For Your Procrastinating Pleasure

What do you get when you cross adorable animals and modern snark? That's correct. You get a hilarious time-suck.

Found on The Writer's Almanac

"Good writing is always about things that are important to you, things that are scary to you, things that eat you up. But the writing is a way of not allowing those things to destroy you."

John Edgar Wideman

My Novel: As Seen From the Moon

A while back I blogged about revising, and Booknapped reader Milli Thornton (and writer of a cool screenwriting blog) extolled on the virtues of Microsoft Word's Print Preview feature. I love Print Preview too, but it occurred to me that others may not be using this feature the way I use it.

First, a story:

Because I drink too much caffeine, one day my finger was shaking on some computer button and I inadvertently shrunk my Print Preview down to 10%. Talk about seeing your manuscript from a new perspective.

When I revise, I highlight areas that need work. The amount of yellow in my manuscript shows me how much work I've yet to do. Here is a Print Preview of several pages from the last quadrant of my novel in its current state:

As you can see, I still have miles to go before I query. Put the coffee on. It's going to be a long night. I dare you to open up your manuscript and view its Print Preview. At the very least, you will be amazed at all those words you wrote--your entire novel splayed out before you like a patient etherized upon a table (sorry, couldn't resist).

Grasshopper, You Have Much to Learn

Janet Reid said it eons ago, and I balked, but after some consideration (and the realization that I have indeed written one novel before, and tucked it safely into the past), I suppose I will have to agree with the sentiment Jonathan Evison explains so well on Three Guys One Book:

"My advice to the overwhelming majority first times novelists: first, finish the fucker, even if you sense it's not working on any number of levels-- you've got to get into the habit of seeing things through, or you run the risk of being a serial starter, or worse one of those people that has “a novel in them” who spends more time talking about it, than laying bricks. Second, bury the fucker when it's finished, forget it ever existed, and start another novel. Chances are you'll be burying that one, too."

And he also said:

"One of the problems I have with all these beautiful sentence writers that are coming out of writing programs is that the glare of their shiny sentences sometimes seems to blind them to the mechanics of story. When I read Jack London, I forget he's there. ... If I ever teach another writing class, it might be called: how to be invisible."

This point from Dennis Haritou is pretty good too:

"Beethoven revised the coda of his 5th Symphony several hundred times. That part of the work takes about a minute to play."

Oh, just go read the whole thing.

The Booknapper's Code of Ethics

"There are moments when, whatever the posture of the body, the soul is on its knees."

Victor Hugo

I saw this quote on the Interwebs this morning on one of my many quote of the day feeds, and I fell in literary love as I often do. The quote was attributed to Victor Hugo and copied all over the place, but no one said what work it was from.

The editor in me is annoyed. What if it wasn't Hugo at all? What if it was Napoleon or Mussolini? It matters. Words are important. That's why you're here.

Anyway, I visited my favorite virtual place (aside from Booknapped) and scanned Les Miserables and there was the quote in a love letter from Marius to Cosette.

Something else I learned? Hugo says "There are moments when..." quite a bit. We all have our little stylistic turns of phrase, no? My beta tells me I say "then" a lot. She means too much, but she's being nice, and I appreciate that.

Anyway, I got sucked into Les Miserables and I time traveled to my childhood when my father took me to see the play at the Walnut Theatre in Philadelphia, and made me read the book first. Made me research Victor Hugo at the library. Took me out to dinner and made me talk about the differences between the book and the musical.

The Booknapper was born.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it:

Go to Gutenberg and read a book or even part of a book. Think of the long line of writers, and innovators, and individuals who made possible reading classics online free. Think of your own words and how you labor and agonize over each one. They should be read, and they should be attributed.

Booknapping is human. Giving credit is divine.

They're Coming to Take Me Away

My fairy god-writer, Laurie Halse Anderson is doing a write-every-day-in-August thingie. If I grow up, I want to be just like her, so of course I'm going to take her challenge.

But it’s starting to seem like there’s always a writing challenge.

I’m ALMOST getting tired of linking to these write every day/write 5000 words a day/write a novel in a month challenges. ALMOST. I’ll still link to and tell you about them because I think they’re useful.

One reason I like these dares is the sense of community inherent in them. I like that the lady who conceived of one of my favorite literary characters is also my writing coach, even if our connection is only virtual. Another thing I like is that writing challenges get us to approach our work in new ways. Writing outside our comfort zone, at a different phase of day, for a specific length of time: these steps teach us what doesn’t work as well as what does.

Interviewers always ask writers if they outline, like it matters. One person’s outline is another’s noose. If there's one thing I’ve learned from reading countless writing edicts, it’s that there are no rules. If you put words on paper, and something amazing emerges, you should be shocked. It’s striking gold and winning the lottery and being visited by Santa Claus. Yes, I want to know how you did it. No, the same steps might not work for me, or might.

The blathering on of my writing community is essential to my work. This letter from a successful writer to her dreamy young self had me so excited this morning. Devon Monk was writing to me too, whether she knows it or not.

Writing is lonely, and let’s face it, a little psychotic. Hearing that others are having my delusions is good for my self-image. The other day, Nathan Bransford blogged about the “Am-I-Crazies?” – the occasional wave of terror that makes us wonder if we are typing our lives away pointlessly. Yes, we are crazy. Many of us are crazily typing for fifteen minutes a day. Many of us are writing letters to former selves. We are alone, and un-alone, no?

Thanks so much to you strange people who dare me to write daily, who tell me to keep trying despite insurmountable odds, who suspend your disbelief and enter my stories.

Writing is a delicate balance of loneliness and community. How do you balance the two?

From: "Mr. Mastodon Farm"

Birds fall from the window ledge above mine.
Then they flap their wings at the last second.
I can see their dead weight
dropping like stones
for small loaves of bread
past my window all the time.

But unless I get up,
walk across the room
and peer down below,
I don't see their last second curves
toward a horizontal flight.

All these birds just falling from the ledge like stones.

Now due to a construct in my mind
that makes their falling and their flight
symbolic of my entire existence,
it becomes important for me
to get up and see
their last second curves toward flight.

CAKE