Tag Archives: creative writing

Those darn first lines

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From my bookshelf

From my bookshelf

I have struggled, to say the least, with this revision of my novel in progress. It has me tearing my hair out. It has me cutting whole chapters. It has me rethinking the entire novel altogether. The credit for this has to go to my writing team, my group. As frustrating as the process is, I truly appreciate their feedback.

I think the lesson I have focused on most, as of late, is the lesson of first lines. We all know the first line of a book has to grab the reader (or the editor) or the fear is that either won’t look past that first line. First lines are a bit like poetry. They say a lot in as few words possible.

My epiphany is that there are a lot of first lines in a book. For each chapter, there is a new first line that has to be as compelling, if not more so, than the last. Hey, if a book doesn’t keep my interest, I’ll stop reading and move on to the next one. I’ve got too many “to reads” on my bookshelf to mess around.

It’s not easy to get those luscious lines over and over again. In this revision, I’m really looking at how each chapter opens, that is if I keep the chapter. That’s a whole different post. Anyway, I turned to the great Barbara Kingsolver to get a lesson on first lines throughout an entire book. The Bean Trees was what was in reach. I read it years ago, but I could definitely read it again.

First line of the book:

I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine’s father over the top of the Standard Oil sign.

Here we know something about the character. We know her a fear. We know she probably comes from a rural background, a farming background. We know she probably has some grit herself, even if she starts out talking about a fear.

First line of Chapter Two

Lou Ann Ruiz lived in Tucson, but thought of herself as just an ordinary Kentuckian a long way from home.

Again it tells us something about a character, about where she lives and where she is from. We know she is out of her element from that little line. We are compelled about this whole idea of her being out of her element.

First line of Chapter Eight

Of all the ridiculous things, Mama was getting married.

Short and to the point.

All these lines are compelling. All these lines drive the reader to want more. These are just a handful. Now, it’s my turn to go through this revision looking at the lines I’ve chosen. My task is to take them apart and really examining how effective they are at drawing the reader into the next segment of my novel. Well, my work is cut out for me. Cross your fingers. Hopefully, this project will be done by the end of summer.

Revision is like a red tree with a few hammers thrown

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I have written in the past about the little red-leafed Japanese maple that sits outside my writing corner window. The tree has been a constant inspiration with its deep merlot-colored leaves. Last year, the tree contracted a fungus and the leaves on much of it withered and died. Limbs became brittle. I sprayed some homemade

tree

concoction on it, but I had to trim and one day I got our dull clippers out and began trimming. My neighbor saw me standing perplexed in front of the tree as I contemplated how to get the higher most affected limbs. Thankfully, he (the guy on the street with all the great lawn maintenance gadgets) had a clipper with an extended handle that he’d just found at a garage sale. We trimmed and trimmed and trimmed until the tree looked sad and bare, much like the little Charlie Brown Christmas tree we all know so well. I wondered if my beloved tree would ever be the tree it had been with its full canopy of vibrant colored leaves. This year, to my delight, the tree was once again filled with its beautiful leaves. It looks full and healthy, though I am keeping an eye on things to make sure the fungus truly is gone.

What does this little tree have to do with writing and revising? Since I’m in the throes of yet another revision on this beast of a novel that I started more than a decade ago, I see the tree as a metaphor for this process. The cutting and reshaping of the tree reminds of the cutting and reshaping of this novel. It is agonizing at times. Like with the tree, I wonder if the cutting might actually ruin the novel
. I fear too much cutting would. As with trimming trees, in writing you have to find a balance between cutting away the stuff that is wild and no good and not cutting away the whole story altogether. That is where the hidden treasure is I presume. Sometimes, it takes a whole season to see the results of all the agonizing trimming, to see that the results are truly stunning. So, here I go. I trim and shape and hopefully by the end of summer I will have my novel shaped and ready to go. I’m sure it won’t be without heartache. I’ve been trying to get through the first two chapters over the past month, and there has been a lot of heartache. My husband likes to measure the frustration of projects in “hammers thrown,” not literal hammers thrown, but figurative hammers thrown. The more frustrating the project, the more figurative hammers thrown. With this revision, I would say there are already a good 50 hammers thrown. Ah, well it’s time to get back to trimming, shaping, and throwing a few more hammers.

Process, writing groups and reviving this blog

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Ice on my morning walk. I feel like I can see the universe in it.

Ice on my morning walk. I feel like I can see the universe in it.

I have been inconsistent with this poor blog. Chalk it up to an overload of classes (the never ending plight of an adjunct instructor) and the constant running that comes with having teenagers. Oh, there is also my guilty pleasure–a little Doctor Who. I am going to try to be more consistent, though.

