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Songwriting: The Basics

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by Robyn Mackenzie

Robyn McKenzie Jason & deMarco Concert

So you want to write songs? Awesome! Music is a powerful and accessible medium with the ability to reach audiences of all ages. Sometimes, though, it’s hard to know where to start. With the melody? The lyrics? The glittery outfit for the music video? The truth is that songwriting is just like any other form of writing. The only way it will happen is if you write. Here are a few guidelines to help you get started on the right track.

Write What You Know
(Yes, it’s a cliché. Get over it.)

Had a heartbreak recently? Write about it. Something in the political world got your feathers ruffled? Write about it. Love your cat? Write about it. Songs are an extremely versatile medium and anything goes as far as subject matter. Many newbie songwriters believe that, in order for a song to be good, it needs to be a deep soliloquy on matters of romance or internal conflict. And certainly many songs about these subjects have been great successes. However, one need look no further than the Toby Keith hit “Red Solo Cup” to know that even the little things can make successful songs.

No Instrument? No Problem
You don’t need to be a musician in order to be a songwriter. Many songwriters stick to lyrics only, and collaborate with musicians to come up with a melody and chord progression that works. Certainly having some musical training helps, but it’s not necessary. If being involved in the musical aspect of songwriting is important to you, try taking piano lessons, or getting books on music theory, or asking a musician friend to sit down with you and go over some basics.

The main musical idea lyricists tend to struggle with is meter, or how many beats go in a measure. One line of lyrics is generally about 1-2 measures long, so it needs to be pretty concise. Tap a beat on your leg or desk if it helps. A line like, “Since you’ve been gone, it feels like there’s been a layer of ice all over my heart” may be a little clunky, but “Since you’ve been gone, my heart’s turned to ice” flows more smoothly and creates a stronger image.

You Don’t Have to Rhyme to Have a Good Time
Some great lyrics have crashed and burned because a songwriter felt they had to make a perfect rhyme. “Your smile was like a shining star” is an evocative image, but if you rhyme it with “When I met you in that bar,” it’s going to create a certain tone for your listeners that you may or may not have intended (i.e., that particular rhyme would be great for a country song, but don’t try it in a sensitive love ballad). Ask yourself: “What kind of feelings do I want my listeners to have? Is there another word that evokes that feeling, even if it doesn’t rhyme?” In some cases, choosing not to rhyme can make a lyric more powerful. You poets out there are well aware of this already. That being said, if you haven’t studied or written poetry before, check out some books and learn about the different kinds of rhyme, such as imperfect rhyme, internal rhyme, and other rhyme schemes.

On that note, songs are NOT poetry set to music. Not always. What makes an amazing poem will not necessarily make an amazing song. This doesn’t mean, though, that you can’t learn from poetry, or that you can’t start with a poem and turn it into a song. Just be aware that they have different forms and presentation methods.

Challenge Yourself and Have Fun!
You don’t need me to tell you this—writing can be SCARY. The good thing about songs, as opposed to, say, novels, is that they’re fairly short and you don’t need as much detail to tell a story. So have fun with it! Try experimenting with different genres, voices, POVs, and subject matter. Work with other songwriters.

A great place to start (or continue!) is February Album Writing Month (FAWM), an online challenge to write 14 songs in 28 days. It’s like National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for songwriters! You can post your work and get feedback, connect with other songwriters all over the world, and participate in challenges. It’s a close-knit and supportive community, and its members are of varying experience and musical ability. There are plenty of lyrics-only writers as well as musicians, and collaboration is highly encouraged. You can sign up at FAWM.org. It’s free, and I promise you’ll make some great friends in the process. And who knows? Perhaps one of those 14 songs of yours will go on to be a hit. Happy writing, and I hope to see you around FAWM!

Robyn Mackenzie is a musician and writer from Edgewood, New Mexico. She recently graduated from the University of New Mexico with a self-designed Bachelor’s degree in the Arts and Education. She is a yearly participant in February Album Writing Month, an online challenge to write 14 songs in 28 days, and a similar challenge called 50/90. As well as songwriting, Robyn enjoys writing fiction and cheesy graphic novels. Her debut album, “Of Dreams and Dust,” was released in September 2010. You can find her on Facebook and Fawm.org.

This article was originally published in the February 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Writing In No Time

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by Chris Eboch

AdvancedPlotting200

So many things demand our time—job, spouse, children, volunteer work, housework. It’s tempting to say, I’ll write during vacation, or when the kids are back in school, or when the kids leave home, or when I retire ….

Yet if you want to be a writer, you must find time to write.

Becoming a writer requires commitment. If you don’t take your work seriously, your family and friends certainly won’t either. The new year is traditionally a time for resolutions, so make one for your writing self. Let people know how important writing is to you. Insist that writing time is your time, and you must not be disturbed. Carve out a few hours each week. Then close the door and ignore your phone and e-mail, or take your laptop to the library.

