Publishing and other forms of insanity

A fellow author offered a link to a blog entry on useful hashtags for writers on Twitter. It was a good article, and if you are interested in writing and Twitter, you can find it here.

What fascinated me was the title at the top of the blog... Publishing... and other forms of insanity.

Insanity. We've all heard about the creative folks who were insane. Creativity has gone hand in hand with insanity since the beginning of time, fair or not.

For years, publishing was what I was working toward. I wanted to publish a book, and I achieved that in 2012 with the release of my first novel.

The experience was exhilarating, but what surprised me is how exposed I felt, and vulnerable, like standing naked on a street corner.

Writing is an intimate practice. Authors craft their novels in relative solitude. I have drooled over writing sheds in backyards or writing retreats in cute B&Bs away from the trials of family life. We get to know our characters' deepest flaws, their desires, what they always thought of themselves that is wrong. And let's face it, some of those flaws come from personal experience. We often have to feel what the character feels to write it well.

So you dive deep into your soul and you feel all the things and put them on the page. Then you send it off for public consumption, where everyone, including your mother, your aunt, your enemy can read it. And you don't do it for riches. There are some authors who break out and make big money, but they are few and far between. Most authors I know aren't in this for the money.

This very much sounds like insanity.

Yet I can't imagine NOT writing. As I write this blog post, I have been in editing for an upcoming novel (news coming soon!) and not working on my WIP. This is making me cranky. Editing is still part of writing, but different. I have to change gears and focus on this novel that I finished ages ago, and debate changes, and as an experienced novelist, I realize every change or suggestion can become the permanent record, in the book everyone will read, maybe even quote.

Take a look at your Twitter feed, I bet there are literary quotes on there that go back for decades, maybe even more. Talk about pressure.

Publishing is insanity, or causes insanity, or only the insane would pursue this.

It will be worth it.

Soldier on, my writer friends, through the insanity, at every level of this process.

Book Review: Eleanor & Park

Rainbow Rowell captures the intensity of first love between an unlikely pair in Eleanor & Park, but it isn't all rose petals and dreaminess. It comes with self conscious and awkward feelings, doubt, fear, and despair.

Eleanor is the new girl at school after having spent the last year in foster care. She is self conscious about her weight and appearance, and is received with cruel taunts from her peers. Park's first impression is that she is a weird girl who dresses funny, but he soon admires her for her quirkiness as a romance builds bus ride by bus ride.

The story is sweet, sad, foul mouthed and authentic to how it feels to be a misfit in love. Although I do wonder if today's teens would recognize references to Ozzy Osbourne and commercials that aired before they were born.

Celebrating Other's Successes

When my kids were small, I often heard the phrase, "It takes a village to raise a child." It felt very true and I was very thankful for my circle of supportive moms, especially in the early years. Since then, I have been thinking a village is useful for more than just raising children. I think we need a village for many of our ventures. Artists of all kinds, including writers, need a village for support, exposure, advice, inspiration, and to feel a part of something.

The best way to support any artist is to spread the word, and the easiest way to do this is write a review. Reviews on Amazon or Goodreads boost an author's reputation. Have a bad review? Well, I can tell you that authors don't like them, but they happen. Not everyone likes the same thing;) They still count toward review counts, which is a thing at Amazon.

Along with giving more reviews, I have started tweeting and sharing news of other author's successes. I went through a time when I wasn't having many successes of my own, so it felt good to celebrate others. I made it my job to promote other people's publishing news, and it made me feel more successful. I was more connected to my writing community. It made me believe that anything was possible again.

I went to conferences without the belief that I would be discovered. I went to meet people, make friends, make connections, and maybe learn something in the sessions. You know what? I want to go to more conferences, because I want to see those people again. I want to keep working at those relationships. Not with agents or editors I met (although that would be nice and happens sometimes), but with the other creators.

You might not even realize it. The woman who wrote a middle grade novel about snot who sat next to me in one of the sessions, I voted for your book in the Crystal Kite. Sorry you didn't win, but you had at least one vote.

Celebrating other people who work in your field is working on your own career, even if your career stinks at the moment. You have some good people to rub shoulders with.

Book Review: Raymie Nightingale

I recently read "Raymie Nightingale" by Kate DiCamillo. Young readers looking for something to read are likely to find something written by DiCamillo, who has penned, "Because of Winn Dixie," "The Tale of Desperaux," "Flora and Ulysses," and "The Mysterious Journey of Edward Tulane," among others.

Raymie Clarke is a 10 year old with a plan to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire to get her picture in the paper and lure her father to come back home after he ran off with a dental hygienist. She meets her competition at baton twirling lessons, Louisiana Elephante, who is an orphaned daughter of performers, and Beverly Tapinski, who plans on sabotaging the contest. The three of them, dubbed "The Three Rancheros," do a series of tasks to heal their individual wounds and bond them as friends. 

