Tag: writing

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BACCA Writers

When Rejection Is Good

image of a rubber-stamped all-caps NO THANKS in red ink.

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Last time I blogged here, I described the process of querying my first novel. Now, a few months later, I have news. Has an agent requested the full manuscript? Even better, did the agent love the ms and make me an offer of representation? Even better, was the agent a good fit for me and my work? Even better, did we contract to work together? Even better, did the agent find a publisher who wanted my manuscript? Do we have a publishing contract and a launch date?

Nope. None of those happened. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But querying has gotten a little bit easier for me.

Why? Two reasons.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Just like doing laundry or playing cards or building flat-pack furniture, our skills and facility improve over time when we keep repeating the process. The first queries I sent out were overwhelmingly difficult for me. Everything about them was hard.

Getting a decent draft of the query letter, for starters, was a long-term project. I have since revised and rewritten it countless times, but just getting it to minimally presentable status took a ton of work. Describing / selling your full-length novel with 150 words? Finding comp titles recently published in the same genre? And, by the way, what is the genre? Literary fiction? Don’t you need an MFA to be eligible to write lit fic? Book club fiction? I worry that I’m not plotty enough for that. Upmarket fiction? Maybe that’s the sweet spot. Then there’s the sentence or two of author bio – where you say enough, not too much, about yourself to sound confident, not meek, and also not arrogant. Also competent and collegial, not supplicating. Also respectful, not sycophantic.

Then there’s the ongoing search for the agents who might entertain receiving your query. On their schedule. Using their preferred document formats. In the genres they declare themselves interested in. Erf. It’s enough to make a person not want to query their novel.

Image by Leopictures from Pixabay

Point is, these skills do get easier with practice. Querying still takes longer than I think it will. I can’t just expect to set aside ten minutes and knock one out (although that’s been possible once or twice). Many of the agents I’m approaching use the online QueryManager portal. In addition to supplying places to paste in (and then reformat) or upload the requisite number of pages or chapters, the bio, comps, sometimes synopsis, and other chunks of text, QueryManager allows its agents to ask questions.

So far, I am finding that no two agents’ QM forms are alike. One agent wanted a profile of the readers I think will be drawn to my book. Another wanted to know how many copies my self-published book sold in its first year. Another wanted my Twitter handle. Another – well, you get the idea. Some of those questions can take a while to answer, and you never know until you’re already mid-query what the surprise questions are going to be, or how challenging they’ll be to answer. I have learned to allow an hour, and never to query when the clock is ticking away before an upcoming appointment.

The Nice Rejection

The second reason why querying has become a little easier is that one of the agents didn’t just ghost-reject me or send a standard no-thanks message. She actually wrote to me, and said that, while my novel wasn’t the right book for her, she’d like to take a look at my next project when it’s ready.

I knew this agent’s response was different, and yet I was acutely aware of my neophyte status in the whole world of querying. Uncertain what to make of it, and cautious about celebrating something I wasn’t sure I understood, I quoted it to a friend who’s farther along in the querying / agenting / publishing journey. I asked her, “On the spectrum of rejections, that’s somewhere in the middle, I think, yes? It definitely feels better than the ghost rejections 12 weeks post-query.”

My friend sent back congratulations, saying, “This is a really good rejection! It means that even though she’s not interested in this book, she likes your writing, and if you had an idea that spoke to her, she’d likely sign you. Print this one out and use it as inspiration.”

Getting that reinforcement from a friend and colleague helped me frame the nice rejection in a way that feels validating. The agent thinks my writing is legit!

The queries I’ve sent out since receiving that nice rejection have felt lighter, easier, more straightforward.

Funny how that works: I gained confidence from being rejected. Who knew?

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. She’s querying her first novel, and writing her second.

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BACCA Writers

Good Tools: The Lateral Leap

Silhouette of a child leaping.

Photo by @bedneyimages from Freepik

If I really want to make forward progress, I might have to move to the side. I don’t mean step aside, as in bow out or leave. I’m referring to a strategic lateral, or sideways, shift. Sometimes, I find I can change the limitations of my world with a strong leap—out of one way of thinking and into another.