Finding even a few hours may seem hopeless when you have young children. Louise Spiegler, author of middle grade novel The Amethyst Road, says, “It is impossible for me to write with my kids awake and active. I either tried to get both kids to nap at the same time or I spent my non-existent savings on two hours of babysitting.”

Try trading babysitting with other writing parents. Or start a play group/writers group: the kids play, the parents write or critique.

Molly Blaisdell, author of the picture book Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs: A story about Rembrandt van Rijn, and mother of four, found another creative way to keep her kids busy. “I kept all the special toys in my office. When I wanted to work on a scene, I’d pull down that box and say, “This is quiet time for special toys.’” It would always be good for about half an hour and sometime would go for two hours.”

No Use for a Muse

When your writing time is limited, you can’t afford to waste a moment. After having a baby, Michele Corriel, author of Weird Rocks says, “I still managed to get up before my daughter and cram in even half an hour. The problem with a shorter amount of time is you really have to switch it on.”

Successful writers agree: no waiting for the right mood. Spiegler says, “As soon as the kids were asleep or safely dropped off, I would sit down and start working—no waiting for inspiration.”

The most productive writers work anywhere and everywhere. Jean Daigenau says, “I take advantage of the few minutes of downtime I have at school or home—while I’m eating lunch or supervising the homework group at our after-school latchkey program or soaking in the bathtub.”

If you can’t do serious writing in five-minute bursts, use the time in other ways. Daigenau suggests, “Get it written on the computer and then use those few minutes here and there to revise.”

Christine Liu Perkins, author of At Home in Her Tomb: Lady Dai and the Ancient Chinese Treasures of Mawangdui comments, “When I’m constantly being interrupted, chauffeuring, or sitting in waiting rooms, I brainstorm and pre-write. Wherever I am, I focus on a specific problem for that short session. What points do I want to include in this article? What happens next in the story?”

Compromise

The best organized life can sometimes just get too full. Spiegler, who also teaches college now, cautions against buying into the super-woman myth. “It is almost impossible for me to work at a demanding job and take care of kids and write regularly. The only way I can write is to be teaching something familiar that I can spend less prep time on.”

You can’t do it all, so decide what’s most important. Then look for areas to cut back. Reduce your work hours, or cut commute time with a job closer to home. Commute by bus and write as you ride. Arrange car pools or play dates for your kids. Dictate into a tape recorder as you walk for exercise. Let the housework slide, and make quick meals. Cut back on email, web surfing or TV. Try keeping a journal of your activities for a week to find out just how much time you waste.

Put your family to work as well. Train your kids (or spouse) to do housework and some of the cooking—they’ll learn important skills while you get free time!

When a real crisis intrudes—sick kids, ailing parents, a job change or divorce—you may need to take time off from writing. Just don’t let it drag on forever. Plan how you’ll handle the crisis, and schedule a time to return to writing. In the meantime, read writing magazines or books for a few minutes each week to keep your focus.

How about your time? Where does writing fit in your life?

Decide, and make a commitment to your work. Then repeat this mantra: I am a writer, and writers write.

BanditsPeak150Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published in the January 2011 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Revising Fiction: Is it Show? How can you Tell?

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by Kirt Hickman

Revising Fiction

You’ve heard it before: Never tell something you can show. This is a difficult concept for many new writers, but it’s crucial. It lurks beneath a multitude of self editing sins: problems ranging from passive voice to information dumps and narrative summary, to absence of tension, and others. Telling the story, rather than showing it, gives it the detached feel of a news article. It keeps the reader from experiencing it as though she is the viewpoint character. It leeches the importance—the very life—out of the events.

What is Tell?

How do you know if you’re showing or telling? My rule of thumb is simple.

You may state facts:

Gerri threw the contract onto the floor, snatched up her coat and stormed from the room.Don’t draw conclusions for your reader1:

Gerri was angry.In the first sentence, you see Gerri’s actions and are allowed to draw your own conclusion that she’s angry. This is show. In the second, I’ve drawn the conclusion for you. This is tell. Decide for yourself which is more compelling to read.

Consider these examples from a critique submission.2 The scene is written from the viewpoint of a teenage boy.

Tell: There was someone breaking into the house.Show: The trapdoor burst down and Ian jumped backwards. Dust showered the cardboard boxes that cluttered the closet floor. As soon as the ladder thunked down, a black boot stepped onto the top rung, followed by another.This example is the next sentence of the same submission.

Tell: [Ian’s] first thought was that he should probably get help, but he was much too distracted.Show: Before [Ian] could run for help, the shapely legs of the woman in the boots arrested him.Ian fails to move because of the intruder’s shapely legs. This shows that he’s distracted without saying, “He was distracted.” The phrase “before he could run for help” shows Ian’s thoughts without saying, “He thought he should get help.”

