Chapter one, chapter one, it's such a weighty word. Not like, say, chapter 17 where hopefully you'll know what you're doing or, if not, your readers won't care. Chapter one needs to be good, it needs to set the tone for the rest of the story, it needs to communicate who your characters are and what, pray tell, might happen to them. All of that and more, and still be entertaining, well written and unusual yet not gimmicky.
Enough to make you wonder why anyone would want to write a novel, right?
In preparation for my upcoming novel workshop, which I'm kinda terrified of due to a bad experience in grad school, I did a little meditating this afternoon on my on chapter one, which I don't love, but nor do I hate. I'd always thought it was kinda of necessary for the book - it had a setting that was important, it introduced the two biggest characters, it set out a quiet conflict that was in the same vein as a later, larger conflict. But it was kinda boring. And I didn't think that I'd done a good enough job with my details really. And I figured other people would not love it, because in comparison to chapter 2 and 3, and so on, not much exciting happens. It's pretty quiet.
That's all true, still. I haven't raced back into the chapter determined to give it shiny new wheels. I'm okay with it being somewhat boring for now. I do think that the events of chapter one need to be told in some fashion...if the crisis in chapter one changes, that's fine, but there'll be another crisis of the same sort, just a better one. The characters' differences are clear, the setting is clear, the stakes such as they are on the face of things are laid out. The chapter could be much more directly ominous, and hopefully it will be, but I think more of the stuff that needs to be said at the outset is being said at the outset than isn't. Only, of course, in a nondirect way.
About my being so nervous about this workshop, I shouldn't be. I should remember that grad school was frustrating at very many times and this class in particular was a waste of my time and effort, and think that also I could have done a better job in my work and been more professional myself about working with a bad teacher. My professor did not like my work and she made it clear, and she also didn't like me and she made that clear. That was unprofessional of her, but I didn't take my out to drop the class when I could have (why, I don't remember).
I found an old workshop draft of one of those chapters that I'd given a prior writing workshop and the comments on those papers were much more supportive than in Waste of My Time's class. Sometimes your work doesn't reach its intended audience. Sometimes you need to be humble in order to make your work better. we all have different tastes. I remember being horrified in workshop in college when one of my peers HATED, but hated James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room.
{That was the first Baldwin book I read, and he's still a favorite author to this day. So rich. If you haven't read him, do.}
I was lucky and/or spoiled in college to work with wonderful writing professors, people who I still keep in touch with.
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Friday, September 11, 2009
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
too much writing!
I have too much writing to do.
I'm taking a novel-writing workshop that begins in a couple weeks, but before (and during) I have this blog, two other blogs and three freelance clients needing regular work. Oh, and my novel.
I get up in the morning, brew some get-me-awake coffee and dash of a couple articles for client #1 while I'm doing this. Then if I'm lucky I'll throw something together for one of the blogs, post that, move on to something else in my day, toss a draft of something for client #2 together in a late afternoon coffee break, cook dinner, play some lexulous online, research something for another blog, remember I've got to start work for freelance client #3, spend a few minutes reading a friend's blog, work on some other things, think guiltily about the novel, spend ten minutes writing my book, decide to read a bit and go to bed, wake up and do it again.
It sounds so concise in paragraph form, but it isn't. There is so much research that goes along with writing--and blogging--and so much thinking and trying and procrastinating about writing that goes on when writing a book. So - basically - I live most of the time stressed out writing or thinking about writing or avoiding writing and it's hard to justify writing something I don't get paid for rather than something I do.
Oy vey.
I'm glad there are people who pay me to write. It's nifty. I just had a flash fiction piece accepted for publication in a journal earlier this week, and that only fuels my desire to work on my writing and submit to journals and so on....and if my dog chased his tail I'd feel like him, instead I just feel like organization is necessary, or something.
I'm taking a novel-writing workshop that begins in a couple weeks, but before (and during) I have this blog, two other blogs and three freelance clients needing regular work. Oh, and my novel.
I get up in the morning, brew some get-me-awake coffee and dash of a couple articles for client #1 while I'm doing this. Then if I'm lucky I'll throw something together for one of the blogs, post that, move on to something else in my day, toss a draft of something for client #2 together in a late afternoon coffee break, cook dinner, play some lexulous online, research something for another blog, remember I've got to start work for freelance client #3, spend a few minutes reading a friend's blog, work on some other things, think guiltily about the novel, spend ten minutes writing my book, decide to read a bit and go to bed, wake up and do it again.
It sounds so concise in paragraph form, but it isn't. There is so much research that goes along with writing--and blogging--and so much thinking and trying and procrastinating about writing that goes on when writing a book. So - basically - I live most of the time stressed out writing or thinking about writing or avoiding writing and it's hard to justify writing something I don't get paid for rather than something I do.
Oy vey.
I'm glad there are people who pay me to write. It's nifty. I just had a flash fiction piece accepted for publication in a journal earlier this week, and that only fuels my desire to work on my writing and submit to journals and so on....and if my dog chased his tail I'd feel like him, instead I just feel like organization is necessary, or something.
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
thought stream of revision
{or, some of the junk that goes through my mind}
One of the things I try to do each time I'm working on revisions is give myself the time to re-read the current draft before diving in, especially if it's been a while. It's always great to have writing work that *feels* like writing, but the main reason for this is so that I can spend some time (re)remembering what I wanted to write about in the first place. Usually I'll try to get all the way through without listening to the editor in my head, but when I do let the editor's voice shine, it tends to go something like this:
1. weak beginning...OMG, takes two pages to get to the meat of the story! no bueno!
2. do we have a pretty good sense of who the protagonist is and what he wants by page 2, at the latest? why not?
3. what is the particular problem in this story? is that clear to readers? {usually, in an early draft, the answer is NO}
4. is the landscape clear? {not only the physical landscape/geography, but the other characters that help my MC define himself}
5. insert time-honored/exhausted workshop tropes. pick your favorite, which may include what's at stake? there's not enough tension in this piece. the dialogue/characters is/are flat. and you haven't earned the ending.
6. remember the things that are your weakness. for me, it's an overuse of exposition. which sucks, because I like a lot of exposition, and I'm willing to put up with a lot of it if the writing is good. however, exposition for its own sake is no longer popular in today's literary fiction...and who am I, just another writer, right? right.
7. remember that you are standing in your own way: that your pride, or your adoration for minor character #7 (the one with the harelip and the broken umbrella), or your determination that you know exactly what the piece is about, or your brilliant wit in paragraphs 3-5...if you are going to have a finished, polished piece, most of the things you love will die or mutate.
8. get real quiet and listen.
last night i learned that i totally forgot to convert one page from first to third person, so, sorry brooke, don't be confused when you read the excerpt i sent you. i learned that there's not as much exposition (yes!) as i remembered and nearly no backstory (double yes!), that my characters are still sickly thin, that the madcap caper tone of the chapter isn't being read through the agonizing level of detail i invested trying to make the plot believable, and that what will make the plot more believable is rounded characters stuck in a conflict.
who, what, where, when, why? and why now? i try to be kind on a first raft. i don't have high expectations. and when i'm going through this process, i'm certainly not doing it with a little checklist beside me. to date i've spent, oh, 6-8 years workshopping pieces? i know how to ask these questions, whether it's about your piece or mine. to know what to change, you need to make a series of quick, frequently subconscious decisions. it's wrong because it is. the dialogue reads awkwardly, and when you say it aloud you'll hear. we know when something doesn't sound right because most of us have been reading for what feels like forever.
that, when you think about it, is pretty significant. what else have we been doing all our conscious lives, other than eating, sleeping, losing our tempers, and discovering things to love and find beautiful? ok, and watching television. play kitchens turned into real ones, stuffed animals became pets, and the other games of childhood fell away unless we play them with our children or other people's. i'll stop now before this gets too fever pitch {the movie, not the novel...i actually can't stand nick hornby. sox win, btw!} but consider the implications...what sort of people still care about the same things they did when they were 7?
One of the things I try to do each time I'm working on revisions is give myself the time to re-read the current draft before diving in, especially if it's been a while. It's always great to have writing work that *feels* like writing, but the main reason for this is so that I can spend some time (re)remembering what I wanted to write about in the first place. Usually I'll try to get all the way through without listening to the editor in my head, but when I do let the editor's voice shine, it tends to go something like this:
1. weak beginning...OMG, takes two pages to get to the meat of the story! no bueno!
2. do we have a pretty good sense of who the protagonist is and what he wants by page 2, at the latest? why not?
3. what is the particular problem in this story? is that clear to readers? {usually, in an early draft, the answer is NO}
4. is the landscape clear? {not only the physical landscape/geography, but the other characters that help my MC define himself}
5. insert time-honored/exhausted workshop tropes. pick your favorite, which may include what's at stake? there's not enough tension in this piece. the dialogue/characters is/are flat. and you haven't earned the ending.
6. remember the things that are your weakness. for me, it's an overuse of exposition. which sucks, because I like a lot of exposition, and I'm willing to put up with a lot of it if the writing is good. however, exposition for its own sake is no longer popular in today's literary fiction...and who am I, just another writer, right? right.
7. remember that you are standing in your own way: that your pride, or your adoration for minor character #7 (the one with the harelip and the broken umbrella), or your determination that you know exactly what the piece is about, or your brilliant wit in paragraphs 3-5...if you are going to have a finished, polished piece, most of the things you love will die or mutate.
8. get real quiet and listen.
last night i learned that i totally forgot to convert one page from first to third person, so, sorry brooke, don't be confused when you read the excerpt i sent you. i learned that there's not as much exposition (yes!) as i remembered and nearly no backstory (double yes!), that my characters are still sickly thin, that the madcap caper tone of the chapter isn't being read through the agonizing level of detail i invested trying to make the plot believable, and that what will make the plot more believable is rounded characters stuck in a conflict.
who, what, where, when, why? and why now? i try to be kind on a first raft. i don't have high expectations. and when i'm going through this process, i'm certainly not doing it with a little checklist beside me. to date i've spent, oh, 6-8 years workshopping pieces? i know how to ask these questions, whether it's about your piece or mine. to know what to change, you need to make a series of quick, frequently subconscious decisions. it's wrong because it is. the dialogue reads awkwardly, and when you say it aloud you'll hear. we know when something doesn't sound right because most of us have been reading for what feels like forever.
that, when you think about it, is pretty significant. what else have we been doing all our conscious lives, other than eating, sleeping, losing our tempers, and discovering things to love and find beautiful? ok, and watching television. play kitchens turned into real ones, stuffed animals became pets, and the other games of childhood fell away unless we play them with our children or other people's. i'll stop now before this gets too fever pitch {the movie, not the novel...i actually can't stand nick hornby. sox win, btw!} but consider the implications...what sort of people still care about the same things they did when they were 7?
Monday, April 27, 2009
busy (all the time)
hi, lil foodies.
i am very much aware of my neglect of food in this-here space lately. i'm kicking around a couple of ideas but to be honest, i have not felt very inspired on the food-front lately. could be because i've been writing so much, but hey...that one took a sputtering back burner for the last THREE YEARS, alright already? I'm trying to re-negotiate my relationship with food, which is linked directly to my satisfaction with work/living spaces. In the last year I've baked a lot less...because I've had no freezer space, a very unreliable oven, and now a toaster oven.
(yes...I do decide what to bake, if I'm baking at home, by what pan will fit in the toaster oven. yes...i am aware this is ridiculous)
so I'm just gonna leave you with two things:
1. new category in the overcrowded sidebar of other pieces I've written. currently this just contains other blogs I contribute to, but as I get new fictions published they'll make their way over there. I'm not going to put the old ones up, but you can find them if you want to without too much trouble.
2. I've got all my seeds started and I'm scoping out a couple more plants, but here's this year's sunset garden lineup:
early girl tomatoes
yellow pear tomatoes
some kind of determinate cherry tomato whose name escapes me
romano beans
parsnip
red beets
mesclun mix
rainbow swiss chard
chantenay carrots
french breakfast radishes
arugula
nasturtium
lemon verbena
lemon basil
The apple tree and blackberry bushes are flowering. I'm contemplating letting my third shade bed get overrun with spearmint.
i am very much aware of my neglect of food in this-here space lately. i'm kicking around a couple of ideas but to be honest, i have not felt very inspired on the food-front lately. could be because i've been writing so much, but hey...that one took a sputtering back burner for the last THREE YEARS, alright already? I'm trying to re-negotiate my relationship with food, which is linked directly to my satisfaction with work/living spaces. In the last year I've baked a lot less...because I've had no freezer space, a very unreliable oven, and now a toaster oven.
(yes...I do decide what to bake, if I'm baking at home, by what pan will fit in the toaster oven. yes...i am aware this is ridiculous)
so I'm just gonna leave you with two things:
1. new category in the overcrowded sidebar of other pieces I've written. currently this just contains other blogs I contribute to, but as I get new fictions published they'll make their way over there. I'm not going to put the old ones up, but you can find them if you want to without too much trouble.
2. I've got all my seeds started and I'm scoping out a couple more plants, but here's this year's sunset garden lineup:
early girl tomatoes
yellow pear tomatoes
some kind of determinate cherry tomato whose name escapes me
romano beans
parsnip
red beets
mesclun mix
rainbow swiss chard
chantenay carrots
french breakfast radishes
arugula
nasturtium
lemon verbena
lemon basil
The apple tree and blackberry bushes are flowering. I'm contemplating letting my third shade bed get overrun with spearmint.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
oh please
from the craigslist "writing gigs" section: famous poet seeks intern
"famous poet/sculptress {insert URL here}. She has read with Charles, Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg. She also dated Charles Bukowski for five years. This your chance to learn from someone who learned for the greats. She have rare books from the 70's that need to be complied in a 'complete works' book. Please email me your resume and I'll be in-touch."
so many things to say but let's start with these:
1. Charles, Bukowski? no...alphabetizing goes last name first
2. Do we want to know your sex life to get a job with you? Do we need to?
3. "learned for the greats"
4. sounds like someone's books are out of print and she wants a vanity pressing, eh?
Happy Poetry Month. At least we know why it's unpaid....
"famous poet/sculptress {insert URL here}. She has read with Charles, Bukowski and Allen Ginsberg. She also dated Charles Bukowski for five years. This your chance to learn from someone who learned for the greats. She have rare books from the 70's that need to be complied in a 'complete works' book. Please email me your resume and I'll be in-touch."
so many things to say but let's start with these:
1. Charles, Bukowski? no...alphabetizing goes last name first
2. Do we want to know your sex life to get a job with you? Do we need to?
3. "learned for the greats"
4. sounds like someone's books are out of print and she wants a vanity pressing, eh?
Happy Poetry Month. At least we know why it's unpaid....
Saturday, April 18, 2009
one more
oops...i forgot to tell you the best story in that last post! in a way it's about hustling, too, and in a way it's strange and sad, but i find i keep turning it over in my mind.
i have never been the sort of person to look outward for inspiration for stories, but this one, there's something about the mystery in it that i might just borrow it one day.
so, a while back i ran into someone i used to cook with. we chatted about workplaces and he gave me the rundown on who was still working at the restaurant {turnover. always} and who had moved on.
a skinny slip of a cook with intense eyes and a quietly cocky manner simply disappeared. he was married {i thought he was gay...eh...} and he left. left work. gave no notice. skipped town or not. changed the phone number or not. vanished.
i wonder if he took his possessions, his knives, his bicycle, his chefwear. i wonder if he's returned. in my mind he's on the line in some distant city, but what thoughts are possibly going through his head as he flicks the saute pan?
on a different note: i worked 32 hours in the last 3 days. give or take.
on a related note...i'm kinda totally in love with editing my manuscript. it's so scary and so wonderful. part of me wants to tell everyone i know and part of me wants to keep it all to myself. i know it's a very, very long process and i know there will be so many moments when i hate it and am discouraged and think i am not so good at this and want to go out into the world and do something else. but for right now it's such a rush...familiar yet totally not. i'm trying to trust it--the process, the voice, my skill, something. it makes me want to call up writer friends and have long intense conversations. it's somehow made writing feel new again.
i have never been the sort of person to look outward for inspiration for stories, but this one, there's something about the mystery in it that i might just borrow it one day.
so, a while back i ran into someone i used to cook with. we chatted about workplaces and he gave me the rundown on who was still working at the restaurant {turnover. always} and who had moved on.
a skinny slip of a cook with intense eyes and a quietly cocky manner simply disappeared. he was married {i thought he was gay...eh...} and he left. left work. gave no notice. skipped town or not. changed the phone number or not. vanished.
i wonder if he took his possessions, his knives, his bicycle, his chefwear. i wonder if he's returned. in my mind he's on the line in some distant city, but what thoughts are possibly going through his head as he flicks the saute pan?
on a different note: i worked 32 hours in the last 3 days. give or take.
on a related note...i'm kinda totally in love with editing my manuscript. it's so scary and so wonderful. part of me wants to tell everyone i know and part of me wants to keep it all to myself. i know it's a very, very long process and i know there will be so many moments when i hate it and am discouraged and think i am not so good at this and want to go out into the world and do something else. but for right now it's such a rush...familiar yet totally not. i'm trying to trust it--the process, the voice, my skill, something. it makes me want to call up writer friends and have long intense conversations. it's somehow made writing feel new again.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
revisions, revisions
I got stuck on a chapter last night. I can usually tell when I'm stuck because I'm avoiding writing, or when I try to write I get nothing done (but sometimes I get so little done even when I'm not stuck). Last night I was trying to revamp a scene in a chapter that needs lots of work.
Group scenes are really hard for me. Parties. Crowded rooms. That stuff is a touch easier in first person because it's all being streamed through one voice. Third person, though...even if it's fairly limited, it's still something I have a hard time working with. All those bodies, what are they doing? I wrote a scant paragraph but no more.
Then I took a walk. Getting up and leaving the room is dangerous. When you're struggling to write, sometimes it works best to push through it, whether by giving yourself an arbitrary word count (500 more, = 2 pages) or by giving yourself an arbitrary time you must write until. I tend to try to stay in the room, even if it's not doing me any good. Even when I give into the urge to google this or that information that I really need to know, really before going any further. Getting up and leaving the room brings the danger that I won't sit back down at all. And leaving writing dissatisfied doesn't make me want to sit back down the next day.
Sometimes it also works to close the computer and let everything marinate overnight. If I've taken my characters up to the edge of a cliff, but not over the cliff, if I've started a new scene, gotten everyone into the next room, then I've got something to mull over and I've got a jumping-off point for the next day. This wasn't going to work because I knew the room they were entering, and they were all bottled up in the hallway.
So I took a walk with my dog, down to the public garden. I thought about the scene I was struggling with. I thought it through enough that when we got home, half an hour or so later, I made a few notes on a post-it and got back to work, and finished the scene.
By and large, characters make rational decisions. They might not be rational to you, the reader; if so, the writer didn't do her job well enough. Stylistically, sure, sometimes we choose altogether unreliable, irrational characters. Logic will always play a role. If I choose an unreliable narrator, I've got to use my logic to demonstrate her total unreliability at some point in the story. If my narrator is confused, heartbroken, manic, earnest, what-have-you, but otherwise trustworthy, he or she will make a rational decision. Additional characters will react in time. Raymond Carver is so skilled at showing these decisions with such sparse language. Writers who clutter their pages (Dave Eggers comes to mind) likewise have to justify their decisions. I walked through the garden at night, took away my fear and frustration and anxiety, and laid everything out straight. What did my character want? Who was going in that room with him? What other characters would hover on the periphery? How could I introduce tension, foreshadowing, doubt, anything for his to react against? How could I introduce information about minor characters that could be useful in future chapters?
Sometimes, but very rarely, we need to leave the room and walk about. That scene is finished, almost. Tonight on my drive home I realized I need to spend a little more time on something. Always writers have to think about how we can raise the stakes, introduce more tension, cut closer to the bone.
That is, if we're writing about something honest and true that we care deeply about. It is infinitely easier to put words on a page if our hearts are not behind them. They lose a degree of power. Choices get abstracted.
Group scenes are really hard for me. Parties. Crowded rooms. That stuff is a touch easier in first person because it's all being streamed through one voice. Third person, though...even if it's fairly limited, it's still something I have a hard time working with. All those bodies, what are they doing? I wrote a scant paragraph but no more.
Then I took a walk. Getting up and leaving the room is dangerous. When you're struggling to write, sometimes it works best to push through it, whether by giving yourself an arbitrary word count (500 more, = 2 pages) or by giving yourself an arbitrary time you must write until. I tend to try to stay in the room, even if it's not doing me any good. Even when I give into the urge to google this or that information that I really need to know, really before going any further. Getting up and leaving the room brings the danger that I won't sit back down at all. And leaving writing dissatisfied doesn't make me want to sit back down the next day.
Sometimes it also works to close the computer and let everything marinate overnight. If I've taken my characters up to the edge of a cliff, but not over the cliff, if I've started a new scene, gotten everyone into the next room, then I've got something to mull over and I've got a jumping-off point for the next day. This wasn't going to work because I knew the room they were entering, and they were all bottled up in the hallway.
So I took a walk with my dog, down to the public garden. I thought about the scene I was struggling with. I thought it through enough that when we got home, half an hour or so later, I made a few notes on a post-it and got back to work, and finished the scene.
By and large, characters make rational decisions. They might not be rational to you, the reader; if so, the writer didn't do her job well enough. Stylistically, sure, sometimes we choose altogether unreliable, irrational characters. Logic will always play a role. If I choose an unreliable narrator, I've got to use my logic to demonstrate her total unreliability at some point in the story. If my narrator is confused, heartbroken, manic, earnest, what-have-you, but otherwise trustworthy, he or she will make a rational decision. Additional characters will react in time. Raymond Carver is so skilled at showing these decisions with such sparse language. Writers who clutter their pages (Dave Eggers comes to mind) likewise have to justify their decisions. I walked through the garden at night, took away my fear and frustration and anxiety, and laid everything out straight. What did my character want? Who was going in that room with him? What other characters would hover on the periphery? How could I introduce tension, foreshadowing, doubt, anything for his to react against? How could I introduce information about minor characters that could be useful in future chapters?
Sometimes, but very rarely, we need to leave the room and walk about. That scene is finished, almost. Tonight on my drive home I realized I need to spend a little more time on something. Always writers have to think about how we can raise the stakes, introduce more tension, cut closer to the bone.
That is, if we're writing about something honest and true that we care deeply about. It is infinitely easier to put words on a page if our hearts are not behind them. They lose a degree of power. Choices get abstracted.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
random thoughts, tuesday afternoon
exhausted in mind, not body.
delicious candied cocoa nibs for afternoon snack.
not feeling the tea cinnamon thing. plus it was weirdly gummy. humph.
LROD hasn't been appearing in my rss feed...that makes me sad.
my dog is a champion at unmaking the bed.
i'm really not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that my boss didn't get back to me today...but i know i'll find out later in the week.
i'm reading this e-book on my computer (really, it's a pdf file, so am i supposed to call it an e-book or a pdf?) and it's in two columns per page, which annoys me immensely.
i feel like a lot of the publishing blogs lately (cause of the kindle?) are having the same conversation that i was having eight to ten years ago (ebooks, the death of print publishing, the flicker of the screen versus the turn of the page)...which makes me wonder if so many voices are just now joining the dialogue, or if we've been having the same conversation for ten years now.
i'm supposed to be checking out a new writers group on thursday but so far haven't received anything to read for it.
my dog has the cutest smile on his face right now.
i need to cook my bergamot.
michael ruhlman has a great post on lemon squares and you should read it.
there are 59 comments on this post, which makes me think i'm not the only one who likes lemon squares.
i'm really very possible about to train my fourth coworker in 2 months...3 months...can't remember.
i'm nervous i won't like the new brand of coffee i bought at the andronicos.
i've been getting a bunch of rejection letter on this piece of flash, but none of the letters have been interesting.
i feel like apricots are right around the corner and that is very satisfying.
last night a fellow grad student came up...she's had some books out, appeared on npr recently. she was a pub kid and not an mfa-er, so i didn't know her very well, but someone who was out with us said that she thought this woman wrote books she thought would sell, as opposed to books she wanted to write. it took me a microsecond to acknowledge that i'd rather have a book that meant something to me, that i wanted/needed to write, than a book that i produced from a more flippant place.
but i do wonder, does it make it easier to write a book if you're not attached to the story you're telling? by attached i mean with your whole heart? if i were writing a book like this blog post where it didn't matter what sentence followed the next, per se, where i was writing it for someone to read it...or my name to be known...
and who do you write for? (or cook for?)
yourself? who you'd like to be? who you were?
what is the most satisfying audience you can imagine? do you know when you have a good audience? do you recognize apt criticism? does it still sting?
i wrote, when i was a kid, out of some vague hope for fame. then i wrote cause it was smart. i read always, without thinking about why i read.
delicious candied cocoa nibs for afternoon snack.
not feeling the tea cinnamon thing. plus it was weirdly gummy. humph.
LROD hasn't been appearing in my rss feed...that makes me sad.
my dog is a champion at unmaking the bed.
i'm really not sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that my boss didn't get back to me today...but i know i'll find out later in the week.
i'm reading this e-book on my computer (really, it's a pdf file, so am i supposed to call it an e-book or a pdf?) and it's in two columns per page, which annoys me immensely.
i feel like a lot of the publishing blogs lately (cause of the kindle?) are having the same conversation that i was having eight to ten years ago (ebooks, the death of print publishing, the flicker of the screen versus the turn of the page)...which makes me wonder if so many voices are just now joining the dialogue, or if we've been having the same conversation for ten years now.
i'm supposed to be checking out a new writers group on thursday but so far haven't received anything to read for it.
my dog has the cutest smile on his face right now.
i need to cook my bergamot.
michael ruhlman has a great post on lemon squares and you should read it.
there are 59 comments on this post, which makes me think i'm not the only one who likes lemon squares.
i'm really very possible about to train my fourth coworker in 2 months...3 months...can't remember.
i'm nervous i won't like the new brand of coffee i bought at the andronicos.
i've been getting a bunch of rejection letter on this piece of flash, but none of the letters have been interesting.
i feel like apricots are right around the corner and that is very satisfying.
last night a fellow grad student came up...she's had some books out, appeared on npr recently. she was a pub kid and not an mfa-er, so i didn't know her very well, but someone who was out with us said that she thought this woman wrote books she thought would sell, as opposed to books she wanted to write. it took me a microsecond to acknowledge that i'd rather have a book that meant something to me, that i wanted/needed to write, than a book that i produced from a more flippant place.
but i do wonder, does it make it easier to write a book if you're not attached to the story you're telling? by attached i mean with your whole heart? if i were writing a book like this blog post where it didn't matter what sentence followed the next, per se, where i was writing it for someone to read it...or my name to be known...
and who do you write for? (or cook for?)
yourself? who you'd like to be? who you were?
what is the most satisfying audience you can imagine? do you know when you have a good audience? do you recognize apt criticism? does it still sting?
i wrote, when i was a kid, out of some vague hope for fame. then i wrote cause it was smart. i read always, without thinking about why i read.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
fiction exercise: 5 things
When I'm writing a lot, and stuck in a piece, I keep this book close to me. It's from the only really good class I took in grad school. Inside the book, there's a green publix shopping list on which I've written Liddie is the sort of person who: followed by ten answers to that question.
Avoid all of the minute character descriptions {is short. is allergic to tomatoes. hates to drive at night.} The point of this exercise is to let your mind wander, using the things you know about your character to dig you in a couple of steps deeper. When I do this exercise, the first three are usually throwaway. Uninteresting. If you're lucky you'll end up with five good ones on a list of ten:
2. is unashamed about the gap in her front teeth, the width of a dime laid on end, because her family didn't have dental care when she was young.
3. tucks scraps of food into her bag for the compost bin, then forgets to take them out until they've started to rot.
5. likes to buy lingerie from the Salvation Army.
7. tried to train parakeets in the backyard to work as messenger pigeons.
9. cleans the apartment every three months, using an old gym shirt of mine without first asking if I still wear it.
The story this character is from is dear to my heart, if difficult. I haven't looked at the story in three years, but I still carry her around and sometimes I think of that piece. From those five things, you might see her as thrifty, whimsical, a little self righteous, somewhat entitled, somehow a romantic, probably idealistic. Maybe you'd like to have coffee with her or maybe you'd get up and move if she sat next to you on MUNI.
I wrote 8 things for my character tonight in this chapter I'm desperately trying to get to the end of {not sure why, because the chapter after it will be even more of a headache to manage}. This guy goes to the opera alone, and keeps no photographs of family members in his house. Not as interesting, maybe, but his voice is frantic and dramatic and I think he needs ways to be quiet. I understood that he crosses the street to avoid people with babies and dogs, so I gave his best friend a cat. Just to make my character unhappy.
I've got to train a new cook on Saturday. I'm putting some thoughts together for a post on training. I think I'll only have two days with this girl and then she'll be on her own...and it's a lot harder to fix someone's mistakes when they're working independently and you're catching it days after the fact.
Avoid all of the minute character descriptions {is short. is allergic to tomatoes. hates to drive at night.} The point of this exercise is to let your mind wander, using the things you know about your character to dig you in a couple of steps deeper. When I do this exercise, the first three are usually throwaway. Uninteresting. If you're lucky you'll end up with five good ones on a list of ten:
2. is unashamed about the gap in her front teeth, the width of a dime laid on end, because her family didn't have dental care when she was young.
3. tucks scraps of food into her bag for the compost bin, then forgets to take them out until they've started to rot.
5. likes to buy lingerie from the Salvation Army.
7. tried to train parakeets in the backyard to work as messenger pigeons.
9. cleans the apartment every three months, using an old gym shirt of mine without first asking if I still wear it.
The story this character is from is dear to my heart, if difficult. I haven't looked at the story in three years, but I still carry her around and sometimes I think of that piece. From those five things, you might see her as thrifty, whimsical, a little self righteous, somewhat entitled, somehow a romantic, probably idealistic. Maybe you'd like to have coffee with her or maybe you'd get up and move if she sat next to you on MUNI.
I wrote 8 things for my character tonight in this chapter I'm desperately trying to get to the end of {not sure why, because the chapter after it will be even more of a headache to manage}. This guy goes to the opera alone, and keeps no photographs of family members in his house. Not as interesting, maybe, but his voice is frantic and dramatic and I think he needs ways to be quiet. I understood that he crosses the street to avoid people with babies and dogs, so I gave his best friend a cat. Just to make my character unhappy.
I've got to train a new cook on Saturday. I'm putting some thoughts together for a post on training. I think I'll only have two days with this girl and then she'll be on her own...and it's a lot harder to fix someone's mistakes when they're working independently and you're catching it days after the fact.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Art versus craft: michael laiskonis
When we cook, are we telling a story in third person?
What, in the act of cooking, is the writing? What is the storytelling? What is the reading? Might these creative and consumptive acts trade places? What is the interplay between dialogue and monologue?
Michael Laiskonis has an excellent post up today about creativity in art and the way art influences cooking. Go read it. I have to do some cooking now.
What, in the act of cooking, is the writing? What is the storytelling? What is the reading? Might these creative and consumptive acts trade places? What is the interplay between dialogue and monologue?
Michael Laiskonis has an excellent post up today about creativity in art and the way art influences cooking. Go read it. I have to do some cooking now.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
sunday night.
soup's on the stove. need to go put it away. white bean-potato-kale. hearty vegetable soups for a rainy day, and when the sun comes out tomorrow i'll wonder why i made it. i told the roommate she could cook up sausages and put them in some of the soup.
you need a writing area she says today. like, in your room. i always want you to have one
what? i say. "you mean, so i don't write on the sofa or in my bed?
yeah she says. like in the corner of your room
our house, you see, is very small, although we did have twenty people in the kitchen once.
writing nook, we'll see. right now i'm clearing out space because a clean room feels like a promise in the same way a clean kitchen feels like a possibility.
my coworker we just hired three weeks ago gave her notice last week, which means someone else to train, someone else to impart the particular minutae that only really comes with experience, and looking (no, you see, it's different, this is just right, this is too thin)...and in the meantime, the one who is leaving does a sloppy job of cleaning, which is to be expected.
i'm putting away the soup.
i'm going to bed early.
today i ate malted vanilla ice cream.
you need a writing area she says today. like, in your room. i always want you to have one
what? i say. "you mean, so i don't write on the sofa or in my bed?
yeah she says. like in the corner of your room
our house, you see, is very small, although we did have twenty people in the kitchen once.
writing nook, we'll see. right now i'm clearing out space because a clean room feels like a promise in the same way a clean kitchen feels like a possibility.
my coworker we just hired three weeks ago gave her notice last week, which means someone else to train, someone else to impart the particular minutae that only really comes with experience, and looking (no, you see, it's different, this is just right, this is too thin)...and in the meantime, the one who is leaving does a sloppy job of cleaning, which is to be expected.
i'm putting away the soup.
i'm going to bed early.
today i ate malted vanilla ice cream.
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