Tag Archives: Reading

All I Ever Needed To Know About Writing, I Learned From Skee-Ball

19 Oct

When I was wee, maybe as young as four or five years old, I frequently went on adventures with my Aunt Martha, aka, The Coolest Aunt. Aunt Martha reminds me of Jo March from Little Women. She’s brilliant, fearless, and ferociously dedicated to her family. Getting the chance to ride in her shiny red convertible with the windows down while we blasted Billy Ocean and munched on Cheetos made me feel like the coolest, happiest little nerd-girl in the world.

I mean, really:

Besides cruising in the Mazda, going to the park, and playing grocery store in my room with plastic cheese, one of our favorite pastimes was going with Aunt Martha’s friend, Patty, and Patty’s niece, Tiffany, to that pantheon of high-class dining and entertainment, Chuck E. Cheese’s. You know, with the cardboard pizza that, when you were wee, was the pinnacle of culinary achievement, and the tickets and plastic twisty tunnels and ball pits and TERRIFYING ANIMATRONIC CREATURES:

Can you imagine being there at night, once everything’s locked up? Well, YOU SHOULDN’T.

My favorite part about Chuck E. Cheese’s, however, was none of these things.

It was skee-ball.

I cared not for Whack-a-Mole or air hockey or that weird game where you had to slide the coins around (?). All I cared about was skee-ball. Glorious, glorious skee-ball. I can still remember the sound and smell of the balls rolling down the chute. (Don’t go there, you dirty readers, you.) I would spend the entire outing camped out at the skee-ball area. Pizza? Psh. Ball pits? Yawn. Not even the plastic twisty tunnels, with all their potential for pretending like I was crawling around Jefferies tubes to hunt down an alien macrovirus, could snatch me from my skee-ball for long.

My most vivid memory is of one particular Chuck E. Cheese’s trip. There stood Tiffany and I at our respective skee-ball lanes, having a grand old time. But, as my observing Coolest Aunt pointed out, there existed one enormous difference between my skee-ball strategy and Tiffany’s.

Basically, I had none.

I was like the baseball player who swings at every pitch, no matter what. I rolled every ball up the ramp with the force of a Titan. Sometimes they even flew with such velocity that they bounced off the top of the scoring area and fell back below without earning me any points at all. I never paused to look or aim, save for a cursory glance at those little white tubes. “I will OWN you,” I thought. “I WILL BE THE BEST SKEE-BALLER EVER,” I thought. And the balls rolled down the chute, and I kept cranking them up the ramp, one after another after another.

Now, granted, this might mean that if aliens allergic to water had invaded our water-filled planet with its water-filled atmosphere, I’d have been able to save the day with a well-aimed swing of the bat throw of a skee-ball.

But in this situation, it just meant that I hardly ever scored anything and came away from the game frustrated and despairing. Not to mention envious of Tiffany, who took her time with each ball. She gave it a few practice swings. She calmly analyzed the angle of the ramp and the position of each little white tube.

Me? I cranked through a whole game before she’d even gotten through the first three balls. I GLARED at the ramp, at the taunting lights of my abysmal score, and threw ball after ball until I was red in the face and the people around me started backing away, perhaps imagining the headline: “INNOCENT BYSTANDERS DEMOLISHED BY ANGRY GIRL’S RUNAWAY SKEE-BALL.”

But, despite my frustration, I couldn’t abandon the skee-ball. I loved it too much. I had too much fun playing it, despite my awful scores. I’d walk into Chuck E. Cheese’s, and my eyes would immediately gravitate toward the skee-ball ramps. They called to me. They were my Precious.

When I started writing about fifteen years later, I, sadly, approached it in the exact same way.

Claire’s Initial Thought Process Re: Writing:

Claire: I think I’d like to start writing again. You know, that thing I did before I was a musician?

Claire’s Brain: Hey, that sounds pretty neat.

C: But I’m not just going to write. I’m going to WRITE.

CB: Of COURSE you are, sweetie.

C: I’m gonna be A FRICKIN’ BEST-SELLER.

CB: Ain’t no harm in reaching for the stars.

C: MAYBE I’LL WIN PRIZES. LIKE THE NEWBERY. OR THE PULITZER.

CB: …With fantasy fiction? Oh, honey.

C: I’LL WIN THE BOOKER PRIZE, TOO. I’M NOT EVEN IN THE COMMONWEALTH OF NATIONS. BUT I’LL WIN IT.

CB: All right, your English accent is passable and all that, but still…

C: AND IF I DON’T SUCCEED AT ALL THESE THINGS, I WILL BE AN UTTER FAILURE.

