J. Scott Savage

J. Scott Savage is one of the nicest guys I've met. But more importantly, he is an amazing writer. He's prepping for his summer book tour and is inviting all to come along for the ride. Visit J. Scott Savage's blog for more information!

The Right to Write

I remember as a kid being fascinated with words. I loved their feel as they rolled around on my tongue. I loved their slender shapes sprawled on the page. In fact, I became so enamored with words that by junior high I would sneak a dictionary into my room and spend the afternoon reading nothing but words.

Words like defervescence and boride and academe. Words like penicillamine and featherstitch and quire. And thus, is it any wonder my favorite book was The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norman Juster? (Which, by the way, if you've not read you simply must!)

But in the midst of all these wondrous words, I began to feel smaller and smaller. In the midst of their power, I began to doubt my ability to string them together in stories people would want to read. I still wonder that at times. Do you?

Yet, there is a special something deep in my heart that tells me the God of our spirits feels otherwise. He, who creates universes, knows a thing or two about the import of creativity. And He fashioned us in His image. Do I (or perhaps you) really think He would fail to tuck away within us the creative gift? Could it be possible we, in this one area, are NOT like our Father in Heaven?

I think not! Thus, the next time I feel impotent in my ability to self-express, I will shun the thought. And I hope you will, too. We are created in God's image ... and as such, we have the gift of creativity. We have the right to write! May we use that gift well, working with all these wondrous words.

A writer pleads guilty to avoidance behaviors

by Patricia

Confession is messy, unpleasant, and makes us squirm in our seats. But it's good for the soul -- or at least good for a blog post.

So here we go with a list of my most worn-out, over-used writing avoidance behaviors (not in any particular order):

1. Testing spider solitaire to make sure it wasn't affected by those pesky hazardous programs my anti-spyware says I picked up while surfing the net.
2. Checking Miss Snark's blog, because I don't want to miss out when she takes a hiatus from retirement.
3. Downloading free trials of story-building software.
4. Uninstalling the free trials after I realize I could write a novel in the time it takes to figure out how to use story-building software.
5. Giving my cat a bath.
6. Watching reruns of Law and Order.
7. Returning to the kitchen for yet another handful of reduced fat Cheez-Its.
8. Clicking the refresh button on my email inbox.
9. Visiting QVC.com in case Today's Special Value is something I can't live without.
10. Listing some of the avoidance behaviors I practice during those times I'm supposed to be writing.

Change begins with a blank page

by Patricia

A new year has begun, and as it does we post our new calendars with all new spaces, waiting to be filled with appointments and dates, celebrations and sorrows.

For writers, this should be the time we open a new document, a new journal, a new reporter's notebook. Make this the year you set a goal to explore the story that's been simmering in your imagination. Release the manuscript you put away a few years ago, thinking it unpublishable, and revise it. Give yourself the gift of time and set aside a portion of your day -- no matter how small -- to write.

Some people embrace change, others fear it. Change brings about the unexpected. To change means we are forced out of our comfort zones. We must sink or swim, run or be left behind.

For many of us, change begins with a blank page and the decision to fill first one, then another, and another. On rare occasions, the page fills quickly. But mostly we stare at that blank page, fearing that we won't have anything worthwhile to fill it with.

When I wrote the last book in the Kevin Kirk Chronicles series, The Final Farewell, I knew Kevin would be faced with many blank pages: life after high school, college, the choice whether or not to serve a mission. As he journeyed through his senior year of high school, his future just beyond the horizon, he had decisions to make. Some were easy. A few, like whether to serve a mission, were not.

The answers were not there for him. He had to make the effort to find them for himself. There were tools all around him, friends and family for support, experiences he could draw from, to help him as he made that final decision. Throughout the book the blank page loomed, waiting for the time when Kevin decided to sit down, make his choice and write the first sentence.

It's tough to choose sometimes; tough to commit to something when you have no assurance it will be successful. But what if you don't commit? What if you don't do that thing you dare?

What if you don't fill that page?

Sometimes, it may not matter. But most of the time, it matters a lot. Maybe not for others, but it will matter to you.

