Writers in the Storm

Dawn Ius

I’m going to let you in on a little secret—I didn’t land my agent from a slush pile.

Mandy Hubbard—founder of Emerald City Literary Agency and affectionately known by me as Agent Awesome—never read a single sentence of a query from me. No full manuscript. No verbal pitch at a conference. No gushing recommendation from a writing pal.

In fact, Mandy signed me based on two chapters of I book I’d written, that wasn’t even my own.

Let me explain.

Back in 2013, Mandy was an agent at D4E0 Literary Agency, founded by Bob DiForio, a rock star agent I’d been thinking about querying for my adult thriller work. I was new to Twitter, and while looking up Bob’s wish list, I happened upon a tweet by Mandy. I wish I’d taken a screen shot of it, but the gist was basically that she and a co-agent, Bree Ogden, were auditioning a writer to execute a story they’d brainstormed. The successful writer would win representation from Mandy, as well as a chance to write the book in their mind.

The odds weren’t great. Semi-finalists were chosen from a 300-word sample—a few paragraphs to demonstrate voice, style, and craft. Plus, it was young adult…and I’d never written young adult before.

Nevertheless, I submitted my entry and then did my due diligence on Mandy. It took me about a nano-second to realize that she was my dream agent. I devoured her books, stalked her clients, and wrote down her sage Twitter advice. I dreamed about “the call.”

And then, it came. Well, not so much on the phone, but rather, the notice that I’d been selected as one of three to write two scenes from the proposed book—a modern retelling of the torrid romance between King Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. I had two scene outlines, a setting, and POV direction. The rest I was free to explore on my own.

Two painstaking weeks later, I submitted my chapters. A day or so later, my husband and I went to the liquor store to buy some wine. While there, he said, “Do you want me to pick up champagne?” I said, “No. It’s a long shot. Don’t jinx it.” But, like any patient, non-paranoid writer, I was checking my email every three seconds on my phone. As my husband stood at the till to pay, I got this message from Mandy: You blew us away, and you ARE our writer.

A lot of that night is a blur, but I distinctly remember yelling in a crowded booze store, “HONEY! BUY THE CHAMPAGNE!”

That book became Anne & Henry, and while the story was conceived by Mandy and Bree, they handed over the creative reigns and allowed me to make it my own. For better or worse, I did.

But Anne & Henry wasn’t just my first book. It was the beginning of my career, and the start of a tradition that has become almost a joke in my house: we celebrate every milestone.

Every.

Milestone.

This industry is damn hard. Seriously. You weather rejection, paranoia, writer’s block, bad reviews, absent muses, quasi-alcoholism, partners that don’t understand, questions about when you’ll be famous/rich/award-winning/insert belittling comment here, exhaustion, financial stress, and crippling self-doubt. There isn’t one week that goes by when I haven’t asked myself WHY I do what I do—and my third book from Simon & Schuster (literally my dream publisher…but that’s a different blog for another time) hits the shelf on April 10, 2017.

The writer’s curse, though, is sometimes a debilitating lack of confidence.

And yet, when I see that hardcover on my desk, or that ARC drops in the mail, or I get that letter from a fan who just gets it, I remember that I’m married to this job—for better or worse, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. And like any marriage, it takes work. 

Which is why my husband “picks up” champagne whenever:

• I finish a first draft of a new book—no matter how terrible.
• My awesome agent greenlights that book or a new proposal.
• That book or proposal sells to an editor.
• I hack my way through every. single. revision.
• I receive advanced reader copies of my book.
• I get my first trade review that doesn’t tell me I suck.
• The hardcover hits the shelf. (Extra champagne if it’s available in my city!)
• The soft cover hits the shelf.

And sometimes, he brings home champagne when I’ve just made it through a really bad week of really bad self-doubt. Because that’s how I like to celebrate each milestone. Milestones that are determined by me. They’re what gets me through the tough times, and propels me to that magical moment of seeing my book come to life.

Next month, I’m excited to pick out a new champagne to celebrate the advanced reader copies of my third young adult from Simon Pulse, Lizzie—a modern teen retelling of the Lizzie Borden hatchet murders, with a lesbian twist. I’m thinking hubs will pick up a Rosé. <wink>

What are your writing milestones—and how do you celebrate them? (Also, if you have champagne recommendations, I’m all ears!)  

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About Dawn

Dawn Ius is the author of Anne & Henry, Overdrive, and the forthcoming Lizzie, all published by Simon Pulse (Simon & Schuster). She is the Deputy Editor of The Big Thrill, a book coach with Author Accelerator, and a co-instructor at Lit Reactor. When not slaying fictional monsters, Dawn can be found geeking out over fairy tales, true love, Jack Bauer, muscle cars, kayaking, and all things creepy. She lives in Alberta, Canada with her husband and two giant breed dogs. 

