For years I tried to plod through books I really didn't like, just because (A) I'd started them, (B) sometimes I'd actually paid for them, & (C) I wanted to give the writer a chance to grow on me. Meanwhile, for every one I forced myself to read--which always took inordinately long--there were books I might have loved, which were dropping off my life list of possibilities. There just isn't enough time here on earth to read them all--there isn't. And maybe some of those I despised are "great" books, "must-read" books, but I've learned the most I owe 'em is a try. After that, I just stop and release them into the universe, pass them on to someone who might actually like them and/or learn something from them. Then, I pick up something that will actually engage me.
For a week or so, though, I've been chipping away at a pretty bad book (no, I won't tell you what it is or who wrote it--as a writer, I don't like to trash another writer's hard work, even if I personally think it's dreadful). The things I hate about this book are legion:
1. clunky phrasing
2. misspellings/grammatical lapses
3. heaving bosom-style love scenes that are about as sexy as wax paper--and this isn't a romance novel!
4. stupid, stupid, stupid blind spots in the way the protagonist fails to pick up whatsoever on what should be obvious concerns to any person of low-average intelligence
5. a cutesy tendency to name some--but not all--characters "meaningfully", such as a dentist named Bob White-Molar or a stripper named Boobs Shaker, and again, the protagonist doesn't seem even to notice or mentally react
6. overwritten description
7. overly elaborate dialog tags
8. I could go on, but please stop me!
So why am I still reading? The same reason I first picked up this awful book in the half-price store--I loved the old-Florida, abandoned sugar plantation setting, and I still do. In fact, I want to be there...preferably not reading this book.... And the bottom line is still that this author has gotten books published--repeatedly. I need a stiff espresso.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The Year of Living Dangerously
Yes, I do tend to appropriate other people's titles-thanks for noticing. Titles have never been my forte, and it sure saves a lot of brain cells this way.
Not sure what it is about this stage of life, but I've suddenly found myself deciding to do way more crazy stuff than I have since I was teenager. Just in the past--oh, let's say--nine months, I've just started doing whatever pops into my head. Not sure whether this is a neurological thing or just the latest manifestation of my innate insanity. In August, I climbed the Double Arch in UT while horrified onlookers became tiny specks below me (candor requires I also mention I was being passed by 9-year-olds climbing with their grampies, & French tourists in flips-flops). But to me, an almost-60-year-old with osteopenia and a fear of heights, it felt huge.
I've started helping one evening a week with newborn quadruplets & a 2-year-old. Enough said.
Rode a camel at a rodeo in Colorado. Have to admit she was a nice smooth ride, and was being led around the ring by a handler, just like a birthday-party pony ride. Also, the 5-year-olds who were mutton busting on bucking sheep were a heck of a lot bolder.
Now, after a couple peaceful months, I've started walking pit bulls at the Humane Society. I've always defended the pitties, who are with few exceptions congenital sweethearts who are just crazy about friendly human contact. But shelters are too darn full of them. People get them without realizing what they're getting into, and then bail on them. And cooped-up pit bulls in small kennels start to go nuts after awhile.
When you walk in, pitties launch themselves at the doors, barking and jumping and basically shrieking, "Me, me, me! Pick me! Are you here for meeeee?!" They are so much fun--so goofy and energetic and lovable. But so far, I've learned: (1) they are a lot of dog to hold onto, (2) to give the other kennels a wide berth, (3) their big ol' smiling jaws could pretty much take an entire arm in one gulp, & (4) to let them run off some of that energy before trying to leash-walk very far. Just prayed the whole way up to the exercise pens that the nylon lead would hold, considering an excited pit bull was gnawing and tugging on it. Also learned to brace myself when playing keep-away with a rag chewie--one happy leap, and I was flat on my calcium-deficient kiester (the same kiester which I was laughing off at that particular point).
I seriously don't know what I might do next--especially if I ever see that classified ad again for circus folk....
Not sure what it is about this stage of life, but I've suddenly found myself deciding to do way more crazy stuff than I have since I was teenager. Just in the past--oh, let's say--nine months, I've just started doing whatever pops into my head. Not sure whether this is a neurological thing or just the latest manifestation of my innate insanity. In August, I climbed the Double Arch in UT while horrified onlookers became tiny specks below me (candor requires I also mention I was being passed by 9-year-olds climbing with their grampies, & French tourists in flips-flops). But to me, an almost-60-year-old with osteopenia and a fear of heights, it felt huge.
I've started helping one evening a week with newborn quadruplets & a 2-year-old. Enough said.
Rode a camel at a rodeo in Colorado. Have to admit she was a nice smooth ride, and was being led around the ring by a handler, just like a birthday-party pony ride. Also, the 5-year-olds who were mutton busting on bucking sheep were a heck of a lot bolder.
