this should be on my other blog. . .

. . . where I have nothing posted! I did have a letter there--draft mode only. A response to a long-ago episode (being rejected for a freshman creative writing class with a famous author) that deflated my aspirations of becoming a famous author in my own right. . . I did share that experience with colleagues, and the author, last fall.

Enough said on that account!

Writing that letter last June was catharsis. I understand now that the decision not to write was and is mine. Which may be why, the last morning of this week's state conference, I sat among writers and wanna-be-writers to soak in the wisdom and experiences and advice of yet another published author, author of adult novels such as those I aspired so long ago to write.

It's no longer so much about being a published writer as it is about understanding how one gets there--the process. And about figuring out where, at seventeen, I went wrong.

This is some of what I learned.

• Don't base a novel on personal experiences. Who would care except me, anyway? And the danger is that, like in most of my writing, I'd be writing just for that audience of one: me. That's OK in a blog or writer's notebook but would be a profound waste of time over 10 drafts of a 300-page novel, don't you think? I do. . .
• Capitalize on my strengths as a researcher: that was sooooooooooooo validated yesterday :-)
• Make the audience (and, first of all, myself) really care about my characters. That matters more than anything.
• Let the setting lead (a place to use some of that research) and the characters react to it.
• Keep chapters short, even in a long book, and avoid long stretches of description or dialogue.
• Use simile to show the native intelligence and wit of characters whose spoken language is not SAE. Use dialect sparingly, if at all.
• When you don't know what to write next, write about the weather. . .
• When you don't know what to write next, read.
• READ NOVELS WRITTEN FOR ADULTS BY AUTHORS WHOSE CRAFT IS WORTH STUDYING (which means varying my too-longstanding diet of YA novels and professional texts).
• Read a lot of poetry.

I'm sure there's more in my notes, but this is what I still remember, one day and one cover-to-cover professional book later.

Will I ever publish that best-selling adult novel?

Probably not. . .

Do I feel more validated, more empowered, understanding what the process of getting there would (or would have) required?

Yes!

admitting my mother was right. . .

. . . gets no easier with age, I'm afraid. But I had to call her this afternoon, knowing I was fueling her lifelong passion for "I told you so." I did call. She did say, "I told you so."


I don't like (some people actually do, weird as it seems) going to the doctor. So mostly I don't. The last few years have been so crazy, so full, that it was always next week or month or year that I was going to schedule that long overdue physical, with the myriad of tests sure to be exacted of someone my age. I'd have almost convinced myself that this was the week, when my mother would ask me if I'd made that appointment. I'm contrary that way. Nag me about something and I'm out the door, in the next county or country, doing everything but what you want.


This summer I finally cut her a deal: stop nagging and I'll make the appointment. She did. I did.


Doctor, lawyer (another story for another day), Indian chief was the first installment. This is hopefully the last.


I think the label is Tis. . . looked surprisingly inocuous as I watched it being snared (my insides on wide screen TV and I was loopy enogh to be fascinated!) and glimpsed it again in its zip-loc bag. Just eight days ago. An innocent little time bomb, as it turned out. Perfect timing on my part, as it turned out.


But my mother was right. And I had to tell her so. And I did. . .