Making It Easy to Write

Yeah, I know. The words easy and writing don't usually belong in the same sentence.

And maybe writing will never be truly easy, but I think that we can all agree that--on the best days--it can be easier rather than harder.

When my writing is going okay, I lean deeper and deeper into this practice of staying connected to the work. 

Because isn't disconnection half of what's hard about it?

If my characters are strangers, if I can't remember the knack of their voices, if I've lost the atmosphere of their world, and the thread and threat of the conflict has evaporated...

That's when writing feels impossible. That's when I start giving up.

But when the world of the novel stays alive in my mind, when all my mental machines for writing stay on and humming, when the engine is warm:

Those are the enchanted times when I get three new ideas during dinner, when I step out of the shower with a paragraph written in my head, when I hear a chance phrase from someone else and solve a major plot concern instantly.

We want to keep that engine warm! It's a massive game changer in this whole enterprise.

We have to never stop writing. 

No, I don't mean we're tied to our desk, and I don't mean we never have a day off. I mean that we never let the engine get truly cold. 

In Chapter after Chapter, Heather Sellers describes the practice of "positioning," a term she got from her writing friend Eric. 

She says that he decides exactly what he'll be working on the next day. He makes a list, staying businesslike and professional about it. He sets out the files he'll need, getting everything ready for the next morning.

"Purposeful book authors ... lay out their things, mentally and physically preparing for the next writing day. ... Everything is set up for the next day, like dominoes, and in the morning [Eric] just has to get his butt to the chair, flick his finger, and the process immediately has its own momentum."

Heather describes her own positioning process while writing a collection of short stories: every evening she would review her notes, touch the printed pages of her draft, and glance over her outline.

Nothing intense. Just a nightly visit to her writing studio.. But this kept the book alive in her mind, day after day after day, in spite of massive changes in her personal life.

James Scott Bell, in Plot & Structure, describes his habit of writing 350 words in the morning, practically first thing.

He says it's a good jump forward on his quota of words. But I think it also keeps that story alive, by immediately connecting writer to words at the start of the day.

I've found half a dozen ways to stay connected to my story, and to keep that writing engine warm:

• When I'm in the thick of drafting, I always start the day's work by rereading what I wrote yesterday. (I'm not allowed to cringe too much.)
   

• If I'm drafting by hand (and I usually am), I also type the previous day's work. Usually, I tweak it a bit as I go, and this light editing gets my brain all kinds of warmed up.
   

• When I get up from my desk during the day (you know I have those dance parties!): I jot a few notes. Whatever I already know about what comes next: any details, any fragments. It's like a quick Polaroid of what I was writing toward. 
   

• If I have to leave for a longer time--doctor's appointment, coffee date--I'll take a much more complete snapshot. I layer in more details, roughing in a view of the rest of the scene. Even if a whirlwind of distractions follows, that next bit of writing is safe. And it doesn't take much for me to get back into the groove.
   

• At the end of the work day, just like Heather Sellers and her friend Eric, I make a plan. I'll look at my notes, my outlines. Maybe tidy up the clutter. Set out all the working pieces in places of honor. 
   

• ... And when I'm really, really working hot, when the days feel like I'm living more in the book than in the "real world," more in ink and paper than in oxygen and carbon, I do one more thing: I sleep next to the manuscript. It's right there next to me in bed. Yes. I do realize that this is TOTALLY weird. But there's something about the notebook sitting there, with all those words. It feels like the book is truly alive, like my brain is still connected. The last thing I want to do is break that spell. So instead, I try to put a huge sign on my subconscious, saying: I'm Still Here. (It's a little less weird if you think of a newborn baby sleeping in the same room as its parents. See? That's normal, right? And you never know when the manuscript might wake up in the middle of the night and need you to rock it back to sleep...)

If you've ever had a block. If you've ever had a rough day. If you've ever totally lost the thread of what you're working on because life showed up. If you've ever been in a groove and then so unexpectedly fell right out of it. 

If that's ever happened to you (and that's all of us, right?), then you owe it to yourself to lean in. To make the most of the good times. 

Learn how to stay connected to your work. Refuse to take the good days for granted. Don't start skipping out. Don't trust the sunshine to stay forever.