You know those scenes in a movie where the protagonist is desperately trying to run away from some huge thing barreling behind him? A boulder, a train, a troll? Do you also find yourself yelling at that protagonist? Just jump to the side, for the love of all things good and holy, jump to the side!! Or is that just me? If dude would just think (while he’s running for his life) and make a quick leap to one side or the other, the huge thing would barrel on in its track. Big things don’t pivot easily or quickly—but we can!

For years now, I’ve thought of the lateral shift as one of the most powerful tools that any person can acquire and develop. It is the quickest and most joyful way to something fresh, original, unexpected. We have other terms for this. The epiphany. The eureka moment.

Sometimes these moments happen so quickly that we think it’s an accident, or a twist of fate, or divine intervention that brought us there. But our minds, I believe, love to leap. If we let them. I think kids do this naturally and all the time. They play with big ideas, allow them to collide together. They see endless potential in every facet of the world they encounter. They transform the everyday (cardboard box, abandoned shack, pretty rock) into powerful possibility (a ship, a mansion, a jewel). They do this for the sake of joy and play.

As we grow up, maybe we abandon this practice because we think we have to stay in our lanes, follow the prescribed track to the big prize. Pay our dues and all that. I don’t think we really forget, however, how important it is make the lateral leap. How often are we asked to “think out of the box” to come up with a solution? Yep, the lateral shift is so old that there are cliched phrases built around it and it’s so powerful and valued that we hear those phrases all the time.

Transformed wine cages.

Three ways of looking at a wine cage. Photo by author.

What does a lateral shift look like in practical terms? Never one thing—that’s the beauty of it. A lateral shift idea is often simple, but always fresh. Like opening a door that wasn’t there before. It might be finding an alternate use for an every day object. Finding a different route to the same old destination. Or using space in an innovative way. Or making use of a pocket of time that seemed empty or wasted before.

In a great narrative, the lateral leap is a twist so good that you never could have seen it coming the first time around. A regular twist might be that, out of all the suspects, the murderer is the most innocent-looking one. A really good twist (with some lateral work going on behind it) is that all the suspects collaborated to commit a crime—no one is innocent.

I think of it as an elegant swerve. A simple solution that no one thought of before because they were only thinking in one direction, with all of their prejudices and preconceived ideas left unchallenged.

I’ve been pursuing lateral thinking ever since I discovered the “two minute mystery,” a misnomer since solving one might take an afternoon unless you have at least one smart friend working on it with you.

A woman walks into a bar and asks for a glass of water. The bartender pulls out a gun. The woman says “thank you,” and leaves. What happened?

If you know, you know. The answer is the easiest thing. It’s just…getting there. It requires a leap to the side. (I don’t believe in offering spoilers or giving answers away, but if you want to work on this mystery with me, leave a comment below.) The solution to these puzzles often comes after you’ve been chipping away at it with yes or no questions for some time. But not as part of a logical progression forward (necessarily). It’s usually a little sideways leap that gets you there. A moment when you confront certain assumptions that you’ve been harboring—and decide to let them go so you can step into broader possibilities.

I’m honing my lateral thinking skills right now for the sake of my current protagonist—Vi, a brilliant 9 ½ -year-old, who lives in a house that is like a giant puzzle box. In some ways this story has been easy to write. I can hear the characters talking to each other, so dialog almost writes itself. Other scenes, where I have to get Vi into a part of the house that she’s never discovered before, are much more challenging. To help her find a secret corridor or hidden panel, I really have to labor. I have to think about architecture (not my field) and physics (also not). Then, I’m sweating…until I remember that maybe I could just leap.

Noelle Beverly writes poetry and prose, supports local writers in the surrounding community, and is a member of the BACCA Literary group.

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Guest Post

Guest Post: Writing the Waves of Life

Guest post by author Lynn L. Shattuck

image of an open journal and pen. ON the left page is a drawing of an ocean wave and on the right page is handwriting and a stickit note

Photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz on Unsplash

Throughout my 20s and early 30s, I journaled every morning. While I’d journaled on and off since childhood, I became more disciplined after reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. Cameron suggests that all creatives benefit from writing three longhand pages first thing in the morning. Journaling became my primary tool for containing and excavating my mind’s chatter— all the thoughts that clutter our consciousness when left to thump around, unspoken. Morning pages—often scrawled out while sipping instant coffee and smoking a cigarette— proved to be an anchor during my tumultuous 20s.

