Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

I sat down to try to write about having fun while writing, but much of what I have to say on this topic has already been said quite well in these two posts that I will direct you to:

Author Stephanie Burgis talks about following the fun in writing in a guest post on the blog of Margie Gelbwasser.

Author Laini Taylor writes an inspiring post about the discipline of fun.

My own experience is very similar to Stephanie’s: of all that I had written, the book that finally got accepted for publication (Fortune’s Folly) was the one I wrote “for fun”. I had been struggling with this big epic serious dark fantasy for over a year. It was the kind of book I thought I should write. It was the kind of book I enjoyed reading. But I wasn’t enjoying writing it, most of the time. Then in November of 2003 one of my friends asked me to join a group doing NaNoWriMo. I didn’t have a lot of time to prepare, so I picked an idea I’d had on the back burner, something light and entertaining that I thought would be fun to work on. And it was! Sure, there were still days when the writing dragged and the motivation ebbed. But most days I sat down eager to see what would happen next. My main character came alive the way no other character had for me previously. I was working with fairy tales, one of my favorite things. I was entertaining myself. I was in the moment.

And that’s the book that finally sold. It wasn’t the book I thought I SHOULD write. It was the book I WANTED to write.

More recently, I had this idea that I kept coming back to, about an intergalactic circus. And honestly, I was a little uncertain about whether I should pursue it. Science fiction (especially non-dystopian sf) isn’t the hottest genre right now in YA/MG. But what I wanted to create was the kind of science fiction I love best: something that excites and inspires a dream of discovery, something that takes you to fantastic new worlds but remains grounded in honest emotion. So that’s what I set out to do. And I had so much fun doing it. I think it was the first time I can honestly say that when I finished the draft, my own enjoyment and love of the book outweighed my dreams of getting it published. I was just so happy to have had the chance to write the story, even if it didn’t sell.

But it did sell. Better yet, people I trust have read it and liked it.

So I’m going to try to keep paying attention to what’s fun, and write what I want to write, not what I think I ought to write.

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

I have a strong suspicion that I will not actually have 50K written for NaNoWriMo at the end of the month. But that’s okay with me. NaNoWriMo is fabulous for some books (it really helped me get the first draft of Fortune’s Folly written) but sometimes pushing to writewritewrite for wordcount isn’t the best thing for a book. I am finding that for the current project, my pattern is to work on one particular scene for a day or two, then take a day to mull it over, revise, and dream about the next scene until I am excited to write it. I am having a lot of fun and feel good about the book. But my wordcount isn’t NaNoWriMo-level by any means. I will be lucky if I get 30K. So maybe I won’t “win” the marathon, but I will (hopefully) have the start of a novel I can keep working on and feel good about.

I fully admit that I am also feeling a tiny bit lazy — and also a tiny bit nervous about getting the house cleaned and prepped (I need to paint the living room trim, eek!) for my parents’ Thanksgiving visit. Not to mention a number of other mundane-life things that were stressing me out to be putting off. And the soulful, neglected looks the dog keeps giving me.

So I may not be going full-tilt for 50K, but I am still trying my best to write 1K per day. And I’m definitely cheering the rest of you on toward meeting whatever November goals you have set!

In other non-guilty-admission news, I wanted to spread the word to any librarians out there about a big contest we are holding over at the Debs of 2009 community. We’re giving away 46 (!) of our novels to one winning library (public OR school). Details on how to enter are in this entry. Please pass it on to any librarians you know who might be interested!

And a few miscellaneous fun links:

I am coveting these Star Wars Trash Compactor bookends! (Thanks to Pinot and Prose for the link)

Did you know a baby echidna is called a puggle?

I've been thinking about my desire to try to experiment a bit more with my writing and try some new things. In particular, I've been thinking about how two writers I particularly admire for their prose (Laini Taylor and Maggie Stiefvater) both have outlets where they practice/play with writing outside of their work on novels (The Sunday Scribblings and The Merry Sisters of Fate, respectively).

Then I was chatting with my friend and critique partner callenghast and we got onto the topic of writing and I said how it might be fun (and good for my writing) to do something similar (though perhaps a bit more casual): to write from a common prompt once a month, and post the results in our blogs. The intention is to practice our craft, to have fun, and to branch out stylistically. So we're going to do that, probably starting in December. Whee!

The reason I'm posting here is that we figured there might be others who would be interested, either in playing along (there's no minimum participation requirement), or in reading the results.

Edited to add:
I decided it seemed like there were enough of us interested it made sense to form a community to keep everything in one place. So I've created an lj community called Chasing Inspiration over here. Please feel free to join (I made it moderated for now) and comment on the starter post I put up with thoughts you might have on logistics.

I spent about 12 hours over the course of Sunday and Monday wrestling with my NaNoWriMo project. Word count: ~2000. Clearly not working. I suppose I could have pressed on hoping for a breakthrough but honestly I was already getting kind of bitter about that project. I do still want to write it, but it needs more simmering time. And probably it needs to start in a different place. And maybe I need to give up my fantasy of trying to write beautiful lush third-person prose like Laini Taylor and Patricia McKillip. I know the point of NaNoWriMo is to not bother yourself with fears of clunky purple prose and overwraught metaphor, but apparently my internal editor is a workaholic and will not take the time off when it comes to this particular issue.

So, I switched gears. Yesterday morning I opened a new doc, and wrote about 2000 words of a sequel to CIRCUS GALACTICUS. My internal editor still winced and moaned over the occasional rough-draft wretchedness, but I didn't mind, because it was FUN! I actually enjoyed writing it. I love the world and the characters and it's a blast to get back to them.

(rj_anderson may be the only person who might read this and appreciate it, but I introduced a new character who decided to model himself on Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory. Not sure if he will make the cut during revision, but he's so much fun to write!)

What this all means is that I am dreadfully behind, but still hoping to make up wordcount this weekend!

