Mina Witteman – author | editor | teacher of creative writing

Posts tagged “writing

Daily Distraction: Ducking the Line Edits

Posted on April 20, 2014

Daily Distraction: Ducking the Line Edits

Some writers are fast, determined, strong-minded. Me? Not so much. I’m line editing my manuscript and scrutinizing 90,000 words can be mighty disheartening. Being in the Bay Area doesn’t make it any easier.
I’m staying with friends and, man, talking books and life with them is so much more fun than weighing every sentence you wrote. The eldest of their kids easily lures me away from my mission with our common interest TV show Bones, the middle one loves talking science even more than I do, and the youngest is a master patisserie chef (you’ve got to taste those cupcakes). On top of that they have the cutest puppy and two kittens to die for.
Despite all that, I am frantically trying to pull this off. I don’t want to disappoint my mentor. I don’t dare to disappoint my mentor. So I’m glued to my laptop and stripping those 90,000 words like the wind stripped the Tiburon Hippie Tree.
You have no idea how much I’d prefer to arc out high above Richardson Bay on that old Eucalyptus tree’s swing.

Daily Distraction: When to Ditch a Character

Posted on March 11, 2014

Daily Distraction: When to Ditch a Character

You see, my characters keep asking me the same question, over and over again: What’s my motivation? And sometimes I just blank out. Not a thought comes up, not a motivation is found.
I fight it, particularly if the character is as adorable as Godzilla, but in the end I know it’s my cue: time to ditch the character, time to kill another darling…

Daily Distraction: Trees and Blue Skies

Posted on February 18, 2014

Daily Distractiion: Trees, Skies and How the Brain Works

Not sure if it was the blue skies or the whiteness of the bark, but this tree pushed me forward in my writing. It stands in a park outside Asheville and I looked up its trunk for a while, noticing how its now leafless branches fork out and reach up to the sky. From down below they seem all tangled up and yet, like a story plot, they form one single whole.

While standing there and staring up, I realized that I had to go back to the manuscript I am working on, shed all the leaves and study just the trunk, the boughs, the branches, the twigs. I did just that: strip the manuscript from all the fluff and scrutinize the bare bones. Today, I knew what it missed. Not the trunk that forms the storyline, not the boughs that reach out to the sky and layer the plot, not the branches or the twigs that fork out and make the subplots. What my story missed was a root. My mentor Ellen Hopkins had already pointed that out, but I failed to see what she meant. Now I do. One more chapter, that is all it needs. I will push it out tonight, in the confidence that it will root my story firmly to the ground.

Daily Distraction: Post Manuscript Activities

Posted on February 2, 2014

Daily Distraction: Post Manuscript Activities

Today, I finished my manuscript, a middle grade adventure. Hurray! A load off my mind.
The final tweaks and refinements are always the hardest. It demands ruthlessness in killing your darlings and a scrupulous attention to detail. I’m good at killing my darlings, but the scrupulous attention to detail isn’t my forte if it concerns my own work. I don’t see the mistakes and typos as I do when I’m editing someone else’s work. I read what I think I wrote and I know that — particularly in those passages that are packed with action (and usually written at the same speed) — my mind outruns my typing. Thankfully, we have editors. Writers rely on editors. They are one of the most essential links in the publishing chain.

But the hardest part of finishing a manuscript is hitting the send button. I always hesitate, have to force myself to let go of the manuscript, place it in the hands of others. It feels like that moment dangling in mid-air when you are not sure yet where and how you will land. How appropriate was it that my son published a photo of himself in mid-air at the exact time that I hit that send button.
Isn’t life full of sweet coincidences?

Daily Distraction: Arctic Winds and Black Ice

Posted on January 29, 2014

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Midday in Sommarøy, a tiny island above the Arctic Circle. I love the bluish-gray light that is so characteristic for the days that the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon. This one was a particularly cold day, with a polar wind blustering in. We inched past an elk, our studded tires biting into the black ice. The elk was grazing quietly, confidently, still sure of its protection against the elements. Not a few minutes later it would skid the black ice like a child skating for the first time.

It reminded me of my first steps into the writing world, when every dash of the pen made me feel like I could skid and lose balance. Since, I have had three novels and 35 short stories published, and it feels like I have found my footing. And yet, sometimes when thoughts come but words fail, it’s like skating for the first time. The elk reminded me of that delicate balance between thoughts and the actual words you write.

Daily Distraction: Keeping Up the Tension

Posted on January 9, 2014

Today, I had a very pleasant distraction. One of my students missed the previous session of the Writing for Young Adults course I teach in Amsterdam. I met her in a restaurant nearby to bring her up to speed. The subject of that session was ‘Keeping Up the Tension’ and it tackled what is often referred to as the sagging middle. That’s right, the sagging middle. It’s that huge part between a writer’s phenomenal, gripping beginning and the staggering, breathtaking end of his novel. In a 3-act structure that middle would approximately cover 50% of the book. A hefty part if your readers have to force themselves to keep their eyes open and not nod off. Flesh out the middle is what writing books…

Daily Distraction: Year of the Fairy Tale

Posted on January 8, 2014

Daily Distraction: Year of the Fairy Tale

To develop my drawing and painting skills, I have signed up for the online illustration class Year of the Fairy Tale with Carla Sonheim (the author of Drawing Lab, The Art of Silliness, and Drawing and Painting Imaginary Animals). A year of fairy tales! How does that sound?