I got asked yesterday who I wanted to "be like" as a writer. A non-introspective person might answer that they don't want to be like anyone; that they think their writing is unique among the billions of words written by tens of thousands of writers and authors plying their trade in the world today, let alone the countless writers who have gone before them. I'm a little more open minded in my approach, and seriously consider who my influences are. However, I can't put my finger on the name of a particular author that I would like to use as a template for myself as a writer. Perhaps therein lies one of my failings. Perhaps I need to pick an author and study their work more closely than others to find patterns I like, turns of phrase, stylistic cues... Perhaps I need to establish a style and refine it. Luckily for me, I'm a long way from needing to be so declarative. I'm slowly plugging away at writing a novel, and I'm getting good feedback on ways to improve it from some people who know the craft; people I respect, and who have influenced me with their writing. I'll slog away at the framework of my personal Monster in a Box, then go back and refine it based on what I learned along the way. With luck, it will be readable. With great luck, it will be salable. For now, I am pleased with the idea of finishing it in a form that I'm proud of. After all, we need to set our goals as things we can achieve.
I get this question a lot, at least in the Workshop. The answer is yes, I am. Quite technical, at least professionally. Somewhat so in my personal life, if "technical" means that I break things down into their component parts, examine them, alter things that aren't working, and put them back together. I use this method to approach life problems, everything from how to brush my teeth every night to managing our household budget. I suppose this shows in my writing, which often (though not always) methodically goes from function to function, each step supporting the next, and supported by the last. For me, a story is a series of events lashed together with an overarching theme, hopefully with some sort of payoff at the end. Characters are the mechanisms that move the story from one scene to the next; those that take the steps; those that experience the payoff on behalf of the reader. The feedback I'm getting in the Workshop, at least some of it, indicates that my writing is received as 'flat'; that my descriptions of my characters' motivations lack a brightness, like an entree that needs a squeeze of lemon or a spoonful of capers to offset its salty, fatty nature. I try to find resources, books that I can read that let me savor well-balanced spoonfuls of award-winning delicacies. A decade ago, Abraham Verghesse won critical acclaim for his novel "Cutting for Stone". I've read the first two pages, and found myself exhausted by the descriptions. I start to wonder if I have some defect that disallows me to consume literary greatness. Elsewhere, I have the honor to be among a small group of people proofreading a serialized novel by Daniel Keys Moran. Our little group gets a chapter a few hours before it hits Patreon, and we comb through it for issues. It's good for the author, and it's good for our group. In a small way, we get to participate in his worldbuilding and novel writing. And I'm learning about writing there as well as here. One thing I've learned is that my writing is similar to that of Moran in many ways. This is no surprise to me, as I started reading his novels thirty years ago, and his work has informed mine in a number of ways. I have learned at his knee, as it were, even if I don't consciously care to mimic him. Oh, there are a great number of things about Dan as a person that I aspire to or envy, but he is he and I am I, and that's that. But style is something we learn from the world around us, and adapt it to fit ourselves. It seems as though I've adapted somewhat more from his style than I previously realized. This is not to say that I believe Dan's work has the same imbalance that people find in mine. Or maybe it does, I don't know. What I can say is that I find more similitude between my work and the work of some categories of authors than others. In short, I think I write like a science fiction author rather than a literary one. And maybe that's OK. I don't say all this as an excuse to stop taking feedback or to stop improving my writing. I want desperately to improve, and if that means injecting some unfamiliar phraseology or passages, or using techniques that feel entirely alien to me, then so be it. I will, however, keep an eye on my own style, however I acquired it, and grow it rather than replace it.