CB: Well, that’s a bit–

C: I’M GONNA START RIGHT NOW.

CB: Wow, really? Because–

C: RIGHT NOW. RAH RAH FORGET ALL OTHER RESPONSIBILITIES! EXTREMISM!

CB: …You know, maybe you should do some things first. To prepare.

C: LIKE WHAT? *GLARES AT EMPTY WORD DOCUMENT* *ROLLS UP SLEEVES*

CB: Maybe you should, I don’t know, read. You don’t really read anymore.

C: NO TIME FOR READING. MUST WRITE GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL.

CB: Yeah, but you don’t know anything about writing, really. Or publishing, and what’s selling, and how to get published, and–

C: STOP TALKING. TIME FOR SKEE-BALL WRITING.

And then I proceeded to, well, crank out a bunch of scoreless balls. (DON’T, I said.)

I wrote a book that was too big for me.

I didn’t read. Like, anything.

I researched the publishing industry only long enough to find out about these things called “query letters,” and then before going any further and researching things like appropriate word count and how long a query letter should be, I started querying IMMEDIATELY.

I received requests for revisions, thought about them for maybe twenty minutes, hurried to finish them in a few days, and IMMEDIATELY sent them back without even a pause to sit back and breathe.

BALL AFTER BALL AFTER BALL. With no thought behind it whatsoever.

No thought, but a lot of passion.

And the scoreboard remained blank.

It’s like I was afraid to slow down to plan and think and put in the grunt work of becoming a writer, because if I stopped long enough to do that, I’d see how much work it was actually going to be. How many words I’d have to write before I could even begin to truly grasp story structure. How many books I’d have to read before I understood how to write something that would sell.

I’d see that the shot I really needed to win the game was into that little white tube way up in the corner. Big points, that tube. But hard to reach.

It took me a long time to realize that it takes a long time to write books.

It took me an even longer time to realize that it’s okay that it takes a long time to write books.

I’m still realizing that even once you write a book, even once you sell a book, you’ll always be learning.

And sometimes, you have to stop, take a step back, breathe, and give yourself time to learn what you need to learn to be successful.

I struggle with this. I probably always will. My instinct is to CRANK CRANK CRANK, and if it doesn’t work out on the first crank, and the ball doesn’t score, I have to fight to not feel like a failure, like I’ve wasted my time and am not working hard enough.

But the truth is, my friend Tiffany, who took her time before each shot, who planned carefully and analyzed what she was about to do, even if it meant that it took her longer to complete a game? She scored higher than I ever did.

She wasn’t afraid to take her time.

I’m working on a couple of different projects right now. One of them is particularly awesome but has also been particularly challenging, and it’s taken me longer than I expected to get it where it needs to be.

When I first realized this, that it was going to take longer, that it was going to be more of a challenge than I’d thought, I went straight down The Vortex of Doubt and Self-Loathing: “Why can’t I work faster? Why can’t I write better? Why can’t I figure this out the first time around instead of having to revise and re-work and re-think? I can’t do this. I’m not going fast enough. I’ll never finish.”

If you ever experience these moments — and I’m sure that you have — just stop.

You’re wrong. You’re going just as fast as you need to be, for you, your project, and your career.

When you have these moments, Think Skee-ball. I have to remind myself to Think Skee-ball all the time. Going lickety-split doesn’t always work out (although it might be impressive in a train wreck sort of way). There’s no rule about how fast or slow you play the game. What matters is the score at the end, and if your score keeps improving, and if, maybe someday, you can make the shot into that high corner tube in every single game.

Don’t rush to finish a book just because “it should be finished by now.”

Don’t send out a project before it’s ready with the thought that “if I don’t send it out now, I’ll lose my chance forever.”

Take the time to read, even if it means you write fewer words per day.

Story structure is a challenge for you? World-building? Character development? The technicalities of prose? Don’t be afraid to take the time to learn, even if that means it’ll takes a month (two months, six months, a year) longer to finish your book than it would otherwise.

Take the time to research — the publishing industry, the best agents for you, winning query letters, great synopses. Five well-placed, well-researched, well-ripped-apart-and-put-back-together-from-scratch query letters will get you farther than twenty query letters sent out without a plan.

Don’t crank out ball after ball until you’re red in the face and scare innocent bystanders.

Study.

Plan.

Aim.

What matters isn’t how fast you play. What matters is the score at the end.

Think Skee-ball.

~*~

Okay, I have a huge craving for skee-ball right now. Writers’ party at Chuck E. Cheese’s, amirite?

