Tag: novel

• 2024 in Review: Publications

  Here we are, back again at the close of another year. Another revolution around the sun. Another strange period to be a human in society. Another whirlwind of hours that felt like weeks and weeks that felt like seconds.

  This year, my publishing journey has been both slow and fast, more of the same and very unexpected.

  No luck on novel-length work yet, though I did receive several highly complimentary rejections (“fan letters”) from fantastic indie presses I really admire. This was simultaneously amazing and soul crushing. Drama within indie and trad publishing continues to daunt. And, of course, the state of the arts in a post-capitalist content-consumer society is bleak, as always, with the added horrors of generative AI. I can only imagine what Our Lady Ursula K. LeGuin would have to say if she was still with us.

  I did have luck with short (and less short) fiction! Several stories I was struggling to place last year were accepted, and late in the year, I got an acceptance on my first novelette, Unbound, which is my longest publication to date. (Check out this blog post to learn more about Unbound, what a novelette is, what it’s about, etc.) This feels like an important milestone, and (fingers’ crossed) a harbinger of longer work to come. My laptop knows there’s more where that came from.

  The unexpected: I started submitting poetry for the first time, which opened a whole new world of journal titles, submission requirements, and possibilities. I burned myself out on submitting, actually, and moving into poetry probably contributed to that. I did have to take some breaks, and I slowed down a lot after the middle of the year.

  BUT, I have *seven* sparkly published poems to show for it! No one is more shocked by my foray into poetry than me, but I’m really loving it.

  And, honestly, I’m shocked at how much work I managed to write, submit, and place, given how little time I felt like I devoted to writing. A good reminder, maybe, that our perceptions of productivity, time, value, etc., are not to be trusted–or at least, being tainted by capitalism and shame, are highly suspect.

  Here is a list of the work I published in 2024. I may update this list if/as things drop and I can link to them. I update the Publications page of this website regularly, but a tidy blog with all of the links for this year in one place is nice.

  Poetry

  • Shadow-Self Medicine, BRAWL
  • What You Hear When You Open the Death Trap of My Mind, BRAWL
  • Before You Burn Me at the Stake, Epistemic Literary
  • Spring Cleaning, The Shallot, Issue 3, Volume 2
  • Cicada Life, The Shallot, Issue 3, Volume 2
  • The Body of God, Thimble Literary Magazine
  • Step 1: Sand, Clay, Fire, ONE ART

  Novelette

  Unbound, Last Syllable, Issue III

  

  

  

  

  

  Short Fiction

  The Sky Here is Different, Exposed Bone, *COMING SOON*

  After She Makes a Pact with the Dark Goddess, All Existing, *COMING SOON*

  Grotesque, Tales of Sley House 2024

  

  

  

  

  

  These Small Apocalypses, Overtly Lit, Issue 4

  

  

  

  

  How Now, Ophelia? A Coup of Owls

  

  

  

  

  

  Baba Yaga Goes North, Crow & Cross Keys

  

  

  December 28, 2024

  2024, creative writing, fantasy, fiction, Happy New Year, New Year, novel, novelette, poetry, publication, publication announcement, publishing, Retrospective, speculative fiction, writing

  ---

• 2023 Artist Updates

  Well, this year has not gone to plan. I don’t have nearly such a long and glorious list of publications as I did at this time last year. Part of me feels I owe some accounting for my “low” output or publication stats, though I am fairly confident no one reading this would demand such a thing.

  This year has been unexpected in some not-so-great ways. There have been long stretches of time where I haven’t been able to write.

  I’ve been dealing with chronic health/pain issues, and with the poor health of a beloved pet. I had my first bout with Autistic burnout this year, too, partly due to emotional stress; 0/10, do not recommend. Thankfully, we are both doing fairly well here at the end of December 2023, but a lot of time, energy, and mental space was diverted to get us through. 

  I placed two pieces this year: The Ring of Contradictions in Electric Spec, and Baba Yaga Goes North in Crow & Cross Keys! I’m very proud of both of these publications.

