November - time to buckle down

It is the November meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Sign up here for - Insecure Writer's Support Group

The optional question this month is 

November 4 question - As a writer, do you have favorite themes that you like to explore in your stories? If so, what are they?

Why yes I do! I write because I am plagued with questions about why humans do what they do - or even why I do the things I do.

Of course one must ask the question - what is theme in literature?

Wikipedia describes theme in literary works as "In narratology, literary criticism, film studies, dramatics, and related disciplines, a theme is any major topic, subject, or message within a story.

They go on to mention commonly found themes such as love, war, betrayal, loyalty and so forth. 

Susan Bell in her most excellent book The Artful Edit talks about leitmotif in regard to theme. She quotes the Oxford English Dictionary  definition of leitmotif as "a recurrent idea or image in a literary work." 

I think theme is what you want to express in your novel and leitmotif is one way to subtly emphasize it. I would say my most common themes are justice, equality, the oppression of the poor, women, and people of colour. My most common leitmotif in Little Birds are, not surprisingly - little birds - their fragility, their worth and so on. In The Crooked Knife it is the crooked knife as a symbol held by the indigenous people and the settler people of Labrador. In both books there is a common theme of the landscape of Labrador as both wild and vulnerable. In the novel I'm writing now, Tales of the Dispossessed, the main themes are the strength of community, our differences and the healing quality of sharing stories. The leitmotifs are the mountains, the garden and the story telling.

In both theme and leitmotif I think a light hand is needed. I am not interested in reading a novel, or indeed even non-fiction, that is heavily didactic - too preachy. The leitmotif has for me the feel of the rhythm of the piece - it helps the reader feel the resonance of your themes. One of the things I dread though is that my leitmotifs become like a nervous tic - showing up every time I feel a little nervous about whether the reader has got it. 

a tilt in Labrador - much like the one in Little Birds

What themes show up in your work and do you distinguish between the two descriptions I've shared?

 

 Here it is! Another meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Well I'm writing this on the Monday before so I don't go and forget because I'm forgetful. I was going to say that I'm old but truthfully I've always been a bit scatter-brained. Such an excellent word - my brain, or mind as I like to call it, is all over the place. Working on a novel (Tales of the Dispossessed), flogging the older ones (The Crooked Knife, Little Birds), hand-piecing a quilt for one of my grandkids, getting out to my painting shed, trying to train a new dog, doing something with harvest from garden while planning next year's, and keeping up with appointments and so on.

So on with the meeting!  Sign up on this page - IWSG

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The awesome co-hosts for the October 7 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse van Vuuren, Liza at Middle Passages, JH Moncrieff, and Jemima Pett!

What I'd like to write about today is local writer's organizations. I belong to three writer's organizations  -one provincial, one regional, and one national. I believe in belonging to professional groups to a point but I do get cranky when I'm asked for my dues but not my opinion on how they are doing. Maybe that is the problem - me. I want to belong so I can enter competitions and take advantage of other offerings, but I don't go to the meetings and make my opinion known on what else is or isn't on offer. This is maybe because of the issue I discussed in the first paragraph of this post - I'm quite busy enough. Lately, mostly in my personal dealings, I've tried not to ask what people can do for me, but what I can do for people (thankyou dear JFK), because I realized I was becoming a somewhat cranky and bitter individual. So instead of wondering why I wasn't seeing a friend or family member very often and making up stories about it, I have simply made arrangements to see them without waiting for them to make a move. 

I think it is time for me to do the same with these groups.

I was at an event this weekend which was to be a place to sell books. I found it quite frustrating because the organization had left it entirely (it seemed to me) up to us to promote it. They provided the badges etc. . . and there were some press there but nothing that I could see otherwise. I heard from other writers there that this was usually a zero-sum game for them. Every writer (around 60 of them) would get a few people to come who had undoubtedly already bought their friend's book, and the booksellers might sell one or two to the small crowd that showed up, but it seemed we mostly sold to each other. I sold six books - three to the crowd, and three to other writers that I knew. I bought five. 

