Living Outside the Box by Vonnie Davis #Self-Goals

I have two sons, Steve and Mike. Or, as I call them, Handsome Boy and Baby Boy. That takes a lot of guts since Steve is 43 and Mike 40. No one else would dare call them either name, but Mom somehow is allowed the honor. We use a lot of nicknames in our family. I'm Bahama Mama, for example.

Steve teaches 7th and 8th grade Language Arts and Social Studies. His title there is Teacher of the Year. As a 5th degree black belt holder in karate, his title in that arena is Master. He told me the other day over a phone call, he's had no behavior problems with his students this year. He's changed the way he teaches--the Socrates method. He also makes up rap songs with grammar rules in them. He plays his guitar, either electric or bass, and the kids sing along. Other teachers complain, but he tells them learning should never be quiet. It should be exciting. For every time, his class scores highest in the state in the tests, Steve tells them he'll get another tattoo. He has twelve so far and his students love that they "made" him get a new one. He also works as a body guard for the Redskin's cheerleaders. No inappropriate touching on his watch.

My baby boy...er.. Mike is a Certified Safety Professional. With a degree in Industrial Safety and Hygiene, he recently traveled to the National Safety Institute in Chicago for a week of refresher lessons before he tested in DC for his CSP certification. He passed, so can now use the initials after his name. He works for a Volvo facility in Maryland. In the three years he's been with them, he's saved them over two-million in injuries and lost time accidents.  He's won the Volvo Corporate Safety Award and is in Sweden now. He's also an assistant wrestling coach for the local elementary program and does security work for the Redskins. He stands at the tunnel as they run out before the game and limp back in at game's end.

You can see why I try so hard as a writer. I need to impress my sons. Especially since I don't carry any initials after my name. But I'll confess to being depressed when I took a hard look at my age, the size of my reader base, and my sales numbers. I was never going to have the initials NYT's or USA's Best Seller after my name. I have to be happy with average; something I told my kids was never acceptable. "Anyone can be average. You have to try harder. Be better."

Well. it's not working for Mom. Better than average? Pfffftt.

You see, Mom didn't think about natural abilities. But as a writer, I have to think about mine. For one, I can't decide what sub-genre of romance I want to write. Contemporary? Romantic Suspense? Paranormal?  Second, I have my own style and not everyone likes it. Normally I use humor. Then there are times humor doesn't work in a story. Sometimes I want to write suspense. Just simple suspense....and I laugh as I use the word "simple." Suspense means a lot of planning and guess who has never outlined a book?

My writing style isn't improving and that bothers me. My style is changing and that kind of frightens me. Because what if I'm not any better writing in a new way than I've been composing sentences in my old style? Average isn't good enough with the written word. I feel like I'm living outside the box even if I don't know where the box is stored.

Swim Lanes, Or How To Keep Order In Your Writing by Betsy Ashton

Nearly anyone who has worked as a consultant knows that projects are broken down into sections, with those sections broken down into smaller parts. In order to manage large projects, project managers draw up charts with sections listed along the left side and major tasks or milestones listed across the top. The same holds true for writing.


Normally, I begin on page one and write straight through until "The End." I don't care about the niceties of the story, just about getting the bones sketched out and words on paper. I am a self-confessed devotee of Ann Lamott's "shitty first draft." I only begin writing when I begin editing, moving parts around, worrying over every word, every sentence. That works for a linear novel, which
is what I usually write. I decided about a year ago to write a different form of novel. New for me, it's a novel in stories, or a series of linked stories that can stand alone if they want. That said, several different narrators tell their stories, often observing and commenting on the same actions, but from different points of view.

After I finished what I thought of as the really shitty first draft of eight stories, I put it aside for a week before going back for a reread. Oh, golly goodness, gee whiz. Three of the stories nearly knocked my socks off. The rest drew a big "meh." Holes all over the place, missing stories, overlapping material written nearly word for word in three stories. How did I go so far afield?

I didn't have an outline. I tried to write the way I always do, linearly. Doesn't work if your story isn't linear, but is more circular than anything. When the narrator of two stories commented on a letter, I put the letter verbatim in each story. So not needed. When I let one character comment on the situation but not read the letter until later, the conflict made sense.

