writing craft – Flights of Fancy

The Counting Game

Remember, you have to count all the way down to zero. No peeking!

One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight …

The last time I played Hide and Seek was probably more than ten years ago, but I feel like I still experience it a bit every day. Counting down or counting up, doesn’t matter—my brain insists on organizing things with numbers. Is this weird? I don’t know.

Here’s a sampling:

Two hundred = the stairs down to the Lake Michigan shore. To hypnotize myself back to sleep in the middle of the night, I count this descent step-by-step in my mind.

Wooden stairs descending through cedar woods to a distant beach. — *Can you spot the border collie?*

Four-Seven-Eight = the breathing pattern I employ as my backup means of sleep hypnosis.

Forty-five = the minutes I allow myself to get back to sleep before giving up on hypnosis and getting out my book.

Two = the hours I’ll read before trying, again, to sleep. I’m apparently kind of obsessed with this issue.

Four to eight = the hills my daily dog walk encounters (varies per route).

Seven = the big roots I must climb over on one section of the trail.

Dog standing on a trail above a big root that crosses the middle of the trail

Twelve/eight = the compound quadruple meter (four beats per measure, three eighth notes per beat) of a rhythm that beats in my head while I walk. Sometimes I catch myself clacking my teeth to it.

Two = the “rev-up” words I recommend agility students use to get their unmotivated dogs blasting off the start line (Ready? Steady?)

Six to Eight = the hours I once practiced per day, back when I aspired to be a professional musician.

One (or one thousand) = the maximum number of chapters (or minimum number of words) I try to write daily for a first draft. Depending on plot complexity, this often ends up as a single scene within a chapter.

Forty to fifty thousand = the total number of words I aim to write for each MG manuscript.

Two = the number of drafts I write before anyone other than my dog experiences a word of it.

Sleepy dog lying on dog bed — *A captive listener*

Twenty-five to sixty = the number of agent rejections I force myself to endure per manuscript, before giving up and moving on to the next one. (I know you’re supposed to acquire at least 100 rejections, but my spirit can’t handle that many.)

Two = the chocolate-chip cookies I get to eat at the end of a good day. (Thus, every day becomes a good day.)

Looking at my list, I see that it highlights things that are central to my life: sleep, food, dog/walks, music, and writing. Not bad. Except for the music and writing parts, it’s pretty much a dog’s life. A lucky dog.

Do you stratify your days with numbers, too? Writers in particular: I’m curious whether you religiously keep track of your word count, or the number of minutes per day that you write, or anything else numeric related to writing.

I’m starting to think that the childhood game of Hide-and-Seek should be part of a training manual for How to Navigate Life. It requires tremendous self-control, yet it nurtures excitement for what comes next.

And what does come next?

Simple. It’s the release of restraints, the sudden transition to a new stage. if you’re the counter in that game, it’s literally the time to unmask your eyes and set yourself free. You might tiptoe or clomp, walk or run—you choose. The best part is that you finally get to search for those little devils who’ve been hiding from you. And the structure, patience, and anticipation leading up to this point make the whole thing worth it.

Back to counting. But watch out, because pretty soon … here I come!

Happy Tales!

How Old Are You?

Don’t worry, you won’t need to count the candles on your cake for this one.

After you’ve reached a certain age, at least until you’re so ancient that you’ve gained bragging rights, people stop asking how old you are. For me, this happened around the time wrinkles started to spread from the corners of my eyes like neglected cracks on a car windshield. Avoiding the topic of age is fine with me. I’ve always been grateful not to be reminded of my own mortality. I’ve also gotten increasingly sensitive to how long I’ve spent on this planet without making much of a difference. And to be completely honest, I worry about ageism in the writing world, where professionals may look down on anyone who isn’t a wunderkind with tremendous future potential.

*None of us can avoid the inexorable march of time, and with it the reduction of our own potential. Photo credit: Ricardo Moura*

So it’s kind of weird that I’m asking such an intrusive question. I think I need to rephrase it. What I really mean is, how old are you in your mind? What age is the person your memories most frequently revisit? These might be your best memories, but they could just as well be traumatic ones. That is, I’m not asking what age you want to be (twenties for me, please—backpacking and trail-building in the wilderness with seemingly limitless energy and nary an ache). Nor am I asking what age you feel yourself to be (I’m guessing about eighty for me on days when my back hurts from sitting, my hips ache from walking, my elbow stings from lopping weeds, my foot twinges for no apparent reason, and my thumb throbs from an old pinecone-throwing injury).

