I was a little mad at myself last night. Through no fault of my own (and I won't elaborate...) I barely got a couple of paragraphs written yesterday, in the novel. Before I went to bed, I made sure to write something, just so it was done, even though I had to work this morning.
I read Rework this week. Yes, it's about business, but I felt like it applied a lot to me as a writer, especially in the context of writing a novel. I've gotten a nice little chunk of the story done, and I've cut things here and there.
I guess a novel is like a business, sort of.
I think a lot of small businesses fail because they dont understand their customers. Case in point, there's a small restaurant where I live, in two locations, one downtown. It's been there for years. We got the cake for my brother's Eagle Scout reception from there. They do cakes and such, but a huge seller is their lunch box. This consists of an entree (sandwich, chicken, chicken pie, etc.) chips, another side, and a dessert. They are literally two doors down from a bank that employs hundreds of people. This place doesn't even have a dining area, but the food is awesome, quick, and affordable.
We've also had a French cafe, a fancy Mexican restaurant, and a bed & breakfast try their hand at success in the same area.
They all failed.
Where I live, no one goes downtown for the experience. Most of the people there are working. After dark, people go home to the other side of town or wherever they live in the county. The Mexican place failed despite the attraction of live music. The bed & breakfast closed because a) this isn't New England and b) it had a great view of an old hotel that probably has hourly rates. I'm willing to bet that the French place didn't quite understand its customer base or possibly priced itself out of the running. It may have been that rent was too high and the food was too special (because for real, my town will stiff you on downtown rent.)
Know who you're targeting for your writing. Mostly it's subconscious, but readers like to have that "they get me!" moment when they read. No, they won't say it out loud, but they also probably won't put your book down after five pages.
Anyway. I highly recommend Rework.
Showing posts with label adventures in a small town. Show all posts
Showing posts with label adventures in a small town. Show all posts
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Oh My Word, Here I Go...
*ahem*
When I was fifteen, I started writing a book.
It was bad.
Here is an excerpt, with commentary included. It serves as a warning to younger me, since twentysomething me is currently DeLorean-less.
-----
Years ago, on a farm just outside of a town called Coleville, in West Virginia [not a real place. I stole the name from combining a movie with the wrong way my last name is spelled all the time and I had not at the time ever been to WV.] there lived a girl named Susan Miltons [I'm really bad at surnames]. The Miltons family was a relatively small family, with one boy, Johnny, and two girls, Susan and Linda [I swear I stole the names from an American Girl book.]. their father was a very hardworking man who was absolutely delighted to provide well for his family. And the family surely was well provided for. [What is this crap, young me? Really?]
Susan was a young girl with an adventurous spirit. She felt that she must have one, because Linda and Johnny were more content to do homework and see their friends. [Susan was apparently a loser with no friends. Or a serial killer. Criminal Minds would probably be all over that.] Susan loved to explore the thick, beautiful woods on the Miltonses [???] property. The trip was sometimes [only sometimes?] inconvenient, because Susan had to go around the field [corn, if you were wondering], but once she was finished with that obstacle [apparently Susan was fat, too], Susan explored to her content. [I guess young me wasn't into pronouns.]
To Susan, there was always some new place to find. Sometimes it had been an unfamiliar clearing. [How exciting.] Other times i had been a new path that wound through the woods, leading to some mysterious end that Susan never quite found. [Maybe that's where the bodies were hidden?] One unfortunate time, Susan had found the trail to the railroad tracks, and the train was just speeding through. [Dag.] But there was one consistent thing about Susan's explorations. She always took her loyal dog, Teddy, with her. And one day, Susan found another new clearing. But this clearing was very extraordinary, and more astonishing than anything Susan had ever seen.
It was a beautiful day one October, when Susan was twelve. [I think I legitimately thought people would get confused if I used "she" once, instead of the name.] The air was cold, the sky was the deepest blue, and it was Saturday, which allowed the whole day for fun. [No duhrr.] So she [freaking finally] went exploring, and Teddy followed loyally, as he did every time, his tongue hanging out, his fur blowing in the breeze. The leaves were changing, and falling, and not a cloud was in the sky. So the young girl and her dog strolled to the woods.
