Why I Love Fall

I’ve been in such a good mood lately that I’m weirding myself out. I’m stopping to enjoy things I already like even more. Like the comforting sound of a new audio book (The Night Swimmer is so attuned for this weather), revisiting a favorite classic read (the tales of Edgar Allan Poe), the warm, cuddly feeling of needing a blanket while watching a movie on the couch or reading outside at night, and the mingling of hot coffee and sweet pastry. So what makes me love these things even more than I already do? The title did not deceive you—fall. Fall is why I can appreciate these luxuries and little treats to a higher degree. It’s like the antithesis of seasonal depression.

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday as a kid. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve lost some of the holiday spirit but the love of all things spooky remains, and more specifically, my love of the subtle shift in the weather this time of year, first in the dead of evening, and then, that dropping temperature creeps outward from the deepest night like an ink spill until it finally reaches the day to dampen our raging summer sun.

I hope to remind you all to stop and appreciate the things that make fall wonderful. Here are a few reasons I love fall. Please leave your reasons in the comments!

I love the way fall makes me happy to wake up in the morning, the way it sates that feeling I’ve had all summer, an inexplicable yearning.

I love the smell and chill in the air. I don’t even mind the little bit of frizz in my hair (okay, a lot of frizz, and I do kind of mind).

I love fall-scented candles of cinnamon and pumpkin spice, and warm, hearty meals with names that end in surprise.

I love the impending month of letting all fears go in a sprint to 50,000 words and going, perhaps, a little insane.

I love breathing in scents of rain, and after rain, and before rain.

I love reading on the porch at dusk or dawn, long sleeves brushing arms, and soft scarves made of yarn.

I love the changing of the leaves—seasonal barometers—from green to red, yellow, and brown, and driving with the windows down.

I love hot cocoa, hot tea, and all manner of toasty treats in between. Apparently, everything I love about fall revolves around eating. So be it.

 

Here are some other awesome fall and Halloween related blog posts. A little something for everyone, I’m sure.

• “Happy Is November” –Ostium Unity
• “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” –Annie Neugebauer
• “5 Tips for a Proper Haunting” –Carie Juettner
• “How Do You Drink Your Coffee” –Nicholas Conley
• “Writing Horror Without the Blood” –LitReactor

5 Things Budding Writers Need to Do Now

“Christina’s World” by Andrew Wyath. 1948.

Back in graduate school, a peer asked me what I planned to do with my English degree. I told him, ‘write’. His response was, ‘well, that’s what we’re all here for’, as though carving a career for oneself as a writer was impossible. If you want to write, you can do it. But there are certain things you have to start doing as soon as possible to ensure that you don’t create in a vacuum, producing inaccessible works. You must know what’s out there; you must be educated on the workings of publishing; and you must network. As in all walks of life, even in the world of publishing, it is still, often, about who you know, not what you know.

Here are a few things I’ve learned along this arduous path to established-authordom (no, making up my own phraseology isn’t one of them, but it’s fun.)

#1

Read.

Anyone that says they want to be a writer but doesn’t read has a rough road ahead of them. Goodreads, audio books, doctors’ offices, taking the dog outside, lunch breaks–these have all been great tools/situations that helped me to read more. Seizing every possible opportunity to read a good old fashioned book in this era that constantly has your attention pulled in twelve different directions will give you an advantage that anyone who doesn’t read won’t have. Use Goodreads to organize comparables for your own novels, research, and set reading schedules/challenges for yourself to ensure you read widely and deeply.

#2

Take a literary journal out for a cup of coffee.

As the great (Stephen) King once said,

“submitting stories without first reading the market is like playing darts in a dark room–you might hit the target every now and then, but you don’t deserve to” (from On Writing, page 243).

Sure, you don’t know if your work will be accepted, but why not increase your chances by making sure it is something the journal is even looking for? Also, reading around lit journals, whether you’re interested in publishing short stories and poetry or not, is great insight to the quality editors seek to present their readership with.

#3

Research, network, get involved.

                         

I have a 2-3 times a month Write Night with my critique partner. Are all your writing buddies in other states or cities? Log on with them and do timed writing sessions together, so you can encourage one another and have someone at a keystroke’s reach when you can’t figure out that certain word. Enter contests, read experts’ blogs and support fellow budding writers’ blogs, get active on twitter. I’ve talked about this here.

#4

Build your craft: Write short stories, poems, enter contests.

You’ll learn more from a good old rejection than you ever could from just writing for yourself and friends, taking a class, or reading a book on writing. The kind of rejection that hurts. The kind that makes you immediately react with, “what are they crazy? This is some of my best work!” Then, after some time has passed, you’ll come to respond with, “Okay. In retrospect, that piece could have used some more work, or it could have been closer to the other things they were looking for.” You live, you learn.

#5

WRITE.

When it comes down to the end of the day, you just have to keep writing. Past the doubt. Past the despair and procrastination and fear. And don’t fret; if you’re not feeling these things, then you’re not doing it right. Even procrastination stems from the knowledge that writing is hard. If it doesn’t seem difficult at all, if you can plop down at any given moment and confidently spew out 30 pages with no problems, something’s missing or you will have a lot of work to do later.

Set yourself a word count or a time limit to work on writing or outlining everyday. This  has been a life-saver for me. I used to go for weeklong stretches without writing anything, just work, come home, heehaw around, go to sleep, and repeat. Setting a daily writing goal has made me from hobby writer to WRITER-writer, if you catch my drift. Now, go and get some writing done!  And remember:

An Almost Perfect Reading Session

Because I work a day job while trying to being a writer, I have to take my moments of productivity when I can get them. Now don’t let me fool you; it is a rare thing to find me writing after work. I usually binge on my days off. But on the off-chance that I can get something accomplished, I tend to carry with me whatever chapter/poem/outline I’m working on to look over on my lunch break to, ideally, make a dabble of progress. Of this one hour time slot for writing-related work, I dedicate about 15 minutes to the preparation of my lunch and the consuming thereof (again, don’t let me fool you: it’s almost all prep. I inhale food like a soldier in the chow hall).

You’re probably wondering why I’m yammering on about writing–and eating–when this post is about reading. Well, I’ve had a lot of coffee today, so you’re just gonna have to deal with my digressions. Now, though this is my designated writing time, I just so happen to have a Write Night tonight, and I have already completed my chapters and sent them off to my best friend/writing partner’s capable hands. In keeping with the lunch theme, I have also already devoured her chapters.

Necessities for Write Night critique sessions: good food, CAFFEINE, and colorful gel pens, duh

So, having accomplished all of these grand tasks, I thought I’d let myself indulge in some relaxing reading. I had two things to choose from: a One Story, entitled “Claire, the Whole World” (really good so far) sent to me in a carefully crafted care package by the illuminous* and industrious, Carie Juettner, or Dracula (I have 15 pages left; I’m so close!). But I’m not going to tell you what I chose, because what I read doesn’t matter. The point is, that hour–or 45 minutes realistically speaking–of drowsy-after-lunch-hot-afternoon tranquility was beautiful. And in that sublime state, you will sometimes find that your thoughts lilting on some strange, almost surreal, bend to whatever you’re reading, but for the life of you, you can’t recall the thought when you come to. This is a uniquely satisfying state to read a book in.

This isn’t the perfect state to read a book in, because let’s face it, if you have to pay attention, this is actually the opposite way you should consume the reading material. But it can be deemed an almost perfect reading session, which brings us to our list of requirements for–yep, you guessed it–an almost perfect reading session:

• 1 comfy chair
• an even climate (preferably a controlled one if it’s 108 outside like it is here)
• a spot of tea or coffee-yes, even in the afternoon
• a full, happy tummy
• a kitty on my lap would have been nice, but alas we have no office cats. I will have to retry this entire thing on my day off

Doesn’t she look so damn cuddly?

• And finally, a really good book. You can use an e-reader, but it really isn’t the same. You can argue with me, but I stand by that statement 😉

So eat your lunch–please, chew your food–gather your chair and book and kitty and settle in for a lovely afternoon of reading/dozing/almost-perfect contentment.

*Pretty sure I made that word up

What Your Goodreads Says About You

Goodreads is an amazing and innovative resource. I found out about it in 2010, but my obsession really took flight in  2012. It has proved an invaluable tool in so many ways: tracking books I want to read (still waiting for a movie version of this concept; imdb doesn’t quite cut it), learning about new books, keeping a running log of what I have read, and giving myself yearly challenges to consume more literature. And for writers, here is a really cool use for Goodreads to find comparables for your own works (the entire post is fantastic, but you can scroll down to “A Shortcut” for the Goodreads part).

While scrolling through the ‘my books’ tab, I discovered something about myself. Not only do I read widely—no genre-snobbery here!—but I have a very limited attention span. So I thought, what might other people’s Goodreads pages say about them?

This stack says more about my characters than it does me

I will not presume to analyze who you are at your core given the types of books you have marked as ‘read’, ‘currently reading’, or ‘to-read’. But let’s talk about your statuses on those books and the personality traits it might hint at. Before I dive in, a disclaimer: You may recognize yourself in this post. Know that I do not seek to criticize anyone’s reading choices or styles. This is merely a dabbling in personality horoscoping given various Goodreads statuses—stati?