As a fledgling writer I am trying hard to encapsulate an hour here and an hour there for some novel and short story revision. It’s at a point where I have some sparks of ideas, but I can’t really give them a lot of attention until the other projects are cleared away. That would be part of my own process. It has taken me this long to figure out that I have to work out my own process. These books that tout certain processes of writing as “the optimal” processes are lying. There is no one process fits all. Each writer has his or her own approach. Those approaches are as vast as the universe.

My process is scattered. Some days the best work I do is while sitting on my couch in my writing room. Some days I do my best work at a cafe. The most important thing is to be reading and writing at least a little bit most days. I write this to tell myself that as much as anything. So, to revive this blog I’ll share my trials and tribulations of living the writing life, as I have been doing all along, and I’ll bring in a bit of discussion on what I have been reading. In addition, I’ll share the images I get on my contemplative walks, another key part to my writing process.

My latest trial and tribulation of the writing life has been trying to find a writing group that I feel comfortable with. I had a perfect group, the Sistah Scribes, a while back. I loved the Sistahs. I grew with the Sistahs, but a we all scattered to different regions about the time I started grad school and couldn’t really commit to the time. After grad school, I wanted to find another group. I wanted to continue the momentum of growth that grad school gave me. Finding the right writing group is not easy. I was misled with how easily the Sistahs formed and gelled so well.

That’s not to say I haven’t gotten anything from the groups I have visited. I have. I’ve met some great people. There are ultimately either scheduling conflicts or the group is too big or it’s online or…or….or. Well, I’m giving it another shot. This time, though. We are forming organically as off-shoots of other groups, a little like the Sistahs did, so it looks promising. It’s a small group, another good thing. I can tell it is going to be focused and hopefully consistent. Mostly, it will be more at my pace. Weekly, is too often for me. I need time to write. So, we’ll see how it goes. I have a good feeling about it. Now, it’s off to get some work done. Must turn some stories that have been rejected around and send them out today. Happy writing. Today’s image is of ice. I know we want spring to stay, but there were some wonderful patterns in the ice during my walks these past couple of months. Enjoy.

One foot, two foot

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A long time ago, after many failed attempts at trying to make my family sportingly proud, I took to the only sport that didn’t require me to dribble, kick, or throw a ball. I took to long distance running. I won’t say I was great, but I was good and distance running came surprisingly easy to me, the one kid who always finished last in sprints, in pretty much anything that one would file under the title “sport.” It wasn’t that I had to be sporty. My family accepted me just fine. Still, my sibs were way more sporty than me. My brother played hockey and baseball and did just fine. My sister, well she probably got the most sporty genes of all of us and the looks and the smarty genes, but that’s a whole other blog.

The first time I took to the roads, though, I felt something liberating. I ran two miles. I was surprised how good I felt. The next day I ran four. I was training for my first road race, the Dixboro Fun Run, held in the small hamlet of Dixboro. My dad signed me and my sporty brother, who was running for wrestling training, up for the race. I think I trained for about a week. I ran the two-mile and surprised myself by finishing first in my age-group and second overall female. I got hardware. At that point, I hadn’t really ever won anything sporty in my life. Well,  I think there was a softball championship in there, but I never felt I contributed that much to the team. Softball was torture.

After that race, I craved road racing. I ran all the time. My neighbors came to know me as the girl who was always running. One of the older boys who used to hang out in the neighborhood used to call me Champ. He said I was going to be a champion one day. I never knew his name. He will never know how good that made feel, some strange boy urging me on. Parents in the neighborhood urged me on, too. Someone would inevitably catch me coming into our tiny subdivision at the end of the run and ask how far I’d gone that day. Some would laugh and tell my parents they saw me in the next town 10 miles away. You could say I became a little obsessed. I loved running. I ran track and cross country. Ultimately, though, my favorite were the road races I ran. I loved the community that surrounds road racing. Everyone was so encouraging, especially to women runners who really were just making inroads into the sport. I was always pacing with some group of guys because the women were spread so far apart and they were all welcoming.

I ran a little in college, but by that point I wasn’t good enough for college running. I ran two marathons and came close to qualifying for the Boston Marathon, my dream at the time. At some point, life got in the way. Kids came. I had other things I needed to do. With kids came a few stubborn pounds.  I never got back to running like I used to.

