Baby steps

Why is it that I can blog several times a day for my other blog yet completely neglect this one? UGGH.

I have a bunch of baby steps I need to take during the remainder of this summer. I have my new degree. I've had some exciting job interviews and lost some jobs to some superbly talented people. I suppose that puts me in some good company.

I opened an old project, which was an attempt at a ghost story/romance novel, and it spurred an interesting short story.

I'm on my neighbor's porch blogging, so I'm not making much attention to my editing or grammar. The kids are playing and the neighbors are chatting.

In addition to renewing my commitment to this blog, I'm continuing my job search. I'm hoping to do some communications work, maybe freelance and maybe volunteering, to help me determine what my long range career goals are. And take baby steps toward them.

Another option is the possibility of freelancing writing on some of the topics I enjoy.

Meanwhile, I've done some reading: Laurel K. Hamillton, Charlaine Harris and an academic piece from the early 2000s, Pox Americana by Elizabeth Fenn, I believe the name was. She has an academic background and employment history very scattered like mine. She spent eight years as an auto mechanic! And then she wrote this book.

I'll keep you posted.

Formulas

My brain is writing fiction even if my fingers are trying political theory. I have my first political theory paper due this week and my daughter's dance recital, the dentist and work. I'm not sleeping well, and I'm still recovering from not eating last month so I must admit, I'm tired.

My husband and I have been reading some books. We both started the Dresden Files, which my husband has committed to finishing the series and I'm more or less done after book two. I had series because they get so formulaic. The supernatural mythology in these books is what's fabulous but I've already sensed the formula. Murder + make wizard detective the prime suspect + put him in mortal danger so he has to solve the crime quickly and almost get killed doing it. What changes in each book is the supernatural creature. Which the author (Jim Butcher?) does a fabulous job constructing, I must say. But I'm bored as soon as I predict the formula because that tells me what's going to happen next.

Think about formula in the things you read or write. Do you read series? If so, is there a formula to that author's work?

The need for an editor

Writers must be readers. This is what teaches us voice and proficiency of language. It also helps with those grammar skills, especially if you chose something that challenges you. You have to read things that are a tad laborious, but nonetheless rewarding. These are the same skills we use in learning a foreign language. And, more often than not, it does not fix our problems but it does make us more aware of them. Sometimes, it's enough to trigger a little voice that says, "this is not right."

That's why we cannot rely on computer spell check and even worse, computer grammar check. I recently completed the first half of a client manuscript where my very talented client knows that she is a very abysmal speller. She also knows she cannot trust spell check.

Her fantasy manuscript is riddled with errors like being executed a "trader" for dealing in "fowl" magic. Yep, can't barter for chickens in this universe.

And today, "he is quiet cleaver, though none here knows how cleaver."

Ah, the work of an editor...

The iPhone Cure

After my house guest left last night, and I couldn't bring myself to end my recent streak with writers block, I read most of "The Education of Madeline," a western historical romance thanks to the daily book snippets emailed to me via Suzanne at "Dear Reader" book clubs.

I enjoyed it, and it had a bit of unsuspected intrigue. By the end, I was tired of all the attempts to have "different" sex. The premise was a spinster asks someone to educate her in intimate matters, and they fall in love. (My problem was that nothing her tutor suggested ended up making her uncomfortable. In any way, physical or emotional. But anyway...)

So after finishing that and enjoying the rain storm, I found myself inspired but I was away from all the computers and didn't feel like searching out a pen/paper. I used my iPhone to write a few random paragraphs, and although they didn't fit any of my projects, they felt good.

Now I want to write more, but what?

Stress

As a writer, my craft becomes a release from stress. When I can't cry, I can make them cry. When I can't beat someone up, my bad guys can beat someone up.

I have certain characters that I toy with as a way to relieve stress, some of it ends up as good scenes. Some gets trashed.

Work is really bad right now, the whole situation has me on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Never actually have had a nervous breakdown but in the last few years a certain activity in my life has introduced me to the next level of stress: the panic attack. What's hard about panic attacks, even my mild ones, are the physical reactions that seem to shut your body down.

One of my characters struggles with these. Wonder where he gets it from.

Last night I sat down to do some stress writing. I couldn't decide if I wanted to continue in the current chapter, skip ahead to a happy scene, or write something mean and awful.

None worked out.

Time has not worked out.

So without my writing, I end up popping Ativans and hoping for the best.

My writing lets me expunge my emotions. What does your writing (or reading) do for you?

