Shan Jeniah Burton | Wing's World

First of all, thank you to all who sent me kind words or plain ol’ “likes” on my last post. I was (obviously) feeling pretty down about my dog and my book and my responses to both. One wonderful response came from my friend Shan Jeniah Burton, who quoted Vulcan wisdom to me:

“You are very adept at listing the questionable decisions you’ve made. But there have been other decisions – many of them – that no one would question. ”

Thanks, SJ. I call her SJ. I have NO IDEA if anyone else does, because, see, we’ve never met. We were both ~~prisoners~~ students in Kristen Lamb’s blogging-for-writers class over a year ago (Hotel Californians, we call ourselves, ’cause we can check out any time we like, but…yeah). Now we’re soul sisters…remotely.

This is why I can say with perfect honesty, 14 months since starting that class in order to kick-start my reluctant, anti-blogging self into doing something I was pretty sure authors just needed to suck-it-up-and-DO, I like my blog. I like this weird way of connecting with people. I have made real–not “virtual,” but REAL real–friends this way. Not to mention how lovely it is to re-connect with existing friends through this medium. Way more room to roam than on Facebook.

Then there’s the “please help” aspect. Granted, this works on Facebook and Twitter too, but I’m thinking I’m going to get a much more meaningful and useful response if I try this here on Wing’s World.

Can anyone advise me on how to get in touch with Anne Lamott? Her own blog does not have a “contact me” button (for obvious reasons; she’s a famous gal!). I’ve tweeted her and left a message on her Facebook page, but never heard anything, and I don’t want to be a stalker about it.

See, I wrote a song that I really want her to hear. It’s based on her famous quote about having only two prayers, “Help me help me help me” and “Thank you thank you thank you.” (That was in her book Traveling Mercies. Since then she’s added a third prayer, “Oh, wow,” which I guess is detailed in her book Help, Thanks, Wow, which is on my reading list.)

I started to write a song about that, but the lyrics got intertwined with another story, that of a friend of mine who died of cancer at age 42, just after delivering a baby. I do not know if my friend actually said Annie’s prayers, but the way she lived in her final year made me think that she might have, and so I wrote the song that way.

Here’s my song, “Help Me Help Me, Thank You, Thank You,” from our little Chicken Biscuit concert on Lopez Island, October 2012. I’m backed up by my friend Bruce Creps, who’s a much better guitarist than I am:

I don’t want Annie Lamott to help me “market” this song. I have zero ambitions for a career as a singer-songwriter; my plate is full! I just want her reaction.

So, internet friends and friends-I’ve-already-met-in-the-flesh (’cause “flesh friends sounds REALLY nasty), here’s my question: Can you help me figure out a way to get this song to Anne’s ears? I look forward to your help, advice, or support in this endeavor.

Even though I’m a writer–maybe BECAUSE I’m a writer–I don’t usually blog about writing. But when my friend and writing/publishing mentor Iris Graville invited me to take part in a Writing Processblog tour she joined through the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts MFA program, I was thrilled to say yes.

(Therefore you too WILL BE THRILLED to read the results–got that?)

What am I working on? Having just published my first YA/tweens novel, The Flying Burgowski, earlier this year, I am dividing my writing time now between promotion & distribution (not very fulfilling) and finishing the final draft of the sequel, The Flying Burgowski Disaster (extremely fulfilling).

Like thousands of other writers, I have learned in the past couple of years to quit whining about the challenges of independently publishing, a.k.a. taking responsibility for one’s own marketing and distribution. I’m still astounded at how a batch of phone calls and emails relating to author readings/book signings, or questions about consignment, can eat up an entire morning! But I try to stay grateful for the opportunity to do this at all.

In the Brave New World of publishing, the Big Scary Gatekeepers have lost their power. Or, looked at another way: I am now my own big scary gatekeeper. Let’s just say I have learned a great deal, but have a long way to go before achieving my Masters in Gate-ology.

