Goober Writers Anonymous--Victoria Caswell

Goober Writers Anonymous is a group for writers to vent about past or present writerly mistakes for therapeutic reasons, to educate others, or just for a laugh.  If you would like to join the group and sign up to submit a guest post, please leave me your email address in the comments below.

Perks of joining:  You get to put the nifty little badge on your blog (yes, this does indeed make you cool), sharing with others and being a part of a group is always fun, and I will put a link to your blog on my blog below under Members of GWA.

Today's guest blogger is Victoria Caswell from Hairnets and Hopes.  Vic is a special kind of awesome.  She's one of those people who's enormously talented and doesn't even know it.  And I'm lucky enough to have her as my beta!  Yeah, I hit the jackpot with that one.  Please visit her fun, witty, and all-around great blog and become a follower.  I'll wait.

Back yet?  Excellent.  Now enjoy her post!

Goober offense: But My Mama says? Crit-What?

Heya guys! Emily’s great, isn’t she? 

Well, I’m still fairly new to this lovely process of seeking publication, so I’m still goobering it up every day! I wonder if we ever get past the goobers… I wonder if we want to! It’s in the mistakes of life that we learn the most! (I should be a stinkin’ genius by now!!!)

Anyway! One of my BIGGEST mistakes was taking my first draft and only showing it to my loved ones (hubby and mama) and taking their love-blinded advice and praise and letting myself believe it. Now, my hubs and mom are BRILLIANT, honest, creative people. My mom’s tried for publication herself, and the hubs- well goodness- he’s tougher than House off-meds! But even they aren’t immune to what I call “The Hometown Band Effect.”

Have you ever become groupie-crazy-obsessed about some band that just happens to be local? You go to all the concerts, gossip with your friends about how cute the bass-guitarist is, and tattoo their logo on your ankle? Years later, you listen to a recording of them, and sure they’re pretty good, but the magic that you thought they had… well, it’s gone.

Not that this exact thing happened to me- my hometown band Anavox still rocks socks- dudes!!! Need proof?  Click on the song!

Find more artists like Anavox at MySpace Music

Rockin', huh?  I'm no liar! :)

ANYWAY:

Just like that rock concert, when you’re up close to that stage, the noise, the thrumming of the enthusiastic crowd…

The soaring melodies soar higher, there are no intonation problems, there is just fervor and power and enjoyment. That’s what it’s like for our loved ones when they read our WIP’s. They cannot see/ hear the flaws clearly. They are too close to us, too close to the project.

And too much proximity, my fellow goobers, can KILL your manuscript!

So. Find a critique partner.

Find someone who is not your friend or family (although they might become your BFF later!)

Find someone who knows the business, the craft.

Someone who is trying to become better.

 Someone you can help.

Someone who can help you.

You NEED objective, quasi-professional crit. You NEED it yesterday! :)

I suggest this place for finding a good crit partner. It’s where I found my irreplaceable gal-friday Yosh! And Yosh’s advice has TRANSFORMED my WIP!

Thanks for listening...  errr... reading... and if you clicked on the song, listening.... i guess. :)

AND

Thanks for having me Em!

Great advice!  Although, I'll admit my family did just the opposite with me.  :o  But still, always better to find help elsewhere and places like the Bransforums is a great place to start!

Thanks, Vic!

Discussion:  Praise time!  Do you guys have any great betas or CPs you'd like to praise today?  Go right ahead!  Or if this goober tale reminded you of your own early only-family-gets-to-see-this mistakes, share those too!

~Emily White

Do You Have a Soul?

Or rather, does your novel?

Yup, I've got a few extra minutes this morning, so I'm going to take advantage of this day I normally reserve for a day off.




I got a couple books out of the library last Saturday (I know, I know, but you must always find time for reading) and I read one of them over the weekend.  The book was crafted extraordinarily well.  The style was unique and pushed me along to read more.  But there was something else about this book that kind of made that little lightbulb go off in my head and find the connection between this book and a few others I've read.

They all had souls.

These rare gems rise above their peers with true life and vibrancy.  Not only do they reveal their secrets within the pages, but they force their readers to do the same.

And I think having this life and vibrancy, this soul, goes beyond merely stringing words along correctly and telling a good tale.  There are some wildly popular and entertaining novels out there that haven't quite reached soul status.  That's not to say they aren't good.  In fact, there are many on the NY Times Bestseller List that are crafted beautifully, but they lack that additional umph to make them truly come alive.

