by Mayumi-H | Aug 14, 2015 | Finding Mister Wright, Short Stories
This is not a real post. I was going to talk about keeping balance in my writerly life, but I can’t manage it right now. This was a rough week all around – at work, at home, in my head – and I just needed to take a break with people who care for and about each other, even if it’s only in my stupid, self-indulgent fiction.
“Two Dads”
[Another “Finding Mister Wright” free write] ~3200 words/10 pages
I wrote this in a day, between work, emails, cooking supper, and everything else, and I’ve never written from Paige’s perspective before, but it’s part of my writing effort and I have to support it for being that. A story based on personal experience, just not the part I would have wanted.
by Mayumi-H | Jul 29, 2015 | Finding Mister Wright, Short Stories
I think about death a lot. Not mine, so much, because there’s little point in that. I try to eat well, exercise, look both ways before crossing the street, that sort of thing. Beyond that, we’re all basically at the mercy of fate, and stressing over when my time will be up won’t change the ticking of the clock. I still think about it a lot, though.
I think a lot about love, too. The love between a parent and a child, between siblings, between lovers lucky enough to find each other in a great big world full of so many different individuals. How love can divide but also unite. How its grace can fill our lives with happiness, from the most mundane interactions to the most life-changing.
I also think about love and death together. How one can make the other sweet or terrifying, and how that can go either way, for both. Because I think so much and so often about death and love, they come up again and again in my writing. Sometimes, their place is blatant in a story, sometimes not. I think the former applies to my latest “Finding Mister Wright” short:
“Thirty-Nine”
Another “Finding Mister Wright” story
(PDF will open in a new window; ~2800 words/9 pages DS)
I can’t always explain why I write the stories I do, but this one – looking at aging, love, and death – came to me as I spied a “Frozen”-themed birthday cake in a bakery window and thought about the kids who won’t have another birthday, this year.
I don’t apologize for where this story goes, for the love or the death, because I like to think both make us stronger, in their own ways and eventually. Whether you read the story or not, and whether you agree with me or not, keep in mind the significance of love and death in your own lives, both the fantastic ones you put to the page and the true one you build around you.
How has love or death affected your stories?
by Mayumi-H | Jul 18, 2015 | Fearless, Finding Mister Wright, From Hell (A Love Story), Process
Writing has a lot to do with first choices. We write from the tips of our fingers, trying to get down all the words running in our heads. When we sit back and take a read through what’s on the paper or screen, we can start to second-guess those words. I’ve written enough first drafts – enough words – to know it’s okay to trust my first choices. They’re usually right. But, sometimes, they’re not.
After I’ve finished a story, I’ll let it sit a while. For a short story, maybe a few days; for a novel, sometimes as long as a year or more. When I go back and read it again, it’s easier to see which first choices were right and which ones were, well, not so right as I’d originally thought. That distance is important. It grants us a fresh eye and fresh mind. It also grants us greater honesty with our work. Hopefully, we’ve grown from that first draft, using other stories. The distance, honesty, and experience work together to help us see that draft in a new light. If we’re ready, and inclined, it puts us in a better place to cut, weave, and create a more perfect story than what used to be there.
All of this is just me saying that I’m back in editing mode again. I’ve pulled up Fearless and have started to go through it piece by piece, chapter by chapter, conflict by conflict, to make it a better story than it was, even if it’s never perfect. I loved the story then and I love it still. I’ll likely be doing some more off-the-cuff writing while I edit this time, though, because I learned from the From Hell edit that I get a little lost when I’m not creating anything new. But I’m ready for this next challenge. Let’s see how good my choices were the first time around.
To celebrate this new chapter in my own journey, I pounded out another short-ish free-write set in my “Finding Mister Wright” universe, where the Wrights and McAllisters talk about, fret over, and celebrate their own first (and second) choices.
“First Choices” (~2700 words/9 pages; PDF will open in a new window)
Have you made any first choices lately with your writing?
by Mayumi-H | Jul 11, 2015 | Persona 4 Fan Fiction, Publishing
Hey, everybody! 4amwriter is going indie!
If you don’t know who 4amwriter – Kate Johnston – is, click the link above and head over to her blog to find out. You won’t even need to come back here, because she can speak for herself much better than I can do, but I’ll share my experience of Kate anyway, because I always like a personal touch when I read recommendations. And, if you know the kind of writer I was before Kate, you’ll get an understanding of how I’ve grown with her help.
I first “met” writer, editor, and activist Kate Johnston about three years ago, through a writing blog called LimebirdWriters (archives still available and worth it!). Over the course of reading her poetry and prose, and looking through her articles and commentary, I learned a lot about writing in general, as well as my own voice. I even took advantage of an editing offer Kate had a few years ago, for which I sent her the first 1000 words of my 2012 NaNoWriMo story, “Anywhere but Here.” Her feedback for that scene was awesome, so much it pains me that I’m still trying to sort out the best way to rewrite this story, to be worthy of those comments. Kate’s helped me with other scenes over the years, too. So, when I read that she was jumping into independent publishing with a series of books on helping writers be better writers, I knew I had to help spread the word.
My acquaintanceship with Kate doesn’t even begin to scratch this lady’s surface. Head over to her blog and read about her adventures in writing and life – of both the 2-legged and 4-legged variety! You will not be disappointed. And, while you’re there, click “Follow” so you’ll know when her “Writer…Uninterrupted” series hits the virtual shelves. You’ll be glad you did so.
by Mayumi-H | Jun 27, 2015 | From Hell (A Love Story), Process
I just got back from a work conference on television technology and production (that’s my day job). I had a great time, as I always do, connecting and reconnecting with colleagues from across the country, and learning new lessons from faculty, staff, and students working in video. I also attended a great session on reality TV production, presented by April Lundy. I’m not a big watcher of reality television – the closest I get to it are cooking shows or travel docs – but I was riveted by Ms Lundy’s session. Because so many of the points she made were about the importance of storytelling.
“Storytelling is everything,” she told her attentive crowd, and I grinned as she said it, because it’s true. Whether in television, film, poetry, or prose, the story determines the success of the medium. Ms Lundy spoke a lot about the ups and downs of conflict and arcs within a successful reality television show season or series. I could only think how much that applies to my own writing and editing; throughout the entire editing process of From Hell (A Love Story), I kept reminding myself to “keep to the arc” and “push toward the conflict,” and how each chapter – just like a television episode – needed to fulfill a thematic point in the ongoing story. When I spoke to her after the session, she said, “I kept looking at you, because I could tell you understood [how important story is].” Do I ever.
I wasn’t able to write much more than a fluff piece for my wicked gunslingers while I was away, but I thought about my writing craft a lot. And I’m already itching to get back into it, conflict, plot building, character nuances, and all.
I love it when my work and my passions converge. Have you ever had two parts of your life cross paths in an unexpected way?
by Mayumi-H | Jun 21, 2015 | Finding Mister Wright, Short Stories
For Father’s Day weekend, we enjoyed good food, good company, and good memories. Of course, I thought a lot about the fathers in my family, but the occasion made me think about my own paternal creations, too.
I’m off to a work conference for this week, so I won’t be around on social media much, but for anyone interested, here’s another short-ish follow-up free write to the last “Finding Mister Wright” vignette, this time with the older dads in that world:
“Push” – another “Finding Mister Wright” free-write [PDF; opens in a new tab]
I don’t know if there are any dads out there who read my blog. If there are, happy day to you!
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