My journaling practice screeched to a halt when I became a mom. Basic self-care tasks like showering were suddenly at a premium, and journaling seemed like a luxurious ritual from a distant past. Beyond the standard reshuffling of priorities that parenthood brings, there was a new consideration when it came to my diaries—the knowledge that when I died, my children would be faced with boxes upon boxes of their mother’s innermost thoughts, a mashup of mundane complaints sprinkled with personal details they’d likely prefer not to know.

While my journaling practice evaporated, ideas for essays began pecking at me. And while I failed almost instantly at maintaining baby books for my kids, I kept a different type of record of their young lives. I don’t remember exactly how it became a tradition, but each year, for my kids’ birthdays, I write them a birthday letter.

In the hectic season of midlife that I’m in, life feels like it’s unfolding at a quicker pace than I can process. Sitting down to write these annual letters to my children allows me a chance to slow down and reflect. To consider the highlights, the lowlights, the milestones and the mundane. It’s interesting to see which events come immediately to me, and which ones I’ve all but forgotten until I flip through my photos on my phone to jog my memory.

Recently, I started using writing in another way to intentionally savor moments. While most days are stuffed to the gills with work and orthodontist appointments and laundry, life also presents these small, shimmering moments that I’d likely forget if I didn’t capture them. Those moments when we step out of the trance of daily life and suddenly see the sacredness: the morning my teenage son asked me to wash his hair in the kitchen sink and it felt like a sacrament, or the time when my daughter and I danced on the lawn to Taylor Swift songs in the rain. These gems don’t occur every day, but when they do, I try to write them down.

A few years ago, when my dad was dying, I again turned to words. I took frantic notes for my parents in the hospital, scribbling furiously to keep up with the firehose of information from oncologists and pulmonologists. I began journaling again to cope with the fear and grief.

As a young writer, words helped me make sense of the world. As a middle-aged writer, I’m acutely aware of how much time can erode the details of a scene. That’s why I also jotted down details about the print of my dad’s hospital Johnnie and the jokes he cracked about a particular nurse’s sponge bath technique. At the time, I couldn’t have known we’d only have days left with my dad. I’m grateful that the writer in me recognized the importance of what was unfolding and took notes when the daughter part was overwhelmed and heartbroken.

Writing is so versatile. It can be an art form that moves us and makes us feel less alone, but it’s also a way to process and document our lives. I’ve always leaned on words, and I love how the forms have shifted and morphed to accommodate the seasons of life. 

How have you used writing to meet different phases of your life?

— BACCA guest writer Lynn Shattuck grew up in a Southeast Alaskan rainforest and is now a Maine-based writer. She’s a columnist at Elephant Journal, where she writes about grief, parenting and wellness. Her essays have been featured in Human Parts, Al Jazeera, P.S. I Love You,The Fix, Vice, Fabric and Mind Body Green. 

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BACCA Writers

The Borg and Me: Inadvertently Learning to Organize my Thoughts

I sometimes tell people that my experience of law school was one of irreversible brain surgery, which inadvertently helped me write better. As much as I resisted, the Borg won out over the course of those three intensive years, and my brain, and life, were permanently changed.

Resistance was futile.
Image from Pixabay.

The process began before I even got accepted. The standardized LSAT (Law School Admission Test) was created to correlate with grades in the first year of law school, to assist school admissions staff in picking likely candidates. The test was heavily skewed toward sequential reasoning, and included two sections of “logical reasoning” tests – sneaky multiple-choice analysis of intricately worded facts and arguments – and another section in “logic games.” You know, when Ruth and Zafir and Consuela and Kelly sit around the table and lie to each other – or do they?

Of the four exam sections, one tested reading comprehension, which I understood. The other three? All about the logic. I crashed and burned when I took a sample test. The intuitive leaps, flights of fancy, and room-reading abilities I had relied on up until that moment failed me.

