If Truth Be Told…
Halfway through Sophie’s World, and it keeps prompting new thoughts. Well, more accurately, the history of philosophy that it shares does.
Though dear Sophie and I have already progressed to the 18th century, Plato’s ancient allegory of the cave continues to flicker in my mind like the flame casting shadows onto the back of the cave wall. If you aren’t familiar with the story, the basic idea is this:
Visualize a cave with people seated with their backs to its opening. They are therefore only able to see the back of the cave wall, which is dancing with the shadows of objects held behind the people and in front a fire. The people are unable to turn around, thus only know the world from these vague shadows of what’s transpiring beyond them outside of the cave.
In this myth, the actual objects (which would be seen in clearer detail if the people turned around to look at them directly) represent the world of ideas, whereas the shadows are only our perception of the material world. Plato believed that true knowledge could not be gained through our senses, but, rather, our reason. Thus, the enlightened ones who try to see beyond their physical world into the realm of ideas will see with clarity and truth.
So why do most of us keep our backs to the cave opening, staring into the darkness and shadows? Is it because we choose not to see or aren’t able to? When I think of this myth literally, I pretend that I’m the one to stand up and look around at what is creating the shadows. My eyes having been adjusted to the dark all this time, I’d think they’d be pierced by the bright fire/daylight. This then makes me think of the Emily Dickinson poem:
Tell all the Truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surpriseAs Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
Methinks Miss Dickinson and Colonel Jessep share something in common—though Emily might agree we ordinary folk are entitled to the truth, neither believes we can handle it. For that matter, how would everyone else in my cave respond if I suddenly told them what I saw? Would they believe me? Be shocked by it? Deny it?
Me-then thinks perhaps stories are a way we writers try to help the medicine go down. Hey, Plato’s allegory is a case in point, is it not? Stories help us to better understand truths through visualization and creative “slant”—no, not lies, just not necessarily the facts either when it comes to fiction. And I shouldn’t imply that it’s “sugar-coating”; indeed, stories well-told will intensify rather than dilute, expressed in engaging, vivid ways that make a reader receptive to even the grittier stuff.
Years ago, I attended a lecture by Tim O’Brien in which he discussed his novel The Things They Carried. Written in the first person and narrated by a character whose name was also Tim and who also fought in Vietnam, the book reads like it’s the author’s memoir. O’Brien clarified, however, that while much of the novel is based on his real life, it is a novel. Flip to the inside cover and see that it is denoted as a work of fiction (there are many semi-autobiographical narratives that are, which many don’t realize until Oprah exposes it mercilessly on her show…*ahem* A Million Little Pieces *cough*…Night is arguably another—and oh, hey, just look whose book club it’s in…).
Basically, O’Brien said he had to stray from writing the factual truth in order to tell the absolute Truth. He likened it to catching your first fish; sure, it might be scrawny, but your excitement is massive. In order to get someone else as excited about your catch as you are, you might stretch your hands further apart from the few inches of, “It was this big,” to the two-foot length of, “It was THIS BIG!!” Describing a tiny bluegill as a giant catfish isn’t factually true, but your friend’s commensurate reaction is the Truth of what you actually felt. Likewise, O’Brien believed that for anyone who didn’t experience Vietnam to feel remotely the way he felt when he was there, he needed to tell it differently.
So my question for YOU is this: what Truths do you write or read about? Which of your stories (or those you’ve read) do you think do a particularly effective job of helping the reader “handle the truth” and why?
What Happens in a Meadow at Dusk?
“[L]ong before the child learns to talk properly—and long before it learns to think philosophically—the world will have become a habit. A pity, if you ask me.” – Sophie’s World
I’m currently reading a book that I’ve had sitting on my bookshelf for years. I literally moved it across an ocean two years ago, and still it had sat mutely, patiently, until I finally plucked it out and cracked it open a few days ago: Sophie’s World. I’m only a quarter of the way through it, so will withhold offering a critique, but so far I’m enjoying the questions it raises—it’s essentially taking your own correspondence course in philosophy, without getting graded 
Less than twenty pages in, I was struck by the above quotation…I hadn’t really reflected on how the world becomes a “habit” as we age:
“The world itself becomes a habit in no time at all. It seems as if in the process of growing up we lose the ability to wonder about the world. And in doing so, we lose something central—something philosophers try to restore. For somewhere inside ourselves, something tells us that life is a huge mystery. This is something we once experienced, long before we learned to think the thought.”
