Giving Credit where Credit is due . . .

Writing is indeed a solitary endeavor, but you really can’t do it all alone, all by yourself. You have to have help of some sort. I frequently mention my Dad – who always told me I could do anything I wanted to – even if it took me entirely too many years to actually believe him! Then there was my maternal Grandmother who was a demon with the ruler – across my knuckles if I did something to displease her. I learned spelling, punctuation, and proper sentence structure (including parsing!) in self-defense. I would much rather have been helping Grandpa who was a plumber, but Grandma ruled the house, so I learned English.

Who knew it would be so helpful in future years? I didn’t, and wouldn’t have believed it had anyone told me. BUT – after high school and a year and a half of college, then marriage, followed by a divorce – I had to earn a living, and I didn’t know how to do anything! Except take tests – that was my specialty. I loved taking tests, but that had the opposite effect from what I needed. Employers insisted I was too bright for this or that nice-paying job. They just KNEW I’d get bored and quit, so what was the use of hiring me?

I’d always loved writing, and did well with it, but I couldn’t plot a mystery novel to save my life, and as that’s what I read most of the time, I didn’t see how I could ever become a writer. Teachers and friends had always told me I was a good writer. Of course, I didn’t believe them. Isn’t that what friends do? Encourage you, even if they don’t really mean it?

I became a Kelly Girl as they always needed girls with miscellaneous skills, and someone who could catch on quickly was a bonus. I learned so many office skills while being one of their temps – which would later stand me in good stead during my long working life.  But basically, my English language skills were the biggest arrows in my quiver. I found this out almost by accident in the mid-70s when I was assigned to a professor at Cleveland State University. It was a project-assignment, which meant open-ended, because who could say how long it would last?

The professor in question was Lucille E. Wright, a common sense imbued Ph. D. (that is not an oxymoron in her case, believe me!) who pioneered concepts in Business Education, including ‘weekend college’ programs. She thought that a room full of students, each at a table with a typewriter, didn’t make a lot of sense when relating to office workers who would have to utilize myriad other skills, including bookkeeping, accounting, shorthand, etc., and not just sit at a desk typing for 8 hours a day! Consequently, she created an office model curriculum where students (of either sex) could learn the various skills needed to be a productive office worker. What she was really doing was teaching Business Education teachers to be (and think like) ‘Office Managers’. The best part was that each student had a turn at each of the ‘jobs’.

During her college years, she had become friends with other Ph. D.’s  from around the country, and for the assignment on which I was hired, two of them submitted papers to her. My job was to re-type both of these plus one of her own, on her new IBM Selectric typewriter, (long before the advent of computers) because these papers were copies of copies (ugh) which had been typed on different typewriters, and she wanted everything to be neat and tidy.

I was totally discombobulated by the English language skills (or lack of them) in the other two papers. I felt strongly (having read her paper first) that she would not want them typed exactly as they were, but on the other hand, I didn’t exactly want to type them, and then re-type the corrected versions. How much easier to fix them first. It didn’t dawn on me exactly how presumptuous I was until much later in the project, but I boldly went into her office, one of the papers in hand, to ask if she’d like me to fix the mistakes I encountered before presenting her with the finished product. She looked at me with a quizzical look and asked me what I had in mind exactly.

I told her about the disastrous (and embarrassing) writing in the other two papers, and that it was my opinion she wouldn’t really want them to be re-done in that exact condition.

“Okay, what do you propose?” she asked. I suggested that I fix a couple of pages from each paper and thus could easily show her what I meant. “Do it,” she said. So I did. When I nervously took them to her and waited for her to read both versions, I began to realize just how cheeky I was. When she’d finished reading, she calmly handed me back the pages and said, simply, “Do it!” So I did.

She had an assistant who was an excellent researcher but had a tendency to write in ‘academese’, so she suggested I sort that paper out as well. Dr. Wright encouraged me to write something on my own as well. Actually, she just simply encouraged me to do and be whatever I thought I wanted to be. This was a totally unexpected notion at the time.

