This Is How You and I Are Gonna Remake the World

It takes an incredible amount of focus, energy, and determination to fling your brain into a fictitious universe. 

I mean... think about it. We are creating a different reality and then trying to jump into it. 

That takes some work. Right?  A ton of focus, courage, boldness, willingness, and all the imagination power you can muster.

Also? It's Monday. 

So let's get a pep talk from a bunch of other creatives, other world-jumpers. 

Below are thirty of my favorite quotes for the writing journey. Quotes for this mysterious, shadowy, reality-jumping side of the writing life.

Think of it as a big shot of caffeine for all of us who are chasing our stories.

Woo hoo!

---

One of the few things I know about writing is this: Spend it all, shoot it, play it, lose it, all, right away, every time. -- Annie Dillard

Don't be so afraid of giving yourself away, either, for if you write, you must. And if you can't face that, better not write. -- Katherine Anne Porter

To write truly good stories, stories that will satisfy you as well as your readers, you must do something no writing teacher, no book, no guidelines, can help you with. You must take risks. Knowing your craft can help you tell a story. But only by taking risks can you make art. -- Marion Dane Bauer

Good writing comes from writers on the edge. -- Ralph Keyes

You have to write your own book. The one only you can write. No one else. This takes fearlessness, but the exciting good news is doing the book teaches you the fearlessness you need. -- Heather Sellers

You have it inside you to fight this fight. Write, think about what you write, then write some more. -- James Scott Bell

Always attempt the impossible to improve your work. -- Bette Davis, note to self

Sometimes the mind needs to come at things sideways. -- Jeff VanderMeer

Write. Write badly, write beautifully, write at night. Stay up way too late, ruin your skin, forget to shave, grow your hair long at your age, and write and write and write and write. Make a mess. Don't clean it up. Do it your way. ... This is your book. -- Heather Sellers

I believe that solitude, perhaps more than anything, breeds creativity, breeds originality. -- Elizabeth Berg

I am learning to see loneliness as a seed that, when planted deep enough, can grow into writing that goes back out into the world. -- Kathleen Norris

You find yourself writing your way out of loneliness, writing your own company. -- Barbara Abercrombie

The uncharted path is the only road to something new. -- Scott Belsky

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind. -- Rudyard Kipling

I get ready every night. I pack for the trip. I load my dream mind, hoping I will wake in the morning inspired, clear, and refreshed. I read good books. I have my journal by my bed. Every night, I'm getting ready for my writing morning. I point myself that way.  -- Heather Sellers

The primary purpose of imagery is not to entertain but to awaken in the reader his or her own sense of wonder. -- Tom Robbins

I don't know anything when I start. The only thing I know is that I'm starting. -- Richard Bausch

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. -- E.L. Doctorow

Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase. -- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Writers steer by wonder and desire. -- Heather Sellers

All writing is dreaming. -- Jorge Luis Borges

The impulse for much writing is homesickness. You are trying to get back home. -- Joan Didion

Embrace passion as a daily practice. -- Donald Maass

You must have a belief in your vision and voice that is nothing short of fierce. -- Betsy Lerner

Be Careless, Reckless! Be a Lion! Be a Pirate! When You Write. -- Brenda Ueland

There is so much about the process of writing that is mysterious to me, but this one thing I've found to be true: writing begets writing. -- Dorianne Laux

Yes! Yes! THAT!

... And here's the last one, which is a long, granddaddy of a quote, but here we go anyway because it's lovely:

    If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.
     You must write every single day of your life.
     ... I wish for you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.
     I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.
     May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories. ...
     Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world. -- Ray Bradbury

---

There it is, my lovelies. The best kind of sustenance for this journey we're on. 

Your turn: Any favorite quotes that help you be a reality-jumper? a dweller in a fictitious time and place? 

Which of the above quotes will you be using to dive into your alternate reality this week? 

Happy dreaming, my friends! Happy writing, lionhearts.

The Worst Thing I Ever Did for My Writing

This post is all about me trying to keep you from getting hit by a bus. Okay? So if I get my serious voice on, that's why. I love you and I want to keep you from being writerly roadkill. All right?

This is one of the absolute worst pieces of writing advice that I ever received. And, I'm ashamed to say, I acted on it:

Just before I started writing full time, an acquaintance of mine--a talented, experienced writer--told me that I should be able to write a novel in a year.

Okay. Here's the truth in that: Many professional novelists can and should create a novel in a year. If novels are what put food on your table, it's a really good idea to write one a year at least. 

But for someone who is just starting to learn about novel writing, this is HOWLINGLY TERRIBLE advice. 

Especially if that new writer is also a high achiever, perfectionistic, Type A sort of person. One who is full of terrors and insecurities about her own legitimacy. Who isn't sure she should be "allowed" to write full time. 

This is very bad advice for that sort of person.

This is one of the beliefs that most crippled me as a writer.

I started writing full time in an absolute panic. I was desperate to prove myself. And I had that advice of hers hanging over my head. I had to crank out this novel.

It took me much too long to let go of that belief. Embarrassingly long. 

And as a result, I've been learning to write a novel completely backwards. 

I can't tell you how badly I wish I could time travel back to see my terrified pre-graduation self.

I'd sit that version of me down in a chair, probably pour some coffee down her throat, and then force her to take notes while I tell her this: Don't try to write one word of an actual novel for at least six months. Maybe even for a whole first year.

Instead, do a bunch of quality writing exercises, I'd say. Give yourself a starting time for your work day, and stick with it. Write exercises for an hour each day. Work up to two.

Fill the rest of your writing days like this: read books on craft, read about how novelists think, and how to build a writing life. Read hundreds of novels.

And then jot down great and crazy and terrible ideas for novels and characters and situations and settings. IDEAS. Don't try to write the novels themselves.