  I finished and have two longer stories on sub—which seem to be tricky to place. (If you know of anyone who would be interested in a reflective gargoyle-come-to-life meets chronic-pain meets neurodivergence in an opera house piece, or a retelling of Hamlet with Ophelia as the main character, do reach out…) [UPDATE: These have both been placed! Never give up, just keep submitting compulsively and every day until you find someone who likes your stuff.]

  I submitted my finished book, Blood Moon Rising (queer, feminist, cozy, menstrual magic, Handmaid’s–Tale-esque world, Jane–Eyre-style prose), to a few small presses. No progress was made there.

  I’ve been working on some new novel-length stories. One (an urban fantasy story about a fae garage rock band) turned into a novel without me realizing it and needs quite a bit of TLC to tidy up. Another (a dark, Icelandic-fairy-tale-inspired gender-swapped Rapunzel retelling) popped back to life after two years of inactivity. I’ve also had some breakthroughs with the plot of the Blood Moon Rising sequel (it’s a planned duology, still in development), as well as a cool new idea (modern-day/futuristic sci-fi involving AI, religion, and fanaticism) that might be sprouting roots. That last idea came to me in the shower, so it’s probably a good one.

  Perhaps most surprising to me is the chapbook of poems I wrote. These were born out of the rage of religious deconstruction and the late-in-life discovery of self that I’ve been processing for the last five-ish years. I have no idea if the poems are for anyone but me, but I love them and am viciously proud of them.

  I have project goals for all of my WIPs, loose ones that I hope will be motivating without being punishing. My overall goal for 2024 is to focus more on the work of writing and the psycho-spiritual delving that work requires, to focus less on the fact that I don’t know if any of these books will ever see publication. Tricky. It’s also difficult to do while working full-time to support myself, and being an Autistic, chronically ill person.

  All of this sounds heavy, because it is. Full of unexpected difficulty (and corresponding unexpected growth), 2023 has been a heavy year. I am not the only person for whom that rings true. Bad things happen. But sometimes good things happen. That is my assigned mantra for the new year.

  So, here’s to 2024. To good things, to wins, to rest, to laughter, to making art, to ever-deepening authenticity, and to the friends, allies, and family to be made. May 2024 be the Year of Unexpected Good Things.

  December 31, 2023

  2023, 2024, art, artist, creation, creative process, creative writing, fiction, New Year, novel, writer, writing, writing life

  ---

• Three Books for 2023

  Happy almost-2024! As we get ready to begin a new year, I love reflecting on the old, specifically through stories I’ve encountered during (being built of stories as I am). Here are three books I read in 2023 I recommend–whatever year you read them.

  I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman

  

  Originally written in French, this is a 1995 science-fiction novella by Belgian writer Jacqueline Harpman. Thirty-nine women and a girl are being held in a cage. They don’t know why. They don’t remember how they got there. They don’t know where they are. To tell you anything more about the plot would be a spoiler.

  At its heart, I Who Have Never Known Men has a stunning, relentless commitment to exploring how humans deal with the disorienting fact of sentience, crucial existential questions, and autonomy–or lack thereof.

  I picked up this book at about 10pm, started reading, and didn’t put it down until I finished. I stared at the wall, with only the heaviness of 2am silence for company. I think about it often. It might be the most perfect book I’ve read. It also destroyed me. If you’re struggling with dark thoughts or depression, maybe wait a bit on this one. It’s VERY potent writing. Then again, I Who Have Never Known Men does offer a kind of companionship; Harpman clearly was not afraid to look deeply into the darkness of life and understand it. I am surprised I have only just now encountered this book. It should be on far more reading lists!

  Gideon the Ninth, Tamsyn Muir

  

  This is a 2019 maximalist epic science fantasy novel, the first in a series. If the tagline “lesbian necromancers in space” doesn’t hook you immediately, take another look at that cover art. A woman in black with a bright red pixie swings a sword with a confident smirk on her face, which is painted black and white like a skeleton. She is wearing aviator sunglasses.

