Writerly Things

Happy New Year, everyone!

Today I'm taking it easy.  Doing writerly things like: reading (over 150 pages into Undaunted Courage--a semi-biography of Meriwether Lewis and a history of that era and the Louisiana Purchase--that my better half's mother was nice enough to get me for Christmas), organizing the office (I've decided that I'm going to keep only the books and research materials I need to write the novels and stories I'm working on right now, and store every other book away), sending out three short stories that were finished awhile ago (including one that takes place on Christmas and Christmas Eve--guess I missed the boat on that one), and--oh, yeah--writing!!!

May we all have great writing and even better contracts this year!!!  I leave you with a really good quote I stumbled across recently, applicable to all writers and other artists:

"The truly creative mind, in any field, is no more than this: a human born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To him, a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god and failure is death. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create-so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating."

-Pearl S. Buck

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The Power of the Internet

Been away for awhile again.  Writing, don't you know.  And the business end has been giving me...well, the business end.  Hope your holidays have gone well, whoever you are.  Now for a few quick things:

--I recently described my writing process this way:

"I let the whole thing fester for awhile--unless it's just suddenly springs on me and I MUST write it down--and then I just write and write and look at whatever comes out. Sometimes I get a lot in a linear fashion; sometimes I get a lot of fragments; sometimes I get the beginning; sometimes the ending. Whatever comes, comes, and then I have to sort it all out. Lately I've been getting fragments and multiple POVs. Cursing was linear, and "Hide the Weird" was, too. A couple of other short stories were. But not too often these days. I often, but not always, try and get down the very beginning, the very end, and hopefully the very middle. Somewhere in all this, at the editing and re-re-re-re-re-editing stage, I fill out an outline of what I've got, to make sure it all makes sense, and to plug in any very obvious holes. By that time, it's been well paved, and I see what I've got, and then I edit again, finish, etc. No strict formula for writing for me. Just go get 'em."

While this is a very accurate description of my writing method, it strikes me as a little all over the place.  Is this typical?  If you're a writer, please comment or send me an email and let me know.  Thanks!


--I recently responded to one of my Goodreads threads, one that asks if there's any book you've been thinking of lately that you remember a bit, but some of it is fuzzy, and you can't remember the title, and you've been looking for the book awhile without success.  You respond to this thread, giving as much information as you can, and the hundreds?  thousands? of Goodreads members who are game try to figure the book out for you.  So I did this about a book I've been thinking about for years, one I read when I was maybe 11, and it made a big impression on me, but I couldn't remember the title at all.  I'd been looking for it at yard sales, library sales, indie bookstores, etc.  I stumped the experts at first, but then someone nailed it!  It's called "The Tunnel to Yesterday."  So I ordered it from Amazon, cost maybe $6 total to ship to my door (free delivery!) and I just finished reading it earlier today.


Now that's the power of the internet.


And, by the way, if I don't get another chance to say so, Happy New Year everybody!!!

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Shoveling with Lyn

While shoveling parts of the blizzard today, and viewing the snow-capped trees of my area, feeling the very blustery wind, and warming myself afterward because of the biting cold, I wondered why I liked those sensations while shoveling, and why they make me feel like writing so often when I'm done.  I think now that it's because these are not common sensations to me.  Though I am used to the cold, the snow, and its beautiful aftereffects, I don't see them all the time, or even consistently.  Snow, though common around here, isn't an everyday thing, even in the winter.

And then I thought of Lyn Fuchs, a writer friend of mine who has recently released his first book: Sacred Ground & Holy Water: Travel Tales of Enlightenment.  This tome contains seventeen separate pieces that catalog his travels.  From Africa to Central America to India, and currently in Mexico, I believe, Lyn has seen it all--and he's been there, too.  He has seen brilliant sunsets in places that are as hot as the sun; he has seen the rainforest; he has seen natives of tons of far-away lands.  He has, literally, been there and done that.  And he's written about it, now, too.  It's a good read, and, because it's broken down into 17 smaller pieces, it's comfortable reading for those of us who are too busy for our own good.  Read a section, let it take you to lands you've never been to, and people and things you've never seen, and then put it down and do whatever you've got to do.  Go back to it later, and repeat.  Let his writing take you where you couldn't imagine yourself to be.  Sit back and enjoy.  The sections are quick and easy to read; they are amusing in spots, abundantly detailed in others.  I offer below an interview with Lyn so you can get a feel for the writer. 