Now, after a couple peaceful months, I've started walking pit bulls at the Humane Society. I've always defended the pitties, who are with few exceptions congenital sweethearts who are just crazy about friendly human contact. But shelters are too darn full of them. People get them without realizing what they're getting into, and then bail on them. And cooped-up pit bulls in small kennels start to go nuts after awhile.
When you walk in, pitties launch themselves at the doors, barking and jumping and basically shrieking, "Me, me, me! Pick me! Are you here for meeeee?!" They are so much fun--so goofy and energetic and lovable. But so far, I've learned: (1) they are a lot of dog to hold onto, (2) to give the other kennels a wide berth, (3) their big ol' smiling jaws could pretty much take an entire arm in one gulp, & (4) to let them run off some of that energy before trying to leash-walk very far. Just prayed the whole way up to the exercise pens that the nylon lead would hold, considering an excited pit bull was gnawing and tugging on it. Also learned to brace myself when playing keep-away with a rag chewie--one happy leap, and I was flat on my calcium-deficient kiester (the same kiester which I was laughing off at that particular point).
I seriously don't know what I might do next--especially if I ever see that classified ad again for circus folk....
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The Brits Are Right!
I think we should be allowed--within civilized reason, of course--to choose how to spell and punctuate. Okay, as I sit back and look at that, I realize I don't think just anyone should have this privilege. Maybe there should be a test? And maybe a license?
Here's the thing--correct spelling and punctuation are there for a good reason: to help us communicate clearly. If one actually pretty much knows the rules, the occasional variance can be accommodated without throwing one's gentle reader for a loop. With that caveat, variances often can make a lot of sense, in context.
Examples:
1. I am a fan of the British quotation mark inside the period/question mark/exclamation point, in those cases where the entire sentence is not being quoted. Stubbornly, I fight, fight, fight to follow those sensible Brits, despite being repeatedly jerked up by my choke collar.
2. "Backseat" as a noun makes absolutely no sense, even if it is "correct". Let's refuse to sign on! All together now: "back seat". The same goes for "backyard" (shudder), unless used as a colorful adjective, e.g., "backyard dawg".
3. The late, much-beloved and revered Madeleine L'Engle once wrangled with a publisher for using both "gray" and "grey" in the same novel, depending on the noun being adjectivized, because of the significant difference in the way the spelling conveyed a certain feeling. The editor wouldn't listen to reason. To the barricades!
4. "I ran into James on the way to lit." OK--I know only academic classes labeled as proper nouns should be capitalized (e.g., English 101). But really, doesn't one stutter a bit when encountering "lit" as a noun? There is a momentary mental processing required here that might easily be minimized by the following, however "incorrect": "I ran into James on the way to Lit."
And that's enough about that.
Here's the thing--correct spelling and punctuation are there for a good reason: to help us communicate clearly. If one actually pretty much knows the rules, the occasional variance can be accommodated without throwing one's gentle reader for a loop. With that caveat, variances often can make a lot of sense, in context.
Examples:
1. I am a fan of the British quotation mark inside the period/question mark/exclamation point, in those cases where the entire sentence is not being quoted. Stubbornly, I fight, fight, fight to follow those sensible Brits, despite being repeatedly jerked up by my choke collar.
2. "Backseat" as a noun makes absolutely no sense, even if it is "correct". Let's refuse to sign on! All together now: "back seat". The same goes for "backyard" (shudder), unless used as a colorful adjective, e.g., "backyard dawg".
3. The late, much-beloved and revered Madeleine L'Engle once wrangled with a publisher for using both "gray" and "grey" in the same novel, depending on the noun being adjectivized, because of the significant difference in the way the spelling conveyed a certain feeling. The editor wouldn't listen to reason. To the barricades!
4. "I ran into James on the way to lit." OK--I know only academic classes labeled as proper nouns should be capitalized (e.g., English 101). But really, doesn't one stutter a bit when encountering "lit" as a noun? There is a momentary mental processing required here that might easily be minimized by the following, however "incorrect": "I ran into James on the way to Lit."
And that's enough about that.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
"Sick of sitting 'round here trying to write this book"
Thanks for the title, Bruce Springsteen! I felt you years ago when I was sick of sitting 'round here, trying to write another book. I sat at the kitchen table and typed--on an actual typewriter, and swore, and "Dancing in the Dark" spooled on in the background. I felt as if I'd never finish that dang book--or, if I did, that it would be good enough for me, let alone an editor, or more importantly, my hoped-for readers.