She-Ra, Princess of POWER + ROW80 4/20/11 Check-In

20 Apr

Last night, I had this amazing conversation with Agent Lady in which we discussed the hotness of Sean Bean, my WIPs, and publishing, and various other bits ‘n’ bobs, including…

SHE-RA, PRINCESS OF POWER.

…

As well as her mighty flying unicorn, SWIFT WIND.

…

Y’all. HOW IS IT that I never before knew about this wonder of wonders? Granted, when SHE-RA went off the air, I was but a wee Claire Bear, blithely clutching my blanket and probably staring at my parents and possibly freaking them out (I was an intense, quiet little child), but I am nevertheless appalled — APPALLED — that, up until last night, my Compendium of Pop Culture Knowledge had been so grievously incomplete.

From SHE-RA’s Wikipedia page:

Like her brother, He-Man, She-Ra is known for her incredible strength. She is addressed as “The Princess of Power” and on multiple occasions considered “The Most Powerful Woman in the Universe”. Many times she has been shown to be able to lift not only full-grown men and robots, but also mountain-like rocks and buildings.

Aside from her physical powers, She-Ra also demonstrated a series of other abilities…such as empathic understanding and mental communication with animals.

She-Ra’s primary weapon is her Sword of Protection. This is similar to He-Man’s Sword of Power. The sword gives her the ability to transform from Princess Adora into She-Ra and back via the powers of Castle Grayskull, by saying, “For the Honor of Grayskull… I am She-Ra!” However, when she was a member of the Horde, she used laser weapons.

So, SHE-RA can talk to animals, toss around robots and buildings, and shoot lasers. Also, she can help you talk out your FEELINGS. It’s like she’s a Disney Princess, except instead of waiting for a prince to save her, or giving up her family in exchange for some dude she barely knows, she slays evildoers. And by “slay,” I mean she flings them into the air with her bare hands and then LASERS them.

Also, SHE HAS A FLYING, ARMORED, PINK-BEDECKED UNICORN:


unicornsssss

His name is SWIFT WIND, and he is mighty.

From SWIFT WIND’s Wikipedia page:

When Adora transforms into She-Ra and defects from the Horde, she jumps down on Spirit’s back, and tells the horse to run to The Whispering Woods; but as she does, the horse is suddenly surrounded by an energy field of the same enchantment that transformed Adora into She-Ra. It is at this point in time that Spirit is magically transformed into a majestic winged unicorn. From this moment onwards Spirit also possesses the power of speech and human-level intelligence. Although just an ordinary horse, Spirit is shown to be no soft touch, and is able to overturn a Horde Trooper’s vehicle.

…

This MAJESTIC unicorn has the power of human reason, can talk, and OVERTURNS VEHICLES.

Clearly, I needed this in my life. Also clearly, Agent Lady rocks my face off.

~*~

Now that your minds are blown, I know you want to follow it up with…

…my ROW80 update!

*holla*

So far this week, I’ve written just under 2K words on Cracked, which is a leetle low, but my priority right now is Cavendish revisions, which I work on steadily every day. Also, in case you missed my flail the other night, I finished George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones and moved onto A Clash of Kings, and I am a HAPPY HAPPY reader. As I’ve said elsewhere, it’s been a long time since a book has excited me as much as Game of Thrones did, and I’m SO excited (and terrified, because GRRM is NOT nice to his characters) to see where the series goes. I hope to catch up through book 4 in time for book 5′s release this summer!

READING READING READING.

books. <3

What about YOU, ROWers? How are your goals coming along? What are you READING these days? Most importantly, if you had a unicorn, what COLOR would it be? Discuss.

(Check out other ROWers’ check-in posts here.)

Maps, Glossaries, and Pronunciation Guides — Oh My!

4 Feb

I recently finished Graceling, by Kristin Cashore (LOVE LOVE LOVE), and it got me thinking about what kinds of fantasy extras I like to see in the fantasy books I read, whether that’s straight-up high fantasy, paranormal romance, or an action-packed urban fantasy.

It also got me thinking about what others like to see when they read these kinds of books. From writers who read to readers who don’t write, and everyone inbetween–what do these readers like to see when they open up one of these fantastical, otherworldly books?

Do we like to see maps of the setting, whether that setting is a completely new world or some kind of twist on an already-existing place (a futuristic New York City, for example)?

What about glossaries of unfamiliar terms, organizations, and slang? (Imagine, for example, if Firefly were a series of graphic novels rather than television episodes, and each volume included a list of all the Mandarin Chinese words used in that volume, including translations.)

