Read Like You Mean It

Read like you mean it. You may be saying, "What does that even mean and who are YOU to tell me I don't read correctly?" and this is where I ask, "well do you?"

Read like you mean it. I am a college student and all I ever hear about is close reading. Reading so that you understand the "text" as they say. Reading and marking things up; more than underlining and highlighting, I'm talking annotations, acronyms and yes, underlining and highlighting. They call this "marginalia" and as I stated, close reading. I call it reading like a writer. Let me explain.

It is all well and good to read for inspiration but did you ever question how or why someone has written that beautiful sentence or constructed a paragraph the way they have? How all those elements, the sentence, paragraph, rhythm of the prose relates to the theme of the novel? If you have, you are reading like a writer.

But I think it is important also to use the margins and no it is not because I'm Ms. Jo College. I can't tell you how many times I've read something, mentally noted that this sentence is constructed with the most fluid language I've ever seen, went to sleep and have totally forgotten not only where the sentence was located, but about the entire sentence. That kind of error impedes my growth as a writer. Why? Because I am not actively looking for ways to practice different styles, forms, ways of communicating that may benefit my work in some way, whether or not I use the same structured sentence as Amy Hempel or not it still helps. It is important to annotate and put into practice what you've annotated.

Another way of looking at another writer's work is rewriting it after you've read and annotated the novel. For instance, I've rewritten one of my favorite short stories, "In the Cemetary Where Al Jolson is Buried" by Amy Hempel. This is similar to annotating in that you get the feel of the direction the writer wanted to go, how he/she uses language and it becomes a part of your own writing, but in your own style.

A suggestion for those of you who feel like it is a lot of work when you just want to enjoy a book, read the book first without annotating or underlining. Soak it in. Enjoy it. Then scrutinize the hell out of it later.
Reading like you mean it is essential to writing like you own the language. Now, feel free to chastise and debate me, if you wish. ;-)
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Tiffany White is a regular reader of The Literary Lab. She writes literary fiction which is also a testament to her insanity, her thirst for realism at the expense of a successful career. She bites kittens and puppies and wears her socks on the outside of her pants regularly. You can find Tiffany on her blog, The Inkwell.

I am very happy to have Tiffany as a guest blogger today. As an English BA major, I agree with her that reading as a writer can be a really important step in a writer's growth. I never read anything in college without putting in "marginalia." I was always taking notes, writing in my books, discussing the work with fellow students and my professors. Let me tell you, I learned so much about writing by involving myself like that. These days, I've found some of the books I remember the most are the manuscripts I review for other writers. Why? Because I'm taking notes and writing out my comments. I'm thinking critically about the work.

Thank you, Tiffany, for a great post today! I'm interested to see our readers' thoughts on this subject.

Fear

I'd like to introduce you to J.S. Chancellor. If you  haven't already met her, you've been missing out! J.S. Chancellor is a good friend of mine. I met her through a review she did of my novella, Cinders, after which I discovered Rhemalda Publishing - now my current publisher.

J.S. is the author of the Guardians of Legend series. The first book of the series, Son of Ereubus, is currently availalble. The second book of the series, Blood of Adoria, will be released this fall. Also, don't miss out! In a few days J.S. will be giving away Son of Ereubus for free for the entire month of March! No strings attached. Keep your eye out. I've included J.S.'s blog information down below.

Special thanks to J.S. for guest posting here today on the Lab!

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"In the cold, shivering twilight, preceding the daybreak of civilization, the dominating emotion of man was fear." ~Paul Harris

Ah, fear. Perhaps this would have been a better post for October, but alas...here we are...halfway through February.

If you've never seen the M. Night movie, "The Sixth Sense," then I'd suggest you skip this next paragraph because I'm about to ruin it for you (if you haven’t, where have you been all these years? I lurve that movie).

Bruce Willis is dead. Dead, dead. Not glittery vampire dead. Really dead. And the whole way through the movie, he's none the wiser. I happened to see this work of genius on opening night, and was blessed to gasp along with the other 400 people in the theatre with me, when the truth was revealed. As always, I relate such an experience to being an author (and a few other professions, but we'll let those folks blog about that).

I've learned valuable lessons lately; some concern the politics of the publishing industry---others involve fear---and through this, I can only come to one conclusion: I've been fearing the wrong thing.

I'm like Bruce Willis, trapsing through the story of my life, believing one thing (or another) while some larger, scarier, truth exists beyond my comprehension. It's ironic really. I read about a man in Chicago who spent his whole life avoiding planes because he feared a catastrophic crash and wound up dying in an ordinary traffic accident while on vacation with his family. Had they flown that day, instead of making the 300-some-odd mile trip, he'd still be alive (the rest of the family lived, just fyi).

As writers, we fear even admitting that we have fears. Once those fears are tapped, we fear not being able to contain them. We wrestle with how our characters explore such emotions all the time, but when it comes to our own lives...well, that's another matter. All paths are different, so I won't even try to address this topic on a specific basis...but overall, writing and fear are no more strangers than love and writing. In fact, writing is kind of a hussy 'cause she gets around quite a bit. Occasional flings with jealousy and a closet bondage kind of relationship with rage. It's a wonder she can keep track of everyone's whereabouts.

All kidding aside...I really have been fearing all the wrong things. I thought I'd feel one way about reader reviews, and I've found that my feelings differ drastically from my expectations. I thought I'd flourish under deadlines, and I don't...I flounder. At least I had the first four letters right. I also spent an inordinate amount of time wrapped up in non-writerly writing things that at the end of the day just stress me out. Why do I do this? Again...fear. Out of sight, out of mind. In a small way, it makes me want to travel back in time to the days when the internet didn't exist and writers could suffer...ahem...work in silence. The net is wonderful and necessary for networking and building relationships (so long as you are aware of all of your actions and their consequences), but it's tiring.

Tiring to the point where my muse starts to go on the hunt for mistresses. And I can't be having that...

So...the real question here is: What do you fear?

Now that you’ve answered that, let me ask: What do you really fear?
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You can find J.S. Chancellor on her blog, Welcome to the Asylum. You can also follow her on Facebook.

Guest Post: Receiving Critiques by B. Nagel

Last week, after my critique experiments here, here, and here, B. Nagel mentioned that it might be helpful to have a post on receiving critiques. I asked if he would do a guest post on the subject, and he kindly accepted. Check it out below. B. Nagel is a great writer, and I'm quite the fan of his. He uses words like "milquetoast", which is almost as cool as "maths".

