Okay, this day snuck up on me. I just posted yesterday and here I am needing to say something pithy and profound and summative about the year that is rapidly heading toward extinction. And I need to say it quickly, because I went for a lovely ride on this cold, crisp afternoon and now I can't stay awake. I'll be lucky to make it to midnight East Coast time, and I live several times zones west of that one. . . (Guaranteed insomnia cure: exercise until you're frozen, come in and thaw out and eat a large dinner and then just TRY to stay awake!).
Okay, wise cracks out of the way, I do want to look back over the year. At the beginning of 2012, my writing was just about where it is now. . . except it was the first Ninja Librarian book I was trying to polish up, and now it's the second. Over the course of the year, I've seen my book in print, done author readings, and been recognized in the grocery store as a writer.
I have developed as a writer, doing a much better job of believing that it's a real job, and therefore should take precedent over many other things, including sweeping the floor. Not always there, but getting better. I've learned more about marketing than I ever guessed I would ever need to, and just enough to tell me that I've only scratched the surface. I've also learned that nothing about my new published status has made me any more eager to sit down with a flawed MS and do the hard work of turning it into a publishable book, but that having people waiting for the new book can inspire me to do even that. I think that's part of what it means to be a professional.
I have also learned that I can write short stories just for fun, and share them so that others can have fun too.
In my personal life, I have watched my boys get another year older, and seen my Eldest Son putting me to shame for his ability to write under nearly any conditions. While I want to crawl off alone, he sat in the middle of the family Xmas bash with his computer in front of him, and added page after page to his first novel. It's pretty good, too. I don't know whether to be a proud parent, or just chagrined that he manages to write, and well, under circumstances that made me give up (twelve people in our dinky house over the holidays, for example).
I have also done some great trips, including my first visit to Hawaii and a seven-day backpack trip
in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming (here and here). That was one of the most scenic
I've done, and the longest single backpack since I was 27 and hiked 200
miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. It was a lot more fun doing it with
my family than alone, as I did back then.
What do I wish for 2013? Aside, that is, from peace and love and general good stuff for all humanity. Let's stick with the personal here. Mostly, let's stick with what the writer wants.
1. Make writing a featured part of every day. Write like a professional. Except on Zero days.
2. Bring out the sequel to the Ninja Librarian (still mostly on track for Feb., though we are looking at the end of the month, not the beginning).
3. Either finish and publish my "PTA Murder" novel, or decide it has no future and start a new one.
4. Sell more books each month, find more followers for this blog, and discover more great reads for myself. Which I'll share if you are good.
5. Go for another backpack trip as glorious as last summer's. Swim even more, ride even more, and--the gods willing--become a runner again when my about-to-be-operated-on toe heals.
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Monday, December 31, 2012
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Take a Zero
I've been catching up on some through-hikers I was following last summer. For those of you who aren't backpackers (in the US sense, not the European sense), through-hikers are people who hike an entire long trail (Pacific Crest Trail, Appalachian Trail, etc.) in a single season (well, more like 3 seasons, starting very early in spring and continuing until they arrive at the end or snow gets too deep to manage, whichever comes first). I'd been following a couple of PCT hikers, and got distracted, so I went back yesterday and read the blogs all the way through, since they were all off the trail by late October. I don't know if this sort of thing is meant satisfy my desire to do a long hike, or feed it, but that's a post for another day.
What I wanted to talk about was the concept of a "Zero" or "Zero Day". A day in town or camp when you don't hike anywhere. Zero mileage. When you are trying to cover 2660 miles between late March and first snow in the North Cascades, you think a lot about miles (you also think a lot about miles between food drops, since taking a day too long could mean a day without dinner, not something you want to consider when hiking 20-25 miles/day). Spending a whole day without gaining any miles can be hard.
What I got to thinking about this afternoon is how hard it is for me to take a Zero, to stop doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing. Now, granted that on those "Zero Days" the hikers usually kept plenty busy--laundry and shopping and eating as many meals as they could jam in--in a sense they didn't do any of what they were there to do, i.e., hike. That's the beauty of a Zero. Just don't do it.
Maybe that's behind the old religious prohibition on doing any work on Sunday. If we humans don't know enough to take a rest day when we need it, maybe we need an outside force telling us to, before we burn ourselves out. Around here in the U.S. we've pretty much forgotten about that whole Day of Rest thing, but I'm old enough to remember when very very few stores were open on Sundays, and most people (except ministers) took the day off. Everyone took a Zero and was the better for it (eventually my Mom stopped cooking on Sundays, too, though not for religious reasons. She just needed a day off).
So today I really haven't done much. I finished two books last night, and read another clear through today. It was past time for me to do that, and it meant, as much as anything, getting the heck off the internet (where I'd been all yesterday afternoon, reading about through-hikers. . . ) and just reading a book. But I was also feeling pretty guilty. Not doing any writing, not cleaning up the post-holiday mess, just indulging myself. Like I did when I was a kid--curled up with a book for hours.
But here's the thing: on my "Zero", when I'm kind of beating myself up for not doing anything productive, I have puttered at a number of minor kitchen chores, baked a batch of bread, done a load of laundry, finally pulled out my dead and dying tomato plants and spaded compost into the beds to rot the rest of the winter in preparation for the spring planting, and cleaned up the mud I tracked into the house afterward.