At this point, the “philosopher” instructing our protagonist, Sophie, has been pointing out how infants and young children look about at everything surrounding them with wonder, getting excited about even the little things we adults come to take for granted through familiarity.
I’m not going to wax philosophical on this, but what it did make me think about is how writers seem to be blessed with the ability to behold the world with that same wonder we did as children. We have to, really, in order to continue creating our own little worlds.
The writer is someone for whom a bus ride is not merely from Point A to Point B; rather, it’s an exercise in character study as we little voyeurs observe those in such close proximity that it almost seems weirder to pretend that they’re not there (as the masses do on the London Underground…the eye aversion is almost unbearable – and on sidewalks, too! This Chi-town gal misses eye-contact *sigh*). Anyways, we watch these people, speculate on where they’re going, where they’re coming from, what their whole backstory might be. We get ideas in our noggins as to the perfect character to insert into our current tales or on which to base a whole new novel…all thanks to paying some attention to the real people right under our noses.
We notice subtleties, the body language that suggests insecurities or the butterfly that carries so many metaphors aloft the breezes of its wings. We notice with a painter’s eye that the clouds aren’t just white and that the sofa is illuminated differently when the sun shines in from that late-afternoon angle. We notice the people who smile to themselves when they think no one’s looking and that a tree can look sad, hopeful, or maternal. We notice what a gust of fresh air feels like in our lungs, through our hair, and the new story ideas that the sensation can conjure.
We can describe what happens in a meadow at dusk.
We behold the world with wonder, and the beauty is that not only are we richer for it, but we have the calling that compels us to write it down so that others might experience the world through our eyes and look at it as though for the first time through their own. There is not always beauty in this awareness; in fact, we may reveal the darker sides of humanity and tell gritty, disturbing stories without that happy ending. But what there will always be is Truth – I’m talking the capital ‘T’ truth so long as we write, to the best of our abilities, what it is we wonder at through our genuine voices. That is what makes a story authentic and universal, for something has told us that “life is a huge mystery,” and now that we can think the thought, we can write it.
The Shotgun-Shack Story: Nowhere to Hide
I’ve been sitting on a topic for a while that a recent blog post on Lethal Inheritance has spurred me to finally write. In Tahlia’s post, “Is writing the second novel easier than the first?“, she discusses how she has started writing her second book while her first manuscript awaits publishing. She mentions ways in which this second story line differs from the first:
“[I]t takes place almost entirely in one set of adjoining suites in a castle, whereas Lethal Inheritance’s scenery is always changing. Thirdly, it’s character, relationship and emotion driven, rather than action driven. For me, that’s a harder brief, and that’s why I’m not sure at this stage if I can make it work.”
To which I responded:
“What I’ve been working on to date falls in that [same] category; there are not dramatic changes in setting or adrenaline-rushing action as it’s very concentrated on the psychological/emotional variations in my protagonist as she questions identity and her perceptions of reality.”
I proceeded to say that, though this is the type of story I’m personally drawn to, I realize it doesn’t necessarily have the mass-market appeal that would get it snatched up for publication. And that’s okay—I am definitely writing the story I want to write; I started rereading it from the beginning yesterday and am all the more convinced of that.
So, today I’m dedicating this post to those incredible stories out there that capture our attention without catering to the modern-day ADD bred by MTV-esque rapid editing and car chases and explosions. I’m not saying I’m not likewise entertained by the action-packed tales, just that they are not the only ones capable of, in fact, entertaining.
I attended a writing seminar last year in which a panel of agents, publishers, and authors spoke on the craft of writing in conjunction with getting published. Someone in the audience had asked about commercial versus literary fiction, and an author responded that “commercial” fiction is story-driven whereas “literary” fiction prioritizes language and ideas—it is read for the beauty of the words and provocation of thought. She attested that many authors try to combine both.
This got me thinking, then, about the more character-driven stories that I enjoy. Where films go, I noticed a trend in my collection of one-setting movies; indeed, some partake in just one room. Think about that! One room. If a film or novel can captivate you all the way through by virtue of situation and dialogue without having to change settings, that is a brilliantly written manuscript, in my opinion.
