What Does It Take to Write Quality Amish Fiction?

People who are aware of the popularity of Amish fiction in certain circles tend to laugh at it. Perhaps because the laughers are worldly people whose knowledge of the Amish comes from exploiting 'reality' TV shows. Or in other cases because they are macho-man (or woman) Christian writers who are embarrassed by the importance of the womanish genre of romance in the Christian fiction world. (Women READ. Deal with it.)

But Amish fiction is probably the most challenging of the fiction genres written today. You have to get the details right! Some of the Amish fiction readers have some degree of access into the Amish world--- Amish neighbors, Amish cousins, or they attend a Mennonite church frequented by former Amishmen. Not only that, but although the Amish rarely read fiction, a few have tried Amish fiction. So a newbie Amish fiction writer who gets the details of the Amish world wrong will soon be found out. Don't be that writer!

The Amish fiction genre was 'born' in 1997 when author Beverly Lewis wrote 'The Shunning'.  Beverly Lewis was born in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, and her mother came from Plain roots. Judging by the acknowledgements in her books, she also currently researches her subject matter through direct contact with Amish and formerly Amish friends. Beverly Lewis's Amish fiction sets the bar for the rest of us.

If you were to decide you wanted to write Amish fiction someday, how would you prepare yourself? Here are my suggestions for how to go about it.

1. Cultivate your connections to the Amish world, if you have any. This means Amish or Mennonite neighbors, family members or whatever you can get. Even the more worldly 'high' Mennonite churches may be a way to get started on these connections. If you live near an Amish community, visit their roadside produce stands and patronize their other businesses. But be very respectful of the Amish way of life while you do it.

2. Do research by reading books about the Amish. Use discernment, since many of the useful authors are worldly sociologists who study the Amish the way they'd study a bug in a bottle. Read as many of these books as you can. Buy your own copies of the most useful works, once you are well informed enough to know what those are.

3. Read all the Amish fiction by Beverly Lewis. Read each book 2-3 times each if possible. When that is done, you can sample other Amish fiction authors and decide which of those authors are good role models for your writing.

4. Learn German. The Amish speak a German dialect, Pennsylvania Dutch, among themselves, and use standard German when they read the Bible and sing hymns. How much German do you need? I think it's best to study enough that you could read a German book that's relatively simple, or well-known to you (the Bible) without much problem. 

5. Learn a little of the Pennsylvania Dutch language. How much you need of it depends on how much access you have to real-live Amish people. If you interact regularly with Amish friends to the point you might be invited to Amish events such as church services, you should probably put a little effort into it. 

6. Know about Mennonite history and theology. (I kind of lucked out in that regard, my first college was 'high' Mennonite.) The Amish are a branch of the Mennonites and have similar history and theology.

7. Know your own theology and the history of your church. If you want to get a standard Amish fiction book published by one of the publishers that does that sort of thing, you had better either be some sort of Evangelical Christian, or know the beliefs of Evangelical Christians pretty well. If you are not a standard Evangelical--- particularly if you are something weird like Catholic, Lutheran or Mormon--- you thus have to be knowledgeable about 3 denominations: Amish/Mennonite, Evangelical and your own.  This knowledge is necessary to connect with the average Evangelical reader, the main customer for Amish romance, and to connect also with readers of your own denominational background if that differs from Evangelical.

8. Amish fiction is rural fiction. You must know about rural life--- REAL rural life, not the distortions put out by people with various agendas. If you don't live in a rural area or within convenient driving distance of one, consider a vacation in farm country (if you do the vacation thing). If you look online for your rural connections, be aware that many of the best 'farm' web sites are those by hobby farms who don't make any part of their income from their farm enterprises. The guys that really farm for a living often have a crap web site that hasn't been updated in 3 years. (My experience from shopping for breeding goats online.)

9. Be prepared to think through the whole 'romance' thing in modern fiction and move beyond it in a Christian way. It's not enough to just take out the sex scenes you'd find in an ordinary romance. Avoid pushing the whole idea that following one's 'falling in love' emotions blindly is the only right way to choose a spouse. When 'falling in love' emotions are toward an unsuitable person, one can learn to dismiss them as mere infatuation feelings. 

That's a lot of work, isn't it? And all to produce something which the world will look at dismissively. But it's kind of like that for any worthwhile fiction--- you have to work hard, and study various topics, to competently write something that those who know will recognize as a worthy effort. 

A side question: Can you write Amish fiction if you aren't a Christian? Wouldn't it be an unfair rule to say that only Christians could write Amish fiction?

Well, isn't it unfair that only Black people can write the novels that are included in an 'African-American Literature' college course? Amish fiction as we know it today is a subdivision of the Christian fiction genre, and the rules of the Christian fiction genre demand that the writer be a current, practicing Christian, in the same way as the rules of 'African-American Literature' demand an African-American writer. 

But certainly a writer of any faith or no faith can use Amish characters and settings in fiction, and do it well. Just do a 'lite' version of the preparation steps given above to get the basic knowledge you will need. As a non-Christian, your work will not fit in the typical 'Amish fiction' slot and so you must find your own readership. And you must market your work carefully so that no one expects your work to be ordinary Amish fiction--- especially if your novel breaks the rules of Christian fiction (no sex, no swears), or has negative things to say about the Amish or the Christian faith in general. No reader wants to be tricked into buying a book that they think is one thing that turns out to be another.

