Tag: June 2021

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Pep Talk Week 4: Writing Magic

Dear Reader,

Recently, I rewatched The Magicians. In one of the episodes, one of my favorite characters, Margo, mentioned something I’ve held with me for a long time. Magic comes from pain. 

When I first watched the series years ago, I remembered the line got me through a lot. I think rewatching it was some sort of calling. As someone who was experiencing a rut–not a creative rut, a rut that comes from being buried under deadlines, imposter syndrome, and more–this line spoke to me once again.

Words are magic. In spell books, in tv shows, and in more, words are used as a conduit to cast spells. I think, in some way, that extends to writing. We are magicians because we put our blood, sweat, tears, hopes, fears, and souls into words. Be it ink, or graphite, or zeros and ones on a screen, these mediums are our wands, and the novels, short stories, poems, and essays we write are the byproduct of the magic we cast.

Which brings me back to that expression. If Magicians use magic, and it comes from pain, then the words and stories we write also come from it. This experience has been used and morphed throughout time. How writers have to mine their trauma. Or how your lived experiences make the best stories. The suffering artist trope. I can go on and on.

Pain is a tool in a writer’s arsenal. Just like point-of-view, exposition, and dialogue. Too much dialogue, and your stories lack grounding. Too much exposition, and you’re telling, not showing. Like everything, there needs to be a balance. Going back to The Magicians, to write, just like to cast, the circumstances have to be right. 

The world is a mess right now. There’s no other way to say it. The world is pushing down on us in every way imaginable. We cannot control it. 

But we can control ourselves. We can control how that pain manifests itself. We are not only magicians, readers, we are alchemists who can turn blood into wine. It doesn’t have to happen instantly. The spell might take one month or one year, but in the end, if you lean into it, if you trust yourself, and if you remember, you are powerful, and not shy away from those feelings, you might just make something great.

And I believe, with my whole heart and being, we will be the best magicians known to man. 

Onward,

Kosoko Jackson

Kosoko Jackson is a digital media specialist, focusing on digital storytelling, email, social and SMS marketing, and a freelance political journalist. Occasionally, his personal essays and short stories have been featured on Medium, Thought Catalog, The Advocate, and some literary magazines. When not writing YA novels that champion holistic representation of black queer youth across genres, he can be found obsessing over movies, drinking his (umpteenth) London Fog, or spending far too much time on Twitter. His YA debut, YESTERDAY IS HISTORY, came out in 2021, published by SourceBooks Fire and his adult #OwnVoices queer Romcom, I’M SO (NOT) OVER YOU will come out in 2022, by Berkley Romance.

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Pep Talk Week #3: Nudging the Muse

Kudos for taking on this awesome JuNoWriMo challenge. Writing 50,000 in a single month is a huge goal, and while you no doubt started inspired and fired up, at some point, you may find yourself feeling uninspired.

So, if and when you run out of steam with your writing, here are five fun ways to nudge the muse.

  1. Create Some Chaos: Stories are fueled by conflict. Conflict shows what kind of stuff your characters are made of. Try sticking two characters in a room and tossing in some conflict. Did one of them renege on a deal? Maybe they discovered they’re both dating the same person. Maybe it’s as simple as disagreeing on where to set the thermostat. It’s not as much about the specific issue as it is about their behaviors and their reactions to the conflict. It’s fascinating the deeper levels of character you can reach through a little exercise in conflict, and creating chaos is a great way to spice things up and get your writing revved back up.
  1. Face the Fear: Just like each of us, every well-drawn character has something they fear. Peter Pan is afraid to grow old. Indiana Jones hates snakes. Find a fear to saddle your character with and then force them to face that fear. If your character is afraid of the dark, blow out their only candle, or drain the battery on their smart phone. One of the best ways to see what your character is made of is to pit them against their phobias. All sorts of things can come to light, just by exploring your character’s darkest fears.
  1. Road Trip!: Transport your character to another location. Give them, and your brain, a change of scenery. 
  1. Set the Mood: Try a little music. Pick a song that matches the tone of the scene you’re writing. Listen, really listen and let yourself take it in. Get up and move to the music. Sway, or hop, or leap, or spin. Soak it up, allow it to shift your emotions and turn them into physical movement. Set it on replay as you resume writing. Let the music move you and your words.
  1. Re-engage Your Senses: When writing, we tend to get focused on the visual. But stories should engage all of our senses. Put yourself inside the story, by waking up your senses. Writing a scene in a coffee shop? Make yourself a fresh cuppa and spend some time savoring the sounds of the coffee maker, the smell of the coffee beans, the taste of the dark roast with a hint of cream. Writing a scene that takes place outdoors? Go outside, close your eyes and inhale. Let yourself really hear, smell, and feel the world. Not only will this exercise give you a short break from the keyboard, it’s also a great way to remind yourself what your character is hearing, smelling, feeling, tasting.