Don’t believe me? Try watching Rear Window, 12 Angry Men, Rope, or, hey, even The Breakfast Club—all of which take place in a single room (with the exception of maybe a minute or two outside)—and tell me that you aren’t entertained. These are carried by characterization and dialogue, just like other favorites of mine: Before Sunrise and its sequel Before Sunset (which both admittedly change settings, but the respective cities of Vienna and Paris are just backdrops to the characters’ ongoing conversation), The Anniversary Party (an ensemble cast in a Hollywood couple’s home), and Gosford Park (in the vein of the Agatha Christie books I loved as a kid that transpire in a single setting—a mansion in And Then There Were None and a train in Murder on the Orient Express). And it doesn’t take dramatic, in-your-face action and cutting from setting to setting to get the blood rushing, as not only evidenced by these mysteries and the two aforementioned Hitchcock films (Rear Window and Rope), but in haunting thrillers like Dead Calm and The Others as well…which coincidentally both star Nicole Kidman, the first taking place on a sailboat and the second in yet another old English mansion.
In speaking on setting, the visual examples of this most readily come to my mind through film, but the success in capturing even a viewer’s attention in this case comes down to the writing. The writer scripts the dialogue and envisions the setting and behavior of the characters—in film, the director then works to capture this audiovisually. Yet in a novel, it is all on the writer to convey these elements entirely in words.
Stripping away the attractive actors, elaborate sets, and soundtracks does not render mere words dull, nor is a single/minimal-setting book a bore. If that were the case, where would that leave the classic works of authors like Austen or Bronte, whose stories don’t deviate far from the character’s homes. Think of the chill sent down the spine by novellas like Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw or Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher (houses), the adrenaline and fury aboard Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (boat), or the intimate existential conversation in Salinger’s Franny & Zoe (the entire second part moves only from the bathroom to the living room) or Boethius’s 6th-century The Consolation of Philosophy (a prisoner speaks with Fortune in his cell).
What is it about the single-setting that so fascinates me? I suppose it’s in part the appreciation I feel for the effectiveness of story-telling that doesn’t rely on bells and whistles. And it’s the great experiment of what happens when you isolate people in a room—throw in a dash of tension, stir, and bring to a boil. It becomes a study of humanity when characters aren’t able to escape each other or even themselves:
There is much heart, soul-seeking, and thrill to be had within four walls. A writer can most certainly pull it off, though the impact can only be as strong as the writing itself in bringing it from the corners of a room to the corners of the mind.
How about you, readers and writers—do you gravitate toward the story-driven or character-driven? What are some examples that successfully combine both?
The Fear Factor
The Prompt:
I love how Bonni Goldberg relates writing to medicine when it comes to protecting us against our fears:
“You take small doses of your fears in combination with written words and they create a kind of antibody: a cathartic human experience that authenticates your strength and fragility.”
Page 42 of Room to Write, then, asks us to write a list of our fears and describe one in more specific detail.
Response:
Some things I fear:
- geese
- clowns
- confined spaces
- death (mine, but mostly loved ones)
- being in any way “too late” for anything by the time I move back home
- losing my sight or hearing
- the debilitating effects of aging
- having children
- lack of purpose
- never finishing my book
- rejection
- regret
Okay, I think that’ll do. Now, to pick just one…it’s tempting to go the route of writing-related fears, but I think I devote enough of this blog to that! How about the “too late” factor, as I feel it’s one needing more explaining:
The fact that my aging parents continue to age in my absence while living abroad positively terrifies me. I know many will find that irrational and say that I have to live my own life, but I will never, never forgive myself if something happens to either of them while I am an ocean away. Just writing this right now is bringing me to tears. It is something I really, truly cannot stand to fathom. And I don’t want to miss out on my nieces’ and nephews’ milestones, nor do I want the littlest ones to not know their Auntie. I am not the person who realizes what they have only when it is “too late”; I’m the person who has always known perhaps too clearly, which is why I would have never left in the first place if it were only up to me. I don’t think of it as something holding me back; being with my family is actually part and parcel of my life’s ambitions, so anyone who thinks I should feel otherwise can suck it
