Have you ever had the chance to sneak away for a writing
retreat? Have you had the chance to experience the synergistic feeling of
creating while in close proximity of other creators? One of the best perks is
that when temptation shows up, to jump on the socials or play a game on the
phone “while you figure out what’s going on in the story”, a quick glance
around the place silently peer pressures you back to doing what you went there
to do – write.
One of the greatest perks of NaNoWriMo is that it creates a
sort of collective, online recreation of a writing retreat. Logging on the
website provides the opportunity to see how well other people have been doing,
provides a little graph to show where you should be.
That said, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and the word counts and the competition of the whole thing. And it’s easy to get caught up in the guilt and shame should you have a bad day (or two or ten) and get on to see how “far behind” you are. So while I am planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, while I have participated for many years, I always do it with a caveat: Only maintain that speed of writing a story if it is working for the story AND if it is working for the writer.
One of the keys to succeeding at this NaNo event is to
consider where you are in your writing. Do you need to do a deep dive revision?
Do you need to sort out the muddy middle? Do you have a beginning but then have
no idea what to do next? While it is fun to make sure you are playing the game
with your writing friends, just because 50k isn’t in your wheelhouse right now
doesn’t mean that you can’t use the benefit of this international, month-long
writing retreat to your advantage.
Take a break
It can be tempting to keep rehashing a story over and over
again. Our mind tells us just one more edit, just one more revision, and it’ll
be just right. But if you haven’t put the story in a proverbial drawer and left
it alone for at least a month during your creative process, believe me when I
say stepping back is the best thing you can do. Play with a different story,
keep the writing muscles strong, celebrate the actual act of creating. Then put
your NaNo project in a drawer, pull the other one out, and see what your fresh
eyes reveal.
Revise, revise, revise.
AKA NaNoReviMo. I didn’t make that up – go ahead and google
it or check out the hashtag. A lot of people use the energy of this month to
revise, edit, fix, clean up. While the official counter of NaNo won’t really
work for this, the same concept is there. Have a daily goal, or consider your
month-long goal and break it down. Five pages a day? Ten? TWENTY?!? Whatever it
is, you can make a little graph or bullet journal it or create a paper chain. And
get after it. Remember the caveat: Only maintain that speed of revising a story
if it is working for the story AND if it is working for the writer.
Cheat (kind of)
While the purpose of NaNoWriMo is to start a new novel and
get after it, 50k is 50k. If you have a start of a project, use that. If you
have almost half a project, use that. Keep a note somewhere that indicates what
your word count was when you started (and don’t cheat on this part) and shoot
for the 50k from there. The NaNo police aren’t going to come after you just
because you didn’t start a new project. Use this as the opportunity to advance
your writing.
Set a Goal of your Own
This is a great way to start in on a habit or to have something less on your plate during winter holiday celebrations. You can NaNo all kinds of things in your writing. The key is to trust yourself as a writer (I know, imposter syndrome is a bully, but you can beat it). Want to make the goal to write 500 words every day? NaNoHabiMo (National Novel Habit Month – I think I made that one up). Make an official NaNo profile or don’t.
You get to be in charge here, you get to sort out what you need from this energy, and you know what you need. Do that.
What kind of work are you hoping to accomplish in November? Do you participate in NaNoWriMo? If not, what is your personal goal for November?
About Tasha
Tasha Seegmiller believes in the magic of love and hope, which she weaves into every story she creates. She is the president of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association and studying in the MFA in Writing Program at Pacific University, and teaches composition courses at Southern Utah University. Tasha married a guy she’s known since she was seven, is the mom of three teens, and co-owner of a cotton candy company. She is represented by Annelise Robey of Jane Rotrosen Agency.
Pursuing a career in writing is like moving into a house which
is ruled by all things imagined. That can be super fun! But at this time of
year, especially, we are reminded that this house—let’s call it a “publishing
house”—comes complete with ghosts. And ghosts know when we creative types are
most vulnerable to the fears they incite: when we are tired, stressed, and left
in the dark.
Let’s just say there’s a lot of that in publishing.
A quirk of this house we’ve moved into is that there is no
power company we can contact to hook us up securely—which means, as writers
shift from writing for joy to relying upon it for income, they never know when
the lights might go out.
It is up to us, and us alone, to hold the darkness at bay.
Sometimes, we can make peace with the ghosts. Other times we’ve
got to kick them out on their butts. On the most basic level, ghostbusting
requires good nutrition, hydration, exercise, and sleep. Low energy invites a
haunting.
You can’t shut the door on a ghost any more than you can
shut a door between your brain and your body. It won’t help that you have an
agent (who might drop you if you don’t produce) or a publisher (who will drop
you if you don’t sell) or a publicist who believes in you (hey, you paid them
to say that). Ugly spirits hover near, ready to swoop in whenever your force
field drops, eager to make off with what confidence you have left.
