Cooking Our Bounty

Last time I wrote about planting our literary seeds, weeding, and harvesting. Today I ponder tools, secrets, and tricks for turning our produce into an enjoyable meal.

Equipment is important. It’s almost impossible to cook or write without the proper tools. Cutting boards, knives, and woks are a few of the tools necessary to prepare vegetable stir-fries. For writers it’s not only about the laptop. It’s about collecting the skills essential to our craft. Taking classes, attending workshops, reading books on writing, finding a good writing coach or critique group.

It’s best if we weigh carefully the flavors we work with. Our choice of genres can be thought of as our garden’s herbs and spices. Mix too many genres and we’ve got confusing flavors. Hybrid genres are one thing. A post apocalyptic fantasy thriller that takes place in the Wild Wild West with SF and romantic elements will taste like some of the confusion foods that try to pass as fusion foods. Know what we are writing and write it boldly.

Just as gardeners and cooks approach produce differently, each writer has a unique style and brings to his work different strengths. Some focus on plot and some excel at developing characters. Some are all about the beauty of the sentence. Even thin or unwieldy plots can sell well if the writing is brilliant, just as one chef’s simple, local offerings can succeed as can the creations of another who focuses on complex and exotic ingredients.

Writing, like gardening, is all about hidden secrets. Seeds are the most obvious and miraculous secrets. But there are countless other garden secrets. Sure, a zucchini plant can net enough fruit to feed 100 armies, but if plucked at the just the right time, the blooms can be used to make one of the best appetizers in the world, stuffed squash blossoms. In a writing career and in each of our books (regardless of genre) there are hidden mysteries. The secret is to find and share them.

We grow veggies to eat them. It’s important, then, to do them justice, but not too much justice. Cooking them too long turns them into paste. Some of us writers cook our books so long we never consider our work finished. Sometimes we fear failure; sometimes we fear success; sometimes we hesitate to start a new project. If we are aware of our fears, we may be less likely to overcook our produce.

On the other hand, there are those of us who don’t let the sauces simmer long enough to meld the flavors. We whip through a draft or two then send our books off, false hope in the mail. Tomato sauce doesn’t belong on noodles unless it’s had a good long time to simmer the flavors to Italian perfection. We’re better off considering five drafts half simmered.

We could layer in discussion about our lives as the soil we start with, fertilizers that inspire our words, bad-habit weed barriers, and selling our produce in the farmer’s market. But metaphors are like truffle shavings, too much of a good thing overwhelms.

Words are food for thought. We grow them so we and others can enjoy them.

The clouds are cooperating. Inkpot wishes you good gardening and good eating! Bon Appetite!

GARDEN TO TABLE

Writing is gardening, the result a feast. The metaphor is obvious: plant seeds, water, fertilize, weed, harvest, and enjoy the result in the form of a fabulous meal. Why does this metaphor feel so right? Every stage of growing food to nourish our bodies has a counterpart in growing stories to feed our minds.

Planting
A plot is like the garden map; if we throw seeds randomly the result is a confusing mess. Subplots are like carrots; if we have too many of them, it’s as if we’ve planted seeds too closely. The row is so tightly packed that no carrot can grow to its potential. Plots need room to breathe.

We find the perfect spot to plant our strawberries, radishes and scallions. We space the seeds just so. But darn it if the neighbor didn’t plant a fast growing Ausstree Willow that sucks the water right out of our bed and throws shade on our nascent plants all but ten minutes of each day. Likewise, the shade of negativity can stunt the growth of stories, even those begun with the best seed. There will always be interruptions and backslides but we needn’t pout. Maybe the neighbor would be willing to trim his tree or help us dig out a new bed on the other side of the yard. It serves us well, in gardening and in writing, to seek and accept support from others. If we surround ourselves with sunshine, the veggies and fruit will thrive.

Weeding
You’ve got to edit. And edit. And edit. Enough said.

