"Stories set the inner life into motion, and this is particularly
important where the inner life is frightened, wedged, or cornered. Story
greases the hoists and pulleys, it causes the adrenaline to surge,
shows us the way out, down, or up, and for our trouble, cuts us fine
wide doors in previously blank walls, openings that lead to the
dreamland, that lead to love and learning, that lead us back to our own
real lives as knowing wildish women."
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run With the Wolves, p. 20
Story certainly did all of the above for me, first the stories of someone else, then my own stories.
I read the Southern Vampire Mysteries in the early summer of 2009. I
bought one paperback a week at the Borders, which sadly since closed, in
Riverhead, NY. I tried to write for years but always in someone else's
voice or style. When I read Charlaine Harris's hugely popular books, I
realized I can say that. I can use that language. It's okay.
I had a somewhat vague idea for a vampire story in mind. I
didn't really have the whole story, just the characters, and I couldn't
think of the perfect opening line. That tripped me up for years, too,
wracking my brain for the perfect opening line. I decided just to start
writing from the scene I knew, which was a few chapters into the book. I
wrote that scene. Then I wrote all the way to the end of the book. Then
I went back and wrote the beginning. Then I wrote another book. Then I
wrote two more.
Without story, my life would be vastly different, and not in a good way.
My inner life was frightened and cornered. I had no door. Story allowed
me to open the door.
I don't know where story will lead me next, but I'm just going to trust it and follow.
"I've got an open door...it didn't get there by itself." - Annie Lennox
Robin Ashe, Writer of the Empire State Vamps series and other works. Seeking representation for 116,000 word adult vampire novel. I post work in progress lines at twitter.com/robinashewriter and twitter.com/vampwritergrrl “I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” ― Anne Frank
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Monday, April 22, 2013
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Work in progress excerpt
I didn’t have a computer anything. I didn’t trust them. People shot their mouths off too much on the computer and secrets got told, and they could even be broken into, and all one’s secrets stolen. If any of my secrets got told it would be by a tongue I would then cut out.
Thursday, February 28, 2013
WOW it's been a long time since I posted...
...but the subject is the same as the last post! I've been revising nonstop and it seems my characters have a favorite phrase: I have seen it. It kind of reminds me of Snow White and Charming on Once Upon a Time and their classic phrase: I will always find you.
Have to start posting here much more often! Place is positively dusty!
Have to start posting here much more often! Place is positively dusty!
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Hooked on a Phrase
I have recently discovered that I like the phrase "a little" a lot too much. Someone is always smiling a little, laughing a little, or sighing a little. I'm a little over it. I'm searching them out and destroying them. "A little" is just the first on my hit list of phrases that must go.
What are your inadvertently overused phrases?
What are your inadvertently overused phrases?
Friday, April 20, 2012
Stop It
One thing that you must stop doing is reading every blog post, article, and book about THE ELEVENTY ONE THINGS YOU ARE DOING THAT MAKE YOU A HORRIBLE WRITER. If you read all of these articles you will inevitably see that you are doing that, and that, and that, and oh dear God even THAT wrong. You will terrify yourself into a state of being unable to write at all. If you are doing it, if you are reading these things, stop it right now. If you aren't doing it yet, don't start.
One of the many highly contentious debates amongst writers is plotting and outlining versus just writing, seeing where it goes, and spending more time editing later. If you find yourself spending so much time outlining and filling index cards with character descriptions that you never actually get around to writing line one of chapter one, stop it. Stuff it all in a box so you can refer to it later if necessary, and then just start writing. A sentence, one sentence. All the outlines and note cards in the world will not serve you if you cannot put one sentence on paper. I am not disparaging outlining. Many writers use it fantastically to their advantage. I never could. I spent years outlining and making notes and making little character cards and never got a book written until I just sat down with a random, out of order scene in my mind and ran with it. Honestly, I do have to refer back in my manuscripts sometimes for full names, former names, and other details, but I'm okay with that. I keep buying little notebooks and telling myself I'm going to start making notes...but I'm almost afraid to stop what I've been doing, and break the spell.
If something is stopping you from actually writing, put a stop to that thing. Put something on paper, or your hard drive, or whatever, and then fix it later. You can't revise it if you never write it.
