Words of Wisdom

I think I would be just as big a fan of Game of Thrones if it was just about Jon Snow and Tyrion:

"Had I been born a peasant, they might have left me out to die, or sold me to some slaver's grotesquerie.  Alas, I was born a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and the grotesqueries are all the poorer.  Things are expected of me.  My father was the Hand of the King for twenty years.  My brother later killed that very same king, as it turns out, but life is full of these little ironies.  My sister married the new king and my repulsive nephew will be king after him.

I must do my part for the honor of my House, wouldn't you agree?  Yet how?  Well, my legs may be too small for my body, but my head is too large, although I prefer to think it is just large enough for my mind.  I have a realistic grasp of my own strengths and weaknesses.

My mind is my weapon.  My brother has his sword, King Robert his warhammer, and I have my mind... and a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge."

Tyrion tapped the leather cover of the book.  "That's why I read so much, Jon Snow."

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled...

Funny how going back to school and having a day job again can get in the way of important endeavors like blogging.  Didn't mean to sign off for so long but lesson plans and grading don't get done by themselves.

The last few months have been very eventful for me on the writing front, day job notwithstanding.  Some highlights:

• I discovered how to use twitter as a writing resource.  Narrowing my long-dormant twitter feed to various happenings in the writing community (read: I started using twitter to follow literary agents, editors, other writers exclusively) has opened up a whole new world of possibilities.  Namely...

• I participated in a number of writing contests.  Just in the last three months, I participated in PitchWars, Nightmare on Query Street, and PitchSlam!  Didn't win (or even advance in) any of those contests but the payoff has been significant in terms of honing my craft, connecting with others on the same journey as me, and making general progress in writing pitches and query letters.  And speaking of connecting with others...

• I attended my first writers' conference.  Going to my local SCBWI's annual fall conference may have been the most transformative experience of all.  Among the many things I took away from the event, a few standout:
     
1) I had my first 10 pages of my manuscript critiqued by an editor at Bloomsbury.  Good feedback has been hard to find and I greatly appreciated the insights and impressions he shared me with.  Some of his suggestions validated things I had been thinking about (switching from YA to MG), while others (the need to develop setting more) apparently flew under my radar.

2) I really need to join a critique group.

In conclusion, while the ultimate goal of getting published has yet to be met, progress is being made.  And so the journey continues.

Must See TV

When staring up at the wall of insurmountable obstacles standing in the way of a novel breaking through to publication and reaching a broad audience, I'm reminded of another success story - about how someone's creative vision overcame early set backs and all-but-certain failure to reach critical and popular acclaim.

But this story is not about a novel.

It's about a TV show.

In 1989, NBC aired the pilot of a new sitcom.  Critics and audiences were unimpressed; the pilot bombed and plans for a full season were scrapped.  But one NBC executive, believing in the show's potential, ordered four new episodes, which aired a year later in 1990.  The ratings were just high enough to justify a second season.

In 1991, the second season began, but after a string of low ratings, NBC pulled the show and put it on hiatus, leaving it seemingly dead in the water.

The Gospels According to Voice and Show, Don't Tell

All right, enough about me.

In addition to chronicling my journey as a writer (which, thanks to the previous entry, we're all caught up with), the second thing I want to do with this blog is to highlight/explore/analyze great writing.

Where better to begin than by examining two of the more important elements in writing a story:
       
          • voice, and

          • show, don't tell

Now, as a refresher, voice is the holiest of holies for literary agents and editors (and probably readers, too).  According to my 7th Grade literature text book,

"Voice refers to a writer's unique use of language that allows a reader to "hear" a human personality in the writer's work." 

Voice also includes elements like word choice, sentence structuring, and the ability to convey a mood or a tone.

Perhaps the best way to understand the effectiveness of voice is to look at examples.  First up we have the beginning of a little-known MG fantasy book called The Lightning Thief:

"Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood.

            If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:  close this book right now.  Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

            Being a half-blood is dangerous.  It’s scary.  Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

            If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great.  Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

            But if you recognize yourself in these pages – if you feel something stirring inside – stop reading immediately.  You might be one of us.  And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you.

                                     
           Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

          My name is Percy Jackson. 

I’m twelve years old.  Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.
         Am I a troubled kid?
         Yeah.  You could say that."

What is Past is Prologue (or, Why I Do What I Do)

So what possesses an otherwise perfectly sane adult (I think) to spend their free time writing about imaginary people in imaginary places, going on imaginary adventures?  Glad you asked...

As a kid, I went to nine different schools in three different states, all between K and 9th grade... oh, wait - wrong blog.


This was my journey to becoming a writer of fantasy:

***Warning:  this post is a little lengthy and terribly self-indulgent - somewhere between a selfie and my own reality show.  But I thought it was enlightening for me to throw down almost all of my influences in one place...


1972
Born.  Nothing fantastical about that (other than my own umbilical cord tried to strangle me and failed) but you gotta start somewhere.

Never Tell Me the Odds

I decided a long time ago that I would pursue the safest, most financially secure, the easiest of professions:  fantasy novelist.

Yeah, I know... epic.

It's difficult to think of a more far-fetched career to actually achieve success with.  Consider the different stages along the journey, accomplished in succession, and the long odds attributed to each one:


1st --> Start - and finish - novel
• How many people think they could write a novel?  How many of those people actually sit down and start writing that novel... until it's finished?  It's impossible to have statistics on this, but one could say that starting - and completing - a novel is the toughest part.  Except...

Adventures in Querying Agents

Now, this was not supposed to be my second blog entry; I had something much grander in mind.  However, I just had a traumatic experience that I wanted to share.

I recently discovered this literary agent who seems to be really into epic fantasy - which is really, really rare (more on that in a soon to be published blog entry).  The bio on his agency website reveals a child/teen reading list that was identical to mine.  He even likes to write fantasy himself.  Perfect.  It just so happens that I have a new and improved query letter to submit.

So, I'm putting this e-mail submission together and I'm almost done - but not quite - when I hit "send" by accident...

Whoops.

What to do?  Re-send it?  Send a quick memo letting him know what I did?  Do nothing?  Close my eyes and put my head in the ground?

So I resent it, with a quick blurb about the mistaken previous submission.

And now I feel the need to watch "Swingers..."

"Swingers" Answering Machine Scene


Yeah, I won't hear back from that agent.

Welcome to My Blog!

Greetings & Salutations!

I would like to promise you that this will be the most interesting, insightful, wittiest and funniest blog you will read, but if it is any of these things, it will probably be by accident.

My goals for this blog are far less grand.  In short, I would like this blog to:

1) Chronicle my personal writing journey.  Part journal, I suspect a majority of my entries will reflect my own personal quest to develop my writing into a career.

2) Spotlight great writing.  An equal number of entries will be dedicated to looking a little more closely at examples of writing that have impressed me in some way, whether it’s funny, poetic, or insightful.  This will not be a review of books in their entirety; rather, the focus will probably center on components like voice and style and all the various elements of story.

3) List or link to writing resources.  On occasion, I’d like to support publicly many of the online 

resources that I have found so valuable.  In addition to the “Blogs That I Follow” widget in the sidebar, these entries would be a more in-depth look at something another site has focused on.

And there you go.  Thanks in advance for taking the time to take a look.  And, of course, any comments or feedback would be much appreciated!