Here’s an example in which the same author did a delightful job of showing:

[Rhiannon] leaned forward, her eyes fixed on the artery that had begun to pulse faster as she leaned close to it.This is a great line. It shows the emotions of both characters. Rhiannon, whom you’ve surmised is a vampire, leans forward with her eyes fixed on Ian’s pulsing vein. It’s absolutely clear what she wants, and the author never said, “Rhiannon was hungry for blood.” Ian’s artery pulsing faster shows his fear without saying, “He was afraid,” or “He was excited.” Context will establish which emotion he’s actually feeling.

How to Show

Rewrite any sections in which you’ve told something. To find a way to show it, ask yourself this question: What can the viewpoint character see, hear, feel, smell, taste, or recall, that allows him to draw the conclusions that you’ve told instead of shown? In other words: How does he know this? If you’ve drawn a conclusion for the reader, the viewpoint character must also have drawn this conclusion. On what is his conclusion based?

If the viewpoint character has nothing upon which to base the conclusion, no way to know the thing you’ve told, then the section of tell constitutes a viewpoint violation. Delete it or find some other place in your manuscript to reveal the information. Keep in mind, though, that if you move it, it’s still tell. You must still convert it to show.

Be particularly attentive to dialog tags that tell emotion, as in this example:

“Herrera was on board.”“On the Phoenix?” Chase said, surprised. “What was he doing there?”You may have shown the emotion well enough through the actions, thoughts, and dialog of the character. If you have, that’s good. If not, find a way to do so. Either way, delete the part of the tag that tells emotion.

Below, I offer three ways to correct the passage above. I show Chase’s surprise through his actions, thoughts, and dialog, respectively.

“On the Phoenix?” Chase glanced at the central hologram, as if it could somehow confirm the news. “What was he doing there?”“On the Phoenix?” He couldn’t be. “What was he doing there?“On the Phoenix?” Chase said. “What the hell was he doing there?”If finding ways to effectively show your characters’ emotions is difficult for you, you’re not alone. For help, read my series “13 Ways to Show Character Emotions” beginning with part one.

1Noah Lukeman. The First Five Pages. Simon & Schuster. 2000.
2Excerpts from critique submissions are reprinted with the permission of the original author.

WorldsAsunder125_2Kirt Hickman is a technical writer turned fiction author. His books include three sci-fi thriller novels Worlds Asunder (2008), Venus Rain (2010) and Mercury Sun (2014), the high fantasy novel Fabler’s Legend (2011), and the writers’ how-to Revising Fiction: Making Sense of the Madness (2009).

This article was originally published in the May 2008 issue of SouthWest Sage, and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



The Best Writing Advice from SWW Authors

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Next to the originator of a good sentence is the first quoter of it. I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.
~ Emerson

What better writing advice than that given by a published author?

In the course of interviewing SouthWest Writers’ authors for this website, one of the questions I asked was, “What advice would you give to beginning or discouraged writers?” Here are the answers compiled from ten of the interviews posted in 2015.

The publishing world is competitive, but writing shouldn’t be. No two writers will ever tell a story exactly the same way. Don’t be afraid to help those around you, or to learn from others. If you’re not improving and having fun as a writer, you may as well move on to something else. One of my characters once told me, “If you ain’t havin’ fun, you’re just wastin’ space.” That has become my motto. ~ Sarah Baker

Bumblebee physiology is inconsistent with flight, so instead of flapping their wings up and down like a bird, they wave them in a figure eight pattern. Unwilling to walk from flower to flower, they achieve their goal by working with the laws of physics to find a way to fly. It’s the same with writing: if one avenue doesn’t pan out, find another. ~ Olive Balla

Writing can be a box with rigid structures that are demanding and restrictive to one’s creative nature. On the other hand, writing can be as fluid as the ink that flows unto the paper. It can become a vehicle that opens up doors to new worlds of possibility and to dreams that have never been expressed. My hope is that every writer who feels the need for more freedom chooses the latter. ~ S.S. Bazinet

Don’t wait until it’s perfect, because it’ll never happen. Obviously, it’s necessary to do a thorough job editing, but it’s too easy to get hung up on minor things and never get the job done. ~ Susan C. Cooper

Just begin. Trust yourself and your words. Forget many of the things you learned about “rules.” As Mark David Gerson suggests in The Voice of the Muse, there are 13 rules. The first is: There are no rules. The story exists and you are the vehicle which carries it. ~ Elizabeth Ann Galligan

Discouragement is part of the writing game. So is perseverance. And perseverance will eventually win (think Thomas Edison). My advice: Keep honing your craft. Join a critique group and learn to take criticism; after all, they’re readers, and writers need readers. Realize your writing isn’t sacred and not to be changed in any way; remember, you can’t see mistakes in your own writing—you’re too close. ~ Larry Greenly