  This is Gideon, a delightful, sarcastic, irreverent himbo lesbian, the perfect vehicle to explore an interplanetary world full of necromancer magic and ten thousand years of history. She is volun-told by her nemesis, the necromantic heir of the Ninth House, to act as her swordswoman and answer the Emperor’s invitation to partake in a trial to become his immortal servants, along with heads of all the other houses. The future of the dying Ninth house depends on winning. Problem is, nobody knows exactly what the trial is or what being immortal requires.

  Muir puts a lot of faith in her readers to keep up and to be sharp in catching important details. There is also a degree of ick-factor, since we are dealing with necromancy, but it didn’t bother me and I’m fairly sensitive to that sort of thing.

  This book feels like an instant classic, inherently re-readable because of the joy of Gideon’s personality and the complexity of the puzzle box plot.

  Boy Parts, Eliza Clark

  

  Boy Parts is a contemporary novel, published in the summer of 2020 (unfortunate timing) and seems to be increasing in popularity since then. Eliza Clark was named one of the 2023 Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists for the book.

  The story of Boy Parts is carried by a truly unlikeable narrator, Irina, a washed-up, avant garde artist. She takes fetishistic photos of average-looking men she recruits off the street, intentionally crossing lines during photoshoots. When Irina receives an invitation to show at an exhibition, a race starts: against the deadline, against the pressure, and against Irina’s own destructive patterns.

  Clark paints a fascinating picture of Irina, somehow revealing Irina’s own blind spots, in spite of the first-person point of view. (For writers: this book really is a masterclass in point of view!) You don’t read Boy Parts to root for Irina; you read it because you can’t stop watching her. She has intense narcissistic, sado-masochistic, self-sabotaging traits. She’s also wickedly funny.

  Boy Parts is a trip deep into taboo territory. It builds to a fever pitch (and a reveal) I didn’t see coming. Fully recommend, though maybe not for the easily offended. Themes include gender roles/expectations and some (warranted) sniping at the pomposity of the art world.

  —

  What great books did you read in 2023? Any of these? I’d love to hear your thoughts and/or recs in the comments!

  December 23, 2023

  2023, book, book list, book recommendations, book review, books, fantasy, fiction, New Year, novel, reading, reading list

  ---

• The Fate of Dystopian & Post-Apocalyptic Fiction

  I love dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. Sure, they might be based on pretty awful events (nuclear war, absolute dictatorships, inhuman scientific advancements, etc.) played out to an extreme, but for me, that’s where the interest lies. We’re 99.999% sure we’ll never have to try to survive a zombie apocalypse, so it’s fascinating as hell to watch other humans try.

  Dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction is a kind of nihilist, negative escapism in which the reader gets to imagine how the world works at its worst.

  But where do these genres stand when the external world starts to look more dystopian and post-apocalyptic than the stories themselves?

  This question has been whirring around in my head since early March, when COVID-19 hit my country. Schools shut down. People lost their jobs. Isolation became the new “normal.” The internet (which we already relied on heavily) became many people’s source of income, socialization, and entertainment–their world.

  I love reading dystopian and post-apocalyptic stories. I don’t love living in them. None of us do. So it’s not a huge leap to imagine that we’d turn away from these genres.

  However, I firmly believe that a real-life apocalypse, a real-life dystopia, will have no negative effect on the need readers have for this literature. If anything, their need will become greater.

  Here’s why.

  1. Catharsis

  Trying to survive day to day, to find work, to stretch a dollar, homeschool, or cook with the five-odd ingredients left in the pantry… We don’t have time to truly process the collective trauma we’re experiencing. But the themes of loss that show up over and over in dystopia and post-apocalyptica allow us to access our grief, and give us space to process our own emotions.

  2. Hope

  I’d argue that, despite the dark clothes these stories wear, that they’re actually some of the most hopeful stories in genre fiction. The entire premise of them is that there IS life after apocalypse, and that life CAN flourish in a world where everything seems wrong. In the worst circumstances imaginable, characters fight to survive, to protect those they love, and they succeed. Modern society ends–but human life goes on. As we contemplate the apparent fragility of the lifestyles and structures we took for granted and mourn an old way of living, these stories can give us hope for a future.