I would tell her, very seriously: Give yourself time to adjust. Time to learn about this life. To learn about novels. Learn about the underpinnings of structure, about the crazy mystery of it all, and how full-time writers think.

Learn about creativity, get yourself a good non-fiction reading habit, become a kind boss to yourself, and start getting rid of your perfectionism and your envy. 

GOSH.

That would have transformed my writing career. 

Instead, I wasted years and years trying to create a publishable product before I understood the basics of how novels actually work.

Before I even knew--truly knew, not just assumed--what kinds of novels I even wanted to write.

I bolstered my belief in this lie every time I heard about publishing wunderkinds, about writers my age or younger who were publishing quality stuff.

I'd go back to what that acquaintance said, stare at a calendar in despair, and then go back to my study and thrash around. 

Nauseating, right? 

YEARS. OF. THIS.  

Well, I can't go back and change that terrified kid's mind and convince her that she needed to grow into this.

To tell her--convince her!! brainwash if necessary!!--that by trying to cut to the end, she was actually giving herself a lot more work, heartache, despair, and bitterness. 

So can I at least convince you? 

Please, please, please. Take the time to learn about novels and writing and your own amazing mind. Do not aim, at the start of your career, at agents and publication. Not immediately. Not yet.

First novels are allowed to be terrible! They are allowed to be awful, wonderful, ramshackle things! They can take a long time to learn to write! They are supposed to sit proudly in drawers with all their battle scars, as proof that you are a learning, growing writer. 

They are not required to be written breathlessly in your first year. And first novels are not required to make you tons of money, fame, glowing reviews, screaming fans, and more money. 

They are only required to help you lay a solid, true, healthy foundation for your writing career.

Okay? 

If you think you're an exception to this: well, you might be.

But just so you know (and even though it makes me CRINGE): I was convinced I was an exception too.

And I stayed convinced in the face of a lot of warning signs. 

I thought that my job was to crank out my first (amazing, best-selling, award-winning, money-making) novel in a year. I thought that was what I was supposed to do.

But here's what I know now.

My job, for at least that first year, was to learn what made a great novel great, what made a bad novel bad, and how to work every single day. My job was to get into the habit of coming up with lots of wild and wonderful ideas and to write down those ideas.

My job was to create a system of habits that named me a writer.

Without reference to publishing, agents, reviews, or awards.

My job was not to write a novel in a year.

If you are new to this, please give yourself time to learn. A LOT of time. Plenty of grace-filled time.

Commit to learning deeply. Learn how your brain works, let yourself write a zillion exercises, explore the kinds of themes that bubble up. Surprise yourself.

Don't be driven by what you imagine you should write or how quickly someone else says you should.

There will be time, later, for professional speed. There will be time to write faster.

There will be plenty of time for you to prove yourself. You'll get there.

But it is silly, pointless, and so heartbreaking to try to do that first thing.

Go! Write! Win! (Consider this our pep rally.)

One of the tricks of working all on your own, is that it's too easy to listen to the screech of fear. Or to its shifty quiet comrade: the overwhelming, convicting malaise that says "I can't do it." 

Here's where I'm at today: I caught a mega sinus infection that's left me foggy of brain and snoggy of nose. (Blerg.) I've managed to do a little work while being sick, but 2+ weeks is a long time to be limping along. 

It's been a while since I've been able to really immerse in work, and I feel like I'm losing the trail of my story. 

You know what I need? A pep rally. Something big, with all the cheerleaders and teammates and the band playing their hearts out.

I need to get jumping up and down again. I need to get back on track.

Because after a big momentum-check like being sick, it's too easy to get stuck.

It's too easy to just stay up there on the diving board of your day or your writing session and not jump. 

Too easy to say, "Meh. I think that's too much for me."

The truth is: Resistance has a lot of megaphones on its side. 

So how about we switch things up.

Go!

Write!!

Win!!!

Ever notice that the more you pay attention to how much you don't want to do something, the harder it is to do it? It's like you're building a wall between you and the thing you need to do.

And you keep reinforcing it, with every minute you spend not doing it.

The longer you let yourself stay in that limbo, and the more you analyze your emotions about doing this Hard Thing, the more impossible it becomes.  

We gotta stop doing that.

So let's go write. 

Let's write when we're tired. Write when our brains are blank. Write when we have nothing to say.

Let's write even when we can't remember why we do this.

What is winning? Winning means putting words on paper. Reaffirming our commitment to this thing, this writing life.

Re-teaching ourselves why we do it, as we do it.

So we turn a blank page into a page full of ink. Straw into gold. Again and again and again.

It's so easy to be trapped by how overwhelmed we feel. How daunting the task.

How we're maybe/probably/certainly/definitely not doing everything right. It's easy to worship the idea of "doing things right."

It's okay to be afraid. It's just that we also keep working. We don't act on the fearing; we act on the writing. 

We choose to dive in. To say: I don't know how this is going to work out, but I'm going to do it ANYWAY.

We remind ourselves: we didn't sign up for this writing life because it was going to be so easy. We signed up because we had to. 

We signed up because the guarantee has always been this: It will be hard, and it will be worth it.

When we want to step away, we'll instead step closer. 

When wrangling with our characters is the last thing we want to do: we'll loosen our grip, let go, and dream them up again. 

We'll imagine them whole and real and motivated, and then we'll follow what they do. And write it all down.

If the spark of loving your work has flickered out, don't despair. Mine's gone out a zillion times, and then re-sparked a zillion times plus one. 

If ink is in your blood, that spark always does come back.

If you've lost momentum on your project, the really great news is: you can build momentum again. By stepping toward your work today, right now, and choosing to re-enter that space of working. Of dreaming up words. Of writing them down. 

And then you just keep swinging.

Don't worry about how it feels. Don't worry about outcome. Don't worry (for now) about quality.

