#amwriting

Introducing Lulu from The Devil Within

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Okay–just so you know, I will be experimenting with the theme on this blog over the next couple of weeks. Mainly, I need a theme that will allow me to have plug-ins or put a form so you all can sign up for my newsletter. And speaking of newsletters, if you’re interested, you can sign up over at my Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/laurengreenewrites) or send me a message through the Contact Form on the “About Page,” with your name and email address.

I went to the beach this weekend, and I didn’t do any prep for this blog. Yesterday, when we got home I was exhausted and didn’t write at all. I’ve been writing a lot lately, and I think it’s because I need to be editing. Writing is the lesser of two evils. (Ha–actually I love writing but editing is akin to cleaning up my room, which everyone knows I hate to do).

I decided to introduce you to Lulu today. Lulu is William’s cousin in The Devil Within. She and William are the same age. They attend the same school, and they’re best friends. Lulu also has alopecia universalis (hair loss over the entire body). When I wrote Lulu, I didn’t intentionally make her bald. I’m not one of these people who has to put myself into a book, but when Lulu was created she had alopecia. She’s a nine year old child who knows what it’s like to be different. She’s protective of William and loves him fiercely. She also knows William is being abused, but can’t fix that problem.

As a nine year old child, I was different from Lulu. I did not feel at home in my skin. I had patchy alopecia, meaning I had random bald spots on my head (now I have alopecia universalis). I was in the 4th grade at a public school in Alabama, and being bullied by a boy who was a lot stronger and bigger than me. He said mean things to me, verbally and physical abused me, and was generally a horrible person to me. I had a lot of hate for that kid, but his hate turned into a lack of confidence in myself. It meant I was afraid to talk about alopecia. It meant I thought little of myself. Basically, the bully got what he wanted: power. I didn’t want anyone to know I had it, and so a few years later when I went to camp for five weeks, I kept my hair in a ponytail for five weeks and didn’t wash it to keep people from finding out I had bald spots. It took me a long time to get over the unkind words of my bully, Rondre. It took me a long time to realize I’m beautiful for who I am, not for what I look like on the outside. It took me a long time to realize that just because someone chooses to hurt you with their words doesn’t mean those words are true. And it took me a long time to accept myself.

But Lulu is not like that. She accepts herself for who she is. She is a strong child who doesn’t let other people tear her down. She brings out the child in William. She lets us see who William could be if his world wasn’t falling apart. She is his advocate and his friend, and she is self-assured and strong, partially because she has to deal with having alopecia herself.

At this point in my life, I’ve forgiven my bully. I don’t know what was going on in his life when he decided to pick on me, but he must have been suffering too. I wish I had the confidence Lulu had in my book when I was growing up. But I didn’t then. Now I do. Accepting and loving yourself is important. Don’t let anyone take that away from you.

What Is Writing?

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This week I was in a funk. Down in the dumps. Not writing. Woe-is-me. Then, I changed my attitude. I started writing again, and I felt a huge wave of relief run through me. I’m a writer. I’m meant to write. When I don’t write I become morose.

I read an article the other day. It was an article from the New Yorker called Is Writing Torture? A young new writer/waiter in a cafe presented his manuscript to the Philip Roth, and Roth apparently told him “I would quit while you’re ahead.” Elizabeth Gilbert author of Eat, Pray, Love was upset by this advice and said writing is a “fucking great” job.

Their different viewpoints on writing don’t surprise me. Look at Roth’s writing. It’s dark. Look at Gilbert’s. Love is magical and wonderful. Life is amazing. Some people think Roth was only kidding. Being the older mentor who threw a curve ball at this kid to see if he would flinch. And some people think Gilbert is not realistic. Writing is not great: it’s hard as fuck!

I think both contradictory views are true. Writing is torture and writing is a “fucking great” job. I need to write. It’s not a want. It’s not a hobby. It’s something deep inside of me. When I don’t write I’m unhappy. Writing’s explicit job in my life is for me to be able to verbally throw up all the shit from inside my brain onto the computer so I feel like I’ve dealt with the crap swirling around in my mind and can move on. Writing is cathartic. Writing is therapy. Writing is a way for me to deal with ideas and thoughts I can’t quite wrap my mind around.