Have you ever read Amish fiction? Do you think, reading this list, that it might be too difficult a genre for you to write? What might you need to study to be able to write well in your own favorite genre/subgenre?

My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

IWSG: Can YOU Be A REAL Writer?

This is a post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Visit the link to find other participants and read their posts, or to sign up yourself.

In the watches of the night, when you are close to a panic attack just THINKING about your writing career, one of the things that oppresses you is the awareness of the vast army of would-be writers out there. You look at Writer's Market and discover that at your favorite fiction periodical, they receive 10000 submissions and accept 10 and you think it's hopeless.

Only it isn't. A great many people have writing dreams, only a few have writing PLANS. And only a few of them have the capacity to realize writing plans. Not everyone is cut out to be a writer. Just think of all the folks out there who are under the impression that writing is easy work and always pays off in exactly the same way writing did for Stephen King. These people may not have read a book since high school, may never actually have TRIED to write even a flash-fiction story, but they still say 'I'll be a great writer someday. When I have time.'

People say a would-be writer should believe in himself. But let's get logical. Many who say they want to write a book someday SHOULDN'T believe in themselves, as writers, because they are just not the sort of people who become professional writers.

Should YOU believe in yourself-as-writer? There are signs that you can observe in yourself that might hint that you can. If you read the biographies of famous writers and find many things you can identify with, that's a good sign. And here are some other things to look out for:

1. A story-making mind.  This starts in childhood. Most writers start writing down little stories at an early age, in one form or another. This can depend much on the child's parents and teachers, though. The important thing is that stories are being MADE. Sometimes in simple, childish writing, sometimes in doll and toy play, sometimes kept hidden in the mind where grownups cannot correct and mock.

2. An affinity for English. This doesn't mean 'straight As in English class.' It means that, usually from early on in the learning-to-write stage, you knew almost instinctively how to write an English sentence which could be easily understood. Not a convoluted sentence or one with an essential word missing. Usually this means you have internalized the essential rules of English grammar, even if you couldn't name the rules to save your life.

3. A way with words. The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug. Potential real-writers know this without Mark Twain having to tell them so. Not only that, they have a feel for words, they can tell when a word in a sentence is not-quite-right, and they will know the right word when they find it.

4. An addiction to books. Movies, television series, radio plays and comic books are no substitute for books in the writer's early life. Sometimes being a fan of a television series or movie may be what inspires the young writer to begin writing. But if you have not been compulsively reading books since before you were old enough that the schools would permit you to start reading, you don't speak the language of books as your native language. You should have been reading every sort of book you could lay hands on--- non-fiction, all genres of fiction, and even ventures into good literature. When you were out of reading material, you should have tried mom's gothic romance and dad's World War 2 books--- or even read the back side of the breakfast cereal box. Extra points if you actually had a fight with a sibling over who got to read the breakfast cereal box.

5. A growing awareness of story-rules. The various forms of story-telling have rules, and these rules are often not written down. The future real-writer absorbs some of these rules and begins to use them even in all-in-the-head stories not intended for writing-down. For example, in my childhood, TV shows did not use curse words, not even hells and damns. They didn't show characters going to the bathroom or vomiting 'onstage'. In my early childish fantasies using TV characters, I followed some of those rules, not really knowing why. The rules of books today are different, and different book markets have different sets of rules--- think about the rules for writing a gay character in Christian fiction, and the different rules of secular mainstream fiction. And there is another kind of rules, not subject to change, about the right way to tell a story, the rules for character and plot and theme.

6. A self-correcting mechanism. In schools, writing is taught in a way to turn it from an individual pursuit into a group activity. We write essays on a theme chosen by teacher, and teacher and our classmates tell us if we have done it right or wrong, based on any sort of criteria they chose--- for example, these days, any story with a gun in it is a very badly written story. New writers try to recreate that sort of safe group-activity environment with writing classes and critique groups. But the future real-writer is too much of an individual voice to go along with such constraints. He knows what he is trying to do in any given story and has learned to tell when he is doing it and when he isn't, and he isn't going to change because an amateur critiquer likes something that's bad or hates something that's good. (He will, however, change things for the editor at his publishing house.) Note: this 'self-correcting mechanism' is one thing that may lead you to be an insecure writer. You can see your own mistakes--- an essential skill, but it doesn't build your confidence the way NOT seeing your own mistakes does.

7. Growth as a writer. If you are not growing and improving in your writing skills, you are moving backwards, as a person standing still on a moving treadmill does. If you have real-writer potential, no matter how low your self-confidence you can look at something you wrote ten years ago and something you wrote today, and see improvement. This growth comes mostly by compulsive reading, and compulsive writing.

8. An interest in the writing life. For me, it began when I read Little Women, and identified with Jo, the tomboy sister who loved to write and grew up to be a writer. That was when I first decided I would be a writer. If you have always loved to read fiction where the main character is a writer, or biographies of real-world writers, if you have read Writer's Digest or how-to-write books before anyone ever told you to, this means you have this natural interest in the writing life.

How did you do?

If you read through this article and all 8 points describe you quite well, that means that no matter how insecure you are about your writing, if you are willing to do the work you have every chance of writing success. Your assignment--- get out some writing paper and a pen, and write down all the things in your own life, on each of the 8 points, that show you have what it takes to be a writer. When you are feeling insecure, pull it out and read it over to yourself.

