Fire forged

In one of my manuscripts, an unlikely hero steps up in a critical moment and saves his small town from sliding into chaos. Initially, he shrugs it off, telling another character, "Someone had to do something." Later, in a moment of reflection after the dust has settled, he muses over what he's done in relation to a slightly shortened quote from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night: "Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." Considering the character's pretty unremarkable life up until that point, he's not quite sure where he fits.

Watching the March for Our Lives events--indeed, since the February 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglass High School--I've been wondering about this in relation to the students we've been seeing. Ever since Emma Gonzalez stood before the crowd and cried, "We call--BS!" and stood toe-to-toe with NRA flack Dana Loesch; ever since David Hogg calmly brushed off those who said he was at best coached, at worst, a paid crisis actor. These students have been passionate, intelligent and articulate; they have started a movement that is having real impact. And I can't help but wonder about them: were they always like this? Were they activists? Were they outspoken? Were they the leaders in their school already, members of the student government, captains of sports teams and debate teams, editors of school newspapers, kids that everyone knew? Or were they shy, anonymous, kids that stayed out of sight, out of mind, on the edges of the MSD community, either by choice or circumstance?

The citizen in me applauds them and doesn't care much about what they were, only about what they are, and what they will become. The writer in me wants to know.

Random Thoughts

It's been a tough week, capped off by the long drive to get the Catbird back to school from spring break. Here are some random thoughts:

*Defenestrate is a great word, but, boy is it hard to work into everyday conversation.

*There is nothing more optimistic in this world than a dog.

*Waking up to single-digit temperatures again kind of sucks, but it looks like we're at least going to have a snow-free week.

*I need to find my next writing project.

*The Bruins are doing their best to make a believer out of me.

*Waiting is still the hardest part.

*There is nothing quite like a good bagel in the morning.

*It's nice to have it still light at 7pm, though I'm not crazy about waking up again in the pitch dark.

*Black Panther was a lot of fun.

*It's going to be hard for season 2 of Jessica Jones to top season 1, but two episodes in, they're off to a good start.

*David Byrne sounds like David Byrne--yet he doesn't. I find this video strangely compelling, and the song has been stuck in my head the last couple of days. It's funny how people's voices change as they age.


That's all I've got for today--what's on your mind?

Another day...

...another winter weather advisory.

Roughly a third of the snow that has fallen on my corner of the world has come down since March 1, according to the National Weather Service. It feels like this has been the case for at least the last four years or so. When we moved here 15 years ago, most of the snow fell in January and February, but it's been shifting later and later. As have the seasons in general.

At least this storm doesn't look to be too bad here, just four or five inches. Folks on the coast look like they could  get slammed (again--it's been a tough couple of weeks out there). Hopefully, we won't see a lot of power outages again.

That's about all I got today, sorry to say. My brain appears to be in a bit of a down cycle. What's new with all of you?

In search of judgment

The greatest gift for every writer is judgment--Obari Gumba

 Back in December, Agent Carrie and I had our annual strategy session, where we set the course for the upcoming year. One of the things Carrie wanted me to do, once I was finished writing the first draft of the WiP, was to take a new look at an old project, one long-time readers will be familiar, first as BARTON'S WOMEN, then as POWERLESS. (Quick rundown: this was the project that received the offer of representation from Carrie; it went through several submission rounds before we opted to pull it). The story was deemed by some editors as being a little too dystopian, and dystopia was dead, in the wake of several years of Wool and Divergent and The Hunger Games.

But Carrie had been hearing rumblings, that publishers were opening up again to dystopia, and she encouraged me to take another look and consider potentially revising it and putting it back out there, so I did (take another look at it, that is).

It was a bit of an eye opener.

Last summer, I took an online course through the University of Iowa's Writers' Workshop (written about here and here), which is where, in the first week, I encountered that quote from Obari Gumba. There was another quote, from novelist/playwright Kia Corthron that I wish for the life of me I had written down. I thought I did, but I couldn't find it. (I may not have written it down because I think I thought at the time I'd have access to all class materials, including lectures and transcripts, forever; I do not) It went something like this: "The first draft, say your point clearly; say it again a little quieter; say it again a little more subtly still." In other words, subtlety is your friend. Don't spoon feed the readers.

Looking back through POWERLESS, I am amazed (and disturbed) by how obvious and heavy-handed I was, not just with some of "the points" I was trying to get across, but just with character thoughts and emotions. There's a hell of a lot of explaining going on, a hell of a lot of spoon feeding, a hell of a lot of making sure any future readers will get exactly what I was going for, no room for interpretation. There was little subtlety, little good judgment. Ugh.

I'm hoping I've moved past this. Some time in the not-too-distant future, I'm going to crack open the WiP with the responses of beta readers to guide me. What will I find? Spoon feeding? Explanation? Dictation? Or will I find I've exercised judgment, given my readers space to fill in some of the gaps themselves, a demonstration that I've learned something in the last few years? Time will tell, but I know what I'm hoping for.

Have you ever had similar reactions to your past work? Have you found your judgment has improved over the years?