Devon Trevarrow Flaherty's Blog, page 65

I rarely write a blog telling you to go read a different article. But I noticed this article was full of things that I would tell you, anyways. So here it is: “How Not to Write a Novel” by James Scott Bell on Writer’s Digest online. I don’t remember how I came across this 2012 article the other day, but I thought I should share. WARNING: Keep reminding yourself that this is written in the negative (“How Not to Write a Novel), so sort of like sarcasm.

Click HERE to view.

And if you don’t want to leave me at The Starving Artist (thanks), here is a summary, in the affirmative. So, “How to Write a Novel”:

Don’t wait around for inspiration. Establish a writing quota and stop lingering over yesterday’s work.
Keep looking ahead and keep writing. Try these exercises: Write for five minutes each morning without stopping; write a page-long sentence describing something; when stuck, make a list without filtering.
Learn and practice the craft. Respect the craft.
Don’t take rejection personally. Let it hurt, then get back to writing. Or learn from it.
Write from your heart and passion, not the market.* Concentrate on the feeling of the story and read widely.
Spend the time it takes to get it right. Use test readers and hire an editor.
Keep going.

*I agree with this point, to a point. I think the article alludes to the flip-side of this, which is that you want to be market conscious. I think many aspiring novelists write artistic rubbish that no one is going to want to read because it is so personal and/or niche and/or angry and/or clueless. It helps to have a general idea what people in your genre like to read, for length, style of language, pace, type of character, vocabulary, etc. I would say that you could wait to tackle these issues until you’ve worked out all your demons on a first draft, but mightn’t it be a little less painless to know ahead of time that you don’t want any sex scenes or language in a particular book? Of course, you also want to use your own voice and push the envelope. That’s what the new world of indie publishing is all about, right? We don’t have to limit ourselves to the old rules of publication, like never writing about college students or always putting “and” in a list of things. But conventions are there, and what you want to make darn sure of is that your audience will understand you, that they will have a reference point. And you sorta want them to enjoy it, too. There are, indeed, two people involved in the process of “book,” you and the reader.

And on that topic, here is my favorite quote from the article:

“There’s a saying in publishing that the moment you spot a trend, it’s too late to join it. By the time you finish writing something you think will be popular because it’s popular now, that ship will have largely sailed.”

 

What does one make of this? I broke my most-new-followers-in-a-day record by fifty per cent, on the day when I wrote a sorta lame New Years post after being out sick two weeks and out sick two weeks, two weeks before that.

I have long preached regularity as a key to success, on my blog. I have made a commitment to consistency in various areas of my writing and publishing. For example, I work regular hours on weekdays, I maintain various websites and social media pages, I keep a ledger and a work calendar, I blog twice every week (and managed not to miss a single week in 2014 until I was super sick at the end). It’s supposed to be solid advice. And judging by all the started-and-never-finished projects of most onliners, I would say it makes intuitive sense.

So what could be the explanation? What are the possibilities?

It’s a fluke. Ninety-nine times out of ten, being consistent and regular will bring success. The other one per cent is just a happy accident. Like in all fields, there are exceptions to the rule, but if you want to set yourself up for success, the rules are the best place to start.
The advice is wrong, wrong, wrong. I have been wasting my time. I should have been flashing in and out of the blog and popping up wherever I darn well pleased on the internet and off, because success in this business is always a happy accident, a crap shoot, a random discovery.
The numbers are skewed. Since I have more followers than I did a year ago–and get more followers every week–I am bound to break all my records, eventually. And since growth tends to be closer to exponential than additional, I am bound to break all my records at an increasing rate.
Reactions are time-delayed. All those twice-a-week blogs for more than forty weeks were still rippling out by the time I was comatose on the couch. As for my lapse in energy, it too will ripple outward and, eventually, lay waste to much of the work I have toiled to build up.
The world allows for bad days. Don’t make me laugh! Alright, then, the world is sort of forced to allow for bad days. In other words, the system, and most systems, are forgiving to a point. As along as I mostly keep consistently posting blogs about twice a week, one flu or family emergency (once in awhile) is not going to shatter everything. But in order to get to that forgiving point, I have to put in a lot of consistent work to earn my PTO.
I just don’t understand SEO and the intricacies of the internet. Or publicity, at all. Turns out, writing about “New Years” on New Years day brings a whole lot more people than tagging “self-publishing” every other day of the year.

To be honest, I think every single one of these possibilities is true. Maybe some more than others. And probably the last one, most of all. The point is, the advice to keep your work consistent so that people learn to depend on you and even take you for granted does create an infrastructure that your authorial career can stand on and be presented as utterly professional. However, luck in art is oftentimes just that: luck. But great and supported art is more likely to stumble upon this elusive luck. Keep your goals reasonable. Know that online stats can be misleading, that results take time, and that yes–if you work hard and produce quality work–you can get the flu and your world will not fall apart. Not usually.

And on the last point, sure, I am not an SEO expert. In fact, I’m probably not even using that term correctly. If I was some sort of hot shot, I would pay someone to tag my sites and all that jazz. But if I was a hot shot, people would mostly find me, not the other way ’round. Tagging is an ever-changing business–or art–so I prefer to tag as much as possible, using my little brain to imagine what people are searching. And I don’t like lying, either. If the post isn’t about Kim Kardashian (and it never is), then I won’t tag it that way. Call me old fashioned.

For me, I plan on blogging twice a week till kingdom come, building an ever larger, specialized, and quality blogsite in preparation of the great deluge of fans some one or fifteen years from now. I foresee more followers by next Christmas, and growth all year that will take me over the 1000 mark in not much time from now. I will accept that absence may put a little bump or blip on my screen, but I am not perfect and I will work only as hard as I can. Which is pretty darn hard.

Shirley, by Charlotte Bronte. Published first in 1849 under the name Currer Bell, I picked up the 2006 version by Penguin Classics and later realized it was yellowed on the shelf for a reason: it is no longer in print. Not that my version is special, it’s just not available in its exact version. I couldn’t even find a photo for you.