Cheers to all of the rest of you doing NaNoWriMo officially or unofficially, or who are marathon revising this month!

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

I’ll admit it: sometimes writing isn’t entirely fun. Sometimes it is hard work. Sometimes it is painful, when the words I am wrestling with on the page are unmalleable, ugly, colorless clay compared to the perfect story in my mind. [Of course this isn't always the case. There is plenty of fun during the actual writing too, though I am always looking for ways to improve my level of fun. The brilliant Laini Taylor wrote an inspiring post about this recently in her blog. Her book Lips Touch: Three Times was also just nominated for the National Book Award! Congratulations, Laini!]

There is, however, one part of the process that is almost always composed of untarnished fun and excitement: the pre-writing, the brainstorming, when ideas and images are flickering around my brain and I am free to cast my net of dreams out into the sea of ideas and see what I catch. I haven’t committed to anything, so anything is possible.

That’s where I am right now. I had been waffling between two ideas for my next project, which I will be writing for NaNoWriMo. I very much want to do a sequel for my space circus, because that world and those characters are enormously fun to write about and I care about them quite a lot and want to find out the rest of their story. But there’s another idea that’s been drifting around the edges of my mind, looking all shiny and bewitching. It’s a very different sort of book: darker and more romantic. And I think it wants to be written in third person, with a somewhat more lush storytelling voice. My last three books have all been first-person, so the thought of third is a bit scary. I’ve written plenty of third-person novels, but they are all unpublished. I am not entirely sure I can pull off third-person successfully. But one of the things I want to do as a writer is to try new things, and to challenge myself. NaNoWriMo seems like a perfect time for that. I’ll be writing so fast hopefully I won’t have time to be scared!

So here’s what I’ve got:

• A new inspirational desktop image (of the historical site of Bam, Iran).
• A new inspirational playlist (lots of Dead Can Dance, and a bunch of new discoveries courtesy of Last.fm: Irfan, Azam Ali, Vas, L’Ham de Foc, Stellamara).
• My two main characters and their emotional baggage.
• A bunch of world-building/cosmology/secondary characters stolen from a trunked novel (Obsidian Shield, for those of you who have known me long enough).
• The opening scene.
• A very rough outline, and a couple of pivotal scenes from the rest of the story that I am really looking forward to writing — I am going to try to firm these up and identify a few more to serve as “carrots” to tempt me forward through the drafting process.
• Lots of excitement (and a tiny bit of fear)!

What is your favorite part of starting a new project? Any other suggestions for keeping the fun alive during the drafting process?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

For my generalized gushing and introduction to the Betsy-Tacy series, go to this post.

Heaven to Betsy introduces us to Betsy just before she begins her freshman year of high school, and takes us through the ups and downs of that first year. This is one of my two favorites of the entire series (the other being Betsy and the Great World). If I start listing everything I love about this book you’re going to get something like “Miss Mix creates stylish new outfits and Mr Ray makes onion sandwiches and there are picnics and the Crowd and Halloween and Carney and Tony and JOE!” and then I will collapse in a pile of swoony fangirlishness. So instead I’m going to focus my discussion on two things that make this book stand out.

First is a general quality of the entire series, which I find particularly noticeable starting with the high school books. When I read these books, I feel a basic underlying optimism about life, that loved ones will support you, that there is always beauty and hope in the world. Some people might say that these are “nice” books. But I am not sure that word captures what I’m talking about. Perhaps this is because of early exposure to the musical Into the Woods, which leaves me silently singing the witch’s song anytime I hear the word “nice”: You’re not good, you’re not bad, you’re just nice.

The Betsy books are “nice”, but that doesn’t mean they don’t contain the good and the bad as well. Betsy has a loving family, but it’s all (to me, at least) entirely real and believable. These aren’t cardboard Mom and Dad cut-outs with smiles painted on. They are real people complete with faults and virtues. Betsy gets her heart broken, she makes mistakes, she hurts other people. And yet I never feel a lasting bitterness. Pain and regret, yes, but there’s a peace to it. A feeling that Betsy (or perhaps Maud, since these are semi-autobiographical) can look back and come to terms with her life. It’s a different feeling than what I get reading the Little House Books, where I do perceive a bitterness, a self-censoring by the author that makes the books more distant. It’s also a different feeling than what I get reading the Anne books, which have an almost fairy-tale like quality to me — they describe a golden-hued beautiful world I love visiting, but it’s not quite as down-to-earth as Betsy’s world. There’s a place for all these types of books, of course. But if you are looking for a book that is old-timey and sweet and nice, but also very grounded and real, you might find it here.

The second thing about Heaven to Betsy in particular that I think makes it worth reading, especially for anyone who is a writer or dreams of being one, is the depiction of Betsy as a budding writer. On the brink of high-school, and having just moved in to a new house, Betsy begins the book feeling that there isn’t a place for writing in her new life. In earlier books, Betsy uses a beloved old trunk as her desk to write poems, but it somehow doesn’t belong in the new room, and Betsy herself suggests it be moved to the attic. And yet:

Sometimes she climbed into the attic and stuffed smudged, scribbled papers furtively into the trunk, standing forlorn in a dark corner. On such occasions she often cried a little, never much, for it always occurred to her how romantic it was to be crying about her trunk, and then she stopped, and couldn’t start again.

Betsy quickly gets whisked away by all sorts of other diversions: meeting new high school chums, making fudge, picnics, singalongs, parties, and falling hard for the new boy Tony. It is exhilarating and breathless and FUN but yet there’s something more. By winter time we find:

The snow which all day long had sparkled in the sunshine looked pale. Walking homeward, looking up at the sky, and around her at the wan landscape, she felt an inexplicable yearning. It was mixed up with Tony, but it was more than Tony. It was growing up; it was leaving Hill Street and having someone else light a lamp in the beloved yellow cottage. She felt like crying, and yet there was nothing to cry about.

