Au Revoir

                For those who don’t know, I’m going to an amazing writing camp for the next two weeks, and flying in this morning to stay with my aunt until the program starts. I was one of about 40 girls who was chosen for the program, the awesome Teen Ink writing camp in New York City. There are girls from all over the country, and several international as well. We’ll be going to plays and talking to authors and having hours of writing time every day, basically my dream camp. I’m psyched.

                However, because we can’t have computers, this means I cannot blog. I’ll update you all once my exciting adventure has passed (hopefully with photos, too), and I'll resume blogging once my life has returned to its normal orderly chaos. Thanks for listening!

Selling Out

A few weeks ago, my aunt and I were listening to the radio. A popular song came on by a former American Idol contestant, and she was telling me how she liked the song. I replied, “Yeah, but I wish he wrote his own songs.”

            Their main role as singers is to perform, true, but if they’re being called artists, it should be about the art. It seems sad to me that the vast majority of singers don’t even write their own songs. If you’re given a song promised to be a top hit and you sing it without meaning, wouldn’t it feel inauthentic?

            I have a heightened respect for those who actually take part in writing their own songs. Even though they evoke the same emotions, there’s a difference. The songwriter actually feels those emotions and has participated in those experiences; they make it real. Although I know you can coax emotions easily, and many people do, wouldn’t it be better to feel the emotions that you’re singing about, to have poured out your thoughts in a song?

As I ranted, my aunt looked at me and said coolly, “People sell out in writing, too.” As she explained it, I saw the truth in her words. If you go traditional, once you get an agent and editor, you’re going to have to make changes, some of which you won’t necessarily like. Maybe your characters need to be less direct . Maybe the moral of the story gets dumbed down. This isn’t always the case, but publishing is a business. And as much as the publishing team wants you to succeed, they also want the book to sell. This is commercial, after all.

            Or maybe this isn’t the case. Maybe you hire a ghost-writer because you don’t want to deal with your drafts anymore, and they change the story too much, but then it sells. Maybe your first book goes really well, but when you propose a new idea for the next book, they change it until it isn’t yours. Or maybe when you self-publish, your readers don’t like the plot and urge you to write something that would be easier to read. Or they want the love interest to change to reflect current trends, as opposed to being the strong character you’d created.

            Any road you take, it’s not easy. There will always be someone who wants to change who you are, what your book is, as my aunt showed me. Sometimes, it’s easy, too easy to go with that choice, the choice that will make it salable. But don’t sacrifice your story. Of course, it’s easy for me to say that, when I don’t have to make this decision. Maybe I will sacrifice my writing to get published, but as for right now, I’m going to write the best book I can and keep my novel’s message intact. As Shakespeare wrote, “To thine own self be true.”

Write, Live, Repeat

I’m not a glamorous writer. If you’ve been following my blog for any amount of time, you know that. I wish I could say that I wake up early in the morning and immediately begin penning the world’s next super-amazing novel, but I don’t. I do write late at night, but it’s not nearly as interesting as you might think. I sit down with my computer, read through my outline (again) and try to make some sort of plot. I do that day after day; crazy, isn’t it?

My first drafts, too, aren’t amazing. The story’s good enough and the characters are mostly genuine, but the plot. Sage advice: Never ever lose half of your novel and try to rewrite it from scratch. This means you come up with random plots (what, there’s a rebellion now?) and the beginning and end don’t fit anymore. You also realize that you have no idea what you’re doing, and you’re writing anyway. (Hey, welcome to my life.)

I’m also not that writer who only writes when she’s inspired. Sure, I could wait for that. But then I’d just wait, and nothing would happen. Writing solely from inspiration, though poetic, doesn’t work for me. I also don’t spend hours crafting elegant sentences. I set a time limit and cram. My writing process isn’t pretty, but it works.

My characters don’t talk to me when I’m doing other life stuff. I think about them, sure, but it’s not the same. It sounds fulfilling to say, “My characters speak to me,” but mine don’t. I just write them and think they’re awesome. (There’s a great difference, you see.)

I’ve been a bad writer lately. Why? Because I haven’t been writing.

But my novel deserves more attention than that, and honestly, wasting time doesn’t do anything. I need to give my novel focus. With so much time on my hands, it’s easy to squander it on pretending to write and email and reading and fun stuff and housework, but I can’t. Besides, I believe in the story and the characters enough that it’s worthwhile. I’ll fill the document “with the breathings of my heart.” I just need to put in the time to finish this draft so I can actually do something with it. Soon it’ll be worth it, I hope. (Then I can discover the joys of editing. YAY.)

Me looking excited about editing. With bedhead.
 

So, I’m going to make myself write 3k a day. Only 18,000 more words. I can do this. My writing deserves it. I deserve it, because writing is awesome. I just got inspired, so I'm going to sign off now.

           However, it’s Father’s Day today. So, I just wanted to give a shout-out to my dad, for being awesome and encouraging me. He's always been here for me and really cares about all of us. I'm so lucky to have him. And he makes the best chocolate-chocolate-chip peanut-butter cookies ever. :)

Writing Under The Influence (Of People, I Mean. Really.)