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Kimberly Brock
Taking a fresh look at things

I am consumed by the idea of perspective. At the moment, I’m witnessing the effects of a visual processing disorder in one of my children, which means that for him, nothing is as it seems. I admit that as a parent, I’m busy doing everything I can to learn about what he’s experiencing and I am searching for anything that will allow me to see what he is seeing, the way he is seeing it.

Do I want to correct this stressful and frustrating issue for him? Sure. Do I want to be sure that everything is being done to give him the tools he needs to succeed in spite of this challenge? You bet.

But I’m sharing this with you today on this writer’s blog for a different reason, because of the single motivation that keeps me up at night since faced with this neurological puzzle and that is this: I don’t want him to feel alone.

And it struck me as I was pondering a topic for today’s post that this same driving motivation is really why we write. We want to share our own perspectives in a way that connects us with readers who can find themselves in our prose and our characters. We want to be assured that the way we see things is a common experience. Even when we disagree, we want to be able to say to ourselves and our readers that we can imagine feeling or behaving in just a certain way, faced with a certain set of circumstances.

We don’t want to be alone, not as writers or as readers. And so we spend hours and days and years of our lives casting our thoughts onto the page in the hopes that we’ll find a meeting of the minds. And yet, we so often don’t.

Why are we so afraid of seeing things from a different point of view?

Lately, the internet is a dangerous place when it comes to freely expressing individual perspectives. I think a lot of writers – and readers – are exhausted by the constant war of words that can be found in any comments section.

I’m one of the exhausted. But I woke up this morning with the realization that these two things – my son’s difference in visual perspective and what I’m seeing from every voice raised with the hope they’ll finally be heard – are the same thing.

We writers call it voice. The thing that makes my writing mine and your writing yours. Voice is what reveals us down to our bones and shows our substance in written form. Voice is perspective and perspective is the magic in our mundane human lives. It’s what sets our stories apart from one another and keeps them from being the same rote retelling through the centuries. It’s what makes a character, rather than a caricature.

With that in mind, I decided to, well, change my perspective. I wanted to see what would happen if I relaxed a little, let my vision lose its sharp, critical, even frightened focus and took a second look at my son’s difficulty, my work, and even the gnashing teeth of recent social media.

A few days ago, I watched a video that allowed me to see some of the visual images my son experiences when looking at a screen or a page of black and white print. They blurred and jumped and shifted and swirled. At first, I admit, I felt only horrible dismay at not realizing sooner that he was struggling so profoundly and I’d missed any sign of it.

But today, I watched the video again, with idea in mind to see things differently, and I came to a new conclusion that filled me with wonder. I’d just seen the world through someone else’s eyes. Someone who saw things completely differently than I ever could have imagined. And it changed me. It changed my mental perspective. It connected he and I where we had been disconnected and I was struck by the knowledge that I’d just accomplished the very thing I feared I would never be able to do for him: neither of us was alone.

With that in mind, I took a look at the characters I’m writing and tried to apply the same idea. I tried to move my own perspective aside and allow my imagination to conjure a perspective that is completely individual to the character. The most amazing thing started to happen. I learned something I hadn’t known about the character and about the story I’ve been trying to tell all along.

Now, granted this is really a little mind game when you’re working from your subconscious, but believe me when I say it was freeing to give myself permission to step outside the box where I keep my favorite ideas and see what mysteries might be discovered. There were layers and colors and impressions I’d never considered and the ideas brought a new depth to the story, and maybe a fresh connection to a reader I might have missed out on knowing if I hadn’t been brave enough to take that second look from a new angle. It was different from the way I usually see things, but the truth is, an author shouldn’t write from only one perspective or what would be the point?

I’m saying, take the chance on the power of voice and give it free rein to make your work stand out.

Of course, when it comes to the many perspectives we meet online every day, what I hope I’ve learned (or am learning) from my son’s gift is that I may not be able to see things the way another person sees them, but it doesn’t make their perspective less real or less valid. 

As I writer, I am consciously trying to apply that to all my good guys and bad guys, all my lovers and haters, all my dreamers and doers. Same goes as a human being. And as it turns out, if there’s anything I had to say to you today, I guess it was really what all those voices are saying, what my son said, what all our characters are saying, if we let them.

I wish you could see what I see.

Why do you write? What has helped you develop your writing voice? What tricks do you use to see more deeply into your story and see it from each character's perspective?

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About Kimberly

Kimberly Brock is the award winning author of the #1 Amazon bestseller, THE RIVER WITCH (Bell Bridge Books, 2012). A former actor and special needs educator, Kimberly is the recipient of the Georgia Author of the Year 2013 Award. A literary work reminiscent of celebrated southern author Carson McCullers, THE RIVER WITCH has been chosen by two national book clubs.

Kimberly’s writing has appeared in anthologies, blogs and magazines, including Writer Unboxed and Psychology Today. Kimberly served as the Blog Network Coordinator for She Reads, a national online book club from 2012 to 2014, actively spearheading several women’s literacy efforts. She lectures and leads workshops on the inherent power in telling our stories and is founder of  Tinderbox Writer’s Workshop. She is also owner of Kimberly Brock Pilates.