One of the many highly contentious debates amongst writers is plotting and outlining versus just writing, seeing where it goes, and spending more time editing later. If you find yourself spending so much time outlining and filling index cards with character descriptions that you never actually get around to writing line one of chapter one, stop it. Stuff it all in a box so you can refer to it later if necessary, and then just start writing. A sentence, one sentence. All the outlines and note cards in the world will not serve you if you cannot put one sentence on paper. I am not disparaging outlining. Many writers use it fantastically to their advantage. I never could. I spent years outlining and making notes and making little character cards and never got a book written until I just sat down with a random, out of order scene in my mind and ran with it. Honestly, I do have to refer back in my manuscripts sometimes for full names, former names, and other details, but I'm okay with that. I keep buying little notebooks and telling myself I'm going to start making notes...but I'm almost afraid to stop what I've been doing, and break the spell.
If something is stopping you from actually writing, put a stop to that thing. Put something on paper, or your hard drive, or whatever, and then fix it later. You can't revise it if you never write it.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Page 398
From The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice:
"Somebody knew what the light had been like in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks, and someone or something knew what the peasants said to each other in their little farmhouse outside Athens right before the Spartans brought down the walls."
That is my favorite line from a book. It isn't necessarily my favorite book...I don't think I have a favorite book...but this is my favorite line. I first read it 22 years ago. Something about that line stopped me, made me mark the page. I still have the same copy of The Vampire Lestat. It moved with me from North Carolina to New York and back twice. I have always been able to reach out for that particular book with the corner of page 398 folded down, and read that line. And it always strikes me the same way that it did when I was 17.
"Somebody knew what the light had been like in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks"
Somebody did, indeed, and perhaps, in our subconscious memory, it is all of us who ever watched dust drifting in a sunbeam on an afternoon, that sunbeam slanting in through a window, filled with the dust of books and cat dander and shed human skin cells. The dust in the light of the late afternoon in Troy that day was probably comprised of dirt floor and threads of linen robes and perhaps, perhaps, in the case of Marius, the narrator, the pages of the book in which he fanatically recorded the history of the world as he saw it.
The history of the world as every single one of us sees it is nothing more, and nothing less, than the fantastic, sunlit bits of what we leave behind, illuminated for a moment in a sunbeam.
Consider all the skin cells that you shed in a day. Consider your pets, your clothing, what you track in from the yard...consider your books.
Tomorrow, go to a window that admits the afternoon light, and see what exists there, in a sunbeam. Consider the fact that, if you live in a house that was ever inhabited by someone other than yourself and your family, you could be watching bits of them drifting in the sun.
Consider the fact that in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks someone your age, your sex, your race was idly mesmerized by the dust in a sunbeam, just before their life fell to shit.
I grew up with the dead, in a house where my ancestors lived and died. We looked out the same antique, wavery window glass and saw the sun at the same angle, and dust in it. I read Marius's words from Anne Rice's fingers and I saw that sunbeam, that same sunbeam that slants across every great and minor event of every generation that has ever walked the earth and I determined to write books that brought that dusty beam of light into the life of every one of my readers.
And, like Marius, and Lestat, and so many of Anne Rice's other characters, my characters remember that sunbeam only faintly, only dimly, because they exist now in a world of total darkness.
"Somebody knew what the light had been like in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks, and someone or something knew what the peasants said to each other in their little farmhouse outside Athens right before the Spartans brought down the walls."
That is my favorite line from a book. It isn't necessarily my favorite book...I don't think I have a favorite book...but this is my favorite line. I first read it 22 years ago. Something about that line stopped me, made me mark the page. I still have the same copy of The Vampire Lestat. It moved with me from North Carolina to New York and back twice. I have always been able to reach out for that particular book with the corner of page 398 folded down, and read that line. And it always strikes me the same way that it did when I was 17.
"Somebody knew what the light had been like in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks"
Somebody did, indeed, and perhaps, in our subconscious memory, it is all of us who ever watched dust drifting in a sunbeam on an afternoon, that sunbeam slanting in through a window, filled with the dust of books and cat dander and shed human skin cells. The dust in the light of the late afternoon in Troy that day was probably comprised of dirt floor and threads of linen robes and perhaps, perhaps, in the case of Marius, the narrator, the pages of the book in which he fanatically recorded the history of the world as he saw it.
The history of the world as every single one of us sees it is nothing more, and nothing less, than the fantastic, sunlit bits of what we leave behind, illuminated for a moment in a sunbeam.
