Author Archives: Jilanne Hoffmann

About Jilanne Hoffmann

Writer, Editor, Children's Book Author www.jilannehoffmann.com www.DogpatchWritersCollective.com

by Jilanne Hoffmann | May 19, 2023 · 1:48 pm

Laurel Is Our Hero

Editors of journals and at publishing houses often ask writers to compromise before publishing stories and essays. Each writer needs to decide whether those compromises are justified or whether they need to hold a hard line on the integrity of their story.

Well, Laurel Leigh, an accomplished author/editor held the line. And Dogpatchers are so very proud of her decision. She published the version of her story she wants to tell on her blog, and we’ve linked to it below.

We’re also including images from a very special night, where Laurel received well-earned recognition for her contribution to the arts in the Pacific Northwest. But it’s really all about the community she has created for many writers, the knowledge and expertise she shares, and her generous spirit. Laurel, you are a kick-ass friend, and we love you!

From left: Shannon Laws, Me, Susan Chase Foster, Janet Oakley – some wine may have been consumed by this point

We would be honored for you to read her story. Thank you!

https://dearwriters.com/2023/05/19/it-shouldnt-be-long-now/

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Tagged as amazing women, athlete, Bellingham, cancer, cancer treatment, Chuckanut Writing Conference, Chuckanut Writing Workshops and Classes, compromise, editing, forging your own path, gymnast, honsty, jaguars, kick-ass women, Laurel Leigh, no sugar-coating, North Dakota, open mic night, spirit, truth, Village Books, writing compromises

by Jilanne Hoffmann | August 25, 2021 · 10:39 am

Steve Almond – Special Class Offer

Hello, everyone!

An update to announce that author and teacher extraordinaire, Steve Almond, has generously offered to give a 2-hour virtual class on Creating An Irresistible Narrator, with all proceeds going towards Dogpatch co-founder Laurel Leigh’s medical bills. YAY!!! In this class, Steve will upend what you thought you knew about narrators and make you reconsider how you go about creating characters that drive your story. Both Laurel and Sabine Sloley (another one of our organizers), have benefited from previous classes taught by Steve. He’s been teaching writers for years, including workshops for Seattle’s Hugo House and Portland’s Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop. He is a gifted teacher who enjoys coloring outside the lines.

Instructions on how to donate and register for the class are on the GoFundMe page set up by some of Laurel’s friends.

Class date/time: Wednesday, September 22, 5-7pm PDT (8-10 pm EDT)

I’ve registered, and am looking forward to seeing you all there!

Let’s raise a glass to Laurel’s health!

Dogpatcher – Laurel Leigh

Hello, Dogpatch watchers, readers, and writers. I’m dropping in to let you know that one of our founders, Laurel Leigh, has been diagnosed with advanced-stage lung cancer.

She’s never been a smoker, so this hit quite unexpectedly. We in the patch are doing our best to lift Laurel up and help her make it through this illness and out the other side with a clean bill of health. But that’s not going to happen for awhile, because her treatment is extensive.

She’s getting chemo and radiation simultaneously, which makes it nearly impossible to work. This is pretty much how she’s feeling right now—on a good day:

And although she has health insurance, as a freelance editor and writer, her insurance doesn’t cover the bills, and her income has been hit hard.

We in the patch would be ever so grateful if you could do one or both of the following:

Help out with her bills by donating to the Go Fund Me page some of her friends have made for her.
And/or please send good vibes, prayers, healing thoughts, and maybe some chocolate in her direction. Right now, she’s in North Dakota, where her mother grew up.

Updates on Laurel’s progress will be made on the Go Fund Me page.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! From the bottom of our hearts.

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Filed under Howling at the moon, Pack News, Rants

Tagged as best friend in the entire world, cancer, cancer sucks, cancer treatment, chemotherapy, editor, freelance editor, freelance writer, healthcare, Laurel Leigh, lung cancer, medical bills, single payer healthcare, We Love Laurel, writer

by Jilanne Hoffmann | October 19, 2018 · 4:18 pm

Call Me Crazy – NaNoWriMo

So I’ve been living in picture book world for a few years, now.

And while I’m still busy analyzing and perfecting my craft in that arena,

(Mini craft lecture: Great picture books are as compressed as poetry, containing a world in about 500 words or fewer, leave 50% of the story to the illustrator, are paced strategically through language and page turns, evoke emotion through image, active voice, and characterization, and end in way that’s surprising yet inevitable. Easy, right?)

I could no longer ignore that tiny voice in the back of my head that wasn’t a picture book character, but a character from a YA/new adult novel.

She’s been bugging me for years. And now that her whispers have turned to curses, I’ve decided to listen. Five years ago, I tried NaNo as a pantser. I failed. Miserably.

This year, with a little encouragement from another blogger and writing coach, Kate Johnsto n, I decided to take the plunge again.

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Only this time with a little planning. I know who my characters are, but five years ago I just let them run wild. So that’s what they did. They rambled. They wandered. Aimlessly. They got lost.

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I got lost, then I wadded up my Scrivener file and tossed it in the trash. Failure.