Don’t give up. Find publishers who’ve issued books similar to yours. Develop a great query to send them, one that will get their interest enough that they’ll even read your submission. Create a first page that grabs them. ~ Joyce Hertzoff

People who write are called writers. People who wait are called waiters. I’d advise you to write every day, if only for the sheer pleasure of it. Don’t worry about the Great American Novel, etc. Enjoy what you do! Or find something else to do, life is too short. ~ Robert Kidera

Learn to reject rejection. Get used to the idea that there is going to be a lot of rejection along the way. The secret is to never give up. If one person tells you no, ask someone else. Someone, somewhere, sometime will say yes. Move on to the next person. Someone is waiting to say yes. ~ Gale O’Brien

Set both weekly and monthly goals/deadlines for yourself. Write them down and work diligently toward achieving them. Buy an appointment book and schedule time for writing, rewriting and research. Your “great expectations” will be easier to achieve when you have established in writing what they are. ~ Shirley Raye Redmond

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.

Image “Light at End of Tunnel” courtesy of lkunl / FreeDigitalPhotos.net



Magazine Writing: Bagging Your First Assignment

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by Melody Groves


And why aren’t you writing for magazines? I can list the reasons if you can’t come up with your own. No new ideas. Don’t know which magazine would take my article. No clue how to begin. And for cryin’ out loud, I’m a fiction writer!

These are excuses, not reasons. I’m here to tell you that you can and should write for magazines. With over 9,000 published annually, there is at least one that will publish your article. But wait! In addition to a plethora of magazines (both print and online), the question then is: why should I want to? I’ll tell you why.

1. Relatively short turnaround time. Generally, you get assigned a story with a deadline anywhere from a week to three months down the road. It’s published shortly after that, maybe a month or two later. It’s so much quicker than novels that have to go through editing, formatting, more editorial, layout, editorial, cover design, final editorial and then publishing. We won’t even mention distribution and marketing. No marketing involved in your magazine article. (On the plus side, your weekends are now free. On the down side, you have nothing to sign—although I did sign an article I wrote for New Mexico Magazine for my mail carrier!)

2. A little bit goes a long way. That research you did for your novel (you did do research, didn’t you?), use it for magazine articles. Take the same information, change it around, put the focus on a different aspect and voilà! Article number two. Why not write as many articles as you can for as many publications as you can using the same research? Why not, indeed?

Here’s how it’s done. Say you wrote a novel where the murderer is somewhat of a snobbish wine connoisseur who lives in New Zealand. Well, there you go. One article about the types of wine produced in New Zealand (yes, they do); another article about traveling there to tour the wineries; a third article about how the Kiwis (the native population) use wine in their celebrations. I don’t know about you, but I can think of about 30 more articles based on New Zealand wine.

And it’s a huge plus if the editor knows you have a book with this information in it. He’ll let you plug your book down in the bio section at the end of the article. Definitely an ego-boosting thing to do.

3. First North American Serial Rights. A way cool writer-friendly law that says once your article is published and the magazine is off the shelf, then the rights revert back to you and you can sell that puppy as is again—for less money, of course. A word of caution: some magazines do not accept reprints. Some love them (such as Readers Digest). Check with the website and/or editor to be sure. You’ve got to be professional. If they don’t take reprints, don’t try to fool them. If, however, it’s been 10 years, tell them, and there’s a chance they’ll say yes.

4. And the clincher (insert drum roll here): Writing for magazines pays. Okay, you probably can’t count on selling one article and then taking your long-awaited trip to Hawaii on that paycheck alone. Magazines pay anywhere from nothing up to $2 a word. That’s right. Per Word. Who wouldn’t want to earn $2 for typing the word “the”? Sign me up. The average is 30 cents a word with some regional publications offering less. The good news: the more often you write for the same editor, the more he pays. Generally. So, since they publish fairly soon after you submit the article, you don’t have to wait forever to get that check. Most times they’ll pay after acceptance. And most times they pay with a 50 percent kill fee.* Look carefully at the contract. It’ll say in there. If not, ask the editor to include it.

And usually, they pay extra for photos. Check their submission guidelines or call their office. If you can offer photo services (it’s so much cheaper to take them yourself), it’s a Bigfoot foot in the door.

Do some quick arithmetic with me: Say 750 words at 20 cents per word: $150. Not shabby. If you do that once a week, that’s…let’s see…carry the one… $600 a month. Within a year you could be sailing to Hawaii. Don’t forget sunscreen. Swimsuits are optional.

*A “kill fee” means that after you submit your article and they accept it, and for some reason totally out of your control they decide not to run it, they’ll give you half of the agreed upon rate. At this point, you can shop that article around without rewriting it at all. Kind of a win-win deal. Kind of.