I would've felt bad but I checked around - it was pretty much the same for all of us. One of the other writers and I talked about how they could follow the model of a folk festival perhaps - promote to lovers of the music but also make it somewhat like a convention, with meetings for the writers to come to - workshops on the biz perhaps. 

So I'm going to get involved instead of bitching behind the association's back.

Any thoughts on this fellow writers?

How welcome do you feel you are made by professional organizations you belong to? Is it you or is it them? In my case I think it is probably a bit of each. I don't feel particularly welcome but I haven't pushed against that at all.

I have finished all the events that I had organized for my new book - now it is time to get a move on for more. I'm thinking that I wouldn't mind being part of craft markets or even regular markets. Think I'll look into this.

This is a photo of the beach in North West River, Labrador, for those of you who have read either or both of my Nell Munro mysteries!

Happy Fifteenth Anniversary of the Insecure Writer's Support Group!

 Yes! It is another meeting of The Insecure Writer's Support Group

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

Hello fellow Insecure Writers and those who love us!

September marks the fifteenth year that many of us have gathered and shared our lives as writers, as creatives in a sometimes cold and cruel world. We give each other courage to go forth, reminding those among us who may falter - hey! no one made you be a writer, you silly! Time to sally forth into the fray and give it your best. 

I can't help but remember the numpty (Scottish slang for clueless) I was when I first started posting here. And now I'm a Cailleach, an old wise woman, dispensing wisdom from my comfortable rocking chair by the peat fire. Wait a minute - I am not. I'm still a numpty - just older, not wiser. I do have a wood stove but not a peat one, so there's that. And I just found a comfortable rocking chair on my street (the things people put in the trash!) but it is in our basement, awaiting a magic transformation, or a slow decline. 

Today the optional question is "Do you have a favorite character archetype you tend to gravitate toward in your writing?"

I do! I like the archetype of the huntress in classical archetypes - Diana, Artemis, and so forth. Maybe me being a Sagittarius might have something to do with it. She is independent and lives in the world on her own terms. In fiction Jo from Little Women, who does not look to a man to complete her, Anne of Green Gables, who's quirky spunky nature will not be quelled. The protagonist Nell Munro in my mysteries The Crooked Knife and Little Birds is fiercely independent and a bit of a maverick. In movies Katherine Hepburn in Woman of the Year (1942) and Lisbeth Salander - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Musicians like Lady GaGa and Pink. What I like about this archetype is she does not stand in relation to others as she does in archetypes like Mother, Lover, Demon etc... In the novel I'm writing there are eight women aged 15 to 82 and they will run the gamut of archetypes I'm sure. It will be interesting to put that lens on for a look as I do my second draft.

But before leaving you today I want to express my profound gratitude to those who have kept this fire burning - the one that we insecure types gather around and have kept it going all these years. Thank you dear Ninja Alex and your league of helpers! 

And here are my two books - both available on Amazon: (not sure the links work as I have a new computer that is determined to fight me every step of the way!

Link to Amazon books

And I will include a couple of my early posts  - the one that follows in spring of 2012 and the following one was October of 2011 (so maybe my first though maybe I did do one that first run)'

Dear Ms. Morrison,

It has come to the attention of the Bureau of Risk Avoidance Maintenance that you have been feeling and expressing some measure of confidence. Agents of BRAM have heard reports that you told your writing group that you felt 'pretty good' about your writing life and that 'this was going to be your year'. We understand (through a careful analysis of your postings and visits to the mail box) that you are actively pursuing publishment of your ...ahem...writings.

We at BRAM wish to express the dangers inherent in such activity. Why if every writer took it into their heads to feel 'confident' and 'pretty good' what do you suppose might happen? It is for your own good, nay your safety, that you curb your desire to bring your writing out into the open air instead of keeping it safely locked down in a drawer or computer file where it belongs.