If you read through the list and some points describe you and some do not, you are not hopeless. But if you want to be confident of success, you need to turn some 'no' answers into yeses. Your assignment is divided--- for the points which already apply to you, do the assignment above and write down how the points apply to your life. For the points which don't--- make a plan to change things. If you don't have much of a command of English, find remedial books, perhaps intended for grade school kids, and work through them. Get improve-your-word-power books if you don't have a way with words. If you aren't much of a reader now, start a program to get yourself reading.

But what if you went through the list and feel that you are hopeless? If you are REALLY a 'no' answer on all 8 points, get out a paper and pen and do some written self-talk about why it is you thought about being a writer in the first place. If you are really a non-writing type, chances are you had some misconception about writing--- that it's easy money, or that it's an easy way to win respect, or some such. If this makes you discover you really don't want to be a writer after all, that's a good discovery. You are now free to explore other possibilities that are a better fit with your skills. Perhaps you will become a great painter or rock musician or plumber or electrician--- these are all worthy goals.

If you have made yourself say 'no' to all eight points and it breaks your heart, it may be your low self-esteem at work. When you say 'no' to 'an addiction to books' you may mean you don't read as much as some other person, or you don't read 'highbrow' literature, or some such. If this is your problem, get out your pen and paper and go through all eight points, exploring the ways in which they DO apply to you, even if only slightly and in ways that 'don't count'. IGNORE the possibility that you are deceiving yourself. If not being a writer REALLY breaks your heart, you probably DO have a real-writer personality buried under all that self-doubt. Read what you wrote on the eight points every day to encourage you to believe in your writerly nature.

What if you do NOT suffer from low self-esteem, have said a 'no' on all eight points, but are still determined to be a writer? Is it hopeless? It might well be--- unless you are incredibly bull-headed, and willing to put in extra hours of work every day into your writing, your reading program, and a study program to improve your English and vocabulary skills.

NOTE: in my eight points, one thing I did NOT mention was writing and writing habits. That is for a reason. Sometimes a successful writer does NOT write compulsively from childhood on. Perhaps there is a fear that the in-the-head stories, once written down, will be subject to vicious and unfair criticism. You do need to get over those fears to be a writer--- but a person with a real-writer personality may take a while to get to that point.

My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Reading My Way Through November

 One of the things I've done with the writing journal I started was to start recording the books I read. I have one page for writing-related books, and another for everything else. And, for no apparent reason, I'm sharing my reading list from November here.

1. The Mindful Writer - Moore
2. Writing from the Inside Out - Palumbo
3. Writing Popular Fiction - Koontz
4. How to Write Horror Fiction - Nolan

5. The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza - Lawrence Block
6. Burglars Can't Be Choosers - Lawrence Block
7. The Burglar In The Closet - Lawrence Block
8. The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart - Lawrence Block
9. The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian - Lawrence Block
10. Treason - Orson Scott Card
11. Duma Key - Stephen King
12. Empress Orchid - Anchee Min
13. The Red Queen - Philippa Gregory
14. The Last Empress - Anchee Min
15. Everything's Eventual - Stephen King
16. Mockingbird - Charles J. Shields
17. The Covenant - Beverly Lewis
18. River Marked - Patricia Briggs
19. The Betrayal - Beverly Lewis
20. The Sacrifice - Beverly Lewis
21. Supervolcano: Eruption - Harry Turtledove
22. Brothers - Da Chen
23. Red Scarf Girl - Ji Li Jiang
24. My Fair Concubine - Jeannie Lin (NOT recommended)
25. Rice - Louise Jordan Miln
26. The Three Daughters of Madame Liang - Pearl S. Buck

NOTES: Very little nonfiction read this month. A lot of library books, both paper books and 2 ebooks I borrowed from the library system.

I started the month with Lawrence Block's Burglar series. I consider Block one of my writing role models and the Burglar series is my favorite series of his.

I have a love-hate relationship with Stephen King. I discovered him when my political/religious views were compatible with King's, but as I have altered my views I become very aware of how King feels the need to put-down his conservative and/or Christian readers in every single book. But I keep coming back. The man can WRITE.

I was a fanatic fan of Turtledove during his earlier series, but the more recent ones disappoint. His characters in the more recent books are duller and more homogenized.

In Christian fiction circles there seems to be a fad for making fun of Amish romances. I decided to try one myself, picking one by Beverly Lewis. As you will see, I went on to the next two books in the series and am eager for the final one. And I'm not normally a romance reader.

I was on an Asian kick and have read a number of books with Asian backgrounds. Perhaps my interest is because many of the characters in my NaNo novel are part Korean. I enjoyed all of them except for Jeannie Lin's book. I read it as an ebook from my library and didn't discover it was a Harlequin romance until I was halfway through the checking-out process. The book was set in ancient China but was very 'lite' on setting, claustophobically focused on the love/sex story, and contains a sex scene which went on for the better part of 2 chapters. NOT what I would consider worth reading.

I might also point out that I did a lot more reading this month than I normally do. I recently got some better reading glasses and so reading is less of a pain. Plus, I decided to go to the local library, which I haven't done in years, and found they've got in a bunch of new books I haven't read yet.

You might be tempted to think I did TOO much reading considering I was also doing NaNoWriMo. But I don't think it got in the way--- that was another problem entirely. Being a writer means being a reader, and I spent some serious time being a writer in November, in both my reading and my writing habits.

What about you? Have you done much reading this past November? Discovered any good books or new authors or genres? Or have you found books that disappoint?