That passage in particular still really hits me — capturing a feeling I have experienced many times myself, especially as a teen. And like me, Betsy seeks refuge in her writing. Yet she still hides it away. The other girls don’t write, and the boys tease her about being a Little Poetess. She recognizes that she wants to be a writer some day, and even that her older sister Julia (who wants to be an opera singer and “never cared what people thought”) would never have put that trunk in the attic and “buried her poems in a handkerchief box”.

But while Betsy recognizes this, she doesn’t change her ways. When she’s chosen to participate in the annual school essay contest (competing against handsome but perplexing Joe Willard) she is thrilled, yet still doesn’t manage to handle it the way she might wish. But she does learn from the experience:

She looked back over the crowded winter. She did not regret it. But she should not have let its fun, its troubles, its excitements squeeze her writing out.

“If I treat my writing like that,” she told herself, “it may go away entirely.”

The thought appalled her. What would life be like without her writing? Writing filled her life with beauty and mystery, gave it purpose… and promise.

When Betsy finally acts on that realization I am cheering for her! And even now, it never fails to remind me, as a writer, that I have to make room for writing in my life.

There’s so much more I could talk about: the thoughtful portrayal of religion, the way Lovelace captures the exquisite ache of a first (unrequited) crush, all the wonderful period details, Betsy’s steadfast friendship with Tacy. But I’ll leave you all to find out about that if you read this book for yourself. I don’t expect everyone will love it as much as I, but if you do give it a try and do enjoy it, please let me know. And if you are already a fan, feel free to share your thoughts on the book! I’d love to hear them!

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

Circus Galacticus is now out of my hands and off in the big world (good luck, little book!), but the universe and the characters are still very much on my brain. What is interesting to me is that I don’t think I’ve ever felt this kind of burning desperation to get to the end in my writing. That’s not to say I haven’t enjoyed writing my other books– I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t love all these stories and characters. But just as I love reading different books for different reasons, I am discovering that I love writing different stories for different reasons. I’ve been trying to explain this to myself in terms of the journey and the destination.

There are some books I love to read because of the journey. They have marvelous characters I just plain enjoy hanging out with, and detailed worlds I can sink into and enjoy. I don’t want to race through these books to find out what happens. There may be overarching plots and usually the main characters do undergo some sort of character development, but that’s not the main reason I am reading the book. I read them because I want to linger in the world, with these characters. Some of the books that fall into this category for me are: the Anne books (L. M. Montgomery), Dragonsinger (Anne McCaffrey), the various Georgette Heyer books I’ve read so far, the Betsy-Tacy books (Maud Hart Lovelace), Howl’s Moving Castle (Diana Wynne Jones), Flora Segunda (Ysabeau Wilce), the Beezus and Ramona books (Beverly Cleary), Dairy Queen (Catherine Gilbert Murdock). Just because I didn’t feel compelled to stay up all night finishing these books doesn’t mean I think they are inferior by any means. In fact, several of the above books are on my all-time, take-to-a-desert-isle list.

Then there are books that I read (and do not necessarily enjoy) because of the destination. I race through to get to the end to find out what happens, even if I don’t particularly care about the characters or the world. I just want to KNOW HOW IT ENDS. Most of the time I don’t even really remember these books after I read them (and sometimes, I admit, I do skip to the end) so I don’t have a lot of examples fresh in mind, except for The DaVinci Code. I read it, even as I was frustrated by it in many ways, because I was compelled to find out how it ended. They’re like popcorn or mindless action movies. I can’t stop consuming them once I start, but they don’t really satisfy.

Lastly, there are books that I read for both journey and destination — I want to linger with the characters and explore the world, but at the same time I have to find out how it ends. Will the characters I love be okay? Will the things I am hoping for happen? Will character X end up with character Y? I only had to read the first chapter of The Hunger Games online to become obsessed with finding out what would become of Katniss and her loved ones. When I finally got a copy I tried to slow down, to make the most of the reading experience, but it was very very difficult. If I could have gotten my hands on Catching Fire last fall, I would have read it at once to find out what happened next. Likewise as each new Harry Potter book was released, the only thing that kept me from devouring them whole was that my husband and I were listening to the audio versions together. And even so, there were many nights we didn’t do anything but sit there listening to find out what was going to happen. As much as I loved the details of the wizarding world and the wonderful cast of characters, I also wanted desperately to find out how it would all end. More recently, I listened to the audio book of Tamora Pierce’s Beka Cooper: Terrier, and even before I was on the last disk I went to check out book 2 from the library, because I was obsessed with finding out if certain things were going to happen (and alas, it looks like I am going to have to wait for book 3 to find them out!).

For me, writing has most often been more about the journey. I am not sure if that’s because my books themselves are more journey-books than destination-books, or just a feature of my practice of writing from an outline. CIRCUS, however, has been a different sort of beast. I did very much love the journey of writing the first book, and I believe it ends with the characters reaching a satisfying destination. But more than ever before, I want to know where these characters are going to go next. Will character X end up with character Y? What tragedies and joys will they experience? How will it all end?

At first I thought maybe I could quiet those clamoring voices by outlining the rest of the series I envision, and perhaps writing the last few chapters (the big climactic ending) of the final book. But what I’ve realized is that I really do need the journey too. If it were enough to simply find out what happens, this would just be one of those forgettable type 2 books as described above. So, since I’ve finished my writing goal for the year in completing Circus Galacticus and sending it off, so now I will take some time this fall to play, and indulge my own passion to find out not only the destination my characters are headed for, but what sort of journey is going to get them there. I am looking forward to it!

Fellow outliners — what is your experience with the journey versus the destination, given that you may have a pretty detailed map? And those of you who are more seat-of-your-pants writers, do you feel this sort of driving passion to find out what happens in your books, since you may be finding it out at the same time as your characters? Or is your writing experience more about the journey?

