by Theresa Garee | Nov 3, 2015 | Blog
“Start telling the stories that only you can tell, because there’ll always be better writers than you and there’ll always be smarter writers than you. There will always be people who are much better at doing this or that – but you are the only you.” – Neil Gaiman
When I was a little girl, I wrote about horses. As I got older, I wrote about the people I loved. Older still, I wrote about myself. My writing professors said, “Write what you know.” I tried to oblige them.
I think Gaiman explains this concept more accurately. It’s not that I have to write about horses, the people I love, or even myself, but I have to tell whatever story I’m telling from my perspective. I see the world through a particular lens. Any story I tell will have that frame of reference. Even in fiction, my personality will come through.
Let’s say I choose an unreliable narrator. Even then, the story is mine because I choose how the narrator will hoodwink the reader. I select every detail. And my unconscious will have a lot to say about what decisions I make.
This, I believe, is a gift. If each of us is unique as a snowflake, then no two stories told by two different authors will be alike. There may be similarities, common themes, and familiar characters, but underneath, if we are true to ourselves, a special something will lie. The foundation will be our personality. And this is what makes our story marketable.
At least I hope this is true. I’ve written what I believe is my unique experience running a marathon. I’m a middle aged woman who was overweight when I began running. That’s not unique by any means. I also suffer from several mental health challenges. That doesn’t separate my story from those of others either. I run with my dog. I know plenty of folks who do that as well. But no one else has had the specific experience of living with my brain and body during this experience. No one else has had my precise thoughts and feelings as I walked (or ran) through this adventure. And that, I hope, is what will sell the book.
We’ll see. I’ve done my final edits . . . for now. My next step is to begin querying agents. I’ll keep you posted.
by Theresa Garee | Nov 1, 2011 | Blog
“Indecision may or may not be my problem.” – Jimmy Buffett
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us. For several months, I planned to be a NaNoRebel and write From My Bed to the Half Marathon (titles aren’t my thing) a memoir about my journey into athleticism. I had made a list of possible topics and scenes to show my transformation from a woman who has trouble getting out of bed most mornings due to chronic depression to a woman who still has trouble getting out of bed many mornings, but who gets out of bed anyway so she can go run with her dog.
With this memoir in mind, I went to the NaNoColumbus kick-off party on Sunday, October 30th. Forty or fifty Wrimo’s (that’s what the people who sign on for this literary adventure call themselves) showed up at the Karl Road library meeting room to eat snacks, drink coffee and talk about what we were planning to begin writing a mere 48 hours from then. The energy was palpable with laughter, squealing and lots of stickers. Anne and Carrie, our municipal liaisons facilitated discussions, brought food, and offered clay for the making of little totems to carry us through the month.
As the Wrimos writing fiction enthusiastically discussed their novels, I grew melancholy. They were so excited about their characters and their plots and the traveling shovel of death (this is a mythical shovel that magically appears in novels and kills off one of the characters). I felt jealous. They intended to liberally apply ninjas to any scene that wasn’t working or, if a character wasn’t cooperating, to simply end their world in a cataclysmic event and then have the main character wake up the next day to say it was only a dream. I wanted in on this wacky world of creative abandon, but I put it out of my mind and resolved not to change gears so few hours before the start.
I spent Halloween day working on the newsletter only half aware that my subconscious was developing an idea for a novel. As I was posting the November writing events to my website, it dawned on me that I could still write about running. I could write about fictional characters in a running group. I began to get excited. Instead of shoving the ideas aside as I had when I was locked into my decision to write memoir, I let the thoughts come. One of the runners could have a dog. Two of the runners could fall in love. One of the runners could be a middle-aged woman just figuring it all out as she goes along. One of the runners could be murdered on the trail by a ninja with a shovel. The options were endless. My enthusiasm exploded and I stayed up until midnight and beginning writing the novel Love on the Trail (I warned you titles weren’t my thing) at 12:01AM November 1st.
I will allow myself to write a very bad first draft since this is, after all, NaNoWriMo and not the National Book Awards. If I can step out of the way, it will write itself. At least that’s what I’m counting on.
What are you working on this month? Did you sign up for NaNoWriMo? If not, what kind of structure do you use to get the work done?
by Theresa Garee | Sep 3, 2008 | Blog
“Blank pages inspire me with terror.” – Margaret Atwood
After listening to me whine, a friend decided to give me a copy of Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path: The Journey from Frustration to Fulfillment by Nancy Pickard and Lynn Lott. The authors – a writer and a psychologist – found a patten to the writer’s angst. My friend quickly diagnosed me. I’m at a stopping point on one project, but not ready to launch into something new. “It’s just unhappiness,” she said cheerfully. “That’s the first step on the writer’s path. You’re just circling back to the beginning.”
Unhappiness, huh? This is not news and yet it is somehow helpful. It has a name. Other writers have survived it. I’ve completed my MFA and am shopping my book to agents. I want to push the pen across the page in some meaningful way, but little comes. This is unhappiness.
Unfortunately, my friend has been unable to put her hands on another copy of the book. While I wait for her to locate one, I’ve asked everyone else what they would do. One author suggested giving myself some space. Sit in a café for three hours and just write for ten minutes. Don’t work on anything in particular. Let your mind wander and let something float up. Another recommended writing from the type of writing prompts which call up two stories at the same time. Things like: From where I sat, I could see what they were chasing. My husband, a more practical sort than most of my writer friends, suggested taking care of the things I put off when I was in school – little things like getting new glasses.
I’ll take these excellent suggestions. Next week perhaps. In the meantime I’m taking long walks with the dog and trying not to feel as if the floor has fallen out from under me now that I don’t have an advisor giving me feedback or deadlines requiring me to send 40 pages out every three weeks. I secretly hope an agent will appear in my future to say my book needs tons of work so I can launch myself on it again.
But just in case I locate a copy of the Seven Steps on the Writer’s Path, I’ll go ahead and get new glasses.
(c)Nita Sweeney, 2008, all rights reserved
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