Welcome Back!

I almost forgot to post before we left on our trip. I remembered yesterday, but then my daughter had the audacity to pull out a tooth in the middle of a dark and quiet move theater, so last night I wrote her a letter from the tooth fairy instead.

(The tooth fairy’s name is Millicent. She has so far penned twenty-five letters to my three children. The world-building has become intricate enough that I created a lexicon so I could remember things like how Millicent uses acorn caps as mugs to serve dandelion tea to the garden gnomes in the winter. If I get the details wrong, the children will remember.)

What I’m Working On:

I made the bold claim that July is for anarchy because, were you to set foot in my house right now, you too might notice the absence or insufficiency of the governmental authorities. It’s not because we aren’t here (we are). It’s because the output of creativity, activities, and family visits dramatically increased in July, and no one thought to mention to the middle child that creating a new citrus and sugar drink in the kitchen would result in sticky floors, or to let the youngest know that whittling a stick into a spear should always happen outside. Chaos reigns in every room, but I’m firmly ignoring it because I remember this month from last year (and the year before that, etc.), and what the children need is a mother who sails right through the disaster zones with horse blinkers and a smile and resolves to tackle the messes in August.

I’m waiting on an edit letter from my agent, so in the meantime, I’m polishing up the syllabi for my MFA classes, meeting with my thesis students to discuss their manuscripts, and arranging guest speakers for the upcoming year.

Since I’m not actively plotting or writing a novel, I’m spending my creative time reading books, which brings me to…

What I’m Reading:

I blitzed through a few upper Middle Grade stories: The Last Cuentista which was a sci-fi story with an incredibly fraught opening act and some delightful surprises and twists. The ending wasn’t my favorite, but as someone who doesn’t read a lot of sci-fi, this was a fun one.

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab was also a quick read. Not too scary, set in Edinburgh, with fun ghoulish world building. I’m always looking for ways to strike the balance between serious and light in middle grade, and this was a good example.

I also read An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good for book group which was a series of short stories about an old woman with a penchant for murdering people. These are definitely adult short stories, and while I did enjoy the first one quite a bit, I was hoping to see more depth of characterization from the lady as the stories went on.

Writing Tip:

Finding critique partners is one of the most valuable and enjoyable parts of being a writer, but a bad critique partner can be worse than no critique partner at all. Finding the right CP can be a little bit like dating; you might swap manuscripts once and find out that they don’t understand the genre you’re trying to write, or they have a problem with stories where the main character’s name starts with L, or they see the world in a fundamentally different way and are wanting you to change your story to reflect that. So, don’t be discouraged if you have to shop around a bit for a good CP, but also, make sure that you are being a good CP to them as well.

What a good CP will note:

• Where they were bored

• Promises you made that you didn’t deliver on

• Characters whose motivations are unclear or inconsistent

• World-building that is unclear or inconsistent

• Turns of phrase or bits of dialogue or plot twists that delighted them (this can be one of the most helpful things to hear because you don’t always know what’s resonating with readers)

Sometimes it can be helpful to offer suggestions for how to change the things that aren’t working, but more often than not, the writer won’t like your solution. Instead, they’ll see the problem you’ve identified and find their own solution that fits better with their idea of what the manuscript should be. And that’s okay, because it’s their story!

What you really need to avoid doing as a CP is judging a manuscript off your own personal preferences. If you just don’t like horses, don’t suggest they swap out dogs for horses. Know the genre/atmosphere/world and age range of the manuscript and judge it based off of that.

That’s all for now! See you in August.

Christine