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Day 6 NaBloPoMo at yeah write guest blogger: Jamie Miles

A few years ago while in the throes of  a midlife crisis,  I wasn’t sleeping. In the middle of the night when all was quiet,  I would steal to the computer and write.

My novel.

I wrote and wrote. One hundred ninety-one pages worth. I joined a writing critique group at a local university and read from this story. People laughed. I was hooked.

And so waiting to be discovered.

I signed up for a writer’s conference for my amazing midlife revelation story to be read by an agent. One who would swoop me up in her arms and whisper all the wonderful things any baby writer stuck in a midlife cliche wanted to hear.

I went to the critique.

I don’t remember much other than she slammed my erratic use of verb tenses. Or was it my roving POV? She ended our tete-a-tete by saying my character was likable enough and sure, she would look at it when I wrote a bit more.

Pooh.

Pooh? More like pry me off the industrial carpet of the university lecture room filed with a mile high pile of Clydesdale excrement.

But I kept writing. Why?

Even in the face of what seemed like a right hook of rejection, I loved laboring over a story. Grappling with words.  And with more study and practice, I would improve. Or so I hoped.

After that disappointing meeting with the agent, I attended a novel writing workshop where the instructor spoke of  how a novel builds toward its climax. She asked if our story climbed upward? Was there tension? Conflict?

I realized I didn’t know doggie poo about writing a novel. No wonder the agent’s reaction to my first attempt was so meh.

Because it was MEH.

Then as now, I need to get the meh out of my writing.

There are so many books on our craft—from the nuts-and-bolts types to inspirational more personal ones such as Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird and Stephen King’s On Writing. Both are wonderful not only because of the enormity of their talent but the strength of their voice.

Other favorites of mine are Stein on Writing for fiction and Zinsser’s On Writing Well for non-fiction. I have bought at least three copies of each over the last eight years to replace ones that have been left behind in a doctor’s office, hotel room or under a lounge by a pool.

See. I’m a messy reader.

 

“Does your first sentence trigger curiosity to make the reader want to continue?”   p. 36

“A terrific ending will never be experienced by readers put off by a poor beginning.” p. 31

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader, not the fact that’s it raining, but the feeling of being rained upon,” quoting E. L. Doctorow p. 8

And my personal favorite: “Boredom is the greatest enemy of the of both reader and writer.”  p. 25.

So out with the meh in my writing or at least I’ll die trying. Hopefully a very dramatic, utterly take-the-reader-by-surprise demise.

What are some of your favorite books for writers?

*****

The NaBloPoMo challenge grid has closed for new submissions. We have more than 100 blogs to follow and share and push toward finishing 30 days with at least 30 posts. Please visit your rowmies daily (check your email if you have no idea what this means) and visit as many others on the grid as you can throughout the week.

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