It's much like that guy who painted the campbell's soup cans (sorry, can't remember his name) being compared with Leonardo da Vinci.  That guy was hugely popular and his art still is.  But though it may be appealing to the eye and even a little out there, it kind of just stays there on the canvas.  But Da Vinci?  Now, his art makes you take a look at your own soul.

The same is true with writing.  We can do everything right--obey all the writerly rules (or break them only in the best of places), craft fun and exciting characters in fun and exciting worlds, and even come up with something truly out there, something people have never seen--and still have no soul.

I don't think it's possible for a writer to be able to tell if his/her own work has this extra umph.  I know I can't.  I'm pretty sure I've strung a good story, but I don't know if I've brought up issues and presented them in that little extra way that will make people go "wow, now that speaks to me."

Besides the book I read last weekend (which I will review next Monday), there is another book on my mind that was right there with the clicking lightbulb, getting connected with all the other books that have touched me in the past.  This is a book that I have consistently tried to figure out just why I loved it so much.  So many people have told me I should hate it and I could kind of see where they were going with their argument...if writing was math and I was a mathematician.

Twilight.

Yeah, here we go again.  But I'm only bringing it up again because I think that if I explain what I mean with an actual book, you guys will understand me better.

Twilight was riddled with adverbs.  Let's just get that out there.  But, who cares?  Honestly.  It worked!  And isn't that the point of writing?  But more than that, this book convinced me--and I am sure convinced millions of others--that I was falling in love all over again.  It didn't just tell me about Bella falling in love with Edward.  It convinced me--me, Emily--that I was falling in love.  That's a book with a soul.

Discussion:  Can you think of any books you've read that spoke to you above and beyond entertainment?  And what about your WIP?  Do you think it's possible to purposefully try to put soul into it, or do you think it's just one of those things that happens?


~Emily White

Pros of Writer's Block

Pshaw! you say.  There can be no pros to writer's block!  It is the incarnation of pure evil!

Or you could say writer's block doesn't even exist.  It is only the product of our own laziness and unwillingness to sit down and work.

Yup, I've heard both arguments.  For one, I have to disagree with the latter--to an extent.  I think the very real and very annoying condition called writer's block can be abused if you aren't careful.  I do believe that we as writers tend to use the excuse of being blocked when really we're just easily distracted by all the sparkly things around us (e.g. twitter, blogger, facebook, etc.).  In this case, you just need to focus and get back on your writerly track.

However, when we are being blocked, what on God's green Earth can we do about it?  Well, you can patiently wait for it to pass.  I know, I know.  Some say you MUST write through it at all costs, and maybe that's one way of doing it, but I don't know if it's the best way.

Sometimes writer's block is the best thing that can happen to your writing.  It can be your mind's way of telling you it needs a breather, to the betterment of your WIP.

I've discovered three things over the years concerning writer's block:

     1. If I try to force myself to work through it, the product of my labors ends up being garbage that can taint my work for pages, chapters, or even the whole story.  99.9% of the time, I need to go back and change it.

     2. If I take a break, what I come up with at the end of the block is something that knocks my socks off.  It is something I never would have thought of if I hadn't taken a break from my WIP and that dramatically improves the work.

      3. True writer's block only lasts about a week.  Now, I've kept from writing and blamed it on being blocked for a LOT longer than a week, but If I'm being honest with myself, it was usually because I got into a lazy rut.  And I also know that some people have supposedly suffered from a block for years at a time.  Maybe that's true, I don't know.  I personally think there are other things at play there, like fear of actually putting yourself out there on paper, etc.  But for me, I'm usually over the block within a week.  This is the amount of time my mind needs to be refreshed.

And do you want to know what I've found is the best thing to do while being blocked?  Let my mind go on a vacation (aka read a book).  Seriously.  Let your mind enjoy someone else's labors for a little while and refresh your study of the writing craft at the same time.  By the end of the book, your mind will thank you and be raring to go!

But when that week has passed and that book is read, you better get your butt into your seat and work.  This is the time to force yourself to work through it.  If you think you should read another book or work on bettering your twitter account, your mind will take advantage of you the same way a child takes advantage of a mother who just wants peace and quiet.  If you do push yourself and force your mind to get to it, you will be shocked at the brilliance it comes up with.

Discussion: how do you guys handle writer's block?


~Emily White

Goober Writers Anonymous--Me

I'm so glad everyone has shown such interest in this group!  There is nothing better than being able to share all our mistakes with friends.  I can't even tell you how much I've learned over the years just by listening to people who had to learn the hard way.