Finally, here’s some other tidbits:

• I feel very fortunate right now to have such excellent friends and family. Like my college friend Tara, who went out and got a copy of Fortune’s Folly, sent me a sweet note about it, then also forwarded me happy little notes from her own relations who she passed it along to. And my uncle Eric (who always sent me the best books for my birthday when I was a kid!) just forwarded a lovely little review from a friend of his at work (thank you, Bob!).
• I’ve got four library visits and one bookstore signing scheduled for this fall, whee! I am looking forward to getting out and meeting more book-loving people. I will be updating my website with more details once they are fixed.
• I’m also going to be attending the Bar Harbor Book Festival on September 12 and 13. There will be panels and readings and Real Author Stuff. Plus it’s in an absolutely gorgeous location. I am really looking forward to meeting some of the wonderful writers I know online in person for the first time, like my fellow deb Erin Dionne, and the event organizer, the fabulous Carrie Jones. And even though we’ve already met in person several times, it will be great to see my other fellow deb-from-Maine, Megan Frazer.

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

There are times when I forget why I write, times when I doubt myself and wonder if I’m just writing because of some misguided fantasy about “being an author”. And to be honest, there’s a part of me that does fantasize about it: the little writing cottage, the awards, the fan mail, meeting other authors and being one of the cool kids. But that’s not why I write. And I don’t do it for the money either (though money is nice!).

This is why I write:

• Because my mind is a net collecting weird, sparkly, magical stuff, and I need to do something with all of it.
• Because I woke up this morning with a twist for the end of the CIRCUS books that fit so perfectly I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before this. It’s those moments when the story suddenly feels real. It’s not just a spattering of words flung out of your fingertips. It’s alive. It knows what it wants to be.
• Because when I finished my newest revision of CIRCUS last night, I still loved the book. I loved writing it, I loved meeting those characters and exploring their world. Sure, I hope readers will get to see it someday and that they will love it too. But right at this moment, when it’s still (mostly) my book alone, I am content. Whatever else happens, I am so glad I had the chance to write this book. For me.

Of course, part of the reason I am posting this is so I can look back at it later if I fall into the depths of despair and remind myself of what is really important. Because it is SO easy to get lost in the sea of amazon rankings and sales and reviews and web presence. But none of that is worth anything without a story you love, a story you have to tell.

On a tangential but important note, anyone interested in promoting a love of reading might be interested in this posting at The Reading Zone, which in turn is about this post at Musings of a Book Addict. I am grateful to all the teachers and librarians out there who are working so hard to try to help kids see reading as something that can be fun and rewarding, not just rote, unpleasant busywork.

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

A while back I presented a talk about writing, and to prepare myself I sat down and tried to come up with a list of writing advice that has worked for me. I thought it might be of interest to other folks so here it is:

Five things I recommend most highly:

READ: This is, in my opinion, THE most important thing to do if you want to write. Read books. And I mean all kind of books, not just the type or genre you like best. When you read, think about your reactions. What is it about your favorite books that makes them so good? What things don’t work so well?

OBSERVE: Good writing feels real (even fantasy!). Reality is based on strong grounding details. One of the most important things you can do as a writer is to learn to really observe the world around you. Pay attention to smells, colors, textures, sounds, and take notice of the different ways people talk and walk, and how it feels physically when you are sad or happy. Think about what details define a physical place or an experience. If you make a habit of this, you can store up a treasure-trove of details to use in your writing. (Observing is also a great place to get story ideas!).

WRITE: Most people can’t pick up a violin, step onstage and play a concerto. Likewise most writers are not going to sell the first thing they write. The important thing to remember is that nothing you write is truly wasted. It’s all part of the learning process. So keep writing!

STAY DETERMINED: That learning process might take a long time. And it’s tough. A lot of writers end up tossing away whole novels. And even when you finally write something you believe in, the process of submitting to literary agents or editors usually involves a lot of rejections. I received over a hundred rejections before I finally found my agent and editor. It is hard to get your book or story published. But it’s impossible if you give up. So stay determined!

FIND OTHERS: Staying determined can be a lot easier if you have the company of other people who will understand your frustrations and cheer you onward. It’s also really helpful to find other people who are willing to read your work and offer feedback. These people might be a local writing group, or members of one of the many online critique groups out there.

And here are six things that can stand in your way:

( Read the rest of this entry » )

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at The Five Randoms on book endings.

Some of my (quite random) thoughts, reposted here:

I do think good endings are very important — a good beginning will make me keep reading a book, but a bad ending will definitely spoil my experience of an otherwise good book, like a terrible dessert at the end of a delicious dinner.

I am a sap so I do enjoy a good, well-deserved happy ending. But I don’t need one to be satisfied by a book - I loved the ending of THE TIME-TRAVELER’S WIFE (it made me cry, one of only three books to do so that don’t feature sad things happening to dogs). I particularly love it when the main character doesn’t get exactly what she/he started the book wanting, but realizes that what they do end up with is better, even if it’s bittersweet.

There’s also the issue of unresolved plot threads, whether in a series, or not. I know some folks have been less than thrilled with the ending to THE HUNGER GAMES due to certain aspects of the story being unresolved, but I actually quite liked it. I felt the issues I cared most about were resolved, and the other issues were left in a state that felt fair to me, given the actions and nature of the main character. But as in much about writing, it really does vary from book to book and reader to reader.

One type of ending that I encounter regularly in my favorite genre (fantasy) that I think is often mishandled is “the big magical shebang” where some giant spell goes off, or some portal opens, or some otherwise large-scale magical event occurs and everything gets resolved against a fantastical lightshow backdrop. These can be well-done (and I must admit I have one of these at the end of my second book) but a lot of the time I feel sort of like the author got too overwhelmed and just decided to throw in a bunch of FX to distract the reader from the actual plot resolution.