Consider all the skin cells that you shed in a day. Consider your pets, your clothing, what you track in from the yard...consider your books.
Tomorrow, go to a window that admits the afternoon light, and see what exists there, in a sunbeam. Consider the fact that, if you live in a house that was ever inhabited by someone other than yourself and your family, you could be watching bits of them drifting in the sun.
Consider the fact that in the late afternoon on the day that Troy fell to the Greeks someone your age, your sex, your race was idly mesmerized by the dust in a sunbeam, just before their life fell to shit.
I grew up with the dead, in a house where my ancestors lived and died. We looked out the same antique, wavery window glass and saw the sun at the same angle, and dust in it. I read Marius's words from Anne Rice's fingers and I saw that sunbeam, that same sunbeam that slants across every great and minor event of every generation that has ever walked the earth and I determined to write books that brought that dusty beam of light into the life of every one of my readers.
And, like Marius, and Lestat, and so many of Anne Rice's other characters, my characters remember that sunbeam only faintly, only dimly, because they exist now in a world of total darkness.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Work In Progress Line
I didn't want her to ever get to the point where she got to be not hungry. I wanted her to go on and on forever with the story, like Scheherazade, putting off the terrifying inevitable.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tea and Vampires
I made a cup of Chai tea and read about bloated, ruddy corpses floating in blood in their coffins, and corpses that ate their own shrouds.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Observations on Stephen King's Bag of Bones, the Mini-Series, Part One
WATERED. DOWN.
I knew by the commercials for this miniseries that it was not going to pack the punch of the book. I knew that there was entirely too much sex, racism, and rape for a prime-time cable channel. Yes, as one of my Twitter friends pointed out, this is the Walking Dead time slot, but the Walking Dead shies away from sex and most racial issues in a very cowardly way while having no problem whatsoever in splaying various degrees of rotting, ambulatory corpses across our screens. But that's the American Way, you see. We suck up the random violence and gore like mother's milk, but when it cames to *GASP* S-E-X and dark issues like racism and rape and sexual violence both random and domestic, we can't handle it. And the fact that we can't handle it is painfully evident from the sad, impotent version of Bag of Bones playing out these two nights on our televisions.
The errors thus far: Mrs. Noonan did not die in some sort of car accident. Mrs. Noonan died from a brain aneurysm while running to assist the victims of a car accident. Mr. Devore was FAR, far more terrifying and appalling in the books. Sara Tidwell's child was a boy. I'm assuming they changed the sex of the murdered child to female to somehow complement Mattie Devore's daughter and fit in with the curse on the town and all the children having similar names. I do applaud the supremely creepy scenes with the refrigerator magnets and the ringing of Bunter's bell. But. I am seeing two large problems with this mini-series.
Problem #1: Four hours is nowhere near enough time to do justice to the book. It should have been a short series, and preferably on HBO, where there is no need to sanitize the darkest elements of the story, like they did in the old Reader's Digest condensed books.
Problem #2: It's just much too clean. The book revealed, as Stephen King always reveals, the ugly, rotten, evil side of humanity. That is not coming out here yet and I fail to see how they could possibly pack it all into the second episode of the series. The book Bag of Bones is like The Color Purple amped up and with supernatural overtones. It hits you right in the face and drags you through the dirt with the characters. The book Bag of Bones did that. The mini-series is NOT doing that for me. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
I knew by the commercials for this miniseries that it was not going to pack the punch of the book. I knew that there was entirely too much sex, racism, and rape for a prime-time cable channel. Yes, as one of my Twitter friends pointed out, this is the Walking Dead time slot, but the Walking Dead shies away from sex and most racial issues in a very cowardly way while having no problem whatsoever in splaying various degrees of rotting, ambulatory corpses across our screens. But that's the American Way, you see. We suck up the random violence and gore like mother's milk, but when it cames to *GASP* S-E-X and dark issues like racism and rape and sexual violence both random and domestic, we can't handle it. And the fact that we can't handle it is painfully evident from the sad, impotent version of Bag of Bones playing out these two nights on our televisions.
