[Guest Post] Writing Black Rose by Arlo Z Graves

 Writing Black Rose

by Arlo Z Graves

 

 

 I knew I wanted to tell stories in first grade.

I entered kindergarten late because at five, I still couldn’t talk well. Not long after, I ended up in special education classes and speech therapy. The special ed teacher, a lovely soul of infinite patience, assigned us a retelling of Cinderella.

I hated school. The sounds, smells, social rules, they overwhelmed me. But this story, this retelling of Cinderella…it made sense. I could do that. I couldn’t read or write to any extent at the time. I recall knowing the alphabet and little else, so my mom typed the thing while I dictated it.

It was terrible, naturally, the Cinderella story. It changed me. I knew it was what I wanted in life. I knew I had stories to tell. I knew I wanted to be a writer.

 

I didn’t learn to read until I was sixteen. It’s still a struggle. My brain sees the negative space around the words and letters before the words themselves. Sometimes there are colors involved too. It’s a processing difference that modern technology allows me to adapt around. But before I could change the display of my laptop or simply have it read to me, my mom read to me. She read so much of my college curriculum, she deserves her own degree.

My dad told me stories. Every day on the way to school, he fabricated outrageous adventures of magical creatures living on Mars.

Between my parents, I might have been behind my peers in terms of ability, but I was well-read and inspired.

In high school, I started writing fanfiction. I went through a several-year hyper-fixation on the movies Van Helsing and Tombstone. So, I wrote about them. I put Van Helsing in the American West. I pitted him against a shapeshifting menace with a magical revolver. It was asinine teenage stuff. I called it Black Rose after the magical revolver.

“That’s a good story,” Dad said. “That’s a fun story.”

I forgot about it and moved on. Fast forward through a creative writing program at UCSC and several years spinning my wheels querying.

One day, my partner and I had dinner in Scotts Valley. I remember tearing up at the table. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I said.

I’d been writing and querying, and piling up dozens, then hundreds of rejection letters.

I don’t remember exactly what my partner said. Something to the tune of: the right opportunities are coming.

Whatever he said, I got myself together and walked across the Safeway parking lot to the CVS for soap.

“Excuse me,” said a voice behind me. “That is the most amazing coat.”

I turned to thank her.

“You look like you stepped right out of a book. I write fantasy, you could be a character.”

I almost started crying again. “A real writer?” I asked. “You’re a real writer?”

She was indeed. She was Lillian Csernica (who writes about Finding Happiness in Writing here.)

We ended up meeting for tea. Then tea again. She introduced me to Duotrope and got me writing in different lengths. Flash fiction, short stories, novellas. She pushed me. She believed in me.

More important than anything else, than any stories I may write or sell, I made a friend that day. A stranger in a Safeway parking lot picked up my broken hope, dusted it off, and handed it back to me. “Let’s fix this up. You’ve got things to do kid.”

 

I wrote about things that scared me. I wrote about the fire, the CZU. That piece went on to win the grand prize in Stories That Need to be Told.

My parents saved half of our neighborhood during the fire, and I want to give something back to them. My dad, at seventy years old, held a firehose over our cabin while a crew backburned up the mountain. Pieces of homes fell on the roof.

“Are you ever going to write Black Rose?” my dad still asks me.

 

I wrote Black Rose.

It’s so stupid, it’s too stupid…I kept telling myself.

I imagined Lillian’s voice in my mind asking: why? Why is it stupid?

I outlined it, made the magic system, sat down and wrote the thing. I drew heavily from the Louis L'Amour books my mom read to me in bulk. I drew from the bonkers antics of my dad’s bite-sized space operas.

Using my winnings from the fire memoir, I booked a trip to old west ghost towns for research and took my mom with me. This was such an important experience. I’d looked at hundreds of images of Rhyolite and Goldfield Nevada to craft a wasteland setting for the book. But when we got there in our rental car, we found the landscape rich with color and diverse in plant and animal life. If I’d gone off of Google’s visions of the Nevada desert, I would never have known to incorporate so much beauty into the story. To me, those little details tied it all together into a piece I can be proud of.

 

Every time I give my family a writing update, Dad asks: “when are you going to write Black Rose?”

Don’t tell him I already wrote it. I hope someday soon, I can hand it to him, bound and polished. He always believed in it and I’m not sure why. And yet, here it is in spite of everything.

 

 

Postscript: Black Rose just made the long list for the Uncharted Novel Excerpt prize.

 

 

Arlo Z Graves is a nonbinary hillbilly who lives in a shack in the woods. ‘Zven’ enjoys ocarina, night hikes, and goth fashion. Their story Gerald: a Memoir won Stories That Need to be Told 2023 and their work can be found at Dragon Soul Press, the 96^th of October, and others. Visit Zven on Instagram.

https://www.instagram.com/arlozgraves/

 

 

 

Q & A On NaNoWri Mo (borrowed from Jim C. Hines)

Horace Scudder, 1903

In which I interview myself on National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

What are you doing National Novel Writing Month* this year, Deborah?
Cheering on my friends. I'll be finishing up revisions on the next Darkover novel, Arilinn.  Revising is a very different process from drafting. I find that drafting goes better when I do it quickly, so I don't get caught in second-guessing myself or editing as I write. Both are recipes for disaster and paralysis. Revising, on the other hand, does not reliably produce any measurable result in terms of pages or words. I dive into it and call it quits every day when my brain won't function any longer.

How does NaNoWriMo compare to real writing?
Writing is writing! Every writer does it a little differently, and I think most of us change from project to project and also over the course of our careers. Challenges, whether novel-length or short-length, can be fun or oppressive, pointless, or a marvelous way to jump-start a new story.