Naming your enemy has power. Let’s call them out before they
send you running in fear from the career you thought you wanted, and then create
a vision of what exorcism looks like.
Nay-sayers. These
vile spirits reach up from the grave and try to pull you down into the
blackness from whence they came. Favorite sayings: “Everyone loves a debut
author, but…”; “Beware the sophomore slump”; “That bestseller was a fluke.”
How to bust a nay-sayer: “Thank you but I need to get back to work.”
Statisticians. These
ghosts want to flay open your optimism with pointed statistics: “No one under
the age of 40 reads anymore”; “Bookstores are dying”; “The mid-list is dead.”
How to bust a statistician: “One-hundred percent of unfinished books fail in the market.”
Remembered voices. Damning
opinions from your past are insidious because they’ve lived in your attic for
so long. “You never could go the distance”; “Your problem is you’re just too
introspective”; “Aren’t you a little young/old to be doing this?”
How to bust a remembered voice: “Hello, old friend. No time to talk.”
Social media dementors.
These are the scariest and hardest to recognize as evil because Facebook tells
us they are your “friends”—only they seem faster, prettier, sexier, and
oh-so-much-more powerful than you. And if your envy causes your
self-destruction? Oh well. “We both debuted three years ago, right? I have five
more books out and three in the pipeline, how about you?”; “My publisher is paying
for a twelve-city book tour—oh wait, you’re with ABC Books too, aren’t you?”;
“My publicist cost $20K but was totally worth it—Oprah, Ellen, Kelly…”
How to bust a social media dementor: “Congratulations!” *add emojis* #postapicofyourcat #unplugphone #backtowork
Cheat facilitators.
By tempting you to play unfairly, these poltergeists thumb their noses at your
years of preparation in hopes that you’ll affirm their notion that no one should
have to work all that hard in life. “Editing is just rearranging all the same
words”; “I can get this in front of a film director if you make it worth my
while”; “Just tell me what you want me to say in your blurb.”
How to bust a cheat facilitator: “Thanks for sharing!” #swingwide #keepeyesonownpaper
Passive-aggressive “Caspers”: These are ghouls that throw a friendly flowered sheet over their ugly heads. “I am your biggest advocate but trust me, you need to write a completely different kind of story”; “Bless your heart, aren’t you so cute to write another novel” *wink*; “I’d write one too but I have to support a family.”
How to bust a passive-aggressive Casper: #smile #eyeroll #nowwherewasi
True friends will reflect back your love and excitement for
your work in ways that will make you feel stronger. But these ghosts—who sound
a lot like humans you may have encountered—are driven by pure fear, and only by
draining your positivity will they feel at home in your presence.
But here’s the challenge: these ghosts come with the “publishing
house.” When you moved in, you brought with you both a positive, creative force
driven by love and a negative, destructive fear that will threaten to tear you
down, and their fight for dominion will be ongoing.
This is my last post for Turning Whine into Gold, a column intended to last six months but has had a good six-year run here at WITS. Thank you all so much for reading! I’ll still be popping in now and then. But if I could leave you with only one bit of wisdom, it would be this:
Love the writing.
If no power company exists to provide a secure connection,
you must stoke your creative force from within to create your own light. When
fear can gain no lasting purchase, the rest will fall into place.
Let’s get real. What other ghosts can you name that seem determined to steal your joy? When your energy gets low, how do you stoke your creative force so that you remember the love that started you down this road?
Because on the
page a hug may be blah-blah. But it could carry this kind of power.
Her arms wrapped around me like chains, her whispered words the lock sealing my fate.
Wow.
Steena Holmes, NYT Bestseller, 2-time Immersion Grad, wrote that hug.
Look at the words that carry psychological power: chains, whispered, lock, sealing, and fate.
Five Power
Words in a fifteen-word sentence.
Power Words
carry power.
And Steena played
off chains and lock.
Brilliant
writing.
Steena could
have written:
She wrapped her arms around me and whispered in my ear.
Aack! We’ve
read that type of line. No power there.
Not brilliant
writing.
Two more hugs from Steena Holmes. These are from The Patient, her Oct. 15 release.
1.I wait for Mommy to get upset at Daddy for leaving me here all by myself. Any minute now she’s going to scoop me up in her arms and have me sit in her lap. Her arms will be tight around me, like a big soft bear hug, and I’ll be okay.
The child knows the dynamics
between her parents and anticipates a lovey hug from Mommy. But Steena took it
deeper by sharing the impact that hug would have on the little girl.
2. I hugged her again so she couldn’t see the lie on my face.
Now the POV character is an adult, and
the hug has nothing to do with caring or comforting. That hug is a ploy to keep
the other character from seeing she is lying.