The details are the delight in this story, as each piece has a place, from a drowning dummy doll to multiplying bunny barrettes in Louisiana's hair. This imaginative journey comes to a satisfying end for each of these kids dealing with the serious issues. It is about dealing with loss, friendship, and our ever growing souls.

And the story makes me want to say, "Pfffffffft" far more often.

The Wooden Giraffe

These have been strange times, as if we are in the midst of change, and not the good kind. Doubt and anxiety grip my creative life, and I know those emotions have overshadowed my passion for the work, and for some time. My day job, which has been a blessing in keeping me busy and getting steady paychecks appears to be coming to an end. I am seeing relationships end and friends in crisis. I am watching age and its cruelty affect loved ones. And then there is Britain.

Something finally snaps, in the form of several bones in my son's wrist, four days before we were scheduled to leave for a very active vacation. With surgery pending on his wrist and a useless right arm, we have to change our plans. All the sights and activities I had carefully planned for those seven days have to change, and I don't know what it will look like. Just like I don't know what a lot of our lives are going to look like in a month, a year, five years.

Then I see this wooden giraffe, sitting quietly under a tree, and I felt better.

This giraffe was carved with remarkable detail from a rather large log or stump, the base of the giraffe revealing a glimpse of its former self. Few things have more sense of permanence than a tree. They stand in the same spot for hundreds of years. They can become a reference point for other things around it, a meeting place, an important part of memories. Yet they change all the time. They grow, the leaves change color and drop in fall, new leaves form in spring. The tree is constantly in flux.

But you may have not imagined a tree would become a giraffe. For that to happen, the tree had to face the ultimate change. It had to die. The tree lost everything, its leaves, its growth, the place where it put down roots. I can't imagine a more bleak place than that, but if that didn't happen to this tree, it never would have become a charming giraffe that made me smile today and fear change and the unknown a little bit less. Because as scary as it is to march forward into the unknown, as hard as it can be leave behind everything we thought we needed in this life, it can lead us on a path to become something unexpectedly beautiful.

Book Review: The Five Flavors of Dumb

I kicked off my summer with a rocking YA novel, "The Five Flavors of Dumb," by Antony John. The premise of the story is the reason I had to read it. High school senior Piper Vaughn finds herself as manager for a rock band. Piper is a good high school student, who steers clear of trouble, does well in her classes, has few friends, and she is deaf. Before opening page one, I am wondering how she is going to manage a rock band when she can't hear the music.

The book does not disappoint. I can't say it had me on the edge of my seat, but it was a fun read with some nods to the rich music history of Seattle, including Jimi Hendrix and the grunge era Nirvana. It also shows that you don't have to hear the music to feel its power. Now I want to listen to "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

Gardening Takes Over

My vocation is that of a writer or editor, which is a dream come true, but this time of year becomes a challenge, because this is the start of the planting season. In addition to being an author, I am a Master Gardener, and there is a lot going on in that world this time of year.

Something new I am trying this year is Straw Bale Gardening. You probably heard of this, or maybe you didn't. It is a movement started by Joel Karsten that has taken off as a new way to garden that has minimal weeds and can make some plants very happy. I have quite a history of weeds in my garden, along with voles who live in the stone wall borders. I am hoping straw bale gardening is the answer for me.

This is a picture of my garden pre-planted. "They" recommend you lay landscape cloth or corrugated cardboard over the soil to smother the weeds. I had neither, so I used paper grocery bags. We have a vole problem, so we needed some hardware cloth. My spouse got a little wild about wrapping that first bale with hardware cloth. It took him two hours to do that. I am not kidding. He refuses to admit it took that long. I refused to let him continue with that, which he didn't complain. He thought the rest of them should be unprotected (because he didn't want to spend two hours on each bale and create a hazard for me working with that bale). For the rest of the bales, we rolled out the hardware cloth underneath, but over the paper bags. It is a simple, easy solution, and so far, the voles are there, but not inside the bales.

The bales need to be conditioned over the course of two weeks. You add fertilizer and water to break them down and make them habitable environments for plants. After two weeks of conditioning, you cover the top of the bales with potting mix and shove your plants in.

I have two bales conditioned and planted with strawberry plants. I shoved a mint plant into the side (with was no small feat, my bales didn't seem to "break down" that much. I heard they look nasty in the meantime, but mine look the same. But the strawberry plants have been there for a week now and haven't died. The mint shoved into the side looks amazing. Mint does well anywhere, though, right?

We'll see how this goes. I promise I am writing as well, but my creative projects shift a bit during the growing season:)