kathrynhoughton.com

I’m coming clean. I have a literary double identity. In some crowds I’m the high-literature loving MFA grad. I put books by prestigious authors on my shelves (the types of authors that might go on MFA thesis or class book lists, not those that necessarily sell gazillions of copies). In this life I balance my reading load, trying to fit in fiction (both short stories and novels) and nonfiction, and I’m even working myself up to some poetry. I subscribe to literary journals (though I’ve let most subscriptions lapse due to budgetary issues; I should amend this). I write book review. It’s in this life that I’m working on my book.

In my other literary life I inhale Wheel of Time books, various YA novels. I listen to Harry Potter on audio book (every night before bed; it’s helped with my insomnia and also keeps me distracted when I’m in bed recovering from a headache). It’s this side of my literary character that recently drove me to dig through the boxes of books in my basement to pull out a Clan of the Cave Bear book and the two books in the Island of the Blue Dolphins series thing.This side of me wants to write a YA book some day and is tossing ideas around in the back of my head. Heck, I’ve even been known to write some fan fiction.

Now don’t get me wrong here. One of these isn’t the real me while the other is a front. I love it all. I love a good, tough read as much as a quick lighter one (and I’ve been known to walk around the house, talking to myself as I analyze both). I love the time I spend working on my book (even if it is hard as all hell), and so far I’m really enjoying exploring the new (to me) genre of book reviews. When I got the new issue of Willow Springs last week I devoured it, then tore through 600 pages of YA the next day.

But I can’t help feeling, as I switch back and forth, that I’m somehow doing something wrong. You see, I don’t know many (any?) people like me. I know genre lovers who will pick up the occasional “meatier” book, and I know literary fiction readers who will read genre from time to time, but I have yet to meet someone who feels like he or she is being torn both ways. It’s as if, when I’m reading one, I can’t wait to finish so I can get back to the other. There really just aren’t enough hours in the day for my reading apparently.

Maybe what I should do is look at this as an opportunity. I may be just one person, but maybe I can bring about a bit of change. Maybe I can get the literary fiction people to enjoy and find real worth in more genre work, and maybe I can get genre readers to turn more of their attention to those books by small presses, those books that I have to order specially from the bookstore. I’m just one person, but I figure there have to be more people like me out there, and even if there aren’t, hey—one is still better than none.

In the meantime, I’m reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog (in translation from the original French, definitely literary fiction). At the top of my figurative to-read stack I’ve got a few YA books, three adult fantasy novels (two of which I’ve borrowed and should really get to soon), a nonfiction reportage-type book, and two books of short stories. Then there’s the novel I’ll be reviewing when it’s published in April (unless I can get an ARC sooner). And the question I always ask myself is: What on earth am I going to read next?

…and that’s really quite all right.

Some background: During my thesis meeting, one of my committee members asked me what I would say if she told me that everything I had was great, but that the real story for the novel started three months (to toss out a random number) past the events that I was writing about. I looked at her and said, “Honestly, Natalie, I think I’d cry.”

But that’s been in the back of my mind ever since, because what was clear was that something wasn’t quite clicking with my story, and hadn’t been for months leading up to my defense. Oh, I was doing work that needed to be done—and this was really the first time I was seriously working with the novel form—but I kept running into problems around page 40, right around the time the book should have been taking off. At first I thought I just needed to rewrite those particular pages (and what came after), but in the eight months since my defense I’ve been considering another possibility: that things have been falling flat because I picked the wrong starting point. Read more…

I’m checking in at my one fifth point. Unless I’m remembering incorrectly (the official count is written down on a sheet of paper about five feet away and my sadness over not being at AWP is making me too lethargic to go get it), I’ve done 20 days so far (out of a possible 21). The biggest step so far? Diving back in to my book (formerly my thesis).

I pulled it out, for the first time since turning it in prior to my defense, this past weekend. I’d been preparing myself for this move by writing short shorts featuring my characters, but Friday night I decided to stop putting off the big step and to just go for it. And it’s been fun. Right now I’m in the middle of a reread looking for the things I like and the things I don’t. I know that the next big step is going to be a reorganization, so I’m hoping this does two things for me. First, I’m hoping it helps spark some inspiration as to where the next iteration of the book should begin (I’m quite sure it will start at a different place in time, maybe a month or two past where it’s currently set). But also, I’m looking for scenes/threads that are salvageable and those that aren’t. I’m looking for holes in the backstory and possible directions the new story can go. I think I’m getting quite a bit.

