Category Archives: writing

Margie Lawson Rocks My World

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*Cliche alert* — As I kept hearing all weekend.

I just took a one and half day Empowering Character’s Emotions workshop with Margie Lawson through the MORWA chapter this weekend. This is THE system for amplifying your voice and writing. I wish I had discovered her EDITS system a year ago, or two years ago, or three…basically before anyone had read my writing. I wouldn’t have been so in the dark about what wasn’t working.

One of my very last “steps” I took before the writing started getting noticed by agents was an amplification pass. I went through the manuscript which I believed was “ready” and picked out lazy lines and paragraphs and shined them up a bit, purposefully made them more interesting and sparkly and unique.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it made my writing tortured and purple. But sometimes you just have to try harder. That’s how my Little Sis marks these lazy areas in the manuscript, “try harder”. I mark them as “make unique” or “do better”. Good, solid writing isn’t necessarily distinctive enough. Good writing doesn’t get noticed. Special writing gets noticed.

Margie calls it “fresh writing”, but she goes much deeper, giving you concrete tools to catch and amplify the writing. Much more effective than feeling around in the dark, as I was doing! Her system resonated with me because of several big ideas:

firstpage1. It’s an instructive system. An empowering system. It’s for writers to be able to delve deeper into their own work. The way to get the most out of it is to analyze your own writing. And reflection is never a bad thing.

2. At the heart of it, she pushes writers to stretch their boundaries and take risks. It’s not about “Don’t” rules; what not to do. Margie emphasizes “Do” rules. She gives a toolset of devices to use and concrete techniques that you can apply immediately.

3. Teacher Jeannie appreciates the lesson design. Cognitively, EDITS is a well-structured system. There’s tactile involvement (highlighting), visual cues through the color coding, actively engaging to the learner — lots of hands on exercises. Margie was also a very good teacher. Lots of positive reinforcement, modeling, creating a safe space by lowering the affective filter. I was very impressed just watching the way the workshop was structured.

The ten hours just flew by. 🙂

Oh, I wasn’t going to actually try to explain the system and the ten gobzillion things I learned. Margie does so in lecture packets which span hundreds of pages, so I doubt I can even scratch the surface. If you’re curious, check out her website (http://www.margielawson.com)– after you appreciate the work of art that is my marked up draft.

I also got a little special star for my effort. The Capote quote definitely embodies my writing process and philosophy.

star

I’m off now, to make it AWESOME.

Tough Love for Writers

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Lately I’ve heard a lot of self-doubt coming from the writerspace. Doubts and fears about finishing a book, about making it good enough. A lot of people are trying their hand at writing or at least coming out of the woodwork, which is great. I think writing makes you a more reflective person, whether or not you publish. And it’s never a bad thing to have more thinking people.

Usually I try to assure them to write forward, get through the first book, gain that confidence of writing “The End”, the rest will come with revisions, have faith, etc.

Maybe I’m softballing it, because the advice that works for me is actually quite different than what I’ve been peddling. It comes in two different forms, one from my mother and one from Nora.

I heard Nora Roberts speak at RWA National conference in Dallas and her advice was simple: “You have to want it.”

My mom’s words of sympathy are even better. “I guess you’re not creative enough.”

Mum is actually extremely motivating and supportive, but it doesn’t translate to the page at all. 🙂

Will I lose my nice gal reputation if I tell other people what works so well for me? It takes a lot less breath to say, “Well, do you want to be a writer or not?”