Living the Fictional Dream

Last night, at my writing group’s monthly write-in, I worked on revising a story that the group critiqued at the meeting in June. One of the main characters gives birth during this story. Now, as anyone who knows me or who has spent much time on this blog knows, I have given birth myself (and I will be doing so again later this year).

My familiarity with this subject matter led me to an interesting conundrum. How much detail on a subject like child birth is too much?

Juggling the amount of detail to include in a story is a balancing act sometimes. As a writer, you have to know more about your world than anyone else. This is especially true if you’re creating a fictional world from scratch (like a sprawling fantasy realm or a high tech sci-fi world), but I’ve found it true in literary and mainstream writing, as well.

You have to know your characters inside and out. You have to know much more of them and the world they live in that needs to show up on the page. In fact, if writers routinely put all the information they have on world building checklists and character descriptoin forms into their stories, readers would run away screaming at the minutia of it all.

So, all that to say, I know that I need to limit the baby birthing details in this story. However, I found while writing it that this particular subject was really hard to reign in. And then, when my writing group read it, I found out that details I thought were important and fairly universal, were actually too technical and apt to be misunderstood.

I had no idea no one else had heard of APGAR tests. Amniotic fluid was another stumbling block. Hard to talk about a woman’s water breaking without mentioning amniotic fluid!

And then there is the consideration of how much detail is too much on the ick-factor scale. Let’s face it — child birth is pretty gross. You’ve got fluid and cords and a placenta to deal with. Not to mention that, despite what you see on television, that baby does not pop out all clean and pretty — it’s actually kind of gray until it gets to breathing and that cottage cheese looking stuff that covers it… even I’m squicked out by that! I wouldn’t want to write a story where the readers stopped reading because the details were too disgusting. (And this particular story is actually in a genre which is traditionally read more by men than women, so the tolerance level for child birth ick might be even lower.)

On the other hand, though, I got many comments from the crit saying that they liked having the details because it helped ground them in the story. So, for all the bad things about including too much, you also want to make sure you include enough that your readers can fully imagine that fictional dream and be fully committed to it.

Last night at the write-in, I took another pass through the story with a critical eye for detail. I’m not sure I’m done tweaking it yet. There is actually another plot element that I’m toying with adding, which would make a new draft a definite. But, hopefully, detail-wise at least, I’ve sorted out some of the problems.

If you made it through this whole entry, feel free to let me know what you think on the subject. How much information about birthing babies is too much for you?

Happy writing (and reading), everyone!

Happy 4th of July, everyone! To celebrate this auspicious day, head on over to Every Day Fiction and read the story of the day, which is my story, “The Vote.”

It’s not actually a patriotic story. It doesn’t have anything to do with the holiday, at all. “The Vote” is my flash piece about the zombie apocalypse. The rest of this entry describes my inspiration and writing process. Unless you’re into spoilers, I would head on over to EDF now and read it, then come back and finish the blog entry.

I wrote the first draft of this story after I randomly watched the new version of Dawn of the Dead on TV. I stumbled upon it and got sucked in before I knew what was going on. In retrospect, that movie was not one I should have been watching. I’m OK with horror movies. I’ve never watched a lot of zombie movies, but I’m not against them per se. The things about Dawn of the Dead that affected me were the horrible things that humans will do to each other when circumstances are bad and the sheer hopelessness of the situation. (Spoiler for the movie: If it had ended after they sailed away instead of having the unhappy tag about the boat dying and the island being zombie-infested, too, I might have not been quite as disturbed afterwards.)

Anyway, Dawn of the Dead haunted me for days. Strangely enough, one of the prompts for my writing group’s prompts contest that month was to “write about something horrible.” And, thus, “The Vote” was born. Writing it helped me get the yuck of that movie out of my brain and lay DotD to rest.

The story has been through several drafts since then. The first draft was all character development, and the action an after-thought at the end. The second draft cut out a lot of the character development and focused more on Jill’s great escape (the second draft also allowed Jill to get away, when she and everyone on the semi died in the first draft). Thanks to two rounds of critiques from my intrepid writing group, I found a good balance between the two, and I’m pretty happy with the final product.

In case you’re wondering, I don’t really think Jill survives for a long and happy life. It is possible. Though it was cut from the final version, her uncle has a provisioned survival bunker. Maybe she makes it there on her rattle-trap forklift, finds other survivors, and is able to wait out the zombie apocalypse with them until the zombies run out of prey and become inanimate again. But, sadly, chances are, Jill will find another pack of zombies when she’s almost out of gas and weak from lack of food and they’ll take her down.

