Category: Writing

Posted in Activism, Politics, Writing, Writing Fears, Writing Goals

Writing in the Midst of it All

Posted on by beckylevine

Okay, my thoughts here are going to be nothing new and certainly nothing profound. But I’ve had a block in my writing all week (Anyone else? Yeah, I thought so.), and I’m hoping processing it here a bit will free me up to get back to my story. Which needs to happen.

My Facebook feed is filled with posts from other writers, because, well, that’s one of my biggest tribes. And I’m hearing so much the past few days about how we need to write, we need to keep putting out words, we need to give stories to children–stories that help keep their hearts and minds and arms open. And I believe this.

Except, I don’t always believe it. Partially, this is probably because for me, reading has always been more of an escape than anything else. Books do inspire me about writing, but I haven’t ever had that connection so many other people talk about–that a book turns their life around. Okay, wait, no–Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star did have a profound influence on me. But that’s nonfiction, and I was in my forties before I read it.

Also, while I am extremely aware that words won the Presidential election (empty, empty, nothing words, from my pov), I also know that there were wonderful, strong words on the other side, my side, and they didn’t win the election. So, I don’t know…I’m a very inactive person who is realizing she had darned well better find some actions to do, soon, and I’m struggling with believing that my words can do enough.

But…oh, you knew there would be a “but.” I have to write. I believe in self-care, and I know that a me without writing is not a me who’s going to be happy or strong enough to do much else. And, like I said, logically (and usually emotionally), I totally know that words have power.

So here’s what I’m telling myself. I am working on a story these days that has a hero I love. He is not diverse, in any of the ways we often use that word. But I think he is part of a personality population that sometimes, maybe often, does get overlooked, ignored, not understood and not recognized. And if, if, I can tell his story in a way that one day, one child, might actually see themselves in this hero and feel better, then…well, maybe doing that is a part of all this–this active fight that I think we have to take on. So I’m coming back to the commitment I made earlier this year–to write more slowly and write more deeply and paint this true character onto the page. As best I can. Even if, for now, the only one who benefits is me.

Posted in Uncategorized, Writing

Transitioning Between Projects: How Do YOU Do It?

Posted on by beckylevine

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been pretty darned immersed in revising my picture book. People talk about which stage of writing a book we like best–early drafts, major revisions, final polishing. I’ll take any and all of those, as long as I get to a point where I can be and am totally immersed in that project. Where I go to bed thinking about it, wake up on the same path, and–whether I react with excitement or nerves–know for certain that this is the fictional world I’ll be stepping into today.

And then came “the end”–at least the end for now. The picture book has hit the email & the snail-mail, on its way to get critiqued by a couple of people in the publishing world. Despite the fact that I’m not querying or submitting yet, there is a wonderful wing-like feeling to thinking about the story out there, being seen, being read. And I’m letting myself enjoy that feeling.

In pretty much every other sense, though, I’m closing the door on the picture book for a while. I won’t be getting those critiques back until April, probably, and I’m going to wait to see what they tell me before I take the book back to my critique group. I’m also not revising a word of the story until then.

Which means, back to the other stuff. Time to shift gears.

In a way, the transition comes at a good time. My son is out of school for a week, which always throws life onto a different schedule. I’ve got some editing to do, along with prepping a few Power-Point presentation for a local SCBWI workshop series I’ll be doing. That’s the plan for the next week. And then, when my son heads back to school, I’ll head back to my historical.

I said that this is a good way to shift, in some ways. In another way, because I pushed these other things out to get the picture book done, they’re going to pretty much take up this week, which means I’ll be away from Caro & Chicago for that much longer. I’ll be away from the segment of my brain that thinks in terms of creating worlds with my own words. Sometimes, when you’re gone too long, the bridge back can look spindly or like it’s missing a few planks.

I’m thinking, to keep that bridge stronger, I’ll be getting back into my research during non-editing/powerpointing time. If I can’t write about Chicago in 1912, I can read about it. And immigrants. And automobiles. And photography. Obviously, research is its own form of immersion.

What do you do when you’re moving from one project to another, or when you’ve had to step away from the fiction altogether? How about sharing some tips in the comments!

Posted in First Drafts, Writing

Five Writing Things I’ve Thought about This Week

Posted on by beckylevine

1. Letting the first draft be the wind-up draft, knowing that the action/big stuff is stating way late in the story. Imagining myself borrowing my husband’s HUGE new shopvac and just SUCKING that slow, padding away in the next revision.

2. Reactions. When something happens in a story, the characters–ESPECIALLY the point of view character–has to react. Sometimes the reaction needs to be as big as the event, sometimes it needs to be hidden and buried from all the other characters, but it has to be there. Otherwise, you’ve got readers turning pages back and forth to see if they missed something…a big HUH??!! thought-bubble over their heads.

3. Setting, setting, setting. How to get SO inside the world that you write it fluidly onto the page, barely conscious of the specific details you ARE using, rather than sitting back, picturing things, and sticking images down like mismatched Lego colors.

4. Anger. Having it be part of the character, be a piece of their essence, be natural & righteous & strong. Instead of writing words like “gasped” and “tensed” and “reddened.” But being semi-okay with those words for, you know…the first draft.

5. The reader. Me, the writer. And what might possibly be the thread that connects us, through the story.

What writing thoughts have been on your mind this week? I’m thinking we have to celebrate them all, as part of why we do this, even when they are frustrating and challenging and potentially mind-blowing in NOT so good a way!

Happy weekend, everybody.

Posted in Research, Writing

Write What You Know? Ahem…

Posted on by beckylevine

I don’t think so.

If I only wrote what I knew, I would never have:

  • Created a 1st-person, 12-year-old boy protagonist
  • Written a scene at a skate-board park that ends in a get-away race to safety
  • Listened to many explanations of DNA-matching and written about it for 7-year-olds (Hi, Lee!)
  • Taken a trip to Chicago to visit Hull-House
  • Collected two shelves of research books that have me wanting to read (and write) down many, many new paths
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how we do and can stretch our brains. My husband just finished reading Barbara Strauch’s The Secret Life of the Grown-up Brain (now so overdue at the library, I have to take it back and THEN check it out again for myself to read (Hi, Amytha!)), and he’s been reading me bits and pieces–mostly focused on the fact that, as we get older, our brain does not shrivel up, atrophy, and basically die.
 
Despite what our teenage children may be telling us.
 
 
I think I knew this–I am in many ways much more open to new experiences, new knowledge. Okay, maybe not so much to new opinions, but I just think of that as continuing to grow my stubbornness synapses. (Hi, Mom!) But working on a historical novel has got me thinking about it more, really recognizing what we can do if we try. There is so much I’m putting into my book that I cannot know, not in the sense people talk about for writers. I can’t march through DC with the other suffragists; I can’t sit down and listen to Ida B. Wells anger at being asked to walk at the back of that march. I can’t walk through all the buildings in the Hull-House complex in 1913; I can’t share a room with Jane Addams and experience the warmth and power so many people have written about. And, honestly, I don’t really want to go to Chicago in the middle of a blizzard and stand around for an hour or three to see how it feels.
 
But I can learn. I can push myself not only to read the research, but to imagine the feelings, to close my eyes–and stretch my brain–while I take what I do know and extrapolate outward to a much bigger world of understanding.
 
Write what I know? Only that? No, thanks!