Writing Tip: The First Draft is The Foundation

I went to a gallery event last night, admiring the work of Bill Bartelt and his students of watercolor; drinking wine, eating cheese and sausage, schmoozing with the artists. When one found out I was a writer and had a published book she told me that at one time she wanted to be a writer. She said she wrote two books that were terrible and so she decided to move on to other things. She became an architect, and she creates beautiful art.
There's a misconception that if you write a book and no one wants it, that means you're not a good writer. So not true. It only means you haven't finished. Wouldn't it be wonderful if writing a novel were as simple as sitting down, putting words on paper, doing maybe one revision, it's totally awesome, we send it off and the next stop is the New York Times Best Seller List?

Okay, disregard that guy without the shirt

I wish.
I told this woman (Meredith is her name) that the difference between a writer and a published author is that the author didn't quit. I told her it took me eight years to write/revise, write/revise, write/revise (you get the idea) my first book before I finished it (actually, I thought I'd finished it long before that but when I sent it out to various agents they disagreed).
The first draft is not a finished product, not for J.K. Rowling, not for James Patterson, not for me and not for you. The first draft is the foundation of a house, nothing more. It supports everything else but it's just the beginning. Once the foundation is laid then you add the studs and the walls and the floors and the windows and the roof  and the plumbing and the electrical, and then you paint and wallpaper and lay hardwood floors and install crown molding and put in granite countertops...and all that takes time, but that's what makes it beautiful. That's what makes it something you can live in.
By the time Meredith and I ended our conversation she thought she might dust off those manuscripts and take another look. I hope she does. She's written two books, for chrissakes, which is an amazing accomplishment.
About a month ago I sent my second novel to my agent. It was the first draft, written beginning to end, with one revision, and I felt good about it. Did I think it was perfect? Hell no, but I thought it was damn good.
My agent didn't quite agree. It's not that she thought it was bad - it's just unfinished. She said the writing's good and I have the chops to pull it together, and she spent a lot of time going through it and making suggestions and telling me what she thought needed help.
I feel immeasurably lucky to have someone like that; someone who's in my corner and who has a vested interest in making it "awesome." She said in the old days there used to be an adage, "Seven drafts to final." Well, I sincerely hope it doesn't take that many, but whatever it takes, it takes. I want it to be the best it can be.
I've got the foundation poured - now on to making it something I, and my readers, can live in.
Excuse me while I get back to draft number two.

Writing Tip: How Watching Kids' Movies Can Improve Your Writing

I've never seen The Lorax, but after reading this article by Lydia Sharp I think I'm missing out on something. It's true, there are writing lessons to be learned in everything we see, watch and read.
Henry James said, “A writer should strive to be a person on whom nothing is lost.” 

The Lorax is not lost on Lydia Sharp. Read her funny but relevant take on the movie.

Everything I Thneed to Know About Writing and Publishing I Learned from THE LORAX by Lydia Sharp 

School is officially out for the summer in my part of the world. For those of us who are parents working mostly from home, this is both a joy and a curse. I love having my son home with me, but it is much more difficult to work. Which is approximately 56 hours of any given day. Living in a single-level, two-bedroom apartment only exacerbates the issue, especially when my son decides to watch his movies at full volume in the room adjacent to my “office”, aka this sad little corner of my kitchen table. There is not even a wall between my work space and the living room.

Despite the insta-migraine this creates, my brain adapts to the situation by attempting to make every bit of data it collects from my environment relevant to my work. A few days ago, my son was watching The Lorax which is a brilliant movie based on a brilliant book. But it’s very colorful and loud and not very conducive to the quiet time required to get my work done. After I’d downed a shot of Excedrin between jovial exclamations of “Thneedville! Thneedville!” the mind meld began. Everything I saw and heard in the other room was suddenly relevant to what I was doing in my sad little corner of writing and editing.  

1. When a story begins with seemingly happy characters in a seemingly perfect world, there had better be Utter Doom ahead.

2. According to O’Hare Air, people will buy anything in a plastic bottle. So put your books in plastic bottles and watch your sales soar!

3. Don’t let anything stand in the way of your author dreams. Unless those dreams require deforestation. In that case, eBooks!

4. When the going gets tough, the tough eat marshmallows.

5. The Once-ler repeatedly cut his story short and told Ted that if he wanted the rest of the story he’d have to come back another day. Give the reader what they want, but not all at once. Holding back the juicy bits until just the right moment can draw out the tension.

6. The Once-ler: “How nice to see someone so undeterred by things like, reality.”

Author, defined.

7. The Lorax: “Nobody’s gonna buy that thing.”

The Once-ler: “Well, fortunately, you’re not the target market. Weirdo.”

Ignore the haters. You aren’t writing for those weirdos.