Keep the engine warm; keep moving forward.

Make it easy (or at least easier) to write.

Do you have strategies for staying connected to your book? I'd love to pick up some new tricks... Do share!

I'm Declaring Today a Reading Holiday

Stephen King wrote, "If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."

Let's all just stand and applaud that clarity, okay? 

I love that. I totally agree with that.

But can I tell you something? I'm so bad at making time to read. 

In spite of LOVING to read, my reading life has been pretty much crap for the last three months. I mean, I read here and there, a smidge at a time... but nothing like what I want. I'm pecking at it, not gulping.

And now and then, I really need to gulp. I need to drown a bit in words. 

I met a woman once who, now and then, would clear her schedule for a day. Run the errands early, get the dog taken care of, have everything settled, just as if she were going to be out of town for the day. And then she'd just read. 

Hero status granted.

I admire that. I love that. And I'll insist on anyone's right to read, to read all day.

AND YET. I have this weird resistance, a difficulty giving myself permission. 

ACK! Why is that?! Is it because reading was an escape for so much of my life--a way to relax and unwind. So, does it feel like I'm dodging work? Pffft.

Whatever the reason, that kind of resistance to reading doesn't belong in this writer heart! It's not at all what Lucy Flint stands for, as I hope you know by now.

So. Today, I'm declaring a reading holiday. June 12.

Me & a novel. I'll clear the schedule. I'll devote myself to reading.

You're welcome to join me. In fact, please do! Invite friends! Let's all do this serious wonderful work of reading together. Let's all give each other permission. 

(And tell me what you're reading in the comments!)

Superhero Your Writing

It can seem very heroic, can't it, to have an all-embracing sense of your flaws. To beat our critique partners to the punch by saying, I know it's terrible because of x, and y, and z. 

And because drafts have flaws, and because we aren't perfect (yay!), we have a point.

There will always be weaknesses in what we do.

But there will also be strengths.

I don't care how execrable your latest draft was: If you itch to write stuff down, then you have a strength.

Whether it's your point of view, your perspective, your sense of pacing, your grip on setting, your flair for unusual conflict, your lovable characters...

Face it, writer-friend: Somewhere, somewhere, your writing has some strengths.

Here's what I want you to do: Make 'em stronger. 

Work on your best points. Find where you glow, and become incandescent. Light it up.

"But no, no," comes the protest. "We have to focus on our weaknesses, right? Find all the bad places and make them better. Right?"

Well, okay. There's a time to focus on weaknesses and make them better. To build up those places.

But I want to introduce you to this crazy, revolutionary practice of appreciations, taken from Making Ideas Happen:

When Scott Belsky went to a storytelling workshop, led by Jay O'Callahan, he and the other participants took turns telling their stories. And after each story, the rest of the group would talk about what the teller had done well, what they appreciated.

They talked about the strengths. 

And then, the storyteller would take all that feedback, rework the story, and share it again. 

If you're like me, your first reaction to this is: But what about all the weaknesses? 

Here's how Belsky describes the effect:

"I noticed that a natural recalibration happens when you commend someone's strengths: their weaknesses are lessened as their strengths are emphasized. ... The points of weakness withered away naturally as the most beautiful parts became stronger."

So... the weaknesses get taken care of, when we bring out what was good? 

When we lean on our strongest and best points, the crappy bits fade?

BONUS: The storyteller is not writhing on the ground in tatters. I call that a win.

So here's what I propose: Next time someone reads your writing to give feedback, ask them to tell you the three things that they most appreciated.

And try revising based on that.

Belsky writes: "A creative craft is made extraordinary through developing your strengths rather than obsessing over your weaknesses."

Made extraordinary.

See, that's what got me thinking about superheroes.

Superheroes tend to have one specific extreme ability. And then there are a few strengths that support that, that help make that useable. (And they have a suit, maybe a cape. You can get those too if you like.)

Find your three top strengths (or more!). Nourish them. Exercise them. Make them stronger still.

And then you're basically a writing superhero. And that piece of writing you've been revising? Extraordinary.

Not because you've been focusing on a detailed list of all your failings, and trying to bring them up to par. Nope. You already have some gold there.

