Tag Archive for: Linda Rodriguez

Scales for Writers

/in /by
by
Linda Rodriguez
Pianists
know they must practice every day, playing scales and various
exercises that stretch the fingers and give them the flexibility and
dexterity that they will need to play complicated compositions. Long
ago, I read in one of Madeleine L’Engle’s wonderful journals of life
and writing about this need for writers.

“Nobody
can teach creative writing–run like mad from anybody who thinks he
can. But one can teach practices, like finger exercises on the piano;
one can share the tools of the trade, and what one has gleaned from
the great writers: it is the great writers themselves who do the
teaching.” –A
Circle of Quiet

For
years now, I’ve created my own finger exercises, as well as borrowing
from other writers who’ve written books about writing, and used them
in my journals. I turn to these when I have only tiny stolen moments
to write, such as while waiting for a doctor/mechanic/meeting, or
when I find myself facing resistance on my current project, or when
I’ve finished one thing and don’t know what to work on next (this
rarely happens to me anymore since I always have a long list of
projects to tend to). Here are a few of the ones I’ve found most
helpful.

Invent
a character. I do this when in a public place, such as that
doctor’s office. Choose a stranger and invent an entire backstory,
personality, name, and occupation for that person. If you have plenty
of time, go on to put them in dialogue with someone.

Describe
a person or a scene in detail using only metaphors.

Describe
a scene through a character’s consciousness, using all five senses
but not one sense verb (“saw,” “smelled,” “heard,”
“felt,” or “tasted”). Extend this by also omitting any
pronoun referring to your viewpoint character (such as “he,”
“him,” or “his”).

Write
an action scene entirely in short, quick sentences to give a sense of
a fast pace. Then, write it again in a few long, involved
sentences so that the action builds in a reckless, headlong pace.

Write
a paragraph or a scene entirely in simple, plain words that come from
Anglo-Saxon (such as “walk,” “yearly,” “leaf”). Then,
rewrite it entirely in Latinate words (such as “amble,” “annual,”
or“foliage”), and notice the change in pace and tone.

Describe
a landscape or the decoration of a room without using any color
names.

Write
a scene in dialogue between two people who want opposing things and
who are hearing only what they want to hear and speaking to that, as
if it had actually been said, instead of what the other person is
saying.

Write
a scene where one person in a marriage is afraid the other is having
an affair while the other is actually afraid they have cancer and
keeping their medical appointments secret. Each of them is trying
to appear as if nothing is wrong and cannot tell the other what
they’re afraid of.

Describe
yourself, using only specific objects or sayings and songs from your
past. Do this now with a fictional character.

As
you can see, I could go on and on with these writers’ finger
exercises, and I have through the years. They’re a part of the way I
keep my writing brain nimble and dexterous and develop my skills. I
have used them in teaching creative writing classes, as well, and the
students have found them helpful. Give them a try, and then invent
your own.


Do
you ever practice your writing, other than work on your current
project?


Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
is her 10th book. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published in 2017. Every Family Doubt, her fourth
mystery featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet Bannion, and Revising
the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2019. Her three
earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken
Trust, Every Last Secret—and
earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, has been optioned
for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft
Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City
Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Getting It Together

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
As many of our readers know, I’m dealing with a badly shattered right shoulder right now. I’m also teaching an extremely large online class in revising the novel and losing my voice from doing so much dictating to voice recognition software. So I am running a post from the past today. (And I want to point out that the husband at whom I poke gentle fun in this post has been an absolute rock throughout this horrible injury. I don’t know what I’d do without him.)


Getting It Together

My husband, the world’s original
disorganized, absent-minded professor, is fond of saying, “I’m
going to get it together,” as if he’s putting the final touches on
on a perfectly organized life. Now, regular readers of this blog may
remember that my youngest son, who adores him, calls him “the chaos
demon.” Sometimes people who work with my husband at the university
take someone new into his office just for the shock effect. Over the
years—after many efforts to set up systems he can’t destroy and
after giving him books designed to help him understand the simplest
organizational principles (like ”throw the trash in the
trashcan—don’t just walk past it and deposit it on the kitchen
counter”) I’ve stopped trying. I try to keep a couple of areas
clear and comfortable for me, and I don’t look when I pass the
rest. I haven’t had guests to my house in years, although I had
many before he fully embedded himself in my home. (It takes a year or
two to completely undo good systems, I’ve found, even for a chaos
demon.) He’s a wonderful man, and it’s his only real fault, so I
long ago decided to live with it.