My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Goals Bloghop: Your Blog and Your Writing Goals

This post is part of the Do You Have Goals? bloghop sponsored by the Five Year Project.

Writers and aspiring writers who have goals also tend to have blogs, these days. Why? Something to do with having a platform, I imagine. A blog is not the same thing as a platform, but it's easier to put together.

How does your blog connect to your writing goals? Perhaps your writing goal involves writing a novel and having it published. Whether you publish with a large publisher or a small press, you will want to sell a few copies of that novel. Your blog can affect those sales.

Your blog is a place where your writing can be seen by potential readers without their having to take a gamble on purchasing your novel. What do your blog posts say about you?

Several times I've visited a blog by a would-be writer whose blog posts contain misspellings, grammar mistakes, and, worst of all, incomprehensible sentences. My presumption is that if these bloggers have books out, they are probably self-published and have the same flaws as their blog posts. Such blogs actually discourage book sales. Just as well, because these bloggers are probably prematurely self-published, which is not good for their writing career.

Other blogs are clever and interesting and, at the least, prove that the blogger is capable of writing in good English. Some blogs go even further and show that the blogger is a thoughtful, intelligent person who probably is able to write fiction that is compelling. One great example of this is the blog deCOMPOSE by author Mike Duran. Since Mike is a Protestant and I'm a Catholic, we don't always agree on the issues he blogs about. But at least his blog posts are intelligent and worth reading, and his blog is one of those that I look to as a role model for my own blog.

Now, not all of us can be a Mike Duran. We can't put together a thoughtful blog that attracts lively debate without cutting into our writing time too much. But we can all do something. And we can improve our 'something'.

For my own blog, my goals are to improve the blog by:
1. Posting more often--- sometimes I neglect the blog for a couple of weeks. I want to post at least twice a week.
2. I want to participate in 4 blog events monthly in order to interact more with other blogs.
3. I want to make my blog more personal by posting excerpts from my writing journal, and sharing about my struggles with writers block, low self-esteem, and my autism spectrum disorder (Asperger Syndrome).
4. More cat pictures. My blog really needs more cat pictures. Because my cats are way cute.

Kitten Therese mourning her dead friend, kitten Myfanwy.

MY goals update:

My goal, which I put down for this blog hop, was the limited one of writing 10 more poems in a series I started. I didn't do much work on this poetry project because of NaNoWriMo. And I didn't finish my NaNo novel, either. But I am continuing with my NaNo novel after the month is done. I've come up with some good ideas for it and the work is continuing.

Another goal which I haven't worked on this November is to work on putting together a ebook version of my poetry book. Also at the same time a revised print version of the book. I'm so indecisive about the whole project, though. I don't know whether to stick with the current version of the book or to totally do a new book with stuff added. Well, I'll think about that tomorrow.


My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

From My Writing Journal 11-14-13

From my personal writing journal.
 
I have such negative thoughts about myself-as-writer. I'm sure it is behind my issues with writers block and with finishing my work.

I remember when I bought Lawrence B[lock]'s Write For Your Life and the affirmations MP3 [also by Lawrence Block] and working with that seemed to help when I did the writing-affirmations-and-responses exercises.*

I think I need to get another legal pad and use it for exercises in writing affirmations. I filled one legal pad before and I think I was weakening my negative self-talk considerably by that method.

After a while when I wrote down an affirmation I didn't have negative reactions popping in to my head, I had to stop and fish for one.

Yes, I think I should incorporate a little affirmation writing into my working day. I will go to the store to buy a legal pad as soon as the morning writing session is done.

Note: the kitty picture is Kitten Therese the day I bathed her (and took pictures of the whole event). She needs a bath again right now. 

* Writing-affirmations-and-responses exercise:
Affirmations may seem just too new-agey for words, but they are just strong positive thoughts. The Christian pastor Norman Vincent Peale recommended using affirmations and suggested that certain Bible verses would make good affirmations such as Philippians 4:13 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.'

Writing affirmations down is one way to put these strong positive thoughts into your mind where they will do the most good. Lawrence Block's book recommended writing the affirmations 3 ways: I am a talented writer, You are a talented writer, Nissa is a talented writer. I do a block of 5 lines of each of these and then return to the first, for a total of 20 repetitions, on each page of the legal pad.

LB also recommends writing down your immediate reaction: you write 'I am a talented writer' and then write what pops into your head: 'you are NOT,' or 'no good' or whatever negative self-talk pops out. I was shocked at first with how virulent it was--- I was calling myself a fraud, even saying to myself 'she's dead'. But after repeatedly writing these negative thoughts as they came, the response kind of wore itself out and I had less and less negative stuff available, and it was weaker. I didn't FEEL it very much.

I had been writing my affirmations in groups of fives (with a space between the groupings), first the 'I' version, then the 'you', and then the named version, all with negative responses. Then I did the last five, in 'I' form, without the responses. 

I came up with a new wrinkle. For those last 5, I now write a positive response--- 'yes, I can' or 'AMEN' or whatever comes to mind. It ends the exercise on a very positive note, and, like the negative responses in the previous lines, has the additional function of keeping the writing of the affirmation from becoming too mechanical. That's also probably the reason for doing it in first, second and third person.
My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

From My Writing Journal: 11-13-13

Excerpt from my writing journal, which I began in 2011 and mostly haven't used until lately.  

11-13-13
Once again I have a fearful feeling when I think about working on my writing. The SF-Gothic [my NaNoWriMo novel] feels flat to me - except when I'm working on it which the anxiety only rarely lets me do.

