You're doing it wrong

I took another step on my journey of figuring out how to write a novel this week.  In an attempt to pull myself up by my bootstraps and self-motivate some action in the writing department since writer's group looms over my head, I reached out to my editor for some advice. 

I know what you're thinking: Wait, she has an editor?  But she isn't even finished with her first draft!  This is my friend who I found out recently is also an editor.  He will be tasked with editing my work once I get it finished.  And since I think it is super cool to refer to the fact that I have an editor, I'll now be doing so every chance I get.

Remember I said I was currently discovering my own editing method?  I told him what I had been doing and how unmotivated I'd become and asked for some advice on the whole process.  Turns out, I was doing it all wrong.  In my haste to have something for my writer's group to see, I was doing the editing completely out of order.  I was editing on the micro level instead of the macro level.  I haven't even worked out the big picture and filled in all the gaps yet.  I haven't figured out what the outline is to make sure I flow from scene to sequel and back to scene yet.  All this has to happen before we go through chapter by chapter which is what I'd been doing with my alpha-readers.

AH-HA!  No wonder I wasn't feeling the flow!  It was like recapping a race I hadn't even trained for yet.

I know my writer's group is going to be sad that they won't get to see what I'm up to for a while again, but I'm back to the writing desk.  This time with some direction on how to get from here to the end.  And with my new knowledge I'm excited to be here again which is the whole point.

This also reminded me of something else a lot of people have said...  Writing is damn hard work.

I think I can...

I've been in a bit of a funk the past few weeks.  Life interfering with my running has me doubting whether I can even be ready for Ragnar this year.  Being crazy busy with Big Sister's dance competition season leaves me no time for much of anything past my day job, cooking dinner and trying to stay ahead of Little Sister's toy bombs before bed.  I've had zero energy for staying up late which means I haven't written in weeks.  Because I haven't written in weeks I feel like I've lost the spark of creativity and the roll I was on a couple of months ago; and the overwhelming thought of what it will take to re-immerse myself has me dragging my feet to start again.

I certainly hope this shit is somehow normal because I rarely find myself in this land called self-doubt. But right now the world is pressing on me with stress and insanity and I have yet to rally myself completely out of it.

Maybe I'm just sad because we are losing Little Sister's amazing nanny at the end of this week as she embarks on new adventures with her husband - on the other side of the country.  She's been with us since Little Sister was five months old - two solid years - and has become one of my closest friends and confidants.  Whenever I think of life without her I get all weepy and sad.  I don't even want to think about the reality of what next week will look like where I don't see her every morning.  And work from home days without long lunch-time conversations are really going to suck...

But, like the little engine that could from that childhood book I remember having to read to my youngest brother over and over again... I think I can.  I think I can.  I think I can.  I keep telling myself that - even if it is something I actually believe one minute and the next something I'm merely willing to be true.

It's amazing what a positive attitude can do to turn things around.  Even if it isn't in profound ways.  After taking a week off of running to address some knee pain issues - caused by lack of cross training to strengthen my quads - I went for what my training program called for yesterday: an EIGHTY MINUTE run.  Twice as long as I've done since my injury.  I didn't think I had it in me but guess what, I did!  The first mile was all uphill and I powered through it.  The middle was fraught with headwind that sucked the speed out of me.  But when it was all said and done I busted out FIVE miles and did the entire run.  Boo-ya!  Just because I'm using a different training program from the last two Ragnars doesn't mean it isn't effective.  I just have to keep believing I can stick with it and be ready in two months.

Luckily I have my writer's group looming toward the end of the month spurring me on to get writing - which I haven't done since the last meeting.  Instead of wallowing in all that I could have been doing which is in the past and cannot be controlled or changed, I am choosing instead to focus on what I can control: now, the present.  As always, I get my creative juices flowing and build momentum by crafting blog posts.  Step one, check! since here I am!

