Writing, Editing, and Reading

August 11, 2015August 11, 2015 / legreene515 / 8 Comments

I woke up super early today to write, edit, and possibly go for a run. I decided against the run, because my calves are hurting. I’m feeling a little bit like I should go, since it may be my only chance at exercise until Saturday. I’ll have to break out the exercise video tomorrow morning, and I hate those dreaded things.

I’m still rewriting Little Birdhouses, and I figure it will be awhile before it’s ready. I printed it off, and I’m reading it aloud and making commentary on the edges of the paper, figuring out what needs to be cut, what doesn’t make sense, etc. I’m working on Chapter Four and thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was writing in my sleep or smoking crack when I wrote this dribble. I’m also wondering how many times, “she stood” or “she nodded” needs to show up in my work. Lots of strike-throughs are littering my pages, but this is good thing because I’m making it better!

“Garden birds house” by CaliforniaCat0001

In Chapter Four, Lana (the protagonist) meets Gideon Peterson for the first time. I love this line, even though it needs a little work grammatically still, “Just like the birdhouses, I felt Gideon Peterson creep into the back of my mind and secure his place there ready to haunt me at any moment.”

Creepy huh? Romantic, maybe? Obsessive: yes. It’s funny when you’re editing and you feel like all you write is shit, and then all of a sudden there’s a redeeming sentence in the mist, and you, as the author think, “Oh yeah, maybe I really can write.”

And birds, they seem to be taking over my life despite my dislike for them. I’m reading Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott right now, and I’m wondering how I’ve come so far in my writing career without reading this book. It is hilarious and true. I’m not very far into the book yet, but I just read her chapter on perfectionism and I couldn’t agree more. This is a book every writer should read along with On Writing by Stephen King.

What are some books that have made a difference in your life?

There’s still time to enter the giveaway for my newest book, The Devil Within:

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Devil Within

by Lauren Greene

Giveaway ends August 31, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

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Write What You Want

August 3, 2015 / legreene515 / 4 Comments

Today, I had the pleasure of reading What We Most Want by William Kenower. It seemed like a sign for me to have stumbled upon this article, because I had no idea what I wanted to write this morning. And until a few weeks ago, I didn’t know I wanted to write Southern Literature either.

I dabbled in many genres. I wrote No Turning Back, a woman’s fiction, love triangle, with an unexpected ending. After writing that book, I wrote The Devil Within in about two weeks. After finishing The Devil Within, I felt like I couldn’t finish anything else. I wrote a Southern psychological thriller or coming-of-age or who-knows-what-genre-it-falls-into-because-I-hate-classification called Little Birdhouses. Then I toyed around with a story about swingers (I’ve since shelved this–thank God!). I started several nondescript manuscripts, but I couldn’t put myself into any of them and I didn’t know why.

About a week before I attended Midwest Writer’s, Anna Kate’s voice invaded my head and told me to write her story–the one I’ve been holding on to for fifteen years and is set in rural Alabama in the 1920’s. I finally felt ready to do her story justice–even though it’s truly a labor of love, with tons of research, because let’s face it: I’ve never been a tenant farmer’s daughter. At Midwest Writer’s, someone asked me what I wrote, and I had a sudden realization it was Southern Literature or Southern fiction, or whatever you want to call it. And it makes sense. Because it’s who I am and it’s what I want to write. We all know I love to write tragic stories and what better fodder for stories than the tumultuous South! I started writing what I wanted, and the words started flowing. Writing Southern fiction makes me happy and it made me LOVE my work, just like William Kenower said in his article. Be true to yourself.

About once a week, with my Writing Wenches, someone brings up that we should all just write about falling in love with your stepbrother, because these books do well. It’s tongue-in-cheek, because none of us are ready to sell out. The point being, you might make a ton of money doing that (doubtful, because writing to trend when you don’t love what you’re doing can make you burn out quickly), but you wouldn’t be happy. If you don’t write what you love then the words are just symbols on a page with no meaning. Your reader can pick up on your enthusiasm in your writing from the feeling and emotion that the words tend to take when you’re writing something you love. If you love writing step-brother romances then I say go for it!

As for me, I’ll take the inspiration I received from reading The Sound and the Fury, Cold Sassy Tree, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, and To Kill A Mockingbird (among thousands of other Southern novels I read), and I’ll write what I love.

What do you think? Do you write what you love? When you read a book, can you tell if the author was truly inspired and loved what he/she was doing?

Goodreads Book Giveaway

The Devil Within

by Lauren Greene

Giveaway ends August 31, 2015.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

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Introducing Tommy from The Devil Within

June 22, 2015June 22, 2015 / legreene515 / Leave a comment

It’s 5 AM, and my dog is outside barking at the world. It might be time for a bark collar.