  3. History

  As a writer of post-apocalyptic fiction, I admit, I might be a little biased. But I’m not making this up. History’s got my back. The world that lived through the real-life apocalypse and dystopia of World War II wrote about it and read about it. In fact, we’re still writing and reading about it, and that time period makes up a massive portion of the historical fiction genre.

  4. Meaning-making

  Writing and reading–creating and participating in art–are attempts at understanding the human experience. So now, as we attempt to understand this new apocalyptic, dystopian reality, these genres are going to be more crucial than ever.

  If you aren’t ready for them in this exact moment, that’s fine. They and their creators will be there, waiting, when you are.

  May 2, 2020

  Apocalypse, catharsis, covid-19, creative writing, dystopia, dystopian fiction, genre, novel, post-apocalytpic fiction, story

  ---

• Pitching a Novel in a Tweet? What is this, the technological dystopian future?

  On January 30, 2020, I participated in my very first Twitter pitching event. And girl, do I have some THOUGHTS.

  But first, maybe some definition of terms. I know not all of the people who read this blog are writers, and y’all might be thinking, what the heck is pitching?

  When writers write a story, and want to turn that story into an actual, physical book via traditional publishing, they first have to convince someone it’s worth taking a risk on to edit, print, market, and distribute. This is sometimes done by a thing called “pitching.”

  No sports involved, thank goodness. But the reality is much darker, and maybe even more difficult.

  A pitch is a super-condensed version of a manuscript. Here’s an example Tomi Adeyemi gave on her own blog about pitching:

  My book is a 77,000-word Middle Grade novel titled THE LION KING.

  Simba is a rambunctious lion cub living in the animal kingdom of Tanzania. As heir to the throne, Simba can’t wait to surpass his father and become king. But when Scar, Simba’s evil uncle, uses Simba to lure the king into a death trap, Simba is overcome with guilt. Unable to deal with his role in the death of his father, Simba runs away and abandons his kingdom when they need him the most.

  While Simba is away, Scar seizes the throne and drives the animal kingdom into the ground. When Simba finds out, he has to make a choice: continue his life in exile or overcome his guilt and battle Scar for control of the crown.

  A writer will pitch their manuscript concept to an industry professional, usually a literary agent who is looking for new work to represent to publishers.

  Pitching can happen in person, generally at a conference in a scheduled meeting. Pitch meetings at conferences are usually 5-10 minutes. Writers have to be able to articulate their novel-length stories in a way that entices the agent enough that they make a request: an ask for a certain number of pages from the manuscript. That’s the end game of the pitch. Not publication or even representation, but an agent’s attention and interest.

  Pitching can also happen via the internet. Specifically, Twitter.

  #SFFpit is a science-fiction-and-fantasy-focused Twitter pitching event. It runs two times a year. You have to pitch your book with the proper hashtags all in 280 characters. It USED to be the old 140 characters, and I am SO GLAD I didn’t try this back then.

  In #SFFpit, you get 10 pitches over 10 hours. No more than one tweet for a single pitch. No more than one tweet per hour. The goal is to get a “like” from an agent or editor. This is a request for pages, according to each professional’s individual requirements, which are usually posted on their own Twitter accounts.

  You can read more details about the rules and how things work on Dan Koboldt’s website; he started and maintains #SFFpit.

  I wrote my pitches in advance, testing character counts and getting feedback from other Twitter users (yay! making friends!), and I used an app called Buffer to schedule my tweets, so I wouldn’t have to get on Twitter to tweet every hour.

  But, of course, I ended up on Twitter all day anyway.

  There’s lots to do on Twitter on a pitch day! Tweeting, asking for retweets, and retweeting others to boost algorithms…and wildly checking notifications every five minutes.

  Some general takeaways.

  • Ten hours is too long to spend glued to the Twitter notification icon.
  • So many cool books! So many cool writers!
  • I wish I understood more about how Twitter works, or how to interpret analytics, or how to boost my own tweets.
  • This was EXHAUSTING.
  • My tweets did the best at 7am, 12pm, and 3pm.
  • Agent likes were few and far between.