I didn’t know that she’d also discussed my writing skills with the professor in the next office to her. He taught English Education, and to my surprise, one day he called me into his office.  He told me that Dr. Wright had bragged about me to him, and she wanted him to encourage me. Wow! Over the next month or two, I did begin two projects, which were never finished, as before that could happen, the job expired and family problems interfered. But from that day onward, I never again seriously doubted my writing ability. (So far I’ve had five books published commercially, plus a novella, and well more than a thousand pieces on the web. That figure doesn’t include this blog or book reviews.)

Sadly, I lost track of Dr. Wright after that year. I was told she’d moved away, but no one seemed to know where she was. She passed away on June 3 of this year. I wish I could have told her of my achievements – all of which were because she was so open-minded, and never put people in any particular box. You can read her obituary here,  http://www.cleveland.com/obituaries/index.ssf/2013/06/lucille_eva_wright_of_clevelan.html#incart_river       to get a better grasp of the life and career of this extraordinary woman. I’ll certainly never forget her! Everyone should have such a mentor!

A brief glance backwards . . .

Three years and 6 weeks ago, I began this blog with a piece titled ‘So You Want To Write a Book?’

And here I am again with the same topic.  First, however, an apology for missing a couple of weeks. I was in Colorado, visiting my son and daughter-in-law!  The scenery was fabulous, and so were they! I’d been slightly mis-led – there was NO wi-fi on my train. No lots of other things, as well, but those failures will be detailed in a long letter to AMTRAK. Believe me, it’s no way to run a railroad!

Still – new people come along all the time wanting to write a book, so since I’ve been handing out this kind of advice to several people lately, it seemed reasonable to do another blog piece on the topic. Primarily, this piece will be for fiction, and possibly creative non-fiction, although definitely more of the former.

Generally, writers of fiction are divided into two camps: those who plan out every detail and know where they’re going before they ever put the first word into the computer (or on the notebook paper, if you’re the more conservative type.) The other kind are the ‘flying-by-the-seat-of-the-pants’ variety. They have an idea, and are confident that once they sit down and start actively thinking about it, the idea will suddenly sprout wings of its own and take off!

Amazingly enough, this really can happen. The book begins to bubble and the characters come alive to such a degree that they actually take over the book! They tell their story the way they want it told, not in whatever fashion the poor writer had in mind at the beginning. Trust me on this. It’s happened to me too many times! Sometimes I’ve been able to rein them in a bit, and sometimes not. However, I think the book is ALWAYS better when I give them the freedom they demand.

On occasion, I have helped (and sometimes hindered, I have to admit) these characters by creating a bio sheet for them. My favorite way to do this is to pretend they’re applying to an on-line dating site. All those strange and off-the-wall questions! But, the answers do sometimes provide a spark – and we can hardly ask for more than that. It only takes one little spark to start a mighty conflagration!

Perhaps your notion begins with just one or two characters in a specific situation and how they get themselves in or out of it. However, a story with only two people is really hard to do, and probably best left in the capable hands of a very experienced writer. So – for your own well-being, you might want to identify half-a-dozen other characters whom you think might wander through those pages. Give them a name and a bio, too. (see above paragraph.)

Presumably, you’ll know what your characters look like. And be sure to use description for all locations and clothing worn by them. I’m forever reminding people to include all the senses: smell, touch, sight, sound and taste. Another important quality is emotion. Don’t be afraid to lay it on thick – it can always be pared back in the editing process.

The very most important thing for you to know and have firmly implanted in your mind before you ever start with this project is – what kind of book are you writing? What genre – and you may well benefit from the genre mash-up created and fostered by the e-book revolution. You can indeed mix two or three or more together to come up with something unusual. That alone will not guarantee success, but then, one of my favorite mottos is: Just because it’s never been done before doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

It may be that your baby is so weird you won’t be able to find anyone to read—or review—it. But that’s the luck of the game, and you can only give it your best shot!

Happy writing! 

Isn’t this gorgeous? It’s between Durango and Silverton, Colorado, from Mother’s Day, 2013.

Write where your heart is . . .