A conversation I had with an old friend a couple of days ago reminded me that even if I don't make cookies from scratch, even buying the package you add butter and an egg to and making a dozen cookies 'hot from the oven' is enough for my kids and won't overstress me.  All I remember from making cookies from my own childhood is how messy the kitchen was and that I always got stuck doing the dishes afterward.  This way, my kids only get the joy of warm cookies without all the extra fuss and I'll still be a great Mom in their memories.

Maybe I should write what I know - who's interested in a story of an overachiever fighting to be super woman and perfect in every aspect of her life?  Because I could totally write that shit with my eyes closed and two hands tied behind my back!  Too bad inner conflict isn't enough to build a solid plot.  Guess I'll stick with living that story and finishing the one I'm writing instead!

Here's to getting and maintaining momentum - may we all be successful at it at least today.

Finding your own method

I've been at this novel writing endeavor for many years - more years than I'd like to admit.  The lions part of the journey for me was learning the craft.  Like so many others have said before me, the only way to get better at writing is to write.  Yes, you can go to conventions and conferences and listen to others talk about how they do it - did that.  You can read books on the craft written by others who are successfully doing it - did that.  You can form and join writing groups who encourage and critique - did that.  But bottom line is that what works for others doesn't always work for you.  My novel is the most complete and mature to date (this is the third time I've started again to write the same story among writing other things) because I think I've found what works for me.  Of course time will tell if I've really got the formula completely dialed in but so far here's what I'm doing.

1. Outline.  Oh boy did I spend too long thinking I didn't need any version of this before I wrote.  I have several projects that ended in the middle of nowhere with characters who I didn't know anything about doing crazy things I couldn't get them out of and which had nothing to do with the story I wanted to create.  This time I put together a rough outline to get me from beginning to middle to end with enough vagueness to allow my romantic notions of discovery writing to still exist between the sign posts.
2. Character studies.  It helped so much that I spent an entire month of preparation writing about what makes my characters tick.  What their motivations are.  What their character flaws are.  What their goals are.  Then when I put them in a scene, I know enough about them to write their reactions and interactions with each other consistent with what I know about them.  This also helps move the story along between the outline sign posts.
3. Write like mad until the very end of the draft.  I almost got the entire story down during NaNoWriMo in November.  My motto was 'write now, ask questions later'.  Later comes in the editing process where I fix all the stuff that doesn't work in the first draft and finish up the ending that's already been worked out in my head.
4. Editing with my writing group.  Every two months I get feedback on two or three chapters from my most trusted alpha readers as I start to polish re-write the first draft.  The only think you do more of than writing in this process is re-writing.  I'm learning that lesson currently.  I take comfort in knowing that no one gets it right the first time and that the first draft is supposed to suck.

I've learned another thing during the current editing process.  I'm resisting making many huge changes as I get through the first round of editing.  Sure, there are a couple of chapters that I know need to be completely rewritten because the very beginning had my main character acting kind of out of character since she wasn't as well developed in my mind at that point.  And there are a couple of plot threads that started out pointing in one direction that I morphed to another that need to be fixed in the beginning for consistency.  But other than that, the feedback I'm getting from my alpha readers are going in a "to-do" list that will wait for me to get through my first edit all the way to the end.  That way, my story is the most complete version of my story it can be before major revising prompted from outside editing influences will be entertained.  Why does this work better for me?  I don't know, it just does.  And that, my friends, is exactly the point.

Revision - embarking on the scary journey

The past couple of weeks I've had to suck it up and dive into the part of writing I've been dreading since I started writing - and rewriting - each draft I've started of this crazy novel that I swear someday will be finished: revision.  I've never voiced that I'm scared of the whole undertaking until now but I am.  I even procrastinated an entire month of writing time between critique sessions because I didn't know where to start or how to go about it.

There.  I said it.

I started this current draft with a fairly basic outline and well-thought out characters which was new for me having been a purely discovery writer on all the earlier drafts.  Even with an outline, I was still doing a fair bit of discovery writing between the sign posts.  I already knew I needed to revise parts of the beginning to match where the ending had morphed to during writing so it should have come as no surprise.  But I still had to slap myself and put on my big-girl panties just to dive in.

What I found after three excruciatingly hard weeks of writing sessions with little to no changes in overall word count is this:  Just like everything else it seems when it comes to writing, you just have to do it and it gets easier the more you do it.  I had to get over my OCD of a perfectly formatted word document and start hacking things up and making side notes in the margins and deleting them when they were checked off.  This meant reading and rereading to make sure there was continuity between the old and the new - constantly tweaking a word here and a sentence there. 

(Does it surprise you that I found a way to have a checklist even in this area of my life?  I guess it shouldn't, right?)

After three weeks of doing nothing but rewriting, I can report that chapters one through three have gone through the first revision gauntlet and I have polished chapters four and five to submit for critique at tomorrow's writer's group.  It is amazing to have blown past this obstacle and know it has no power over me.  No longer will I cower on the sidelines worried that I don't know how to revise.  I know I can and do it I shall.  Which is good because do it I must if I plan on finishing this thing.

The beauty of having a well established writer's group is that they keep you honest - and writing.  Without knowing it, that's exactly what mine did for me this month.  Without these three amazing women, I would not be where I am today.  Period.

Wait, it's not November!

What the hell is wrong with me?  I go back and read my own posts circa November and I see how determined and motivated I was to write.  And how I vowed to keep it up until I was done with my rough draft.  Fast forward to present and what have I been doing for the last two months since my last writer's group meeting had me motivated to polish three chapters of my NaNo writing for submission?  Nada.  Zilch.  Nothin'.  Well, not really - the last two days I finally got off my lazy ass and started my late night writing sessions again and have a whole chapter to show for it.

Yes, I might be PMS'ing... why do you ask?

Every once in a while I get down on myself like this and rant and rave to Hubby who calmly reminds me about all the things that I do in addition to writing.  Like a forty-hour a week job, twenty-hours a week of being on-call after hours, our two kids I'm basically raising by myself while he works in the evenings, training for another Ragnar in June, etc, etc.  And that most of the people I'm comparing myself to don't have jobs other than being Moms.  I get this and I understand that I'm being hard on myself but that doesn't stop me from going to this place when I feel overwhelmed by trying to drive myself to accomplish everything I want out of life.  Being an overachiever has its costs - don't let anyone tell you any different.

Thank god for my writer's group who have agreed collectively to hold ourselves to producing writing this year.  They and are keeping me honest by demanding new material to read and critique every couple of months.  If it weren't for them, "tomorrow" would always be when I was planning on writing and I wouldn't have that shiny new chapter of "showing" in place of the three sentences of "telling" that was there before.

This post is also driven by the fact that I got to hang out with some old friends who we haven't seen in about five years this past weekend.  One of the women, who I've always looked up to and admired, shyly tells me that she's been writing fan fiction and got so obsessed with writing that she's also written a novel.  IN. THREE. MONTHS.  I wanted to shout 'Are you fucking kidding me?!' at her and throw my napkin down in a fit of anger then stomp off to anywhere else to wallow in the fact that it's taken me years and I don't have a single completed draft to show for it.  Instead I told her how amazing that was and gushed about how I couldn't wait to read it because that's what you do when other people do the things that you want to do and haven't yet.  There is a silver lining.  I found out that one of our mutual friends is an editor so when I have a completed manuscript I know where to go for the next step and it will be someone I trust. Plus my competitive nature has kicked into full gear which helps drive my late night writing sessions as well now.

If you need me, I'll be brewing pots of coffee and depriving myself of sleep in pursuit of this crazy dream!

Vindication

Being ballsy paid off!  Within two hours of sending my email to Big Sister's principal, I got a reply that she wanted to discuss my concerns with the fourth grade team and the district curriculum specialist and then would get back to me.  I figured that would be the end of it... a nice little sweep under the rug and hope I went away.  But, I got a personal phone call from her two days after my email. 

Bottom line, she and the district curriculum specialist both agreed with me.  The worksheet the teacher created to go along with the social studies book they are reading emphasized the wrong things and they will be working with her to re-do it.  The subject was that of immigration in general and the background on the Mormons was a small part designed to show the cause and effect of why they decided to push further west than the current boundaries of the United States. 

Additionally, the principal sent me a photo copy of the chapter the questionable worksheet had been created from.  It was refreshing to see how far-reaching the subject matter was with the following section headings:

     Who Were the Mormons?
     To the Rocky Mountains
     The Mormon Trail
     Planning the Trip
     The First Two Pioneer Children
     The Advance Party
     The Salt Lake Valley at Last
     African Americans Come to Utah
     People by the Thousands
     The Long Trip
     A Daily Routine
     Working on the Trail
     Crossing the Rivers
     Buffalo Chips!
     Don't Get Hurt!
     Pesky Insects
     Handcarts Across the Trail
    

My favorite part is the last page of the chapter with questions on "What Do You Think?"

• Do we have the right in America to join any religion we want to, or join none at all?
• What could help us be more tolerant of people who believe differently than we do?
• Can you think of other groups in history who have moved to new places so they could live their religion without being persecuted?
• There are many different kinds of persecution.  Talk about what it means.  Talk about why we should try to treat other people fairly.
• What would you have disliked about the trip to Utah?  What would you have liked?
• Can you remember where in the West the pioneers who were not Mormons going?

It was so refreshing to be thanked for bringing such a matter to the attention of the principal.  I had feared I would be labeled a troublemaker.  And now I know that at least the educators at my local school really do have the best interests of my child's education at heart.  (And that they are in fact teaching diverse subject matter!)

I even got a follow-up email several days later making sure I had received the copy of the chapter and whether I had any additional questions.  I am now the biggest fan of our principal and know that she was sincere in telling me she wants parents to bring these kinds of concerns to her.  If only all educators were this committed.


Go me for standing up for what I knew wasn't right and knowing I made a difference in my child's education because of it.  

Ballsy Bitch

It's been so long since I had something really great to rant and rave about and the Universe must have realized I needed an outlet for it because it delivered up an opportunity so rare this week I almost can't believe it. Here's some background so we are all on the same page...  I live in the glorious state of Utah where the lines between Church and State are more often blurred than not.  Contrary to popular belief, not every resident of Utah is a Mormon.

(OOPSIE, did I mention this is a religious and political post?  Here's your disclaimer and chance to bail as if the fact I warned you I would be proceeding with a rant and/or rave wasn't enough, right?)

Big Sister is in the fourth grade and I found a gem of a fire-starter in the sty of her backpack.  It was a worksheet with twenty questions where you have to fill in the blanks to complete the sentence.  When I saw it I was so enraged and immediately asked Big Sister what it was.  She said "Mom, before you get mad, Ms X told us to make sure when our parents got mad that they were teaching religion at school to tell you that it is against the law for her to teach us about the beliefs of any religion and that this is just about the history of Utah."  Clearly the teacher suspected that there would be flak in regards to this little worksheet.  She was not wrong.  Which begs the question, why proceed when you already know it is questionable material?

In response to this worksheet I drafted the following letter which I sent to the principle via email:

Dear Principal,

My fourth-grade daughter brought home school work from what she says was Utah History but which appears to have nothing to do with Utah History.  Instead, it is teaching her about Mormon specific church history.  Where is the separation of church and state when it comes to curriculum?  When I questioned her about what it was, she had already been given a response from the teacher - Ms X who is not her homeroom teacher - who had apparently told the students how to respond when their parents asked why they were learning about religion.  Her rationalization was that because she was not instructing them on the belief system of a religion then it was okay to teach since this was about how Utah was founded.  While there is no disputing the historical fact that Utah was settled by Mormon pioneers escaping religious persecution, tell me why the following questions (taken directly from the worksheet) were relevant to that discussion:

Mormons was a nickname for people who belonged to a new church.
Joseph Smith was the first leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
The church was started in New York state in 1830.
Mormons sent missionaries to teach about their church.
Wherever the Mormons went, they were always forced to move, because no one liked them.
They moved from New York to Ohio, to Missouri, then to Illinois.
People did not like the Mormons, because Mormons believed their church was God's true church. (Not teaching about beliefs?)
Mormons religious beliefs often upset people who were not Mormons.
There was also problems with their neighbors over politics and land.
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were shot and killed in Illinois by a mob.

