As I step Into the World of Publishing...

from the archives...27 May, 2008

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything, mainly a result of avoiding the internet with the year of Girl Guide emails finally over, my first chance since September of not seeing 10-18 messages in the inbox, none of those related to writing.

 

Also, the time has come to self-publish so I have been a busy bee editing and polishing and perfecting a manuscript to ready for self-publishing. I have had mixed reviews on the subject. Some say it’s a waste of time and money; that I shouldn’t have to pay for my own book to get there. Others, excited to finally see one of my book’s in print.

I tend to side with the latter.

Call me crazy, maybe impatient, but I am having a hard time waiting for an agent to pick one of them up, though the submissions do continue from my end. I did come close, hearing back some positive feedback from one, hopes elevated then dashed when I received the dreaded, ‘it isn’t right for our agency’ letter.

No worse for wear, I plug away and move on to the next. In the meantime, until I can dedicate enough time to these submissions (more often than every few months) I will self-publish.

 

Just to see my name in print? Maybe. But more in hopes that it will be a stepping-stone to something bigger. My lack of writing credentials to fill up an author’s bio is evident with the one-liner of ‘mother, nurse, years of self taught writing experience’. It isn’t that bland, fired up much more, because that’s what we writer’s do, but it is bare bones under the blaze. So self-publishing may be part of my progressive work in that direction.

 

Of course, this all comes with the attached job of promoting one’s book. Ugh, the torturous thoughts. Wouldn’t it be easier if everyone just picked it up and said, ‘Wow, an instant Jane Austen’? Yes, but completely illogical. Another of my fantasy worlds. Oh, they are vast.

 

So off I go, to throw my characters lives into the hands of the public. Let’s see what they do with them, shall we?

A Question of Character Perspective

from the archives...15 February, 2008

I thought I might make note of something once drawn to my attention that in the end I found useful to my writing; in the beginning it was cause for frustration...It all began when my thoughts formed into this letter to a friend and fellow writer...

A fellow reader in an online editing group gave me some feedback, and while very thoughtful and much appreciated, I find myself more unsure about one particular issue in my writing than ever. I don’t know if I just never noticed, or if perhaps it is simply a difference in style of writing, one I am accustomed to while she is accustomed to another quite the opposite. Or, alas, I am completely missing something.

The question regards ‘character perspectives’ and that I change between them frequently, leading to confusion when reading. I tend to describe the sometimes-detailed thoughts of my characters during their dialogue.

Her idea is that when reading, you need to stick to one-sided thoughts and perspectives—any others being only what that same character perceives or sees outwardly.

What I understand is that when you are in the middle of a line of dialogue, and as long as the reader clearly understands who is speaking it, the thoughts are more a continuation of what that character is saying. Therefore, just as the dialogue switches from one to the next in a volley of words, so does the inner dialogue of the characters. For example, if Jane and Emily are having a conversation, it follows:

"Wow," said Jane. She was smiling, astounded by the blue sky.

"I agree," said Emily, thinking to herself that the sky was nice but preferred it more so at sunset.

"Except that the colors of a sunset is nicer." Both women smiled, sharing a moment of inner laughter.

"I’ll see you tomorrow," Emily yawned, already longing for her bed. It was getting late and her head was starting to feel heavy even though the sunset was an hour away.

"Goodnight." Jane waved goodbye and began to walk with a sigh at the thought of the following day and the busy events it held.

Alright, then, reader. As far as I can see, this makes sense. If the reader understands who is speaking a line of dialogue, it would follow, then, that the character is able to think something in the same sentence without confusion; dialogue moving to thought in the same flow. Obviously, it would be mesmerizing in the least if these thoughts came attached to every single line of dialogue as in the example, but you get the picture.

I once read that if you are switching perspectives, be generous to your reader and help them out by dedicating each character, in the least, their own paragraph. I am consistently conscious of this when I write. But when applying this rule to dialogue, I become muddled. I can only explain my own perception like this:

Assuming of course that the book is written in third person, there is a narrator, so to speak. The narrator watches from above, telling the reader a story of everything she sees and hears, the ability to see the thoughts of the characters included. I usually imagine the narrator as myself letting you, the reader, in to explore a deeper level with my characters, into their thoughts. I think this is where it differs between this particular reader and I. She wishes to hear the story from the characters narrative alone, not as an outsider overseeing things, assuming, then, that one character cannot, in fact, read the thoughts of the other.

As I continued to think about this contradiction, attempting to process my complete confusion, I hadn’t really noticed this before in anything I read (or wrote, if I am going to go deep on this one.) I don’t pick apart the novels I’m reading in this respect to know if most are written with "head jumping" perspectives or not or where these jumps fall in dialogue if they do. (Of course, I do pick them apart for other things!)