This day, Susan chose a new, smaller path than the others she had seen before. [My grammar sucked too, if you haven't noticed.] The path was clear, nearly perfect, not covered by thorns like most of the trails in these woods. Up ahead was a bend in the path, and when Susan and Teddy went around it, they found, instead of another path, a clearing. But this clearing was different than others. [Those sentences are just gross.] Everything in it was a different shade of brilliant blue. The rocks were blue, as was the piney cover on the blue tinted soil. [Sorry, I forgot about the acid trip part of the story.]
"Oh," breathed Susan. "Teddy, it's so amazing." [Poor Teddy...I'm so sorry for what you had to put up with.] Teddy looked happy; no, ecstatic, as if he had found some hidden happiness in that clearing. [SUBTLE FORESHADOWING DUNDUNDUN.] A small fruit hung from one of the trees, and Susan looked at it, but decided against eating it. But she made a decision about the clearing itself. This was her special place. I'll come back every day, she thought. Or at least I'll try. So, after playing there for a long while with Teddy, Susan headed home.
****************
[It gets better.]
Susan did indeed try to go back every day. Even when she explored other places, she found time to go to her special clearing. [Was anyone concerned at all about this child spending hours in the woods unsupervised?] It was a place of peace, somewhere to play and to dream. No other place was like it. But even so, special as it was to her, there was something even better about it that Susan herself would never discover [SUBTLETY.] So these happy years crawled by lazily, and Susan and Teddy became closer in a strange way as they visited the clearing. [I'm sorry, but just no.]
The day came when Susan turned sixteen. [This is apparently known to happen occasionally.] As this birthday had approached, she had stopped going as often. Other things, like friends, [finally], school [also finally] and cinema [Cinema? Really?] replaced the clearing as important to her. And then, Susan stopped going at all, and forgot all about this beautiful clearing. [Morality tale: avoid puberty at all costs, because you may be in danger of getting a life.] Teddy never did, though, and he went back every day, because, not only was he used to the routine, the dog [because I know you totally just forgot what species Teddy was] knew that something was more special about this blue place. [did no one care that the dog wandered off too?] But the clearing, as Susan stopped going, turned from a bright blue to a dull, dead, faded gray. [Being a teenager will also kill the local flora. Apparently.]
Susan graduated from high school two years later, went to college, and got married to a man named Charlie McKail. They moved far away from Coleville, to a larger town named Wilson, hours away from Coleville. [In North Carolina.] Susan and Charlie had a daughter, whom they named Anya Leona McKail. The family lived a nice life in Wilson. [Good to know.] Anya went to a good school [also good to know, because schools in NC err on the side of suckage] and Susan and Charlie had very good jobs. And all this time, the clearing grew grayer still. [I imagine it eventually just turned clear.] And Teddy, the loyal dog, died, as no one in our world lives forever. [Crap, that's depressing.] The years passed, with the clearing lying, forgotten, in the thick woods around Coleville.
[Here's a tiny excerpt from a bit down the page. Anya's parents are discussing moving to Coleville because Susan's parents decide to give her a house or some junk like that.]
"Mama, we can't move," Anya objected. "I have friends here. Do you know how long it took me to make friends? [In Susan's footsteps, I suppose.] What in the world's wrong with Wilson?"
-----
A lot Anya. There's a lot wrong with Wilson.
When I was fifteen, I started writing a book.
It was bad.
Here is an excerpt, with commentary included. It serves as a warning to younger me, since twentysomething me is currently DeLorean-less.
-----
Years ago, on a farm just outside of a town called Coleville, in West Virginia [not a real place. I stole the name from combining a movie with the wrong way my last name is spelled all the time and I had not at the time ever been to WV.] there lived a girl named Susan Miltons [I'm really bad at surnames]. The Miltons family was a relatively small family, with one boy, Johnny, and two girls, Susan and Linda [I swear I stole the names from an American Girl book.]. their father was a very hardworking man who was absolutely delighted to provide well for his family. And the family surely was well provided for. [What is this crap, young me? Really?]