"Receiving Critiques"

by B. Nagel

You've been lurking around the writing blogs, the community theater, the creative folks. Maybe you're even taking a creative writing class at the college. You've been playing with a few story ideas, but one in particular reared back and smacked you with its potential. You burn the midnight oil and the coffee filters, trading sleep for creative time. Finally, you've polished it to a high gloss and are ready to share.

You present a pink and newborn piece to the class/group/listserv for viewing.
Then these, these monsters begin to point out typos, to confuse the plot, to recommend cutting off a finger here, a toe there. Sure, they try and sweeten the poison with saccharine, but all you hear is hate.

Your creation is under attack. You want to roar in defense and defiance.

This is natural. But for the sake of your work, don't.

The most important aspect of receiving a critique is actively listening.

The truth of the writing gig is that the story you put on paper is not the same as the story that lives in your brainpan. We do our best and, with practice, we get better. But because you already know the primary story, you cannot experience the secondary story. Your swashbuckling, darkly romantic MC could very well read like a milquetoast. The second twist of your thriller, the payoff itself, may be painfully obvious from the third paragraph. Or your voice could be so dense and subtle that it's impenetrable.

If one person mentions something, take a note. If several people nod along, circle it. If no one 'gets it' or winds up even close to what you were trying to say, take a big note. Where they wound up is not as important as the fact that they got lost.

You need a fresh set of eyes. Treasure all that they see.

And those saccharine tidbits? They are drops of purest honey. No one has to say anything, positive or negative.

Only by listening to the critique can you see how your story stands: knock-kneed and grimacing but unbowed by the ponderous weight of meaning you've piled on it. Your critiquers have to read the story as it lies. If you publish, the same is true for your readers.

So, keep your mouth shut, your ears open and your pencil moving. The quickest way to shut down a critique session is for the author to open his gob and give some bit of backstory or justification. Even worse if this happens before the critique begins.

This isn't about you, it's about how well you told your story and helping you get better at telling it.

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Remember: You are the ultimate author. You make the final choices. This data should inform your decisions, not dictate them.

Why Do We Keep Repeating Everything?

I recently went through every single Literary Lab post and made sure they were all labeled correctly. I deleted unnecessary labels and added new labels to our list of helpful posts in the column off to the side. This took me all day - about 12 hours. I had to skim through every single post to see what it was about. The most interesting thing, although not surprising, was how much we repeat ourselves on here. I noticed that in three or four of my posts I say the same thing, just in different ways. Some of these posts had more comments than others, but that could be a combination of many different factors. They are spread out over the course of the two years we've been blogging here as a team.

This has raised concern that we're not being extremely helpful over here, but I also realize we get new readers every day, so maybe it's shouldn't be a huge concern. Still, wouldn't it be better to simply re-post the things we've already said? Or do we say them better the second or third or fourth time around?

In this frame of mind, I started thinking about the stories we tell as writers. Aren't we repeating the same things? I've struggled with this issue for a long time. I recently put up a post on my private writing blog about it, and I'm happy I did because a lot of my friends there explained (in very nice ways) that running themes in our writing are important and that I'm the same person writing my stories, so why would every single story be drastically different? It's a good thing if I shine through on every single one. I can tell the same story Davin tells, and it will be completely different. We did something to show this when we took on a short story challenge a few weeks ago. You can read those stories here.

Let me get to my point before I bore you to tears. What I really want to say here today is that even though we repeat things here at the Literary Lab, I don't think it's a bad thing. I repeat myself on my other blog, too. I read hundreds of blogs and see the same things being said over and over and over and over again. It's frustrating sometimes, but I'm also beginning to see that as humans, we need things pounded into our heads before we truly understand something.Writing is complicated and messy and intense. I don't have to read the posts I don't think will help me because I've already read about the same subject five billion times. I can skip those posts, but someone else might need to read them.

I'm going to stop complaining about the blogosphere and how everything is repeated. In a way, it's nice to look at it as a celebration of the writing process. It's something we never seem to get tired of exploring and talking about, and that's exciting to me. However, I do need to step back and take a break every once in a while since it is so intense. I'll be doing that soon, and perhaps that might be a good time to re-post some of my favorite posts I've done here on the Literary Lab.

What do you think? Are you annoyed by the amount of repetition that goes on in writing circles? In your own writing? Or do you think it's fun - even necessary - to see the same thing through different lenses?

Let's Play Nice

On Monday, I offered up my version of some Tiger Mother reviews. Overall, the consensus from the comments was that the reviews could have been nicer, but they weren't too mean. Thanks to everyone for commenting and also for providing your own reviews of my excerpt.

I want to emphasize that the point of my reviews was not necessarily to be mean, but to hold writers up to the highest standards, something I admit I don't always do. While I think those reviews might have been helpful, I hope today to convince you that being critical isn't the only way to show someone how they might improve.

For the following three excerpts, I'm focusing on the positive, with the idea that if a writer sees what works well, they can choose to do more of it. This isn't my version of sugar coating, because I'm being very sincere. Rather, it's just another side of the coin, leading to the same purpose.

Excerpt A

I was nine again. The word "again" here is unexpected and very interesting. Mother told me that my real father was a goat. There are some nice hints that this is going to be an interesting story. I like the phrase "my real father", and of course the idea that he's a goat is intriguing. William the Goat. Not the man who slept in Mother's bed, the man who Mother called Bill, the man whose dried lather and specks of hair fouled our bathroom sink every morning. This borders on being nonsensical, but in a way that really works for me. "Fouled" fits in perfectly in this spot because it creates a slight shock and keeps the tone of the piece from being too syrupy. We had homeschool every day. Even the idea of homeschool, and all of the connotations it carries with it fits nicely here. I associate it with families that are perhaps smarter than average and unusual in other ways. That meant I helped scrubs the floor and kept watch at the front window for Bill. After homeschool, Mother told me stories of my father and how they met when she was young. How he was strong and had a beard, a man’s beard, wild, dark and full. How he ran and leapt. And the way he laughed: distinctive, loud, an honest sort of bray. "Bray" here works the way "fouled" works above. It keeps the piece from getting to clean, and of course there's the whole goat thing.

It was May. Nice rhyme. Using candles during a rainstorm, I found a box of wood and brass, smallish good word, at the top of the closet that Bill used for his clothes. Inside, folded papers wrapped in red ribbon. I cut the ribbon with the little scissors Mother gave me and found letters; letters from Anne to William. I unfolded the top one.