I am a sucker for books where the ending somehow reflects or resonates with the beginning, either physically (characters return to the same location) or thematically (the questions/issues posed in the opening paragraph) or both. So that you could hold up the first paragraph, and the last paragraph, and sort of see the entire book captured there. This is something I aim for in my own books.

And lastly, one thing that will make me want to throw a book across the room is when a character is killed off at the end and I feel like it’s only being done because the author wants to show the reader that “things are serious” (this rule applies to TV and movies too, Joss Whedon). I can understand that desire, but it generally just feels like cheating to me.

What about you guys? How do you feel about endings? What do you look for, and what turns you off? What are some of your favorite endings?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been doodling around with ideas for the next book, while CIRCUS GALACTICUS is off with a few brave readers. I’m generally never short on kernel ideas for books, but the last few years especially have taught me that “cool idea” does not equal “book I should start writing NOW”. The thing I really need is “cool idea + fully-fleshed character”. So I’m trying to be aware of that.

But another thing I’ve been thinking about is how I can push myself with this next project. What do I want to do better? Are there new things I want to attempt?

Here are some of mine:

1) Third-person POV. I used to write in this all the time, but lately I’ve been using first for everything. When I try third, it feels sort of like playing the piano — I haven’t played since I was 12 and I am rusty. But I know it is possible to pull out beautiful music, if only I put in the time to practice.

2) Beautiful prose. I adore beautiful prose. Reading a book where you want to say lines over and over because they are so striking and evocative and lovely. I still value plot and character first and foremost, but I still aspire to crafting writing that sings.

3) Emotion. I hardly ever cry reading books (last time was THE TIME-TRAVELER’S WIFE, unless you count books where sad things happen to dogs, which always get me sniffly). But I love it when they do, and when I feel the love and pain and joy of the characters so sharply it makes me sit up and gasp. I would love to write the sort of compelling romance (or other deep emotional relationship) that I look for as a reader.

4) Complex mystery. I love twisty-turny plots with hidden layers and unexpected reveals that make you smack your head because they make perfect sense but you never expected them. Books where you go back and re-read for more details, to see all the cool bits you missed.

What about you guys? What sort of things do you want to push yourself toward as a writer (or any other sort of artist)?

I think, now that I've read some of the comments on my last post, that what this all boils down to is: embrace love, deny fear. Which I really should have recognized sooner since it's my general philosophy of life. So duh, I might as well apply it to writing too.

Because really, I think all my self-doubt episodes boil down to me being afraid that I can't do a certain thing, or that something I have worked on (like a draft I am about to submit) isn't going to "succeed" (for whatever definition of succeed I am using). When really, what's important is that I love what I am doing. If I love the story, I should embrace that love and be happy I had the chance to tell it, even if it doesn't sell (or doesn't sell as well as I might hope). There are stories I have loved that have not sold, and I know they never will (in their present states) but I don't regret writing them.

In completely unrelated news, it has finally been sunny for almost 12 straight hours. I ran home and then mowed the lawn and did some stop-gap weeding of the garden. I also finally got my act together and purchased an external hard drive to hopefully avert a data-loss catastrophe. All my ancient docs and pictures and mp3s are now backed up! Yay!

To celebrate, I am sitting here with a tiny bouquet of white roses, catmint and delphinium, waiting for my (decaf) Earl Grey to steep, and delighting in how satisfied and contented a sleeping dog can appear.

Oh, and page proofs for PRUNELLA are on their way to me! Whee!

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

No, I don’t actually have one. Though adorable dog + beloved husband + excellent reading material + tea + chocolate works pretty well.

There’s been a bunch of excellent posts around the internet lately, talking about writerly self-confidence and angst, envy, happiness, and everything in between. And it’s something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit since selling my books. So although I don’t have a recipe for happiness, I do think I’ve started to understand myself a little better. I’ve still got a ways to go, but I wanted to put a few things down here, for myself, and for anyone else who might find them useful.

I remember very distinctly going into a bookstore in November of 2003 (while I was in the middle of drafting Fortune’s Folly, actually!) and feeling a physically painful yearning: I wanted my book to be there. I wanted other people to read my stories, and enjoy them. To establish that connection with readers. And I did believe that if I could sell my book, that yearning feeling would go away and I’d be happy.

Then I picked up a book (it was Kai Meyer’s The Water Mirror, which takes place in a fantasy Venice) and felt this huge wave of self-doubt: Fortune’s Folly also involves a fantasy city inspired by Venice and all I could think was that I was an unoriginal hack. In fact, I just went and found the old livejournal post from that day. Here’s an excerpt:

So many wonderful authors. So many beautiful words and fabulous characters. I’m having a crisis of faith in my ability now. My characters are flat and unlikable, my prose stinks, my plot is silly, etc.

At least I had some inkling of what was really going on, since I also said:

But it’s happened before and I know this too shall pass. Hopefully by tomorrow. I need my positive energy…

It took a lot more yearning and a lot more self-doubt (and a lot of rejections!) but I finally did sell Fortune’s Folly in early 2007. I was over the moon, thrilled, excited, dancing around the house. It was definitely one of the happiest experiences of my life so far.

And yes, I think on the whole I am happier today, in 2009, than I was in 2003. Part of that is thanks to knowing my book is out there, that I made my dream happen, and that people are reading it. The very sharpest pains of yearning have been dulled. I can’t remember the last time I lay awake at 2AM wrestling with existential angst. And there’s plenty of non-writing things have also made me happier: moving to a state and city I love where I am near my good friends, adopting a dog, taking more control of my fitness and health, planting a garden. I’m even reading better books! A lot of it, though, is just plain recognizing that life is valuable. Time is valuable. I’m better now at prioritizing what really matters to me and mine, and cutting out what isn’t.

But I also still yearn painfully for things I don’t have (starred reviews, awards, foreign rights sales, etc.). And I still dip into valleys of doubt, in which I am convinced I am an utterly untalented hack. Realizing that I was still going to have to battle envy and self-doubt was one of the least pleasant discoveries of the past two years. I spent a good amount of energy being angry at myself for not being happier.