Just do the work. Keep doing the work. And then momentum will show up and sweep you along.

Do what a writer does, and you get to be a writer.

It will be hard. And it will be worth it.

Does Your Writing Life Need a Mega Makeover? (Here's how I transformed mine.)

In spite of all my inherent nerdiness, I was never much of a devotee of writing exercises.

I mean, come on. We all know it takes about a thousand years to write a really good novel. Why waste writing time dithering around with some set of practice pages that would never see the light of day?

If I was going to practice writing, I would practice on my novel, thanks very much. 

... But the writers around me kept praising writing exercises. So I picked up some books of writing prompts and tried a few.

But the prompts were a bit lame. And my resulting pieces were kind of dull. They felt false, canned, pre-packaged. Not the kind of work I enjoyed. Not pieces of writing that I respected. 

Exercises. Pffft.

What changed all that? Three things. 

This book. The concept of a passive idea file. And an eight-week experiment.

What happened? My writing life changed completely. For the much much better.

I was between drafts of my novel-in-progress. I felt tired and grumpy about writing in general.

I wanted to take a break from the long-haul drafting process, but I didn't want my writing habit to atrophy entirely. What to do?

My mom (also a writer) mentioned that she liked the book A Writer's Book of Days, by Judy Reeves. She said it was a book of writing exercises that actually felt doable.

So I picked up her copy and flipped through it, looking at the writing prompts.

They weren't lame. They didn't feel silly. They were actually ... intriguing.

And there was one for each day of the year. (Ooh. I love a good calendar system.)

Bonus: All these prompts were surrounded by wonderful short articles (and quotes, lists, challenges, cheerleading) about the writing life, the writing habit, tips from other writers, and other advice that was cheering, practical, and exciting.

And did I mention that the prompts weren't lame??

Like, here, listen to these: February 12: Write about an eclipse. February 13: What was seen through binoculars. February 15: Write about animal dreams. 

Or September 13: She left a note. September 14: A collection of lies. September 15: "Houses have their secrets" (after Yannis Ritsos).

See? Not the standard. Just enough direction to get the brain involved, but not so much direction that the exercise feels false.

So I swiped Mom's copy. I carved out eight weeks between drafts.

And because I love to do a thing with gusto, I spent those eight weeks writing my way through all of Reeves' 366 exercises. 

Nine or ten exercises per workday. Ten minutes per exercise. 

I filled a lot of spiral notebooks. My handwriting fell to pieces. 

And I became a whole different kind of writer.

Honestly? It's one of the best things I've ever done.

Here's what I found out. 

It helps--a lot--to bring an idea file to the game. 

Like I mention in this post, I keep files full of teeny little ideas. Names that I find intriguing. Phrases that get my imagination swirling. Concepts for settings, situations, relationships. Titles that are begging for a book.

When faced with a writing prompt alone (even one that isn't lame), my brain could still go blank.

But when I also swiped a few ideas randomly from an idea file, and combined those things with the prompt: Magic happened. 

The blank page doesn't have to be terrifying. Neither does "bad" writing.

After facing 366 blank pages? After getting into the rhythm of "ready, set, GO," day after day, time after time? No matter how you're feeling, no matter how creative or not creative, no matter how tired, no matter how many words you've been writing?

Yeah. The blank page loses its fangs and its big scary voice.

Instead, it becomes a means to something much better: a full page.

I also learned not to over-emphasize the importance of my own bad writing. 

With that many pages filled, you better believe that a lot of them were pretty crappy. And yet a lot of them were also rather brilliant. Some of those pages still give me chills, and I'm planning stories around them. 

And the crappy work existed right alongside the brilliant gems.

It didn't matter how I felt about writing each day: whether I felt up for it, or whether I didn't. I still could write total slop and the next minute write something incredible.

So all those feelings we keep feeling about writing? Yeah. They stopped meaning so much.

And I just got to work.

The imagination is a much, much, MUCH bigger (and weirder) place than I thought.

Filling that many pages taught me this for certain: that my imagination was up to the challenge. 

Those 366 pieces of writing covered all kinds of crazy territory. I wrote spy stories, historical sketches, action sequences, serene tea-drinking scenes, wild off the wall stories for kids, bizarre internal monologues... 

It made me realize that my three little novels-in-progress (at the time) weren't the only things I could write.

I got a clear look at my own creative agility. I saw that I could write in almost any direction, that I could improvise on almost any theme.

I stopped feeling so dang TIMID.

When you see what your imagination is capable of, the tasks of writing, rewriting, and revising become a lot less frightening. 

And oh yeah, the writing itself was a lot of fun. 

(See what I did there? I just used "fun" and "writing" in the same sentence. And it wasn't a typo.)

Judy Reeves recommended not planning what you were going to write for an exercise. She said to write down the first sentence that came to you, and go from there.

Rule-follower that I am, I tried that technique. And loved it.

It felt like holding a camera above your head, snapping a Polaroid picture, and then shaking it around, wondering what exactly you had captured. Excitedly watching it develop.

I never, ever knew where my pen would lead. I was half-writer, half-reader, racing over new territory. 

My only goals were: to keep writing, and to not be bored. So I threw in as many twists as I liked, riffing on whatever tangents occurred to me.

You GUYS. It was so much fun.

I almost couldn't believe it: I was writing my brains out, working hard, and yet having a blast.

Writing felt like playing again, like the kind of marvelous inventive play I used to do as a kid.

Every day of writing held dozens of discoveries. I never knew what it would be like.

I got hooked on it.

I began writing for the buzz of it, the glee of making something new.

Again, and again, and again.

---

So: I'm a writing exercise convert. Utterly and completely.

I don't do writing exercises daily, but when my writing life needs a jolt, or when my imagination is sagging, I pull out A Writer's Book of Days and dive in for a while. 

