat. Pressing fingers into flesh to check for sunburn.

The eternal walk (from parking lot to water).

The walk back.

An Update

I need to at least get in the practice of letting the world know I'm up to my ears in living and writing and this does not include blogging.

Some personal things:

1. Climbing trip for May, without children, has been scheduled.
2. The weather has been spectacular for being outside.

Writing things:

1. I'm 70% done with Black Mountain Ash. Crank. Whatever.
2. It's looking like it will end at 90-100k words. I'm thinking closer to 100k.
3. I finally found my "genre"

Okay, about genre. Plot element wise, I definitely wrote a suspense with strong romantic element. I finally buckled down and read within this genre (yeah, I know, I hadn't ever read in this genre). And I soooo did not execute this book according to genre.

No "happy" ending. Satisfying, yes.

And I kept saying "gritty" and people kept assuring me this genre has gritty-- but I don't mean violent. I mean real life depressing gritty. Gritty like the Wire is gritty. Gritty like Fight Club gritty.
Not like Hannibal Lector gritty. My reading has confirmed gritty.

I have the f-word on every page. After I edited the useless uses out. (It's not on every page, but it's there about the same number of pages)

And I've always written more literary plots, but definitely not literary execution.

So, after several waves of panic and endless searching on goodreads and amazon. I got a great idea:

1. Go to Amazon, look up "The Corner" (not fiction)
2. Look under the heading for "what other people buy who have looked at this" and scroll through until you find a novel.
3. That led me here:

I've written a suspense with a strong romantic element executed in a style and tone similar to CLOCKERS by Richard Price.

I get chills just thinking about this. I'm both afraid and excited at how much this book is coming together. It went from something I thought I'd never be able to write, a story that seemed too big, too ambitious-- and now I have 78,000 words that all mean something in Logan and Bekah's story. I know this elation will dive right back into the depths of angst in a few days (that's how the roller coaster seems to go), but for now I am grateful for every word and for every moment where I prayed for God to somehow give me the words to write the story I needed to write.

I have the first paragraph of the query nailed. The rest still needs massaged, but the bones are there.

Logan Crepeau hasn’t been on the corner since he left his reserve for the Army fourteen years ago.  Now home from the desert, the eight hours in a police uniform aren’t enough to fill the rest of his twenty-four and the inevitable re-up in the corner war. All he needs is Frank Black, the old cop flooding meth into Baltimore, in a set of substantial bracelets and he might still have a chance at staying out the game. But he’s been undercover for ten months with no end in sight, and the investigation isn’t the only thing a hit away from going hard up.

When he meets fellow rock climber, Rebekah Schultz on a weekend climbing trip out in the boonies, he sees a chance to come home from war. He thinks he’s marrying a wayward Mennonite whose greatest rebellion was the weekend with him. He knows he’s marrying a woman who’s more mountain than Mennonite. But he doesn’t have any idea how deep that mountain blood runs.

 With the city burning itself at the end of a pipe, his target showing up for his beat like he isn’t the biggest drug lord to hit Baltimore since Little Melvin, and his handler shooting hoppers in a desperate bid to save her career, bringing a wife into the mix was the last thing Logan should have done. Let alone a woman tied to his investigation by blood. And when his target takes a left turn into terrorism, trusting his traitorous, lying wife might be the only way to stop the bus packed with fertilizer heading into DC.

I still have a few things that need worked out:

1. Still unsure if I should switch to a 3rd POV. I think it could either way. The genre is all third person, but I'm already breaking the genre mold in execution, so I don't know if first goes along with that. For me, this isn't a huge deal right now because even if I change it to third, it will be a close, limited third. The story is with the people and it's deep in their heads.

2. Not sure I should go balls to the wall. I've kept things more mainstream and accessible-- my plot lends itself to this, but also, I want people to be able to read it.  So yeah, I've made decisions towards that end-- like keeping the f-word limited to good literary uses. I haven't used the n-word at all. I've written it as real as possible while bringing it out of straight reality. (a portrait of conversation, not actual conversation--- amazing advice I received).

But it will get worked out in due time.

Okay, I'll be absent again on here for awhile. Trying to get this finished and out to beta readers soon. But, I'll be back, I promise! Especially when I start querying.

A parting musical gift from my Pinterest Board for this book:

Source: youtube.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Ways to Break Writer's Revision Block

The first draft is over. Your story is plotted, it's a pile of haphazard execution, and now the real work must begin.

Revision.