Get your readers' help finding it, polish it up, and make it the centerpiece.

Unleash your strengths. 

Give Yourself a Year of Writing Dangerously

Once when I was traveling and had to be away from my desk for a month, I happened across A Year of Writing Dangerously in Barnes & Noble.

I fell in love with the title IMMEDIATELY. I pulled it off the shelf, thinking that even if the inside of the book is a bust, I want the phrase WRITING DANGEROUSLY tattooed across my arms.

Yes???

Writing dangerously. I just love that, just completely love it. Yes! Push right to the edge, write from the brink, be brazen, dare.

Be bold in telling the truth, say how things really are, fend off apathy. 

Because when we're doing this, when we're really into the game, when we're playing for keeps: writing is a lot like scooping chunks of your heart out with a spoon, smearing it on paper, and hoping people like it, hoping it's useful, hoping it helps, hoping you told the whole truth.

It is dangerous to write. We're brink-dwellers, on the edge of so many things. Giving it all away. Saying every secret. Spending all we have.

So yeah. I fell in love with the title. 

And then the inside of the book was exactly what I hoped it would be.

She talks about the writing life: the spectrum we live in, from insecurity to daringness. She describes how famous writers write. (Which I love, b/c I'm so nosy about writing routines!) She shares anecdotes about famous writers, less famous writers, students, herself. 

If you're like me, you'll read this and you'll recognize your own funny self: over and over again. And you and I will both be sighing and saying I'M NOT CRAZY, I'M JUST A WRITER, WHEW.

It's good to know. 

She has tips on creativity, on how to keep a light hand with your work, or, on the flip side, how to lean in closer and be more serious. 

I LOVE that she closes each section with a quote. I love writing quotes, of course, and have collected so very many of them--and yet so so so many of these were new to me. 

It's just HELPFUL, guys. There's a whole community of writers represented in these pages. So many fellow scribblers in her text, in her anecdotes, in the quotes, that even if you're working alone, even if you're the only writer you know, you feel surrounded by others.

All of us picking our way forward with ink, with words. 

You're swimming in this stream with all these other writers! We're all foraging for ideas, dreaming up stories, creating little worlds that then run away with us.

All of us. Together. All year long.

The reading for each day is small enough that it's the perfect little idea snack before you dive into your writing day. Or it's the perfect closer at the end.

Or you can do what I did when I first discovered it: I picked it up that day, obviously, in the bookstore, and I brought it on my trip with me.

And whenever I could, I'd sneak off and just gulp it down, reading a chunk at a time, soaking it up, immersing in words.

It's wise and bright and funny, clever, insightful, and darned intelligent. It's just right, it's the very thing, it's the perfect fit.

One of the reviews calls this book a writing party, and I love that description, because yes. Yes it is. 

Phyllis Theroux says, "When you open [this book], you are in a house full of writers, each of whom wants to march you over to a corner to tell you something important about the writing life....Prepare yourself for a wonderful party!" 

If you or someone you know could do with a bit of courage, a bit of brightness in book form (and who doesn't need that?): then get this book.

And if you pop some champagne and toss some confetti as you read, as you celebrate writing dangerously... Well, I'm not going to stop you.

The Best Job in the World

When I'm good and happy with my writing project, when I've had a solid two weeks of decent output, regular insights, normalish emotions, then I'm ready to put a cherry on top of everything and declare writing the best job in the world.

I mean, it is, right? (Especially if we've been practicing delight.)

We're so lucky. Our job means that we can fill to the brim with the beauty of words and the transcendence of narrative. We learn from all the great writers: we get to read and taste and mimic.

And at the end of the day, all our days, we are making more books. More shared ideas. More fascinating characters. We're supplying textbooks for living. For ourselves and our fellow humans.

In his wonderful book On Writing, Stephen King says that writing is "telepathy, of course." 

Because when something is described by the writer on the page, and then received by the reader:  Welp, telepathy is exactly that that is. King writes:

"This is what we're looking at, and we all see it. I didn't tell you. You didn't ask me. I never opened my mouth and you never opened yours. We're not even in the same year together, let alone the same room . . . except we are together. We're close. We're having a meeting of the minds."

