Does Luck have a Place in Publishing?

So I've heard before that getting published is a mix of hard work and luck. You're not going to get anywhere without hard work, but many authors have spoken of hitting the market at just the right time, or running into an agent at just the right moment, and things like that. Unfortunately, luck isn't exactly something we can control.

I could go off for a while on luck/providence/God/ whatever you want to call it, and what it is, and if it's really that important. But I'll keep it short. I think for those who work hard, luck always comes-- I guess it's kind of a "fortune favors the brave (or hard working)" kinda thing for me. Or a preparation meets opportunity thing. It might come now, or later, or have a different form than someone else's, but it always comes.

I've been lucky enough to take classes from amazing writers I admire and find an incredible critique group. These things happened rather randomly, but they happened because I was working toward my goals, and that put me in the right place at the right time. And in a few weeks, I'm lucky enough to pitch to an agent in person. Eek! Wish me luck!

And on the note of luck, Jeff Hargett tagged me in the Lucky 7 meme. Rather than go to page 77 of my WIP, which is in the middle of a distinctly confusing conversation if you haven't read the rest of the book, here's 7 lines from page 7 of The Unhappening of Genesis Lee:

The pill jumped around the table, skittering in my vision like a tiny cockroach. Ew. “What is it?” I asked.

“A de-intoxicator.”

I wrinkled my nose, but grabbed the pill. Nope. Missed. I slapped a hand over it, trapping it, and slipped it in my mouth. My head began to throb as it melted on my tongue. The rhythm in my head didn’t match the pounding beat of the music, which didn’t match the buzz of Linked memories, which made me feel like a tumbleweed in a windstorm.

So, my friends, do you believe in luck in the publishing and writing world? How have you been lucky? And if you see me around sparingly for the next few weeks, it's because I'm working hard to finish revisions before my pitch so I can be prepared for luck to strike. :)


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Using Family History for Novel Fodder

We talk a lot about using our own experiences in our writing. Sometimes that means literally, sometimes it means we take the basis for the experience and work in the emotions/background/etc. It's a great source of cool and realistic moments for writing.

I've also used another awesome source: family history.

I've recently become a bit of a family history nut. One of my side projects is collecting information and stories from my dad's side of the family, back four generations, and compiling it into a book. Not only is it totally fascinating, but it's given me some great story fodder. For example:

My grandmother hated my grandfather at first, and this was only made worse when he took her and another girl on a date at the same time (he attempted to hide this, but both girls of course found out). However, she came around, and when they were sixteen, they eloped on Christmas Eve. The next day, my grandfather-- who had lied about his age to get into the Navy-- shipped out to the Korean war for a year.

Um...WOW. It sounds like a full book in and of itself!

Other stories include great-grandparents whose graves lie empty because they crashed their car into a lake and their bodies were never found. The picture on the right is of another set of great-grandparents, William and Tinie Sarah Cutler-- she died quite young, and he was so distraught he never remarried. I've even used tiny family details in my books, like the hunting knife I inherited from my grandfather when he died.

What are the benefits of searching out these family history stories and using them in your writing? First, they bring a sense of reality. Because they're based on real life-- even if it's not your life, and even if the stories have changed through so many tellings-- they can bring a ring of authenticity and depth to a story. Second, they inspire further creativity. When I'm a bit stuck on a scene, thinking over my own experiences or family history stories can help bring out some great ideas. Even if I don't use the actual story in my scene, the story can give me a point to start from.

So, my friends, have you ever used stories from your family history in your books? What are some of your favorite family anecdotes? 

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For Your Amusement: The Worst Line of Dialogue EVER

There are many, many posts out there about writing good dialogue. Getting natural, non-cheesy, useful, scintillating dialogue is very important to a good story.

But that's not what I'm going to talk about today. 

Instead, for your amusement, I give you a video that my anime-obsessed husband found recently, exposing one of the worst lines of dialogue ever written. We laugh our heads off every time we watch this short clip. 

So, my friends...don't do this. :) What are some of your favorite bad lines of dialogue-- or good lines of dialogue? 

