Writers in the Storm

Kimberly Brock

You need a nest.

That’s the most important lesson I’ve learned this year about being a good writer, or a creative of any sort.

Up until this year, I thought I was an expert at nests. I am an introvert disguised as an extrovert and I want nothing so much as to curl up in a soft, safe place and reflect on the world around me and inside of me. I am an expert at settling and tucking and generally hunkering. I like this about myself. It is a sign of a content soul, in my opinion. And it has served me well. I was able to write a very nice little novel and see it published, face critics, build a platform and social media presence, arrange many appearances and speaking engagements, and remain relatively unscathed by the experience, all from my nest.

And then, I fell.

For me, I’d been one of the lucky ones who had somehow reached my forties with a sense of supreme security still intact, from which came a glorious nest that gave me the freedom to write without fear. Read that again. I had no fear. None. I mean, I had general fears like how something might happen to my children or I might become a widow before my time or my parents might die or I could get breast cancer or we could lose everything and have to move into a double-wide behind my parents’ house. That sort of thing.

But those were distant possibilities. I wasn’t really afraid in the present. I thought I’d already pulled through some pretty dodgy situations and I was sort of in the clear in my midlife. I’d fallen out of my first nest really early. I’d survived being born a preemie, the twin who lived. I’d survived alcoholism in my grandmother’s family. I’d survived abusive relationships. I’d survived an extensive spinal fusion. I’d had plenty of experience compared to Suzie Q. I had lots of true grit. I brought all of that to the page with an assurance in my breast that I was safe, high up off the dangerous ground I’d already covered, up in the clear, fluffed and feathered and ready to sharpen another quill and set to work on my next tale.

What no one ever told me was that birds instinctively know how to build nests because they’re going to need more than one to get through this life. People, too. Writers, especially.

Have you been there? Is it just me?

Do you know that place, that feeling that you can write about anything because you’re happy to let your imagination take you there? Any journey is one you’re willing to take, whether it’s one of extreme joy or challenge or misery? You’re willing and full of enthusiasm – not naivety. Naivety is sometimes what others will call this but it’s really something else. It’s your nest. You know that no matter how far you may fly, you can circle back. Nests, it turns out, are really a state of mind.

If you won’t or can’t take the journey that your writing demands, it’s not because you’re naïve. We write about all sorts of things we have no real experience with because we long to understand them, not because we are experts on the topic. No, if you won’t take the journey, it’s because you’re nestless.

So, there I sat on the ground. My life had taken a devastating blow and when I peered up at the damage and I was no longer certain the little wad of sticks I’d stuck together would hold my weight. I was without shelter, without comfort, without a home. And without all of those things, it happened that I could no longer follow the stories where they needed to go. I sat on the ground a long time.

On the ground, you learn there are plenty of folks who are just as happy to be there and you might try it out for yourself for a while. You’ll stop writing. You’ll wonder why you ever did to begin with and maybe decide it was really all a lot of trouble for nothing. But eventually, I promise you, you’ll miss the better view. Writers are just like that.

I read something this week and I wish I’d save the source. It was a piece of narrative from a new novel. It caught my attention because the character compared herself to a baby bird that has been knocked from the nest. Ah-ha! She gets it, I thought! And she did. She went on to say how she was returned to her nest by some benevolent hand but the experience wasn’t what she expected. Back in the nest, she was the odd bird. The other birds knew she’d been out because she smelled wrong. The character believed she smelled wrong. She was suddenly uncertain of herself.

Being knocked out of your nest will make you an odd bird even if you can get yourself back home. You won’t be the same and neither will your nest. The truth is, you might smell wrong. Your nest may smell wrong. It may not even hold the weight of you anymore. As a young writer, I’d always believed being an odd bird, an eccentric or a loner, was a requirement for literary greatness. You had to be weird to have anything original to say. I guess that could be true to some extent, but as weird as I felt, I also felt muted by self-doubt.

Nests, like stories, it seems, are made of courage.

Building a nest takes time. It’s a little familiar, actually. Stick by stick, rather than bird by bird. A little piece of ribbon here, a twist tie for good measure, maybe a bit of fishing line. Eventually, this new nest I’m creating will hold me and all the stories that will dare me to follow from my safe perch. Soon, I’ll have a safe place to roost again, a high place with a good view of things, where I can ponder and question and start to take stock of myself and my surroundings with a clear perspective.

And then, I’ll write.

Have you found yourself without a writing nest? How did you overcome it?

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. You can also find her Author page on Facebook at Kimberly Brock, or tweet her @kimberlydbrock.

Susan Spann

In addition to writing novels and practicing law, I have a marine aquarium filled with corals and seahorses. I started reef-keeping years ago, though I’ve loved aquariums (and seahorses, especially) all my life. I knew, from the outset, that seahorses rank very high on the aquarium difficulty scale, and that they require a lot of work.