I decided an outline wouldn't be enough. I needed SWIM LANES. Out came the old consultant's hat. Out came a flip chart. Out came Post-It notes and marking pens. And out came the manuscript in all its flawed glory. First, I needed to know what chapters I wanted. Then, I had to populate those chapters with characters. I had to be certain I didn't refer to a character introduced in a different story but not mentioned in the current one without some degree of introduction. I needed to know how old each character was, what year(s) the story covered, who else was in the story, and what the central conflict was.

Whew! The gaps became painfully obvious. One reader of a story asked why one character was so angry all the time. "What she always this bitchy?" Well, no, she wasn't, but circumstances overwhelmed her, turning her to vodka. To understand and empathize with her, I needed her backstory. Oh, my another chapter.

I had several pages of notes before I went to the flip chart. The first image here contains notes and suggestions, arrows and scratch-outs. Not easy to follow. The second image is a pencil chart of what I thought I needed.  At that time, I needed to know what year a chapter took place in and how old the central and ancillary characters were. Still not enough. The image of the flip chart is what I'm using now. I can take a quick glance, move a sticky note around, move a chapter around, all without messing up anything.

If all this works, the book, Out of the Desert, will be out toward the end of the year. I hope.
This is my story about how the novel in stories is progressing. I'm sticking to it. I'll keep you up to date as things progress. Until them, write away, write now.

***

Betsy Ashton is the author of the Mad Max Mystery series, Unintended Consequences, Uncharted Territory, and Unsafe Haven. She is also the author of the stand-alone psychological suspense novel, Eyes Without A Face. Her works appear in several anthologies, including 50 Shades of Cabernet. She resides at Smith Mountain Lake, VA.

When Vultures Circle by Betsy Ashton

Vultures circling overhead cause chills to race along most people's spines. Omens of evil, maybe, or just one of nature's garbage disposals, not many people like watching them rise on thermals. On Saturday at a book fair in Danville, VA, the largest flock of vultures I'd ever seen in an urban environment flapped lazily overhead.

I'd written about vultures before. In a shameless moment of self-promotion, I'd like to share the opening section of UNCHARTED TERRITORY, the second Mad Max story:

In pre-dawn darkness, I eased the RV door open and tiptoed down four steps to bare earth. Coffee cup in hand, I turned three hundred and sixty degrees. A strong northern front had blown through overnight, sweeping the humidity out to sea and leaving a crystalline sky behind.

The underlying stench of death and decay, however, remained.

Johnny, Emilie and I settled into our new home the day before. While we waited for the rest of the family to arrive, I watched large birds ride thermals in lazy circles over a distant bayou west of our compound. I didn’t know what kind they were, but they were always in the same place. Black and large, they added to the ominous emptiness. I hadn’t had time to drive across the gray wasteland to find out what was going on.

The slamming of a trailer door and boot steps on packed earth announced Johnny’s arrival from the other side of my RV. He walked up, smiled and stared at the rising column of birds. Clad in jeans, boots and a clean T-shirt, he was ready for work.

“Good morning, funny man.” I tilted my face for a kiss.

“Back atcha, pretty lady.” He kissed my cheek.

“Do you see those birds?” I pointed.” More of them today than yesterday.”

“Yes. Something’s dying over there.”

“Dying?”

“Yes.” Johnny tugged my left earlobe.

“Not dead?”

“Buzzards circle until an animal dies. Then they land.”

“Whatever it is sure has attracted a crowd.” I hugged Johnny but kept staring at the birds. Day one, and I was already spooked by the alien landscape.

More flocks formed near the unseen bayou. Birds landed, rose and circled.

“That’s not all that’s attracting crowds.”

What did he mean by that cryptic remark?

Johnny clapped a ball cap on his head and walked to the cook tent for breakfast before leaving for the job site. His boots kicked up tiny puffs of dust in his wake.

Before I came down to Mississippi, I hadn’t expected such unbroken flatness, such a lack of color. Nothing taller than a car or trailer or pile of rubble. No flowers. In fact, nothing green except a few battered live oak trees. Had Charles Dickens written about spoiled lands instead of broken people, this landscape would have made a perfect model.

When I reflected back over the past few months, I could never have foreseen the changes I would make in my life. I never figured I’d be taking my grandchildren into a war zone.

At least it seemed like one to me.

I hoped I captured the mood of the place where Max finds herself setting up a new place to live with her family. Whatcha think?  

Professor Russo Was Right by Vonnie Davis

Most of you know I didn't start college until I was forty-four. I was in a deep depression over my divorce and dealing with an empty nest with my daughter married and living in another state and my two sons in college. Then my older son talked me into going to college. "Please, Mom, you've got to do something with yourself. Take a creative writing course or something!" Well, I've never been one to do things halfway, so I enrolled as a fulltime student, which meant I worked fulltime at night, attended classes during the day and slept whenever I could. It was marvelous!

