Write What You Write

(Or how I learned to stop measuring myself against everyone else and love my book.)

I’m not like everybody else. I know that. They taught us way back in elementary school that everyone is different, and everyone has value. We learned that we should embrace what’s different in ourselves. Even as an adult, Oprah and the self-help gurus encourage us to love the parts of ourselves we’re inclined to hate - the things you can’t change - because they’re yours, and they make you you.

Most of the time I can do that. I’m a dork. I love sci-fi and British humor. (Hello Doctor Who!) I’m a grown woman who prefers books for teens. I went to a New Kids On The Block concert – last summer. I may have once been spotted dancing around my kitchen to a Justin Bieber song. (Although this is yet to be proven.) I hate chocolate. I’m me.

I write stories that are very me. Things that I want to read and that, for the most part, aren’t like what’s already out there.

But sometimes, when scanning the latest book deals, or beta-reading an awesome ms, I begin to doubt that my book has value. When I see the fourth werewolf trilogy to sell in a month or I look at those blurbs of mindblowing concepts about zombies and space ships and dystopian worlds and retellings set in futuristic locations and sweet quirky romances (all books I want to read) I think, why don’t I write stuff like that? Why don’t those ideas come to me? And then I think, no one will ever want my book when there are so many truly awesome ones out there. And then I put my ms aside and try to come up with my very own Zombie Apocalypse in Space Quirky Romance – with Werewolves. (Which I just came up with this second and am totally doing, so you can take that one off your list!)

It never works. Why? Because I’m trying to come up with someone else’s book. I can’t get passionate about the idea. I don’t feel true to myself.

And so it comes down to this: I can love my books because they're mine and work to make them the very best representation of the mashup between my skills and the crazy things floating around in my head. And then I can trust that if I put my passion into my work, other people will connect with it even if it doesn’t have werewolves in a dystopian spaceship falling in love with quirky girls during the zombie apocalypse. (Seriously, I’m going to write this. Back off.) OR I can sit at my computer, paralyzed by the fear that nothing I come up with will ever be good enough.

I choose to write. What do you choose? What do you do when it seems like everyone’s ideas are way cooler than yours?

How I Create Shiny New Ideas

It seems like one of the most common question for any writer is: Where do you get your ideas? (I know I'm in awe of writers like J.K. Rowling and Melissa Marr who create entire worlds!) So I thought I'd share some of the ways I come up with my ideas. Here's the one that works best for me:

SHEER FORCE OF WILL

Really. One of my all time favorite quotes on writing (which I've probably shared here before) is by Toni Morrison and it says:

If there's a book you want to read, but it hasn't been written yet. Then you must write it.

It's this quote, more than anything that has pushed me into writing the books I'm writing rather than leaving them as scribbles in a notebook.

Sure, I get ideas from dreams, from watching the news, from music, from reading a book and wishing it had turned out differently. Sometimes I get really excited by them and start a notebook (and now that I have the super awesome-tastic Scrivener, a Scrivener file) for fleshing it out. But by and large, the ideas that have stuck with me to become stories are the ones I wanted to write even before I knew what they were.

For instance, my WIP SLEEPER came from an intense desire to read a book where a girl kicked serious butt. I couldn't find one, and I knew that I wanted to write one, but I had no idea what that story was going to be. Would it be Urban Fantasy? Contemporary? Futuristic? Magical? I had no clue. Only the desire to create something that involved butt-kicking action and excitement.

And this is where the sheer force of will comes in. I focused on what I wanted. I ignored other shiny ideas that were perhaps more complete, but not exciting to me. I asked myself questions. Who is this butt-kicking girl? Why is she kicking butt? How does she feel about being so butt-kickingly awesome? Whose butt is she kicking? And finally, as I let those questions marinate in my subconscious, she began to speak to me. And her voice was more clear than any other character I'd created. She told me the story of how she came to kick butt, and how it made her feel and before I knew it I was sitting down at my laptop and spitting out 7500 words all in one sitting! I was scribbling copious notes in my notebook about who she was, who her friends were, where she lived, what she wanted, and a surprisingly complex plot. It was all there.

From the desire to write the story, to knowing my MC and writing those first 7500, it took maybe two weeks. Does it always happen that fast? No. But are the ideas I come up with this way better than the ones that just pop into my head? So far, yes. They're the ones I'm most excited to write. It's weird, since any idea I come up with obviously comes from me. But somehow the ones that I create out of a desire to do something specific feel more powerful. Like I earned them somehow.