Most of all, take a minute to celebrate your progress to this point and marvel at the awesome power of putting words on the page and bringing your stories and characters to life.

Here’s to finishing strong!

Sharon Skinner holds a BA in English, an MA in Creative Writing, and is a Certified Book Coach. She writes fantasy, science fiction, paranormal, and the occasional steampunk, for audiences of all ages. Skinner is an active member of SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators) and serves as the Regional Advisor for SCBWI AZ.

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Pep Talk Week #1: Finding Venus

Sentences. Those precious, precious sentences… I find myself thinking about sentences a lot, especially after I’ve written a bunch of questionable ones.

Oh, writers: those esoteric beings perched over a keyboard or a notebook, crafting stories one word at a time, one sentence at a time. And the writers who have written and/or published multiple books LOVE to remind us of the incredible importance of the finely tuned sentence, and the Herculean battle they embarked upon to get those lauded strings of words just. Exactly. Right. The lost sleep! The blood! The sweat! Etcetera!

When I started grad school, it had been twenty-plus years since I’d had to carefully contemplate things like sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, tone, beats… In my workaday world post-undergrad and pre-MFA program, sentences were purely utilitarian: say things to convey information, ideas, feelings, or make a friend laugh. Of course it was always important to me that my sentences, whether written or spoken, were soundly constructed and made sense, but understanding them to the degree that my program’s faculty discussed in workshops (and even in casual conversations I’d overhear while passing by) was overwhelming, to say the least. It had just been so long since I’d thought about that stuff, I was afraid I’d never be able to grasp it again. I remember scribbling “What have I done? I am in completely over my head.”

Realizing all that we don’t know, and haven’t even thought about when we start on a writing project is enough to make a person turn back before they really start. Maybe you’re there right now.

OK, so… I’m working on something now, too. It’s been in progress for what’s got to be two years now. I had a lot of ideas, and, in fits and starts, have written – as of today – 47,702 words. Most of the reason why I haven’t gotten more words and more story is: the sentence. The vast majority of sentences in this thing are garbage. I can practically see the comments by former mentors and editors about how messy this sentence/paragraph/chapter is. It’s like commentary during a baseball game, only it’s about this thing I’m still trying to make. I’m editing myself before I actually have enough to edit.

Sculptors make beautiful things. I always think of the Venus de Milo, with her luminous, pensive facial expression, the dropped shoulder, and the curve of her neck. And how she started as a block of stone – or maybe marble? I’m not sure. I’m not a literal sculptor. But that detail, that beauty, came out of an amorphous block. Think how strong the artist’s vision must have been to chisel away at that block to reveal that goddess of beauty that still evokes emotion and passion today.

That block is your first draft. And you don’t even get to buy it or have it given to you; you have to MAKE it. And a block is exactly what it needs to be: blocky (of course), heavy, bulky. In fact, the bigger the block, the more material there is to chisel away at. And if you make a mistake with that chisel, at least you’ll have enough marble or stone or whatever to chip away more and more until it looks exactly like you want it to.

If you spend too much time editing your sentences as you try to plow through your first draft, you will never get to play with that big, strong, solid block. So keep going, keep building that blocky word count until it’s so big, with so many sentences that will absolutely need chiseling, that you’ll have lots of room for mistakes and missteps – and then when you’re all the way through you can start obsessing about making your sentences fine and intricate. But until then, keep making those big, blocky ones. Your Venus will reveal herself to you in due time.

Shawna-Lee is a writer with a debut novel called Radio Waves, which is all about connecting to music in such a way that it can change the course of one’s life. In addition to music, she also loves stand-up comedy, proverbial rabbit holes, and desolate lighthouses. She’s a lifelong New Englander, and is currently working on a novel about Gen X-ers, friendship, and life’s unexpected turns.

Radio Waves is available anywhere you like to get your books, including your local indies, via Bookshop.org.