If you're part of the writing community, it's likely you've heard the terms "plotter" and "pantser." But if not, essentially, a plotter is someone who (not surprisingly!) plots their entire story or book before drafting. A panster is someone who "flies from the seat of their pants," meaning they get an idea and "pants" their way from start to finish without having any solid outline. For years, I've sat somewhere in the middle, wanting some structure but enjoying the freedom to discover as I go. When I heard the term "plantser" for the first time, I screamed for joy! I finally felt like I had a title that described my writing process. In reality though, claiming my planster status only skimmed the surface of describing what my process truly is. For example, I do a lot of editing as I go, which is a no-no for plotters and panters alike and, I'm assuming, for plansters as well. (oops!) A few weeks ago, I had an unforgettable experience while drafting. I figured out a mind-blowing plot twist! After the experience, I reflected on where and how I got that awesome idea and wrote about it in a tweet thread. In it, I talked to those of us who have been told to never-ever edit while drafting. You see, I got my mind-blowing plot twist idea as I was rereading and editing sections I'd already written. After sharing this thread of thoughts---mainly focused on how I needed to embrace my chaotic process even though it doesn't follow any of the "rules" we're taught...in order to move forward in my draft---a friend of mine asked me if I'd seen this video that breaks the plotter and plantser personalities into subgroups. I hadn't, so I gave it a listen, which I suggest you do as well! This concept tracks with my gut-feeling I had a year ago while teaching Freshman Composition, which is I believe most writers aren't pure plotters or pantsers; they're almost always somewhere in between (like me!).
Apparently, this awesome writer YouTuber breaks the plotter and planster concepts into four subgroups, and as my friend suspected, I am what she calls a "methodological pantser," which means I crave structure (or a method for story telling) while, at the same time, excel at doing bursts of discovery writing. I also get inspiration by "doing," rather than "waiting" for inspiration. This is likely the reason why I've related so well to the Save the Cat! Writes a Novel methodology so well and why I often have to "sit in the chair" and type something, anything, or walk around the room to get ideas. I find all of these concepts fascinating, but also helpful because they can help you understand your unique writing process. Which kind of plotter or pantser are you? I'd love to know in the comments.
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I believe writing is a process, which means that, over the years, I've learned to be open to inspiration whenever it comes, that I free write, have discovery drafts, and revise my writing over and over until it shapes itself into what it needs to be, whether or not it's what I envisioned or not.
My creative writing teacher used to say "words are meant to be wasted" meaning that it's okay if you don't say what you want to say the way you want to say it the first time. There are thousands of words! So, don't be afraid of trial and error or playing around. You won't know what works until you see what isn't working. I believe in this process, but that doesn't mean it makes it any easier to revise what I wrote. I like pretty words (or words clumped together in an effective way), and even though I know it's okay to say something badly before I say it well, I always feel like whatever I got on the page is somehow a part of me. I'm a slow drafter, so getting any words on the page takes a lot of energy. Sometimes, then, it takes a bit of coaxing to get myself to rewrite. A few years back, though, I perfected a trick I learned from a fellow writer. I call it the "experiment doc." It's a trick I've grown in confidence so much that I now share it with college students as I coach them through their academic essays. The concept is simple. Let's say you have a piece of writing you know you need to rewrite or revise, but you're having a hard time giving up the words that you worked so hard to get onto the page in the first place. Here's what you do: put that piece of writing in a separate document. Save it as the experiment doc, if you wish, because that's what it is! Now, try something crazy. Flip the ideas on their head. Cut a paragraph or two or three. Do as many changes as you possibly can, but know that you can always go back to the original because this is the experiment doc. You don't have to keep it if you don't like it. But you know what I've found? The experiment doc is almost always a better version than the original I had. Why? Because I stop worrying about it having to be perfect. It's just an experiment. It might not work, and that's okay! Having an experiment doc reminds me to put "play" back into drafting, which is really important to me because it's in the play, the trial and error, that I find what works. Huh. That's pretty much true about my life, too.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately.