Writer & dog standing at the shore of a high alpine lake in the Bitterroot Mountains of Montana — *I will never not hike, though it definitely takes a toll on the body!*

I most often see myself as about eleven years old, one of the happiest times in my life. At that tender age, I was still young enough to feel secure in my place—surrounded by family and friends, immersed in school, music, and nature. But I was old enough to question things that were happening around me and to realize that the world was a heck of a lot bigger than I’d thought it was just the year before. I wouldn’t lose my best friend for another year, and I wouldn’t lose my ability to play music for nine more. I didn’t yet suffer from teenage angst, and I didn’t have to deal with the high pressures of academia or adulting. I spent a lot of time in imaginary worlds—stories that never left my head, though the complex imagery that accompanied them sometimes made it onto paper.

Mural of a landscape with a crowded town surrounded by lush greenery and jagged peaks — *If I’d had the nerve to paint one of my childhood murals on a city wall, it might have looked something like this. Photo credit: Muhammad Shakir*

This, then, is why I write middle grade fiction. Pre-teen kids deal with huge issues, for sure, but they’re still young enough to be resilient, hopeful, and curious. They’re at a prime age to go on fantastic adventures—both real and imagined. They treat the obstacles they encounter with humor, courage, and surprising wisdom. They make such fun protagonists!

My husband says his thoughts most frequently take him back to high school, a time when he enjoyed nerding out with a wide variety of creative friends. I’m guessing he’d focus on YA if he were a writer. My aunt, who writes women’s fiction, says she revisits her thirties when she met the love of her life (and my uncle chooses his forties for the very same sweet reason). My eleven-year-old dog doesn’t say, but he acts like he’s about three. Maybe picture books would work best for him.

Dog lying with front paws on an open picture book, with a picture featuring a cow diving into the water — *Tock enjoys his favorite picture book, The Mollys B, by Joann Howeth.*

My question for everyone else remains the same: how old is the you that your mind replays most? Was this a good time or a difficult time for you when you actually lived it? If you write, do your protagonists tend to be that age as well?

As we make our way through our lives, maybe our most memorable age will give us a better understanding of the whole. That’s my hope, anyway.

Dog standing on a rock, his shadow reflected facing the other way on the ground. — *Is that unforgettable time of your life in the distant past—or maybe happening right now?*

Happy Tales!

Stuck in a Rut — and it keeps getting deeper!

Do you ever want to be a little kid again, nestled deep in the universe of your mother’s arms, content in the knowledge that she’ll look after you, nurture, comfort, and help you so you don’t have to do it on your own? Best of all, she’ll figure out what you want to eat and prepare it for you. I have such fond memories of savoring my thermos of pea soup at preschool.

A bowl of pea soup with a wooden spoon — *I no longer have the Holly Hobby lunchbox & thermos, but the fact remains: this was my favorite food, growing up. Photo credit: Saad Ahmad*

I often wish I could go back in time for this exact reason: to have my mom in charge, making all the important decisions. No doubt about it, I have a great mom and have been unusually lucky in that respect. But I wonder whether other people with big love for their parents yearn to return to those early days. I also wonder whether the difference between then and now is particularly harsh for writers.

Parent and child holding hands — *Photo credit: Prabin Basnet*

To explain what I mean, I need to specify: I’m talking about the past/present difference for aspiring writers—those without an agent, editor, or publicist urging them to usher a new work into the world. If that is you, welcome to my Unagented Writers’ Club! We have no one directing our career, guiding us forward, or validating our writing from the perspective of a mentor in traditional publishing. Every day we have to choose what to work on all by ourselves. In fact, we have to choose whether to work at all. Would anyone notice if we stopped?

Sadly, no. No literary professional, anyway. And this is what is suddenly stopping all my forward momentum.

Dog stopping headlong to intercept a frisbee in front of a soccer goal — *If it’s a matter of keeping the frisbee out of the goal, Tock absolutely will slam on the brakes for it.*

This stuck status is weird for me. For so many years now, I’ve done what all the writing craft books tell us to do. I’ve written a story, sought outside critiques, taken it to workshops, polished the thing to a shine, submitted it, and, while waiting for the replies (if any) to my submissions, begun another one. I’ve lost count how many unpublished novels I’ve got at this point. Nine, I think? After completing the last one, I’ve found myself reluctant to start again. I can hardly stand the thought of birthing yet another story that will never find its way to readers.

Worse, this feeling has bled into other parts of my life as well. Or maybe without the constant writing I used to do, I’ve noticed the other bits more. Every day I wake up at the same time, eat the same breakfast, go on the same walk with my dog, and proceed to fill my day with the same things I did yesterday. When I crawl into bed at the usual time, I think to myself, “Well, that’s another day done.”

Dog standing inside woods where trail leads — *Almost every day, Tock and I enter the woods here.*

Do you ever feel like this? Totally stuck in your life, as if each breath inhaled, each minute lived is simply another one to get through, on the way to some distant goal that, realistically, may never happen? Your tires are spinning, and you’ve finally realized that all this engine revving is just making you sink deeper.