Doesn’t it bother you when hundreds of thousands of people every year turn your career, the dream job you’ve worked at for 16 years, into some kind of game?
You say "game" as if it's a bad thing. If some aspect of writing isn't fun -- and there are wonderful professional writers who hate to write but love to have written -- then why do it? The community-building that happens during NaNoWriMo is one of its more attractive aspects. Writing is a solitary activity, so it's wonderful to have those "hundreds of thousands" of compadres cheering you on.

Sorry. Do you think it’s possible to write a good novel in 30 days?
Yes and no. Some writers can produce a solid first draft in a month, so that's the yes part. On the other hand, I'm skeptical of any first draft, no matter how long it takes, being "a good novel." I suppose some writers do so much planning and so much reflection on each sentence that their first drafts-on-paper are really third-drafts-in-the-mind. In the end, though, the goal is not to produce a good novel but to write quickly and and consistently and to push through to the end.

Isn’t the emphasis on quantity over quality a bad thing, teaching participants to write crap?
Most writers don't need to be taught how to write crap. We do that very nicely all on our own, thank you. However, writing challenges can teach us to get the story down on paper (or phosphors), which is a necessary first step to a polished final draft. The rewards of actually finishing a novel draft, no matter how much revision it will need, should not be underestimated. Even if that novel is indeed crap, it is finished -- the writer now knows that he or she is capable of completing it. That in itself is worth celebrating.

Another thought on crap. If you aren't writing it and you never have, you aren't doing your job. You aren't taking chances or pushing edges or just splatting out what's in the back of your semi-conscious mind. You are allowing your inner critic to silence your creative spirit.

Eric Rosenfield says NaNoWriMo’s whole attitude is “repugnant, and pollutes the world with volumes upon volumes of one-off novels by people who don’t really care about novel writing.“
I seriously doubt that what is wrong with this world is the surfeit of aspiring novelists. And I can't imagine why anyone would put herself through NaNoWriMo if she didn't 'care about novel writing.' Good grief, if you want to be irate about Bad Things In The World, there are plenty of issues out there, things that actually impact people's health, liberty, and lives. Too many one-off novels is not one of them.

Well, what about Keith DeCandido’s post, wherein he says NaNoWriMo has nothing to do with storytelling; it teaches professionalism and deadlines, and the importance of butt in chair?
Can storytelling be taught? I'm not sure. Yep to the other parts.

Fine, what do you think NaNoWriMo is about?
Why is it about anything than a community of people hell-bent on crash'n'burning their way through a short novel in a month? That makes more sense than it being a nefarious conspiracy.

Any last words of advice, Ms. Very Important Author?
I'd love there to be a parallel track for those of us who have other deadlines, such as revisions or finishing in-progress novels. Certainly FiMyDaNo (Finish My Damned Novel) fits the bill, and I encourage anyone in mid-draft to jump in. Revisions, at least mine, mean taking notes, cogitating, making flow charts of structure, correcting maps, ripping out chunks and shoving them around, not to mention generating piles of new prose. These all count. The thing with revisions is that sometimes a lot of thinking and a small amount of actual wordage change -- if it's the right change -- counts for a solid day's work. It's exhausting, too. So maybe the goal is, "I will think about my revisions every day this month." 


Okay, Ms. Interviewer, if you're not doing NaNoWriMo, what are your goals for this month?

*November 1 - November 30

National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo is a month-long creative writing challenge that takes place every November. During the month participants from all over the world are challenged to write a 50,000 word first draft of a novel.

Pad Thai, Meatloaf, and Learning to Write

I used to make Pad Thai for dinner. If you've eaten this dish at a Thai restaurant, you probably wouldn't recognize mine. Usually, it's made with wide or medium rice noodles, scrambled eggs, bean sprouts, and chicken, with a sprinkling of chopped peanuts. I use brown rice spaghetti (Tinkyada, if you want specifics), onion, carrot, baked tofu, and a bunch of bok choy from a friend's garden. Not a peanut in sight, although I did use canned sauce.

I learned to make Pad Thai from Sunanta, a Thai exchange student whom we hosted some years back. Her mother, perhaps skeptical about American food in general and those crazy vegetarians in particular, used to send her care packages that included the dry rice noodles and packages of dry seasoning (which were undoubtedly mostly sugar and salt, although as I don't read Thai, I can't say for sure). Sue would cook and I would watch and learn. She made hers with nappa cabbage, carrots, and shrimp. (The packages had sesame seeds to sprinkle on top.)

What I learned was this: Pad Thai is like meatloaf. Every family has their own recipe and the best way to learn is to watch mom and then try it yourself. Chances are, you won't be able to duplicate the exact recipe anyway, and once you've figured out your own taste, you won't want to. You'll make it your own.

Midwifing a Story: Beta Readers and Critiquers

A “story midwife” is someone whose insightful feedback helps the writer to make the story more fully what it is intended to be. A while ago, I wrote about Trusted Readers, the unsung heroes of this process. Sometimes they receive thanks in the Acknowledgements page of a novel, but rarely for a short story. Now let’s talk about more visible helpers: beta readers and critiquers.

Most of the time, there is little functional difference between beta readers and critiquers. Both read a story in draft form and respond with comments and analysis. Unlike a Trusted Reader, a beta reader or critiquer is usually either a writer or someone knowledgeable about the internal workings of fiction, like a professional editor. So the feedback may go more along the lines of technical criticism and less a generalized “this didn’t work for me.” A  beta reader acts like a Trusted Reader-with-expertise, whereas a critiquer focuses on pinpointing weaknesses and often suggesting solutions, many times in a workshop or other group setting. For this blog post, however, I’ll use the terms interchangeably.

Critiques often take place in a structured setting, such as a workshop. My first experiences with exchanging critiques were done through the Science Fiction and Fantasy Workshop, a by-mail-with-newsletter forum run by Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury (back in the 1970-90s or a little beyond, if I remember correctly). I’ve also attended ongoing face-to-face workshops, as well as weekend groups at conventions. All have involved both giving and receiving critiques. Like many writers, I have cultivated a small group of “go-to” beta readers. Although it’s often not stated explicitly, the understanding is that over the course of time, each of us will critique a story from the other. 

