Here I sit, speechless … or would that be textless? My mind is blank. Or rather, not blank, but stuffed so full, I can’t sort out a thought without pulling a dozen more with it. I think I’m going to just settle for one of those stream-of-consciousness posts that Judy and Tricia tried, but I’ll be a rebel and not time mine. Warning: this could go on for days.
As I write this, the Super Bowl is on TV and my husband is watching it, but I’m not. Does that make me un-American? I got into watching Australian football once, and rugby another time, but except when one of my family members played, I’ve never watched football. I don’t like that you can’t see the players’ faces. It’s too impersonal. And even though one of these teams is from my home town, I couldn’t care less who wins. (Kasie would be proud that I didn’t say I could care less. 
) So, until I started writing this, I was reading my first novel by Abigail Thomas and I think she’s going to be one of my favorite “new” authors. The book I have now is “An Actual Life” and is written in such a pure and true character voice that I’m just amazed. I thank Cynthia for introducing me to her with this interview. I think a lot about character voice because I tried writing my novel in three different voices. Whether it worked or not is yet to be seen. Boy, Pizza Hut bought a boatload of ad time on the Super Bowl. I’m low-carbing, trying to take off the weight I gained writing the aforementioned novel, so pizza for me would just be the toppings. I’m weaning myself off Coke by drinking Coke Zero. I hate diet drinks, which means I’ll end up dropping soda altogether. Eating healthy is not necessarily fun. And at my age, fun is paramount, so dieting is torture.Torture is something I cannot abide to see, hear, or read about. I think this stems from a past life experience—I hope as the tortured, not as the torturer, but then, if I’ve learned anything from Lost it’s that we’re all capable of being the torturer. And speaking of … who is Sayid now, anyway? If you have no idea what that means, you’re not a Lost fan and I feel sorry for you. You do watch Mad Men, at least, right? All writers should.
Okay, that’s enough of my mind puke. Oh, that reminds me; I caught a few minutes of Dirty Jobs yesterday and watched snakes being “puked.” A biology researcher’s life is … um … interesting. And that’s it, I’m gone. Go on back to your lives now.
Categories: Musings
Tagged: Abigail Thomas, Cynthia Newberry Martin, Judy Clement Wall, Kasie West, Tricia Sutton
Today is a day I would normally have a new blog post for you, but I don’t. So, please use my silence to your benefit by visiting one or many of the wonderful blogs in my list of 26 Writers and Poets right over there.
Categories: Uncategorized
During the second year of my marriage, I lived in Germany courtesy of the U.S. Army. We lived off-base, though, on the third floor of a German couple’s home. I do not speak German. I regularly encountered people who didn’t speak English. (Imagine that!) I dwelled in a fairly constant state of bewilderment … and fear that I would miss or misinterpret something. Now, I have the same feelings for a completely different reason.
Bad Hersfeld, my how you've grown!
Recently, Cynthia Newberry Martin blogged a five-part series on Reading Like a Writer. She ended by taking apart Alice Munro’s short story Dimensions. I read the story, but for the most part, I left the dissection up to Cynthia. She answered the question posed on the mechanics of the story and then, offered some excellent insights. Since she didn’t propose we deeply analyze the story, it’s not so much that I couldn’t answer most of the questions she posed for myself. It’s just that this kind of reading is a foreign land to me. I don’t really understand the language.
I’m used to reading fiction for escape. That’s not to say I never learn as I read. But as I read, I’m concerned with what the writing says to me, not whether that’s what the author meant for me to hear. Yet, as a writer, I often take a novel I enjoyed reading and study the writing for particular aspects. So, theoretically, I could take a story apart. But my mind rebels at the thought. With fingers in its ears, it sings la-la-la-la-la.
However, this is my year of living dangerously, so with a few other writers, I will attempt a similar exercise with a short story by Flannery O’Connor titled “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
Cover me, I’m going in.
Categories: Craft · Fiction · Questions · Read · Short story · Tuesday Topic · Writing
Tagged: Writing, fiction, reading, Cynthia Newberry Martin, story, Alice Munro, Flannery O'Connor, analyze, dissect, Bad Hersfeld
I want to say thank you to Laura Best who presented me with the Prolific Blogger Award. Of course, I immediately wondered if that means I blog too much.
There are rules attached and contrary to my usual rebellion, I will follow them. I will gladly link back to Laura’s lovely blog. And I’m linking back to this post, which explains the award, and I will add my name to the list of recipients there. Last rule is to name at least seven other bloggers worthy of the award. Since we’re interconnected on this web thing, Laura named some I would have, but I have more. So here goes … follow the rules or rebel, it’s your choice!
