My Writing Team

I just finished a piece last week about NaNoWriMo for SF/SF. I will link here when the 'Zine goes live, but I wanted to write a bit more about how this piece leads me to work with my Critic.

Please note that my Critic is not my Inner Editor; my Editor and I get along really well most of the time. She is a kindly young schoolteacher who uses a blue, green or purple pen (never a red one).  She waits patiently for me to turn in assignments more often than she hangs over me, reading as I write. She wears postwar 40's sundresses with a scattering of chiffon flowers, sensible shoes, and a straw hat when she goes walking. I enjoy working with her.

On the other hand, I am trying to work out some kind of mind time-share, or possibly a professional barter with my Critic. My Critic is a dark and evil shadow. She looks like I would look if I was an anorexic corporate lawyer. Her conservative suits are expensive and stunningly tailored over a perfect figure. Her fingernails and high heels are dangerous weapons in daring colors. Her sharp cheek and collar bones allow her to cut through any defense. She is always right. I revere her, because she fights my battles, as a good lawyer must, but I long for a relationship with her that is symbiotic instead of parasitic.

Parasitic, you ask? Yes. As averse to food as her anorexia has made her, she vampirically sucks up the positive feedback that comes my way. Here's what she ate this week:

"I loved your article. Very inspiring, entertaining and well-written."

"Yeehaw! That was a rollicking good time! wonderful revisions, Yvette...How could anyone fail to feel the thrill of joining in NoNoWriMo after that? So great. Let me know when there's a link to the online 'zine! I'll pass it around."

I'm happy to receive all this praise, and yet the warm, suffusing glow of pride and self-love lasts a fraction of a moment. My Critic sucks it away:

"What do they know? Why would you trust THEIR opinions? It wasn't that great. It needed more work. It was sloppy. I'm sure you missed something. I'm sure you spelled something wrong, changed tense mid paragraph, mixed your metaphors and left behind evidence they can use to convict us. They will find out we can't write. They will see we are merely pretending...and they will GET YOU. *I* can hardly do EVERYTHING around here! Work harder! Be better! Stop being blind and stupid and making messes!"

Seriously, she is the meanest bitch on the planet. And she is undoubtedly me.

How can I work with someone so toxic? In the past, I just let her drain away all the compliments. Sated for the moment, she would lick them from her lips and merely remind me to BE CAREFUL. 

I believe I am ready to stop feeding her, but I don't know how. I believe that if I kept some of those kind words for myself and my hardworking Inner Editor, we would be more prolific. Certainly we wouldn't have to scrounge in secret for a guilty slice of ciabatta, covered in leftover sharp goat chèvre and sweet fig jam. We could picnic together on praise, and toast our hard work with distilled encouragement to make ourselves feel better.

I've got to find a way to kick my Critic habit; pull her from the pedestal and bar her from the bar. Convince her I am not on trial all the time. 

I need to retire her permanently to a far away not-for-profit. Send her to fight a useful battle. Make her feel great about what she does, and write her lots of thank you cards and love notes. 

Maybe that would even work...she's damn smart. I need her. She snaps me out of any tendency toward complacency...but maybe I don't need her all the time.

Behind Pitchapalooza

"Why *wouldn't* you?" asked my writing teacher, when I mentioned that I had an opportunity to submit a book pitch to be picked at random and critiqued as a part of NaNoWriMo.

Why indeed.
Only 250 words to sum up the 50k I wrote, plus a bit about myself as an author (Hah!).

Based on 10 tips, I started off with an excerpt and a synopsis of 464 words. Ready, Cut, Go! Get 214 words - almost 50% - out of your drafts.

It took time. It took effort. It felt impossible.
I got it done...with 45 minutes to spare!

So, in case you have any interest in a preview of my pitch, plus what I started from and where I got to, here it is.

Inner Editor Geekery Engage:

The Final Pitch:

Excerpt from The Joiner:

Janette wanted to join, not watch. Thousands of revelers moved as fast as their feet could carry them. Human chains moved through a darkened hall, hand-in-hand becoming one enormous spiral. Frustrated, fixed in place, Janette considered ignoring the witches’ caution: only Graces and Dragons may add to the dance.

Then, among hundreds of strange faces was one she knew: her Father’s. He blurred past, a pretty witch on either side…though he had been cremated six months before. Ten feet away it was unmistakably him curving out of sight. Janette’s heart raced. She knew why it had become so crowded.

The beloved dead were here.

