In The Company of Strangers

In the past two years I've taken eight online writing courses. I've spent thousands of dollars. I've written a dozen essays and three-quarters of a novel.

And I've made friends. Most of whom I've never met.

Not sure that means I paid for my friendships or if they were a perk of my writing habit.

I'm going with the latter.

Does your circle of friends include writers? Do you feel the need to know writers? Where do your connections come from -- a library? A writing group? The internet?

I need to connect with writers. Daily. And since I don't know any IRL (in real life) the world wide web has afforded me the opportunity to develop not only friends but to gain teachers and mentors who have impacted my life.

Writing used to be a solitary lifestyle. I am often alone in my house, on my chair, behind by desk, staring at my laptop monitor. But I a rarely without the ability to connect with another writer. Email, blogs, websites, classes. Feedback or not, talking words, grammar, sentence structure, plot, dialogue or the weather. Doesn't matter.

What matters -- is that writing matters to us.

Where did you meet your writer-friends?

Hard at work or hardly working?

"What no wife of a writer understands is that a writer is working when he's staring out the window.”
-- Burton Rascoe

I spend a lot of time thinking. I jot down ideas. I talk into my cell phone and leave myself messages. My ideas come from the strangest places and I have to record them someway, somehow or they go back where they came from.

I'm always working. I'm always writing even when I'm not. Everyone is a character and every place is a scene. Every chat is potential dialogue. Not to make everyone in my life paranoid, but my best ideas come from the worst things you say or do.

I also read a lot. And with every word my eyes transfer to my brain, I'm thinking about the story and the writing.

What do you do when you're "not working" that is really an essential part of your writing process?

It's a Comma, It's a Noun, It's Grammar Girl!

I'm on a grammar kick this week and the universe must know. I tuned into Oprah yesterday and was introduced to
Grammar Girl, a podcast hosted by grammar guru, Mignon Fogarty.

What a fun way to answer your grammar and writing questions as you're pounding away on the keyboard. It's a way to enhance your self-editing skills, and thereby (or is it therefore, hmm, better ask Grammar Girl) limit some line-editing and copy-editing from your editor, teacher or beta reader.

I'd rather have someone edit the content of my work, and leave the line-editing until everything else is tweaked and polished. I'd like never to have effect changed to affect again, and now I think I've finally got it!

If you master the mechanics of language before you show someone your work, they can read it for content and context -- which is my preference. I also think that bad grammar, syntax, etc. detracts from the content.

I know some writers want their editors (professional and amateur) to check everything and just want their ideas on paper complete with grammar garbage.

Any thoughts?

P.S. There's a great little quiz on the Grammar Girl site...see how much you know, or don't, and let us know!

Indubitably

"The road to hell is paved with adverbs."
-- Stephen King

I find myself deleting adverbs in my own work and highlighting adverbs in the work of friends, and typing "this isn't necessary" into the comments.

I wonder what Lolly would think.



I grew up loving Lolly. Who didn't? We laid on the floor watching cartoons on network tv on Saturday mornings and devouring our most memorable grammar and history and math facts. I could sing along and then recall the lyrics -- lessons -- when I needed them. I still know the words to almost every Schoolhouse Rock song. Just try me...I can belt out a mean Preamble to the Constitution while riding right into Conjunction Junction. No lie.

Nostalgia aside, adverbs just aren't what they used to be. Study them carefully when you add them to your writing -- and then -- go Lolly's route and put most of them back on the shelf.

Once Upon A Time Is Now

"No--I must keep to my own style & go on in my own Way; And though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other."
-- Jane Austen, in a letter to James Stanier Clarke, April 1, 1816

Can you imagine living in a time when women were shunned for wanting to be writers? For pulling her pen and ink out of her apron pocket and sitting down amidst the chamber pots to jot down ideas, characters and dialogue?

Can you imagine not having a delete key or even -- white out?

Jane Austen is (was?) my kind of woman. Long before it was socially acceptable for women to work, she vowed to make her living "by her pen." When young women were readily marching down the matrimonial aisle to secure a place in society, even if the groom had no place in her heart, Jane Austen thewarted the advances of appropriate suitors and ran off with her true love. OK, she never married him or anyone else, just going to show you that she knew not only her own heart, but her own mind.

Differentiating between the two is hard for us today even with psychology and technology. Austen was a product of her time, yet remains a modern marvel.

Staying true to oneself, in life and in writing is key. Can we be one without being the other? Whether we write fact or fiction, writing reveals our authentic selves, if not at first, then through the process of every writers' eventuality. Because when we're not being true to ourselves, our characters, our readers know -- and we're not fooling them or ourselves.

Jane Austen knew, long ago, that in order to be true to herself she had to follow her own heart in her life and in her work. She found her voice in her works of literary grandeur. We should all be so lucky - so talented - so prolific.

But if we're not - or can only dream to be - finding and maintaining our voice in our writing is a gift we give not only to our friends, family and readers - but to ourselves.

We're Baaaaaaaaack...

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one."
-- Mark Twain

In my world, writing is not unlike the laundry that piles up. I stare at it, hoping with all my might that it will do itself. I easily get it out of the hamper. Like ideas in my head, sometimes things just overflow and you have to make room for more whether you want to or not.

I can get some ideas down on paper, or onto a brand new sparkling clean Word doc. The idea of having everything organized, clean and fresh is very appealing. But then I have to make myself transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer -- before I forget and they start to smell. Like the bits of ideas that I throw together on the screen or the page...if I don't tend to them quickly I forget why they're there -- and that stinks.

But my biggest problem is not doing the job, but finishing it. Clean dry clothes tumbling around in the dryer...and getting them folded, hung up and in the right room into drawers and closets is my biggest downfall. In my writing life sometimes the worst part is finishing up, making things tidy and putting it all into its place.

