I've Moved!

My blog has moved to wordpress! Visit me at www.jesskeller.wordpress.com

Yes, I’m murdering my blogger account because its frankly not working out for me and I cannot figure out how to use it well. But I will be updating the wordpress account 5 days a week. I welcome the Chicago attitude of “vote” early and often. Some days there will be free give-aways (who doesn’t want a batch of homemade cookies?!?) but most will be unannounced. You’ll have to have checked and commented on that day to win. Happy blogging!

Here’s the new layout:

Monday Musings - This is the day for my own personal mad-rants, humor, and sharing.

Tasty Tuesdays - A day devoted to one of my greatest loves: food. I’m passionate about baking delicious things, giving cooking advice, sharing recipes, and some guest blogs.

Writing Wednesdays - I’m that crazy person at the coffee shop swigging down some sugary confection while madly tapping out my latest manuscript on my laptop. I’m sharing my own writing struggles and advice, while offering some expert guest blogs too.

Thick-of-it Thursdays - Spiritual truth, confessions and struggles from a heart that can only be described as a work in progress.

Fridays for Readers - Book recommendations, sneak-peeks at yet to be released books, author interviews and writing advice from experts, introductions to new writers, and at least once a month ‘Freebie Friday’ when a lucky commenter will win a free book.

Authenticity over Originality

"Some writers confuse authenticity, which they ought always to aim at,
with originality, which they should never bother about." –W.H. Auden



printing press in 1875

 Authenticity: accurate in representation of the facts; trustworthy; reliable.

*photos in text are from a recent researching trip*

If you want to write something that no one will ever read, then keep a journal.  If you want to write something that people will read, write authentically. 

What does that mean – it means do your homework.  Writing isn’t for the school sluff-off.  Many people lump us as dreamers who just like to live in little imaginary worlds and tell people about them.  Well, if that be the case, then I sure hope we never put pen to paper.  Sure, a writer has to have a crazy wild imagination, but it needs to be tempered with authentic writing.



You might think you escaped research the second that diploma hit your hands, but if you want to be a good writer a larger amount of your time will be spent researching than writing.

I hear you.  “Sure, that makes sense for the non-fiction writer, but surely not a writer of fiction.”

Actually, I’d argue that authenticity has to ring true a hundred fold more for a fiction writer.  The whole point of writing a story is to capture your reader, to draw them so deeply into that written word that for the time they are reading it…that world is real.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, should ever cause them to close that cover to not open it again.  And the quickest way to get a reader to drop your book is by being unauthentic in the scenarios, situations, and dialogue.





rebuilt 1875 town


I was recently reading a published work of fiction and they started diving into some dealings with the police – and I laughed and put down the book.  I laughed, not because the book was in any way funny, I laughed at the author’s pathetic attempt to paint an authentic police situation.  See, because of my real-life job, let’s just say I know a thing or two about how a police officer would act in a certain situation, and how police policy goes.  The author violated that and I knew I couldn’t trust their writing and I won’t ever pick up a book written by that author again. 

This author could have saved himself if he would have made one call to his local police department and had a five minute interview with an officer asking what their department would do if found in the situation found in his book.

Get how serious this is?

They always say “write what you know” but I don’t think that has to be the case, as long as you take time getting acquainted with your characters and situations.  If you are writing about some strange disease then call up a medical professional – or hey, those pharmacists are stuck behind that counter, ask them.  If you are a forty year old woman writing from the perspective of a thirteen year old boy, you best either go talk to someone you know who works with students that age, or spend some time with boys that age – listen to how they talk.  They talk in short sentences and their conversations don’t always connect.  They aren’t going to go into long monologues nor will they tell their buddy that they are afraid.  If you are writing about a location you’ve never been to then call their city hall and request a new resident packet be sent to you – or even tell them you are a writer and ask if you can email them questions about their town.  Writing about WWII, get down to the local VFW and talk to the Veterans, hear their stories – you might find out what they tell you is ten times better than what you had thought up and it could change your book entirely.





don't trust her, she tried to sell me leeches!

 I cannot stress how important the research aspect is for all writers.  Don’t just make stuff up.  You’ll get caught someday and lose all credibility.  Do the hard work on the front end so you can truly be proud of your end product, not to mention it’ll help you knock your interviews out of the ballpark.