Harvesting
How should we look at our bruised fruit? With admiration! Do you want taste or shiny wax? Good characters are like bruised fruit. The imperfect ones often taste sweeter and are full of authentic flavor.

Unlike farmers competing with their 1,000+ pound pumpkins, we writers compliment and even combine our crops; my zucchini, her parsley and garlic, his onions and tomatoes and your eggplant mix to make an unbeatable ratatouille. That’s what critique groups and involvement in the greater writing community are all about. It’s in our best interest to cooperate rather than compete.

Writing and gardening are emotional roller coasters. There are exquisite highs (a bumper crop of jalapenos) and agonizing lows (that damn rabbit ate the strawberries). Expect them. Celebrate them both as forward movement. Even a rejection gets you one step closer to publication, as long as you listen to the reason you were rejected.

Next time we can talk about my favorite subject (as a foodie and food writer): cooking up our crops.

Publication and sharing our bounty is the purpose of planting our garden. Go grow some cucumbers and a ton of fans!

Inkpot wishes you good gardening!

A Two Crit Litwit?

Hello, my name is Folio, and I’m a two crit litwit. A litwrit? A critwrit? Okay, a nitwit! Ahem.

Let’s try that again.

Hello, my name is Folio, and I belong to two critique groups. I love them both. Benefit from both. Why two? Because they're different. Yet some writers wonder whether they should even belong to one, let alone two.

I credit my friends in my first group (Uff Da!), with pushing me up the mountain. Or perhaps we linked hands and climbed the Fourteener together. We met at a class on How to Get Published, so we were all ambitious and at somewhat similar levels of experience. This proved invaluable. While there’s certainly an appeal to joining a group with members that have far more experience, consider whether that makes the slope a bit slippery. You might be an amazing talent, but if you’re trudging up the hill and don’t even know what to carry in your backpack, have to be guided every step of the way, it could be frustrating for everyone. Some groups I’m aware of require an “audition” before an invitation to join for exactly this reason.

Uff Da Cum Laude meets monthly, exchanges pages at one meeting and critiques them at the next. We’re friends, supporters, and cheerleaders. We love good stories. We’ve been through the battles of trying to get published and some of us have. Once, disaster visited. A man I’ll call Big Bad John asked if he could join our group. What an arrogant, unhappy person. He was loud, uber ambitious, and voiced the opinion that kindness had no place in critique. He preferred the slash and burn method. Didn’t care if there was blood on the trees.

After that first meeting our “old” members privately critiqued him as a potential member, and we disinvited him. Because of John we closed our group. That one encounter taught us how important it is to learn if you’re a fit for your critique group, and vice versa. I want critique and I’m pretty tough and resilient, but who needs deforestation? Not me. John apparently thought he did. I hope he found a group that shared his goals and preferences.

Enter my second group, the Sisters of the Quill. Oh sisters, was I ever flattered to be approached at a writer’s conference by an incredibly gracious author, Storm Petrel. She introduced herself, noted that we were from the same small town (displayed on our nametags). She belonged to a critique group with only a few members. Would I like to join them, try a meeting or two? Would I!?

That was many years ago and these days we meet weekly to work and critique. And to enjoy our friendship! Camaraderie is good in this solitary profession of ours. We have one long-distance member, and several years ago we began reporting our progress on a regular basis, sometimes daily, via email. We’ve found that one sister’s success can be celebrated, shared by all, as can coping with angst. Then every once in a while we meet for an all day or multi-day retreat. Talk about fun! We brainstorm and work hard, pound out plot points and eat wonderful food.

As you might gather, we’re supportive but at the same time aggressive, about getting published, that is! “What iffing” is sought out and appreciated. If something doesn’t work we say so, then it’s up to the sister to decide if she agrees. Or not. During this journey we've truly become sisters, in every best sense of the word. Such a treasure.

