Get to Know Me

I was reading over Toni Morris's writing process and the rituals she engages in before she begins writing and I found myself thoroughly enlightened. She spends quite a bit of time, almost two years, getting to know her characters and their circumstances before she begins to construct the language of the book. She stated, "I've spent a couple of years, probably eighteen months, just thinking about these people, the circumstances, the whole architecture of the book, and I sort of feel so intimately connected with the place and the people and the events that when language does arrive, I'm pretty much ready." Lately, before I start writing my novels, I develop an outline that forces me to think about the main characters of my book--names, occupations, hobbies, background. It's a quick, one page outline that I often go back and reference during the writing process. In the past, I'd just write and let the story come to me as I wrote; however, that has often left me altering the character's dynamics because I never had a blueprint for the character to begin with. 

When readers engulf themselves in my work, or any work for that matter, they connect with the characters. The single mother or the emotionally conflicted drug dealer is a real person for the reader and they connect with the character's mannerisms, actions and history, and as a writer, it is important that the character remains consistent. The moment the character starts off as a sassy, independent single mother with a heart of gold and then ends up as a weak-minded neglectful parent with a devious side is the moment the reader pulls away from the read and questions the writer's ability. Yes, there are going to be to the times where a character will evolve throughout the course of a novel, but it has to be believable. Everything in the character's past must culminate into who this character is evolving into, and the second something doesn't make sense is the second the reader catches on. I'd like to think that I write to a smart, sexy and detail oriented bunch of readers that can't be fooled by my foolish inconsistencies so it's important that I get to know my characters. 

I'm almost done editing my novel Dealing Broken Promises and I've already written the outline for two more novels. I'm excited because I've spent a lot of time thinking about my characters. I've spent so much time rewriting and revising because I've spent a large amount of time crafting my characters in a way that is true to their title and that often involves the act of revamping an entire scene or section of dialogue in a way that seems more realistic. I think about my characters as more than just names on a page but real people with real issues. If my character was real, what would he or she be doing right now? I want to take the Toni Morrison approach and spend more time getting to know my characters to the point where their old friends, old lovers, long-lost family members that I've reconnected with. Ultimately, by getting to know my characters, I am doing my readers a great service. For example, they know Erin would say that or do this because that's in her character, they know her. 

So, as a writer, get to know your characters and their circumstances so well that when your readers cozy up to your novel, they know your character just as well as you do. 

Writers and Storytellers

As I continue to write my books Dealin' Broken Promises, previously titled Black Caesar, I've spent a lot of time reading a number of other books. As a writer, it is important to read. In the past, when asked to read something I'd always turn my nose up and reply, "I'm a writer, not a reader." First mistake, and a quite grave one at that. As a writer, reading allows you the chance to see your work from a different perspective. It gets you out of the rut you may be in when writing the same line, plot thrust, or whatever roadblock in your writing that prevents you from moving forward and developing that next publishable work. Hence, if you're a writer, then you absolutely must be a reader.

On that note, as I read other works I found myself turning into a grammar snob. I approach other writers' works with the notion that, "Ugh, I could've written this better," or  "Ugh, this author's book, riddled with poor grammar, isn't worth the publish. Why not me instead?" Shame on me. Of course this author wouldn't have written this book like me because the author is not me and this author does not approach the art of authoring quite like me. Hence why that author is published and I am simply but a reader. Nevertheless, I've come to the realization that the reason why I approach authors' works differently is because not all authors are writers, but merely storytellers.

I am a writer. I will write anything, anywhere, anyway just for the love of writing. I love feeling the stroke of my pen as it glides along the cool feel of loos leaf paper. I like to sit back and gaze at my words typed or handwritten and admire the shape of my vowels accentuated by the curve of each consonant. I love words and I love to see them written. I am a writer. And although I understand that there are many other writers out there that may share my sentiments, there are many storytellers that may not.

Storytellers love the story. They may not concern themselves with perfect grammar and unparalleled description of details that only distract the reader from the story; they are storytellers. They strive to tell a story from start to finish while teasing the reader with relevant details in the process. The grammar may not always be perfect, the punctuation may not be on point (pun intended) but the story, however wonderfully crafted, is there.

In this day and age, readers love a good storyteller. No one lambastes a storyteller for missing a comma if the story is amazingly authored. If I tell you about my trip to Witch Mountain, you're not hoping that I don't use contractions or start sentences with And, But, or Because. No, you're hoping that the story takes you on the ride you strapped yourself in for. As aspiring writers, it is important not to focus too much on the details that merely distract the writer but rather tell a story that forces the reader to forget that you ended the last sentence with a preposition.

I think I forget that. And although I'll make no plans to stop being a writer, I realize that it's high time I take on the joy of being an amazing storyteller. After all, readers just want to read a great story.