  But…

  I did get an agent like! And even better, they work at an agency I had previously researched, and they seem like a really great fit for me and my work. So the day was worth it. Mission accomplished.

  Of course, an agent like is no guarantee of representation or publication. But it’s encouraging, and a step in the right direction. Because it seemed like a good fit, my manuscript is on submission to the agent as we speak. I will be sure to update here if there is movement on that front.

  There’s a bigger pitching event on the horizon! #PitMad is March 5, 2020. I’m planning on pitching then, and cold-querying agents after that.

  Anybody else out there do Twitter pitching events? Thoughts? Advice? Hit me up with a follow, and we can support each other through this crazy search for representation.

  ♥

  February 1, 2020

  #PitMad, #SFFpit, creative writing, fiction, manuscript, novel, novel pitching, pitching, submission, Twitter

  ---

• What I Learned from My First NaNoWriMo

  November is gone. I have to take a moment, to lift my head from the laptop, to let my eyes adjust to the sunlight, to start breathing again.

  50,011 words.

  National Novel Writing Month is over. I did it.

  None of it feels real.

  I wonder if this has to do with John Gardner’s idea of the fictional dream: a writer’s job is to create a dream on the page. It’s a good dream if the reader becomes lost in it, and there’s nothing (inconsistencies in character, typos, bizarre actions/decisions, etc.) to wake them up from the dream.

  The writer first has to put themselves into the dream and experience it. That’s the first draft. That’s NaNoWriMo.

  The sense of continuity when writing chronologically, 1500+ words a day, for 30 days straight, is amazing. I know my draft has issues. I did do things in between writing sessions (sleeping, for one). Even so, it’s far easier to maintain the “dream” and to keep advancing the story with that external motivating factor, and entering hip deep into the prose every day.

  As much as this once pantser is chagrinned to admit it, the thing that allowed me to keep my head in the dream was my outline. Outlines are ridiculously helpful. Don’t do NaNo without one. I’m not sure it’s possible to do NaNo without one, at least, not for me. I hit places in the outline that were less detailed and that I had to fill in as I went, but in general, I always knew what I was supposed to write next. This saved me hours of time second guessing myself, my plot, my characters, my scenes, or staring at the screen trying to manifest situations I hadn’t conceived of.

  Finishing NaNo–waking up–is wildly disorienting. When the external motivation of November was gone, I felt a palpable twang of release. The dream was broken. On December 1, for the first time in 30 days, I didn’t write at least 1,667 words. I didn’t spend any time in the world of my novel. Reality broke in, and with it, some raw observations.

  There were difficult days and minutes and hours, but I overcame all of them.

  I am capable of far more than I thought.

  These 50,011 words are not very good. They are mostly ragged sentences and paragraphs, full of inconsistencies of tone, character, and missing description and depth.

  I wish I had spent a little more time being aware of the quality and grace of the words as I wrote them, instead of only prioritizing the number of words.

  There is much more to be written. Everything I wrote can be expanded upon, and I haven’t reached the ending yet.

  There is no reason I couldn’t hold myself to a similar daily word count goal in other months of the year. Maybe every month.

  Turns out that shitty first draft is totally possible.

  This has been an overwhelmingly positive experience, one I highly recommend, but only if you’re willing to put in the prep ahead of time.

  NaNoWriMo also hosts a more open-ended version of the November writing month in April and June, called Camp NaNoWriMo. I may very well take advantage of both of those events to pressure myself into getting new words out. Because, as I was focusing on this new project, I got ideas for three more books . . .

  December 8, 2019

  creative writing, fiction, inspiration, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, novel, novel writing, writing

  ---

• The Feminine Creative Process

  Novel outlining methods look so great on paper. Everything is in neat steps. You basically have an organized checklist for writing 50k+ words. But none of them work for me.

  A large part of being an artist is understanding your own creative process. If you can learn to work with yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, patterns of burnout and inspiration, your schedule, and work with persistence, there’s a pretty good chance of improvement.

