monsters!

I apologize for the re-post from my blog, but it's Halloween and I want to talk about monsters. Please comment and share your favorites!

Inspired by a post on the Enchanted Inkpot, as well as Halloween, I want to talk about monsters. I LOVE MONSTERS! I love reading about them and writing about them. Erzebet in The Blood Confession is about as monstrous as you can get – so obsessed with her own beauty that she’s willing to kill and bathe in her victim’s blood. In The King’s Rose I had some very different monsters to write about: King Henry, and – perhaps even more so – the dowager Duchess of Norfolk. I knew that whenever the Duchess swept into the room and appraised Catherine with her ice-cold eyes, sparks would fly.

As implied above, it’s the human-variety of monster that intrigues me the most. As for my favorite monster from literature, the first that came to mind was Carmilla, the titular character in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s vampiric masterpiece. Carmilla’s monstrous identity is concealed behind a pretty, endearing facade. Carmilla’s affection for the main character makes her true nature that much more unsettling: they’re constantly walking arm and arm or whispering secret confidences. That’s awfully close proximity to a monster. And the blood-drenched nightmares “warning” the narrator still give me chills!

What about the monsters that are ourselves? I read Stephen King’s Carrie as a teenager, and I think it affected me so profoundly because the sad sack, depressed, troubled Carrie White was so sympathetic and repulsive – she was everything I feared I was, worthy of ridicule. What could be worse than our own fears about our true selves? And then, when she cracks and unleashes havoc on her tormenters – sweet revenge! Also, quite terrifying. The movie, in particular, scarred me at the age of thirteen.

Speaking of fears of self, I’m so glad that Ellen Booraem mentioned the Dementors and their connection to depression in the Inkpot post. This is much scarier than the scaly skin or eyeless faces: “Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you. If it can, the Dementor will feed on you long enough to reduce you to something like itself…soul-less and evil. You will be left with nothing but the worst experiences of your life.” (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

And speaking of Potter, I love a monster that has a connection to our hero. Voldemort’s mind-connection to Harry manifests itself in terrifying dreams. Also, Harry fears that he inherited some of Voldemort’s powers during their first face-off. Likewise, Wilhelmina Harker carries the mark of Dracula (the bite marks on her neck, the burn of a holy sacrament on her forehead) which is both danger and boon – they use this connection to track Dracula down. But they must be wary of any changes in the brave Wilhelmina; the evil aspect taking over her otherwise pure soul.

This comes up in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, too: she’s the good guy, slaying vampires. But that makes her sort of magical, not like a normal human – and therefore maybe a bit more like her fanged enemies than she would like to admit. Could she really belong to the night, like the demons she slays?

So not only do I love a good monster – especially one in a human guise, with true evil lying beneath the surface – but I also love a hero with some monstrous aspects, as well. It’s all a metaphor for the human condition: there is the potential for true good or true evil in all of us. Sometimes the scariest thing on earth is the face staring back at you in the mirror. We could all be monsters, if only to ourselves.

Working weekends.

As a full time writer, I work the normal week, Monday through Friday. I start my day attending to emails, checking sales ranks, publicity stuff, and other business involved with writing. Then I get to my five pages, which can take anywhere from 90 minutes to many hours, depending on how things flow. Then I spend time reading, because I consider reading to be part of my job as a writer. I never feel I'm wasting time if I'm plunged into a good book, reacquainting myself with modes of story telling that are different from my own approach. Sometimes my best ideas come from other books. This describes my average work day, with room for messy schedule changes. Ever since I became a full time writer, I've taken the weekends off.

But lately I've come to realize that always, my Monday mornings are slow. It takes me forever to get back into my book because over the weekend I lose my fire. And sometimes I don't get it back for several days.

Usually this isn't a serious problem. Until recently I've always been one of those writers who takes as much time as I want to write a book, and then when I feel it's ready, I submit. But having sold my science fiction series, now titled THE SKY CHASERS, suddenly I'm a deadline writer. I've got a year to turn in Book Two when it took me two years to write Book One. When I'm in the midst of a slow Monday morning, I feel as though time is ticking twice as fast, and I just can't type speedily enough. I'm starting to think I need to take a page from On Writing by Mr. King, who advises the new writer to write every day, even on weekends. That's what he's been doing for decades, and clearly it has served him well.

So for the first time since I gave up my day job, I'm a weekend writer. I did my five pages yesterday, a Saturday, and I'm about to settle in for five more today. Surprisingly, I'm finding that working more actually decreases my stress. With my momentum a constant, I feel that this book is writable. I'm willing to give up my days off for the next several months in exchange for the peace of mind. 

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www.amykathleenryan.com

my writing process

I am sinking (slowly) into my revision process. I've typed up a bunch of notes, typed up an outline of the current draft (what the book is right now), and will now attempt to apply these notes to this outline. Ideally, this will create an outline of what I want the book to become.

Then I have to actually write this new book.

I often wonder if there are better ways to go about this process. Do other authors sit down, struck with inspiration, and start typing their novel on a blank page, with no notes to guide them? Is my devotion to my outlining process just a way of being lazy, or a control freak?