Cross Training For Writers

Cross-training is a concept I snagged from athletics. It's a way of improving fitness for one particular sport (or art) by practicing another. The idea is that the body adapts to repetitive exercises and, by becoming more efficient, shows slower progress.

Over the years, I've noticed that if I'm stuck on a story and can't figure out how to even think my way toward a solution, one of the most helpful things I can do is to listen to other storytellers talk about their work. In particular, I'd put on one of those bonus material discs from a favorite movie and listen to directors and screenplay writers discuss their approaches. (My favorites are Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh, and Philippa Boyens talking about how they adapted The Lord of the Rings into film, how they decided what to leave out, what to expand or re-arrange, that sort of thing; because I know the books so well, I can follow their interpretive process.) I come away re-charged because the story-telling is similar enough and yet different enough from what I do in prose. I've also gotten much good perspective from books on screenplay writing for much the same reason. I don't want to write a script for a movie or a play, but I do benefit from that particular way of looking at story, character, dialog, and action.

ARCHIVES Northlight: Evolving a Novel

After I submitted Jaydium, which was to become my first published novel, I began work right away on my next project. Or rather, I took a look at all the ideas and characters which were screaming inside my skull to be made into stories and tried to decide which one would cause me the most anguish if I didn't work on it first. High on my list was to rewrite the last novel I'd written before Jaydium. It had received careful attention, not to mention three single-spaced pages of critical feedback, from the editor who would later buy Jaydium.

I felt that if an editor had taken that much time and trouble with the book, there was something of value, something that perhaps I was now a good enough writer to bring out fully.

The book's working title was Weiremaster, and it was based on the world of my very first professional short story, "Imperatrix", which appeared in the debut Sword & Sorceress anthology. Weires are bipedal ape-like creatures, seven-feet tall, fanged, silver-furred, immensely powerful and receptively telepathic. In the world of "Imperatrix," they obey people of imperial blood. For the purposes of that short story, no further explanation was needed.

Now, years later, my world-building had matured. I wanted to know how these creatures had come into a human world, how the control worked, and how the dynastic characteristic had been established. I concocted an adventure which would lead my hero into the world of the Weires and back home again, changed. He would carry me -- and the reader -- along with him, a classical hero-quest. 

Auntie Deborah Answers Your Questions About Writing

In this installment, Auntie Deborah discusses writing a first draft, the unfairness of publishing, and when to run away from a publisher's contract. 

Dear Auntie Deborah: How can I prevent myself from constantly trying to edit as I draft?

Auntie Deborah: You’re halfway there in understanding why it’s important to plough through that draft so you can look at the whole thing when it’s time to revise. It’s tempting but (for many of us) deadly to halt forward progress and nitpick. Here are a few strategies that have worked for me:

• Beginning each session with reading the last page or so but not making any changes in it.
• Reminding myself that the only draft that counts is the one on my editor’s desk. And that what looks like an error may point me in the direction of a deeper, richer story, so I need to preserve all that drek the first time through.
• Reminding myself about author B, whose work I greatly admire, who told me that no one, not even her most trusted reader, sees anything before her third draft.
• Giving myself permission to be really, really awful.
• Falling in love with the revision process. I can hardly wait to get that first draft down so I have something to play with.
• Writing when I’m tired. Believe it or not, this helps because it’s all I can do then to keep putting down one word after another.

All that said, sometimes editing is the right thing, like when it feels as if I’m pushing the story in a direction it doesn’t want to go, or I’ve written myself into a hole I can’t dig out of. Usually that means I’ve made a misstep earlier, not thought carefully about where I want to go. Or whatever I thought the story was about, I was wrong, and the true story keeps wanting to emerge. How do I tell when this is the case? Mostly experience, plus willingness to rip it all to shreds and start over.

Dear Auntie Deborah: How do you come up with names for your characters?

Auntie Deborah: Sometimes the novel and its setting dictate parameters for last names. For example, if I’m writing a science fiction novel about Scottish colonists on Mars, I’m going to look at Scottish last names.

Often the character herself will suggest a last name, either based in ethnicity or personal traits and history. An aging hippie might have changed their last name to Sunchild or Windflower or Yogananada. A family trying to erase immigrant origins might have a last name like Smith or Jones.

And then there’s the telephone book (do such things still exist?) Or the credits for a really big movie, the ones that go one for screen after screen after screen. Do be careful when using real last names, though. If they’re too different, they might be identifiable. Just use the lists as prompts for your thinking.

Another strategy is to look at first names and then use them as last names. (My middle name is Jean, which was my mother’s last name, so the reverse could also be true.)

That said, always do an internet search for the name you’ve chosen. Even if you aren’t aware of others with that name, it’s good to know.

Auntie Deborah Answers Questions on Writing

Q: What advice would you give an aspiring young writer?

A: There are a gazillion tips on how to write, how not to write, do’s and don’ts galore. The best advice I can give to a young author is to fill your life up with experiences. You aren’t fully formed yet, either as a person or as a writer. So go have adventures; read widely; learn a second or third language; play a musical instrument; dance; study cultures other than your own, history, psychology, sociology, comparative religion, music theory. Anything and everything that interests you. Make friends who come from different backgrounds and listen to their stories with an open heart. Fill up your creative storehouse so that you will have something worth writing about.

