Full Ms Sent Out

Wonderful to have Grace at War out in the agent world again. Go, Grace!

2011 The Year of Grace

I'm working on Grace using some great comments from Wendy and my own re-seeing of the book. It is humbling and scary. I feel defenceless and yet armed with the power to make the book sing.

Reminds me of therapy, nothing for it but to give myself over--not to grief this time, but to the power of my own imagination. And of the English language.

Revision, the fresh envisioning of a work of one's own hand and mind and heart, is not for wimps.

Coaching Yourself

A good end-of-year exercise! I will get back to GRACE on January 3, 2011.

Ten-Minute Tip: Coach Yourself

by Charlotte Rains Dixon, WordStrumpet

As a precursor to hiring a coach, spend a little time working with yourself. Answer the following questions:

1. What was your biggest writing success in 2010?
2. Your biggest writing problem?
3. If you were coaching yourself, what suggestions would you make to yourself about your writing problem?
4. How can you put these suggestions into action? When will you put them into action?
5. What are your three most important writing goals for 2011?
6. How will you implement them?
7. If you get stalled on these goals, how will you push forward?

Writer, mentor, and coach Charlotte Rains Dixon is passionate about helping writers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and creative professionals succeed, achieve, and profit in their careers and lives through writing. Visit her for more tips and techniques on writing--and living--at www.wordstrumpet.com.

My Brother, Agents, and Writing in Class

For WHM

In this one you are with me and our cousins, Hank and John, in Baldwin, on the south shore of Long Island. It’s 1950 or 1951and we are posing at the edge of a canal in the shipyard where Granddaddy keeps his motor boat. We just got back from our annual day trip through Jones Inlet. You and I stand in the middle with our arms around each other and clearly we take care of each other. We are as plain and sturdy as our scuffed Buster Brown shoes.

Hank and John, wearing sneakers, are aliens from Planet Cousin and we have no clue about them. If you are trying to cheer John up with a hug, it isn’t working. We love the person who is taking the picture, probably our mother or father, though John seems more interested in the ground in front of him.

Over the years to come the tides of our lives will pull you and me together and keep us apart, but we will always be Susan and William, Sister and Brother.

In 2001, from the rocky shore of Nova Scotia, I scattered your ashes in the cold waters of St.Margaret’s Bay, where you once took me for a day trip on your motor boat, Seaweed 2.

Now you travel on the tides to all the waters of the world.

AGENT for GRACE

Sent follow-up #3 to an agent who has yet to acknowledge. This time I re-sent the whole ms. requested in May.
We'll see. Meanwhile the ending is nagging at me, as is the idea of pitching GRACE as "edgy" YA.

IN CLASS

Writing in class with my students for 10 minutes at a time, 7 times a week, is enlightening. I have 7 classes, each meets once a week.) Twice I write on one topic, four times on another, and once a week a class with its own, entirely different, topic. I have uncovered some startling insights this way. The ten-minute student writings are always interesting. This is the only time everyone tackles the same prompt.

Homework is an "invitation," so any topic is acceptable if the invititee has other writing priorities. I often use my own writing as an example in the Invitations. For example, I used the the meditation on Will (2nd from left in picture above) as an example of writing to a person in a photograph "In this one, you are..."

Hospital

This garden’s white and green

Fat with waste-waxed floors

Crisp white machines.

“Good veins,” approves Nurse Thing.

A room with a view of sky.

Last sight; last rite.

This is a garden of wolf’s tongue

And wean balm,

of Queens’ Ears and

Devils’ Teeth.

This is a garden of the sick to death,

A formal garden of the

Never mind.

Dog Days and Reliving Your Scenes

OK, they are supposedly called "dog days" because of the dog star but I know better. Saw a mom toting plastic bags of school supplies trailed by two foot-dragging kids in a hot parking lot, 1 p.m. on a Friday in August, all were bored and tried and hot -- dog days written all over them.

Meanwhile, I am inspired by James Scott Bell:

1. RELIVE YOUR SCENES. Not rewrite. Relive.

Have you ever imagined yourself to be the characters? Tried to feel what they’re feeling? Try it now. It’s not hard. Be an actor.

Often, after I’ve written a scene, I’ll go back and try to live the emotions. I’ll act out the parts I’ve created. Almost always what I feel “in character” will make me add to or change the scene.

You can also imagine the scene, step by step, in your mind. Let it play like a movie. But instead of watching the movie from a seat in the theater, be in the scene. The other characters can’t see you, but you can see and hear them.

Intensify the proceedings. Let things happen. Let characters improvise. If you don’t like what they come up with, rewind the scene and allow them to do something else.

Look at the beginnings of your scenes. What do you do to grab the reader at the start? Have you spent too much time with description of setting? Often the better course is to start in medias res (in the middle of things) and drop in description a little later.

Examine scene endings. What have you provided that will make the reader want to read on? Some great places to stop a scene are:

• At the moment a major decision is to be made.
• Just as a terrible thing happens.
• With a portent of something bad about to happen.
• With a strong display of emotion.
• When raising a question that has no immediate answer.

Keep improving your scenes and your novel will soon develop that can’t-put-it-down feel.

From: "5 Easy Tips to Strengthen Your Scenes," Writer's Digest 8/3/10,

http://www.writersdigest.com/article/5-easy-tips-to-strengthen-your-scenes

Family Time

Great news from Ben-- an agent asked to see more of his novel today. First step in agent search, get pages of the book in his or her hands! The response to his fine query letter came in two weeks. His book is intriguing and well written and I hope she loves it! Good job, Ben!