CWC 2013 in Review

This year I attended the Colgate Writers' Conference located at Colgate University in Hamilton, NY.  If you want the short version, here it is:  AWESOME!  If you want the long version, read on.

Sunday, June 16:
I made the 4.5 hour drive from middle of nowhere Massachusetts to middle of nowhere New York.  Colgate's campus is lovely, and my only issue upon arriving was not being able to determine what was a road and what was a sidewalk.  Upon asking, I was told that if it looks like I can fit a car down it, then drive down it.  What I learned:  my car fits down every "sidewalk," even the one that leads to a set of stairs.  Do NOT drive down the stairs.

My two-year-old helped me pack my suitcase.  It wasn't until I was unpacking when I discovered she thought I needed a pair of her socks to take with me.

The welcome reception terrified me, and I spent most of the time 1.) wishing what I wore matched the wall paper better, and 2.) grateful for the lovely Maria--a Sicilian non-fiction writer who made me feel right at home.  I then dined with three lawyers/writers.  Readings by the awesome Jennifer Haigh and Bruce Smith = awesome.

I met my group-mates--those individuals with whom I would spend the next week working out the kinks in our novels--and the intense Paul Cody.

Monday, June 17:
It was exactly 5:00 am (or thereabouts) when I discovered there was no coffee station.  I mean, seriously?  Don't writers mainline coffee?  Why the heck wasn't there coffee until 7:30?  This girl wrote about it in her evaluation.

I then spent the rest of the day in workshops and other talks.  Readings by Dana Spiotta and J. Robert Lennon = love.

Tuesday, June 18: 
There still wasn't coffee until 7:30.  Why, oh, why must they torture us so??

Today, I was under fire.  My group-mates gave me feedback on LitD, which I then ate with a hot dog (because I relished it!).  Paul gave me some fab advice about querying and agents.  Let me tell you, I feel a million times better about LitD!  Later that afternoon, I read part of LitD to the attendants.  Afterwards, my heart and head swelled just a little.

Readings by Brian Hall and Jennifer Brice = Wow.  Jennifer's essay sang to me--seriously sang to me.  I bought CASTLE by J. Robert Lennon (and then spent the rest of the conference too chicken to ask him to sign it).

Wednesday, June 19:
More awesomeness of the sort I've already described.  Here's the beautiful early morning view.  The only thing this view was missing was the coffee...which I didn't get until 7:30.  *sigh*

Readings by Greg Ames and Joni Tevis = Beautiful.  I toted John's book around all day.  I had about twenty opportunities to ask him to sign it.  Did I do it?  No.  What I did do was see the Manhattan String Quartet in concert.  Hey, if it's not baroque, fix it!

Thursday, June 20:
More awesomeness.  Got to listen to Lorelei Sharkey's presentation about self-publishing.  If you're into kink, buy her book!  It's illustrated.  Readings by Mark Doty and Marjorie Celona = Sorry guys.  I was too tired to pay attention.  I promise I heard lots of beautiful words, though.  My mind was too exhausted to register them.  My mind was too exhausted to ask John to sign my copy of his book, too.

Friday, June 21:
I woke to write a poem--a very bad poem.  But the mattress muse inspired me.  More awesomeness.  Lunch with Leslie Daniels on the grass = Score!  She answered so many of my questions that she was probably sick of me by the end of the meal.  Readings by Leslie = Fun, and Paul = Moving, so so very moving.  Do you know what else was moving?  Me.  As in, I moved in the other direction, instead of asking John to sign the damned book.

Saturday, June 22:
Yes, there was still a craft talk and a workshop.  And!  And!  I finally finally finally got up the nerve to ask John to sign his book.  Confetti! (Virtual, not literal confetti though.  That stuff's a mess to clean up.)

Then, there was lunch with Kathi and Alan.  The restaurant must have known writers were going to be around.  They felt the need to put a disclaimer on their menu.

Commence the 4.5 hour drive back to Massachusetts (where there was a detour that took me 10 minutes out of my way).  I was greeted home by a deer but otherwise empty house.

Huge thanks to all my writing peeps out there who made this week memorable.  I'll list you by name and in no particular order, but know this list isn't complete.  If I left you off the list, it's not because I don't love you.   Thanks to:  Dave, Alan, Dave, Kathi, Paul, Gopal, David, Paco, David, Maria, Jan, Martha, Dave, and Kevin.  (And yes 36% of those people are Davids, and yes, they are all different people.)

Here are my group-mates.  Unfortunately, we're missing a Dave in this photo.

So, would I go again?  Heck yeah!


Oh!  I almost forgot!  My poem.  Note: I am *not* a poet.