See what I mean? I'm not too good at taking a Zero. Okay, yeah, I can take a day off from writing, especially the revisions I'm supposedly working on right now, all too easily. But the rest of my job is that of chief housekeeper and I can't seem to let it go. But the thing is: if the hikers don't take a Zero now and then, they break down. The body just won't keep it up, the mind wears down. Next thing you know, you've left the trail for permanent, not just for a day.
Now, I've a hunch that "trail fatigue" might happen to writers, too. Take a break or get the boot. I'm not so sure about housework, but I do know that a) it will never go away, and b) it will never go away. It'll still be there tomorrow. Take a Zero. Read a book and let the dust bunnies thrive one more day.
What I wanted to talk about was the concept of a "Zero" or "Zero Day". A day in town or camp when you don't hike anywhere. Zero mileage. When you are trying to cover 2660 miles between late March and first snow in the North Cascades, you think a lot about miles (you also think a lot about miles between food drops, since taking a day too long could mean a day without dinner, not something you want to consider when hiking 20-25 miles/day). Spending a whole day without gaining any miles can be hard.
What I got to thinking about this afternoon is how hard it is for me to take a Zero, to stop doing all the things I'm supposed to be doing. Now, granted that on those "Zero Days" the hikers usually kept plenty busy--laundry and shopping and eating as many meals as they could jam in--in a sense they didn't do any of what they were there to do, i.e., hike. That's the beauty of a Zero. Just don't do it.
Maybe that's behind the old religious prohibition on doing any work on Sunday. If we humans don't know enough to take a rest day when we need it, maybe we need an outside force telling us to, before we burn ourselves out. Around here in the U.S. we've pretty much forgotten about that whole Day of Rest thing, but I'm old enough to remember when very very few stores were open on Sundays, and most people (except ministers) took the day off. Everyone took a Zero and was the better for it (eventually my Mom stopped cooking on Sundays, too, though not for religious reasons. She just needed a day off).
So today I really haven't done much. I finished two books last night, and read another clear through today. It was past time for me to do that, and it meant, as much as anything, getting the heck off the internet (where I'd been all yesterday afternoon, reading about through-hikers. . . ) and just reading a book. But I was also feeling pretty guilty. Not doing any writing, not cleaning up the post-holiday mess, just indulging myself. Like I did when I was a kid--curled up with a book for hours.
But here's the thing: on my "Zero", when I'm kind of beating myself up for not doing anything productive, I have puttered at a number of minor kitchen chores, baked a batch of bread, done a load of laundry, finally pulled out my dead and dying tomato plants and spaded compost into the beds to rot the rest of the winter in preparation for the spring planting, and cleaned up the mud I tracked into the house afterward.
See what I mean? I'm not too good at taking a Zero. Okay, yeah, I can take a day off from writing, especially the revisions I'm supposedly working on right now, all too easily. But the rest of my job is that of chief housekeeper and I can't seem to let it go. But the thing is: if the hikers don't take a Zero now and then, they break down. The body just won't keep it up, the mind wears down. Next thing you know, you've left the trail for permanent, not just for a day.
Now, I've a hunch that "trail fatigue" might happen to writers, too. Take a break or get the boot. I'm not so sure about housework, but I do know that a) it will never go away, and b) it will never go away. It'll still be there tomorrow. Take a Zero. Read a book and let the dust bunnies thrive one more day.
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Wishing Everyone. . .
The Joyous midwinter celebration of your choice
Friday, December 21, 2012
Book Review: Homer Price
Homer Price, by Robert McCloskey, c. 1943, 160 p., middle-grade fiction
I don't usually review books that are 70 years old, but as I was comparing my own book to it, I realized that few kids today may know about Homer. A check of the library records for our county confirm that, while the book is available in most of the branches, it only goes out about once a year. And that's a shame, because not only are the stories delightful and fun (as well as slightly absurd. . . if you have read The Ninja Librarian, you see where I'm coming from. . . ) but they are illustrated in the same style as his classic picture books (Make Way for Ducklings, One Morning in Maine, etc.), which means they are worthwhile just for the pictures.
Each of the six chapters is a free-standing story of some event in the life of Homer Price and his little town of Centerburg. In the first, Homer deals with a foursome of robbers by a creative trick and with a little help from his friends. As in each successive chapter, the set-up is engaging, and the story ends with a twist that shows some real creative problem-solving on Homer's part.
[I hadn't read the book for years until I picked it up last month, looking for something soothing. I was surprised to find the degree to which McCloskey's approach paralleled my own in the NL. Clearly early childhood influences are strong!]
In each story, underlying the elements of silliness and adventure that appeal to the children, there is a certain amount of social commentary that can appeal to the adult reader, particularly with reference to modern "progress." If only McCloskey had known!
The six chapters are:
The Case of the Sensational Scent
The Case of the Cosmic Comic
The Doughnuts
Mystery Yarn
Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)
Wheels of Progress
If you or your children haven't read this, get a copy now! While you're at it, pick up the sequel, Centerburg Tales.
Five stars. I can't think what I'd improve.