If you're in need of a boost (and who isn't!?), try it.

It will caffeinate your writing, change how you see yourself as a writer, and massively expand the territory of your imagination. 

Yeah. ALL that. It will totally make over your writing life.

... And here you were thinking it would be just another Thursday.

After the Honeymoon: Accepting the Ordinary Writing Life

So we've established that I was/am a super-nerd and that I looked forward to school in a fierce way. Here's the other side of that equation: School failed to deliver.

(Are you SHOCKED?? Hahaha.)

I would watch Anne of Green Gables over the summer and dream of a classroom like that. Those wooden benches they sat on. The one-room school. I had visions of writing on slate tablets with chalk, and school picnics and a warm-hearted Miss Stacy who encouraged us all to be our best...

And then I'd go back to school and my teacher was overworked and underpaid and acted like it. (Poor teachers.) And the girl who had a locker above mine would routinely open it right into my face. And P.E. was adult-sanctioned torture.

And basically, aside from my love of homework and the library, school wasn't much good.

There's the romanticized version, and then there's the day to day of a locker door meeting your face. AKA, Reality.

When I finished college and sailed off to start writing full time, I felt like I had dozens and dozens of people cheering for me. Fellow writers, fellow readers. Classmates and professors. 

I had visions of sitting at my desk in a cozy, artistic way. I figured that after a bout of romantically hard work, my first novel would unfold neatly. I would type it out, and find a publisher, and off we would go, arms linked, into publishing history.

So many adorable little visions about the writing life.

And Reality was gearing up with an epic locker-slam to the face and it was this:

The writing life was so ordinary. It was really difficult, but in a totally non-cinematic way. The novel never "unfolded" and never did anything "neatly."

There has also been no arm-linking of any kind. 

Can I say this: Sometimes you need courage to face a writing life that has no fanfare.

No blast of trumpets. No sense whatsoever that you are Hemingway working away in a romantically barren garret in Paris. No charming Max Perkins writing you letters telling you how good you are.

Sometimes I felt like I could handle any adversity, like I was ready to bravely do something, anything, for this new career of mine--dissect any number of novels to learn from them, or write thousands of words in a month to create the first draft--but when it came down to it, the work itself was very, very quiet.

Very ordinary. 

Possibly even dull.

When people asked what I did in order to write, it felt like a let-down to tell them. I thought it should sound a lot more glorious, one way or another. Romantically wonderful or romantically difficult. 

Instead of like plain old work. 

... Obviously, if you've read a few of these posts, you know that I have since added a lot of jumping up and down, and a lot of dance parties, a fair amount of chocolate, and a lot of other exuberances to my writing life. 

But it never erases or changes the fact that novels are written one word at a time.

And that they are developed by one "what if" and one "so maybe then..." at a time. 

There are a lot of days that are just scratching on paper, and going in circles. 

There are a lot of days that feel like they later get erased, when you throw out those eight chapters you spent a month on. 

There are a lot of days when you could summarize "what I did today" in one sentence: "I wrote things down." 

I meet so many new writers who get discouraged by this.

At first they talk about writing, and their faces light up, and they're full of ideas and dreams of publication. And we talk about writing practice, and they're excited to go and do it. 

And when we connect again, they've already given it up. "It's just a busy season for me," they say, or "it just didn't feel right. It's not what I thought it would be." 

And I get it: I totally get it.

In a way, we've trained ourselves to expect a certain kind of feeling with writing, a certain kind of lifestyle. Whether it's rosy-hued success, or rosy-hued difficulties. A noble struggle or heroic success.

But we picture it looking a certain way, and--certainly for me, certainly for so many people I've talked to--it just doesn't look like that. 

99 days out of 100, my writing life looks a lot more like paperwork than like some delightful, Pinterest-worthy, artist-in-her-studio situation.

I look more like a clerk shuffling papers. With a fondness for staring out the window, and a definite coffee addiction. And that is my day.

But hear me on this: It's a good thing.

Letting a falsely romantic view of this life die: That is a very, very good thing.

Yes, it's discouraging at first. Yes, disillusionment is not fun at all.

But after that, after the writing-life honeymoon is over, we have a chance to encounter the real writing life. 

When we see it as it really is--the ordinary days, the ordinary work, the unlovely chaos--we have a chance to love it as it really is.

See, I think that the over-romanticized view of the writing life is Not Helpful. At all. I think that it contributes to resistance, it makes us want to give up, it probably aids and abets Writer's Block. 

It makes us love the idea of writing more than the actual writing. The image of a completed book more than the path (the sweat! the tears! and more sweat! and a lot more tears!!) to an actual completed book.

Ultimately, an over-romanticized view of writing tells us lies about what we've signed on for.

And if we try to cling to it, it will make us very, very unhappy. With our work and probably with everything else. 

The romanticism will make us quit. 

The sooner we embrace the ordinariness of our writing lives, and its normal, everyday activities, the sooner we get to the really good stuff.

Moments of pure inspiration. Sentences that are so lovely they shock you. Characters that stand up and speak for themselves.

That's not false romanticism, that's the real writing life. The good writing life.

There really are moments that make you want to stick around for years and years. In spite of the ordinary days, and in spite of the hard not-so-picturesque work. 

Go ahead and let that romanticism wear off.

Choose the writing life as it really is: paper cuts and all. 

Because that's where you'll find your real stories. That's where the finished books hang out. That's where you discover your voice. That's where your themes and subjects come into their own.

In the real days of real work. 

Lean in to the reality. It really is worth it. 

Introducing Claire: An Impromptu, Teeny-Tiny Book Excerpt

I've mentioned it once or twice on the blog, but: I took piano lessons pretty steadily for about seventeen years of my life. (Whoa. Suddenly reflecting on that. That's a lot of scales and arpeggios.) 

