Getting Out of My Own Way

I'm going to break two of my own rules in this blog, but in my defense, I have good reasons.

The first rule I'm going to break is that I don't review books on this blog. I don't review books for one simple reason: I am a writer. I know exactly how hard it is to write, let alone write a complete book, have the balls to send it out to agents, and have the persistence AND patience to keep at it until getting published.

And quite frankly, who the hell am I to pass any sort of judgment on that? Whether or not your book sucks, you've done an awesome thing and I admire you for it. And whether or not your books sucks, you've put something of yourself into it, and I know how much it hurts to be criticized, even if it is "part of the job." So again, who the hell am I to pass judgement?

So I don't review. Until now. Because I just can't keep quiet about this book. But since I can't find any fault with it, I wouldn't be saying anything negative about someone's art anyway, so I guess I get to keep my integrity.

I finished reading Maureen Johnson's The Name of the Star last week and it's been on my mind since. As a matter of fact, I'm pretty sure it's one of the reasons why I couldn't write much this week and didn't get into either of the books I tried to start.

I CANNOT RECOMMEND THIS BOOK ENOUGH.

In a nutshell, it's about a girl from Louisiana who goes to boarding school in London and has a run-in with a Jack the Ripper copycat killer and things go from creepy to thrilling to OMFG WUT to terrifying to amazeballs.

Seriously. It's that good. Better than my previous favorite of hers, The Last Little Blue Envelope, which is saying something. It's got danger, intrigue, romance, pitch-perfect teenagers, mystery, and a twist that would make M. Night Shyamalan say, "COOL!"

It's true that I'm biased towards mystery and the creepy because I just love being spooked for one thing, but also because it's a genre I desperately want to write but don't believe I can. Also, because I just plain love Maureen Johnson. Her Twitter is funny as hell, plus she is kind of a hero with LeakyCon and all that. But don't think for a minute that those things swayed me that much. This book is just that awesome. So if you like all of the stuff I mentioned, pick this one up at your nearest book store or download it to your reading device ASAP. You won't regret it.

This brings me to the second rule I'm going to break, which is that I don't make resolutions.

A good friend of mine who is a school librarian discusses books with me all the time, and one of our topics recently was Maureen's voice. Perhaps because of that conversation, I paid special attention to voice while reading. This book, I think more so than others, is a great example of how to use voice. Maureen has a great voice, one especially great for the teens she writes for. It's witty, subtle, sometimes dry. Sometimes it seems raw and unfiltered, others it's cautious, and though I quite often hear Maureen's own inflections in her writing, her voice always seems to shape itself to the narrator, and to the narrator's needs. Most importantly, her voice is voicey when called for, and when it's not, her voice gets the hell out of the way and lets the story do the talking.

I am a voicey writer, and I know it. I've worked hard to be so. One of the first critiques of my writing that I really took to heart was that I didn't have much of a voice. So I got myself a few writing books that focused on voice, did a few bajillion writing exercises, found my voice, and ran with it. PERFECT 10 is kind of a result of that, and I adore that about it. The voice hits from sentence one and doesn't let up. It really works for the tale, and for the narrator.

But now I'm writing ALIBI. It's all a little more poetic and atmospheric and emotional in a much more outward way than PERFECT 10 was, and I feel like my voice is getting in the way sometimes. It becomes too voicey to create that atmosphere I want.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, in working on my voice so much, perhaps I've overcorrected a bit and it's all become too much. I need to let it blend with the characters more. I need to figure out how to write like Maureen in this regard, to let the story do more of the talking when it should.

So despite breaking my own rule (and despite the fact that the new year has long since passed), I am resolving this year to improve my writing by better balancing my voice in the story. I resolve to get out of my own way.

So when you get your copy of The Name of the Star and sit down to read the mystery! intrigue! awesome characters! of it, please look at her voice, too. See if you can spot where she gets out of her own way, and where she lets the Maureeniness shine through.

I promise you, on both counts, you'll be impressed. And hey, if you have any advice or exercises for me so that I can work on becoming less voicey, send them my way.

