"Unless It Moves the Human Heart..."

Notes I took tonight from the PBS interview with Roger Rosenblatt on his book, "Unless It Moves the Human Heart: the Craft and Art of Writing." I've admired his work for years, but I didn't know he was such a wonderful teacher. I look forward to reading the work in full as soon as possible.

"There is no clock attached to becoming a writer." Thank you, Roger Rosenblatt!

“Write to make suffering endurable, evil intelligible, justice desirable, and love possible.”

What should a writer strive for? "Anticipation rather than surprise, imagination rather than invention, … and write with precision and restraint."

Why do you do it? "To make the world better, to be useful."

Finally, "If a critic says you meant something, take the credit, even if you didn’t."

My full apologies to Roger Rosenblatt and PBS for errors in grammar and misquotes.

http://www.amazon.com/Unless-Moves-Human-Heart-Writing/dp/0061965618/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1296524707&sr=1-1

Tagline Contest

UPDATE: Tagline has been re-worked as shown... Probably will change many, many more times!

Magi magic manifests through trial; the greater the magic within, the greater the trial, and Eve is going to manifest a shitload of magic, or die trying. To find her parents and save the world, she races across Rome trailing ritual murders by finding and deciphering clues in order to stop a ghoul, straight out of Lucan’s epic poem. All to clean up a mess made by Isis, her mentor—a mess that has already sent two samaneri to their deaths.



Deep in editing for that final printing to send off to an editor, I missed the great Miss Snark's First Victim's tagline contest. Completely inexcusable since she actually ran three submission times. Inexcusable, but you do learn as much by reading, writings crits, and reading the posted crits as you get posting! It's an invaluable resource I visit often.

Then to my surprise, someone else opened up same type of feed back on their site. Okay, missed three and MSFV has this fabulous opportunity coming up shortly--so to miss the 4th would be completely stupid. Therefore, for your editing pleasure here is my tagline for my manuscript.

Title: Star of Isis
Genre: high concept YA magic realism
Word Count: 60,533

Fifteen-yr-old Eve arrives in Rome to find her parents missing. To save her parents and defeat a ghoul straight from Lucan's epic poem, Eve must discover her magi powers and decipher clues while trailing a series of ritual murders. She explores real history, visits authentic exotic locations, and converses with historical figures-both real and from religious mythology.

Please comment away. ANYTHING you can do to make this stand out and say, "Represent me!" would be greatly appreciated!

What is the fuss? #queryfail

Recent Miss Snark's First Victim blog asked for opinions on agents and interns (remember an intern is under the supervision of an agent) who quote from queries as a learning tool on twitter. This could be an invaluable tool for writers. Apparently, there have been some authors who have taken objection to the practice.

I am not a follower of the tweet catagory mentioned in the blog, but here is my initial take on this. For any agent who is offended by my comments, my apologies, but I assume you have the same sense of humor as the prospective client is to have when they find their query commented on in a public forum... Seriously guys on both sides! Lighten up!

Yet...

"Personally, I couldn't care less, but on a professional level--perhaps. An agent has no responsibility to an unsigned author, yet there is a level of privacy assumed in the query process. For example, I doubt any of us would deny that sharing a premise, a plot line, a character quirk that the agent thought was clever would be 'all right'.

Here is the possible problem on a professional level. First, the new practice of not replying to queries places another layer of anonymity and distance between agent and prospective client. In that environment, imagine the possible anger when author sees their query picked apart publicly later? And remember, prospective authors are often following the agent in question. Tweetdom is public, blogs are public, forums are public--agents are not without responsibility when in the public eye.

Agents are professionals. Professionals do not use their knowledge or expertise to snark or ridicule others. The agent should have replied courteously with the obvious error and then could have asked to share on a blog or tweet or whatever without naming names etc. Then it would have been a true learning experience for all, without the vague possibility of harming another.

Signed Ann Landers... or maybe Pollyanna in the heartland. :-) "

The Writer's Craft and Scotch Whiskey

Is it a surprise to anyone that I am a classic Type A personality? Yes, the upholstered chair at my desk frays along the front, not the back. When I focus on a client, it’s intense, eyes in compassion, but still intense. I don’t meander; I storm. My actions reflect layers of quickly reasoned thoughts, not tending to linger on the single thought in great depth.

I don’t write short stories, but for assignments at the Univ. of IA summer program, I am forced into its tightly knit form. I learn a great deal as I organize my thoughts, reach for the concepts and writer craft skills I have and I’m learning. They give me a chance to see what I’ve accomplished on a few pages. One such work, I’m cultivating, revising, and eying for my annual contender for the Zoetrope: All-Short Story Contest. I do this without any thought or hope of recognition, but more of a final school exam, a statement of my growth.

