PiBoIdMo is here!

As a writer of children's picture books, this is exciting news! Picture Book Idea Month is the NaNoWriMo for picture book writers! The challenge, put forth by founder and picture book author, Tara Lazar, is to generate 30 picture book ideas in 30 days.

Just as with NaNoWriMo, the challenge is not to have something ready for publication in 30 days. I should hope not, as chances are 30 days would hardly give any writing a chance to ripen. The challenge is simply to have a rough draft, and in the picture book world, an rough idea is almost the same thing.

Now, to be fair, this sounds a whole lot easier than NaNoWriMo's challenge to write an entire novel in a month. Or at least, one would think so. But it’s not as simple as it sounds. Many picture book ideas have already been done ad nauseum so it can be challenging to say the least to come up with something new, fresh, fun and interesting to kids.

Picture books are short, naturally. They get to the point quickly. So an idea can often be the whole skeleton on which the meat of the story hangs. For a novel, an idea is just the first bone, or sometimes barely the ghost of a novel yet to be. Both still need "fleshing out", but one is a lot closer to the end result than the other. At least, there are fewer words to tinker with in the editing process. But you still need at least a bone to work with, and many bones have already been chewed down to the marrow!

Just like a novel, there has to be enough substance to write about. Unlike a novel, there can't be too much. With longer works, if there isn't enough material for a novel it may end up as a novella, short story or even flash fiction. You can scale back until it fits. If there isn't even enough for flash fiction, you haven't got a story. Picture books are flash fiction for the youngest of audiences. That said, an idea is an idea and that's all that counts for PiBoIdMo. The time will come, later, for participants to develop and explore the suitability of each. Some will bear fruit, some will wither on the vine. PiBoIdMo is all about planting seeds. In the end, the writer may end up with 3-10 concepts that will eventually become manuscripts. That's not too shabby for a month's work!

But now I face a dilemma. I write children’s books but I write in other genres as well. Last year was my first attempt at NaNoWriMo. I was not successful so I would like to try again this year, but since discovering PiBoIdMo, I have been dying to participate in this as well! Maybe I’ll get brave and bold and try both in the same month! Or maybe that's a bit too ambitious! I may have to alternate venues and just do PiBoIdMo.

 If you have ever wished to delve into the world of picture books, this might just be a way to dive on in! Registration is only open until Nov 3, so click on over and sign up!

Sign up for PiBoIdMo 2014! 

Catherine Warren (aka C.C. Monroe)

Suzanne Church Interviewed on Speculating Canada Radio Show

In July of 2014, Writing in the 'Loo member Suzanne Church was interviewed on Trent Radio's Speculating Canada Show.

Listen to the Interview.

Embracing the Critique

It is, pardon the phrasing, a critical skill for any profession. And it is a skill. It is not about toughening up, it is not about having no ego (or being all ego), it is a skill you can learn. Painfully, usually, but you can learn it.

Once you have it, the pain of critique dulls down to a bruise you keep poking from its initial screaming skin-peeling horror. After you hone the skill, you will start craving the critique, seeking out more and more sharp, incisive critiques across everything you create.

The key skill is being able to objectify the input so you can see the underlying truths in it instead of reacting to the tone, the person, or the ever-present internal monologue that says you're not a good writer.

Separate You From Your Work

In all cases, you have to divorce yourself rapidly from believing that a critique of your skills or writing is somehow a judgement on your value as a human being. This is by far the greatest hurdle you will have to overcome in order to develop the skill of embracing a critique. 

You are not your work. Your work, is, however, a part of you. So is your poop. And your snot. And the hairs that shed through the day. Your urine, and other excretions. Not everything you produce is awesome. You do not, I am certain, save every hair, every tear, every ejaculation (verbal or otherwise) and hold them sacred and untouchable, so do not hold every word that way either.

As you evaluate your poop to determine if your diet is balanced and health is good, so too should you evaluate your writing -- with clinical and objective distance. 

Understand the Source

Like in many things, the critique says more about the critique-er than you or your writing. Some people focus on the nitty-gritty, the details, the layout, the structure of your writing. Others, the arc, the meaning, the overall effect. Some get hung up on their own pet peeves (I would wager that is actually most, if not all of us), and some of those pet peeves come from years of valuable experience. 