Lately, I’ve been chafing at these
circumstances, however. Probably because, unlike my husband, I work
at home and thus spend most of twenty-four hours a day in these
chaotic surroundings. I’ve grown tired of living with boxes of books
and postal bins of manuscripts stacked in the living room—he runs a
micro press from our home in his spare time when he’s not running a
university press and teaching. This morning finally sealed the deal
for me, however. My weak and shaky hands (from lupus) managed to
knock off the table between our chairs the big Columbia University
cup in which I keep things I use regularly—fountain pens,
mechanical pencils, scissors, a nail file, and knitting needles. This
meant I had to scrabble around on the floor around and under his
chair for the spilled contents of my cup.

He keeps a quilt made by my sister in
his chair to cover up with if he’s cold or just sit on if it’s hot.
This quilt often puddles on the floor around his chair, and I’ve
given up chiding him about it. So this morning, I was looking for my
fallen necessities, only to find that his quilt was hiding three
times as many items as I had spilled. Apparently, I’m not the only
one with shaky hands in this house.

My cup is back and filled with the
pens, pencils, and knitting needles that I consider necessary to
daily life, but my hard-won peace with the house mess is gone. I’m
googling home organization websites and making lists of decluttering
tasks to do over the next weeks. I’m laying in supplies of trash bags
and cardboard boxes. The chaos demon’s days are numbered.

He tells me he is going to get it all
together. I tell him that’s a meaningless phrase, that no one ever
gets it all together. He reassures me that. He. Will. Get. It. All.
Together. I tell him that, like too many men, he sees the house
situation as a war where he can win a battle and go home forever. I
tell him that life’s not like that. “It’s a case of constant
maintenance, baby,” I say. The chaos demon is stubborn, however,
and insists that he will get it together. Tomorrow. Or maybe the day
after that. After all, things are crazy right now. But he will get it
together. Later.


Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
is her 10th book. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published in 2017. Every Family Doubt, her fourth
mystery featuring Cherokee detective, Skeet Bannion, and Revising
the Character-Driven Novel will be published in 2019. Her three
earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every Broken
Trust, Every Last Secret—and
earlier books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in Kansas City Noir, has been optioned
for film.


Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft
Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City
Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Clicking Our Heels: Authors Whose Craft Abilities We Admire

/in /by

Clicking Our Heels: Authors Whose Craft Abilities
We Admire



Although classes and books are ways writers
improve their skills, another way is to analyze the skills of writers we
admire. Here are some writers we each turn to when looking for great examples
of particular aspects of craft, such as dialogue, transitions, description and
action.

Judy Penz Sheluk: John Sanford is the
master of pacing. I love how Tana French takes a minor character in one book and
makes them the protagonist in another. Fiona Barton for cleverly twisted plots
with a simple premise. Agatha Christie because (most of) her books still hold up
today.

Shari Randall: What would Agatha do? Is
a question I ask myself when I run into plotting roadblocks. Her ingenious and
byzantine plotting sets a high bar that I know I’ll never reach, but it does
inspire. For dialogue I’ll turn to the films of the thirties. As far as most
elements of writing, I worship Kate Atkinson in general. For action, I turn to
Dan Brown. He has his detractors, but his stories move.

Juliana Aragon Fatula: Linda Rodriguez
has helped me so much with her Plotting the Character Driven Novel. Stephen King
because he writes the characters I love: Annie Wilkes, and Dolores Clairborne
and many other strong women.

T.K. Thorne: Sue Monk Kidd. I just
think her writing is amazing.

Kay Kendall: For emotional depth I look
to Louise Penny. No one fleshes out personality and motivation as well as she
does. For violent action balanced with understanding of the human psyche, all
written in fantastic prose, I think Tim Hallinan and Reed Farrel Coleman can’t
be beat.

Bethany Maines: I actually look quite
often to movies. A well-crafted script (and there are many that aren’t) is
incredibly informative about getting a story and characters from point A to
point B.

A.B. Plum: Elmore Leonard is my
go-to-dialogue guru. His characters make me laugh out loud, and I admire his
zany plotting – proving nothing is too crazy if you entertain the reader.