*This dog is a much more thorough hole-digger than Tock. Photo Credit: Suraj Tomer*

I’m tired, I guess. Tired of pouring my soul into something that only my critique partners will see. Tired of a sinking feeling in my gut that this story will progress no further than any of its forebears. Tired of wondering what the point to all of it is. I’m stuck in a hole of my own making—one no one would even know about if I didn’t mention it here. The worst of it is, I can’t seem to dig my way out!

Looking up from a deep rocky hole with blue sky above — *My current POV. Photo credit: Elias Tsapaliaris*

Hold on. I need to stop my rant here, because I do in fact have a way out. It’s so obvious I’m embarrassed to have overlooked it.

Dog standing next to digging tools that are lying on the grass (shovel, pulaski, and trowel) — *Tools for unearthing something*

I have a shovel.

Not the metaphorical one I thought I needed, but an actual steel shovel. All I need to do is fetch it from the garden shed, grip its smooth wooden handle and start to dig. This will get me away from my computer and my dark thoughts, first of all. Second, it’ll take me to the garden, which desperately needs weeding and turning over before the first frost. Third, and most important, as I use the blade to dig beneath the grass roots and excavate the rich loam, maybe something in my mind will loosen as well. It might pull me further away from writing … or it might pitch me back into it. I don’t know, but I have to try.

As I dig, I remember how last year in this same garden, my shovel turned up my grandmother’s ring. I thought I’d lost it in the woods months earlier, and spent many days scouring the part of the trail where I was sure it had fallen. That time wasted was nothing compared to my joy at spotting a golden shine through the dirt. An unexpected treasure!

Part of a gold ring sticking up through the dirt — *Do you see it?*

As I dig, I think about Stephen King’s wonderful craft book “On Writing,” and how he likened finding a story to digging for fossils. You have to chip away and away with tremendous patience, never certain what you’ll find—or whether you’ll find anything at all. If you’re lucky, a form will gradually begin to reveal itself, and if you’re even luckier, it’ll turn out to be so special that you won’t stop digging until it’s been completely unearthed.

As I dig, the shovelfuls of soil turn to clumps and then to grains, the weeds to root wads to thin white hairs. The deeper I go, the more I see. A worm, a beetle, an acorn, a tiny green tomato. I’ve written before about focusing on detail, for other reasons, but I realize that it’s key to working through my publishing woes. I need to let go of my big-picture writing goals for now, and focus on the very small.

I can do this. On a walk I’ve been on hundreds of times, for instance, I spot tiny changes every day. A leaf turning gold here, a fallen branch there, a tendril of algae in the pool, a kingfisher swooping low over the water. The same goes for writing. There’s always a nugget of a tale to nourish, whether or not it’s developed into a complete book. There’s always something to revise, whether or not it’s ever submitted.

Dog tugging on a very large branch that's still attached to the ground in the woods — *Tock is good at helping me spot interesting new branches (or trunks, in this case) that deserve a good tug.*

And on it goes. I give my shovel a pat when I put it away. It doesn’t confer the comforting guidance of my mother, nor the professional structure and motivating deadlines of a literary agent. Nevertheless, it’s prodded my brain out of its rut. My creative work isn’t done, should I choose to continue it. I guess the best I can say to myself for now is “stay tuned.”

Happy Tales!

Photo credit for opening image: Janusz Maniak

It’s All A Game

An escape from life … or a way to live?

“Do you like to play games?” I’m known to ask shyly of new friends. I wait with trepidation for their answer, hoping I won’t have to lump them into some “other” category, like people in an opposing political party, or those who eat red meat rather than no meat, or who don’t care that “Resident Alien” is ending after Season Four. They either do play games or they don’t, and if they don’t, they’ll think I’m weird for asking. Plus, there’s a whole area of conversation that they won’t understand and of fun times ahead with our family that they’ll never have.

To be fair, we’re friends with plenty of people who don’t get games and would rather just chat. That’s fine. But if they say “yes,” this opens up a world of possibilities.

“What kind?” I’ll ask eagerly. Board games, card games, word games, trivia games, solitary games, cooperative games, computer games, role-playing games, party games … there’s a favorite flavor for everyone.

Game setup for "Forbidden Island" — *Forbidden Island – a surprisingly tense cooperative game*

Deciding on my favorite game is almost as hard as choosing a favorite book. Depending on my energy level, mood, and who I’m with, I might pick “Uno” (a very simple but oddly addictive card game; great with one other person in a calm setting) or “Robo-Rally” (a chaotic game involving programming robots to move across as many game boards as you choose to fit on your table; best with lots of happy, loud people). I adore “Sculptionary” (easily created if you have tubs of Play-Dough and want to try sculpting answers rather than drawing them as you would in “Pictionary”) and “Balderdash” (i.e., the Dictionary Game because that’s really all you need). “Code Names” has been known to lure members of our family who professed not to like games, and “Myst” has the distinction of being the one computer game I truly loved because of the setting (who doesn’t enjoy treetop boardwalks and Mediterranean-looking islands?) and the slowly unfolding story it tells if you find the right clues.