Brain image from Unsplash

What changed my brain and saved my chances was the random good fortune of getting a teacher in an LSAT prep course who was able somehow to get through to my resistant neurons. That teacher’s skill got my brain to go places it had never visited in its thirty-plus years. As a result I did well on the test, and got into a good school. (Bonus: it was within walking distance from my home.) It took me a few years to admit it, but long before I paid off the loans, I had to acknowledge: I was able to write more and better as a direct product of immersing in all that logic. And there was no going back. My brain was permanently altered.

I do not suggest law school as a method for honing your craft as a writer. For me, the writing benefits were a happy byproduct of a difficult and fraught time. I was surrounded by shark wannabes who seemed to feel right at home snapping at one another and competing for favor. I still remember the smiling young woman in the library who asked if she could “see” a reference book that my study partner and I were using for an assignment. We said sure, assuming she’d bring it right back. We never saw it again. Last I heard, the book poacher had made partner at a big firm.

I think the lesson here, if there is one, is that the skill of sequential thinking can be valuable. If you come by that skill naturally, then you have a tactical advantage. If, like me, you learned early in life how to skate past the need for logic and only later chose to tackle its rigors, then perhaps you share with me an appreciation for something you once dissed or dismissed.

Has this made me into a hardcore outliner, refusing to start writing until I know the architecture of the entire edifice, down to the size, shape, and materials of the cabinet door pulls? Nope. I’m still mostly a pantser, although I did approach #Nano2022 with a general idea of the shape of the manuscript. Planning out extensive writing projects does not come easily to me. I realize, however, that for complex undertakings like books, courses, and big presentations, the ability to plan a logical sequence of ideas, processes, or plot points is nearly essential.

In an odd way, I’m grateful for the events that led me to grasp at least a rudimentary sense of how it is done. Did the Borg win? I like to think we came to terms.

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. 

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BACCA Writers

Resources: Architecture, Purpose, and Commitment

Here are three books that I keep handy. I notice that they come up in conversation, and maybe they’ll be useful to you. See what you think. (And let us know with a comment.)

Architecture with Jane Alison

Image by Reto Scheiwiller from Pixabay

As a writer of fiction, I’m more of a pantser / discovery writer than a plotter, but I think most of us on the looser side of the plotting spectrum do possess a kind of architectural sense. Bigger-picture than plotting, I mean by architecture the overall sense of where a story will begin and end. Or what kind of pursuit – of adventure, understanding, or change – will lead the way, if the end isn’t yet foreseeable.

Author and professor of creative writing Jane Alison has written a book, Meander Spiral Explode: Design and Pattern in Narrative, about sophisticated kinds of architecture and structural design. At first look, the book intimidated me. I believed myself incapable of understanding her analysis. Now I feel I have been able to comprehend at least some of it. And I admire tremendously her celebration of alternatives to the overwhelmingly favorite structure out in the wild, the “dramatic arc” known to everyone who’s taken an intro to [conventional, western] fiction class.

For those writers whose brains, unlike mine, tend toward the 3-D chess-playing end of the continuum, this is a book you may want to treasure. Alison provides excerpts from many authors’ work to illustrate the ways – beyond Aristotle’s formula for tragic drama – that words can work for a purpose. She calls this collection a “museum of specimens,” drawing on the natural patterns of spirals, meanders, and branches to find them in literature.

“We invoke these patterns to invoke these patterns in our minds…: someone spirals into despair or compartmentalizes emotions, thoughts meander, heartbreak can be so great we feel we’ll explode. … Those natural patterns have inspired visual artists and architects for centuries. Why wouldn’t they form our narratives too?”

~ Jane Alison

Purpose with Brenda Ueland

Image by Chen from Pixabay

BACCA’s own Noelle Beverly has already celebrated Brenda Ueland and her book, If You Want To Write: A Book About Art, Independence, and Spirit (1939). I’m back with more! I find myself citing and quoting Ueland regularly when talking with other writers, including friends, colleagues, and coaching clients.

For one thing, she confidently embraces pantsing.

“You write [the book] and plan it afterwards. … If this is done the book will be alive. I don’t mean that it will be successful. It may be alive to only ten people. But to those ten at least it will be alive. It will speak to them. It will help to free them.” Later in that chapter she adds, “Say it. If it is true to you, it is true. Another truth may take its place later…. If you find what you wrote isn’t true, accept the new truth. Consistency is the horror of the world.”

