Catch As Cat Can - What I'm Reading

Just finished Catch as Cat Can by Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown (her cat), my latest in the Mrs. Murphy Mysteries.

If you're not familiar with them, Mrs. Murphy is a tiger cat who lives in Crozet, Virgina and likes to solve mysteries with the help of her human, postmistress "Harry" Haristeen, Tee Tucker, her faithful corgi companion and Pewter, her feline buddy.

In Catch as Cat Can, spring is in the air, the Dogwood Festival is about to start and BoomBoom Craycroft (not Harry's favorite person) is hooking Harry up with a handsome diplomat from Uruguay, which doesn't make Harry's ex, Fair Haristeen happy. Meanwhile a dead woodpecker and a set of stolen hubcaps lead to the inevitable dead body. This is a murder mystery, after all!

Crozet is a charming little middle-of-nowhere town with a host of quirky locals and seemingly a good number of murders and intelligent pets. There's Miranda, a sixtyish widow who works at the post office with Harry, bakes scrumptious muffins and can quote the Bible perfectly; Big Mim, the "Queen" of Crozet society; Little Mim, Big Mim's daughter who's still trying to find herself; the loveable Reverend Herb and Cynthia Cooper the sherrif's deputy, who's bound and determined to find the killer, with Harry and Mrs. Murphy's help. This book also introduces us to Pope Rat, a rather despicable rodent and Abraham a courtly and helpful old hound.

I've adored Rita Mae Brown's novels since I first encountered Six of One, a rollicking tale about a pair of sisters growing up in the prohibition era, in the equally amusing town of Runnymede, MD who have been "fighting like banty roosters" since 1905.

As with most of Rita Mae Brown's Mrs. Murphy books, things start off slow - after all, nothing ever happens in Crozet, right? - but soon leads Harry into danger, and her animal friends have to get her out. If you're like me and enjoy starting with the first of a series, I recommend Wish You Were Here.

Give Yourself a "Themed Break" - Keep Your Story Going

Sometimes when I want to jumpstart my story, I take a theme that's an entire aside to what I'm working on, and write it with my characters in mind.

Years ago, around the time I first started my Willa story, one of my metaphysics teachers gave our class the homework of taking the Runic Journey and re-writing it from our own perspectives. The second "aett" (eight) of the runes consists of Hagal (hail; a disaster, destruction, testing) Nauthiz (need; obstacles, desperation, frustration, hardship and its overcoming) Isa (ice; a blockage, stagnation, reflection) Jera (year or harvest; change, things coming to fruition, time) Eihwaz (yew; initiation, confrontation of fears, a turning point, death-rebirth) Peorth (dice cup; rebirth, mystery, transformation) Algiz (elk; protection by or from the gods) Suwilo (sun; victory, positive energy, health, celebration).

The traditional teaching story goes as follows: The Prince is hunting with his men in the forest when a blizzard comes up. He is separated from his men and in desperate need finds a crack between rocks to shelter from the storm. As he rests there, the crack in the rocks ices over and he is entombed there. Time passes and the Prince confronts his fears of death. He undergoes a mystical transformation where he begins to understand his place in the Universe and how all his steps have led him to this point. The gods recognize his transformation and decide to protect him. They shine the sun onto the crack in where he is entombed, and it melts. Victorious and changed, he returns to his people as the wise King.

The story I wrote from this had my sixteen year old protagonist, Willa wandering in the forest with her younger brother and sister. She's been separated from her mom and the other adults in the story. The villains of the story are closing in on her and she needs to cross a river to get them back to safety. When her brother falls in, she undergoes a personal transformation and also manages to rescue him.

This rune-story ended up becoming an entire chapter in my book, and sat waiting in my files until I could get her into a position where I could use it. Until I was given that homework, I didn't know anything about this part of the story.

Now I had some goals for my writing:
Find a way to separate Willa and her brother and sister from the adults.
Obviously they need to end up in the woods.
The villains need to be aware of her general location - how do they accomplish this?
Her mom needs to be unaware of her location - why are Willa and the kids out of reach and why doesn't mom know where they are?

The rune story is just one example of a "themed break" that you might write about. I call it a themed break because I decide the backdrop or theme ahead of time, and because it gives me a break from trying to follow the plot that I've set so far.

The basic idea behind this exercise:

1) Find a theme that interests you. It doesn't have to have any relation to the story you're working on.
2) Put your protagonist in the setting or situation.
3) Don't worry about where in your story this will happen. Just go ahead and write.

You may never use this bit of writing. It might give you a revelation into your characters that is for you alone, but tells you something about them that you didn't know. Or you may find, as I did, that it grows into a future chapter and gives you a guideline to shape the plot of your story.

Some ideas for themed breaks:

A birthday party.
A camping trip.
Watching a candle burn down.
Dinner at a restaurant.
A phone call from another character.
A breakdown with a vehicle.
Grocery shopping.
A surprise (and perhaps strange or questionably appropriate) gift.
Digging a moat or ditch.

Another idea is to take a TV show or a chapter from a book you've read recently and boil it down to its very basic concepts. For example, here's the "boil down" from a recent episode of CSI:

Someone is attacked but survives. It is discovered the attacker has been watching the victim. Someone else is attacked by the same person and killed. Eventually it is discovered that the killer knew secrets about both victims and wants them to confess their sins.

Boiled down even more: Your protagonist knows someone's sins and wants them to confess OR someone else knows about your protagonist's sins and wants him/her to confess.

Here's another from a fairy tale, in this case "Stone Soup"

If you recall, in the story a group of travelers come into town. They're hungry but don't want to obviously beg. They tell the townsfolk that they have a magical stone which makes the best soup in the world. Each villager wants to try the soup and ends up "garnishing" it with a bit of turnip or a piece of meat until the whole town has put together soup, and they all share.

In essence, the scene in Tom Sawyer where he gets the neighborhood kids to help paint the fence is very similar.

The "boil down" would be that one character wants to accomplish something. They pretend it is important/exciting and trick or convince others to help.

So, pick a theme, throw your protagonist into the works and see what happens!

Living With Your Inner Editor - Keep Your Story Going

I have at least six novels and three cookbooks in the works. On one hand, this works well for me. When I'm bored or frustrated with one book, I'll move on to the next for a while. Usually this leads to a giant burst of creativity, and I'll end up with with several pages, sometimes even several chapters flowing out.

On the downside, it means that I still have six novels and three cookbooks that are unfinished.

Contemplating why this happens, I realize that one of my problems is my Inner Editor. You know, that writer who sits on your shoulder and tells you that your writing isn't "good enough." Often instead of actually writing something new I'll read through my previous chapters and start editing them. "Hmm, this isn't clear..." or "I forgot to mention this thing about my character..." or "I should really foreshadow that..." and sometimes, "Geez! this sounds like drivel!"

Going back and rewriting isn't a bad thing. Sometimes it will lead me to new revelations. In the main story I'm working with right now (titled "Willa," after the main character, until I think of a good title) this kind of back-editing introduced a new minor character just recently, and with it, new revelations about my protagonist.

On the negative side, this also means that I have several books with supremely polished first chapters and am stuck in the middle of them.

So what can you do to stop your Inner Editor from stalling your progress?


Thank Your Inner Editor...

One of the things I've learned from hypnosis/NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) classes is that every part of you serves a good purpose. As an example, lets say you're afraid of snakes. Well, the part of you that fears snakes isn't "bad." It serves to keep you safe, and it's doing that job for a good reason. After all, some snakes are dangerous. They can disfigure you (I made the mistake of watching one of those nature programs where a guy lost his thumb to a rattlesnake bite the other day) or even kill you.  So the snake-fearing part of you is good and a friend.

Of course if you happen to work in the reptile house of your local zoo, then the snake-fearing part of you might stop you from doing your work as effectively and as safely as you need.