I qualified for Honor's English and Professor Russo impressed upon us to "know our audience." She claimed we wouldn't know how to write if we didn't have a solid grasp of WHOM we were writing for. One writes differently for a data-hungry, scientific community, for example, than one would for fantasy enthusiasts where the author must do extensive world building.

As romance writers, we get that. Let's take description, for example. Any time we write outside the average reader's frame of reference in, say, historical or paranormal sub-genres, description becomes more important. Because we are removing our readers from their known world to another.

But there are other factors to consider in identifying our readers. An important one is AGE.

I recently saw on a show similar to "Sixty Minutes," if it wasn't that show itself, that the Millennials now command a larger market share Baby Boomers. Stores and businesses are now targeting the greenbacks these thirty to forty somethings hold in their young wrinkle-free hands. Well, that makes sense, doesn't it? Business is business.

Now, let me lead you farther on that same thought trail--

I've been concerned about my book sales. While better than they've ever been, they still aren't what I'd call fantastic. I did make the Amazon's Best Seller list for three whole hours, but that accomplishment like a butterfly quickly flitted away. So I emailed my editor at Random House and laid out my concerns. Were there any weaknesses in my writing she was seeing? How could I improve so I could up my sales rankings?  

She assured me it wasn't me. "It's the crazy market," she said. "We've been on this pleasing the Millennials trajectory for the past couple years. Our stories need to be more character driven and less plot driven." Then she told me something I thought I'd never hear an editor say. "Vonnie, you need to dumb down your writing."

WHAT?

"Why do you think I had you rewrite the final half of your last book? While there was technically nothing wrong with it, the plot was too heavy. The readers wouldn't have gotten it."

Okay, so maybe describing how a SEAL planted explosives so the building would implode instead of explode was a little too intricate...or how snipers scrambled onto roofs...or wound care was given to a SEAL while on a flying helicopter could be construed as heavy stuff. But had the reader seen it in a move, they'd have gotten it. I hadn't written rocket science. I'd written suspense.

My editor didn't stop there with her wounding. "You also take the reader into deep point of view which is fine for the older reader, the baby boomer generation. The millennials don't like it. They want you to tell them how to feel. It's okay for you to write I felt angry or I felt hurt."

I nearly toppled out of my chair!

My editor's remarks took me back to Professor Russo's class at Penn State. Know your audience. Silly me, I thought romance readers were alike everywhere. Granted we all have our preferences. Regency over paranormal, perhaps. Or sweet romances over erotic. I get that. It's a matter of personal taste. But to have writing rules change by an age group is ... Just. Too. Much.

I've worked extremely hard to learn point of view, to become familiar with all the powerful nuances of it to gloss over it now. My editor gave me the link to a book to read and study--the second book of The Cocky Bastards series. Since it's the book all the pubs in NYC are raving about--dear Lord, what are they drinking up there???--she was sure my reading this book that was holding Amazon's top rankings would help me. She wanted me to understand what constituted a character driven story. Heck, I thought I already knew. *shakes head in shame*

The plot was mainly how could this billionaire, who yells at his employees so badly, he's had 74 secretaries in 4 years, wants to get into the heroine's pants. He never struck me as the "hero" type. It was character driven, I'll give it that. Their initial banter was fun; their comedic timing, perfect. But halfway through the book, the ballsy, comical heroine I liked turned into an insecure, whiny woman. The hero allowed his ex-fiancé to run his life because of a secret child. He practically became the "ex's" slave. So, the character arc for both the heroine and hero was skewed in a different direction--instead of growing into better people, they'd morphed into two weakened unlikable souls. The book had two authors and it was quite evident where one stopped and the other writer took over. 

My editor is calling me this afternoon to discuss my next series. I have no clue what to write about. I've got nothing to propose. She claims she has some ideas for me. I'm asking her point blank who she's expecting me to write for--the ones who understand romance or the ones I have to tell how to feel. Because I'm not dummying down anything. Reading is supposed to help you learn. That's why we do meticulous research. With the thin plots I'm seeing, no one researches. There's simply no need.

Forgive my long rant, ladies. I'm provoked and shocked and, yes dammit, disheartened. I don't dummy down. It. Just. Ain't. Happening.