My own aging has started to frighten me as well. I don’t consider myself to be old, but my husband and I have agreed to wait until we return home to our support network before starting a family, at which time I will most definitely be at the infamous cut-off age that younger mommies love to throw out there as the danger zone of higher risks and mandatory tests. Gee, thanks for making me feel geriatric. Sorry my last decade has been pleasurable and focused on my needs and catering to my own identity before I give it over so fully to a little person of my making. I genuinely hope I didn’t just offend any mothers reading this—I think parenting is the most noble occupation for one to assume, but it’s not my fault that I didn’t get married until after my friends were already popping out kids and that other life changes have thrown me for a loop such that there’s a lot I need to get sorted before I feel I could do a remotely good job of it myself. So I’ll put off applying for that particular position a bit longer; yes, I know, at my own risk. *eyes rolling*
Returning to find that my old job (for which I was only 1 year away from getting tenure) is not remotely available to me anymore is scary. I moved the very week that the economy tanked, and what I’d considered a recession-proof job has still managed many layoffs since then, and some departments have frozen their hiring. Barring that, even if I can vie for a position, perhaps I’ll be judged negatively for my time away from teaching; the powers that be may frown upon my rationale, not find value in how I’ve chosen to apply myself since then. Even worse, what if I fear teaching itself? After such a long hiatus, I’m no longer riding the momentum of consecutive years ramping up in the profession. The flexibility (and sleeping in!) of my present days will be lost, and never doubt the intimidation of staring down 125+ teenagers a day and, even worse, their parents who will too quickly point the finger at you for the consequences of their own lack of parenting at home. Then again, if I end up not having kids of my own, teaching is a great way to play surrogate.
I think what is overall frightening me is the realization that my life at home did not simply freeze once I took off on that plane, preserved in its tableau of near-perfection while I have my fun and then return to reinsert myself seamlessly back into it. I will not be entirely the same person either, after all; current experiences are carving me from a square to an octagon-shaped peg. So I fear the transition that will be repatriation, after expatriation was already so difficult. I fear feeling out of place in my own home and possibly acknowledging a discontent that wouldn’t have otherwise been there.
But, you know, so be it. Rejoining my family, starting a family, returning to teaching…I cannot think of three things more worth facing that fear.
Reflection:
First of all, allow me to apologize. Addressing personal fear just automatically lends itself to a whiny rambling of self-pity, so thank you for bearing with me through it if you’ve made it this far I don’t think this activity has brought out any special writing, per se…the fears are plain, so embellishment didn’t come naturally—the way I wrote it is not creative or revelatory. It didn’t make me realize anything new about myself.
Maybe selecting a different fear or writing in another frame of mind would have made all the difference, but the one thing I can take away from this exercise is the fact that Goldberg was right! When I started writing about this, as I said, it made me cry—it thrust me into my fear and made me tremble in the face of it. And yet the more I wrote, the easier it was to pull out of this vulnerable state; putting it in writing made it very plain to see that, while my fears may be justified, they really aren’t as big of a deal as I sometimes let them be. The more I wrote, the more my heart quieted and the more my mind said, “Poor you with the wonderful family and profession and wonderful period of creative flexibility and travel that you have in-between. To have had it as long as you did is a gift, and you still might get your cake back to eat it too—or even be okay if you don’t. So in the meantime, buck up. Deal.”
In short, facing my fears was embracing my blessings.
And you, brave readers of mine? What are you so afraid of? And how might your fears impact your writing?
Show Me, Show Me, Show Me How You Do That Meme
These have been busy days causing much blog-neglecting, so for now I shall finally snag the writing activity from Corra McFeydon’s A Lit Major’s Notebook blog as I told her I would. I had also told her I had a Spotlight Award waiting for her when her blog was up and running again, which is still out there for the offering, though I know she will graciously not accept 
This is in keeping with some of the writing prompts I follow that allow for brevity…it’s like an ink-blot test, really, offering insight through metaphorical self-perception:
- If I were a season, I’d be autumn.
- If I were a month, I’d be October.
- If I were a day of the week, I’d be Thursday.
- If I were a time of day, I’d be 23:00.
- If I were a planet, I’d be Saturn. (I like a good accessory).
- If I were a direction, I’d be West.
- If I were a tree, I’d have the perfect branch to sit and imagine on. (and there’d be a monkey in me)
- If I were a flower, I’d be dried jasmine blooming at the bottom of a tea cup.
- If I were a fruit, I’d be a tomato.
