BAM! KAPOW! SPLATT! THWACK!

(Thank you, 60's Batman, for the onomatopoeia.)

Why does the answer to everything seem to be violence?

Books, movies, real life. Blood, gore, guns. Maybe I'm too much a wuss for this. I don't believe every problem needs to be solved by punching, shooting, blowing up, or some form of superhero power liberally applied.

It's inescapable. In my first fantasy novel, I gave one of the heroes a sword. He refused to use it again after seeing the aftermath of his warmongering. He gave it away. In my new WIP, one of the protagonists refuses to carry a gun, although almost everyone in his world does. He knows his refusal will not change a damn thing but it aligns with his values.  Which probably align with mine, since every character, at its core, is me or evil me or pissed off me or head in the sand me.

The Folly of Youth

 

When I was younger and in the Army as an engineer, I took great glee in blowing up things like bridges, tossing hand grenades with abandon, and shooting my rifle at targets, never connecting that if I went to war, I would be required to apply these methods to people.

Then I learned to use words. Words are molasses poured over the violence urge, or gasoline tossed on the pyre. Used judiciously they support and defend. Used viciously, they flay. I do believe they have power over the sword if only to blunt the edge. Unfortunately, people are moving away from the written word, the spoken word, the lovingly crafted word toward a society of shouty words and half-baked memes standing in for a thoughtful conversation.

That's a shame.

All you poets and writers keep on doing what you do. Society needs you now, more than ever. Fight the good fight. Maybe it's your words that will change the world for the better, or at least plant a seed.

Staying Afloat in a Writing Ocean

What's true with the rest of life/hobbies/interests is true with writing. So many facts and details to keep
track of. I really want to keep up with what's going on in the writing industry, so I read blog posts and 
tweets and articles and books and newsletters. You know what? It's too much information to absorb. 
You can read too much about how to do things and it can be paralyzing as all the advice you read rolls
through your head when primarily there should be the story, or poem up there. 

Or at least that's how I want it to be. The information also paralyzes by raising doubts. Do I have story 
beats, plot structure, character arcs, action, a catchy opening? That can lead to obsession and 
reworking things over and over again until the piece is informationed into a hot mess. Then you say 
Argh, I can't do this, I'm going to take up knitting. (Knitting is a lovely hobby. Highly recommend.)

Social Media Overload

It's also intimidating to read breezy posts about how someone tweeted something and had an agent the
next day. Or has 20,000 followers and aren't even published yet. It's exhausting to think of social media
and the time sink of promoting yourself. It doesn't stop me from gritting my teeth and posting cheery
—okay, okay, mostly sarcastic—stuff. Maybe I'm too old for social media. But it's probably because
I'm way too private a person to hang my laundry out for the world to see. I was told cultivated glimpses
were the answer to that. A thought worth exploring. I think I can do that and still be my sarcastic self. 
That's definitely me, too. 

Reading agent blogs/websites/tweets is a whirl of conflicting information. Query like this, no, like this. 
Start your novel like this, no, like this. Same with writer's forums. So much chaff to sift through to get 
to the nuggets. The time sink can swallow you whole. Of course, what it all comes down to is, do the 
best you can. If it's not good enough for one person/publication, shrug and move on to the next. 
I gave up taking it personally a long time ago. I have skin of mithril. It leaves bruises, 
but they heal quickly. 

And what's up with all these contests? The lists to find places to submit have more contests than 
regular spots. I just want to submit some poems or a book/chapbook, not pay $20-30 for the privilege 
of doing so each and every time. It's like The Hunger Games of writing, but the odds are never in your 
favor. The slow grind of society is monetizing everything and offering shortcuts, advice, and 
motivation—for a price. I need to be able to afford yarn and dog food also. 

Throw Me a Rope

There are so many places to send poems and novels it's overwhelming. Research can cut the odds 
considerably but suspiciously feels like sending a message out in a bottle—the same time frame for 
a response also. The writing industry is an ocean and I'm out there on a paddleboard. But I really like 
the ocean so I stay and play. Information can be your life preserver or boots filled with water. It's up 
to you to choose your own adventure.

What do you do to combat the tsunami of writing advice?

Revising 101 (Housekeeping)

The most important thing to revision? Buy lots of ink cartridges and printer paper. You might be tempted to skip this step. Don't. This applies to both novels and poetry. Print that sucker out. I know, I know, it seems like a PITA to use all that ink and paper on something you just know is perfection. 