More than five years ago came the devastating news that I had cancer. My treatment regime was long and hard on my body. It took a long time to recover. I still am not sure I have fully recovered. This summer, however, I wanted to get back in shape, if nothing. Every time I say I am going to start walking, I end up running. I also needed to help Maynard the Wonder Dog lose a few pounds. He came to us on a diet. He is now my jogging partner. I started in the spring. It has been a struggle. I’m slow, much slower than I used to be. It’s much harder than it used to be. I think I have been running two miles since spring and it has felt hard and tiring since spring. Today, though, I felt the shift. The one that I used to feel after only a week or two, the shift that helped me see I was really back, that running was what I was supposed to be doing. Yes, I felt it. My feet didn’t shuffle as much. I kicked my heels a little more. I kept a pace, still not fast, but faster, more importantly more comfortable than running has felt in eons. I had gotten to a point where I thought I’d never feel that.

For me, there is a strong connection between the endurance and persistence of hitting the pavement or trails and the endurance and persistence needed to come to the page regularly and work through rejection and work through drafts. I love that they remind me of each other. I love that doing both makes me feel so good. Carry on. Endure. Persist. One foot. Two foot.

Lemons, fig cake and setting

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When life sends you lemons (and figs) via the U.S. Postal Service, make lemonade and fig cake. Okay, so life didn’t really send the lemons and figs. My parents sent them. They sent them all the way from their home in California where lemon and fig trees produce so quickly they can’t eat or use the fruit fast enough. I’ve enjoyed the gifted bounty. I have made delicious fresh-squeezed lemonade and an out of this world fig cake that I found a recipe for at a blog called Lemons and Anchovies. With a name like that the recipes have to be good. This one was probably the best thing I’ve baked from scratch ever.

None of this has anything to do with the Midwest Writers Workshop, except to say that my time there was a nice gift in what has turned out to be a stressful, quickly dissolving summer. As I mentioned in my previous post, I learned so much. I think today’s nugget will focus on what I learned in D.E. (Dan) Johnson’s workshop classes. I attended two. For those who don’t know Dan, he writes historical mysteries set in Detroit in the early 20th century. I have not read his books. I intend to even though I’m not one to really read mystery. I’m compelled by the glimpse I had of his writing and by his writing knowledge. He knows his stuff.

Fig Cake made with figs from my mom and dad’s backyard in California.

His workshop on setting was an elaboration on the writing mantra “show, don’t tell.” That description doesn’t really do it justice, because he dove deeply into what that really means and how that really works to bring a narrative to life. I think the most valuable piece of advice I walked away with was his technique for making sure he’s using enough of every sense. He goes through his manuscripts with five different highlighters each representing one of the five senses. This gives him a visual diagram of how often he’s using these to bring out setting. I haven’t tried it yet, but it has made me much more aware of where I’m using all the senses in my work.

So, now that I am thinking of the senses, time to go let the golden, soft fig cake melt in my mouth, so I can taste the hints of sweet cream, olive oil and butter as the smell of baked fig wafts about my head. I won’t forget to wash it down with the sweet and tangy fresh lemonade.

The Literary Fiction Query/Pitch

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The bag I got from the Midwest Writers Workshop.

I’m tired. I’m tired because I spent the last three days at the Midwest Writer’s Workshop, an intensive conference for writers held at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. I don’t want to nap before I offer this little post, mostly because when I started on my query journey I found a lot of information on writing queries, but the queries were always focused mystery, or YA paranormal, or romance, or sci fi or other genres. That’s all fine and good, but I don’t write any of that. I don’t want to write any of that. It’s not that I think I am better than that in any way. I don’t think that at all. It’s just that I write what I like reading. I like reading literary fiction. I like great images. I like great characters. This post is about sharing the nuggets of wisdom I found at MWW that really hit at the heart of how to condense the essence of a literary story into a three line pitch. I figure if I was struggling with this there must be other.

First, I must say that while I can write a good compelling piece of prose filled with details and images that bring a scene to life. Give me a cover letter or a query and I’m lost. Suddenly all the faculties that allow me to bring you into fictional scene and linger there for a while slip out the window and my queries and cover letters sound, well, extremely stiff. I knew all this going into my pitch. I also knew that while it was easier to find good examples of how to whittle adventure novels or mysteries or other genre novels into little pitches that popped, I was having a difficult time finding examples or explanations of how to wrangle multiple themes, plots, character quirks into three lines without losing the essence of the story and the voice. Honestly, my queries sounded more like “and then this happens and then this happens and then this happens” kinds of things. My voice was nonexistent in my pitches and queries.

From minute one of the Part II of the conference it seemed the focus was on what makes a good pitch. I absorbed so much information, it’s way too much to try put in this little post. I’ll probably write more on it in the weeks to come, but for now I thought I’d relay the information I received from one of the agents, not the one I pitched. Still, she accepts literary fiction and had a lot of good information to offer on breaking into literary fiction during a brief buttonhole session I attended.