When I took lessons in college, part of the requirement was a studio class, every other week. Which meant: sitting with a bunch of other piano players, some of them beginners, and some of them way-the-heck better than the rest of us. And you'd each play something.

Like a mini-recital for your peers.

If you think that my fingers were usually shaking a bit, you're right. They were.

But shaking or not, I got used to doing it. Used to taking the bench and playing the piece, fearful or not, trembling or not. It was just a Thing You Did, because you played piano.

The same was true in my writing classes: we took turns sharing selections. Until it just became a Thing You Did: You wrote pieces; you shared pieces. Repeat.

... But guess what. I've been doing this writing thing pretty much on my own for a while, and my habit of sharing my work has gotten a little rusty. That's been on my mind, and I was wondering how to break back in...

When my Twitter buddy Karah Rachelle tagged me in the 7/7/7/7 writing challenge. 

Here's how it goes: Writerly person opens their work-in-progress to page seven. And then counts down to line seven. And then shares the next seven sentences in a blog post.

As in: this post. 

(And then you nominate seven more writers, to carry on the challenge!)

... Wasn't I just saying on Monday that I wanted to introduce you to my characters? Welp, here we go. 

Page seven, line seven, and the next seven sentences.

A little background: On about page two, Phoebe (main character, eleven years old) discovers that a world exists behind a panel in the back of her closet. (Because, well, why not.) She hasn't told anyone yet, but her day is about to get weirder.

During dinner...

Baby Claire popped her fist out of her mouth with an audible smack. And she made a little noise, which sounded like "Ha!" and which made Phoebe grin.

"What I'm trying to understand," said Claire in a crystal-clear voice, "is what happened in Phoebe's closet." 

Phoebe's grin froze. Then she gaped at her baby sister.

"Awwww," crooned Great-Aunt Mildred. "I love her little babbling sounds."

"Because when you came out, your eyes were all funny," Claire said, looking at Phoebe. 

... The baby speaks, ladies and gentlemen. The baby reasons. And the baby gets into a whole bunch of trouble during the course of this trilogy. 

Ta da!

Okay. Who wants to share their work? (I feel like my writing professor, stalking around the room and looking for victims/volunteers.) Who would like to share with the class? 

I'm nominating: 

1) @HLGibson_Author ... See her excerpt here!
2) @victorialfry ... See her excerpts here! 
3) @KFGoodacre ... See her excerpt here! 
4) @ShesNovel
5) @JazzFeathers ... See her excerpt here!
6) @AJLundetrae ... See her excerpt here! 
7) @ink_and_quills 

... Only do it if it's fun, or if it feels right to you and your work, okay? And then tag your post to these comments so we can come read your work and applaud you! :)

ALSO, if you're reading this and you feel that little internal nudge, like you really should do this, like it's been too long since you've sat at the piano and played for others...

Go ahead and self-nominate! (I don't know if that's an official rule, but whatever, I'm saying, go for it!) Post your seven sentences on your blog, and then post a comment below to say that you did, okay? I'll come clap for you! :)

I'd love for this blog to turn into a place where more and more work is shared: both mine and yours! So... this could be the start of something very, very good.

Oh, and P.S.: Thanks for reading.

P.P.S.: Whoops, my excerpt was eight sentences, not seven. I can't count. Ah well. That's why I'm not an engineer. That, and, they write very few children's adventure stories. :) 

Can We Have a BIG GROUP HUG, Please?

Okay, it's my birthday. Which means I get to do a bunch of toasting, right? Birthday girls get to make speeches. And I'm allowed to get a little sentimental, right? Okay. Good. All right.

I started this blog a little over a year ago. Crazy how quickly that time has gone! I just wanted to explore what I'd learned so far about the writing life.

And--for everyone who had been asking me what I did and how I did it--I wanted to pass along anything useful, anything helpful.

And then six months ago, I kicked it up a few notches with a big re-design. (Big!) I figured out that I wanted more courage, that I wanted to develop this idea of a lionhearted writing life. That I wanted to find other brave souls who were putting words on paper.

And then YOU showed up! 

Hundreds and then thousands of you! 

You've been reading and commenting. You have tweeted and pinned and posted. You shared your stories of how you think about the writing life--what's been hard, what's been good. We've commiserated and we've celebrated. 

I'm so proud of us all! 

All these words we're writing! These blank pages being filled! 

There are stories churning among us; there are tales being told!

We're not alone, all of us lionhearted creators. We're not alone. 

If I could give out a party favor in this little sentimental speech-of-a-post, it would be superhero capes.

Because 1) WHY NOT, seriously! And because 2) we are each of us bold and brave.

And because 3) I firmly, sincerely, down-to-my-toes believe that stories are one of the best weapons against darkness. 

We're telling stories. We're fighting back the dark. And that is no small thing, my courageous-even-when-we're-also-shaking-in-our-boots friends.

That's no small thing.

So here's to another year of it! 

Another year of sharing our stories about our stories. Another year of getting better at writing. Of reading fantastic books and talking about them.

Another year of becoming more brave in what we write and how we write it. 

This is our job, friends! The best job in the world! 

I don't know exactly what this next year holds. And if I've learned one thing about the course my writing takes, it's this: All my predictions are wrong! Hahahaha!

Ahem. But that said, I'm hoping that Book One of my middle-grade adventure trilogy will be ready to sell at this time next year. (Or at least, verrrrrrrry nearly.)

Because, oh, I can't wait to introduce you all to my brave little main character, her irrepressible sister, and their reluctant aunt. This story that's existed in my head for so long might finally be ready to make its way in the world. Maybe when I turn 32, eh? 

However it turns out: I'm hoping and trusting for good things in the year ahead.

I'll keep aiming at a good writing life. A healthy, perfectionism-free one.

A writing practice with a lot of heart, a lot of grace, and a lot of courage. Just like the stories I most love and most need.

