Tag: the writing life

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Endure and Prevail

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Last week my dad mentioned William Faulkner’s Nobel Prize acceptance speech. I’d read it before, but it feels particularly meaningful now. My favorite part:

“I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal simply because he will endure: that when the last dingdong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking.

I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet’s, the writer’s, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet’s voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.”

Bold/italics are mine. Writers, we’ve got a job to do. Let’s help humanity prevail.

Make sure to click through to see the whole speech; you can even listen to Faulkner read it!

(image: Wikipedia)

Links Galore

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A few links for today:

The #14me Contest is Open! What Would You Tell Your Fourteen-Year-Old Self?

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Me at fourteen:

  • Clunky shoes, carpenter jeans, wacky t-shirts, a different nail polish color on every finger
  • Fangirl for The Outsiders and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
  • New school–losing old friends, finding new ones
  • Writing a couple of really bad novels That Will Never See the Light of Day
  • Collages and quotes all over my walls
  • Not sure about this whole high school thing. Or growing up.

Sometimes I wish I could sit down with my fourteen-year-old self and let her know that it’s all going to work out (for the most part). To keep reading, to keep writing, to keep finding kindred spirits. That it’s okay she doesn’t really care about going to the cool parties. That she can maybe speak up more in class (in general) and not be afraid of her own voice. That she’s got some great stuff coming in a few years, so power through the stress and insecurity.

Wish you could talk to yourself at fourteen? The Fourteenery (a fabulous group of 2014 debut YA authors) is hosting a contest in which you’re invited to share a little advice to your four-year-old self. Share your funny/sweet/thoughtful/dramatic advice by reblogging on our Tumblr or tweeting with the #14me hastag. And you can win some seriously awesome (signed!!!) books.

Check out all the details on the Fourteenery and get brainstorming. The contest runs through midnight on Sunday, April 14. Spike’s excited:

So get reblogging/tweeting!

No One Can Tell You When You’re “Ready” to Write

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One of the ongoing debates in the creative writing world surrounds creative writing programs vs. real-life experience. Can you learn writing by being in a classroom, or do you need to go live and have lots of varied experiences? This article from the Atlantic emphasizes the importance of having life experiences so that when you sit down to write, your stories are filled with meaningful characters and adventures. Reiner says:

“But what [creative writing programs] can’t do is provide writers with real-world experience and the perspective to make sense of it, without which there is no storytelling, there is no “editor I’m going to work with” giving the green light. Creative writing programs can teach you how to write, but they can’t teach you what to write. No instructor or Zellowship can transform you into a storyteller without experience strutting your ambition.”

I agree. While creative writing programs and workshops can be a great place to examine craft, they’re not going to give you ideas.

But.

I don’t necessarily think people with more life experience write better stories. There are lots of people who have had compelling life experiences that would make amazing stories, but don’t have the skills to bring those stories alive in a complex, subtle way on the page. And there are people who have lived quiet, “ordinary” lives that see deeply into the human experience and have great perspective on their experiences. Some people have a knack for attuning themselves to character details and making emotional connections. These people can write at 16 and 35 and 52 and 97. They can certainly hone their skills over time, but I don’t think they necessarily need to wait for some magical length of time before they’re able to write stories.

Examples: Emily Dickinson wrote stunning poetry while being largely a recluse. I don’t think she had a lot of “life experience.” And Keats got all his writing in before he died at 25.

Basically, writing is different for everyone. There’s no age at which you’re “ready” to write amazing stories or experiences that will guarantee to make you a better writer. I’m a great believer in practice, not time or experience, making people better writers. Focus on your craft, where that’s in a formal workshop or at your own desk. No matter where you are, notice details and listen to people. Open yourself up to everyday experiences and making emotional connections. If you’re someone who already thinks of story ideas, those will come to you no matter where you are or how old you are.

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Lots of good links to get you through the middle of hte week:

Power Through the Slush

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In recent book news, the New Yorker unknowingly rejected a story it had previously published. In fact, so did lots of other well-regarded literary journals. What submitter David Cameron learned from this experiment:

“Slush sucks. It’s as simple, and as unhelpful, as that…A part of me really wanted to be outed, to have some vigilant editor write back and say, “Nice try. Consider yourself blacklisted.” Or even to put me in the horribly awkward position of an acceptance!* That would mean there’s hope, that open submissions weren’t just, in so many cases, empty gestures.”

Okay, the slush pile does suck. It’s way easier for editors to overlook a slush gem than it is for them to pass on solicited story #54 by Famous Writer. Otherwise, my reaction to the experiment:

Submissions are all kind of a crap shoot, no matter how you look at it. Maybe the submitted story originally hit the New Yorker on a day when the exact right editor was reading and had the right amount of coffee and was really thinking about the story, not about her next meeting. Maybe when it was resubmitted, it was a really bad morning for that editor and she didn’t get captured quickly enough to counterbalance the lack of coffee. Or maybe it was read by an intern who is quick to hit reject on pretty much everything. Maybe it’s a story about dogs, and it was read by an editor who’s more of a cat person.

