A Female Deer

So I did have a request to talk about my latest (definitely) and greatest (hopefully) project.

For obvious reasons I cannot post a snippet, but I can post an elongated blurb that allows me to do three things at once: 1. procrastinate; 2. explore my feelings on it; 3. post the moodboard.

Here we go!

Picture it, kids: The lowlands of Tennessee. An autumn. A darkness more felt than seen. Mid-to-late-’90s when Walkmans were clipped to everybody’s hip and the cool kids listened to AFI. And nine high school boys all arrive by caravan to the mouth of the wildlife management area to begin the Doe Hunt of their generation.

The story follows Farley West, a 15-year-old long dismissed and regarded as less masculine than his peers. He’s ready to prove himself a real Young Buck to his friends, his dad, and, above all, his uncle who has been there for him since childhood. But when the Doe Hunt starts, his friends immediately turn on him and from the way they salivate and call him, "Doe," with those sugar-choked voices, Farley has a feeling that they aren't exactly looking to shoot him.

Here’s my glorious moodboard for it; it’s really hot so bring a cold Gatorade.

I have a lot of love for feminized boys/men; how their society tells them what they are because they seem to fit into a certain category by either personality or body type (twinks, for example), and how the guy himself responds to that. Is it easy to wear other people’s expectations when you’re conventionally attractive and you’re rewarded for fitting into the box? Is it heavy? Is it both at once and what does that mean for him? And does he ever resent being placed on a pedestal? How much is he thankful to the pedestal when he sees others struggling in the mud down below?

Because of all those things buzzing through me when I wrote this, they’re pretty prevalent themes in the manuscript. The amount of violence in this isn’t new or special for me, because I’ve done a lot of it before, but I think the speed at which it happens is rather novel for me specifically. The events in the main storyline happen over a weekend, and there’s a second stream that takes place throughout Farley’s life growing up in Red Creek.

My first novel took place in White Hill, which is the sister town of Red Creek, both separated by about fifteen miles of turnpike. If anyone starts a rumor that I want to build a world around these two towns a la Derry and Castle Rock, you let them know THEY’RE RIGHT.

I like familiarity, I like to have already been oriented in a story when I start writing it, and this is the best way for me. One of the main characters in this novel is also a satellite character in the first novel, which is nothing if not fun. I just want to get back to enjoying my goddamn writing life for once.

If I ever had a class of kids who asked me if I would recommend becoming a writer, I’d tell them fuck no. It’s awful and lonely and sad and you lose your innocent love for it. You gain a forced love for it, like a marriage you know you can’t exit, like one from the old days before women could divorce. You stew in it and have to live with it because if you don’t, people will say, “Well, what was it all for?”

So then you look around the room of your own and you see a little love. Something you can hold in your hand. You cup it carefully to try and keep the wind from blowing it out. It warms your face. And you remember the roaring firestorm of your youth and think, This will do. For now.

That’s this novel.

An Interlude

This week marks the beginning of my yoga teacher training, the end of the acceptance period of the lit mag I work at, and the emergence of my love of blue lipstick.

Basically, things are shifting. I’m getting busier, and trying to juggle everything I have taken on — at times, I sit back and think to myself, What have I done? I’m not this person—this person who… who… DOES THINGS.

But then I stop and think about it.

Why can’t I be that kind of person?

Short answer: no reason at all. I can be, will be, am currently doing things.

First of all, yoga books are heavy. Second of all, yoga class takes legit ALL day and then we do physical classes and observations throughout the week. I’m a little confused on my first paper and I’m staring at the amount of reading I have to do like damn, ain’t nobody got time for that.

But at the same time, I’m listening to what my teacher’s saying and it makes me feel like there’s hope for me.

One of the things that’s great about my rediscovery of yoga — besides my fantastic ass — is the realization that you can do anything at any time. Seriously, you can just start shit and say to yourself, Well, guess I’ll be this now. And that’s it. You’re it.

I’m also trying to balance in my writing which is, as always, more of a struggle with the self than time. I find myself looking at my Google doc with a little less than contempt but not much. Really, I’m just ready for a breath of fresh air, I think. I’ve been working on this one for a long time (and yes, the post about it will be coming up soon) and it’d be nice to do something else for a bit — maybe short storying but no concrete promises, just an ethereal want.

And it’s not that I’ve fallen out of love with the story. It means something to me, the characters mean something to me, but in true Robynian fashion, I do struggle with ending longer works. Never had such a problem with short stories, but eh, there you go. My hope for this one is that it can see the light of day. It’s not perfect but it’s super surrealist, Southern, and rapey, which of course are staples of mine.

I can often be found making some headway at the local cafe by the yoga studio. My life is encapsulated in about 10 square blocks.

This is going to have to be shoved into my new mantra of I want this, I am this.

I want to write regularly. I WRITE REGULARLY DAMMIT.

And finally, if you don’t follow me on my various social medias (accessible through this website, plug plug ((fuck, is it a plug if I own the damn site? I don’t know))), you’ll be happy to know I regularly participate in makeup experimentation, which is becoming more and more fun. And also more and more expensive, but don’t tell my husband.

I like the colors on my face, for a change. I remember when I was younger I thought certain colors—blue, for example—made me look fat. HA. Man, was that dumb. Someone should have staged an intervention because I look incredible.

