When “I Can Do That” Meets Cold, Hard Reality

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I might be a writer, but I spent a good portion of last week at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, in the Michigan Silversmith Guild booth. Why? Well, in addition to creating worlds in my head, I also enjoy making things with my very own two hands. I’ve always been this way, even as a child. What started out with paper and pen and paints evolved to pottery, crochet, knitting, sewing — any art I could produce. These days I’ve taken my love of rocks and stones and beads and dabbled in jewelry making, so I guess that makes me a jewelry design artist.

Art fairs are good for many things, and the Ann Arbor Art Fair is the biggest and the best. There’s entertainment; there are talented artists. There’s more junk food (and in Ann Arbor, non-junk, organic, tree-hugging food) than a person needs. Since Michigan hasn’t had a state fair in years (budget cuts), this is the summertime venue.

The Guild has a huge booth, and there are more than enough people around to man it and to do demonstrations. There are even enough to help booth sit those who have traveled to Michigan on their own, who are in the booth all day long with no assistance or back up.

I personally enjoy people watching, and I did a lot of it under the shade of mature trees lining the walk to the U of M School of Education. Just within earshot. I couldn’t tell you how many people tripped over the uneven curb in the sidewalk, leading me to wonder about how they walk otherwise or how they drive. I wonder about those who whiz by quickly with hardly a sideways glance. Do they not like pretty things? Don’t they appreciate art, or were they dragged by their spouses? I size up those who linger, or who study every item in the case as though searching for a hidden message or a personal treasure. When they come away with their purchase, are they as moved to own the piece as much as the artist was who made it? I wondered about the people who stopped by my demo, who didn’t want to give it a try at all, and those who were instantly enamored by something as simple as making a wire ring.

I’m constantly amazed at those who slide by without purchasing, the ones who confidently announce (just under their breath) “I can do that!” Inside, I think, “Okay, sister, go ahead and try.” My jewelry features many pieces that are wire wrapped — wire wrapped on chemmies, if you know what I mean. I don’t call my jewelry business Twisted and Wired for nothing. It took many hours of practice and workshops and a strong belief in “I can do that” before I could do what I do today.

Although I might be proficient at weaving wire and twisting a simple medium into something artistic, there are some jewelry skills I can’t do well. Soldering, for one. I’ve burnt more metal to a crisp than I would like to admit to. I’m only mediocre at sawing. And chainmaille? Let’s not even go there. I couldn’t do it if a gun were pointed to my head.

It’s a similar case with writing and writers. Many people can “write” – I write. There’s a wide range of writers and writing. There’s something for everyone, and with hard work and lots of practice, everyone can be a writer.

I can remember working on my first manuscript as though it were yesterday. (The subsequent WIPs have been just as grueling, that’s why.) I started out with my pen and notebook thinking “I can do that.” Yes, I was full of myself. I learned that writing a book isn’t easy at all. It was a long, long road to “The End” (family, day job, every other interruption you can think of) but never once did I think I couldn’t finish. It was just going to take me a little more time than a normal writer. (Now, between the first draft and the first edit – one year – I nearly threw the book into the garbage, but that’s another story.) I know what I like to do, I know what I want to do, and I know with guidance and classes and careful critique, I’ll be able to accomplish what I want to do.

A writer’s reward for “I can do that” are those magic words “The End.”

In a way, I like the “I can do that” mentality. You think so? Make it happen. Make it happen despite the odds, or because of them. Be prepared to fall down, to make mistakes, to tinker with your baby, to cut it in half if you have to. Be prepared to suffer in your defeats as well as to revel in your victories. The art is what will overcome the obstacle of cold, hard reality.

Posted in editing, music, violin, writing, women, life, NaNoWriMo, people, rewriting, Uncategorized, womens literature, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Blog Tour with Simon Lipson, Song in the Wrong Key

Posted by Joanne Huspek

I’m proud to host this tour today! I’m reading Song in the Wrong Key by Simon Lipson, a wry look at one Englishman’s life.