I sat at the table with other attendees, most who I gathered did not write literary fiction because of the questions they asked, the first being, “What is literary fiction?” It was good to hear her define it. She said it was fiction that was more about character development than plot. It is has more layers, more subplots and themes that run through the narrative. I did know that. Of course I know that. I write that. Still, it was valuable to hear from an agent’s perspective. It also opened the door for me to ask the burning question, “So then, when one writes literary fiction with all these layers and subplots and such, how does one contain that in a short query or pitch without losing the essence of the story?”

The agent advised focusing on the key characters and said that if she really is compelled by a character she will want to read more.

I took that piece of advice and all the little tidbits of information I gathered from workshops, panels and practicing my pitch with peers and somehow, after 20 or so revisions, got to where I could find the essence of my main character and her struggles and the story. Essential I focused on what she wants, what’s standing in her way, what is the catalyst that makes her push through what’s standing in her way, and what she finds when she pushes through. That is essentially the whittled down version of what Writer’s Digest editor Chuck Sambuchino offered in his conference opening remarks on how to craft a good pitch.

It all worked. I came away with a successful pitch after reworking early drafts that I knew were duds. I could feel it inside me. I could feel it in the blank stares of some of my peers who I shared the earlier pitches with, but I knew I hit the sweet spot with the final version. I knew I captured the essence of my story and the essence of my voice. That was the key. Now, I have to get back to work. I have a manuscript to send off.

Food and poems intersect in a barn on a hill

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francine j. harris

My two worlds have intersected in an old wooden barn with one big window covered in opaque paper allowing light to fall on a stage where poets read and musicians played alongside chickens. The barn belongs to Tilian Farm Development Center, a place that gives new farmers a head start on the road to owning their own farms. A couple of the farmers are friends we have gotten to know through writing and through our food cart venture, which has put us right in the heart of the local food movement in Ann Arbor.

I couldn’t help but feel like I was more where I wanted to be than I ever have been. My friend Deedra and her husband, Bill, own Honest Eats Farm, one of the Tilian Farms. She took me on a tour and picked a sugar snap pea off the vine for me to eat. There is nothing more sweet, nothing more satisfying that so simple burst of goodness. Growing up, I was so far away from that. The nearest I got was our annual berry picking adventures.

The event was A Bard Sings Out II, a benefit for the Tilian program. Featured among the group of poets were some of my local favorites,

Winter Sessions

Francine j. harris, Aaron McCollough and Keith Taylor, who headlined. I won’t do it justice trying to describe what it’s like to hear poets read in a barn like that. I only know that something felt so right about hearing the words move through that setting, those succulent sweet words mixed and nurtured, watered and weeded, much like the sustenance growing in the field beyond the barn.

Our friend, Nick Wilkinson, who owns A2 Pizza Pi, the cart that sits right next to ours at Mark’s Carts, took some of that sustenance and cooked wood-fired pizzas for everyone who attended. Nick makes the most delicious artisanal pizza and he has always used ingredients from another of Tilian’s farms, Green Things Farm, owned by Nate and Jill Lada.

Sitting outside with the pizza cooking and the music of the string band Winter Sessions filtering from the barn, it felt like a dream, a good dream where all my senses are heightened. I can smell the smokiness of all that good food cooking. I can ingest the images fed to me by great poets who care about things like sustainability and land and the small organic farmer in the farm to table mix. If my pictures look fuzzy, it’s because I don’t have the latest and greatest gadget. I have the anti-gadget. Or, it could be because dreams have that kind of fuzzy glow to them, that kind of “yes, it happened but you can’t really prove it” feeling. Well, as it turns it did happen. I hope to spend a little more time out there, perhaps helping my friend Deedra. Word has it she needs helps pulling weeds. I like pulling weeds.

My life as I envision it

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I realize I have not posted in ages. It has not been for lack of trying. I have tried. Oh god, how I’ve tried. The words just will not come. I’m in a sort of writing limbo. I need to give myself time to come out of it. My method for this is to get some writing, any writing, done and forgive myself for the slow pace of it all. In addition, I am giving myself time with everything. There is no hurry. Sure, it seems like everything must be done right now, but not so. I have been working through some personal things that have taken up a lot of time and a ton of energy. For fun, and for a brief moment of escape I am going to take a page from my friend who once wrote in presence tense his vision for his life. I think it’s an exercise that life coaches and motivational people use, but I thought it might give me the boost I need this morning to begin the necessary steps to make that vision a reality. Also, my friend Cynthia Newbery Martin at her blog Catching Days shares  how well-known writers spend their days. Every time I read one of those posts, I feel like I am reading a bit about the life I envision.