Hintlord Series #1: Hold the cheese, please.

And the sex goes on.

I recently received a request for a blog post on how to do sensitive but cheeseless sex scenes! Which is right up my alley — well, that’s up for debate honestly since I’ve done far more noncon and dubcon but I HAVE had my fair share of CONSENSUAL writing escapades. So there.

Look, as a disclaimer, because people can get fairly butthurt when it comes to sex in media (which is a whole ‘nother blog post, believe me), I have to state that this is just one adorably talented and hilarious woman’s professional and licensed opinion. Write what you want, but don’t be mad when people don’t like it. Because you didn’t listen to me.

The best way I can sum this up is:

Necessity.

The sex has to work as a necessity to character growth and plot. This little nugget of wisdom is predicated on two things:

1. There’s actually a plot in your story.

2. You want the audience to feel the sex wasn’t just shoved in and that this was a natural progression.

One way to accomplish this is to have a plot where sex is a given. If the sexuality of the main character is in line with the plot, let’s say they’re approaching or enduring puberty or a kink discovery, then the audience will come in with an expectation so sex will be less jarring when it appears.

In terms of sensitivity, this also has to follow the line of the plot. The characters’ relationships grow with the chapters, and on a technical level, I personally make sure to dot notes in my workbook about furthering the relationship with dialogue, imagined scenes and actions every chapter so I don’t forget. Because I will if left to my own devices.

You can have consideration and sweetness in a sex scene without filling it with I love you’s or the dreaded phrase making love. A few things I’ve seen people do that really grinds my gears in order to make the relationship seem “sweet” is amp up the cringe factor by having excessive pauses in the action wherein the author spoon-feeds the audience the importance of this occasion. It doesn’t need to be said, it needs to be felt.

Something as simple as the characters talking throughout it and hearkening back to in-jokes or banter they are already aware of will do the trick. Minute details of the body a character notices will also let the reader in on the singularity of the moment, the importance as seen through the character’s eyes. And because you’re a conscientious writer, you already know what the consequences of The Sexing will be. Does this make the relationship better or worse? Or, preferably, both?

Plot points are all dominoes that trigger one another, and sex is no different. If you keep these simple hints in mind, you’ll be wetting panties in no time!

And if you’d like to request a new Hintlord writing post, you can do so on my new Contact page!

The Hole in Your Sex Scene

What the fuck’s wrong with you people?

… Okay, that’s not very nice. But it’s how I feel — and I have a lot of feelings about this hole business. I’m honestly flabbergasted whenever I see it, or maybe that isn’t even a strong enough word. Bamboozled? Is that stronger than flabbergasted? Will the world ever know?

Let’s take a step back. Let’s set the mood.

You’re feeling a little introverted tonight. Your roommates or family or dogs are either away or in another room. You’ve got a hot beverage beside you which works only as a temporary balm for the post-Christmas doldrums that have descended over your hemisphere. It’s cold outside, and dark. You’ve recently dived headfirst into a new fandom and have heard the fanfiction scene is lit, or so your white friend on Instagram says. You head over to AO3 and settle in for a night of steamy sex scenes with little to no plot because who gives a good goddamn, you just wanna imagine two hot guys going at each other like the world’s gonna end. You find a story, scan the first paragraph to make sure they can put a sentence together, and say to yourself: Good enough!

Everything’s coming up roses. The main characters find each other in the woods and are inexplicably horny. They give little consideration before tossing away their heterosexuality like ill-fitting uniforms and start rimming each other on the ground. Then—

It happens.

You see it.

And your once flooded basement shrivels painfully with the sudden lack of moisture.

Jojo slipped his fingers into Dio’s used hole…

Agh, God, why!? Why, Lord? Why would the writer do that? And you know, it’s not a sometimes thing, for people who don’t regularly debauch themselves. I’ve seen it in published novels too. I’ve honestly got no idea about why this is such a phenomena, because it’s universally awful.

And don’t @ me, okay, I’ve never done that shit. Even when I was FOURTEEN, I knew better. Holes are holes are holes, and we’ve all got them on our bodies, but first of all they do have NAMES. You don’t call what you breathe through your nose hole, do you, you degenerate? What about your food hole? Hear holes?! How ridiculous does that sound in normal tone? Now you wanna throw it into something sexy? The hell’s wrong with you?

Sexy is subjective, I get it. I’m the first one to say it. But who honestly thinks of a hole and thinks, Ooh la la?

Big holes.

Gaping holes.

Sinkholes.

It’s all either ridiculous or disgusting. Where did young girls learn this kind of language? Is there no such thing as finishing school anymore? Where are the goddamn debutantes?

It’s an easy enough fix. You literally do not have to say hole. The human imagination and context of a reader is what helps your writing along. We know what you mean when you say:

Jojo slipped his fingers into Dio.

That’s literally all you have to do. Take words out and it instantly becomes better. Readers around the world will be thankful. I’ve had tons of girls compliment my sex scenes because, as filthy as they can be, they don’t require the flicker of an image of a character fucking SPELUNKING.

Motivation, or: What I Talk About When I Talk About 2005

Picture it: Nashville, TN, 2005. A young black girl has recently discovered soft-core porn and her parents don’t know she has access to Skinemax on her bedroom TV. She's new to the area. Her love of Yugioh is in full swing. She has a chalkboard on her wall full of fanfiction titles, plots unknown. She’s often naked and wears plaits. She writes and she loves to write, with no real expectation of the activity besides happiness and fun. She will not live forever.

Lasses and lads, that young black girl was me.

And that unmolested love of writing is… gone.

That’s not to say it’s always gone. It does come back every once in a while. A glimmer of it, or a ghost only hinted at on the edge of a photograph. It’s hard to touch, anyway, and it doesn’t like to be touched. I haven’t been that girl in so long.

The hardest part of writing, we think, is motivation. Which isn’t wrong, it is hard to find time enough and inspiration enough but I think the crux of it is finding love enough.

Back in those days, I had enough love for 1,000 yaoi girls. I just enjoyed it so damn much and lately I’ve been trying to examine why. Why don’t I feel that way anymore? It’s hard to put your finger on if you don’t admit to yourself why you write or have ever written in the first place. Why did you ever start?

For me, it’s easy.

I do it to harass people.

That’s as straightforward as I can be. And there’s no open forum I can really voice all my opinions in, so it’s a good thing I paid for my own domain, eh? Yeah, I like harassing people with my writing, always have. That’s what got me started, what kept me going, and posting, and amassing readers. I’ve had legit thousands of people subbed to me and I was delighted to be able to write just outrageous, disgusting, ridiculous things and have people show up week after week to read and respond to it.

Let’s take it past fanfiction — when I started writing original, I was in undergrad, attending my first fiction writing class with the great Dr. Mini. I was scared shitless but there was this fire in me: look, new people to harass! I glanced around the room shiny-eyed, salivating. What a great opportunity.

I remember, specifically, my second fiction writing class at MTSU where one of the other students was a total prude. He, for some reason, despised anything with sex in it. He simply was not having it, dahling. So I latched onto that and wrote about sex the entire semester, going so far as to start off a story with it and I drank in his discomfort like an aged Italian wine.

Fast-forward to now.

What am I now?

• an adult

• usually alone at home

• writing original

• barred from sharing original work outside of sending it to editors because putting it online suddenly makes it unpublishable

• ergo no one but editors reads my stuff

So what does that mean?

I HAVE NO REAL REASON TO WRITE.

It’s cause and effect. I know you’re supposed to want to write for yourself, for your -gag- ART, oh Jesus save me from ART, but fuck man, do you know what this does to me? I have no one to harass, It’s like a predator alone on a desert island with no sheep to eat. I’m dying, oh, I’m dying.

And my agent wonders why my next book is taking so long, but that’s another post.

…

No, fuck it, it’s THIS post! I’m lovely and lonely and I belong deeply to myself and I don’t want to. At this point, the only way I motivate myself into writing and finishing this goddamn book is by sheer force and threatening but there is no JOY in it. Writing is joyless for me now and so when I think back to 2005, what was arguably the height of my fervor for writing, I don’t just think of the scene and emo kids, the Death Note AMVs, the long nights spent on MSN while rewatching the L death scene, the Hot Topic trips, discovering masturbation, the hot Tennessee summers, the ice cream sandwiches, the giant house shoes I wore, my hair in long braids, the sound of a locker door slamming, ringing down an empty hallway, a Snickers bar melting in my hand.

I think, I wish I could love it again.

Obligatory 2020 Post

Sweet Jesus, we are all gonna die someday.

It's times like these I really fucking cherish my memories of the nineties. And hell, even the 00s. Those were great times. Timeless times, one could say. Everyone says we're gonna die from a plague soon. That's slightly depressing.

I've never been the type to believe in or set resolutions but I do have goals, like most of the world. For 2020, I'll just throw some out there:

1. Update this fucking blog on a schedule.

2. Finish my fucking final draft of my new novel.

3. Get my yoga certification.

4. Become a nudist.

5. Dismantle what the literary community is becoming. Because it sucks.

6. Drink less soda? Fuck if I know.

So let's rock it out.

Christmas Oofs

I'm sleepy, goddammit! It's Christmas, goddammit!

So I haven’t been doing too much lately due to all this goddamn coziness. I don’t think I have winter depression yet, like I usually do. Maybe it’s waiting around the January corner after the holly and spice of the season has washed away and nothing is left but an endless tundra. Who knows. What I do know is that I do need to find SOME motivation for the following things:

• Sending out thank you cards.

• Editing my novel, which I have been doing but only in spurts.

• Cleaning out the fridge.

• Getting the house in order to leave for a week.

So I’m off for my honeymoon for a week in about… a week or so. You won’t hear from me much during that time, but I do hope to get one more crafty blog post out before then. On Insta, it was voted that I do one about sex scenes and I’m still trying to compile it in my head. It’s really such a VAST thing to talk about, filled with twists and turns, but what it comes right down to is: don’t be unsexy. That’s all. But of course I’ll EXPOUND. Anyway, more on that in the actual post.

Send me good wishes for the editing. More than anything, send me willpower.

The Sisterhood of Fandom, or: How We Ate Each Other

Like some other women writers my age, I came up through the fandom circuit. I feel like that’s hard to say—and I know a lot of you will deny your own involvement in it and let me just stop you there, because I know you were right beside me: those long nights on FFN, trying to hide explicit material from your family, searching for ungodly things on DA, hanging in the lull of LJ, the prompts, the yule exchanges, the launch of A03 and the horrors that awaited us there, and your modesty washing off you like loose dirt against the tide, year after year, a dissolution, a devolvement, a triumph of camaraderie, and always, always waiting for the next comment. Like a roller-coaster. Like a drug-fueled delusion.

My point is you’re my sister, and I love and hate you like a sister.

The list of fandoms I’ve been attracted to is long and we don’t have time for it. Instead, I’ll list fandoms I’ve actively participated in, starting with the grand majesty, Yugioh, or Yuugiou (if you’re insufferable). That came first and might as well have been the last for the way I long for its simplicity. I was 13 - 17 when I went through it, but 17 was hazy as I started phasing into my next big thing, Death Note. I mean, fuck, we all remember that, right? It was our nightmare. It was our salvation. FFN was our Somme.

DN lasted, I don’t know, until maybe I was 20. Three years seems to be prominent. Then there was the dry spell, the I don’t know years, where I was little more than a piece of algae in the Pacific. The time went by slow, anyway. What came after that was a real nipple-twister. The thing is, I’m not exactly proud to have been affiliated with the Hannibal fandom, and maybe that’s because it wasn’t too long ago. From ages 24 to about 25 and a half. It was really a short amount of time, but I wrote for it like a madwoman and I watched the fandom in its death throes after the show itself got canceled by the network.

And this is where we are. Let me tell you how I feel about our childhood home.

I was and always will be a proponent of fandom being a haven for women and girls. And yes, when I say women and girls, that’s who I mean. I’m not saying that boys can’t be involved in fandom, they can do whatever they damn well please, but you’d have to be an idiot to not realize these things have been built and carried by a very specific group of people for years. People who organize shit and write shit and draw shit and make sure there are extracurricular things to enjoy. Way back when, that was us and girls before me and girls before them. Girls go wild. Literally. Elvis wouldn’t have been shaking his pelvis so much if girls weren’t throwing money at him and fainting in the front row. Women will show out for shit. I also feel like it’s an important coven where women are allowed to be fucking filthy sexual creatures. We write our own porn for each other because men legit do not know how. They don’t even know what’s sexy about themselves to relay it to us. So yes, in that sense, yay, fandom.

And in another sense, fuck fandoms! Holy shit, they bring out the worst in people. I’m in support of them for being a haven for women to sexually express themselves but then they disperse and form ship cliques and send death threats to people who ship things they don’t think should be shipped. Ideology becomes a factor, which was something prevalent in Hannibal fandom. People would actually get angry if a story didn’t have a HEA, because “Will and Hannibal deserve happiness and my life sucks right now and all I want is some fluff!” … Really, Mary? Fuck their happiness and fuck your fluff. It’s not like there aren’t LITERAL HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of fanfiction on AO3 alone you could read. Or, you know, you could write your own. There’s a novel idea.

I’m highly aware that some of these are early 00’s era lingo. I’m fucking 29.

[Lingo chart for the fandom impaired:

• Ship: a relationship with two or more characters romantically/sexually involved

• HEA: happily ever after

• PWP: plot what plot, or porn without plot, meaning it’s just an excuse to write a sex scene

• AMV: anime music video

• Fuck off: fuck off]

Here’s how it usually goes down, in terms of eras:

1. Creation: The fandom is created and all is well. The show/movie/media has been launched successfully and found an audience that’s not only loving it but wanting more and so, they create more. They find places to congregate such as Tumblr (fuck them) and Pinterest (they’re okay) and Instagram (cool) and Twitter (can’t even). Fanfiction starts with “missing scenes” from the source material, general PWPs, wherein fangirls suspect the characters could be fucking. There’s lots of instances of lube hiding in under a tree trunk in the woods. People are feeling it out.

2. Factions: The separation begins. Oil is spilled into the calm water. Ship A and Ship B rise as the top two interests. Fangirls who don’t identify with either of the king pairings make little nests for their favorites who are less lauded. Satellite pairings. Fanfiction moves into its next phase, which is exploring AUs and taking more liberties with its source material. Followings for specific fanfictions begin, as this era is when the bigger ones take hold, things that are 40ish chapters. AMVs are plentiful. It’s a good time for all.

3. Disaster: Chaos. Malignancy. Generally speaking, this era is just not good. People get overly excited in what they deem is right and wrong and the fandom begins to deconstruct. More and more people flood the fandom, people who are out to just ruin other’s good times. This is usually when a -gate happens, something that a couple fans do that ruins the name of the whole fandom. Examples are Steven Universe, Creepypasta, Rupaul’s Drag Race. Either linked to doxxing, harassment, death threats, ACTUAL KILLING. Delinquency. Is online delinquency a phrase? Let’s make it one.

4. Surreal: I know this sounds like a good era but really it’s worse than Disaster in some ways. This occurs when there’s no new source material being pumped out by the creator. People start making fanficton of fanfiction and we start to Russian nesting-doll ourselves. This happened back in Hannibal and I still have war flashbacks, I still hear the bass of the bombs going off in the distance, as I watched some of the most ludicrous stuff being pumped out. Steam is lost. People go on not because it’s fun anymore but because their skeleton demands it of them. Joyless and unnerving. A ghost ship passing you by in the night.