I read this book as part of a rabbit trail begun at Jane Eyre. After this, I will still be reading and reviewing Charlotte’s Villette and The Professor, Anne’s Agnes Grey, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Gaskell. Really hoping this last book will cover much of the whole family that intrigues me so, but either way, it looks to be a promising biography.

Shirley is such a nice surprise, because most of us have never heard of it. It’s not Emma or Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but all arts and genres must have their hidden gems. Only so few of even the most wonderful writing (or other arts) get the publicity (and even the longevity) that make up the “tomes” or the “common household names.” I was also a little surprised, because even when I have found a book that I love, I have rarely followed the author to other equally lovable books (with the exception of Amy Tan and a few others). With Charlotte Bronte, so far, so good. Jane Eyre is not a favorite of mine, but it is quite good. Shirley is, in my opinion, at least as enjoyable, maybe even more so. I would think, at the least, that all those Victorian romance fans would want to try this out.

It has it’s flaws, not least of which is the Victorian longwindedness. I also found the obvious rabbit trails with minor characters who Bronte modeled after real people, most distracting and weakening. It took quite a time to warm up, too, and the story lacks some of the complexity of other books of its time. But I did enjoy the more playful tone, the characters (although the men could have been drawn out better), and the general plot (except for mere circumstance concluding our story). I strongly recommend that you don’t read about the story ahead of time. In the first sentence of the back copy I read, it revealed the main plot twist to me, which happens at something like two-thirds of the way in. I enjoy being talked to across the centuries by Charlotte Bronte, even if the main points are a bit obvious (to us now. Perhaps they weren’t, then). It is possible this whole book was just a way to hide the boring pill of social exposition. In that case, still fun.

But why name it Shirley? The book is more about Caroline than Shirley, and the love-square is–obviously–four-sided. It might have been a way to draw attention to the masculine qualities and strengths of one of the main characters. I understand that Shirley was exclusively a man’s name, at the time. However, there’s nothing farcical about the way the more feminine, domestic, reclusive Caroline is portrayed. In fact, she’s also bursting (but restrained) with her own “modern” ideas and plans. Furthermore, the book begins on a complete tangent, which–several chapters in–it abandons for happier characters. Shirley doesn’t enter until much later.

You have to compare Shirley with Jane Eyre, of course. But in many aspects, the two are so dissimilar they could have been written by different people. Except for the women in society thing, the stifled feminine strength bit, most things are both obviously and subtly different. To begin with, Eyre is famously first person, with a very close and intimate storytelling voice. Shirley is not only third person, but has a strong omniscient narration and bits and pieces of being lifted from the story for insight or comment. Eyre, too, is also a pretty dark book, both in tone and content. Even though Shirley is about feminist and industrial struggles, it is exceedingly lighter. It would make a fine Ang Lee film, if only a few more complications arose.

Over all, the book dragged on a little and lingered often off the point, but that’s normal for the time period. It is an enjoyable read, especially as the reader progresses. I wouldn’t hand it to a fan of science fiction as an introduction into Victorian classics, but for those weathered in the genre, there is absolutely no reason you shouldn’t run out and grab a copy, immediately.

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There are no film adaptations of this movie. Correction: there was one done nearly one hundred years ago in silent film, but I don’t fancy trying to find that. BBC did a radio series as recently as last year.

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“He could walk miles on the most varying April day, and never see the beautiful dallying of earth and heaven; never mark when a sunbeam kissed the hill-tops, making them smile clear in the green light, or when a shower wept over them, hiding their crests with the low-hanging, disheveled tresses of a cloud” (p19).

“So the unemployed underwent their destiny–ate the bread and drank the waters of affliction. Misery generates hate” (p30).

“It seems to me, reader, that you cannot always cut out men to fit their profession, and that you ought not to curse them because that profession sometimes hangs on them ungracefully” (p36).

“He said public patience was a camel, on whose back the last atom that could be borne had already been laid…” (52).

“Your heart is a lyre, Robert; but the lot of your life has not been a minstrel to sweep it” (p87).

“If her admirers only told her that she was an angel, she would let them treat her like an idiot” (p113).

“It is the boast of some of them that they can keep a stone in their pocket seven years, turn it at the end of that time, keep it seven years longer, and hurl it, and hit their mark at last” (p119).

“‘Enough is as good as a feast, is it not, Mr. Sykes?” (p127).

“Invention may be all right, but I know it isn’t right for poor folks to starve” (p133).

“For the sigh of the south wind, came the sob of the mournful east” (p168).

“Every path trod by human feet terminates in one bourne–the grave: the little chink in the surface of this great globe–the furrow where the mighty husbandman with the scythe deposits the seed he has shaken from the ripe stem; and there it falls, decays, and thence it springs again, when the world has rolled round a few times more” (p169).

“Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always respectable” (p176).

“He is simply a man who is rather liberal than good-natured, rather brilliant than genial, rather scrupulously equitable that truly just–if you can understand such superfine distinctions” (p203).

“I tell you when they are good, they are the lords of creation,–they are the sons of God” (p206).

“The man would be half a poet, if he were not wholly a maniac; and perhaps a prophet, if he were not a profligate” (p225).

“…a herd of whales rushing through the livid and liquid thunder down from the frozen zone” (p232).

“Lina, you will haunt me” (p241).

“Men, I believe, fancy women’s minds something like those of children. Now, that is a mistake” (p333).

“‘Cool! Must I listen cooly to downright nonsense–to dangerous nonsense?” (p348).

“Oh, child! you have only lived the pleasant morning time of life: the hot, weary noon, the sad evening, the sunless night, are yet to come for you!” (p359).

“God surely did not create us, and cause us to live, with the sole end of wishing always to die. I believe, in my heart, we were intended to prize life and enjoy it, so long as we retain it” (p369).

“Of course, I should often be influenced by my feelings: they were given me to that end” (p380).

“…as her ideas returned slowly, each folding its weak wings on the mind’s sad shore, like birds exhausted” (p397).

“Oh, child! the human heart can suffer. It can hold more tears than the ocean holds waters” (p406).

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, but, once let slip, never returns again” (p445).

“I approve nothing Utopian. Look Life in its iron face” (p462).

