De-cluttering: a Writing Metaphor

Pic from this site about sorting through precious memories

Last night, my husband and I took everything out of our sons' bedroom closet and put it in the living room. This led to several hours of reminiscing (aww!) and trashing (why am I keeping this?) and repackaging (maybe these four little boxes of 'baby clothes 6-9 months' could go into one big box). This morning after the boys woke up, we went in and replaced their closet storage with the new and improved closet storage - stuff we can access more easily now that we know exactly where everything is and what its future purpose is. And there's markedly less junk in there.

So let's go back and look at those steps again, this time with an eye on your completed manuscript:

Reminisce:

Aww! Remember that really quippy comeback Secondary Character said to other Secondary Character? Or that heart-rending description of the sun setting behind the mushroom cloud in the middle of the ocean? That needs to be framed or put into a photo album or something.

Or maybe we should let it go. (I'm looking at you, movie stub from five years ago!)

Trash:

Why am I even keeping all these extra adverbs? And that's and then's? I know I talk about using them, but I never actually get around to it. They just take up space!

Repackage:

This characterization/important revelation isn't shining through with the current scene/plot arc. Hmm, wonder how I could put it so it's easier for readers to access...

See? Easy as cleaning your closet. 

But since neither of those activities is actually easy, here are a few rules of thumb when reminiscing about, trashing, and repackaging your word clutter.

• Reminisce: Take criticism but follow your heart. You really don't want to regret throwing away those baby booties your grandmother made just because somebody said the colors looked like throw-up. And if you can frame your favorite parts so they stand out more, do it!
• Trash: If you can read the sentence and it means the same wonderful thing without [deleted word], trash it! This is usually true of any then, that, and sentences that begin with conjunctions (another kryptonite for me).
• Repackage: It's so tough to take everything out and put it back together in a neater package, but it's also the most important thing we can do for our stories. Try doing what you do with your boxes. If you take something out, put it in a pile/category (maybe in an outline or on note cards), and when the story is totally deconstructed, put them back in the way they should go. 

Most importantly, don't do it alone. Having somebody to run things past ("Honey, do you still use this shoe polish from ten years ago?") can really speed things up and keep things neat.

Happy de-cluttering!

Arm Floaties: No Substitute for Learning to Swim

Okay, so arm floaties are no substitute for learning to swim. BUT, they can keep you buoyant enough to save your life...

Keep you afloat when you'd otherwise sink, which is very nice of them.

No, I'm not actually writing about floaties today. You got me. *hands in surrender above my head* It's another writing metaphor.

Learning to swim is the writer's long journey toward publication. 

It takes time. You can't just jump into the water and know how to do it (unless you're a five-month-old baby, but that's a different set of reflexes). It takes practice (writing chapter after chapter and book after book), technique refining (beta readers, critique partners, in-depth revision, editing), and patience (sometimes the agent pool is closed for the whole month of August). 

But luckily nobody expects you to jump into the pool and win an Olympic medal in the 100m Butterfly.

You get to start with floaties. And later on, when you're exhausted, you can put them back on for a bit, too.

My writing floaties are compliments. 

They don't save me the trouble of learning to swim, no way! I'd be eaten alive if I tried to swim away from sharks in a set of floaties. I still need to learn my craft, and learn it well. Bobbing along in the kiddie pool for a few hours doesn't mean I'm ready for the ocean-- and just because my mom says I'm an amazing writer, doesn't mean I'm ready for publication (she does say that, by the way!) but it definitely helps me to stay above water.

So when somebody hands you the floaties, thank them graciously, but try swimming without them. In no time at all, you'll be a real swimmer.   

Thank you to my regular floaties-distributors: Angie, Lindsay, Amparo, Kristal, Kelly, Michelle, and MOM!

And a special thank you to the mystery "publishing pro" on WeBook.com who gave my first five pages a high rating on PageToFame today. It seriously made my day. Now I'm off to swim laps in an Olympic size pool (but not because I have anything to prove or anything).

It's like dating all over again: The Agent Hunt

Peacocks: the quintessential dating metaphor

Finding the right agent for you and your work is kinda like dating and courtship. It has a lot to do with personal taste and, sometimes, fate.

I was a bit of a serial dater, I must admit. I never had trouble finding somebody to hit dinner and a movie with.

But that doesn't mean I didn't get rejected...a LOT.

Now that I'm happily hitched to my hubz (that's way too many H's in one sentence), I look at that previous life with not a twinge of longing. You couldn't pay me enough to go back in time to those years. Nope. Not even that much.

I'm finding the agent hunt to be quite similar, with one very clear difference so far:

I can hardly even get a first date!

It's all about the makeup...er, I mean query letter. If it doesn't sparkle like a vampire (without actually mentioning vampires), then it's an automatic NO. And sometimes, they don't even call you back!!

(Wow. This metaphor is working horrifyingly well.)

If they do call you back because they think your makeup's pretty, then you get to go on an actual first date: the partial submission (sometimes they request the full right off, but it's the same as a partial request b/c they can still read five pages and decide you stink).

Then you get to wait, which is kind of like waiting for a call from that boy you just gave your phone number to. Sometimes he never does call.

If you're lucky and he likes you (or she, as is maybe more often the case with literary agents), you'll get a second date: THE FULL MANUSCRIPT!!


This is the holy grail of the dating/querying metaphor.


Not only does your makeup sparkle, but you ordered more than a salad and dazzled him with your obscure Duke Nukem computer gaming knowledge (apparently, we're dating in high school in the 90s). He like-likes you! He's just not ready for any kind of commitment yet. Who would be after only one date?

So you move past dinner and a movie to the really-get-to-know-you specialty date! This can be anything that really lets your personality show, like paint-balling in some hay (10 Things I Hate About You), a beatnik poetry reading (So I Married An Axe Murderer), taking a ferry to meet his family (How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days), or even skinny dipping (Hair, the movie).

Any one of these activities could represent your full manuscript. But at this point, agents are not just reading your book. Nuh uh. Not if they're really interested in you. They're also twitter-stalking you, just like you twitter-stalked them before you queried. They're checking out your blog to see if you share their ideals, passion for animals (mainly cats, I'm told), and maybe even political leanings (yikes--I hope not). And they're googling you to read every review you ever wrote on amazon.com...

If they like what they see, you might just get....THE CALL.


This is not a myth.


I'm pretty sure it's not. I've never received THE CALL myself, but I hear it is fabulous. Like a marriage proposal. And now we reach the end of our metaphor. At this point, you get to pick an agent, accept his or her proposal of marriage representation, and live happily ever after....

and--we all hope--never be single again.

(Any agented writers out there, or agents, feel free to set me straight if I'm getting this wrong. I'd love to read your true stories, especially if they're romantic. *tweengirl sigh*)