Category Archives: Karen Whalen
Be ready to duck
We’ve been back in New Hampshire for a little over a week now. Last night was my first writing group meeting since December. And I actually jumped right back into the fray and submitted a revision of my “Jamie” story.
I suppose I could be accused of creating the fray when, following all of the insightful comments from my fellow writers, I took my copy of my story and tossed it into the air. Some might say I flung it across the room but no one can claim that it hit them. So much for saving my ranting and raving for the drive home…..
My husband was appalled when I told him what I had done. He feels that now no one will be honest with their comments in the future, fearful that they will provoke a similar reaction. Not my writing group. Not after five years of sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly. (That’s my writing–everyone else’s is good to outstanding in my mind.)
I am hopeful that they are still happy to have me back after my winter away……I certainly am thankful to be back with my “muses”!
This morning I reviewed the written comments from two of the members of my group. It’s always eye-opening to see my writing through their eyes. Areas that are clear to me they find confusing. Why? It’s clear in my mind what I am trying to convey–but not so much on paper it appears. How would I ever identify those deficiencies without their assistance? Once I’ve written multiple drafts of a story, it becomes harder and harder to recognize problem areas on my own. Reading it out loud helps–but after correcting any issues that jump out at that point, my writing always sounds pretty darn good. To me.
So thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your patience and support. And I suppose next time I submit you’ll be ready to duck.
Just write it
On our way back home to New Hampshire after wintering in Arizona, we are spending a few weeks with our daughter Jennifer and family in Williamsburg, VA. The region, and our daughter’s house itself, is the setting for one of the numerous stories I have started. And never finished. It is only natural that I am motivated to resurrect the story while we are here.
After nearly a year it’s overwhelming on the one hand and like Christmas on the other to open all of my Word files and reread what I wrote (what seems like) so long ago. Six versions, seven installments submitted to my writing group, and one final complete story. And an equal amount of backstory and plot possibilities. Questions without answers. Questions that deserve answers. Meaning that there really never was a final complete story.
The comments from my writing group come flooding back. One person thought the description of the protagonist’s lunch was unnecessary while another thought it showed insight into the character. That’s just one of the comments I recall.
I do remember that the six versions were driven by the diverse comments from my writing group. I appreciate them all and know, deep down, that they can only improve the story. However, I am assured that it is my prerogative as the author to use any, all, or none of them.
My husband, who paints as a hobby during his retirement and knows nothing of the torture we writers endure, instructed me to pick one option, any option, and just write it. But I can’t seem to find my way out of the whirlpool of plot possibilities swirling around me to commit to just one and do as he instructs.
I know. This is a common thread in my blogs, my discussions with my writing group and my friends and family, in my head. Finish it. Answer those questions. Pick one scenario and stick with it. Has her daughter had an affair with the intruder? Or is she currently having one? Is she still married or recently divorced? Did he steal the Honda Odyssey van or the BMW? Did she ask him to steal her car or just jokingly mention it in conversation? Did the mother, my protagonist, go to the methadone clinic or not? Is there even a methadone clinic? See my dilemma??
For research, I am heading to the garage to have my husband tie me to the newel post with string from the lawn edger to see if it will work for my story. One of my writing group participants questioned the ability of the string to restrain my protagonist. We shall see if one of my questions is answered….
I need my writing group
I miss my writing group.I miss the motivation, the camaraderie, it provides. But more importantly for my writing I need my writing group. I feel accountable to the group to contribute. Away from my Thursday Night Writers for four months now (and another month before I arrive home), my writing has dwindled to a trickle.
I did some quickie research on what writing groups “should” do. It appears we are in noncompliance in a few areas. Yet how to explain our over five years of success as a writing group that meets weekly?
1) Have a mission statement or a written goal. We don’t. Jeez, what’s up with that?
2) Get in on the ground floor. In our group, some have come and gone but four of us have been here since day one.
3) Help each other get published. A few in our group have. We mainly just help each other keep writing. Or provide constructive feedback so that the author won’t be embarrassed when he or she submits something to a contest, literary journal, or agent, or self-publishes.
4) Pick a group that focuses solely on your genre. Living in a rural area we can’t do that (and not everyone writes in just one genre) so occasionally we have issues with other members understanding how something is written. For example, some write cozies and yet others don’t read cozies.
What do I think we do exceptionally well that not all groups do?
- Our works are submitted in advance, allowing members time to read and absorb the material. Sometimes “in advance” may be a mere hour or two!
- Meetings are well controlled by John, our group leader/facilitator. He is the sun around which we revolve!
- We are happy to see each other, we have fun, and we write. We have birthday parties, Christmas parties, celebrations for getting published or winning awards, and anniversary parties for the founding of the group. Some of us meet for lunch on Fridays. Yet we work hard.
- We willingly share our knowledge with our fellow writers. Having a former police detective in our group comes in mighty handy, especially when we’re writing about guns and crimes.
