"You Can't Add Awesome"

Copies of RECLAIMED revisions.

The beginning of my writing life was spent in isolation. I didn’t know any other writers, and I was not on Twitter or Facebook. This was both a blessing and a curse. The good part about this was that I worked on my craft. I wrote and read basically in my own little cushioned bubble, and it was lovely inside, all warm and cuddly. Of course, the bad part was that I was missing out on awesome collaboration and conversation, advice I desperately needed, tips I could have used. Some days I needed to be alone; others, I needed to know I really wasn’t.

Once I decided to pursue publication and start querying, I spent a lot of time researching and finally, because all the cool writers were doing it, got on Twitter. (I still don’t have a Facebook.) One of the first pieces of writing advice I saw was “You can’t add awesome.”

It knocked me down a little.

I don’t know who said it, and maybe they were commenting on "you can’t fix a blank page" kind of thing, but if my memory is correct, the conversation went on to say that all the really good stuff has to come out during drafting or it won’t come out at all.

Bullshit.

But see, I was a beginning writer, and I didn’t know how much bad (read: doesn’t apply to me) advice was really floating around out there. I was comparing the crap I was working on with books and words I loved, so I felt very disillusioned to learn that I would never write something worthwhile because I knew just one thing about my own writing: my first drafts were abysmal. Truly. Like I should burn them they were (are) so bad. And while I knew I could clean up the grammar and reorganize the plot, at that point I worried I would never write something with that awesome in it because my awesome never showed up in the first draft.

Of course, now I know just how untrue that is. You can totally add awesome. Sometimes a funny bit of dialogue or a poignant piece of wording sneaks its way into my first drafts, but rarely. I smear that crap all over the page, and then I fix it. Yes, I whittle it down, exposing the good stuff. But I’m going to be honest—there’s not much good stuff to uncover that first go round. I delete and add, delete and add, until the story is a little better. And then I do it several more times before I am willing to even admit to myself that I might have something worth sharing.

One of my favorite lines of RECLAIMED  was added during copy edits. The climax was rewritten (and vastly improved) at the eleventh hour. Neither my editor nor my CPs had told me that the climax was wrong, and it was fine, but there was just something about it that niggled at me. I’d worked on that story for three years, revised more times than I could count, but there was just a small feeling that it wasn’t where it was supposed to be. I couldn’t shake it. And then, on New Year's Day, driving home from the in-laws, one single sentence floated to the front of my mind. It was exactly the missing piece, and I rewrote the climax, even though my line edits were due in just a few days. I do feel that change added to the story.

The writing process looks differently for everyone. Don’t let anyone else’s experience invalidate your own. The end game is the only one that matters--writing a story you are proud of. How you get there is up to you.

Run the Mile You're In

I think one of the most difficult parts about writing is that first round of revision. During drafting I push through, writing as fast as I can and telling myself that I can fix it later. After letting my book breathe for several weeks, later becomes now, and usually, it’s completely overwhelming.

Later rounds of revisions are tough too, but by then your story has a shape and you are just slowly chipping away at a few errant pieces. But that first revision, when you are staring at the huge block of stone that you must sculpt into a thing of beauty, can feel like an impossible task.

For me, I don’t really get a sense of what I want a story to be until I’ve almost finished drafting it. So when I sit down to make it so, there are too many things to fix, too many hurdles to jump, too much ground to cover. I know what I need to do to make the story what I want it to be, but sometimes I doubt whether or not I have the ability to do it. It’s like passing a road sign that tells you your destination is 2,000 miles away. You know where you’re going and that you are headed in the right direction, but man it’s going to be a long drive. Because it’s night. And it’s storming. And you’re tired. And why the hell aren’t you there yet?

I don’t know about other writers, but I find my story in the revisions. Each round uncovers something beneath that stone that I didn’t know was there and teaches me more about my characters and my craft.

