RIP, young star.

Last night, via Twitter, I saw that Bridget Zinn, a YA novelist from Portland passed away after a prolonged struggle against cancer. She was just 33. I never knew Bridget, but her bright personality shines through her website, her videos, the people who knew her.

And though I never had the pleasure of meeting her, I felt a deep sadness. In part, I'm sure, because we are both the same age, in part b/c she won't have the chance to see her debut novel published (POISON, Hyperion 2012), but mostly b/c of the horribly cruel unfairness that is life (which also fills me with sharp anger).

The death of someone so young, so bright, who faced such adversity with incredible outward positivity puts everything in perspective, reminds me how often I take things for granted, how trivial my frustrations are.

Life is short, sometimes tragically so. Be happy.

The Rush to Tell

Over the past few months, I've realized that I'm a good teller. I can summarize a scene incorporating tension/drama pretty well... this is very bad, because good telling rarely beats good showing (yes, I said rarely b/c there are times I wholeheartedly believe good telling is needed to segue between more important showing).

Good showing tends to be a bit harder for me not b/c I'm not a good show-er, but b/c I tend to be ADD in most things I do, including writing, and I'm always driving hard to get to the scene/chapter/section end in the fewest words possible (my agent might laugh at this since when she asked for a revision, hoping I could get down from 76k to 70k, I ended up sending her the MS at 87k... in the end, we ended up making it a bit longer before going on sub). But the final result is that sometimes I end up wasting time spending extra time rewriting b/c I realize that amping drama through proper, sometimes extended, showing is more critical than creating a fine economy of words (by a skosh).

I'm currently working on 2 big projects at the same time, a first for me, and this helps my focus issues to a degree, but I'm still falling into the trap more than I'd like. Do you have scene foibles, large scale or small, that you find yourself repeating, and, if so, how do you address them?

Ambition, Risk, and Consequence

Recently returned from Vegas. First and last time probably. Not a big drinker, gambler, or shopper, but the spectacle of Sin City (Sad City?) got me thinking about ambition. Many artists (talented, for the most part) head to Vegas to seek riches in one form or another, and most end up on the sidewalk painting themselves as silver statues, strumming guitars on the bridgewalks, peddling magic tricks to apathetic passerbys...

The nasty side of ambition, of risk, is the consequence of failure. Dream big, fall hard.  Do you want to be that small pond fish or venture into the wide, dark ocean where big dreams get swallowed every minute of every day?

With my writing, I always go dark ocean. It scares me b/c I wonder if I've got the skill to swim amongst the sharks, wonder how far I'll fall if the consequence of my ambition and risk never comes to fruition. Keep swimming, right, Dorey? I think this is what I admire most about artists. No matter the odds, no matter the outcome, they strive to live a life less ordinary.

Kneeling at the Altar of Criticism

I am a critical person. Of myself, of others. It's not a likable trait, but it is an important one for growth, IMO (note: my criticism toward others is usually softened with diplomacy and sometimes sugar... I am a middle child after all)... but at times I wonder if perhaps I am too critical. I just finished reading a fast-paced, well-written, balls-to-the-wall exciting story that's receiving 4 and 5 star glows at Amazon and Goodreads (mostly fivers)... I was one of the few dissenters who went against the grain and gave it 3 stars not for what it was, but for what it wasn't... in part, I wonder if it's because of my nature to go against the crowd, but I also wonder if it's because I expect more than I should (IMO, the book's world fell flat for me, the ambition didn't meet the potential... great writing/story, but in a forced environment that felt smaller than it should have).

And, I wonder, as a fellow writer, should I be less critical. Because writing is hard. Words, sentences, paragraphs are much harder to string together in an interesting manner than most realize. Now try to incorporate a strong world, an authentic plot, and, wow... you're juggling with Cirque while walking the tightrope. Yet, in my mind, five stars should be reserved for the best of the best... those in the flat trough of the bell curve.

Am I too harsh? Maybe... and I wish I could enjoy books more without the in-depth analysis I'm prone to, allow myself to get swept away... and while I'd like to believe that my critical nature is beneficial to my writing among other aspects, at times I wonder if it's crippling.

It's that tightrope to walk between criticism an destruction... and sometimes it's hard to know which way I'm leaning. What about you? Do you ever wonder if you've become too critical, too jaded? ... or if you use too many ellipses :)?