Screen Shot 2018-10-19 at 3.51.02 PM

This year, I’m going to start with a plan. A structure. A beginning, a middle, and an end. How I get there during November will look more like pantsing, but when I’m finished, that pantsing will be contained within October’s plan. Call it plantsing.

We’ll see how it goes. Wish me luck!

Luck

And I’ve gotta tell you, I’m afraid of failing. Gulp. But it’s like that with all challenges, right?

Screen Shot 2018-10-19 at 4.14.57 PM

If you, too, would like to take this on, give Kate’s website a look. I think you may find a tool or two to help you out.

Happy pantsing, planning, or plantsing! Cheers!

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Filed under Craft, Howling at the moon

Tagged as challenge, changing gears, fear, goal-setting, inspiration, jumping off a cliff, Kate Johnston, NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, novel, pantsing, planning, writing, writing coach

by Jilanne Hoffmann | March 30, 2016 · 12:23 pm

Rabble Rousers & Hooligans – Win a Doodle!!

Last year, the Dogpatch *forced* Mike Allegra to draw the cutest salamander, named Sully, for Laurel’s poetry gig. What can we squeeze outta him this year? Hmmm? Go ahead, enter the competition. You know you want to…. Screen Shot 2016-03-30 at 12.43.21 PM

Win A Doodle! Woo!

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Filed under Howling at the moon

Tagged as contest, doodle, Mike Allegra, poetry, salamander, Sully

by Jilanne Hoffmann | April 15, 2015 · 10:20 am

A Course in Jazz Poetry

This poem came to me through Marcy Erb (http://illustratedpoetry.com/2015/04/14/john-coltrane-poem/), a poet/illustrator. The rhythm and imagery is amazing. Happy National Poetry Month!

Stephen Cramer

It’s official. This Winter Semester, I’ll be teaching a course which has never before been offered at UVM. A course in Jazz Poetry.

It’s been so much fun pulling together a syllabus for this one. In the past months I’ve not only reencountered poems that I haven’t seen in a while, but I’ve also discovered a slew of new pieces (particularly those in live readings). I’ve just recently hammered out the course’s time-line, which should look something like this:

In the first classes, we’re going to examine some of the less sympathetic, and even racist, poetry of the 1920s. Then we’ll quickly shift to look at some of the more discerning writers like Langston Hughes. We’ll spend some time reading and listening to the responses of a few poets associated with the Beat movement (Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Kenneth Rexroth). Then the course will culminate in some of the…

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by Jilanne Hoffmann | January 14, 2015 · 11:59 am

Nobody Will Die, Maybe—Scaling El Capitan

The flickering headlamps halfway up the wall of El Capitan caught our attention as we stopped to look at the full moon shining across a meadow in Yosemite Valley. It was Saturday, January 3rd, 2015, and the climbers appeared to have covered about a third of the 3,000 foot wall since they started eight days ago.

If you haven’t been following the story in the New York Times, two climbers have been planning and practicing the free climb ascent of El Capitan for the past ten+ years. This is now the real thing. If you’d like a better perspective of the size of this monolith and their undertaking, the NYTimes article provides a terrifying composite image showing the climbers on the wall.

Anyone see a parallel between this ascent and writing a book? Our advantage over climbers?

We can’t see the size of the wall in front of us.

We’ve planned and practiced and tried and failed on numerous attempts. We’ve achieved smaller goals. We’ve said that if we don’t make it this time, there won’t be another. We’ve faced odds that would make a grizzly bear shudder, and still we are on that wall, refusing to give up. OK, so maybe we’re not facing death should we make mistakes with our climbing harnesses. For we climb WITHOUT harnesses.

We’ve got shredded fingers reminiscent of carcasses put through the meat grinder. We’re swaying in gusty winds. We’re facing the uncertainty of our uncertainties in the blackness of bitter, star-filled skies.

The night we saw the climbers, the moon underscored just how insignificant their goal was to the universe.

But it was important to THEM.

So that’s what I take away from this effort. A refusal to give up. A determination to do something that leaves others shaking their heads in disbelief.

Why climb the wall? Because it’s important to ME. When it’s no longer important, I’ll stop.

Until that happens, you can find me taping my fingers, casting a shadow, tapping away, and laughing at the man in the moon and his distorted sense of reality.

That’s MY new year’s resolution.

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Filed under Howling at the moon

Tagged as climbing a wall, El Capitan, hitting a wall, insurmountable odds, NaNoWriMo, new year's resolution, perseverance, writing, writing books, writing novels, Yosemite, Yosemite Valley

by Jilanne Hoffmann | October 9, 2014 · 12:00 pm

Litquake Alert!

Got libations? Survival gear, including ibuprofen and rehydration tablets?

Ready. Set. Let it shake!!!!!

…900 authors from all over the San Francisco Bay Area, the U.S., and the world.

Friday marks the 15th anniversary of Litquake, the best literary festival on the Left Coast. Sell-out shows include “The Best of Craigslist,” where writers give dramatic readings of found literature culled from REAL posts on Craigslist. I’ve got tickets.

I’ll also be at “Drivel,” where some rather famous writers read some of their less-than-stellar prose.

