Katie L. Carroll

Books for kids, teens, & those who are young at heart

Tag: WIP (Page 1 of 2)

Writing The Story Keeping Me Awake At Night

April 1, 2019 /

I wrote something new recently and very different from anything I’ve written before. It came to me in a rush of excitement and creativity in a way I’ve never experienced before.

I’ve had ideas come crashing in, images or characters or some spark that leads to a story. But this was different. In the past, the ideas have been pieces of something bigger that needed a lot more thought to turn into a full idea.

This time, it was like I was possessed by the muse. It was literally keeping me awake at night. The idea, and moreover the emotion of the story, was a wave that kept churning inside me and wouldn’t let me focus on anything else until I let it out. And it came to me in such a fully formed way.

Not to say that it was easy to write. It required a good amount of research, but the research was just as exciting as the writing. Writing it felt like putting two parts of myself together that I hadn’t found a way to fit in the same context, even though the story is nothing about me in any way. It melded two of my passions that I’ve been trying to figure out how to intersect but had never been able to do so before.

I know this all sounds kind of vague, and I’m purposely avoiding specifics here on the blog for certain reasons that I’m being quiet about right now.

But I wanted to share the enthusiasm I’m feeling right now. Much of the writing and submitting process can be a slog. You face plot points you don’t know how to solve, characters that aren’t fleshed out enough, a voice that doesn’t stand out enough. Then there are the rejections…don’t even get me started.

This, right now, how I’m feeling. It makes all those things worth it. So I just wanted to let you all know that. Thanks for listening!

Coming To The Realization That This Isn’t My Story To Write

March 19, 2018 /

In light of some really thoughtful, hard conversations going on in the children’s literature world about representation, I was thinking about a manuscript I’d started but never finished.

I loved the characters. The world I had begun to create had lots of story elements that I both love reading about and writing about. It is a YA retelling at its heart but has unique elements that I thought would make it stand out. I completed over 50,000 word on it for National Novel Writing Month (quite a few years ago). My critique group liked the bits they saw of it. I adore the story, and the plot had really started to come together in my mind. I did quite a bit of research for it. But I never finished it.

I thought it was because I couldn’t find the right character to tell the story. I played around with having a different point-of-view character. I played around with multiple points of view. I rewrote the beginning and tried it in third person instead of first. Yet I could never quite figure out how to tell the story. So I put it away. I had intentions of maybe coming back to it someday when I was a better writer who could maybe find the right voice.

But now, I don’t think I’m going to come back to it. I think I now know why I was having so much trouble trying to figure out how to tell that story. It’s not because I don’t think I could write it and write it well. And it’s not because I don’t think it would make for a good story. In fact, I think it would make a really great story, one I’d love to read some day. But I’m not going to write it.

One of the things that we as storytellers need to be asking ourselves, beyond if we can write a story and write it well, is should we be writing a story. I couldn’t find the right way to tell this particular story–as much as I love the idea of it–because it’s not my story to tell. It deals with cultures and characters who would probably not be best served with me doing the telling. I can (and have) visit the place where my story takes place and research the culture, but I’m not part of it, so the story would suffer for it. It could end up being harmful in its representation.

Maybe I’ll come back to the basic idea of doing a retelling of the tale that inspired the original idea, but with a totally different spin to it, one that I am more equipped to tell. And I have plenty of other ideas floating around in my head and notebooks that I certainly am not lacking for new stories to write.

Of course, it hurts a little to put this manuscript to rest. I’ve put a lot of work into it, and I want to be able to tell it. I won’t, though. And I’m okay with that.

Young Kids, Short Attention Span, Short Writing Time

February 20, 2018 /

Babies and young children have short attention spans, but the title of this post doesn’t refer to my kids’ attention spans; it refers to mine. I once read a quote about a mother’s attention span is only as long as that of her youngest child (I tried looking it up to cite it but couldn’t find it and, honestly, didn’t look that long 😉 ). My youngest is 7 months old, so that tells you about how long I can concentrate on any one thing. The shiny hot mess that is social media doesn’t help either!

via GIPHY

Hence why I’ve been focusing a lot of my writing time on picture books. Not easier to write than novels, but easier to feel like I’m actually making some progress on it in the shorter work sessions that fit into my current life. I’ve also been reading a ton of picture books with the kids, so I’m naturally inspired by that form.

Yet that old perpetual WIP (work-in-progress) Elixir Saved is weighing on me. I’m at the point where not working on it is always in the back of my mind. It’s different than when I’ve consciously taken a break from it because I needed to. This time I kind of feel like I’m just avoiding it. I’m in the meaty middle of the draft. I know where the story needs to go and I have a solid idea of how to get it there, but it’s gonna take a lot of work. So, yeah, I should probably make it a priority to work on it, instead of finding new things to work on.

Not that I’m going to stop working on my picture books. I just think I need a better balance. Isn’t is that what it always comes down to in pretty much everything in life: finding the right balance.

One last thing. I’m also in the market for a picture book critique partner. I’ve got plenty of writing buddies to exchange novels with, but not so much when it comes to picture books. I’d like someone with a little bit of experience in the area, but you you certainly don’t have to be an expert. Send me a message if you’re interested in seeing if we’re a good match!

The Importance and Unpredictability of Introspective

October 5, 2015 /

Remember how I mentioned last week that I’ve been very introspective in my thinking (it’s totally okay if you don’t remember…I just thought this was a good way to start the post)? Part of that is because I’ve been so busy in my life that I haven’t had the time or energy to be extrospective.

(Okay, totally made up that word…but it totally should be a word…nonintrospective isn’t really right because it implies a lack of thought…I’m more talking about keeping thoughts inside vs. expressing them, hence extrospective…digression over!)

The other part that’s kept me introspective is where I’m at in my creative process, which is revision. I’ve been going through all the great feedback I have from my in-person critique group, my beta readers, and the professional feedback I’ve gotten for my WIP YA thriller (right now titled BLACK BUTTERFLY).

So I’ve been thinking a lot about what the story still needs and what feedback is working and what isn’t resonating with me. It’s a lot of decision-making, and it’s tough on the ego to be working through the criticism, even though it’s all done in a professional, constructive manner. After all, the revision process is all about facing what you wanted to do with a story and haven’t yet accomplished or realizing that what you wanted to do with the story in the first place maybe isn’t the best thing for it…not easy!

Often when I’m working out some tricky thinking in my own head, I turn outward to help sort through the thoughts. But, surprisingly, I’ve turned inward in this case. It’s like I have to hold all those thoughts and feelings close in order to really experience and figure out how to move forward. Expressing them would ruin them before they can turn into whatever it is they need to be, so I continue to hold them close until they’re ready (the whole pregnant and birthing analogy would be apt here, and like pregnancy and child-birthing, it’s exhausting).

All that physical and mental busyness leaves less room for other things, mainly blogging, Twitter, Facebook, exercise (though I do a lot of walking with the boys), and even reading. The number of books I’ve read this year is way down from last year and also below my adjusted yearly goal.

I didn’t expect or plan to step back from those things (and haven’t entirely ignored them), but it’s what happened. And I’m allowing myself to be okay with that. Because I’m allowing the other things I’m doing and thinking about that are more important (no offense to my Internet peeps!) to take priority. The unpredictability of life and the creative process are what makes my life and work exciting, and it also fuels my stories.

What exciting or unexpected things have you been doing lately?

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