I don't usually review books that are 70 years old, but as I was comparing my own book to it, I realized that few kids today may know about Homer. A check of the library records for our county confirm that, while the book is available in most of the branches, it only goes out about once a year. And that's a shame, because not only are the stories delightful and fun (as well as slightly absurd. . . if you have read The Ninja Librarian, you see where I'm coming from. . . ) but they are illustrated in the same style as his classic picture books (Make Way for Ducklings, One Morning in Maine, etc.), which means they are worthwhile just for the pictures.
Each of the six chapters is a free-standing story of some event in the life of Homer Price and his little town of Centerburg. In the first, Homer deals with a foursome of robbers by a creative trick and with a little help from his friends. As in each successive chapter, the set-up is engaging, and the story ends with a twist that shows some real creative problem-solving on Homer's part.
[I hadn't read the book for years until I picked it up last month, looking for something soothing. I was surprised to find the degree to which McCloskey's approach paralleled my own in the NL. Clearly early childhood influences are strong!]
In each story, underlying the elements of silliness and adventure that appeal to the children, there is a certain amount of social commentary that can appeal to the adult reader, particularly with reference to modern "progress." If only McCloskey had known!
The six chapters are:
The Case of the Sensational Scent
The Case of the Cosmic Comic
The Doughnuts
Mystery Yarn
Nothing New Under the Sun (Hardly)
Wheels of Progress
If you or your children haven't read this, get a copy now! While you're at it, pick up the sequel, Centerburg Tales.
Five stars. I can't think what I'd improve.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Who are you like?
I had intended today to post a discussion of editing one's work (since I'm busy procrastinating on just that task), but a post on Rachel Abbott's blog about writing blurbs got me thinking. Not just thinking that there's one more thing I should probably revise (again), but about one particular bit that hit a nerve.
Guest blogger Mark Edwards, writing about writing blurbs, encourages us to use the names of known authors (he calls it namechecking). You know the thing: "if so-and-so wrote such-and-such. . . ". Now, I can certainly see the power of this in advertising. Associating your unknown name and book with a name everyone (or everyone interested in your genre) will recognize is a great way to get some attention, maybe draw in some readers.
And yet. I have seen this done so much, and so clumsily. "This book has been compared to 'Harry Potter' and 'The Lord of the Rings'!" "It's like Steinbeck and Shakespeare met for a few drinks and wrote a novel together!" Things that sound both boastful and stupid. I guess if the reviewer for the NYT compares your book (in a positive way) to the work of a best-selling author, you should grab hold and go with that--and give the attribution and the link. But if your Mom says "oh, honey, you write even better than Danielle Steele" (NB: my mother doesn't read Danielle Steele and would never say such an insulting thing to me, especially as I don't write romances), you might want to rethink the comparison.
Of course, everyone wants to know what your book is like, and comparing it to something they know is the fast and easy way to get there. But it's a fine line between useful and reasonable name-dropping and something that sounds like a playground boast.
So here's what I think: I have no idea where the balance lies.
My inclination is to use words like "reminiscent of" and "in the spirit of" or even "inspired by the likes of." Actually, so far my inclination has been to avoid any such comparisons. But now I'm thinking about it, and thinking about a little revision of my blurbs to include some.
"The Ninja Librarian is a tall tale in the (slightly outrageous) spirit of Mark Twain and Robert McCloskey's Homer Price." (This might at least attract the attention of the parents and grandparents of my juvenile readers, though I'm not sure how many 4th graders will recognize either name, more's the pity). Or maybe "Hank the Cowdog would feel right at home in Skunk Corners." (Adult readers without children may, in their turn, need to look up who Hank is. Great fun for family read-alouds. Sort of like the NL. Check it out).
Is that too weird?
What do you think about "namechecking" in blurbs by unknown authors?
Guest blogger Mark Edwards, writing about writing blurbs, encourages us to use the names of known authors (he calls it namechecking). You know the thing: "if so-and-so wrote such-and-such. . . ". Now, I can certainly see the power of this in advertising. Associating your unknown name and book with a name everyone (or everyone interested in your genre) will recognize is a great way to get some attention, maybe draw in some readers.
And yet. I have seen this done so much, and so clumsily. "This book has been compared to 'Harry Potter' and 'The Lord of the Rings'!" "It's like Steinbeck and Shakespeare met for a few drinks and wrote a novel together!" Things that sound both boastful and stupid. I guess if the reviewer for the NYT compares your book (in a positive way) to the work of a best-selling author, you should grab hold and go with that--and give the attribution and the link. But if your Mom says "oh, honey, you write even better than Danielle Steele" (NB: my mother doesn't read Danielle Steele and would never say such an insulting thing to me, especially as I don't write romances), you might want to rethink the comparison.
Of course, everyone wants to know what your book is like, and comparing it to something they know is the fast and easy way to get there. But it's a fine line between useful and reasonable name-dropping and something that sounds like a playground boast.
So here's what I think: I have no idea where the balance lies.
My inclination is to use words like "reminiscent of" and "in the spirit of" or even "inspired by the likes of." Actually, so far my inclination has been to avoid any such comparisons. But now I'm thinking about it, and thinking about a little revision of my blurbs to include some.