  I feel like I have a pretty good handle on my day-to-day creative process. I know the kinds of environments I can do certain kinds of work in, how to get myself at the desk, and so forth.

  My long-term creative process has been mysterious–partly because I’ve been mostly in the thick of it for the last couple of years. Can’t see the forest for the trees. That kind of thing. But I’m approaching the finish line (read: my self-imposed deadline because I need to be done with this book) of a long, long cycle of novel writing and revision. I’m getting to the edge of the forest, and I’m gaining perspective on my long-term writing process.

  I’m a pantser. That’s writer-speak for: I prefer to write new stuff without planning ahead and discover what’s happening as I go. The opposite would be a plotter, someone who writes outlines, knows how many chapters they’re going to have, and so forth.

  George R. R. Martin (A Game of Thrones) has more poetic terminology:

  The architects do blueprints before they drive the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But the gardeners just dig a hole and plant the seed and see what comes up. I think all writers are partly architects and partly gardeners, but they tend to one side or another, and I am definitely more of a gardener.

  Being a pantser/gardener is exciting. It keeps me interested in the project. The problem is that it seems to drastically increase the amount of time I spend drafting. I’m not sure when something is “done” because I have no idea what my goal for any particular scene/chapter/plot line is. I’m the fairy tale character who left the path and is wandering around in the woods, hoping to find the magic whatever to do the thing.

  At various points during the writing of this particular book, I got sick of being lost in the woods. I attempted to plot. But very quickly, frustration with being lost turned into frustration with plotting. I never stuck with it very long.

  So, slowly but surely, I made my way to the story that’s now in the hands of beta readers (god help me).

  I have multiple writer friends who seem to be able to make this linear process work for them, who outline whole books before writing them, who ask confounding questions like, “How many drafts have you written?”

  In her book The Heroine’s Journey, Maureen Murdock (quoting Sheila Moon and her book Changing Woman and Her Sisters: Feminine Aspects of Selves and Deities) talks about the creative process as having both masculine and feminine sides. (I don’t think these terms are any more gendered than yin and yang, but I’ll let you be the judge of that.) The masculine side of the creative process involves a linear progression from start to finish. Here are the plotters, the “architects” as George R. R. Martin calls them. Decision-making, forward motion, clear progress.

  The feminine creative process moves not in a straight line, but in a spiral. Intuitive. Ever closer to the center, circling, narrowing, nearer and nearer to completion.

  

  The process of my maybe-almost-finished book has a strong spiral shape. It has involved times of great productivity and breakthroughs, and times of waiting, or confusion, backtracking, and starting over. It can be maddening to wait and trust a process that seems circular, without realizing it really is spiral-shaped, and constantly angling closer to the center.

  It would be nice if I could write a book from start to finish in straight-forward, sequenced steps. Instead, it’s a murky struggle for understanding. Somehow, though, that feels right. The novel is a long form that tends to be concerned with the way people live their lives, or a portion of their lives. And living, in my mind, involves a lot of murky struggling for understanding. So maybe it’s fitting that my process imitates the very thing the form is trying to capture.

  

  What patterns do you find in your own artistic process? Do you identify more with the feminine or masculine? What process do you wish worked?

  As always, love and luck and persistence to you.

  ♥

  October 5, 2019

  creative process, feminine creative process, george r. r. martin, maureen murdock, novel, novel writing, spiral, writing process

  ---

• Writing Contest News…

  Got a little good news RE: the novel I’ve been working on. If that’s interesting to you, awesome, and if not, no harm no foul. Ignore, click away, and good juju to you.

  Back in May, I entered my post-apocalyptic novel in the Colorado Gold Writing Contest. It’s a novel-writing contest for unpublished writers that includes the first 4k words and a synopsis (one of the single hardest writing things I’ve ever written holy god). It’s associated with the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Conference in Denver, which I attended in 2018, not knowing about this contest.

  Found out about it, prepped the pages, wrote the synopsis (that fucking synopsis), submitted. Got a call in August that I was in the top five, which meant that a professional agent/editor was going to read and judge my work and four other writers’.