Now, let me say this. Throughout each of these phases, new girls are discovering the show or movie or what have you and they are experiencing that first magical era anew. It’s always Creation Era for some girls and that’s a great thing. It’s a thing I hope I can always remember when I’m frankly horrified by the way fans reduce each other and hate each other over imaginary people.

I know what you’re wondering.

You look at your screen and think, ‘Is Robyn in a fandom now? Is she experiencing Creation Era anew? Or is she bitterly coming to Surreal somewhere?’

The answer to all your questions is always yes. I’m always experiencing some era of some fandom because I eat content for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I even produce for a fandom, although that’s not something I’m going to wave around like a flag. I still participate, but on a smaller scale, and I only ever produce for small hidden things. You get old, you get tired of it. You’re happy for the little ones who dance and sing and frolic, and sometimes you do the same, but it’s never really like that first time. I’ll never rush home from school again and throw my bag down, run to my computer to check comments and start writing while I talk to my friends on MSN or AIM.

But other girls will, do, are. I wish it could be Creation and Faction for everyone, forever, and in a way, if you tilt your head and squint, it kind of is.

The Irrelevance of Irredeemability, or: No One Cares About Your Feelings, Becky

Here’s a secret about yours truly: I’m kind of a shy writer. Not like the “No, I can’t bear for anyone to look at my work!” way but more the “Maybe other writers won’t like me so I’ll just kinda sit over here,” way. I’m a lurker. I’m a creepy perverted lurker and I’m in your forums, judging you and keeping myself out of it. So I’ve been creeping and lurking, as I do, and the thing that really has come to my attention is this new obsession with redeemable characters.

More secrets about me.

Ugh. And who knows if it really is a new obsession; it could be I’m just behind the times which happens more often that I’d care to admit. But I’m seeing this from people who don’t write a lot, like maybe they only do it at Nano or they’re working on their first stab at a book or something like that. They seem to get caught up in asking people, “Is this character still redeemable?”

And people (of the same type) have the nerve to tell them, “No!”

No?!

Okay, first of all, I’ve seen this asked about the villain, which, if you want your villain to pal up with the hero at the end after many a hardship and battle (channeling Pokemon, I suppose) then… okay, that can be hot too, I guess, but then these aren’t typically the villains/rivals who are mass murdering people or setting off on raping sprees or hurting animals. Typically they steal something or like, I dunno, call the hero a naughty name.

Villains, real villains, don’t need to be redeemed. The best book villains I can think of off the top of my head: King Haggard, Humbert Humbert, Patrick Bateman, Leland Gaunt, Annie Wilkes, none of them needed redeeming to be satisfying, and two of those are also protagonists and this brings me to my next point!

If you’re asking if your protagonist is redeemable, this tells me two things:

1. Your protagonist has done maybe some bad things while also trying to make his way in the world and get what he wants in the novel, which makes him cool and hopefully well-rounded and go you, babe, go you.

2. But you’re trying to nuke him by possibly watering him down the first time some person who may not even be your prospective audience tosses a bitch fit.

(Sidenote: Yes, your prospective audience matters. Your stories are not for everyone. Mine certainly are not. Nor should they be. When you pick people to look at your story for mishaps and pink gaping holes, you have to pick someone who’s aesthetic lines up at least a bit with your own or else they might tell you to lose necessary parts for the story you want to tell. At the end of the day, who are you telling this story for? Who are you telling it to?)

So, your protagonist has done some nasty shit, but haven’t we all? Haven’t the people who’re looking down their noses at your protag in the forums? But, okay, for the sake of exploration, let’s give this some leeway.

Your character is irredeemable.

To who?

There’s only two answers; he could either be deemed irredeemable by the characters in his story or by the reader. If it’s the characters, that sounds like it has branches. His best friend can’t forgive him for fucking his grandmother? For quitting his job, ditching responsibilities just as the economy collapses, and joining a tribe in Papua New Guinea? For stealing his winning lottery ticket? Sounds good to me. Then if you want them to fix their friendship by the end, how does he make up for being a colossal douche? Or if you want them to go separate ways and live to be terrorized by the memory of what happened, that’s great too. You could do almost anything with characters who can’t or won’t forgive or want to forgive but don’t really know how.

If he can’t be redeemed by the reader… uh. SO?!

I mean really, who gives a fuck? As long as the reader is entertained and moved in some way, who cares if it doesn’t fall into this hippy-dippy we-are-the-world redeemable and everyone lives happily ever after schlock? I’ve had it! Officially!

…

Zen.

Okay, okay, okay. Look, here’s the thing. I just get so worried. In a forum the other day, I saw a girl describe her main character, and he was a total dick. He was a blond twink dick who thought the world owed him everything and was a bit ditsy to boot. And that sounded magnificent. I was literally salivating. But then you have these people popping up who are literally just random assholes telling her, “I dunno, he may be too unlikable.” Or, “Well, okay, but how’s he going to be redeemed at the end?” Filling this young girl’s head with NONSENSE.

And I wished I could take her aside and tell her her story is good and her character is boss and as long as she writes well, as long as each sentence makes me want to read the next, and as long as her blond dick of a protagonist fights like hell to get whatever his spoiled little heart desires, then those people in the forums can redeem this dick.

Editing Out Loud

So I just joined Sundog Lit as an Assistant Fiction Editor and boy are my arms tired.