Game board setup for Robo-Rally — *The most fun part of Robo-Rally is when the board takes its turn – and a conveyor belt sweeps a robot into the abyss!*

My all-time favorite game—the one I play every single day without fail (multiple times per day, actually) is Scrabble. Maybe there’s a correlation between writers and word games, maybe not, but for me, I find the simple act of combining letters into words—often obscure ones I didn’t know existed before—immensely satisfying. I have three different games going with three family members at all times. It works well on a phone during road trips or during my 2:00 am insomnia, but of course a good old-fashioned board is fun, too. We have an ancient board as well as the Deluxe version with the rotating turntable, though our Super Scrabble board (more tiles, more spaces, more points!) got lost in the move.

Game board setup for Scrabble — *Getting a seven-letter Scrabble is the most triumphant feeling.*

So what is it about games that is just so freaking fun? For me, I think, it’s a return to childhood. A chance to play at real life, with all its risks and scary decisions, but without actual life-or-death consequences. It’s a way to immerse oneself in an imagined world, to adopt a fictional persona, to be bold even if you’re not, to be as cutthroat or as savvy as you’ve always wished you could be.

Sound familiar? It should if you’re a writer, because it’s pretty darned similar to crafting a story. Now take it a step further and imagine yourself and your writing project as part of a writing RPG (role-playing game). Let’s call it “Path to Publication.” In such a game, you’d gain or lose skills, powers, and health points for completing a draft, receiving brutal editorial comments, submitting a query, or getting a rejection from an agent. My two best writer friends and I once had a lot of fun coming up with names for ourselves in this imaginary game. Mine is Wendy the Diligent. I’ve never really gotten into RPGs (with the exception of Munchkin), but remembering my chosen character always propels me to get back to work!

Game cards in a round of Munchkin — *I love Munchkin because it’s such a goofy take on an RPG.*

Now that I’ve been here at the computer for awhile, I’m gonna go hang out with another member of our household who’s an expert at playing games (pictured below. Need I say more?).

Dog lying in yard with frisbee — *Tock is always ready to play.*

Happy Tales!

Obvious question I have for you: What’s your favorite game?

Less obvious question: If you were playing an RPG of your life (or your writing, or whatever), what would your character’s name be?

The Dog Days of Writing

Do you find your writing sliding into the realm of the subconscious in midsummer? I do, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. The Dog Days of Summer are my favorite time of year.

I get up at dawn just before sunrise, before the heat and the bugs have swamped the woods. There are too many trees to spot Sirius the Dog Star, the phrase’s namesake, but I know it’s there. For one thing, the Romans wouldn’t have put dies caniculares, or “days of the dog star,” in their midsummer calendar if it weren’t reliable. For another, if I were to visit a field in late July or early August on a clear pre-dawn morning with the intent of spotting Sirius, I’m fairly certain I’d succeed (at least until several millenia from now, when the Earth’s wobble will have shifted the dog days to midwinter). Sirius is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major and the brightest star seen from Earth, after all. The stars of Orion’s Belt—one of the few constellations I can recognize—point southeast, straight towards it.

Orion's Belt in the night sky — *In lieu of Canis Major, here is Orion’s Belt. Sirius would be off the lower left. Photo credit: NASA Hubble Space Telescope*

But the origin of the phrase isn’t why I love this stretch of days.

I think it’s partly because the Dog Days are ushered in by my son’s late-July birthday. For its combination of sheer hard work (labor, right?) and the astonishing and incredible euphoria of holding my baby for the first time, that particular day has imprinted itself in my brain as the best one of my life. It doesn’t hurt that he’s grown into one of the sweetest, most conscientious human beings I know (yep, biased, but pretty close to the truth all the same).

I also love the Dog Days because I’m at last at last down to a single layer of clothing. No more long johns, jackets, or even long-sleeved shirts. The world and I have reached equilibrium. Even as I heat up on a walk, sweat dripping down my cheeks, I feel as if I’m part of everything around me, swallowing and blowing great lungfuls of humid air with abandon, rather than burrowing inside hood, jacket, turtleneck, and gloves to protect myself from the harshness of a winter wind. Through the sultry heat and clouds of bugs, through the great gulps of water my dog and I take from our bottle, through the daily marathons of endurance these walks become, the Dog Days of Summer envelop me in their green, bee-buzzing, frog-burping, osprey-chirping womb.