Michael Kenton is a middle-aged man living in middle-class comfort with wife Lisa and daughters Millie and Katia. Drifting complacently towards retirement, Mike’s world is turned upside-down when he is thrown unexpectedly onto the career scrapheap.

While Lisa’s career sky-rockets, Mike slobs around in his track suit playing guitar, rekindling his teenage love affair with pop music. Knowing Lisa wouldn’t approve, he plots a secret ‘comeback’ at a grimy Crouch End bistro where music executive Ben, desperate and out of time, asks if he can enter one of Mike’s songs into the Eurovision Song Contest. With nothing to lose, Mike focuses on Eurovision but quickly finds himself staring down the barrel of low level fame. His crumbling marriage now page five news, he must choose between his musical dream and mending his broken family, a task complicated by the re-appearance of ex-love of his life Faye.

A laugh-out-loud comedy about love, family, friendship and Euro- tack by acclaimed stand-up and comedy writer Simon Lipson.

Simon’s Bio

Simon Lipson was born in London and took a law degree at the LSE. After a spell as a lawyer, he co-founded legal recruitment company Lipson Lloyd-Jones in 1987. In 1993, Simon took his first tentative steps onto the comedy circuit and has since become an in-demand stand-up and impressionist across the UK, as well as a regular TV and radio performer/writer. His broadcasting credits include Week Ending, Dead Ringers, Loose Ends and Fordham & Lipson (co-wrote and performed own 4 part sketch series) on Radio 4; Interesting…Very Interesting and Simon Lipson’s Xmas Box on Radio 5 and And This Is Them on Radio 2. He is also an experienced voice artiste who has voiced hundreds of advertisements as well as cartoons and documentaries. His first novel, Losing It, a thriller, was published by Matador in 2008. Simon is a columnist for Gridlock Magazine (www.gridlockmagazine.com).His next novel, Standing Up, will be published by Lane & Hart in Autumn 2012. 

www.songinthewrongkey.com

www.simonlipson.com

http://www.facebook.com/simon.lipson.3

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Song-In-The-Wrong-Key-Simon-Lipson/140280092721031;

Twitter: @SimonLipson

www.simonlipson.blogspot.co.uk

Buy links – paperback and Kindle:

Amazon.co.uk: http://amzn.to/xaosKp

Amazon.com: http://amzn.to/yo7bpY

My show, The Accidental Impressionist, is on at the Camden Fringe 20 – 23 August @ 8pm. Everyone welcome! Details and tickets here: http://j.mp/JDPBnu

Guest Post

Chicklit, Manlit, romcom, women’s fiction. Aaargh! A PR asked me recently to classify Song In The Wrong Key and I struggled for specificity. For a start, by plumping for one, you necessarily exclude others, and I want my book to be as widely read as possible. I hope both men and women will find it enjoyable; it should appeal just as much to people aged 20 as folk in their dotage; it’s funny (I hope!) so will hopefully tickle those who like to laugh; and it’s romantic so might make you shed a tear or two. See? It’s for everyone!

The book is about a man whose life implodes when he loses his job; his marriage crumbles and his family life is jeopardised. Serendipitously, he is offered a late-in-life opportunity to revive the musical career he abandoned as a young man when he opted for something more sensible. It’s about family life, real people, relationships and redemption. And a few other themes besides. How the hell do you boil all that down to one simple classification? Well don’t ask me. In the end, I told the PR to label it ‘contemporary humorous fiction’. Only time will tell if that’s a horrible mistake.

It seems to me that specifying genres can be unhelpful to the aspiring author. And, for every major genre, there appear to be hundreds of sub-genres that merely complicate the issue further. I was hugely chuffed when Song In The Wrong Key – following a KDP promotion – hit number one in three Amazon charts. These were, in no particular order: Non-fiction > Arts & Entertainment > Music;Non-fiction > Self Help & How To Guides > Health, Mind & Body > Relationships;Humour > Love, Sex & Marriage.