Out of the 20 questions on the worksheet, I believe only the following statements would be considered relevant to UTAH history:

Moving west took much planning.
The pioneers were going to move more than 1,000 miles.
To help the Mormons move, there were only wagons, horses, mules and oxen.

However, I also believe that the not-so questionable statements could be presented even more non-religiously by referring to them as pioneers instead of Mormons.  With respect to the settling of Utah, it is completely irrelevant what religion the pioneers who first came here were.  Besides, there were Catholic missionaries here long before the Mormon pioneers if we are talking about historical facts...

I expect that if my child is learning the history of the Mormon church that she would also be required to learn the same story about where the Catholic church started, who the first Pope was and when the first congregation was established in the Utah valley.  Same with the Protestants, the Baptists, etc.  I know I am not alone in my concern with the way this curriculum is being presented and would appreciate your addressing it immediately.  If you would like a copy of the worksheet I can provide that as well.

Regards,

One of my closest friends who herself is the mother of a fourth grader at the same school told me I was the only person she knows with balls big enough to actually send that to the principal.  Is it my outrage at the social injustice of the matter or is it merely my argumentative and bitchy nature that fueled my sending the letter?  It's probably a little bit of both.  Having grown up here "in the land of Zion" amidst all the religious overtones and outright judging where your choice of religion is the number one topic of inquiry when you first meet a person, I'm a little sensitive to protecting that pesky right of religious freedom that was given each American in the Constitution.  I believe that extends to the right of my children to be educated by the public school system with zero inference or interference by any religion.  Period.  Before you get all outraged, I stand by the last paragraph of my letter.  If they wanted to introduce a world religion class that gave equal time to studying the basics of every religion of the world, not only would I embrace the prospect of my child learning more about diversity, I would not react to this subject matter since it would then be a valid form of school work.  But they weren't teaching that, were they?  Nope.  This was supposed to be either a History lesson or at the furthest stretch a Social Studies lesson.  Either way, giving my kid facts about a single religion's history instead is not acceptable

In my opinion it's no different than giving your own spin on history just because you like your version better than the plain old facts. But then again, we do that every Thanksgiving where we celebrate the Pioneers and the Indians and their harmonious feasting, don't we?  Instead of sugar coating what really happened in our past we should own it - we came here, declared the native people savages, took the land from them, slaughtered them when they defended themselves and in the end rounded all the survivors up to be banished to the crappiest land around, never to leave it.  That is what Thanksgiving really celebrates... but that isn't what we tell our elementary aged children.  And this is just one example.  Lucky for my kids, they have parents who round out their education at home in both religion and history.

Religion is a deeply personal thing and as such should be taught in the home, not the school.  But, I live in Utah where every Junior High and High School has a little annex building just barely off of school property where any kid who wants is allowed to have a free period to walk there and attend Seminary classes - but only of the one religion...  Hubby was even ranting the other day about how another religion - I think the Catholics but don't quote me on that for sure - were wanting to purchase land for the same reason near the site of a new high school and were being blocked from doing so.  How is that fair?

Bottom line, I wish the separation of church and state was taken far more seriously in our country and especially in my own public school system.  Look at where the Middle East got when they decided to rule their country based on their majority religion.  We need to take religion out of the political arena, too - who cares what religion any one candidate is?  By judging his or her religious beliefs as being better or worse than any other candidate's it fundamentally erodes their Constitutional right to freely practice whatever religion they choose free from discrimination and persecution.  If I'm not mistaken that's why the Puritans came to America and *oddly enough* the Utah pioneers came west.  But I digress...

I did get a response from the principal that she would be looking into the situation and would get back to me.  I can't wait to hear what they have to say about it all!