Dog with plastic dragonfly attached to his collar and "flying" above his head — *Tock’s defense against deerflies: a fake predatory dragonfly attached to his collar that “flies” above his head.*

Another view of dog with fake dragonfly flying above his head — *Works great! (except when he rolls in the dirt after a swim)*

I can’t even picture winter right now. Nor can I imagine myself spending hours each day in front of the computer, wrapped in blankets while exercising my mind. Normally, I jump right into editing a newly completed story, sending the edited version to critique groups, composing drafts of query letter and synopsis, but not during these precious Dog Days. I’m too busy submerging myself in the moment. Each footstep becomes a lifetime of sensations. Any frustrations I felt last month about making progress on my writing disappear. The Earth wraps around me, and I find myself taking the break that everyone tells me should happen after a first draft. My worries slip into the warm waters of the pond along with my dog, into the shovelfuls of dirt in the garden, into the spray of cool water on the azaleas, into the paint on the siding of the house. Hopefully, my subconscious is still working on the story, figuring out how to address the problems that’ll surface when I revisit it. But I can’t be bothered to check at the moment. My conscious mind has detached from it, immersed in the real world. The good thing about this is that after the Dog Days have ended, I’ll view my draft as a first-time reader might. I’ll be able to spot those flaws that my mind glossed over back when it knew the story too well.

Dog swimming to a stick — *Tock’s favorite Dog Day pasttime (that’s a stick, not a dead fish).*

But enough of writing. I’m gonna go do some hard physical labor and forget about the state of my draft—and the state of the world, other than its immediate, comforting presence all around.

Dog carrying a stick in an open woods — *A coastal beech forest*

Happy Tales!

Finding Balance

Where do you sit on that lifelong seesaw of work and play?

My husband and I differ in a lot of ways, but there’s one area in which we are extremely similar: we’re prone to becoming maniacally devoted to the job at hand, whatever it is. Could be cleaning, chainsawing, or computer work. Could be fixing some broken household item, painting the bathroom, playing Scrabble, boating, or brush cutting. Once we start doing something, we want to keep on doing it until it’s either done or as perfect as we can possibly get it.

I call these behaviors Border Collieisms. Our own border collie will keep herding as long as there’s anything to herd (in his world, this includes pinecones, sticks, and tennis balls). No matter how hot, exhausted, and frustrated he becomes with a giant stuck stick or a ball lost beneath the couch, he carries on. We do the same, though not with sticks unless it’s to remove them from a trail we’re building.

Dog gnawing on a stick — *Tock loves trail building. Sticks are constantly flying his way!*

I’m not sure whether we wanted a border collie because he reminded us of ourselves—or whether he trained us to become like him. Probably some of both. I’m also not sure whether the Border Collieism tendencies we display are good or unfortunate. Again, probably some of both.

Everyone says that to be happy, you have to find balance. But how is that possible when you seem to spend all your time obsessing over something? Ironically, one of the things I obsess over the most is writing a well-balanced story—one that has even pacing and the exact right amount of world-building versus plot versus character development. So I guess I’m sacrificing my personal balance in the interest of writing the perfect story, right?

Wrong. First of all, there’s no such thing as a perfect story. You can never edit it enough, to the point that every single rough edge is ironed out, every single typo or grammatical error is deleted, and every single reader will love it. Second, what if nourishing my Border Collieisms makes me happy? What if striving over and over to perfect my words in story after story brings me joy?

Dog sitting up watching for a stick to come flying overhead — *Tock delights in the anticipation of a big stick.*

Because it does. I find nothing so satisfying as the feeling of a job well done, my body physically and mentally exhausted at the end of an arduous day of work. I can’t speak for my husband (whom I think would actually prefer a little less labor and more fun at times), but I know that if my dog could speak, he’d agree with me, one hundred percent.

Dog sleeping in his bed surrounded by toys — *At the end of the day, a tired dog is a happy dog.*

Just like a book at its best will please only a fraction of the readers out there, I think the question of balance is one with a different answer for each of us. The right balance for me is one that would seem extremely unbalanced to a lot of other people. For many writers, in fact, the best balance may tip toward the hard work side of the scale. How else can you ever apply yourself enough to visualize that written world, fully understand those characters, and figure out that plot until everything is spelled out from the first page to the last? How can you ever polish each word, sentence, and scene, seeking out critiques, writing and rewriting until your story shines? The answer is, without a lot of pure hard work, you can’t.

I guess the moral of this little piece is to recognize whatever balance works for you—and then live it. Work hard, play hard, and revel in the Border Collieisms that help you along your chosen path.

Happy Tales!

Finding Joy

The mundane things that give me hope when I need it most

Three per day, I’m told.*

Write them down. Doesn’t matter how ridiculous, how real, how important to anyone but you. If they bring you some degree of happiness, they deserve your recognition.

Like swallowing daily pills, capture your observations. Any spark of interest, any surge of hope: jot it down. Here’s my list for a week in May.

