Why Readers Are Fantastic

I was at my local library the other day (remember how you were supposed to go there??) and they were hosting a used/discarded book sale. Unable to resist the stacks and tables loaded with books, I started browsing. Somewhere between fourteen excess copies of The Firm and the occasional Ann Patchett or Cormac McCarthy it hit me: readers are fantastic!  Readers get more opportunities out there than any other consumer, and we're smart enough to know our own tastes, share our opinions, and chose how we access books.

Short Story: Easy Enough



Photo courtesy Boaz Yiftach

He loved to play the game. Pay a visit. Fix the target. Collect the reward. Easy.

Jackson sat up and trimmed his thumb nail with the blade of his hunting knife, the sound etching into the night closer to his ears than the crickets. A snap. He glanced across the open desert. No one else knew he was out here. Well, no human. As he scanned the rocky landscape, distinguishing cactus silhouettes from straggled trees, he caught sight of it—a coyote.

Continuing to drag the blade over his thumb, his eyes stayed on the animal. Jackson’s horse grunted and shifted her feet behind him.

“Be cool,” Jackson said, his voice loaded with the same grit which filled Nevada.

Why We All Want to Be Katniss

I'm more than halfway through reading The Hunger Games now after having enjoyed the movie, and I'm about as sucked into the story as the rest of the world, teens and above. Katniss Everdeen is in the literal fight for her life, and the world around her isn't forgiving. This is great fiction: conflict, danger, emotional turmoil. As readers we love to explore a world unlike our own, and gladly trade our life drama for a fictitious one where we don't have to suffer the consequences. What makes The Hunger Games so enthralling is that deep down, we all want to be Katniss.

Now, I'm not saying we each want to be the main character, the hero, the potential love interest, or the unlikely victor of our stories. What I mean is this:

Total Side Note: Margaret 1, World 0

Just throwing this out there into the world that there's been much healthy debate about my novel Burning Spirit's presentation in first person, present tense.

I've gone back and forth about what to do and if it should be changed to past tense for the sake of marketability and publishing trends, etc., etc. I've even been told by a critiquer, whose critiques I adore, that present tense is good for short stories, but past tense is the "correct" form for novels.
Well, I went on vacation this past week with The Hunger Games on my Kindle and lo and behold, it's first person, present tense. In no way am I saying I can hack it like Suzanne Collins, but I am saying I now firmly believe I'm okay to leave my book as is in the tense department.

Items of Importance

Whenever I read novels or watch movies, I love when there are key physical things incorporated into the plot. I call these "things," Items of Importance.

In Harry Potter, a major Item of Importance is Dumbledore's wand, made from an elder tree. Major plot lines are constructed around it, yet most of the time we hadn't given it any thought; we didn't known it was even important, until it was. Recently, I read Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus and red scarves are used as a way to identify other "dreamers" in a crowd. The scarves become so real in this already visual tale, that I could imagine people lined up for book signings wearing them the same way kids wore Harry Potter glasses to the book and movie releases.

Items of Importance have a place in our minds because we crave for elements around us to have power or symbolism, and we want to be near to those things even when it's only in our imaginations.
As I'm writing and editing my novel Burning Spirit, I'm consciously aware of how I want to give you a few special Items of Importance to follow and hang on to. So far these include:

Tomorrow is Not Promised

There's a saying my sister told me long ago that sticks with me: "Tomorrow is not promised."

Yesterday, we lost a family friend--the father of one of my husband's best friends since elementary school. This man came to our wedding, always invited us into his home (with free insult to my husband), made apple butter every fall, and enjoyed the classic spider-on-a-string as the best Halloween trick ever invented, despite my husband and his friend's attempts toward big-budget movie style horror.

Every time someone close to me passes away, I always hear my sister say those four words.

Tomorrow is not promised.

If we are going to do ourselves, our hearts, our familys justice, then we must remember this phrase and act on it. Don't waste the time you have. Don't treat others with cruelty. You only get to clock in and clock out once in this life (we aren't all Elsbeth), so you better make the most of it.

Henry David Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them."

I assure you, our friend Bill did not, and I refuse to be one of those people. Hug your children, kiss your spouse, call your parents and grandparents, play outside, and write and create with passion streaming through your veins. You do not get a second chance at this. Make a difference for yourself and others. Improve the world through love and understanding. Sing the song you have at the top of your lungs, and go to your grave exhausted holding out the last note.

The Key to Finding Inspiration

Whether you're a writer, artist, poet, crafter, or any person willing to look outside themselves for inspiration to create or do, there is never a short supply of places to find it. Recently I was loitering on Erin Morgenstern's blog and saw a link to a small etsy shop. What I saw there, sparked a domino effect of inspiring ideas which will be used in the sequel to Burning Spirit (the novel I'm currently editing).

Although it didn't look like much and wasn't very large, the simplest of things, a ring, has made all the difference.

What Writers Should Be Doing While Writing

Every writer has a list of naughty things they do when they write that all but destroys the movie magic imagery of the creative type whisking themselves away to sit at an old table to focus and bang out a novel in a single weekend on a typewriter. If you're looking for some insight into my dirty writing habits, then you're in the right place.

Before I get started with my list, however, I must bash upon the rocks those "movie writer" notions. Novels aren't written from start to finish in one sitting and no one can seclude themselves for a weekend to complete the task either. There's a reputation/stereotype that writers hang out in their slippers all day, and while that's a possibility, the writing life is anything but comfortable. There's a lot of mental anguish going on that requires slippers, coffee, snacks, and a few other things to get the job done. No writer can snap their fingers like Mary Poppins and have the story told.

There is Hope

There's a dark place in all of us where we fear if the things we want in life will ever come to pass. We painfully yearn for relief from depression(me), to find a home, to publish a book(me), to cure a sickness, to find love, or money to afford the essentials of life(me). This dark place of fear and trepidation, however, isn't sold separately. It always comes prepackaged with Hope. Through my own depressive states, when things feel totally awful, I know somewhere deep down that my problems will lull and resolve...eventually. I have Hope, even when I have to really dig deep to find that sucker, and you should know there's always Hope for you as well.

My Advice for New Writers

If you're a would-be, wannabe, gonna-be, aspiring writer and you're just getting started (or you've dipped your toe into the pool, but have yet to make the plunge) a quick Internet search will provide you with a mound of both helpful and less than helpful information. There's no shortage of dos and don'ts about everything from plotting entire novels, to how to craft a good sentence. Want advice about descriptions? It's there. Need to find a suitable name for your character? You won't have to look far.

As for the actual task of "being a writer," there's a plethora of that, too. Stephen King insists you be a reader and I couldn't agree more. Neil Gaiman says to finish your work, also sound advice. There's also a lot of caution delivered by successful writers for you to quit while you have the chance. Writing is, after all, a terribly cruel and difficult business which requires the thickest skin and many hours of solitary work. My advice for new writers is this: