Support is Out There

Ever watched the credits after a movie—I mean, all of the credits? Ever count the number of people involved? Ever thought about the number of person-hours that went into making the movie? Hundreds? Thousands? 

Ever thought about how long it takes you to watch that movie? Two? Three? 

So hundreds of people are working for hundreds of hours for two hours of your enjoyment.

So why do we think our own writing—what we’re creating for the enjoyment of others—should happen quickly? And should happen in isolation?

It doesn’t—it doesn’t have to happen quickly, especially if it’s not your full-time job, and it doesn’t have to happen in isolation. You don’t have to do this whole writing thing alone. Share with your friends or family or find a writing community. Or, you know, find a book coach. I happen to know a good one. 🙂

Writing is hard! How about a bit of support? Every Tuesday you’ll get writing encouragement in 250 words or less. The posts won’t focus so much on how to write, but how to live with writing–and enjoy it. 🙂

What We Do

There’s a story about literary icon Margaret Atwood. I don’t know if it’s real—but stories don’t have to be real to be true, right? The story goes like this: Margaret Atwood was at a swanky party when she was introduced to a doctor, a renowned brain surgeon. “Oh, you’re a writer!” he exclaimed. “I think I’ll write a book when I retire.” To which Ms. Atwood coolly replied, “Yes, I think when I retire, I’ll take up brain surgery.”

The truth: writing is hard. Writing takes time. Writing takes practice. Writing takes training. So it’s okay if it feels hard and frustrating and almost impossible. No one becomes a brain surgeon overnight, so why should you think you’re failing if you don’t become a renowned writer overnight?  

We are in living in strange, unprecedented times during this global coronavirus pandemic. Our daily lives are upended and we’re faced with a new, ever-shifting reality.

Staying at home has never been more urgent–but it’s not always fun and games, is it? Especially if you, like me, have (easily bored) kids at home. With regular activities suspended and your screen time limits for them still in place, what to do with them? Or what to suggest they do on their own?

How about some Imagination Writing?

Imagination writing is writing with abandon. It’s writing for the sake of writing, not for the sake of story.

Writing a story takes imagination, creativity, structure and a lot of hard work, but imagination writing lets you let loose, play around with words, have some fun and let your imagination run wild!

Here are some activities to allow you to do just that! Each activity can be easily modified for kids (and adults) of all ages. Do them alone or with friends, whether you’re with them in person or online. Take as little or as much time as you have, and come back to them whenever you want—the possibilities are limited only by your imagination!

Click on each of the activities for more details.

I’d love to hear from you with any comments or suggestions, so feel free to leave a note or send me an email (jenbraaksmabookcoach@gmail.com) anytime! 

Happy writing! 

It’s no secret that the writing life never works out the way one intends, but knowing it and living it are two vastly different experiences. I knew getting published through a traditional publisher would be difficult; of course I was right. It can be heartbreaking when your characters can’t find the home you thought you could provide for them. But my search for my place in the writing world also led to other opportunities I never imagined.

This blog started out as a real-time journey, letting my readers in on my writing process as I trudged forward. Yet it turns out my writing took me on a wildly different path: becoming a book coach. Through my years of teaching writing, my own work with Jennie Nash as my book coach, as well as advanced training through Author Accelerator, I came to see the value I can offer other writers as their coach.

I still write–I can’t stop, I won’t stop–but now I also get to share in other people’s stories as well.

Feel free to peruse my old posts to see how my writing life has evolved. I started with a focus only on improving my own work; now I help others improve theirs. And I’d love to help you, too. Check out my website jenbraaksma.com or contact me at jenbraaksmabookcoach@gmail.com to see how we can work together. I can’t wait to read your stories!

The literary agent got back to me. She liked the story and my writing, but she feels like she’s not the right agent to represent it.

“That’s an awesome no!” Jennie, my book coach, says.

Yeah, but it’s still a no.

The positive–it’s a matter of personal taste on the part of the agent and has nothing to do with the story, characters or writing.

Yeah, but it’s still a no.

So it’s back to the query pool. I’ve sent out a handful more query letters, and am again waiting. It’s a torturous, glacial process, but so far, it’s the only game in town. If I wanna win, I gotta play.

So play I will.

By waiting. Again.

Ugh.

I’m not yet published, and I’ve already had my first author interview. 🙂

One of my teen beta readers, who is doing a book report project on my novel for school (!) asked if she could interview me. Victoria told me that the students were just expected to come up with a list of questions they’d want to ask the author, if they could. She asked her teacher if she could include the answers, since, well, she knows me. (Credit for initiative, right?)

It was really cool to talk about my book like that. Victoria had some great questions–it was intriguing to listen to her insight about my book, based on what she wanted to know. Here are some of them that also got me thinking:

1. “What was your inspiration for the novel?”

I have heard this question so many times as a reader and teacher (it’s what my students always want to ask Lawrence Hill, the author of The Book of Negros, whom I know personally). I’ve always thought it was a great question–until I was asked it myself.

It’s not that I haven’t thought about it; in fact, the inspiration–the “why-I-want-to-write-this-book”–is one of the first questions Jennie, my book coach asked me. But to answer it succinctly and on the spot was different.

I thought about it and here’s the story I finally told Victoria:

I taught a student many years ago now who had recently immigrated from Libya. In class, we were discussing fights we’ve had with our mothers. Most students gave exasperated examples of how their moms wouldn’t give them late enough curfews or were making them clean their rooms. But Ibrahim had a different story. “Oh man,” he said, “my mom wouldn’t let me join the Revolution!”

“The Revolution in Libya?” I asked. “The one that overthrew the dictator Gaddafi?”

“Yeah,” he said, still indignant a year after the fact, “She wouldn’t let me fight.”

“Because…” I said slowly, “she didn’t want you to, oh, I don’t know, die!” I fired back, fully, completely, 100% on his mom’s side.

“But all my friends were fighting!” He retorted.

At first I thought he sounded childish (can you hear your mom saying “if all your friends jumped off a cliff, would you?”) but then, who am I to judge his situation? He saw his country at war and his friends fighting for a cause they believed in; how could I dismiss his desires to fight for a better world?

Yet how could I not side with his mom? He was 16 at the time. Of course I wouldn’t let my 16-year-old kid go off and fight in a rebellion.

So who’s right? Ibrahim or his mom? Neither. Both. And that’s where my inspiration for Lyra’s story came from. Not the plot. Not the circumstances, but the conflict. Ibrahim’s mom and Lyra’s parents wanted to keep their children safe from the ravages of a larger world they knew their children couldn’t yet comprehend. Yet Ibrahim and Lyra also felt passionately about doing something, making a difference. Not sitting on the sidelines.

So it’s from Ibrahim’s story that Lyra’s story grew.

2. “What did you think was the most suspenseful part?”

Great question. Turns out it’s impossible to answer.

You know why? Because as the writer, I know what’s going to happen! I know the end point of every scene, so where’s the suspense there? In the how? No, not really because I’m also creating the how in very logical steps. I had to admit I couldn’t answer Victoria’s question exactly, but I did tell her what scene I was hoping the readers would most find suspenseful. It’s where Lyra is trying to escape and the stakes are high and she gets help from an unexpected source. (no spoilers!) And it’s because the story takes a dramatic turn at that point and I love the idea of the reader getting to that part and saying “Whoa, I didn’t see that coming!” Which just reminded me how different the experience of writing a book is from reading one. I always thought it would be fun as a writer to inhabit the world you create the way we readers inhabit the world created by other authors. Turns out it’s not the same when you’re trying to build up that world and make it all make sense than when it’s fully constructed and you’re just a visitor. Victoria’s question reminded me I’ll never make that mistake again. 🙂

3. “Why do you think your book makes such a good story?”

Wow. Yeah. Umm. Huh. It got me thinking. I know why I like reading the books I read. And I know why I wrote the way I did. But what did I do that makes it good for readers?

Characters, I finally said. It’s getting the characters right. It’s making the reader feel like they can relate to Lyra in some way. Again, not in plot or circumstance, but in feelings and thoughts and emotions. My teen readers may not feel stifled by their parents because they’ve been on the run from government agents for nine years, but maybe they feel stifled nonetheless because of early curfews or nagging expectations about clean rooms.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s something else that makes my novel a good story. Maybe it’s up to the reader to determine that and I, as the author, should just butt out. But since Victoria asked, that’s what I said.

I’m still waiting to hear back from the first literary agent. She assured me she’d get back to me in early January (it’s early January! It’s January 3! Why haven’t I heard from her yet?!) But regardless of what she says when I do hear from her, I know I do have a good story and I’m going to keep searching until I find the right people to help me get it out there.