How does my work differ from others in its genre? The Flying Burgowski is a coming-of-age story with a supernatural twist. Like Harry Potter, or like Stephen Messer’s Windblowne or Joni Sensel’s The Farwalker’s Quest, the heroine, Jocelyn Burgowski, discovers that she has special powers. Joss can fly! But unlike those novels–in fact, unlike nearly every other YA fantasy novel I have read, The Flying Burgowski is set very much in the real world.( I suppose I could draw a parallel with the Twilight series in that respect, but the similarity ends there. Oh, wait, no–my book is set in Washington State as well. But that’s IT. No vampires, sparkly or un-. And no sexy werewolves.)

I greatly admire authors who can build effective fantasy worlds. I lost myself in Tolkien’s and C.S. Lewis’s books at a young age, and I am a thoroughly unapologetic Potterhead. But I find more personal meaning and challenge in imagining how one might deal with magic in THIS world. Kids these days have some pretty awful issues to deal with, and so does my heroine. How does a superpower help or hinder the scaling of an obstacle like, for example, an alcoholic parent? That’s what I’m interested in.

I should add here that Victoria Forester’s middle-grades novel, The Girl Who Could Fly, is nominally set in the real world. But that world is drawn with such exaggerated characters as to be nearly fantasy, in this writer’s opinion. The Flying Burgowski’s darkness is a more recognizable, straight-from-the-news-headlines kind of darkness. That said–it’s not a sad book! I promise it will make you laugh, no matter how old you are.

Why do I write what I do? I did not set out to write for young adults. In fact, the first two novels I wrote–one which will remain forever in the bottom drawer where it belongs, the other which I hope to publish someday–are for adults. The Flying Burgowski story idea simply visited me one day and took me for a ride. I’m still riding. But I don’t assume I will necessarily stay in this age-group for future projects. I do love that readers are finally figuring out that YA writing can be right up there with the best, though. Harry Potter and The Hunger Games have helped expand the readership. There are some great YA books out there! (Check out this Goodreads YA group to see what I mean.)

How does my writing process work? First of all, I am extremely blessed in being able to write as my part-time “job,” (along with working part-time in a bakery), since walking away from my 20-year career as a high school teacher a few years ago. In those days I had to get up at five to write for 45 minutes before leaving for school. I hated that routine, but it did produce my first rough draft. Now my kids are grown and gone, and I am financially able to do what I want for the most part–a blessing for which I am unendingly grateful.

Secondly, I am married to the most wonderful man, who created a Writing Barn for me. Well, it’s the upstairs half of a barn; he gets the downstairs for his shop. But up there I have a large, mostly empty space with cedar walls, a little decorative pottery, a toilet, a hot-water kettle for tea, and a beautiful (but not too dominating) view. Best of all: no internet! Therefore, no distractions.

It is COLD up there, especially in the winter, and since I never write for longer than 4-5 hour chunks, it’s really not worth heating all that space with the wood stove, cozy as that sounds. So I have a space heater on a timer, to pre-heat my writing spot, and…don’t laugh…I write in a sleeping bag. I’ve always written from a semi-lounge position on a bed or sofa, so the sleeping bag fits right in.

I always start by reading aloud what I wrote the day before. Then I pick up from there. If I get stuck on an issue of plot or character development, I go back to my Outline page and just blah-blah-blah as though I were having a conversation with myself. Though it’s tempting to delete the blah-blah-blah from the outline after I’ve solved it, I leave it there as a reminder of my thinking process. It usually comes in handy thinking through the next snag.

Next week the Writing Process Blog Tour continues with another writer I admire. Shan Jeniah Burton lives a passionately playful life filled with lovely chaos, intertwined with her chef husband, two endlessly fascinating children who keep outgrowing their clothes, and a rotating cast of furry companions. She’s traveled the country, and counted among her backyards the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and the Everglades, only to settle on the same sleepy country road in upstate New York where she grew up. She is particularly fond of words and dreams, imagery and photography, nature, history, music, and fictional people with green blood and pointed ears. Please click here to go to Shan Jeniah’s blog, Lovely Chaos.

But, as always, I love hearing from my own dear readers. Can you relate to my writing process? How does it compare with yours, or the one you hope to have someday?