In the end, I have to take my own advice. Every year, as my students are starting their research papers, I can see by the panicked look on their faces that they are overwhelmed with the given task. Looking at the whole piece can be daunting. But I tell them they have to write their paper just like they would eat an elephant—one bite at a time. So when I feel overwhelmed with all that I have to do to fix a story, I take a step back and focus on one chapter, one page, one paragraph at a time, and do what I can to make that part better. And then I do it again. And again. And again.

Running taught me that lesson first. 26.2 miles can be an overwhelming distance. You’ve got to run the mile you’re in.

Why I Recommend Books I Didn't Enjoy

         

 As a teacher, I feel my job is to turn my students into readers. It’s why I became a teacher in the first place. I am an avid reader, and these days, I read mostly YA. Some of it I love. Some of it I like. Some of it I don’t care for at all. But I do lot let my personal preferences inhibit my ability to recommend books.

I know that the fact that I dislike a book is not necessarily a comment on that book’s value. I know that my preferences are not someone else’s. And I know that I do not want to turn a reader away from a book they may potentially love just because I did not.

I am always honest when I recommend a book I didn’t like. I try very hard not to say too much, as I want my students to form their own opinions about literature. Too often I see readers turned away from a book because they were shamed for liking it, because prior to reading it someone said something nasty and they were embarrassed to admit they liked something that someone else found problematic. If I didn’t enjoy a book, I usually tell students I had trouble getting into it, but that I think they may like it for reasons.

Just a few months ago I DNF’d a book that everyone else raved about it. I kept trying to read it, but it just wasn’t doing it for me. I didn’t like the writing or care at all about the characters. But I recommended it to a student because it seemed like something she might like.

I was right. She ended up reading the entire trilogy over the weekend and thanked me for telling her about the book.

At a book signing about a year ago, I spent more time writing out recommendations for other authors’ books than signing my own. Several times I recommended books I didn’t love because it seemed like they would be right up that person’s alley.

I think that’s what any good teacher or librarian does. We are readers, of course, which means we have our own opinions about books. But I would never let my prejudices, my subjectivity, my own likes and dislikes, stand in the way of making a reader out of someone.

Recovering Literature Snob

I am a recovering literature snob.

Growing up, I read a lot of classics. I’m old enough that there wasn’t really a thriving middle grade or young adult category. At least, not one that I was aware of. Yes, I read The Boxcar Children, Little House on the Prairie, Babysitter’s Club, and Sweet Valley High, but by the time I was in the fifth grade, I was reading Jane Eyre and Pearl S. Buck.

In high school, I fell in love with Russian literature, so I read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. I went to college an English major, so I read Dante, Homer, Spenser, Milton, and lots of Shakespeare. I couldn’t wait to start teaching English so that my students could fall in love with these works as I had.

My junior year of college, I was required to take a young-adult literature course as part of my education hours. I was livid. I would not teach crap in my classroom. I would not dumb-down the curriculum. I would teach the classics, and they were going to like it.

The very first day of class, someone handed me Harry Potter. And I was a goner.

I did not become a teacher because I hoped to be overworked and underpaid. I did not long to spend my days surrounded by sarcasm and research papers. I didn’t think teens were so adorable and God I can’t wait to spend eight hours a day in a tiny room with those sweet little faces. I became a teacher because I knew the power of literature and I wanted to pass on the love of reading. I wanted to create readers.

I have now been teaching for fifteen years, and I can honesty sat that I have never, not even once, created a reader by handing him Shakespeare or Dickens. I’m sorry, but I just haven’t. I’ve had students fall in love with these stories after I’ve taught them, but those students who came to me hating to read and who leave as readers do so because I handed them a young adult book that spoke to them.

I do love Dickens, and Twain, Austen and Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and on and on, but I fell in love with reading first before moving on to the harder stuff. Reading shouldn’t be a chore. It should challenge you and make you laugh and question and cry, but if you have to force yourself to read, then you aren’t doing it right, i.e., you aren’t reading the “right” book. And the “right” book is the one that sings to you. The one that you think about when you’re not reading, that slips into your dreams, that leaves a mark on your soul long after you’ve closed it.