So to begin, I take you to the first reader personality:

The ADD

This is what ADD looks like. It’s not a joke. I am not laughing.

This is the person (i.e. I am the person) who has no less than 15 books at any given moment, sometimes for months. When this person loses interest for even a second, they tend to move on. These people are probably very hard to carry on a conversation with as they jump from thought to thought. They have the best organizational intentions that don’t always pan out, oftentimes resulting in an organized mess, stacks of books and papers in towers divided by subject or tasks, pens marking places in books, books marking places in books, five different notebooks going with ideas for one novel (see? They made the effort to set aside a notebook for ideas). This person may be widely read, but does not often complete each ambitious venture into new and (what was once) exciting territory.

 

The Secret-Keeper or The Fear-of-Commitment

These are the people that do not post books until they’ve finished reading them. They are the lurkers; they start adding all kinds of books to read from other’s to-read or currently-reading lists, but you never see what they’re currently reading. Like it’s some sort of top secret mission: survey the populace under the guise of a reader, but lo! The Secret-Keeper then rates three books at once that he or she read in the past 24 hours, having never appeared on the currently-reading list before they are just done.  This person is deep as a well, introspective and sometimes shy. Also endowed with the title Fear-of-Commitment because they might hold back from posting their in-progress reads for fear putting themselves out there and failing (i.e. not finishing the book; the ADD has no problem with this). Though they keep the rate of their progress on their reading ventures to themselves, they have no shortage of reading stamina and rated books at the end of the day.

 

The Scheduled and/or Meticulous Follower-Through

   

These are people that always only have a few select books, usually widely ranged or in different areas, like a fiction, a nonfiction, and a poetry perhaps, and there are no other books added until those are read. These people are probably maddeningly organized, positive, dependable, and infectiously upbeat. You might find yourself screaming through the screen at them, “How do you do it?!” And then muttering, “Ooh, that looks good,” before adding one of their recent reads to your own to-read list.

The Online-Dater

This person has hundreds of friends somehow and little to no books. He or she does not want to be left out and often seeks to be the center of attention. Rambunctious, funny, friendly, talkative, and can rarely be found sitting at home reading a book (apparently).

The Slow-and-Steady

You’ll see one book on this person’s Goodreads for a week or so, and you know they’re actually reading it because you see the status updates every few pages. They do this out of pride and self-satisfaction with their progress (I know, because this is part of my M.O. too). This personality is that person that you don’t want to play chess or Risk with, because they take a long time to make decisions. Not because they are inept, but because they are too calculated. As a result, their decisions are often the right ones, but everyone affected by those decisions have aged 27 years by the time it’s made.

The Erudite

This personality’s feed boasts a proliferation of nonfiction books consistently, making you wonder if this person ever partakes in the simple pleasure of a good ‘ole fictive endeavor. They can usually be found reading obscure things that often feel like work to us normal folk like Literary Theory, or philosophy, or social criticism. Don’t get me wrong, I read those things myself back in my college days, and I enjoyed them—some of them—and I even look forward to getting back to Heideger’s Being and Time, and Jung’s Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, but do I want to read that all day every day and never anything else? This constant information inundation pays off for the studious, duteous Erudite reader who often believes him or herself to be right, because they usually probably are. Do not get into an argument with this person. They are like a hound on the scent.

Want to change your goodreads personality horoscope? If you’re ADD like me, finish all the books on your currently reading list and allow yourself one at a time. If you’re slow and steady, you can give yourself quotas per year or month. Afraid of looking like an ADD? Are you Afraid-of-Commitment? Just put yourself out there. You never know what kind of feedback you might garner. The Online-Dater? Read something! How did you find this website anyway?

Have you encountered any other personality types on Goodreads?

6 Ways to Survive Rewrite Hell

Rewriting is HARD. Rewriting will make you want to throw your computer out a window. I keep telling myself there’s some sort of formula here, there’s gotta be some equation for success, completion, and contentment with this novel that I am missing. Unfortunately, there is not. All you can do is chew your cuticles until their bloody and hope you’re making some headway.