Trust me, it's not. Errors are insidious, from little things like the word 'out' instead of 'our'. Hard to spot. Or transposed letters because your eyes crossed when reading that particular section. Or words just flat missing. My favorite in my work is prepositions that go AWOL. Those suckers scatter like roaches when you turn on the light. 

Go Big or Go Home

The advice I scoffed at—at first—was to change the font of the work to something totally different, and enlarge. So I changed from Times New Roman to Arial. To Calibri. I still missed things. But when I changed it to Comic Sans 14 point. Oh, My. Errors stood out with big flashing signs. "You screwed up here! Notice me! (Pick the ugly font of your choice. It works.)

It takes a lot of paper to do this. I could use my novel as a doorstop. Or a firestarter. Somedays, it's Burn, Baby, Burn first and foremost in my brain. Oh, and paperclip every chapter together. Or bull clip it, or put in separate labeled file folders in a drawer. Because when you drop it—and you will—frantic sobbing won't put things back in order. Neither will the cat that chooses that moment to walk over it and sharpen his claws on stray sheets. 

If you hole punch after editing each page and put it in a binder, make sure you empty your hole punch sooner rather than later. Because if you accidentally knock the tray off, little white circles go everywhere. You'll be finding them for months. They defeat the suckiest of vacuum cleaners. You could always sprinkle catnip over it, and hope your static-y cat rolls in them and picks a bunch up. Then you can vacuum the cat. 

Let me know how that works out. 

What are your housekeeping revision tips?

Poetry Submissions for the Rest of Us

So, I've been reading submission guidelines while I search for places to home my poetry. A lot of them leave me scratching my head. 

"We want poetry that makes our heart go POW and our head pop off the stem of our neck spouting blood like a geyser. We want work that zings our strings and causes a rabid dog to bay at the moon. Send us work that has the diversity of fungal infected wildflowers and the factory installed parts of a slightly used car. Come whiffling through the tulgey wood, and burble as you come, with thematic intent."

WTF?

All I really want to know is whether the magazine wants free verse, forms, more traditional, prose poems, experimental, or political. Do they consider rhyming poetry? Non-traditional? Edgy? Short? Long? Tattooed on your left hand? How can you tailor your work to the magazine when you can't decipher the code? Back issues don't always help.

I'll take utterly clueless for $500, Alex.

Maybe my poetry magazine to poet translator is busted. 

Maybe I'm getting old. 

Maybe I should stick to writing fantasy. 

Maybe I just throw my poetry at the submissions wall and see what sticks. Yep, I like this option. 

(And when I do find a place for my work)—

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

      Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

      She chortled in her joy.

Digging Weeds From the Story Garden

Spring has sprung, the grass has riz, I wonder where my story is?

There I was, skipping merrily down the path, sun shining, the birds maniacally tweeting, and my brand new sneakers soft and bouncy. The path ended abruptly. I smacked face first into a brick wall, bending my nose 20 degrees out of joint. Where did this brick wall come from, you ask? Why, I put it there myself. 2/3rds of the way through the Newest Fantasy Novel, my little happy boat 'o progress sank like a concrete mafia block with my characters tied to the sides.

I was stuck.

And not even at a hard part. I was stuck on something that I had written in the rough draft that sounded fine at the time, but now needed tweaking. My tweaker wasn't working. I made four attempts at cleaning/scrubbing/spackling over the problem area. Nothing took. Me being me, I went back to the beginning of the novel and read it all again, 35 chapters. Along the way I went Oh. Hmm. I didn't realize I did that. Wow, so that's where that section derails.

I found my lost thread hidden several chapters back from the problem. I gave it a yank and it flopped out of the novel to hit me in the face like a wet fish. Here, dummy, this is where you need to be to get unstuck up the creek. I had been trying to write past the end point of the issue. Right there, in my problem paragraph, was the end of the chapter. I was just too caught up in making it conflict-y, lean and spare that I failed to take the idea to its logical conclusion. So I went back to the inciting thread, expanded that part a bit more, so that what comes later makes more sense. I expanded problem paragraph past its anorexic roots, and it worked. The paragraph was happy, I was happy. All is right in my imaginary world. Onward!

Moral of my story, it works for novels, and for poems. Lately I've been editing my poems with a chainsaw, when maybe some pruning shears would have been better. Seed, water, let it grow, then prune. Or if necessary, add fertilizer and let it expand. Within reason, because man, if you add too much, or the wrong kind, that stuff can stink. Don't let your writing stink. Be a good gardener. Oh, and planting a flower or two along the way for later enjoyment never hurts.

How is YOUR spring writing going?