So I guess what I'm trying to say here is if you don't have totally brilliant shiny new ideas falling on your head like rain, don't be discouraged. Think about the kind of story you want to tell and focus your energy on that. Ask yourself questions about why you want to tell that kind of story, what you hope to achieve, how you want it to make readers feel. It will come, and it'll probably be your best one yet!

What about you? What tricks do you use to get your ideas to the point you have to write them?

In Which I Fail At Blogging - And Awards!

Wow, a whole week and not a single post! I suck! Between nerve-wracking revisions and critiques for several AWESOME writers I haven't had enough brain power left to blog.

I'm coming up on my very first Blogaversary and I'm thinking it's time I come up with some structure for this blog. A weekly schedule of posts I think. So I'm asking you, is there any features you'd like to see on my blog?

Here are some of my ideas:

* A weekly post devoted to an up and coming writer.
* A weekly book review.
* A weekly writing post (of the tips/advice/structure variety).

Not sure what else. Friday Five? Link roundup? Something more personal about my own writing progress?

Let me know what you'd like to see!

And now, I have a few new awards that I've been lax at posting.

First, from author Kristie Cook - The Life Is Good Award. Thank you Kristi!:

And here are the questions I get to answer:

1. What is your favorite genre to read? Why?
YA, obviously! It's weird, but I find myself reading more Contemporary than Paranormal even though I'm definitely a Paranormal/Sci-Fi writer. I also really like Kathy Reich's books (and other adult mystery/crime fic like that) although I haven't read any adult books in over a year.

2. If you couldn't write in the genre you do, what genre would you write in?
If I couldn't write in my genre, I'd probably just write screenplays instead.

3. Pepsi or Cola?
Coke, but really, I'm a Dr. Pepper girl.

4. How do you like to spend your Sundays?
Lounging around with a good book.

5. Penguin or Giraffe?
Where I live, we have a zoo where you can feed giraffes (they eat right out of your hand), which is really cool, so I'll go with them since I've never met a penguin.

6. What type of vehicle do you drive?
I drive a little blue box. The original Scion xB - the one that's really square. I love it.

7. Would you lick a battery if your life depended on it?
My friends and I used to do this in elementary school. It started as a dare and then we realized that little shock on your tongue was oddly addicting so we quit. But if my life depended on it? Sure.

8. When do you like to write - in the morning, in the afternoon, evening?
I used to be a late at night kind of writer, but when I did NaNoWriMo, I found that I really enjoyed getting up early brewing some coffee and getting my wordcount in before anything else. It makes the whole day feel better if I know I've already written.

9. Which do you like more - Facebook or Twitter?
This is tough. I don't tweet very much - I find that if I do I end up reading tweets all day and not doing anything else - but I think Twitter is awesome. I use facebook more just because it's less intensive. I can browse what people are doing whenever I feel like it without missing out. I'm going to say it's a tie right now. When I finish these revisions and get to spend more time on Twitter I'll see.

10. If you get hurt (like a scrape on the knee or break your arm), do you ask for a band aid?
What an odd question. Ask who? If I'm out in public and I'm bleeding I suppose I might, otherwise I just get it myself.

And now, from Shalena at Writer Quirk - The Versatile Blogger Award. Thanks Shalena!:



For this award, I must share 7 things about myself:

1. I have a dog named Baxter that is a Husky/Beagle mix. And a calico cat named Lola.

2. For years my favorite color was orange, but now it's green.

3. When I was ten I started my first YA book. It was a teen romance. I wish I could find that notebook.

4. I was allergic to cats when I got Lola. I thought if I started small I would build a tolerance to her and I did!

5. I love British tv! (Especially Doctor Who and Life On Mars.)

6. I have 4 tattoos but two were add-ons so it looks like I just have two.

7. I was a cheerleader in junior high and high school before switching to the flag corps.

I'll have to do another post to pass these awards along. In the meantime, have a happy 4th of July weekend!

Dreaming Up Ideas

So last night, just as I was falling asleep I had a vision, so to speak. An image of a cute boy with a backstory so interesting that I knew immediately that he had to have his story told. By me. In a book. Probably, several books.

One problem. Writing his story will require massive amounts of research. I mean MASSIVE. I need to learn about an ancient religion, folklore, a major city I've been to once, for one day, and of course, magic. For most of the topics, I don't even know where to go to get the info, so I would have to research researching! Still, I'm pretty fascinated by the idea. These are all topics I've been interested in for a long time. I'm going to build him a little room in the back of my brain and see if he tells me something more about himself and where his story is going.