I'm more inspired by the zombie thing right this second. I think I may do a rough draft/rough sketch of the skeleton of it, writing in my composition book outside my Sacred Morning Writing Hours.

I have a Dreaded Doctor Appointment this morning and haven't had breakfast yet so I don't know what I shall get done. Perhaps I shall open the program [YWriter, free novel-writing software] and just write a few token words.

Yes, that.

Note: I did write the 'few token words' which ran to about 400 and on the 14th and 15th got more respectable word counts done in the morning hours. I'm feeling better about the story and have resisted the temptation to switch over to 'the zombie thing'.

I might also mention I'm aware how stupid it is to write very private writing journal things and then post them on a blog for the world to see. But, hey, I'm weird that way.


My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Would the Saints Kill Sick People During a Zombie Apocalypse?

 

Recently on The Walking Dead, Carol killed a couple of people because they were sick, and might spread their illness and/or turn into zombies when nobody was looking. And lots of Walking Dead fans said Carol did the right thing.

That made me thoughtful. As a Christian I'm called to be a saint. What would the saints do during a zombie apocalypse? I just can't picture Saint Paul or Saint Maximilian Kolbe or Saint Therese the Little Flower killing sick people because they might become zombies.

A saint would quarantine the sick people in zombie-proof cells and then most likely volunteer to be the one stationed in the quarantine area to care for the sick.

Honestly, I don't think I'd volunteer for the get-sick-and-die zombie apocalypse duty. I mean, I admire Saint Maximilian Kolbe, how when he was in the Nazi death camp and a man was about to be killed Maximilian Kolbe volunteered to die in his place. But I know I wouldn't have the courage to do that myself.

Moral issues like this need to be thought through logically. If we establish the principle that one may preventatively kill a sick person to stop them from spreading a disease or becoming a zombie, that sets a precedent. Many people in the zombie apocalypse may suffer sicknesses and even if medical doctors are around--- NOT a given--- there are no operating labs to confirm a diagnosis, so one cannot tell which sicknesses may be fatal ones.

And any person, regardless of age or apparent state of health, might die suddenly and become a zombie. So--- if some member of a survivors group kills another, it's fairly easy to make a claim of necessity--- the dead person seemed unwell. He might have endangered us all. How can anyone prove it one way or another? And chaos would reign and groups fall apart.

No, the whole Thou-shalt-not-kill thing is still a good rule. In a zombie apocalypse, you can't go it alone. You will need people with skills you don't possess. You will need people to watch your back. You will need to be able to trust them, and how can you if you knew they would casually kill you if it might conceivably make themselves a bit safer.  

How would YOU handle the issue of people sick with a contagious disease during a zombie apocalypse? Would you kill them? Abandon them? What if you had no handy place in which to quarantine them and no one to care for them that was not needed to care for vulnerable people?

 

This post is my post for the Indie Life blog hop. And the message the above post has for the indie writer is I guess on the importance of thinking things in your story through in a logical fashion.

If you are writing a zombie apocalypse tale, for example, you may have a vague notion as you put your characters through their paces that in a zombie apocalypse everything is different and the old rules don't apply.

Question that. What are the old rules? Why, in each instance, might they not apply? And what will be the extended consequence of their not applying? It actually doesn't matter what your precise answers are to these story questions--- so long as you have thought these things through and it makes sense, not just to you but to the average intelligent reader.

Because a well-thought-out story is a story that people will remember.

My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

What Can You Write When You're Blocked?

Writer's block. Or maybe we could call it writer's agonized paralysis or writer's internal annihilation. Some real writers say they've been through it, others say it's an imaginary condition.

In my imaginary life, writer's block is a fact of it. Oh, the creeping horror of it all! The days when even thinking about sitting down to work on a writing project has me on the edge of panic. The times when my mind insists that a perfectly sound writing idea I've been working on is hopelessly bad, and must be abandoned in favor of something with more prospects.

In time the repeated effects of the block put my self-esteem in the bargain basement and below. I mentally re-write my writing history to eliminate the proud moments and magnify the failures. I'm nothing, I'm no one....

I'm a writer. I am a woman made out of stories. I don't know how to be anything else. When I decide to give it all up forever, I am making up new stories in my head within four hours.

Thomas Mann said: "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

I write like Thomas Mann now.

What can you write when you're blocked? What can you do, right now, in spite of your writer's block? Can you write a poem, a short story, a fanfic, a dirty limerick? Can you write a blog post or a Facebook status update? Do that, then.

But that isn't getting your novel written! you exclaim. True, but any writing you can do outside the novel is a step toward finding a way back into the novel.

Can you scrawl some lines into your journal? Perhaps you can write a few lines of your novel by hand in a composition book during a commercial break during The Walking Dead. Or if you cannot do that, perhaps you can transcribe some handwritten lines of your novel previously written into your YWriter novel file or your Open Office file.

Can you write a to-do list for your day's chores? Perhaps you can do some work on outlining your novel. Perhaps you can even do a full outline using the Snowflake method. You might think, well, what if I can write a full outline, how does that help if I'm too blocked to write the novel? But once you have outlined, you may find you can write the novel, at least a little bit at a time.

This is how to write when you have writer's block. Find things you can write outside the planned novel, and then see if you can't transfer that into your planned novel.