KansasBleeds150Seven-time award-winner Melody Groves is the author of four historical fiction novels, three non-fiction books, and dozens of magazine articles. Past-president of SouthWest Writers, she’s also a member of Western Writers of America. And when not writing, she plays rhythm guitar in the Jammy Time Band. Visit her at MelodyGroves.net.

This article was originally published in the August 2012 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Embracing Writer Fatigue

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by Olive Balla

Olive Balla245Listen. Hear that? It’s the non-sound of laptops and word processors sitting on desks and collecting dust. It’s the white noise of writers everywhere giving up, of promising writers being sucked into the black hole of Writer Fatigue.

Webster defines fatigue as weariness or exhaustion from labor. The thesaurus offers burnout as one synonym. Fatigue. Burnout. Such innocuous words to describe the miserable state into which nearly every writer falls at some point.

I recently spoke to a woman in her sixties who has been writing since college. Throughout her school years she received kudos on her style and creativity. No one was surprised when she began to write in earnest. So, for the past twenty years she’s written romance novels. But none have been published. The woman decided to throw out all her manuscripts rather than leave them for her progeny to deal with. She wondered what happened to the promise that if one never quits writing, success will eventually come.

I don’t have a sure-fire answer for that. But I do have a couple of ideas.

Someone said the definition of “crazy” is to keep doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. Other than wanting to be someone who has written rather than someone who writes, I believe many writers lose that loving feeling for the craft when their expectation of speedy publication isn’t met. Convinced that all they have to do is just more of what they’ve been doing—only harder—they grow jaded as time marches on and no agent picks them up. Some, blessed with a more entrepreneurial spirit and less vulnerability to the purist’s litany of reasons not to do so, finally opt to self-publish.

I’m not making light of the virtues of tenacity and determination. But getting ahead in today’s publishing world apparently takes more than that. It requires the ability to change with the times.

But (my inner Jane Austen retorts), the long-dead Agatha Christie is still selling like hot cakes. True. And so is the Bible. But until your name becomes a household word, you’re going to have to offer something that sets you apart from what every other writer is offering. To quote one agent I recently heard speak at a writers conference, “Please, do not send me even one more vampire novel.”

Which brings us back to the need for change. The Chinese even generated a book on the subject. The I Ching, or Book of Changes, is purported to have been written over five thousand years ago. Change, irony intended, is here to stay.

What’s a writer to do? Besides not throwing in the towel, one way to keep up is to embrace current publishing reality and make shifts in one’s own writing style.

Basics do still count. Never really good with grammar, syntax, or modifier placement? Go to owl.english.purdue.edu/owl for Purdue University’s free online writing lab. Audit a continuing education class in creative writing. Join a writing organization (such as SouthWest Writers) and connect with the published and as yet unpublished. Join a critique group. Subscribe to writing magazines or E-zines to remain current on what’s happening in publications. Enter contests.

And every How-To now sitting in my bookcase includes a section on the importance of making time to write. Some successful writers commit to writing a specific number of pages daily, while others suggest setting aside certain hours of each day to do nothing but write. Either choice is apparently not as important as is the consistency with which one practices it. Pick whatever fits your lifestyle, and stick with it.

And according to Stephen King, one of the most important things for writers to do is read. Read at the doctor’s office, read while waiting for a flight, read in the john. Mr. King says stuffing our heads with the works of others, besides giving insight into what’s selling, will feed our creativity and help shape our styles. Reading someone else’s work energizes our own.

Science tells us black holes are not the empty spaces they appear to be. They are so dense and their pull so powerful, even light cannot escape. Stephen Hawking says black holes slowly give off bits of radiation until they explode in a supernova of energy. They aren’t just sitting in the void, waiting for Godot. They’re working toward a goal, absorbing stray stars, planets, and cosmic trash. They’re changing, getting ready to become something else entirely. Revising themselves.

So, I’m off to Barnes & Noble, where I plan to gorge myself on anything that looks interesting. I’ve decided to embrace my Writer Fatigue and make it work for me. You’re welcome to come along. A latte, soft chair, and an endless supply of the hottest-selling reading material seem to be in order. Onward.

AnArmAndALeg72Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the July 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Riding a New Roller Coaster

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rose headshot 5What can I say? This is my first attempt to do anything at all with a blog on a website. I’ve always wanted to, but haven’t had the time to learn. Suddenly I find I’ve accepted the challenge to learn how to make this work. My biggest fear is hitting the wrong button and screwing up entirely

Writing a blog is the easy part, just putting words down about whatever is on my mind. Whether someone wants to read it or not kind of depends on whether or not they find you amusing, droll, informative, deep, creative or just plain nuts.