Yes, I want my literature to be good—but what makes it good is different for me than it is for someone else. It’s also different now than it used to be. I am a fluid person, so my reading tastes will be as well.

If I had continued on the literature path I began, I would have read a lot of dead white guys, and many other stories that professors who are nothing like me deemed worthy, but I would have missed out on Harry Potter, and Jellicoe Road, and Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and yes, even Twilight.

If I had continued on that path, I would not be a very good teacher. I would have turned my nose up at books not in the “dead white guy” canon and I would never have experienced the joy of turning a student onto reading.

If I had continued on that path, I would have been able to brag, nose in the air, that I read literature, thank you very much, but my life would not have the passion that it does, because I would not be a writer. I would have known, as I did at a very young age, that I was not Shakespeare or Dickens or Austen, and I would have known that my writing was so far below that level that I would have been too ashamed to try.

Too ashamed to create stories of my own. Too ashamed to pursue my passion.

And what a pity that would have been.

It is sad to me that in 2015 we still let other people think for us. We let other people convince us that a certain book or author isn’t worthy.

So I have a suggestion. Why not, in this year two thousand and fifteen, instead of listening to closed-minded, misinformed, or ignorant people, we pick up a book and read it for ourselves.

Let the literature snobs sit on their homemade thrones and look down at “lesser” books. We’ll be prolific readers instead.

We’ll also be a hell of a lot happier for it.

Take A Break

Take a break.

I’ve blogged about this before, but apparently it’s something that we need to hear. Or maybe it’s just something that I need to hear. Over and over again.

I’ve learned that in running, I have to take breaks. Training takes a toll both mentally and physically, so backing off is imperative if you want to be a life-long runner. And I want like hell to be a life-long runner.

So I schedule breaks of all kinds: weekly, monthly, yearly. Sundays are always my rest days. I know that I need one day a week to recoup. But within a training schedule I give myself easy days in addition to days off. Weekly.

After months of training, I schedule easy months. This gives me time to reset, to rest my legs and brain and get a few other things done.

I also schedule easy years. I train for a marathon every other year. I don’t miss training days and can become very focused while training for a marathon, so I know that I need some years where I’m just running for fun. While I love training, it can also be exhausting, and I want to make sure that running doesn’t become a chore. I love running, and I want to continue to love running.

Right now I’m training for a 10k, which I don’t normally do. I train for marathons, and when I’m not, I’m just running for fun. Training has been going well, but I was feeling pretty run-down at the beginning of the week. I pushed through a couple of runs anyway, but on Wednesday I decided to take a day off.

I hate skipping runs. Resting on scheduled rest days are fine. But skipping a scheduled run during training eats away at me. It leaves a stickerless hole in my lovely calendar, and I really hate that.

It was the right decision. My legs were feeling heavy and I took the day off. And I ran better the next day.

I took the day off writing too, and that was the right choice. I made hard decisions on my day off, but they were the right decisions, and my story will be better for it.

Just like running, just like anything, in order to continue to do the things you love to do, you have to take breaks, refresh yourself, and come back stronger.

I take breaks after a draft and after revisions, but I hate taking breaks when I’m in the middle of something. Like running, it makes me feel like a quitter, and I am not a quitter.

But I’ve got to keep telling myself that taking time away is not quitting. It’s just refueling. It’s just refreshing. It’s just necessary.

2014, I'm gonna let you finish, but first...

Funny how years can be so similar and yet so very different. Individually, my days mostly look the same. I get up, I go for a run, I teach school all day, I come home and write, I collapse into bed. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

2013 was a year of firsts. In last year’s post, I mentioned possibly getting to go to England after dreaming about it my whole life. In 2014, I did just that. My husband and I spent a week in London and it really was even better than I had hoped.