What expectations do I have for myself when I wake up? What will I do that day? I admit that sometimes I make big plans. Or I think about the goals I have for the month, week or year, like writing and publishing a book, for example. And I think about how I'm falling short. I was on Instagram the other day and another writer talked about setting manageable writing goals for yourself. She's a mom and admits that she has to often sneak small moments to write her book. She's constantly adjusting her goals. Flexibility. Flexibility. That's the key! I think that can apply to all of us, parents or not. It's easy to skip past the "small stuff" that we do and think that we haven't accomplished anything today. But I think if we start the day right--- by recognizing that we can't always control everything that happens--- we can see the small progress we are making each and every day. We can look in the mirror at the end of the day and say, "[Name], [age]. Today... I did the best I could." The last few weeks have been challenging for me to get anything written. Let's just say I've gotten very good at making excuses for myself. (ha ha!) November is right around the corner, though, and I'm all set to participate in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This will be my fifth year participating, but I've never completed an entire novel in one month. I'm hoping to change that this year! What is impostor syndrome? Impostor syndrome, from my own understanding, is when you feel like a phony. Artists usually experience it as they're growing in their craft, but it can hit almost anyone learning new skills: parents, nurses, teachers, and even sixth graders learning to do long division. It's that inner critic that tells you you're not good enough or those moments when you feel like giving up because you don't think you can do it. Elizabeth Gilbert talks about impostor syndrome as a society inflicted flaw, which may never go away. Successful giants like Stephen King or Kate DiCamillo are not immune to it, so it's no wonder I feel it every now and then, too. Mine probably stems from my unruly tendency to compare my sloppy drafts to finished products, but it's heightened as I've entered the query trenches, as I've applied for mentoring programs, and (in general) as I feel the weight of my new baby-project, which I hope to write for NaNoWriMo.
Tom Leveen, an Arizonan writer and talented motivational speaker, recently posted the above video. (Check it out!) He asks the question: Why write if you can't guarantee publication? He talks about the various motivations a person can have to write a book. My favorite part of the whole thing is when he talks about failing versus quitting. They are not the same! So what would I do if I knew I would fail?... Would I still write?... Ahh... That is the question, my friend. Will I keep writing--- if I never get my stories published? (Ouch.)
She rambles quite a bit, I know, but I love it! I love that she validates the hard work that goes into writing a book. She says it's even harder than giving birth! ha ha! But most importantly, she say to never give up on your dreams.
What now? So it's time to sit at the set, so to speak. I gotta put the work in. You know write badly! First drafts aren't supposed to be pretty and clean, as much as I'd like them to be. It's time to take my own advice and do the best I can. Why? Because I love stories. Because I still have dreams. If you're planning to do NaNoWriMo this year, I'd love to hear what you're working on. (Maybe we can be buddies!) If you're not doing NaNoWriMo or you're not even a writer, let me know if you've been attacked by impostor syndrome and what you're doing to fight it. It's a battle I have to fight pretty much every day. But it's a battle I hope to win. How about you? In part 1, I talked about finding beta readers and in part 2, I talked about having readers sign up and giving them resources, dates, and expectations. For this post, I wanted to talked about the nuts and bolts. It's nice to have readers and an informative email with links and stuff, but if you can't get your book to your beta readers, it's all for nothing! Scriviner I use Scriviner to write my books. If you haven't heard of it, you should check it out. I recently upgraded to Scriv3, and I love it! I probably only use about 10-15% of the features, but it's worth it to me because it breaks up the text into manageable bites. I like putting my chapters/scenes into folders, color coding them, and stamping them with draft type (eg. 1st, 2nd, etc). I'm also pretty much obsessed with composition mode! Compiling the Book Another spiffy advantage to using Scriviner is that it makes it really easy to compile your book. It looks scary, but it wasn't that bad. It helped that I found a really great video that walked me through everything I needed to do, but, honestly, it's about trial and error. I complied my book several times before I got it to look the way I wanted, and that's fine! It's a process, and that only took me a little longer because I had to take a little more time figuring out how to get the table of contents to look right. I recommend compiling the book twice. Make a mobi and epub. These are the two doc types that work best with most mobile and computer ebook apps. When you do the mobi, you will need to download Kindlegen. I don't know how this will work on a PC, but the Mac process was pretty straightforward.