~ Brenda Ueland

Throughout, Ueland reminds her reader to trust herself. When writing, Ueland says,

“do not try to make somebody believe that you are smarter than you are. What’s the use? You can never be smarter than you are. You try to be and everybody sees through it like glass, and on top of that knows you are lying and putting on airs. (Though remember this:  while your writing can never be brighter, greater than you are, you can hide a shining personality and gift in a cloud of dry, timid writing.)”

~ Brenda Ueland

Brenda Ueland had the confidence to urge her students and readers to build theirs. I find her book a reassuring source of support.

Commitment with Twyla Tharp

Image by Prawny from Pixabay

The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life is Twyla Tharp’s handbook for all kinds of creative endeavors. The dancer-choreographer-author intersperses her anecdotes and life lessons with exercises, 32 in total, which appear throughout the book. Each chapter in this conspicuously typeset book is complex and weighty enough to be a book in itself. This is a book to pick up and set down, not to blitz through in one sitting.

In the fourth chapter, called “Harness Your Memory,” Tharp begins by talking about her ongoing efforts to keep her memory sharp, using mental exercises.

“Metaphor is our vocabulary for connecting what we’re experiencing now with what we have experienced before. It’s not only how we express what we remember, it’s how we interpret it – for ourselves and others.”

~ Twyla Tharp

Wow. Tharp then proceeds to discuss kinds of memory, declaring that we remember much more than we think we do – in muscle memory, sensual memory, institutional memory, and ancient memory. The chapter next spins from a pottery fragment of dancers holding hands into the story of how she came to make the 14-minute dance “Westerly Round.”

The Creative Habit is exhausting, if read all at once. Savored and explored, bit by bit, the book is a potent resource. Tharp’s writing is direct, confident, and slightly impatient, as I imagine a conversation with her would feel.

NOTE: This post contains affiliate links to books sold at Bookshop.org, which exists to support independent bookstores throughout the US by selling their books online.

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. 

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BACCA Writers

Resources: Critiquing, Simplifying, and Ending ~ Plus Some Hope

Here are some of the best pieces of advice I’ve seen, bundled together as summer bounty for writers in the Northern Hemisphere. Are you planning on taking time off? Hard at work? Both? See what works for you here:

Beginners Mind

Start simple.
Image by Arek Socha from Pixabay

BACCA’s own Noelle Beverly put this evergreen blog post together a while ago for our website, after working on an internal document for our critique group. I notice that I keep sharing the link with other writers! Noelle’s apparently simple approach to critiquing the written work of another is powerful.

I begin with this: everything is intentional. I assume the writer has something in mind and figuring that out is my first job.
~ Noelle Beverly

Noelle has given us invaluable, humility-inducing advice and I recommend it to your attention. Take in this state of mind first, before starting to think critically about the pages you’ve received from a fellow writer.

Is This Necessary?

single flower blossom on a white background

Less is more.
Image by Glenn A Lucas from Pixabay

Are you overwhelmed? Desperate for ways to pare down the obligations, shoulds, lists, expectations, and self-flogging? Creativity coach LA Bourgeois (here’s her guest blog about Kaizen Muse for my website) in a recent newsletter advises us to “Chop wood, carry water. This phrase means to focus on simple acts and perform them to the best of your ability. Do NOTHING extra.”

Before you take any action, ask yourself if it is necessary to complete to maintain your body, spirit, heart, and work commitments. If the answer is yes, move forward. If no, move on to the next task.
~ LA Bourgeois

LA’s guidance may ring true for you as it does for me. I’m even considering – gasp – abandoning to-do lists during my time off next month.

Is This the End, My Friend?

empty road in the mountains, with the words "FINISH" painted on the road surface and "START" superimposed above it.

Which is it?
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Are you struggling with the ending to a piece of writing? George Saunders in one of his first public “Office Hours” essays provides ten ways to think about endings. While he’s speaking to short stories, I can see many of these ideas applying in other creative contexts as well.

Consider that, if you’re having trouble with your ending – you’re not.  Your issue is actually the beginning and/or middle of the story.
~ George Saunders

Saunders tells of a class he taught when non-writing-major undergrads all knew which elements of a Vonnegut story needed to be addressed to achieve a satisfactory conclusion. This gives me hope.