But for now, I'm so grateful for this community of fellow writers, fellow readers, fellow dreamers.

My fellow lionhearts! Thanks for honoring me with your time, with reading these posts, with your happy dances on Pinterest and Twitter and Facebook.

Here's to growing our courage next year! Here's to better stories and deeper characters!

Here's to tales that change lives: our own lives first, and then many many others!

I love ya. Can I say that? Sure, it's my birthday. I love you, my dear readers, my fellow lionhearts. Thanks for being brave right alongside me. 

Lean in. Let's have a big group hug. And a big group picture.

Say cheese, hold that funny face, wave at the camera, brandish your new superhero capes-- Click.

There. Thanks. I'll treasure that.

Okay. Now let's all find some CAKE.

Stop Dodging Your Best Work (Celebrate Where You've Been)

One of the million, zillion temptations for us as writers is this:

We're tempted to be someone else when we write. 

Tempted to be an edgier, cooler, more "interesting," or more "accepted" human being when we come up with story ideas. 

I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me. Without knowing that I was doing it. Without knowing it was a bad move.

I wrote plenty of poems, essays, and fiction that came from a person I was imitating, not the person that I actually was.

Not the girl who cared about what I cared about.

Ever have that happen to you? That when you sit down to write, you somehow develop a façade?

It's totally understandable: I mean, it is crazy hard to spill your guts onto a blank page.

And one of the ways to make that easier is to be a little less yourself. Or maybe, a different person entirely. And so you try to spill someone else's guts onto a page.

Wait a sec--how can I say that? It's all fiction, right? 

So what does it matter, façade or no façade? If we're not writing memoir, then who cares? It's all made up anyway!

Oh, but it does matter. 

Fiction that comes from a real soul will always feel different from fiction that rests on other people's ideas. One will feel truthful, even though it's fiction. The other will feel faked. (And you know you can't fake your writing, right?)

 I spent four years writing my first novel. Four years, five massive drafts, a TON of work, millions of words. The last draft was over five hundred pages.

And most of that novel never really came out of the real me. 

Parts of it technically worked. I'm a good enough learner and hard enough worker. So yes, there are scenes that work pretty dang well, dialogue exchanges that are whole and clever. 

But the guts of the book--they feel faked. Like I borrowed them from every other book like this I had read. I sewed together dozens of books like this one, and regurgitated them all into "my" story. 

Maybe that's why I never could figure out how to fix it. Maybe that's why it never felt like a real book to me.

Maybe that's part of why that process was so miserable, and why that book is mummified in my closet.

I was writing scared, trying to prove myself. And so I didn't take the time to really be my whole self at my writing desk with that story. I hadn't made sure that that story was really mine to tell.

I never really listened to myself while I was writing it. I panicked. I scrambled.

And I never wrote out of my own material, my own self. Me.

Heather Sellers calls this material--this stuff you write from--your compost.

Here's how she explains it in Page after Page:

So many of my students want to write about anything but where they are from or who they are--anything but their own terrible, lovely, banal, fascinating lives. ... Compost is where everything fascinating and good is. And it's under you. It's in the backyard of you. Stop going across town. Stop importing stories that aren't really yours.

If you aren't dreaming down deep into your own history, your own passions, your actual true, real, daily concerns and obsessions and the shapes of your lived life, you aren't going to be able to improve as a writer. 

Whoa, right? Doesn't she totally nail it? Any of that ring true for you?

To put it another way, Willa Cather said, Let your fiction grow out of the land beneath your feet.

Where are you standing, lionheart? What went into making you? The extraordinary ordinary you? 

What is it that you know in your core? Not your head, not your ideas from other books and movies, but your center? Your exact middle? 

That's the stuff that will translate into your best work.

Seek it out. Accept it. Listen to it.

Here's what I know: My stories became MUCH better when I accepted my material. When I accepted that, yes, this is me: I am this kind of a person, with these values, this worldview, this childhood, these fears, these passions.

When I didn't fight that, when I sat down with dead-on honesty at the keyboard, I wrote stronger, truer, richer stories.

Does that mean I started writing memoir and autobiography? Heck no!

All the work I've done since then has been full of the bizarre, quirky characters that I adore. Plenty of the fantastical. 

But all that fantastical has its roots in my compost. Everything strange in my stories is balanced by everything I honestly believe, everything I know as truth.

Embrace your material and write from it. That means that no matter what kind of story you are writing, there is a YOU present in the story.

A sense of your very real heart, your real experiences, your real take on the world--beating there like a pulse under your fantastic, extraordinary story.

Accept your material for what it is. Treat it with respect and honor, because that's the soul of what you'll write. That's the center of your best work.

Celebrate your compost.

---

In the mood to keep reading? You might also like: Are You Ridiculously in Love with your Writing? and Refuse to Feel Sheepish about How Completely Odd You Are.

How to Resuscitate an Envy-Ridden Writing Life

If we're going to talk about celebrations this month--and we totally are!--then we need to talk about the big, oily vulture that camps in front of the party store, glowering at everyone.

You might have met him. His name is Envy.

... Yes, I realize how goofy that metaphor sounds. Here's something a lot less goofy:

If you're letting Envy hang out in your writing life, you're poisoning your work environment, your work-in-progress, and your imagination. And you definitely won't be celebrating much.

It's BAD NEWS, is what I'm saying.

Kinda makes a vulture metaphor sound cute in comparison.

Envy is a pretty easy companion to pick up. It slips in without you really knowing it. 

Here's how it found me: I was doing my work, minding my own business. Learning about the writing life, learning how to write novels. I realized how good I wanted to be, and how far I still had to go to get there.

The "apprenticeship" phase of my writing life has taken a lot longer than I ever expected. I can now say that's a good thing, but while I was courting envy, I really REALLY couldn't see that.