Today I’m going to introduce you to Tommy from The Devil Within. Tommy is one of my favorite characters, because he’s multi-dimensional. Tommy is William’s cousin, in his twenties, who takes on the role of an older brother or father figure for William. Tommy grew up in a fairly charmed life with his mother Mimi and his Dad, also named Tom. He went off to college then dropped out, came home and knocked a girl up then married her. Tommy struggles with being an adult while feeling a lot like a kid. But Tommy has a soft side, and he turns into a savior for William in many ways. Without Tommy in the picture, William would have been lost.

When I wrote about Tommy, I wanted his character to be complicated. In the book, William struggles with thoughts of guilt and sin, and Tommy is perhaps the most sinful character in the book, but he’s also the most loving, caring, and kind. He’s the character who knows right from wrong even though his choices might not always reflect that.

After finishing this book, Tommy’s character has stuck with me. I keep thinking about him. I’ve thought about expanding his story, or maybe writing shorts about him. Through the writing process, he became my favorite character in the book. I wonder if you’ll feel the same way.

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Underground and Urban Fantasy

April 24, 2015 / legreene515 / 5 Comments

A couple of years ago, I started a Dystopian piece called Underground. I imagined it being a book, but then a short story contest by Almond Press came along. I tried to adapt Underground as a short story. It didn’t work too well, and I didn’t win. And then I abandoned the story all together. The last few days, I’ve been thinking about picking it up again. I tend to do this when I’m having a hard time with one story, jump around and see what else I should work on instead of focusing on what I need to. The problem is the story has a billion moving parts, and I need to plot it out and work out all the details of the society–doing this amount of world building is a bit overwhelming to me. And when I’m overwhelmed I under perform.

I’ve also thought of exploring Urban Fantasy a little bit more. I did a mash up piece, Urban Fantasy and Alternate History, for Chuck Wendig’s Terrible Minds a few months back, titled The Wall. You can read it at Adventures in Lululand, my other website that I’ve been neglecting lately. What’s there not to like about killer fairies? I may expand this story, as I had a lot of people interested in the concept. I did a smaller short story, Berlin, as a follow up for a flash fiction contest too.

Both of these ideas are sitting in my mind, taking up space, as ideas tend to do in writers’ heads. But at least I know I have ideas I can explore if my current work-in-progress doesn’t pan out.

Quit

April 20, 2015April 20, 2015 / legreene515 / 8 Comments

Q? What am I going to write about for the letter “Q?” Maybe I thought I’d have quit by now. I’m not generally a quitter. I could be described more as wishy washy. I make up a decision, and then sometimes I change my mind. Sometimes it’s too late at that point to actually be changing my mind. But quit–no, not me!

I’ve thought about quitting writing. Several times. I have all the usual author complaints.

But it’s hard

I don’t want to rewrite.

My first draft is awesome, do I really have to put more work into it? (Said nobody ever!)

I put hours and hours of work into something and only 20 people read and review my books!

Plus, the doubt. I’ve written about that before. Let me tell you something, writers don’t become successful by quitting. They become successful by coping with lots rejection. They become successful by plowing through the edits, even when looking at their piece one more time makes them want to vomit. They become successful by submitting over and over again, until someone accepts their work and believes in as much as they believe in themselves.

It takes ONE person to make a writer successful. The writer, herself.

Don’t quit!

J is for J K Rowling

April 11, 2015 / legreene515 / 13 Comments

My oldest son has been seen these days with his head securely hidden behind this book:

A single mother at the time, she wrote in cafes while her daughter slept (Wikipedia). Oh and by the way, her name is pronounced Rolling too. If it was Rawling, it would have an “a.” No matter if you like Harry Potter or not (I did, but I never read the last book–I’m not a series person), you have to admit that J K Rowling’s story is an inspiration to all writers.

We’ve all heard the rumors. The way to get published in writing is to be a) super connected with the BIG 5, b) live in New York City, or c) have loads of money and buy your way in. Well, I’m not leaving Alabama, then I’d miss awesome events like the rattlesnake rodeo.

Rowling used her imagination and drive to keep going despite being rejected by 12 publishing houses initially. She did what it took. She wrote. She persisted. And she became a success.

I’m not sure if every writer has a dream of being a best seller, but I know every writer wants their work to be read. (After they get over that scary phase of I show my work to no one.) Without an audience, there is no one to find joy in the words you’ve created. There is no one to laugh and cry with you as you take your characters on their journey. Without an audience, you’ve just put words on paper, but with no one to read them they don’t hold much meaning.

I hope one day I hit the big time like J K Rowling, but until then I’m going to keep on writing.

Blogging! Bananas!

April 2, 2015 / legreene515 / 12 Comments

Blogging seems an appropriate word for an A-Z Blogging Challenge. Why is this post called “Blogging! Bananas!?” Because I’m sitting here at 5:20 AM badly wanting a banana. I can’t explain it, besides to say when I played around unsuccessfully with Canva this morning, a monkey mysteriously appeared in the “charge” box. I scraped that, because I didn’t want to pay $1 for a monkey who didn’t exist in my image. But ever since, I have wanted bananas. And guess what? No bananas. In my house, bananas either fester and grow black or they’re gone within a day. Sort of like blog posts. You either get a lot of hits or none at all, depending on so many factors: topic, tags, categories, advertising, marketing or just dumb luck.