And, no, this does not make writing easy. Nothing about writing is easy. Hey, No Turning Back, my self-published book is currently sitting at a rank of 1,000,000 on Amazon, and I have no idea how to market it to get to more readers. It’s not easy. It’s hard. It’s hard to get your name out there. It’s hard to find readers. It’s hard when you write something and you think it’s amazing, and someone else tells you it sucks. But that’s the job just like any other job and you have to roll with the punches and move on. A writer isn’t someone who is going to quit because it’s hard. A writer doesn’t really have that option, because the need to write always rears its ugly head.

The thing about writing I find most difficult is not the writing part. A writer has to wear many hats: editor, marketer, public speaker, etc. Marketing is somewhat of an enigma to me. The point is to have other people spread the word about your work, but I haven’t gotten there yet. And I think a lot of it is a time management problem. With three kids, a day job, and a busy life I simply don’t have as much time as I want to put into it. If it was up to me I’d put a huge amount of time into finding more ways to market my work. But, I’m confident one day I’ll get to the point where I can devote all my time to this job.

So is writing torture? No. It’s a way of life, and life is full of ups and downs.

Newsletter Is A’Coming!

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I had a busy weekend. I told my boys I would take them to Airwalk, an indoor trampoline arena one of the first weeks of summer. This was the weekend! We went up with a friend. And, there’s no video proof, but I did a front flip! It only took me the whole time to get my nerve up but once I did I wanted to do it over and over again. We had a two hour jump, but we only lasted one and a half hours. Granted, my oldest told me he could have jumped the whole 2 hours, but my seven year old was exhausted. Then we went to the Cheesecake Factory and made a stop at the Lego store before we came home. I want to be a kid again!

Here’s some videos of the kids getting their jump on:

I’ve been goal oriented lately, but with our day trip and then my niece and nephew being here yesterday, I didn’t achieve my goal of getting my newsletter set up this weekend. There never seems to be enough time in the day. Plus, now I’m ill and feel so tired from hacking up a lung. But I’m just going to move that goal over to this week and make sure it gets done.

Tell me more about this newsletter, you say? In the next few days, I’ll have a sign-up sheet over at my Facebook Author Page:https://www.facebook.com/laurengreenewrites. I’ll send a newsletter out once a month or so with important news about my books. I’ll also feature some authors I love who are up and coming, just like me. I’ll have a personal section, a section on writing, and probably a section on what I’m currently reading. This is still in the works! So make sure to be on the lookout for the sign-up sheet that’s coming soon!

The Writing Process

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Yesterday, I posted about the inspiration behind The Devil Within. So what happens after inspiration hits? I think the question I get the most as an author is: where do your ideas come from? And honestly, objects, things, sayings all inspire the ideas, but when I sit down to write it’s like magic. Here’s where the magic happens, in my writing space:

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I write in a La-Z-Boy recliner in the middle of our living room (excuse the mess on the floor). The chair I sit in was handed down from my Gipop after Gigi passed away. I remember when I was little and would go over to their house, my grandfather would sit in this chair and read all the time. I have an emotional attachment to this chair, because it reminds me of him.

The kids are often running around, talking to me, or watching TV while I write away. I like being in the center of it all instead of locked in a room away from everyone. When I start writing, I put on my pink headphones, hit shuffle on Pandora, and then my fingers start walking across the keyboard. I’m a pantser (write from the seat of my pants), but I do research and I make character sketches. Not so much a written sketch, as I put descriptions, personality quirks, etc. into an excel spreadsheet. This is specifically useful if you have a lot of characters or if halfway through the book you mention blonde hair on your protagonist when she really has brown.

Earlier I mentioned magic, and I do believe that’s what writing is. There’s no way to describe what it’s like when I’m in the zone. It’s a feeling of being only semi-present. The music falls into the background, and I don’t even really hear it. The words come out and sometimes I’m surprised by the similes and metaphors that appear on the page. Most writers I know have had this experience of being bodily present but their mind being in a higher realm. I’m not a religious person, but there is something spiritual about the writing process.

Stay tuned for more about the writing of The Devil Within. 

The Cross Garden

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I know I’ve told you all the inspiration for The Devil Within came from the Go to Church or the Devil Will You Get You sign. But growing up in the South I was surrounded by a lot of folklore and crazy roadside attractions.