I’m kidding, but it’s been really fun so far! And I don’t even like work. I’ve been part of a magazine before, but a smaller one, when I was in my early twenties, as a reader. Back then Submittable was still Submishmash (a way better name, by the way) and things looked a lot different.

Readjusting to an editor mindset takes me right back to Emerson and grad school because I haven’t really looked at anyone else’s fiction with an eye towards YES or NO since then. And of course, I wasn’t rejecting my fellow students’ work for anything, I was just in my head reading and like, “That’s a choice.”

I’m actually living right now, getting to be immersed in writerly things because I had divorced myself from them for a good half a year this year due to depression, anxiety, hiding in other activities like drawing and binge-watching and generally being very potatolike. But if I keep this energy up, working like I’m in the cotton fields over my own novel, editing for the magazine, continuing to interact with the few writer friends I have AND also continuing my yoga teacher training, I feel like I can rock climb my way out of impending mental doom. And there is ALWAYS impending mental doom.

So if you’re a writer and you dabble in fiction, come submit! Even if your thing isn’t fiction, we also accept poetry and nonfiction as well, so try your luck before Dec. 31st, babe.

OK Yoga Boomer!

Picture it:

A young black girl has recently started her journey in yoga training to become a teacher. She’s joined a local yoga center and has found camaraderie with like-minded individuals, exercise both relaxing and intense, and something to keep her cakes firm after her knees got shot running for so many years. She goes to a gentle class one Sunday morning to begin the day and hears a screeching “I’d like to speak to the manager” voice from the mats behind her. It’s a woman who might be named Karen. She’s responding to the yoga' teacher’s announcement that there will be a small change in scheduling this upcoming season. The Woman Who Might Be Named Karen says, “Well, no one asked US. I didn’t get asked! Did anyone else get asked? Why is there no conversation about this? I’m a paying customer—this is a customer service business! The customer has to be happy!”

She went on like this for fifteen minutes of class. Fifteen minutes of an hour and fifteen minute class. The yoga teacher was too nice and pragmatic to do anything but nod and verbally pat-pat the Woman Who Might Be Named Karen. Meanwhile the young black girl, who generally does not have time for middle-aged buffoonery, could do nothing but think about the choices she’d made in life which brought her to this exact space and time.

Ladies and gentlemen, that young black girl… was me. And that Woman Who Might Be Named Karen… is on my shit list.

The most frustrating part of it is that yoga is supposed to be (and usually is) a relaxing escape from the daily bustle of NY life. No one wants to hear your screeching opinions. And why, if you think your opinion is so noble, shouldn’t that “conversation” take place after class?

And for the record I hate it when people use the word conversation to mean let me rant at you and try to get my way because that is not a conversation.

I know what you may be saying.

“Robyn,” you say to your computer screen or tablet or phone, “yoga is typically full of middle-aged women. You’ll just have to get over it.”

To you I say it’s not middle-aged people I have a problem with. As a matter of fact, I quite like them. They call me skinny and give me candy. My problem is when they start getting their feathers ruffled over loss of routine, thereby messing up someone else’s routine, and by the way isn’t yoga about release? Relinquishing control and being serene in that lack of control? Send me a letter if I’m wrong. To PO Box I Couldn’t Care Less.

A few of her comrades even got started and the thing that REALLY grinds my gears is that insistence on customer service. First of all, ma’am, yoga teachers aren’t working behind a counter at McDonald’s AND even if they were, you shouldn’t just shout at anyone about how you’re the reason their business is thriving. No, you aren’t; the reason McDonald’s thrives is because people like cheap and easy and the reason yoga studios thrive is because people see the value in the practice. I was so angry I wanted to cry and flail my arms at her.

Anyway, so that’s a lesson learned for me. Never going to that class slot again.

(Another protip: if you’re coming to yoga with the mindset of complaining, maybe go out to brunch with the girlfriends instead.)

A Pause

I’ve been gone a while, but I’m back, so this is just a precursor to real blog posts that will begin regularly again. I’ve been through the wringer creatively and mentally but we always are supposed to link it back to writing, right? Anyway, that’s what they told me in grad school.

Keep an eye out.

Lounging in Limbo: Between Writing Projects

I sat down the other night at my laptop and thought, ‘Time to write.’

It took a second before I realized I didn’t have anything to work on. There was a minute pause wherein I was confused, a little disappointed, but then overwhelming happiness burst through and I ran away to goof off.

Having finished work for now on that other project I just edited, there’s little to be done in Camp Robyn. Well, I say that knowing I could immediately start into another project if I wanted. There’s always SOMETHING to be written. However I’m a staunch believer in a palate cleanser between projects.

As a cadet novelist, my “projects” are largely 50K+ words, so as a palate cleanser I tend to do a short story or some other side project. So that’s what I plan on turning my attention to in the time it takes my agent to go over this new novel. Will I be able to sell the short story? Who knows. I still have two in backlog that need to be sent out more aggressively, which is a whole other story.

In the interim where I’m not noveling, I’ll be working on said short story and I plan on doing a series of posts about some short story assistance ranging from writing to actually getting them published. I often ask questions on my Instagram story to see what the people would like to see and so far I have a queued ask for help on making human characters, which will be coming up.

Any more requests? Hit me up there or here in the comments. Also you can now subscribe to a newsletter at the bottom, alerting you to any new posts!