However, I think it’s better to leave her ultimate fate to the minds of the reader. The glimmer of hope at the end is enough to help those of us who prefer things not to be totally dismal and depressing. And readers who do prefer the “realistic” depressing ending can easily fill that in for themselves. That’s what flash fiction is all about, right? Giving just enough that the story takes on a life of its own.

If you read “The Vote” and enjoyed it, please vote on its star rating on the EDF site. The more star votes a story has, the better shot is has of making it into the top stories classification. And I always love to hear from people who liked my stories — a comment on the story at EDF or a comment here on the blog would be great.

Happy 4th of July, everyone. And don’t let the zombies put the bite on you!

Hello to anyone who’s still out there! Sorry for the long delay between posts. Times have been crazy of late, but more on that later.

I have a few tidbits of news to share. First of all, Every Day Fiction has released the table of contents for July 2010, and guess who’s on it? Yours truly! I’ve had reprints published this year, but this will be my first official new story published in 2010. I’m excited! And the TOC mentioned me specifically as a “returning favorite.” That was nice to read.

Tune into EDF on the 4th of July and read my story, “The Vote.” I’m not going to say too much about the story until the 4th, but I will warn you ahead of time that it’s not a 4th of July story. In fact, its more apocalyptic than patriotic. But I had an interesting voyage writing and revising it, so I’m thrilled that it’s going to be joining my other stories published by EDF.

In other news, I received a contributor’s copy the other day. It was print issue #2 of Residential Aliens, which includes a reprint of my story, “The Sorcerer’s Wife.” The story originally appeared in the ResAliens webzine, and has now graced their print ‘zine, as well. If you’d like a copy for your very own, click here. It’s a great little ‘zine. I’m really happy with it. And if you want to read TSW online, it’s still available in the ResAliens archives.

My writing group had its annual Story Every Day (SED) contest in June. Sadly, I was the winner. The goal of the story is to write a new story of at least 500 words every day for two weeks. The winner is the person with the most stories, and if there is a tie, the winner is the person with the most stories and the highest word count. I say sadly I was the winner because I was able to write a whopping… wait for it… three stories. **sigh** Not a banner year for the SED contest. But, on the bright side, every story written is a good thing, so three (or two, or one, as others in the group wrote) is something to be proud of. I was hoping for more, but my muse just was not cooperating.

Why wasn’t my muse cooperating, do you ask? Well, I guess it is time to tell y’all. On the personal front, there has been stuff going on, contributing to the “crazy” in my life that I mentioned earlier.

For those readers who haven’t heard, I am pregnant. Again! Less than a year after my darling little girl was born, Hubby and I find ourselves expecting number 2. It was definitely sooner than we had planned (if this little one carries to term, as sister did not, they will be 14 months apart), but we are very excited. The new baby is due in September.

For some reason, though, when I’m pregnant, my muse clams up on me. Hence not much activity around the old blog, or on my writing in general.

Add that to working full-time, chasing around after a little girl who is crawling like the wind and working on that walking thing, and planning a first birthday party for next week, and life has been hectic to the max. I’m loving every minute, though (OK… maybe not the actual work, but even that is not so bad, LOL).

I hope all of you out there in blog land are doing well. I miss reading everyone’s blogs and commenting. If I ever have a bit of spare time, I really want to get back to that. I hope you’re all doing well, and that everyone is having a truly fantastic summer (as well as super-high word counts!).

Some might say the surprise is me posting. **sighs** I will spare you all tales about how insane work has been of late. Technical writing really can suck the urge to write anything else (even the fun stuff) right out of you!

This afternoon, I was taking a break from my latest work project for a long-overdue spin around EDF. After reading a few of the recent offerings (The Orangery was quite good!), I hopped over, as usual, to the top stories page. And, what did I see? A Castle in the Clouds  made a reappearance on the top stories of all time list.

What a nice surprise in the middle of a random, boring Thursday! And it’s not (I don’t think) even an April Fool’s joke.

In other news, I had a really good critique at my writing group meeting on Tuesday. We had nearly a full house, and it was a fun meeting. Now if we all just weren’t so busy right now. I fear that writing is not anyone’s number 1 priority at the moment. But, as with all things, I’m sure priorities will shift.