Interview:

1. When did you decide to start writing?

My writing habit began when heavy snow sealed me for weeks into a log cabin, amidst the thick timber of Canada's craggy mountains. Life was forever changed. With nothing to do but observe minute details and reflect upon them, I spent silent solitary hours grasping for exact words to convey my experience to others, for when that connection would be restored. Meditations transformed into magazine articles. From eye to mind to pen, the journeys of my life were distilled into the stories that now make up my first book, to the very last one written on an isolated Mexican ranch under a fiery sunset and the influence of tequila. My spirit is within the pages too. If you aren't currently holed up at a snowy cabin or a sunny ranch but wish you were, I hope you'll let Sacred Ground & Holy Water take you there.

2. What is your genre and why did you decide to write a book in it?

One reviewer called Sacred Ground & Holy Water “the guy-friendly Eat, Pray, Love.” I have been kind of stubborn in my insistence that more writing should respect both yin and yang. I try to include both meaningful spiritual insight and raucous primal humor, a sensitivity to the beauty in the world and the guts to face its harsh realities. Sometimes this just offends everyone, but since I really believe that both male and female natures bring balance and value to life, I'm just going to keep doing it till somebody tells me to stop...and maybe even after that.

3. Were you worried about the word count of your work?

No, I tend to be very minimalist in my prose, so you won't find a lot of excess baggage.

4. Do you have any writing quirks and what are they?

The combination of the sacred and the irreverent, the romantic and the animalistic. I think God is secure enough to be funny and sexy. Not everyone agrees.

5. If you can describe your book in one word, what would it be and why?

Brash. You'll see.

6. How did you decide on the title and what does it mean?

Sacred Ground & Holy Water combines new and old world spirituality with reverence for nature, which are basic themes in this book.

7. What do you hope your readers will get out of reading your book?

Loyal readers of my magazine articles can rest assured that this work continues my quest for captivating wordcraft, inappropriate humor and profound observation. This book won't let you down. To those investing in my writing for the first time, I'm honored to have you aboard and confident these stories will make you laugh, ponder and probably get misty-eyed. Thanks for reading my stuff!

8. Tell us a little about your road to publication.

My name is Lyn, but I should be called Lyndiana Jones. I've survived enraged grizzlies, erupting volcanoes, Japanese sword fights and giant squid tentacles. I've been entrapped by FBI agents and held at gunpoint by renegade soldiers. I've sung with Bulgaria’s bluesmaster Vasko the Patch and met with Mexico’s Zapatista Army commander Marcos. I've been thrown out of forbidden temples in southern India and passed out in sweat lodges off the Alaskan coast. My navel has been inhabited by beetles and my genitals have been cursed by eunuchs. I've shared coffee with presidents, beer with pirates and goat guts with polygamists. I've contracted malaria, typhoid, salmonella and lovesickness around the world. It's hard to live that kind of life without gleaning a little wisdom, a wicked sense of humor, and some good stories to tell. Finding editors, publishers and readers willing to reap the benefits of my lunacy without the pain has not been that hard.

9. What advice can you give other aspiring authors out there?

If you are a travel writer (as I am) tell people the truth (as you perceive it) about what's “out there.” People get enough politically-corrected views of the world within their own society, they certainly don't need more of the same claiming to be dispatches from afar. We all need the wisdom that comes from other cultural perspectives, even though those perspectives are not sugar-coated for easy swallowing. If travel writing doesn't challenge the ideas of the reader's culture, did anybody really travel?

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Merry Christmas--or Happy Holidays--Everyone!!!

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The Guard on YouTube

I wrote a few more pages of the still-untitled WIP.  It's coming along very well; so well that it's almost time for me to fill out an outline.  But oh boy is this depressing!  I've been watching real clips of Auschwitz and other death camps on YouTube.  I found one picture (actually, I made a still of one of the images in one of the clips) of Hitler with some young guards behind him.  They're in their early 20s, I'd guess, and there are a couple of older guys with them.  They don't look nuts, but then again only the clinical ones ever do.  The picture is amazing because, when I saw it, I knew I had one of my POVs: the guard who sees what's going on.  I've already written his opening scenes.  And I saw, with him, a few of the other characters in his POV sections.  Interesting, scintillating, very dreadful.  I'll try to post a clip of that for a photo so you'll see what I mean.  If I do that, I want to do it right, with credit to the creators of the clip, etc.  This will be one of the more awful, yet morbidly fascinating, things I've ever written and researched.  I hope I can do the whole story justice.  I think this one will be a bit different than what others have seen and read.  If I can't do it well, without maudling and without using the atrocity as just another novel to write, then I won't do it at all.  I give you my word on this.

