It’s been a trying time lately. Sad, difficult and unexpected events have happened to people all around me, close friends and family members. I feel like I’ve been sitting inside a thin tent in a Saharan windstorm–protected, but barely. Eventually, the silt gets in, even if it isn’t yours.

On my low days, I take it into my very cells and feel heavy with it. Stay in a bad mood. Snap at my son and husband.

On good days, I channel it into writing. It just so happens that the protagonist of my novel and her best friend/co-protagonist have to get into some seriously screwed up situations, too. And on a regular old sunny day with blue sky flaunting herself out my window, it’s hard to get into writing about these emotional tangles. 

So these difficult days, days like today, when the funk is thick and the mood is blue–I can go there into the sorrow, the conflict and the muck. I can shed my pain in my pages, let my characters wear it instead of me.

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If you want to learn more about this, I’m teaching a 1 week online class called “Method Writing” the week of December 14th. www.jordanrosenfeld.net/events-classes.html. Just $49, or, if you want to sign up for the three week series, it’s $129 for all three.

Guest Post by Eros-Alegra Clarke

Seven years ago, when my husband and I announced our engagement, we were counseled by an older couple to develop a habit of ‘couch time’ for our relationship; a time each day where we sat and talked. We laughed and nodded and said, “Yes, of course.” The couple, who had three children said, “No, really, we’re serious.” Now that we have our own two kids and a third one on the way, we understand. We know how seductive exhaustion can be, how easy it is to turn on the television and tune out. It is tempting to believe that our marriage is self-maintaining, that it will continue to write itself the way we want it to.

I have come to believe that crafting a novel requires the same sort of commitment to couch time as a marriage does. It is a different type of relationship maintenance than that required by short stories. Working on a short story is a brief and passionate affair. The short story muse can knock on my window in the middle of the night and whisper, “Let’s go walking beneath the stars.” And I follow that flash of brilliance and let it unfold because it will only last so long. Sleep can be caught up on; small issues can be obsessed over; spontaneity held in high regard because at the end of our time together, we can retreat to our separate lives. The revision happens without children in the background jumping on the furniture. I can focus on the scene at hand, perfecting it without worrying about how the choices I have made will show up 10 or 20 scenes into the story ahead. A short story is like taking care of someone else’s child for a few days. I can be full of patience. I wonder and delight in the child’s mischief. I can buy some quiet time by feeding them cookies after midnight without worrying I have just turned the cute little Gizmos into Gremlins.

A novel, from the first chapter, is a marriage with children and a mortgage. It requires the balancing act of being in the inspiration of the moment while tending to all of the daily responsibilities. I have to make sure the characters, like my children, are fed, bathed, happy, played with, growing well, learning the lessons they should be learning. I get up in the middle of the night when one of them cries. I make sure the plot is a solid home for them to live in. I pay the bills, keep the car running, clean the toilets, do the laundry, and agonize about important decisions for the future. And at some point each day, I need to sit with the story and talk. I dig out the issues. I listen carefully. I edit what no longer belongs. I try to be honest. I have to let everything else go and tune into the heart of the relationship.

The work is intense, but as is often said about parenthood, “It is the hardest thing I’ve ever done but it is also the most rewarding.”  I love the intimacy of working on a novel. Looking back over the rough drafts is like tracing the developing lines in my husband’s face. They are a roadmap of the life we have chosen together. The daily hard work, even when I am complaining every step of the way, is a testimony of how deeply I love the world I am creating.

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Eros-Alegra Clarke is currently writing her first novel under the mentorship of her agent. In the meantime, she has been slowly building publications including a story “Naming Shadows” in the literary journal Bitter Oleander. A wife, mother of two (with a third on the way), and graduate student, Alegra contributes to Maria Schneider’s website Editor Unleashed for writers: http://editorunleashed.com and can be found blogging about life, writing, and everything in between at: http://alegra22.wordpress.com .

I’m a mother with only 15 hours of daycare a week (and a little bit more if you count the time that his father takes him over the weekend). A self-employed freelance writer, editor and teacher, and novelist too.

Before my son was born, before home ownership, I marvel at how much I got done: I worked nearly full time, enrolled in a low-residency MFA program (yeah, I graduated too), wrote fiction in the morning before work, produced a bi-monthly radio show, a weekly evening reading salon, and freelance wrote on the side. I know, what side, right?

But there was a side–I socialized and spent time with my husband and saw my family.

Did I mention I’m a little Type A?

So right now I’ve got a fever to be doing NanoWriMo…I want it so badly I could have a little tantrum, but I hate to set myself up for failure. When I don’t finish something, it really, really irks me. And I’ve got plenty of unfinished material crowding up my desktops–literal and virtual–already.

But there’s no reason I can’t try to write 1000 words during my son’s naps (rather than relaxing) this month. I don’t need to write 50,000–I’ve already got 60K written (though there will be a lot of paring eventually).

I can still ride this wave in my own way and so can other Type As with not enough time to go whole  hog. There’s never a good excuse for not writing.

Psst…Hello–you there, NOT doing NanWrimo, let’s talk.

You wouldn’t build a chicken coop out of straw, a car out of wood, a house out of plastic blocks…(If you would, don’t bother reading on) right?

The perfect material exists for every structure, and this is also true in writing. The perfect material unit for building a narrative is… the scene. I can turn this into an advertisement if you like:

The Scene!
A sexy simulacrum of real time…a self-contained unit that never fails to make a story when stacked one after the other. Now bigger, sleeker, with 50% more.

Okay, so maybe not. Still, I cannot repeat enough how powerful a tool the scene is. And lest you think it’s optional, like alliteration or deus ex machinas, let me disabuse you of this notion. Scene. Not. Optional. That would be like building your house without the framework. Scenes are an integral part of the structure of any narrative (don’t get me started, however, on the exceptions, from Beckett to Saunders).

A quick snapshot:
You’re in scene if your characters are engaged action, whether big or small. Make that action meaningful and plot relevant, with a small but vivid ldose of visual setting and detail and you are more than on your way. Remember to begin and end your scene in a compelling or suspenseful way, and you’re there, baby. You’re there.

So whether you’re doing NanoWriMo next month or not, don’t forget your friend the scene. If you’d like to learn more about scenes, take my crash-course, Fiction’s Magic Ingredient, beginning Nov. 2, and again in the New Year.

I’m also launching a Scenes for Non-Fiction Writers course in December.

I know that folks prefer easy categories–publishers sure do. Agents are partial to them, too. Of course what I like to write often defies easy categorizing, a flaw I have not yet been able to reconcile. When it comes time to pitch my work, I shove it into the most similar category I can find, like one might stuff a large foot into a gorgeous but too tight pairof shoes for an occasion.  This may be a result of my personality. Most people who know me would probably call me an extrovert. I’m good at socializing, I crave it, and I never go very long without some of it. But that would also overlook the introverted side of my nature. I am, I have decided, an introverted extrovert.

Say what?

Well, for example, I’ve just returned from a weekend of socializing. First at the wonderful Redwood Writer’s Conference (Kudos, y’all, for a job well done, especially for a 1st year!), then visiting half a day with friends, then my mother’s birthday party.

And now, home again for the first time since Friday, I don’t  want to visit my social network, forums or Twitter, where interaction is involved. I need to replenish. I’m socialized out. And this is also the place from which I write.

The extroversion is the “collection” side of my nature–I go out into the world and take in stimulus and impressions, stories and characters, but then I must hole up, sometimes even withdraw, to this inner cave or I will have nothing at all to write, and no energy with which to write it.

Yet many writers are professed introverts through and through–they prefer the silence and solace of their own company How about you? Does socializing add to, or take away from your writing? Can you be easily defined as an introvert or extrovert, are are you a shade of gray?

Saturday morning Jody Gehrman, author of some hilarious novels including Tart and Triple Shot Betty, and I will be teaching a workshop on Scenes, and then I’ll be hanging out for several hours at the Redwood Writer’s Conference in Santa Rosa. I have to leave early, unfortunately, but I hope to see some of you there!

Jordan

I tire of labels pretty quickly, and I already find myself bored when I hear the phrase “social networking.” It’s not the actual thing I take issue with–I quite enjoy my networks, social and professional–but I’ve always had a little bit of the nonconformist’s tendency to eschew something I hear over and over.

I hope this makes me a good cliche killer in my writing, too.

Anyway, my point–I swear I have one–what new thing can be said about social networking that other sites like www.Mashable.com aren’t saying already?