Everything I’m saying goes double for historical writers.  Most of the time we can’t see and touch the places and people we are writing about, so that means lots of hours in the library.  Before writing my regency piece I spent two solid weeks sitting in a room surrounded by books and learning everything I could about the lives of the people I would write about.  I wanted their dialogue to ring with authenticity so I read autobiographies from the time period from people who had nothing to do with the people I was going to write about, but it helped.  That, and there are plenty of hands-on experiences for historical writers.  Reenactors are excellent sources of information, they are your experts, seek them out. 

All I'm saying is be authentic.  In writing.  In life.

My Enemy, My Chair

"The hardest thing you will encounter as a writer is your chair."

 

Discipline. Perseverance. Self-Motivation. Call it what you will, it all shakes out to be the same thing. No one ever got anything worthwhile without hard work - period.

 

I'm not belittling how almost insurmountably difficult the publishing industry is, because that is what most people would say is the hardest part of writing. But I'd counter with - if you haven't spent the time in the chair then you'll have nothing to try to publish, so really, its the dedication of sitting your backside in that chair and making yourself push ahead when you don't feel like it or when there are a million other burdens pressing down on you, that really is the clincher.

 

Mostly along the lines of my 'start now' post - but I guess that's because it really, really irks me when people dream without passion. If you say "I'd really like to run a marathon before I die" but you're 40 pounds overweight and you don't even go for walks - well, if that is what you really want than you best get out today and walk a mile, do that for a month, then add two more, than start jogging, build to running, and run your first 5K within three months of that time. I'm so sick of people who don't TAKE ACTION. Life is a bull, just pawing on the ground, waiting to be gripped by the horns. Don't just exist...live. That, or stop saying pretty words that you have no intention on following through with, because really then you're just speaking lies. Think I'm overstating it? I don't. Because telling yourself you're going to run a marathon before you die and then doing nothing to work toward that goal is the worst lie of all - you're lying to yourself. If you don't have that type of dedication to go through the training, then admit it and move on - it doesn't make you a bad person, just one whose honest with themselves.

 

Wow...holy raging tangent Batman.

 

Backtracking that bunny trail....if you have dreams of publishing at all, whether is be in a local newspaper, just a simple book for family and friends, or you want to be an international best seller, it'll never happen if you don't do the hard work of sitting and plucking away at that keyboard (AND spend your hours interviewing and at the desks in the library researching...write with authority folks, don't make stuff up, even in fiction).

 

Now, I do not write full-time (wouldn't that be nice...). I have a full time job and then I am an avid runner and reader. I'm a clean freak about my home and spend a lot of time taking care of that each week. I have a husband who I like to spend time with and I am one of those old fashion girls who makes dinner from scratch each night. I have an active social life and mentor high school students. Now add time for writing. Wait...there is none.

 

So I have to sacrifice not doing many of these things if my desire truly is to be a multi-published author. I made a goal for myself to spend 2-3 hours every single day either writing or researching, no exceptions. It's the only way I'll make it. And sometimes that means staying up until 2am and then yanking myself out of bed at 5am and going to work with only 3 hours of sleep under my belt. Sometimes that means holing myself up in my little dungeon office on a beautiful summer Saturday. Sometimes it means *gasp* not cleaning my house that week (really, that's a huge deal).

 

What are you dreams worth to you?

Drowning Your Kitten

I have recently learned the importance of drowning your kitten. 

No.  It’s not what you think.

My friends know I have two pet cats – Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent – who are basically like children to me so fear not for their safety…I’m speaking strictly of literary kittens.

I learned the term from Robin Jones Gunn.  Sidenote: she’s amazing.  I had the privilege of meeting her at the writer's conference I attended at the beginning of this month. 

The second day of the conference I was beyond discouraged and felt like I should just pack up and leave.  I was assailed by the constant thought…maybe writing is not for me.  I’d had a meeting with an agent that, while encouraging, they didn’t want my work.  They said in the future when I wasn’t as much of a greenhorn they’d love to see my stuff, but not what I had to offer them right now.

Downcast, I went to dinner and low and behold Robin sought me out.  She said she asked God who to sit with and my face showed up in her mind and came and found me.  With that declaration I felt like I owed her the truth about how I was feeling.  Then she taught me the importance of drowning my kittens.