Dru Ann Love: I will answer this as the
only book that I reread is J.D. Robb as it has everything, great narrative,
good dialogue, good transition, great visuals, nice suspense and plenty of
action.

J.M. Phillippe: I think it depends on
which genre I am writing in. I was taught a mimicking exercise in college,
where you start to copy, word for word, something an author has written to get
a sense of their literary voice, and then continue the passage using your own
words but mimicking their style. Depending on what genre I am writing, I will
pick up well known and respected authors in genre and do a mimicking exercise.
I am also always expanding my favorite author list that way.

Linda Rodriguez: Toni Morrison and John
Steinbeck are two writers I turn to for improving my dialogue. For description,
I turn to Alice Walker and Stephen King. For action scenes, I like Elizabeth
George and Tony Hillerman. For transitions, I study Ursula K. LeGuin and
Virginia Woolf. For bringing characters onstage and to life, Agatha Christie and
Charles Dickens are hard to beat.

Sparkle Abbey:

Mary Lee Woods: There are so many! I
recently did a program for a local writers’ group on taking your writing to the
next level where I discussed the difference between technically correct and “good”
writing , and really using all the creative tools you have at your disposal to
tell the story. As far as examples, I used: Characters – Nora Robers; Dialogue –
Jennifer Crusie; Description – William Ken Kruger; Action – Janet Evanovich;
and Humor – Laura Levine.

Anita Carter: For plot, Lisa Gardner…always.
For a great fast paced comedy, Laura Levine. For dialogue, Julia Quinn. For
emoton, Virginia Kantra. I also reference Hallie Ephon and Harlan Coben.

Red Shoes, Kickass Women, and Stiletto Gang Magic

/in /by
“She speaks for her clan” by Dorothy Sullivan

We here at The Stiletto Gang are celebrating a newly designed logo for our blog and the diverse makeup of our membership. We are women writers from various backgrounds, but we all share one thing in common. We’re pretty kickass women. We are all strong in our own ways, some quiet yet powerful, some flamboyant yet solidly dependable.

I feel very comfortable with my Stiletto Gang blogmates, because the Cherokee have traditionally had strong women who shared power with men, who owned the land and houses, who could go to war with the men. Consequently, I tend to look for strength of one kind or another in the women with whom I surround myself. The women with whom I’m friends are women who are comfortable with their own power, rather like my varied pals here in the Stiletto Gang. I write a lot about strong women and women coming into their own. It’s part of my heritage and part of my life today.

Like many of us, I don’t wear high heels any longer, more interested in comfort and practicality, but I think the symbol of our red stilettos signals the world that on this blog sits the writing of a cadre of kickass women, often read by other kickass women. So here’s a poem for all of us and the magic that happens when strong women come together to share their strength and their vulnerabilities.

SHE TAKES HER POWER IN
HER OWN HANDS
and pours it over her
body,
drenching hair and face,
standing in pools of
herself,
dripping excess. She
takes up her power
with strong hands and
holds it close
to her breasts like an
infant, warming it
with her own heat. She
draws her power
around her like a
hand-loomed shawl,
a cloak to keep the wind
out,
pulling it tighter,
tugging and patting it
smooth against the
winter.
She pulls her power from
branches
of dead trees where it
has hung so long
neglected that it has
changed from white to deep
weathered gold. She wraps
her hair
in power like the light
of distant stars,
gleaming through the dark
emptiness
in and around everything.
She lets her power down
into a dank well, down
and down,
clanking against stone
walls, until
she hears the splash, a
little further
to submerge it
completely, then draws it
hand over rubbed-raw
hand, heavy enough
to make her shoulders and
forearms ache
and shudder with strain,
pulls it up
overflowing, her power,
and drinks in deep,
desperate gulps
out of a lifetime of
thirst. She weaves her power
into a web, a cloth, a
shroud, and hangs it
across the night where it
catches the light of stars
and refracts it into a
shining glory,
brighter than the moon
and colder. She holds her
power
in her hands at the top
of the hill
in the top of the tree
where she steps out
onto the air and her
wings
of power buoy her to ride
the thermals
higher and higher toward
the sun,
her new friend.
When she returns,
she folds her power over
and over
into a tiny, dense pellet
to swallow,
feeling its mass sink to
her center
and explode, spreading
throughout to transform
her into something
elemental,
a star,
a mountain,
a river,
a god.
Published in
Heart’s Migration (Tia
Chucha Press, 2009)
Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will
be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last
Secret—and her earlier books
of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Native Writers Circle of the Americas, Wordcraft
Circle of Native American Writers and Storytellers, and Kansas City
Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

How to Get a Handle on Using Your Novel Research

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
Right now, I am teaching an online course in research for the novel, so my mind is turned to research, and I thought I would offer a quick and dirty look at research for novelists.