- If I were a land animal, I’d be a cat, sleeping in a sunny window.
- If I were a sea animal, I’d be manatee, fooling sailors that I’m a mermaid.
- If I were a bird, I’d be a mockingbird.
- If I were a piece of furniture, I’d be a chaise lounge.
- If I were a liquid, I’d be red wine.
- If I were a stone, I’d be sedimentary.
- If I were a tool, I’d be a level.
- If I were a kind of weather, I’d be alternating showers and sunshine, UK-style.
- If I were a musical instrument, I’d be a piano.
- If I were a color, I’d be burnt sienna (consult your Crayola box).
- If I were a facial expression, I’d be a raised eyebrow.
- If I were an emotion, I’d be anxiety.
- If I were a sound, I’d be fingers tapping on a keyboard/piano keys in inspiration or a flat surface in impatience.
- If I were an element, I’d have an even atomic number.
- If I were a car, I’d be a Volkswagen.
- If I were a food, I’d be cheese.
- If I were a place, I’d be lined in dark wood paneling and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, flickering in candlelight.
- If I were a flavor, I’d be spicy.
- If I were a scent, I’d be spicy
- If I were an object, it would be fun to be unidentified and flying, too.
- If I were a body part, I’d be the eyes.
- If I were a song, I’d be “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure.
- If I were a pair of shoes, I’d be black ballet flats.
- If I were transportation, I’d be my own two feet.
- If I were a fairy tale, I wouldn’t want any contemporary retellings of me to star J-Lo.
- If I were a holiday, I’d be spent traveling.
Oh yeah, and if I were a song, I’d also most certainly want you to rock out to me (men, apply that guyliner):
Team Gaucho: Gaffes and Gallivants
What happens when two Yankees with an empty tank and wallet take to the open Patagonian road?
Join me on the journey of two victims of their generation:
“Patagonia: Pesos, Pussycats, & Petrol“
My guest post at Real Bloggers United is live as of yesterday, and taken directly from a worn, leather-bound journal that joins others like itself in chronicling the travels of an ignoramus.
Speak and Spell
I’m presently hosting cousins who are in town visiting, and we attended the evensong service at St. Paul’s Cathedral. I confess that I usually tune out during church readings and sermons—really, when anyone has been talking too long—and it’s that much harder to keep focus when my eye has a massive dome and intricate mosaics, sculptures, and paintings to wander about. A surreal kind of solitude even in a room filled with people.
In any case, because I’m visual and we had a program containing the readings and songs, I did catch this passage:
“If [the flute or the harp] do not give distinct notes, how will anyone know what is being played? And if the bugle give an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? So with yourselves; if in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air. There are doubtless many different kinds of sounds in the world, and nothing is without sound. If then I do not know the meaning of a sound, I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me.” - from 1 Corinthians 14
Now, the context of this passage regards speaking in “tongues”—i.e., spreading God’s message in different languages that people may not understand without interpretation. Yet it got me thinking about language in general and the way people communicate with each other even within the same language that they all understand. This transports me back to the first days of school explaining to students why taking an English class is necessary—not as in learning the language itself, but, rather, learning all the possibilities of how to use that language. I told them that they could have the most brilliant ideas in the world, but it won’t mean anything if they can’t communicate them clearly.
For students, the technical ways to communicate are the starting point. [DISCLAIMER: My criticism is limited to those who butcher their first language only. My hats off to those who speak another language at any level, as it's more than I've achieved.]
I could go on and on about how many times I caught text-message-ease infiltrating formal essays (yes, “u” instead of “you” appeared countless times) and how proof-reading is a lost art thanks to Spell-Check being taken for granted (need I mention the infamous “there”/”their”/”they’re” problem)? Maybe I’m just a stickler—after all, I’m not immune to such errors when I’m writing quickly, and naturally leave it to a teenage wisenheimer to bring to my attention the Cambridge study on spelling—but it becomes increasingly alarming to me when I catch more and more typos on menus, signs, and other messages in print. I don’t know if any of you WordPress users had the same issue, but I couldn’t get into my blog the other day because “Writes to access this site have been disabled.” Really?
But this isn’t what I mean to harp on (and I don’t want everyone whose stuff I read to fear my teacher’s red pen ), so I digress…
What I really want to address relates at least in part to Cities of Mind‘s comment on my earlier post:
“I decided that maybe what you do is write the book you want to write, in a way people want to read it.”
