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!