Christi Craig
Cathryn Grant
Kasie West
Judy Clement Wall
Karen Schindler
Sharon Egan
Susan Bearman
Pamela Villars
Categories: Writing
As always, I’m reading about writing, looking for those secret words that will make me a better writer … instantly, if possible. I came across this quote from Ray Bradbury:
Find out what your hero or heroine wants, and when he or she wakes up in the morning, just follow him or her all day.
Ah ha! So simple. But … no. Not simple because before I can complete the instructions in the last part of that sentence, I have to find the answers to the many questions posed by the first part.*
- Do I know what my character really wants?
- Does she know?
- Why doesn’t she already have it?
- How badly does she want it?
- Will she get it?
- How?
- What will happen when she does—or doesn’t—get what she wants?
- Is what she wants even what she needs?
I’m sure that’s not the end of questions that could be asked. But that’s enough to show that Bradbury’s simple instruction leads to a complicated task. If writing is a breeze for you … you must not be doing it right. Because writing is complicated. There is no short cut. There is no secret. It’s hard work. It’s a joy when the story comes easy and it’s misery when it doesn’t. Either way, you have to do it.
The only way to write well is to WRITE. And write. And write some more. And then, rewrite.
*I’m so embarrassed, people. When Pamela commented, I realized that I posted the wrong version of this post! I’m not even sure how that happened, but the correct version was still in my dashboard marked “draft.” In that version I revised the very statement Pamela took objection to. The above version has been corrected after the fact. So if you read her comment and my response and got confused, that’s why.
Categories: Advice · Craft · Fiction · Questions · Tips · Writing
Tagged: advice, fiction, Ray Bradbury, secret, writer, Writing
I’ve been reading more of John Gardner’s On Becoming a Novelist and I’d like to share some quotes on generous and ungenerous writers. 
In the best fiction, plot is not a series of surprises but an increasingly moving series of recognitions, or moments of understanding.
Gardner calls this generous fiction. Here is his definition of the opposite.
Ungenerous fiction is first and foremost fiction in which the writer is unwilling to take the reader as an equal partner.
He uses an example of a story where a man (Frank) moves into the house next door to the house of his teen-age daughter (Wanda), but she does not know that he is her father. Then he gives the examples of how foolish and wise writers might differ in their storytelling.
What the foolish or inexperienced writer does with this idea is hide the father-daughter relationship from the reader as well as from the daughter until the last minute, at which point he jumps out and yells: “Surprise!”
The wise or more experienced writer gives the reader the information he needs to understand the story moment by moment, with the result that instead of asking, as he reads, “What’s going to happen to the characters next?” the reader asks, ”What will Frank do next? What would Wanda say if Frank were to … ” and so on. Involving himself in the story in this way, the reader feels true suspense, which is to say, true concern for the characters.
Gardener then goes on to say that by being a generous writer you allow your reader to worry about, understand, and care about your character. Your reader will become emotionally involved in the story.
Are you enabling your reader to live vicariously through your characters?
Categories: Advice · Craft · Fiction · Tips · Writing
Tagged: advice, fiction, generous, John Gardner, reader, storytelling, tips, ungenerous, writer, writers, Writing
Glass "windchimes" in the hotel lobby.
So what could be lovelier than a trip to San Diego in January? Quite a few things, as it turns out. California weather has been a little unusual this month and San Diego
was not spared. We drove south on Thursday through constant rain, which at times was torrential. Luckily, we got to the treacherous stretch of mountain highway known as the Grapevine when the snow had just begun and we only had to slow our speed. We arrived at our hotel in a light rain.
The hotel was the usual: over-priced everything because it’s all going on some businessman’s expense account. No free internet, which explains my almost total disappearing act, but at least the beds were comfortable.
Horton Plaza mall
So, yeah, the rain. It rained during our trip to this beautiful open air multi-level mall in the Gaslamp Quarter where we went to buy a swimsuit, which made only a brief appearance at the hotel sauna because … it rained. During the trolley ride, it rained—and hailed. From time to time, the sun would appear briefly to tease us, but it rained most of the first two days we were there.
We decided to just stay in and order pizza Friday night. Wow, look at this: Brooklyn pizza—“the best east coast pizza on the west coast.” How could we resist? And check out at this special: “our giant pizza and 2-liter soda for $24.99.” Do they deliver to our hotel? Why, yes, they do. Only they apparently had no idea where our hotel was because the driver went to two other hotels before he found ours! Was the pizza hot? No. Was the pizza New York style? Yes. Was the pizza big? Ridiculously so. We had a good laugh at the “ginormous” size, took a photo, and ate the tepid, but tasty pizza.