This lingered in my mind, and, while the ways in which people want to read a story may encompass several factors (e.g., engaging through suspense or pacing), I thought about how important a story’s overall readability is in the first place—i.e., the ease with which readers can comprehend what is written without having to read through a sentence three times before understanding what it’s getting at. This ended up echoed in my own sister’s words during her recent local TV interview (which I had to see on her blog before that modest little stinker even showed it to me!). Starting out in that oh-so soulful world of Finance like myself, when asked how she shifted gears from “boring” financial writing to creative writing, she responded that the former actually helped:
“One thing that was always pounded into me was, ‘This needs to be understandable to the clients,’ so [business writing helped me] for getting the message across and understandable to the reader. So as far as the passion and the creativity of the story, that part was kind of easy to just have, but to get it written down so that someone else would read it and feel and see the characters the same way that I wanted them to, [I go through a lot of editing] to just think of it from the reader’s point of view.”
I suppose that’s mostly what the “rules” are all about, ensuring that the vivid images and concepts in our minds are translated into words
that recreate the thoughts in the reader’s own mind. This is the fundamental principle of communication, whereby the Sender relays a Message to the Receiver. If the Receiver does not understand the Message, the Sender has failed to communicate effectively. And, as Cities of the Mind puts it, we should relay our messages in a way the reader would best welcome them.
The English language is extremely word-rich, so we must take advantage of its possibilities, appreciate the options for syntax and structure, the varying degrees of meaning conveyed by carefully choosing among synonyms like “pretty,” “beautiful,” and “gorgeous,” and not speak into the air in haughtily intellectual or overly abstract ways (mind you, this does not mean dumbing it down either). A story is meant to be shared, so keep it clear, keep it accessible, and—just as importantly—keep it honest.
“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity” – George Orwell
The FaMo Awards
Gah! I’m so delinquent in my blog-posting/reading…as I explained this morning on Twitter, “the sloth in the next cage died, so am filling in for it at the last minute. Have been very convincing in my role.”
For what that’s worth.
And shame on me further because I have yet to formally thank the lovely Lisa Reece-Lane and Agatha of the Milk Fever and Here Be Dragons blogs, respectively, for humoring a primate with blog awards! My very first ones, so I’m screeching and throwing poop around my cage like it’s confetti.
Following my blog post on rules, ironically, here are a few more that I am more than delighted to adhere to in accepting these honors (along with the gown I shall be wearing to the award ceremony):
1. Thank those who loved you enough to bestow this gift.
2. Share seven (7) things about yourself.
3. Bestow this honor onto 10 newly discovered or followed bloggers–in no particular order–who are fantastic in some way. (The You’re Going Places award only obligates me to 5, but I’ll honor the original Spotlight reqs)
4. Drop by and let the 10 chosen friends know you love them.
Okay, so to follow my thank-you above, here are 7 random things about me:
1. I am the youngest of 4 and the proud auntie of 2 nieces and 6 nephews. Being 7 to 10 years younger than my siblings, let’s just say I fought my way into this world as an “unexpected” gift from God.
2. Though it’s rare in females, I’m color-blind. Well, color “weak” as the eye doctor says every time I fail one of those gol’ damn color tests.
3. Although I love animals (I am, after all, a monkey), I am not a pet person. At all. But if I had to align myself with either the infamous Dog People or Cat People in a finger-snapping gang face-off of “West Side Story” proportions, I would probably go Cat.
4. While not advanced and hardly ever getting the chance anymore, I love playing the piano.
5. The only physical features that I’m genuinely insecure about are my feet.
6. I suspect that I have an old soul, but cannot determine its age (though, considering my bunions and the flannel granny cap I wear in bed on winter nights—very much to my husband’s chagrin—I estimate it’s at least 80).
7. My mind is a reservoir of meaningless pop cultural free-association-of-thought. For example, on command, I can sing/hum theme songs to old TV shows (with a concentration in ’80s sitcoms). My college roommates discovered this ability in our dorm cafeteria—nothing stumped me, but after something like 2 hours I stopped in frustration that I could only recall ONE of the themes for “Lost in Space” (the later color episodes had a different song than the earlier B&W seasons, you see, but I’m pleased to announce that I eventually did remember the other one and will sing it at your wedding if you book me far enough in advance).
