So…I’m moving to the Boonies (TM) next week. We didn’t originally call it The Boonies, and it really isn’t as full of Boonie-goodness as it could be. I mean, we still get city water and the trash gets picked up. Plus, we got us one of them indoor-outhouses. More’n one, in fact.

Now, life in a small town just outside a major city is a pleasant dichotomy of rural practicality and easy access to big-city culture. I can get sushi in my local grocery, along with farm-fresh bacon that still oinked last week. And within city limits, my town was one of those rare small towns who wanted to attract the exurbs, so in addition to having little old ladies who still give you free trashbags when you pay your utility bills, and an automatic subscription to the weekly newspaper, we also had a killer telecommunications department, which included digital cable, HDTV channels, and broadband internet through the city utility commission.

Now it is exactly five miles from my old doorstep to my new doorstep, two and a half of which are still within city limits. So last week, when I arranged for Internet services at the new address, you can imagine my surprise when I was handed the welcome package of two Dixie cups and a string. It’s kinda scary to realize that even the Borg Time-Warner won’t really venture out to where I’ll be living. My nights are now being filled with nightmarish scenes from “Scream” where I’m the big-busted babysitter who’s just discovered that “ZOMG the killer is in the house!” and I have no way to Instant Message anybody about it.

But perhaps I should count my blessings. I saw someone else leaving, who lives further out, carrying firewood and wet blankets…

I think that soy ginger noodles that come in little plastic, nukable bowls are probably one of the nicer things in life, especially when they come with their own fork.

Sharing them with a half-pint who slurps them up and makes kissy noises at you makes them even better.

Okay, that title’s probably a more provocative title that necessary. What can I say, though…it sounds dirty and since my brain is kinda cluttered today, it’s appropriate enough for the post.

What makes a good story good? Who do you write for? Where do you get your ideas?

These are all questions I get asked a lot, as an author. Simple questions, really. And they can be answered with nice, quotable sound-bytes, humor, or positive and encouraging expression. But they deserve to be answered with something more, at least when a writer asks herself these questions. They also need to be asked and answered repeatedly. Not doing so is an easy way for a writer to get sidetracked by outside influences…like rerun marathons of “Xena: Warrior Princess” or reading shoujo manga until your eyes bleed. But making the time and effort, freeing up the brain cells to really think about the answers, can mean an evolutionary growth spurt as a writer.
Around three-quarters of the way through a story, it’s not unknown for me to hit a bad patch. Much like “transition” is in childbirth–those last three centimeters between contractions and pushing, it’s the darkest dark right before the dawn. I lose track of the momentum I had in the first quarter of the book and the still-emerging discovery that got me through the halfway point, and end up sitting in front of my WIP, scratching my head, and going, “WTF was I thinking?”

Immediately the doubts and bad habits start coming out. I should change the heroine into the current incarnation of an archetype that’s popular (plucky wacko, kickass babe with a destiny, fashion-obsessed socialite, etc.). I should put the plot in a Yoga class so it can bend and twist around some element that some editor in some publishing house thinks is the Next Big Thing or a Perennial Hit (bride-baby-cowboy-etc.). Or I have to stop and put in yards and yards of exposition and backstory. Rambling tangents are the order of the day–anything to avoid the main story. It’s then that I know I’ve somehow lost the focus of the story, whether it’s from time passing, other elements of Life Intruding (TM), or something completely off-the-wall (like the fact that I recently discovered that having a B-vitamin deficiency makes me forget things that I shouldn’t forget).

I know from talking to other writers that I’m not alone in this. Quite a few of us seem to hit that crisis in confidence somewhere between the time we start noodling on a story and right around the time when we’re too invested in it to just put it aside. It’s then that asking hard questions comes in handy. Questions about the basics of the craft–not just “WTF was I thinking when I plotted a pitstop on a planet of sentient panda bears?” but the questions that ask, “Why am I doing this again, when I could be making a lot more, a lot easier doing something simple, like particle physics?”

The answer to this kind of question often triggers something about the themes in my stories–not just the one I’m working on, but the underscoring themes through all of the stuff I write. It reminds me of why I write and what I’m trying to express through story. Having that reminder of why we do what we do sets me back on track, and often prompts me to a deeper understanding of a specific story. The questions are still hard to ask, though, when I can’t accept a pat answer from myself. But I do it because I love what I do. If I remember that, I can get over any hump, any day.