8. The success of the Once-ler’s Thneed comes out of nowhere.

No one knows why certain books take off and others don’t. But when a book does skyrocket, people are going to notice, and then they have to see what all the fuss is about. And then everyone thinks they need to read that book, even if they know they won’t like it, just so they can have an opinion on it. This can work in your favor. It can also not work for you at all. As was the case with the Once-ler, a jolt of unexplained success is not always good for the long run.

Read the rest of the article.

And BTW, if you're a writer you should subscribe to the online publication Writer Unboxed. I don't know how they manage to come up with so many wonderful contributors with so much valuable info and writing tips but they do, consistently. It's one of my favorite writing sites. 

Writing Tip: Connect With Other Authors, Like: Amy Sue Nathan

Amy Sue Nathan is the most generous of author friends. If you remember, we did our first (and thankfully last) video interview on Amy's blog last year when my book was published. Amy was a big promoter of my debut novel; writing reviews, linking to it on her blog, telling her friends about it...and we barely knew each other at the time. We connected because we share the same editor (the amazing Brenda Copeland) at the same publisher (St. Martin's Press).
Since then, through Amy, I've connected with other authors in the Chicago writing community and elsewhere. It's a she-tells-two-friends kind of thing, and I've found the author community to be amazingly supportive. And Amy's one of the best. She's a tireless supporter of authors everywhere.
Amy's book The Glass Wives debuted in May and you need to read it!
Meanwhile, get to know Amy. Here's an interview we did together:

SH: How did you come to write The Glass Wives?  

AN: I started writing The Glass Wives to see if I could write fiction, something I'd not done since I was a child. Once I was into the story I had to finish and shoot for publication. Probably because I'm stubborn and once I start something I have to finish and see it through. 

SH: Who is your favorite and why?

AN: I enjoyed writing all the characters, but my favorite characters to write were the men, Scott and Sandy. I am well-acquainted with the thoughts and ways of all different kinds of women and translating that to fiction wasn't easy, but it was natural. Making sure the men were believable was a challenge for me and a lot of fun. I liked writing the characters who were a bit selfish or nasty, like some of the Lakewood moms who showed up at soccer games and the grocery store, but if I met them in real life I wouldn't like them at all. 

SH: How do you create your characters? Are any of them based on real people?

AN: I don't base characters on real people but I do use real people and situations to help me create characters. A hair style, walk, laugh, tone of voice. All of those things and more can come from real life. Or not. I love totally making up characters too. And the best part is when someone thinks they're real.

SH: As a child what did you want to be when you grew up?

AN: I always wanted to be a teacher which is one of the reasons I wrote that profession for Evie Glass. And now I'm teaching some writing workshops! But even with wanting to be a teacher I was a writer always. 

SH:  What was the hardest part of writing The Glass Wives?

AN: Definitely letting go of it and realizing I couldn't and shouldn't explain it (or even defend it) to every reader. 

SH: What do you do when you’re having a hard time moving the story forward?

AN: I usually procrastinate and do something else. I'm not a muse person, I don't have writing tricks or gimmicks I use to jumpstart my words. I just wait.

SH: Do you have any writing quirks?

AN: I need to write in the quiet. I can't write in a cafe or coffee shop or even the library. No music at all. I can get to the point where even the dogs walking around the house bugs me and I have to cover my ears, which makes it hard to type. 

Writing Tip: Promoting Your Work: First Radio...Now TV!

First I got my book published by St. Martin's Press, then I did a radio interview with Bill Moller on WGN Radio (listen here), then I did a radio podcast (listen here) and now I'm on TV! Holy crap, what could be next? I can only think it'll be my Broadway debut.

Until then (I'll make sure you get free tickets), check out this great interview about the Chicago Writers Conference, with creator Mare Swallow, social media guru Ines Bellina and yours truly.

And be sure to register for the conference. It's going to be fantastic. Incidentally, I'm curating an evening of reading so if you want to share your work with an audience you're welcome to send your submission.

Movie Review: We're the Millers NO STARS

OH. MY. GOD. I'm not going to waste my time writing a review of We're the Millers.

Take a pass - that's my review.

I love Jason Sudeikis and Jennifer Anniston. What the hell were they thinking?

Stupid plot, lousy writing, jokes that make you groan. Sudeikis does his best with the part but Anniston is just sleep-walking. 

Appallingly stupid film. Complete waste of time.

I left about an hour and a half in, and that was generous.

No stars for We're the Millers.

The end.

