It's Not Always Clear In Here

Before I get started with my first contribution to the Insecure Writers Support Group, hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, I want to let you in on a little secret.  I have been following a wonderful writer since I started this blogging experience.  The first Wednesday of every month she would post something with the IWSG Logo.  Every month I went to her page expecting to see a sample of her WIP and every month I was disappointed.  Instead, she wrote about the process of her writing.  At the end of the post, she posted a link back to the IWSG and suggested that we see what other writers were doing.  Now, each month I thought to myself, "I don't want to read THEIR Work In Progress.  I want to read YOURS.  Every month I come to your page expecting to support you by giving you encouraging comments on your work and each month you write about your writing and then suggest I visit OTHER PEOPLE."  Mental head smack. 

It took me about a year to figure out that IWSG wasn't about supporting the writing, it was about sharing all of the stuff that goes on with the writing.  My friend wasn't doing it wrong as I had thought for so long.  Hahahaha.  As par for the course, I didn't understand the concept of the group.

I just started novel writing again.  I never finished my first one.  I didn't burn it or anything.  I am not sure that I will ever get back to it, but I decided to move on.  I vacillate between being frustrated with my writing and thrilled that I can put any sort of story together.  In my head I know that rough drafts are... rough.  The point is to get through them with the concept of the novel and then go back and polish it up.

I spend as much time thinking about this novel as I do writing it.  Some characters gel easily for me in terms of who they are, how they think, what they want.  Others are vague.  What helps you get a grasp on these sorts of characters?  More thinking time?  Or do you spend some time just writing and it comes out in a stream-of-consciousness-sort-of-flow?  This material is not necessarily writing that would be included in the novel, but gives you, as the writer, the sense of who they are.

I suppose this all comes back to being stuck and getting unstuck.  How do you unstick yourself when a character, scene, plot device, or any other aspect of your story is not moving for you?  What do you do?


Here is a link to the IWSG main page.  You can see a list of everyone who is participating in this event.  I hope that you will drop in and offer up some encouragement to some aspiring writers.  Lord knows we all need it!

Paula Deen In The Stew

Yesterday I saw a video of Paula Deen making this rather vague apology to anyone she might have hurt.  She was clearly upset about it.  She seemed sincere.  I had no idea what she was talking about based solely on her video.

The TV media folks cleared it up somewhat by saying that apparently Paula had made use of the "N" word 20 years ago (or thereabouts) and may have also used other racial slurs.  Really?  Paula Deen?  A woman who grew up in Georgia sixty years ago when the schools were still segregated?  That woman might have used the "N-word" back in the day?  She might not have known any better and repeated the same old garbage that her parents said and their parents before them?  Huh.  I am shocked.

Apparently this "news" is all being brought up once again thanks to a former employee, Lisa Jackson, back when Paula was first getting her start in the restaurant business.  Jackson claims that she witnessed numerous acts of violence, discrimination, and racism during the five years that she worked there.  That didn't stop her from penning the following letter to Paula three months before she quit:

On Friday, CNN's sister network, HLN, obtained a letter to Deen written by Jackson, the plaintiff, three months before she quit her job at the restaurant. It read, in part, "When I came to work for this company, I felt hopeless. I needed something, some opportunity that could provide me hope as an individual, as a woman, to make it on my own. At 15, homeless, without parents and with a young child, my life was headed in a direction no one could ever assume positive. ... Since then I have become the independent woman I have always wanted to be. I have been given opportunities that I never thought possible, all because of you and Bubba."

If you want to read more about Paula's back story (very interesting stuff) you can do so here.  It is also where I found the letter quote above.

Given the letter, it seems to me that Miss Jackson wasn't really all that unhappy about her restaurant job or Paula Deen.  She is just another Greedy Grabber looking to cash in on a good thing.  In so doing, she has dug around and pulled out the magic word: Racist.  You call anyone a Racist in today's world and you can sink their ship.  All we know is that Paula Deen grew up in a time when Racism was rampant and she admits that Back Then she used words that she would never use now.

When you know better, you do better.

That isn't enough for The Food Network.  Apparently, you can still be fired for the sins of a lifetime ago.  I am sure that they are letting Paula go to make sure that they are standing on what will be the Politically Correct side of this thing.

All I can say to that is that if we are all about to be judged for things that we did twenty years ago, that is really going to suck rotten eggs.  This life is all about learning from your mistakes.  If we all can't move beyond every stupid thing we've ever done, can't apologize, then we are all just stuck.