I uploaded the mobi and epub (no PDF). I didn't know how to do a jpeg, so I don't have a cover on my ebook, but I figured for my purposes that was fine. I like that I can choose how many downloads and I could have more than one ebook floating out there. I chose some expiration dates, but I'm glad I can change them if I want. Evaluation of my process
I knew Scriviner was awesome, but I always told myself I'd "figure out" the compiling after I finished drafting and revising because I thought it would be really challenging to compile the book. I'm relieved that it didn't take that long and that it wasn't too difficult. Scriviner is designed by and for writers, so it makes sense that it would have the exact compiling options I needed. BookFunnel is really cheap! It cost me $20 a year for 500 downloads or something like that. That's plenty for my needs! The only problem I had with BookFunnel was that it seemed too easy. I uploaded my files, made my landing page, and got my link to share out in less than an hour. I thought I had messed up somewhere! But I didn't. The ebook option is great for beta readers because it saves on printing paper and buying binders (which is what I was planning to do originally) and allowed for mass sharing. It also allowed my readers to access the book anytime/anywhere. Concluding thoughts So there you have it! Sending out to beta readers is more than just saying, "hey, you, read this!" and throwing them an ebook. I guess it could be that way for some people, but I wanted the experience to be as rewarding as possible. In the future, I want to have thank you gifts for my beta readers. It might be cheesy, but I'd like to give bookmarks or (if I was rich enough) $5 gift cards to an indie bookstore or something like that. I invited all of my beta readers to subscribe to my blog because I thought they might enjoy reading more about my writing and publishing journey. Plus, all new subscribers get a behind-the-scenes excerpt. I wish I could do more! If you're one of my beta readers, thank you for reading my book! I really appreciate your support, encouragement, and eye for detail! In part 1, I talked about finding beta readers. In this post, I want to focus on how to work with those beta readers. I don't think I need to say this, but just in case, remember that when someone agrees to beta read your book, you need to be grateful. In my case, I was probably overly grateful, but that's better than the opposite, I think. I suppose it could be easy for someone to forget that beta readers have lives and may not get to your book the moment you send it out. You want to argue with readers about what they say about the book, but don't. I know these are our babies! It took me four years to complete my first draft, so I'm pretty protective of my work. Still! When I asked people to read my book, I acknowledged the greatness of the task and groveled at their feet for anything they could give me. Signing up This leads me to the sign up form. When I started asking people to beta read (even close friends), I asked them to fill out a simple (online) form. All it asked for was their name and email address. I did this for a couple reasons.
Expectations: Providing resources I knew that for most of my beta readers (particularly those in my first hand-picked set), this would be their first experience in reading an unpublished work and giving feedback on it. Along with telling them that a beta reader was simply a test reader, I also provided some resources. The links to these resources were subtly mentioned (and given) in the form and then popped up again in the email with the downloading instructions. I never said they had to read the articles, but I said they may want to, especially if they were new to beta reading or were unfamiliar with my genre. Here are the resources I provided (and how I worded it in my email): Before getting started, you may want to...
