Tuesday's inspiration -- Still Bird By Bird and a bit more

Before I ger to Bird By Bird, I'll speak a little about dandilions. Today I was inspired by all the wonderful yellow flowers on my lawn. I know many people look on them as pests but for me they're a sign that the short days of wanter are really gone. I also love them when their heads turn gray and the seeds can be blown off. Guess in that respect I'm still a kid.

Now for Bird By Bird. Ann Lamott is talking about the two voices in the writer's head. One is the praising side and the other is the negative head. Seems perfectly natural to me. When finishing a book or a story I think, and probably a lot of other writers think "This is the best thing I've ever written. It's sure to be a best seller." Then that other side comes in and says, "No editor will see the brilliance or the readers won't buy." One has to find a way to ignore both voices and just keep doing.

Another thing in this essay brought to mind my first television interview for a local channel. years ago. I've only done two and not sure I'd ever want to do another. The first one was the worst. A two hour live show with call ins. I'd jsut sold the third book in about four months. I was told by the host/producer of the show that I was the most poised guest he'd ever had and I managed not to sputter and stutter. I have no real recollection of what I did or said. I had spaced out into another dimension. I was wearing a dark green pants suit and my calf hugging cordova leather boots. On the way home My feet felt strange and I couldn't figure why. Then I took off my boots and found I had clawed the feet out of my panty hose. So maybe i looked and sounded cool and collected. That was outside, but inside I was scared. Is there a moral here? Maybe it's that one can do what they must to promote their books. Of the second interview all I have is a video that I've never viewed.

Inspired by Bird By Bird -- Dialogue

This week's chapter is on Dialogue a very vital element of fiction writing. Ann Lamott said something that really hit with me. You have to spend a lot of time listening to people speak. I find eavesdropping to be fun. Not that I listen to what's being said but how. Word choice, cadence in speach are so important. Dialogue means two. When a person is thinking we might call this internal dialogue but it's really a monologue -- unless the person is answering themselves but that's another thing entirely/

Ann Lamott speaks of ways to help yourself. One is to read the dialogue outloud. If you can't do this for some reason, mouthing the words can help. A second thing is to identify each character not only by what they say but how they say things. What words do they choose, what tone of voice. Often when I write the first draft of a story, the people often sound alike. One reason is that I don't know the characters or that I'm in a hurry to get things down. Nothing wrong with this but when revising I must look at each character and realize them inside myself.

She suggests just letting the two characters talk to each other about their past, their present or their future. Another tip would be to take two people who don't want to talk to each other and find a way for them to have a dialogue.

Another thing struck me. You have to like your characters and feel compassion for them, even your villains. I happen to like villains and they are among the favorites of many of the characters I've written.

So understanding is the essential ingredient for a writer. Understanding the characters will help create the kind people want to read about.

A final thing Ann Lamott spoke about is dialect. For me this isn't something I like to use very much. Only if it gives a character character and only in small doses.

A bit of a question for everyone. When your characters engage in a verbal interchange, do you read your dialogue outloud? When you are alone? When there are people around?

Re-visiting Bird by Bird - Thoughts on First drafts and perfectionism

I'll do two in one this time because to me they're connected. Rough or first drafts and perfection.

Probably one reason I enjoy this books so much and that it inspires me is because I'm a draft writer. I tend to write a first draft that literally is one only I could love and I would never let anyone see it. Anne Lamott believes there's nothing wrong with a bad first draft. I absolutely agree and often for me whole scenes are completed in a sentence. There is a big fight here. They make love. The murder takes place here. Other scenes are wanderings and wonderings, but out of these usually come material I can use by rewriting, re-thinking or expanding. There are also things that are shredded so no one can see them. Just remember this "There is nothing wrong with a rotten first draft."

As to perfectionism. For me this is impossible. I've read things I've written that when I wrote them and when they were published I thought were perfect. Later when re-reading them, I saw places where they could be made better. So why did I stop before I reached perfection. Probably because I was so sick of tweeking the story that it no longer seemed anything I was interested in. I told someone I stopped revising when the story made me want to spill my guts.

Reading the pages on perfectionism also brought a memory to mind. Like Anne Lamott I had my tonsils removed when I was probably twenty. I was a nursing student and had assisted at a tonsillectomy as my first scrub. After they picked me off the floor, the doctor told me to scrub again and get back to work. Then I endured my own battle with the knife and the suction. My throat hurt. The pain felt like razors and swallowing was the pits. Now a nurse told Ms. Lamott to chew gum. That was not my poison. When I got home I poured a glass of orange juice. My mother thought I was crazy but didn't stop me. I drank that just down and funny thing, though it hurt, once my eyes stopped tearing, I realized the pain was little more than an ache.

Inspiration -- Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott starts telling her students that good writing is about telling the truth. This set my thinking in gear. What truths should I tell? How do I know what the truth is? While these thoughts were whirling through my head, I came to one conclusion. My truth may not be your truth. Why?

Truth comes from experiences and no two people experience the same events in the same way. But truth is truth, you might think. Perhaps if one was writing scientific papers they could find truth or could they. They could find facts that are true. There is that. When writing fiction truth takes on color and nuances.

How to get your truth across to the reader can seem to be a puzzle. What a fiction writer must do is to persuade the reader to believe their truths and engross them in the story. Perhaps a hard thing to do.

One of my writing truths is that every character contains a bit of myself. Now sometimes I write about villains. Does that mean at heart I'm a villain? Not really.
What it means that inside myself I have the grains to show the why behind a villain's actions. I've been angry. I've even thought about killing someone, or loving someone, or having magical powers. So when I write about any characters I must delve into myself and find what truth this character will show. Sometimes getting this down on paper can be hard and sometimes easy.

What about you? Do your truths as a writer come from inside? Are you able to persuade your readers to see your truth.