Grand Lessons from Camus

There's a character in Albert Camus' The Plague that struggles with his desire to write. A secondary character, at least through parts one and two that I finished reading today, Joseph Grand is a poor, low-level civil servant who joins the sanitary squads after the plague infects his town.

This comes in direct conflict with his desire to work on his manuscript, but he feels it is necessary. He feels citizens have to do something against this menace.

The story he has composed thus far is merely a sentence about a woman on horseback. Throughout the novel, he dickers with that sentence obsessively but the plague forces him to push it from his mind.

“He made honest efforts not to think about his ‘horsewoman,’ and concentrate on what he had to do.”

At the end of the section part of the novel, Grand's opening sentence is this:

"One fine morning in May a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the flower-strewn avenues of the Bois de Boulogne."

The author promptly complains about the number of S sounds in that sentence. In the novel, he changes the opening phrase, the description of the horse, the adjective regarding the woman and even the bit about the flowers.

But he never writes beyond that sentence. He shares the sentence and each minute change with his peers in the novel, but never does he progress.

Camus tells us that Grand is the type of man who struggles with the meaning of words, but Grand is not alone in this. How many of us struggle in a similar fashion? How many of us cling to a sentence?

Writing, writing everywhere

So, my daughter won the reading contest at school. Today, in addition to Read Across America and the reading-related events for Dr. Seuss's birthday, her school is hosting a children's nonfiction author. The top reader in each grade level got to attend a pizza party with the author. My daughter, who read about 1500 minutes in February, earned a spot at that party.

I am beyond proud. She told me she was going to win that contest. She set a goal and she did it.

Speaking of goals, I am slowing meeting mine. I'm writing today (since someone had to go to school early for the lunch). I've probably spent an hour writing, and I'm editing/smoothing over a difficult chapter. Since my writing time lately has meant a sentence here or there, even an hour seems like a wild success.

A writer I know mentioned that she keeps a monthly spreadsheet of her daily word counts. At first I dismissed this as crazy, but then my curiosity piqued. How productive am I? If I made such a spreadsheet it would need several categories: fiction (by story?), press releases for work, writing blog, food blog, homework, journal.

How productive am I? How much do I really write?

Reading Challenge

My daughter came home with a reading challenge for school. The top readers in each grade level will get to have lunch with visiting author Michael Patrick O'Neal. My daughter (who, in half-day kindergarten, does not eat lunch at school) wants to win.

Reading is the first step to learning. It's the first step to any sort of education. It's pivotal if you wish to be well-spoken. And it's necessary if you wish to write.

The rules for this challenge say that as long as a book is in the child's hand, it counts.

• Reading to your child counts
• Your child reading independently counts
• Reading directions on homework counts
• Young children flipping through picture books counts

In the first five days, my child accumulated 215 minutes. She also wanted to know if _writing_ her own story counts. I told her she'd have to ask.

As soon as I finished this week's log and stuffed in it her folder, after she told me she was done reading, she sat and completed a phonics workbook I bought her for Christmas. Then, she did the time one, which isn't reading, but we did have to read the directions. Then she said she was done and wanted to play. What did she play? She read to her dolls.

So, since she "finished" reading, she's read an additional 40 minutes.

But this is the child who used to carry a phone book through the grocery store and read the yellow pages as a preschooler. This is the child who asked her grandmother to read her the thesaurus. This is the child who has sat beside her father and heard every one of the Harry Potter books.

I can read a lot, but even when I'm not busy, I don't read nearly as much as perhaps I should. I think my standards are too high. I like to read good books, and I force myself to read the big trend books. But... I can't relax my adoration of the language to read crap books.

Is that bad?

In my history class, our reading includes a section about the French attitude toward the superiority and the purity of their language over others. They also say that English is a very easy language to speak poorly and that as English speakers we tolerate people speaking our language incorrectly. I concur 100%. How about you?

On Books and Funks

A good book always provides an escape, doesn't it? Especially for those who write them as well as read them. It's amazing how a story can help us avoid cleaning the toilet, occupy us on a rainy day, and help us overcome boredom or the everyday.

And then there's that sensation of the world halting when we're reading a good book. That no matter what happens around us our desires and our cares are in that book. Until it's done. And we devote ourselves to it until it's done.

Our writing operates in a similar fashion. It offers escape that often borders on obsessive. We also give our angst and our joys a home in our writing.

