Merry Christmas, Writers!

In the residual wake of NaNoWriMo, we writers could all use a little TLC, right? Well, TLC is just exactly what the gals over at Charlie and Me are giving away.

Hop on over to their blog now and enter to win the Writers' Care Package giveaway. I've been following their blog for some time now, and I can tell you they're a great source of entertainment, encouragement, and good old-fashioned writing fun. So writers, don't miss this giveaway!

To italicize or not to italicize...

That is the ever-bothersome question, is it not?
Everybody has an opinion on whether italics should be used, and how they should be used, and how often they should be used, and why they should be used. And chances are, writers, if you listen to five different professionals' thoughts on the subject, you'll come away with five different answers. I've heard quite a few myself. Some people say "It's a tool that's there to be used, so use it if you need it." Others say "Let the readers decide for themselves how the words should be emphasized, without you the writer telling them how they should hear everything." Everyone and their dog, it seems, has a different idea of what the proper use of italics consists of.
It's fairly common for young or beginning writers to way overuse italics in their writing. Like, every word that they think should be even slightly emphasized gets put into italics. After all, how are the readers supposed to know how it's supposed to sound if the writer doesn't tell them, right? Don't worry, I'm as guilty of this as anybody else. If you've ever read Emily of New Moon and chuckled (or cringed) at Emily's excessive use of italics, you have some idea of what my early writing was like. I was a proud member of the "It's-a-tool-that-exists-to-be-used" campaign.
However, as I continued learning and growing in my writing, I began to see the truth in the idea that overuse of italics can be a sign of weak prose. Think about it: if you feel like you need italics to make your writing look active, or to strengthen your sentences... well, you're probably putting a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches. In other words, work on getting your writing strong enough to stand on its own without the aid of purely visual effects like italics.
Of course, there are cases where italics should be used. The titles of books, for example, should always be italicized. And once in a while, if something really important hinges on the way a particular word is interpreted ("You're the traitor!" versus "You're the traitor!"), then italics are okay. (Jeff Gerke has a great article on this Here on his website.) Also, as an editor, I have to say this: if you decide that a word truly does need to be emphasized, for goodness' sake, just use italics! Don't use bold, or underline, or all-caps, or any combination thereof. Just use italics. Period.
Part of what broke me of my tendency to overuse italics in my writing was hearing the statement "Overuse of italics constitutes micro-management on the part of the author". I don't remember who said it, but it hit close to home for me. Having done time... er, I mean, worked... in the corporate world, where your entire life is micro-managed by your bosses and your bosses' bosses and their bosses who have never even met you but are nonetheless experts on what will make you work most efficiently (I'm not bitter or anything), I'm really turned off by the term 'micro-management'. So if my overusing italics means I'm micro-managing my readers' reading experience, I'm gonna start cutting out some italics, believe you me.
One problem I still struggle with, though, is the area of characters' thoughts. Some, like Jeff Gerke, argue that characters' internal monologues don't need to be italicized, that the readers can tell what is supposed to be narrative and what is supposed to be thought. At the same time, though, in a fast-paced scene where there's lots of action, dialogue, and narrative mixed together, italicizing a character's thought might just make it easier for the reader to sort everything out, I think.
Another issue that writers of speculative fiction have to deal with is mind-speaking, or telepathic conversation, or whatever you prefer to call characters communicating with only their thoughts. I've seen it done in standard font using only quotation marks like a normal spoken conversation, I've seen it done in all-italics, and I've seen it done using both italics and quotation marks. Jeff Gerke condemns the use of italics and quotation marks together, but Donita K. Paul uses it frequently in the Dragonkeeper Chronicles when her characters mind-speak with each other. In her writing, the viewpoint character's thoughts are in italics with no quotation marks, and the other person's thoughts are italicized and enclosed in quotation marks. Personally, I thought her method made thought conversations clear and easy to follow, but there are people I know who disagree with me. Unfortunately, it's one of those issues where there really is no solid right or wrong answer... and we writers are probably doomed to argue among ourselves about it until the Second Coming.
What are your thoughts on the proper way to use italics, especially in non-verbal, 'mind-speaking'-type conversations?