The errors thus far: Mrs. Noonan did not die in some sort of car accident. Mrs. Noonan died from a brain aneurysm while running to assist the victims of a car accident. Mr. Devore was FAR, far more terrifying and appalling in the books. Sara Tidwell's child was a boy. I'm assuming they changed the sex of the murdered child to female to somehow complement Mattie Devore's daughter and fit in with the curse on the town and all the children having similar names. I do applaud the supremely creepy scenes with the refrigerator magnets and the ringing of Bunter's bell. But. I am seeing two large problems with this mini-series.
Problem #1: Four hours is nowhere near enough time to do justice to the book. It should have been a short series, and preferably on HBO, where there is no need to sanitize the darkest elements of the story, like they did in the old Reader's Digest condensed books.
Problem #2: It's just much too clean. The book revealed, as Stephen King always reveals, the ugly, rotten, evil side of humanity. That is not coming out here yet and I fail to see how they could possibly pack it all into the second episode of the series. The book Bag of Bones is like The Color Purple amped up and with supernatural overtones. It hits you right in the face and drags you through the dirt with the characters. The book Bag of Bones did that. The mini-series is NOT doing that for me. We'll see what happens tomorrow.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Welcome To My World
I don't just want to tell you a story. I want to welcome you into my world. That's why I write such excessively long books. But I also write them so long for my own amusement, of course, because I enjoy it. I like feeling like I'm there. Come slowly into my world. The introductions are long, but after they are done, you'll forget where you were before.
Friday, November 18, 2011
Writers, BACK UP YOUR WORK
Dear Fellow Writers,
There is no excuse for not backing up your work on a daily basis. That’s right, a DAILY basis. You have a variety of options ranging from free to inexpensive to not really that expensive, when you break it down by the month. It is unbelievable to me when I hear that a writer has lost a manuscript in progress because they haven’t backed up in weeks. BACK UP YOUR WORK. Here’s how.
1. Set up an email account that you don’t use for anything but backing up your work. Never share the address with anyone. Use that email account to email a copy of your work to yourself EVERY DAY, every file that you work on. Cost: FREE.
2. Dropbox. It’s a service that allows you to sync files between computers and even different users. You only get a small amount of storage space, but it’s enough for manuscripts. Create a “private folder” for your manuscripts. Cost: FREE.
3. USB/Flash drives. These are the little drives that plug into the USB ports on your computer. You can get one for around $8 at Walmart. Buy two, because like any other hardware, they can fail. Every night, back up your work to both drives. Preferably, you should select the option that allows you to keep both files and rename one “Manuscript 2″ so that you have an archive of each revision of your manuscript in case your latest file becomes corrupted. Keep your USB drives in a safe place, such as a fireproof lockbox. Hey, it’s your work, it’s your time, blood, sweat, and tears, so yes, it really is that important. COST: $8.
4. External hard drives. You can get a small one for around $60 that has enough storage space to back up your writing, photos, and music several times over. COST: $60.
5. Online backup services, such as Carbonite and Acronis. For $60 a year, Carbonite will give you unlimited backup space for one computer. Acronis gives you 250 GB for $50, or $5 a month. The advantage to Acronis is that it allows you to back up from up to 5 computers while Carbonite restricts you to backing up one. 250 GB is probably sufficient storage space for most users. These online backup services encrypt your files and store them on guarded servers. The initial backup can take a LONG time if you have a lot of stuff stored on your computer. After the initial backup, the online services only back up newly added files and files that are changed…such as the manuscript that you’re working on. They also store multiple past versions of each file that is updated, in case your current version becomes corrupted. If your hard drive fails or your computer is stolen, you can access your files from any computer with an internet connection and recover them. COST: $50-$60 per year.
Please, writers, please, choose at least one of the methods above and back up your work. Don’t put yourself through the heartache of losing a book or books because you didn’t take the time to back up. If you can afford it, get an external hard drive or sign up with an online backup service and back up your pictures and music as well.
There is no excuse for not backing up your work on a daily basis. That’s right, a DAILY basis. You have a variety of options ranging from free to inexpensive to not really that expensive, when you break it down by the month. It is unbelievable to me when I hear that a writer has lost a manuscript in progress because they haven’t backed up in weeks. BACK UP YOUR WORK. Here’s how.
1. Set up an email account that you don’t use for anything but backing up your work. Never share the address with anyone. Use that email account to email a copy of your work to yourself EVERY DAY, every file that you work on. Cost: FREE.