                Every writer uses their experience in some way in their writing, whether they admit it or not. Because I am so forthcoming, I readily admit that I haven’t lived in a bubble for the past fifteen years. People draw inspiration from so many different things.

                Take, for example, my former teacher. He was my music teacher for years. He wore those weird toe-shoes and always made us take our shoes off, so his basement classroom smelled like feet. He had irrational rules, and made us sing folk songs in eighth grade that my brother was singing in first grade. He also accused us of “nervous laughter” and left his discipline book open so everyone could see who was in trouble in his class. The best part? It was often hot in his classroom, so he often had sweat stains. And his last name was Gross. (If that doesn’t inspire a memoir, I don’t know what does.)

                I do draw from the people around me, but my characters are my own. I don’t mean to, or desire to, villainize those around me, and making my characters my own is much more interesting. Besides, we all make mistakes, and even though I didn’t love my computer teacher, Ms. Champion, who used to work in a donut factory and told us (as eight-year-olds) about her divorce, there are several sides to every story. (Her last name was Champion; I swear I’m not making this up. She also left after that year because we found out she wasn’t good with computer skills. By the way, I had good teachers in my elementary school, too.)

                In all of my writing, I use inspiration from real life. My gym teacher chastising me in rugby (“Are you gonna make the same mistakes over and over again?”); the prick of a needle against my thigh; the churning fear in my stomach as I realize that I can’t control my Segway, knowing I’m going to crash. The bubble of laughter with friends;  hot chocolate after a cold day spent sledding; the dog-tired exhilaration that keeps you going at the end of a 60-mile ride, legs aching more with every hill you ascend. This all has made it into my writing. I don’t always use the exact moments, but I draw on the emotions they evoke.

Through being human, I understand others, and can create real emotions. I’ve experienced anger so intense while my sister was in pain, wishing I could take her place. I’ve been afraid, anxiety cramping in my stomach as I receive results that could determine my future. I’ve been so happy, wishing that life would never end.

                Really, that’s part of what life’s all about, isn’t it? I’m only fifteen; I don’t have all of the answers, or even most of them. But from what I’ve seen, it’s about trying and making mistakes and living in the moment and caring about people and trying to make sense of reality. And cat photos, but I don’t care about those. As Tom Clancy said, “the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense.“

Pantser Problems

I’m really awful at outlining.

I mean, I’m just not good with plot. So, I enlisted my sister, Anni, for help. It was rather unproductive. . . Rather being relative.

 

Exact conversation between my sister and I:

ME: So, can I ask you a plot question?

ANNI: Sure.

ME: So, in my novel, one of my characters was getting blackmailed, and—

ANNI: Which one? I read the first 45 pages.

ME: Nooooo! You’re not supposed to read my first drafts.

ANNI: (smiling) So, which one?

ME: (still hoping that she didn’t actually read it) My protagonist.

ANNI: Dem?

ME: (Dang it….) Yes.

ANNI: I read up to the part where the boss Executive guy—

ME: Yeah, the boss is threatening him?

ANNI: Yeah.

ME: Okay, so he Tinkers this guy who’s mumbling something about a rebellion, and then he goes to help someone because someone’s screaming, and it’s his friend Aria—

ANNI: So is Tinkering like killing someone?

ME: Err, no! It’s just knocking them unconscious. And then they, well ....

ANNI: Sure.

ME: So what do you think I should do? Should he fight, and then go back to his job, or go back to his job, and then go back and fight?

ANNI: So, that snarky girl--

ME: Luria

ANNI: So, Dem should go to his job and Luria should rescue him and they should overthrow the government and live happily ever after!

ANNI: There’s a reason I’m not a writer.

ME: (shaking head) Okay, so fight and go back to work, or go back to work and then fight?

ANNI: Fight and then go to work.

ME: (Scribbles hasty note) Thanks.

What I'm Reading

          So, in honor of Memorial Day, I read Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam, by Cynthia Kadohata. It's about this dog, Cracker, who's going to be used as an army dog after her owner, eleven-year-old Willie finds out that he can't have dogs in his apartment. A seventeen-year-old guy named Rick decides to go off and fight in the army in Vietnam because he isn't particularly good at school and he doesn't want to be stuck working in his family's hardware store. (Great reason, right?) Cracker gets assigned to her handler, Rick, and as they go through the war, they have to work together as a team, and they forge a bond.

       I don't really read war stories, but this was different. It was engrossing and realistic. I loved how Cracker acted like an actual dog, and Rick acted real too. Together, they wanted to "whip the world." They grew to care about each other and protected each other during fire. The author did a good job with making it feel real, but not too gory. I really enjoyed getting to know more about what the war was like, having never really learned about it much, and the story was told artfully. The characters were relatable. All in all, I loved this book, and would definitely recommend it if anyone wants to read a war story about Vietnam.