Writing Rules

Just a reminder reminding my fellow writers to write...
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Nano Wrimo

A student approache dme with this Nano Wrimo. Apparently, it challenges asipring novelists to write 50,000 words within a month. No editing, no rewriting, just writing. I am intrigued. There i sno grand prize. Winners don't get a trophy and a published novel, just the feeling of accomplishment and an internet badge of completion. Nevertheless, the possibility of someone else reading my work intrigues me. I'll be done with my tentatively titled "Good Girls" work by the time this writing challenge begins Nov. 1st). Hence, I am considering it. Here are the details:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2011, we had 256,618 participants and 36,843 of them crossed the 50K finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.
Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To give yourself permission to write without obsessing over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To stop being one of those people who say, “I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” and become one of those people who can say, “Oh, a novel? It’s such a funny story–I’ve written three.”
When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins 12:00:01 November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at 11:59:59. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

The Writing Process: Toni Morrison

Toni Morrison is one of the authors I admire most. I love her writing because it is so insightful. You can never walk away from her work with less to think about than you approached it with. So, who not better to learn from than her?

I came across this article about her and how she speaks about the practice and process of writing. I had to share.

You teach writing at Princeton. Can writing can be taught?
I think some aspects of writing can be taught. Obviously, you can't expect to teach vision or talent. But you can help with comfort. . . .

I don't want to hear whining about how it's so difficult. Oh, I don't tolerate any of that because most of the people who've ever written are under enormous duress, myself being one them. So whining about how they can't get it is ridiculous. What I can do very well is what I used to do, which is edit. I can follow their train of thought, see where their language is going, suggest other avenues. I can do that, and I can do that very well.
(Interview with Zia Jaffrey, "The Salon Interview With Toni Morrison," Salon.com, February 1998)

Where do you find your inspiration?
Sometimes ideas arrive through reading contradictory things in history books or newspapers; sometimes it's a response or reaction to current events. But that only explains where some of the themes come from. I can't explain inspiration. A writer is either compelled to write or not. And if I waited for inspiration I wouldn't really be a writer.
("Toni Morrison," Time magazine, January 21, 1998)

How do you work? What are the rituals for getting started?
Well, I try to write when I'm not teaching, which means fall and most of the summer. I do get up very early, embarrassingly early, before there is light, and I write with pencil, yellow pads, words, scratchings out, but, you know, long before that, I've spent a couple of years, probably eighteen months, just thinking about these people, the circumstances, the whole architecture of the book, and I sort of feel so intimately connected with the place and the people and the events that when language does arrive, I'm pretty much ready.
(Interview with Elizabeth Farnsworth, "Conversation: Toni Morrison," The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, March 9, 1998)

Who do you write for?
I want to write for people like me, which is to say black people, curious people, demanding people--people who can't be faked, people who don't need to be patronized, people who have very, very high criteria.
(quoted in "Toni Morrison," VG: Voices from the Gaps, February 2007)

What do you mean when you refer to the "music" of prose?
You rely on a sentence to say more than the denotation and the connotation; you revel in the smoke that the words send up.
(Interview with Rosie Blau, "Lunch with the FT: Toni Morrison," Financial Times, November 8, 2008)

My 15-year-old daughter lives to write. What advice do you have for aspiring writers?
(Darren Wethers, St. Louis, Missouri)
The work is the work itself. If she writes a lot, that's good. If she revises a lot, that's even better. She should not only write about what she knows but about what she doesn't know. It extends the imagination.
("Toni Morrison Will Now Take Your Questions," Time magazine, May 19, 2008)

How much effort do you put into revising your work?
I love that part; that's the best part, revision. I do it even after the books are bound! Thinking about it before you write it is delicious. Writing it all out for the first time is painful because so much of the writing isn't very good. I didn't know in the beginning that I could go back and make it better; so I minded very much writing badly. But now I don't mind at all because there's that wonderful time in the future when I will make it better, when I can see better what I should have said and how to change it. I love that part!
(Interview with Jane Bakerman, "The Seams Can't Show: An Interview With Toni Morrison," Black American Literature Forum, Summer 1978)

You've talked about how official languages can stifle identity. Do you have any thoughts about the ways that technologies like e-mail and texting are changing how people speak and write?
Language changes--and should--because it is as alive as its speakers and writers. It is stifling or bad only when unclear, mediocre, false or wholly devoid of creative imagination. That may apply to some texting and e-mail, but not all.
(Interview with Christine Smallwood, "Back Talk: Toni Morrison," The Nation, November 19, 2008)

I really enjoyed this read, I hope you did as well. She offers quite a bit of insight, as always, about 

writing.

Here's the link to the About.com website.