Thank goodness for the internet, though, because it’s connected me with so many wise and wonderful fellow writers and book-lovers, and I think I am finally starting to get a clue how to make this work. The thing is: wanting more is part of human nature. It’s what drives us to build space shuttles and create symphonies. Seeing faults is part of human nature. It’s what allows us to experiment and develop the science to build those space ships, and to find the right notes that harmonize so perfectly.

So here’s what I do.

When I’m fighting with envy: The big key for me is recognizing that I don’t really want exactly what someone else has. I may envy J. K. Rowling’s success but I honestly don’t wish I had written Harry Potter. I love those books, but they aren’t mine. What I really truly want is for that thing to happen to me, for my own books to be good enough to make people love them. If I can twist it around in my mind just right, it turns the envy into a desire to improve my own writing, to try harder, to dare for more.

When I’m fighting self-doubt: There are two things that help with this. One is simply that I’ve gone through enough ups and downs to know that both are temporary. So when I am having a miserable day, I can look back and remind myself that I had a miserable day last month too, and it passed. The second thing I do is to focus on my enthusiasm, rather than my self-confidence. I thank my fellow writer R. J. Anderson for that realization, since she’s the one who first directed me to this excellent article. The thing is, I may not be confident that other people will like my work, or that it will sell, or even that my writing is up to snuff. But I know that I was enthusiastic about the story, that there’s something about it I love and want to bring out. So I focus on what excites me and makes little shivers run along my skin as I dream about it. If I can find the love rather than dwelling on the fears, I can usually move onward.

It doesn’t always work, but it’s what I strive for, and I think it’s helping me make my envy and self-doubt work for me, rather than the other way round.

How about you folks? Anyone else struggle with these things? How do you cope?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

I had a writing epiphany yesterday, and like most of my writing epiphanies, it’s something relatively basic I just never took the time to think about until now.

It started as I was struggling over a new chapter in my circus book. The MC has (almost) hit rock-bottom, having recently screwed a number of things up in her life and learned some things about her past that she didn’t like. Now she needs to go obtain a piece of information that will progress the external plot to the next stage. The information is in the spaceship recycling system, which happens to be inhabited by Something Alien. My initial thought was “Oh, she can fight it”, because this MC’s primary strengths are her bravery and physical abilities. To reduce things to gaming terminology, if Fortunata was a bard (strong in words and wits) and Prunella was a mage (strong in magic and knowledge), then Trix is a warrior (hit it! hit it again!).

The problem is, I myself find just hitting/shooting things boring most of the time. There needs to be something critical and meaningful at stake, or there needs to be witty banter, or it needs to be spectacularly beautiful (which generally means it has to be a movie/tv show - I do love a good kung fu movie!). Otherwise, the story takes on a certain video-game quality: Fight X, get Y, Fight Z, Advance to level Q.

Looking back to my last two writing projects, I realized how fun it was to set challenges in front of the main characters, because they couldn’t just fight their way through them. They had to be clever and think outside the box, and sometimes they failed, but they kept trying. Their limitations were as inspiring as their strengths.

And that’s when I had my epiphany: I need to throw some things at Trix that don’t play to her strengths. Giving her something to beat up is too easy. I need to confront her with something that targets her weaknesses. As soon as I thought that, the whole scene started outlining itself in my brain.

What about you guys? What are the strengths and weaknesses of your favorite characters? And if you’re a writer, how do you balance strengths and weaknesses of your characters?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

Doubt is one of my biggest challenges as a writer. I say “challenges” rather than “enemies” because sometimes the doubt is justified, so I can’t just ignore it. If I’ve got a niggling feeling that something isn’t right in the last chapter, it’s because there really is something that needs fixing. When it becomes problematic is when it paralyzes me during a draft (like, say, right now).

I don’t generally doubt my basic plot element (this is the thing that comes to me first — for FORTUNE’S FOLLY this was the question “what if there was a fake prophecy someone needed to make come true?”).

But I doubt a lot of my other choices: Should this be first or third-person? Who should be the point-of-view character? Where should the story start? Should it go this way or that way? I worry that maybe I am making certain choices because they are comfortable and have worked before, and that maybe I am just being a coward for not trying new things. I worry that I’ll spend months writing a book only to look at it when I am done and hate it and need to redo it all.

What I am trying to keep in mind is that for some of those questions, there may not be one “right” answer. If I tell the story one way, I get one book. A different choice might lead to a different book, but not necessarily a better book. But if I don’t make a choice at all, if I sit here at my keyboard paralyzed by the doubt, nothing will get written.

I’ve come to believe that one of the the best things I can do to improve as a writer is to understand my own process (and keep in mind that process can change with each book, just to keep things interesting). For example, I almost always go through a period where I doubt whether my main character is fully-realized and alive. And usually that doubt is a sign that she/he is NOT. When the character is ready, when I’ve found her and she’s alive, I know it. There’s no more doubt. Or rather, there’s a different kind of doubt. At that point I “only” have to worry about whether I am capable of conveying that life to the reader!

So, I am going to keep writing. I may go back and start over a different way, and see if I like it better. I may keep going with what I have now. But eventually I will get to the end. And it won’t be perfect by any means, but it will be a step forward. I just need to keep moving forward, and not get paralyzed by doubt.

Some other stuff:

~The results are up for author Lisa Mantchev’s LOLShakespeare contest, which I was lucky enough to help judge. Check them out over here. It was very very hard to choose favorites! But I do particularly like the pile of white cats in the Band of Brothers picture.

~Copy-edits on THE MAGICAL MISADVENTURES OF PRUNELLA BOGTHISTLE are on the way, and should arrive tomorrow. Woo! My wonderful copy-editor on FORTUNE’S FOLLY found several things I completely overlooked that would have embarrassed me considerably had they made it to print, so I am curious to see what’s been discovered this time. Thank goodness for copy-editors!

