Living the Fictional Dream

I just found out that my first story at Every Day Fiction – “Remember?” — is going to be included in their first “Best of…” anthology. How exciting! And it’s in such good company, too.

The anthology covers the first year of publication for EDF, September 2007 through August 2008, and so many of my favorite EDF regulars are in there: Kevin, Gay, K.C., and more! Also, my writing group, Writer’s Ink, is well represented. Jens, Alex, and Stephanie’s stories will all be included.

What fun! I will definitely post a link to the purchase information when it’s available.

It’s the second day of NaNo, and I’m moving forward slowly but surely. I’m just shy of 3,000 words right now, but I’m not worried. I always end up a little behind schedule at the beginning, but pick it up by the end. (In the years that I actually finished, anyway.) It’s easier to write at that frantic pace the closer I get to the end of the plot.

I have the basic idea of my novel’s plot in mind, but while writing I still have to fill in the small stuff. I could also really use a subplot. Right now, the main plot is about my heroine, but I’m thinking that I need at least a subplot for the male lead, too. Preferably something that would tie into her plot, at least thematically. And I need to figure out the specific ins and outs of the main plot — whodunnit and that sort of thing. Hopefully, it will all come together.

The thing about NaNo is that it’s quantity over quality. You rush to get the words on the page and the plot out there, without worrying as much about word choice, pretty sentences, and showing/not telling. It helps you to get around the internal editor (who can be stifling at times) and get to writing.

The problem is, it needs so much revision when you’re done. My goal this time is that I don’t want to have to rewrite the novel when I’m done. Revise, yes… but I’d like it to be plotted out enough that it doesn’t have to be a full-on rewrite to have it in a finished state. I think that’s been my downfall on my other two novels-in-progress.

The first one, I wrote when I was in high school. I still love it, and I’ve actually got all sorts of grand plans and schemes and dreams about how to fix it. My style has improved so much from those high school days. Back then, I was way too easy on my characters and didn’t understand craft like I do now. I’m sure in 10 years, I’ll think the same thing about what I’m writing today, but there you have it. Novel 1 (well, really it was novel 2, but the first one… no saving that sucker… it was just practice, notable only in that I actually wrote the whole thing) needs a total rewrite to fix the plot problems (which were extensive) and to improve the writing.

Novel 2 (my 2006 NaNo novel — the 2005 one was the one I never actually finished, even though I hit the 50,000 words) is the one that I realized halfway through should have been written in the first person. It was too late the change during NaNo, so that one requires a total rewrite, as well. Somehow, that one I’m just not as excited about. I like the concept, but getting back into it has proven difficult.

So, with this NaNo novel (assuming I finish it) I want to not need that total rewrite. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it, but maybe, if I can, I’ll have some revisions that are less mind-blowing than the ones for my previous novels. Perhaps, then, I would be more apt to actually get the novel through the revision process, which is where my previous novels have all bogged down.

November is here, and with it, National Novel Writing Month. I started my NaNo novel yesterday, and wrote 1,900 words. Just a bit ahead of quota. Of course, I have to write another 1,667 every day if I’m going to stay on quota. Just 29 days to go.

Good luck all you other WriMos out there!

How exciting… Table of Contents lists have been released for November by both Every Day Fiction and the new Every Day Poets. Looks like a lot of good stuff to read during November!

At EDF, we’ll see my writing group mates Jens and Stephanie during November — both with stories that I helped critique and that I highly recommend. And I’m also looking forward to stories by Kevin, K.C., Sylvia, and others! No EDF offering from me this month, sadly. I have a couple of pieces in their reading queue, but I don’t think they’ve made it to the top of the slush yet.

At EDP, however, you will be able to read my very first published poem, “Inspiration,” on November 22 (which just happens to be one of my friends’ birthdays, so happy birthday, Aaron… you can celebrate with a poem!). K.C. will have a poem up during the month, as well, and so will several other writers you might recognize from sister site EDF.

Looks like a great month ahead. Congrats to everyone who’s on the TOCs, and happy reading!

Good morning, world!

The new issue of A Thousand Faces went live today, and the issue includes my short story, “Bridge Club.” Frank Byrns had this to say about it in his editorial:

As for this month’s Editor’s Choice? That honor goes to another returnee, Erin M. Kinch, for her new story “Bridge Club.” Nary a superhero appears within the story’s pages, but it is quite possibly my favorite original story of all the ones we’ve published in our first two years. Check it out, starting on page seven.

Needless to say, I was thrilled. I’ve never been the editor’s choice before!