This year, two writing projects intersected and gave me pause. One a nonsense, fun piece for an acquaintance about reviews and scotch whiskey—okay, you had to be there… The other was this short story, Eden.

After Eden’s time in the corner, in the drawer in writer's vernacular--that recommended writer’s rest and pause, this time rather than picking it up, attacking it with vigor, and devouring it, I read it through the eyes of that master brewer, deep in his caves, testing his kegs in the cold, bitter winter time, imagining the spring. The deep draw of breath from each glass, the first virgin taste on one, the middle-aged ripeness on another, and then heavenly, fully aged flavor of the cream—aged ten, fifteen, more years. Reminiscing on the smoky flavor, the subtle blend, the gentle timeless aging in a keg traveled with me into my revision of Eden—an incident unprecedented.

Being type A, these moments do not settle easily around me, but when they do, when I find that peace, when I find that time for being in the moment—it is a delicious and wondrous time, and the work does well for it.

The Value of Taking the Side Path...

Over and over a writer hears that taking a side path, a branch off from the planned route can add, add, add to our work, even as the writer worries about the time it takes to travel them. Yes, I've been down three side paths since last I posted.

1. I took some serious time to do 'writing craft' research on 'plot climax' from as many sources as I had on hand and available through the internet. As a result, I came to understand that my climax was actually a couple chapters prior to where I thought it was. Okay, you're scratching your head going, 'how the f****** hell can Meg not know where the blasted plot climax is after all that time!?!" Turns out, I have one climax that births another that follows immediately after that one. The first is a physical plot climax followed by a final massive mental/emotional climax puzzle to figure out. I'd erroneously figured that the mental section was the massive plot climax...

Decided after research that I had to make the physical climax even more satisfying for the reader and make it the top of my upside down plot chart. Then the mental section is an odd twist that extends that height, or might even be considered to slip down and then get pushed over the top again before resolving the book.

That might seem minor, but it put a whole new spin on how much I had to put into the physical plot climax scene...

Then 2. I've been listening to a "Great Sentence" MFA lecture series from a retired Univ of IA professor. It's a complicated, but fascinating class on sentence structures from cumulative sentences, suspensive sentences, etc. From that reading, I ripped apart Carrie Vaughn's short story from Dark and Stormy Knights to critique when and where she used them in her work to heighten tension, build suspense, etc and also a Meg Rosoff book for the same detail. Both use cumulative sentences in different but fascinating ways.

Both research side roads have paid off in huge dividends when I look at the overall effectiveness of my WiP.

3. An assignment on 'order', not flashback, but conscious reveal of back-story in book real time woven into the work has made three beautiful counterpoints of jeweled nuggets that simply make the emotion zing off the pages. Thank you, BK Loren and the Univ of IA writer's festival!

True Winning Premise Followed by Promise Kept

Why begin with a winning premise? How better to know that you are on the track of something that screams, 'Read me!'

You know that I am taking a class from BK Loren at the Iowa Summer Writer's Festival. She recently received a New Millennium Writings Award. How can you not read this premise and immediately head over to read the story?

"As previously announced, BK Loren of Lafayette, Co, took the $1,000 Fiction Prize for her story 'Cerberus Sleeps,' a surprisingly warm and imaginative story from the POV of the famous Greek hound who once watched over Hades, but now watches over a modern American family on the brink of disaster."

Check out the winners list at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Knoxville-TN/New-Millennium-Writings/68730338624 And you can access BK Loren's story at www.NewMillenniumWritings.com

I finished reading her short story and loved it with passion. Especially since close family friends have recently moved their father into a memory unit. The father and his father spooned together over the walker--simply beautiful.

I'll ask today if the premise led the story or if the story made the premise. I suspect the latter. Wonderful work, but far, far too short. Perhaps Cerebus will return?

To Premise or Not to Premise--that is the Question

In response to concern that beginning your work with a premise statements is flawed and that they are no more than elevator statements. The position is that it is the story that counts. What follows is my reply.

On the other hand, we can't deny that trends are the meat of the industry for every published and unpublished author. Also my best writing has stemmed from premise statements. They help you condense your character's heart-line and keep you focused. They can assure that the marketable storyline on track. Premises can be more than a hook. Example: the decision to write a sibling piece marketable to boys and girls. Ages that are aimed where you think the market is hot. A storyline that grows from a hot sub genre.

A DNA structure is key to decide if your idea has the legs to make it into print. I will never go back to seat of my pants writing. I invest too much of my life, my time, and my effort into a story, and I want to know it has a chance of going all the way. Does that make sense?

The premise is your bone structure. If the right bone structure isn't there to begin with initially, it's almost impossible to go back and insert it later.

That's my two cents worth at least. Best writing all.