One ginormous pizza and one small boy.
Then, on Saturday, even though it was still cool, the rain stopped. Yay, the beach! After lunch, we set off for Coronado Island, beautiful drive, beautiful town, beautiful beach … but not for swimming that day. Sewage contamination warning signs were up. (A problem resulting from the storms, I presume.) No biggie, we headed for Ocean Beach.
We stopped at two beaches there. One is the only beach in SoCal where dogs are allowed to run free. Needless to say, it was packed with very happy dogs. The other beach we tried was by the pier. It looked terrifying. The waves were so high they were crashing over the pier and the surf swallowed up the beach … at what was supposed to be low-tide! I don’t know why I didn’t take photos of this, so you’ll just have to use your imaginations. At this point, we gave up on the beach plan and headed back to the hotel.
The view from our table.
With the good weather holding, we decided to splurge for a great seafood dinner and, at sunset, we went to the Fish Market at the harbor. We were seated at the best table in the enclosed patio right over the water. The food and wine were good and we topped it off with an excellent crème brulée. An altogether lovely evening.
The weather forecast for Sunday: sunny and warm. Unfortunately, we had to leave early in the morning. But the drive north was so much more pleasant than the trip south … and we saw views like this.
The San Gabriel mountains.
Categories: Humor · Uncategorized
Tagged: family, Humor
I woke up the other morning with a poem tiptoeing in my head. I had spent part of the night in a delicious dream, from which few actual images remained, but the sense of power lingered. I’m not going to analyze this dream … I know, I know, you’re heartbroken. This time, I’m going to take it at face value. It was a Jalal dream.
For those of you who are new around here, Jalal is the main character in The Brevity of Roses, the novel I’ve just taken through another round of editing. He’s very sensual … and a poet. In my dream, he was trying to maneuver a little “alone time” with Renee, another character in the book. She was preoccupied and tried to ignore him, but finally deigned to give him the attention he sought. Her sense of power over him is what I retained after the cat so rudely woke me ten minutes before the alarm.
Since all I had left was the feeling, I shaped that into words and wrote a poem titled Goddess. And then, I laughed … because, if I changed the wording to Jalal’s point of view, this was surely a poem he would have written. Only, he would have misdirected it toward Meredith (the other women in my novel) who did not possess the personal power of a true goddess. But his desire was in the right place. And though it took him a long time to figure it out, what he wanted was exactly what he needed: a woman who could have written this poem about herself.
Goddess
I am a goddess.
Let him approach my temple to kneel before me.
Let him drink his fill of my wine.
I am a goddess.
Let him rise to enter my holy of holies.
Let him prostrate and genuflect.
I am a goddess.
Let him utter prayers to grace my ears with praise.
Let him cry out in joy and debt.
Let his spirit flow into me.
Let him acknowledge, at the moment of his death,
I am a goddess.
Categories: Poetry · Writing
Tagged: goddess, novel, poem, poetry, point of view, Writing
Do you hear the music in your writing? I’ve finished another round of red-pencil editing on my manuscript and next week I’ll start a read through. This time I’ll be reading aloud and recording it. Yes, I know, novels and short stories aren’t usually read aloud, but the voice in our heads is not really silent as we read. It picks up the rhythm, the music in the writing.
The sentence beats are what I listen for when I read my work aloud. Sometimes, I sense that a line is not working, but don’t know why until I hear it read. Often, the problem is that the sentence has one or two syllables too many or too few—one word—throwing off the rhythm.
Sometimes, it’s not the number of syllables that makes the sentence awkward, but the syntax. In those cases, often just a reordering of words or clauses frees the rhythm.
Another thing to consider is punctuation. Pauses are beats too. Sometimes a comma added here, or removed there provides the sound you’re after. A semi-colon might provide the continuation of flow that pleases your ear. Or possibly the removal of one gives the staccato effect needed in this part of your story.
So, listen for beats as you write because when a sentence trips up the tongue it also dances clumsily on the page.
Categories: Advice · Craft · Editing · Fiction · Tips · Writing
Tagged: beats, editing, fiction, punctuation, rhythm, sentences, syntax, Writing
ice big Sunday dinner. But today I’m just blogging about a few things I’ve been thinking about lately, a mixture of things, so stew it is.
I think I have a “platform” disadvantage. Or for fiction writers, I guess that’s called a readymade base … or something like that. In other words, I don’t already have a large group of people likely to buy my novel when it’s published. Some of you do. Either you write genre or you belong to a social, religious, or special interest group that supports its own. I write mainstream fiction, which usually is sold on name recognition. I don’t think tweeting is going to do it, people.