Research
is vital for all fiction writers to a certain extent, and for those
writing novels such as historical or science fiction or
techno-thrillers, research can make or break their books. Yet
research has its pitfalls and needs to be kept under control.

It’s
always a mistake to allow research to consume the story you’re
trying to tell. You can’t allow your desire to show off all of your
great research to leave your narrative littered with details that
slow down your pacing and clog up the narrative drive of your book.
It’s often better to have something mentioned in passing and not
defined or explained because your characters would know what it was.
If you feel that some kind of explanation is needed for the readers,
put it in context with a conversation, often joking, about some
difficulty with the object or law or situation that uses the barest
minimum of detail.

Another
major issue—and probably the most important—in dealing with
research is organizing it so that you can lay your hands on the item
you need as you are writing that passage. There are several possible
ways to organize research, and which is best depends on how your mind
works and which you prefer to work with.

If
you prefer to work with notes you take by hand or have a lot of
physical documents to refer to, one or more portable file boxes with
folders for each category of information—or period of time or
whatever organizing principle you choose to use—will keep
everything where you can readily access it. Binders are also a good
way to keep track of notes, documents, printouts, and with enclosed
pocket pages, smaller pieces of research or items that don’t lend
themselves to lying flat or being hole-punched. You may even be a
hardcore 3×5 card user, and you can find card files with dividers
that allow you to organize these, as well.

If
you prefer to do everything on the computer, you can set up in your
word processer a master folder for the book full of lesser folders
organized the way you would organize the physical files we talked
about. You can also use a notes program, such as Evernote or One
Note, which can be organized in any way you choose and can store
photos, graphics, and videos, as well as allowing you to tag items
with sources or cross-references.

Another
good choice for technophiles is Scrivener or other similar
book-writing programs, such as yWriter. Each of these allows you to
add research notes to the actual chapter or scene where they will be
used and then move them around, if need be. Scrivener also has a
virtual 3×5 card function and a timeline function that can be a real
lifesaver for complex books. Scrivener, of course, has many other
functions.

One
of the things I always try to do is to keep a simple Word document
going to which I add the names of everyone I’ve talked with to
research a book. Then, when I need to write my acknowledgments page,
I have that information at hand and don’t have to worry about
forgetting anyone who helped me by answering questions.

Chronology
and timelines can be a real problem, not only for historical
novelists and fantasy saga writers, but for others, such as mystery
writers, who have to juggle the timeline of what really happened at
the same time they are dealing with the timeline of how the
protagonist solved the crime. For a simple timeline, you can keep
track of things in your writing software, but for more complex or
extensive timelines, you can either turn to Scrivener, which has a
useful timeline function, or many of the other programs available
online that deal with timelines only, such as Preceden, Aeon,
Smartdraw, etc.

Of
course, you can also go the old-fashioned way of constructing a
comprehensive timeline to tape to your office wall, if you have a
nice, long horizontal space available. If not, you can tape it in big
chunks to large pieces of poster board and set them up against your
wall or on a table or floor when you need to look at the entire
timeline and perhaps shift something around on it.

Fortunately,
there are many options for organizing research open to writers today.
It’s simply a matter of choosing one or a combination of them that
fits your mental style of working and using it religiously. That last
bit is vital. You can have the best, most up-to-date method of
organizing your research, but if you don’t use it consistently, it
won’t support the work you’re trying to do. So, if you find
yourself intimidated by the technological wonders, you might be
better off using an old-fashioned file-folder system or binders you
feel comfortable in using, rather than a state-of-the-art system
you’re too nervous to use regularly. Research organization is for
your benefit alone. You don’t have to impress anyone else, so use
what really works for you.
Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will
be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last
Secret—and her books of
poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Following a Character into a Book

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
Lately,
I’ve been intensely making notes for a new book in bits and pieces
of time left over from other commitments. That’s a fairly common
thing around here. Several times a year I follow a character into a
short story or book. After the first draft is finished, I still refer
to the much more I know about that character from writing that first
draft as I revise and edit and edit, still following those characters
as I chip away whatever doesn’t matter to them or what doesn’t
fit. In a way, you could say that I spend most of my professional
time chasing after characters, and you’d be correct.