In addition to writing and editing (and reviewing) I also coach people who are interested in writing or publishing. I find this to be absolutely fascinating. Everyone has a story, to be sure. Some of them you would never, ever suspect of having lived the life that they have, However this will indubitably influence their style of writing, not to mention the whatever it is that they’re going to write.

People say “I’ve always wanted to write a book.” 

And I say, “Well, why don’t you?”

Person replies, “Oh, I wouldn’t know where to start.”

Simple answer: “Start anywhere. Put your rump in a chair and start writing.” My next favorite line is: “Nothing happens until someone writes something!”

Almost always, the final product bears almost no resemblance to the original thought. And that’s fine – nothing wrong with that, at all. It simply means that the would-be writer has progressed from dreamer to real writer. Something has grabbed hold of that person and diverted their original idea to something not immediately evident at the beginning of the process.

I know from my own experience how it is when a story really grabs you and refuses to let go. I’d wanted to be a writer since high school. But I didn’t really know what to write, (other than very long letters) and then marriage, kids, jobs, etc., pushed the dream to the back burner. I was a very late bloomer, so in my late 40s I decided it was time. I’d found a subject that really grabbed me – Katherine of Valois – and I’d been reading whatever I could find about her which was nearly zilch, further fueling my dream of writing a book about her.

Then came a blizzard in January, 1987. In Cleveland this is not an unusual occurrence, but being totally confined to the house began to wear on my nerves, and I suddenly hatched the notion of writing a play instead. Three days later, the first rough draft of my one-woman play was done. I was shocked! I still like it a lot — it came very close to a production, but time constraints prevented it at the time, and I’ve gone on to other things since then. But still, I proved I could do it. 15,000 words in three days is not to be sneezed at, believe me!

A funny thing had happened while I was reading about Katherine – I re-discovered an early love – Regency Romance. I knew about Georgette Heyer and Barbara Cartland (opposites, to be sure!) but was not totally aware that all of a sudden, this light, costume drama/romance genre set in the early 1800s was experiencing a resurgence in popularity. To my delight I discovered several authors I’d not previously known – Sandra Heath, Edith Layton, Mary Balogh – and many others whose words thrilled me – and kept me company while doing research into the early 1400s!  

I’d been making notes for a possible Regency of my own, but not very seriously, when an incident at my work prompted a dream that night in January, 1988. The next morning, I had a working outline and a good sense of the story, so I sat down at the typewriter and put it all on paper. The next morning there was more of it, and I thought – gee, maybe there is something here after all. Three weeks later (Super Bowl Sunday, 1988, as a matter of fact) I typed those two beautiful words – The End. Coincidentally, at almost that same exact moment, my very first computer was being connected and set up. It was a CPM machine with dual floppy drives and no hard drive. I loved it.

So the very next morning, I began typing the story into the computer, editing and fixing as I went. Everyone loved my book! Of course, they did. It was the birth of a miracle child, after all! I’d been saying I was going to write a book for so many years that when it finally happened, it took everyone by surprise. Including me! (And during the next four years, I wrote four more books and another play!)

Fast forward to 2006 when I heard about a publisher in Akron who was looking for Regencies, so I submitted my baby – and they accepted it. I was delirious with joy! Trust me, I had submitted it to every single publisher of Regency novels in New York and elsewhere, but – it was in first person, and that’s a big no-no for romance novels. What did I know from romance? That wasn’t what I wrote. Or at least I didn’t think it was! Still, eventually it was published as Bertie’s Golden Treasure, and it is available in print or e-book from my publisher or the on-line stores. (My pseudonym is Hetty St. James.)

The point of all this is – you have to write what you love or you won’t get too far. It’ll be too sterile, too dry. If your heart is not engaged, your brain will not be very happy either.

A case in point – I have a friend who has long been enamored of Richard III and even belonged to the Society named for him. Me, too! We were both excited beyond belief at the discovery of his burial place in Leicester last fall. Her very first books were a series about him and his family. So, she thought (and I certainly encouraged her) that perhaps the books might be re-issued under these new circumstances. Funny thing happened, however.