In school, we learn how to write literate English (at least that’s the goal). We may analyze English literature, but usually the focus on reading comprehension not the mechanics of fiction. That often creates the illusion that we do or should know how to write effective fiction. That’s a bit like saying that because you can drive a car, you know how to build one from scratch. To create an inspiring story, you need a tool kit and skills. The tool kit includes a deep understanding of how and why stories move us, a wide range of life experiences (the raw material), and the basic mechanics of prose narration (exposition, dialog, theme and metatheme, rising tension that leads to climax and resolution, world-building, sympathetic characters, etc.) The skills are how to put together all these elements, when to introduce them or remind the reader, that sort of thing. There are perhaps as many ways of learning those skills as there are writers. Some benefit from reading widely and mindfully across a range of the best literature they can find. Others respond to “how to” books like John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction or Damon Knight’s Creating Short Fiction. Still others do better with hands-on critiques and explanations (when I was a new writer, I had to have things explained to me in words of one syllable).

Q: What mistakes do new writers make?

A: There are a gazillion lists of specific faults in prose (such as grammar and punctuation) or story craft (such as the rise and resolution of tension). A new writer can get so overwhelmed by “dos and don’ts,” she ends up paralyzed.

So I’d like to take a different tack and suggest that new writers learn to trust their readers. Trust them to figure things out. Trust them to read intelligently and sensitively. Most of all, trust them to experience the story for themselves. If there’s a “don’t” here, it’s don’t tell the reader how to feel. Take the reader on a journey that will be different for each reader because no two of us are alike in temperament and experiences. Give them what they need to know what’s going on, but allow the story to flow through them, seen through the lens of their own lives. At the same time, play fair with your reader. That means no surprise out-of-nowhere endings that have nothing to do with the meat of the story. If you set up expectations for one kind of story, hard-boiled noir detective, for example, it’s not a good idea to switch to a fluffy sweet romance. You and the reader have an agreement: “Give me x hours of your time, and this is the reading experience I promise you.” Just as a new writer must learn to trust her readers, she herself must be trustworthy in fulfilling that promise.

Q: How do you build a science fictional world -- the prospect is overwhelming!
A: The most important thing to understand about world-building is that not every writer does it in the same way. For some, it’s important to have that world fully realized in every detail and all the technology and science worked out before beginning to write. Others begin with a character or plot idea and let the landscape unfold as they explore it. I’m in the latter camp: I often don’t know what questions to ask when I begin a project, but they become clear to me once I start developing those characters and human dilemmas. I end up pausing to do research and map things out in rough draft or outline stage. I used to feel overwhelmed by the notion that I had to know everything first, and only when I understood my own creative process did I follow my intuition and let my stories grow organically.

P.S. My science fiction has been praised for its world-building. So it doesn’t matter how you get there!

Q: What should I keep in mind when starting a science fiction novel?

A: I’d give the same advice to a beginning writer of any genre, including mainstream. Write the best stories you can. The same principles of effective prose and storytelling apply, no matter what type of story it is. Keep pushing your literary craft. Read the best literature you can get your hands on and critically analyze what makes it work.

Of course, you have to do your homework when it comes to science and technology, but also world-building that includes culture, linguistics, sociology, etc. But so does every writer.

Q: Why are books for young people popular when they're not well written?

A: I notice that you are referring to the books your kids read. Kids and adults read for different reasons. Children have not yet developed internal critics, they suspend disbelief readily, and they respond powerfully to tropes that leave adults cold. By trope I mean a motif, device, or cliche that has psychological resonance, for example in Harry Potter, you see The Worthy Orphan, The Prince in Waiting (The Chosen One), The Wise Old Mentor, as well as a school story and The Adventures of Friends. Kids also love stories in which the young protagonists have agency, the ability to have adventures they could never experience in their own lives. All of these things are more important to young readers (and many adult readers!) than literary quality.

Q: How do you write a novel?

A: A crucial part of writing a novel is discerning when you have a novel-sized idea, as opposed to one more suitable for a novella or short story. In order to carry the weight of 100K words, the concept of a novel must have depth and emotional resonance. It must be capable of maintaining tension and forward propulsion, and spinning off subplots that enhance rather than distract from the central theme.

Sometimes I’ll start with a notion (or character or line of dialog or scene) and let it play out in my imagination to see how it develops. In the first decade or so of writing professionally, I’d make mistakes, trying to squash a huge idea into 5K words or, conversely, to stretch out a single gem-perfect nugget into many chapters. But I learned by stepping back and identifying the skills I needed. Now I’m usually accurate (and with short fiction, I can tell within 1K words how long the story will be). That said, there are a gazillion ways to structure, plan, and actually write a novel. Since there’s no right or wrong way, only the final product, you can find what works best for you.

Q: What's the best advice about writing you've ever received?

A: The best advice I ever received came from my mentor. She encouraged me to “play it out,” meaning to explore all the nuances and emotional beats of a dramatic scene. Like many newer writers, I built up to those scenes and then rushed through them, thinking that if the action was happening very fast, so should the scene. I thought that I’d set up all the pieces so the reader would realize their importance when they came together. But really, I was selling my readers short. I didn’t realize that the more action, tension, and emotional weight a scene has, the longer it can — and should — be. Readers want to savor every moment, every breath of breathless action. They don’t want to have pages and pages of not-much-happening and then something incredibly important in a paragraph.

If you like my approach to writing, please check out Ink Dance: Essays on the Writing Life, available  in ebook and trade paperback (with room for personal notes) from all the usual vendors.

Auntie Deborah Answers Your Writing Questions

Dear Auntie Deborah, How do I stick with my story idea and finish writing it? 

Deborah: You may be confusing a story idea with a story structure.  The idea is just the starting point, without character development, rising tension and resolution, turning points, or plot. If this is true, you’re diving into writing before you have a story — a story meaning an emotionally satisfying journey you take the reader on.

Some writers can take an idea and launch it into a story while writing, but most of us can’t — or else end up revising many times to whip that shapeless manuscript into something that resembles a true story. Your description of losing motivation suggests that you, like me, need to have more structure in place before beginning.