Who could resist?

Interested in poetry? Try “A Flight of Poets” or maybe “Dark and Stormy: Contemporary Swedish Poetry.”

Adventure travel? “Into the Wilderness” or “Bicycle book tours,” depending on what your idea of adventure and travel really is.

Sci-fi? Try “Into Tomorrow.”

Something from the heart? Try “Tales of Love and Longing,” “Hot Flash Fiction,” or “Family Secrets.”

Something edgy? Try “Walk on the Wild Side.”

Need to feed you inner chef? Try “Sausages and Syrah.”

The opening night party on Friday, October 10, will be celebrated quinceañera-style. Think pink taffeta and a shot or two of tequila. Oh, and don’t forget your tiara.

On the last night, October 18, the world’s largest Lit Crawl commences, 101 events in three hours.

See you there!

FULL FESTIVAL GUIDE PDF

MAP AND GUIDE FOR LITCRAWL

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Tagged as fiction, litcrawl, literary festival, literary San Francisco, Litquake, poetry, sci-fi

by Jilanne Hoffmann | September 12, 2014 · 1:35 pm

Overcommitment

Just returned from the annual August tour de famille on the East Coast and in the Midwest. Well, that’s not really true. We’ve been back since August 26. Really late in the evening on August 25, but our keys were with my husband, and he wasn’t with us. So we arrived at baggage claim at SFO only to realize that it was midnight, and we didn’t have keys to our humble abode.

This event symbolized our August. But now that we’re back, what is my excuse for being late to the post?

Overcommitment. You know you’re overcommitted when you can’t recall what you’re supposed to do next because there are too many things competing for “next.” And overcommitment stalls my forward movement.

I’m working on picture book fiction and nonfiction and literary short stories in addition to giving my novel-in-training some gas. I’ve got two kidlit writing groups in addition to the dogs at the patch. I’m taking a nonfiction picture book writing class where I’m supposed to have a first draft to critique in two weeks. But I just discovered last night that my topic is too complex (or at least the way I’ve envisioned it right now) to move forward, so I spent the evening last night looking for a new subject. When I originally signed up for the class, I was going to do a biography, but it turned out that the living person I want to write a biography about is wary of saying “yes.” Sooooo, how many times can I go back to the drawing board?

And it’s a new school year with many library liaison activities, including planning for an author visit, creating a new library “wish list,” and getting new library volunteers up to speed on working with classes.

And new afterschool activities every night of the week. And….I’m supposed to be volunteering for Litquake and visiting my new writing group that meets North of SF.

And then there was the unexpected death of my mother-in-law the night of my father-in-law’s memorial in mid-August that continues to haunt me. I’m not sure if haunt is the right word, unless an intermittent replay of the middle-of-the night knock on the window and subsequent events qualifies. It does explain why my husband wasn’t with us when we returned without keys. He (the guy with the keys) took a side trip to his parents’ home to get things in order.

But I’m a writer, right? And I’m supposed to be getting something done. But at the moment, I’m not doing anything well. Getting anything finished, polished. I run from one thing to the next, often without making a single edit. Just enough time to get started before I’ve got to move on to something else.

The center cannot hold. And I wonder if there are writers out there who work best like this? If there are, I wish I were one of them. But I am not, and I have to make some changes. I hope everyone else out there is being more productive than I am right now.

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Tagged as frustration, moaning and groaning, overcommitment, whinging, whining, writing

by Jilanne Hoffmann | July 25, 2014 · 4:03 pm

Literary Fiction – Are You Still Awake?

Just returned from my writing retreat at the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.

The first panel (How Plot Works) discussed why literary fiction bores readers. Who wants to spend all that time in a character’s head if nothing’s going to happen? Say what?! Maybe they have a point.

So the panel chatted about how to keep readers turning the pages:

Christina Meldrum, a former lawyer, creates tension through structure. She builds the first half of a story bell curve where the clues get more important to the story the closer she gets to the top. Something life-changing then happens at the apex.
Christian Kiefer does not outline or have any idea about what’s going to happen in his stories. But a writer can’t expect the reader to care more about the MC’s life than the MC does, so he does make sure his characters are on fire for something. It’s even better if there are multiple fires to complicate the story.
Janet Fitch said “you’ve gotta tie the girl to the tracks.” Don’t play the reader out so much that they lose interest. In scene, show character traits and then put pressure on those traits. The MC must let go of one or more traits while acquiring others to make a necessary life change.
Michael Jaime-Becerra uses positive tension (information that is doled out to the reader logically) instead of negative tension (information that is withheld from the reader unfairly). “The Swimmer” by John Cheever is an example of brilliantly withheld information.
Fitch added that suspense is fair, surprise is a trick. Build suspense.
Meldrum observed that the power of perspective allows the writer to give limited information. Humans are fallible, so the narrator can’t know everything, especially about themselves.

They finished by discussing magic: how endings must be both inevitable and surprising. Sadly, writers can’t force that Eureka!” So keep your butt in the chair, keep plottin’ away, and run with it when inspiration strikes. Oh, and don’t let your readers fall asleep.