It's hard. It's almost impossible. But you're a writer. That's what makes writing so hard for you. And that's why you do it anyway.

How about you? In what ways is writing more difficult for you than for other people? Do you have any methods for getting around those difficulties?

My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

IWSG: Humble Writing Projects

 Written for the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop.

 It's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and so it's time for my annual re-read of 'No Plot? No Problem' by Chris Baty, founder of NaNo. And what struck me on this read-through is the value of having a humble estimation of your writing project.

While trying to write a first draft at a rapid pace, it can be FATAL to decide you are working on the Great American Novel. You will constantly be tempted to stop/slow down to get every word just right. It will seem like a good idea to skip two or three writing days in order to do research on a few minor things for your story, to make sure everything is just right.

The NaNo approach isn't about sitting down to write great literature and getting everything right. It's about getting things WRITE. It's OK to write second-or-third rate prose for NaNo. It's OK to use Thuggy for a minor thug character's name and plan to give him a real name in the rewrite. It's OK to write INSERT CLEVER PLOT THING HERE and move on.

The NaNo goal--- 50000 words in a month--- seems insane for the inexperienced writer, but it actually works out to the sort of writing pace many of the best professional writers do routinely, at least during their youthful, energetic career phase. A number of writers have written decent novels in the period required or less. In fact, some in their heyday could do a write and rewrite of a 50000 word genre novel in a month after they had a bit of writing experience.

Many writers who did this were working on forms of fiction they thought of as 'potboilers'. Lawrence Block, the mystery writer, famously wrote a lesbian novel as his first published novel, and went on to write soft-core porn novels to pay the rent while also writing mystery short stories.

By giving yourself permission to write imperfect fiction, you are giving yourself the needed permission to WRITE. Even great novels are not perfect, and were even less perfect in the first draft.

Fear of error is a great source of insecurity for writers. For me, at an early age I somehow internalized the idea that making a mistake--- in writing or in other things--- was close to unforgivable. In school I often failed to complete writing assignments to avoid the shame of having my errors exposed--- even though my writing skill was ahead of that of my classmates.

By deciding that my current work in progress is NOT great literature, but more of a potboiler, perhaps closer to a writing exercise in combining incompatible genres (gothic romance, science fiction), I am able to reduce my overwhelming anxiety when sitting down to write. Yeah, I still have this sick feeling that I'm about to have a panic attack when I just think about sitting down to write, but this counters it a bit.

So, that's it about my humble and insignificant writing efforts. How are YOURS coming along?

My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Halloween is Really a Christian Holy Day

Some people falsely say Halloween is the Devil's holiday. Others say it is a Pagan celebration. But the truth is that Halloween originated as part of a Christian feast day. "Halloween" means, literally, eve of All Saints day (All Hallows, in old-fashioned English).

In the Jewish tradition that Christianity came from, a day officially began at sundown, and so that is why the eve of a holy day is also part of the holy day. That's why there are Christmas Eve church services, and why modern Catholics have church services on Saturday evenings that 'count' as Sunday church attendance.

Why the confusion? Well, in the Victorian era folks were keen on collecting folklore, looking into old history going back to the pre-Christian era, and making various connections that were not always true. One thing was connecting various old folk celebrations of Christian feast days with vaguely similar Pagan events that were either in the historical record, or surmised.

All Saints and All Saints Eve celebration got mixed up with folklore from Celtic harvest traditions. The 'death' theme of the Celtic stuff came from the fact that cattle were butchered at this time for purely seasonal reasons--- grazing had come to an end so cattle could only be feed by preserved fodder such as hay, and cool weather meant that meat was easier to preserve.

All Saints had its origin in the concept of the Communion of Saints as mentioned in the Bible, and the customs connected with remembering the martyrs in the Early Church. The term 'saints' often refers in the Bible to all people who have received salvation through Christ, but since people could and did fall away from Christianity in times of persecution it was those who had passed away still loyal to the faith that were most particularly saints. Those who had died a martyr's death or who had lived exceptionally holy lives (by the grace of God) were even more likely to be called saints and in time the Church developed the custom of canonizing a worthy person as a saint.

Today the feast of All Saints is celebrated by Catholics, Lutherans, Episcopalians and other denominations as an official part of the church year like Christmas and Easter. In other denominations it may be celebrated unofficially. Some, though, deem it 'too Catholic', and since these groups often condemn Catholic practices (even those shared by Lutherans, etc.) as 'Pagan', there is another source of the 'Halloween is Pagan' myth.

Since Halloween is as much a Christian feast as any other, such as Christmas, it is within our rights to insist that the 'true meaning' of Halloween be honored. It's about remembering people like St. Stephen and Saint Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa), not about devils, Dracula and Hannibal Lector. Encouraging kids to dress up as saints is a good idea. And if one of the kids insists on dressing as the devil, you might persuade his brother to go as Saint Michael and together they can represent the common image in Christian art of Saint Michael fighting the devil. (Remind your dear little 'devil' that Saint Michael wins.)

Our culture has been encroached upon by a lot of stuff we find to be wrong, from polygamy TV shows to smutty dance routines to drug peddlers on street corners. I think we would do well to reclaim popular things, like Halloween, that have been misinterpreted for too long a time.