Some
people have the idea that plot is the be-all and end-all of the
mystery writer, but I see it as story. I can write a book based on a
clever plot with all kinds of surprises and twists, but if the reader
doesn’t care about the characters or if the actions taking place
don’t ring true for the characters, it’s no good. And yes, I know
there are books like this that are published and sometimes very
successful, but I still think it’s really story we need in the
mystery, a story where the actions rise organically out of the
characters and their motivations, where we care about the characters
and what they’re trying to do because we know why it’s so
important to them to succeed in their attempts.

When
I’m looking for story, I start with character. As I start to know
that character better, she or he leads me directly into story. A nice
complex, twisty narrative with surprises and suspense comes from
following all the major characters as they lead me on their path
toward their goals in the story and come into conflict with each
other or help each other or, sometimes, both.

When
I run into problems with story as I’m writing a book, I go back to
the characters involved with the aspect of the story that’s giving
me a hard time. I sit down and have them write their situation,
feelings, and problems with the story’s direction in first person
as if they were writing diary entries or letters to me to tell me why
they won’t do what I think they should do. Always I find that
there’s something I’ve overlooked with that (those) character(s).
I’ve been trying to steer the plot in a direction that’s false to
the character(s), and I have to learn more about each character in
order to find out the direction the story needs to go.

I’ve
always been glad I take the time to do this, even as I whine about
taking that time in the middle of a book with a deadline facing me.
Often it leads to big changes—once I even had to change the villain
into a possible love interest—but it always makes for a stronger,
more vital story. And that’s what I’m after.

Right
now, I’m chasing another set of characters into a book that I’ve
tentatively set up to go one way, but I know that, as I get deeper
into this story following these characters, I may find we’ve gone a
different way into a whole different and much richer story. It’s
the ultimate adventure, following a character into a book.

Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will
be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last
Secret—and her books of
poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.


Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Advice on Publishing Your Novel

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
I
receive emails all the time asking me how the emailers can get their
own novels published. Usually, they know just about nothing of the
business of publishing, which always surprises me. If you took a year
or so to write a book that you hoped to publish and sell, wouldn’t
you owe it to yourself to research and learn something about the
business of publishing that you hope to join?

I
try to answer with a detailed listing of things they can do to
educate themselves about the business and to begin to connect with
the professional literary community. I have a feeling that some of
our blog friends and followers out there may be in the same
situation, so I’ve decided to write this blog post. Here’s my
resource guide to publishing a novel. It won’t get you published,
but it will give you a good foundation in the business of
publishing/being a professional novelist and get you started in the
right direction.

Pitching
a novel to a major publisher today can be very difficult without an
agent. Most of the New York trade publishers won’t look at novels
unless they’re represented by an agent. Smaller specialized
presses, literary presses, and university presses will take unagented
queries during their open submissions period, if they have one. Often
they can be the best bet for a first novel that’s not necessarily a
commercial novel. Poets
& Writers has
a database of small, literary, and university presses.


Many
of these won’t do novels, so you’ll have to sort through them.
Here’s a list of 16 small presses that do novels.


You
can also do an internet search for small presses that specialize in
your particular genre of novel, if you write in one of the genres.

For
agents, I would suggest that you check the website of the Association
of Author’s Representatives.


This
is the professional association of reputable agents. It’s very easy
to get involved with folks who call themselves agents and are really
running scams to part authors from their money. Members of AAR have
sworn not to do this stuff and are kicked out if they do, so you can
trust them.

Another
good site to educate yourself and protect yourself from scammers is
Writer Beware.


This
is a site provided by the SFWA and MWA as a service for all authors,
science fiction or not.