Um... I LOVE THAT. A meeting of the minds.

Writing is telepathy. And more than that: Stephen King wrote those words in Maine, in 1997. I'm typing them here, at a suburb of St. Louis in 2015, at my huge black desk (strewn with five separate beverages; four open books with more on the floor; a positive cascade of notes on scraps of paper; dozens of writing instruments; a lamp; a partially buried paperweight).

And then you're reading it, wherever you are...

So it's telepathy. And kinda teleportation. And time travel too.

Words can go anywhere: they have no borders, not really, not anymore. We writers have long arms, hands that can reach anywhere, that can reach forward in time--who knows how far? 

And what's in those hands?

Books. Words. Stories. Ideas. Dialogue. Characters. Images. 

People will read what we've written, and they'll look up in surprise and say, That's me. This person is writing about me. I'm seeing myself in this story.

They'll read our pages and say: Someone understands. Someone else has been there. Someone gets it.

We're giving courage to other people. Courage to face their own days, courage to go forward. Through our words, we get to hold hands with people who are suffering. People in need. 

We're giving them what we have--the best we have. 

We have the best job in the world. And it isn't writing, not really, not exactly. 

The best thing is to love other people. 

To reach out, to hold hands, to stay connected, to be humans, to talk about living.

To give courage, insight, guidance. To say, Yes! Do that! Go! Or to say, No, don't go that way, please, you'll regret it.

As writers, we are both the Listeners and the Speakers. And through all our words, we're communicating love, essentially.

Is that weird to say?

Here, if the word love creeps you out, read this quote, from William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech:

"It is [the writer's] privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."

Right? Right??? THAT.

The best job in the world. Giving other people what they need. Spending our time and energy to meet those needs.

Our medium happens to be words--stories, characters, images, conflict. We happen to be dealing with tales and novels and fiction.

"Stories are light. Light is precious in a world so dark. Begin at the beginning. Tell Gregory a story. Make some light." -- Kate DiCamillo, The Tale of Despereaux

The real job, the best job, is reaching other people. Lifting their hearts. Bringing light.

Today We All Get Permission to Play

We've all had the experience of reading a novel that made us envious, right? 

Jealous of another writer's skill, their way with words, their peerless grasp of imagery. Admiring all that they've done. Shaking our heads in amazement.

When I was working on my first novel, that happened to me. I picked up Andrew Peterson's On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness. And I was struck by longing.

Yes, the characters, the plot, the incredible storyworld he had built: all of that was wonderful and worth applause. But the thing that really got me, the thing that unearthed a huge amount of envy in me was this:

Andrew Peterson wrote as if he were having fun.

The stakes were still high. The painful moments were real. The evil antagonists were pretty dang evil. 

And yet. A glee bubbled beneath every paragraph. A delight in the words themselves, in wordplay, in the funny moments, in the perfect exchanges of dialogue, in the dangerous-yet-hilarious fantastical animals. 

How did he do it?

And why was I sweating and weeping and frustrated and hating the process of writing, while he seemed to be having fun.

It was a puzzle.

And yeah--we all know that you can write strong, compelling prose even when you're having a hard day, a rough time, a grumpy mood. So I'm not saying he did, in fact, write the whole thing in a state of bliss.

I'm sure it was hard. I have no doubt that he struggled while he wrote. Certainly he's human and works through off days like everyone else.

AND YET. 

I'm still convinced he was having a lot more fun than I was. 

And it gets me thinking: What if enjoying writing is as much a skill, a cultivate-able mindset, as much as anything else? 

What if we could all be having fun when we write? 

I love the movie Finding Neverland, and I especially love Johnny Depp's portrayal of J.M. Barrie. I don't know how scrupulously accurate it is or not, but either way:

I want to learn from his playfulness. How open he was to being imaginative. How he was willing to be silly. 

But I need a lot of help figuring out how to do that.

Obviously, children are the experts on knowing how to play, how to imagine, how to embrace silliness. It's one of the many things we need to learn from them.

Have you ever played with bubbles with a kid?

There's no reason to bubbles. There is no why with bubbles. They just ARE. 

