You Tell Me: What's Your Anthem?

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or Facebook (or who knows me in real life) has probably already gotten a dose of my mad love for this first season of GLEE. Glee takes me back to my own high school theater club memories and a point in time when belting out the lyrics of showtunes--whether from the stage, or backstage, or up-and-down the hallways after school, or in a car with my friends, or at home in front of my mirror--seemed like the perfect solution to every moment of high school drama. Thinking about it with just a little emotional distance now, I suppose the best explanation I can give is that musicals are all about highs and lows, about the moments when the intensity of life is so far beyond mere words that one must simply burst into song to come anywhere close to expressing it. In short, they're the perfect match for the utter and ongoing angst of high school/teen life! :)

I started thinking about all this over the last few days, not long after I downloaded the Glee soundtrack. With apologies to my neighbors, I've listened to the duet of "Defying Gravity" approximately 67 times and counting since last Thursday, my flimsy excuse for that aural behavior being that I never really had a "Wicked" phase, since it came out a good number of years after my own High School Musical experience had passed. On my walk home from the subway last night, listening to it yet again on my ipod (have I mentioned I have a wee tendency to wear out new songs once I get attached to them?) I started thinking about that high school self of mine. Would Molly-in-high-school have liked "Defying Gravity"? Well, yes, of course--up to a point. It's undeniably a great emotional turning point/defining moment kind of song. It gives a nice bounce to your step, makes you stand up a little straighter, a little stronger, a little bolder, makes you eager to belt out those lyrics whether or not you're actually capable of belting all that very well or not--in short, it's kinda the vocal definition of an anthem. But would Molly-in-high-school have loved the song to the point of inhabiting it, of declaring to the world that it, like, totally defined her? As much as my current iTunes play count might hint otherwise now, I think the truth is no--it's a terribly upbeat song, after all, and, truth be told, at 15 and 16, I liked my anthems far more heartrending and melodramatic and tragic ("On My Own," anyone? Or "Someone Else's Story" ?).

Of course, pondering any topic too deeply tends to eventually lead me back in one direction--to books and writing, and Glee and its soundtrack is no exception. It's not a new trend for writers to talk about the playlists they create as they write their novels--the music they feel captures the moods and world of their story. I'm curious, though--if asked directly, what would your book's main character (ooh! or your book's antagonist!) tell you is the song (and it doesn't have to be musical-theatre inspired, of course) that's his or her anthem, that one song that defines the world as she/he sees it, or defines the very core of him/herself? The song that she or he would put on repeat over and over and over when they're feeling lost or alone, or trying to pump up him or herself or a big moment? What song makes your character feel like the songwriter practically crawled inside his or her brain (or heart) and somehow managed to express everything that was in it?

As ever, I love to peek inside writerly brains, so if you're game, tell us in the comments comments about what your main character's (or other characters') anthems would be. And just for kicks, I'd definitely love to hear what your own anthem was when you were in high school, too.

(P.S. Also? If you're a writer who's got a Glee-like manuscript--for the love of Lerner & Lowe, please have your agent send it my way!)

Phantom of the New Moon: A Reprise of Sorts

In honor of tonight's New Moon movie premiere, I'd like to take this moment to reprise what remains perhaps the most brilliant and insightful blog post I've ever written (housed on what was formerly the Bowen Press editorial team blog; now the blog of Brenda Bowen, literary agent extraordinaire).

Enjoy!

Writing Wisdom from a Master

"Great Rules of Writing"

Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that
a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
~William Safire

You tell me: What do you know to be true?

In my internet wanderings, I recently came across the blog White Hot Truth. While I don't know its author, writer/entrepreneur/ creative-type Danielle La Porte, I was quite taken with some of her thoughts and reflections. In fact, I'll go off on a tangent here before I even really start, to share a fantastic quote from one of her posts: "Everybody is amazing at something...and your genius is a cousin to your joy." I think she's totally right, on both counts!

But what set off my editor-radar most especially as I prowled through Danielle's blog were two of the "burning questions" that she commonly asks in one form or another, when she interviews her fellow outside-the-box-types (like nonconformists or financial visionaries).

The first: What do you know to be true, unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of your being, completely, passionately, righteously certain?

And the second: What was the dumbest thing that you used to believe?

One of my first thoughts upon reading these questions was how very much I'd love to pose these same questions to book characters (and their respective writers). Because I think that for a character to feel truly real, the writer has to know--and the reader has to understand--the deeply, sometimes secretively, held things about a character, whether or not they're explicitly a part of the story. So I'm borrowing these vibrant questions (per the disclaimer on Danielle's site that says that republishing her stuff is cool, as long as she's credited), tweaking them a bit, and passing them along as potential inspiration.

So if you're in the mood for a writing exercise, take the main character(s) in whichever book you're working on right now. And wherever you are in the story right now, be it beginning, ending, or murky middle, pause and ponder these questions. (If you're revising, rather than writing, try asking question #1 twice, at both the story's beginning and end, to get a good glimpse--hopefully--of your character's full arc/growth.)

1. What thing(s), minor or monumental, does your character know to be TRUE in this moment? What, for her/him, is unquestionably beyond doubt, certain with every cell of his/her being, beyond all hesitation--simply and inescapably and absolutely true?

2. [This one's my own addition.] Does anyone know that your character believes the above to be true? (Who? Or if not, why not?)

3.What was the dumbest thing that your character once believed to be true that s/he later learned wasn't entirely true...or wasn't true at all?

Ahhh. Good stuff, eh?

Feel like sharing what you uncover? Go for it--I'd be delighted to "meet" some deeply authentic, bare-souled characters in the comments section--or for you to blog about these ideas on your own blog, and post the link back here. And, truth be told, when you're done thinking about these questions for your characters, they're pretty fantastic to ponder for yourself, too....

Go, Nano-ers, Go!

Annnndddd....they're off!!

(Is it coincidence that National Novel Writing Month kicked off on the same day as the New York Marathon? I think it's probably not!) Good luck and happy writing to all those attempting this year's NaNoWriMo!

Good luck, too, to those who aren't officially na-no-ing, but who are hunkered down with revisions, or focusing on writing picture book manuscripts, or on illustration work, or whose lives/personal creative processes don't line up well with the rules of NaNo, but who are trying to stay deeply focused on their creative life this month, nonetheless.

I have only one small word of advice for you writerly types: JOY. Over the next 30 days--amidst the discipline, and the insanity, and the word counts, and the late nights and early mornings and other stolen moments of writing, and the self-induced pressure and resultant potential meltdowns, and visions of proud sharing of your story, and the desire to "win" Nano--may you, most of all, find true joy in the simple act of placing words on pages, and in the creative life you're living out, day by day!

Poetry Friday: Halloween Edition

In honor of all things spooky and Halloween-ish, I give you a favorite from the incomparable Shel Silverstein. "Batty the Bat" was the very first poem I ever memorized--I proudly learned it by heart in first grade!

"Batty the Bat"
by Shel Silverstein

The baby bat
Screamed out in fright,
'Turn on the dark,
I'm afraid of the light.'

Poetry Friday: "Wealth"

Publishing salaries are, in a word, woeful. But by the standards of wonderful contemporary children's poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, I'm wealthy and then some--in fact, I'd say I'm quite probably a millionaire! I hope you can say the same.

(P.S. Isn't the line that reads, "Her life starts everywhere" just exquisite?)

Wealth
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Who's rich?
The boy with a book he hasn't read yet.
The girl with a tower of books by her bed.
She opens and opens and opens.
Her life starts everywhere.

Who's rich?
Anyone befriended again and again by a well-loved book.

This is a wealth
we never lose.