About The Joiner:

After a year full of death, Janette was tired of grieving.

She needed closure. Or Fun. 

Or Both. 

So she tagged along with a pagan friend on Halloween. At a ritual for saying goodbye to the dead, Janette expected beautiful costumes, dancing, and a hot date. It was supposed to be an alternative to being alone, handing out (scarfing down) Halloween candy.

But Janette’s “beloved dead” were not ready to say farewell.

Now on the wrong side of the veils between the worlds, Janette must navigate the Isle of the Dead. If she can make peace with every dead person from her life - and FAST - she might get back to the world of the living in time for her date.

About The Author:

 Yvette decided to test the hypothesis that a B.A. in Literature must be good for something, right?

The Drafts:

Excerpt from The Joiner:

There were so many people, thought Janette. Each moment there seemed to be more and more and she could barely move. How had we all fit into this space sitting, lying down, sprawled out, she thought. The long lines of people holding hands moved first clockwise, and Janette watched lines begin to move, begin to coil in on itself. A second line moved in the opposite direction, so that the two lines faced each other. Janette could see the opposing lines full of people walking, skipping and chanting face to face, seeing each other in a moment of recognition, love or the simple acknowledgement in the beauty of a stranger’s face.

Soon Janette picked up the chant and started to sing. Singing felt great, but after all the sitting she wanted to MOVE too. She was standing in an awkward location however, near the fairy altar, and partly blocked by a beribboned tree.  A Grace and a Dragon stood near her, protecting the tree from any out of control dancing, but she couldn’t seem to get into the line, no one grabbed her hand and pulled her into the dancing. She watched as each line connected and began to move, until almost all the people were moving – she was the only one standing still. The head witches had cautioned that only graces and dragons could connect people to the circle, but she felt strange  - was she really the only non-moving person?

It was in that moment that she saw her father’s face moving past, one row away, and she knew why there were such multitudes within the hall. The beloved dead were HERE. This hall – this theater – THIS is where the dead had gone. THIS place she stood in is what was on the other side of that cave.

About The Joiner:

After a year full of the deaths of friends and family, Janette was tired, emotionally hollowed out, and in need of closure. 
Or Fun. 
Or Both. 
So when her pagan friend Allie invited her to a Wiccan "ritual" with costumes, dancing, and an introduction to a hot guy she wanted to meet, it seemed like a good alternative to a night alone handing out (scarfing down) Halloween candy. 
As it turned out, Janette's dead were not as ready as she was to say farewell.
Now on the wrong side of the veil between the worlds, Janette has to navigate across the Isle du Mort, making peace with "beloved dead" who want to weigh her down with rummicube rules, very odd favors, and midlife crisis advice. If she can make peace with every dead person she has ever known - and FAST - she might make it back to the world of the living in time for her date.

Book Review

So there's this 'write everyday' thing that all Real Writers claim is the key to writerdom. I find that I truly enjoy writing book reviews, so here's a link to the one I wrote in the middle of last night, after finishing the next-to-last Jane Austen Mystery Series Novel.

As always, feedback is very welcome - especially whether or not the Review was enjoyable to read in-and-of-itself and whether it would be helpful to you, if you were going to consider reading this book.

(Those are the goals of a book review, right?)

Jane and the Madness of Lord Byron by Stephanie Barron
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This installation of a series beloved to me seems to have less "Jane" and more madness. While I am glad that Jane and Henry get to enjoy each other's company, the other characters, and even the settings of this book, feel less solid than I have come to expect. Perhaps as there is more fiction - fewer of Austen's actual letters to hang the fiction on - I found the descriptions of Brighton, pavilion, rooms, less clear and immersive than previous works. Still, the action led to an interesting plot; As with all mysteries, the blinds and dead ends were enjoyable. Unfortunately, Jane's single minded coherence is lost in the efforts of too many characters, going to too many places, causing a tumbled, unstructured narrative that feels different than Jane writing to herself in her little journal. Despite the more 'active' nature and pace, I was still able to linger over some description. I enjoyed the Master of Ceremonies character who socio-autistically recalls every person, every dance, and every aspect of 'toilet' for every Assembly. Useful in a murder investigation, to be sure. The flirt with Lord Harold's broader tale - then continuation of The Elephant In The Room - was disappointing, and made Mona feel less a 'friend' than a haute ton convenience of plot. Still, I enjoy every one of these novels like canvassing what is new with old friends: this one is just more like tepid coffee with an old friend who is having an off day.


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