She explained that sometimes we are so in love with something we write, whether it be a couple pages, a paragraph, or an entire manuscript, but it needs to be thrown out.  Chopped.  Cut.  Killed.

To a writer, once you’ve labored over something for months or years it becomes this cute, adorable, cuddly, fluff of a kitten to you.  Everything about it makes you sigh and you can’t understand why it makes everyone else sneeze.  Why don’t they see that this little cat is the most amazing thing ever?  When that happens…its burlap sack time.  You have to do the horrible deed that makes it feel like you’re ripping out your own heart.  You have to toss your sweet baby in the sack, tie it, and toss it into the raging river.  Gone.  Don’t jump in after it.  Let it die.

I’m at a point where I’m asking myself if I should kill my kitten.  See, before the conference I thought I was one type of writer.  But during the conference I came to the conclusion that what I was doing was not the direction I want to head down at all.  I clearly felt during the conference (and since) that I should be writing historically based fiction.  Not the current stuff I was trying for.  I love made up worlds…and with history, it kind of gets to be that.  I want to escape the humdrum of life in 2011, I love dreaming of the ‘old days’ for good and bad (because they weren’t as perfect as we all have been taught).  I love the stories of the past that shape what we are today.  

Anyway, back to my fuzzball.  I went to the writer’s conference with a completed contemporary manuscript that was meant to be the first in a series of four books.  I walked away from the conference with two publishers and an agent asking for copies of the manuscript to consider for publication – but I’ve sat on it since.  See, I don’t know if I want it published now.  Don’t get me wrong, any publishing would be amazing, but I don’t know if I want to spend my time branding myself along the lines of that series by writing the next three if I did get a contract. 

So now I sit.  Burlap sack in hand and unassuming kitty purring in sleep on my lap…do I drown him?  Do I send his cute pictures to the editors and see what happens?  Or do I set him aside and in a couple years go back?    

Start Today

"A year from now you will wish you had started today"

I'm a big fan of following your gut, but then again, why don't I do it most of the time?  Take writing for example.  Most of the ideas I have, I've had since before I was even married.  We're talking holding on to ideas in my head for more than 5 years here folks.  Not good.  I sit here now, more busy in life than ever before, but determined to carve out time to pursue my dream of publishing and being a freelancer...a dream that I wish I would have started more than 5 years ago.

It's too easy to live in the land of 'someday.'  If you think about it, there are a lot of truly amazing things that are going to happen in that mythical place.  Someday I'll organize the closet...someday I'll get to England...someday I'll publish that first book...someday I'll run a marathon.  Someday sounds pretty amazing, but, for most of us, someday never comes.  That's sad. 

Do you know that 70% of people who  have a goal to write a book one day never even try?  (and that's sad too, because there are 30% of them who try and the majority never get published either...but they tried!).

What's your 'someday'?  Are you waiting until work gets better to spend time with your kids?  Because the time is now.  Do you have some outlandish dream that seems unreachable - start taking steps towards it.  Always wanted to go to Australia but coming up with that money seems insane?  Put aside a dollar a day until you have enough - START.  Frustrated with extra weight, turn off the television, step back from the computer screen, and go for a walk every day for the next month and see how it goes.  Don't pine away wishing life was different - do something. 

The Battle of the Komandorski Islands killed my muffins

Dear banana muffins, please forgive my folly.

I had browning –make that very browned — bananas, so of course, that calls for baking something scrumptious.  Mind you, I already made a Hawaiian wedding cake, a coconut chocolate pie, and Hawaiian slaw today, but I was on a role, so why not?  After lovingly putting the muffins in the oven I set a timer and went into the other room to start researching for the day because I really need to get cracking on the actual writing part and I can’t do that until I’m done with research.

The Battle of the Komandorski Islands killed my muffins.

I was so completely drawn into reading about this battle that I didn’t even hear the timer go off.  It was my nose…30 minutes too late and little black hockey puck mini muffins later…that tipped me off.

Sidenote.  Why mini muffins anyway?  Who came up with them?  They are cute and all, but let’s be serious.  If I see mini muffins in my mind that just says, “ooo, I can eat six and not feel bad…because c’mon, six mini muffins make like one muffin give or take.”

Mini muffin rant complete.