She lives in the foothills of north Atlanta with her husband and three children, where she is at work on her next novel. Visit her website at kimberlybrockbooks.com for more information and to find her blog.

Kathryn Craft
Turning Whine Into Gold

This is a picture of me at the age of 52, swimming the length of Trout Lake in northern New York. My husband Dave is trailing behind in a rowboat with a life preserver—you know, just in case. Off to the left is a loon who popped up to watch, alarmingly close, wondering how that would turn out for this middle-aged broad (everyone has to deal with critics!).

The first time I swam the length of the lake I was 47; the last time was last year as I turned 60. Distance swimming might sound like an odd thing to take up late in life. Truth is, I would not have been able to do it before then.

When I was a teenager on the lake, my father would row its half-mile width while my three sisters and I swam behind the boat. At the time, I was active in dance, cheerleading, waterskiing, and snow skiing. I’d grown up in this water and was the second oldest daughter. I should have had every reason to believe I could complete the swim.

Much to my shame, however, I couldn't keep up. My Dad had to help me climb into the boat to ride the rest of the way. I dripped onto its floor, shivering in defeat, while my sisters got the glory.

That would change.

More than three decades later, I’d swim the length of the lake—almost four times as far. I was no better a swimmer than I was in my youth. It's not that I was a fiercer competitor, either—as you can see from the photograph, no sisters. It's just me, the water, and the loon.

So how is it that I was able to start doing in my late 40s what I couldn't physically achieve in my athletic prime? I have some pretty nasty life obstacles to thank. They required that I summon inner strength that as yet had remained untested.

The result: I just figured I could do it. I finally understood the way the accumulative nature of effort applies to all disciplines: if I kept my arms moving and my legs kicking, and continue to breathe in and out, I would eventually reach my destination.

The metaphor works for any long process, including writing a novel.

You'll get there, stroke by stroke.

I like "one stroke at a time" better than "one step at a time." Because water molecules have more heft than air, it’s easier to see that not only am I moving forward, I am physically creating a path for myself by applying my muscles and willpower to part a medium that resists me. I seek change by pushing aside fear and self-pity and denial and any other obstacles standing between me and the destination I seek. I leave ripples in my wake.

Swimming is taxing but so is change; productive change is never achieved without a significant application of effort. In swimming as in writing, I am using the very medium through which I must move to help me move through it. The water buoys me as my legs and arms press against it; the very experiences my writing requires me to face will help demystify all that frightens me and weighs me down. If I am truthful on the page, the words and sentences and paragraphs will contribute enough meaning and structure to hold me up.

Swimming, my focus alternates above and below the surface, separating that which is easily seen from that which is hidden. I fear that which is hidden; after all, there are those legends of the Trout Lake monster... but then up pops a beautiful loon. Despite his sharp beak he wishes me no harm, but simply wants to join the blue sky and evergreen pines and my patient, understanding husband in witnessing my journey.

Novel writing isn't a sprint. You won't achieve the same effect if you close your eyes, hold your breath, and make a mad splash to "the other side." With one purposeful stroke at a time, at my own pace and with my eyes open to note the changing scenery along the way, I could eventually turn around and see that I'd gained distance from my starting point. Its details, once so sharp they could bite, had blurred. Renewed to my task, I turned toward the future, knowing in my heart that I am capable of reaching my destination, and reminding myself to look around along the way because the journey has so many rewards.

Note that the number of strokes I have taken has not made me a better swimmer, any more than the number of black marks on the page makes you a better writer. There’s more to mastery than pushing yourself through to completion. But knowing that you can complete the journey takes a lot of pressure off of a novelist, who now has a better sense of the scope of her undertaking.

This picture came to mind because I am starting a new novel. The cursor blinks at me from a still-empty page. The old fear creeps in. Yet I know I can do this: I have swum the lake! In fact, I’ve swum it four times now, one for each manuscript completed, and plan to do it again. Stroke by stroke, I will reach for the grace that comes from facing adversity, the grace that whispers in my ear: "Keep swimming, we're almost there."

Do you have any personal experiences with extreme endeavor that you lean upon to remind you that you too can reach “The End”? Please share!

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About Kathryn

Kathryn Craft  is the award-winning author of two novels from Sourcebooks, The Art of Falling and The Far End of Happy, and a developmental editor at Writing-Partner.com, specializing in storytelling structure and writing craft. Her chapter “A Drop of Imitation: Learn from the Masters” was included in the writing guide Author in Progress, from Writers Digest Books. Janice Gable Bashman’s interview with her, “How Structure Supports Meaning,” originally published in the 2017 Novel & Short Story Writer’s Market, has been reprinted in The Complete Handbook of Novel Writing, both from Writer’s Digest Books.