More on Expectations: the Email So, after the sign up form and setting up my ebook draft (more on that in part 3!), I sent out an email. Maybe it's because I'm a teacher, but I wanted to make sure my readers knew what I expected of them and make sure they had what they needed in order to do what I was asking them. I shared the resources mentioned earlier, for example, as well as some other stuff... I definitely didn't want my beta readers looking for misplaced commas or grammar errors, so I told them to please not to do that. I also gave them a list of things I did need their help with. My list varied between the two beta reader sets, but I said I was looking for a better title, wanted them to note where the story seemed to slow down too much, or if there were any moments where they got confused about what was happening in the story, etc. Most importantly, in the email, I provided instructions for downloading the ebook and gave some flexible but hard-fast dates. I told them I wanted their feedback as soon as possible, but also gave them a month if they wanted me to incorporate their suggestions, but also told them that I would take feedback anytime. Lastly, I included a link to the quick-comments-form. Similar to the sign up form, I drafted some multiple choice and short answer questions. If you want to see what questions I asked, see my quick comments google form template. Evaluation of my process
As I mentioned, the signing up form turned out useful for not only confirming readers' email addresses, but also subtly made my readers commit to the beta reading experience. Providing resources turned out to be useful for those who were new to beta reading. It gave them the option to learn more if they wanted to but it wasn't required or pressured, so I didn't get any pushback from readers about having given them something "extra" to read. I recommend doing something like this because it for sure increased my chances of getting better feedback in the end! Drafting the email took a long time, but once I had it, I could use it for both sets, all I had to do was tweak what I wanted my beta readers to look for in the draft I was giving them. The hardest part was, actually, after sending the email, because I wanted to call up everybody and make sure they got it and that they were able to download the ebook draft. Instead, I made my husband check his email and download the book and assumed that it worked for everyone else. I put a note in the email that if they had any questions or problems to let me know, so I assumed that no news was good news, and it turned out to be true. The quick comments form was awesome because it put all of my feedback in one place. I still gave people the option to email me back, by the way. If that happened, I plugged in their answers into the form myself so everything stayed organized. Feeling anxious When the comments started rolling in, I got really nervous and a little overwhelmed. I reached out to more experienced writers and was told that what I was feeling was totally normal! One friend said to read the emails/feedback when I notice them because otherwise they will haunt me, but then set it to the side for a couple days and let them simmer. That proved to be good advice! Sometimes our reactions to criticism is to fight back or (for me) cry. It's best to read it, let it sit, and then come back to it in a couple days with a more level-head and make the tough decisions. More to come in Part 3! A while back, I wrote about beta readers (what they are, etc.) and specifically about my experience as a beta reader. When I wrote that post, I figured my turn to ask for and work with beta readers wasn't going to be for a long, long while, but here I am! I have a book with a beginning, middle, and end, and I revised that 1st draft and edited (as my dad would say) "the snot out of it." Pretty soon, it came time to ask for some "test readers" and see what they think. Disclaimer: I'm extremely new to this process and am by no means an expert in working with beta readers. In this post, I will outline my current process for sending out my manuscript to beta readers. This process may change as I gain more experience.
Hand picking I decided to send out my manuscript in "waves" or in sets. I'm the kind of person that can easily get overwhelmed with too much feedback, and my confidence as a writer is still somewhat fragile, so I "hand picked" my first set of beta readers. Through my four-year drafting journey for this first book, I had friends who supported me and said things like, "I want to be your first reader!" or "you better not let anyone else read your book before I do." These were the first people I reached out to and they were more than happy to be not only be test readers but also a guinea pig in my beta reading process. I wanted to make the experience the best I could make it.
So I reached out to those referrals next, but I knew I had to eventually step out of my comfort zone and, you know, have people who didn't all ready love me or people who would love me because they knew the people who did love me--- read it.