Six days before my husband and I are due to leave Arizona, I discovered a web page listing twenty-eight writers’ groups and “meetups” in the East Valley. They range from “The Erotic Voice” (13 Eroticians) to “East Valley Writers—Spec Fic (paranormal, sci fi, fantasy)” (12 Evil Dwarves) to “Chandler Romance Writing Meetup” (27 authors). Some of the meetups have one thousand members.
I am quite certain that I deliberately did not do this research upon our arrival in January. I don’t want a new writing group—I need mine from NH! The one I’m comfortable with. The one whose members I can relate to, understand their comments, and get slightly defensive with.
Though I do try to save my ranting and raving for the drive home.
Write About What You Are Afraid Of
Advice for writers: write about what you are afraid of. I’ve never been very good at that. In fact, when things have happened to me that nightmares are made of (hitting a pedestrian with my company car, getting adrenal cancer, to name a few) I can’t write. I won’t write. I avoid recording my thoughts and emotions, even just the facts. Maybe that’s why I took two memoir writing classes, to find a way to break through that wall. Yet I still have no desire to write about what I fear. Possibly that will develop as I grow as a writer.
This week I read Laura Moriarty’s book, “The Rest of Her Life,” about a teenage girl who hits and kills a pedestrian in a crosswalk. I was interested in how another author would approach this topic, especially from the driver’s perspective. Moriarty focused more on the relationships among the family members and how they all dealt differently with the accident. I didn’t get what I wanted from the novel. But that’s what happens when you read a book, especially fiction. You get what the author wants to give you.
Cancer. If I wanted to write about my experience with adrenal cancer I’d be competing with a multitude of other cancer books. I doubt if I have anything new to contribute. Even if I did, I still have no desire to write about it.
I want to write about people who don’t exist. Whose lives I have made up and control. Whose lives do not resemble mine. In other words, books and stories I would want to read, characters I could engage with, who entertain me but don’t mimic me. I can’t engage with myself. Do other writers?
Woman in Gold
Yet there is one story that I play a minor role in that both piques my interest and frightens me, the story of my German heritage through my mother. We have both Nazis and Jews for relatives; anyone who knew about the Jews is long gone. My mother, though Christian, lost two brothers during World War II. They got on a train and my mother’s family never saw them again. Watching the movie “Woman in Gold” this morning not only brought me to tears, it also resurrected my need to know more about the German history of my family. I must hurry—my mother is 87. This is a story I want to write although it has been written before. But this one would be for me.
Desire Isn’t Enough
Arizona hummingbird-my muse?
I’ve moved from the bed of the dim, cozy casita to the patio adorned with blue sky and sunshine. Little birds chatter in the palo verde trees. The water fountain bubbling in the background competes with the wind chimes in the tree. Helicopters and Canada geese fly overhead while the thrum of a hummingbird draws my attention to the feeder. A ruby glitter signals this is a male. My muse, perhaps?
I have decided to read outside rather than write inside—the comfort of the bed was about to lure me to sleep at eleven in the morning. Or was it the pressure to write that caused my eyes to glaze over, my lids to droop? Yet here I am, outside, surprised to find pen and paper, rather than my Kindle, in hand. How is it that the distractions of a glorious winter morning in Arizona are allowing me to focus on my writing when I was convinced that I needed quiet and seclusion, and especially darkness, to get words, action, characters, plot, onto paper?
Excuses. I have plenty of them. The environment isn’t conducive to writing (see above), I have too many other things to do (aren’t I retired?), I don’t have the energy (it’s the medicine), my Words with Friends and Trivia Crack opponents are waiting for my next move (life or death situation to some).….you get the drift.
I can’t write on demand–the forces of the universe must be perfectly aligned before I can put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard,
I’m a winner!
with words leading to paragraphs to chapters to a book. A completed book. Yet I have won NaNoWriMo two times—a “complete” novel, 50,000 words written in the month of November! How do I reconcile this?
NaNoWriMo frees me. No inner critic sits on my shoulder or on the page. No time for self-doubt, perfection, or the fear of failure that normally trigger my procrastination. No concern over what my writing group will think. And then there’s that deadline. All I need for the other eleven months of the year is to find a way to replicate NaNoWriMo, to accept that my first draft will be a shitty first draft, and my creative juices will flow. Miraculously, I will become a published author. Though I have heard that it also takes hard work, writing every day, perseverance. Oh, and I can’t forget a dash of talent. Desire isn’t enough. And desire is all that I seem to be able to muster.
A few nights ago I was up until one in the morning reading a novel, anxious, as usual, to find out how it would end. Although it was my own 2014 NaNoWriMo submission, I had already forgotten. Now I remember how as midnight on November 30 approached those last few sentences seemingly leapt from the keyboard onto the page, surprising even me. Funny how that happens.
Eleanor Ingbretson
Karen Whalen
llandrigan
Heidi Wilson
Mike M
Thursday Night Writes 