Counselling people to continue the healthy and SAFE practices of avoiding risk in all its forms is the mandate of BRAM. Here are the risks you will be exposed to if you continue on in this dangerous fashion:

1. You will receive rejections. This is a known fact. Very few writers put their material out to the public without suffering from some rejection.
2. That rejection may lead you to becoming despondent and you may miss important 'real' work because of it.
3. You may receive acceptances. This has been known to happen.
4. If you receive offers of publication or an agent desires to 'take you on' you may get giddy and drink foreign produced drinks such as tequila or Lagavullan.
5. Your possible acceptance may lead the public to expect more writing from you.
6. This will lead to possibly more rejection.
7. And most importantly - should you get published - people will see what you've been up to. Are you sure you want to risk that?

We here at BRAM hope you will take this warning to heart. Please go back to your hovel or attic or wherever you write and contemplate that a little insecurity now will lead to a much SAFER life. Bravado is ruinous.

Your Servant,

Ms. Edna Squelch,
BRAM secretary of warnings

 And here is the first one that I can find that I wrote.

Dear Journal,
Hi, my name is Jan and I'm an insecure writer. Oh, I know you don't believe me. You think I'm just trying to fit in with the new in-crowd, but you're wrong. I am insecure at writing and perhaps even more with revising. You see, I believe that revising separates the sheep from the goats (hi Elspeth's sheep!!!). I don't know if a writer is a sheep or a goat but today, of all days, insecure writers' day, I'm saying that a writer is a goat and not a sheep. Why? Well because goats eat anything and live off of it. Same as writers. Exactly. Why today, just today, dear journal, I ate an old tire, some sh*t (don't ask, won't tell), and my bank statement. Why? You may well ask. The tire is obvious for you alert journals, the second item I've already said I won't comment on, and the bank statement - that was dessert. If I wasn't a writer and a reviser I might have said that it was desert, but that would be wrong. Why would a bank statement be a big sandy hot area with a cartoon guy crawling across it, saying in balloon speak "water...water...just a bit of water..."?  Some other reasons that writers are goats and not sheep. We smell. It's true. I know we don't like to admit it but when we are deep in revisions, showers are just another pesky thought. Plus we eat popcorn with garlicky oil on it (no - not butter, we're on a diet!) and parmesan with that nice old sock odour. And the third reason we're like goats and not like sheep is that we can't sleep. We're always jumping around on mountains trying to find something, anything, to write about. If we were sheep we'd count ourselves and sleep. I can't sleep - that's why I'm writing this in my journal pretending it is Wednesday - oh - it is almost Wednesday - just 13 more minutes and it will be - then I can put the compost out and maybe go to sleep. I might have a cigarette. On the deck, in the driving cold rain. That would make me feel like a writer and I would definitely smell like a goat. Then I couldn't go to sleep and I could work on fleshing out my main character in the revision I'm doing. Good idea. By the way, Mari and Tartlette, I'm not blunking or drogging or any one of those elvish words. I'm just really really really tired. Because I'm a goat, an insecure writing, revising goat and baaaaaah (oh come on - I heard four goats today and that is just how they sound - the sheep copied them - they ARE sheep ya know).
Sometimes when people ask me what I'm "up to" (very suspiciously I might add) I will tell them I'm a writer and go blah blah blahing about 'what I'm working on' and how hard it is to find 'real publishers' these days. But don't kid yourself, journal, I'm still being insecure when I do that. Yes, I am. I'm blowing a lot of hot air. The thing is that when I'm finally a 'published writer' I won't ever say that. I'll slip it in real cool. "Yes, I'm working on my twelfth book. Uh...well only one's been published, but I AM working on my twelfth book. I'll be so secure. Then every first Wednesday of every month I'll write a Secure Writers' Post. Ha! OK, I'm going out on the deck to smoke now. See you tomorrow, I mean today.