Movie Review: Blue Jasmine ***1/2

If I didn't know Blue Jasmine was a Woody Allen movie I don't think I'd know it was a Woody Allen movie. Blue Jasmine is unlike many of his other films. It doesn't have the humor (I prefer his subtle humor), which I missed. It doesn't have the obligatory Woody Allen-type-nebish character, which I didn't miss so much. Curiously, it's filmed in San Francisco instead of New York, and doesn't matter to the story.
It's an interesting tale of a woman spiraling into madness. Cate Blanchett is mesmerizing as Jasmine, a woman who was once wealthy and privileged, but is now penniless due to her husband's financial scandal and subsequent suicide. Now she finds herself dependent on her sister Ginger (Sally Hawkins) and on the kindness of strangers (Peter Sarsgaard as the new man). Ginger lives a working class life with her blue collar boyfriend (Bobby Cannivale, one of my favorites), of whom Jasmine disapproves. In fact she disapproves of her sister's entire life, and here she is in the middle of it.
Think A Streetcar Named Desire. Blue Jasmine definitely pays homage to that work.

Jasmine talks to herself. She lies. She's ungrateful. She wears a beautiful Chanel jacket over and over and over. She'll do anything to get her old life back. It's fascinating to watch her descent.
But something's missing. I didn't care all that much in the end.
The performances are all wonderful. As an odd bit of casting Andrew Dice Clay is surprisingly good as Ginger's former husband.
There is, in fact, much to recommend about Blue Jasmine but all in all it's not my favorite Woody Allen film. I liked it. Didn't love it.
Three and a half stars for Blue Jasmine.

Movie Reviews: 20 Feet From Stardom, Fruitvale Station, Still Mine

It's not that I've seen all these movies this week, it's that I've seen them in the past month but haven't had time to review them. So why bother? you ask. I have no answer for that except that I love writing and I love movies...and there are one or two people who like to read my reviews.
So...here we go, let's play catch up.

20 Feet From Stardom ***** is a fabulous documentary about the unsung  heroes of music (such an obvious pun but I couldn't resist) - backup singers. In the 50s backup singers were white with a wholesome, plucky, Perry Como sound. In the 60s white bands started using black singers, often preachers' kids, for an edgier, soulful sound, and they transformed music. Some of those singers are spectacularly talented and deserve their own solo career, and once in a while that happens, but many of them go unnoticed through their whole career. Like any other creative endeavor it's not simply about talent - it's about luck and ambition and who you know.
Darlene Love is probably the most well-known backup singer and she was deservedly inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (in 2011). Are there others who should be there with her? Undoubtedly. But as a backup singer, that's what you are: backup. This is a fascinating film about those talented artists.

Fruitvale Station ***1/2
If it wasn't for the spectacular coincidence of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin trial being in the news at the same time as the release of this film I doubt it would have gotten as much attention. Not that it isn't a good film. It is. It's just not a great film, but it's being treated as one.
Fruitvale Station is based on a true story about Oscar Grant III, a young black man who was needlessly killed because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a heart-wrenching story and even though I knew what was going to happen I kept hoping it wouldn't.
This film introduces us to Grant in the day before he was killed and we learn what kind of person he was. I felt that the filmmaker went overboard in showing us what a good guy he was. It wasn't necessary to be so heavy-handed. Did he love his daughter? Sure. Did he cheat on his girlfriend? Yes. He was a normal guy. Was he a saint? No. Did he deserve to die? No. Was it racial profiling? Pretty much.
It's a sad story. A story we hear about way too often in Chicago, about innocent people dying.

Still Mine ***1/2
I love James Cromwell so even if this were an awful movie I'd have to give it at least three stars just for having cast him in it. It's not an awful move; it's entertaining, it's sad, it's sweet, heart-warming and sentimental.
This is based on a true story of a couple in their late 80s (Genevieve Bujold plays the wife, although she's only 71 in real life) and it's the final chapter of their lives. She's falling into dementia, he's trying his best to take care of her by himself, and doesn't want any interference from their children or anyone else. He's still strong and capable, so he decides to build a smaller house, with his own two hands, which will make their lives easier.
Unfortunately, he has no knowledge or concern about building permits and plans and regulations so he blithely begins his project and then is indignant when told he must follow some rules. I wasn't able to work up any sympathy for him. I felt bad that he couldn't do it the way he wanted to but just because he's old doesn't mean he's exempt. Yes, I think bureaucracy can be debilitating but there are also safety issues, and just because someone says they know what they're doing doesn't mean they do.
Cromwell never disappoints me and his performance was wonderful. Bujold was fine but nothing more than that.
And even though I wanted him to just shut up and get the proper permits and file his damn paperwork, of course that would have been a boring movie. And I was happy in the end when he finally gets his house built his way because a judge takes pity on this old man. You know, that little-guy-fights-the-system-and-wins routine. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington. Rudi. Philadelphia. You get the idea. Yay! We love those kind of movies.
I just hope the house doesn't come crashing down around him and his demented wife.