Understand who is offering the critique, and you will know what the highest value will be within it.

Neutralize the Input

There is, of course, a world of difference between "I didn't like it" and "It sucks", and accepting that is one of the tougher parts of accepting a critique.

Like separating yourself from your work, separating what is said from what is meant is a vital skill. There will be people, possibly many people, who will not bother differentiating. If they don't like it, it therefore sucks. The question becomes how do you know whether they dislike it because of personal preference or because there is something wrong with the writing that you can fix?

Dig deeper! You're always seeking the underlying issue, and to see if it's something that you can adjust in your writing, a continual panning for critique gold. Ask what they feel sucks, where they didn't like it, where they fell out of the story.

You are looking for the truths, not how they are stated, no matter who offers you the critique.

Sometimes You Will Miss the Mark

It is an unfortunate truth; sometimes the writing misses the mark. Sometimes you don't communicate what you think you're communicating. Critiques, or feedback, help you see what is still stuck in your head, what isn't making it across that barrier clearly.

Accepting that missing the mark is just one moment in a long line of moments -- not a prediction of all futures, nor a measure of all pasts -- makes the whole process of writing and getting critiques easier to handle.

Keep Your Eye on the Prize

What do you want from the critique? Focus on that and let the rest of it fall away until you can use it. You may want to know:

• Did you succeed in communicating what you intended to communicate?
• What is the trend across all of the critique/feedback? 
• What was hidden to you before the critiques about your writing?
• Where do you need to focus your growth? 
• Is the story arc clear?
• Are the characters believable?
• Is the format ready to send to a publisher?

Ready? Go get 'em!

(And in the spirit of bravely inviting critique, please let loose the feedback in the comments to let me know if this post met its goals of making critique less painful (more desirable). What could I fix? What did I get right? All types of critique are welcome!)

Getting Unstuck: one approach to curing "writer's block"

It's early October and, for a teacher, that means getting down to the nitty-gritty of evaluation. Students get their first report card around the start of November, and that means lots of observation and marking.

If you're anything like me, there is nothing like a deadline in any other area of my life to get me to sit down at the computer and hammer something out; I am a dyed-in-the-wool procrastinator. Seriously. Like, my house only gets cleaned when someone is coming over. So call me and then come over.

Like many of my students, I tend to hit a wall when I finally have some time to sit down to tackle the outline, character exploration or chapter that I need to do. It seems that my brain has no interest in addressing the task at hand; it's like a hungry person who is determined not to shop or cook!

My tried and true "writer's block" banisher comes from Natalie Goldberg. I discovered this right after the tragedy of 9-11. I was teaching my Writer's Craft class in a computer lab at the time, and someone figured out how to access the live feed from a building adjacent to the twin towers. We struggled to breathe as, in three second bursts, we witnessed the second plane hit, and the two towers crumble.

Everyone was traumatized, and continuing with the curriculum seemed not only crass but impossible. For the first class after the event, we just talked. I was at a loss as to how to begin to work again, and turned to Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones for inspiration. In the second class, I had the kids do "automatic writing" for 30 minutes, and then we talked for the rest of the period. Goldberg's rules are simple:

1. Keep your hand moving. (Goldberg hand writes, but I have few students who still do. I suppose they could even do it on their phones.)

2. Don't correct anything.

3. Don't worry about spelling, punctuation, grammar.

4. Lose control.

5. Don't think. Don't get logical.

6. Go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary or naked, dive right into it. It probably has lots of energy.)

I described it to my high school class like this: "Automatic writing" is simple: it's really just a total brain barf. Write everything that comes into your head. No stopping, no editing, no looking at the screen if you can manage it - turn off the monitor if you have a tower, or cover the screen if you are on a laptop. GO!

I was worried that they would type for five minutes and then just stop. Instead, an amazing thing happened. As the first week passed, not only did the students write for the full 30 minutes, but they also began to move quickly to actual curricular discussion, rather than rehashing the continued agony that followed this trauma.

By the time November reports arrived, my students commented on the fact that their marks seemed to be significantly higher than their classmates - and higher than the marks they normally earned. No one was complaining, but it was obvious enough that we kept our eye on the trend as the rest of the year progressed. While the normal mark distribution began to reassert itself as the year progressed, my writing students kept up their increased productivity.