I’m quite proud of this story. A few months ago, Stephen and I went to see Iron Man in the theater, and on the way home, I got this itch to write another superhero story, but I didn’t want to write something typical. Then I started thinking about the wives and families of the heroes and villains in these superhero universes. It must be strange to live with someone who is so committed to one side or the other. What do they do when they disagree?

And, thus, “Bridge Club” was born! I won’t say any more, because I don’t want to spoil the ending. But, if you have a moment, go check it out. I hope that you’ll like it. And, if you do, leave me a comment on the blog and let me know!

The cool thing about ATF is that you can read all the stories online for three months, but if you want a copy of your own, you can order a print version of the ‘zine at their store.

Have a super day, everyone!

If you want to be creeped out, go read the story of the day at Every Day Fiction today, “Darren Is Updating His Facebook Status” by Sylvia Wrigley. I love the title… it’s so innocuous, especially when compared to what the story is about. And I loved the ending. If you like your stories a little scary, but in that creepy way, not the gory, over-the-top way, you’ll like this one a lot.

And while you’re doing your daily e-zine reading, you should also go check out my writing group mate Jens’s story, “Thirst,” at Big Pulp. His pirate stories are always a swashbucking action fest!

Wow… “A Million Faces” cracked both top story lists over at EDF. As I post this, it’s number one on the top stories from the past 30 days list, and it’s number eight on the top stories of all time list. OMG! “A Castle in the Clouds” hit that first list, but this is my first time to ever crack that second one. How cool!

Big thanks to everyone who voted for me! I really appreciate it, and will enjoy my moment in the limelight, however short it is. (Stories on those lists do tend to fluctuate.)

And if you haven’t read the story yet, just click on the link above and head over there. Feel free to vote on it while you’re there, too.

Edit — 10/30/08: And now it’s off the all time list again. Fame… so short lived!

I just got home from my writing group’s NaNo kick-off party. It was such a blast. We had it at Kevin’s house, which he’s been fixing up and now it looks awesome. The party was preceded by a write-in, during which, though I was late to due to waiting on the cable man, I managed to complete my homework assignment for the next writing group meeting (writing a paragraph summary/back cover copy style paragraph about my potential NaNo novel). Whew! So that’s out of the way.

We had a great potluck dinner with fantabulous food, too.

But, my favorite part of the evening was our now two-year tradition of playing what we call NaNo Balderdash. Basically, group members contribute people, places, and things from their potential NaNo novels (or any story they’ve written, really), and then we use them for game play.

If you’ve never played Balderdash, it’s great fun! Especially if you’re a writer. The game gives you names, dates, little known vocabulary words, etc., and you have to make up something that describes the clue (March 2, 1837 — The date shoelaces were invented). Then everyone votes for the one they think is correct, and you get points based on how many people vote for what you wrote.

The game is even more fun, IMO, when we’re making up aliases and happenings for the writing group’s characters and fictional happenings.

Though, lately, I’ve come to think that putting your own twist on a game is even more fun than playing by the rules. The past few months at game nights we’ve been playing the game Loaded Questions, but we make up our own questions. (In that one, everyone answers a question like “If you had a superpower, what would it be?” and one person has to guess who wrote which answer.) Made-up Word Scrabble is also fun, though we didn’t have time for that tonight — in that one, you make up the words/spellings with the tiles you have in your rack, but you have to make up a definition for whatever “word” you come up with.

It wouldn’t work for all games… Settlers of Catan, Shadows over Camelot, etc., wouldn’t be as fun if you made up rules. But it totally works for all those group party games.

Well, I guess that’s it for now. Time for me to quit rambling and head for bed! I hope  everyone has a really good Monday!

When I was a teen, I really loved the movie Pump up the Volume. My mom actually asked me once what it was I liked about the movie. I don’t remember what I said at the time… nothing noteworthy, apparently! Definitely nothing memorable. I remember struggling to put what I liked about the movie into words, and failing.

If you haven’t seen it, it’s a movie about a boy named Mark (Christian Slater) who starts broadcasting a pirate radio show and uses the show to right wrongs perpetrated by his evil high school principal. And there’s a girl, too (Samatha Mathis… the first thing I saw her in, before the country music movie with River Phoenix).

A couple of weeks ago, my friends and I were talking about Christian Slater. I don’t remember why now… maybe we were discussing the weird premise for his new TV show. Anyway, someone in the group made this disparaging remark about Pump up the Volume, and I was a little taken aback because I remembered liking it so well. (Though, to be fair, maybe it was just diss Christian Slater night… Heathers also took some shots.)