Meanwhile, everyone else I knew sprinted past me. 

Former classmates, who I didn't think could even speak whole sentences clearly, began writing books and were apparently having much more fun than I was. The next publishing phenomenon was the same age I was when I started writing. 

I was even irritated by the non-writers: They were getting promotions, moving up career ladders, earning secondary degrees, traveling to every continent.

It seemed like everyone else was successful: And I felt like I was actually getting dumber. Losing my grip on words. And kind of generally hating everyone. 

Some days it was hard to get out of bed.

And that's when I realized that, hey, I wasn't alone in my writing work anymore. I had this huge stinking vulture keeping me company, clicking its talons on my desk and grinning at me. (Vultures can grin. I just decided that.)

Get the picture? It's an ugly one. 

And when there's a vulture on your writing desk, well then. It's pretty obvious why you're not hanging balloons in your study, stringing up banners, baking cakes, and giving yourself and your writing life party favors.

Envy is the anti-party. The total opposite of celebration.

Look. I get it. I'm kind of making light of it here, but when you're really stuck in this cycle of envying others' successes, and hating your own work, things look pretty bleak. The reasons to not celebrate are everywhere. 

And there's a pretty big trend of writers hanging out in frustration and sadness and depression. How many stories have you heard of writers wallpapering their offices, bedrooms, or bathrooms with the rejections that they received? 

Can I just go ahead and say: that is the WORST idea for wallpaper I have ever heard.

I know, I know. I'm probably getting kicked out of all the writing clubs for saying that. But SERIOUSLY. Staying surrounded with failure? (Even if you're being very grown-up about it and not seeing it as failure... or pretending you don't see it as failure...) 

Can we just NOT DO THAT.

Because I have a much, much much better idea for wallpaper. 

It is backbone-strengthening, vulture-banishing, and probably a lot prettier than those form rejections.

Also: it just might get you out of your envy cycle. Yes, you. Yes, really.

But it does take a tiny commitment on your part: You have to get some paper (any kind of paper!) and a writing instrument (any kind! it's your wallpaper after all: what do you want to look at?). 

Okay, got it? Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make some lists.

About what we're grateful for.

No, don't roll your eyes at me. I get it: Gratitude is having a moment right now, and if the gratitude posts on Facebook from the writers you know are what got you into this mess, then I'd say very lovingly that you need to get off Facebook for a while.

Seriously. The vulture LOVES it when you go on Facebook. Take a break.

Gratitude is our anti-poison. The antidote to envy.

Envy blinds us to what is good, right now, right here, in our writing lives as they are. Gratitude fights back, by lighting up what we know. Showing the truth. It helps us see clearly again. 

So are you ready? Here's the first one: 

Start by making a big list of words you like.

Let's celebrate words! They can be your favorites, or they can be ones you like the sound of right now. They can have lovely definitions and etymologies, like gossamer, or they can be comic-book words, Dr. Seuss words, like zap and kerfuffle and pow.

Okay? Take at least five minutes. Fill as many pages as you can. Go, go, go!

Yes, you really have to. You can't just think these words: it doesn't work like that. You're a writer with a case of the Envies: you get out of it by writing. I promise.

(If you can't think of a single word you like, run grab a dictionary--yes, a real dictionary--and just flip through the pages. Take some time. Get acquainted with words. The weird ones, the prickly ones, the impossibly long scientific jumbles of suffixes and prefixes, the simple little two-letter ones. Fall in love with words again.)

Done with that one? Okay, here's your next: 

List the best moments you've ever had as a reader. All those times when you fell in love with a story, a setting, a character's voice. The moments when the writer was actually writing about you somehow, and you nearly fell off your chair when you read it. THOSE moments. 

Just capture those times, quick and fast, just a few words for each one will do. It's not for other people to read, it's for you, just to remember those wonderful times when someone else's words transformed you.

Okay? Good.

(If you can't think of any times when you loved reading, then go put your face into a bookstore, a library, SOMEWHERE where you can browse books, open them at random, find a new one that you love.)

Here's the last one. The trickiest, and yet the most important:

What do you love about the writing life? 

If that's too complicated, let's switch the question: What do you like about the writing life? What might you appreciate about it--you know, on a good day? What are the good places?

Is it the buzz of a new idea, just at the moment when you realize it will be your next story? The hole-in-one feeling when you finally get the right name for that one character? The dialogue exchange you wrote, and you felt like you were taking dictation, and not like you were thinking at all?

Maybe it's the writing tools you love--watching ink seep into paper, or text fly across a once-blank screen. Maybe you like the feel of a book in your hand. Or writing in a truly lovely leather journal.

Try to get as many things down as you can. Try for a dozen. If you can't get to a dozen, try at least six. If you can't get to six, try for two.

Write down at least one good thing about the writing life. One good thing.

And put it above your desk. Put it where you'll see it.

And then add to it, every day. 

Make it as easy for yourself as possible. Go basic. Go simple. But this is part of how I crawled out of envy, how I lost my vulture writing companion:

I figured out what was good. And I wrote it down. 

So, what about you? Did you do it? Did you make your three lists? How did it go?

Keep them handy. And try to add to them whenever you can. Read them over to encourage yourself.

We writers need to remember our love of words, our love of stories, and our love of this chosen vocation. Yes?

Because we survive the dark places in the writing life by feeding what is good. Writing them down. Turning them into wallpaper.

Focusing on the good has been one of the best ways for me to turn around my ugliest writing moods. That and, you know, chocolate.

Use 'em both. Use 'em often. Whenever you suspect a vulture approaching.

Why Cake and Confetti Should Be a Part of Your Writing Life

Here's the sad truth: Until a couple of years ago, I thought that if something was worth doing well, it was worth doing STERNLY.