Non-fiction?Self-help?Health?Where the hell did these come from?Humour, love, sex & marriage was the only one that applied in its entirety. The other two were partially or wholly inapplicable.As it turns out, each of these sub-genres run deep, so being at the top was a minor feather in my cap, regardless of the fact that my book didn’t belong there. But as a potential book buyer, I’d have been mildly cheesed off if I’d been looking for a how-to book about testicular self-examination and found a ‘humorous contemporary fiction’ book at the top of my search.

Anyway, here’s hoping everyone reads my book regardless of its classification. Then I can look forward to the film, TV serialisation and £12m three book deal. Sorry, maybe that falls under ‘fantasy.’

Posted in people, rewriting, womens literature, writing 2 Comments

Using Pinterest In Your Writing

Posted by Joanne Huspek

It is honestly too hot and uncomfortable to do any “serious” writing, so I’m filling the void with fun.

Writers, especially lazy ones like me, need all the help they can get. Believe me, I’m a huge fan of tools in the writer’s toolbox, the more the better. I’m inspired by pretty little notebooks, pens in peacock and pink, and color-coordinated 3″ x 5″ index cards. I’ve tried spreadsheets, graphs, and time lines. I’m a pantser, but I know my best work does not come from the top of my head; the more it rumbles around, the better. And I’m tactile. I can’t outline, not until after the first draft is complete. I need to see; I need to pick up and move my scenes, which is why color coordination and cards work best for me.

It was in April when I received an email from the BookBaby web site, extolling the virtues of Pinterest as a writing tool. At first, I shook my head. Pinterest?

Now, I am very slow to warm up to anything Internet. I was once an inhabitant of an Orange Bubble social media network, which was hard to navigate.  It was by sheer luck that I made any friends there at all. It took me forever to figure out Facebook, and once I had, the format changed, so it took even longer to figure out the new Facebook. And let’s not even talk about Twitter. I get it now, but I was a Twitter bumpkin for a year or so, before careful coaching by one of Twitterati’s most famous felines (@littlefluffycat). On the information superhighway, I’m driving around blind and in the dark, which is both dangerous and stupid.

I’d received an invitation to Pinterest months before, took a quick look,  couldn’t figure it out, and beat a hasty retreat. My friends love the place. I like pictures of my favorite things as well as anyone else does; I just couldn’t get into it. Boards? Why?

After the BookBaby article, I gave Pinterest another spin around the block. A light immediately flashed above my head, just like in the cartoons. I could use the pin boards to map out my novels!

What has happened in the last few months (because I’m so busy, who has time to devote more than a minute a week to this project?) is that I’ve created boards for each of the two books I’m working on now, plus the book (Virtually Yours) that has already hit the virtual bookshelf. I’ve populated the boards with the actors I’d love to see play my characters, the settings of the novels, and anything else I can think of.

What I’ve found is that just by visiting my boards, I’m motivated to write. I can see parts of my novels playing out before my eyes. My WIP is not just thousands of random words – which, incidentally, is really hard to keep track of in your head – but the stories I’ve felt a need to tell.

I don’t have hundreds of boards, just twelve. In addition to the writing boards, there is a travel board, one for food, and two for novels I’ve read and/or loved. And a vision board, because I’ve been meaning to do that for years, using photographs and poster board (it’s in my sewing room, waiting for me to buy rubber cement), but just never got around to it.

In case you want to check out my boards:

My Pinterest.