What do I mean by structure? I need to have a hook or inciting incident — the action, situation, crisis, or decision that fuels the first part of the story. Then something goes wrong (or right, or unexpected) and spins the story in a new direction — that’s the first plot point. I need to know what it’s all building toward, and also the feeling or flavor I want to leave the reader with (sadness, triumph, satisfaction, chocolates on the pillow?). I need at least 2 or 3 characters I’m in love with, although I don’t necessarily need to know what happens to them. I write all this down, do flow charts and maybe a map or two. If I’m submitting on proposal, I’ll need to flesh it out into a proper synopsis plus the first 3 chapters, but for writing for myself on spec, that’s enough to get me going.

If these concepts are unfamiliar with you, I encourage you to learn more about storycraft and the journey from idea to plot/character/dramatic arc. Ideas aren’t a bad place to start, they’re just not enough.

Dear Auntie Deborah: My critique group keeps giving me contradictory advice. I'm at a loss as to which direction to take. Help!

Deborah: It is as important to know which advice to ignore as which to pay attention to! Without knowing the sources of your opinions, I can’t evaluate their validity, but — BUT — I am always leery of anyone who tells me how to fix problems in my own work. This was true when I began writing on a professional level 35 years ago, and it certainly is true now. What helps me are comments like, “I’m confused about x,” or “This didn’t work for me,” or “I don’t care what happens to this character.” In other words, careful readers marking where they had problems. Then it’s up to me, the author, to discern where I went wrong and how I want to remedy it. (This is how my publishing editor and I work together, by the way.)

Print Release: Ink Dance: Essays on the Writing Life

Ink Dance: Essays on the Writing Life

A cup of inspiration, a dash of understanding, a bouquet of wisdom for writers new and old. From the desk of writer and editor Deborah J. Ross comes a collection of warm, insightful essays on “the writing life” – from getting started, negotiating with the Idea Fairy and creating memorable characters, to writing queries, surviving bad reviews, dealing with life’s interruptions and creative jealousy, to nourishing yourself and your creative muse. With space for personal notes.

This collection of my blog posts over a number of years ranges in topic from writing craft to daily rhythms and self-care to staying motivated over the long haul of a career. A number of readers asked for a print version so they could jot down their own notes. It's available now from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and your local bookstore through Ingram (ISBN 978-1-61138-757-5)


To whet your appetite, here's an excerpt from the introduction by Mary Rosenblum, and table of contents:

This collection of essays guides you through the craft and career of writing with all the useful information of a shelf full of ‘how to’ books, but offered with the warm personal energy of a conversation across the kitchen table.  

From her advice on how to actually get started,  her craft and career tips, to her really excellent counsel on how to survive writing in real life and still nourish yourself and your spirit, this collection offers an in depth look at what it means to be a writer.  

 Every day. All the time.  

While Deborah’s career has been New York oriented, most of what she has to say works for today’s author going the small press or Indie route as well. She speaks of the things that helped her succeed or got in her way with a refreshing personal honesty that invites us to examine our own behaviors.  There’s a lot here for any aspiring writer who takes his or her craft seriously. No matter what you write or how you publish.  

Read it, learn, and enjoy! You’ll come away nourished. 

Just You and a Blank Page

Getting Started in Writing

Negotiating with the Idea Fairy

Warm Ups

Open Here

More On Story Beginnings

Structure, Shape, and Interest

Do You Outline Your Novel? Should You?

Dream A Little Dream

It’s Only Fiction

Not Just Another Funny Forehead: Creating Alien Characters

Villains, Evil, and Otherness

Revenge and Retaliation

First Person Perils

Auntie Deborah’s Advice Column for Aspiring Writers

Dear Auntie Deborah: How can I find a real publisher for my YA novel, instead of one of the many vanity or scam presses?

-- Tearful Wannabee

Dear Tearful: Do your research about publishers. Find out which accept unagented submissions. Check them out on Writer Beware or Predators & Editors!!

Get an agent. Again, do your research on which agents are legitimate and represent your genre. (See above resources.) A decent agent will do the submissions for you, using their professional contacts, plus access to publishers that require an agent (which, today, is most of them).

Hang out online with other YA authors and pick their brains, see who publishes them, so you can hear about newer publishers and agents who might be open to your type of material.

Get support. Hobnob with other writers, particularly those at or a little beyond your career stage. Writing is such a lonely business at best, and we need to glomp together — even seasoned pros with decades of sales — for mutual encouragement. And gossip.

Good luck!

Dear Auntie Deborah: I don’t think my book will ever be published. Was it all a waste of time?

-- Loves2Write

Dear Loves2Write: Another way to look at it is this: if you knew for certain that no one would ever read your stories, would you still write them? Do you ever write something just for yourself? If you could stop writing, would you do something else?

Most of the professional writers I know faced these questions and concluded that, all told, their lives are richer and more satisfying when they put down in words the stories unfolding in their minds. Many will write something for their own amusement (without any goal of publication) alongside their projects under contract.

Of course, you can always pretend that after you’re gone, someone will discover a trove of brilliant, compelling manuscripts that will remain in print for decades.

Dear Auntie Deborah: I keep wanting to revise as I write my first draft. I’ve been told this a terrible thing to do. I keep second-guessing myself when I do, and I’m afraid I’ll end up creatively paralyzed. Help!

-- Second Thoughts

Dear Second, I think you’re halfway there in understanding why many find it important to plough through that draft so you can look at the whole thing when it’s time to revise. It’s tempting but (for many of us) deadly to halt forward progress and nitpick. Here are a few strategies that have worked for me:

·         Beginning each session with reading the last page or so but not making any changes to it.

·         Reminding myself that the only draft that counts is the one on my editor’s desk. And that what looks like an error may point me in the direction of a deeper, richer story, so I need to preserve all that drek the first time through.

·         Reminding myself about author B, whose work I greatly admire, who told me that no one, not even her most trusted reader, sees anything before her third draft.

·         Giving myself permission to be really, really awful.