I know a few writers who think their voice will be massaged to a homogenized mush if they run their words through critique. I think it could happen. So remember that every comment should be filtered by you. After all, how many times have you started reading a bestseller and found it wasn't worth turning the pages? Opinions really do vary. So remember to be open, to really LISTEN to the comments about your work, and THEN decide whether to edit. At the same time, if you're not interested in changing and learning, and argue about every suggested improvement, then why bother with critique?

I hope you’re as blessed as I am with your friends in critique. In both of my groups what started as nervous meetings of strangers flourished, grew tall and strong, and now reach steadfastly for the quill or pen or keyboard.

Uff Da! SOTQ!

Folio

“Being Gretchen”: Happiness for Writers Who Second-Guess

We writers are blessed with extreme sensitivity; it’s what allows us to write. On the other hand, it can be a curse: we constantly gauge reactions to our work, even our own, as we self-edit. But self-editing is essential! (Sound of pulling hair out.) I constantly second-guess my approach to my current novel; with every rejection—and nearly every reading—I’m tempted to rethink the entire project.

But there’s help! The other night I was reading an enjoyable book called The Happiness Project. In it, author Gretchen Rubin discusses her own second-guessing paralysis.

On pp 77-78 of The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin explains that along the way to her immensely successful New York Times bestseller, many people gave her advice. One friend suggested she change the title; another recommended she emphasize different aspects of her life such as conflict with her mother. When she protested she had no conflict with her mother, he harrumphed that she was in denial.

With each suggestion she worried: was her tone wrong? Was she wrong to talk about her own experience so much? Perhaps the answer was yes, and yet… “I didn’t want to be the novelist who spent so much time rewriting his first sentence that he never wrote his second.” Gretchen decided that if she wanted to accomplish anything, she needed to push ahead without constantly second-guessing herself. She needed to "Be Gretchen." And there I was, holding her beautiful and worthwhile book, now in reach-the-masses paperback, in my hands.

Possibly because I had just read about Gretchen’s experience, I felt much more relaxed about heading back into my jello elephant of a novel yesterday for one more go-round. And something wonderful happened: a new idea took off and made magic. At least I felt that way, though I’ve heard that a chemical released in the brain during creative bursts gives that euphoric sensation of having created something special…

Oh no! There I go again, second-guessing. Today I will choose again to “Be Storm Petrel” and push ahead with my own vision of the project, and encourage you to do the same.

Thank you, Gretchen Rubin!
- Storm Petrel

Very Superstitious

Is it just me or do lots of writers focus on the bad and underplay the good? How many times do you have to hear, “I loved your book!” to counter the one furrow-browed reader who says she thought the love scene was not very tender. Never mind that you wrote that scene to illustrate how wrong the relationship was in the first place. Now you are convinced your whole book is an example of what every writer should not do.

The agent can say they like your style or that you have talent and the full manuscript you sent isn’t right for them but they’d love to see anything else you have. You don’t see the offer to send another story, you see “You couldn’t write an application for a grocery store discount card. You have bad hair, could stand to lose some weight and your feet stink.” And when I say you, I mean me.

I delay celebration. A publisher sent me an offer… in writing. It looks pretty darned official. As with dear Folio and her husband when the publisher accepted the book but seemed to take forever to send the contract, I refuse to break out the champagne or go for a celebratory dinner until my name is on the dotted line. Underneath the logical, accountant brain of mine lurks a superstitious mind. I’m afraid if I rejoice too soon, the bottom will drop out and I’ll be disappointed beyond repair.

We’ve all heard the horror stories of writers who sold books only to have their editor leave the house and the book is dropped. Do you suppose one of the writer’s friends threw them a party with a multi-layered chocolate cake and that somehow jinxed the deal? Think what would happen if, for instance, my husband took me out for steak and lobster and we toasted the deal with the publisher, and then, for some reason, I never got the contract.