You always smoke those silly cigars, cigarillos cabritos, little goat cigars? I loved you from the moment you laughed. Will you marry me, William the Goat? I will make you laugh always and we can do whatever you want, visit the lake country, live in a Paris garret, just make me yours and laugh with me always. I like the development of the mother character and the strength and open-mindedness she has. "Cigarillos cabritos" is also great.

Overall, I really appreciate the language in this piece. It really gives the writing a specific tone that suits the material perfectly. Throughout, there are a bunch of details that help keep the world of the story consistent. And, though this is short, I trust in the depth of the characters.

Excerpt B

Broad Street is empty as I approach the subway entrance, the early morning quiet broken only by a distant siren, a small dog barking a block away, the slow flutter of the flags That's a great detail that is quite unusual. I immediately hear the flapping sound. hung from the lightpoles. The humid August air clings to my skin, a fitful breeze bringing no relief, only the scent of damp pavement, exhaust fumes, and rotting fried chicken in the dumpsters beside the all-night diner This is another great detail. I like that you save these gems for the end of your sentences where they carry more power and work to add a little climax at the end as if each sentence was a mini-story on its own. The few patrons visible through the restaurant windows look tired and drawn, black and white alike partaking "partaking" is a cool word here that creates an interesting relationship among the characters and place. It creates a nice interaction between the two and pulls the elements of the story together. of the same fluorescent-washed pallor. The waitress, silent behind plate glass, argues listlessly on her cell phone. That ending is a lovely image as well.

This writing feels very vivid to me, and there's a poetry to the language I can appreciate. It's a short paragraph, but it gives me a good sense of the bigger world of the story.

Excerpt C

"Whitefish Lake"

Terri noticed a boot print in her sister’s blood. Having the intrusion be a boot print rather than, say, a tennis shoe, makes this already-brutal sentence even moreso. It instantly shocked her into a battle ready state that's a cool phrase that got me thinking. I feel like I can relate to that idea of being shocked into a ready state, even though it seems counterintuitive at first. and she drew her firearm. She should’ve realized that there could’ve been another perp I always appreciate the use of the word "perp", just as I appreciate the use of the word "maths".

She backed up into the shadows of the corner and waited for something to move. The only sounds were the crackling of the fire and the babbling from his dying counterpart this is a nice surprise that gives the character more strength and credibility hundred and eighty yards away. She silently waited.

After ten minutes, she heard a slow creak she recognized as the door to the basement. It was slow and deliberate - the other intruder knows I’m here I like this. The word "deliberate" is nice, and it's an interesting transition into an inner voice that works for me. She fixed her gaze on the laundry room looking for a shift in the shadows.

She saw movement and took aim. She knew his back was against the little wall where the pantry was. It would be the best place to peek out into the room. He made the faintest of whistles. This puzzled Terri. Interesting! Did he expect her to signal back? Marco, Polo? She knew her best chance was to shoot through the wall before he made his move. She judged the placement of the studs and fired two rounds into the drywall Again, I like how these details make me feel more secure that the character knows what she's doing, right down to the studs. He cried out and fell forward. She ran toward the doorway firing twice more. The first shot missed but the second shot hit his right hand sending his gun to the floor. She pointed the gun at his face and pulled the trigger but the rounds were spent. The intruder charged her sending both of them into the kitchen. He pounded her with his fists several times before switching for the cast iron frying pan. He didn’t see her reach for the knife and she plunged it into his
neck.

I feel like the details have been very carefully considered in this piece. The vocabulary works. The details help to build the character and the situation without slowing the pace down at all.

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So, what do you think? Is it useful to get the positives? Do you think a writer can learn from this type of one-sided review? My answer is yes.

I'm guessing that most people usually provide reviews that are a mix of Monday's and today's styles. We've heard the term "compliment sandwich" tossed around already. (My sandwiches are open faced, for the record.) But, I'd like to suggest that it might be worthwhile to mix it up a little. If you're in a writer's group, or if you get together with someone else on a regular basis, consider trying different crit styles for each session. You could try Tiger Mother, or nice nice. I've heard of styles that only involve asking questions, or even styles that only allow digressions. If nothing else, it keeps the sessions fresh and probably helps every one stay on their toes.

Note: I know I've got a couple of other reviews left to do. You'll have those emailed to you today!

Note added later (I thought I put things well in one of my comments, so I'm adding it here):

Charlie, your comment is helping me to articulate something that I wasn't able to express well before. I think to properly use both types of reviews, one needs to hold the idea of an "average" standard, where the writing is neither good nor bad. If we hold onto that for a moment, then I'd say the Tiger Mother review points out the things that fall below that line while the nice review points out the things that go above that line. If you only care that your writing meets the average, then you'll get nothing out of the nice review. But, if you want your work to ALL go above that line, then you could focus on the parts that didn't get compliments because, perhaps, they were just average.

The Roar of the Tiger Mother!

Happy Monday, everyone! (And, Happy V-day for those of you who care.)

Last week I proposed to review some excerpts using the Tiger Mother philosophy. As I approached each work below, I told myself to trust that each writer was strong and capable of being of the best writer in the world. I left the names of the writers out, but they can feel free to reveal themselves in the comments if they like. My comments are in blood red.

At the bottom, I'm also offering up an "anonymous" piece of writing for each of you to critique Tiger Mother style.

What do you think? Is this kind of critique helpful or only hurtful? If you do offer up your own critique, how does it feel to be a Tiger Mother?

Excerpt A

They came to the hill with shovels, all three of them. All three of what, shovels? This sentence needs to be better constructed. Shovels and oxhide cloaks and high bell-shaped hats purchased at a costume resale shop. The hats had caught Jasper’s fancy, who--of the three--had a hair of the dramatic in him. The word "hair" here sounds funny since the discussion is about hats. I don't like that strange interplay. Unlike his brother Mel This, I think, is meant to mean that the hats did not catch Mel's fancy, but the way the sentence is constructed is awkward. It could be interpreted to mean that Mel did not catch Jasper's fancy, who seldom had more than three words to spare, if he spoke at all, each one dropping out from under his dust-broom-sized mustache like a stone. "Like a stone" is a boring metaphor. This is the result of lazy writing. Bel, the youngest by a shade, led the trio up the slope, hunched against an angry side-chopping wind that seemed determined to knock their ridiculous Whose opinion is this? Who thinks the hats are ridiculous? hats of their heads. But no matter how fierce it blew, no natural wind would succeed.