But the rest of the year was just doing what I always do, and there was some real comfort in that. In February I ran my 7^th marathon. I finished in 3:53, which wasn’t my fastest time, but it wasn’t my slowest either. Over the course of 2014, I’ve run over 1000 miles. I don’t regret a single one of them.

I drafted two and a half books in 2014, and revised one. My agent and I polished that one until it shines, and I’m super excited about it.

I read just over 50 books this year.

I won two awards and became a finalist in a third. I spoke alongside Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and Kimberly Willis Holt, and met tons of other awesome writers. I participated in both Nova Teen in March, the inaugural LSU Young Adult Lit Conference in June, and the Louisiana Book Festival in November.

So much of who I am –runner, teacher, writer—is behind-the-scenes work: slogging through the miles, putting in the time, getting down the words, working when no one is looking, hoping to reap that benefit later.

2014 was about doing the work and hoping to get paid for it later.

What’s in store for 2015? I haven’t a clue. I will continue to do the work, but as is the case in publishing (and so much of life), what happens next is out of my hands. All I can continue to do is write the best books I can and pray that in the process, my craft improves.

I don’t make resolutions. I run and write almost everyday, and for that, I am grateful. I get to teach, to hopefully turn non-readers into readers, and to learn a little myself along the way. But I do choose a focus, and this year, my focus is to be present. I’m a goal-oriented person, so it’s easy to keep my eyes on what I am working toward and forget to enjoy the current moment I am in. It’s easy to get caught up in the past instead of living in the present. It’s easy to pick up my phone and check Twitter when I instead need to be listening to what the person right in front of me is trying to say.

So this year, I vow to do a better job at being present. What about you?

SHP's Third Annual Holiday Cheer Giveaway!

Sometimes it's just as fun to receive as it is to give. You've been good all year (at least that's the story, and we're sticking to it), and you deserve bookish gifts, so you're lucky that it's once again time for the Spencer Hill Holiday Giveaway! The giveaway runs from Dec. 5th to Dec. 19th, 2014, so hurry up and enter!

GRAND PRIZE STOCKING:

Spencer Hill Family-$30 Amazon Gift Card, Candy, and Neat Things

Darby Karchut - THE STAG LORD (signed copy)

Errick Nunnally- BLOOD FOR THE SUN (copy)

Elizabeth Langston- WHISPER FALLS (signed copy)

Heather McCollum-SIREN’S SONG (signed copy) and Swag

J.K. Rock -CAMP BOYFRIEND (signed copy) and Swag

J.L. Spelbring-PERFECTION (signed copy) and Swag and FLAWED (signed copy) and Swag

Suzanne Rigdon-INTO THE NIGHT (signed copy)

Kelly Hashway- THE MONSTER WITHIN (signed copy) and CURSE OF DEATH Swag

DK Mok-THE OTHER TREE Magnet and HUNT FOR VALAMON Swag

Jennifer Murgia-FOREST OF WHISPERS Swag

Laura Diamond- ZODIAC COLLECTOR, LORE, and TSAVO PRIDE Swag

Wendy Brotherlin-FREAKS OF NATURE Swag and $20 Staples Gift Card

Brenda St John Brown-SWIMMING TO TOKYO (e-book)

Rich Storrs- Synopsis Critique and Query Letter Critique

Sarah Guillory-RECLAIMED Swag

Jennifer Carson-HAPENNY MAGICK (signed copy) and Swag

Michelle L. Johnson-DIVINITY (signed copy)

Dahlia Adler-BEHIND THE SCENES Swag and UNDER THE LIGHTS Magnet

Megan Whitmer-BETWEEN (e-book)

Tracy Bilen-WHAT SHE LEFT BEHIND (copy) and WATCH YOUR BACK Swag

Cheryl Ann Smith-LEADING HER WITNESS Swag and Author Tote Bag

Kelley Lynn-ROAD TO SOMEWHERE (ebook)