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

I love words (I know, what a surprise, right?). One of my favorite books as a kid was The Insomniac’s Dictionary, by Paul Hellweg. It lists all sorts of cool lists of words. Like words for collections of animals (a clowder of cats, a parliament of owls, a knot of toads) or lists of the longest words in the dictionary. I must have spent hours reading that book.

I particularly love discovering that a word exists for something I didn’t know had its own word. I’ve always loved the smell that rises up from the damp soil after a summer rain, but it was only a few years ago (courtesy of the fabulous A.Word.A.Day) that I found out there was a word for it: Petrichor.

And then there are the words that are just plain fun to say. Perambulate. Pulchritude. Jackanapes. Banana. Hornswaggle.

And finally there are the beautiful words. I’ve been reading through and loving this list of what are purportedly The 100 Most Beautiful Words in the English Language, which I heard about from writer Alexandra Bracken (her debut fantasy Brightly Woven is due out in Spring 2010 and sounds very cool).

Some of my favorites from the list:

• dulcet
• ethereal
• glamour (but only if spelled with the u!)
• mellifluous
• penumbra
• serendipity

Some I would have cut (they are interesting, but not beautiful, in my opinion):

• encomium
• eschew
• fescue
• fugacioius (then again, I can’t even figure out how to pronounce it — maybe it does sound beautiful if you know the trick!)
• pastiche

I also found a name for a character in my circus book from among the 110 words on that site. Anyone care to guess which it is?

And which words do you folks like best? Are there any particularly cool words you’ve found recently?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

The lovely Chandler of the Fumbling with Fiction blog has interviewed me — my very first blog interview! You can check it out here! She’s been interviewing a bunch of debut writers so check out the archives for more!

One of the questions Chandler asked was related to what I hoped I might achieve as a writer. I’ve been thinking about that question a bit more since responding, and also on a related question: what response do I hope my books might provoke in readers?

I am pretty sure there are authors out there who want to write books of staggering literary merit, books that reshape the way people think, or change people’s lives. And there are certainly authors out there writing books that do accomplish those things.

For my part, I have come to realize there are two main things I want my books to have (books I read, and books I write): I want them to have heart, and I want them to entertain me (and hopefully my readers).

Of course that all depends upon definitions: what does make a book entertaining? What is heart? I’m sure other people have different qualities that make a book entertaining, or give it heart.

For me, an entertaining book has a plot that engages (often with an element of mystery) and details that pull me in and make me want to keep reading. And a book with heart, for me, is one that connects me to the characters, or to humanity as a whole, and makes me feel like I understand the universe, and what life is all about, just a little bit better.

There are books that have entertained me without providing what I would consider “heart”. I will admit that I read Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and despite the things I didn’t like about it (which were many) there was a definite pull that just made me keep reading. For me, it was the equivalent of the sort of popcorn-action-movies that I also love. I watch them, enjoy them while I’m there, and then forget about them.

In contrast, there are books like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, which I read with just as much breathless engagement, but which also resonated on a much more emotional level. There was something more there (for me, at least) in Katniss struggling to keep her loved ones safe, in the characters and their connections to one another. It made me feel that glimmery-shifty feeling as if I were on the brink of some better understanding of what it means to be human.

There are probably books out I did not personally find entertaining that do have “heart” — but since I tend to put aside books that don’t engage me, I’m having trouble coming up with any examples!

So to sum up, my aim is to tell a story that makes readers feel connected, to explore and delight in the human experience and the marvel and mystery of the universe. But, first and foremost, I want to tell that story well, and make the reading experience fun.

So how about you folks? What do you look for in a book?
And if you are a writer, what response do you hope your books will provoke in readers?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

This was an odd year in many ways. I started it off with two books sold and moving along the route to publication, but I knew neither was going to actually come out in 2008. There were some downs, especially as I struggled to write Mirable Chalice. I had to scrap my first version entirely, after realizing that the characters just weren’t working. That was probably the toughest part of my writing year, but it’s also helped me to understand my own writing process better, so it will be good in the long run.

There were a lot of really exciting, wonderful things too. Overall this was most definitely an “up” year! Some hightlights:

• Going to copy-editing with Fortune’s Folly, and getting a sharp-eyed copyeditor who found at least one mistake that would have made me feel very stupid if it had not been corrected
• Seeing the wonderful website my designer and friend Lauren created for my books. It’s everything I hoped it would be!
• Hearing back from my steadfast friend Geoff, who read early parts of my second go at MC, and kept my hopes alive by telling me he liked it.
• Getting good feedback on the second version of MC from my other readers.
• Hearing back from my agent on the second version of MC, and finding out that she liked it much better than the first.
• Hearing back from my editor on the second version of MC (she was not subjected to the first version, thankfully) and hearing that she liked it. Whew!
• Seeing my page proofs for Fortune’s Folly. It looked like the insides of a real book!
• Seeing my beautiful cover for Fortune’s Folly. Thank you Monica Lee for the artwork!). It looked like the outside of a real book!
• Holding the bound galleys (ARCs) in my hands.
• Participating in the Feast of Awesome that is the Debut 2009 community. I didn’t just get to celebrate all my own little victories this year — I got to celebrate with thirtyodd other first-time writers. It was worth more than I can say to have that community, especially when I was confused/anxious/stressed. I am very, very grateful for my writer friends.
• Starting work on a brand new project, with all the excitement that entails!

I am (of course!) looking forward to 2009, since it is the year Fortune’s Folly finally goes out into the world. I am so excited that other people will get to meet Fortunata and the rest of her world! And also a little terrified. I hope people enjoy her story!