I'm a little bit scared. Maybe a lot. For the better part of three years, I've been working on a novel. I had an idea... well, my wife had an idea, and I had the determination to write a story around it (she's the smart one, you see; I get by with perseverance). I wrote, re-wrote, got feedback and encouragement from friends who are actual writers, polished, polished, and polished some more. Finally I contracted some artists to produce a cover and a couple of interior drawings. In short, I've done all the things. Last night, I worked on final formatting, and with the exception of one niggling little formatting issue that no one else will notice and I can live with, the final package is finished. It's ready to publish. Of course, there's more to do. I created a Facebook page, and started making some posts there, but I need to do more with that. And I need to figure out a roll-out campaign, find a handful of people to give free copies to so they can read and provide reviews, and maybe spend some money on advertising. There are checklists for all this and more, and I can follow directions. But I'm scared. I've put a lot into this, and frankly I'm afraid it's not good enough. Oh, I know it's not GOOD WRITING, but I believe it's passable; better than a lot of what's self-published on the Kindle platform. But what if I have a giant blind spot, and the rest of the world thinks differently? What if, in the final analysis, in the court of public opinion, my work has no value? Part of me says that I have to take the leap. I have to take the risk, take the hit, learn from my mistakes, and keep at it. That's what the pros would tell me. It's what they're going to tell me. It's probably what's going to happen. Because (and those of you who really know me will verify this), I'm stubborn. But I'm also scared.
I desperately want to write a witty, pithy, somewhat trite essay about all the nonsense happening in the U.S. with respect to the virus response. Or mourn for the elderly in Italy, a country with a declining population that skews unnaturally toward the aged. Or cheer for the sensibility of the governments of China and South Korea for their rapid and decent response to the situation. Instead, here I sit without a creative thought in my head. Writers block. Do you recommend coffee or whisky?
I'm not a terribly experienced writer. I came to the forum a few years ago as a demonstrably poor writer who wanted to get better. Through the encouragement (and occasional head bashing) I found here, my writing improved. I want to pass that along. I said elsewhere, and I'll say here (in particular because I'm not the first person to say this, but it bears repeating): The sole job of the opening paragraph is to draw readers in; to tell them that they want to read more. It doesn't matter if it's a 500-word short story or the opener for a million-word novel series, if you don't draw them in, you lose them. In most cases, an opening sentence should have action. To have action, you need a character, even if they are implied (e.g. the observer). The action doesn't have to come out of the fevered dreams of Michael Bay, it can be simple, quiet, and closely-held. The key to that action is that it has to be consequential. It has to let the reader know that something is happening; that whatever it is will generate a result. They don't need to know (yet) why it's happening, just that it is. The rest of the paragraph should decompose the consequences of the action. First sentence: this thing happened (or is happening). Second sentence: this is the result of the thing happening. Third sentence (if necessary): this is the effect of the result of the thing happening. Let me provide two (completely made up right now) opening paragraphs. Anyone feel free to run with them and create a story, though I won't be hurt if you don't (honest). Compare that to this: The second paragraph certainly communicates more. It's longer, so it must, right? But does it tell the reader any more about why they want to care about what's happening? Honestly, maybe the first paragraph doesn't, but at least it gets the reader in and out in a few short sentences. Grab 'em, hold 'em, keep 'em.
Some recent feedback on my WIP said that my descriptions of new places didn't sufficiently immerse the reader in that place, so the work seemed a little flat. I asked for examples of what the reader thought were good scene descriptions, and am waiting for a response. In the meantime, I looked to the work of Rosamunde Pilcher, a famously descriptive writer. I'd never read her work, and given the opening paragraph of her famous and popular novel "The Shell Seekers", I'm not sure I'll continue: My editor's eye sees several problems with this passage (SPAG, even), but frankly the worst part is that by the time I got to the end of page two of this work, I was worn out. Do people really like this stuff? Am I missing something by not pressing on?
The calendar tells me it’s my birthday. Truth be told, I’d noticed it was coming, having read the calendar a few days ago, and still retaining enough of my wits to count. Truth be told, I’m probably closer to my death date than the date of my birth, though I’m from long-lived stock and new medical science keep suggesting that I may have more years ahead of me than expected. So which way the bubble tips is in question, though it’s a question I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating. I plan to spend the day with my wife, doing things I want. So far, however, things aren’t exactly working out as the ringing of the telephone dashed any hopes for sleeping in. One cup of coffee and a lox bagel later, I’m headed toward full consciousness. We’ll see how the rest of the day goes.
Now that I've completed Lives in Time: Part One, I need to package it. One element, of course, will be the blurb. I'll take a stab at it here, and feedback is welcome, particularly from people who haven't read any of the work. Marko and Celeste are young and in love, with a long, privileged future before them. But when they find themselves thrown back in time with no resources and no idea how to return, they must use their wits while hiding who they are to survive a medieval world and escape to their own time.
I'm creating the KDP listing for my novel, and am struggling a bit with the description copy. Here's what I have so far. Feedback appreciated (as always).
I went rooting through the basement yesterday, sorting through boxes of junk, most of which needs to be thrown out. But rooting occasionally turns up a truffle, and I found a paper I'd written for a class in college in 1993, "Gender Studies". The assignment was to interview someone, and I chose my grandmother, who my mom had nicknamed "Charlie" (for no explicable reason); a nickname I later picked up. It's my intent to use this essay as a foundation element for a book about my grandparents. I've captured it in Scrivener verbatim from the original (it's poorly organized, partially because of the format for the class, but partially because I was a lesser writer then than I am now), and present it here partially as a declaration of my intent to expand on it and partially as a way to put it somewhere in the digital cloud where it will be preserved. With that, I give you "Charlie". Born in 1918 near Great Falls, Montana, Dorothy Louise Thompson, dubbed “Charlie” by her daughter Elizabeth, has led quite a life. Her second marriage, forty years now and still going strong, has been one of sharing and companionship that doesn’t cling to definite ideas of gender roles. In her interview, she told of growing up in Montana and Saskatchewan as part of a big family, and how what she learned there came to use when she married the second time and suddenly found herself mother to not only her own two, but three more children. “I was born in Aznoe, Montana. It was just a grain elevator, a store, and a post office. And the post office was in the store like in most places out in the country where you had to go miles and miles to pick up your mail… and it’s no longer there. It’s now an extinct town. Improvements in transportation make the whole town obsolete, I suppose. That was back in the horse and buggy days when… well, that’s all that we had to get around in: a horse and buggy. Or a horse and what we they called a buckboard. That’s just a wagon seat and a bed like a pickup. Quite a rough ride, I tell you. “I was born at home. Since I was born in March, 1918 (we had a very severe winter that year), my father had to ride the horse through the snow to where the doctor lived. It was below zero even then. It was a very severe winter. The doctor came to the house. My mother, being a nurse, gave very good directions to the people that were there to help. My grandmother was already in the house, so she had done all the preparations for the delivery before the doctor got there. “We lived out on the farm, the homestead that my parents had gotten. My father was a painter, and he did painting around in Great Falls and the small towns and in the countryside. That’s the way he made his living, paper hanging and painting, all facets of the painting he knew. But he had problems with what they called ‘the painter’s colic’. He was very allergic to some of the paints in enclosed rooms. So he’d get very ill sometimes, with this painter’s colic, and later on they found out that it was from the white lead in the paints back then. They didn’t know about it back then, they just knew that a lot of people got it. So he wanted to get out of the painting business. “Though he didn’t know anything about farming, when they threw open the areas of Montana to homesteading, he and Mom each applied for a homestead. I don’t remember the number of acres that each person could get as a homestead, but it was a small amount. [What do you consider a small amount?] “Well, I don’t really know. I’ve forgotten. Anyway, they had to ‘prove up’ on the ground. That was to build some sort of a building and to live in on the ground and with… oh, it must’ve been eighty acres to a homestead, because one father pieces of ground that they’d ‘proved up’ on was called ‘the eighty’, and mother called her piece of ground “the sun kissed”, because she felt that it’d been kissed by the sun. And she loved it out there. “I was one of five children. We moved to Great Falls when my brother, who was just older than I, was old enough to go to school in the first grade. So we moved off of the homestead when I was between four and five years old. George was really a year older than he should have been [to start school]. He was seven before they moved to town. They were thinking about having him go to a country school, but then thought that it would be best if we moved into Great Falls, which was 32 miles from where I was born. I started into kindergarten when I was five, because that’s how old you were when you first started into kindergarten back in those days. At six, you went into the first grade. “Out on the homestead, even through it was really small, it was difficult. A really difficult time. In order to help the family, to support the family of then four children and my mother and dad, and my grandmother on my father’s side, mother went out to nurse for the little country doctor who had his office and practice in Fort Benton. She graduated from the University of Michigan (she was in the first graduating class of women there).” With her mother working out and about in the rural area, much of the housework had to be tended to by the children. Dorothy, being the second oldest child, had much of the responsibility for the housework loaded onto her, because the oldest, George, was helping tend the farm. “I went to school in Great Falls clear through high school, and graduated in 1936. Also in 1936, my mother’s mother fell and broke her hip. She was in her seventies then, and no other member of the family was able to go and stay with her. So I was sent from Great Falls to Orrville, California to live, to be with my grandmother, and to care for her until the hip healed. There I worked in a cannery, part time. That’s what I did there, along with aiding my grandmother. “After she was better, I went back to Great Falls. When the war broke out in 1941, my brothers had already gone into the service and Boeing was advertising all over the country for workers to work in the war plants. And so my sister [Amelia] and I decided that we’d like to go. That’s how we ended up in Seattle until 1945.” Every little while, Dorothy pauses to thin about what she’s said and try to think of what to say next. Often she apologizes for “this being so dull and boring”. Just when she thinks she’s said everything, though, she remembers something else she left out. “I’d forgotten about the years in Canada. We didn’t live all those years in Great Falls. In 1929, right before the depression hit, because of drought and crop failures and grasshopper infestation (it seemed like it was one thing after another on a farm), [my parents] gave up the homestead entirely and went north. Out in Great Falls, seeing that things were going poorly, my father had laid aside a little nest egg of money because he still had hopes of becoming a farmer and having some land of his own. [The Canadian government] opened up the Matanuska Valley in British Columbia, for homesteading again, and he was going to use the money that he’s saved to go [up there]. When they were in preparation for going, it just happened that some other people moved into [our] neighborhood from Saskatchewan, and they gave such glowing reports of land and crops and so forth up there that Dad and Mom went up to investigate. When they saw the lush wheat fields and oat fields and so forth, they bought 360 acres of ground at the end of the Corduroy Roads. Corduroy Roads went over very soft, swampy ground. [Road builders] laid logs across these swampy areas, and those made it really bumpy. “So we were in Canada for two years, and that was a real experience for us, because we had to go to a different school. That was the first and only place that I went to a one-room schoolhouse. Eight grades, all in one room. And the country people had many activities that were different than what we were used to in Great Falls. We had always gone to city schools. [There were] country dances and get-togethers at the schoolhouse. In the winter, you had to travel by horse drawn sleigh to go there. And they had box socials, where the women would fix up a box and put a meal in it. Then you should share the meal with whichever man bid the highest on the box. That was an activity that the younger people participated in more than the older, married women who had children already. They had potluck where they brought cakes and pies for them and their children.” Skipping ahead now, Dorothy tells about the war years and what she did while she was in Seattle. “I took time out during the war to enlist in the cadet nurse corps. I had worked at Boeing for a year and a half. Then I found the nurse corps for a year, and then went back to Boeing. When I was in the nurse corps, I had to tend to one patient (all of the patients had just one nurse). I was a really small person. Still am. He was bedridden, and weighed well over two hundred pounds. In taking care of him, I hurt my back. And so I decided that it was going to be too strenuous and difficult for me to go on with. I wrote to the shop foreman in my shop at Boeing, and asked for my position back. He said that I should come on out, and of course I could have my job back.” She met a sailor, her first love, during the war. Right after thew war was over, they got married and started a family. It was short-lived, though. “I got married the first time in 1944, I think. Let me see… Jimmy [their son] was born in 1946, and Liz [their daughter] in 1948, so I was married in 1945. Yes, that’s it. It wasn’t much of a marriage, though, except for the two kids. My husband was drowned in 1950.” After getting out of the service, her husband had taken up commercial fishing as an occupation, along with her oldest brother George. A boating accident in 1950 left her with one less brother, no husband, and two small children on her hands. With the help of...
A few weeks ago I was beebling around the site and found a flash fiction contest. The prompt was "Cheese in a Can" and the word limit was 500. The voting just ended, and the winner, who wasn't me, was announced. The story that won came in two words less than mine, and received five votes. If I hadn't been busy voting for myself (is that cheesy?), I would have voted for it too, as it was a good one. Poignant, even. At any rate, if you're interested to see what I did, it's here: https://www.writingforums.org/threads/flash-fiction-contest-63-theme-cheese-in-a-can.160808/#post-1743427 Not too bad, I think, for fifteen minutes of work. One person besides me voted for it, so that's something. I'll keep my eye on other contests. This was fun.
My wife wanted to read the entirety of what I've written so far on my novel, so I compiled the text into a Word document (the Scrivener trial, by the way, is going well) and opened it in Word to see how it looked. I'm right at 100 pages. I'm not sure how that relates to paperback novel pages, but it's a point of reference. The word count is at 44K, by far the longest thing I've ever written. I scrolled through the document to see how the formatting came out, and noticed that Word was calling out grammar errors. Most of them I can ignore, as the software doesn't understand dialogue (usually) or sentence styling. It does, however, understand commas (usually), and it found a lot of sentences that read like this: Alberti seemed to accept this explanation, and said no more about the subject. Word suggests I remove the comma, and after doing so, the sentence reads better. Unfortunately, Scrivener doesn't have such functionality. I'll go through the text in Scrivener with Word in a separate window and fix the issues. I'm thankful for the 28" monitor I splurged on last year.
I use Scrivener to write, and occasionally compile to Kindle format to see how the final product might look. Recently I did a compile to send to a beta reader, and, having used a more critical eye than in the previous compiles, noticed that the work didn't have a cover image. Feeling sparky, I fired up GIMP, did a search for an appropriate photo, applied some filters, added some text, and came up with this. It's a first draft. Thoughts? View attachment 23027
A few more tweaks and here's the final (still with creator watermarks). I'm so excited. Yes, it's not perfect. But for the money, it's amazing (to me). View attachment 23067
I am once again feeling inspired. Over the winter, I steeled myself to make a few revisions to my WIP, and have polished it (Mythbusters proved this was possible) to the point that I'm confident that it's ready for production. I wouldn't mind one or two more beta readers, particularly if they were women, because I want to be sure that I have Celeste's perspective well-written. As I crested the hill that overlooked the valley of publication, I began to think once again about cover art. I've been following a couple of cover art groups on FB, and engaged one of the companies for an eBook cover and a social media banner to match. The company is MiblArt, and I was very impressed with the process and the results. In short, for a US$149* basic fee (plus $39 for the social media banner), they did a cover from an assembled collection of stock art (a fully illustrated cover is available for more money, but I didn't want to, nor it seems need to, spend that kind of dough). I filled out a form that gave a basic description of the novel, some significant visual elements, and provided a list of covers that I liked the look of and why (I referenced their gallery for their convenience, as it's an excellent gallery with a broad representation of cover styles). Two days later -- yes, only two days -- they replied with an email and a sample cover image. I was gobsmacked. It wasn't perfect, but very close. I replied with a few revision requests, the designer asked a few more clarifying questions, which I answered, and three days after that, I have a cover image that I'm very pleased with. Their basic agreement is that "unlimited revisions" are available, but I see no need to keep asking for tiny tweaks to an otherwise excellent cover. I could obsess over details until I was blind, but what they've provided is so much closer to the content of the story than many professionally-published novels I've read that it's immeasurable. So, without further ado, here's the art as it stands (scaled to fit in the file size limits). Mind you, to date, they haven't charged me a dime. There's a watermark on the image, which will come off after payment, but it's faint enough that it doesn't impede my ability to review the quality of the work, which again is high. Feedback is welcome. View attachment 23066 * MiblArt tells me that, as a customer, other customers referred who mention me get a 15% discount.