Kelly Moore Writes

One aspect about writing with the intent to be published that I have willfully ignored to this point, is to let others read your work. Hopefully these readers will be better than you, more experienced, and objective enough to give you the critique that you deserve. These readers are precious and if you happen to find a few in your writing group you are #blessed. (I’m using the hashtag ironically, but I’m not sure I’m far enough from being a milenial to do so without confusion- 1982 is right on the cusp. THE CUSP, ok?)

As per the goal of this blog, I am putting myself out there and finding readers that I can trust and whose opinions I value. I’ve been pretty lucky in that area, but I’ve been left to grow unchecked for so long, there is significant pruning that needs to take place before I can bear fruit.

Letting someone read your rough draft can be a very difficult experience, and as was pointed out to me, commerical publishers and college professors are looking for two very different things. I’m rusty. I’ve been cloistered away like a hermitous monk, amassing manuscript after manuscript of raw material. It needs to be polished and honed if I am going to make it. I’ve atrophied, but and I need to stretch my muscles or I might just buckle under the weight of literary corpulence.

I got notes back that were so so needed and helpful, but I won’t lie- it stung a little. Things that I ascribe to in theory went forgotten. Rules that I KNOW, I absolutely know, I broke. The anxiety and negative self talk flared up like bad heartburn after a night of indiscretion after age 30. I could have easily slipped back under my rock, determined that I was right all along, I am an imposter and how dare I claim the English degree (that I’m still paying for, mind you)? But then a better, more rational part of me calmed me down and put things into perspective.

I am so thankful for honest, hard-hitting advice, and you know what? That’s all it is. You can take it or leave it, in the end your words are yours to do with what you will.

That being said, I still am looking for a good literary therapist. When submitting my chapter to the award winning writer for tips I quoted Dickens- and may have called him a terrifying spectre… and autofill did its thing. So… how’d I do at first impressions?

I have a bad habit. Ok, I have several. I can’t stop revising. This is part of my problem as a reluctant writer; it never feels done. Each time I read it I want to tweak a sentence here, or add a flourish there, or delete a word. I keep thinking, I can make it better. I can make it better.

The amazing Jennifer A. Nielsen once said to me, (She came to our library and I told myself I wasn’t going to be THAT person, you know the one, the every-person-in-the-world-is-writing-a-novel-can-I-bore-you-with-the-details. I lasted about an hour before blurting out all my hang ups at her like she was a literary therapist. *and hey wouldn’t that be a great job?) Any way, she said. “At some point you stop making it better and are just making it different.”

My coworker Rachael calls it “kitten-licking”, like a momma cat who just can’t stop licking her kittens, even though they are probably as clean as they can get.

This feeling of, what if I want to fix it, has kept me from submitting so many times. I need to keep polishing it and polishing it until it is so shiny that whoever reads it can’t possibly hate it because it has transcended mere words. (This is totally unrealistic, I know.)

When explaining my fear to a friend yesterday I had to laugh because I actually don’t mind criticism at all- at all! It’s the anticipation of the criticism that makes me want to barf on my shoes. It’s like when you’ve got to get a shot and you’re all tense and repeating the litany of “I hate shots, I hate shots,” in your mind. The cold sterilizing cotton ball on the inside of your elbow sets your teeth on edge and watching a nurse approach with the needle could torture a confession from you, but the actual pain of the shot? Momentary- forgettable- and (if you aren’t an antivaxer) beneficial.

This week I won (by random selection) the opportunity to have my work read by a previous winner of the contest I am entering. It was the same reaction all over again. But this time? I am screwing my courage to the sticking place and looking this challenge in the eye. I am going to email him a link to my entry on google docs on Monday. It doesn’t have to be perfect- I mean it wouldn’t be much of a prize if it were- I just need to do it. I am sure I will be in knots for however long it takes him to read and suggest edits, but once it’s out there in the universe- I can let it go.

I wouldn’t say no if you felt the urge to pray for me, however.

A year ago in Gillette, WY, I was still in my writing duldrums- I wrote, but I wrote soley for me. I’m a little bit of a novel hoarder. I have several already written, tucked away, and forgotten about. (I don’t want to submit any of them because I am no longer familiar with them and my style has evolved since they were conceived. If one were to be published, I couldn’t in good faith say it represents my abilities today. So they sit, waiting for some posthumous unveiling the likes of A Long Fatal Love Chase, by Louisa May Alcott.) 

I received a phone call from a friend in Soda Springs, Idaho. A fellow writer, we’ll her Heather Chapman, (because that’s her name and she is awesome and I adore her) we had kept in touch over the years since she had moved away.  We like to talk about writing and I was so excited to watch (from afar) as she started writing in ernest and finding success in publishing.

“Registration for Storymakers is ending soon!”

“Nnnnnn,” I waffled.

Ok, Storymakers sounded great and I had recently met one of the instructors and amazing writers, Jennifer A. Nielsen, at the library I worked at, but a writers conference?  It would  be filled with eager, shiny, wannabe writers (and well established ones as well) all who had a dream! I didn’t know if I would fit in with them- did I even have a dream? (Publication terrifies me folks- The idea of being “done” with a book? Letting it slip from my hands into the public eye- no longer mine to tweak and mold and change if I want? For it to belong to the reader?  eeek!) I didn’t know if I could afford the conference- I didn’t know if I would fit in-  then Heather said the magic words that sealed the deal.

“There are only 24 spots left.”

I have a terrible weakness for BOGO sales, Free Gift with Purchase, and fire sales. It was decided with the support of my wonderful husband that I would go to Utah and attend Storymakers Conference 2018.

You guys, if you are considering attending this year, (Registration opens January 23!!) I highly reccomend you take that leap of faith. It was an amazing conference! I met and connected with so many people from all genres who were working- WORKING it.

In the years I spent on the sidelines- a BA in English with an emphasis in Creative Writing in my pocket, (and the student debt that goes with it) it seemed to me like everyone was writing a novel. I’m being vulernable here when I admit that it kind of hurt my pride. There is a weird “gifted” student mentality  (I have a kid who is alot like me in this mentality and his teachers say it’s because he’s gifted) that if it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing better than anyone else.  So the fact that so many people had novels they had written made me feel like it wasn’t a special enough goal. (I guess I can be petty… I get that about myself.)

Storymakers CHANGED that. Storymakers made me realize that yes we were all wanted it- but there was enough room for everyone in that dream. There are more stories than can ever be told and a million and one ways to tell the same story. My story is unique to anyone elses and there is a market for them. There are enough readers to go around! Someone acheiving success doesn’t take away from my own. I feel silly now admitting that I once feared that. Seeing all the men and women (I’ll be honest, it seemed like WAAAY more women) attending classes, sharing experience, asking the good questions; it lit a fire in me. It made me want it again. It was like being in college again, remember when I said I loved it because people understood me? This is my tribe! If you haven’t checked them out I invite you to do so!

If push came to shove, I’d have to admit that I consider myself a poet more than a novelist, but that could be due to the fact that I’ve published more poetry. There is something exhilarating about poetry. It is a condensed, pure form of language. It has the ability to strike an arrow through the heart with just a few well placed words. It is this- honing – the process of poetry- that ignites me! So while I enjoy writing longer stories poetry, if not my first love, is at least the most requited.

My first poem was published in an anthology before the advent of click-bait, but that’s essentially what it boiled down to. I found the small advertisement for getting your poetry published in the Sparrowgrass Poetry forum annual publication at the back of some magazine or another and promptly submitted what I considered my masterpiece. (A ryming couplet poem about the 100 years war… it was terrible.) I received word by post that they were interested in publishing my poem a few weeks later and was ELATED! I am pretty sure I told everyone and cartwheels may or may not have been involved. All I, the poet, needed to do was send my $54.95 by check or money order to the listed address to receive a copy of the anthology.  As a starving poet of the middle schooler variety I did not have access to such funds so I begged my parents. Of course they gladly paid after I convinced them that this was essential for my ‘self actualization’ (incidentally I also convinced my mother to take me to the East Coast for research for one of my novels- they were unbearably supportive of my dreams).

The long awaited day finally arrived and the tome of poetry was delivered to my door by the mail carrier as it was far too big to fit in the box. I eagerly tore at the cardboard sleeve and ran my hands over the fabric hard cover of the book, embossed with a sparrow. (I’m not saying it was a scam- the book was top notch- I was published as advertised and it was good quality binding and everything.) The thing that gave me pause was the sheer number of poems selected.  I flipped to the table of contents, found my name and the page number. (Honestly the sight of my name in ink on a bound page still gives me a shiver of delight- but I digress…) I turned to my poem, read it to myself, read it outloud to my family and was determined to bring the massive book to school the next day to show off to my friends and English teachers. It was only then I began to peruse the other poems in the book. They ranged from beautiful to downright weird, but what offended my delicate prepubescent sensibilities the most was that my poem faced a poem titled Green. The poem, in a nutshell, read; “Green is the color of grass. I like green. ” by Billy aged 6.

It occured to me that maybe, just maybe, my poem was not selected based on it’s literary merit at all. That perhaps this business transaction left my parents $54.95 poorer. I don’t really do math, but I knew that if every poet in this book bought a copy Sparrowgrass was making some serious bank.

My  talents as a poet improved and I have been published may more times by much more reputable places.

My latest published poem is here, if you’re interested!

From time to time I’ll post a little something I’ve written in the past, and let you be the judge of if I have grown at all! 😀

Cheers!

Kelly

I had a goal. I was supposed to be done with my current WIP (work in progress) by the end of 2018. However, I have another, overarching goal of remaining in good mental health that takes priority. My doctor and I decided that it was a good time to wean myself off of my anti-anxiety medication after about 6 months. Neither of us really looked far enough ahead to see that it would mean doing so in the middle of the holiday season.  

I am a huge supporter of destigmatizing mental illness. I am pretty open about my struggles with anxiety. I think most people will have periods of struggle with different aspects of mental health at some point in their lives and so I choose to speak about it frankly.  This post isn’t about that though- I’ll delve into it more later.

So it’s now mid (late?) January and I just now crested the hill of 30,000 words and planted my flag. I survey all in my domain, but there is a significant way to go.  There have been times in my life where this detour off course would derail me completely. I would have thrown up my hands and tossed this story on the heap of carcasses of its brethren that came before- like failed gladiators- and moved on to greener fields.  Not this time. I’m wading up to my chest through the swamp that the creative process can become, heedless of setbacks hurled my way! *For example (I just realized that I have never even mentioned the parents of the groom in this story- I assume unless they are dead or deeply disapprove of the bride they would have come to the wedding. Either way they warrant at least passing mention.)

I’m done with the beginning and I know how it’s going to end, but here I am-  ♪ stuck in the middle with you ♫. This is the most challenging part of a work in progress for me- the middle. I get bogged down in the nitty-gritty of shoving the characters toward the exciting climax.

I was recently asked about my process and there are really two main schools of thought on the subject: you’re either a plotter, (one who plans the novel out ahead of time and knows all the stops along the way) or you are a pantser (one who writes by the seat of his or her pants, merrily finding out what’s around the corner at the same time as their characters).  I find myself more on the pantser side of the fence because once I know too much about what’s going to happen I kind of lose interest and my motivation folds faster than a flag at a scout jamboree.

So I didn’t meet my goal- it’s ok. I can adjust. 🙂 It’s not as though any publishers are banging down my door for it yet. I do work better with deadlines, however, so I am going to use this blog as my motivation and you, ubiquitous reader shall hold me accountable.

New goal: 50,000 words by February 1st 2019.  

That sets me only a month behind of the original goal. What am I going to do after that? Well, I am tempted to just dive nose-first into another novel, but I did promise myself that this story was one I was writing with the intention of submitting for publication- so I will be going ahead with the next step of the process and finding some BETA READERS!