But
the first thing you want to do is to get current copies of Poets &
Writers, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer magazines.
These magazines often talk about which publishers are looking for
what kinds of books at the moment. P&W focuses more on the
academic and literary writer, while WD focuses more on the
commercial or freelance writer. If your library has them, also read
back issues of P&W, The Writer, and WD.
You’ll learn a lot about the business that way.

Look
for professional authors groups to join. There are groups for
children’s writers, mystery writers, romance writers, sf/fantasy
writers, etc. These groups are usually tremendously helpful in
learning the publishing business and making useful contacts. If there
is a chapter of a professional writer’s organization near you and
it’s not your kind of writing, it can still be useful to you in
learning the business. I once belonged to the local chapter of RWA,
Romance Writers of America, though I didn’t write romance. I
learned about agents, what editors want, what is and is not
acceptable behavior in the publishing world, what are and are not
good contracts, and tons of other things that became useful to me.
Now, we have a chapter of Sisters in Crime here, and I’m active in
it, but that time in RWA laid a very good foundation for me. The same
goes for SFWA or any of the others. The purposes of these
organizations are to help their members with the business of
publishing and being a professional—and that’s very similar
across the boards.

A
book I always recommend to students and aspiring writers is Carolyn
See’s Making
a Literary Life.
I’ve written about this book on Writers Who Kill before.


It’s
the best book for looking at how to be a professional writer and work
on getting published, how to get established within the literary
community, how to make a career as a writer without living in NYC,
and much else.

If
I were you, friend with a book manuscript under your arm, I’d start
with these resources. I’d also go to every writer’s
appearance/reading/event that occurs in your town if it’s a small
one or a good selection if you live in a big city with an active
literary community. Buy a book, if you can. Introduce yourself to the
writer. Follow up with emails or mailed notes talking about what you
liked about their reading or book—not asking for help
with your own. Friend writers on Facebook, and follow them on
Twitter. Don’t spam them about your own book. What you’re doing
is building relationships within the community of writers. These are
the folks who can answer questions for you or later (if you’ve
built a good, real relationship) give blurbs that will help your book
sell. Basically, my advice is to educate yourself about publishing
and become a contributing member of the community. Getting a novel
published is a long, hard haul, so arm yourself with information and
allies.

The
best single piece of advice I could give, however, is this—make
sure you write a good novel. Get professional feedback and revise,
revise, revise until it shines before you ever try to send it out. I
suspect that a certain number of folks who are looking for a
publisher for their novel have never had anyone professional look at
it and haven’t done much with revision. Writing is an art and a
profession. Learn about publishing, the business, while you learn
about writing, the art and craft. Editors and agents have long
memories. Don’t stick out in theirs from sending an amateurish
manuscript out. Make sure that what you send is the very best it can
be submitted in the most knowledgeable and professional way you can.

Best
of luck!

Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will
be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last
Secret—and her books of
poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.


Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Turning to the Wisdom of Other Writers During Difficult Times

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
I
am dealing with a shattered right shoulder at the moment. It needs
surgery, but because of my illnesses and the medicines I’m on, I am
not a good candidate for surgery,
so we’re going to see if this shattered shoulder can knit itself
together. This makes it very difficult for me to type on the
laptop and thus to write a blog post. It also has created, as you
might expect, a number of other problems for me. I am still, however,
trying continue to meet deadlines that I have already made a
commitment to fulfill. So as I try to write, using voice recognition
software that is, unfortunately, glitchy, I find myself turning to my
collection of quotations from other writers for encouragement,
inspiration, and consolation.

I
began writing down quotations from famous writers that spoke to
various needs or concerns I had with my writing when I was in my
teens. I have kept a journal for most of my life. These journals
contain many quotations, sometimes one on the middle of the page,
sometimes pages of quotations alone from various writers. So, to make
my life easier right now and for your inspiration and encouragement,
here are some of the quotations by famous writers that I’m paying a
lot of attention to at this moment.