My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

NaNo Worksheet: Get Yours Now

Every month I make a writing goals worksheet, and NaNo month is certainly no exception. I also have transformed it into a PDF version which is available here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByKmSBhOQ1FSSDE3T2Izb25yRDQ/edit?usp=sharing

The rules I went by: NaNoWriMo has a goal of 50000 words in 30 days. I planned on taking the Sabbath off. Subtracting the 4 Sundays you'd need to write 1924 words every writing day. (If you keep a Saturday or Friday Sabbath, there are 5 days off which means you have to write 2000 words each working day.)

The work sheet has a column in which the total word count for the day is given. The next column is to write each day's actual final word count. The wider 3rd column is for jotting down the word count after each writing session, since one often has several writing sessions a day during NaNo.

It's actually fairly easy to make up a worksheet like this with your word processing software, but not everyone has learned to do this yet and so I thought I'd share my version.

Questions: Do you have any system, like my worksheet, to keep track of your daily word counts? What's your method like? Does it work well for you?

My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

The Importance of Orphans

Orphans--- along with widows, God's special concern in numerous Bible passages. And also, an important concern of literature.

Oliver Twist (pictured above), Cat from Joan D. Vinge's Psion, Harry Potter, Jane Eyre, Kal-El aka Clark Kent, Heidi, Dorothy Gale from Wizard of Oz, Dick Grayson from Batman, Martha Leigh from Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn, Hannibal Lector, and many more. All are orphans, and in each case we probably couldn't imagine their story being the same if they weren't.

What is an orphan? Usually in English it means a child who has lost both parents, sometimes extended to an adult who lost both parents early in life. The Old Testament word for orphan means 'fatherless' (Strong's number 3490 for the Bible-literate out there who use that resource) and it's related to the word for 'lonely'. That is the origin of the common 'widows and orphans' phrase in the English language--- 'orphans' including the fatherless children of the widows as well as children who have lost both parents.

Feminists may hate this fact, but in traditional societies a child without a living father was without a male protector and had a precarious life. Stepfathers and male relatives often had little interest in seeing the fatherless child grow up and possibly inherit from his father what otherwise might be in the hands of the stepfather or male relative. And since fathers are the traditional providers for the family, widows and orphans were often poor even if the widowed mother had a trade as women often had even in Bible times (Proverbs 31:24). And even the financially successful widow had to sacrifice time and attention she would have given the child.

There is another word, 'half-orphan', which can refer to a child who has lost a parent of either sex. It's a literal translation of the German 'Halbwaise', 'Waise' meaning orphan. While 'half-orphan' is not so common in English I feel it ought to be used more for clarification purposes since 'orphan' so commonly means a child who has lost both parents.

Why are orphans so prominent in fiction? Because the orphaned child or young person is more vulnerable, and vulnerable is good for the writer. It is your bounden duty as a writer to get your character in a lot of trouble they can't easily get out of, and that's easier to do with an orphan.


Imagine Jane Eyre at the dreadful charity school Lowood. If she'd had living parents, no matter how poor, they would have pulled her daughter out of that school immediately, either teaching her at home or finding a more humane charity school.

Imagine Harry Potter growing up with two living wizarding parents. He would not have had to live with the Dursleys, and he would have two adult-wizard protectors against any danger. He would not have been the person he became in those circumstances.

Gothic fiction of the modern type, inspired by Jane Eyre and Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca, nearly always has an orphaned heroine, of gentle birth but usually poor, trying to make her way in the world. Often she's a governess or other not-quite-servant in a creepy castle/mansion and the orphan status means she can't just leave her position when things get weird.


Another factor with orphans is that an orphan represents a rip in the fabric of 'the way things ought to be'. In a tribal culture, the person without parents, extended family or a clan to turn to is so bereft that they might as well be dead, and without a religious command to be kind to the widow and the orphan their lives are precarious indeed.

Even in our own family-disdaining culture the traditional situation of the biological parents being married and raising their children together to adulthood and beyond is a building block of our society. Other family situations succeed best the nearer they can get to that ideal example. The orphaned or half-orphan child may have good adoptive or stepparents, but usually feels an intense desire to know more about the biological family that produced him.

In fiction, the orphan character often mends the ripped fabric of his life usually by forming or becoming part of a family. Jane Eyre finds a husband in the end--- once that husband's mad wife dies. Harry Potter first becomes a virtual member of the Weasley family through his friendship with Ron and the maternal instincts of Ron's mother, and as an adult makes it official by marrying Ginny.

Series characters, on the other hand, often stay alone to keep the tension up, as in Cat from Psion. As a lonely outcast his story is compelling, giving him a wife, inlaws and kids, would have changed the storyline too greatly.

In some fiction, a character with living parents is set up to be orphan-like, at least temporarily. In a Gothic romance I read recently (Seven for a Secret by Victoria Holt), the heroine has a living mother in nursing care after a stroke, and a living father she's never met who lives off on an island somewhere, therefore she's the same as an orphan for much of the book.

In Mercedes Lackey's Magic's Pawn, young Vanyel has a harsh father who rejects him because he fears Vanyel shows signs of being gay (though at this point teen Vanyel doesn't even know homosexuals exist, much less that he's one of them.) Vanyel's mom is foolish and frivolous and won't stand up to her husband. Vanyel is sent away to his harsh old aunt whose first words to Vanyel are essentially, 'I didn't want you here, stay out of trouble and out of my way.' So during the crucial early stages he has no one to turn to, gets in a romantic relationship with a boy with family troubles, and has no one to confide in when his boyfriend asks Vanyel to help him seek revenge against the killer of his brother.