“Robert! this is a queer world, and men are made of the queerest dregs that Chaos churned up in her ferment” (p507).

“As to your small maxims, your narrow rules, your little prejudices, aversions, dogmas, bundle them off: Mr. Sympson–go, offer them a sacrifice to the deity you worship; I’ll none of them” (p521).

“He did not yet know how many commenced life-romances are doomed never to get beyond the first–or, at most, the second chapter” (p551).

 

Man, was I sick!

I know I thought I was sick enough in November to warrant a week off work, but that was nothing compared with this flu that’s raging through the states. And out of the four of us–yes, all four of us had it–I was the worst, followed by the wee one. I never actually got to hallucinating (like poor Eamon), but I managed some gibberish one morning during my five-day-fever-of-103-not-moving-from-the-couch-run when I had been up all night with terrible chills that racked my body with shaking. Just before Eamon woke with a bloody nose, then broke a mercury-filled thermometer. Wow. So please excuse me, again, for my absence. I am feeling like 95% better, and the holidays have been celebrated and set aside for next year.

Speaking of holidays, let’s go with a little year of 2014 retrospect coupled with some 2015 looking forward.

2014 was another one of those gone-by-in-a-blink years, which happen with increasing alarm each year I age (which, by the way, is every year). As far as writing and publishing go, I thought that 2014 would see at least two publications out of Owl and Zebra Press, but instead has weighed in at a big fat zero. To be fair to myself, I probably would have slid one in under the wire; I was all set to publish The Night of One Hundred Thieves in December, until I got sick and then sick again. I did launch a Wattpad book which is on section seven or so, back in the fall. I came up with a handful of great new ideas which are now filed with notes. I kept up with my writing group and with my once a month reading at the dessert shop. I blogged every single week until the end-of-year illnesses. I “won” Camp NaNoWriMo in April. And I ended up working on three, not two, novels most of the year. Starting in October or so, I vowed to go it one at a time, so really one of them is just about there. Still, you hate to have that blank year, publication-wise.

I have some thoughts and resolutions for 2015, and some of them are work related, which is where they pertain to you and this blog. Obviously, I resolve to publish at least two novels this year. Three would be better. And continue with the Wattpad book with one section every one-two weeks (although I expect it to wrap up no earlier than 2016). I also resolve to start work on at least one nonfiction book for Owl and Zebra and one MIddle Grades series. I resolve to blog once-twice every single week of the year, on topic with writing, publishing, or reading. And I resolve to read forty books by December 31, 2015. I also resolve to do a better job at book-keeping this coming year, and be more productive during my work hours.

Now for the best books I read in 2014. Let’s be clear: I actually did not rate a single book this year as five stars, except part of the Clarice Bean series. The Great Gatsby was close. But I did read plenty of four-star books, which means that I do recommend them, even if they aren’t destined to become an all-time favorite for me. Also note: even though my GoodReads badge refuses to admit it (you can’t count re-reads), I hit my goal of forty books this year. I actually read forty-one.

Recommended Literature and Classics, and one Fantasy:

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald
Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
A Man Could Stand Up, Ford Maddox Ford (but as for the rest of the series, you will be more entertained watching the BBC series)
Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card (and you can stop right there, before any of the rest of the Enderverse. If you insist on continuing, only read Speaker for the Dead)
Jane Eyre and Shirley, Charlotte Bronte (I am still in the midst of reading her other two novels and a biography, as well as the other Bronte works)

Writing and Publishing:

Secrets of Ebook Publishing Success, Mark Coker

Children, Middle Grades, and YA:

The Clarice Bean trilogy, Lauren Child
The Harry Potter series, J. K. Rowling
My Teacher Is An Alien, Bruce Coville
Tales From the Hood, Michael Buckley and The Magical Fruit, Jo Nesbo (They both got four stars, but the rest of their series came in at three or even worse. However, they wouldn’t really make a whole lotta sense without the rest of their series, so…)

So Happy New Year to you! I am fond of this holiday, and of taking a day to reflect on the past year, celebrate the present, as well as look forward to the year. You never know just what you are going to be dealt, but it’s nice to have ideas and hopes for the fresh page. My personal goals include a drawing a day (with 642 Things to Draw), morning prayer, more thankfulness, etc. And I had a great New Years Eve, playing Mouse Trap, watching Earth to Echo, and eating pizza rolls and sparkling cider with my kids and Kevin. Hope you had a good New Years too, and here’s to a productive and successful year for Devon Trevarrow Flaherty, Owl and Zebra Press, The Night of One Hundred Thieves, The Touch, The Journey of Clement Fancywater, and The Family Elephant’s Jewels.

Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys. Available from Norton, and first published in 1966.

I read Wide Sargasso Sea, not just because it is considered a great book, but because I read Jane Eyre earlier this year and am currently reading through all the Bronte sisters’ writing. If you are not familiar with Wide Sargasso Sea, you might be wondering what a 1960s novel has to do with the Bronte sisters. It is, well… we might identify it these days as fan fiction. Of course, in the 60s, we didn’t quite have the proliferation of fan fiction that we have nowadays, but I like the idea that Rhys’s novel was taken seriously, because good–or even great–things can come from expanding on someone else’s ideas. I am not at all opposed to the idea of fan fiction, as long as privacy and property is not abused and ideas are held with respect. I mean, ideas have been shared and expanded on since the very earliest days of story.

Wide Sargasso Sea is the back-story of Antoinette (Bertha) Cosway, the crazy lady in the attic of Jane Eyre‘s Thornfield Hall. Ostensibly, it also gives some depth to Rochester and his secret past. The slim book covers from Antoinette’s traumatic childhood, through her marriage to the wealthy second son, Rochester, to their fated honeymoon deep in the wilderness of the Caribbean. It ends, briefly, in England, leading up to Antoinette’s death. It is an exploration of a developing insanity, trauma and disappointment, and the Colonial Caribbean’s people and fractured society.

I can agree with the back cover that Rhys sure can paint a setting, and her novel is an interesting and formidable “Jamaican Gothic.” What I’m not so sure about is its designation as a novel. A novel is defined by Doctionary.com as “a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes.” Fiction? Check. Sequential organization? Ehn. Complexity? Not really. Action? No.