After giving the muffins a proper funeral I went back to researching.  Have you ever heard of the Battle of the Komandorski Islands?  I hadn’t.  It’s an amazing battle that totally proves the hand of God in war…I’m not kidding.

But what struck me even more was how crazy it was that I’m pouring over all these books by my own choice in my free time, because, believe it or not, I use to hate reading.

Those who know me well don’t believe a lick of that, but I’m not kidding.  When I was little I abhorred reading because the teachers at my elementary school told me I was stupid. 

See, I was a slow learner.  I vividly remember in Kindergarten having to go to the back of class with the classroom helper, they would sit you down and put this little yellow reader in front of you.  If you could read the title, you got to turn the page, if you could read page one, then you moved on to page two – and so on.  Well, I never made it off the cover.  One of the helpers laughed at me because I couldn’t get “Sis Says.” 

Later on in school they would put us in reading groups.  There was the owl reading group, the hawk reading group, and the sparrow reading group

I was put in the sparrow reading group…me, the kid who stuttered, and a kid who always had a patch over his eye.  It didn’t take a genius to figure out the school’s magical coding system for the reading groups…sparrows are eaten by owls and hawks.  One of my teachers actually said to me that it was too bad everyone wasn’t born smart.

All that to say, reading wasn’t my favorite pastime.  I still lived in my head – always in a land of my own making, but I hadn’t come to realize that books were exactly that too.  Not until 7^th grade when a teacher pulled me aside and asked if I knew I was gifted.

“Gifted?  Are you calling me special ed?” I actually said that.

But she assured me she thought I was smarter than the rest of the kids, that my creativity knew no bounds and that I shouldn’t lose that.  She gave me the book Watership Down and told me to read it.

Have you ever seen Watership Down?  It’s an adult level book that is as thick as one of the later Harry Potters.  Remember…I hated books.  So, it went on a shelf and I went on my way.  Then one day in my sophomore year of high school I picked it up and started reading…and finished it a day later.  I’ve never been without a book since…who am I kidding, I haven’t been without three books going at once since.

Funny...my 7^th grade teacher has no clue that she changed the entire trajectory of my life.

What is in a name? And Greatness.

A Work in Progress...the name of the blog is two-fold really.

First, I am a writer.  Believe me, I still feel sheepish saying that.  I mean, you can't look up my name and find a list of accolades.  You can't walk into a book store and find something with my name on it.  I have a stack of magazine articles and published fictional stories to show for my efforts.  But that doesn't matter.  I am a writer.  Why?  Because life is torture when I don't write.  If I go a day without plotting a new story and designing new characters I feel lost.  If I'm not in the middle of writing my next article, typing away at my latest manuscript, or researching...the world just feels off.

As a writer, I am a work in progress - and my writing is all a work in progress.  I have not arrived.  People find out and want to  know all about "what I've done" because that's what humans are focused on - we measure greatness by accomplishments and successes.  A person isn't considered of worth until they can rattle off a list of amazing things they have done.  But really, even if I publish 100 books I won't feel like I've arrived because I can always get better, always improve, there is no such thing as perfection.  There will always be someone who doesn't like my work and there will always be something more to write.  It will never be done - it will always be a progress.

Likewise, I am a work in progress.  I'm just an everyday sinner in need of the grace of God to get through life.  I am not perfect, nor will I ever be.  Each day on earth will be another step to another point on a mountain with no end.  A mountain of surrender and obedience.  A mountain, that frankly, somedays, I don't even want to try to climb - because who wants to climb a mountain with no summit?  Perfection is unreachable, but that's just it, in this life we have to fall in love with the process of becoming who Christ wants us to become. 

I will never be great by human standards.  Not as a writer, or as a person.  I will always be in the process of becoming and never getting there.

What does greatness even look like? We humans have always had a wrong view of greatness. When a Messiah was foretold we pictured a military hero, someone who would come in like a swashbuckler and save the day with a bang. That’s greatness to us, but Christ shook His head at our views. Christ showed us that greatest is a ministry of being last. Greatness is getting down on your knees and scrubbing the calloused, dusty, sweaty feet of twelve men. Greatness is remaining silent when being accused. Greatness is embracing a leaper.

That said, I don't want human greatness.  It's exhausting.  I'll take God's sort anyday.