However, this has led me to reevaluate the initial rules I set up for this 100 Days of Writing project. The farther I get in, for example, the less fulfilling blog posts seem. But they fit the criteria. Tonight, for example, this will be my writing. On the flip side, I’m spending a lot of time in my car, in bed, in the shower, at the kitchen table, etc., thinking about my book. I’m trying to work through problems, to answer questions, to consider solutions. This, however, does not count as official writing time, and no matter that it feels so much more important to me in the grand scheme of my writing career.

So I’m trying to decide if I’m going to adapt the rules or if I should just finish this challenge the way it was intended—its limitations certainly haven’t been hurting my creativity. If anything, being forced to sit down and produce something has been a good thing for me. (Plus, if there’s one thing that’s hurting my book and short story writing, it’s the writing I do for work. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be doing creative writing for work, but I haven’t yet found a way to partition and separate the two types of creative writing in my brain yet. My book is not appropriate content or style for developmentally challenged 5th graders and on the flip side, the type of writing I do for the specialized reading passages does not mesh well with what I do in my book.)

Maybe I’ll keep the rules I have but sort of loosen up a bit. I’ve already stopped obsessively timing my sessions—as long as I have found myself dwelling on my book throughout the day. It’s funny how even though I have a deadline, I feel very free to play and experiment. I don’t feel stressed when I sit down to write each day (even when, as now, I’m writing 90 minutes past the time I said I wanted to be in bed). This is a very good thing for me and my writing, but I can’t help feeling a bit disappointed that I didn’t get here sooner. I think this was something Sam (my advisor) was always trying to get me to understand. “Don’t think about the thesis,” he would say. “The thesis doesn’t matter.” And only now that the thesis has been removed as a stumbling block am I really able to look at this piece of writing as my book.

I have decided to start 100 Days of Writing. Haven’t heard of it? No worries. I just made it up.

It started like this: I learned about the 10,000 hour rule. Basically this rule claims that to become an expert in something, be it playing the French horn, playing soccer, or writing (three hobbies of mine at various points in my life, though obviously the writing thing is much more current—say presently relevant, even), you need to put in 10,000 hours of work toward it. Well, I did the math, and that means that in a decade you need to spend about three hours every day—EVERY DAY!—working toward your chosen skill. I don’t know about you, but between working, sleeping, feeding myself, showering, and occasionally remembering that I have friends and a family that would like to spend time with me (the friends more than the family at the moment), I don’t really have three hours left over every day. So there goes my expert-in-a-decade idea.

But then I remembered that, for my chosen expert field (writing), I’m hardly starting from Hour Zero. So maybe it was possible after all. No sooner had that happy thought kicked in, however, then I remembered something slightly less thrilling. Namely that I’m not exactly doing everything I can to make sure there’s a spot for writing in my schedule. So I should probably start with something a little more realistic than between two and three hours each day. And so I thought up 100 Days of Writing.

Here’s the deal. Out of the next 110 days, I will write for 100 of them (or declare myself a 100 Days of Writing Failure). I can skip any days I want, but starting today, I’ve got to hit 100 out of the next 110.

For a day to count as a Day of Writing, I must do one of the following:

1. write a completed piece (blog posts count, but emails, no matter how lengthy, do not);
2. write (or revise) for a minimum of 30 minutes; or
3. write a minimum of 500 words

Writing at work does not count, but if I bring optional writing home from work, it does count, provided I double the above mentioned provisions. Also, for work pieces, revision does not count.

And I think that just about covers it. My 110 days are up in early May (the 4th or the 5th; I have the date written down upstairs, but I’m feeling too lazy to go and get it). If anyone would like to join me on my journey, just say the word. Happy writing!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted; I know. I got a new job, and I’ve been sick for 8.5 weeks now, so updating hasn’t been a priority. But I did want to post my favorite bit from the start of my nano. I didn’t get much done on it tonight (way short of the goal of 1667), but my goals this year have less to do with 50K than they do with getting back into the swing of writing and with having fun.

Not for the first time Maribeth considered yelling something out the window, something cutting and clever like her friend Jane would say. Save it for Ricki Lake, maybe, or, If you do not shut up, you won’t need to make any decisions ever again. Except much more clever. Maribeth didn’t know if Ricki Lake was even still around. Jane would know, but if she wasn’t around, Jane would laugh. God, Ricki Lake was a chick, right?