Though not all necessarily “newly discovered,” I will now bestow the honors to 10 of my consistent blogger friends (I’ll split the 2 awards 50/50):
Receiving the Spotlight Award:
The Spotlight Award
1. To extend my thanks further, Here Be Dragons. This blog is a constant source of empathy and inspiration for me as a writer.
2. Nicki Elson’s Not-So-Deep Thoughts. A newly-published author’s witty musings on writing and the 1980s—as her little sister, I couldn’t be prouder!
3. Real Bloggers United. A diverse new collaboration of bloggers to which I try to contribute on a monthly basis and encourage you all to do the same!
4. Courage 2 Create. An insightful writer embodying refreshing humility and kindness.
5. Aphorism of the Day. Though he humbly goes by “nothingprofound,” his bite-sized pearls of wisdom give a busy life pause for meaningful thought.
Receiving the You’re Going Places Award:
You're Going Places Award
6. In keeping with the spirit of #1, Milk Fever. Lisa is a rising newly-published author, and her posts crack me up.
7. Though she already has heaps of ‘em, there’s a reason: Bowl of Oranges. Our gal Lua never fails to share spot-on reflections related to the journey of a writer.
8. Write in Berlin. I *heart* this gal’s wit and sharp perspectives as a writer and Berliner. Her advertising eye always makes for an engaging interplay of images and text.
9. In Media Res. Filled with humor and honesty, Milo is a lesson in imagination and perseverance in publication.
10. Lethal Inheritance. A richly informative guide on writing and the quest for publication by YA fantasy lit author, Tahlia.
*phew* I’m pooped (in the figurative sense, not the literal with regard to my nasty monkey habits). I’m off for the evening and hoping to catch up on all of your blogs this weekend, as well as those of newer commenters who I’m very pleased to meet and looking forward to following as well!
Writer Rules. I mean, Writers Rule!
I recently read a post on the Here Be Dragons blog entitled, “Are We Having Fun Yet?” in which the author, Agatha, shares a refreshing, honest rant over the agony that can be refining a manuscript into its final draft. She references Stephen King’s book On Writing (which many keep recommending and my slack-ass has yet to read) and specifically addresses a few writing rules that are compounding her frustration, such as how to approach that infamous first chapter (i.e., beginning at the beginning of the action to hook the reader rather than leading in with too much description of setting) and the debatable requirement that there be tension on every single page.
This got me thinking about all the RULES we new writers are trying so diligently to follow to not only write that novel, but also craft it into something marketable so it has a shot at getting published. We scour the blogosphere for the sage wisdom of literary agents and published authors, and we look to our most beloved books for guidance. It goes without saying that the pressure this places on us is tremendous, especially when we look back to the precious first drafts we wrote from our hearts and realize they are violating rules left and right…
Suddenly the Adverb becomes our arch nemesis, and we’re playing Whack-a-Mole against any dialogue tags other than Said.
A few months back, The Guardian (inspired by Elmore Leonard’s The 10 Rules of Writing) published the article “Ten Rules for Writing Fiction,” in which they surveyed 29 renowned authors for their own list of dos and don’ts. This was a fascinating read for me. At first, it overwhelmed me, because of course as I 
scanned down the screen I was tripping over everything that I apparently do wrong…and yet, the more author lists that I read, the more I noticed how varied their perspectives were. For being a list of “rules,” it if anything taught me there is no consistent formula set in stone.
While there are no doubt sound universal suggestions out there we should adhere to, I think we also need to find solace in the fact that there couldn’t possibly be a one-size-fits all approach to writing a good book. We are all unique and have something different to bring to the table, and that’s something that should be celebrated in our writing as well. I particularly like how Ollin Morales (Courage 2 Create blog) phrased it in his comment on Agatha’s post:
“I’d rather write a book that I love and everybody hates, than one that everybody loves and I hate.”
True dat. And I also commend the truth Corra McFeydon just shared in her A Lit Major’s Notebook blog, a post appropriately titled, ”The Truth.” It is here that Corra, also in the process of writing a novel, admits that she does not desire to be a professional writer because, right now at least, it’s killing her spirit in what she loved about writing in the first place. Seeking to break free from the rules and schedules that constrict her, she asserts:
“That’s why my novel will be written when the spirit hits me — as a product of my intensity, my laughter, and my free spirit — even though apparently that’s not how to be successful.”