Except for a few scrubby bushes, the summit of the hill was bald.

“This is the spot,” Bel said. He flexed his gloved hands against the bitter cold What does this mean? The action of flexing his hand against the cold is unclear to me. and sniffed. The other two hats dipped forward in agreement and they readied their shovels.

The shovels were stubby wicked things, with shafts carved from lightning-struck trees and kissed by witches to keep the wrong sort of ghosts from clinging while they did their peculiar work. The blades had been banged out from junk air-plane propellers, which was a good thing in this case, as the they typo could tell the ground under their boots was no spongy garden loam, yielding to any old turf-mover I really don't know what "they" refers to. I thought it was the shovels because they were magical, but the shovels aren't wearing boots. No, this was dense soil, chocked with rocks and frozen stiff.

Overall, the clarity of this section was a problem for me. I think you should pay more attention to each word you put on the page, rather than just the ideas they represent. I usually don't mind hyphens and hyphenated words, but here I feel like they result from being too rushed in the writing and not thinking about the vocabulary.

Excerpt B

I looked up Tarrant County in an atlas once. It was during Mrs. Snyder’s social studies class and we were in the library --This sentence is boring. I was supposed to be writing down the names of the counties in New Hampshire, where we live, but, you could say I took a detour. Maybe you could call it a short-stop This second discussion feels excessive for a minor detail in the story, because I stopped at “K” for Kentucky, before I got to “N” for New Hampshire, and there it was, right in the middle of that key-shaped state. Tarrant County. So, at least that part was true. There is a Tarrant County.

That’s as far as I got though, because that sneaky Mrs. Snyder came up behind me. “Melanie Foss, I do not believe that we live in Kentucky. This tone of this feels a bit derivative to me, even given the fact that Mrs. Snyder specifically relies on cliche. I believe your assignment is to research the State of New Hampshire. So kindly, get to the task at hand.” That’s the way Mrs. Snyder spoke. All clichés and such. She was always saying, “Put your nose to the grindstone” and “Give it your best shot.” If you listen to Miss Russell, clichés are phrases that are used so often they become ordinary. I guess being ordinary didn’t matter much to Mrs. Snyder.

Later on that week though, I went back to the library during free period and took my sweet time Does this cliche mean that the character also doesn't care about being ordinary? Is she unconsciously revealing her own flaw? looking at Tarrant County on the map. When I was little, eight maybe, I used to drive Mama crazy another cliche to point to the fact that being ordinary doesn't matter to the narrator? asking her questions about the beauty pageant. Mama and I are a team of two. She’s only been saying that for about a million years. But even if we are, it seems to me that the team had to get started somewhere. I don't understand this sentence. If they are a team of two, then does the team start when the narrator is born or before that? What exactly is the thing that had to get started somewhere? I mean, I know she grew up in Kentucky. The thing is, other than telling me about the Honeydew Festival, she never talks about it.

This is an interesting excerpt for me, and it has its strengths. But I think you need to accentuate the important details and not waste the reader's time on the less important ones. Paying attention to every single sentence is also important.

Excerpt C

Daydreams

She sure doesn’t look the way she did last summer, when everyone was at the water hole and all she did was sit there with her knees to her chest. Yeah, I used to tease her, but everyone did. She made it so easy, being that odd sort of quiet. Always to herself at the edge of the group, or her face in a book or drawing something. Though the idea of an insecure character is captured here, I don't see enough originality in the details. The description seems to be based on the same descriptions used by too many other writers. I didn’t mean to make her cry, with that bucket of frogs and I sure didn’t think it would take a whole ‘nother year before she’d even talk to me again. Again, this reaction by the character lacks originality. What makes this specific and unique compared to other stories about similar relationships? The punctuation feels sloppy to me as well.

When Mickey Pritchard called her the boobless wonder, I should have punched his lights out. Does this cliche really fit the character's voice? Do people still say "punched his lights out?" in a serious way? And I should have whispered her the right answer when Miss Whimbley called on her in front of everyone in math. Maybe I should’ve left a note with the valentine candy I put in her desk, or signed the picture I drew of her, with her pretty, long hair—the one she folded and stuck in her book. I'm still looking for more originality. Even if a situation isn't so unique, I think specificity can really make a passage stand out. If there were more specifics here, it wouldn't seem to much like other works I've encountered.

I think she smiled at me during lunch, probably no comma here today, even though she wouldn’t show me what she was reading when I asked. Maybe if I happen to be hanging around the old hickory tree she always walks past on her way home, she won’t mind if I ride my bike beside her…

“Boy! Stop day dreaming, and get out and open the gate.”

This writing is too safe here. The situation is a lot like other stories I've read, so I need more from it, otherwise I feel like it's redundant. Dare to take a risk! Why is this story special? Why are the people special?

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ROAR!

There you have it, my critique of a few words from some writers who were kind enough to offer up their work. Now, feel free to give me your own Tiger Mother review on the passage below. It's an excerpt taken from the middle of a short story.

Excerpt D

The rainy season announced its arrival with a thunder storm. Tuk and Raymond looked up at the sky with worried faces. They were planning to return to the states and would come back to Tayang once Kimchaa's visa was approved. Kimchaa herself began making a list of things she wanted to take with her, scribbling items clumsily on the back of an envelope with her arthritic hands. The items were silly things that Nam was sure she would be able to find in America: soap, tissues, a bottle of drinking water—but the family decided that this was a good distraction for the old woman.

At night, Nam cried to herself. She had no doubt that the visa would be approved. Families transformed so easily these days, and nothing was ever permanent anymore. Her sister had moved to America. Nam had come to live on this farm. Now their mother would spend the last years of her life in a new world, one far different from what she was accustomed to, her natural place.

Write Like a Sword-Wielding Martial Artist

Good morning! I've been super busy as we get the Notes from Underground anthology underway. The final release date is for March 1st. Let us hope and cross our fingers that this sticks. This is going to be one sweet book, you guys. You. Will. Want. To. Buy. It.

Today is a treat! One of our loyal readers and authors who will be in the Notes anthology is guest posting here today. Read this post! It's made of awesome. It talks about swords and what lies at the heart of what we should face as writers.

Welcome, C.N. Nevets!
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If you've been around the Literary Lab for very long, you've heard this message: write bravely. There are other variations, but it's a theme that comes up again and again. Over the past year or so, this has been one of the greatest challenges set before me in my own writing, and I'd like to cover some of what I have learned. I'll present these as confrontations, because I rather like the image of myself as a sword-wielding martial artist fighting against the evil hordes of my own worst bits of writing.