In the same way, your Inner Editor is a good part of you as well. First, your Inner Editor works to protect you from being hurt or humiliated. Your Inner Editor probably remembers a time when someone somewhere read your writing and told you how lousy it was. We've all had that day. Lets face it, most of us didn't spring full-blown from the womb as another Shakespeare. Writing is a craft, and like all other crafts, it takes time, experience and practice. But your Inner Editor doesn't always understand that. It just wants you not to get hurt.

And for most of us who practice hard at the craft of writing, we already know what doesn't work, what sounds phony, or "done before" or just plain hackish. So the more we grow as writers, the more loudly our Inner Editor screams in our ear.

So silly as it may sound, take a moment, close your eyes, and ask your Inner Editor to come forward. Tell it "thank you" for all the help it's doing to keep you safe and be a better writer.

...And Ask For Its Help (an NLP exercise)

Now ask your Inner Editor, since it wants you to be safe, and be a better writer, if it would be willing to work with you and allow you to write more prolifically in ways that would still allow you to feel safe, but would also help you to complete your other writing goals.

When it answers yes, ask your Creative Part to come forward. Everyone has a Creative Part - the part of us that thinks up new ideas and new ways to manifest them. We writers have Creative Parts in spades! Otherwise we wouldn't be writing in the first place! Ask your creative part to generate a thousand different ways that you and your Inner Editor can work together so that your writing will be stronger, better, more powerful, and still keep you safe.

A thousand ideas may sound like a lot, but your Creative Part is capable of generating infinite possibilities. You may find that you know what some of those ideas are...or you may have no clue what ideas your Creative Part has thought of. Either is fine. There's no reason to know what they are or to list them. Just trust that they are being thought of, somewhere in your Unconscious. Give yourself a few minutes and ask your Creative Part to let you know when those thousand or so ideas have been generated.

Then ask your Inner Editor to talk to all your other parts and to pick one or two of those thousand ideas that you can start manifesting right now, in a way that is safe for your Inner Editor and that will be the healthiest and best for all your other parts as well. Again, you may have an idea what that new way of expression is, or you might not. Just allow a few moments until you get a feeling that your parts have decided on something.

Now say a big thank you to your Inner Editor, your Creative Part and all your other parts, and get back to your writing!


Make a Date with your Inner Editor

Pick one day a week, and make it your Editing Day. That's your day for going back and polishing your work. Cleaning up plot threads and tying them together, rooting out cliches, making note of things you left out or want to expand.

Every other day is a writing day. No backtracking or editing allowed.

Often you'll find that your Inner Editor is so thrilled to be acknowledged with her OWN DAY that she'll leave you be the rest of the week.

Pick a Number and Don't Stop Till You Get There

Decide on an amount of writing that you want to get done. It could be 1000 words or 5000 words, 3 pages, two chapters, whatever's right for you.

Then determine that until you reach that goal you won't go back and edit a single syllable.

The important factor in deciding this number, and making it work is to be REASONABLE with yourself. If you churn out 20 pages a day with no problem, then setting a goal of 10,000 or more words might be reasonable. (And if you churn out 20 pages a day every day, you probably don't need this article!) If you can barely struggle through two pages - or two paragraphs! - a day, then set a goal that's high enough above your usual output to make you feel good about having written that much, but well within your ability to write, given whatever time constraints of your daily life.

Write Bad on Purpose

Sometimes the trick is to actively plan to write dreck. "Its going to be crappy. In fact I WANT it to be crappy. I'm going to write trash today...but goddamnit I'm going to write 5 whole pages of trash!" Then go and write your protagonist's shopping list, or their letter to their local newspaper editor, or anything else that sounds fun.

Often when I try this, I find that at least some of my writing is actually pretty good. Even when it does turn out to be complete garbage, it may give me a new way of looking at my character or my plot, an idea for a scene, or even for another story.

What are some of your ideas for living with your Inner Editor?