Susan was a young girl with an adventurous spirit. She felt that she must have one, because Linda and Johnny were more content to do homework and see their friends. [Susan was apparently a loser with no friends. Or a serial killer. Criminal Minds would probably be all over that.] Susan loved to explore the thick, beautiful woods on the Miltonses [???] property. The trip was sometimes [only sometimes?] inconvenient, because Susan had to go around the field [corn, if you were wondering], but once she was finished with that obstacle [apparently Susan was fat, too], Susan explored to her content. [I guess young me wasn't into pronouns.]
To Susan, there was always some new place to find. Sometimes it had been an unfamiliar clearing. [How exciting.] Other times i had been a new path that wound through the woods, leading to some mysterious end that Susan never quite found. [Maybe that's where the bodies were hidden?] One unfortunate time, Susan had found the trail to the railroad tracks, and the train was just speeding through. [Dag.] But there was one consistent thing about Susan's explorations. She always took her loyal dog, Teddy, with her. And one day, Susan found another new clearing. But this clearing was very extraordinary, and more astonishing than anything Susan had ever seen.
It was a beautiful day one October, when Susan was twelve. [I think I legitimately thought people would get confused if I used "she" once, instead of the name.] The air was cold, the sky was the deepest blue, and it was Saturday, which allowed the whole day for fun. [No duhrr.] So she [freaking finally] went exploring, and Teddy followed loyally, as he did every time, his tongue hanging out, his fur blowing in the breeze. The leaves were changing, and falling, and not a cloud was in the sky. So the young girl and her dog strolled to the woods.
This day, Susan chose a new, smaller path than the others she had seen before. [My grammar sucked too, if you haven't noticed.] The path was clear, nearly perfect, not covered by thorns like most of the trails in these woods. Up ahead was a bend in the path, and when Susan and Teddy went around it, they found, instead of another path, a clearing. But this clearing was different than others. [Those sentences are just gross.] Everything in it was a different shade of brilliant blue. The rocks were blue, as was the piney cover on the blue tinted soil. [Sorry, I forgot about the acid trip part of the story.]
"Oh," breathed Susan. "Teddy, it's so amazing." [Poor Teddy...I'm so sorry for what you had to put up with.] Teddy looked happy; no, ecstatic, as if he had found some hidden happiness in that clearing. [SUBTLE FORESHADOWING DUNDUNDUN.] A small fruit hung from one of the trees, and Susan looked at it, but decided against eating it. But she made a decision about the clearing itself. This was her special place. I'll come back every day, she thought. Or at least I'll try. So, after playing there for a long while with Teddy, Susan headed home.
****************
[It gets better.]
Susan did indeed try to go back every day. Even when she explored other places, she found time to go to her special clearing. [Was anyone concerned at all about this child spending hours in the woods unsupervised?] It was a place of peace, somewhere to play and to dream. No other place was like it. But even so, special as it was to her, there was something even better about it that Susan herself would never discover [SUBTLETY.] So these happy years crawled by lazily, and Susan and Teddy became closer in a strange way as they visited the clearing. [I'm sorry, but just no.]
The day came when Susan turned sixteen. [This is apparently known to happen occasionally.] As this birthday had approached, she had stopped going as often. Other things, like friends, [finally], school [also finally] and cinema [Cinema? Really?] replaced the clearing as important to her. And then, Susan stopped going at all, and forgot all about this beautiful clearing. [Morality tale: avoid puberty at all costs, because you may be in danger of getting a life.] Teddy never did, though, and he went back every day, because, not only was he used to the routine, the dog [because I know you totally just forgot what species Teddy was] knew that something was more special about this blue place. [did no one care that the dog wandered off too?] But the clearing, as Susan stopped going, turned from a bright blue to a dull, dead, faded gray. [Being a teenager will also kill the local flora. Apparently.]
Susan graduated from high school two years later, went to college, and got married to a man named Charlie McKail. They moved far away from Coleville, to a larger town named Wilson, hours away from Coleville. [In North Carolina.] Susan and Charlie had a daughter, whom they named Anya Leona McKail. The family lived a nice life in Wilson. [Good to know.] Anya went to a good school [also good to know, because schools in NC err on the side of suckage] and Susan and Charlie had very good jobs. And all this time, the clearing grew grayer still. [I imagine it eventually just turned clear.] And Teddy, the loyal dog, died, as no one in our world lives forever. [Crap, that's depressing.] The years passed, with the clearing lying, forgotten, in the thick woods around Coleville.
[Here's a tiny excerpt from a bit down the page. Anya's parents are discussing moving to Coleville because Susan's parents decide to give her a house or some junk like that.]
"Mama, we can't move," Anya objected. "I have friends here. Do you know how long it took me to make friends? [In Susan's footsteps, I suppose.] What in the world's wrong with Wilson?"
-----
A lot Anya. There's a lot wrong with Wilson.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Silly Library, Books are for Kids
I've mentioned before how much I looked forward to the Bookmobile making its appearance on my street when I was a kid, and how much I loved reading.
We moved the summer after third grade, to a neighborhood sort of across town, where the Bookmobile didn't go. I started fourth grade, made new friends, and got both a computer and a puppy. The library sort of took a seat on the backburner, and I made use of the one at my Christian school, or just went to B. Dalton in the mall. When I was in seventh grade, Books-A-Million came to the Wal-mart shopping center, and suddenly, between it and B. Dalton, a wealth of books and magazines was suddenly available.
I literally did not visit the library again until I was in 10th grade.
Not joking. What books I wanted, I saved for and bought, or asked for them for my birthday or Christmas.
That year Clive Barker released his YA novel Abarat. I saw an ad for the book in a kids' magazine and thought "hey, that looks pretty cool." By this time, I'd of course devoured all of the Chronicles of Narnia, buffet style, and discovered The Lord of the Rings. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a huge favorite of mine, as was A Wrinkle in Time, and I wanted more adventure. More worlds to step into. So Abarat looked pretty cool.
It was also pretty expensive at BAM. What money I had, I didn't want to spend. So I decided, after seven years, to get a library card for the Wilson County Public Library.
I felt rich there, standing in the YA section. I remember (because I'm a freak who remembers stuff like this, don't judge) borrowing Wolf Tower by Tanith Lee and Many Waters, by Madeleine L'Engle. They didn't even have a copy of Abarat, but I still couldn't wait to check out more.
Problem was, a lot of YA books back then weren't all that interesting, especially the ones they had at the Wilson County Library. Usually they were "poignant, coming of age stories" written circa 1982. If there was any fantasy at all, it was all mythological Wales type of stuff, and a lot of the time they'd have the second book in a series, without having the first. I eventually did buy Abarat. As I got older, books became less of a cool thing for me. I wasn't at all interested in things like Pride and Prejudice; I wanted something more along the lines of my favorites. The bookstore wasn't much help either, though I'd known that. B. Dalton had closed a few years before, and BAM either didn't stock things as much or just plain sold out. I was restless and not content with basically having very little to read that I liked. The library didn't have anything because they purchased from BAM, and the local store didn't have all that much either.
But my mind had entertainment. It craved a story so much that it wrote one.
See, we had to read some story in English class that was sort of like the poor man's version of the story of Icarus. Only this tale read like a bad driver's ed film, because the kid's dad was Apollo, and he totally borrowed and wrecked the car. Or something. At any rate, my teacher decided we needed to write our own myth, preferably with a happier ending and that didn't graphically detail what happens to a body in an auto collision. I wrote some dumb little page-long thing where this chick found a clearing in the woods that was magical and turned blue when she walked into it. There's more details, all of which I remember, but they're dumb. Sorry.
I turned it in and got it back, and promptly shoved it into my backpack, whereupon it was immediately stained with banana.*
I didn't forget about it, though. There was more to this story, so I wrote out another copy for myself to continue later. I went to my Gramma's that weekend and started working.
I confess, I have no idea what we did in my 6th period class for the rest of the freaking year, because I wrote the whole time. Like really. I think it was World Geography, but I know I didn't pay attention because I still suck at geography.**
I figured I was freaking brilliant by writing a novel at the age of 15. I finished it and began the process of rewriting, changing and taking out and putting in and having a ball. Then I got the idea for the sequel, then another idea for the third book. The second one was finished by the next winter, shortly after my library adventures began.
I never finished the third one, and here and there I'd work on it between high school and finishing college.
It's funny when you re-find things you hadn't touched in a while.
That book sucked.
Like, it was really bad. Childish and confusing and often times, downright dumb. I threw in plot devices like they were candy at a parade, and often characters existed just to remind the main character that she was special. Yeah, I was one of those writers. I wanted to make it as fantastical as possible, but keep it down to earth and for some reason, partially set in West Virginia (which at the time, I had never been to.)*** There was a gap somewhere in there, where I grew up and started writing a little better. Characters were more complex, there were more secrets, and the dog no longer talked. Dogs, by the way, were the only creatures that could talk in the story. I had two dogs at the time, so I blame that.
And yet, still, even after all my emo-ness and stuff, it still wasn't ready. Like at all.
Like it read like a horrible fan-fiction that wasn't even clear what exactly the author was a fan of.
Lo and behold, college! It was great, and it was awful and I had a lot of friends and did a lot shopping and hanging out and basically not ever working on my book.
But it simmered back there, on the back burner. All the bad stuff cooked off, and spices were added, and my story became mental comfort food. I like where it is now. Heck, I love where it is now. Granted, it is like a fickle lover, sometimes frustrating and many times amazing. Yes, the bare bones are there. Teenagers, quest, weapons. Like the human skeleton, this formula is literally everywhere in YA fiction, whether you know it or not. It's extremely basic. Now I have on my side a weird obesession with the Cold War, lots more attitude, many movies without hobbits, and a temper upon which I blame genetics.****
But that's all I'll say about that.
Because I think it's time to pretend I had a few too many and do the writer's version of dancing on a table at a wedding and launching my stilettos across the room.
I'm going to put some annotated excerpts from the previous work on this blog. Many of the notes may just contain exclamations of shame or LOLs because it's seriously bad, but funny bad. Seriously funny bad.
So prepare to enjoy.
Or just stare awkwardly. Your choice.
*I still have the sheet of notebook paper, and it still has banana on it. It's a beautiful sort of gross.
**Seriously, as far as I know, every state that isn't Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, or West Virginia floats around in this weird archipelago. Of freedom.
***I did go in 2005, on a senior ski trip with my class. And I have the shoulder pain and loss of motion to prove it!
****Yeah, if you think the Hatfields and McCoys were bad, you shoulda seen my family and the neighboring family where they lived, back before 1950. Apparently, an uncle of mine busted home one day and asked his mama (my great-grandmother) where the gun was, because he was gon' kill him somebody. She was all "heck to the naw" and I don't think anything came of that. Also, my Granny once frightened a school principal into actually punishing other students that jumped both my dad and my aunt. I am so proud of both of these events, you don't even know.
We moved the summer after third grade, to a neighborhood sort of across town, where the Bookmobile didn't go. I started fourth grade, made new friends, and got both a computer and a puppy. The library sort of took a seat on the backburner, and I made use of the one at my Christian school, or just went to B. Dalton in the mall. When I was in seventh grade, Books-A-Million came to the Wal-mart shopping center, and suddenly, between it and B. Dalton, a wealth of books and magazines was suddenly available.
I literally did not visit the library again until I was in 10th grade.
Not joking. What books I wanted, I saved for and bought, or asked for them for my birthday or Christmas.
That year Clive Barker released his YA novel Abarat. I saw an ad for the book in a kids' magazine and thought "hey, that looks pretty cool." By this time, I'd of course devoured all of the Chronicles of Narnia, buffet style, and discovered The Lord of the Rings. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a huge favorite of mine, as was A Wrinkle in Time, and I wanted more adventure. More worlds to step into. So Abarat looked pretty cool.
It was also pretty expensive at BAM. What money I had, I didn't want to spend. So I decided, after seven years, to get a library card for the Wilson County Public Library.
I felt rich there, standing in the YA section. I remember (because I'm a freak who remembers stuff like this, don't judge) borrowing Wolf Tower by Tanith Lee and Many Waters, by Madeleine L'Engle. They didn't even have a copy of Abarat, but I still couldn't wait to check out more.
Problem was, a lot of YA books back then weren't all that interesting, especially the ones they had at the Wilson County Library. Usually they were "poignant, coming of age stories" written circa 1982. If there was any fantasy at all, it was all mythological Wales type of stuff, and a lot of the time they'd have the second book in a series, without having the first. I eventually did buy Abarat. As I got older, books became less of a cool thing for me. I wasn't at all interested in things like Pride and Prejudice; I wanted something more along the lines of my favorites. The bookstore wasn't much help either, though I'd known that. B. Dalton had closed a few years before, and BAM either didn't stock things as much or just plain sold out. I was restless and not content with basically having very little to read that I liked. The library didn't have anything because they purchased from BAM, and the local store didn't have all that much either.