Later in the Vanyel series, the adult Vanyel has a close relationship with his aunt and reconciles with his parents--- just at a time when they become burdens to him, people he must protect with his now-great magical skills. So the author can make Vanyel a near-orphan when that is more dramatic and restores his family just when the family is no longer a needed support but people Vanyel has to protect. The best of both worlds, for a writer.

Who are your favorite fictional orphans, half-orphans, and almost-orphans? How does the effect of the characters' being orphans affect the story? Have you ever used orphans in your fiction? How did that work out? Are you writing any orphan characters right now?

In my as-yet-unnamed NaNo novel, the heroine, Hana Li, is the orphan child of parents who died on a starship while traveling to a colony planet. She was raised on a space station orphanage before getting a job on a colony planet, working for a man who lives in a creepy, castle-like structure which at the time of Hana's arrival is deserted for no reason Hana can detect. It turns out the owners of the castle are away, and they have hired a whole new staff of servants for their home as well as moving the inhabitants of three villages elsewhere and replacing them with farming folk from other parts of their world.


 Strong's Concordance (essential Bible Study tool):
New Strong's Exhautive Concordance (Super Value Series)

Blog Link:
The Anne Shirley Project: Anne Shirley and orphans in fiction


My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
My Facebook writing page:
http://www.facebook.com/NissaAnnakindt

Organizing for NaNoWriMo: Asperger - AD/HD Edition

 

NaNoWriMo 2013 begins Nov. 1st, which means that now is the time to make last-minute preparations. Since NaNo is a step up in writing intensity for most of us, chances are that our everyday ways of organizing our writing life might not hold up to NaNo.

Spending an hour looking for a few notes in a massive paper pile is NOT the way to succeed at NaNo. We need to be able to have a system to deal with the notes we generate, with the reference books we may need close to hand, and someplace to put our cups of tea and our writing snacks that don't put our precious paperwork at risk. And some of us are NOT organized people.

This is particularly a problem for people with Asperger Syndrome, autism spectrum disorders or AD/HD. Those books on how to get organized often have suggestions that don't work well for people like us.

One example: file folders and file cabinet drawers. Many people use these tools with success, but for someone with the above-mentioned conditions, putting a paper in the file cabinet is a little like throwing it off the planet--- the paper feels 'gone for good'. So instead we stack up our important papers, and our not-important papers, and candy wrappers, and a book on the history of Esperanto we were using four writing projects ago, into a massive Sacred Paper Stack that no one is allowed to touch. There are better ways to deal with it, though.

The picture at the top of the post shows stacking paper trays. Buy one or more sets of these and instead of building up a paper pile, you can sort the paper into a few major categories to make finding papers easier. Or at least possible. It also gives the papers some support so you don't have the problem of a too-high paper pile falling onto the floor.

What if you already have one or more paper piles cluttering up your writing area? It might take HOURS to sort them out. But you don't have to. Get some of those plastic sweater boxes from the dollar store and transfer your paper stacks, intact, into them. Sure, you've got to sort them out someday. But with plastic boxes, that day doesn't have to be today.

Other important tools: a three-ring binder with a set of dividers. You don't even have to label the divider sections in advance. But they can sort out some of the most essential paper generated by NaNo.

For example, I like to print out a copy of every day's work and put it in the binder. That way a computer death doesn't mean the loss of my novel even if I didn't back up, plus I can work on the novel by writing by hand and still refer to my previous day's work without turning on the computer. Other things that go in the binder sections: notes, outlines, research I will need, and perhaps a list of things to worry about during the second draft that I'm not going to be bothering with during NaNo.

A notepad such as the blue legal pad in the picture is great to keep within reach during a writing session. Write down character names, place names, and other bits of info generated in the heat of writing you want to remember for later. You DON'T want to have to page through three chapters for an hour looking for the name of a cab driver who plays a minor part somewhere near the beginning when you are in the home stretch.

A composition book in a pretty color can be a useful aid. You can transfer some of the essential info such as major and minor characters' names into a composition book. You can even write your novel, longhand, into composition books. Or use it for journaling your NaNo novel project.

Writing tools such as pens and pencils should be on hand. Keep spares. Know where the spares are kept. I have a plastic bin where I chuck newly-bought pens and pencils until I need to rotate them into the actively used category.

Another essential you need to arrange NOW is some empty bookshelf space near to the writing area. I have a very small shelf on top of my writing desk that holds books I want particularly handy. Another bookshelf is only a few feet away. But bookshelves like these get cluttered over time. Move some non-essential books elsewhere so that you can move any books you decide you need close-to-hand to a good location.

Those URGENT papers need a good home, especially during NaNo. If you don't already have a system, find a clear sacred space to put paper items that come in to your life that need to be handled NOW. Bills, for example, or government forms. In the heat of NaNo this sort of stuff can too easily get buried in a paper pile and forgotten until Too Late. And then you are sitting in a house with no electricity writing by candlelight--- if you can find a candle.

Organizing things in the rest of your life can also help during NaNo. Those essential chores of doing laundry and making meals can be streamlined and organized to help you get them out of the way in less time and with less effort. (If you are well-to-do, of course, you can eat fast-food and restaurant meals for all of NaNo and not use your kitchen for anything but a place to store the tea and snacks.)

SO: are you doing NaNo? Are you doing anything right now to organize your writing area for the NaNo onslaught? Do you plan to do it before NaNo hits?

My page at NaNoWriMo:
http://nanowrimo.org/participants/ilsabein
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