Not Made for These Times?

To wrap up, for those readers who, like me, are feeling swamped, struggling to move forward in the wake of so many cruel, baffling, unconscionable decisions from the US Supreme Court and elsewhere: Buddhist psychologist Tara Brach provided a podcast episode for us. “Navigating the Dark Ages” acknowledges the current environment and offers ways to keep going, finding and making meaning along the way with a sense of connectedness to others and participation in the long arc of human history. Give it a listen.

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. 

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BACCA Writers

Time for the Heavy Lifting

A coaching client of mine emailed the other day to ask why I hadn’t yet begun the “heavy lifting editing” on their book manuscript in progress. Turns out that previous experience with an editor had taught my client to expect cutting and pasting — or slashing and burning — from the start. My behavior wasn’t measuring up to the client’s expectations.

I got to thinking. I saw that, especially with this project, there are multiple kinds of heavy lifting involved in the collaboration between writer and coach, and they each have their own timing.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

I reflected on where we were with the project and what had happened so far. They’d sent me 80 or so pages, and asked for an edit of the first portion of those. I did a line edit on those pages, with marginal comments and questions about structure and context. We met a couple of times to discuss these things, and to plan a working outline for the book. After those coaching sessions, the client requested time to think through some new ideas we’d brainstormed about the architecture of this book-length project, and the basic design of each section and chapter within it.

It wasn’t yet time for me to get into any heavy lifting. We were still defining what we were building. With several hundred more pages to write, the client was doing plenty of heavy lifting already.

Along those lines, my client also said: “I think after we get through this first chapter we will have a better idea of how to proceed in the future.”

With that thoughtful sentence, the client was exploring our working process. Makes sense, since they’ve never done this before. And we’ve never done this together before. They’re right about the “heavy lifting,” too — and there’s more than one kind involved for this project. It’s a good metaphor.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

After reflecting on these things, I wrote back to the client: Yes, you’re right. I wait to move blocks of text around until I feel we both have a strong sense of the way we’re going to structure the book. For me, that kind of editing makes sense only when the overall architecture — the plan for the book — is clear. Once we have that in place, I’ll be glad to dig in and sling paragraphs around.

Another kind of heavy lifting

The paragraph-slinging I’ll be undertaking is one kind of heavy lifting. There’s another important aspect to this project. It’s the client’s first full-length book — a complex braid of memoir, the science of trauma, and wisdom — and it contains sensitive subject matter. So not only do they need to find the words and make the sentences, and organize them into chapters and sections with an overall arc, flow, and momentum — they also need to find the inner resources to develop and sustain an arms-length stance to the entire enterprise.

Writing about difficult topics from their own life, particularly those that are likely to trigger some members of the intended reading audience, this author has the extra challenge of distancing enough from their own past trauma and growth to be a clear communicator with a consistent perspective. Doing that involves building some strong muscles, and allowing for plenty of recovery time.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

The inner work my client has already done — to be capable of this kind of writing — is impressive. That preparation has made it possible now to immerse in deep and painful memories, then surface enough to express in language things that have become possible to articulate, and then climb all the way out, shake it off, go to work, feed the cats, have supper with the spouse, etc. It’s a kind of heavy lifting that takes all the time it requires. From the pages I’ve seen, it’s already apparent that the client’s voice is clear. Their purpose is well defined. People will benefit from this work.

And another kind

Also, it’s the first time they’ve worked with a writing coach. As with any relationship, trust builds over time. We first met a few years ago, when they came to me for a quick creative boost. They had a short deadline for a presentation that needed some finishing touches. So initial trust was there, but now we’re developing a deeper working relationship. Things are going well, and we’re already making real progress defining the book and its architecture.

But last time I contributed the equivalent of a car wash and detailing for a vehicle that the client had already built and road tested. Compared to our prior work together, our process this time is more like designing and assembling an airplane. It makes sense for us to do this work on the ground, not mid-flight.

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

In short, a project like this requires several kinds of heavy lifting. The author has to bear the most weight, and for the longest time. You might say they’ve been carrying a lot of it their entire life. In fact, this writing project has the potential to lighten their load, if we proceed deliberately and with care. I’m really looking forward to doing my part.