Loud Mistakes

(Cross-posted from Ass Over Teacup)

My friend Kate sent me this encouraging article yesterday:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/01/01/joshua-bell-on-messing-up-his-first-violin-competition.html

For those of you who are only going to pretend to read it, I'll paraphrase. Basically it tells the story of how Joshua Bell, the world's reigning King of the Violin, effed up the beginning a concerto royally at his first competition. But then he stopped, collected himself, and tried again. He ended up playing better than he ever had in his life, but moreover, this:

For me it was a major revelation, and it taught me that when you take your mind off worrying about being perfect all the time, sometimes amazing things can happen. So much of performing is a mind game. You’re memorizing thousands of notes, and if you start thinking about it in the wrong way, everything can blow up in your face. When I’m onstage and make a mistake, I remember back to that moment. I learned from that experience how to get into that zone. The competition ended up launching my career and my confidence in a lot of ways. It was a turning point and a lesson I use to this day.

As both a writer and a musician, this really made my heart feel all warm and snuggly.

I'm no Joshua Bell, but I know exactly what he's talking about.

My sophomore year of college was the 300th birthday of J.S. Bach. Maybe it wasn't the 300th but please don't make me do the math. At any rate, the College of Music had this HUGE concert and basically performed as many of Bach's works as they could fit in.

I was chosen to play a fugue. Anyone who's ever played a piano fugue knows that it's not just one melody you're playing but up to 8 at a time. So I worked hard. I practiced umpteen hours and lost sleep over it. And when the day came, I got up in front of my professors and fellow students and... totally choked. The first measure was perfect. Then I couldn't remember the second measure. Or any of the others after that.

That whole expression about wanting to crawl in a hole and die? That was me. At my next piano studio, I couldn't make eye contact with my professor. I wanted to hide under the piano and cry. But then he said to me, "Laura, I want you to play the fugue for your quarter jury. You have to show them you can."

When the quarter ended and it was time for my jury, I ended up playing it perfectly for the keyboard faculty. I was in this beautiful concert hall and I remember that moment so well. It felt like it was just me, a Steinway, and Bach. And I felt SO FREE.

Why was it so easy this time? Because it was no secret that I could mess it up. I knew; the professors knew.  And the thing was, even if I messed it up again, I'd already felt that sting. This time it wouldn't be as sharp. Also, on the flip side, giving yourself permission to make mistakes also acknowledges that you can do better. It not only makes it easier to try again, it pushes you to. The pressure from the outside was off: I wanted to do better for ME, because I knew I could.

My piano teacher when I was little used to tell me, "If you make a mistake, make it loud so I can hear it. I can't help you if I can't hear your mistakes." It's something I tell my own music students now. Mistakes let you off the hook, they push you to grow, and they in some ways measure your progress.

As I'm writing this today, there's a particularly painful rejection in my inbox. The details don't matter except to say I felt more invested than ever in this particular situation. It stings. I'm embarrassed. I kind of want to hide and cry for a while.

But so what? I'm going to make this loud, that's why I'm telling you this. Yeah, I didn't get the agent I was hoping for, but now I can look for other fabulous agents, beef up my query, tighten my writing. I feel that push to prove to myself that I can. Also, I wrote today like I haven't written in a long time - like a person free of any sort of pressure. And it was WONDERFUL. I was writing for me again, not writing to impress, or towards publication, or any of that. Amazing and interesting combination, isn't it?

But more than anything, that rejection was a big step for me, a huge measure of progress. There was a time I didn't think I'd ever ever be brave enough to let anyone read something I wrote, and now I'm facing the sting of rejection and... faring well. I worked up the courage to send out my writing. That's progress. I sent something GOOD out to be read, good enough that this is only one of many agents who have my work, and that's really great progress. And I don't feel broken, and that's a much more personal thing yes, but a big step in the right direction for me.

So I'll just leave you with this final thought, a part of the New Years blog from the amazing Neil Gaiman:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever."