Thought for the day:

"The fact is that we are living in a time when the decision to be an artist, to continue to create in spite of everything that's happening around us, IS a radical political act. This is, I feel, quite a dark time, potentially destructive to the best and most noble aspects of the human spirit. And that's precisely why it is terribly important for artists in all disciplines to continue to create, even when it feels like there's little market and little appreciation for our work. Just doing it, and making the difficult decision to continue to do it - to live creative lives that celebrate what life is and can be - is both defiant and affirming, and it's crucially important. People need to know that someone they know - a neighbor, a friend, a cousin - is committed to the arts. Young people particularly need to know this." ~ Beth Adams
 

First grafs

Blessedly cooler air from the Pacific has swooshed into Portland. Not a moment too soon.
Your story --no matter what type--lives and dies on your first paragraph. Here's a resource via Media Bistro where you can hear and submit first paragraphs.

My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.” ~ Anais Nin

Bruce Holland Rogers interview

at Summer in Words 2012

In Case You Missed It.....

Portland is in the middle of a heart wave. Which explains why I'm up in the middle of the night, wondering how much it might cost to install central air conditioning. Meanwhile, here is information gathered from around the Internet.

From Writer's Digest the 21 key traits of best-selling fiction excerpted from The Writer’s Little Helper by James V. Smith, Jr.can be found here.

Everything is fiction posted by Keith Ridgeway at The New Yorker Page-Turner column. His post is here. He writes:"I know how to wait until the last minute before putting anything on paper. I mean the last minute before the thought leaves me forever. I know how to leave out anything that looks to me—after a while—forced, deliberate, or fake. I know that I need to put myself in the story. I don’t mean literally. I mean emotionally. I need to care about what I’m writing—whether about the characters, or about what they’re getting up to, or about the way they feel or experience their world. I know that my job is to create a perspective. And to impose it on the reader. And I know that in order to do that with any success at all I must in some mysterious way risk everything. If I don’t break my own heart in the writing of a book then I know I’ve done it wrong. I’m not entirely sure what that means. But I know what it feels like."

A dialogue between a writer and copy editor can be found in two parts at The Chronicle of Higher Education. Bottom line: copy editing is about consistency.

The always-wise Jane Friedman is at it again with her usual discerning advice on Build a Better Author Bio for twitter. It includes examples of what not to do....so helpful.

And my favorite of this roundup from Sarah Callender at Writer Unboxed is here about the need to shop at indie book stores. Take the pledge. All of us. All the time. I'm serious as a heart attack.

Quick Take: Act it out.

Recently I was teaching at a conference and interacting with the people attending my workshop. Which was when a writer mentioned her ending to her novel. In it, the protagonist tosses a feather-weight object at the villain. The villain is supposedly momentarily distracted by the object and the protagonist runs away to safety. The villain had a gun, the action takes place out doors and it all pretty much sounded improbable. If one of your readers or your own instincts whispers that an action that you're creating sounds implausible, act it out. Engage a friend or two, stage your scene in a setting similar to your story, using props if needed.

Another suggestion, when writing complicated action scenes, sketch them, complete with sight lines. In some manuscripts I read, it's difficult to tell where the players are in relation to each other.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Diary of a Literary Debutante, part 1

From salon.com, find the first part of the series here
"In ways. But here’s what no one tells you about getting a book contract, or at least what no one told me, or what I wouldn’t have believed if they had: the elation you think you’ll feel, the sense that everything difficult is behind you, is, in most cases, blotted out by a thousand other, competing emotions. This is because the march toward publication is at once lengthy and alarmingly fast, very lonely and worrisomely exposing. It is guaranteed to turn even the least self-absorbed person into a gigantic bore. It practically encourages narcissism. Your friends will come to hate you (your enemies will hate you, too, although presumably it’ll be a shorter trip for them). However, you will be so sick of yourself (and, simultaneously, so consumed by yourself), that you won’t be able to blame them."

"Art is fire plus algebra.” –Jorge Luis Borges

In Case you Missed it

Whereby I collect wisdom and tidbits from the digital world.

The future of publishing and reading. All you need to know (and then some.)

And from fellow mentor Lee Lofland 10 Great Hangouts for Book Nerds.

Which versus that. This article will school you.

10 Lessons for directing and life from Terry Gilliam. I especially appreciate this one:
5. All you’ve really got in life is story.
I think the important thing is stay true to what you believe. I mean it’s much more important to make your mistakes than somebody else’s mistakes. Like too many other filmmakers have compromised because somebody advised them [that] if you change this, the film will be more successful commercially. And then the film isn’t successful commercially, and these people get so depressed and destroyed because they didn’t ever finish making their film the way they intended it. You’ve got to believe in what you’re doing. And you’ve got to be willing to take the consequences of whatever it is. If you succeed, fantastic. If you fail, you might have to get a proper job.

From the  Farnam Street blog: 22 Rules Pixar Uses To Create Appealing Stories can be found here.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

A few notes...

I wanted to thank the organizers of the Willamette Writers Conference for another great conference. Thanks to everyone who said hello and the writers who attended my workshops. I'm signing off for the next few days, so remember: keep dreaming, keep writing, have heart. 

"The act of writing bears something in common with the act of love. The writer, at his most productive moments, just flows. He gives of that which is uniquely himself. He makes himself naked, recording his nakedness in the written word. Herein lies some of the terror which frequently freezes a writer, preventing him from producing. Herein, too, lies some of the courage that must be entailed in letting others learn how one has experienced or is experiencing the world." ~ Sidney Jourard

"If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down." ~ Ray Bradbury

"Reading usually precedes writing. And the impulse to write is almost always fired by reading. Reading, the love of reading, is what makes you dream of becoming a writer.
. . . Why wouldn't you write to escape yourself as much as you might write to express yourself."
~ Susan Sontag

"I believe that good questions are more important than answers, and the best children's books ask questions, and make the readers ask questions. And every new question is going to disturb someone's universe."  Madeleine L'Engle

"Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow - whether there is a market for it or not! The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don't show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward." ~Kurt Vonnegut

Quick Take:

In a good story, the events of the storyline are ballasted by deeper, universal concerns and ideas. These underlying layers are the themes and they hold the greater vision of the story. They whisper beneath the storyline and are what the story is thinking about.

August

File under extreme advice:

"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs. And maybe your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. ...It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."

~ Charles Bukowski

Quick Take: Beware of Crutch Words

I know I've mentioned this before, so forgive the repetition for those who have already read it. Erase suddenly from your vocabulary. Same goes for all of a sudden. If something unexpected happens in a story or sentence, the suddenness is implied via actions or reactions. If you use suddenly to introduce something, then the monster or slap or scream that follows seem less sudden.  It has been overused throughout the years and thus it's impact diluted. And it's a sign the writer is lazy.

How to Write

Elegant, practical and doable instructions on writing from Colson Whitehead here.
I especially like " Rule No. 2: Don’t go searching for a subject, let your subject find you."

keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Contest Opportunity

Bear Deluxe Magazine Presents: The Doug Fir Fiction Award
Every Story Begins Somewhere

Grand Prize: $1,000, writer’s residency at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology*,
national publication and recognition

Finalists: Recognition and publication consideration
Deadline: September 4, 2012 (postmark)**
Award Judge (2012-13): Brian Doyle (Mink River, Bin Laden’s Bald Spot, Grace
Notes, Best American Essays)
Entry Fee: $15
Co-sponsor: Sitka Center for Art & Ecology

The Bear Deluxe Magazine welcomes submissions of previously unpublished
short stories up to 5,000 words, relating to a sense of place or the natural
world, interpreted as broadly or narrowly as the author defines.

For complete guidelines: www.orlo.org <http://www.orlo.org>

*Authors must meet complete residency requirements.
**Online submissions, payments and sample issue requests are accepted at
www.orlo.org <http://www.orlo.org>

Thought for the Day:

"A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art." ~ Jorge Luis Borges

Bitter truth # 2 

Being good is not enough
is here at my web site

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Recommended

WRITER'S TIP: With extreme emotions that trigger an immediate fight-or-flight response, it's important to know which "side" fits best with your character's personality. All actions should line up with this choice.

WRITER'S TIP:  It isn't enough to show emotion: a writer needs to make the reader feel it. Think about the core visceral sensations you experience when feeling strong emotions, and if appropriate, utilize them to convey a similar experience to the reader. 

 ~ from The Emotion Thesaurus A Writer's Guide to Character Expression

"Hours of solitude, hours of creation, hours of meditation. Solitude and meditation gave me an awareness, a perspective which I have never lost: that of solidarity with the rest of mankind. Since that time I have always proclaimed that poetry is communication, in the exact sense of that word." ~ Vincente Aleixandre

The Answer

The answer to  loss, heartbreak,  tragedy and senseless acts--even in the midst of grieving--is to create. That's our prayer, our solution, our way out of so much that troubles us, so much that threatens to break us past healing.

In that spirit here's the opening lines from Alice Hoffman's short story Conjure that she posted on Facebook It' is part of the Ray Bradbury tribute anthology

Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury

Conjure
For Ray Bradbury

It was August, when the crickets sang slowly and the past lingered in bright pools of light, even though it would soon be gone, the way summer was all but finished and yet the heat was still on the rise. The weather had been extreme that month; days of drenching rain, sudden showers of hail, temperatures passing all record highs. Local children whispered that an angel had fallen to earth in a thunderstorm. There were roving groups who swore they had found signs. Footprints in the grass, black feathers, a campfire in the woods behind the high school where there were sparks of shimmering ash. One neighborhood boy vowed that he had seen in a man in a black cloak rise above the earth and walk on air, and although no one believed his account, mothers began to keep their children home. They locked the doors, called in the dogs, kept the lights on after dusk.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Thought for today: 

"In the deeps are the violence and terror of which psychology has warned us. But if you ride these monsters deeper down, if you drop with them farther over the world's rim, you find what our sciences cannot locate or name, the substrate, the ocean or matrix or ether which buoys the rest, which gives goodness its power for good, and evil its power for evil, the unified field: our complex and inexplicable caring for each other, and for our life together here. This is given. It is not learned." ~ Annie Dillard

Thought for the day:

"At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening. After a time you hear it: there is nothing there. There is nothing but those things only, those created objects, discrete, growing or holding, or swaying, being rained on or raining, held, flooding or ebbing, standing, or spread. You feel the world's word as a tension, a hum, a single chorused note everywhere the same. This is it: this hum is the silence. Nature does utter a peep - just this one. The birds and insects, the meadows and swamps and rivers and stones and mountains and clouds: they all do it; they all don't do it. There is a vibrancy to the silence, a suppression, as if someone were gagging the world. But you wait, you give your life's length to listening, and nothing happens. The ice rolls up, the ice rolls back, and still that single note obtains. The tension, or lack of it, is intolerable. The silence is not actually suppression: instead, it is all there is." ~ Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters

Thought for the day: 

You must have chaos in your heart to give birth to stars. ~ Nietzche

 In Case You Missed It

Ever since my fifth Summer in Words conference ended a few weeks ago  it seems like I've been struggling to catch up on things, including blogging. Since my conscience is prickling me about not posting, here is another roundup of writing tidbits you might have missed.

The first is a  video from the New Yorker on fiction writers discussing their beginnings. You'll find Jennifer Eagan, Nathan Englander and  Karen Russell   Here is the link

Second, from the New York Times Opinionater series What is Real is Imagined:  Colm Toibin talking about how fiction must stem from experience in order to create resonance. And I love this quote from his piece, don't you?

  

 The world that fiction comes from is fragile. It melts into insignificance against the universe of what is clear and visible and known It persists because it is based on the power of cadence and rhythm in language and these are mysterious and hard to defeat and keep in their place. The difference between fact and fiction is like the difference between land and water.— Colm Toibin

I've mentioned Lawrence O'Bryan before on this blog since his first novel The Istanbul Puzzle was published in January. He's writing a series of helpful blog posts for writers here. 

Publisher's Weekly recommends books for summer reading. 

Plan B

My column about Plan B is up at my site.
Because everyone, especially writers, needs a Plan B.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart.

An approach....

I've been working on a new book. It's about the writing life and it will be completed some time in the next few months. I'm also working for clients and have lots of other obligations. And don't get me started on the piles of paperwork that need to be tackled.  I suffered a head injury four years ago and every brain-related task that I once did takes me longer. My eyes often hurt and tire easily and my memory is still not up to snuff, especially when words elude me. These symptoms suck, but they sucks a less than they once did.

So I'm trying really hard to return to the habits I had before my accident. And I'm going to savor these golden and green summer months. Become loose in the heat.

I was just out watering plants in the back yard. Such a simple, delightful task that is part ritual, part meditation. I'm going to keep watering all the parts of my life and encourage you to do the same.

Here are a few things that are part of my approach to living the writing life (and I'm also writing about in my upcoming book):

Control your writing environment.

Ditch negative chatter in your head.

Be passionate.

Have ideas.

Take risks.

Ruminate.

Pay attention to everything that’s going on around you, especially colors, sky and weather.

Cultivate curiosity and ask questions.

Keep evolving.

Understand that to reveal truths in words, to move a reader’s heart or imagination, that you must pay a cost.

Be focused.

Lay out the bones.

Create comfort rituals.

Savor stolen moments no matter how small.

"The word "writing" may be freely substituted for the word "living." A writer afraid of living isn't really writing. A writer afraid of writing isn't really living. A writer who lives fully will embrace, rather than fear, his own periods of silence.

Living is the one true art. What varies is the forms of expression we choose, or that choose us. Art is a mystery. Like bread baking in a celestial oven, its aroma permeates everything and is universally understood, except by those who seek the recipe"

~ William Michaelian, I'm Telling You All I Know

 

The Captain's Chair

I’m always searching for analogies that describe the writing life. I found one while I was channel surfing one night and touched down on a Deadliest Catch episode on the Discovery Channel.  This is a program about people who make a living braving the icy waters of the Bering Sea—lonely endless waters, sky the color of gloom, and men are wrestling nets and equipment amid slippery decks, displaying gallows humor and sometimes vomiting over the rail as they survive brutal 100-mph winds, 30- and 40-foot waves.

          Meanwhile, the captain sits in his wheel house surrounded by technology and blinking lights and sonar fish locators. He rides the swells with the aplomb of Santa on Christmas Eve, exhorting his reindeer. Well, sometimes he’s nervous when the weather unleashes a dangerous punishment on the boat. And there’s a lot at stake when he makes decisions and commands, such as his crews’ safety, well-being, and incomes. Because, after all, boats can sink.

          But his chair is a place of far-seeing.

          Writing makes me feel like that captain. And although I’m not prone to woolen caps and denim coveralls, I prefer his on high view of the rolling swells to the men who are slaving away below, pulling in 500-pound crab pots or salmon nets, icy ocean water raining down on them amid the stink and slime and howling wind and waves pounding across the deck. Working 30 or 40 hours straight without sleep on a surface that is always moving. 

          So I am that captain, but The Perfect Storm wave cannot take me down and we’ll pull into Dutch Harbor, safe as babies in a grandmother’s arms. 

          And tomorrow will bring calmer seas.

          What does the writing life remind you of?  

Writing Prompt

Think back to the hardest or crappiest job you ever worked at and how you survived it. What did it teach you about life or yourself? Write about that.

I've had a bunch of crappy jobs so this one is a stumper because it's hard to choose the worst.  I've worked at cleaning houses, at a discount store, and in two factories. I don't usually talk much about my factory jobs because they were so long ago. I was young and it was honest pay. The funny thing was, that in both these jobs I met cool women, my fellow employees. At one job it was a group of hippie chicks working during the summer before going off to college. Writing this I remember two women I admired especially with their wild patched wardrobes and down-to-their-waist hair. I wanted to be like them, braless and beautiful. Working in hot, dirty factory you develop a certain dark, sly camaraderie with your fellow workers.

I left because I ventured off to marry young--a disastrous decision. But an older woman named Evelyn who is probably long dead gave me a great Dutch oven. I still own it, although it's a bit battered from the years. It's green and doesn't match any of my cookware, but it's one of my favorite gifts ever.  I've cooked countless pots of soups, stews, Chicken Cacciatore and pot roast in it. I remember she  was a widow with a shy, sad smile and wore her dark curls under a hairnet. Writing this I'm thinking about the necessity of her spending last decades in a place of noise and dirt and toil.

Another factory that I worked at briefly because I was desperate for cash decorated caps. There were giant wooden spindles among walls of boxes packed with knit caps. As it spun a woman would slip a sports cap over a rounded end, then another woman would glue the logo of a sports team onto the cap. I can still remember the smell and heat of that glue. The long, hot strings of it. I guess that job gets my vote for the worst, which is probably why I only lasted a few months. And because the middle age women who rose to supervisory positions in those sorts of places were usually tyrants. 

I moved into the food industry after these forays and stayed there for a long time because it was creative and the people were fun and I like to cook. And I'm good at it. Thinking back to the cap factory I'm guessing all those sorts of jobs are now performed in China or some far-off island. I imagine women are still hot and their backs aching and their pay lousy.   

Thought for the day:

"Life is compost….All my life and all my experience, the events that have befallen me, the people I have known, all my memories, dreams, fantasies, everything I have ever read, all of that has been chucked onto the compost heap where over time it has rotted down to a dark, rich, organic mulch. The process of cellular breakdown makes it unrecognizable . . . . . Every so often, I take an idea, plant it in the compost, and wait. It feeds on that black stuff that used to be a life, takes its energy for its own. It germinates. Takes root. Produces shoots. And so on and so forth, until one fine day I have a story, or a novel. . . .The writer’s life needs time to rot away before it can be used to nourish a work of fiction. It must be allowed to decay." from The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

Happy fourth to all

101 Books To Read This Summer Instead of '50 Shades of Grey

Find this epic flow chart here.

Seriously. Just say no to Shades of Grey.

In case you missed it

I've written a column on The Call of Story at my website.

Agent Rachel Gardner is advising writers in her latest post 7 Ways Give Away Your Power. Great stuff.

The final sentence is compiling last sentences from a vast collection of works. Love this.

A thoughtful piece The Busy Trap by   Tim Kreider at the New York Times.

keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Quick Take: 

Stay loose. I wrote a lot last night and I've been back at it for four hours again this morning. One of the tricks to longer bouts of writing is to stay loose. Research has shown that the brain functions best when it reboots about every 45 minutes. So you'll want to step away from your desk for a bit, wander into another room, grab a glass of water or snack.

But during these deliberate breaks don't clutter your mind with challenging projects. Don't pay bills, answer complicated emails, or business calls.I tend to swipe down the counters, water a plant, gaze out the window, wait for the tea kettle to boil. Hang on to the story, the idea, the character's heartbeat. Don't allow your subconscious to abandon the project while on break.
Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

Thought for the Day: 
"The best moments in reading are when you come across something- a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things--that you'd thought special, particular to you. And here it is, set down by someone else, a person you've never met, maybe even someone long dead. And it's as if a hand has come out, and taken yours."
The History Boys

Quick Take: pardon my wee rant
 
Every time I run across the word "locks" on the page in a manuscript or published work  I pause. In my life I've never used locks to describe my hair or another person's hair. Neither have I ever heard the word spoken by a real person in a real conversation. It's a dated, distracting, and pretentious word. Color it purple. And don't get me started on tresses. Hair is a fine word. It is adequate, convenient and concrete. Sometimes language needs to be unadorned.

Can I hear an amen?

"Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."  Nora Ephron From Wellesley Commencement address, 1996

  

"Reading is everything. Reading makes me feel like I've accomplished something, learned something, become a better person. Reading makes me smarter. Reading gives me something to talk about later on. Reading is the unbelievably healthy way my attention deficit disorder medicates itself. Reading is escape, and the opposite of escape; it's a way to make contact with reality after a day of making things up, and it's a way of making contact with someone else's imagination after a day that's all too real. Reading is grist. Reading is bliss.”~ Nora Ephron

Aftermath.....

Here's a writing prompt for you: Write about the aftermath of an event. Some scenes in fiction or memoir require aftermath or sequel scenes, especially when trauma or emotional blistering have happened. And aftermaths are often when decisions are made, alliances forged, goals chosen.

I'm thinking about this today especially because I just babysat my three granddaughters for the past five days and nights while their parents were in Costa Rica enjoying a much-deserved vacation. This morning it feels as quiet as ghost town here--toys still stacked in the family room, the high chair not yet tucked away in the garage, posies made by Paige adorning tabletops.

My youngest granddaughter, Georgia, just turned one, so much of our attention was focused on keeping her content. She's a child who is ready to explore and perhaps conquer the world. So we visited parks and spent time in the back yard, ate a picnic at another park where we fed ducks, and visited an indoor play ground at the local mall.

This last excursion was more difficult than thrilling since she was the youngest  in the midst of the little kid world and my exhortations of "Watch out for the baby" were useless. So I was constantly springing into action to rescue and supervise and pull her down the tree slide. She could climb the four steps to the top, but then was happy to just sit there, amazed, as the line of kids behind her formed. And did I mention that a kid train was circling the area, a whistle shrilling, the noise a cacophony that was sort of an inverse of the ocean?

Their parents returned home late last night, weary from plane travel, but still stunned at how relaxing it had been to be away, with room service and free time and new vistas. This morning my house is so still it's eerie without the giggles and squabbles and racing up and down the stairs, the warm baby pressed against me.No more bottles and M&Ms and juice cups.
An aftermath.

Quick Take: Subtext

What is left unsaid is often more potent than what is expressed, and subtext can also create layers of tension, symbolism, and meaning in any story or scene. In fact, subtext is perhaps your most useful tool for subtlety. Subtext is the meaning behind the words, the emotions within the conversation. Just like in real life a character should rarely say what he or she really means, instead it should be subtly hidden, perhaps in actions or evasions.

Thought for the Day: 

"At one time I thought the most important thing was talent. I think now that the young man or the young woman must possess or teach himself, training himself, in infinite patience, which is to try and to try until it comes right. He must train himself in ruthless intolerance--that is to throw away anything that is false no matter how much he might love that page or that paragraph. The most important thing is insight, that is to be--curiosity--to wonder, to mull, and to muse why it is that man does what he does, and if you have that, then I don't think the talent makes much difference, whether you've got it or not. " - William Faulkner

Beware of self-indulgence. The romance surrounding the writing profession carries several myths: that one must suffer in order to be creative; that one must be cantankerous and objectionable in order to be bright; that ego is paramount over skill; that one can rise to a level from which one can tell the reader to go to hell. These myths, if believed, can ruin you.

If you believe you can make a living as a writer, you already have enough ego.

- David Brin

I'm on live radio. Now. 
http://w4wn.com
8 am PT, All Women's Radio
iving the Writing Life

In Case You Missed It

a small round up of stories and tidbits from the Net, since it moves at lightening speed and we don't...

10 Musical Works Inspired by Ray Bradbury at the LA Times blog
"It's common knowledge that science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury, who died Tuesday at age 91, was an inspiration to writers and filmmakers, both of whom used his remarkable ideas as rocket boosters to propel their imaginations. Less obvious, but no less numerous, are the musicians who've drawn on Bradbury's work to fuel songs and concept albums. Like the space travelers invited to play "white xylophones" -- the ribcages of dead Martians -- during "The Martian Chronicles," musicians can't resist cosmic inspiration."

One of the most thought-provoking pieces I've read on self-publishing was at Indie Reader: How Amazon Saved My Life written by novelist  Jessica Park. She writes:
"I am an author.

I still can’t get used to that title, but I suppose after having written seven books–five of them traditionally published–that’s what you’d call me.  The funny thing is that I feel more like a real author now that I self-publish than when I had the (supposed) support of a publisher behind me.

How did I end up on my own?  It began when I couldn’t get my first YA book, Relatively Famous, published, despite getting stellar feedback from editors and nearly selling the film rights to a teen pop star. I was at a loss for what to do. I couldn’t keep writing books without selling them. What if the next thing I wrote flopped? I took a risk, in many ways, and wrote Flat-Out Love. It was the first book that completely came from my heart, and it was a book that ignored all the industry rules. I knew in the back of my head that I could self-publish it, but at the time it seemed like that would have been an admission of defeat."

Words Per Minute from the New York Times  Sunday Book Review about the pace of writing and the narrative physics of novels. Find the piece here.
Graham Swift begins:

"I share my name with an aerobatic bird that can whiz across a whole summer sky in seconds. A swift is so equipped for speed that it can scarcely cope with being stationary. I once came across an unlucky young specimen that had somehow grounded itself on a lawn and, with its minuscule legs and long encumbering wings, couldn’t regain the air. I lifted it on the perch of my finger and it was gone in a flash.

But I am a novelist, so I also know about slowness. Novels, in my experience, are slow in coming, and once I’ve begun them I know I have years rather than months of work ahead of me. This doesn’t worry me. I like the slow pace of novel writing, the feeling that I have employment for a long period. I don’t crave the quick result that would only leave me with the problem of what to do next." (By the way, I heartily  recommend his book Last Orders. )

And a petition to save the University of Missouri Press. You can sign here. It's been around for 54 years. We need our university presses. Every one of them.

Keep writing, keep dreaming, have heart

In science there is a dictum: don't add an experiment to an experiment. Don't make things unnecessarily complicated. In writing fiction, the more fantastic the tale, the plainer the prose should be. Don't ask your readers to admire your words when you want them to believe your story. ~ Ben Bova

Ray Bradury

1920  - 2012

A lot is being said about Ray Bradbury since his death this week. About  his innovations and prolific career, The Martian Chronicles and Farenheit 451.  After all, his influence is huge and spread wide.
Accounts are even reporting that he was a descendent of  Mary Bradbury who was hung as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts in the 1600s.

But I want to remind you about his lovely little book, Zen and the Art of Writing. In it he describes his origins and inspirations as a writer. In it we find the boy from Waukegan, Illinois who grew up before radio and television. In it his devotion and his love of writing is etched with simplicity and elegance. In it he reminded writers to hold on to their childhood memories and passions.

“If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
― Ray Bradbury

Here's an excerpt: “We never sit anything out.
We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled.
The trick is, knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”

A reminder for writers creating bad guys

A fox is a wolf who sends flowers.

—Ruth Weston

Still accepting registrations for Summer in Words
Writing Conference through June 12th.

Join us.

Thought for the Day

"Open a book this minute and start reading. Don't move until you've reached page fifty. Until you've buried your thoughts in print. Cover yourself with words. Wash yourself away. Dissolve." ~ Carol Shields

Quick Take:
"Drummers are my style guide. I always want to think about rhythm. If you listen to a drum solo that repeats the same beat, it's dull. You want something that surprises you, with some variation, snappy ending. Consciously try to the put the most important word of a sentence at the end--it's a punch word, like a punch line." ~Jon Pareles

Quick Take:

Rising action means that as your story moves along the conflict escalates, motivations deepen, and challenges become more dangerous or taxing. Most scenes also need to rise to a climax or point of explosion, capitulation, negotiation, or inner turmoil. This means as the characters' emotions rise, then so do the readers. One way to achieve this  is to ask yourself what is the worst or most surprising outcome that you can write. Then determine if it will fit in at this point in the story.  Great examples of how scenes escalate to a fever pitch are found in the new Hatfield and McCoys series on the History Channel. 

Thought for the Day
 “Character is too deep to catch in a single storyline. What really moves us - what makes the great stories, and there aren't so many of them - is the inevitability of character. The destiny. All we see is the arc. We'll never penetrate the secrets of the living, let alone the dead. I've spent my whole life trying to understand people, and all I've learned is that the deeper we look, the greater the mystery. At the core, each person is unknowable. Maybe that's the soul? I have to respect that. The mystery, in fact, is what I've loved the most, in people and in stories as well.” ~  Sandra Scofield, Plain Seeing: A Novel

In Case You Missed It

Where I add links to online advice and tidbits that are easy to miss.
With the warmer weather my favorite way to start the day is down in the den with the patio door open so I can hear the twitters and sounds of the birds, watch them come to the feeders. And last night, after hours of clouds towering overhead, a storm broke out and I fell asleep with the window open to the luxuriant tune of rainfall. Hope the sounds in your part of the world inspire.

Kelly James Enger will be critiquing query letters this week over at her Dollars and Deadlines site. 

Jane Friedman strikes again with Facebook Strategies for Authors. As always, such good advice.

The Amazon Effect as told by The Nation. Amazon has been controversial since it's inception. Here's why and what writers need to know.  Steve Wasserman, former editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review is the writer.

6 Ways To Never Run Out of Ideas by guest blogger Ed Cyweski Practical. Doable. Here is the link

Quick Take:
Choose wisely, especially when writing dialogue scenes. Most dialogue is a power struggle or somehow under laid with tension.  Does one of the character's emotions change or escalate during the dialogue exchange? Is there a capitulation, explanation, or challenge?

Be wary of chronicling every sigh, breath and heartbeat. At the same time, dialogue or scenes without emotional cues are empty.

June

An article on narrative connections called Connecting the Dots is now up at my website here.