That said...this process has worked for me in the past, so why doubt it now? Maybe because I'm in the thick of it, staring at a lot of brightly highlighted notes and feeling daunted by all the work that lies ahead. It's exciting work, but it can make an author sink a little bit in her chair to think of it.

I'm planning on spending a lot of time on the book this weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.

Laughable Author Photos!

OMG!!! I stumbled across the funniest blog post I've seen in months. Flavorwire.com posted a bunch of hackneyed author poses. It seems that authors tend to do the "Thinkers Pose" with a hand propping up their chins (hiding saggy necks?), or pose at their writing desks, with pithy gazes, or--yick--pose with a smelly cigarette dangling from their lips. Do you have an author's photo on your jacketflap?

If so, what photo crime are you guilty of?

I'm a genius and I know it

Deep, tortured thinker

My studio is way cooler than yours

I'm a mess and that's awesome

Pretty Polly

Downer Debbie

Arrogant Adam

Keep scrolling down to see every category and get your daily belly laugh!

http://flavorwire.com/117566/against-promotional-author-photographs

writing community

I went to an event for writers last week - a chance to chat and mingle with other children's/YA lit writers, all of us at varying stages of our careers/projects, etc. It was really nice to talk to other writers to feel like I'm not alone in this crazy publishing endeavor. In fact, it made me think of what I advice I would give to writers just starting out - what advice I would give to myself years ago. Here are a few thoughts:

* Join a group like SCBWI, especially a regional chapter. Attend conferences.
* Connect with other writers online. Read blogs, friend people on facebook, follow them on twitter.
* Verlakay.com is another good resource - writers swear by the message boards, which offer a wealth of information about writing.
* Start a critique group. Workshop your writing.
* Other places to find readers: goodreads.com, librarything.com.

Mind you, I'm still struggling with putting myself "out there" in this way. It's difficult to keep up with all of the online stuff. But I can really see the value of it now. Writers need each other for encouragement, and for help promoting each other's work, and spreading the word about new books, in general. Even if you're just starting to write, that doesn't make it too early to become a part of the community. And if you do - look for me!

And if you're a teenager, there are a bunch of publications that accept ONLY submissions from teens. I created a list of them on my blog: http://alisamlibby.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/stuff-for-young-writers/.

monster in the box

Hi all - sorry for the long hiatus. My day job has conspired to keep me away from all things extracurricular this summer, but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things!

That said, I'm contending with a different kind of monster at the moment - the monster of my current draft. I've been away from this project for a while now, and it's time that we meet again. It's time that I print out my novel-in-progress and sit down with a red pen and start diligently making notes about what I should fix and rework. But wait - I have to do laundry. And buy groceries. And maybe this evening I'll bake a batch of cookies for no apparent reason...Yeah, I think you get the picture. There are some real life issues that keep me away from this book (My full time job for one, plus a distracting little book entitled Mockingjay) but that doesn't entirely solve the issue. Were all things to miraculously disappear from my schedule and I was packed off to some writer's retreat in a sufficiently pretty woodland region with nothing to distract me - well, I would be thrilled, but I think I would also be terrified of what I would find on the printed page. The words that are trying - and failing - to evoke what I see in my head.

So, I think I'll give myself a deadline: one week to get my act together, get back to blogging regularly (mea culpa) and then get on with it. And now I've made this statement public so I'll have to stick to it. Or else bake more cookies. It's really a toss up.

Visiting an old friend: A Wrinkle in Time.

I've been rereading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle, reacquainting myself with the awesomeness of this book. L'Engle does so many things in those pages that must have been pretty unusual in her day. Some of them are STILL unusual. For one, her heroine isn't particularly attractive, though she is saved by having "dreamboat eyes." Otherwise she has unruly mousy hair and garish braces on her teeth. Even better, she is clumsy, recalcitrant, unfriendly, and disliked. Remember, this was written when people were watching almost nothing but "model families" on TV. Imperfection was most often hidden away, but L'Engle celebrates it, showing how Meg's stubbornness is the very thing that is most needed to save her father, who is being kept imprisoned on a distant planet by an evil entity.

When I was a kid I must have read this book about ten times. I read all kinds of books all the time, but this was the one that kept me coming back. There's something comforting about Meg's family life, a nice escape when my own family life seemed less than wonderful. I was a kid who often felt awkward and unsettled, like I didn't fit anywhere, like I could do nothing right, so to see a heroine like Meg in a book made me feel so much better about being me. What a gift L'Engle had! She wrote thrilling, imaginative stories that were somehow also enormously reassuring.

L'Engle died a few years ago at a ripe old age, but I still think about her from time to time. She's not the only reason, but she's a big reason why I write for kids. I don't know how successful I am, but I always try to write books that will make kids feel at home, and will also make them feel better about being the gloriously imperfect people they are. Thanks, Madeleine, for being such a good writing teacher. And thanks, A Wrinkle in Time, for being such a good friend.

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www.amykathleenryan.com