By the end of the year, all of the students in the class had averages 5% to 20% higher than they had ever had before.

I call the phenomenon "skimming" because it reminds me of my life-guard days. Each morning I spent the better part of an hour dipping a long-poled screen over the surface of the pool to remove all the detritus which had accumulated over the night. Leaves, pine needles, tiny dead toads, trash - everything was scooped up and dumped over the fence. The best moment of my day was when I got to dive into that cool oasis, cleaving the pristine surface in a perfect arc, torpedoing along the bottom to the other end.

Our brains collect detritus as well. The flotsam and jetsam of our lives can often be overwhelming. We cram info into our brains like hungry teachers at an end-of-the-day fruit and cookie buffet. It's no wonder things get lost: I recently realized that I have taught approximately 4,500 students in my 25 year career. If anyone knows how to erase that precious space filled with names (and the lyrics to every song from 1970-2010), please let me know.

In the meantime, transferring our bobbing bits of brilliance to some more permanent format - paper, sticky-notes, computer, phone - can free our working brain to deal with other issues. Creativity is hard when your brain is engaged with grocery lists, appointment times and places, people to call, email issues to address, or any of the other myriad things we ask it to do on a daily basis. Forcing myself to keep all of my notes and reminders in my phone (I started years ago with a PDA) was one of the best habits I have ever forged.

To get myself out of the doldrums, and because starting the project I want to do is feeling way too overwhelming, I am committing to 20-30 minutes of "automatic writing" every day for the next two weeks. It's a good warm-up for NaNoWriMo (which I am, insanely, going to try, and ALSO have my writing students do!) and I am betting that it will clear out all my negative potholes, and fill them with webs of words - so much easier to drive on!

Join me! I will write a follow up at the end of each week noting how my work life (teaching) and writing life (dribs and drabs at the moment) are affected.

I would also love to hear how this tool works for you.

Write on!

Wendy

Songwriting

I'm going to sneak a post in here about Songwriting, as I've brought lyrics to Writing in the 'Loo in the past. G and I are back at it, new songs are on the way, which means new lyrics have to be written. And it ain't poetry, people. It's a very different challenge. The rules are also very different, and I wrote a blog post here for you to check out.

I got a chuckle out of it, I hope you do, too. :)

Marcy

Writing is Hard Work

To be a hard-working writer means not only to produce, but to improve.

For many people, trying to find the time to sit down and write a thousand words is a challenge. If you have a demanding job, if you have children, if you travel… We can each list some very reasonable things that keep us from finding the time.

Other times, excuses keep us from writing. Favourite TV shows, the weather is too nice, or the soul-sucking internet. (*Waves at you as you read this on the internet.*) We all need some down-time, right?

So what turns someone into a writer? The absolute NEED to write. That drive, that all-encompassing desire to get the idea down, trumps all other activities.

If you want to know how that energy feels, start an argument with someone online. (Because someone on the internet is wrong.) You can’t walk away, you have to make your point, your words have to be seen, you, you… HAVE TO settle this! And then an hour or two zips by. You get caught up, you have been completely engrossed, and the laundry is still sitting there. That’s what it feels like.

If you are someone who has to write and cannot escape it, you already know what I’m talking about. You get up early in the morning or stay up into the wee hours, you write at lunch, or while you eat dinner – however you make it happen, you put your ass in the chair and write like the wind.

And that’s awesome.

But you don’t want to spend the next ten years of your life writing crap. Although it might feel like waves of genius flowing forth from your muse, chances are, you were not born an award-winning author. You need to keep improving.

That’s when it gets hard.

I don’t mean just reading every book on the planet. And not only, “I got another rejection, but I’ve got a thick skin.” And I don’t mean that writing is a lonely, self-doubting activity. Those are all hard indeed, but not what I want to focus on today.

I’ve said it before and I will keep repeating, “The whole world needs an editor.” Even the best writers need a second set of eyes. Smart eyes. Not someone who loves you and adores that you write, eyes. A person who knows how to properly edit your work is priceless.

But you know that old saying about teaching a man to fish?