Now I just need to find the time between work and my darling little girl to do something with all the great crit comments that I received on that story!

Oh, and my recent bad news is that my story that got short listed… the one that I’d been so iffy about sending… after just a few days on the short list, it got rejected. Bummer. But, hey, at least they liked it well enough to consider it. And since they didn’t want reprints in the first place, I think that means that the quality of the story must have impressed them (or so I will tell myself).

I hope everyone else out there is doing well, and that all you writers are finding the time to put pen to page (or fingers to keyboard).

Hello, discriminating readers and fellow writers and bloggers.

I just learned that the second annual print anthology from Every Day Fiction, titled The Best of Every Day Fiction Two, is now available to order. You can order it here, or it is my understanding that Amazon and other such places will have it available soon.

This anothology contains not just one, but four of my stories that were published at EDF during the 2008 - 2009 publication year, including “A Million Faces” and “The Care and Feeding of Your Sleeping Knight,” which were two of my favorites. Writing group mates Alex, Stephanie, and Jens, all have stories in it, as well, and so do other great writers like K.C., Gay, Kevin, and more.

If you like flash fiction… heck, if you like good fiction… you should definitely check this anthology out!

If you need a little pre-Christmas cheer (but without the token cheese factor) head over to The Rose and Thorn and check out writing group mate Sandra’s story, “Christmas Eggs.”

I believe this is her second publication, and it’s a fun read.

My writing group had its annual planning meeting earlier this week. This meeting is when we select what projects and activities we want to pursue during the year ahead. Most of the time, it’s the usual stuff — crits, meetings, write-ins, the prompts contest… This year, we decided to add something new to the mix.

In lieu of our usual themed short story collection challenge (which was cancelled for lack of participation this year), we are going to try to work on writing stories for and submitting stories to the professional markets.

I’m really excited about the idea. I’ve been sending stories to some of the professional markets for a while now. I got a couple of personal rejections with compliments of my writing style from one market in that category (well, it’s a pro market if your story is under a certain word count… so it’s not one of the big three or anything), which was thrilling to me, but all the others have been the typical form rejections. It would be awesome if I could finally break into one of the bigger markets.

Not that I don’t love all of the smaller ‘zines that I’ve been a part of. I love each and every one of them. I’m grateful that they published my stories, and I’m happy to have been a part of them. The ones that have print versions, too, are in a special place on my bookshelf.

But, wouldn’t it be awesome to get both the larger paycheck and the larger readership that comes along with publishing in a professional market?

I hope that I have enough time to devote to this project over the next year, because, if it succeeds, I think it would take this hobby of mine to the next level. I wonder if Daddy will be willing to take on baby duty a little more often so I have time to write between coming home from work and bedtime…

It’s already 11/4, and I have yet to even go to a write-in. Crazy! I’m not used to this. Not that my hours aren’t totally accounted for — the busy season at work and taking care of the little one have been fully consuming.

However, I must admit, I do miss the hustle and bustle of NaNoWriMo. There is something energizing about jumping into a novel feet first and taking off running toward the finish line. It’s hard, but it’s satisfying at the same time.

My only real complaint about NaNo is that the finished product requires a lot of revision. Since novel revision is something I am particularly bad at (illustrated by the fact that even though I’ve completed several novel first drafts, I have yet to finish something that is finished enough to think about sending off to agents), NaNo isn’t quite as helpful to me as it could be. But it sure does give you a rush. And that creative rush is awesome. So is the companionship of knowing so many people are out there pulling on the universal muse at the same time.

I’m looking forward to my writing group’s NaNo write-ins. Several are coming up. We’ve got some Friday lunch write-ins scheduled, as well as a couple on Tuesday nights and Saturday brunches. We’ll see how many I can make. I do hope to get some writing done during November. Any progress would be a victory compared to my snail’s pace this year.

I hope all you Wrimos out there are doing well and that you’re still in that high of the first 10K. I wish you all plentiful word counts, and that you are spared from any carpal tunnel or eye strain issues. Keep it up!

Oh, and in other news, writing group mate Stephanie had a story up at Every Day Fiction recently. Check it out here, if you have time. It’s a short read — light and fun.

I’ve mentioned before how my writing output has severly diminished since my little girl was born last July. I don’t get down on myself about it because it’s really only to be expected. Juggling a newborn and a full-time job is CRAZY! I’m finding it difficult enough to carve two nights of the month out to attend writing group functions, much less write on my own. (Not that I’m complaining… Summerlyn is the light of my life and what she needs comes first.)