Confront Your Inadequacy. Try writing something you don't feel adequate to write. Challenge yourself. You can do it in baby steps, but the more times you accomplish what you previously felt you could not, the more stories you will be empowered to tell. I did this with a flash fiction piece I called, "Discipline." It's a story that's inspired by the story of my great uncle, an underage soldier in the Pacific theater of WWII. I didn't feel I could do it justice, and when I look at it I know it could have been better. But I've gotten a few precious bits of feedback that tell me that, at least for a few readers, the message got across. For me, that means it was well worth while.

Confront Your Darkness. Darkness comes in a lot of forms, but the kind that you need to confront is the internal darkness. I personally struggle a lot with writing the kind of things I do whenever I'm confronted with the reality of terrible evil. This past year, I've had more than one brush with this, including a teenage suicide and the disappearance of a good friend and his wife. The darkness you face may be less Hollywood. Perhaps you write YA romance and are suddenly uncomfortable with it because of the heartbreak your daughter goes through. Perhaps you write epic fantasy and face pressure that makes you feel guilty for dealing with fantasy rather than the real world. Some writers go a long time before facing this kind of darkness; few avoid it forever. If you face it, deal with it, and then write. It's okay to take a little time to sort through something, but there's no reason to let your writing be silenced.

Confront Your Detractors. Every writer has stories that get rejected. Often times, we develop nemeses who just plain don't like our writing and want to make a point of it. Sometimes it's just a bad comment on a single website, or an unfair review. Whether your detractors are critics or those annoying kids in your writing class, you cannot write in order to avoid their scorn.

Confront Your Supporters. Perhaps the hardest thing I've yet done in writing was to submit, "I Need This," to Domey, Michelle, and Scott.The writing itself was risky. The voice thick and easily misconstrued in a blind reading. The topic was dark, and portions were frankly vile. The Literary Lab had shown some confidence in my writing during the Genre Wars contest, and I didn't want to jeopardize my standing in their eyes. Writers spend so much time being rejected, it can be very hard to risk losing the support of those who have accepted our writing -- but you can't write for them any more than you can write to avoid your detractors.

Confront Your Self-Image.  What made "I Need This" extra difficult is that, within it, I crossed a few of my own lines. I wrote things I never thought I would write. I took on the voice of the kind of person whose work I had grieved when I was doing forensic anthropology. I integrated photographs in a way that felt very uncomfortable for me because of that work. Much of this would not have been hard for any of the rest of you. And that's the point: there are few things that are harder than challenging your own idea of yourself. But by doing so I threw off chains that were weighing me down.

A lot of this can be boiled down to this:

Confront Your Inside Voice. When it comes to writing, use your outside voice. I'm not saying there's no place for restraint in language, or for quiet prose, or for still moments. What there's no place for, though, is fighting against your self and holding yourself back.

The benefits of writing bravely are many, from self-satisfaction to improved quality. Sometimes, the benefits are even practical.  I'm currently finishing up a novel, Sublimation, that I will be querying for publication. I've had to write bravely several times in the course of this work. When I posted a synopsis and a quote from the book on my website, it got the attention of one of my writing heroes, who then reached out to me to express his appreciation and support. That has been a tremendous encouragement to me -- and it could not have happened if I had not taken the leap into writing bravely.

.Nevets.


(p.s., If you care to read, "I Need This," you can do so by going to to the http://www.nevets-qst.com/">Nevets-QST website and clicking on the Websclusives tab. "Discipline" can be read at the same website, under Flash Fiction.)

One Book To Rule Them All

In one of his books (I can’t swear to it but it was probably “On Becoming A Writer”), John Gardner said that he was only able to write the novels he wrote because he was avoiding writing the novel he didn’t think he could write yet. That is to say, there was a book he wanted to write but didn’t feel that he had the craft for it yet, and wrote other things while he was gathering his strength and sharpening his tools and generally getting to be a good enough writer for the One True Book he wanted to someday write.

I understand what Gardner was talking about. There is a novel (called “The Builder’s Wife”) that I have been avoiding for the last couple of years. Since 2006 or 2007 maybe. It’s a dark comedy about love and infidelity and marriage and it features composer Franz Josef Haydn in a prominent role and it’s a fabulous story. But I have this idea that I’m not quite the author this book needs, at least not yet. I have a mental list of future books to write and whenever I get a new idea that I know I can make into a novel, it gets added to the queue and “The Builder’s Wife” gets pushed farther back into the depths of the future. Because I’m not a good enough writer yet.

Honestly, I know how foolish this is. I do. Mighty Reader sometimes asks me when the “Haydn book” is going to get written, and I wave the question away and mumble something about “when the time is right” even though the truth is that I could likely write the damned thing today if I sat down and made myself work on it. But I’m sure somehow that if I wrote the book now, the prose wouldn’t live up to my vision—however hazy and ill-defined that vision might be—of the book so I will put it off a bit longer. There are plenty of other books to be written in the meantime.

Am I alone with the late Mr. Gardner in this situation? Do any of you also have a One True Book that you’re avoiding by writing other books? Tell me about it, do.

Also, author Alex MacKenzie now has a proper blog about writing. Go follow her!

Friday Filligree!

First, an announcement: Erin Anderson has signed with Joanna Volpe of Nancy Coffey Literary and Media! Which means that HOUND IN BLOOD AND BLACK is just that much closer to being published and taking over the world. About damned time, Guppy.

That reminds me that my agent's birthday is next week. More about that next week. Remind me, someone, to send her a card.

Which reminds me to ask if anyone else has any good news. So do ya, punk?

Also: I don't need to be told that my most recent posts have been less than brilliant, and I haven't really been saying much of late that could be construed as, say, useful to someone wanting to read about writing. So I'll work on that.

Which reminds me that next Friday, I will not be around for Friday Filler/Filler Friday because I'll be in glorious California, at a resort on the beach, working very hard for my employers. Work, work, work: that's all it will be. Though one of today's work-related emails read, in part: "Fran mentioned that the hotel lobby has a great bar..." Work, work, work.