What I didn’t expect was that my seahorse-keeping would teach me lessons that applied to writing also.

I love sharing pictures of my reef, and my seahorses, on my Facebook and Twitter feeds, but today I thought I’d also share some vital writing lessons I’ve learned from my seahorse reef:

1.  If You Want To Succeed, Do Some Research Before You Start. Seahorses require specific water conditions, environments, and tank mates. If you want to keep them alive, you have to establish a proper reef environment from the start. The more you know about their needs, the better the chances your seahorses will thrive.

Similarly, the more you know about yourself, the publishing industry, and the kind of story you want to write, the better your chances of success as a writer. “Doing the research” means educating yourself about publishing options, genres, and writing skills, and learning as much as you can up front. You don’t have to know everything—and, in fact, most writers will tell you we learn as much “on the job” as we do beforehand, but knowing some things in advance will boost your chances of success from the outset.

2. You Have to Feed the Beast Every Day. Unlike many creatures, seahorses lack a true “stomach.” Instead, they have an intestinal tract that moves food through without giving it time to hold and digest. Because of this, they require feeding at least two times a day (four times, when they’re as small as the babies shown here).

A writing career is no different. If you fail to “feed” it regularly—in many cases, daily—it withers and dies. It isn’t absolutely necessary to write two times a day—or even daily—to keep the writing dream alive, but like a seahorse, the more often you feed it the faster it will grow.

3.  Constantly Push Yourself to Learn and Improve. Successful seahorse keepers often start out clueless (or nearly so) and end up highly knowledgeable about seahorses, water chemistry, poop*, and other aspects of aquatic life. We learn which creatures help seahorses thrive, which will harm them, and which ones might-or-might not work, depending on circumstances.

In writing, also, it pays to continue learning every day. Pushing yourself to develop new skills and story structures makes you a better writer, and the more you write (and read!) the more you learn how to use the elements of character, plot, and grammar to your advantage. You learn which plot devices work in your genre, which phrases always turn your prose a lovely (but unprintable) shade of purple, and which elements work in certain stories but not so well in others. The more you push yourself to improve, the more successful you will become in your writing and your career.

* Observing seahorse poop is easiest way to make sure a seahorse is healthy. Four years in, I know far more about seahorse scatalogical habits than I’d like to admit.

4.  Sometimes, Tragedies Happen. And You’ll Survive Them. Last September, I lost my female seahorse, Ceti, after a prolonged illness. I tried my hardest to save her with medications, a hospital tank, and even help from seahorse experts (yep, there’s a website for that). In the end, she died—and I was very sad.

It took me ten years and five manuscripts to find an agent and a publishing deal, and I can tell you from experience, that hurt even more than losing a seahorse. Some days, I didn’t think I could take another round of “I didn’t fall in love with it enough to place it in this difficult market.”

I also “lost” more than one manuscript during those years. Each one, I queried to death and then forced myself to write a new one to take its place. None of them reached publication (and their future remains uncertain). Like losing a seahorse, it pained me deeply to “let them go.”

However, if I’d kept mourning Ceti, I wouldn’t have the new babies: Vega and Kirin. If I hadn’t set the older manuscripts aside and written new ones, I wouldn’t have written Claws of the Cat—the novel that launched my career as a published author.

Publishing, like keeping a reef, won’t always go your way. Bad things will happen—but good things happen too, and in the end the success is worth more than all the rough times put together.

5.  If You Love it, Never Give Up. Seahorse keeping never gets easy. Writing doesn’t either. Both require massive amounts of work for rewards that sometimes feel short-lived and seldom pay huge dividends. But if you love it…do it anyway.

Every morning, I drag myself out of bed and into the office to feed the seahorses. Usually, they’re already nosing around in the food bowls, reminding me I’m late. By noon, they’re ready to eat again—and I actually had to take a break while writing this post to feed them. My hands are often wet and wrinkled from caring for the reef. I care for my seahorses and my corals deeply; I love them, feed them, mourn them … and wouldn’t have it any other way.

Writing is an equally hungry, messy, tear-stained endeavor. Most people consider writers a little crazy—and we probably are. We pour our heart and soul and hours into putting words on the page, in the hope that someone, somewhere will want to read them. We rejoice when we have a happy day and mourn when the words don’t flow. And yet, we always return our hands to the keys and our minds to the worlds we spin from dreams and passion.

We do it because, at the end of the day, we love it. Creating worlds with words gives us joy and makes our spirits soar. It’s a difficult, heart-wrenching, magical thing—and if you love it as I do, it’s worth every bit of the trouble it causes along the way.

Exactly like a seahorse.

