Slow Down, You Move Too Fast. You've Got to Make the Moment Last.

Several years ago, I went to my first workshop. I had no idea what to expect and it didn't take me long to feel like our teacher was The Expert on Everything. Unfortunately, just because he knew everything, did not mean that I understood correctly everything he had to say. Because, apparently, I didn't.

One of the things he said was that one good idea could not make up a story.

Which is true. A story is made up of lots of different parts and one good idea isn't enough to carry it. 

But.

There is such a thing as having too much going on, something I'm guilty of. I try to cram too much in and make things happen fast because there is just so much to get to. Plus, there's all the advice to start with action as well. One of my critique partners complained that I'm giving them whiplash. At WIFYR, I lost count of the number of times Louise Plummer told me to slow my story down. But it was a lot. 

Apparently this is a reoccurring problem for me that I'm working to learn to correct. That doesn't mean that the advice was bad, it was just not the right advice for me to take.

Which reminds me of another piece of advice: don't take every piece of advice or ever suggestion that you're given on a manuscript. 

What about you? What kinds of things are you working on in your WIP? Have you ever received advice that sounded good, but turned out not to work so well for you?

MY UNFAIR GODMOTHER by Janette Rallison

I love Janette Rallison's books. They're always clean, funny, and make me laugh out loud. MY UNFAIR GODMOTHER is the companion novel to MY FAIR GODMOTHER, which I also love. They're both about a not-very-good fairy godmother and the girls she is "helping."

I loved MY FAIR GODMOTHER so much that I was afraid this one wouldn't live up to it. But I thoroughly enjoyed MY UNFAIR GODMOTHER. In fact, I was laughing about it so much that my husband started asking what I was laughing about and when I'd read him the lines, he'd start laughing too. The lines were too good not to share. This was one of my favorites (from the prologue, so I'm not spoiling anything):

"The skulls on his T-shirt and the holes in his jeans might proclaim he was a bad boy, but his hair asserted he was a bad boy with a standing monthly appointment at Lenora's Uptown Style Salon."


Anyway, this was one of my favorite reads recently. If you're looking for something funny and lighthearted for an end of summer read, I would definitely recommend it. (Or any of her other books, for that matter.)

Decision Making (and Dog Food)

I went shopping yesterday. I found myself trying to decide on a gift for someone, and this is probably what I looked like as I walked circles around the store:

Let's just say I have a hard time making decisions.

I'm very systematic about it too. Usually my process is:

1. Narrow down to two options.
2. Because I can't decide, I throw in a third option.
3. Eliminate one of the first two options.
4. Still undecided, I reconsider the first option.
5. Because I still can't decide, I throw in a fourth option.
6. And on it goes.

It's worse when I'm stressed and, let's face it, the last year hasn't been the most relaxing and carefree time in my life.

I have the same problem in writing and tend to see too many possibilities for what could happen in the story. Unfortunately, what often occurs is that I can't decide which way is best, or I'm so attached to it the way it is that I don't change it. But I still have the niggling feeling that something might be off. But I don't know what would be best, so I don't change anything.

This is where critique partners can be so valuable. Just like having shopping with someone and having a second opinion ("No, I don't care how sparkly they are, Hammer pants are not the best look for you."), having someone point out what really is wrong and what is working well in a story is invaluable. At least for me.

On a completely different note, I found this picture in my files and thought it needed to be shared. I saw this sign at the Princess Festival last summer and thought it was so bizarre. I'm not sure I understand it. What do you think it means?

Liesl and Liebster

First of all, congratulations to my friend Liesl who just sold her book to Knopf/Random House! I was lucky enough to read RUMP before she started querying it, and I love it! It's so much fun. Anyway, I'm super happy for her and you can read more about it here. So go congratulate her.

And, while you're at it, go congratulate Jenn Johansson for selling her book in Italy! Today is just full of awesome news!

Also, Liesl was sweet enough to give me the Liebster Award:




The Liebster Award is meant to connect us even more and spotlight new bloggers who, at the moment, have less than 200 followers. The rules are:

1.Show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2.Reveal your top 5 picks and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3.Post the award on your blog.
4.Bask in the love from the most supportive people on the Internet – other writers.
5.And best of all – have fun and spread the karma! 


I'd like to highlight the following blogs:


1. Leisha Maw who makes me laugh and helps me not take myself so seriously.


2. Taryn Albright who has so much energy and inspires me to work a little harder.


3. Stacy Henrie who always has warm and happy blog posts. 


4. Kelly Bryson who gives fun book reviews and excellent writing advice. 


5. Heather Dixon because I love her blog. Seriously, she has the funniest posts that she illustrates herself. (Okay, I'm not sure how many followers Heather has because Blogger isn't telling me right now, but I'm passing the award along anyway.)

Characters and Their Circumstances

The kids were interested in taking gymnastics, so we signed them up for a free trial class to see if they actually enjoyed it or if it was just a passing whim. There was a boy there who had been in my daughter's kindergarten class. Whenever I visited her class, I was always surprised by how calm, quiet, and on-task he was. So I was a bit (and by "a bit," I mean extremely) surprised to watch him in his gymnastics class climbing on everything, doing handsprings, walking on his hands, and swinging on the high bars. Surprised . . . and very impressed.