I started seriously blogging about four years ago. When I say serious, I mean I tried to blog a couple of times a week. I’ve never made, or really tried to make money, on my blog. I blogged over at http://www.lululandadventures.blogspot.com/, which I’m sad to say I haven’t been updating recently. I need to, because I’ve changed that to my personal blog, and this is my writing blog. I came to blogging after years of ignoring an urge to write. I came to blogging to deal with the loss of my hair to alopecia areata. I’d had it as a child, but after I stopped breastfeeding my daughter I lost all my hair. At first, my blog was used as a cathartic release.

I feel like blogging gave me the stepping stone to start writing again. Once I started writing again, I had the motivation to start querying. When that didn’t work, I self-published. Now, one of my books is in editing with Booktrope, and I hope it’ll be published in May. All of this, because I had the courage to put myself out there and blog.

A is for Ambition

April 1, 2015April 1, 2015 / legreene515 / 20 Comments

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.

Go To Church Or The Devil Will Get You

March 30, 2015 / legreene515 / 4 Comments

If you live in Alabama, or have driven through Alabama to get to the beaches, then chances are you’ve seen the above sign. This sign was inspiration for my new book, “The Devil Within.” The real truth about this sign is that a contractor, named Billy Newell erected the sign because of his deep love of God. You can read more about the truth here: http://blog.al.com/live/2009/09/ws_newell_dies_contractor_erec.html

But this sign inspired to spin some fiction! Here’s a little blurb from the first part of “The Devil Within” (still in editing, but hopefully will be out in May), just to give you a little teaser!

Everyone has seen the sign. It sits on the highway between Montgomery and Birmingham: Go to Church or the Devil Will Get You! A caricature of a devil holding a red pitchfork with eyes burning holes into every car that passes by.

My pop put up that sign. It was the beginning of the end in my eyes. He did it right after the accident. He went down the street to Baker’s Seed and Feed and Hardware Shop, squeezing my hand too hard as he dragged me in—the only child left. He bought red paint and some two-by-fours, and then we hopped back into the Ford truck and drove all the way down to the end of the property next to where the pond stands. He handed me a Coca-Cola, and I lay under a tree thinking about how Momma had looked like an angel in her casket and wondering when I’d ever see her again. The Coca-Cola almost burned going down my throat.

“What you think, boy?” he asked, spitting some tobacco out of the wad in his cheek.

I stood up and walked around, looking at the sign. He had traced the devil from an old sign, colored him in, painted words in bright red, and then put it up. It looked crude, but I guessed it would do. I was more interested in finding some peanuts to add to my Coca-Cola, but I nodded enthusiastically like it was the best piece of artwork I’d ever seen.

Write What You Know

March 26, 2015 / legreene515 / Leave a comment

What’s the mantra you hear the most in the writing world? Write What You Know. The more I write, the more I find this is true. Writing what you know is absolutely necessary. Little snippets of conversation you listen to, the aura of where you live, all of these items need to be included in your books. We, as human beings, are shaped tremendously by our environment.

I’m reading Ron Rash’s Something Rich and Strange right now. As I’m reading this wonderfully woven short stories of Appalachia, I’m finding in myself more and more the knowledge that I need to write about the South. What an amazing backdrop to be raised in: tumultuous, redneck, Christian, genteel, country, city, beautiful, history being lived over and over again. There aren’t enough words to describe Alabama in all its glory. It’s a place constantly misunderstood and ostracized–all the people thought to be back woods. But they’re not. There are writers and artists, scientists and doctors, living in these backwoods. And there is pain and history and love and hope.

My stories have slowly started to take on a southern feeling. Not all of them, since I still can’t pick a genre, but a lot of them have. It’s even showing up in my Flash Fiction. The Southern characters, as different from each other as anyone who lives here. I think that’s what makes Ron Rash’s short stories so beautiful. He’s a poet who can describe the people and the place where he lives as no one else can, because he’s been there and he’s seen it with his own two eyes. The South is part of me–it runs in my blood, and so it must run through my fingertips on to my computer screen as well.

It’s Spring Break here, and I took a whole week off (I haven’t been getting much editing done either, unfortunately). The family and I have been driving all over ‘Bama soaking up history. We saw this beautiful house in Tuskegee. They are looking for donations for restoration.

When I saw this house, I knew it was it. This was the house I’d imagined William Hill living in. Who’s William Hill? He’s the character of “The Devil Within,” my book coming out in early May. He’s nine years old when he loses his mother and siblings in a car accident, and he’s left in the hands of his overly religious father who doesn’t know how to cope with the boy. Stay tuned for more teasers, including a photo of a southern landmark that will be included in the book.