The Writing Process

I’m still toiling away at coming up with new story ideas and excerpts worthy enough for the world to see. However, in my writing process, which I have detailed for you before, I decided to look up other authors whose work I enjoy reading to learn about what they go through when they’re in their writing processes. Hence, here’s Eric Jerome Dickey’s writing process. I came across this while reading fellow blogger Dottie's from California's blog. I found the way he approached his literary works to be quite intriguing.

Dottie asked:

What does your writing process involve (i.e. do you get up early and write, write at night, use a computer or write long-hand) (yes, believe it or not, some writers still do write long-hand)? Do you set limits on yourself (I will write 50 pages today)?

And he answered:

No limits. It’s about quality over quantity. I’d rather have four tight pages over two days than 20 sloppy ones. I work a scene at a time, a chapter at a time. Writing a book is not a race. It’s a journey.

There it is, simple and plain. When I wrote my novel, “As I Wait,” I gave myself assignments. I’d write at least ten pages a day, no exceptions. I wrote the book in a month (it was almost 200,000 words); it was good but certainly not great. In the end, I was actually quite disappointed with it. I wasn’t trying to meet a deadline, I just wanted to get it done so people could read it. Although the reviews were pretty good (from my friends and family), I knew my quality of work spanned much farther than that. Therefore, I made no real attempts to get it out there. Same thing with my novel “Edge of Sanity.” They are both well-written novels however, they are both not accurate representations of my level of writing. Hence, I may tell people I’ve written them but I do it in  a way to put it out there so I don’t have to talk about it later. When people ask, “Really? You wrote a book?” I tend to speed through the explanations and sort of roll my eyes at the enthusiastic compliments.

I appreciate the flattery but I’d rather be complimented on work that I actually put the time in; work that I spent a journey on and not a half-hearted race.  

Untitled

I had planned to submit this short story to a writing contest but allowed my procrastination to get the best of me. So, here you go!

She stared out the foggy window expecting time to reverse. He was gone. He left her there to collect the imploded remains of what was left. I sat across from her wondering what I did as her friend. Do I go over there and hug her? It’s not like she was sulking; although her sullen demeanor did suggest a broken inner Sheila, I didn’t find a reason to hug.

“What do I do now?” she asked. Why was she asking me? She continued to peer out the window as the rain began. My mind wandered as I watched each droplet cascade down the window pane in a wicked tango.

I raised my shoulders and smacked my lips. I clasped my fingers together over my knee while I scrambled through my brain attempting to determine the “right” things to say. I responded, “You’re better off without him.” I rolled my eyes up to the ceiling and squinted. “Now you can live a normal life.”

“How do you define normal?” she questioned. There she goes, asking me those odd questions that weren’t meant for me to answer. Her head now followed the dance of the rain droplets, her eyes glazed over as if entranced by its wild movement.

She was waiting on my answer. I opened my mouth to say something but I didn’t have the answer. “Do you wanna talk about your feelings?” I leaned forward in my seat, “I’m all ears.”

She snapped out of her trance. She finally turned to face me. The light peeked in through the dark clouds illuminating the purple bruise beneath her left eye.  She sat back into the pale darkness and pushed her right foot under her thigh. I assumed she was attempting to hide the swollen gash down her shin. She smirked, “Should I be crying right now?” She gazed into the wall behind me. Finally, a rhetorical question. “I mean, he left me. What’s a wife to do?”

“We can break into the liquor cabinet. I remember seeing a nice and slender whiskey bottle sitting on the top shelf.”

Her smirk faded. “I remember the night he cracked a bottle whiskey across my skull.” She closed her eyes tightly as she squeezed her fists. I could hear her heart beating through her chest almost. “I hate whiskey,” she whispered.

“We don’t have to drink whisky…”

“No…”she paused, “That’s what I said right before he did it. We were just about to sit down for dinner and he wanted a glass. “I hate whiskey,” I said. His pleasant expression melted from his face like hot wax.” Her body slightly trembled as a few strands of hair fell from her scalp. She shed more strands in an hour then a shaggy dog sheds in a week.

“We don’t have to talk about—

“Next thing you know, I woke up in a puddle of dried blood. I looked up at the empty dinner table. At least he finished his dinner, I thought. “

“He’s not coming back y’know. You buried him.”

She shrugged her shoulders. I could tell she half expected him to walk through her front door. Even death couldn’t stop him from prying into her brain clinging onto her thoughts like a desperate lover. Although I saw with my own eyes her as she emptied his Smith and Wesson in his chest,  he never left.

“Wanna hear a dirty joke?” I didn’t wait for her to answer. I sat up and smiled with my hands gripping the chair arms. “A white horse fell in the mud.”  The silence that leapt after was deafening.

She looked up at me and smiled. She placed both feet on the ground and took a deep breath. That’s when the tears fell.