Many missionaries will serve their entire mission and not have an opportunity to baptize someone. Yet many of those missionaries will tell you what they learned about themselves during those two years of service made the mission worth it. They learned about compassion from their experiences in the mission field, they gained a greater understanding of the gospel by working with priesthood leaders, members, and the public. They become more sensitive to the subtle messages of the Spirit. They learned to be more reliant on the Lord.

Do concert pianists consider the years of lessons and practice to be a waste because they didn't earn any money for practicing? No. Do marathon runners look at the miles they ran in preparation for a race to be hours spent running nowhere? Of course not.

And neither should we, as writers, think of writing as an idle activity. It's our practice, our workout, preparing us for all the blank pages that will come in our lives, blank pages that only we can fill.

Don't be afraid of blank pages.

Don't be afraid to embrace change.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Years and years ago, against the judgment of people who said to never write for free, I accepted an online column. I love to write, but my life was packed full of homeschooling, children, church, and family and I wasn’t doing enough of it. Even though my professional career was on hold, I wanted to keep up with my work, and I figured out that I needed deadlines to make it happen. So I started writing this column.

I soon learned that the mere act of having to produce 1000 words a week that other people would read improved my skills. When I wrote more often, I improved faster. I didn’t see the process happening, of course, but recently I was cleaning out some boxes (I’ve lived here a year and a half and though maybe I should finish unpacking) and came across some old manuscripts. I looked them over and cringed. I wrote like that—and sent it to publishers? I wondered how I ever got published!

I got a stack of writing books for Christmas, which we had early this year, and I’m learning a lot from them. But in many ways, I learn just as much by sitting in front of a computer and putting words on paper…well, a screen, these days. I’m old enough that it used to be actual paper I put my words on. As I test out ways to structure, to phrase, to get my point across, as I experiment with styles and ideas, I learn more about the writer I want to be. The free places I write give me a safe place to test out skills I’m not ready to send to publishers.

These days, it’s easier. Anyone can have a blog or a website, and I put a great deal of writing on my blogs and sites. I feel safer testing there, since I can go back and make changes at any time. I can change the cringe-inspiring writing every week, if I want to. The internet is a great place for practice pieces and can give you the courage to send your words out to paying resources.

As C. S. Bezas mentioned, Elder Ballard wants us to blog, which means that blogging can now serve two purposes. It can help us develop our writing skills and ideas, while helping out the church.

Why not try it?

Reading to Write

by Patricia

I made up my mind a few months ago to get serious about reading. Why?

Because if you want to write, you have to read.

It's not that I wasn't reading anything at all. I read the scriptures. I read the newspaper. (I also write for a newspaper, but that's another story.) I read my emails. I'm a regular blog reader. I read my work-in-progress (and usually get depressed by my lack of progress).

The problem? I wasn't reading in the genre I write.

I wasn't reading children's books.

Lin Oliver, the executive director of SCBWI, gave the keynote address at our regional conference in September. She shared several ways writers and illustrators could improve their work, and reading more children's books was high on her list of things to do.

I am much better at creating excuses than I am fine works of literature. Sadly, I had convinced myself I didn't have time to read because I had a book to revise, and my time was so limited that I needed to spend it producing work, rather than reading the work of others. The problem is, I want to read in the same way I want to write -- all at once, from start to finish.

I've just about convinced myself that desire is not practical as far as writing is concerned. Though I still wish for blocks of uninterrupted time, I regularly tell myself one page is better than nothing and at least brings me closer to the end. But when it comes to reading, I'd still prefer to pick up a book and not put it down until I've reached the last page.

After the conference, I decided to develop the reading habit, even if it was just a few pages a day. I was already reading the morning paper while using my exercise bike. I set a goal to use the last few minutes of my workout to read a book -- even if I only finished one chapter.

I'm pleased to say that since September, I've read six books -- and I understand why it's so important now to read in the genre I'm writing, especially since I spend my days stringing words journalism-style. I need to remember the pleasure of escaping to another world, as I have while reading Anna of Byzantium. I need to revel in the beauty and simplicity of a scene formed in free verse, as in Out of the Dust. I need to be reminded of the tough decisions children have to make as they form and sever friendships, like in the story True Friends. And I need to be reminded that in children's books anything is possible, as in Whittington.