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Tips for Writing a Best-Selling Novel: Lessons from Star Wars

So my son is completely obsessed with Star Wars, and I've now seen it more times than I ever wanted. When I got sick of it, I turned on the DVD commentary from George Lucas. I was shocked how much I learned as a writer from him, especially on episode IV (the original Star Wars). Here are a few key points I wanted to share today.

Before Star Wars was made, almost no one believed in it. Even WHEN it was being made, almost no one believed in it. In fact, Star Wars opened in only about 40 theaters, because few theaters wanted to take such a crazy movie on. Within just a few weeks, it was a complete box-office smash. Several decades later, it's a cultural phenomenon.

Here's what I pull from that:

1. If you REALLY believe in something, stick with it, no matter who tells you otherwise.
Why did no one believe in Star Wars? Because the story was so far out there for its day. No one knew what to think of it, or of George Lucas. So it sometimes is with us. We're writers. Creators. If we don't believe in our own creations, no one else ever will. People can tell you your story idea is ridiculous, or just give you the "that's nice" look when you tell them you're a writer. But you ARE a writer. You CAN create incredible things. Don't let anyone stop you from believing that.

2. Just because things are hard doesn't mean they're not worth it.
When Lucas finally got a single person at Fox to say yes to Star Wars, everything that could go wrong did. Bad weather on sets, equipment malfunctioning, producers wanting to kill the movie because it was over-budget, you name it. Lucas fought tooth and nail for his movie the entire way, and it paid off. Good things rarely come without, at minimum, hard work and set backs.

3. Do big things.
Lucas didn't just settle for making his movie. He didn't want to stick with the limited tech of his time, so he created his own special effects studio. He didn't want to settle for stock sound effects, so he recorded his own. He didn't just want to make a good movie, he wanted to make the absolute best movie he could make. It was hard, it was expensive, and nobody believed in him. But he did big things, and he got big things out of it. Don't settle for less-- do big things.

Finally, my friends, here's George Lucas's advice to all the actors when they finished a scene: "faster, with more intensity." Go do your thing, and make sure it is fast and intense! And now I want to know: what's one thing you've learned about writing or being a writer this week?


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Milking Goats and Buried Treasure

I have no exciting/intelligent blog post for today, mostly due to the fact that I was out late on a date with my hubby last night-- yay for dates! On that note, check out the movie John Carter. It's actually a lot of fun.

So, since I rarely put much personal stuff up, I thought I'd finally do something about the tags I received from Ruth Josse and Laura Josephsen. I'm going to cheat, though, and just pick a few questions from each of them to answer.

1. Have you ever milked a cow?
No. But I did once milk a goat at the state fair. I think I was like eight, and the farmer told me I was the best goat-milker he'd ever seen, and I had a job at his farm whenever I wanted it. So I guess if this writing thing doesn't pan out, I've got a career in goat-milking on standby.

2. Who is the biggest influence in your life right now?
This might be cheesy, but my husband. Not only is he incredibly supportive of me in everything I do, he's also a great example to me of hard work. He also reminds me that it's okay to play, and he helps me keep my perspective in life. I'd take him over Edward Cullen six million times.

3. Where would you bury treasure if you found some?
Ha! Like I'm going to tell you. ;) I did, however, once take a plastic bucket and create a time capsule with a friend. We made sure to label things like candles, in case future archaeologists needed a bit of help. That time capsule is still buried in the side yard of my childhood home. I've considered knocking on the door and asking the current residents if I can dig it up, but they might find that a little weird.

4. Are you a cat or a dog or a monkey person?
Dog person, for sure. I've had a dog ever since I was 9 months old (except now that dogs are not allowed in my apartment). Though I did claim a stray cat in Ghana that frequented the beach-side cafe I went to often. She came up to me every day to play and eat biscuits (cookies).

So, my friends, that's a bit of fun about me. Now what about you? Have you milked a cow? Do you prefer cats, dogs, monkeys, or other? Who's the biggest influence in your life? And where is your treasure buried?

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Finding Your Author Voice

Especially in YA, there's a lot of talk about writing a good character voice. And it's incredibly important to do that. There's another type of voice that's important, though-- your own voice as an author.