Insecure Writers in the Summertime

It is the monthly meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group - go to the link and sign up or look for other worried writers to read. 

What does the insecure writer get up to in the summer? I'm so happily stuck into a new project (Tales of the Dispossessed) that I'm having no problem meeting my goal of roughly 1 thousand words a day. I should have a shitty first draft by the end of the summer and be able to then dive into my favourite part - revising. It isn't a mystery this time - it is a tale of the future - about 12 years from now when some of the things we see evolving have reached their apotheosis and people everywhere are figuring out how to survive. Oddly this focus on end times is cheering me up somewhat. Perhaps I'm finally getting this impermanence thing.

My fella is away working in Labrador this summer so my life is quieter than usual (and it is usually pretty quiet). I have lots of time to write and to garden so I'm very happy. I have some little trips here and there to do readings of my newest book (Little Birds) and that is fun but I'm not pushing it too much. 

a picture of how I used to spend my summers as a child. We are undoubtedly stopped at a sign telling us about the continental divide - something my father was mysteriously obsessed with.

I've been getting feedback and so far it has all been terrific. This makes me very happy. I'm proud of this book. I was proud of The Crooked Knife too but this is a better book because my writing gets better with practice. An obvious truth but yay!

Here's this month's question (which is optional):

July 1 question - Is there anything you'd like to see changed, added, and/or rearranged about the book publishing industry?

Hmm. . . this is a tough question. I think that is like asking how a building could be remodeled when it is on fire. Soon we will have to rebuild a new model. I do not blame anyone for this but the book publishing industry like the music industry is undergoing an incredible change - I might go on about the good old days but they probably weren't and what is the point? I'm quite glad not to be a publisher, a book store owner, or a music producer these days. I will muckle on best I can and hope sanity will prevail. I do thank people like Jane Friedman who I find a terrific resource for navigating the tricky waters of the publishing business.  And of course Insecure Writer's Support Group (in particular our fearless leader Alex J. Cavanaugh)  for bolstering the insecurities of all of it. 

It will be interesting to see what happens next. Or in the words of that wonderful optimist Maggie Muggins (said at the end of every show) "I wonder what will happen tomorrow, Mr. McGarrity?"

 

IWSG and 2nd novel released

 Welcome to another meeting of the Insecure Writers Support Group - sign up here to join this lovely group - IWSG !

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting!

The awesome co-hosts for the May 6 posting of the IWSG are Jenni Enzor, Jemima Pett, Jamie of Uniquely Maladjusted but Fun, and Kim Lajevardi!

This month's question is "What was the most inspiring feedback you received including agents, editors and beta readers?"

Hmm... that is hard to answer in some ways. It is so topical for me right now as my new novel Little Birds was released a couple of weeks ago and I'm starting to hear from those who have been reading it. I have to say though that the response that has really stuck for me came after my first book The Crooked Knife was released. It came from one of my closest friends and it was really her look of surprise when she contacted me and said how good it was. I laughed and said she must have been worried that it would be bad and she'd have to make shit up. Exactly! she replied. She never was any good at lying. The other feedback that really encouraged me was from the book-clubs that I attended and finding out how deeply they read and what they were curious about. Very thrilling. 

I had the same editor for both books and her feedback was positive without being remotely gushing. From the publisher of my first book - nothing. He probably didn't read it. I remember talking to him early on and getting off the phone and saying to my husband that I didn't know why he'd decided to take it on he was so bored with the whole thing. Ha. This is one of the fabulous things about being a rather aged author - I really don't care - as long as my copyeditor (my husband) likes it and I like it - well the rest is up to the gods. 

While we're on the topic of releases - do any of you experience a sort of post-partum depression when a book comes out? I'm feeling very blah and not sure if it is the world in general, finishing a big project, or you know - hating publicizing said book. What do you think?