2. Dropbox. It’s a service that allows you to sync files between computers and even different users. You only get a small amount of storage space, but it’s enough for manuscripts. Create a “private folder” for your manuscripts. Cost: FREE.
3. USB/Flash drives. These are the little drives that plug into the USB ports on your computer. You can get one for around $8 at Walmart. Buy two, because like any other hardware, they can fail. Every night, back up your work to both drives. Preferably, you should select the option that allows you to keep both files and rename one “Manuscript 2″ so that you have an archive of each revision of your manuscript in case your latest file becomes corrupted. Keep your USB drives in a safe place, such as a fireproof lockbox. Hey, it’s your work, it’s your time, blood, sweat, and tears, so yes, it really is that important. COST: $8.
4. External hard drives. You can get a small one for around $60 that has enough storage space to back up your writing, photos, and music several times over. COST: $60.
5. Online backup services, such as Carbonite and Acronis. For $60 a year, Carbonite will give you unlimited backup space for one computer. Acronis gives you 250 GB for $50, or $5 a month. The advantage to Acronis is that it allows you to back up from up to 5 computers while Carbonite restricts you to backing up one. 250 GB is probably sufficient storage space for most users. These online backup services encrypt your files and store them on guarded servers. The initial backup can take a LONG time if you have a lot of stuff stored on your computer. After the initial backup, the online services only back up newly added files and files that are changed…such as the manuscript that you’re working on. They also store multiple past versions of each file that is updated, in case your current version becomes corrupted. If your hard drive fails or your computer is stolen, you can access your files from any computer with an internet connection and recover them. COST: $50-$60 per year.
Please, writers, please, choose at least one of the methods above and back up your work. Don’t put yourself through the heartache of losing a book or books because you didn’t take the time to back up. If you can afford it, get an external hard drive or sign up with an online backup service and back up your pictures and music as well.
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Punctuation and Prepositions
My world has been turned upside down. It was drilled into my head in middle school English that one always puts two spaces after punctuation and that one never ends a sentence with a preposition. Now…both are acceptable. Next you’ll be telling me that Pluto isn’t a planet! So now, I have a LOT of extraneous spaces to delete from my manuscripts. I was told to try Libre Office’s find and replace feature to quickly fix that, but it didn’t get them all. So I have to do it by hand. Oy vey.
But at least now “Where y’all from?” is proper English, right?
But at least now “Where y’all from?” is proper English, right?
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Twenty Years Ago, I Wrote This
I remember that I printed it in my high school's library and somehow forgot and left a copy in the printer. The librarian found it and brought it to me, and told me that she was very impressed with my writing. At the time I was very into fairies and urban fantasy. I didn't edit this for grammar, although I wanted to.
Shadow of a woman against the crumbling garden wall.
Whisper of long skirts through the tall grass. The budding roses swayed and bowed gently, as if someone were passing by. The shadow, moving of its own accord, came and went with the movement of clouds across the sun.
And in the darkness at the edge of the yard, where the wood began, a man stood, indistinct int he flickering sunlight that fell between the leaves. He wore an odd costume: a laced shirt with blowsy sleeves, a tunic-like vest, a short green cloak. His hair was glossy black as a raven's wing, and held back from his think face by a crimson ribbon. He stood so still that he seemed a part of the trees, of the forest; a lean shadow in green and brown. Sorrow was starkly evident in his green eyes.
After a moment, the sound of a truck passing on the main road shattered the sleepy stillness of the early spring afternoon, and the yard was deserted once more...except for the shadow of a woman against the back wall of the old house.
Waiting.
Shadow of a woman against the crumbling garden wall.
Whisper of long skirts through the tall grass. The budding roses swayed and bowed gently, as if someone were passing by. The shadow, moving of its own accord, came and went with the movement of clouds across the sun.
And in the darkness at the edge of the yard, where the wood began, a man stood, indistinct int he flickering sunlight that fell between the leaves. He wore an odd costume: a laced shirt with blowsy sleeves, a tunic-like vest, a short green cloak. His hair was glossy black as a raven's wing, and held back from his think face by a crimson ribbon. He stood so still that he seemed a part of the trees, of the forest; a lean shadow in green and brown. Sorrow was starkly evident in his green eyes.
After a moment, the sound of a truck passing on the main road shattered the sleepy stillness of the early spring afternoon, and the yard was deserted once more...except for the shadow of a woman against the back wall of the old house.
Waiting.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)