1. The nightlight’s pattern on the wall

2. Waking up: wow, I was able to go back to sleep after all

3. Dog watching me, always

4. No gloves!

5. Edits to make on a manuscript

6. Leaves four times bigger than last week

7. Blender clatter: oats + water = oat milk

8. Wiggly lamb tails

9. Flash of orange: an oriole on the picnic table

10. Small red frog in the brown leaf litter

11. Reading a chapter of my recently completed story: I like it!

12. Greenery ringing the pond

13. A pair of curious otters poking their heads from the water

14. The chocolate-rich aroma of spring soil

15. Watching the rhododendrons bloom

16. A query, successfully sent into the ether

17. A card game with my son: this time I will win

18. The pride of owning a big stick … for a couple minutes

19. Scrabble with my husband: this time I will win

20. Curling up in bed to read

21. Upside-down dog

What’s on your list?

Happy Tales!

*Thanks to my writer friends Robin and Suzy for insisting I do this exercise. What would I do without you?

Life Never Gets in the Way

Often when I hear people explain why they haven’t been writing lately (or editing or querying), they’ll sigh, and then justify themselves by saying, “Life got in the way.”

I’ve always nodded sympathetically and agreed with them that it can be so hard to get anything done writing-wise when we have all these other more urgent tasks to attend to. And … dare I say it? … things that are a heck of a lot easier to do than focus on writing.

Someone filling out a To-Do list — *Photo credit: Glenn Carstens-Peters*

But now that I really think about that age-old idiom life gets in the way, I feel the need to counter it with: “Really? Isn’t everything we do part of living? Including writing? I mean, it’s not like we’re tapping away at a keyboard from six feet below ground in a cemetery—unless we’re a particularly inspired gravedigger.

Border Collie sitting next to tombstones in an old, crowded cemetery

So the next time you arise from your computer or your notebook to make a phone call, pay a bill, go to a day job so you can pay that bill, care for someone sick, buy groceries, figure out what to make for dinner from those groceries, do your taxes, go on vacation, or walk your dog, remember: all this stuff is an inevitable part of living. There’s no need to make excuses or resent these interfering tasks. Just do them. Enjoy them if you can. Because life isn’t in the way—it is the way. (Yes, even the taxes! I’ve found that if I immerse my mind long enough in those nonsensical numerical calculations, they can become relaxing, almost hypnotic).

Say to yourself: I’m gonna steep myself in this chore of the moment. I’ll fully experience it in present time, including (but definitely not limited to) my writing.

Border collie galloping across a field on a path toward the woods

For me, of course, living means walking my dog every day. Multiple times, beginning with a long, vigorous jaunt soon after dawn, before I’ve jotted down a single line. Lately, living has also meant painting the interior of our house, one slow room at a time. And it’s meant digging roots and rocks from the hillside to make space for ten rhododendrons.

While I step through the wet leaves and brush past budding shrubbery in the woods, I smell the moist earth, I listen to the Carolina Wrens and Pine Warblers, and I help my dog search for the perfect-sized stick (i.e., big) that he can carry proudly down the trail.

Border Collie holding big stick in his mouth

While I dip the brush into a can or the roller into a tray, I gaze at the silky-creamy texture of the paint and the glistening coat it leaves on the formerly dull, grubby wall. This brings me a pleasure that almost makes the tedium of the wall-cleaning, hole-filling, and trim-taping worth it.

Paint roller in a tray with white paint — *I meant to take a picture of my own paint roller, but never found a time when I wasn’t covered with paint in order to do it. Photo credit: Callum Hill*

While I heave a pickaxe at a stubborn rock in that tenth rhododendron hole, I endure my aching back and wrists and splatters of dirt in my eyes, and enjoy the satisfaction of the pick slipping beneath the rock, jiggling it loose so I can fit my gloved fingers around it and heave it out. Space at last for a young plant to be freed from its pot, so its roots can begin to explore the musty, mushroomy loam, and its leaves and buds can plumpen and brighten.

Dog standing (with frisbee) next to a young, freshly planted Rhododendron Boursault

Like Frederick the Mouse, I store away these thoughts, feelings, and sensations I experience in the non-writing world. And when I am able to sit in my office once again with a few free hours beckoning, I’ll draw out the memories. The colors, scents, sounds, frustrations, tedium, sadness, satisfaction, and joy. Always the joy.

Cover of "Frederick the Mouse" by Leo Lionni — *Simply one of the greatest picture books ever.*

For to be a good writer requires one thing above all else: an appreciation of this incredible, complex planet and our lives on it. Life, in all its ugliness and beauty, is the way.

Happy Tales!

Nothing but Skin and Bones

The sheep have been shorn. Once round balls of gray fluff, they transformed in the space of a morning to scrawny pink creatures half their former size. Their bellies still bulge with approaching babies, but otherwise they seem mere skin and bones. When I first saw them from a distance, I thought they were lambs.

The thing is, winter isn’t yet over. Though it must feel good to be rid of all that woolly weight during the ever-strengthening noon sun, how are those sheep going to feel in the windblown 15-deg-F cold that’s coming in a few days? Just thinking about it from within the warmth of my house and my many layers of clothing makes me shiver. And it makes me glad I’m not a sheep.