In other words, I needed "strangers" to read my book and give me feedback on it. Again, finding them was easier than I expected! I belong to several online writing communities, so it was pretty simple posting something about me looking for beta readers and sharing a quick description of my book, just like I'd seen others doing, in appropriate forums. It's a busy/crazy time (school starting, COVID-19, etc.), so I wasn't expecting too many people to sign up, so I was happy when anyone did. I had one writer tell me about his avid-reader-daughter (13 and 1/2 year old) and when I reached out to her via email like her dad suggested, I told her she was welcome to share the sign up with any of her friends, and she got four of them to be beta readers for me, so that was pretty awesome! Evaluation of my process There were seven people in my first (hand-picked) set of beta readers. For my second, I had about fifteen. I revised my book, by the way, in-between giving these different sets of beta readers, so the first set had a different book draft than my second set. I don't know if you're supposed to do that, but that's what felt right to me. Some of my first set of beta readers were curious about the changes I made and offered to reread the book as part of the second set, which I was happy share again. (I didn't count these rereaders as second set beta readers). Whether handpicked, referrals, or strangers, I highly recommend having a sign up form! (more on that in part 2) It made it really easy see who I needed to set the book to. I also used a quick comments form (again, more on that later), which also made the beta reading process smooth on both their end and mine. Overall, I'm happy I got anyone to agree to read my book! I remember sending it out to the first set and turning to my husband a little while later and saying, "someone could be reading my book right now!" It was thrilling to think about others falling in love with my characters and just as rewarding to hear back that they did. Beta reading makes me feel like I'm a published author.... almost. I think the next time I send out, I need to be braver and do a little more work to get readers. If you're new and fragile like me, though, I still say to start with people you trust and go with their referrals after. It's really the best way to get into it! As many of you may know, I'm an academic writing coach and ESL teacher. As we've seen a spike in online tutoring sessions over the past few months, what with the pandemic and all, I've noticed a pattern of advice I often give students when it comes to writing... which I really need to apply to my own writing process!
I thought I'd take a moment to explore a few of those. They're all things that I'm really good at telling other writers to do but don't always do myself when I'm drafting my book. 1. Give yourself permission to "write it wrong." This is a piece of advice I've often given to students suffering from perfectionism, or those rushing to get the assignment "done" and "over with." They want to get it "right" the first try, and I can totally relate! I've often sighed over the fact that words don't flow perfectly onto the page like they do when I'm reading a favorite book. The key part in this advice, I just realized, is giving yourself permission. This is an essential part of the writing process, though, because if you don't write anything down, you can't fix it. So give yourself permission to make mistakes. This is how we learn! (That's something I also tell students a lot.) 2. Writing is trial and error This is something Victoria told me once. We were talking about Point of View, I think, and she said it's usually a good to write a chapter or two in first person and then write the same chapters in limited third person, etc. It's often the only way you'll know if something is working or not. This of course, can apply to other aspects other than point of view. I've added in a character, taken him out again; written a scene one way and wrote the same scene a totally different way; wrote in present tense and switched it to past tense, etc. My students might need to do similar trial and error types of activities with their writing. This is a hard piece of advice--for myself, not just for my students-- because it's a lot of work! ha ha! I sometimes talk students into doing this with their outlines. It's usually faster to write a bunch of different outlines to see the best way to organize your essay than writing entire drafts more than once. But, essentially, good writing is rewriting. Yeah... this is something I need to remember, for sure! 3. Ideas come when we don't expect them, so be ready! This is one my favorite things to tell students. It's pretty common for me to talk about prewriting and brainstorming activities in a tutoring session. I encourage doing t-charts, mind maps, outlines, and free writing. But rarely do I ever sit down and do them. ha ha! But one thing I'm really good at is recognizing ideas when they come when I'm not expecting them. I get ideas in the shower, while I'm doing dishes, talking with a friend or my husband, and when I'm trying to go to sleep. (That last one can be pretty darn annoying.) I actually did keep a little notebook with me everywhere I went for a long time. Now I try to record ideas in my phone. By the way, Liz Gilbert has a really awesome Ted Talk about where ideas come from. It's worth checking out if you haven't seen it before. 