One of the things I've been meaning to do lately but haven't actually done (aside from conquer the universe and all that) is to write up a list of books I intend to read this year. So here's something of a list:

James Joyce Finnegans Wake
(I started this back in November but shelved it; it's going to be my 2011 Summer Book)
Sam Beckett The Malloy Trilogy
Something by Nabokov TBD
Something by Virginia Woolf TBD
Beowulf again
Something by Salman Rushdie TBD
Something by David Mitchell TBD
Haruki Murikami The Wind Up Bird Chronicles
Apuleus The Golden Ass
Something by Agatha Christie TBD
More of the Paddington Bear books by Michael Bond because Pads rocks.
More Chekhov stories
More Alice Munroe
Z.Z. Packer Drinking Coffee Elsewhere
Frans Bengtsson The Long Ships
Laurence Sterne Sentimental Journey
Stendahl The Red and the Black or The Charterhouse of Parma
Kristen Hersh Rat Girl (because the Rejectionist recommended it to me)
and, hopefully, a lot of other cool books.

You?

Guest Post: Two-Trick Pony

Hi Ladies and Gents and any variation of the two,

Today we have a guest post by the superb Alex MacKenzie!

Alexandra ("Alex") MacKenzie is an author and illustrator from Seattle, WA. She illustrated In My Nature: A Birder's Year at the Montlake Fill (www.constancypress.com), published in November 2009, and she wrote the fantasy novel Immortal Quest: The Trouble with Mages (www.edgewebsite.com), published by Edge SF (Canada) in September 2010. She supports herself as an academic counselor at the University of Washington, where she works down a lengthy hallway from a certain Mr. Scott Bailey.

"Two-Trick Pony"

Many years ago, I wrote a fantasy novel. Many years later, it was published (yay!). That was the culmination of a lifelong dream. But (there is always a “but”), many years ago I also wrote a mystery novel. It has not been published. And herein lies the gist of this post: am I a box of Rice Chex attempting to become a box of Quaker Oats?

My publisher only publishes SF/Fantasy, and has the rights to my next work IF it is SF/F. It’s not. Who do I sell it to? (I don’t have an agent.) Will editors/publishers be put off because I’m switching horses midstream? Will they have no clue how to reach my “market”, such as it is, since the only readers I have so far are all expecting a fantasy novel sequel much the same as the first book?

Now, as a reader, I kind of understand this whole marketing/ branding notion. I have favorite authors who I won’t even jump within genres for – an example is Lindsey Davis, who writes a mystery series set in ancient Rome and who also writes standalone novels. I love the series. I won’t go anywhere near the standalones. Now, I do read quite widely in both fiction and nonfiction, yet when I find an author doing something I enjoy, all I want is for them to keep doing that one thing that I enjoy and not go off experimenting with something different. (Scott, do I hear you groaning down the hallway?)

So, is this more prevalent in mysteries, SF/F et cetera rather than in mainstream/literary fiction? Can the literary fiction folks get away with writing more than one type of novel, or do they, too, lose readers if they vary too much from what the audience has come to expect from them?

One solution often used in mystery and SF/F fiction is for an author to use a pseudonym when trying something new (cite: Megan Lindholm/Robin Hobb), though generally they need to be well-established already for this to fly with a publisher, and often the “secret identity” is not so terribly secret.

Your turn: comment on the above, or for an exercise, imagine you sold a horror novel and it did quite well, and your publisher wants another one, but your next book is a cozy mystery. The publisher will give you a nice advance for a horror novel, but won’t even consider the mystery. What do you do? You can be true to your art, though realistically, you also have bills to pay.

And thank you kindly, Literary Lab, for allowing me to play here today!

-Alexandra (“Alex”) MacKenzie, aka mizmak

Friday Filler! An Announcement and Some Babbling!

Blogger isn’t playing nice for me today, so this will be brief. Sort of an unfilled (or unfulfilled?) Filler Friday. Maybe.

Anyway, we are excited to announce that next week (Tuesday or Wednesday; come back and see!) we’ll have a fabulous Guest Post written by author Alexandra MacKenzie, whose book “Immortal Quest: The Trouble With Mages” has been out for a couple of months and I don’t know why you haven’t bought a copy already. Yes, a Guest Post! It’s fab (I’ve already read it so I know).

Also, Michelle has been writing an excellent series of posts on her personal blog about small publishers, and you should go check it out if you haven’t been reading along. Go! Read!

Also, I have finally revised my way into the third act of my WIP Cocke & Bull and I must say, revisions are where the writing actually happens, and actual writing is actually hard and this week has been exhausting. I can’t wait for the weekend. Tomorrow evening Mighty Reader and I are going to a play (Shakespeare’s “Cymbeline” which isn’t one of his best works, but it hardly ever gets staged so why would we miss it?) and this weekend—aside from taking down Christmas lights at long last—I plan to finish one of the many many books I’m currently reading. I don’t know which one yet.

Hey, this has been all about me except for those short passages that have not. So let’s have something about you: Which dead author would you bring back to life if you could, and why? I would pick Proust, because a year or so ago when Mighty Reader finished volume seven of “Remembrances of Things Past,” she began to suffer an incurable and inconsolable malaise at the realization that there was no more Proust in all the world to be read. I don’t like to see Mighty Reader suffering from a malaise, so I’d chain Marcel to his desk in that cork-lined room of his and get him to write a couple more volumes. I might also bring back Laurence Sterne so he could finish “Tristram Shandy.” You?

Opposites Attract: Horror and Christmas

One of the best lessons I've learned about writing is to put two unlikely things together. For my novella CINDERS I turned a normally innocent and happy Cinderella into an unhappy, ungrateful woman. For my novel MONARCH I mixed together guns and butterflies. In my novel THE BREAKAWAY my main protagonist is kidnapped, but for her it ends up being something she wants.

Not only do I do this with the main idea of a story, but I also carry it down to different levels in the story, sometimes even down to the sentence level. Conflicting emotions in characters creates delicious tension. Two ideas which seem opposite at first, but are slowly revealed to have ties, creates enormous surprises.

Christmas is no different. Think of A Christmas Carol, one of the most spooky, but also most popular Christmas stories ever told. Something about the combination works. In that same vein, Loren Eaton is holding his annual Advent Ghosts Shared Storytelling Event. Loren hosts the I Saw Lightning Fall blog. He says:

Every year, this blog hosts a round of Advent-themed storytelling, a time for us to gather around the dying fire and share tales as the cold wind moans outside. These aren't long stories, just 100 words each, and it's open to anyone and everyone who'd like participate. Why not read some of last year's selections?

Smashing horror with Christmas is a spooky, spectacularly fun event! You should join in. It's only 100 words. All stories will be posted tomorrow and linked from Loren's blog. Have fun!