  Attended (great experience, highly recommend), and on Saturday night was awarded…..

  2nd Place!

  I’m super happy with the result, especially since I’d never written a synopsis before (I DON’T recommend writing a synopsis. It’s awful.).

  Only good things came by entering (joining a writers’ group, encouraging comments, a contest judge offering to beta read, a pitch session that went well), and have a TON of fuel and encouragement that I’m going to try to use to finish a draft of this damn thing and get it off to some beta readers, and then, hopefully, off to agents.

  I don’t so much intend to get you all to party with me (though that’s of course welcome) as to remind you that good things come with hard work and persistence. Especially in something as fickle as fiction. The only way you lose FOR SURE is if you give up.

  Cheesy?

  Yeah.

  Book published?

  Nah.

  Ton of work to do yet?

  Definitely.

  But another milestone in the process. So bring it on.

  And in your endeavors, good juju to you.

  ♥

  September 14, 2019

  Colorado Gold Writing Contest, creative writing, novel, RMFW, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, writing

  ---

• Stop Writing, Please

  I’ve been largely absent here for 2019. Sorry about that. I’ve been putting my writing energy and time into my novel.

  The concept for it has been rattling around in my head since 2014. I only just found an ending in November 2018, and, in May 2019, finished a first, full draft of the whole story.

  This is a crucial milestone moment! This is the first time since I scribbled down the pages that would become the seed that would grow into the book that the project feels finish-able.

  …I still can’t quite believe it.

  But, then, the book isn’t ready to be pitched and sent out, nor is it ready to be sent in full to beta readers for their feedback. It still needs some serious work. Revision has never been my favorite part of the process, but I was so ready to get in there and rip out the bad stuff, shore up the good stuff, and pull it all back together.

  In preparation, I started reviewing the craft resources I love to see what kinds of revision processes are out there.

  Every single person who knows what they’re talking about (from agents to writers to editors) recommends taking a break from the manuscript before jumping into revisions.

  Robert Jackson Bennett (of the amazing Divine Cities Trilogy and other works) recommends a month.

  I get it. The need for distance. The need to be able to see clearly what has been created on the page, where the holes are, and all of that, so I started to take a break.

  It’s been a week.

  One week.

  Seven days.

  And I am

  losing

  my

  mind.

  I’ve had the idea for five years, and worked on this project consistently for three. I’ve been working on this book almost every day.  It’s been my almost-sole writing project. And you know what? I think I’ve invested a pretty big chunk of self worth and self value in it. To the point that taking a break from it is throwing me into existential crises.

  Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I’ve written on this blog about the intersection of mental health and creative writing, and how self-worth and identity can become weirdly tied up in one’s creative work. I think I’ve even written on something very close to this idea. But something about this feels different. Unexplored.

  So, here goes nothing.

  The capitalistic society I’m in doesn’t prioritize the arts, ESPECIALLY the unpaid arts. The top American goal is to make money. People are considered more or less successful based on their accumulation of money, objects, and so on. But because I’m an unestablished writer hoping to be a published one, I must prioritize my writing time in a way that doesn’t make sense to the American capitalist. I’m trying to develop a career in a field that doesn’t promise wealth and success for hard work, and I’m doing so without being paid. I’ve given myself permission to think outside of the consumerism box, and value my craft.

  And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. At least, not at first.

  Then comes this whole “taking a break” nonsense.

  When I’m taking a break, I feel my days have less inherent value, and, by proxy, that my life and presence have less value.

  Knowing this isn’t true doesn’t necessarily ease the distress.

  See, I really haven’t escaped a capitalism mindset. I’ve just reassigned WRITING as the top priority instead of MAKE MONEY. I’m still trying to find meaning and worth through what I do. Because I’ve sunk value/worth/priority into WRITING, when I stop, even temporarily, I feel lost. This seems to me to be an unhealthy relationship with my work. 

  On the other hand, the reason I write is because I feel compelled to. This is the thing I need to do in order to live, in order to understand, and to process. To be a published writer is something I want. Deeply. So maybe I can’t blame capitalism for all of it.