Now, because I'm the organizer of this group, I thought I'd start it all off with a little tale of my own.  It was really hard to narrow it down, I must admit.  I've made a LOT of mistakes since deciding I wanted to be a writer.  A lot.  And they never seem to end.  No matter how much research I do, or how hard I try to prepare myself, I always seem to make at least one little flub.

But the story I'm going to tell you today wasn't exactly a little mistake.  I actually consider it the most devastating, life-altering mistake I could have made.

I think most of us have this one thing in common:  we all excelled in our creative writing classes, whether in middle school, high school, or college.  Well, when I was in school, I was pretty sure I was alone in my abilities.  I know--arrogant.  But hear me out.  I was always the best in my class, my English teachers never failed to praise me in whatever I did, and though I received A's in all my work, I knew it wasn't even close to what I could do.  And there's the problem.  I never once pushed myself.  I was an extremely lazy student.  I did well without trying.  I'm not trying to brag here.  I actually consider what I did to be the stupidest thing a person could ever do.

I had a dream growing up to be one of the youngest published authors ever.  Did I research this?  No.  Did I have a clue who was the youngest author ever?  No.  I just decided I wanted to be a teenage writer, so I sat down and tried to write a book.  I'd always had a passion for writing even before I really knew how to write.  I would scribble lines and pretend they were words (with pictures included, of course) and feel so fulfilled when I stapled my pages together.  I knew I was destined to be a writer, it was just a matter of sitting down and finishing something.

Sadly, though, I didn't put one ounce more effort into it than I did my work for school.  I just assumed that if I was so much better than everyone in my classes, then I had to be as equally better than everyone else in the country (and therefore, other writers).  I deluded myself into thinking this for years.  When I look back at what I wrote in school, I want to slap myself.  It was crap.  Straight up horse manure.  I can't even believe my teacher would give me an A for the stuff I gave him.  And the sad thing is, I knew at the time that it was crap and I was still happy with it.

But that's not all.  Oh no, that is. not. all.

You know how I mentioned I failed to do any research?  Well, when I started writing (half-way seriously), I tried to mimic the books I read in school.  In other words, I wanted to write something similar to a 100 year old classic, not something people today wanted to read.  I just didn't know any better.  I didn't know what modern books were like.  Which is odd, because I read a few, but they were still adult and it didn't really hit me that they were much different from the classics.  I had no idea that I should have been writing YA.  I didn't even know something like that existed!  I skipped right over it in my reading.  So I wasted years trying to write stories about people doing situations I had no clue about.  I was a teen trying to write for adults.  It was a disaster.  But I didn't even know it was a disaster until I finished my first book.

In fact, I didn't know it was a disaster until I was half-way through with ELEMENTAL and realized what I was really writing was a YA and trying to push it off as adult.  My rewrites were intensive and even now, I'm trying to catch up with my YA reading.  I wasted a good 13 years of my life because I was lazy and didn't do an ounce of research.  When I think about all I've learned in just one year, I'm disgusted with myself.  I could have been at the point I am now when I was 15 if I'd only taken this more seriously.

So there's my big goober mistake.  And let me tell you, I feel like one big goober.  I still make mistakes and I have LOTS more stories to share, but next week Carol Riggs will be sharing one of her flubs with all of us!  Make sure you check it out!  And if you want to join GWA, just leave a comment below with your email address so I can contact you about a guest blog post.

~Emily White

Goober Writers Anonymous

Goober:

According to the Urban Dictionary--a kindhearted, oblivious goofball.

We've all made mistakes hundreds of times during our lives.  Some of them were huge, life changing mistakes.  Others were just kind of annoying or quirky.  Today, I am organizing a group where we can all come together and admit our writerly mistakes to each other.  After all, the most therapeutic way to get over our mistakes is to share them with friends.

How to Join:

Simply leave a comment below with your email address and I will contact you about sharing your mistakes in a blog post on this blog.  You can guest blog once if you only have one story to share, or you can guest blog numerous times if you have many stories.

Benefits of Joining GWA:

All members will have links to their blogs posted on the sidebar to the right.  Plus, the more guest blogs you do here, the more potential followers you can find.  And isn't it just nice to be a part of a group?

You also get to carry the GWA badge on your blog!  

I will share one of my own stories on Thursday to get the group going.  In fact, let's make Thursdays Goober Writers Anonymous day!  Sound good to you?  Excellent.

In the meantime, join up!  :D

~Emily White