"The Ninja Librarian is a tall tale in the (slightly outrageous) spirit of Mark Twain and Robert McCloskey's Homer Price." (This might at least attract the attention of the parents and grandparents of my juvenile readers, though I'm not sure how many 4th graders will recognize either name, more's the pity). Or maybe "Hank the Cowdog would feel right at home in Skunk Corners." (Adult readers without children may, in their turn, need to look up who Hank is. Great fun for family read-alouds. Sort of like the NL. Check it out).
Is that too weird?
What do you think about "namechecking" in blurbs by unknown authors?
Friday, December 14, 2012
Book Review: The Winged Watchman
The Winged Watchman, by Hilda van Stockum, 1962. Juvenile Historical Fiction.
Not long ago a friend who teaches grade school tipped me off to a grand book, called 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. I've been happily browsing the sections for kids about age 8 and up (juvvy fiction, not picture books or easy-readers; this is the stuff I like). Not surprisingly, especially given how small our library was when I was actually a child, I've missed a lot of the books (even the ones that were written before I allegedly grew up, and many post-date my gradeschool years, which were a lot longer ago than I think).
The Winged Watchman is one of those I missed along the way. Set in Holland during WWII, it is the story of the Verhagen family, who live in and tend a windmill--the Winged Watchman. As a note, it was a bit before I processed the obvious (well, maybe not!) fact that these windmills were not for grinding flour or to pump up water (as windmills in the American West are), but to pump the water out of the polders, the stretches of farmland that lie below sea level.
So there was a fair bit of history and lore to learn, but never to the detriment of the story. And the story is that of the Dutch Resistance, of everyday people who did what needed doing to save a downed aviator or hide a Resistance fighter or a Jewish child, working against the German occupiers without letting on that they were.
The Verhagens are just such people. Not giant heroes, but little ones, people who shared what they had, and took their chances with the Germans. We follow them through the last year of the war, when things are at their worst, and their most exciting. Events move along at a brisk clip, keeping the reader engaged, with just enough tension to make it exciting. The story is told from the perspective of the two sons of the family, primarily Joris, who is 10, but also Dirk Jan who at 14 plays a more active and dangerous role.
And how is it to read? Being written in 1962, certain aspects of the book are dated, though the language and style are modern enough (though I suspect a writer tackling the scene in 2012 would make life and death seem more real to the reader). I hit a couple of brief rough patches where religious sentiments were presented in a manner that felt somewhat preachy, but they quickly passed, and the overall tone was acceptable to people of any or no faith. That sense was a bit dampened by the ending, where the author makes it clear she believes that religion--Christian or otherwise--is a powerful support in difficult times, as it undoubtedly is for those who believe. To me, it made the ending feel a little preachy, not in keeping with the adventure story, but it by no means ruined the book.
I am not sure that, aside from the historical context, I would consider this a "must read," but The Winged Watchman was a worthwhile read, and kept my attention from start to end with no desire to wander off. Three and a half stars.
Not long ago a friend who teaches grade school tipped me off to a grand book, called 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up. I've been happily browsing the sections for kids about age 8 and up (juvvy fiction, not picture books or easy-readers; this is the stuff I like). Not surprisingly, especially given how small our library was when I was actually a child, I've missed a lot of the books (even the ones that were written before I allegedly grew up, and many post-date my gradeschool years, which were a lot longer ago than I think).
The Winged Watchman is one of those I missed along the way. Set in Holland during WWII, it is the story of the Verhagen family, who live in and tend a windmill--the Winged Watchman. As a note, it was a bit before I processed the obvious (well, maybe not!) fact that these windmills were not for grinding flour or to pump up water (as windmills in the American West are), but to pump the water out of the polders, the stretches of farmland that lie below sea level.
So there was a fair bit of history and lore to learn, but never to the detriment of the story. And the story is that of the Dutch Resistance, of everyday people who did what needed doing to save a downed aviator or hide a Resistance fighter or a Jewish child, working against the German occupiers without letting on that they were.
The Verhagens are just such people. Not giant heroes, but little ones, people who shared what they had, and took their chances with the Germans. We follow them through the last year of the war, when things are at their worst, and their most exciting. Events move along at a brisk clip, keeping the reader engaged, with just enough tension to make it exciting. The story is told from the perspective of the two sons of the family, primarily Joris, who is 10, but also Dirk Jan who at 14 plays a more active and dangerous role.
And how is it to read? Being written in 1962, certain aspects of the book are dated, though the language and style are modern enough (though I suspect a writer tackling the scene in 2012 would make life and death seem more real to the reader). I hit a couple of brief rough patches where religious sentiments were presented in a manner that felt somewhat preachy, but they quickly passed, and the overall tone was acceptable to people of any or no faith. That sense was a bit dampened by the ending, where the author makes it clear she believes that religion--Christian or otherwise--is a powerful support in difficult times, as it undoubtedly is for those who believe. To me, it made the ending feel a little preachy, not in keeping with the adventure story, but it by no means ruined the book.
I am not sure that, aside from the historical context, I would consider this a "must read," but The Winged Watchman was a worthwhile read, and kept my attention from start to end with no desire to wander off. Three and a half stars.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Short Story--An Elegant Apocalypse
Sunrise on Planet X-4732B is one of the most stunning and beautiful events in the Universe. This is a well-established fact, determined by a complex algorithm developed by the Ultra-Computer housed on the 4th Moon of Planet G-7512, known to locals as Home. The lunar location was originally meant to isolate it and prevent the most powerful computer in the universe from running amok.
Naturally, by the time the Ultra-Computer was completed,
there were six more computers being built on six asteroids, each one an order
of magnitude more powerful than the Ultra.
That is not germane to the issue, but does explain why the Ultra was
free to spend its time determining the nature and location of the most
stunningly beautiful sights in the universe.
So the morning of the last day of the world began with the
last most beautiful sunrise. If
anything, the approach of the disaster gave the sunrise a more vivid
coloration. It was not, however,
beautiful in the eyes of the beholder.
There were no beholders, for the same reason that X-4732B has no local
name: there are no higher order inhabitants on X-4732B. Lower-order organisms abound, or did before
the world ended, but they had failed to evolve to create pollution, disrupt the
perfect order of the landscape, or anticipate the apocalypse.
The absence of human or human-like observers is, of
course, central to the elegance of the X-4732B apocalypse (for every apocalypse
is local, until the final event, the end of the universe so eloquently
documented by Douglas Adams). Besides a
failure to muck up the view, lower-order organisms tend to lack the necessary
glands to panic. Had the planet evolved
so much as a muskrat, the day would have taken a different turn, and the Ultra
Computer would have had to recalculate the event’s standing in its ranking of
events approaching perfection.
Naturally, just when it seemed safe to assume that the
apocalypse would proceed with dignity and quiet splendor, everything changed. A lone, tiny, and definitely lost space capsule
spiraled down through the oddly Earth-like atmosphere.
In the best of all possible worlds, the man who emerged,
dazed, from the erring and now disabled spacecraft would have been Arthur Dent.
It wasn’t.
His name was Johnson Bob, and he’d been in transit between
two planets far from X-4732B when his flight path took him a hair too close to
a concert by the intergalactic band Disaster Area. The cosmic disruption of the loudest band in
the universe had put an end to his tedious business trip and landed Johnson on
X-4732B in time to witness the end of that world, and potentially to disrupt
its tranquil order.
The event was saved from the contamination of panic,
despite the intrusion of a more-or-less higher life form, by the simple fact
that Johnson Bob never left his ship. He was
sleeping off the disconcerting effects of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster he’d
had in the space port bar before leaving, a task that requires the full
concentration of all bodily forces for a full day. In fact, in an act of incredible bravado, or idiocy, he had consumed two of the Gargle Blasters, and would be fortunate to wake up at all.
Johnson Bob therefore slept through the end of the
world. He failed to observe as the sky
turned from its usual chartreuse to an odd shade of puce and finally a perfect
shade of red-orange. Nor was he aware
when the atmosphere boiled away, as his ship maintained the ideal balance of
gasses for the continuation of human life.
Johnson Bob likewise missed the exquisite moment when all
factors coalesced into the perfect, nearly silent yet symphonic finality. It was this perfect coordination of elements
that led the Ultra Computer to designate the X-4732B Apocalypse as the most
elegant apocalypse of all time.
Millennia of constipated volcanism beneath the immense
chain of volcanoes that ringed the planet burst through the plug in every peak simultaneously,
exactly at the instant the asteroid that had boiled away the atmosphere struck
precisely at the southern pole, and the sun went nova at the same moment.
Johnson Bob should have been boiled away with the
atmosphere, of course, but the Ultra Computer considered the final touch that
perfected the X-4732B Apocalypse to be the manner in which the volcanic
cataclysm ejected the one bit of alien matter from the planet in time to make
it a purely local event. When Johnson Bob eventually awoke, he had a nasty
hangover but no awareness of where he’d been or what he’d done. The blast had flung him back onto his orignal
trajectory, and he landed without incident and went to the nearest bar for
another Gargle-Blaster, in hopes of clearing his head.
To a human observer, the tiny space capsule as it exited
would have looked like a watermelon pip spat contemptuously at the remainder of
the universe as the planet exploded into a nearly infinite number of identical
fragments.
But of course since Johnson Bob was unconscious the whole
time, there was no human, or even sentient, observer. That, the computer decided as the final rays
of the perfectly symmetrical pattern of dissolution faded into empty space, was
perhaps the most elegant feature.
Perfection could only unfold unobserved.
With reverent apologies to Douglas Adams
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Drowning in words
Dorothy Sayers said it, and I heartily agree: "The rereading of one's own works is usually a dismal matter" (Gaudy Night). Even the bits that you can see are really pretty good have a great deal less shine to them than they did when they were new.
And why, you ask, this spirit of disheartened eloquence? Because, like thousands who "won" NaNoWriMo, I am struggling with the revision of a novel that isn't quite there yet. Unlike the NaNers, mine isn't fresh, but rather a book abandoned about five years back when I couldn't interest an agent in it. Now, it's better than five-year-old fish--the book doesn't stink--but five years is long enough to let me see it as an editor might, which is rather harsher than the casual reader, I suspect.
Thus the "dismal matter." But here's the thing: if I don't push through the dismalness (did I just make that word up? The spell-checker thinks so), my book will never be more than mediocre. So I'm rereading, outlining, making notes of what works and what doesn't, all preparatory to heavily revising a manuscript that I have already revised two or three times. And, of course, getting some distance and reading it like an editor will make for a better book.
Does this make me happy? Frankly, no. This is the work side of writing, and not much fun. Oh, there are occasions when the realization that you've figured out how to make something that was just okay into something good is as exciting as was composing the crappy first draft. But most of the time, it hurts a little. "Dang," you think. "I loved that scene. But it really doesn't work. Not unless I figure out a way to get the dog out of there, and I already made such a big deal about the dog never leaving the girl's side." So out goes the scene. Or days are spent in dealing with the dog, only to decide that your changes ruin something else, and the scene gets the chuck after all. (I made that up, so when the book comes out, please don't go looking for a girl and a dog and writing me snippy letters when you can't find them.)
This painful reality explains the sudden burst of short-story writing I've indulged in. I can only edit for so long before I need a creative booster shot, and have to write something. So, coming up next week: "An Elegant Apocalypse," just in time for the end of the world on December 21st. You know, just in case.
And why, you ask, this spirit of disheartened eloquence? Because, like thousands who "won" NaNoWriMo, I am struggling with the revision of a novel that isn't quite there yet. Unlike the NaNers, mine isn't fresh, but rather a book abandoned about five years back when I couldn't interest an agent in it. Now, it's better than five-year-old fish--the book doesn't stink--but five years is long enough to let me see it as an editor might, which is rather harsher than the casual reader, I suspect.
Thus the "dismal matter." But here's the thing: if I don't push through the dismalness (did I just make that word up? The spell-checker thinks so), my book will never be more than mediocre. So I'm rereading, outlining, making notes of what works and what doesn't, all preparatory to heavily revising a manuscript that I have already revised two or three times. And, of course, getting some distance and reading it like an editor will make for a better book.
Does this make me happy? Frankly, no. This is the work side of writing, and not much fun. Oh, there are occasions when the realization that you've figured out how to make something that was just okay into something good is as exciting as was composing the crappy first draft. But most of the time, it hurts a little. "Dang," you think. "I loved that scene. But it really doesn't work. Not unless I figure out a way to get the dog out of there, and I already made such a big deal about the dog never leaving the girl's side." So out goes the scene. Or days are spent in dealing with the dog, only to decide that your changes ruin something else, and the scene gets the chuck after all. (I made that up, so when the book comes out, please don't go looking for a girl and a dog and writing me snippy letters when you can't find them.)
This painful reality explains the sudden burst of short-story writing I've indulged in. I can only edit for so long before I need a creative booster shot, and have to write something. So, coming up next week: "An Elegant Apocalypse," just in time for the end of the world on December 21st. You know, just in case.
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Free Story!
I'm moving a little slowly, but picked up at last on a challenge put out by fellow-lunatic, I mean writer, Gus Sanchez back in September.
Now that I'm waiting on feedback on the Ninja Librarian, I thought I'd keep my chops in shape with some short stories, and a writing prompt is a nice starter. So I followed Gus's link to http://thestorystarter.com/ and clicked the random phrase generator until I got something I liked (I did notice a certain tendency to reuse a few phrases. Lots of stories about avoiding arguments!). I settled on the prompt,
Here's my story:
"Class! Class! Please line up for roll-call!" The teacher sounded weary, even at the start of the day, as all adults did in the gravitational sector of the ship. Children were allowed to spend at most two hours a day in zero G, but to save power--the artificial gravity field took a lot of power--most of the ship had little or no gravity, and adults spent little time under gravitational pull. So even the teacher, who was in the Field more than most, moved and spoke slowly and with fatigue.
Max knew that. He'd been in he kindergarten class for as long as he could remember--at least two sets of children had come and gone while he stayed on. He couldn't believe that only he had figured out that graduating from kindergarten was for chumps. He'd talked to older kids--they could have been his brothers; who knew? No one knew their family on the ship. Families were a luxury, like gravity. Everything was communal, and the population was strictly managed to maintain the exact number of inhabitants desired.
Anyway, those older kids had told him the sad truth: after kindergarten there was no more nap time, which was a good thing, but there were no more snacks, either. And you had to learn strange things called grammar and algebra, and the history of the Earth, which seemed stupid even to a little kid.
Earth might as well be a myth, for all the good it would do them. The colony ship was never going back, and wherever they were going, it would be different. Even the youngest kindergarteners, who were a lot younger than Max, could figure that out. Besides, the teen who had taught him the skills needed to survive in the Ship said that they wouldn't even get there in Max's lifetime. He would spend his life on the Ship, which was fine with Max.
So Max decided early on that he'd just stay in kindergarten, with the toys and snacks. The teachers never seemed to notice--they had to rotate teachers in and out every few weeks. Max thought it was because the gravity took such a toll on them. Or maybe it was the children. Karl, his teenaged friend, said it was so that all the adults could spend enough time in the gravity field to stay healthy. The actual teaching was done by computers, anyway, so the teacher didn't matter much.
Whatever. The rotating teachers meant that no one really kept track of things. Including Max.
He was starting to get taller, though, and soon someone was going to ask the question he didn't want to answer: how old was he, anyway?
In fact, the teacher, having gotten them all to line up--the last teacher had insisted they sit in their desk-pods for roll, so it was a change and took them by surprise--was calling down the list of names. Of their full names, which gave Max a jolt.
"Suzy TenSevenTwelve. Johann FourTwentytwoTwelve." Since no one knew his--or her, needless to say--parents, children were surnamed by their hatchdate. First names came from a random name generator in the Ship's computer. Later, they would get surnames to match their work specialties.
"Maxwell SevenForuteenTen." The teacher halted. She looked around for the child who matched the name. "Maxwell? Is this correct? Are you a Ten child?
Max pretended he didn't know who she was talking to. It didn't work. He stood a head taller than any other child in the class.
"Maxwell," the teacher asked, confused but trying to be kind. "Have you had a problem with kindergarten?"
Max shook his head. No, he had no problem with kindergarten at all. That was why he was staying. But that didn't seem to be what the woman meant.
"It looks as though they haven't moved you on to first grade. Or," she looked at him dubiously, "have they misprinted your hatchdate?"
Max didn't like the direction this was taking. Desperately, he looked around for a distraction. Suzy was playing with a large feather, collected from some bird in the farm area--another place where they had to keep the gravitational field on. Max reached over, snatched the feather, and threw it toward Rommel. It wasn't much of a missile, but Rommel could always be counted on to raise a distracting fuss.
Suzy yelled, but the feather never reached Rommel. Caught by the steady suction from the air duct, it moved further upward, and disappeared into the opening, where there should have been a grate. That morning, there wasn't.
As everyone stared at the place where the feather no longer drifted, an alarm began to sound.
Max had a very bad feeling about this. He'd been in kindergarten along enough to know.
Now that I'm waiting on feedback on the Ninja Librarian, I thought I'd keep my chops in shape with some short stories, and a writing prompt is a nice starter. So I followed Gus's link to http://thestorystarter.com/ and clicked the random phrase generator until I got something I liked (I did notice a certain tendency to reuse a few phrases. Lots of stories about avoiding arguments!). I settled on the prompt,
The veteran kindergartener threw a feather within the space
ship to avoid the argument.
Here's my story:
Feathers in Space
"Class! Class! Please line up for roll-call!" The teacher sounded weary, even at the start of the day, as all adults did in the gravitational sector of the ship. Children were allowed to spend at most two hours a day in zero G, but to save power--the artificial gravity field took a lot of power--most of the ship had little or no gravity, and adults spent little time under gravitational pull. So even the teacher, who was in the Field more than most, moved and spoke slowly and with fatigue.
Max knew that. He'd been in he kindergarten class for as long as he could remember--at least two sets of children had come and gone while he stayed on. He couldn't believe that only he had figured out that graduating from kindergarten was for chumps. He'd talked to older kids--they could have been his brothers; who knew? No one knew their family on the ship. Families were a luxury, like gravity. Everything was communal, and the population was strictly managed to maintain the exact number of inhabitants desired.
Anyway, those older kids had told him the sad truth: after kindergarten there was no more nap time, which was a good thing, but there were no more snacks, either. And you had to learn strange things called grammar and algebra, and the history of the Earth, which seemed stupid even to a little kid.
Earth might as well be a myth, for all the good it would do them. The colony ship was never going back, and wherever they were going, it would be different. Even the youngest kindergarteners, who were a lot younger than Max, could figure that out. Besides, the teen who had taught him the skills needed to survive in the Ship said that they wouldn't even get there in Max's lifetime. He would spend his life on the Ship, which was fine with Max.
So Max decided early on that he'd just stay in kindergarten, with the toys and snacks. The teachers never seemed to notice--they had to rotate teachers in and out every few weeks. Max thought it was because the gravity took such a toll on them. Or maybe it was the children. Karl, his teenaged friend, said it was so that all the adults could spend enough time in the gravity field to stay healthy. The actual teaching was done by computers, anyway, so the teacher didn't matter much.
Whatever. The rotating teachers meant that no one really kept track of things. Including Max.
He was starting to get taller, though, and soon someone was going to ask the question he didn't want to answer: how old was he, anyway?
In fact, the teacher, having gotten them all to line up--the last teacher had insisted they sit in their desk-pods for roll, so it was a change and took them by surprise--was calling down the list of names. Of their full names, which gave Max a jolt.
"Suzy TenSevenTwelve. Johann FourTwentytwoTwelve." Since no one knew his--or her, needless to say--parents, children were surnamed by their hatchdate. First names came from a random name generator in the Ship's computer. Later, they would get surnames to match their work specialties.
"Maxwell SevenForuteenTen." The teacher halted. She looked around for the child who matched the name. "Maxwell? Is this correct? Are you a Ten child?
Max pretended he didn't know who she was talking to. It didn't work. He stood a head taller than any other child in the class.
"Maxwell," the teacher asked, confused but trying to be kind. "Have you had a problem with kindergarten?"
Max shook his head. No, he had no problem with kindergarten at all. That was why he was staying. But that didn't seem to be what the woman meant.
"It looks as though they haven't moved you on to first grade. Or," she looked at him dubiously, "have they misprinted your hatchdate?"
Max didn't like the direction this was taking. Desperately, he looked around for a distraction. Suzy was playing with a large feather, collected from some bird in the farm area--another place where they had to keep the gravitational field on. Max reached over, snatched the feather, and threw it toward Rommel. It wasn't much of a missile, but Rommel could always be counted on to raise a distracting fuss.
Suzy yelled, but the feather never reached Rommel. Caught by the steady suction from the air duct, it moved further upward, and disappeared into the opening, where there should have been a grate. That morning, there wasn't.
As everyone stared at the place where the feather no longer drifted, an alarm began to sound.
Max had a very bad feeling about this. He'd been in kindergarten along enough to know.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Book Review: The Bartender's Tale
The Bartender's Tale, by Ivan Doig. Fiction; coming-of-age novel for adults.
I've reviewed Doig's work before, and confessed that I consider him to be one of the best. I have always focused on Mr. Doig's use of language--which remains masterful. But this book struck me, as well, with his ability to create twists of events which strike the reader, as they do the characters, as both utterly unexpected and yet somehow inevitable. As I read, I think I see the unraveling coming from far back on the left, yet when it arrives it is sudden and around the corner on the right. In fact, early on I thought Doig was going to disappoint me with a book that was too inevitable.
The Bartender's Tale, like many of Doig's books, is the first-person narrative of an adult recalling the pivotal time of his childhood--in this case, the summer when Rusty Harry, son of the legendary owner of the Medicine Wheel, the best bar in Montana, or certainly in Gros Ventre, is twelve. The year is 1960 (a year which I am forced, however reluctantly, to admit makes this an historical novel), though 1960 in Gros Ventre, Montana, looks little like 1960 in New York or San Francisco. Or even, as Rusty's new-found 21-year-old half-sister finds, like Reno. The hippie era has not reached Montana.
Rusty and his father have worked out their own way of living from the time Rusty was six, and Tom Harry came and collected him from the aunt who had been raising him (in Phoenix; and the one really hard thing for me was figuring her as Tom's sister. But there might be those who look at my brothers and me and wonder if we are really kin. Lives take different tracks by middle age). But into their peaceful existence come no end of disruptions: a friend for Rusty, a collector of "lost voices" from the Smithsonian, and above all a never-known daughter for Tom.
How it all works out, and Rusty and his father manage to come out sane, alive, and mostly on an even keel, is the result of the quiet brilliance of Doig's plotting. That I can't pass the halfway point without becoming hopelessly hooked and unable to stop reading is the result of his even more brilliant twists of the language.
Del Robertson comes from the Smithsonian to try to capture the language of rural Montana before it is lost. Ivan Doig has done the job for him, smoothly, convincingly, and without apparent effort. I never know when I finish one of his books if I should be inspired to be a better writer, or should quietly pack away my pens, because I can never equal his mastery.
I found The Bartender's Tale excellent reading, but I'm in a dilemma--I didn't think it was quite as good as The Whistling Season. That should mean a lower rating, but I think it still deserves five stars. Call it 4.5, though it might be more reasonable to up WS to 5.5 and leave this its five stars.
I've reviewed Doig's work before, and confessed that I consider him to be one of the best. I have always focused on Mr. Doig's use of language--which remains masterful. But this book struck me, as well, with his ability to create twists of events which strike the reader, as they do the characters, as both utterly unexpected and yet somehow inevitable. As I read, I think I see the unraveling coming from far back on the left, yet when it arrives it is sudden and around the corner on the right. In fact, early on I thought Doig was going to disappoint me with a book that was too inevitable.
The Bartender's Tale, like many of Doig's books, is the first-person narrative of an adult recalling the pivotal time of his childhood--in this case, the summer when Rusty Harry, son of the legendary owner of the Medicine Wheel, the best bar in Montana, or certainly in Gros Ventre, is twelve. The year is 1960 (a year which I am forced, however reluctantly, to admit makes this an historical novel), though 1960 in Gros Ventre, Montana, looks little like 1960 in New York or San Francisco. Or even, as Rusty's new-found 21-year-old half-sister finds, like Reno. The hippie era has not reached Montana.
Rusty and his father have worked out their own way of living from the time Rusty was six, and Tom Harry came and collected him from the aunt who had been raising him (in Phoenix; and the one really hard thing for me was figuring her as Tom's sister. But there might be those who look at my brothers and me and wonder if we are really kin. Lives take different tracks by middle age). But into their peaceful existence come no end of disruptions: a friend for Rusty, a collector of "lost voices" from the Smithsonian, and above all a never-known daughter for Tom.
How it all works out, and Rusty and his father manage to come out sane, alive, and mostly on an even keel, is the result of the quiet brilliance of Doig's plotting. That I can't pass the halfway point without becoming hopelessly hooked and unable to stop reading is the result of his even more brilliant twists of the language.
Del Robertson comes from the Smithsonian to try to capture the language of rural Montana before it is lost. Ivan Doig has done the job for him, smoothly, convincingly, and without apparent effort. I never know when I finish one of his books if I should be inspired to be a better writer, or should quietly pack away my pens, because I can never equal his mastery.
I found The Bartender's Tale excellent reading, but I'm in a dilemma--I didn't think it was quite as good as The Whistling Season. That should mean a lower rating, but I think it still deserves five stars. Call it 4.5, though it might be more reasonable to up WS to 5.5 and leave this its five stars.