But my mind had entertainment. It craved a story so much that it wrote one.
See, we had to read some story in English class that was sort of like the poor man's version of the story of Icarus. Only this tale read like a bad driver's ed film, because the kid's dad was Apollo, and he totally borrowed and wrecked the car. Or something. At any rate, my teacher decided we needed to write our own myth, preferably with a happier ending and that didn't graphically detail what happens to a body in an auto collision. I wrote some dumb little page-long thing where this chick found a clearing in the woods that was magical and turned blue when she walked into it. There's more details, all of which I remember, but they're dumb. Sorry.
I turned it in and got it back, and promptly shoved it into my backpack, whereupon it was immediately stained with banana.*
I didn't forget about it, though. There was more to this story, so I wrote out another copy for myself to continue later. I went to my Gramma's that weekend and started working.
I confess, I have no idea what we did in my 6th period class for the rest of the freaking year, because I wrote the whole time. Like really. I think it was World Geography, but I know I didn't pay attention because I still suck at geography.**
I figured I was freaking brilliant by writing a novel at the age of 15. I finished it and began the process of rewriting, changing and taking out and putting in and having a ball. Then I got the idea for the sequel, then another idea for the third book. The second one was finished by the next winter, shortly after my library adventures began.
I never finished the third one, and here and there I'd work on it between high school and finishing college.
It's funny when you re-find things you hadn't touched in a while.
That book sucked.
Like, it was really bad. Childish and confusing and often times, downright dumb. I threw in plot devices like they were candy at a parade, and often characters existed just to remind the main character that she was special. Yeah, I was one of those writers. I wanted to make it as fantastical as possible, but keep it down to earth and for some reason, partially set in West Virginia (which at the time, I had never been to.)*** There was a gap somewhere in there, where I grew up and started writing a little better. Characters were more complex, there were more secrets, and the dog no longer talked. Dogs, by the way, were the only creatures that could talk in the story. I had two dogs at the time, so I blame that.
And yet, still, even after all my emo-ness and stuff, it still wasn't ready. Like at all.
Like it read like a horrible fan-fiction that wasn't even clear what exactly the author was a fan of.
Lo and behold, college! It was great, and it was awful and I had a lot of friends and did a lot shopping and hanging out and basically not ever working on my book.
But it simmered back there, on the back burner. All the bad stuff cooked off, and spices were added, and my story became mental comfort food. I like where it is now. Heck, I love where it is now. Granted, it is like a fickle lover, sometimes frustrating and many times amazing. Yes, the bare bones are there. Teenagers, quest, weapons. Like the human skeleton, this formula is literally everywhere in YA fiction, whether you know it or not. It's extremely basic. Now I have on my side a weird obesession with the Cold War, lots more attitude, many movies without hobbits, and a temper upon which I blame genetics.****
But that's all I'll say about that.
Because I think it's time to pretend I had a few too many and do the writer's version of dancing on a table at a wedding and launching my stilettos across the room.
I'm going to put some annotated excerpts from the previous work on this blog. Many of the notes may just contain exclamations of shame or LOLs because it's seriously bad, but funny bad. Seriously funny bad.
So prepare to enjoy.
Or just stare awkwardly. Your choice.
*I still have the sheet of notebook paper, and it still has banana on it. It's a beautiful sort of gross.
**Seriously, as far as I know, every state that isn't Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Missouri, or West Virginia floats around in this weird archipelago. Of freedom.
***I did go in 2005, on a senior ski trip with my class. And I have the shoulder pain and loss of motion to prove it!
****Yeah, if you think the Hatfields and McCoys were bad, you shoulda seen my family and the neighboring family where they lived, back before 1950. Apparently, an uncle of mine busted home one day and asked his mama (my great-grandmother) where the gun was, because he was gon' kill him somebody. She was all "heck to the naw" and I don't think anything came of that. Also, my Granny once frightened a school principal into actually punishing other students that jumped both my dad and my aunt. I am so proud of both of these events, you don't even know.
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