They're not going to last, they do absolutely no good, everyone's hands get sticky, and inevitably the bottle tips over, and more than one bubble-making wand gets accidentally (or purposely!) licked. 

But bubbles delight.

And kids do things simply because they are delightful.

When did we lose the value of that?

We get so caught up with what we SHOULD do. We write the characters, the setting, the conflict, the genre that we SHOULD be writing.

Have we lost touch with what honestly, truly, deep-down, bubblemakingly DELIGHTS us?

I think we need to get in touch with our sense of play. 

And today is the perfect time for it. To learn to be playful.  And to play well.

To enjoy freewheeling rush of creation. To write things just because.

To create a character that delights us. To write dialogue that we find funny. To please ourselves first--and maybe ourselves only--with a choice of setting. To write paragraphs that will exist for no other reason than because we like them.

To write nonsense poems. To mimic E. E. Cummings or Ogden Nash or Edward Lear or Edward Gorey or whoever delights you with words.

We need a childlike attention to play. It's serious for them, at the very same moment that it's fun. Have you noticed that? There's a sincerity to their delight, a weight to the glee, a determination to the play. 

They're focused on getting delight right. It matters to them, deeply. 

Maybe because they know that delight is part of living well. 

And isn't that why we're writing, anyway?

The Enormous Virtue of Showing Up

It is amazing how well writing will go for you, so long as you just show up. 

How many character insights, how many brilliant plot twists, how many excellent words: They appear on beautiful ordinary days. It doesn't always take a huge effort, or an intervention, or an outside critique.

Sometimes it's just the page and a writer who chose to show up. Nothing flashy.

What does that mean, showing up?

Well, it doesn't mean being a zombie. Propped up and semi-conscious (with or without the questionable diet): Nope, doesn't work. 

I mean being present. With every part of yourself.

You've gotta show up physically.

I know, I know, your body is in a chair, so it's easy to think you can check this one off right away.

But to physically show up, you also need all senses active and ready. Aware of your body.

Because when you're writing, you'll need to rely on sensory detail, on description that is rich and vibrant and feels like a real person experienced it. 

... And that's true whether you're writing a multigenerational saga or an oven manual. We're never allowed to write as if we're robots.

Physical energy is crucial too: It's too easy to be half-asleep, slumped in the chair.

But writing is an exhausting thing--for me, at least. It takes real, physical energy to get words on a page. So eating smart, exercising regularly, sleeping well: That all feeds into a quality writing day.

You have to have all your tools physically ready too--your reference books, all your notes jotted down on scraps of paper, pens that work, batteries in your keyboard, four cups of piping hot coffee. 

You've gotta show up mentally.

You can't write when your mind is full of other things.

It's easy to lose the battle here. To get swept into a rant, instead of into writing. To fall down a rabbit hole on the Internet, blinking fuzzily at your computer as you realize three hours have passed. To consider your evening plans all morning long.

Trust me, I get it. And I do it too. SO MANY TIMES.

But it's pretty hard on all my characters. Their precious real estate in my mind is suddenly crowded with ideas that have nothing to do with them. They're pushed into the background, as all that prime thinking goes to other (less important!) things.

Unfocused writing might as well not be writing at all.

It takes a conscious effort to boot out everything but the work itself. It's not something that resolves on its own. 

To get back on track, I have to say--out loud, sometimes--I'm done thinking about that. I'm done trying to come up with the perfect retort that I should have used two nights ago!! This time is for WRITING. And so I'm going to WRITE.

(It sometimes helps to run around your office with your hands in the air as you shout this. Or maybe that's just me. But seriously: it clears the mind.)

Ask yourself, what's getting in the way?

Are you upset about something? Or--and this can be a tricky one--listening to the wrong music? Singing along happily and thinking about driving with all the windows down, and not so much about this fragile scene, these quiet characters.

We have to show up. We have to arrive at the desk with full writer brains.

With memories tingling in our fingertips. With our imaginations brewing carafes of imagery.

Mind sharp. Vocabulary present. All those words raring to go.

You've gotta show up with a whole heart.

This might be the sneakiest no-show of all. Because yes, we can get the sleep we need (or at least the coffee we need), and we can clear our minds of interference.