Well whether or not what I have to say on the subject is fresh or new, I’ve responded to a striking number of emails and phone calls lately from writers, some completely starting out for the first time, and others who are newly on the path, asking for direction and guidance. And I’m finding myself giving the same advice over and over:

Hie Thee to a Network of Social Origin (That does what you love)!
When I first started to get serious about writing, before Twitter and Facebook were megabytes in their founders’ hearts, I joined the Zoetrope Writer’s Studio–where writers critique each other’s work for free and join groups to discuss the craft. The writers there are 100% responsible for teaching me how to write a bang-up query letter, which ultimately scored me an agent (two, actually). They are responsible for helping me polish every short story I published up until about 2003. Several of the friends I made there are STILL my go-to critique buddies when I have finished a draft of something. It was the single most profound virtual experience I have had to date…I credit much of my writing success, both fiction and non-fiction, to the people who supported me there.

So first, of course, all non-luddites should use Facebook and Twitter and Ning and Linkedin and the bazillion social networking sites I’m totally clueless about. But it’s also really great to find networking sites that specialize in what you love to do, a gathering of the specific geeks and freaks of your trade/hobby/craft, people of your ilk, who will support you to do what you love.

Most of the freelance writers I know are talented dreamers, who took to the field through a variety of unusual paths–many giving up jobs that sucked the life out of their souls, many taking huge leaps of faith to launch themselves.

Recently, one of these intrepid dreamers, Brandi-Ann Uyemura, looked me up after reading some of my work. It turns out she lives less than a half hour from me, so we decided to get together for coffee, to talk about the writing life. For freelancers, who no longer have offices, it’s a good thing to get together in person, step out of the isolation of our desks, put on something other than pajamas (you know who you are!), and talk shop.

The visit was such a pleasant reminder that not everyone in the freelance world is in competition with each other, that some of us work better together, in fact.

She has since interviewed me for her blog 2inspired.com.

She’s a talented and inspiring writer who deserves to thrive!

There are many kinds of writers, but a certain breed of them is gathering energy right now, building up storage for the long month of November, when they will eschew family, jobs and social mores to write 50,000 word novels just because. The fact that “Nanowrimo” is now a word more often recognized than not, is a testament to the power of creative zeal.

It is the zealous who madly whip out novels in a matter of months or days, who carve out new paths toward publication with the mighty power of “whythehellnot!” in their pen. Not only have I been lucky to interview tons of these folks during my time as a contributing editor at Writer’s Digest magazine, but the fact is, I am one of them. And you probably are, too.

The revised product of my first round with Nanowrimo garnered me an agent and changed how I looked at “free time to write.”

The second round produced a book that I wrangled with for over a year before eventually abandoning it for what it was: a mess that would take a lot of breathing room to figure out. But it taught me a lot about novel writing that I’ve taken with me into what I’m working on now.

Both results were worth the trouble.

Now, I’m 225 pages into a novel that has been written most often in 20 minute bursts since the birth of my first and only child 16 months ago.

Both Nanowrimo and motherhood have taught me the same thing:

• You have far more time to write than you think you do.
• Writing done hastily is still better than no writing–all writing can be revised
• The sheer power of creative zeal is often enough to get you knee deep into a very worthy project.

So go for it.

But if you don’t do Nanowrimo this year and are looking for something else to do with your November, I’ve still got a few spots in Fiction’s Magic Ingredient! www.jordanrosenfeld.net/events-classes.html.

Maria Schneider over at www.EditorUnleashed.com  has been offering great resources for writers on the state of publishing, social media, and more since she launched her site a year ago.  Has it really been a year? Maria and I met some years ago now when she was Editor of Writer’s Digest magazine and I was the persistent, hounding, perpetual writer who pitched her probably weekly, if not daily, until she finally decided that the only way to keep me off her back was to take me on as a contributing writer. I honestly don’t think I have ever had more fun writing than under her tenure for those glorious years. I interviewed some of my favorite writers, followed writing trends , and felt part of something great.

So when she, well, unleashed herself, and launched her own writing site, I knew it would also shine brightly, and the community of thousands of writers who have followed are a testament to this.

So I’m honored and thrilled that once again I get to be part of Maria’s world, as she’s made a home for my writing workshops in the EU forums. All the group participation will take place there, and you’ll benefit from the wonderful existing forums already there. I hope you’ll join us!