And Steena made it CLEAR on the page. The reader knows what the POV character is doing and why.
Let’s
dive in and check out powerfully written hugs from some more Immersion Grads.
Cassandra Cotton and Featherstone’s Folly, Marin McGinnis, Immersion Grad
Two Paragraphs:
“Mum!” Charles hurled himself into my arms, nearly knocking me arse over elbow given how much taller he was than I. But in that moment I forgot he was full grown, and I clasped him so tightly we were nearly one person. I imagined he was my little boy again, imagined I could make any hurt go away. Imagined I hadn’t just put myself in mortal danger trying to solve my uncle’s murder.
But I had, and I was bloody lucky I was still able to hug my son.
So many
smart Teaching Points in that example.
Slipped in the difference in height in an interactive way.
Shared a Yes Set: … and I clasped him so tightly we were nearly one person.
Most people have had that
experience, but thought it with different words.
The Yes Set means the
reader knows that feeling, identifies more with the POV character, and keeps
reading and reading and reading.
Used anaphora. A couple thousand Margie grads know this rhetorical device. Using the same word or words to kick off a minimum of three phrases or sentences in a row.
Drop Down Power Line – White Space adds emphasis. That drop down power line carries perfect cadence and content.
The examples below are not analyzed. My Deep Edit Analyses
would make the blog too long.
Curve Ball, Not Yet Published, Carrie Padgett, Immersion Grad
Grant moved deliberately, thanks to the sling around his shoulder, and gave her a one-armed hug as gentle as cotton candy floating on a breeze.
Exit Strategy by Lainey Cameron, Immersion Grad, publishing mid-2020
1. David stood, and she pulled him close. If hugs healed, she’d hold him all night.
2. She set aside her mini champagne bottle, and they hugged long enough to hear each other's breathing.
Runaway Surgeon, Not Yet Published, Marie Timlin, Immersion Grad
She couldn’t see his face, but felt his rock-hard body pressed against her back. Closing her eyes against shock waves—tens on the Richter scale—she couldn’t prevent the shudder that rocked through her. His arm banded her midriff and he leaned in. Her toes curled as his lips brushed her ear.
Susan’s Story, Not Yet
Published, Joyce Caylor, Immersion Grad
The little girl hugging the POV character is almost two years old.
She could feel all five fingers press into the right side of her neck, the other side enduring a strong tug of her hair. Two little arms, too short to reach all the way around. Her everything.
His Unexpected Amish Family, Rachel J. Good, 2-Time Immersion Grad
Two Examples:
1. Mary leaned over to give Anna a one-armed side-hug along with a poor-you smile.
2. Levi longed to hug her. Although if he did, it wouldn’t resemble the encouraging hugs he gave the little ones. The gentle I’m-here-for-you or I-know-you-can-do-it hugs. Or even the cheery you’ll-be-all-right hugs. His hug for Anna would encompass all of those, but he worried it might turn into an I’m-falling-for-you hug. Or, if he wasn’t careful, a promise of much, much more.
He cradled her head on his shoulder. She froze, left her hands dangling useless at her sides. She’d never been held like this, not by him, not by Ash, certainly not by Norna. But then, she’d never exposed her vulnerability before.
Would he use her weakness against her? Again?
A physical attack she expected and would’ve welcomed. This attack on her desire for affection and her constant, unmet need for love was a battle she’d lose.
She pulled back to shove him away. But a tender expression crossed his face. An expression she’d never seen on him. He looked as lost as she felt, as lonely and in need of love too.
It was too revealing, too confronting. She broke free from him. She was a strong warrior, fierce, and unafraid of anything. Yet her heart pounded out of control like she was petrified.
She gave me a quick hug, but it wasn't anything like Mom's hugs. Mom's hugs were so fierce on my ribs it made it hard to move, and they smelled like her perfume. This ordinary hug hardly felt like a hug at all, and it just smelled like plain old tomato sauce.
Believing
Amos, Not Yet Published, Christel Cothran, Immersion Grad
Before I knew it, I was clinched in his arms, pressed to his chest, arms pinned to my sides, feet dangling. His hold was so tight, I wondered if I could breathe and just as quickly I was released. Amos set me down with all the concern of a Delta baggage handler.
From Christel Cothran’s Email to Me:
Know there are also hugs from me in this email. A good new-friend hug, a thank-you hug, and a hug to keep for just when you need one.
1. Before I realize what she’s doing, Mrs. Carter crosses the threshold and hugs me. Hugs me so tight that everything inside me feels squeezed. My lungs. My heart. My confidence. I instantly feel claustrophobic.
2. He moves in and hugs me. Burying my face in his shoulder, I breathe in, wanting to savor the daddy scent. The I’m-your-hero aroma that has gotten me through so many tough times in my life.