Work ethics are not for being happy and enjoying life, I thought. They are for GETTING STUFF DONE.

So. I got a lot of stuff done. A lot of words written. 

But frankly, it wasn't a lot of fun. I didn't enjoy the process. And it made the writing life feel about a thousand times harder than it really needed to feel.

So I've changed my tune. I'm bringing a more celebratory attitude into my writing life!

And you know what I've figured out? It actually makes me a BETTER WRITER. Crazy, right? And yet so true. 

Wanna join me? Here are four ways that celebration makes us better at our job of making stories.

1: Enjoyment is a currency.

Let's be real: If writing is your gig, you're either a) not getting paid a TON, or b) not getting paid at ALL.

(If money is pouring into your lap, then I'm super happy for you. Cake is still a good idea, though.)

If you're not getting paid much for writing, then how much sense does it make to also have no fun when you write? How wise is it, really, to have an anti-celebration mindset? 

One of the ways that I "pay" myself for writing is by loving it. Does that make sense? 

I mean, I know plenty of people who get paid real money for what they do all day. And they hate what they do. Real money ... for a job they really hate. 

That just doesn't sound like a great deal to me. What's a better deal? Getting little-to-no money for a job I really really love. 

(I know, I know. The best option is for us to get a lot of real money for a job we really love. We'll get there one day, lionhearts.)

In the meantime, having a job that I love, a job that feels festive, that feels like a word-party and a story-celebration... that's my take-home pay.

2: An attitude of celebration makes us generous.

Have you ever read a book that felt like it was a gift? Like every sentence was crafted and given to you? 

Those are the reading experiences we dream of and long for, right? 

Think back to the last time you felt that way. The last time a book absolutely wrapped you up in delight. Remember the title, the feeling?

Okay. Here's my theory: I don't think the author of that book was the Ebenezer Scrooge of writing.

I doubt very much that the author was sitting at a desk, piecing the words together with an I-hope-you-burn attitude toward readers.

I'm guessing this author wasn't a miser with imagery, description, and the emotional force behind the words.

I bet they shared themselves with you, the reader. And that the book was born out of an attitude of joy for the work. 

Even if the book was hard to write. Even if the subject matter was difficult. Nevertheless: a deep joy for the process of writing itself. A sense that this transaction between writer and reader is worth celebrating.

This feeling was wonderfully expressed by a Pixar animator, in one of those bonus feature interviews on a DVD. (I can't remember which movie or which animator. Super unhelpful, I know. Sorry. Maybe it was Monsters, Inc. Try that one.) 

Anyway: He said that the work of making the movie--though long and hard--was like creating a surprise party for the viewers. 

A surprise party.

Every amazing frame of the movie, or the next twist in the plot, was like another gift that they were handing their audience.

And he was grinning as he said it. His excitement for the process: it was completely evident in his face, his manner. 

I love that. It's the ideal attitude for us story-tellers.

We should be writing surprise parties for our readers. And the process of putting those parties together? It wouldn't hurt for that to feel fun and festive as well. 

3: Celebration is anti-perfectionism. (You know I'm all about that!)

Where there is a real, healthy, hearty celebration, an honest-to-goodness party, perfectionism has to leave. It just does.

Because everyone can tell it's not enjoying itself. It's too busy freaking out about how the napkins aren't lined up exactly, and the cheeseball is slumping a little, and the frosting on the cake isn't QUITE the best consistency--

And yet. Everyone is having a good time, people are laughing, the kids are running around like little crazies, and the guest of honor can't stop smiling. 

There is no room at the party for perfectionism.

Everyone's having a great time. Even with the mess, even with the uncertainties, even when things don't go exactly perfect. 

Everyone's doing great. So perfectionism is out of a job.

And it's the same in the writing life.

When you are determined to enjoy the process, when you're tossing confetti at your story in spite of the way the plot doesn't line up, and even though there's a massive disconnect in your characterization, and even when you have millions of hours still to put in--

When you're still enjoying it, and when you're still treating it like a party, perfectionism gives up on you.

And that is the best news for your story. 

4: Celebration welcomes creativity.

When I'm really enjoying the process of putting together a story, I'm willing to stick with it even longer. I'll tease out certain elements that I would otherwise rush over. 

When I'm enjoying the brainstorming sessions, I'll push to keep searching for the exactly spot-on idea, instead of just grabbing the first workable one I think of. 

It all starts to work together! The generosity mindset plus a willingness to hang with the process a bit longer: that means more ideas to choose from, and a broader range of possibilities.

Which means more time practicing craft. Which means an all-around better and more creative story. 

And THAT'S the grand prize. That's the whole piñata! A wonderful story coming from a healthy writing life: that's exactly what we were here celebrating to begin with.

5: Um, also... my birthday is coming up!!

I turn 31 on the 31st! Gaaaa!!! 

Probably that's not going to make a difference in your writing life. (Though I'd hate to make assumptions or anything.)

But seriously. On my birthday last year, it dawned on me how profoundly bad I am at most celebration. Really. REALLY. 

I want to celebrate, I see the need for it, and it sounds like a good idea--but when it comes right down to it, I'm not awesome at this whole party-making thing. 

So I'm looking at this month in general--and the thirty-first in particular!--as a chance to get a LOT better at celebrating. 

Celebrating the birthday: yes. But more than that.

I want to get so much better at recognizing opportunities for celebrating everything else around me: The stuff I take for granted, as well as the chances that drop in my lap. I want to bake a cake for the things that are ordinary and mundane, and I want to rise to the occasion when something grand and spectacular is afoot.

This August = Celebration Rehab. 

Will you join me?

Let's go get some confetti.

---

If you want to get celebrating right away, here are a few ways to bring a more festive mindset into your writing life: Have a Dance Party, Make Your Office Awesome, and Give Yourself Permission to Play.

Whoa. You're off to a great start!