Because now I have all my author answers at the ready. I’m prepared. I’m psyched. I can handle the flood of media attention. Anything for all you little people out there. 🙂

It’s like I’m on vacation! I can do nothing else on my novel until the literary agent gets back to me, which could be next week or next year (ha, ha, right? 2018 is just around the corner, right ? 🙂 )

Oh, of course, I could start on my next novel; I have a bunch of ideas and even the beginning of a blueprint plan, but this one, Amaranth, is on hold, which means for the first time in the five, six, seven years I’ve been working on this writing gig, I have guilt-free free time! No more fretting about not writing when I should be writing, or revising when I should be revising. I can go to bed early if I want and I can sleep in if I want. The freedom! The flexibility! It’s almost enough to make me stop while I’m ahead, to see out this novel and do nothing more.

Almost.

Because here’s my friggin’ problem: Evangeline. Remember her? My angel character? She just damn well won’t get out of my head. Keeps whispering to me about her “struggle” and her “quest” as if I’m supposed to do something about it.

So then I wonder if maybe I should?

Maybe I should find out more about her backstory and her internal desire and her misbeliefs and her plans.

Maybe I should write another book.

Damn.

Just as I was starting to enjoy the sensation of a full night’s sleep…

It’s done.

Everything I can do is done.

The manuscript is complete.

The two-page synopsis (summary) is written.

The query letter is finished.

My book coach Jennie introduced me to a literary agent she thought might be interested in my work. (Yay!) The agent said she’d be willing to read my query letter.

I sent it off to her, with the first 10 pages of my novel.

A day later, she replied, saying enjoyed the sample pages, and could I send her the whole manuscript? (double yay!) There’s no guarantee she’ll want to take me on as a client, but it’s a promising sign.

And so I wait.

And wait.

And wait.

(Really, how long does it take to read a book anyway? 🙂 )

Here, finally, (and with a lot of help from my book coach Jennie,) is the letter that will (fingers crossed) launch my fiction writing career:

Dear [Name of Agent] (yes, yes, I’ll put in the real names of the literary agents I send this letter to, don’t worry…)

Seventeen-year-old Lyra Harmon is immortal—and she hates it. She’s the only person on the planet known to have phoenix cells, which regenerate no matter the injury or illness. Military researchers want to clone her to create an undefeatable army, doctors want to experiment on her to cure a pandemic, and her parents want to protect her from being a pawn in anyone else’s scheme. As a result, she has no life. For more than nine years, Lyra and her parents have been on the run, living a lonely, isolated existence.

When she secretly befriends a young girl orphaned by the plague, Lyra takes a stand. She won’t run again. But her impulsive decision has devastating consequences. Her parents contract the deadly virus, and they only have three days to live—unless Lyra undertakes a daring attempt to save them. With time running out, Lyra must decide what it means to make her own choices about her body and her life—and how they’ll affect the people she loves. Can she learn how to find her purpose and make her life her own with the one she’s been given—and not the one she wishes she had?

Amaranth is YA dystopian. It is complete at 80,000 words. It shares a similarly intense world of viruses, genetic engineering and questions about mortality as Lauren DeStefano’s Wither and Krista McGee’s Anomaly, but it also takes inspiration from Rebecca’s Skloot’s nonfiction book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

I am a high school English and Writer’s Craft teacher who gets to connect with YA readers everyday. I have a degree in journalism from Carleton University and am also a graduate of the Humber College Creative Writing program.

[Here is where I’ll personalize information about each agent and why I chose to submit to them specifically.]

I appreciate your consideration, so thank you for your time and attention.

Sincerely,

Jen Braaksma

Good enough? When I start to query agents next week, we’ll find out. Wish me luck!

In response to my spiralling self-doubt, I discovered many a strategy to cope with it. One method is to write a letter, personifying your internal enemy.

Here’s an example from author Elizabeth Gilbert. In her book Big Magic, she wrote a letter to Fear:

“Dearest Fear: Creativity and I are about to go on a road trip. I understand you’ll be joining us, because you always do. I acknowledge that you believe you have an important job to do. But I will also be doing my job, which is to work hard and stay focused. And Creativity will be doing its job, which is to remain stimulating and inspiring. There’s plenty of room in this vehicle for all of us, but understand this: Creativity and I are the only ones who will be making any decisions along the way. You’re not allowed to suggest detours. You’re not allowed to fiddle with the temperature. Dude, you’re not even allowed to touch the radio. But above all else, you are absolutely forbidden to drive.”

Feeling inspired, I wrote my own letter to Doubt. I must admit, it might not be quite as eloquent:

Dear Doubt:  F*** you.