I suppose what it comes down to is a lack of plot. I’m sure there are other examples of this type of writing, but what it reminds me of are those movies that take place in a single hotel room with only three characters. And, well, it might he hard to explain, but sometimes–when there was actually something going on–I wasn’t even sure what was going on. (More on that in a minute.) There is also little, if any, story arc. The few characters seem to just wander around in a haze of approximate time.

I’m actually quite a good reader. One of my strong points is picking up on subtleties. This book was so subtle, and unfortunately, I don’t mean that in a good way. Half the time, I wasn’t completely sure of what was happening. Heck, there were many times I didn’t even know which character was narrating. When I read, I like my perception of space and action to be crystal clear. (That doesn’t exclude a good mystery.) I hate it when I feel foggy, like my senses are dampened. That’s exactly how I felt the whole time I was reading this book: like I was in the fog, stifled, sleepy. Who is she talking about? Did that just happen? Is he really like that, or is it just the crazy talking? I’m sure some people are going to call it an atmospheric novel, like we are experiencing Bertha’s craziness in a very real place. but I don’t think I buy it.

It would be interesting to read some of her other books to see if she is capable of more clarity and this book was truly meant to be this way.

Of course, I am also annoyed by the portrayal of Rochester. Yes, we have only beforehand seen him through the eyes of his adoring Jane Eyre, but I didn’t feel like Rhys’s Rochester and Bronte’s Rochester were reconcilable. I didn’t recognize any of the same attributes between them. And many details of his first marriage and the Cosway family were changed to better fit Rhys’s feminist perspective.

And lastly, I didn’t find this book to be about “skewed… sexual relations.” It is, on some level, about sex (although some of it seems a bit forced). Actually, I take that back. It might be about skewed sexual relations, but it was so subtle that I missed it. I didn’t really get a sense of sexual strictures, or where they might be coming from. Maybe I’m just blinded by all the eerie trees and the glare of candlelight.

All in all, it was interesting. I think I agree with the critics who say you should read this book as completely separate from Jane Eyre. On its own, it’s much more interesting (and accurate). Also, if anyone ever tells you it’s a prequel to Eyre, they are sadly misled. A character exploration, maybe. But it is not a book either Bronte would write or is inevitable from the classic. But I’m not going to recommend it, unless you just really feel that post-modern Caribbean gothic is for you. And you don’t miss a plot. Or clarity. Three stars.

Continuing the list of “best books,” with a pretty long list of best travel writing. (Man! I love travel!) Note, once again, that I have not read all these. They are books I would like to read, and the list is compiled from a number of other best books lists. Some of these are fiction, but the majority are travelogues (both old and new). Area covered in parenthesis. (I apologize for repeats and misspellings. I made this list in two sittings.)