An Ode to the Mattress

Your daughter is beautiful
and yet you do not want
anymore kids, you said.
Tossing from side and then
to side when I do not sleep
I say, No.  Colgate's mattress
has reminded me of pregnancy.
This mattress ain't for sleeping.

Grandma was a scary lady,
big and plush and Polish.
Lying on my belly reminds
me of this
There is no give for curves here.
Grandma's got Monster Boobies,
do I?
This mattress ain't for sleeping.

The writers creep back to their dormitories
from their imbibements of colorful and noncolorful drinks
Their voices, hollow, echoing, unreal
drift through my open window.
When I can make out their words, I hear
Bondage and Sadomasochism. 
This mattress certainly ain't for sleeping.

But tomorrow
Tomorrow I will plunge into the musicians' mosh pit
and then.

#7 Critique Partner Series - Focusing Your Opening

I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  Ready…set…go!


#7 Critique Partner Series – Focusing Your Opening

Book 1:  Chapter One of your novel opens with detective Miles Gumby finding the body of Brianna Kelley on the roadside.  Miles turns to see homeless man George Georgeson lurking nearby.  Miles speaks with George, but then goes home.  There, Miles speaks with Cindy, his loving wife of twenty years.  Who’s the main character?

If you think it’s Miles, you’re wrong.  Actually, it’s Cindy’s younger sister Mary who falls in love with Kyle.  And the novel is a romance, not a police procedural.

Book 2:  Chapter One of your brother’s novel opens with the Huns attacking.  They rape and pillage (not that I know if Huns rape and pillage, but that’s what they do in the novel).  A mysterious boy jumps from a window, knocks a Hun from his horse, and kills the Hun.  The other Huns run in fear.  Who’s the main character?

If you think it’s one of the Huns or the boy, you’re wrong.  Actually, Chapter Two fast-forwards twenty years when we discover the main character is a young woman who’s going to spend the next two hundred pages breeding horses and finding a husband.  In fact, that heroic boy doesn’t make another appearance for the rest of the novel.

What do both of these novels have in common?  Their opening doesn’t have focus. Yes, both openings may grab your attention, but when those openings have nothing/little to do with the overall plot, the reader begins to feel swindled.  Your reader won’t be able to tell who or what is important.

If your main character is Mary; I recommend starting with Mary.**  Let’s say Miles and Brianna and George and Cindy and Larry, Curly, and Moe are all main characters, though.  I’d hazard to guess you have too many main characters and need to pare it down to a few.  The reader wants to know whom she is supposed to care about.  If you don’t show the main character until later on, she’ll be able to figure it out eventually—your readers are smart—but she might not get that far.

If your brother starts with a battle and that battle is important, but he feels he needs to jump forward twenty years before he introduces us to the main character, I’m willing to guess there are pieces from the first chapter that can be added later in the story.  Tell him to try slashing the entire first chapter and start with chapters two or three.  Get rid of all that extra stuff.  That’s what I had to do when I wrote Celia.  Then insert little bits of what was important from the battle into chapters throughout the novel.

Let’s start with the real story!  Let’s start with the characters we’re supposed to care about!

**That’s not to say you have to introduce your main characters all in the first paragraph.  We don’t need alphabet soup either.

My question for you:

How much do you find yourself cutting from your opening?

#6 Critique Partner Series - Author's Voice

I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  Tally ho!


#6 Critique Partner Series – Author’s Voice

Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties and a field for their efforts as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags.  It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex (Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre, Chapter XII).

Why you may ask—or maybe you don’t—do I begin this week’s post with a quote from Jane Eyre?  Those who know me also know this is my favorite novel.  They know I have read it nine times and that throughout high school and college I continuously chose to write papers on it.  And those who know me even better, they know I incorporated a passage of it into my wedding vows.   But as much as I love Jane Eyre, I do not love this passage.

Wait!  Before you shoot me and claim all sorts of feminist claims, and before you hate me forever, listen!  It’s not that I don’t like the message.  It’s a very fine message.  Power to women and all that.**  What I don’t like is that this passage is about Brontë and not about Jane.  Think of where we are in the story:  Jane has just entered Thornfield.  She barely knows Mr. Rochester.  She’s seen so little of life.  In fact, Jane is just too naïve at this point in the novel to be this angry.  Brontë breaks into Jane’s character.  She has a message for her readers, and she uses Jane as the podium to relay that message.

It’s going to happen.  As writers, we pour so much of ourselves into each page that, eventually, part of ourselves seeps into our characters as well.  The trick is to make certain when we do it, we do it true to the character.  I know, I know.  It’s presumptuous of me to speak of Literature (with a capital L) in this way, but if Brontë had just waited until after Jane spent some time with St. John—enough that Jane could get good and suppressed—I’d say, “Go ahead!  Preach away, sister!”  It wouldn’t stand out to me as Brontë’s words.  I wouldn’t feel as if I’d been swindled into reading propaganda.