It will also be exciting to see Mirable Chalice progress further toward becoming a real book. And I am having a ton of fun with my new project so I am eager to continue working on that. I intend to finish the new draft in early 2009 and then see where it goes from there. It would be lovely to sell something else in 2009 but right now my priority is making my stories the best they can be, and continuing to have fun working on them.

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

One thing I love about writing is how inspiration can come from so many different places. I love looking over a mostly-done manuscript and remembering where little bits of it originated. It’s like looking at one of those intricate crazy-quilts composed if a bit of velvet here, a button there, a snippet of floral brocade there, all stitched together with bright embroidery.

In Fortune’s Folly, for example, there are a pair of bluebirds who belong to a woman who may-or-may-not be a wicked witch. Those bluebirds came to me at several years before I even wrote the book. I was in graduate school on Long Island, I think, wandering through the woods behind my apartment (I was pretty unhappy in grad school and prone to wandering in the woods, which were lovely and tangled and deep-feeling, with an inexplicable grove of bamboo(!) in the center that stayed quite green even in the winter). I passed by a bunch of bittersweet, with its brilliant orange berries and golden husks and thought how cool a plant it was, both in appearance and in name. I had recently seen some bluebirds and somehow the two ideas merged and turned into a pair of bluebirds named Sweetbeak and Bitterwings. So I scribbled it in my notebook and mostly forgot about it. And then one day while I was working on the first draft of Fortune’s Folly they suddenly flew back into my mind and chirped at me as if to say, ‘Finally, this is where we belong’.

And so it goes. I keep collecting the sparkly bits, the emotionally resonant moments, the names and images, and hope that one day they’ll all find a home.

The reason I’m writing this right now is that today was the first time I found a character that I know belongs in some future book. I even know which one! I was at the Farmer’s Market after work, shopping for bread and green beans and tomatoes when I saw a group of musicians playing over between two tents. An older man was playing guitar, and two women were fiddling. It was a familiar Irish tune, though I can’t remember the name. One of the women was older, a professional. The other looked like a teen. I think the best one line description of her I can make is that she looked like a character from a Charles de Lint novel (I loved The Blue Girl so that’s a compliment from me). She had a dark bob, streaked with greenish-blue highlights. She wore a skinny retro Bob Marley T-shirt, lavender fishnets, combat boots, black wristlets, and one of the funkiest skirts I’ve ever seen. It seemed to be made out of a bunch of multi-colored ties, sewn together but falling free in a fringe at knee-length. Over this was a sort of overskirt/apron of denim (I think) with embroidered designs in bright colors. Flowers, I think. I don’t think my description does it justice, but
alas, I did not have my camera. Perhaps it was for the best, as I wouldn’t want to alarm the poor girl by lurking around taking pictures of her cool outfit.

But anyways, this fiddler could have stepped right out of one of my unwritten books (the ghost-pirate-Maine-fiddler-romance-mystery). It was a little unnerving. Though not so unnerving as if the ghost-pirate had appeared at my local market.

So I’ve dutifully written down notes and tried to record the inspiration. The fiddler’s book is still waiting for a few more pieces to click into place, but it’s inching closer to being ready to write.

Anyone else have an unexpected inspiration that ended up in one of your own stories?

Originally published at devafagan.com. You can comment here or there.

There have been a bunch of excellent postings lately touching on the topic of how plot and character combine to form a story, and on how one finds that mysterious “something” that turns a bunch of plot-points and character traits into a living story. I highly recommend checking them out if you like pondering such questions.

Shannon Hale (author of Goose Girl, Princess Academy, and more) talks about some of this here and here.

Laini Taylor (author of Blackbringer) talks about some of this here.

And finally, Sherwood Smith (author of Crown Duel, Court Duel and more) sponsors a discussion about story and plot here.

There’s a ton of great insight there already, so I don’t have a whole lot to add that has not already been said. But here’s my own experience:

The basic notion I am going with is that there’s plot (a bunch of events in a logical order) and there’s character (a collection of drives and desires and qualities and quirks), and that somewhere in the place where they meet, story is born, and that’s the thing the reader actually cares about and is interested in. Of course other folks might use different words for this, or see all these things as inseparable, but for the purposes of this posting I will stick to this terminology.

The way I think about it is: plot is what happens to the character, story is what the character does about it. And reaching that point, where the magic happens and the story comes alive, is more often than not (for me at least) the product of a certain amount of work, of writing things I later throw out, and doing what I can to be open to inspiration.

I consider myself a plot-first writer. I tend to come up with a set of plot points and then search around for the character who would be a good match (this search usually alters the plot points in the process). As such, I have suffered occasional agonies due to not making sure that I actually have the basis for a story before I start writing something. While working on the draft of Mirable Chalice earlier this year, I had to do a pretty painful but ultimately necessary re-write because I had plot but no strong story, due to not enough “character” in my characters. If I don’t really know my characters and they are just flat cardboard dummies being shifted from plot point to plot point, I don’t have story.

The hardest part, I find, is achieving that alchemy that changes a collection of plot points and a proto-character into a story. It often feels like a magical process beyond my control, and I am not sure I will ever be able to make it happen. All I can do it to try to put myself in the best position to be open to inspiration.

That’s one of the reasons I am glad there are other writers out there posting about their processes (like the above-linked), to remind me that it’s okay to have to work hard to achieve story, and that writing is not always about inspiration and sudden flashes of genius. Sometimes you find a beautiful patch of wildflowers just blooming out in the wild. But sometimes you need to dig up the earth yourself, and fertilize, and plant the seeds and water them, and your back gets sore. Then one day it all blooms and it seems like magic, even though a lot of hard work went into creating it.

A side note for the other gamers who might be reading this: I think this is the reason that writing for a game is diffferent than writing fiction. There’s a reason we call it “writing plot”. As GMs and Game Directors, we’re bringing the plot to the players (plus some of the supporting characters), but they are bringing the main characters. Story can only happen via the stewing-pot of the game, when all that comes together.