The Travels of Ibn Battuta, Ibn Battuta (Islamic world)
The Innocents Abroad, Mark Twain (Europe and Holy Land)
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, Rebecca West (Balkans, Yugoslavia)
Venice, Jan Morris (Venice)
A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor (Europe, Holland to Constantinople)
Danube, Claudio Magris (Europe, Danube River)
China Along the Yellow River, Cao Jinqing (China, Yellow River)
The Rings of Saturn, W. G. Sebald (Suffolk)
Passage to Juneau, Jonathan Raban (Seattle to Juneau)
Letters to a Young Novelist, Mario Vargas Llosa (international)
On the Road, Jack Kerouac (USA)
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, Laurie Lee (Gloucestershire to London)
Naples ’44, Norman Lewis (Naples)
Coasting, Jonathan Raban (sea, Great Britain)
Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck (USA)
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson (Great Britain)
Homage to Catalonia, George Orwell (Spanish Civil War)
The Beach, Alex Garland (Thailand)
The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux (Asia, Europe, Middle East, India, Trans-Siberian Railway)
The Road to Oxiana, Robert Byron (Middle East, Venice to Pakistan)
Venice, Jan Morris (Venice)
In Patagonia, Bruce Chatwin (Patagonia)
The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway (Paris to Pamplona)
Wild Coast, John Gimlette (South America)
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby (Afghanistan)
Arabian Sands, Wilfred Kesiger (Arabian Peninsula)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson (Las Vegas)
Our Man in Havana, Graham Greene (Cuba)
The Journals of Captain Cook (sea, Pacific Ocean)
Among the Russians, Colin Thubron (Russia)
An Area of Darkness, V. S. Naipaul (India)
As They Were, M. F. K. Fisher (California to south of France)
The Emporer, Ryszard Kapuscinski (Ethiopia)
Letters from Egypt, Florence Nightengale (Egypt)
Great Plains, Ian Frazier (Great Plains, USA)
The Lycian Shore, Freya Stark (Turkey)
The Muses Are Heard, Truman Capote (Russia)
Their Heads Are Green and Their Hands Are Blue, Paul Bowles (Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic world)
Travels with Myself and Another, Martha Gellhorn (military conflicts, 20th century)
The Cruise of the Northern Light, John Borden (Alaskan and Siberian Arctic)
Sea and Sardinia, D. H. Lawrence (Sicily)
Venice, Jan Morris (Venice, Italy)
A Time of Gifts, Patrick Leigh Fermor (Constantinople, Turkey)
The Way of the World, Nicholas Bouvier (Yugoslavia to India)
An African in Greenland, Tete-Michel Kpomassie (Greenland)
West with the Night, Beryl Markham (Kenya)
China As I See It, Pearl S. Buck (China)
In an Antique Land, Amitav Ghosh (Egypt)
Original Letters from India, Eliza Fay (India)
Tracks, Robyn Davidson (Australia)
Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (Mt. Everest)
The Lost City of Z, David Grann (The Amazon)
A Field Guide to Getting Lost, Rebecca Solnit (America)
A Dragon Apparent, Norman Lewis (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam)
A House in Bali, Colin McPhee (Bali)
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway (Paris, France)
A Turn in the South, V. S. Naipaul (The South, USA)
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson (Appalachian Trail, USA)
A Winter in Arabia, Freya Stark (Yemen)
Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez (Arctic)
The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton (anywhere)
Baghdad Without a Map, Tony Horwitz (Middle East)
Balkan Ghosts, Robert D. Kaplan (The Balkans)
Beyond Euphrates, Freya Stark (Iraq, Persia)
The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, Eric Hansen (world)
Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, Lawrence Durrell (Cyprus)
Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin (America)
Blue Highways, William Least Heat-Moon (America)
Brazilian Adventure, Peter Fleming (Brazil)
Chasing the Sea, Tom Bissell (Central Asia)
City of Djinns, William Dalrymple (Dehli, India)
Coasting, Jonathan Raban (sea, England)
Coming Into the Country, John McPhee (Alaska)
Dark Star Safari, Pail Theroux (Africa, Cairo to Capetown)
Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey (Southwest, USA)
Down the Nile, Rosemary Mahoney (Africa, the Nile)
Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (Italy, India, Indonesia)
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe (1960s USA)
Endurance, Alfred Lansing (Antarctic seas)
Facing the Congo, Jeffrey Tayler (The Congo)
The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (Belgian Congo)
Four Corners, Kira Salak (Papua New Guinea)
Full Circle, Michael Palin (Pacific Ocean lands)
Full Tilt, Dervla Murphy (Ireland to India)
Golden Earth, Normal Lewis (Burma/Myanmar)
Holidays in Hell, P. J. O’Rourke (world)
Hunting Mister Heartbreak, Jonathan Raban (America)
In a Sunburned Country, Bill Bryson (Australia)
In Siberia, Colin Thubron (Siberia)
In Trouble Again, Redmond O’Hanlon (Orinoco to the Amazon)
Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer (Alaska)
Iron and Silk, Mark Salzman (China)
Kon-Tiki, Thor Heyerdahl (The Pacific Ocean)
The Lady and the Monk, Pico Iyer (Kyoto, Japan)
Life on the Mississippi, Mark Twain (Mississippi River, USA)
The Log from the Sea of Cortez, John Steinbeck (Gulf of California)
The Long Walk, Slavomir Rawicz (The Soviet Union)
The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson (America)
Maximum City, Suketu Mehta (Bombay)
The Motorcycle Diaries, Ernesto “Che” Guevara (South America)
No Mercy, Redmond O’Hanlon (The Congo)
Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson (England)
Nothing to Declare, Mary Morris (Latin America)
Old Glory, Jonathan Raban (The Mississippi River, USA)
The Old Patagonian Express, Paul Theroux (Patagonia)
Out of Africa, Isak Dinesen (Kenya)
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard (Virginia, USA)
The Pillars of Hercules, Paul Theroux (Mediterranean)
The Places In Between, Rory Stewart (Afghanistan)
Riding to the Tigris, Freya Stark (Turkey)
The Rings of Saturn, W. G. Sebald (East Anglia, England)
The River at the Center of the World, Simon Winchester (China)
River Town, Peter Hessler (China)
Road Fever, Tim Cahill (South America to Alaska)
The Road to Oxiana, Robert Byron (Middle East)
Mousetrapped, Catherine Ryan Howard (Orland, Florida)
Roughing It, Mark Twain (Wild West, America)
Seven Years in Tibet, Heinrich Harrer (Tibet)
The Sex Lives of Cannibals, J. Maarten Troost (Equatorial Pacific)
The Size of the World, Jeff Greenwald (world)
Slowly Down the Ganges, Eric Newby (India)
The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen (The Himalayas)
The Soccer War, Ryszard Kapuscinski (war in late 20th century)
The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin (Outback Australia)
Terra Incognita, Sara Wheeler (Roman Empire)
Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson (Islamic World)
Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck (America)
Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, Jan Morris (Italy)
Two Towns in Provence, M. F. K. Fisher (Provence, France)
Video Night in Kathmandu, Pico Iyer (Far East)
When the Going Was Good, Evelyn Waugh (world)
The Worlds of Venice, Jan Morris (Venice)
The Worst Journey in the World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard (Antarctica)
Wrong About Japan, Peter Carey (Japan)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig (American Northwest)

And last and very likely least, I want to point a finger to my own travel-writing site, The Wandering Gumshoe. Believe it or not, I have no intentions of ever making this site a book, but I do have visions of expanding the site to include all the humanitarian trips I have taken and will take. That’s why there are links that currently go nowhere. Sorry. Just check out Moldova and India.

 

When I was just a wee writer, having “published” my first book in elementary school with rubber cement and wrapping paper, I kept a box of “Write On!” next to my typewriter. A brief search on the internet reveals that you can’t buy Write On! anymore. At any rate, Write On! was a heavily shellacked, yellow and black box of heavy flash cards. Each card inside had a goofy line-drawing illustration and the first few sentences of a potential story. From those few sentences, you could go anywhere, write anything.

Long after I had grown out of the goofiness of the “Write On!” box, I decided to make my own. (This was back before the ubiquity of online shopping.) I bought a file card box and a few packs of index cards and started filling them with magazine cutouts, random sentences, questions… I even filed some photos in between the cards. If I get stuck for writing, I can just pull out the old box and see where it takes me.

I have also dreamed for a long time about having a flash fiction night for writers. Okay, so it can’t be called flash fiction anymore, because we all know that means short short… Maybe we could call it On-spot writing or something (like something much better). Turns out, this night is now in existence in Chapel Hill and is run by another local author. Everyone shows up, the head writer gives a prompt, and everyone writes for like fifteen or twenty minutes. Then, if you’re brave, you read. It’s just how I had always imagined it, except I wanted an applause-o-meter and a prize for the best on-the-spot writing.

All that to say, prompts are cool. They can take you somewhere you had no idea you could head, and they can do that when you feel like your brain in already fried, or just plain empty. We all have those days. And even if you don’t, we could all do with a little mental stretching. It’s like Luminosity for writers. So here are some great writing prompt ideas for you, just in case you need it:

Books:

642 Things to Write journal (and 712 More Things to Write and 642 Things to Write Young Writer’s Edition). In just a word or phrase, this journal prompts you and gives you the (small) space to write it. Prompts vary widely.
The Amazing Story Generator, Jay Sacher. A flip-book in three sections: situation, character, and event. Combine options at random to get your prompt.
Rip the Page!, Karen Benke. Including ideas, experiments, and inspiration, this book meant for middle grades has been popular even with adults. Most like an activity book.
1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts, Ryan Andrew Kinder. A very highly recommended book of prompts that cover a wide breadth.
1,000 Creative Writing Prompts, Volume 2. Highly introspective and sometimes philosophical, these prompts are perhaps more apt for bloggers than story writers.
Write Starts , Hal Zina Bennett. More than just prompts, this book promises encouragement and other types of writing exercises.

Online/Websites:

Writer’s Digest Creative Writing Prompts. Basically, it’s a blog kept by Brain A. Klems, listing writing prompts. Effectively, it a list of prompts, for you.
Teacher’s Corner Daily Writing Prompts. Listed by month, a writing prompt for every school day of the year. Definitely more juvenile, but if you write about history, this might be a good one for you.
Poets & Writers Prompts. Smaller lists fall into three categories: Nonfiction, fiction, and poetry.
The Prompt Machine. The site randomly generates a number of scenarios for you based on the equation Character + Desire + Conflict = Story. Sort of fascinating.
The Writer Writing Prompts. I liked this list because it wasn’t just story starters, but included actual thinking, life experiences, and activities.

Of course, there are always these tried and true ideas:

Go for a walk. In the city or in the woods or along the beach. Let your mind wander.
People watch. Let your mind fill in the gaps in people’s lives and personalities. Just don’t attack anyone.
Take a shower or go for a drive (but not at the same time). These are two of my personal creative spaces.
Get together with a friend or three. Let the conversation flow. Explain to them whey you are jotting notes.
Watch a movie. I would prefer one with great ratings, but even a bad movie can generate ideas. Don’t fall asleep.
Read! Read widely and read often. Read cereal boxes and read classic novels. Read what moves you.
Look through magazines and old photos. Pay attention to details and images, not just the obvious.
Talk to kids. You can even tell them why. What story ideas do they have? What did they do on recess today?
Join a club or get a job. A different one. Customer service is a great way to want to write about something, even if just for revenge.
Do something you’ve never done before. Take up kayaking, or knitting, or join Durham’s Pop Up Chorus.
Relax. Do yoga. Take a nap. Feed yourself and slap on some chapstick. Just don’t do it all the time.
Uh, journal. For getting that going, see the blog HERE, where I recommend some great (and inspiring) journals.

And always do these things with a pad of paper and a pen (or a recording device)!

Lastly, here’s a few of my own making, to go on with:

Write a flash fiction story in a genre you have never written in before: fantasy, horror, romance, YA…
Grab your most recent antagonist and plop them in a place and time they don’t belong. What happens?


Make your childhood self a child superhero (or teen). What would be the coolest superhero power? Make sure to keep yourself in your familiar childhood world.

 

Sorry folks, I have been off sick. Pretty sure a fever (how appropriate!) north of 103 gets you off work, even if you work from home. But I don’t need my throat to work, so here I am. Back again.

The following review is for Fever 1793, by Laurie Halse Anderson, published by Simon and Schuster in 2002. Anderson won the Margaret A. Edwards award for this and a couple other novels. My cover had the lighter yellow writing and no red, but I believe the various cover changes (none of them significant) were purely for aesthetics.

I have noticed this book staring back at me from bookshelves for the past couple years. It’s hard not to notice it, with its menacing yellow eye and it’s large proclamation: “Fever”! In fact, I was disappointed to later discover that the book is titled Fever 1793, and not simply Fever. I’m sure S&S had their reasons. However, despite its alluringly creepy yellow eye, I might not have ever read this book, until my daughter brought it home as a reading assignment. I really try to keep up with what my kids read. Sometimes it’s darn near impossible, but at least I’m doing one parental thing right: I know what my kids are reading, watching, and surfing. At the very least, I can discuss these things with them.

So on to Fever. It’s a fairly slim book of historical fiction about a fourteen year old colonial girl from Philly, named Mattie. Back then, Philadelphia was the capitol, home to President George Washington, and the largest city in the US at 40,000. Mattie is a typical teen, has a strained relationship with her widowed mother, an adoring relationship with her paternal grandfather, and a crush on the painter’s apprentice. She likes to sleep in, avoid chores, and dream of balloon rides over Paris. (Mattie did not actually exist, nor did her family or their coffee house. However, many of the characters did exist, and the dates and details of the place and epidemic are supposed to be extremely accurate.) Then Yellow Fever breaks out, again, but with the summer hanging on and on and on, the fever spreads quickly, leaving a trail of panic, death, and devastation that Philadelphia is not ready for. As the epidemic unfolds, Mattie must deal with loss, grief, rampant crime, unkindness, and fear.

I believe the best comment I have seen about this book is one of the subjects from an Amazon review: “fascinating yet distant.” Critics and readers seem to be pretty gaga over this book, and in no way would I discourage anyone from reading it. It is fascinating. And it’s relevant on so many levels (including running very similar to a post-apocalypse or zombie story or even like modern news stories of ebola). And it’s (from what I understand) very historically accurate. I read it in under twenty-four hours. It’s meant for middle grades readers, but it has some nice, challenging elements to it and I am sure is great for opening discussions on bigger themes, like public fear, policy, individual responsibility, humanitarian aid, etc.

And yet, as easy as it was to smash through it and linger on the facts at the end of the book, I kept asking myself why I didn’t love it. It’s clean. Very clean. Straightforward. Messages and traditional plots all in a line and tied up neatly with a bow. And somehow it really is lacking in depth. Or nuance. Or something. That Amazon reviewer says that despite how much we find out about the characters, we never feel close to them. I will totally agree. I will extend this comment to the setting. And even the plot. On one hand, I was so happy to see the historically-based characters taking baths and making dinner–with very intriguing and accurate specifics–but the whole thing felt like the perspective of an outsider. Someone reading an interesting article. Put it another way: there’s a tremendous amount of sparkle missing from the book.

Let’s very haughtily re-write a sentence or two to show you what I mean.

“My city, Philadelphia, was wide awake. My heart beat faster and my head cleared. Below the window, High Street teemed with horsemen, carriages, and carts. I could hear Mrs. Henning gossiping on her front stoop and dogs barking at a pig running loose in the street.”

Do you see what I mean? Maybe not. Let’s try to rewrite this with sparkle.

“Philadelphia, my city, was already wide awake. The noise quickened my heart-beat, and the fresh, cool air cleared my head of grogginess. From the window, I could see the buildings stretching to the right and the left, and just a sliver of city peeking over top the blacksmith’s. Below me, High Street teemed with horsemen mounted high on horses whinnying and clopping a familiar rhythm amid barking dogs and a pig running loose in the street. Mrs. Brown chased after it, cawing out “Come ‘ere, you fat sausage!” as her skirts billowed behind her in the morning’s first dust. Mrs. Henning sat on her front stoop, throned on her [type of] chair, her eyes sizing up Mrs. Brown’s predicament so that she could gossip about it later.”

Or how about this one?

“The house was silent for a moment, except for the sound of Matthew down the block still hammering away at his forge.”

I feel like sentences like this should feel more pointed. Perhaps, like…

“It was as silent as the dead in the house, but only for a breath. In it, I could hear only the distant, rhythmic ‘clank! clank! clank!’ of metal hammer on metal anvil. I knew that would be Matthew, down the block, hammering at his forge.”

I don’t mean to say that everyone should write more flowery. Or slower paced. Heaven forbid. I just mean that what a reader sees and hears and smells and tastes and touches in a scene often shows them just as much about a story and its characters as what the author tells them about a story and the characters. You may think that details in great stories are random or superfluous. Rarely are they, really. In the example above, the added details to the street scene give us an unconscious sense not only of the nature of a turn-of-the-century American city street, but also of Mattie and what she would be noticing or thinking while hanging out of her bedroom window.

Let me also say, occasionally slowing the pace would have made the book much more enjoyable for me. I think the fast pace is good, especially for middle grades readers, but there was hardly any time-emphasis on anything. If the yellow balloon at the jail is an important symbol, why not take a paragraph or two and really put us there?

Other than that, though, this was an excellent book. I would recommend it for young readers, especially girls. I am torn between a three- and four-star rating on Goodreads, because I don’t want to discourage readers, yet I am aware of its narrative “distance.” Argh. (Am I a pirate, or is that the sore throat?) If you are at all interested in the subject matter, please give it a read. Also, I can see the benefit of adding it to required reading for middle grades. There’s a lot to be gleaned from this book, and even a fair amount to be enjoyed.

You might also want to check out Anderson’s Seeds of Change Series (trilogy) which will be complete with the next publication. It begins with Chains. For older people (YA and above), you may want to check out Speak, considered by some to be her best, but not for kids under high school age. Anderson also has many kids books. Her website can be found HERE.

I quit NaNoWriMo.

Gasp. Shock. Awe.

I’m not only known for my lofty goals and ridiculous to-do lists, but also for my stick-to-it-iveness and my affirmation that being a writer takes great determination and longevity. So how can I stand here and just say it. I quit NaNoWriMo. On the third day, no less!

For one, I’m human. Everybody fails, sometimes. It’s not only inevitable, it’s good for us. To put it simply, without stress we can’t grow stronger. Like bones. And muscles. They need weight to develop, which in our lives, sometimes means losing. Losing can make us more determined, can bring out our best, and can humble us. If we let it. If we avoid bitterness and regret, anyways. So wrap your failures in forgiveness and hope. And move forward.

For two, there are moments when admitting defeat is a good characteristic, especially when you are losing a battle in strategy to take the war. I would like to think this is why I quit NaNoWriMo. (It’s also because the updates and graphs weren’t working properly, which I found to be greatly discouraging, for better or for worse.) Because I lost my Kickstarter bid, it was no longer as important to me to finish writing Clement Fancywater quickly as it was to get One Hundred Thieves edited. And then on the shelves. In other words, I spent almost two weeks regrouping, which is the longest I have spent away from social media and writing in a very long time. In fact, I don’t particularly condone it. It sort of just happened for me, and I seized the opportunity. Now I’m back with a different battle plan.

For three, fighting a losing or insignificant battle is just expending energy uselessly. If I had won the Kickstarter bid, I would have needed to have three complete books by April of 2015. Since that was no longer a necessary deadline, flogging myself to finish Clement when still in the middle of Thieves edits was no longer needed. Or advisable. I suppose it was never especially advisable. Plus, quite frankly, I have other goals in my life. Like being a good mom and wife. And not living in filth. And celebrating the holidays, at least some.

Recently, I came across a guy who has written a short story every day for the entire year of 2014. (Sorry. I could not find his blog. But if you know its address, please let me know.) His goal was to write one every day for an entire year. He was reluctant to say he had made it, since technically he still has more than a month to go, but I would venture to guess he will make it. I am super-drawn to goals like this. In fact, I am super-drawn to life goals. Like writing yourself a letter at New Years every year forever. Or taking video of your daughter and husband dancing every year so that you can make a gut-wrenching montage for her wedding. I myself have considered taking a photo a day for a year, journaling every day for a year, and any number of annual holiday traditions. I often use Lent to abstain from something for forty days and I adhere to a very strict anti-migraine diet, every day. (ADHD does make succeeding at long-term goals extremely difficult.) In fact, it’s likely that you’ll see a “every day for year” goal on this blog, for New Years 2015.

But I wonder how much attaining goals like that aren’t so much of a real success as a great stroke to our pride. I mean, obviously the short story guy will have a huge body of rough drafts from whence to jump into pruning and editing and a future book of short stories. So that’s a major triumph for him, if that’s what he was looking for. But it reminds me of advice I have received multiple times from someone whom I greatly admire: Go to McDonalds every once in awhile. You see, normally I eschew McDonalds for many reasons. Some of them are philosophical and moral reasons. And yet, while I can sometimes feel like they are, they are not personhood-breaking reasons. And I have to be honest with myself: is getting caught in the McDonald’s drive-in more about my morals or about my embarrassment?

Consider asking yourself this: Where do your goals fit with your life goals? It’s true, most of us (myself included) could do with more discipline. Make a goal. Stick with it. This, too, is good for us. And it makes perfect sense to be consistent, lay ground work, and move forward on something that is important to you, even on days when it seems pointless or fruitless. But it’s also okay to re-evaluate a goal, and sometimes to change directions or change strategy. Admittedly, many very successful people have been tremendously stubborn and prolific, but you have to wonder: was it at the expense of a life well lived? What is the best you can give the world, today? Is it discipline and sacrifice? Great. Is it peace and hugs? Great. Is it a tidier house, a few Thanksgiving side dishes, a shower, a blog, and some Thieves edits? For me, I think that answer is yes.

Technically that’s not true. Kickstarter hasn’t kicked my butt yet, and may not at all. But if I’m going to hit the end of this campaign swinging, I needed a super catchy title. “Kickstarter Kicked My Butt” seemed to fit the bill. I mean, do people want to read about someone being squashed by a crowd-funding campaign? Sure; people love gore.

The deal is, I followed every piece of advice that I found on running a successful Kickstarter campaign. I take that back. There was exactly one thing I didn’t do: I didn’t hire a professional videographer (partly because advice was split on that issue and partly because hiring a videographer would sort of defeat the motivation of having no money to begin with). Everything else I did. No joke. I made the campaign the “right” length. Offered the “right” kind of prizes at the “right” price points. My video was personable. My description included a how-to Kickstarter bit. I papered the town. I hit up the local news. I Tweeted. I tried to get noticed by the Kickstarter gods. I made events and had a giveaway. Etc.

I have no idea why I wasn’t comfortably funded by Monday. I have no idea why I couldn’t even break a grand (so far). There are plenty of possibilities and I am not going to play my second-guessing tape here. But what I think most likely crushed us is something I have been wanting to discuss with you, anyhow.

Saturation.

This is a word you need to be on a first-name basis with, if you are a modern writer. Basically, it’s just an important modern word.

Saturation.

Where do you hear it? I often hear of markets reaching a saturation point. This means that there are no more people to sell to in a given market. So that’s really important to understand. For example, the book market has hit a saturation point. There is always enough literature available for the amount of readers reading at a reasonable rate. When you self-publish, you often aren’t looking for a need or a dry spot (unless you truly have a book with a topic that has not been covered), but are just looking for your piece of the daily pie. Like the market for football in America, people are already buying as much of books and football as we can ever expect they will.

But what I want to add to the discussion is this: People are saturated. They have reached saturation point with their time, their money, and their interests. Very few modern Americans have a scrap left for something new or different. We are in a culture of constant stimulation, where thing after thing after blessed thing marches through our days vying for our limited resources. It’s not that we don’t care about neutering cats or think that our child wouldn’t benefit from Chinese lessons, it’s just that we’re saturated. It’s not that my friends don’t want me to succeed or don’t think I can write, it’s that they have a Facebook feed of three hundred other things, topped with a toddler who sings like Pavorati and another $10 box sale at Modcloth.

It’s the flip side of the benefit of having everything at our fingertips. Yes, it’s super easy to find out anything we want on Wikipedia, or to buy the exact laptop screen that we spotted at the cafe, today (and have it by tomorrow). But, unlike computers and growing technology, humans have not been able to increase ourselves. No more time, no more brains, no more us. You get what you get. So when our town holds it’s annual chili cook-off, it’s not as simple of a proposition as it used to be. When our friend or some random talented writer asks us if we might contribute money–or even a share–to a fund to publish three books, it’s so darned complicated we’re defeated before we even start.

What about the Girl Scouts fundraiser my niece sent me?

What about the fund to build our new church building?

That jewelry party is this weekend, to support freeing Indian sex slaves.

So is that benefit dinner. And I still haven’t paid for the Disney on Ice tickets. Or theater club dues. And the serpentine belt needs to be replaced in the car…

Oh boy.

But before I completely blow your fuse, I want to bring you back to why I share this. (Well, besides that fact that I would love for you to share this with your friends and then head over to Kickstarter and pledge for Owl and Zebra Press…) I want to make you aware of that pesky phenomenon: saturation. Let’s face it. Likely, you’re saturated. Likely, your audience is saturated. Likely, your supporters are saturated. Why can’t you get anybody except your husband and mom to show for a book launch these days? Too many options on a Thursday night. Too many books in everyone’s queue.

So what do we do about it?

Be patient. Have endurance. This is the code of the modern writer.
Have longevity. Being an author is very rarely a get-rich-or-famous-quick game. In fact, statistically speaking, we might as well say it is a never-get-rich-or-famous-quick game. If you are committed to the life of a writer, time is working for you, but you have to stick with it.
Be the best, the most professional, the most polished. Every step up the awesome-work ladder you go, it’s one step closer to the success you seek. Don’t be distracted by the poor product that you see succeed; acknowledgement and sales come most often to those who have a superior product.
Provide something that no one else provides. I wouldn’t spend my whole career chasing this goal, as it can be very elusive, but if you can draw real attention to a product that is unique, you are half-way there.
Be easy on other people. Work with other writers, not against them, and be sympathetic to your overwhelmed readers.
Put your eggs in more than one basket. Diversify. Be flexible when Facebook goes out of style and you have to move your life to Instagram. And make sure you have a back log that grows with the years.
Keep your perspective. Are you a good writer? Are you working at becoming better? Don’t stop believing that because everyone else is so distracted they haven’t told you that, today.
While you’re at it, enjoy the process. Oh, this is the hardest, especially when you just flopped on a very public Kickstarter bid or your first book is at an average of selling one hundred copies per year. But believe me when I say there is a way to enjoy this. You either have a really cool job or a really cool hobby, so live it up.
Eat that humble pie. Use failure as an opportunity to grow. Why is the writer’s life so full of these opportunities?!?

And don’t stop dreaming, believing, or reaching for the stars. That’s when we find your dusty half-manuscript on your bookshelf when you die. It’s a life lesson, folks. You can never win if you never try.