Okay, no clip's going to happen, so here's the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWwl-lr9wNc&feature=BF&list=QL&index=1.  The guard for the POV is the one on Hitler's left on the photo at 2:05 into it.

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New Novel and New Links

Photo: Boy Hiding from Hurricane Earl.  I think this picture is a perfect figurative match for the new novel.


The sites I follow are now to the right.  Please check 'em out.  They are interesting, informative, helpful and amusing, often all at the same time.  One of them is a friend's site; alas, though not famous (yet) in the publishing industry, she is a household name (especially in her own) regarding American-Nepali relationships.

I conducted an interview for my latest book and learned a few things.  Namely, you can't say to a concentration camp guard that he needs to NOT shoot the young boy who cannot sing or hold a note (because of puberty) because the boy's voice is deep and resonant enough that it is needed to balance the chorus as a whole.  Turns out, that doesn't make any sense, and won't hold true in reality.  Ah, I said, but would an unknowledgable guard know that?  Someone who's not familiar with how to run a chorus?  That doesn't matter, either, I'm told, because his lack of vocal control and his inability to hold a note or carry a tune would derail the entire chorus.  Ah, I said, with a thought, but couldn't the chorus teacher hide the kid in the chorus and make him mouth the words, and not sing?  Yes, she said.  Happens all the time.  But what happens when any guard at all, or another angry or jealous child, or any one of the camermen or reporters (this is a camp the Nazis used for good public relations, to show how "well" they were treating the Jews) asked the kid to sing?  That, I said, is why I'm asking you these questions.  That's the drama!  That's the pivotal scene of conflict!

What are you gonna do? she asked.

Well, hell, I don't know.  We're just going to have to find out.

An excerpt is to come.

I've been away for a bit: Christmas shopping; writing new novel (excerpt to come); editing pages of new novel; researching; wrapping up the job before the Christmas break; and getting overall run-down.  Yesterday's news was that I had a sinus infection--"Worst I've ever seen with you," my doctor said, which is bad, because he's seen me horrendous.  Also an infected sinus polyp (sorry T.) and he even gave me a pnuemonia shot, just in case.  That part of the arm still hurts.  So now I'm on an antibiotic (for 10 days) and a steroid (in decreasing dosages over 6 days).  I thought the latter would make me a slightly-crazed productive machine, with a little extra Grrrrr! like the last time I had to take a steroid, a few years ago.  Nope; it just wiped me out.  I'm exhausted and yet focused at the same time.  I can definitely breathe better, and my face isn't swollen and puffy anymore--except beneath my eyes, which is now worse--but I'm not a raging lunatic running for the urinal every ten minutes like I was a few years ago.  Not that you needed to know that, but there you are. 

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Writers Group and New Novel

Photo: Faed's Shakespeare and His Friends at the Mermaid Tavern


Hello to all the new faces at the writers group tonight!  Nice to meet you guys; good to see the familiar faces, too.  Some pockets of great writing in all the pieces covered tonight.  I look forward to seeing you guys next month.  Can you believe it'll be 2011?!?  Obama's been president for over 2 years, by the way.  Weird...

Speaking of writing, I'm happy as hell to announce that I've started the novel about the concentration camp, about how the prisoners must know a creative talent to make their captors look "good" to the world via forced and fake propaganda.  I found a comfy place to write--in a huge comfortable chair, which I can curl up in, in the living room with my better half--and I handwrote the first eight pages of this new novel.  Eight pages of my tiny handwriting is about 10 full pages of type.  Not too bad.  And I've never written fiction in front of someone before, in the same room as someone.  Harlan Coben once told me that he wrote in restaurants, in parks, etc. all the time, that he hardly ever wrote in his own office.  I can't imagine that, but it would be much more convenient if I could do that.  So I am going to try.

If I'm confident enough with this new writing, I'll place an excerpt here sometime soon.  My better half said tonight: "Wow!  You're really great at starting things!  But you're terrible at finishing them!!!"  (She's wanted me to finish Apocalypse before I started something new.  This advice will undoubtedly prove to be correct.)

So true, so true.  But I'm gettin' there.

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