“The
universe is made of stories, not atoms.” – Muriel Rukeyser



“Work
is the only answer.” –Ray Bradbury

“People
who want to write either do it or they don’t… my most important
talent – or habit – was persistence. Without it, I would have
given up writing long before I finished my first novel. It’s
amazing what we can do if we simply refuse to give up.” ― Octavia
E. Butler

“Successful
professional writers are not withholding mysterious secrets from
eager beginners. The only way anybody ever learns to write well is by
trying to write well. This usually begins by reading good writing by
other people, and writing very badly by yourself, for a long time.
… You find out how to make the thing work by
working at it — coming back to it, testing it, seeing where it
sticks or wobbles or cheats, and figuring out how to make it go where
it has to go.” – Ursula K. LeGuin


“Don’t
try to impress or show off. Just tell the story. Tell what happened
as you would to a friend.” – Maeve Binchy

“Just
tell the fucking story.” – Daniel Jose Older

“Never
lose faith in your gift. Never listen to those who attempt to demean
it, either. Their motivation is envy, always.” – James Lee Burke

“Fiction
writing is a kind of magic, and I don’t care to talk about a novel
I’m doing because if I communicate the magic spell, even in an
abbreviated form, it loses its force for me. And so many people have
talked out to me books they would otherwise have written. Once you
have talked, the act of communication has been made.” –- Angus
Wilson

“Write
all the time. Rework what you write. Hack it to pieces, cut and
change. Writing is a self-conducted apprenticeship.” – Martha
Gellhorn

“The
work is greater than my fear.” –Audre Lord

“Write
about that which you want to know. Better still, write towards that
which you don’t know. The best work comes from outside yourself.
Only then will it reach within.” —Colum McCann

“The
question is, What’s in you that you can free up? How to say
everything you know?” – Jonathan Lethem


“Let
the world burn through you. Throw the prism light, white hot, on
paper.”
—Ray
Bradbury

“Write
about the things that get under your skin and keep you up at night.”
– Khaled Houssani

“Turn
off your cell phone. Honestly, if you want to get work done, you’ve
got to learn to unplug. No texting, no email, no Facebook, no
Instagram.” – Nathan Englander


“The
boss is happy when the words are written. Sure, she gives out hearty
handshakes when other things get done, but she only gives raises when
the words get done, when the edits are made and sent back to the
press, when the publicist’s emails have been answered. She doesn’t
care as much when the Facebook status is updated or the Twitter
account is humming. All of it is business, but some of it is in the
mission statement, and some of it isn’t.” — Lori Rader-Day


“Publishing
is an interruption between books.” – Jonny Geller


I
hope you will find at least some of these quotations as helpful as
I’m finding them right now. Do you collect quotations from famous
writers and turn back to them when you go through a difficult time?
Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel,
based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, and Revising the Character-Driven Novel will
be published in 2019. Her three earlier Skeet novels—Every
Hidden Fear, Every Broken Trust, and Every Last
Secret—and her books of
poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.

Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com

Grandmother’s Basket

/in /by
by Linda Rodriguez
It’s National Poetry Month, and I have a new book of poems out. Dark Sister is a book of the heart for me, in which I tell stories from my family and other spaces that really matter to me. Some of the poems, of course, are lyric poems, but with me, the narrative drive is overpowering, so most of them are stories, little and big.  Many of the stories I tell in this book are concerned with my beloved Cherokee grandmother, who was one of the strongest influences on my life. 

If you’d like to check out the book in more detail–or even order it–you can learn more about it here.


So, to celebrate both National Poetry and the publication of my tenth and newest book, Dark Sister, here is a story in a poem about my grandmother and her baskets.


GRANDMOTHER’S BASKET

I loved Grandmother’s baskets when I
was small.
They had intricate patterns and figures
woven into them in brown, black,
yellow, red, and orange.
She had different sizes and shapes,
used them for storage rather than
display.
My favorite was in reds and yellows
with a black border.
It looked to me as if woven of fire and
grasses.

I would climb into cupboards, find one,
and ask why she didn’t keep it out on
a tabletop
where everyone who came in could admire
it.
“These aren’t the best ones,” she
said
as she fingered baskets that looked
beautiful to me.
“We used to make them from rivercane,
which makes a better basket and dyes
the best,
but they rounded us up in concentration
camps
and drove us on a death march to a new
land
that didn’t have our old plants like
rivercane
so now we use buckbrush and
honeysuckle.”
Grandmother shrugged. “You make do.”

I asked her to teach me how to make a
basket
like the one I loved with feathers of
fire
along its steep sides. She shook her
head.
“It’s a lot of hard work.
First, we need black walnut, blood
root,
pokeweed, elderberry. Yellow root’s
the best yellow,
but blood root will have to do.
They’ve dug all the yellow root
for rich people’s medicines, call it
goldenseal.
Got to have our dyestuffs first.
Got to forage for most of them.
It takes lots of trips, out and back,
to get enough to make good colors.”