·         Falling in love with the revision process. I can hardly wait to get that first draft down so I have something to play with.

·         Writing when I’m tired. Believe it or not, this helps because it’s all I can do then to keep putting down one word after another.

All that said, sometimes editing is the right thing, like when it feels as if I’m pushing the story in a direction it doesn’t want to go, or I’ve written myself into a hole I can’t dig out of. Usually that means I’ve made a misstep earlier, not thought carefully about where I want to go. Or whatever I thought the story was about, I was wrong, and the true story keeps wanting to emerge. How do I tell when this is the case? Mostly experience, plus willingness to rip it all to shreds and start over.

Dear Auntie Deborah: How can I prevent myself from making all my characters versions of myself?

-- Mirror Image

Dear Mirror: Do your work in creative well-rounded, idiosyncratic characters. Give them warts, particularly those you really, really don’t want to have, yourself.

1. Don’t worry about it. You will always put something of yourself into your characters, even if it’s your imagination.

Dear Auntie Deborah: I’ve been told to introduce the conflict in my novel on the first page. Should I?

-- Slowly Developing

Dear Slowly: Like so much in fiction, it all depends. Some stories call for context before external conflict. For sure, your opening has to do two things: tell the reader what kind of story this is (cozy mystery, obscure literary, dark fantasy, etc.); and arouse the reader’s curiosity (the “hook”). That doesn’t have to be the central conflict, but it does have to create momentum.

Dear Auntie Deborah: What do you do with deleted scenes and unused ideas?

-- Holdsonto Everything

Dear Holdsonto: I stick them in an idea file. Sometimes they build stories-that-fit around themselves, like a grain of sand creating a pearl in an oyster. Other times, I chalk the time and energy as another %^&* learning experience. Sometimes it seems that just the fact I wrote it, that I put those words together, is enough.

After 30+ years as a pro writer, I truly believe that nothing creative is ever wasted.

Dear Auntie Deborah: I’m pretty good at writing dialog, but my narrative skills are terrible. What should I do?

-- Script Writer

Dear Script: I’d bet you are not so much terrible at narration as unpracticed. Dialog comes more easily to some of us because (a) it’s what we speak in; (b) we compose scenes as scripts, as characters talking.

When I was a young writer, I overused dialog, often to the utter bafflement of my readers. One critiquer suggested I eliminate dialog and tell the entire story in narrative. The first scene was agony. The next one was worse, but then it gradually got easier. The exercise forced me to see what dialog was good for and when it was a lazy way out. I also learned — by necessity of practice — how to write serviceable narrative.

That’s my third point. You may be setting the bar too high on a skill you’re still clumsy at. Forget gorgeous language and brilliance. Aim for simple, translucent prose. Keep your sentences uncomplicated, your verbs direct and unfussy, and your modifiers and qualifiers to a minimum. If you don’t know what those are, take a step back and learn about the basic tools of language.

And take every opportunity to read the finest prose you can lay your hands on.

Auntie Deborah on Fanfic and Creativity

A young writer asks, "Will writing fanfic ruin my creativity? Is it a good place to start my writing career?"

Auntie Deborah answers:

Your question reminds me of a panel I was on some years ago, all of us pro writers with significant trad pub cred, and all of us appreciating the role of fanfic (both the fanfic we wrote, read, and was about our own work). I think fanfic is neither here nor there in terms of being a career path on its own. I would never instruct an aspiring writer to write fanfic instead of original work. At the same time, I would never tell a young writer to not write fanfic if that is what they really want to do. (Just don’t try to sell it or you will run afoul of the copyright holder’s attorneys!)

At its best, fanfic is the equivalent a love letter to the creators of the world and characters. It arises from the joy you feel in that particular world. But more than that, it’s a way to begin writing, to get in touch with that inner wellspring of words and scenes and characters. The important thing is to write and write and write until you find your own stories. That may mean following the fanfic plot lines as they morph into something quite different from the original (be sure to file all the serial numbers off) or setting aside fanfic in favor of something that’s original from the onset.

As for ruining creativity, I think that’s nonsense. No one really understands what that is, anyway. Most stories are riffs on others, perhaps dreams based on childhood bedtime stories, bits of visual imagery, ways other works have stayed with us and become mushed up in different combinations in our minds. I think the most important way to cultivate creativity is to let your imagination follow what delights you. Follow your passion, as Joseph Campbell advised. If that’s into the world of Star Trek or Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, just notice what parts are the most wonderful to you. Pay attention to what’s the coolest thing that might happen next — that’s where your creativity will be most nourished and where you will discover your authentic voice.

Thanks to Nina Kiriki Hoffman for the photo.

Auntie Deborah's Advice to a Young Writer Suffering From Writer's Block

As a young writer, you’re probably grappling with learning many different literary skills at once. One is how to write a story, any length story. Another is how to determine the best length for a story idea. When I started selling professionally, over 30 years ago, the conventional wisdom was to begin with short stories and master craft issues at what was presumed a more manageable length, then go on to novels. (And this is what I did.) Since then I’ve met (and become friends as well as colleagues with) writers whose natural story length is long. Novels. Trilogies. Series. After years of writing at a pro level, most of then can write short as well, but it would have been a bad choice to begin with. Most, however, are just the opposite.

So one possibility is that you’re attempting a novel before you have all the necessary literary tools. You may have a solid beginning idea but not the skill to develop it into enough substance to sustain 100K words, so you’re running out of steam, as it were. Perhaps you don’t know where the story is going and have written yourself into a dead alley, but don’t yet have the critical eye to see where you tied yourself into knots.

Another possibility, as I indicated above, is that a novel isn’t your natural story length. You may be trying to stretch a short story-sized idea over 500 pages. Or you may have insufficient twists and turns and whatever nifty stuff lights you up about writing so that all the fun has gone out of it.