My life as I envision it:

I wake up. Make myself a latte with no flavors. Have a delicious breakfast of fruits, nuts and coconut yogurt before going to my desk, which is in my writing office that had a big window that looks out a wooded area with a pond. I don’t look at any mail. I sit down and begin work on my second novel. My first book, “Sometimes the Smallest Things,” has been published by St. Martin’s Press and I am preparing to go on tour. My agent gently, or not so gently, nudges me to finish book two. I love the silence in the mornings and feel bolstered by the sound of birdsong and the soft rhythmic breathing of my dog who lounges at my feet. I work like this for a good three to four hours before I get up to take the dog for a walk and grab a sandwich. In the afternoon, I usually get a call from my son, who has a moment between classes just to check in. He likes to check in. I like to hear from him. My daughter calls, too, but later in the evening after she has spent time in the recording studio. I take a few moments to get the business of emails out of the way. I see that I have readings scheduled all over the country and I have been invited to lead a few workshops. This gives me a nice little nudge to work a couple more hours on my novel before doing some work in the garden. Jay returns home from his restaurant to have dinner with me before he is off again. Some days I go to the restaurant. I spend the rest of the evening reading and getting a few odds and ends done.

Okay, so that’s only one day, but that would be a nice day with a lot of nice stuff going on. Now, I do have some quiet time. It’s time to get to my projects, for real.

I am what I am

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This is the very best photo anyone has ever taken of me. My dad took it a loooong time ago. I sat forever because he used a large format camera back then.

As it happens, Popeye had something in that little old saying of his. What I love about the statement, “I am what I am,” is that it’s not fear based. It’s a simple declaration of love, love for being who he is when others don’t quite get him.
That is kind of how I see being a writer. I have heard other writers say they won’t tell people they are writers. I understand the reason. I know that it all comes down to that dreaded question, “Oh yeah, well do you have anything published?” As if that is somehow supposed to validate what I feel inside. As if it somehow deminishes what I am doing because a few people on the outside may or may not think my words are worthy.
What I realized, as I am journeying through this thing called life, is that what others say or believe doesn’t really matter. I am what I am. I am so many things, a writer is one of them and I am not afraid to say it. But, I also am a mother to two great kids. I am a wife and partner. I am someone who loves to bake. I am someone who loves to bead. I am an educator. I am also the things I am not. In other words, I am not the sum-total of my publications or awards, as perhaps I’ve been led to believe at times. I am not a workaholic, though I love my work as a writer and an educator, but none of it feels like work. I am not nearly as good a cook as my husband, though I give cooking a try.
If we give voice to who we are, then we validate it. If we shout it from the rooftops, then we validate it, even when others might be laughing or doubting that we can create the life we want.
I am reminded of a Sunday Morning on CBS interview with Dolly Parton I saw a while back. In the interview, she spoke of her high school graduation. She spoke of declaring then that she was going to be a super star. She said everyone laughed at her, but look at her now. It wasn’t that she knew it so much as she said it and kept saying it until she manifested it.
So, go ahead and say it. I will. I am a writer, among so many other things. I am what I am.

P.S. Rather than have a bio associated with this blog, I have changed it to an Artist’s Statement, because that is what I am, too, and I rather like the idea of an artist’s statement versus a list of all that I have accomplished, which really doesn’t say anything about me.

Would that there were magic

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Would that there were magic, magic to make a publisher want the novel I poured more than ten years of my extra time and energy into.  Alas, the magic is only in books and movies and

Kid one on his way to Hogwart's

simulated pretty well at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure Theme Park’s Harry Potter area.

The trick, or not so much of a trick, is to keep at it, to keep going and going and going. As I begin this new year, I am trying to keep this in perspective. My mantra as of late is “stay the course.” Who am I kidding? My mantra always is “stay the course.”

I did read something recently that said that often writers aren’t given all of the time in the world to be writers. More often than not, they are as busy as everybody else. It’s all about clinging to that dream with all we’ve got.

Just as with last year, I set goals. This is how I cling in what is again going to be a busy, busy winter. I started the goal setting last year, thanks to my Momwriter pals. I managed to meet or at least make some headway on all of my goals, so my goals list has been created again. There is no magic, but at the end of the year when I look at my list I am sure my reaction will be Viola! I did it. Each little step forward is a nice push in the right direction that, while not really magic, feels a little like magic.