I knew I could do that and said so.
She laughed. “You’ve got to know
what to pick
or dig or gather. It’s like with my
medicines.
Can’t just go taking any old weed.”
I pointed out that I was learning from
her
about the Cherokee medicine plants. She
just shook her head.
“It’s not the same. I grow most of
those.
Haven’t taken you out for the wild
ones yet
because you’re too little still. Same
for dye plants.”

I nagged at her for days, begging her
to teach me
so I could have a basket of my own.
I had in mind that amazing
fire-flickering basket.
I wanted to make one just like that.
My visit was over without her ever
giving in.
I was used to Grandmother’s strength
of will.
I knew I would have to try harder next
time.

There was no next-time visit.
My mother had always hated her
mother-in-law.
Now, she won the battle to keep us
away.
Our relationship poured out in letters
until my mother destroyed them,
refused further correspondence.
Years later, Grandmother wrote me—
a letter that slipped past my mother’s
scrutiny—
that she was making a basket
one last time for me.
I knew she was very ill,
soon to die.

I don’t know who got the beautiful
baskets
when Grandmother died, especially the
one
that I loved when I was small.
Her sister and niece who cared for her
in her last illness, I suppose.
That’s fair. My parents had divorced
by then,
and my mother allowed no contact
with that family. But
a lumpy, brown-paper-bag-wrapped
package
with Grandmother’s shaky, spidery
handwriting
arrived for me after her death.
My mother opened it first and laughed.
I stood waiting eagerly to snatch up
the last thing my grandmother would
ever give me.
“Look at that,” Mother said with
more laughter.
“That ugly old thing’s supposed to
be a basket,
I think. She sure lost her knack for
that
at the end, didn’t she?”

When I was small and visiting, I knew
Grandmother already had arthritis
in her hands. That’s probably why
she wouldn’t teach me to make
baskets—because she didn’t have the dexterity
any longer
to make the kind she once had.
I still have that simple handled basket
of vines (probably honeysuckle).
The whole thing is dyed black.
There are no intricate patterns of
flames
or anything else. It’s just solid
black.

I can see her plodding out to gather
butternuts for the black dye
and to pull the honeysuckle vines,
stripping off the leaves.
I can see her gnarled hands
painstakingly weaving under and over,
no fancy twills or double-woven sides.
Hard enough to shape
a shallow but sturdy gathering basket
for her long-unseen granddaughter.
All these years later
I have my own herb garden
where many of her medicine plants grow.
When I gather them to dry for teas and
poultices,
I use that black vine basket.
I think it will last forever.

Published in Dark Sister (Mammoth Publications, 2018)

Linda Rodriguez’s Dark Sister: Poems
has just been released. Plotting the Character-Driven Novel, based on her popular workshop, and The World Is One Place: Native
American Poets Visit the Middle East, an anthology she co-edited,
were published to high praise in 2017. Every Family Doubt,
her fourth mystery novel featuring Cherokee campus police chief,
Skeet Bannion, will appear in August, 2018, and Revising the
Character-Driven Novel will be published in November, 2018. Her
three earlier Skeet novels—Every Hidden Fear, Every
Broken Trust, and Every Last Secret—and
her books of poetry—Skin Hunger
and Heart’s Migration—have
received critical recognition and awards, such as St. Martin’s
Press/Malice Domestic Best First Novel, International
Latino Book Award, Latina Book Club Best Book of 2014, Midwest Voices
& Visions, Elvira Cordero Cisneros Award, Thorpe Menn Award, and
Ragdale and Macondo fellowships. Her short story, “The Good
Neighbor,” published in the anthology, Kansas City Noir, has
been optioned for film.


Rodriguez is past chair of the AWP
Indigenous Writer’s Caucus, past president of Border Crimes chapter
of Sisters in Crime, founding board member of Latino Writers
Collective and The Writers Place, and a member of International
Thriller Writers, Wordcraft Circle of Native American Writers and
Storytellers, and Kansas City Cherokee Community. Visit her at
http://lindarodriguezwrites.blogspot.com