Perhaps I don't notice it because no one else does it. Therefore, the novels have not, as yet, confused me. ; ) Tell me then, wise reader, have I been completely missing something while lost in my own little writing world; oblivious to this major rule of writing I have been so consistently and irrationally breaking?

This may very likely be one of those "writing in my own head" things where since I obviously understand what’s going on by reading between my own lines, it makes complete and utter sense. Not, sadly to say, as easily said for my poor reader, merely attempting to follow along for pleasure’s sake.

In the end, I still have not found my answer. If I never do, and perhaps there is not one, but rather a matter of opinion and choice, I will, in the least, attend more notice on my characters and their inner thoughts, more specifically where they are placed.

I am not one bit annoyed with the reader who has brought this issue to light. I respect every opinion because it is just that. An opinion. And I asked. But even more so when that opinion is ‘critique’ and not simply a personal message of ‘oh, it was very nice.’ She has made a good point, brought an important issue in my writing, writing in general, to light. If nothing else, it has encouraged a new flow of words across my page, though I am still baffled in my attempts to fix it.....

(And, in case you had noticed and indeed were concerned with my ramblings, my head is, at present, stuck in the pages of Wuthering Heights with Heathcliff and Catherine, and also with Miss Fanny Price, as she wanders through her life completely unnoticed in the halls and pathways of Mansfield Park. So the form my own thoughts have been taking is one as influenced by the wise words of Emily Bronte and Miss Austen, herself.)

Tara

So there it was, and I did find some answers...up and coming...

Why Romance You Ask?

from the archives...9 February, 2008

I have ventured beyond my own expectations, begun many journeys I never thought I could through my writing. It began when I plunked myself down in front of an old hand me down computer and started to write a few notes for a short story idea I had. I didn’t know where it would go, how many pages, who the characters really were beyond demographics and one single scene that had been running through my mind. It turned into a novel sized book. The romance writing began somewhere else, somewhere a couple of years later.

My cousin read my second completed mystery novel; my second novel period-—very raw and with an inexperinced voice-—and wondered why I didn’t try writing more romance. The mystery was good, she’d said, but the very small romance line in the story came much stronger, much more easily. I think I had found my niche without even knowing it, and wouldn’t realize this until over a year later when I actually tried to do it.

I thought she was insane. I laughed at the comment. Romance? Me? Really? I’d not written, much less read, many romances in the last ten years at that point. Who does, really?...Old women, lonely single mothers, our mothers and grandmothers...come on, we’ve all scene the old Harlequin’s sitting on the bookshelf and dared to open them up, laugh, turn red and wonder to ourselves, ‘why would someone read that crap?’

There is a world out there I never knew existed, I’ll tell you that. And my mind is forever changed.

So I picked a few up. Some were smut, some written purely to see a sex scene in print, I’m sure--porno for women, my hubby calls it--and I could barely get through them. I have to say I was embarrassed for women everywhere.

Other writers, other stories, have come miles beyond the days of near-rape style sex scenes so elicit they overpowered the guts of the story. Some of them-—I can’t honestly say all because there is a load of crap in every genre of writing whether fiction or non, romance or not-—are good. Great even.

The writing has much improved, the storylines set in greater depth, sex on levels from barely mentionable to erotica. Take your pick. Fortunately for me, or so I think, I’ve always been a romantic at heart so I fit into the genre pretty well. (Just count me out of the erotica, or the religious for that matter, thank you very much).

But I didn’t stop there. I wrote two novels (‘throbbing manhoods’ and ‘heaving breasts’ gladly witheld) that were, for lack of a better expression, "romancy" and may dare to fit into the Harlequin section of the bookstore, though those have vastly expanded, too. I have written Chic-lit from a first person and witty perspective, and lingered a while on a darker side as influenced by my love for the Bronte's and classic gothic romance. I even set my head in the early 19th century for another.

When I look back to my first few books, I laugh. I laugh at the writing. But I love them. Ten novels and many short stories later, they still hold some of my favorite moments and characters. If nothing else, the feeling of finally getting down on paper some of my first thoughts and ideas, watching them develop, taking count of my growth as a writer in the meantime, drives me. I haven’t been at it long enough to call myself a "Jane Austen" or "Emily Bronte", perhaps never will, but I know I can make my way to a higher place eventually. And we get nowhere without dreaming.

All of my books say something about who I am as a person, a mother, a wife. A nurse, a writer, a woman. That’s where it counts. I love romance, am no longer afraid of it or the cliché’s and negative thoughts it brings in the eyes of many.

As Jane Austen once said, "Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery." Mine is dwelling with Jane’s.

"Far away in the sunshine are my highest inspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they may lead."

Lousia May Alcott