To me, your author voice is a combination of several things. It takes in everything from your sentence-level writing (do you write long, flowing sentences, or short punchy ones; is your writing clear-cut and straightforward, or more descriptive and literary?), to how you structure chapters and the story as a whole (short and cinematic like Dan Brown, or long and complex like Robert Jordan?), to the type of stories you focus on (funny and light, or deep and dark?).

Obviously these things can change from book to book, but in general, each of us tends to develop a certain "style" as we write. It's something that helps readers identify with us from book to book-- it's why we love certain authors even when they write a different book.

It can take lots of practice to find your own author voice. It takes experimenting with different styles and stories, and reading different types of styles and stories, and examining your writing to find the strengths you want to emphasize.

It took me years. I wrote short stories and novellas all through high school, and they covered everything from a murder-mystery, ghost stories, alien abductions, fun contemporary love stories, apocalyptic adventures...lots of different types of stories with lots of different types of writing. It wasn't until freshman year of college that I found the most important parts of my author voice.

For my creative writing class, I wrote story after story with grandiose literary language and melodramatic plots. Then I had a new idea. And it was creepy. And I was afraid to write it. But it was COOL. So I wrote a short story about a sociopath who signed up to watch a prison execution, and ended up escalating into a serial killer. It was from the killer's point of view, and I was terrified to show it to anyone. They'd all think I was horrible for writing such a story, especially my teacher at the conservative, religious college I attended.

However, my teacher gave me the highest score and most positive comments on that story of any I'd written that year. My dad, who read all my stuff, told me that it was the best thing I'd ever written (granted, yes, he's biased). But I learned something about myself. I wrote better when I wrote short and to the point. I wrote better when I wrote about difficult concepts-- addressing the complexities of complex situations that don't always have happy endings.

That "aha" moment changed my writing as I focused on my strengths. It helped me find my voice as an author.

So, my friends, what are some of the characteristics that make up your writing voice? What are your strengths as a writer? How did you find, or how are you finding, your own author voice?


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The Name Game-- Keeping Character Names Consistent in Your Novel

I've been thinking a lot about names lately. We've been trying to come up with a name for our baby girl, and I spent weeks scouring name lists for the perfect name. Not too popular, not too weird, goes well with our last name, has a good meaning to it...it was a long process. Happily, we finally found one we love.

I do something similar when naming my characters. However, naming characters can be even more complicated. Names are a part of culture, which technically means that you're building your world when you name anything in your story-- the main character, her friends, her parents, the town they live in. Even before the internet, certain styles of names were common across a culture. There may even be rules to it, like how in Ghana, everyone receives a name according to the day or the week they're born.

Here are a few quick tips to not just name your characters, but to make sure the names fit the world you're trying to build.

1. Keep the names consistent in structure.
Certain naming trends will be consistent across your culture. Maybe "A" names are popular, or names ending in an "en" sound. Maybe short names are popular, or longer ones. You obviously don't have to be completely rigid in naming characters to these trends, but keep in mind that unless you give a good reason, you don't want names too far from each other. Having a character named Kenna and another named Filomena is going to be a little odd. Though if you want it that way on purpose, go for it! After all, many people purposely choose to name outside of trends.

2. Be careful of associations with other things.
I originally named the town in TUGL Concord. It was a desert town with a unique culture and history, but my critique group kept getting confused. Concord, Massachusetts kept coming to their minds, and contradicted the setting I was attempting to create. If readers associate a name with a certain thing (like a popular celebrity), it might ruin the image you're trying to create.

3. Keep cultural differences in mind.
I have a character in TUGL who grew up away from the town-- in fact, grew up in another country. In addition, she's Muslim. I had to keep those things in mind when naming her. Her name wouldn't follow the general system of the rest of the characters. If different cultures mingle in your novel, that will show in their names. Think The Hunger Games. Different districts with different cultures focused on different things in their names (Glimmer vs. Katniss). Even different generations will have differences in their names.

4. Meaning is important-- and so is fun.
J.K. Rowling is a great example of naming with important meaning. Voldemort's name means "flight from death" in French-- rather perfect for him. But also remember to have fun. Don't get so regimented that your names all feel too similar and mechanical. Have fun playing with them!

So, my friends, how do you name your characters? What are your current favorites among your character names? 


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