So what happens when the emotional down funk halts our writing? For me, a reading binge can be energizing or it can be a form of avoiding writing. But sometimes, like today, the writing feels insurmountable because my emotions feel like they cannot be overcome. On typical days like this I give the torment to my characters and let them work it out for me. But the occasional day comes where I cannot lift my fingers to share my pain.

And I wallow.

I read until I'm sick of the words. I nap. I stare at my iPod, and rebuke it. I do the same with a bottle of wine knowing that will intensify my pain.

Eventually, my husband will probably drag me to some plebeian place like Wegmans or the mall. Dear God I hope not... not on the day after Christmas. But I feel like some of my Christmas presents: big and bulky (like the clothes that don't fit) and oddly half-functional (like the coffee pot I received without any coffee).

Personal tales

As a little girl, I used to spend a great deal of time at my neighbor's house. I probably told her everything, probably in more detail than a should have.

But she laughed at my stories. I have always liked telling stories and making people laugh, or feel, feel anything.

This came back to me last night, when I told a friend the very personal tale of what happened when I brought my Jacqueline Susann novel to the gynecologist's office. I also realized too many of my recent tales have involved work and the people I work with. I have the traditional child stories, too. But it's been a long time since I had a fun personal story to tell.

Here's an excerpt:
"I walk into the office today, and strangely, I can't find any magazines other than Highlights. And I read enough Highlights at home. I brought a book, but I feel weird getting it out, because it's Jacqueline Susann's Once is Not Enough. Bad literary choice. I should have brought The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo or even David Sedaris. But I didn't.

I open the book carefully, on my lap so no one can read the cover. Normally, I wouldn't hide it, but who brings SMUT to the OB/GYN's office? And I open it to the chapter where Linda is telling January what she needs to do to get a man aroused, and then January goes for a vitamin shot that makes her horny.

They call my name. "

Which also reminds me. Since we're in between semesters, I took some books out of both libraries-- public and college. I'm currently working on:

• The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
• Naked by David Sedaris
• Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Sedaris
• The French translation of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris
• Once is Not Enough
• some novel with Cézanne in the title
• A history of the bra in America
• A fashion reader (okay, two fashion readers)
  

Reading Out Loud

The first critique group I ever belonged to had an amazing chemistry. There were some traveling members who came and went. There were some unpublished writers who needed some polish on their craft. There was a talented reader. And a couple of English majors, one a working journalist. (Okay the last one was me.)

My current critique group has a different mix of people, and a mix of genres. In my current group, everyone sends a chapter or twenty pages. We read them all every month and discuss. We aim to keep discussions about 30 minutes and fail miserably so we have some late nights.

My old group only one or two people were on the schedule for any given meeting. Those individuals had to email their submission, so those of us who wanted to could read it in advance. Then, the writer had to read the submission out loud. This allowed people who did not have time to read it earlier to hear it.

People protested this policy at first, but I think everyone grew to like it. Not only is it good practice in presence and poise to read your work, but it's a good sign of comfort. If you're uncomfortable reading your work out loud, maybe it's a sign there's something wrong with it.

In addition, listening to the author read the piece allowed all of us to judge how we read. The author's voice could convey sarcasm in a character's dialogue, for example, that we might have perceived as mere stupidity. I remember one of my character's speech patterns coming off very differently when I read them out loud (Étienne's unnatural English became more lyrical, even if 'his' word choice was bad.)

You can fix many problems when you read a work out loud. It becomes obvious where language is clunky. You become more sensitive to the pacing.

Greater Lehigh Valley Writers Group, GLVWG, tries to find venues for authors and writers to share their work. We used to host a special event several times a year with Touchstone Theatre on the southside of Bethlehem. A committee screened the applicants and then members got to read. The attendance was abysmal and I'm told no one applied, yet I know from experience that the committee rejected many applicants. Attendance waned, and location and night of the week contributed.

We have monthly spotlights at our meetings where writers have ten minutes to read. We also participate in festivals.

Some authors read the same chapter every time, whether it be chapter one or one they've rehearsed and honed. They're good chapters, but since the same members of GLVWG tend to make up the audience, I get sick of hearing them. So, when I'm asked to read, I do something different.

And some of my fellow GLVWGers enjoy the concept.

The manuscript of my first book has 400 pages. I let the audience call out numbers, and then I read the page numbers in order. I usually start on the first full paragraph and read until the end of the scene. It has never failed me. It has never landed in a chapter in the French guy's POV and it has never landed in a violent scene or a scene with sexual content. This weirds me out a little.