Do we want pronunciation guides that help us sound out these unfamiliar words and get a deeper sense of the linguistic atmosphere the authors are trying to create?

Do we want appendices explaining backstory and chronologies, à la Lord of the Rings? Do we want family trees detailing who’s related to whom? Do we want floor plans of significant buildings?

What’s helpful, informative, and interesting, and what’s overkill?

Does including extras like these entice readers, or scare them away?

See, at the beginning of Graceling, there’s a map of the seven kingdoms that play a part in the story:

When I opened the book and saw this, I was overjoyed. I love maps. I ADORE maps. I’m a very visual person, and I love having a concrete sense of where I am, spatially, in the stories I read. Especially for books like Graceling, when the interactions and political machinations between kingdoms are important to understanding the culture and to the plot itself, I think maps are incredibly helpful and even necessary.

Then, I thought about my friend, Miss K.

See, Miss K is a big reader, but she shies away from most fantasy. Many fantasy stories are complicated, with huge casts of characters, strange and unfamiliar names, complex settings, and new systems of magic, politics, and cultures to decipher. The “foreignness” of it is off-putting to her.

What I wonder is, if Miss K is browsing through a bookstore, and a fantasy book catches her eye because of a pretty cover, or because she remembers a friend talking about it, what will she think when she flips through those front or end pages and sees maps, glossaries, and pronunciation guides? What will she think about all those appendices and timelines and family trees?

Will this scare her off? Will this prevent her from trying out a new genre, a new kind of book? Will she immediately think, “Okay, way too much work?” and toss it aside?

Now, this is not to dismiss Miss K’s intellect; in fact, she’s one of the most brilliant people I know. But by including these sorts of things in our books, are we limiting our audience to only those who are familiar with fantasy and all its trademarks, i.e., maps and the like?

I don’t think traditionally published authors have much say in what sorts of extras go into their books. I could be wrong, but it doesn’t seem like that would be the case. I also wonder what goes into a publisher’s decision regarding what to include and what not to include. What made Graceling’s editors decide to include a map of the seven kingdoms? As for indie authors, how do they decide what to include in their books?

How much do we want to provide? How much do readers need to know, apart from what lies in the actual text itself? When do helpful tools, intended to help the reader interpret and understand a story world, become unnecessary, or even dangerous, when you think about how such inclusions could repel the more casual reader?

A lot of this, of course, depends upon the book.

As I said above with Graceling, the location of and relationships between the seven kingdoms are integral to understanding many of the story’s political and cultural nuances. Hence, a map is provided.

In Lord of the Rings, the focus of the story is a journey through an unfamiliar land, the geography of which hugely factors into the obstacles and conflicts the characters face. Again, we get a map to help us here (in most if not all editions, I assume).

In Breaking Dawn, we’re suddenly introduced to a vast number of new characters, and the list of vampiric clans at the end of the book helps us remember who’s who.

But then again…

There are some fantasy books, such as the Harry Potter series, His Dark Materials, Neil Gaiman’s Stardust, and Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn that do not include any of these things. They involve lots of characters, and the setting is hugely important, and yet…no maps, no glossaries, nothing. Yes, The Tales of Beedle the Bard and Lyra’s Oxford, both of which supplement the main series, are available for separate purchase to interested readers. But, otherwise, these books don’t include maps or appendices or anything of the kind. We don’t get a map of Hogwarts, of Lyra’s Oxford, of Faerie, of King Haggard’s dying kingdom.

Do we miss these extras when they’re not there? Do we wish they had been included? Were they not necessary in the above cases because the authors were more skilled at communicating setting, language, and meaning? Should authors be skilled enough to convey everything organically and negate the need for maps, etc.?

Do we really want a step-by-step instruction guide as to how to pronounce So-and-So’s name? Or do we want to figure it out for ourselves?

Do we want to be told where every room, stable, and secret passageway is? Or do we want to mentally construct it on our own?

Do we want a glossary of unfamiliar terms made available, like in a textbook? Or would we rather learn what everything is through the text, and leave it at that?

What do we, as readers, want to see? And what do we not want to see?

When have you read a fantasy book and wished for more to supplement your reading? When have you seen an extra and thought it unnecessary, i.e., a pronunciation guide you’d have rather done without?

Do these inclusions help or hinder the reach of a book? Do they further the stigma of certain kinds of fantasy as inaccessible, esoteric, and unnecessarily complicated?

And, to the indies out there, how do you decide what to include in your fantasy books? And, if writing a series, do you include the same extras in each installment?

Please feel free to share your thoughts below!

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