This is made very difficult because I am wearing my old glasses—the ones that don’t work really well anymore. The “new” ones developed a scratch so they are back at the optical shop getting the lenses replaced. Whenever you change spectacles you go through an adjustment period where the floor looks slanted or things are not as in focus as you are accustomed to. With this old pair my left eye can see the computer screen just fine but the right eye reminds me of the aftereffects of a New Year’s eve party—fuzzy and colorful. So as I sit here I am typing with one eye closed.

But if I want to relax for a moment I close the left eye and open the right one and look at the Christmas lights…glowy balls dancing across the dark background. How fun!

I did not get glasses until I was about 12 years old—neither my parents or I realized that I was legally blind…I made do pretty well and was the bookish sort anyway. I could see really well 2 inches from my nose. Then the nun who taught 7th grade called Mom and raised hell because I told her I could not see the blackboard from the back of the room. The eye doctor confirmed I had 700/20 vision. About a week later Dad drove up in the old tan station wagon with the fake wood siding. I ran down the hill in front of our house and he handed me the glasses.

To this day thrills expand my soul outwards when I remember putting them on for the first time. I could see individual blades of grass…while standing up! I could see leaves on the trees way over in the neighbor’s yard! That night for the first time I saw that there were hundreds of stars in the sky, not just a few blurry white spots. Wow.

Of course, I had already fallen deeply in love with the written word by that time, something that has never changed even though I could now see what other people wrote about. So I write.

And now I blog.

And now I get to figure out how to make these words appear on a screen for you to see. As my old friend Bob used to say, “It’s a piss poor day when you don’t learn something new.”



The Writing Life: Basic Principles from Dear Abby

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by Sherri Burr

SherriBurr

In a “Dear Abby” column appearing in local newspapers on September 10, 2013, the famed advice columnist received this query:

…I’m wondering if there is a basic principle you abide by in order to help guide you when giving advice. ~ Curious Reader

She responded:

I hadn’t really thought about it, but I suppose it’s something like this: Show up for work ready to put forth my best effort. Be honest enough to admit that not everyone agrees with me or that I’m sometimes wrong. Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Don’t pull any punches, don’t preach and always try to be succinct.

Reading her response, it occurred to me this advice applies to the writing life.

First, writers need to work in a disciplined manner at a home office or designated area. Phil Jackson, a retired jockey who penned the memoir On a Fast Track, writes from 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. during the week in his home office. Western author Melody Groves, a retired school teacher, writes Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. When Groves taught, she wrote between 4:45 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. She views writing as a job to be taken seriously, as if paid hourly.

Others who have full-time jobs may write in the mornings before the rest of their home crew awakes, or in the evening after their family sleeps. As a university professor, Kathy Kitts wrote nonfiction from 9:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. and fiction from 11:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. Personally, I write in 90-minute blocks throughout the day. I read a New York Times article that praised the virtues of taking breaks after each 90-minute session.

Whenever you choose to write, show up, ready to put fingers to keyboard, pen to paper, or voice into a device of your choice.

Doing your best may vary from day to day. Sometimes, you arrive at your designated writing space with ideas flowing and ready to produce. Other times, your mental processes struggle. For those moments, consider playing Mozart, Vivaldi, or other music in the background or through your ear buds to stimulate your brain. In his book The Mozart Effect, Don Campbell extolled the ability of music to stimulate creativity. He subtitled his work “Tapping the power of music to heal the body, strengthen the mind, and unlock the creative spirit.”

Dear Abby’s next piece of advice admonishes to be honest enough to admit not everyone agrees with you or you’re sometimes wrong. This is important when seeking feedback from critique groups. Not everyone is going to consider that the words you put on paper proclaim you to be the next Shakespeare. It’s important for writers to be open to receiving criticism and admit editing is necessary.

When Dear Abby wrote, “Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” she was quoting the oath administered to witnesses in legal proceedings.

This oath applies whether writers pen nonfiction or fiction. With nonfiction, because the reader expects the words to be true, the author should so deliver. Memoirists who shade the truth to make their stories more dramatic have been immensely criticized, and publishers have sometimes pulled their work from the market. With fiction there must be truth in the emotions of the characters, even if the words are products of an author’s imagination.

Years ago, I took a Dramatic Writing course at the University of New Mexico with famed professor Digby Wolfe who had written for Laugh In. An important exercise called “Truth or Fiction” required each student to write and stage a short play for class. Then the audience had to guess whether it was truth or fiction. Wolfe urged his students to produce both their nonfiction and fiction with emotional richness.

Dear Abby’s final point is: don’t pull punches, don’t preach, and always try to be succinct. For writers, the first maxim relates to not softening the emotional blows of your words. Let the characters go for broke, no matter how hard the story may be for the reader to consume. If told effectively, the reader will obtain the moral without needing to be preached its ethical underpinnings. Being succinct requires not wasting words. For example, Melody Groves is fond of eliminating the word “that” from work she critiques. She finds “that” often unnecessary and once the writer thinks about it, he or she agrees.