*When Tock & I go outside in the winter, we have to layer up and keep moving to stay warm!*

Happy as I am to be human, I feel as if the sheep shearer pays me unexpected visits, too. On a surprisingly frequent basis, I am ripped down to my very essence. I’m forced to take a good hard look inside: at who I am, what I’ve done, and what I’m going to do about it. (Note: I’m talking metaphorically here, not physically—except for my recent scalp-and-hair-ripping surgical experience that I hope never to repeat.)

The arduous “shearing” process probably happens to me a lot because I’m a writer, and the writing life bears a remarkable similarity to a newly shorn sheep. No sooner do I celebrate finishing Draft 1 of a manuscript, for instance, than I must make an abrupt transition to some other aspect of writing. Querying an older manuscript, for instance—matching myself to agents and putting together query packages in which I promote myself and my story as much as possible—such fun! (if you’re a writer, I hope you detected the high level of sarcasm). Or, ooh, here’s another shift: from drafting to the formidable process of editing a new manuscript.

This transition between creation and revision happened to me the day the sheep were shorn, and boy, could I relate to them. I felt as though I were stepping from my comfortable writing cave into the bright, cold world, clutching the story I’d just birthed to my belly, knowing it was time to take a good hard look at it, to strip it down to its bones and examine every aspect of plot and character, to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Thing is, I adore revision. Being done with a first draft infuses me with the same sense of relief the sheep must feel. I can write! Enough to complete a whole novel! It’s only the transition from the initial writing to the tearing-down and reconstruction of it that’s difficult. I know that once I get into the routine of re-reading, of searching for inconsistencies and re-writing those places, I will get used to my new thin skin and begin to bulk it up once more. I guess the same can be said for switching gears from writing or editing to querying, but less so. Let’s just say I’m grateful that a bout of querying doesn’t take nearly as long as those other parts of the process.

Since no post of mine feels complete without the inclusion of my dog, I’d like to add that he, too, finds changing gears shocking. I once trained Tock to lie down in the middle of a recall. He’d be bounding my way, expecting a treat, when he’d hear the command to stop before reaching me. When I first did this, he ignored me and continued running, assuming I’d misspoken, no doubt. Granted, the second command was confusing because it ran counter to the strong instant recall he’d formerly been trained. But when no treat emerged from my pocket for the recall, he started to realize that he needed to heed the change in orders. He’d slow to a trot, then a walk, then maybe a stop a few feet away from me. Only after further training did he learn to stop fairly quickly as soon as he heard the command. So it can be done, even with a dog who is not the brightest of border collies. It’s a similar behavior to the one skilled herding dogs are trained to perform when they’re galloping toward a flock of sheep. An even more advanced behavior these working dogs learn is to stop mid-gallop and “look back” for a missing sheep or group of sheep. Imagine the intelligence and drive it would take to abandon the first flock and head off for a second one that might not even be visible.

Dog starting to lie down during a recall — *Tock is told to lie down mid-recall. This is hard for him!*

The good news is that dogs can indeed learn how to handle shifts in their established routines. The shorn sheep have also accepted their big lifestyle change (though I’m pretty sure they’re going to be shivering a bit during the coming cold snap). Not that they had any choice in their shearing, but I like to think they’re walking with an extra bounce in their step now that they don’t weigh so much. And if they can, surely we can, too. So if it’s time, writers, move on! Wrap your arms around your torso to bolster your spirits, and get to those queries, or to that revision, or maybe to dreaming up a whole new story and putting pen to paper once again. The good thing about being a human rather than a sheep is that you get to decide which it’s going to be.

Sheep with big wool coats in a snowy field — *Fluffy warm sheep a few weeks prior to shearing.*

Happy Tales!

Are You Ready?

This phrase is one that a lot of dog owners know well. They’ll ask their furry companions this question before tossing a frisbee, or heading out for a walk, up to bed, or in and out of the car. Really, they’ll ask it before any sort of change in their dog’s routine from one activity to another. It’s a fabulous way to get a dog’s attention and motivate them to start paying attention and get moving, or do whatever it is you want them to do next.

Dog standing on hind legs with his eyes on a ball held right in front of him — *Tock is definitely ready for this ball!*

Those of us who participate in dog sports know the phrase even better. I learned it when I first took an agility class, and it became part of the “rev-up words” that I’d teach my beginning students to use before beginning any training activity.

Boy restraining dog at the start of the teeter — Here is Tock learning the teeter. My faithful assistant (and son) restrains him while I rev him up from the other end. This is a great way to get a dog excited about tearing across a noisy, tippy board (as long as it’s raised incrementally to full height).

Are you ready? In an excited voice, we handlers will ask this of our dog, who is lying, sitting, or standing, maybe in front of an agility obstacle like a jump, or maybe not, if the goal is to train something else, like a recall. It’s an invitation to our dog to get ready to do something fun with us.