Another Day Zero goal complete! Friday night I read at EWU’s monthly Voiceover. I read a three-page piece and it marked the first time I’ve ever shared my work in public (it counts as public even if the only non-program-affiliated person there was tending bar…). We had a relatively low turnout (probably due to end-of-year stress), but I think that, on the whole, my piece was well received. And someone even told me afterward that I had a good reading voice. So yay! I should have thought to have someone take a picture or something, but apparently I’m not that thoughtful, so you’ll all just have to take my word. If you’re in Spokane, I’ll be reading again at our graduate reading on June 11. Still no idea what I’ll read then—NOT my thesis.

p.s. I have some thoughts on LOST, but I still think I’m not quite ready to share them; I found the finale to be deeply moving and I want a bit more time to let my thoughts percolate; maybe I’ll even rewatch it before blogging about it.

Not everyone loves kittens, even when they are this cute.

Character is one of the biggest things—if not the biggest thing, depending on who you talk to—that will influence whether or not a reader likes a book (or story, or essay, etc.). Plot (that dirty word!) is probably the other, followed by language. But what makes one character better than another? What is it that  separates a likable fictional creation from an unlikable one?

For me, the answer to this question usually has to do with character motivation. Do I  believe the character would act as he or she does? This means getting to know a character’s background, history, culture, social motivations, emotional responses, opinions, and a whole slew of other things, of course. But I’ve noticed an interesting trend lately in that there is a whole group of readers out there who dislike characters for acting in ways the reader can’t imagine acting in his or her own life.

Some examples:

• Clare Abshire from The Time Traveler’s Wife
• Any of the five Lisbon daughters in The Virgin Suicides
• Edna Pontellier in The Awakening
• Faile Bashere or Perrin Aybara (and many others) in The Wheel of Time
• Anna Karenina from Anna Karenina
• Nora Helmer from A Doll’s House

Gender issues aside (since I’ve already covered this over at Bark), I think, as I said above, the commonality here is that these characters all make choices that the reader feels he or she wouldn’t make if put in the same place and so, somehow, this is an unrelatable, unlikeable character.

I too have fallen into this in the past, but that just makes me more sure that, when this happens, it is usually the fault of the reader rather than the author. Not, of course, that that means the author bears no burden for making well-rounded and believable characters, but the question is who is the character supposed to be believable to?

A few months ago someone told me she hoped I wasn’t writing a book with sex or profanity,  because she refuses to read books with those elements. Well, I am. There’s both sex AND profanity. And my main character is angry and often lashes out at people. But these elements aren’t included because I want to shock, or because I somehow feel cooler for including them: They come from the characters.

But then other people tell me they don’t want to read books that feature these types of characters. They ask, “There’s enough of that in the world already so why do you have to write about it?” I can’t speak for all writers, but I know why I do.

Because I’m interested in these characters.

I’m interested in pulling away the layers to get at the rawness that exists in all people: The lies told, the contradictions inherent in every day, the cruel thoughts and, sometimes, actions. But I also like the way these dark things jut up against brighter things: the moments where people act for each other, when they breakthrough to a new piece of honesty. To have one or the other—the struggling homeless man who never steals, attends mass every Sunday, and has an all-around cheery outlook on life, or the cruel rich man who cheats on his taxes and his wife, treats anyone lower than him with disdain and scorn, and hates kittens—this is not believable! Not even in genre—even Darth Vadar had that whole pesky I-sort-of-don’t-want-to-kill-my-son thing.

In the end, I feel it’s my job as a fiction writer, when I see something ugly or shameful, to not look away, to not try to ignore it, but to instead look a bit closer.

As some of you may already know, I had to cut 30% of my thesis last Monday. Due to a lack of understanding certain character motivations, the story was starting to unravel. In the end, in addition to cutting the offending pages, I decided that the base of the story—the first fifty pages—was also flawed and so before working on replacing the 23 lost pages, I did a heavy revision of the 53 remaining.

It’s been a rough nine days, not least because I can really feel the clock ticking: I turn it in on May 26, exactly two weeks from today, and defend on June 9, exactly four weeks from today.