Posted in editing, music, violin, writing, women, life, NaNoWriMo, people, rewriting, womens literature, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Writing: Why It’s So Important Not to Throw Anything Away

Posted by Joanne Huspek

After four years of picking and playing, I finally finished off Acorns and Oaks, my YA romantic adventure. (Kinda. Sorta. There’s a young adult, there’s an adventure. There’s even a cute Michigan boy, so I’m calling it a YA romantic adventure. I don’t know if it is or not.) I performed a quick edit and sent it on its way to my Editor for Life. I’d been moon-dogging over it for the last three months, and was elated to see those words “The End” come into view. Believe me when I say, as with anything in life, the marathon to those magic words gets easier with practice.

After patting myself on the back for a minute and a half, I decided to open my documents folder and see what else was lying around, waiting for a second look-see.

I have the first edit for Finding Cadence waiting for me, and I’m taking a Donald Maass class online for help with those edits. Instead of the weighty, supposedly breakout novel revisions, which are better tackled during the gloom of a winter afternoon with a spiked hot chocolate and a drowsy Boston terrier by my side, I decided to open up VY2, Virtually Yours Forever, the sequel to my smash first book. (What did I sell? Eighteen? Nineteen copies? I’m not sure, because I won’t get my Book Baby breakdown until the end of the month. I hope it’s enough for a cup of coffee at McDonalds!) After all, it is summertime, when it’s relatively easy to  call up the kind of sass you need to write Mom-Lit.

As with Virtually Yours, which was penned in 2009, VY2 was written during NaNoWriMo 2011. I won’t say it was easy, but it wasn’t too difficult to write VY2. I already had the characters in my mind. I know what they look like, how they act, their foibles, their flaws, their hopes and dreams. I knew what the stories were for each of the major players. It was a matter of sitting down to pound out a couple thousand words a day.

Easy peasy.

It has been six months since I stopped working on the book. I’d put the story completely out of my mind, instead concentrating on Real Life issues and getting A&O into first draft shape. Surprise! Opening the file was like uncovering a treasure I didn’t know I had.

Have you ever gone to the store and bought something, an article of clothing or shoes or a purse, put it away, and totally forgotten about it? (In my case, it wouldn’t be ladies apparel, but stones.) Or have you ever gone Christmas shopping in July, put the present away, and gone on with your days of lying in the sun? Many months later, you’re cleaning out a closet or a drawer, and you find that wonderful surprise waiting for you.

In my case, my wonderful, uncovered cache resides in my computer. I have files and files of writing that never see the light of day once I hit ‘Close – Save File.’ Add to that the articles and [dare I say] witty repartee I’ve posted online, and I’m left with reams and reams of opinion and stories.

I never throw anything away, whether it is printed, or saved digitally. Even my file for the VY dump is titled “VY DUMP” and I put in it anything that I’ve taken out of my working draft. You never know. I might be able to use a passage somewhere else down the line, and with my failing memory, it’s best to save everything.

I’m kind of flaky, the kind who misplaces memory sticks. so I also use Carbonite online backup. It’s more than paid for itself, as I’ve managed to have three computers break down and die in the last three years.

Needless to say, when I began reading VY2, I was amazed at parts of the story. I’d used characters I’d totally forgotten about, with dialogue I found mildly amusing. Keepable, even. Oh, it still needs a lot of work (A LOT), as it’s a rough, rough draft.

Writing is a tricky endeavor. As I learned with Cadence, even a terribly written manuscript has some value. Your grammar may be horrible, your plot might be full of holes, your prose a violent shade of violet, and your participles dangling, but it’s very important not to throw anything away. That crummy first try might actually hold a diamond in the rough.

Posted in editing, music, violin, writing, women, life, NaNoWriMo, rewriting, womens literature, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Another One Bites the Dust, and Young Adults

Posted by Joanne Huspek

Yesterday afternoon, I penned yet another “The End” to pages and pages of manuscript. In celebration, I looked up a great tune…and made myself a margarita. Here’s the video, sorry, but I did not take a photo of the margarita. 🙂

another one bites the dust

Acorns and Oaks took a full four years to complete, not because I’m lazy (well, yes, I am lazy), and not because Real Life reared its ugly head (which is known to happen at least a dozen times a week), but because this WIP is my foray into the young adult genre.