Now that the world knows for certain where he had been buried, he came to life again in her creative mind, and she completely re-wrote the first two books in the series – 100,000 plus words for each – in one month’s time for each book. That’s unbelievable! Except that I’ve read them both. They’re wonderful and quite different from the first versions, which I also really liked. But geeze Louise! 100,000 words in a month! I’m amazed she still has fingers! (I’ve done 70,000 in three weeks twice in my life, but separated by a few years from each other.) Believe me, it ain’t easy! Try it for yourself sometime.

And then today, one of my coaching clients wrote to say she’d been working on her book (which is really going to be at least three, once she gets the proper alignment settled in her mind) but once again she detoured. “I have been doing some writing but it surprised me as to what it was when it started to unfold.  Guess it is where my heart lies – it is about my last airplane.”   This woman was one of the last of the Powder Puff racers! Flying has been a constant factor in her life since our high school days.

Writing from your heart lends an air of authenticity that cannot be imitated, in my humble opinion. Another client is writing a cozy mystery series, and has just finished the second in the series. Her sleuth is a woman who was an insurance investigator but who now trains other investigators. However, that’s not the heart of the story. Each of them is built around the author’s avocation, which she has gifted to her sleuth – kayaking. Those scenes are so real the reader needs to keep a towel handy to wipe the water splashes off the face! This author is self-publishing, but she’s doing it the right way. She has an editor (me! I’m proud to say) plus marketing experience and know-how. She approaches each step with logic and caution. I will be so proud to say I knew her when!

So – the bottom line here is: WRITE. That’s the most important thing. You’ll get in the habit of doing it, but only if you actually do it! Don’t worry if your mind wanders and you find yourself writing something you’d not anticipated. Just let ‘er rip – and see what happens – where you wander. You may be very pleasantly surprised!        Happy writing!

Questions and/or comments are welcome. SPAM is ignored. 

Essays —

Not necessarily on purpose, but for whatever reason, since the beginnings of this blog – lo, those many years ago – it has been mainly been directed towards writing fiction. Obviously, there’s a huge wide world of non-fiction out there, as well. So, this week, we’ll take a brief look at one form: The Essay.

First off – just what is an essay, anyway? I was amazed to discover nearly as many definitions of the term as there are people who write them!

Did you ever have to write about a summer vacation when you returned to school in the fall? That was an essay. Length and content (not to mention quality!) are extremely variable.

One very famous writer of the 20^th century, Aldous Huxley, noted that “the essay is a literary device for saying almost everything about almost anything”, but briefly.  Although primarily known for his novels, he also wrote a bunch of essays. So I would take his word for it.

Unlike novels of any sort, essays benefit from the lack of length requirements. They can be whatever length the author likes, but are most likely to be less than 10,000 words. Way less. An essay can be motivating or instructive – or simply entertaining, as long as it is interesting – to the reader. I would think a primary requirement would also be similar to any work of fiction – it needs a beginning, a middle and an end. The end may be ambiguous, but there must be an element of finality. Or closure.

An essay is quite different from an article. An article is (usually) non-fiction, but based on fact, whereas an essay is also usually non-fiction, but is based on an opinion by the author. Or maybe the point of view of the author on a possibly controversial topic. It might be criticism, observation, recollection, reflection, and could even bridge the gap between an article and a short story (fiction.)

From my research on the topic, it appears that a good length for an essay (on average) would be 1500 to 5000 words, but probably best at about 2500. A collection of essays for publication would probably begin at 50,000 words, and go to 70,000. Beyond that, it might be better to break the collection into two volumes, although an e-book could certainly incorporate that many words with no difficulty, whatever. It would be pointless to look for an agent or publisher until you have a completed (book-length) manuscript available for reading.

The collected essays might have a connecting thread running through them, or not. They may be a demonstration of how the author’s opinions changed as he or she grew and matured. What was great fun as a ten-year-old might not be all amusing at one’s fiftieth birthday party!

The essays must be engaging – quickly grasping the reader and keeping him or her in the moment. I think blog posts fall into that category, don’t you? I’d really be interested in your opinion!