What I’m finding interesting is that, as if to compensate for this lack of writing time, my subconscious keeps hammering away at little plot bunnies. I had one pop into my head a month or two ago for a horror story (horror like scary; not horror like blood and guts gruesome). The idea started as just a single line and an image in my head. Previously, that would have been enough for me to start writing, but now I just don’t have the time to do it.

So, as if in response to this lack, my subconscious keeps turning the idea over and over, and every time it comes to my mind again, it’s a little more formed. Now I actually have two characters, a partial plot, and the ending of the story in mind (it will probably be flash or a very short story). I can actually see this story fairly vividly in my mind. Whenever I do have time to sit down and write (hopefully, during one of the November NaNo write-ins my writing group will host), the first draft of this story should come out pretty quickly!

What this has taught me is that I will always be a writer. I knew that before, but I’d never really tested it. There’s never been a time like this in my life before when I wanted to write but actually couldn’t do it for weeks and months at a time. Previously, if I wanted to write, I either sat down and did it right then or maybe only had to wait a day or two to find some time. If I wasn’t writing before, it was because I had no ideas, not because I had them but didn’t have the time.

This proves that I will always create stories, whether I get the chance to write them down or not. It’s part of my make-up… pretty much part of my very DNA. The stories are there — all I have to do is hear them out. And if the muse is strong enough and if I devote them enough thought time (even if I don’t have enough keyboard time), they will still be formed — a little more slowly, but they will eventually be there just the same.

The fact that creating stories is so natural to me that I do it even when I am not able to pursue it, is why I will always pursue this writing thing. I may never have a novel published or be able to give up my day job in favor of staying home to write (I hope that’s not the case, but one has to face up to the possibility), but I will always be a writer at heart.

I think that’s the mark of a true writer — the ones who do it because they love it; the ones who do it because they have to, because the stories will be there either way. If you go into this business to try to find fame or fortune… well, the odds are significantly stacked against you. I can’t imagine sticking with it for those reasons, because there is no guarantee. But sticking with it because the stories have to be told — that’s a writer’s heart!

Poor little girl! She had to come with Mommy to the write-in last night. Poor Hubby was supposd to keep her, but he was not feeling well at all. I tried to find sitters, but to no avail. So, with me she came.

Bundled up in a car seat — not her favorite thing. Normally, she falls asleep in the car, but this time, not so much. She dozed on and off long enough for me to have dinner with Steph and Dauna and have some writing-type discussions (my favorite was a writing topic related to meatloaf… but I think you had to be there).

Then, just as I got out my laptop to, I’d hoped, finally finish revising the flash piece that my writing group critted for me back in August, I heard fussing. The baby wanted her own dinner (or is that second dinner, since she’d eaten less than 3 hours before?). For the first time since she was born, Mommy realized she’d forgotten to pack the bottle in the diaper bag. Luckily, home is only a 5 minute drive from the restaurant where we’d set up shop. Sadly, that meant I had to leave, writing undone.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love my baby girl very much, and I will give up whatever I need to so that I can give her what she needs. But, selfishly, doing so last night was really hard.

When the baby first came along, it was full immersion and totally overwhelming. There was so much to do with the baby and she was so new that I didn’t want to do anything else but be with her. And it took a while to get used to having her, especially since she didn’t come home from the NICU for 3.5 weeks (she was a preemie).

These days, while the addition of the full-time job makes things more complicated, the baby care is getting more routine. Taking two or three hours off a couple of evenings a month seems a lot more doable than it did when she was so new and fragile.

Now, I’m really starting to miss writing. My fingers ache for the keyboard, and plot bunnies and characters are nibbling at my brain. Too bad there is never any time to give them attention!

Last night, I was so desperate, I tried to do some writing during my 4 a.m. pumping session (thanks to her time in the NICU, our little one spurns the breast, which means there are both pumping and feeding steps to do multiple times a day). Sadly, writing when I’m sleep deprived and dealing with baby care is not my best work.

Here’s hoping that next time (which will be the writing group’s NaNo planning meeting and kick-off party), babysitters will come through and I can have a tad of uninterrupted me time. I think my muse might rejoice if it happens… assuming she doesn’t leave me for more active environs in the mean time.