Showing posts with label Margie Lawson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Margie Lawson. Show all posts

Friday, January 27, 2023

The Not So Beginner's Guide to Getting Better at What You Do

In acting school, I heard it posited that learning is divided into three stages. Learning the thing for the first time, gaining some facility, and finally assimilation. Stage one is self-conscious. We lurch around trying out the newness, trying to make it work as well for us as it did for whoever taught it to us. In stage two, we've worn in the skill a little and it no longer pinches. We're still aware of it and we use it like a tool, but maybe now, we're not hurting ourselves with it. Once we move into assimilation, we lose conscious awareness of the skill. It becomes a part of us and we can't remember not having had the skill in the first place.

I wonder, Jeffe, if that isn't the basis for those professors you mention wondering if writing can be taught. They're using skills they can no longer dissect into teachable tidbits.

I fully recognize that I am one of those people who has to always be learning something. I also need to mix it up - it can't always just be writing. But it needs to be a lot of writing. Honestly, I look for the classes and instructors I ran across as a beginner that I *knew* I wasn't ready for. The concepts and classes they were teaching were far beyond what I was able to process. Now that I have a few books out and I feel like I don't like how my writing is developing, I've searched out those classes and teachers. I can offer up a list of a few, but I feel like a caveat is in order first.

One of the prerequisites for being an -- I don't know -- advanced? intermediate? not beginner? writer is a firm commitment to go into a class, workshop, or instructional book you paid money for and question the premises that are presented to you. I'm reading a great book right now that promises to boost my productivity! Make it so I'm never lost in a book again! And so far, the information has been super useful. But we just got to a blanket statement made by the author. "Story comes first. Then character." This is me. Making that face Chris Hemsworth makes in Thor Love and Thunder. "Story comes first. Then character." Does it though?? (The correct answer is yes - it does. For her. The correct answer for me is no - it does not. Character comes first and story flows naturally from character for me.  Does this mean that what is being taught is invalid? No. I can still glean new ways of doing, thinking, and writing from this book. I'm trying to say that once you've got game, when you're trying to tweak your game to get more out of it, you must be more critical of the instruction you're given. Try things! Just don't swallow all the things hook, line, and sinker. If the mixed metaphors in this paragraph gives you a migraine, welcome to my day, and my apologies.

So the list of advanced for Marcella craft training ops:

Margie Lawson's writer's training - in my opinion you need a block of salt here. It's potent, great stuff, but it's also dated and little old fashioned in the market these days. Great skill sets. Deploy with caution.

Lisa Cron -  Lisa produces craft books oriented around how narrative structure comes together. Fascinating stuff. Chewy. Also needs a critical eye when being read.

Mary Buckham   - Mary has several different craft classes. Break into Fiction is the one that changed my life for the better.

I'm interested in what Jeffe comes up with, too! Listen. Learning new skills is never wasted. If you feel like a class is a waste it is either because it's too remedial - you already know the material, or it's too far ahead and you don't yet have the context for it yet.

Friday, April 13, 2018

Who Reads Me


Happy Friday the 13th! Practice safe superstitions out there, people!

I am developing a new appreciation for sunrises since we moved. Maybe because I'm no longer stuck out on the western edge of the continent where sunrises were hidden by Crown Hill and I had unimpeded water and skies for sunsets. There is chatter now about moving us back to a water-based existence. I'll be interested in seeing what I get in the way of sky watching while on the water here.

This was Thursday morning. Not bad. Unless the red sky at morning sailor take warning screed is true. If it is, I'm screwed.

We're talking about family reading our books. The answer is yes. AFTER they are books. I know I sound like a broken record (also hush up with your 'what's a record' nonsense and then get off my lawn.) I'm super protective of work until it is fully formed. I hate critiques of something that's still gestating.

Let me be perfectly honest here - I have Second Guessing EVERY Damn Thing I Do disease. I don't watch the news because I don't need any help being depressed, I can do that myself, thanks. Very much like that, I can paralyze my writing process with 'Am I Doing This Right' questions without having external voices reinforcing those doubts. So I've learned to say no to all but a very few people (other authors) who I can trust to give me the straight scoop on how a piece of work is or isn't progressing.

And look. We all know that geeks are great, right? I mean I married one and he's a good guy. But he is, at heart, a programmer. This means that B must follow A and you do NOT take detours from B straight down the rabbit hole to Q. Thus, while I love him, I do not discuss my work with him until it's been turned over to the editor. And for all the gods, I do NOT TALK IDEAS WITH HIM. Never ever ever. I *think* it's Margie Lawson who tells the story about talking to her husband about story ideas and the angrier he gets, the more on track she knows she is. This is my life. You cannot talk to COBAL programmer about illogical and fluid story concepts. It's been hard experience for both us, because you know he'd ask what I was working on just to - you know - care about what I do.

We had to give it up. I think he's secretly pleased. But yes. He reads the books when they're published. Funny thing. He doesn't have a problem with them, then. My parents and my in-laws read the books. A bunch of my extended family read the first one, but I do not know whether any of them have read any further. I think they were mainly interested in making sure I actually had gone off and gotten published.

The only comment came from my mother. "Your main character sure does swear a lot."

I haven't had the heart to mention that I do, too. Leave the woman her illusions, right? ;)