Then, tonight, I found myself awake at 2 a.m., and what happened to be playing on HBO? I’ll give you three guesses, and the first two don’t count.

It had been a long time since I actually watched Pump up the Volume, so I watched it again. It was different viewing the film through adult eyes. I wasn’t a particularly angsty teen, but having angst is just part and parcel of the whole teen experience. The angst is always going to be there. I count myself lucky that my angst was focused more on fights with friends and that sort of thing, than some of the difficult issues faced by the teens in this movie — teen pregnancy, suicide, hopelessness.

Watching the movie as an adult, I wanted to talk to all those teenagers who didn’t know what to do with all those amped up teenaged emotions and tell them that if they could just get through it, things would work out. The stuff that seems so crazy important when you’re a teenager — things like where to sit in the lunch room, what to do when your friend stabs you in the back, overwhelming homework, parents you feel don’t understand you — it’s not the end of the world. Once you have some perspective (and have gotten through those crazy hormones), you realize that.

Of course, part of being a teen, they probably won’t believe you.

However, though I’m long through with that teen angst phase, I still found myself enjoying the movie, and rooting Mark and Nora on in their battle against the FCC. So, I asked myself why. Why does this particular movie still resonate with me?

And I figured it out.

Mark is a shy kid. He walks through the school day with his head down, unable to break through his own shell and talk to the kids in his new school, or talk to girls, or make friends. But, what he can’t do in person, he does through the radio. When he’s talking to the faceless void out there, Mark just can’t seem to shut up! And while some of the things he broadcasts are stupid fart noises and curse words, he shares part of himself, as well. He talks about his pain, and he does his best to help others through theirs. And he makes the administration face some cold hard facts.

The story of Mark speaks to me on a personal level. I’ve always been shy and introverted. I wasn’t as bad as Mark, but I did my time in high school of walking with my head down. Luckily, I didn’t have to eat lunch alone (not even those two years that my best friend’s band class meant she and I had separate lunch periods).

Mark found his voice through the radio. I found my voice through writing. I’m not as shy as I used to be, but talking, especially in a large group situation or with people I don’t know that well, is a challenge for me. But, when I write, I don’t have that problem. I can talk about anything. My voice gets out there in the world through my stories, my blog, and my writing in general.

There is a power in finding your voice, and I think that’s something that all kids struggle with. It’s another part of that whole growing up/coming of age thing, but it’s also something you continue with your whole life. Every time I write from a new character’s point of view, I’m finding a new way to express myself. And that’s why Mark’s story in Pump up the Volume still resonates with me, fifteen years later.

From a writing perspective, it would be awesome to create a character that resonates with someone else the way Mark (and other characters I’ve met in my reading and viewing life) have done for me. I don’t think I’ve made it there yet, but maybe someday…

Good morning, world!

It’s an especially good morning today, because my flash piece, “A Million Faces,” is the story-of-the-day over at Every Day Fiction. If you haven’t read that story yet this morning, I suggest that you go read it before you read the rest of this blog entry — especially if you don’t like spoilers (and with flash, how much is there to spoil?).

This story was inspired by a single sentence. If you’ve read the story, you’ll understand how crucial this sentence is to the main character’s big problem. How many secret identities does one girl need?

That sentence spoke to me of the story of a girl who could have any face she wants, but who has been living as other people for so many years that she’s lost her true face. It spoke to me of a girl who used her power for what she thought she wanted, and lost so much more in the process. It also spoke to me of a shape-shifter who uses her ability to reel in the criminals.

All those themes ended up in the story; sadly, that actual sentence, did not. Somehow, in the final version, that sentence didn’t actually fit.

That happens more often than not, I think. There’s that phrase, “cut your darlings.” It’s those scenes, exchanges, sentences that you really love that you have to be willing to cut — and it seems you end up cutting them more often than not.

The story ending up going in a slightly different direction than originally conceived. First it was going to be more of an action story, as she used her ability to catch criminals, but the story changed a bit on me. Got more serious, more angsty. The best stories do that.

I won’t spoil the ending of this story here. This story has gotten a lot of comments, from readers and from the EDF acceptance letter, saying that people enjoyed the twist at the end. Since twist endings aren’t always my forte, I don’t want to give it away here. You should read it for yourself. And then vote on the story and, if you really want to, leave a comment there.

Happy reading, all! And once you’ve done that, go out and enjoy this lovely fall morning!