And while we're at it, I'd like to know what opposites you smash together in your stories! Do share.

Transforming History: Tomorrow We Dance by Tara Maya

Happy Monday, everyone!

I wanted to talk about the novelette, Tomorrow We Dance by Tara Maya. (Tara didn't ask me to mention this as part of any favor. I volunteered to do this because I think it's a fantastic read, and I hope you'll give it a chance.)

Tomorrow We Dance tells the story of a young boy who becomes a follower of the Bone Whistler, a man who claims he can bring back the dead. The boy is willing to risk everything for this dream, and it's possible that he could lose it all.

That alone is a compelling and exciting story, but Tara Maya doesn't stop there. Tomorrow We Dance also revitalizes literary history. Reading this work reminded me of the strange addiction people have to the classic fairy tales and how they work. This contemporary story makes you see the classics in a different light and somehow manages to unify this long lineage of storytelling while also transforming it into something new. You'll feel yourself propelled forward and backward at the same time.

Tomorrow We Dance is available as a stand alone novelette or as part of a larger anthology called Conmergence. I sincerely think this is a great story that will appeal to the majority of people who visit TLL. So, check it out!

Charlie's One-Sentence Story UNcontest

I know it was a joke yesterday when Charlie suggested we have a one-sentence story contest. But, the more I thought about it, the more I figured it could be fun.

So, here's the deal. I'm challenging everyone to write a sentence in the comments section that feels as complete as a story. This is not a contest, but what I'd love to see is a sentence that really captures where you are in your writing right now, in terms of voice, genre, tone, subject matter, etc. Make this YOUR sentence, something that could be identified as yours in a lineup. You're not trying to beat anyone else, but rather you're displaying your "orange" amid all the other "apples," if that makes sense. We have a lot of new followers lately, and I'd love to see what y'all write.

I'll rotate some of the sentences to the front side of this post throughout the day as (and if) they come in.

And, I'll be posting mine...as soon as I think of it.

Later...

Here's one from Jabez:

Six strong men circled the last tree to guard it, but one by one they fell to the axes of the gathering mob and finally so did the tree, and it was cut and split and the pieces piled high to make a pyre for my little girl, who’d wanted nothing but to live, and when the embers died and the ashes scattered I looked out at the blasted land and cried for the world I destroyed for her sake.

and Imelda:

As she sat there in her office chair the morning sun glowed as social media her led from website to website, her mind and thoughts traveled miles before she realized the sun was gone and now the moon was jeering her loss of a day.

and Justus:

Even the 'Crimson Mountain', looming above all his fellow dragons, stood anxiously in the shadow of Theikuv; only the sky dared look down upon the mountain, and for that indignity it had received a vicious thrust from a jagged peak.

The Pained Artiste...

I had a conversation with my friend last night about how long it takes her to write a novel. She's pretty fast at it. I'm pretty slow. At least I think I'm slow. In actuality, looking at what I've accomplished in the last few years, I think I write at a good pace considering I have a kid hanging on me all day.

My friend brought up a good point, though, about how some people take forever to write books and she gets a annoyed sometimes that these people think because it takes them forever and that it's a painful process that the book is some sort of artistic masterpiece.

I can understand that. I've fallen into that trap myself before as I huddle over my keyboard for the 18th month in a row still slaving away over the same novel. In the back of my mind I'm thinking, This is going to be freaking awesome!!! Because, you know, it's taking me FOREVER....

It's a consolation. Right?

Of course I know this just isn't true, especially if it's a first novel, which tend to take longer. Sadly, I have one novel I'd like to publish that I've literally had hanging around for 16 years. That's scary, isn't it? I haven't worked on it for 16 years straight, but I have worked on it for a lot of years. YEARS. It will be a masterpiece!!! *shakes fist in the air*

Yeah. Personally, I think everyone just writes differently and 3 years for one person might be like 6 months for another person - with them producing similar quality results. Sure doesn't seem fair, though!

What do you think about this? Because I honestly think it just takes me a long time because for a long time I had no idea what I was doing. Sometimes I wonder if even know what I'm doing now!
_________________________

Also, one of our readers, Erica M. Smith, emailed me about a blogfest she's holding. Check it out, especially if that novel you've worked on forever needs a beta reader!

Click Here

Includes Giveaways! (Beta readers! Not the fish!)









____________________________

And I have some BIG NEWS over at my personal blog. Check it out here.

Lately, the harder I work, the more opportunities I'm being offered...and the more time it's taking up. I'm in a state of transition in my life. I'm getting ready to apply to new jobs (1st deadline this Friday!), I'm being open to moving far away, and I'm planning to publish 1-2 long pieces of fiction (Rooster and Bread) if ever I find a few precious hours to do some polishing revisions--no comments from the peanut gallery, MDA, SGFB, TM, and Nevets!

I guess I should consider myself lucky because my friends are helping me by throwing more possibilities my way. In November, I'll be involved in a grant review panel in D. C. that will require me to be well-versed in about 700-1000 pages of scientific proposals. I've got more applications due, and I was just offered the opportunity to write a review article on vitamins and algae. It's all stuff I'm excited about doing, but I'm also realizing that I'm having to say something I don't often have to say.

No.

Being the pantster, I like the challenge of having a lot on my plate. But, the more I entrench myself in work that has such ill-defined finish lines as creating art and solving the mysteries of life, I'm finding that flying by the seat of my pants often results in a lot of mediocre work with little or no value.

But, isn't it hard to say no?

I guess what I'm actually feeling these days is a lot of gratitude and a lot of regret for having to turn certain projects down. It's an impossible question to ask all of you how you handle all that life throws your way. So, I guess I'll try to simplify it at least a little by asking: How do you decide when to say no?

In other news, you may be shocked and excited to learn that Scott, Michelle and I finally had our first conference call last night. While I've talked and seen Michelle before, this was the first time all three of us communicated together, and the first time we experienced Scott live. I had a blast, which was probably evident to the others because I was laughing goofily while they were talking about writing. Scott was quite dashing with his calm demeanor, classy office, and charming I-don't-have-an-accent-you-LA-fool. Michelle was looking lovely and, as usual, served as the technology guru. We chatted, among other things, about getting a gift for the great Becca, who assisted in handling our Notes From Underground entries. And, we also discussed some secret plans that somehow involves reading and banter...and another opportunity we haven't managed to say no to.