When Editors are Right

Several years ago I wrote a poem that was wonderful. And we're not just talking about any run-of-the-mill kind of wonderful, here. We're talking about a very special, enduring, classical kind of wonderful. Maybe even Pulitzer Prize worthy.
I found the perfect magazine and sent them my masterpiece, then settled down patiently to await their eager acceptance. Within two weeks I had their reply.
They rejected it.
I read and re-read the letter, stunned. The editor politely informed me that my poem had delightful potential, but needed some work and a few changes to be worthy of publication. She even said that she would not mind reading it again if I made the changes she had prescribed.
But I would have none of it. I destroyed her letter, utterly incensed. The Philistine! How, how under Heaven could she even suggest that I alter such a work of genius? To change it would be criminal, desecration, and perhaps even sacrilege!
Clearly the world was not ready for my genius, so I filed the poem away to wait until a magazine came along who could appreciate it for its true worth.

A few weeks ago I was digging through the organized chaos of my writing files looking for something, and came across that poem. Smiling, I opened it for a re-read, since I hadn't even looked at it for a couple of years. Oh, that sweet first verse, that lovely imagery, the delightful storyline...
Wait a sec. Something's rotten in the state of Denmark. This thing is not nearly as good as I remember it being. What in the world happened here?! I mean sure, it has delightful potential, but it definitely needs some work and changes to be worthy of publication... ugh. And I seem to remember a certain editor saying the very same thing in a polite little 'we regret' letter all those years ago.
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Alright, so we can all have a laugh at the expense of my melodramatic teenage ego. But I imagine I'm not the only one with a story along this line (I certainly hope not, anyway!).
Sure, editors are human too, and sometimes they're wrong--but not nearly as often as we writers like to think they are. The vast majority of the time they're right, we're just not objective enough to see it. You've got to pity editors in that aspect, really. They get saddled with the task of trying to show a bunch of emotionally compromised and irrational writers what we need to improve in our work, and our responses range from ignoring them completely to having rejection letter-burning parties.
Writers, we know what we're like. I think anyone willing to patiently put up with us and make such consistent efforts to help us in our craft has to be alright.
So the next time you get a letter rejecting your world-changing masterpiece... don't freak out too much. I won't deny the remote chance that the person who rejected it might be a vulgarian Visigoth--it's always possible--but they might just be a caring editor who truly wants to help you improve your skills.
They might even be right.

Imagine...

Imagine that someday, a person will be moved to tears by something you have written. Someone will laugh delightedly at the antics of a character who was born of your imagination. Someone will be inspired to strive for greatness by the heroes and heroines in your story.
Someone will stay awake until some ridiculous hour of the morning (even though they have to get up and go to work later) because they just can't put your book down. Someone will be waiting at the bookstore door when it opens on the day that your next book hits the shelves. Someone will stand in line for hours for the chance to meet you and get their copy of your book signed.
Someday, someone will look up at you, and at how far you have come in your journey, and will be encouraged to keep trying even though it is far from easy.
Today, write for that person.

Look at the positives!

We writers love to complain. Read any writer's blog or website (and yes, I'm as guilty of this as the next person) and you're certain to find at least a few posts bemoaning the trials and hardships of writerhood.

I won't say that the life and career of a writer isn't tough at times. We writers are vulnerable to many problems and disorders that 'normal people' simply don't have to deal with - Writer's Block and Creativity Overload being two of the most common. However, I am convinced that the leading cause of stress and misery in the life of a writer is a case of Martyred Starving Artist Syndrome.

Yes! Writer's Block is miserable. Yes! it is overwhelming when ideas are pouring into your head literally faster than you can write them down. Yes! it is frustrating when the poem you spent hours agonizing over gets rejected ... and rejected ... and rejected. Yes! it is miserable when you spend hours fighting with a story scene trying to get it right and you're still not pleased with the result.

But there are positive aspects of writing too - positives that far outweigh the negatives! And yet do we hear about those even half as much as we hear about the negatives? Hmm?

So we here at The Lair are going to change that. I'm not going to deny or ignore the negative and difficult aspects, but I'm not going to give them center stage either. The Writer's Lair is a place for writers to come to encourage and be encouraged - not to bewail their pitiful misfortunes.

This is a big job - there are a lot of Christian writers out there who could use some godly encouragement - and I don't want to be doing it all on my own. The next few posts are going to be focusing on the glorious positive aspects of writing that we writers often tend to overlook, and you all are welcome (and heartily encouraged) to leave your feedback in comments. Also, feel free to drop me a line sharing your own message of encouragement to other writers, or your idea for an encouraging post, using the contact info on the lower right side of the screen.

I'll end this post with asking you all: What is the one thing that you love the most about being a writer? Can't wait to hear your answers!