But it got me thinking about characters and how we all act differently in different circumstances. This kid was not doing back-flips off of the tables in school, although he clearly could. He acted very differently based on his circumstances, and I don't think this is unusual. I know I act differently if I'm at home eating a late dinner versus eating dinner at a restaurant versus eating dinner with the President. (Not that I've eaten dinner with the President, but I'm guessing I wouldn't act like I do at home. Except for spilling food. I always spill food. It's an unfortunate talent of mine.)

I think part of making a character feel real is making them a bit different in different circumstances. But it has to be understandable. It's understandable that someone would act differently while visiting the White House than they would act while visiting their grandmother. If they didn't act differently, it would say something about the character and their relationship, both to their grandmother and to the President.

In many cases, though, it makes it hard for me to suspend my disbelief when a character treats everyone the same. If the MC talks her best friend like she talks the school principal, I have a hard time believing that the girls are really best friends. I don't want to be told that they're best friends, I want to see it and one of the ways to show it is to show the differences between their relationship and the MC's relationship to everyone else.

What do you think? Is this something you've noticed as well? Or am I completely crazy?

Endless Ramblings About Endings

I've been thinking a lot about endings lately and what makes an ending satisfying. Part of this is because I'm working on a novel where I completely redid the ending (which I loved, but it didn't work for various reasons) and I'm trying to make this new ending feel satisfying to me even though it's not quite what I originally envisioned.

Here are some things I've noticed about endings, in no particular order:

1. Endings are only truly satisfying to me when I care about the characters. If I don't care about them, then why do I care whether or not they get what they want?

2. There has to be an emotional conclusion after the climax.

Recently, I saw the final Harry Potter movie, probably like most of you. (And if you haven't seen it, you might want to skip down to #3, although this won't be a huge spoiler.) While there were some fantastic things in the movie (I loved Ron and Hermione's kiss), the ending didn't work for me, and I'm not talking about the epilogue part. It bothered me that I didn't feel satisfied with the ending. I mean, I just went through 8 movies and Voldemort is finally gone and I feel...meh. Why was that? I finally figured out that, while Voldemort was defeated, there wasn't an emotional conclusion to that. There were no fireworks or celebrations or anything to acknowledge that WOW! Voldemort was finally defeated!!!! In fact, no one even talked to Harry as he walked past them following that fight. Yes, people died and the fight was long and hard, but they WON! I wanted that to be celebrated or at least dealt with on an emotional level.

3. There has to be enough time spent on the falling action.

I loved the BBC show Lark Rise to Candleford. It was a quiet show without any major villains, yes, but they did so many wonderful things. But the series ending was, uh, not the best. I don't know what happened with the show or why they decided to cancel it, but the final episode felt like a whirlwind of people getting together and left me baffled. It all happened way too quickly, especially for a series finale, and I didn't feel emotionally invested because there wasn't enough time spent on the ending to feel satisfied with it.

4. The ending has to fit the story. If it's a light, fun tale, it can't end with everyone dying (unless the jarring juxtaposition is what you were going for) and if it's a dark, dark story it probably shouldn't end with rainbows and sparkles and spun sugar castles.

I read a book a year or so ago because the premise sounded hilarious. And it was. But then it turned dark and (in my opinion) rather melodramatic. The ending was supposed to be moving, but it wasn't because that wasn't the book I wanted to read. The ending didn't fit at all with the beginning and it just didn't work.

Endings don't always have to be happy, but they have to work with the story and fit the tale.

5. I love endings that bring things back full circle to the beginning, but things have changed. The best example I can think of it How to Train Your Dragon, which is one of my favorite movies ever. I love what they do to make the ending shadow the beginning. Not all endings have to do this to be satisfying, but I think it's really cool when they do.

What about you? What makes an ending satisfying to you?

Kiersten White Signing

Last night I went to Kiersten White's signing at the Provo Library. She's not very tall, so as a joke, they brought out a red stool for her to stand on (it should have been sparkly and pink, but we can't have everything). Her friends made her stand on it.

Contrary to her prediction, she didn't fall off of it. She did make us laugh, though. A lot. For example, she said that paranormal romance needed to have some humor in it. "There's just death and death and making out in between."

I was nervous about the signing, a side effect of staying for the infamous Markus Zusak signing, but thankfully the line wasn't nearly that long.

This picture makes me think I need a new haircut. Actually, I know I need a new haircut. I think the last time it was trimmed was for my birthday and the egg-frying-on-the-sidewalk temperatures outside have nothing in common with the temperatures in January.

But I'm trying to focus more on the positives in life, so hey, I have something clever written by Kiersten White in a pink pen in my new copy of SUPERNATURALLY!

One of my favorite bits of advice from Kiersten was that she never allows herself to go back and edit while she's writing her first draft. For her, writing-mode and editing-mode are completely different. Editing requires her to pick out what doesn't work, but writing is all about loving what you're writing. The two can't go together. (Unfortunately, I keep trying to make them go together.)

And now for one final quote:

"Books are real life plus explosions. And death-death-making out."

I couldn't agree more.