How does one write for young adults? Was there even a YA genre back when I was a young adult? (I don’t think so…I read books, any books, voraciously, the more difficult the better. I read Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona and Marjorie Rawlings The Yearling in 6th grade. I don’t know what my classmates were reading.)

I have to admit that I started out writing down to my audience. My protagonist, Amberly Cooper, starts out as a naive 14 year old, so I began the story as though she were about 12. This, I found out later, is silly. I started reading some modern YA, like Lauren Myracle’s ttyl and Julie Gonzalez’s Imaginary Enemy. Then I looked at my own daughter (who was 17 when I began the novel) and her friends, as well as the kids who come through my Day Job and realized that teenagers are a lot more sophisticated these days than they were when I was a kid. They’re connected by the Internet. They swear. And they can get into loads of trouble, like underage drinking. (Growing up, I was operating at a deficit. As a teen, I was both a late bloomer and horribly overprotected by my parents.)

While the book needs a thorough edit (and then some), I’m rather pleased with Amberly’s growth. She starts out willful, spoiled, and bitchy. She ends up caring, compassionate, and not without a few talents – like baking and cooking. (Her grasp of algebra also improves.)

Looking back on what I’ve written, I can see where I have to strengthen the storyline. I’m also giving Amberly a love interest, which is only lightly touched upon in the original, because…well, because she’s nearly 15 and full of hormones. Seems like the thing to do.

Although I would love for a prolonged celebration on a desert island – or a weekend at Cedar Point – I’m going right to work on the next manuscript in various states of disrepair.

Because as we know, I don’t have much time, and I’m writing as fast as I can.

 

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My Current WIP is a Crazy Quilt

Posted by Joanne Huspek

The past few days have been crazy! Nuts! Actually, the past few months have been brutal, but I’m trying to concentrate on recent history.

As a result of the chaos, my writing schedule and modus operandi for finding time to write have taken a distinctly  weird turn.

I used to schedule a set period in the afternoon for writing, which worked out great…until my #1 girl in the office became ill in March. Thanks to a decent staff, I used to be able to carve out a couple of hours several days a week; suddenly one key person short and I was working early mornings and staying late to close to make up.

I really, really have to finish this manuscript. Acorns and Oaks has been percolating way too long. Plus, I figure if I finish this one, I will be somehow motivated to finish Oaks and Acorns, the companion novel. That one, too, has been in various states of disrepair since 2008.

Talk about procrastination. Hand me my diamond tiara, as I am the Queen.

🙂

But motivation is high. The words “The End” are so close I can taste them. (I’m thinking they taste like lemon meringue pie, but I could be wrong.)

Herein lies my new attempt at scheduling time to write: If I have a minute, I’ll jot something down. It’s better if I have a longer period of free time. An hour is great, two to three hours optimum, but twenty minutes? If that’s all I have, I’ll use it.

Sometimes I rewrite dialogue. Sometimes I straighten out my tenses (A&O is written in present tense – very difficult to stick to.) And other times, like today, I’ll actually assemble my notes and scribbles and finish a chapter. Writing this way is like piecing together a quilt. It can take hours, or years, of painstaking work. Does it matter which path you choose, as long as the job gets done and you have something warm to wrap your arms around?

It will help that this weekend I’m going out of town. You wouldn’t believe how much I can accomplish on an airplane, or in the wee hours of the morning when everyone else is asleep.

I’m thinking in seven short days, I’ll reach those magic words, diamonds glittering, and with a face full of pie.

Posted in editing, NaNoWriMo, people, rewriting, Uncategorized, womens literature, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Really Bad Good Excuses To Use For Why Not To Write

Posted by Joanne Huspek

As we all know, I’m a very lazy writer. VERY. LAZY. I also have adult ADD (self-diagnosed) because I find it difficult to keep focused on one thing at a time. A dozen balls, I can juggle, one? meh… not so much. (Or I could blame the chaos on my incredibly crazy Real Life – and I do – that keeps interfering with my best intentions.)