Last night I finally finished the revisions, culminating with one scene being almost entirely rewritten. As of this morning I have sixty-two pages, all of which are much stronger than they were before. The clock is still ticking, but suddenly it doesn’t feel quite so looming—mostly because I have an idea of where to go next, something that was markedly lacking before.

Anyway, I know I’ve been a bit low on actual informative posts lately, but my thesis is getting all of my attention right now. If you’re just totally missing my awesome insights, head over to Bark and check my Monday column!

I have a confession to make: I never outline. Or, rather, I never outline successfully. I’ll try every so often to jot down some notes for future scenes and, in one case, I actually plotted out an entire book, but it never works. Oh, I wrote the book to the outline successfully (during National Novel Writing Month back in 2006, I think the year was), but every time I outline, I run into the same problem.

Melodrama.

In the aforementioned novel, I had a wedding, a lottery winner, a little old lady who found a cat and gave it to her granddaughter without parental permission, a girl drowning in a pool because her mother was on the phone, and then that same mother running away (and her husband chasing her, of course) because she couldn’t face her guilt—all in 50,000 words. And trust me, it was much more melodramatic than the above list makes it sound.

You see, I tend to like subtle tension in my writing, the small moments that open up into larger ones, but when I try to write that down in an outline, it looks like there is no tension in the story, and so I add more.

For my current book, I haven’t done any outlining. I just finished part one, and I don’t know yet what the first scene of part two will be. Instead of planning, I’m going to go back to what I’ve already written and decide what seems natural based on what I already have.

This reminds me of a quote by Nabokov about how his characters are galley slaves—he doesn’t let them take over the book, as many other authors will tell you their characters do (and that that’s how they know a story has life). And despite what I said above, I think I fall in the middle—if I let my characters do whatever they wanted I’m sure I’d end up with a boring book. Instead, I focus on character motivation but always remember that I have the power to to change that motivation to fit what I want.

For instance, I was writing one of the early scenes in my book and decided that it would amp up the tension if one of my characters could potentially be pregnant. However, the way I’d written her, she was a very sexually-conscious woman, well-versed in contraception, and I didn’t want the maybe-I’m-pregnant tension to come from that 1% chance of failure; THAT felt like melodramatic manipulation. So I spent weeks brainstorming reasons this very forward-thinking woman would make a decision that was very likely to end up with an unwanted pregnancy. Had I let the character take over, I would have had to cut that thread and lost that tension. But had I been set on getting her pregnant from the beginning, I probably would have created a different character, a more soap-opera worthy one.

It’s been an insanely crazy week! There were a few hours on Monday when I thought I might have to turn in my thesis next week (when I was expecting late-May), and, as you can imagine, this triggered a sizable panic attack. But luckily for me my thesis advisor has my back and I’m now scheduled to defend June 9 (instead of May 20). Commence sigh of relief.

My novel (!) is now just over 75 pages and I’ve got the entire narrative arc of section one written. It feels incredible to be able to say that. That means I’ll spend the next three weeks revising, revising, revising. I want to tighten this first section as much as possible. For the first pass I think that will mean continuing to drop little seeds for me to grow later in parts two and three of the book. For instance, one subplot that is going to become pretty big in part two had fallen away by page 35 so I went and dropped a few more small details around page sixty, just so the reader doesn’t forget (and so the eventual importance of that move seems believable). Now I know why it took me twenty-five years to learn how to revise: It’s hard!

In short story news, I wrote my first one today in about a year. It felt good, but those particular writing muscles are a bit rusty. I’m looking forward to being able to spend at least one day a week on short stories once I graduate. (I’m supposed to be breathing thesis right now, but I didn’t really cheat because the short story featured characters from my book.) I’m hoping that will mean I can start sending off more short stories again, for publication. I decided to stop (with Sam’s advice) because if an editor likes my story but it isn’t quite right, and he or she asks to see more work, I don’t have anything to send. Oh, I have other short stories, but none are ready to be sent off, and I don’t have the time right now to devote the tens of hours it would take to get them in shape. So I’m waiting.

Other than that, I’m just pushing my way through my thesis reading list. Right now I’m working on The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri. It’s fantastic. Now I just want to find one (or preferably two) more male writers to add to my list; it’s decidedly female-friendly right now with only two men.

Oh, and I need some sort of working title for my book (other than Working Title of Thesis the Awesome). I hate titles.