4. No one writes it perfect the first time This is pretty similar to the first advice I listed, but this goes beyond giving yourself permission to write badly. It's recognizing that the first time is going to be bad, and that's normal! Again, this is something I'm trying to remind myself of. Each time I give this advice to a student, it's like a flick on my own nose. Come on, Kassie! You can't tell students this if you don't believe it yourself. I'm trying, I'm trying... So there you have it! Four things I tell students that I really need to work on telling myself when I'm working on my work in progress. Teacher or not, what advice to you tell other writers that you're still working on doing yourself? A common piece of advice I've heard (and I'm sure you have, too!) is write what you know. In some respects, this is pretty useful for my writing process, but in other ways it isn't. The idea behind it is that you don't have to go far to find interesting things to write about. If you are a teacher, for example, write about that. If you are drummer, write about that. This makes sense! Some writers, though, want to go outside of their comfort zone and write something...less boring. To this, my creative writing teacher would say that if you survived grade school, you have more writing material than you could use in a lifetime. Valid point! There are a lot of interesting things in childhood and school experiences to write about: friendships, heartbreaks, bullying, embarrassing moments-- just to name a few. In this respect, write what you know has served me well. Write what fascinates you I watched an #EverywhereBookFest author panel called "Plot the Spot." There were four published authors on the panel and they each gave a tip for writers struggling with plot or coming up with ideas. One of the authors, Stuart Gibbs, said something about the write what you know thing. He said he could see where that advice came from but when he does school visits and he talks with kids about their project ideas, he says they all sort of end up writing about the same thing. They probably are writing what they know; it's what their teachers told them to do. Stuart Gibbs said, "...what I like to do instead is write about what fascinates me." He used his book about dinosaurs as an example. Dinosaurs are something he has loved since he was a kid. Fossils especially fascinated him so he did some research and interviewed somebody who works with dinosaur fossils, and that's where he got the best ideas for his book. I feel like my current work in progress (WIP) is a mixture of what I know and what fascinates me. #OwnVoices If you're unfamiliar with this hashtag, you should check it out! Basically, it's the call for more stories told by unrepresented cultures and languages. So... for example:
Am I worthy? My question, then, since day one of my WIP has been "Am I worthy?" or "Am I the right person to tell this story?" #Nanowrimo drills it in us that, yes, we are! Just write. No one can tell the story quite like you. But sometimes I'm not so sure... I read somewhere that if there's a story you want to tell but you don't feel worthy to tell it, then become worthy of it. There's definitely truth to this because I've seen successful writers becoming worthy of the stories they want to tell and they do it beautifully! Some examples:
Becoming worthy
My current WIP is about the Chinese zodiacs. It's something that fascinate me. I think visiting the Great Wall and other places in China has greatly influenced this fascination. I'm also an ESL teacher, so there's that. I've had really cool teaching and tutoring opportunities to tap into and learn about the Chinese culture through my students from China. But I don't think that's enough. So I've done a ton of research on Chinese zodiac personalities and mythologies, using varying resources to cross reference, infer, and compare. My best friend is in China (and is Chinese), and when I told her during one of our weekly chats that I was working on this project, she was really excited and supportive! She lets me ask random questions to her whenever I want, and I do. Same with another friend from China that lives here in Arizona. He's helped me a ton with the martial arts stuff I want to include. But I don't think that's enough. I wanted my story to be set near Chinatown, so I visited LA's Chinatown and called someone on the phone concerning a character's occupation. When I decided to write for MG, I met with a class of potential readers and asked them questions about their interests and knowledge of the Chinese zodiacs. That isn't enough, I don't think because this week I've been updating my characters' sheets, backstories, and voice, and I discovered that in my first draft, I accidentally slipped in Western dragon characteristics in my Chinese Dragon. Oops! Instead of panicking (okay, I did for a moment but when I was done), I took a step back and did some more research on dragons and pinpointed the things I want to change in my story which will (hopefully) give it a more Eastern feel to it. More work I'm beginning to believe that I