Hi there! Happy April. I’m so glad you’re here.
Today we’re going to talk about words. They’re pretty powerful for both the writer and the writing.
Here’s a snap shot from one of my favorite bookshops, The Ripped Bodice. The entire bathroom is covered in post it notes.
my fav: “you’re not sad you need a girls night”
The right words can change your story, your day, maybe even your life. So let’s get to it.
Bold
As a writer, I spend a lot of time thinking about words. Which ones will accurately describe the images in my head? What order should I put them in to strike the appropriate pace? How many synonyms are too many synonyms? Is my word count too high?
Words have an artistic and logistical reality.
They also have a mental and emotional one. Words can shape our sense of self, our sense of worth and our sense of belonging. What people say to us matters. What we say to ourselves matters even more.
Recently, I referred to myself in an instagram post as an “aspiring author”. A friend corrected me. “You are an author. Period.”
What does it mean to earn a title like writer, painter, athlete, musician? I feel a pressure to have published, to have made money, to have a degree behind the title. Most of the time I am more willing to except the moniker if someone else declares it for me. (As I write this, I’m rolling my eyes at myself.)
I recently started re-watching the Amazon Prime series Mozart In The Jungle. It’s an underrated gem in which Gael García Bernal masterfully plays an eccentric conductor of an orchestra in NYC. In a scene with Bernadette Peters–the chair of the orchestra’s board– García Bernal admonishes her for calling herself an “amateur” after he catches her singing for fun in the shower.
He says:
“You say 'amateur' as if it was a dirty word. 'Amateur' comes from the Latin word 'amare', which means to love. To do things for the love of it. We are notes in this beautiful concert of existence. If we don't play ourselves, nobody will.”
So while we decide what to call ourselves–while I work and re-work on harnessing the audacity to declare, “I am a writer!”— let us not diminish the importance of doing things simply for the love of them.
Bookish
Here are the latest updates on my writing journey.
In January I sent out 30 query letters. I’ll go a bit deeper into this process in my next letter but, for context, a query is a written pitch for your book that is sent to an agent along with anything else they request. Usually, the letter is accompanied by the first chapter. If an agent is interested. they will request more pages or even a full manuscript.
I didn’t get any further requests from my queries, so I decided to use March to revisit my first chapter.
The first chapter has a big job. The reader should feel connected to your characters, invested in the stakes of the story and, for a fantasy book, interested in the world you’re building.
I asked a friend who had never read my work to put fresh eyes on my opening chapter. Her feedback was a gift! She helped me get unstuck from the groove I’d fallen into having revisited the chapter on my own too many times. She also suggested that I start with my second chapter and move or nix the first.
Every once in a while you get a piece of feedback that confirms what your intuition was trying to tell you for a while. This was one of those moments.
just a bit of green to remind you to look up.
And so I went back to editing. To make this edit work I had to tackle the real bear in the room…the first line.
As if the first chapter isn’t pressure enough, the first line is a whole other level. It must hook the reader. A best practice I’ve come across is that a first line should be more than surface level. It shouldn’t just describe something visually to the reader. (Ex: The girl stood at the edge of a cliff).
I have been on the search for my opening line for five years. I’ve gone through many, but never been 100% satisfied. I hesitate to write this now…but I think I found it. ::knocks on wood, throws salt over her shoulder, makes the sign of the cross::
For fun, I thought I’d share with you the evolution of my first line. Here is every first line I’ve had, starting with 5 years ago and ending with where I landed.
Thrum. Thrum. Thrum.
It wasn’t the first time everything had fallen apart.
Ainsley’s hands were always cold.
Ainsley pressed an icy hand to her sweaty forehead savoring a moment of relief. Her hands were always cold.
Ainsley Saver could do anything for five more minutes.
Ainsley Saver could handle the judgemental stares. She could even, for the most part, ignore the whispers. What she couldn’t abide were the lies.
As I copy and paste all of these here I’m giggling, cringing and very proud. This evolution is the result of hard work and the humility to ask for help because I was, and am, an amateur. It is the amare that allows me to grow.
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