  I don’t have a full-circle conclusion for this one. Part of the writing process is NOT WRITING. I have to figure that out. And it’ll all be fine. It’s temporary, like everything else.

  My goal is two weeks before I look at the manuscript again. In the meantime, I’m going to keep writing in general: updating this blog, and I’m going to try to get all the way through Ursula K. LeGuin’s fabulous Steering the Craft, a craft book complete with writing exercises. I may blog some of my freewrites and reflections as I go, so my deprivation may be your benefit, if these things are of any benefit to you, of course.

  Happy writing/not writing…

  ♥

  June 22, 2019

  creative process, creative writing, fiction, mental health, novel, novel writing, writing

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• The Problem with the Hero’s Journey

  There are two kinds of writers. Plotters, those who plan out the events of their stories before they write, and pantsers, those who write without knowing where they’re going.

  I have been (and probably always will be) a pantser. This is fun for me while I’m writing, but hell when trying to put together a novel. So, I thought, I’ll give plotting a try.

  I can see the allure. You know as much as you can about everything. You get everything organized and figured out up front. Of course, all of that can shift when you go to actually write out your grand master plan, but you’ll have avoided many mistakes and plot holes before putting any words together.

  But how do you plot a story?

  To the Google Machine!

  I ran into the Snowflake Method, the Save the Cat method, and the Hero’s Journey. As a recovering English Literature major, I was already familiar with the Hero’s Journey. In summary, it’s a pattern posited by Joseph Campbell in his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces, based on his theory that all stories in all cultures can be reduced to the same seventeen stages. His book explains the stages and provides examples from a wide variety of classic, mythic, and folk tales from different parts of the world. It is very dense, academic, and makes use of somewhat alienating psychology-specific language, but it is interesting.

  

  Writers can make use of the Hero’s Journey by structuring the events of their stories to match Campbell’s seventeen stages, which generally results in a satisfying story that is familiar, but (ideally) different enough that the general population isn’t bored.

  I attempted to apply the Hero’s Journey my protagonist. No go. It didn’t fit. There seemed to be more to her story than the stages were allowing.

  In 1981, a student of Joseph Campbell named Maureen Murdock asked him how the hero’s journey applies to women. His answer was deeply unsatisfying to her–essentially, that women don’t need to make any kind of journey. They’ve already “arrived” and their task is simply to realize it. This didn’t sit right with Murdock, so she began writing the book that in 1990 would become The Heroine’s Journey: Women’s Quest for Wholeness. Based on her experience as a woman and a therapist, Murdock created her own stages and compared her theories to myths and the stories of modern-day women.

  

  The problem with the Hero’s Journey is the same as that of any novel-plotting scheme that claims it works universally: it doesn’t encompass all stories. In particular, the Hero’s Journey doesn’t encompass women’s stories. Campbell’s “proofs” (the myths and stories that provide examples for his stages) were written or recorded in patriarchal cultures by those who had the privilege and permission to write.

  Have you been to the movie theater lately? Watched Netflix or Hulu or HBO with real discretion? Our stories are sick and suffering and dying. Maybe because they’re inbred versions of the same old Hero’s Journey. Maybe our most successful storytellers are just throwing stories out there, trying to turn a profit. Maybe our stories are being forced into a mold they just don’t fit.

  The Hero’s Journey doesn’t fit the story I’m trying to tell, and, I suspect, doesn’t fit many of the stories I’ve loved. It might not fit your story, either. And I’m not saying it shouldn’t, or that if it does, it’ll be a bad story. I’ve read and watched some amazing Hero’s Journey stories.

  But if you’re plotting out a story like I’m trying to do (with the sweat, blood, and tears of a true pantser), know that you don’t have to tell the Hero’s Journey. There are other stories out there, and they need to be told. It might take more work. You may have to build your own framework. You may not find support when you need it. But please, tell your stories. The world needs them.

  ♥

   

   

   

  June 5, 2018

  creative writing, fiction, hero’s journey, novel, plotting, writing

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