am becoming worthy to tell this story, but there is still more work to be done. More reading. More videos. More interviews. More on location research (if COVID-19 will let me). But most important... I need beta readers, sensitivity readers to be exact. That's what they're called in the writing community because they are #ownvoice perspectives. A general guideline is to have them if you're going to include a character from or address a culture (in general) other than your own. (That's me!) My Chinese friends I told you about have already offered to read my book when I'm ready, but I think I'll need others. This post isn't about me not being worthy to be a published author. That's not what I meant by my question. Writing is hard, yes. And publishing is difficult, yes. But I can do it. No, I'm talking about recognizing what I need to do if I want to make my story the very best it can be. Which I am. Am I worthy to tell the story I want to tell? Almost. Give me a little more time. I'm becoming worthy of it. Today is the book birthday for The One and Only Bob. This is, of course, the highly anticipated sequel to The One and Only Ivan. In normal circumstances, the author of the "book birthday" would visit schools across the country, like a rock star on tour! I don't know if she would have visited where I live. Maybe. But because of COVID-19, she's had to put a halt on her traveling. Instead, Katherine Applegate had a "virtual" meeting about the book, and yours truly somehow managed to weasel her way into it! Katherine's writerly beginnings Surprisingly, Katherine Applegate was not a reader as a child. She admits it and says she makes a point to tell kids this at her school visits! Usually there's a gasp and (unfortunately) some clapping. She didn't have dyslexia. Reading wasn't hard for her; it was just boring. But then, as she tells the story, she found her "best friend book." It was Charlotte's Web. "You may think that's your best friend book, too," Katherine says, "but it's really mine." It's what got her to see story telling in a new light. My best friend book? It's hard for me to pick one! Unlike Katherine Applegate, I was an reader as a kid. Still am! I probably had best friend books all the time! But I'd say that The Summer of the Monkeys was up there for me. That and The Outsiders and Anne of Green Gables. If you write, you're a writer! Even though she wasn't a reader, Katherine was a writer. She wrote stories all the time! During the Q&A of the virtual meeting, someone asked her when she knew she wanted to be a writer. In answer, Katherine first of all explained that you don't have to be published to be a writer. When she was a kid, she wrote a story about a pig. She says there was probably a plot, but she doesn't remember it. But when she finished that draft, she says, "that's the day I became a writer!" Writer's block? No such thing! When asked about what she does for writer's block, she claimed that it doesn't exist! "I know it's not a popular thing to say," she admits. "But it's true." She went on to explain that they're just problems. Nothing more, nothing less. Writers, she says, are "narcissistic," so we think our problems are bigger than others, so much so that we have to give it a name: writer's block. "We don't have teacher's block," she reasons. "Mother's block or plumber's block. They're just problems." Once you can recognize it for what it is, then you can work through it:
Behind the scenes Because it's Bob's book birthday, we talked about Bob. He's, remember, the little dog in The One and Only Ivan. Even though Ivan was inspired by a very true story, Katherine had chosen to write his story in a fictionalized way. She felt that Ivan the gorilla needed a friend, so she gave him Bob. He started out as a cockroach. Then a mouse. She needed something that could slip into a small hole of Ivan's cage. Since she was fictionalizing the story anyway, Katherine decided to make the hole a little bigger and make Bob a small dog. She based his character on her own feisty and somewhat grumpy pup, Stan. The One and Only Ivan, as some of you may know, is now a motion picture! It's scheduled to be "out" in theaters August 2020. Of course, we don't know what that will look like in our uncertain circumstances right now, but as Katherine says, that's when it's scheduled to come out! Danny DeVito voices Bob in the movie. (What a cool idea! He's perfect for Bob!) They asked, and he agreed to also do the audiobook of The One and Only Bob! At the end of the virtual meeting, the hosts, SLJ, supplied an audio excerpt and a "Behind the mic with Danny DeVito." So much fun! My writing journey
I think going to book launches (even virtually) like this really helps me in my writing journey. It's not only something I can shoot for, but it reminds me that the authors of the books I love are normal people who also struggle with writing. It's tough to write a book! When Katherine was asked if she would be writing a third book about Ivan and Bob, she laughed and said, "Look, writing a book is like giving birth. You need a little time to recover." ha ha! When asked if writing this second book was challenging for her, she said, "Well, it took me eight years. That probably says something." But she did it. And I can, too. |