I was talking to a friend about a novel she’s dabbling with, and I told her about my rewrite hell. Her reply was, “I don’t want to have to do that. I want to get it right the first time.” The thing is, I don’t think this dabbling friend is quite to the point where you start seeing your work with a different eye, one that isn’t looking from behind rose-colored glasses of our own can-do-no-wrong greatness. Rather than irritating me, like this might have in the past when I would have felt inadequate given that I have to rewrite my novel, I was actually relieved. I wasn’t foolishly throwing myself into a titanic endeavor (this ship won’t sink! Shit…it has sunk) when I began penning this work. I also thought my novel would be good to go when I finished. Because I started writing, whole-heartedly believing in what I was doing, I now have something worthwhile to rewrite. I laid down a foundation in which I could see theme, character, and plot in their rawest forms and extract them to distill them to perfection. My point is, rewrites are a big part of being a writer, and the sooner you accept that, the less crazy–I mean, the happier you’ll be. 🙂 <–see? Happy.

So here is a list of a 6 tips to surviving the sea of madness, self-doubt, joyful torture, an grueling work of rewriting:

1. Every time you have that moment of pure self-doubt, that moment of ‘why do I think I can do this? What on God’s green earth made me think I could be a writer?’, just ask yourself what else you enjoy doing this so much? What gives you as much of a reward after expending so much sweat, blood, and tears? That’s right. Nothing. And THAT is why you keep doing it.

2. In the vein of #1, read one of your favorite books. Recapture the magic you felt when you first read it. Remind yourself that the magic of that novel, in part, composes your own writerly spirit, and that now is the time to pay that great novel/author tribute.

3. When have trouble getting something out, when that blinking cursor mocks your every false start, just walk away. Do something else, something completely non-related to writing. Some people say TV kills creativity *cough* Stephen King *cough* and sometimes they’re right. But I often find that things that move me, including awesome television programs, offer inspiration, open up my well of creative impetus. It is sometimes in those moments that you aren’t obesessing about your rewrite that you find a way to fix a particular problem or get a eureka moment.

4. Write long-hand. This is something I recently embraced while slogging through the torturous rewrites of my first novel, The Prey and the Predator. Every time I sat down to my computer, all I wanted to do was copy and paste from the old document, which I’d promised myself I would NOT do. The whole point of rewriting was to bring the entirety of the work up to my current writings standards, to update the pieces that I wrote when I was fourteen years old and have been repeatedly cut and resown back together throughout the years, to smooth everything out. The exact way to NOT follow through with this is to cut and paste. So though I refer to a printout of my most recent version of the MS and my newfangled chapter-by-chapter outline, when I restrict myself to writing long-hand, I am wont to create something that contributes to my new, tightened premise that is more focused and succinct.

5. Submit what you feel most uncertain about to a trusted friend. Be this a critique partner or just a friend/family member who willingly reads your stuff and usually enjoys it. Ask them to be honest with you. After forcing out my first chapter of my rewrite, all the while asking myself the questions I mentioned in #1, my critique partner admitted that she felt like she was betraying me by liking it so much. But it is this encouragement, her genuine interest in it, and her helpful suggestions of what could be improved that made me realize it wasn’t as bad as I had imagined it to be. I was just so crippled by fear that I couldn’t see past that to the reality of the situation.

6. Research and network. This is a lonely calling we have rooted ourselves in, for better or worse. It makes a world of difference to feel connected to the wide writerly world out there, other people enduring the same struggles as ourselves and even people seeing success erupt from those hardships. Subscribe to Writer’s Digest, check out the articles on Writer, Unboxed, browse through others’ blogs and comment. It’s a good way to make a writing friend, a new connection in the writing world, a new synapse in a network you will continuously be growing. I feel so in tune to the writing world right now that it’s starting to get downright creepy with Writer’s Digest mirroring whatever my current concerns are. This article for one, assures me that everything I’m doing is just what I’m supposed to be doing. Also, at the risk of sounding like an advertisement for Writer’s Digest, the latest issue had tons of great articles in it on topics I was just fixating on: “What Literary Journals Really Look For”, “34 Markets for Genre Short Stories”, “Science Fiction & Fantasy: Balancing Exposition in Speculative Fiction”, and the eeriest, as I was just wondering what this genre was all about anyway, “Exploring the World of Steampunk”.

Just be open to connections with people, which may mean researching, branching out, and leaving a trail of breadcrumbs back to your online presence via comments on blogs or writing websites. It meant so much to receive an invite to write together sometime from a new friend in the blogosphere; it was all I needed to hear in that moment to assure me that all of this, the public presence though all I want to do is hole up and write, the tweeting, and tumbling (that I never update. Shhh), maintaining this blog, are all worth it. Because there are other people out there, just like me–just like you–who are also afraid sometimes but are genuinely good people sharing in the same struggle.

Did my reassuring, calming Bob Ross tone come through this post and inspire you to keep slogging through your own rewrite hell? What are your methods for coping through these perilous times?