If you are making errors with comma placements (for example), you have a choice. You can fix the commas the editor pointed out to you in this one particular manuscript, or you can go and learn about correct comma usage. You’ve got some problems with dialogue? Don’t just fix what they circled for you. Go and study, not just by reading books that have dialogue, but study how to write effective dialogue. Some people take classes, workshops, or find lessons online, but you have to find your own training.

And I’m not going to give them to you. No list of sources, nothing to reference, no starting point. I don’t know what you need.

They are your problems to fix. Not your editor’s. The editor is there to tell you which fish you need, they’re not going to catch it for you. If you’re lucky, they might point you in the right direction. But the really hard work? That’s all yours.

So “writing” isn’t always about word count and your fingers flying across the keyboard. It’s not only coming up with the best ideas to ever rock the world. Sometimes it’s about soaking in a whole new lesson that will improve your work, and make your future projects more successful.

Going to a Writer’s Conference – Tips for Survival and Success – Part Three

Here we are at part three, and if you've missed the earlier posts full of tips for BEFORE and DURING the con, you might find it useful to go back and read those first:

Part One

Part Two

So what's left? The con is over, you're bloody exhausted and possibly coming down with something. Mind spinning and feeling overwhelmed, excited and inspired, chances are you want to sleep for a week, and then write for another week solid.

After the Con:

Get your butt to work on Monday and drag yourself through the day. We’ve all been there. Drink a boatload of water, sleep a lot, and eat properly again. Vitamin C is your friend. Your coworkers may or may not want to hear about how you spent your weekend. Perhaps you'll even reconsider how you spend your days in the regular, mundane existence of employment. But trust me, keep your day job.

You know who will want to hear about your weekend? Everyone who reads your blog. Write about it, and make sure you include experiences that are unique to you. Who did you meet? What did you see? Were you there when that life-sized Dalek blew steam and scared the restaurant waiter? Post your pictures and put names to as many faces as you can, not only for your own future reference, but for others to put faces to names, as well. You might even include links to publishers and writers you met, as it will bring traffic to their sites as well. It's always nice to have a chance to promote others in a logical context.

Aaah...good job. But you're still not done.

The rest of the week will be spent doing some follow-up. Go through the business cards, bookmarks and flyers you picked up all weekend. If you had a conversation with the person, email them directly and say how nice it was to meet them, and mention something specific you might have talked about to help jiggle their memory of you. You don’t have to write a lot, just a couple of sentences. Light and polite. Under your closing salutations and name, make sure you include a signature that includes your website address. If you already have a newsletter, also provide a link for them to subscribe. (Website and subscribe links should be in your permanent signature anyway.) Don't be offended if you don't get a response right away, or at all. Most people are playing this catch-up game as well as keeping up with the regular day job, taking care of the kids, and fighting off sickness. Otherwise, look through the websites of businesses and people you didn't speak to in order to learn more about them, and how they fit into the grand picture. Everyone is connected in some way.

Hook up and find all of those people on Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, and whatever else you’re subscribed to. Your online rolodex is very valuable. Keep your initial connections alive and occasionally comment on or retweet something of theirs.

Back to the Message Boards. You want to stay top-of-mind. Continue to get to know to know people and become a part of the community by finding the related message boards, and hang out online. Some message boards are more...volatile than others. It's the Internet, put on your bid-kid pants and play nice. Everyone is connected in some way.

In the long run, if you find yourself reading things by authors/editors/publishers you've met, take the time to write a review. That could be posted on Amazon, Goodreads, and even your blog. Again, promoting others is always appreciated even if they don't see it personally. Others will see you boosting the signal.

Plan the next con! It's a vicious cycle, addictive, and necessary. Go back and read Part One to find out which cons are right for you, decide what you can afford and ask around about how you can save money at the next location. But there's a difference this time around, you've already met people! Send along a note or post on their wall/Tweet ahead of time to say that you're going and you hope to see them there. You'll know what to expect the second time around, and might even have ideas about what you'd like to do differently. It's possible that you also have more confidence as you see familiar faces in the hallways.

Perhaps you'll have something new to promote?

If only you had more time to write...but that's another (upcoming?) blog post.

Once again and as always, comments and your own stories are welcome!

Marcy