The Paris Review Interviews

In case you don't know, the Paris Review has been interviewing good writers (of fiction, poetry and nonfiction) for over half a century. They've put all of these interviews on the internets, here. Go read some of them; get inspired. Check out Hemingway's cranky boredom with George Plimpton. Imagine yourself answering the interviewers' questions.

Also! Starting tomorrow, it is Banned Books Week. Celebrate your freedom to read! Go expose yourself to something dangerous.

More and Better Also! If you live in glorious Seattle, make sure you swing by the University Bookstore (4326 University Way, N.E) by 7pm to hear Alexandra MacKenzie read from her debut novel Immortal Quest. You must come, and you must buy a copy, and Alex must sign it! Because I said so!

Skylight Books, Tara Maya, and I'm a grumpypants when I'm nervous

Happy Monday, everyone!

This weekend I attended a book release party for the Strange Cargo anthology at the great Skylight Books. I was one of the "lucky" ones that got to read their contribution to the anthology, which meant that I was mean and grumpy to all of my friends and family and co-workers all day Saturday and part of Sunday. Sorry. And, Marytza Rubio, if you read this, thanks for calming me down.

...imagine this place crammed with people and me being mean to all of them...

I also realized that I really suck at signing books. Not only did I have difficulty thinking of things to say, but I couldn't even decide what page to sign on or what name to use. Such is my identity during this transition period.

Oh, and thanks to the internet and my non-code name, my brother found out about the reading and showed up without telling me. Don't get me wrong, it was totally cool that he came to support me, but I get even more nervous when I know people in the audience. (For those of you who care, my brother's students often compliment him on how good he looks with his shirt off. And, for those of you who care, he doesn't teach history, and taking his shirt off during class isn't such an inappropriate thing.)

Double oh, someone else really cool showed up! Tara Maya--who I only recently found out lives in LA--was able to make it to the book store with her beautiful family. Tara, thanks so much for stopping by and talking to me! You're the first person I've met in person after first blog-meeting them. It was groovy. If you've got pictures, send one over to me, will you? I didn't tell this to you at the time, but you looked really familiar to me. I feel like we've met before, so maybe we have a mutual friend or something? Is it possible? Quick, list everyone you know. Then go finish your thesis.

Lady Glam, Mr. Bailey and I are busily sorting through the Notes From Underground contest entries. We'll be making the big announcement on Wednesday, the 15th (...wow, is it really Wednesday? We need to take care of this, you two). One thing I'm realizing right away is that my votes feel much more arbitrary than they did for Genre Wars. In other words, if you aren't chosen, it could be due so many factors out of your control.

Who Are We Writing For?

Excuse the ungrammatical post title. "For Whom Do We Write?" just sounds too formal on my first day back after a glorious 3-day weekend.

One of the events Mighty Reader and I attended during the American Independence Day Festivities was a traditional barbeque, featuring grilled meats and malted beverages and potato salad and non-traditional karaoke. All of this is by the way. The part of the 4th of July barbeque that interests me right now is the argument about politics.

The substance of the argument is unimportant (I don't think we actually even got there, truth to tell). What happened is that one person spent about half an hour carefully building up his position as self-appointed expert on politics and spinning flawed syllogisms to establish himself as the only informed person in the room so that the rest of us had--by his reasoning--no other role than to sit back and listen to his lecture and if we disagreed, we were admitting--by his reasoning--that we were idiots. You know the type, I'm sure. Next time, I'm going to hit him with something heavy.

Anyway, this was pretty much no fun if you were not the "expert" in the room and it was nothing like a conversation and the only point of the exercise was to let one person massage his self esteem. It was all about the speaker, and there was nothing, really, there for the listener.

I worry sometimes that a lot of our writing is serving that same basic purpose: we write for/about ourselves, wondering how much of us is getting on the page, how much of our secrets we inadvertantly give away to readers, how well our writing reflects our personal voice and points of view and how well our personal ethos comes across and if we'll be viewed as immoral and really, ultimately, we suffer along under the burdensome question of What Our Art Means To Us.

I just don't get it.

Admittedly, every once in a while I wonder what my writing says about me that I'm not seeing. But I don't wonder that often. I don't wonder if I have found my personal voice. I don't wonder if the real me is getting over on the page. I don't. Because I don't care.

I care about good stories. I care about good writing. I care, dear writers, about the reader's experience much more than I care about my own experience. I am alarmed when I see people blogging about the writer's experience as if that's the most important part of it. Because it's not. If I go see a movie, I want to not be aware of the director at all. I don't want to know about his experience making the film. I want the film itself. I want Steven Spielberg or whomever to care about my experience as a moviegoer.

This is not meant to sound all crankypants and it is still true that the writing life is quirky and interesting and unlike the reading life and should be discussed because, you know, the writing life is hard and often discouraging. But I think it's too easy to forget that we are supposed to be writing stories that will be read by others, hopefully lots of others who don't know us personally and never will and we'll be read long after our deaths and the important thing is supposed to be the text--the novel or the story--that we leave behind for these readers.

Speaking as a reader, I love you and the work you do, but when I read your book I want to forget about you. Which is to say, stop worrying about your Personal Expression. Stop worrying about your Voice. Stop worrying about being Individual or Unique or True to Yourself or whatever. Just stop. Stop worrying about it, stop blogging about it, stop talking about it. Just write well, for a reader you will never know. That's the job.

Friday! Random!

Sometimes, writing a novel is like suffering through a long illness. You are weak, exhausted and see no end to your misery, but you have no choice but to stagger along, day after day into the future.

Sometimes I can tell when I've written well or written poorly. Most of the time, however, I have no way to judge. It's all just writing and though I can get excited about new ideas I have while drafting, I feel mostly neutral about the actual prose during the writing itself. I can see that something needs to be changed, and I can see how, but I don't think of it in terms of "good" or "bad" so much as "works" or "doesn't work." Those times when I do think the prose is brilliant or is crap? I've discovered that later, when I'm revising or just re-reading, I can no longer tell which bits I thought were brilliant or crap when I was in the middle of writing it. So how I feel about the work while it's in process has nothing, it seems, to do with the quality of the writing. Which is just weird, you know?

Sometimes I go out for pints with other writers. Thursday night I met up with Layne Maheu (author of Song of the Crow) and over Manny's Ale and a plate of nachos we talked about his latest novel A Man of the World (which sounds brilliant and cool) and my novel The Stars Are Fire (which, after two pints, sounded brilliant and cool to me) and the future of publishing and all sorts of things. Layne was treats, so I should've had a third pint, but today is a school day so it's probably for the best that I didn't.