But it's still possible to hit the draft absently. To be less than our whole selves.

There's no room for emotional insensitivity in a writing life. And emotional darkness is just as dangerous. Bitterness can dampen the real insights we might otherwise offer.

Henri Matisse said, "Hatred, rancor, and the spirit of vengeance are useless baggage to the artist. His road is difficult enough for him to cleanse his soul of everything which could make it more so." 

Isn't that true??

How's your heart doing these days?

I've found that when I let envy fester in my life, when I let a kind of callousness creep in, when I'm actively bitter about something--my writing goes down the tubes.

Yeah, I might muster up some funny sarcasm. Yeah, it might seem like some of the words are sharper. But the core of it, the real goodness of it, is off. 

Even when it's just me writing in my room, just me and all my characters: I have to stay open-hearted, stay sensitive to people.

Aware of human fragility and human strength. Conscious of complexities. Striving for forgiveness--or at least understanding--for the real live people I know.

Showing up with a whole heart means coming at this enterprise with an intent to do good. To build a bridge from this heart to a reader's heart. To build that bridge with words.

Doesn't really work if we're also harboring the emotional equivalent of a bridge bomber. You know what I mean?

We owe it to ourselves, our work, and our readers to keep our hearts clear of all that useless baggage.

This is our commute, my friends. Even if your office is just a few steps away from your bed (or even if you're working in bed!): this is the road we take every day to get to work.

We show up. In our skins and our bones, in our sharpened minds, in our huge hearts.

It's a pretty serious commute, when you think of it like that. It's not a small thing to show up.

Even on the ordinary and average days: That's enormous. 

But I think our calling is worth it, don't you? 

So when writing asks us to show up with our biggest self, let's be up for it this June.

The Goal When Things Are Going Well

When life gets extra hard, have you ever looked back at the calm before the storm--the bright times--and thought: Wow. I had it so good, and I didn't even know. I had no idea!

Yes? Me too. 

And usually I'm looking back at a time that was simply ordinary. Plain old normal. But normalcy takes on an extraordinary sweetness when life goes crazy, right? 

Wouldn't it be great if we could lean in closer to that normalcy, if we could appreciate the ordinary, while we still have it? If we could hold on to the days when everything is fine, when life and work are humming along?

And then--take it a step further. Because when things in our writing, in our lives, are going well, it's an opportunity.

It's a chance for us to run faster. 

To work without fear. To dive into the deepest places. To stretch further. To open our hearts wider. To risk more.

During the month of June, we're going to focus on where things are going right. And we'll take full advantage of them.

After all, it's the month of summer solstice (for the northern hemisphere at least! sorry, southerners!). The month of light and warmth.

Is there anything more ordinary and yet more wonderful than full summer sunshine?

So we'll celebrate the goodness, the richness.

And then we'll focus on strength. Building on what's going well. Taking advantage of all that solar power, turning light and heat into good power.

Because when you're strong, when your writing muscles are all warmed up, you are primed to cover some serious ground. When life is calm, you have a chance to become more flexible, to try more things, to attempt flight.

It's a month of brilliance and optimism. 

Let's talk about the bright times. Let's make much of the sunshine. And then let's get crazy strong.

When Writer's Revenge Backfires

When I was in college, there was a girl that I, um, didn't get along with.

We were thrown together a lot, and she made me crazy. Almost literally.

She had a constantly demoralizing effect on me, reducing me from a happy-enough, confident-enough student into this ... mess. 

(One day I saw her coming down the hall of the science building. Before she could see me, I ducked into a nearby bathroom, and as I waited for the coast to clear, I watched in the mirror as my face broke into hives. I don't think anyone else has had that kind of effect on me.)

So, fast forward two years, when I wrote my first novel. And needed to put a minor antagonist in. Her personality suggested itself instantly.

AHA, I thought. Finally. All that suffering can have a purpose! 

I can put every character trait of hers right into my novel. She'd be the perfect disruption of the plot, the perfect wrench in my protagonist's plans.

And THEN, I can give my protagonist all the things I should have said. I can let her do all the things I should have done while this girl made my life a living hell.