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from Central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. 

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Guest Post

Guest Post: When Is It a Distraction?

Guest post by author Pamela Evans.

Writing habits differ and writers define success in a variety of ways. But a universal truth is that distractions online, at home, or at the office are abundant. They can easily sneak into your everyday routines.

As writers, how do we go deep and get work done? It’s so easy to get lost online and realize an hour has passed since you stopped to research a fact for your book. Authors like Dan Brown have set hours in the morning for work and they make sure apps are not open during that time. It is focused writing time. Other authors prefer more flexibility, but be careful.

If you need to research a name or a story detail, will it send you down many interesting rabbit holes online? If that’s the case, you need to set a time for that kind of exploration and just leave a blank in your story or document until you can get to your research.

Since covid, many more writers work from home. That comes with so many distractions. I need some water, maybe a snack. I should use the bathroom. I can throw those things into the washer and get that done while I’m working… It’s as bad as the internet.

Writing classes, workshops, and writing groups can also be distractions. Joining writer groups in person or online can be helpful in making connections, but at some point, you need to decide which groups serve you. Does the group allow you to contribute and grow as a professional? Is the group just taking up your limited writing time? The same can be said of classes, and even writing opportunities for anthologies, magazines, and blogs.

Contests, magazine submission calls, and deadlines for anthologies can serve as opportunities, but also as distractions. The first question is why are you writing for this deadline. It’s good to be published and it can add to your credibility, but make sure what you’re writing furthers your career and moves you forward in your genre. Chasing contests can keep you from finishing your novel.

In the end, what’s important is learning your craft and knowing/finding your audience.

The four best things you can do for your writing career?

  1. Write
  2. Write
  3. Write
  4. Read recent works in your genre

— Pamela Evans is a writer and teacher. She is best known for The Preschool Parent Primer, The Preschool Parent Blog, and The Preschool Parent Book Review which can all be found at www.ivyartz.com

Categories
BACCA Writers

Critiques and the US Constitution

The beginning of the US Constitution

BACCA’s Origin Story

As described in another page in more detail, the writer group BACCA formed after four of us met in a fiction class at WriterHouse in Charlottesville Virginia.

After the final class session, the four of us wanted to meet again for one more critique session. Then we realized that we all wanted to create an ongoing writer group.

That was ten years ago. Wow – it almost seems impossible that it’s been ten years, but there it is in my 2011 calendar – “writer critique swap” at noon on Saturday the 25th.

Evidence! Proto-BACCA’s first meeting in the author’s 2011 calendar.

We immediately adopted the critique guidelines that had served us well in our writing class. Later, when we created a website for our group – by then we had named ourselves BACCA – we asked permission from Prof. Luke Whisnant, whose guidelines we’d been using, to reproduce them on the website as a resource for other writers. He graciously consented.

At our (pre-pandemic) workshops and in personal emails, we often referred other writers to these guidelines – along with a bundle of other writer group resources.

Changes over Time

Our membership has changed over the years. We now include two founding BACCA writers, another who’s been with us for many years, and one who is a guest member for the duration of her book manuscript. Three other writers were with us for a time, over the years.

Naturally, because of the variety of writers and the passage of time, our critique process has evolved.

A few months ago, we decided to take extra time at our monthly critique session to focus on the guidelines, and see where they might need expanding or refocusing.

Why the Guidelines are Like the US Constitution

I was shocked, when I looked a few months ago at the Whisnant critique guidelines, to see how much I’d added on to them – in my mind. Turns out, the actual guidelines only addressed works of fiction intended for adults, for one thing. Our group has produced, read, and critiqued in many more categories than that.

Kind of the like US Constitution, the underlying document had accrued a lot of additional meaning to over the years. But when I casually suggested to a new writer that a look at the guidelines on the BACCA website was all they needed to get up to speed, I had forgotten that none of that extra stuff is actually written down.

A reproduction of the beginning of the US Constitution

The US Constitution is written down.

So we went to work and came up with modifications to address not just adult fiction but also narrative nonfiction (from Carolyn O’Neal), children’s fiction (from Pam Evans), and self-help / instructional manuscripts (from me, A M Carley).