Time ran on, just like "Dancing in the Dark". Days, weeks, months, years, gobbled up by the goblins of time, by tooth-brushing and head colds, by tax returns and Port Authority bus commutes, by teething babies and angry teenagers. I seriously don't remember if I published that book, but eventually a few of my novels did slip past the editorial gatekeepers, each released to my own great excitement before dropping soundlessly into the literary abyss.
But even then, this book was germinating somewhere far below consciousness, beneath the busy streets of commerce up there on the surface of my life. I have George Nicholson to thank--or blame--for planting the mustard seed that became this book. For telling me it was my gift--or curse--to write for teenagers, despite what was then a grudging market for that age group. For telling me I would write books lit with hope, in a landscape sorely lacking in that divine commodity.
I've needed hope, myself, as well as faith and love, over the past years. My publisher stopped publishing the type of thing I used to write; and another novel, sold to a different publishing house, returned to me unpublished, when they decided to close the line. Years went by. I wrote personal essays, newspaper articles and inspirational pieces for anthologies. I didn't write books. Maybe I was done writing books. They take too long and hurt too much.
Once in awhile, I thought of my little seedling novel and an idea would flash through my head like heat lightning during a long drought. I'd scribble a note on a scrap of paper and stick it in a file labeled "Floating Against the Current". It got a bit fatter as the years crept on, but never took shape.
Finally, in July of 2005, I began writing morning pages as recommended by Julia Cameron. Like a miracle fertilizer called Help, which has rescued many a moribund plant around here, the pages seemed to restore balance in my creative mind. Months later, new shoots suddenly sprang up, and the plant began to grow again.
What does "Floating Against the Current" mean? That's a topic for another time. This is about my relationship with this particular book and what on earth I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Will there ever be another book if I can't wrestle this one to the ground?
Actually, "Floating" is done now...and not. The spectre of necessary revisions is waving its arms in front of me, bellowing like Godzilla, keeping me from ever really reaching the end of this miserable process. I despair more than I write. I have another novel well underway, and still "Floating" keeps grabbing my ankles and dragging me backward.
Writing, I've learned, isn't really about publishing--though the drive to publish is as strong as hunger, love, sex, and fear. In the end, as in the beginning, it is about writing. Writers write because the words demand to come out of us, and they won't let us alone. They bug us and they taunt us, and sometimes they play music and dance in our heads.
Time ran on, just like "Dancing in the Dark". Days, weeks, months, years, gobbled up by the goblins of time, by tooth-brushing and head colds, by tax returns and Port Authority bus commutes, by teething babies and angry teenagers. I seriously don't remember if I published that book, but eventually a few of my novels did slip past the editorial gatekeepers, each released to my own great excitement before dropping soundlessly into the literary abyss.
But even then, this book was germinating somewhere far below consciousness, beneath the busy streets of commerce up there on the surface of my life. I have George Nicholson to thank--or blame--for planting the mustard seed that became this book. For telling me it was my gift--or curse--to write for teenagers, despite what was then a grudging market for that age group. For telling me I would write books lit with hope, in a landscape sorely lacking in that divine commodity.
I've needed hope, myself, as well as faith and love, over the past years. My publisher stopped publishing the type of thing I used to write; and another novel, sold to a different publishing house, returned to me unpublished, when they decided to close the line. Years went by. I wrote personal essays, newspaper articles and inspirational pieces for anthologies. I didn't write books. Maybe I was done writing books. They take too long and hurt too much.
Once in awhile, I thought of my little seedling novel and an idea would flash through my head like heat lightning during a long drought. I'd scribble a note on a scrap of paper and stick it in a file labeled "Floating Against the Current". It got a bit fatter as the years crept on, but never took shape.
Finally, in July of 2005, I began writing morning pages as recommended by Julia Cameron. Like a miracle fertilizer called Help, which has rescued many a moribund plant around here, the pages seemed to restore balance in my creative mind. Months later, new shoots suddenly sprang up, and the plant began to grow again.
What does "Floating Against the Current" mean? That's a topic for another time. This is about my relationship with this particular book and what on earth I'm going to do with the rest of my life. Will there ever be another book if I can't wrestle this one to the ground?
Actually, "Floating" is done now...and not. The spectre of necessary revisions is waving its arms in front of me, bellowing like Godzilla, keeping me from ever really reaching the end of this miserable process. I despair more than I write. I have another novel well underway, and still "Floating" keeps grabbing my ankles and dragging me backward.
Writing, I've learned, isn't really about publishing--though the drive to publish is as strong as hunger, love, sex, and fear. In the end, as in the beginning, it is about writing. Writers write because the words demand to come out of us, and they won't let us alone. They bug us and they taunt us, and sometimes they play music and dance in our heads.
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