Writer's revenge. We all know about this, right?

If life hands you a jerk, you get to use them in a book. That's the deal.

And that's what I set out to do.

I got her physical appearance down to a tee. All her worst character flaws (which was all of them, frankly, because I couldn't see a single redeemable thing about her in real life): there on paper. Marching through scenes. Mucking up my protagonist's life.

And then--I got into trouble. A lot of trouble.

And it's probably not what you think.

See, I believe in good books. Good stories. And that means stories with three-dimensional characters.

I don't buy characters that are pure evil, pure good, all terrible, all wonderful. I try not to write them, and I don't care to read about them either.

Which meant that I had to explore this antagonist's personality. This girl that I skewered so wonderfully with my words: I had to balance out her character.

This is not something I wanted to do, but the book demanded it. The story needed her to live and breathe as a real, rounded character.

As I considered ways to make her character more dynamic, I had to graft in slightly less-horrendous character traits. I gave her a really decent line or two. I made her take a stand against a worse character. I gave her just the slightest bit of redemption at the end.

It was hard work. It forced me to scrape the depths of my writerly generosity. 

And that's when it all happened, when it totally backfired, when it blew up in my face:

It made me reconsider the girl herself. The girl I hated so much.

I still shiver when I think of her, honestly. I still think she was pretty messed up, and if you put me in the same room with her, you'd see me claw my way through an air duct to get out.

But. Thanks to the work I did with her in my novel, I can now imagine that there's more to her real story. There were probably some terrible forces in her life that made her the way she was. I'm guessing some pretty ugly crap must have happened to her. 

I'm even willing to believe--just barely willing, but willing nonetheless--that there is something redeemable in her. That somewhere in her scabby soul, she has done something good. That she isn't pure awful.

I might even be mustering up a wisp of forgiveness or two. I might be letting it go, all of it, all the infuriating moments, all the insanity.

Writer's revenge. Approach it carefully.

It just might change your heart a bit.

Bring the Awesome into Your Novel with These Resources

If you're writing a novel, and if you're committed to making it the best darn story you possibly can: these are the three books you need.

The Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook is simply the best resource I could possibly give you. Period.

... Although, if I'm handing out recommendations, then in the very same breath, I've got to say: Get the companion book (Writing the Breakout Novel) and also The Fire in Fiction (which also has exercises that are SUPER helpful: it builds on the other two books, without unnecessary overlapping). 

If you're like me, it's easy to read a brilliant book about the craft of writing. If you're like me, it's easy to nod and underline and feel very wise.

And then it's hard as heck to apply what you've learned. Yes? Turning theory into sentences and paragraphs... I tend to feel really inspired--and then I give up. 

Well, the concepts in Writing the Breakout Novel will convince you that this is exactly what your novel needs. I mean: it's written by Donald Maass, a massively experienced literary agent. And he's pulling apart the elements that make the great novels work. 

He knows what he's talking about. And as you read it, you'll find yourself nodding, yes, yes, yes, this is exactly what I love to read too, this is what I love in a story, this is what my novel needs--

And then the Workbook comes along, spelling out everything in very practical terms, and then stepping you through the application of each one. He tells you how to make your characters unforgettable, how to make your plot layered and complex, how to give your writing that resonance that readers love. 

He breaks it down to the smallest components, and then leaves space for you to jot down how to make it work in your story. (Your brain will explode. Mine still does, every time I go through it.)

The Fire in Fiction follows it up, with more transformative exercises, and more elements of the most powerful fiction: how to shape scenes so that each one moves the story forward in a powerful way; how to make the extraordinary plot twists feel realistic; how to get tension into every page of your book so that no one can put it down.

But for all that, none of this feels gimmicky to me. They aren't silly tricks. He's teaching the elements of unforgettable fiction. The craft of it.

Nothing has transformed my stories like these books.

No other resource has helped me feel this confident about what I'm writing.

If you were interested by the idea of a master class but you weren't sure where to go with it, then let me humbly suggest: This workbook plus you plus your novel. For a year.

I'm dead serious. 

It's far cheaper than taking a class. And I'm pretty sure it will have an equal--or greater!!--effect on your work.

You won't be sorry.