In addition, we now have a wonderful preamble by Noelle Beverly who gives every writer a high-altitude view of the critique process. Her suggestions are thorough, generous, and deeply insightful. You may recall seeing Noelle’s blog post here about this recently, as well.

Amendments Take Time

Also like the US Constitution, making changes to the underlying document requires deliberation and careful thought. Our process is not as glacial as, say, passing the Equal Rights Amendment – waiting since 1972 – but it has taken us several months.

We’ve posted our ratified expanded critique guidelines to the BACCA website. [updated after original blog post]

We really hope that writers find them useful. As Noelle points out in her preamble, preparing critiques benefits the critiquer as well as the critiqued. It’s already been a great experience and opportunity for us to reflect on the key features of an excellent critique.

PS For a brilliant hour all about the importance of the US Constitution, I recommend What the Constitution Means to Me, written and performed by Heidi Schreck.

—

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon. 

Categories
BACCA Writers

Maya for Writers

Several ancient schools of thought, originating thousands of years ago in India and in China, tell us that when you give something a name, you cut it off from the great swirling unknowable unknown that we call the universe, the mystery, darkness within darkness, or the nature of reality. Of course, those are all names, so it becomes impossible to write about the underlying nothing, since the moment we use words, we confine the thing that is too big for words.

Austin Guevara bokeh lights pexels-photo-237898
Pulling focus to create uncertainty. Photo credit Austin Guevara pexels-photo-237898

How do creative artists, including writers, manage that paradox? On the one hand, the writer’s tools are words. On the other, in order to touch the universal, we must abandon words, abandon thinking altogether, in fact.

Leaving Thought Behind

This is why, for example, forms of meditation recommend that we ‘just be,’ focusing on breath, and briefly acknowledging and then dismissing thoughts as soon as they appear. In this context, thoughts are sometimes compared to clouds in the sky, waves on the surface of a deep ocean, or cars passing by on the road. They come and go, and have no meaning.

A teacher recently posed the problem, “Describe to me last week – without using words.” He concluded that the task was impossible, because there is no ‘last week’ without words and symbols. Ideas, relative positions in time, in fact the notion of time itself, are all constructs. All Maya.

Image of smoke rising in a vortex
The illusion of smoke. Photo credit Rafael Guajardo pexels-photo-604672

Maya, a Sanskrit word sometimes translated as illusion, has multiple, nuanced meanings. In Western popular-culture shorthand, maya has come to mean the shared trance that we unknowingly, collectively agree to, so that we can function in the modern world. Buying into the trance of maya, we pay our bills, go to our jobs, drive in traffic, give birthday gifts, vote for politicians, accept the names of things, and in countless other ways entertain the culturally accepted method of viewing the world. Underneath maya, though, is that limitless unknowable everything. Is being free from maya the goal of those seeking enlightenment?

My first response to the teacher’s question about communicating ‘last week’ without words, was to imagine a kind of interpretive dance, or a quickly drawn image that somehow elicited in the viewer an intuitive grasp – somehow – of the notion of ‘last week.’

Maya for Writers

Assuming for the moment that a dancer or artist might be able to do that, what does the writer do, faced with this challenge? Even the most artful, obscure poem uses words, does it not? And words, unavoidably, conjure up in each one of us our previous uses, memories, knowledge, and responses to them. In fact, words have richness and power because of all our associations with them. This is true for the writer and for the reader.

fountain pexels-photo-3822110
The magic of a child and an illuminated fountain. Photo credit Darren Lawrence pexels-photo-3822110

If writers cannot possibly escape maya in our work, can we use our shared unreality for good? Do we use language – our creative tools – in ways that can shift that shared maya, for a moment, into a slightly new light? Do we apply metaphors and similes? Do we arrange words in unexpected sequences to permit the reader a brief glimpse of something beyond the words, into the unknowable?

— A M Carley writes fiction and nonfiction, and is a founding member of BACCA. Through Anne Carley Creative she provides creative coaching and full-service editing to writers and other creative people. Decks of her 52 FLOAT Cards for Writers are available from Amazon. Anne’s writer handbook, FLOAT • Becoming Unstuck for Writers, is available for purchase from central Virginia booksellers, at Bookshop.org, and on Amazon.