One day when my sister was in college, she brought her then-boyfriend, now-husband down to visit. We told my parents we were going to go buy fro-yo, but instead Kelsey took us toward Prattville. She had heard about this man who lived out in the country who had covered is whole yard with crosses and signs. People flocked from all over to see these crosses.

We drove north from Montgomery for about thirty minutes until we found The Cross Garden. Not only did this man have crosses littering his yard, the hills across from his house, but he also had signs proclaiming things like Hell is Hot Hot Hot.

The story we had been told was that this man had a dream and Jesus came to him and told him to repent or something terrible would happen to his family. He laughed it off. A few weeks later, his wife and children were killed in a car wreck on the interstate. Amidst the handmade crosses in his yard was a wrecked car. Supposedly he had the wrecking company bring the car there so he could always be reminded of his mistake. He made his yard and surrounding land a tribute to Jesus and the hell that awaits sinners on judgement day.

I often thought about The Cross Garden and how horrible it would be to lose your family. It’s funny, because thanks to the power of Google I now know the car accident never really happened. The owner of the Cross Garden wanted people to see the power of God and to be saved before they burned for eternity in Hell. Don’t you just love the South?

Read more about the Cross Garden and the owner, the late W.C. Rice. 

Victory

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Four more letters left. I can smell victory on the A to Z Challenge! It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, but I also know I need to get through the next five days (Sunday is a rest day).

I’m one of those people who tends to celebrate a victory before it happens. I’m happy go lucky, when I’m not depressed. Or maybe, I just wear whatever emotion is gracing my life on my shoulders. But, when I finished writing my first book I celebrated. I told everyone I knew that I was now a writer. When my second book was accepted by Booktrope, I celebrated–again, I told everyone I knew. I had reached success.

I celebrated these little victories, as one should, but without looking at the big picture. Once your book is accepted, the hard work begins. Someone you don’t know begins to pull apart your work. What do you mean by this? What’s the importance of this statement? How many times are you going to use the word “just?”  I wonder just how many writers give up when they reach this stage?

Every writer I know (and I know quite a few now), knows the importance of an editor. But every writer I know also struggles with someone else telling them their work is crap. So many writers say every first draft is crap, and that in order for a novel to be ready it takes a lot of hard work, rewriting, editing, beta readers, etc.  Isn’t this the same for so many other things in life?  TRUE victories require a lot of hard work from us.

Celebrate the small victories: when the book is done, when your beta readers love it, and when your hard work finally is accepted by the publisher. But realize, that the work doesn’t stop there. Gather your steam and push on through your edits, through the formatting process, through the marketing process, and then start your next book.

Writing is like running. You start out learning how to run a mile, then build up to two. Before you know it, you’re running a 5K, then a half marathon, then a marathon. Celebrate each victory, but never give up!

*This post was written, as I continually struggle with the editing process (both self-editing and having an editor work on my piece), and it’s a reminder to myself to keep going.

A is for Ambition

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Today is a little bit different. I’m starting the A to Z Challenge, in which I blog through the entire alphabet in the month of April. It will be interesting to see whether I can complete this. There are about 1700 other bloggers joining me.

Today is brought to you by the letter A. I wanted to blog about ambition last night, but I was busy working on a flash fiction piece, and then my wonderful, beautiful daughter would not go to sleep.

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, one of the definitions of ambition is a desire to achieve a particular end. Ambition is the key to drive. My son is ambitious at gymnastics. He pushes himself. He doesn’t accept failure. He keeps going, even when the going gets tough, or even when it’s an event he doesn’t like. My ambition (defined as: a particular goal of aim) is to become a successful author.

Sometimes, ambition doesn’t seem like enough though. So many things can get in the way of success, including real life, day jobs, attitude, mental blocks, and that little “p” word, procrastination. I am the queen of procrastinating when I don’t want to do something. And all it does is hurt me. Procrastination takes my ambition, crumbles it up, and it throws it in the toilet. My ambition this week is to finish editing “The Devil Within,” so I can send it back to my editor. And it’s slow going, because I don’t really want to do it!  I lack ambition when it comes to editing. I have plenty of ambition when it comes to writing, but that’s only part of the story. It’s sort of like, you can’t take the good without the bad. I need to train my mind to believe that in order to be a successful published author, I must edit.  So this week, I’m striving to be an ambitious editor–we’ll see where it gets me.