Whatever you do, though, don’t give up. I can’t tell you how many of us who’ve gone on to successful careers writing novels have trunks of unfinished novels. If yours isn’t a source of joy, set it aside. Or steal the juicy bits and weave them together with new! improved! sparkly! bits. Try writing short or short-short. Try poetry. Write journal entries. Blog. Keep at it — and notice when you hit your stride. In other words, go where the fun is. The fun and the heartbreak and the adrenaline. That’s what will sustain you page after page, novel after novel, for an entire career.

Supporting A New Writer 3: We've Been There

Recently, I received this letter from Wendy, a fan with whom I’d been corresponding. It spoke deeply to me, and rather than answer it alone, I asked some of my writer friends to join in a series of round table blogs on the issues raised. If you’ve been there, too, I hope you’ll follow along and offer your own wisdom.

I've been trying to reconnect with writing friends after a hiatus from the creative life. I've spent the past year or so taking care of my mom and working to pay the bills. Mom passed away in October.
When your last parent passes away, it changes you in many ways. That foundation you always relied on -- even as an adult -- is gone for good. Whether you're ready or not, you are truly on your own in the world and must somehow carry on without their nurturing presence. One of the most difficult aspects of my mother's final days was the fact that she had so many regrets about life. She once had goals and dreams, but left them behind out of fear and a belief that these dreams were just not possible.
I'm 54 years old. More than half of my life is over. Writing has been a dream/goal of mine since childhood. My mom was the only one who believed in me. I don't want to leave this world regretting the fact that I never pursued this dream to the fullest. To be honest, my writing "career" never took off. I let fear, doubt and the negativity of others keep me from my dreams. I want so much to be brave, to take risks with my creative life. I truly wish for a group of fellow writers who are willing to give me the encouragement and support I need to write with my heart and soul, to grow as a writer and a human being. And I want to be a support for others as well.

How do I get back into the writing life after leaving it on the back burner for so long?

Cynthia Felice: Filling the Giving Hole

My similar experience was long and arduous; each time I thought I was ready to pick up my writing career I discovered, painfully, I was so not ready. I went through years of bewildering anniversaries and finding ways to establish new normals for everyday life that re-establishing my writing life was always something I'd do tomorrow. It's different for everyone, so don't assume setbacks are failures. Your loss and mine were different, and that alone changes working through the loss. But when writing life did start working again, it was because I made myself find a listserv (actually several, but only one clicked for me) of writers who were working at their craft. Just checking in every day and lurking for a while helped me feel connected again to the familiar problems and worries writers have and need to discuss. Eventually I was "talking" again and involved, sharing my concerns and experience with other writers. No one understands writing life the way other writers do. Besides, what else are you going to do with all that tender care you've been giving to your loved one for years? I needed a place to put mine; maybe you do, too. Don't let not giving daily leave a hole in you.

Similarly, I attended the Pikes Peak Writer's Conference http://www.pikespeakwriters.com/ because it's well known for great organization and attracting the best speakers (heh, heh, and I'd been one of those speakers years earlier) and because it takes place in my back yard! It was a wonderful long weekend spent rubbing shoulders with like-minded folk and learning what had changed in the industry while I was away. There are other fine conferences and also very good writers workshops, but I have personal experience with this one, so am content to recommend it. Research carefully if you're tempted to plunk down the fee; not all are equal. You'll notice that I did not recommend a specific listserv; the one I favored no longer exists, but others are out there, and if the daily passive contact appeals to you, you will find them.

Good luck, Wendy!

Cynthia Felice writes science fiction novels, and occasionally writes short stories and articles. She

was a John W. Campbell Award nominee for her novel, Godsfire. Felice is a workshop enthusiast, including being an early Clarion “grad” and a frequent Milford attendee. Her experience includes managing technical editors, writers, and designing configuration control software, as well as writing and editing technical articles, essays, and documents, one of which received the Award for Outstanding Paper from the Society for Technical Communication. Cynthia Felice grew up in Chicago, and now lives with her husband on a ridge east of Colorado Springs overlooking the Front Range.

Deborah's note: Cynthia critiqued my very, very first attempt at a fantasy novel (1980?) with such kindness and insight that I am still writing!

Meg Mac Donald: Dear Wendy,

Your letter touched my heart in so many ways—and in so many ways, on so many levels, I could relate to what you were saying.  As will always be the case, we each have our own story—that moment, that feeling, that fear, that loss that seemed to take away the dream that we had nurtured from childhood on.  Those hurdles in life that seem insurmountable.  We are of an age, you and I.  No doubt we share many of the same memories about childhood pastimes, favorite books, iconic films, moments where planet Earth stopped turning to look to the moon…  What a glorious, bright future we were promised—especially for girls.  What a “brave new world” where we believed that if we dreamt it, we could achieve it.  No better time to be alive.  No better time to want to write science fiction and fantasy.  No better time.

Maybe every generation has that hope.  There’s something about our generation, though.  Something about promises that weren’t kept.  Something about the future not being what it looked like it should be.  Where did it go?  And we tried to hang onto the dreams and may have even had some luck.  Found those older and wiser to nurture us and lead the charge.  For all those that managed to keep going or never faced serious setbacks, there are probably far more whose lives became overwhelming.   In the midst of trying to plant that creative garden and keep it blooming, we grew up and life happened and the frailty of our own lives was realized in the frailty of our aging parents—or the deaths of friends and kin, or the trauma of war, or financial hardship, or personal trauma wearing a hundred different, dark cloaks.

Supporting A New Writer 2: Following The Dream

Recently, I received this letter from Wendy, a fan with whom I’d been corresponding. It spoke deeply to me, and rather than answer it alone, I asked some of my writer friends to join in a series of round table blogs on the issues raised. If you’ve been there, too, I hope you’ll follow along and offer your own wisdom.