Writing in first person . . .

Last time I talked about point of view – and head-hopping, etc.,

Well, I’ve noticed that in some of these ‘first person’ tales, there’s an awful lot of ‘I’s going around. Of course, you say! How can you do first person without using ‘I’?  Naturally, you could hardly do an entire book without it, but I’m not convinced there need to be as many ‘I’s as there are.

You can use alternate sentence structuring to begin with. If you really are using first person –- huh?  What’s that you say? What else is there, if not first person?

Good question. If you’re the main character in the tale, and you’re not doing the narrating, then the next logical choice is omniscient. The definition of this word is ‘all-seeing’ which is pretty close.  Actually, my dictionary says: Having total knowledge; knowing everything.  Put yourself in a seat at the theater. If you’re going to describe the action to someone who can’t see it, then you’re the omniscient narrator. You can see everything, but the other person can’t, for whatever reason. Maybe you’re on your phone . . . no! We’re not going there. No phones, thank you.

Okay. Back to the beginning. Most narration is either omniscient or first-person. This is not to be confused with tense. The tense is 99% of all books is past tense. Present tense is very difficult to read (‘I go’ or ‘am going’ rather than ‘I went’. ‘She is going’, rather than ‘she went’.) I suspect it’s even harder to write! But I digress. Sorry.

My biggest gripe with first person (I really do love this style, by the way) is when nearly every sentence begins with ‘I’.  It doesn’t need to be that way, truly it doesn’t. It seems less clumsy to me, if you let the adverb or adjective, or whatever it is, go first. (Apologies for the goofy formatting here. Not my fault. WP insists on putting a space after every line. Grrr.) 

I awkwardly began to tip-toe through the dark.  -or-  Awkwardly, I began to tip-toe through the dark.

I opened the closet door. (If you do this, you almost have to start the next sentence with ‘I’, too.)  -or-  Opening the closet door, I (did whatever) . . .

I loved the feeling of being home when I unlocked the front door and entered the living room.  -or-  Unlocking the front door and entering the living room always brought such a sense of peace to me. I’d always been a wanderer.

I think you can see from these three short examples that not beginning the sentence with ‘I’ allows you much more leeway to add to the action.

It is vital to remember, however, that in first person, you can NOT know what is going on in anyone else’s head! NOT! That person can tell you, so you can then repeat it, but until someone tells you something, you have no way of knowing it. Unless, of course, you’re both skilled and certified as a mind-reader! Not? I thought so.

On the other hand, first person is obviously much more intimate – the reader is right there with you for every moment of the action. In omniscient viewpoint, the narrator is a benign factor – and as such, cannot influence any action or dialogue. The narrator is only the reporter, and unless the action takes place under his or her nose, the person must wait to be told what has happened.

I hope this makes sense?  -or-  Hoping this makes sense, I’ll say bye-bye for now! See you in two weeks! Questions and/or comments welcome.  As always!

What is this, anyway?

Something strange is happening in the world of writing fiction. I have to admit I don’t get it.

Some of you may know I’m also a book reviewer, so I frequently end up with books that I might not ordinarily choose for myself to read. I mean, I do get to choose them, it’s just that a particular book might never have appeared in my reach prior to the book review list that is issued twice a month. It does make for eclectic reading. For instance the last batch of four I received included one reissued private investigator type book (A Matt Helm story, if anyone cares,); a non-fiction book about Jane Austen; a contemporary romance novel and a novel about Southern womanhood.

I started reading one of these shortly after the package arrived, and on page two came a strange occurrence. The book started in first person, which is fine with me. I happen to like first person. But then, in the middle of a paragraph (I mean, the paragraph began in first person) the point of view shifted to omniscient! Whoa! And then it shifted back again. I think the narrator is actually the main female character, but if she wasn’t there, how could she know her best friend called the narrator’s husband because she was in trouble? Sorry about those ambiguous pronouns, but I’m trying not to name names in this instance.