Colette Ballard-RUNNING ON EMPTY(signed copy)and Swag, and TEMPORARY HIGH Swag

Trisha Wooldridge-McAUTHOR CHRONICLES Set: THE KELPIE and THE EARL’S CHILDE and Swag

Lisa Amowitz-VISION (signed copy) and Swag

Brianna Shrum-1st Three Chapter Critique 

SECOND PRIZE STOCKING:

Spencer Hill Family-$10 Amazon Gift Card, Candy, and Neat Stuff

DK Mok-THE OTHER TREE Swag and Magnet

Errick Nunnally-BLOOD FOR THE SUN Shot Glass

Jennifer Murgia-FOREST OF WHISPERS Swag and Query Critique

Heather McCollum-SIREN’S SONG Swag and Musical Notes Fingernail Tattoos

J.L. Spelbring-PERFECTION (signed copy) and Swag and FLAWED (signed copy)and Swag

JK Rock-CAMP BOYFRIEND  (signed copy)and Swag

Suzanne Rigdon-INTO THE NIGHT (signed copy) and Swag, and 1 Chapter Critique

Laura Diamond- ZODIAC COLLECTOR, LORE, and TSAVO PRIDE Swag

Wendy Brotherlin-FREAKS OF NATURE Notepad and $15 Starbucks Gift Card

Sarah Guillory-RECLAIMED Swag

Angelica Jackson-CROW’S REST Swag

Jennifer Carson-HAPENNY MAGICK Swag and First Chapter Critique

Michelle L. Johnson- DIVINITY  (signed copy)

Dahlia Adler-BEHIND THE SCENES (signed copy) and Swag

Megan Whitmer-BETWEEN (ebook)

Tracy Bilen-WATCH YOUR BACK Swag, and a Query and 10 Page Critique

Cheryl Ann Smith-$10 Amazon Gift Card, LEADING HER WITNESS Swag and Author Tote

Kelley Lynn-ONE WISH AWAY (ebook)

Colette Ballard-RUNNING ON EMPTY(signed copy)and Swag, and TEMPORARY HIGH Swag

Kristy Shen-Query Critique

Trisha Wooldridge-DOORWAYS TO EXTRA TIME (copy) and Swag

Lisa Amowitz- VISION (signed copy) and Swag

THIRD PRIZE STOCKING:

Spencer Hill Family- $5 Amazon Gift Card, Candy, and Neat Stuff

DK Mok-THE OTHER TREE Swag and HUNT FOR VALAMON Swag

Elizabeth Langston-I WISH (signed copy)

Jennifer Murgia-FOREST OF WHISPERS Swag

Heather McCollum-SIREN’S SONG Swag and $10 Amazon Gift Card

J.L. Spelbring – PERFECTION Swag and FLAWED(signed copy) and Swag

JK Rock-CAMP BOYFRIEND (signed copy)and Swag

Suzanne Rigdon-1 Chapter Critique

Laura Diamond-ZODIAC COLLECTOR (ebook) and ZODIAC COLLECTOR, LORE, and TSAVO PRIDE Swag

Wendy Brotherlin-FREAKS OF NATURE Swag

Brenda St John Brown-SWIMMING TO TOKYO (ebook)

Angelica Jackson-CROW’S REST Swag

Jennifer Carson-HAPENNY MAGICK Swag

Michelle L. Johnson-DIVINITY(signed copy)

Dahlia Adler-BEHIND THE SCENES Swag

Megan Whitmer-BETWEEN (ebook)

Tracy Bilen-WATCH YOUR BACK Swag

Cheryl Ann Smith-LEADING HER WITNESS Swag and Author Tote

Kelley Lynn- Query Critique and One Chapter Critique

Colette Ballard-RUNNING ON EMPTY(signed copy) and Swag, and TEMPORARY HIGH Swag

Trisha Wooldridge-SILENT STARSONG(copy) and Swag

Lisa Amowitz- VISION Swag

Brianna Shrum-Query and 1st Five Page Critique 

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