Basically, the submissions process is totally subjective. It depends entirely on one particular reading by one particular person at one particular moment. It doesn’t matter if this story is perfect or not. It could be the ideal story for that journal or publishing house or agency, and it could still get rejected. I’ve been on the reading side of the slush pile, and I’m sure I bypassed a lot of great stuff.

That said, it doesn’t mean that there’s no hope. You just have to wait for that moment the right editor at the right place will read your story at the right time. Does that suck? Kind of. But it’s the writing business. Literary journals and publishing houses aren’t putting together a puzzle and need one particular piece to fill their spaces. Anything can be rejected at any time. But that can also mean that this could be the moment that the right person reads your story.

The New Yorker experiment didn’t change any of my views about writing or publishing or submissions. Maybe it means I was cynical to begin with, or that I’m ridiculously optimistic. Either way, I’m powering on.

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Lots of great links to get us through Tuesday:

The Fourteenery: Fourteen 2014 Debut YA Authors in One Awesome Place

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avatar_d1fc23efc31c_128One of the cool things about the YA/children’s lit world is the strong sense of community. Overall, people want to help each other and connect over this common bond of writing for young readers. This can be especially helpful for debut authors just starting to navigate the publishing world and all that entails.

I was lucky enough to join one particular 2014 debut author group–the Fourteenery. We’re a group of fourteen 2014 debut YA authors who’ve bonded over our love of YA lit, Lucille Bluth gifs, and hilariously bad fake book blurbs. From the Fourteenery About page:

…14 perfect lines in every Shakespearean sonnet,
…14 lazy days in every fortnight,
…14 racing horses in every Preakness and Belmont Stakes,

…there are 14 amazing, crazy ridiculous, insanely entertaining 2014 debut YA authors in THE FOURTEENERY, your 100% fresh, not-from-concentrate source for witty, wildly bookish fun.

Yes, there will be interactive Q&A and mega-giveaways and flash fiction, but The Fourteenery is so much more than a debut group.

It’s a gang of 14 friends plus YOU.

When I was first invited to join this group, I had no idea how awesome it would be. Although techincally the Fourteenery just launched, we’ve been a group for almost a year and I freakin’ love these ladies. They’re all so smart, so funny, so talented, and so good at de-stressing everyone. Once, an email thread made me laugh so hard I had to walk away from my computer.

We’re officially live on Tumblr, so make sure to follow us for insights into the publishing process, giveaways, gifs, fandom,, fiction, and more. Trust me–these are some of the coolest, most fun authors around. You want to get to know them.

No One Is Safe in Your Book

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Joss Whedon will hurt everyone you love.

The other day I was talking to Walt about the new draft I’m working on, and how I’m excited to get to a certain part, in which everything will go wrong for the main character. “No joy for anyone!” I exclaimed.

I don’t think this is an unusual cry for authors. We need to push our characters into tough situations and make them confront their own fears/judgments/faults. Otherwise we’d all be writing stories about happy puppies who take a nap and smell flowers. (Actually, that sounds pretty good…)

One author who understands the necessity of making bad things happen: Joss Whedon (aka, Light of My Life, Yoda, etc.). The First Novels Club has a fantastic post about “The Joss Whedon Effect” and how Whedon (and authors like him) don’t always give characters happy endings:

“…I love unpredictable authors.

In their books, no one is safe. Happy endings aren’t guaranteed, and there’s a good chance a book will break your heart, even if it cobbles the pieces back together…Life can be unfair to good people, and good people can make terrible, terrible choices (and suffer the consequences)… If you’re lucky, his characters get a happy-ish ending that’s entirely different from what you hoped for. But it’s totally right, because what happiness he gives them, they’ve earned.”

I love this sense of “no one is safe.” If you know a character is never going to lose anything, the story can feel flat and boring. But knowing that a character could put his loved ones in danger or jeopardize her morals makes the story way more compelling. You’re worried about the character; you understand just what’s at stake; you know that this could all work out really, really badly. For example, in Serenity a certain character is killed toward the end of the movie. It’s sudden and pretty unexpected, and after that I spent the rest of the movie thinking “Oh my lord, they are ALL GOING TO DIE.” Okay, so not everyone dies, but killing off this character really raised the stakes for the rest of the movie. It’s so freaking sad and I still get emotional thinking about it, but it had to happen. (Damn you, Whedon!)

And this isn’t just about vampires or the apocalypse. Even characters in quiet contemporary need to be pushed to their limits. Maybe they make bad choices or lose loved ones or fail miserably at something. Because that stuff happens in real life, too, and can push your character toward real growth and change.

I know this is something I need to work on, and it’s something I’ve seen in other writers’ drafts–we stop just shy of really pushing our characters and our books to those tough limits. To making our characters make the hard choices, to dragging them down to their worst levels, to putting them in tough situations without an easy (or even clear) way out. So try to push your characters a little further. Make them really suffer before they earn that happy ending (or not!). It may seem cruel or hard, but it’s worth it in your story. Dare to be an unpredictable author!

(image: Joss Whedon at the 2010 Comic Con in San Diego, by Gage Skidmore via Wiki Commons)