This is the fourth book I’ve read in the last 8 months (three of them commercially published) in which the point of view shifted around. The first one, (part of a series by a very well-respected mystery writer) has always been in first person. But now the main character is aging and has employed a wise-cracking youngster who needed his own point of view. So, after much cogitation, the author decided to alternate viewpoints AND chapters. It’s not strictly one-for-one, but each chapter is identified as being one or the other of the two men. This makes it very easy to keep track of, and the voices are entirely different. I thought it a masterful job.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I read one that again had specific chapters all in the voice of choice, depending on who was doing the reporting. It worked, and wasn’t overly distracting.

Over the weekend I proof-read a book prior to submission, in which again, the viewpoints changed between first person and omniscient, but were pretty orderly by chapters. No mixing in between.

So while very strange indeed, this particular tactic isn’t exactly new to me. But this latest one really threw me! Changing in the middle of a paragraph? That’s beyond the usual ‘head-hopping’ in my opinion. Of course, I’ve only made it to page 4 at this point, so I don’t know if this will continue or not. But is this a new trend or what? Do readers find it difficult to follow? I’d certainly like to know your opinion!  Please feel free to comment below?  Thanks!

Do we become what we read?

A recent blog post was titled ‘What are you writing?’  Seemed simple to me, but a good friend who usually proofs these things for me was in a hurry and mis-read the title, seeing it as ‘You are what you write.’

Oh, dear. What a can of worms that would open, right?  If that were true? ARE we what we write? I certainly hope not. I DO hope it’s only that some of us have more active and inventive imaginations than others of us.

For instance, the above mentioned person says:  I write historical romantic fiction, and yes, that’s me to a T. I wallow in the past and am at my happiest writing about it. I become my own heroines and through them I live all the things I’d long to experience, with the sort of hero I wish we had around now.

Oh, yeah! That’s me, too, although those words are not mine. But I can absolutely identify with them.

So, then, is the person who writes techno-thrillers with automatic weapons and so forth (on every page!) really a super-violent person underneath what might be a Mr. Milquetoast exterior? Is that person really dreaming of living in an alternate world where he/she is KING of the world? Probably not. At least I hope not!

What about those persons who write primarily for children? Do they wish they were still or could once again somehow be a child?

I rather think not in either case. I prefer to think that each of these authors is really a sensible, talented and creative person who can easily transport us by the value of their words to a far distant place that we might not ever have considered visiting – not even for a split second!

And what about science fiction? Now, there I can see a possibility. A century ago there were explorers a-plenty. Unfortunately these days, not so much.  However, not everything has yet been discovered or every place unveiled in front of the world. But, to be sure, there are fewer and fewer of these still secret places left any more. In the words of Star Trek:  ‘To boldly go where no man has gone before?’

On the other hand, I can readily believe that a person totally dedicated to historical settings (especially the genteel side of history) might wish very much to inhabit a less pushy place in the world. One where there was still some semblance of civility and manners – else why would PBS’s Downton Abbey be so popular. Or for that matter, any of the books of Jane Austen. Underneath the sweetness, she does have some good snark going, or haven’t you noticed?

There are authors who write in more than one genre. Hmmm. Wonder what a psychiatrist would make of that one? That old proverb probably says it better than I can: Variety is the spice of life.  Well, maybe.

I can only add that my imagination runs overtime, but generally in the same old areas that it’s occupied for the last several decades. Occasionally (through a book, of course!) I am intrigued by a new setting. But then, I wander backwards again. At times, I stumble over something new and/or different, and I mumble: Now why didn’t I think of that?

But at least I found that book. And that’s good. I still have my boundaries, and you have yours, and that’s good, too. The terrific variety of books available now,  primarily because of self-publishing and Print-on-Demand, is a great service to man-and womankind.  Someone else once said: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” and that’s very true, too. So, just grab another book and keep on learning. And if you’re a writer, too, then write something! That’s the answer, after all.  Nothing happens until someone writes something!

Well, what are you waiting for?  WRITE!!!

Please feel free to pass this along to your writing pals. And, if you have questions or comments, please write to me at: bookmechanic@gmail.com