Just what WOULD happen? I’d have had a nice evening, a terrific meal and feel special and successful. I’d feel awful if the contract didn’t materialize. On the other hand, if I don’t celebrate the offer and the contract doesn’t happen I’d just feel awful, without the feel-good evening.

But just in case, contract first, champagne later.

Nib

What are your writing superstitions?

Patience is a Virtue!

My mom used to tell me that patience is a virtue. That means I’m mind-bogglingly virtuous, when it comes to writing that is! Though I think I’m a very patient person anyway, choosing to pursue writing as a career has certainly reinforced that particular trait.

It takes patience to write a book. One-word-at-a-time patience. Not everyone can crank out a novel in three months, certainly not without a team such as James Patterson employs. Okay, so I do have a team of three – me, myself, and I – and none of us are particularly speedy. For a new book I’d say think more along the lines of eighteen months, minimum. I haven’t truly tested that theory though, as I haven’t written a “new” book with a contract deadline hanging, sharp and sword-like, above my head, so I think two years is probably more accurate.

Ah yes, mustn't forget the requisite patience needed to research agents and publishers to make certain they’re appropriate for your book, to track every query, dates sent, and the response or lack of same, since so many agents and editors are now letting a non-response speak for them. Hurry up and wait.

Finally though, success! An offer’s been made! But patience is needed yet again. Actually, patience multiplied times six months, waiting for the actual contract to arrive. Are we there yet?

Didn’t think I’d need an extraordinary amount of patience during the editing process. Wrong! Near the end, suddenly the editor wanted eight more pages, or to delete twelve. Our choice. Sigh. Can you be patient and hyperventilate at the same time? Let me assure you, you can. Scrambling for eight more pages of material while remaining patient made for an exhausting week.

Edits are done, galley proof complete. Yay! But wait, there’s more. Now you need even more patience! You’re tapping your toe in anticipation of the happy event, of the day a heavy box arrives in a nice little brown truck. You’re watching the clock, waiting for the minute when you’ll tear apart strapping tape and cardboard to reveal hidden treasure. But guess what? Until that moment you need to find the patience (and discipline) to keep working! It’s time to blog, to read and research, to update marketing materials and paint your house, to set up signings and speaking engagements, and most importantly, to write, write, write, while you wait, wait, wait for months, and weeks, and days…

Are you mind-bogglingly virtuous, too? -- Folio

THE THREE FATES

This week I have orange-hot irons in the fire. I’ve trained over many years for the Olympic sports of novel and script writing. But since who-you-know, timing and luck obviously play a role, I contemplate fate. More specifically what the Greeks personified as the Three Fates.

CLOTHO spun the thread of fate, giving us the inexplicable and irrational drive to be writers. Even now she sets us on a course that includes shearing the wool and combing the cotton, a million skeins worth. We choose colors, concoct patterns, then go about spinning our tales and repairing broken threads. She watches from a distance as we finally tie off our creations.

ATROPOS was the smallest of the Fates but most powerful. She could snip the thread at her whim. She teases us writers with her cruelty. She sends jaded pessimism off in the mail with submissions. She threatens to allow persistence, patience and dogged determination to atrophy. She chooses the manner of a dream’s demise if you let her. She’s the Fate to fear, for she can clip short a tenuous career with two simple words: give up.

LACHESIS stood between the two other Fates. She measured the thread of life, guiding the ups and downs, the spices that salt and pepper our lives. She is your critique partner’s feedback, the scores from a contest judge, the nudge or shove from an agent or an editor. If you pass her tests, she offers up compliments, first place awards, agents’ calls, sales, and bestseller lists.

When the Three Fates show up on the hearth when your author self is born, enlist Clotho (your flaming first words) and Lachesis (your magical path) in keeping sneaky, sabotaging Atropos at bay.

As I await word from producers and agents, I try to honor and be humble before the three Fates.

What mythical characters do you relate to most as a writer?

-From the Inkpot