Finding the perfect word. Fixing the dialogue. Bringing out the layers of conflict. Highlighting the tension. Driving the story.
And then comes the inevitable exhaustion. When you aren't swept away in the romantic throes of a first draft, it's hard to stay looking at the computer screen and stay inspired.

Here are some ideas for breaking that type of writer's block:

1. Get outside.
2. Go somewhere and people watch.
3. Find a few new movies to watch. (sometimes it's helpful to watch something that has a similar element to your story, or even not. I watched Last of the Mohicans a couple weeks ago and it made me so annoyed, I wrote on fumes alone for a week).
4. Find media with the same "voice". Example: I'm writing from a male perspective. A male, veteran, cop in Baltimore perspective. And yeah, I could just keep asking my husband "what would you say if----" but it's easier to watch an episode of the the Wire and get a feel for it than it is to try and copy someones specific responses. I did this the other day with Coal Miners on Netflix-- it was on accident, my husband was watching it and wanted me to take a break. Coal Miners has got nothing to do with what I'm writing, except it's the same voice as part of my story.
5. Troll You Tube and Pandora. Sometimes the right song can help you find the right tone. Which of course drives word choice, which ultimately drives the conflict (re: story).
6. Read a book you love. Do not read something similar to what you are writing. Do not read something difficult or too easy. Pick a very old favorite, maybe even a children's book, something you can finish quickly that puts your brain back into "reader" mode and out of "revision" mode. You still want your brain to be revising, but you can never let go of being a reader when revising.
7. Troll Pinterest for the board for your book. Don't know what I'm talking about? Read this: Pinterest for Writers. Then check out my board for my WIP, Black Mountain Crank.
8. Doodle.
9. Move your writing location. Sitting in a quiet room in front of your computer screen might be great when you are on a roll (less distractions), but when you are struggling, the pressure can mount. Move to a different location-- coffee shop, library, even in front of the TV (if you can right like that). And vice versa.
10. Find something that triggers how excited you were during your first draft: skip around the story, read it on a mobile device where you can't revise, write a new chapter for fun, without the intention of putting it in the story.

Things Not To Do:

1. Writer websites and forums. Unless you have a specific problem you are trying to figure out, I find this to be really unhelpful for some reason.
2. Read or watch stories close to your own.

Remember: The goal is to decrease the writing pressure, while increasing your excitement with your own story. So find what works for you!

Butt in Chair

I've learned a lot in the last three years of trying to write seriously.

Most of them include the importance of ass in chair (and limited Internet surfing).

I wrestled with content the last two or three weeks thinking that when I finished, it would be like rolling downhill into the next parts.

But no. I ended up taking a true day off because I would open Word and just kind of stare at it and re-read the same sentence fifty times. I thought maybe a day would recharge me, so to speak. But nope. The next day, I opened word and it took three hours to get through a paragraph.
Talk about drudgery.

Now, three years ago, I would have been like hhmm, I guess it's not working for me right now. Let's go watch TV and go running. I'll take a break until I feel like writing again. After all, I'd reason to myself, if I try writing like this it's going to be crap.

But now I know better. Now I know that 90% of getting anything finished is putting the time in the chair, sloughing through. I know that my skill as a writer does not go out the window just because I don't feel like it.

I've learned to treat it like a job. I put in my time, I do my best, and I don't think about it at home.

Source: flickr.com via Sarah on Pinterest

Story-Teller or Writer?

I never realized there was a difference.

But there are writers-- people who are good at crafting a sentence, using the right words, a strong and distinct voice.

And there are storytellers- someone who can communicate a story, no matter how old/tried/true/annoying and make tons of people fall in love with the story, despite the adverbs, passive writing and shitty sentences.

Don't be fooled into thinking you don't need both. Especially those of you who love the idea of being a "literary novelist"

I'm not the best story-teller. I've read a lot, so I have a natural sense for where a story should go, but I struggle to put together a plot.

But I can sometimes write a great sentence!

Sometimes.

I wrote a good sentence about this. I'm proud of it.

I've been tricked!

I'm a write what you know kind of person, and I've been tricked into thinking I know about stuff.

Knowledge is not understanding.

I just finished sludging through a few chapters on which I spent a week (or more) struggling to understand. I knew what it needed, but didn't know how to show/tell that.

After several days, I think I've finally hit on the right action/right words. I'm sure it will be edited some more as I do more read throughs and fine tune it, but the majority is on the right direction, and the writing is clean.

So in celebration, media!  I'm finally moving off the farm and onto New River Gorge... (inwriting)

A Day At The Keyboard



First Cup



Struggling

Visual Thinking

Naptime

By the end of the day

Cleaned up for the night