Best of all, the more I read, the more I want to write, and the happier I am knowing I have chosen to spend my free time writing for children -- the best, most imaginative, and most inquisitive audience of all.

Ideas are like crystals

by Patricia

In The Right to Write, author Julia Cameron wrote that ideas are like crystals in the mind of an artist. Now, I'm not a chemist or a mathemetician so I can't give you all the details of how and why crystals form and the results that occur when they connect. Actually, I'm not sure if I can explain how and why ideas form and what happens when, like pieces of a puzzle, they begin to lock into place. All I know is that when I am writing a novel, scenes and snippets enter my mind, one after another. Getting them into a document in some form of logical order is sometimes a struggle. Occasionally, ideas surface, only to be discarded, trumped by ones that make more sense as part of the plot. One thing I have learned, though, is that the scenes that play over and over in my mind usually have some significant meaning and are meant to be included in the story.

One example of this occurred during the prewriting of the last book in the Kevin Kirk Chronicles series, The Final Farewell. (Prewriting includes all the time spent meditating on the story.) Two scenes played over and over in my mind and wouldn't go away. First, I kept seeing Kevin sitting on the bank of the Mississippi. Second, I saw Kevin at Fort Defiance, Ill., standing at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers.

I'm no psychologist so I can't claim to understand why these visions returned, over and over, and how I could know internally, instinctively, without knowing logically, why they were important to the story. It was as if they were the pole, the magnetic north my story compass was meant to point to.

The moment in the writing process did come, however, when I realized why these events were important.

I am, for lack of a more sophisticated term, a symbolic thinker. I'm sure that's why I am fascinated by parables in the scriptures and literary allusions. These two moments at the river are symbolic for Kevin. At the confluence, as he observes the two awesome, powerful rivers merging to make a whole, he realizes there are forces larger and more powerful in his life than he has been able to comprehend. On the riverbank, for the first time in his life he is keenly aware of the concept that, like a river, "time stops for no man." You either sink, swim, or sit on the bank and live the rest of your life afraid to ever make a move.

As I look back on the process of creating the story, I understand why these scenes are relevant to the decision Kevin must ultimately make in the story, how they are almost like tools that unlock a compartment of knowlege inside himself, helping him understand his own weakness and to have confidence in his faith. But at the time I was in the creative process, the scenes were snippets of time that, at the time, didn't appear to connect to the story at all.

The point of my rambling is this: Don't discount those recurring scenes, those odd bits of vision that keep popping up in your mind. Don't dismiss the snippets of action you daydream or visit over and over in your sleep.

Your brain may be trying to tell you something.

Getting a Late Start

There is an article in the paper about a woman in my area who didn’t commence to be a writer until she was fifty. Her husband told her she’d always wanted to and she’d best get started. Robin Hathaway followed the usual path, lots of rejections, eventually a few with encouraging notes, but after ten years, she hadn’t sold anything and decided to quit. Her daughter talked her into one more try—the Saint Martin’s mystery book contest. She entered, put it out of her mind, and won. Her first book was published when she was sixty and she’s doing pretty well these days.

I’m rapidly approaching fifty, and although I have a book out and one on the way, I am now trying to teach myself to write fiction. Oh, I’ve written it, even sold a few short stories, but they’re bad. (Some are online at LDS.org if you don’t believe me.) This time, I want to do it right. I want to make things up sometimes and the type of writing I do doesn’t let you make things up.

It’s encouraging to know writing is one career you don’t have to get started on when you’re 21. I love knowing that when I send in a manuscript, the readers haven’t a clue that the author has gray hair, wrinkled clothes, and a messy office. If the writing seems immature, they can picture me as a hopeful twenty-year-old instead of an experienced middle-aged woman, as long as they don’t read my published books first and find out I have grown children.

Hathaway’s advice to writers is to persevere. It’s good advice. Many great writers took decades to get noticed, so if this is important to you, keep sending out your work.

But don’t forget to hone your skills while you’re submitting. It’s not enough to submit. You have to study and practice, just as you do with anything else you hope to do well.