I've been trying to reconnect with writing friends after a hiatus from the creative life. I've spent the past year or so taking care of my mom and working to pay the bills. Mom passed away in October.
When your last parent passes away, it changes you in many ways. That foundation you always relied on -- even as an adult -- is gone for good. Whether you're ready or not, you are truly on your own in the world and must somehow carry on without their nurturing presence. One of the most difficult aspects of my mother's final days was the fact that she had so many regrets about life. She once had goals and dreams, but left them behind out of fear and a belief that these dreams were just not possible.
I'm 54 years old. More than half of my life is over. Writing has been a dream/goal of mine since childhood. My mom was the only one who believed in me. I don't want to leave this world regretting the fact that I never pursued this dream to the fullest. To be honest, my writing "career" never took off. I let fear, doubt and the negativity of others keep me from my dreams. I want so much to be brave, to take risks with my creative life. I truly wish for a group of fellow writers who are willing to give me the encouragement and support I need to write with my heart and soul, to grow as a writer and a human being. And I want to be a support for others as well. How do I get back into the writing life after leaving it on the back burner for so long?

  Katharine Eliska Kimbriel: Do you want to write, or do you want to have written? Is it getting the story down on paper or computer that drives you, or the thought of who will receive the story? Is publishing critical? Are you looking at markets before you even write the tale?

Because these struggles can kill your muse. I wasted a lot of time, once NYC decided that the stories I wanted to tell were not viable, tossing them synopsis after synopsis, trying to get their interest. You don't have to deal with NYC at all, if you don't want to--self-publishing can be done, and done well, if you are willing to pay for good editing and cover art.

The best things I have ever written come when *I do not censor the Writer.* The first draft, you must tell your Editor Voice (and you have several) "There, there, you will get your chance to say something" and keep writing. The first draft of a story, you tell yourself the story. The second pass, you decide what you need to tell this story to other people. There's usually editing--few of us can write a first and second pass in one go.

Beware the Critic Voice. That is the voice of every slighting comment, every undermining statement, every spiteful word ever tossed your way. A strong and smart woman once told me, "The Critic is never you." But the Critic exists, even if no one has ever slammed your dreams of writing because you never whispered that dream aloud. It takes time to smash those slighting words down to dust, to weigh opposites in your hands and mash them together, halving their impact. But you can whittle down The Critic.

Most people I know who adore telling stories can't stop. When they *cannot* tell stories it triggers depression. Right now you are going through that huge transition (it just happened to me, too) where suddenly, at reunions, you are the oldest person in the room. Right there is a huge adjustment. Be gentle with yourself, ask your heart what it wants to write, and give yourself permission to write. That time is NEVER wasted. In my youth I would tell people "I have to work." I didn't say write, because it wasn't how I paid the rent, so they would say "You can do that after the movie, dinner, bike ride"--whatever.

It is for you. Women worldwide are told to put their heart on hold and take care of everyone and everything else. If you don't take something for your own heart, you will have nothing to give others. Take the writing. It may turn out to be something you can offer the world.

Katharine Eliska Kimbriel reinvents herself every decade or so. The one constant she has reached for in life is telling stories. “I’m interested in how people respond to choice. What is the metaphor for power, for choice? In SF it tends to be technology (good, bad and balanced) while in Fantasy the metaphor is magic – who has it, who wants or does not want it, what is done with it, and who/what the person or culture is after the dust has settled. A second metaphor, both grace note and foundation, is the need for and art of healing. Forthcoming stories will talk about new things that I’ve learned, and still hope to learn … with grace notes about betrayal, forgiveness, healing and second chances.” A Campbell Award nominee.




Irene Radford: For as long as I can remember my family told me that writing down my little stories was okay because I would learn to write well, a requirement for succeeding in the business world. Their ambition for me was to run the PTA. However, I mustn’t bother sharing my little stories with anyone because I could never succeed as a writer.

Period. End of conversation.

Except we kept having this conversation every time I got an idea for a new story or book or trilogy…

I’m not certain why my brain suddenly clicked into realizing that I can’t know I’ve failed until I try. It may have had something to do with my 10 year old son entering every mail-in contest the postman delivered. One of those contests was for Harlequin Romances. I won 4 free books every month for 3 months. Then of course I was expected be hooked and start paying for my book fix. But one of the option books I could order was “How to Write Romances for Love and Money.”

I tried it. Over the period of a couple of months I followed the guidelines and deconstructed several of my favorite romances. And then I wrote one. When I thought I was ready to submit I asked a friend of a friend about proper manuscript format. That person put me in touch with another friend of a friend who was active in Romance Writers of America.

I attended one workshop and went home to re-plot the book. The local chapter of RWA led me to a critique group. I re-wrote the book again and again until I submitted. And accumulated rejection after rejection.

At some point in this depressing process I discovered that not only did I need to try before I admitted failure: I had not failed until I gave up trying.

RWA and my critique group led me to an agent, and though we never sold that first romance, I found my voice in fantasy. And I succeeded. October 13, 1993 at 1:33 PM I received THE phone call, that DAW Books wanted to buy, not only the first book I had written for the fantasy market, but also 2 sequels.

Thirty-five books later I still haven’t found a reason to give up trying.

My few words of wisdom for those starting a writing career or re-starting one, is keep on trying. Apply butt to chair and hands to keyboard and keep writing. Five minutes a day, four pages a day, whatever works for your schedule. And keep on until there is nothing left inside you that demands to be written.

Then give it a rest for a bit until the words start bubbling out of you and write some more.

Irene Radford …aka P.R. Frost, aka C.F. Bentley, has been writing stories ever since she figured out

what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian who lives in Oregon,

she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon, where deer, bears, coyotes, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck.

A museum trained historian, Phyllis Irene has spent many hours prowling pioneer cemeteries deepening her connections to the past. Raised in a military family, she grew up all over the US and learned early on that books are friends that don’t get left behind with a move. Her interests and reading range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a whole lot in between.