To summarize, writers must show up to produce their best work. Be honest, be succinct, and don’t pull punches or preach.

A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well BeingSherri Burr is the Regents’ Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law where she teaches Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and Art Law. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Princeton University, and the Yale Law School, she has authored or co-authored 20 books, including A Short and Happy Guide to Financial Well-Being (West Academic, 2014). Sherri is also a long-time member of SouthWest Writers and a regular contributor to the organization’s newsletter SouthWest Sage.

This article was originally published in the December 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Making the Most of Writing Markets

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by Chris Eboch

AdvancedPlotting200

You’ve heard about the enormous slush piles at publishing houses. And no doubt you’ve heard what’s in those piles—90 percent inappropriate submissions. These can be outrageous mistakes, such as sending fiction to a publisher that only does nonfiction, or even erotica to a children’s book publisher.

You would never make such a beginner mistake. You understand the importance of market research. But are you doing the best possible job with it?

Many editors report “close but not quite” submissions. Marileta Robinson, Senior Editor at Highlights for Children, says, “The majority of submissions we see are in the ballpark of meeting our guidelines. That’s not to say that the majority are right for Highlights. Tone, length, writing quality, age appropriateness, and subject matter have a great deal to do with a manuscript’s chances of success.”

Digging Deeper
2016 market guides are coming out in time for the new year. These are a great place to start your research. They list hundreds of publishers, with details about what the editors want. Most include a category index, which can help you narrow your selections. The listings then give detailed writers’ guidelines.

Don’t stop there, though. Most publishers now post their catalogs online. These help you understand what the market guide listings mean, and identify differences between a publisher’s imprints. Websites may also offer more detailed and up-to-date writers’ guidelines. The final step is to read some of the publisher’s offerings.

Robinson suggests, “Reading the guidelines and current needs posted on our website and studying several issues of the magazine can help a writer learn what we are and are not looking for.”

Molly Blaisdell, author of the picture book, Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs, starts market research with “a reader’s approach. I learn about books all over—networking at conferences, going to bookstores, chatting with folks online.” She keeps a journal that lists each book’s title, publisher and editor, plus notes about the editor, and any personal contact.

After gathering this information, Blaisdell keeps it organized with a submission spreadsheet. “I start a new line every time I learn the name of a new house or editor that I am interested in. After some research I will add the title of my book that I think best connects with that house. I gather hard concrete evidence about what these editors and agents like: books, genres, etc. That stuff goes in the comments.”

Once you have all the market information, you can use it in your queries to show the editor that you understand her needs. “My queries are always specific,” Blaisdell says. “I met you at the XYZ conference. I read about you on XYZ blog. You edited XYZ book. I love that book and feel a connection to my work because of XYZ. I’m sending to you because you like XYZ. If the editor or agent that you are interested in has a blog, you need to become a faithful reader and post on it sometimes.”

The payoff? Blaisdell says, “If I glance down my spreadsheet, my last 20 submissions all led to personal responses [such as] requested manuscripts or a wish to see more work.”

Time Well Spent
All this research sounds like a lot of work, but, Blaisdell says, “You have to be pretty lazy these days to not target houses. Just Google the editor’s name! Don’t know the editor? Google ‘editor’ and the book title and the author’s name.”

With all the information available, beware of getting carried away by market research. “The tricky thing is not wasting your time,” Blaisdell says. “You should be working toward creating a list of targeted editors. Do not collect any information about anyone that is not a real connection. Do not put a name in your spreadsheet without a reason!”

Writers’ conferences can also provide insight to an editor’s taste. A critique or pitch session can also help you jump over the slush pile, or reach editors who aren’t generally open to submissions. Make sure you have a suitable manuscript before submitting, though. At one conference, I met an editor and we got along well. But I was writing historical fiction and fantasy at the time, the two genres he dislikes. Later, I developed an original paperback series—just what he published. I sent him the proposal and first manuscript. A month later, he called to express his interest in the Haunted series, and we contracted for three books, The Ghost on the Stairs, The Riverboat Phantom and The Knight in the Shadows. Networking paid off—but only because I paid attention to my market research and waited until I had something he wanted.

Go ahead and grab a new market guide as a holiday present to yourself. But know that your marketing journey is just beginning. Researching markets and making connections is a year-round process—one that’s worthwhile when it leads to the gift of publication!

BanditsPeak150Chris Eboch writes fiction and nonfiction for all ages. In Bandits Peak, a teenage boy meets strangers hiding on the mountains and gets drawn into their crimes, until he risks his life to expose them. The Eyes of Pharaoh is an action-packed mystery set in ancient Egypt. The Genie’s Gift is an Arabian Nights-inspired fantasy adventure. In The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan girl in ninth-century Guatemala rebels against the High Priest who sacrifices anyone challenging his power. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting.

Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page, or check out her writing tips at her Write Like a Pro! blog. Sign up for her Workshop newsletter for classes and critique offers.

Chris also writes novels of suspense and romance for adults under the name Kris Bock; read excerpts at www.krisbock.com.

This article was originally published in the December 2010 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



Quite the Character

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by Olive Balla

Olive Balla245According to author, editor, and writing consultant Jeff Gerke there are two kinds of writers—I call them Plotters and Character-philes. No, this has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with how our brains are wired. Gerke says fiction writers will be good at either crafting a complex, multi-stranded plot, or building deep, multi-faceted and interesting characters, but not both. With that in mind, and in the interest of helping my fellow Plotters thicken the portion of their cerebral cortexes wherein their Character-philes lie dormant, I submit some tidbits I’ve picked up.

By the time we reach the age of twenty or so, all of us will have developed psychological, mental, spiritual, and even physical battle scars, along with the mechanisms for coping with them. And by the time we’ve put a few decades under our belt, we’re as bent and dented as any used vehicle on a second-rate car lot. Gerke’s message is to embrace your hard-earned dings. Exorcise your ghosts through your characters. For example, show your protagonist struggling to survive a tumultuous relationship with her mother, father, or even her boyfriend’s obnoxious cat. Or better yet, show your antagonist’s inner turmoil over an action he’s taken, or is about to take. Readers love delving into the dichotomy of good versus evil that apparently resides in every human being, so heap the internal conflict high.

Got any phobias? How about a couple of recalcitrant neuroses? Do you engage in obsessive compulsive rituals or carry a load of guilt over youthful—or even recent—indiscretions? Good. Confession time: One such incident from my past became the basis for my essay “The Four People I DON’T Want to See in Heaven.” Here’s an excerpt:

I don’t want to see David Brown in Heaven. David was in my third grade class. He lived just up the street from me, so we often walked home from school at about the same time. One afternoon, when we reached a particularly isolated spot, David offered to show me His Bits if I would show him Mine. Never having seen that particular part of the male anatomy before, I figured that sounded like a great idea. I told David to go first, and he did. However, being raised in an extremely conservative household, I had second thoughts about my end of the bargain. Modesty won out, and after completing my observations, I turned and ran home as fast as my nine year-old legs would carry me, leaving an undoubtedly wiser David with his pants around his ankles.Had any epiphanies along your self-discovery journey? Excellent. Draw on all of those life experiences to build colorful, deeply human characters. You don’t have to admit to a thing, and your readers will wonder how you grew to be so wise.

Then there’s the dynamic known in psychological circles as the Normalcy Bias. How many horror or suspense movies have we watched where a female character hears a noise from the basement and proceeds to check it out? We in the audience know it’s a bad idea, but the character is a victim of the too-human characteristic that whispers in her ear, “Nothing bad has ever happened before when you went into the basement, so nothing bad will happen now.” The ways to enhance your characters through use of this it-can’t-happen-here trait are endless. For example, does the mother watching her toddler play in the park realize that the handsome young gentleman who seems to turn up everywhere is actually stalking her? Of course not, it has to be a coincidence. Or do the villagers who live at the foot of an active volcano fear imminent destruction? Poppycock. The thing has been spewing smoke and cinders for decades. Go to sleep children, all is well.

And how about fear? We humans harbor fears-a-plenty. We’re born with the fear of abandonment, and then proceed to pile up more terrors over our lifetimes. We fear people, places, situations, the future, insects, certain animals, etc. Haul out your own fears. Hold them up to the light, and then bless your characters with a fistful. Someone said that readers look to writers to help them discover ways of dealing with their own life issues. So scare the bejeebers out of your readers, and then lead them to safety—or not. Either way, they’ll love you for it.

Then there’s the human ability to survive through adaptation. It’s the process by which the bizarre becomes the norm. If an action is repeated often enough and over a long enough period of time—even if it involves horrifying or twisted behavior—the people who witness it, or even those who are victims of it, adapt to it. They may not like it on some level, but they will eventually not only accept that behavior, but embrace and even mirror it. It’s part of our arsenal of survival strategies. Tough and resilient characters, anyone?

Ah, the human condition. Time to turn your lemons into lemonade.

AnArmAndALeg72Olive Balla, author of suspense novel An Arm and a Leg, is mother of 3, grandmother to 13, great-grandmother of 4, a retired educator, and part-time professional musician. Having been everything from secretary at a used car dealership, a university student, and a high school Spanish teacher, Balla states her characters are, in part, amalgamations of people she’s met. Living with her husband Victor in the Albuquerque area, she spends her spare time in a small woodworking shop designing and building everything from breadboxes and wine racks, to a porch bench. Visit her website at omballa.com.

This article was originally published in the December 2013 issue of SouthWest Sage and is reprinted here by permission of the author.



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