More Writing Myths for Busting

"How many of us have been held back by myths? ....I’d like to add my own favorite writing myths to be busted. (Whether these are myths or delusions, I’ll leave to you to decide.) 1. You have to be neurotic to be a good writer/poet/artist/actor.
Reality: Health and happiness are ever-so-much-more-pleasant states of being.
You don’t need to be miserable to be a successful creative artist! If, however, you like creating suffering characters, what you do need is empathy. That, plus observational skills. Of course, you’ll still tap into your own experiences to some extent as you write, but you don’t need to go to extremes in your own behavior. All you need is to amplify a quality to make it stand out in a character. In other words, the personality quirk that allows someone to justify stealing a car is not that different from the person who steals a paperclip."
Read the rest of my article at Buried Under Books, then, add some of your own myths that deserve busting!

Plagued by Plot?—Try Logic!

How do writers deal with plotting? And how do they deal with being stuck with the plot? Find out what these squiggles to the left mean and how they can help solve the most intractable plot problem in my essay at the blog Buried Under Books.

Fact-checking is Good

Detail of postcard from c. 1910, Minnesota Historical Society collection.

It's never too early to start fact-checking. While working on a children's story about Duluth, I paused to check a couple of facts about Duluth's iconic Aerial Bridge. I began with using the great online resource of the Minnesota Historical Society, and local resources such as the Duluth Public Library and the wonderful Lake Superior Maritime Museum. These led me to talk to Tony Dierckins, author of Crossing the Canal: An Illustrated History of Duluth's Aerial Bridge and to read his fabulous book.
The bridge is the centerpiece of Duluth's tourist attractions, and has been since it was completed in 1905. Until the harbor freezes up each winter (the lake is so big that it doesn't freeze except along the shore), the bridge goes up and down many times each day—halfway up for the Vista Queen and other small but tall-masted craft. But when the big shiphorns exchange salutes with the bridge operator and the lift bridge goes up all the way, that's when crowds gather to see the huge oreboats and "salties" go through the canal.
These days, the bridge is commonly called the "Lift Bridge." My research taught me that one should, however, never make assumptions. If you look closely at this photo, maybe you can see what I mean.

Macbeth 101 for Writers

My model for fiction writing came from eighth-grade English class, when our three tormented student teachers acted out the famous witches' scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Double double, toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble .... eye of newt and toe of frog, wool of bat and tongue of dog" and the other gory ingredients too repugnant to recall here. None of us ever forgot Macbeth or those three student teachers, nor the list of memorable ingredients that we delighted in reciting at lunch hour the rest of the year.
I imagine that the three student teachers were trying to teach us how to appreciate and read and analyze Shakespeare. For me, the lessons were more oblique, finding use decades later:
• don't turn your back for even a minute on twenty-five eighth-graders
• literature read aloud is has a different effect than when read silently
• if you're going to speak in public, be assertive, especially in front of dozens of kids
But the most important lesson to me as a writer was that you don't have to look far for ingredients; real life supplies an ample amount—people, things, ideas, coincidences. Then, you mix it all into a brew so well-blended that it becomes something new and original. There's the magic—all you need is the cauldron.