Saying Goodbye to the First Draft

Picture it: Boston, 2016. There was a young female—in fact, 3 years younger than she is now. She was in the midst of an MFA in fiction writing at Emerson College and, like most arts-focused people, had very little to do outside of her chosen art and playing video games. There were definitely times in that young girl’s life where she had forsaken writing for the aloof hobby that it is, but when she was in the MFA she was all in. She wrote in that year alone about 300,000 words on various projects both for professors and in secret. She drank coffee and Red Bull all the time. She feared the oncoming of carpel tunnel.

Readers, that young girl was me. And one of those projects… just got edited.

So what do we talk about when we talk about editing? See, the thing is, this whale started at 95,000 words when I picked it up, dusted it off, and said, “You know, this can be something. Just because it was an idea formed by my younger self, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have merit.” (And if we’re being honest, a lot of my ideas were formed by my younger self — my sense of humor never grew up.)

I took the project on a long journey of hacking, tamping down, molding. Basically editing. It went from 95K to 80K throughout this journey and that son of a bitch is looking lean and sexy. I didn’t take out that much of the sex though, let’s be honest.

15K words of superfluousness. 15K words of didn’t need to be said. 15K words of what was I thinking.

Everyone likes to talk about killing your darlings like it’s such a big deal and, hell, it is, but only when Time has not tempered your love. Think about it, when you knock out a first draft, ratty as it may be, you see a newborn. A baby you made yourself without any pesky sperm getting in the way. Something your own. You’re not going to want to kill that.

But let’s do what my prof said once: Put it in the drawer for six months. If you’re on a time crunch, you could probably wait a bit less but you have to give yourself a substantial amount of time to love it less. That’s just the bottom line. Because when you pull it out again and read it through, like I did with my project from three years ago, you see that your child is a bit ugly.

Let’s talk about my child’s blemishes for a second.

For example, I spent a lot of this second draft paring down my wordiness and, basically, changing the narrative’s voice which not only took away a great repetitiveness but made it seem cleaner immediately. I’m a great proponent of setting the scene and I like to know where and what characters are doing, so stage directions are used often, and I continue to, but there was an overwhelming amount. I had to trust that my reader has enough imagination and willingness to use that imagination to fill in the gaps.

15K sounds like a lot, and it is. But it’s the difference between so much fat it doesn’t taste good to just enough fat to make you savor. If I had to say, between writing the first draft and writing the second, writing the second is probably even my favorite. Yes, the first draft can be ballistic fun and it’s private and doesn’t have to even make much sense, but the second draft is where your brain starts understanding what your heart was trying to do.

The South Spilled Blood into My Mouth and I Drank It with Relief

When people would ask where I'm from, I used to stutter.

Winter in Tennessee.

A thousand things ran through my mind—what is from, exactly? Well, I was born in LA and lived there in the years I wasn't making memories. Okay, well, I made one or two, and they sit in a corner of my mind all dilapidated with time. A palm tree here, maybe smog from back then is still in my lungs. Then I moved to Florida, yes, that place, the home state of Florida Man, and I became one with the hurricane. Then, like a final touch to my soul, I was shipped up to Tennessee and spent my late teen and new adult years there. I lost my virginity in the Tennessean grasses, I won awards at a Tennessean university.

When people ask where I'm from now, I just say Tennessee, but when I say that, am I lying? Seems a lot neater than to go into the previous paragraph and spew it in a slightly different syntax at every man making small talk at me.

Sure I wasn't born there but I know it, and more than know the geography, I know that without Tennessee (and to a great extent, Florida, though whether that is THE SOUTH is another conversation) I wouldn't possibly be me. (Whether that's a good or bad thing is also another conversation.)

Somewhere along the line I started identifying as a Southern writer. There's this little town an hour south of Nashville called Columbia where my parents lived for ten years; I went to visit for summers and the odd weekend. If someone ever asks me why I identify as such, I think the only real true answer I could give would be two words: "Columbia, Tennessee."

A cold day walking in Columbia.

I don't think I've ever seen such a cute little town. Gorgeous, really, with a strange and hilarious history having to do with mules. The more time I spent there, the more time I wanted to be that, in whatever capacity I could be since I never lived there proper. I wanted to talk how the people talked and I wanted to go where they went. The book store, the antique store, parks and old barns and trails and creeks that sounded like music in the dead of winter. Knowing, of course, I could never intrinsically be just like a Columbia-bred person, I decided to work it into my writing. So deep that they couldn't be separated. If I was ever going to be known as a writer, I would be known as a writer who put this place on the map—William Gay notwithstanding.

The novel my agent's currently shopping around takes place in a warped version of Columbia called White Hill. If you're ever in the area or just look at a map, you'll see Columbia is tied by a small stretch of highway to another town called Spring Hill—in the book, it's called Red Creek. Like bitter Southern sisters, Red Creek and White Hill bitch and fight and the older brags about getting her period and tits first, but in the end they do love each other for no other reason than they're blood.

Really, I don't know if I do the town justice. Towns. They're so beautiful which is why I've attached pictures. I follow some of their town officials on Twitter because I miss it and I have never lived there but I miss it so much it's sometimes physical pain. My parents don't even live there anymore. So I have no real reason to visit. But I think, sometime, I will go back just because.