Handler & dog crouching together at the start line of an agility course — *Moth & me at the start line, getting ready to run*

Are you steady? We’ll follow up with another eager phrase if our dog still seems a bit distracted and not bursting at the seams to do what’s coming. And hey, rhyming phrases are easy to remember, so why not?

Handler has led out from dog in an agility course, and dog is sitting waiting to be released — *At this point, Moth has received her rev-up words and is anxiously waiting to be released.*

Okay! When our dog can barely restrain itself from a rocket launch (i.e., is quivering, salivating, or possibly bug-eyed with anticipation), we’ll at last use our specially chosen “release word.” Note: it’s always best to rely on a release word that can’t be mistaken for something else and is unlikely to be used for some unrelated purpose. I was taught to use Okay and kept it up with successive dogs out of habit, but my students and many others have more wisely chosen a less common word such as Break! This is because it’s all too easy to release your dog accidentally from a start line in an agility competition while saying “okay” to the judge or some other official. And then your dog is racing off through the ring, leaving you standing there, completely unprepared.

Border collie galloping unrestrained through an agility field — *Tarzan, galloping free! (full disclosure: Tarzan never actually had a release-word accident at the start line. This picture was taken by Sneed B Collard III for the cover of his wonderful MG novel,* The Governor’s Dog is Missing.)

Because everything in my past life seems to parallel things in my present, I can’t help but think of these rev-up words in the context of writing. One of the most essential things we learn as new writers is that our story must hook the readers. The obvious hook, of course, is a line at the end of the first chapter that compels us to keep reading. But the hook itself isn’t analogous to the rev-up words. No, the hook is the same as the release word in the doggy world. It’s the thing that gives the reader permission to zoom off into the rest of the story. Before the hook can make any sense, your readers need to be revved up. They need to understand the context for the hook: why should they care about your character and the situation the character has found themselves in? The “rev-up” material in your early pages can present the character in all their misunderstood (or misunderstanding) glory—quivering with desperation for something to happen. Once this foundation is laid, the hook makes total sense.

Person walking with a book draped over their face — *This reader appears to be fully hooked. Photo credit: Hosein Ashrafosa*

Another writerly use of the rev-up—and this time it’s the actual words—comes once you’ve written something. Humans are social creatures who secretly crave to share their work. This is true even if they’re cave-dwelling introverts (speaking from experience). Readings by an external audience will likely result in some pleasant and self-affirming compliments, while at the same time providing us writers with valuable editorial feedback. So why not let others—family, friends, critique group partners—read our pages before they’re in publishable form? Isn’t it terrific to get feedback at every stage, whether it’s an idea for a premise, a first page, or a first draft?

An enthusiastic crowd, one member of which is making the "heart" symbol — *Every writer’s dream: an appreciative audience. Photo credit: Anthony Delanoix*

Not necessarily. Here’s where the rev-up part comes in. I feel strongly that we need to ask ourselves in a firm voice: Are you ready? Have you thought about your story on your own enough that input from others isn’t going to strip your own writerly essence away from it? Are you steady in your ideas, your voice, and your determination to say something in particular, so that now all you need are some nudges from others to catapult you in the right direction—whether that’s writing an outline, or that first page, or what comes after the first page, or draft two, three, four, etc?

I personally never share a single thing about my stories until I’ve written and self-edited Draft 1. Sometimes I don’t show them to anyone until after Draft 2. At that point, if someone asks me about my premise, I have a pretty solid idea of what I’ll say. I also think I get why I’ve started the story in a particular place, I think I’ve gotten to know my characters better than my own family, and I think I understand how I want the journey to unfold. Note: I’ve prefaced all these statements with “I think” because I’m often wrong. Editorial feedback will be crucial to point me in the right direction. Probably many times over.

But this isn’t an essay about the value of critical feedback. It’s about how to maximize that value by asking for it when you’re truly ready for it. Depending on your writing process, this point may happen at a different stage for you than for other writers you know. J.R.R. Tolkien, for instance, was an extremely thorough and careful writer, who took seventeen years from when he first started writing the Lord of the Rings to its completion (and that’s not counting the forty years he worked on the Elvish languages!). He wanted things to be as perfect as possible before revealing them. Though I have nowhere near his skills, I think of myself as that type of writer. Tolkien’s methodical nature contrasts with his pal C.S. Lewis, who met in the same weekly literary group and wrote much faster, without Tolkien’s level of revision (thanks to John Hendrix’s The Mythmakers for these insights). Both of them, of course, were brilliant writers. I bring them up simply to point out that neither approach is right or wrong.

The real question is: what is right for you? When will you submit your premise, hook, first pages, or manuscript for review? When are you ready to gallop into the ring and show your writing to the world?

Border collie leaping over a double jump

Happy Tales!