I began this project for me, and if it remains just for myself after I’ve at least given it a shot at going elsewhere, so be it if I’m happy with the end product. But even abiding by our own expectations entails discipline as we make time for our writing and edit it until it becomes the best version of itself. I think most of the rules I’m opting to follow these days are self-imposed based on my own standards (which are quite high—I’m an English teacher after all, and grade myself constantly ).
That being said, one external rule I’m trying to stick to is the advised first-time-author word count of 100,000—not in my first draft that I’m wrapping up presently, but when I go back through to polish up. Yet another blog post I recently read that I really appreciate for its straightforward guidance on how to cut, let’s say, 19,000 words for a final manuscript is, well, “How to Cut 19,000 Words” from the ‘Lethal Inheritance’ blog—Tahlia Newland tells us how she did just that when her agent asked her trim down her YA fantasy novel of same name. I was at first absolutely psyched out that cutting words meant cutting entire paragraphs and chapters—and sometimes it does and perhaps will, but it’s reassuring to know that it can be achieved on a sentence/word level as well, an edit so subtle you’d hardly miss a thing.
I’m curious: Which writing rules do YOU swear by? And which rules do you think are totally bogus?
Argh. Can you even imagine Jane Austen sweating it out like this? I can’t imagine she was slapped in the face by rules at every turn, as we are at every page we flip and link we click. But then again…
On the Borderline
Oh goodie, this is a fun one—a game of sorts for those days when you fear the tap to your creativity has run dry and you just can’t write. Well, you can. Given some direction—rules, if you will—you might be surprised when you spring a leak
The Prompt:
Page 41 of Room to Write asks us to choose one of the following words: fence, road, boil, or fall. Then:
1. Write the first words that come to mind when you think of your chosen words. Write them in a list form until you hit the bottom of the page (or your computer screen…I decided to do 20).
2. Keeping the list in the exact same order, develop a story in which every line uses one of these words.
Response:
He rode the fence on the issue.
Sure, he realized the importance of establishing boundaries,
but was this something to fall under such restriction?
He was already on the border of sanity as it was.
One thing he was never good about was choices,
options that left him speculating which path to take and leaping to cynical conclusions as to what menaced him ahead on each.
In this way, even the gift of choice wound barbed wire round his psyche
and threatened to strangle his pride with the chain-links of fear he entangled himself within.
He never was a man of conviction, willingly crossing picket lines to not rock the boat with authority
and practically tying their strings onto himself as if he were some wooden puppet,
his thoughts and actions the property of someone else, always.
Facing the crossroads that he was now, he tried to envision vast farmland
dotted with livestock and caressed by the open breezes.
In this vision was also a garden; yes, there must be a garden in the back,
serving as the division of pleasure and labor,
where his legal troubles could be checked at the gate and all he would know of the world was a blooming fortress.
He then frowned at the way even his fancies imposed a natural barrier around him,
and wondered if he wouldn’t constantly need something to hold him back—balancing on the precipice of order and chaos as he was—
yes, something that would keep him penned in for his own protection and the safety of the world below.
He struck a match against the brick ledge, the final demarcation he would draw.
Reflection:
Today is definitely one of my days of feeling groggy and uncreative—there’s so much to take care of on all levels of my life, so my preoccupation with it all is almost paralyzing me into doing none of it. In light of these kinds of days, I really appreciate an activity like this that confines me within a short set of rules; for as much as I think I’m a creative spirit, I’ve always functioned well within parameters. Maybe that’s why the word “fence” is the one that leapt out at me
Anyways, if you ever find yourself in a writing funk, I can promise you this is a good way to shake up your stagnant creative juices; there’s no pressure to how this sort of piece will turn out, just that you follow the rules and keep on to the end. Maybe it’ll go straight to the rubbish bin, maybe you’ll actually pull something from it to recycle in another work. Who knows, but this took me less than 10 minutes, so surely you can afford that little bit of time to see what results. It also has potential as a good lesson in working with motifs/extended metaphors in following through on a theme.
So, obviously I use these writing prompts to get me going, but I’m curious about YOU. What is it that gets your brain-blood flowing and inspired to write again during periods of creative dormancy?