About Susan
Susan Spann writes the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month. The second Shinobi Mystery, BLADE OF THE SAMURAI, released on July 15, 2014. Susan is also a transactional attorney whose practice focuses on publishing law and business. When not writing or practicing law, she raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium. You can find her online at her website, http://www.SusanSpann.com, on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SusanSpannAuthor) and on Twitter (@SusanSpann), where she created and curates the #PubLaw hashtag.

Okay Orly, you say you're a pantser, and for the first draft, I agree you are. But then you happily flip into complete, committed plotter. All those post-its? Nope, I'd say you're a "hybrid-pantser."

Me, I'm pantser through and through. The idea of an outline, post-it notes on charts, even Laura's famous chapter spreadsheet, all make me want to get in the Athenamobile and drive away. Fast.

So how does my writing process work?

My characters present themselves. There are plenty, riding around in the carousel of my mind. Usually one will step forward and demand her story be told next. I spend some time with her, piecing together backstory, what she really wants–it's never what she tells me up front–and look at the potential for conflicts. Sometimes the hero appears first, or they present themselves together. If they're both interesting in their own right and seem screaming-wrong for each other, I'm interested.

I start running movie scenes through my head, about how they meet, what draws them together, how they see the good, and the bad, in each other, and how they fall in love. If I like the way those scenes come together, I start writing. (Aw, who am I kidding? If by this time I've fallen in love with my hero, I start writing.)

I'm typically a nighttime writer, which works great for my process. When I go to bed, I rerun the pages I just finished and play director, changing little, and big, things to make it better, adding snappier dialogue, modifying staging, bumping up the conflict. Then I just let the movie continue and fall asleep. That preps my brain to work on the plot while I sleep, and usually the next morning I have some revisions and ideas for the next scene or two.

Now, don't get me wrong. When I start writing a new book I know most of the pivotal emotional difficulties–er, blow-ups, arguments, inner conflicts– and the technology malfunctions and battle scenes (I write science fiction, give me a break!)-but not exactly how and where these plot points and pinch points will take place. I'm sorry, but if I knew how everything was going to play out, it would be boring to sit and type it all out. I love a good puzzle and fitting the plot, the emotions, and the conflicts together make writing exciting for me.

As for the actual, fingers-on-keyboard writing, I typically keep writing until the end of a scene or the end of a chapter, but I usually always know how the next scene will begin. I'm going to be digging my characters out of the hook where I stopped.

When I sit down again, I re-read what I wrote during my last session, add details and emotion and "dress the set." This process gets me back into the story so I'm connected when I begin putting new words on the page. After more chapters I start to think about adding a phrase or a scene in previous chapters to foreshadow or provide backstory. I'll write the idea on a post-it and stick it to the edge of my computer. Yes, by the time I'm ready to start the first whole-book-revision there are post-its all around my monitor, sometimes three deep. They've been in my peripheral vision and thought, and I begin layering in those ideas during the first revision. I'm a coward; I always start with the simplest revisions.

Then I usually end up taking some paper and pencil notes about timelines and chapter major events so I can find where to add my ideas. I have to admit that on more than one occasion I've let blue words flow while looking for half-an-hour or more for a specific scene. Those times I swear I should have kept track on Laura's spreadsheet and I vow to use it on the next book.

I used to hate revising, but on the last book I could see the story getting better and better through the revision process. I think that examining my revision process is actually improving my initial draft. I'm aware that I tend to be all about the facts in the first draft, ("But what is she feeling?" is a common comment) so I'm trying to layer in more emotions on those "morning after" re-writes.

Final revisions are all about evaluating and using comments from critiques and judges.

Before I send a manuscript off, I read it out loud. Yes, all four hundred plus pages. I catch weird sounding dialogue that looked great on the page, echoes, and always a cliche or two that made it past several pairs of eyes.

My process works for me, an untrained-creative-writer hard-science nerd who managed to get my college degrees without ever taking a writing class. Of course, once I began writing, I've taken a lot of classes to learn the tricks behind the magic. But everyone's process is different.

How do you create your magic on the page? What is the strangest component of your process?

About Fae

Fae Rowen discovered the romance genre after years as a science fiction freak.  Writing futuristics and medieval paranormals, she jokes  that she can live anywhere but the present.  As a mathematician, she knows life’s a lot more fun when you get to define your world and its rules.

Punished, oh-no, that’s published as a co-author of a math textbook, she yearns to hear personal stories about finding love from those who read her books, rather than the horrors of algebra lessons gone wrong.  She is grateful for good friends who remind her to do the practical things in life like grocery shop, show up at the airport for a flight and pay bills.

A “hard” scientist who avoided writing classes like the plague, she now enjoys sharing her brain with characters who demand that their stories be told.  Amazing, gifted critique partners keep her on the straight and narrow. Feedback from readers keeps her fingers on the keyboard.

When she’s not hanging out at Writers in the Storm, you can visit Fae at http://faerowen.com  or www.facebook.com/fae.rowen