Take the current WIP. I started writing it in 2008, as an homage to my daughter. It is now 2012, and I’m still approximately five chapters from those magic words “The End.” I’m currently writing the chapter where Amberly will escape from her not so brilliant kidnapper. It should be an easy write. Amberly is resourceful, smart, and she’s already softened the heart of her captor by baking her signature family recipe cupcakes. However, getting my butt into a chair and turning on my laptop (this one time excluded) seems to be an insurmountable task.

I will therefore list some really bad excuses I will use for why not to write, in an attempt to shame myself into completing this book:

1. It’s really nice outside. This is a really bad excuse, because this winter has been mild, spring sprang early, and it’s been nice outside for months. I am so bad…

2. I have to do payroll. This is a good excuse only once every two weeks, when I do the BIG payroll. The alternate week payroll takes me five minutes to do. This is the alternate week. Bad writer, bad…

3. The state auditor came by. Okay, she came by yesterday, and we passed with flying colors. Still, an audit is very nerve wracking and it does take time. On the plus-writer side, I used the opportunity to take a leisurely drive through Detroit,  the starting location of Finding Cadence, and took pictures in a cemetery that figures into the storyline. So in that case, I was only half bad.

4. Gardening. This is an excuse that keeps on giving. I suppose I don’t have to garden, but I happen to have an unhealthy love affair with my own homegrown vine ripened tomatoes. I know, I know…there are farmers markets. But shopping farmers markets is not without peril. Our local one has an unorganized union. They have decided to band together and sell all of their produce for the same amount. So one guy’s $5 pint of blueberries is the same as the other guy’s, which makes no sense since I can buy blueberries for $3 a pint at the store, or eat from my own yard.

Today I gardened for five hours in the hot, lovely sun. I’m flogging myself. I could have finished my WIP in five hours, or at least have taken out a huge chunk of the To-Do writing. Instead, my urban guerilla garden is (nearly) finished for the year. (Honey, it’s never finished. Gardening is war. Weeds are the enemy.)

5. I need to make dinner. Puh-leeze. Have you seen me lately? I could go without food for a week and still have a spare tire to unload. Besides, most artists are starving, not food snobs with a wine closet. That’s why they’re nice and skinny and can wear pencil legged jeans, while I, on the other hand, wear stretch pants and loose, blousy shirts as I suck my stomach in.

5a. Exercise. I do it on occasion, but I feel guilty when I’m P90X’ing for thirty minutes when I know I should be writing. And these days, I’m doing more of #5 than #5a.

6. My children need me. This is the lamest bad excuse of all. My children are grown. They live in San Francisco, two thousand miles away. Of course, when one of them sends me a text message at 2:30 a.m. (which happened two weeks ago), telling me it’s an emergency and asking me to call as soon as I get up, “I don’t care what time it is,” a mother calls. I’m no helicoptering, nosy mother, but I do worry.

7. Words With Friends. This is the devil’s game, my friends. Ask Alec Baldwin. I could hang out all day, but instead I play on my phone and try to limit opening the app unless I really have to. (Yee–ah…like I have to…)

8. Facebook. Thanks to the Facebook Gestapo, I’ve had my friend request-ability temporarily suspended (again), so except for a few brief moments in the morning to post a status update and to make sure my children are still alive, I don’t hang out at the social media web site that won’t allow me to be social. (I know that’s a long sentence. I’m on a roll.)

9. Twitter. Ditto #8.

10. I can’t write because I’m too busy writing a complaint letter to a local restaurant for the crummy treatment I received. (More on this one later.)

None of these excuses is good. Which is why I’m going back to work on the WIP as soon as I finish this.

You should be writing too.

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