I used to think that I needed wide open days and uncluttered hours to get important creative work done. Sometimes that’s true. But I’ve also learned that perhaps more important than what happens when I’m staring at the page is what happens when I’m not. How I chew on the idea in my downtime. My subconscious must know about the deadline—needs it, even—and works feverishly to pull it all together. Perhaps it’s even a pipe dream to imagine having something done early enough to bask in its finished glory with a glass of wine. And maybe that’s not even the point—writing is work and the furious finish is part of the process.
Category Archives: Writing
MooCards
As a step toward one of my 2014 goals, I ordered some business cards from Moo. They arrived yesterday, two weeks exactly after I ordered them. Much faster than the estimated arrival date of January 28 (bet they do that so you’re all impressed when they arrive “early” 😉 ).
As I was figuring out what to put on them, I realized that I have approximately a zillion food photos and almost none of writerly things like notebooks and pens and laptops. So there’s a goal for 2014: take more photos of writerly things. In the end, after much futzing, I went with one simple design that incorporates a version of my cover image on the front and the Hunting of the Snark beaver on the back (what else?!).
2014: The Opposite
Ok, I admit I’m terrified to revisit my 2013 writing goals post, but let’s do it. Click.
2013 Writing (+ Reading) Goals
- continue with 500 words a day challenge {hmm, maybe? need better record-keeping skillz}
- write at least one essay {do blog posts count? ;)} + submit it [no]
- read more books, especially fiction YES!
- read some of these books + write reviews and/or interview authors YES!
- read some new-to-me books on writing YES! + write an article {wrote articles, but not about those books}
- read some of these books YES!
- keep a reading journal YES!
- keep on top of my book posts YES!
- blog better YES!
- tweet about new blog posts {working on this}
- work on a business plan YES!
- start a sketchbook [no]
- snail mail {tally: 15, including packages}
- finish The Dissertation [no, but thisclose]
Hmm, that wasn’t as terrible as I anticipated. Whew.
Things I did in 2013:
Made a lot of progress on the dissertation. Part of the reason I posted this was to remind myself how much I actually accomplished since last January. I know time’s supposed to fly, and on a day-to-day basis it sometimes feels like it, but when I look at those book covers, it seems like a million years ago. I think I was losing sight of the forest for the trees. So, perspective.
I did TC Mini-Nano again (try it! it’s fun!). Extra-pleased with my story because not only did I get to 5,000 words, I wrote a complete first draft. Still needs a ton of work, of course, but so happy to have a story with an END.
Started a linked story collection (3 stories so far, including my mini-nano story, a story I’ve been noodling around with for a while, and one that came out of nowhere).
I started what I’ve been calling “the Big List” (a la “the Big Salad”). It’s just a neverending to-do list in my (paper) writer’s notebook. When I think of something I need to do, I write it down. When I do it, I cross it off. What can I say. I love making lists and crossing stuff off them.
I also “scribbled” a lot of ideas in my digital writer’s notebook in Scrivener.
I read two of Janet Mullany’s books, reviewed one (Review of The Rules of Gentility by Janet Mullany) and interviewed Janet (“Toasted Cheese Success Stories: Interview with Janet Mullany“).
I also wrote two other Absolute Blank articles: “So You Want to Write an Article…” and “‘You Shortlisted My Submission… Why Didn’t it Make the Final Cut?’” and three Snark Zones: “Unqualified Praise Only, Please,” “The Star-Ratings Tango,” and “CTRL-Z.”
Moved TC (the main site) to WordPress. Yeah, 13 years of hand-coding was enough.
In my quest to read more for fun, I started reading books at breakfast, and whoa. By the end of the year, I’d read 30 books. Success.
And yes, I kept a reading log (notes while reading), which made keeping up with my book posts way easier.
Got my feed reader under control. Ditched a bunch of feeds and organized the rest into 5 themes, each of which I only check once a week.
Started listening to podcasts in the kitchen. Gold, Jerry, gold! (How is this writing-related? Well, some of them are writing podcasts, of course.)
Watched a bunch o’ new(ish) movies. (Writing-related because movies about writers. Also screenwriters write them. And some are based on books. Just go with it.)
Learned how to knit. (Writing-related because this.)
Lesson: I may be better at just randomly starting to do things than setting goals. But, hey, it’s January, so… let’s set some goals for 2014!
- Finish the Dissertation. No, really. Stick a freaking spork in this thing.
- Move TC (the lit journal) to WordPress.
- Establish freelance editing business.
- Keep record of words written (so I don’t have to answer with a vague ‘maybe?’ to 500-words-a-day challenge question next year ;)).
- Bonus: Do something creative with my Tumblr. (deliberate vagueness!)
Ok, that’s it. Keeping it simple. If I accomplish those things, it’ll be time to break out the champagne.
And, oh right. I need a word/phrase. Until a few days ago, I had nothing, and then this came to me, and it felt right. So, I declare 2014 the year of “the opposite.” Maybe I’ll get hired as assistant to the traveling secretary for the Yankees.
Jerry: If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.
George: Yes, I will do the opposite. I used to sit here and do nothing, and regret it for the rest of the day, so now I will do the opposite, and I will do something!
always trying to build something
Loved this piece. Sometimes I think about what might have been if I’d had a writing teacher who believed in me, who pushed me to continue past my comfort zone.
“Energy is everything,” he said. He meant the ability to work—to sit at the desk, day in and day out, and to get the words down, despite the disappointment and in spite of the success. Pushing on and pushing through, building sentence after sentence, page after page. Not turning away from the blank page, but always trying to build something from nothing.
December issue of Toasted Cheese
in the context of the surrounding world
Electric Literature: What did you look for in the winning reviews that you picked?
Emily St. John Mandel: In a word, engagement. Too often I read reviews that are concerned with nothing but the book in question, and there’s a hermetically sealed quality to such reviews, a narrowness of scope. I’ve come to believe that good reviewing requires engaging with the world outside of the individual book. At the very least, the book should be placed in the context of other books, but ideally—and I recognize that this is an entirely subjective opinion—I prefer reviews that go beyond talking about literature, so that the book under review is considered in the context of the surrounding world.
—Emily St. John Mandel at Electric Literature
I’ve written before about how I typically prefer to read reviews after I’ve read the book, not before—and I think this is part of the reason why (the other is spoilers, of course). A review that is just about the book requires reading the book first to really engage with it. But occasionally I’ll find myself reading a review all the way through without having read the book. In that case, the review has transcended its genre to become just a good piece of writing. About the book, but also about something more than the book.
why are you telling me this?
There are so many stories that I have read through the years that are just like “I got up in the morning. I had a really great lunch, then walked down to the beach and spent the afternoon there. There was an awesome sunset, then I went back and had a really great dinner. “As a reader you think, “Why are you telling me this? What do you want me to take away?”
You should have a very clear sense, as a writer, of what your point is. You should be able to write one pithy sentence where you say, “What I want the reader to take away from my story is ________.” If you can fill that in, you need to do some more work. Keeping that question front of mind gives you a road map, a tool to help ensure that you’re on track as you write.
Yep.
This—exact same wording and all—is what I’m thinking as I’m going through the slush and reading all the “Character sat thinking to self (miserable and/or feeling sorry for self, natch) and then s/he walked around a bit (while thinking to self) and then s/he sat somewhere else (and thought some more) and so on and so forth” stories.
Why are you telling me this? What do you want me to take away?
Stories need to have a point. No, a story is not “just a story.” If you’re telling someone a story, there has to be a reason. What is it?
(If there really is no point to your story, then your story is the writing version of that boring person who yakked your ear off while saying nothing at the last family gathering or party you attended. You know who I mean. You don’t want your story to be that person.)
The thing is, I think most writers do have something they want readers to take away from their stories (yes, even the ones who claim their story is “just a story”). The problem is that the reason for telling the story is not transferring to the page. It’s stuck in the writer’s brain. It’s Hemingway and his iceberg again. The writer is aware of the whole iceberg. The reader only sees the bit that’s sticking up above the water.
Sometimes writers forget that readers can’t see the part of the iceberg that doesn’t make it onto the page. Readers don’t need to see the whole iceberg, but they do need to see enough of it to understand why you’re telling them this story. But before you can decide how much is enough, first you need to know why you’re telling the story.
Fill in the blank: “What I want the reader to take away from my story is ________.”
the value of patience
Harvard University art history professor Jennifer Roberts … talked of the need to teach the value of patience in today’s world. By patience, she meant close looking and deep thinking for an extended time in order to make connections and observations that do not lie on the surface of things. … She points out that “access is not synonymous with learning” We can find anything instantly online, but when we look only for an instant, we don’t learn much. She goes on to say “What turns access into learning is time and strategic patience.”
—“Slowness” by Fred Lynch at Urban Sketchers.
sex, dreams and drug trips are the trickiest things to write about
Chances are, any writing that’s more interested in the reader’s comfort than portraying human truth will write about sex badly. Of course, it’s extremely hard to write well about sex. Sex, dreams and drug trips are the trickiest things to write about because they so easily invite cliches.
Truth.
almost incidental
There is something about the increased demand that fiction writers speak as themselves that feels like a violation of what I used to hold so sacred, the tenet that it is not about me but about the characters I create. …
Obviously, social media itself isn’t the trouble. The crux, as I see it, is that lately the substance of what we create is often considered almost incidental to the way that we writers, personally, market our product. We now must sell our books like we sell ourselves.
The Remainder Table 