Be aware of your own voice when you write.  If you have a message, go ahead and write it, but only write it if your character is ready for it.  Only write it if it fits in with what your character thinks.  If you don’t, readers (I) will humph and think thoughts like, “Does Brianna really feel this way about the rebel attacks in Alpha Centauri, or is that how you feel?”

**I admit one of my papers was about how Jane needs a man in her life, only she needs one on her own terms.

My question for you:

How do you feel when you recognize the difference between a character’s thoughts and the author’s?  Does it matter to you?

#5 Critique Partner Series - Motivation

I am in no way a professional.  I don't have a fancy education to back up writing (that is reserved for mathematics), but I do know what I like to read and I do know when I read something that doesn't quite jive for me.  So WELCOME to my CRITIQUE PARTNER SERIES!  It is minus the partner, because I don't actually know any of the writers whose work I am reading, but here I will offer my advice.  Much of my advice you can find everywhere else on the internet.  None of it is professional.  All of it is...I can't think of anything to finish this sentence with.  I liked the whole "Much of it, none of it, all of it" thing I had going on at the start of each sentence, but I'm far too lazy to spend time thinking how to end that sentence, especially when this is only a blog developed for my personal enjoyment.  Always forwards, never backwards (unless it’s the delete key)!


#5 Critique Partner Series - Motivation

Why does Cinderella need to go to the party?  Why does the prince have a party in the first place?  Why does Cinderella leave behind her slipper?  Why does the prince seek out the owner of said slipper?  Why do Cinderella’s sisters chop off their toes and heels?

What are your characters’ motivations?  They’ve got them, or at least, they should.  However, sometimes it doesn’t quite come off the way we want it to in our writing. 

When I read, I have an annoying tendency to question everything from why a character twirls her hair to the secret reason behind the empty coffee pot.  I usually see foreshadowing an hour before the sun rises.  That’s annoying because my sense of wonder at the sunrise sometimes dies when I already have a sneaking suspicion (because all suspicions sneak) the sky will be pink, but it also allows me to wonder why I’m up so early.  Couldn’t I have slept in?  Am I a morning person?  Did the kids get me up early?  Did I even go to bed last night?  Why was I awake all last night, if I didn’t go to bed?  You get the point.  What’s my motivation for watching the sun rise?

When I write, it’s also a terribly wonderful tendency.  It helps me delve into my characters’ minds, and it certainly helps me understand why my characters make their choices. I over think everything, too.  Each word is specially crafted for the character.  She says “maintain” here instead of “keep.”  I’m the only person in the world who will notice that my character could have said “keep” but she that she chose to say “maintain” instead.  I’m the only person in the world who will think about why she said “maintain” and not “keep.”

In the last manuscript I critiqued, I found myself filling the margins with questions like these:   If she’s scared, why doesn’t she run away?  This is funny; why doesn’t she laugh here?   When you write, you’ll want to ask your characters the same questions.  Question everything your characters say and do.

I’ll leave you off with a few lines from Weezer.  I know exactly what his motivation is.

-Your mom cooked meatloaf, even though I don’t eat meat. I dug you so much, I took some for the team.

My question for you:

What are some tips you can give for making your characters' motivations clear?

Sylvia, my Sylvia

Like a mother, I love all my "children" equally, but there is something so very special about Sylvia.  Therefore, there will be no wonder at my excitement upon hearing from my beta readers that they wanted more Sylvia.  Yes! Yes! Yes!  I want to give the world more Sylvia!  

The truth is, after I submitted my manuscript for the writers' conference, I hadn't spent much time thinking about Sylvia, Celia, and he-who-shall-not-be-named.  I hadn't wanted to think about them because I knew that if I did, I'd be tempted to make changes to what I had already submitted.  But, when I was sitting in the dentist chair, Sylvia crept into my mind, and she would not be denied.  That's so like Sylvia.

I tried to ignore her; I really did.  Then, at 4:45 this morning, when she prevented me from sleeping (again, so like Sylvia), I decided to give in to her.  It was a good thing I had the first period off today.  I mean, I would have gladly taught my students if I hadn't had the period off, but it gave me the time to bang out those itty bitty words that made up Sylvia's history.  Just as I finished, the bell rang, and the only thing that prevented me from doing a happy dance was the thirty students who were then sitting in front of me eagerly awaiting mathematics.

Now, I'm on lunch break, and I'm so excited about my new and improved Sylvia that I have to blog about it.  Oh, how I hope you love Sylvia as much as I do!