3. She comes around and hugs me. Tight. I hug her back, remembering the hug with Annie’s mom. Hugging people you barely know is awkward, but it’s feeling less awkward with Mrs. Carter after each one. Maybe because I feel the connection to her through Hayden. Or maybe because I know she needs the hugs so badly.
4. Still unsure of the right words, I hug her—tight. Hanging on, I start counting, because yesterday I read an online article that said for a hug to really be beneficial it needs to last twenty seconds. Which is why Dad’s short embraces don’t cut it anymore. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. At twenty-three, I still don’t want to let go. But I’m not sure if it’s all for her or for me. Probably both.
One more hug.
This one is from a dog.
The Six-Percent Baby, Not Yet Published, Jenny Hansen,
2-Time Immersion Grad
Hoshi greeted us, her doggy body vibrating with joy until she looked into my face. She stilled, leaned against my leg, whined. I melted to the floor, burying my face in her soft black fur.
I chanced a look at Steve and the grief on his face wrecked me. “I’m sorry, Honey. I’m so sorry.”
He sank beside me in the entryway. Hoshi draped her ninety-pound self across our laps in her version of a group hug.
And finally, the real tears came. The ugly ones that turn your face into a chewed-up dog toy.
I had to include the last paragraph. It was too perfect to leave out.
How Can You Write Fresh Hugs?
Add to this Starter List for Types of Hugs
Pat Your Back
Hug with One a Step Higher
Slow Dance Arms and Sway
Squeeze and Release
Squeeze and Hold
Barely There
Too Tight
Trapped with Arms Locked Around Neck
Feeling the Love in a Big Bear Hug
Others?
Others?
Others?
Others?
Add to this Starter List for Motivations for Hugs
Love
Caring and Support
Excitement
Doing What’s Expected
Manipulation
The Cover-Up: Showing the Opposite of How You Feel
Pity
Others?
Others?
Others?
Hug Homework:
Create a list of your hug experiences. Make notes about some of those hugs.
Type
Motivation
Impact on you
Some
people are natural huggers. When you get a hug from one of them, you feel like
you’re wrapped in pure love.
With others, you may feel like you’re wrapped in ______. Fill in that blank. :-)
When
you initiated a hug and received a response you didn’t expect, how did you
feel? How did you react? Could be negative or positive.
When
you received a hug you didn’t expect, how did you feel? How did you react? Could
be negative or positive.
Write hugs the POV
character initiated and received. How did they feel? How did they react? Could
be negative or positive.
Do you see how writing a hug in a fresh way can add depth and power?
I hope you all
don’t settle for blah-blah writing. Remember, fresh writing sells.
So fitting that my topic is hugs. We all need more hugs. Given
the catastrophic loss in my life, now I cherish hugs even more.
THANK YOU to
the WITS team for hosting me again. Sending lots of lovey hugs to you all.
BLOG
GUESTS -- THANK YOU for dropping by WITS.
Please
post a comment. Say Hi – or share a hug you wrote.
I
would love to read lots of fresh hugs.
You could win a Lecture Packet from me or an online class from Lawson Writer’s Academy valued up to $100.
The drawing will be Sunday night, 9:00 PM Mountain Time.
Potent Pitches and Brilliant Blurbs, Instructor: Suzanne Purvis
Giving Your Chapters a Pulse,Instructor: Rhay Christou
Biz Smarts for Writers,Instructor: Sarah Hamer
Ta Da! How to Put Funny on the Page, Instructor: Lisa Wells
How to Write a Novel in Evernote,
Instructor: Lisa Norman
New Course: Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Writing Realistic Scenes from the Front Seat of an Ambulance, Instructor: Julie Rowe and Jeffrey Petrock
About Margie
Margie Lawson —editor and international presenter – teaches writers how to use her psychologically-based editing systems and deep editing techniques to create page turners.
She’s presented over 120 full day master classes in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and France, as well as taught multi-day intensives on cruises in the Caribbean.
To learn about Margie’s 5-day Immersion Master Classes, full day and weekend workshops, keynote speeches, online courses through Lawson Writer’s Academy, lecture packets, and newsletter, please visit: www.margielawson.com
Interested in inviting me to present a full day workshop for your writing organization? Contact me through her website, or Facebook Message me.
Interested in attending one of my 5-day Immersion Master Classes? Click over to my website and check them out.
Registration is open for Immersion classes in Atlanta, Denver, Poulsbo (WA), Pittsburgh, San Jose, Jacksonville, and Milnathort, Scotland!
I’m adding three Immersion classes in Australia too. Email me if you’re interested.
Thanks so much for reading this blog. I can’t
wait to read your comments and hugs!