So, on wanting to be something you're not:

I've told many people I'm from Tennessee. Sometimes, they say, "Wow! And no accent!" and I'll just grin and say I've been moved around too much for it to stick. But if you say you are something, and you want to be something, and you prove you love something, I think you can turn your blood a different color.

My dog, Poland, on the Columbia trails.

4 Tips for Receiving Criticism in the Fiction Workshop

I’ve been in many workshops – high end, low end, undergrad, graduate, fiction, poetry, with bestselling writers and unknowns. Ones in which it seemed everyone was a professional and capable of handling constructive critiques and ones in which people were giant titty-babies who couldn’t handle one negative point made.

I remember when someone cried.

She was younger than me, not by much. This was in undergrad where everyone was nervous, anxiously wanting to prove their capability. The concept of relaxation hadn’t yet worked its way into our skin.

She was obviously proud of her story; you could tell because she talked about it beforehand with us which is something of a faux pas. Do not discuss the work outside of the workshop, particularly with people you don’t know! Because chances are they don’t care. Something else you should know: s/he whose work is being discussed is not to speak during the discussion. S/he is not to defend, plead or bargain. ‘Take what you are given and expect no more’ kind of deal. She was breaking all kinds of unspoken rules.

As we were discussing (and at this point, you could tell this story was not a class favorite) she spoke up. The point being made currently: this part of the story is unrealistic for the kind of character we have thus far been shown. The girl said, “But this really happened! This happened to me and this is how I responded!”

Now, at this point, everyone was, one, annoyed at being interrupted and, two, inly rolling their eyes because this defense is as lame as they come. The “this really happened” line is a non-sequitur. Never is it appropriate in a fiction workshop. I don’t care if it did happen and neither does anyone else. Fiction is not real life and the two are not interchangeable. If we as an audience cannot believe it on the page, it needs to be changed, end of story. I said so. Others did too.

Then came the waterworks.

I went to LA for a screenwriting job.

The professor agreed with us and we hurried to get to the end of her workshop. I can still see her sitting across the circle from me: patchy red and soggy-faced, looking sullen and angry. I knew she wasn’t going to use any of the edits. I’ll never get back the breath I used that day.

Here’s how to accept and be one with critiques:

1. Be open.

Openness is something you have control over. Can you control how other people see your work? No. And I’m not heartless – I’m always the critiquer and the critiqued, so I know it’s frustrating when people divine nonsense from your work, when you’re dying to say, “That’s not what that means at all!” There’s no control there. There is control in how you respond to it. One of my grad profs said that during your workshop, when your story is being discussed, you are to sit on your throne and observe. This is some of the best advice you can get. Sit there, look regal, and nod and take in what people are saying. Don’t spend time scribbling notes; they won’t do you any good. Openness works in many ways. You are open to their opinions and readings. You are open to seeing your work through their eyes. You are open to change.

2. Be gracious.

Smile, goddammit. This isn’t wartime; it’s serious, yes, but this is your day! Your work is being looked upon, scrutinized. Do you know how lucky you are? Do you? So many wanna-be writing cadets would kill to have a proper workshop look at their work, to guide them towards publication, which is the real goal of any good workshop. People in these workshops have taken time to read, re-read and consider your work. To think about how best to give you their opinions. To show you there may be a better way to get across your point. You are so lucky.

3. Be faithful.

To you, to your work. You know where you wanted to go with this in the first place, don’t you? You know what you wanted to say, right? If the consensus among the workshop is that your point did not come across, look for how they suggest alternative routes. Take these routes. Use the workshop’s ideas – bridges, high roads, low roads – to get to your destination. Having a story critiqued does not mean giving up ownership. It means strengthening your claim and learning from your missteps.

4. Be discerning.

You can’t take everyone’s advice. That way lies ruin. It may take you some time, but you will learn by reading others who you share ideals with and whose writing you admire. Obviously always give particular consideration to the workshop head/professor, as they are the most experienced and will… probably not steer you wrongly, but on a second tier, look to the people in the workshop who you feel kinship with. If you admire their work and they give you a point to look at or advice on sentence structure, value theirs above someone who you aren’t sure about. You obviously wouldn’t say these things aloud, just keep it in mind and take everyone’s criticisms equally graciously.

The day of your workshop is a great day for you and your writing. There is no where else you will get this kind of treatment. I don’t care if you have a group of friends you trade stories with; I don’t care if you write fanfiction and someone gave you a good comment; no one looks at your work the way a coherent and serious workshop will. But this advice also extends to taking criticism from your editor or agent. The relationship between the critiquer and the critiqued is a constant and measured push and pull. Allow yourself and your writing to be taken care of.

Redemption, New York

The move from Boston to NYC has been intense.

So much change in one gulp can’t be good for my health — in a lot of ways, it’s not just an uprooting but a trauma, like a tooth that wasn’t ready to be pulled. I miss my home but I have to come to terms with a new space, new people, new goals. Maybe there’s some redemption here too.

I lost my previous blog of about 7 years which was a huge blow, but now I can have my own space here where no one can kick me off. HA. I have other places on the web for drawing, nonsense, serious writing business, but for the forseeable future (at least a year because that’s how long my current payment plan goes for…) I will be combining all of them here!

Welcome to my new site. And welcome to my new me.