And sometimes, I just walk over the pile of laundry, like for a couple of weeks like I walked over this blog. You know, when you close your eyes you don't even see it, and with enough practice you don't even trip. You just go about your day...

But don't worry, eventually it gets done...and like the thoughts and meanderings here.

So y'all come back now, y'hear?

Einstein's theory breaks down

Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking.

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

I'm not usually in the position of disagreeing with Einstein, since "Einstein" is synonymous with "brainiac," and he really was quite clever with that Theory of Relativity business. Albert, I give you props.

But he is at best misguided about the act of reading.

Reading, at any age, is a sure way of sparking one's own creativity. Although I do not normally attach electrodes to my brain while reading so that I can marvel at all the cortical nooks and crannies that light up (sure, I've been meaning to!), I can tell you that I've hardly come away from any halfway decent book without a staggering array of ideas ... and not just for my writing. I may not follow up on those deas, but that is surely not the book's fault.

There was one time when I had been in the middle of writing one of my books when I paused for some William Styron. When I returned to my own work, my sentences were suddenly richer, more full-bodied. I had unknowingly kept Styron's voice in my head. Although I was neither trying to imitate him nor succeeding, it was thrilling to come away from a book or an author with new possibilities for enhancing my writing.

Hey, Einstein, I've done my own work in the physics lab! And here is what I have found: The mechanism for ideas and creativity is based on the principles of the old-fashioned pinball machine, where one chance interaction sets off a slew of ricochets in unforeseen directions and unique combinations.

I cannot believe that Einstein came up with the beginnings of quantum theory without help from unusual sources that allowed him to think in different directions, or that caused his brain to pinball all night until the morning yielded a new thought.

I mean, what was Einstein reading back then anyway? Was it really something so generic and crappy? Or is it possible that, brainiac though he was, he didn't realize that you cannot approach reading a book as a passive activity?

Did he not know how to read?

To Pseudonym or Not to Pseudonym, That Is The Question

Pen names are masks that allow us to unmask ourselves.
~C. Astrid Weber

I had no idea that Sophie Kinsella was a pseudonym. The author of the bestselling Shopaholic series (that I've never read) is really Madeline Wickham writing as Sophie Kinsella.

We all know that Mark Twain -- as real as he is to every red-blooded American -- is really Samuel Clemens.

I also know that an author whose blog I read, Erica Orloff, writes in different romance sub-genres, as well as YA, and for each one she uses a different name.

Traditional convention for commercial and genre writing is that you don't want to confuse or alienate your readers, so you change your name. I wonder if publishers are giving readers enough credit. If Joann Schmoann wrote a political thriller, and then a romance, why couldn't she use her own, real life, social security card, parent-given name? The books would be marketed differently, they could even be in different sections of the book store (book store sections are another post entirely). Unless you are a memoir writer revealing things you don't want associated with your everyday life, I don't get it. Even though I wrote an essay once that was definitely rated NC-17 ... and I didn't use my real name because I didn't want it to be Google-able. I didn't think anyone needed to know that I was the person who did x, y and z. I was determined to write it, hell-bent to publish it, but equally sure I didn't want anyone to know it was me. But that was only one essay.

Another time I wrote an essay and submitted it to an online site. Months and months went by, I heard nothing. More months went by and I forgot about it. Then one day I went to the website and saw MY title. Shit, I thought, someone stole my title. How crappy is that? (My writer-friend Kate knows how crappy that feels.) And I looked at the author's name. How dare she! She. She? ME!! It was one of my earliest pieces and I'd sent it in with a pseudonym. And I forgot what I called myself. Granted they never contacted me and told me they were publishing it, and I suppose I'd have figured it out when I got the life-altering $15 check. But there I was looking at my own essay and not recognizing myself.

I started writing as myself that day, and it's been all first-person essays.

So I get it if it's non-fiction --- and I get it if it's on the spicy side --- but just your regular commercial fiction? Mystery? Romance? YA? Literary fiction?

Have you ever considered using a pen name? Do you think it allows you more freedom? Isn't the nature of fiction freeing in and of itself? I mean, we're making it up -- why not take credit?

If a writer writes as someone else, how do they promote their books? I always imagined a pen name as something secretive -- obviously some are not. But if I wrote a book with a pseudonym then I wouldn't want to be seen - no photo, no book signings, no launch party (which I know I'd paying for myself), no conferences to promote your book, no visits to book clubs.

Tell me what you think -- if you've considered or ever used a pen name -- and what you think the benefits and drawbacks are. And, of course, what name would you use? Something flashy? Demure? Literary? The name you always wished you had as a kid?

Share your thoughts on pen names -- and the pseudonym you may or may not use -- and how you thought of it!

Dream of Writing, Don't Write of Dreaming

I had a whole post planned -- and then I read an article. Post out the window. Then I was going to suggest going out to buy the current edition of Poets & Writers . I was going to cut and paste and give proper attribution.

But you know what they say -- woman plans and the Internet laughs.

Because of the power of the Internet, I can just say that if you're a writer and you want to be a published author, read this interview with Janet Silver:

Agents & Editors: A Q&A With Editor Janet Silver Poets & Writers

My favorite part of the article is this:

"...you're only allowed one dream per novel. Because it's too easy."

I never thought about that before. I don't know if my novel has a dream in it -- but I know it has a mirror in it and Silver mentions that too. Shit.

In my opinion, there is no writer's bible. No hard and fast rules that no one breaks. But I love it when the inside scoop is out for all to see, to give us something to think about. That allows us a peek inside the brain of one other person. We can decide if what works for them would work for us. They're giving us a chance because, I do believe, they want us to succeed.

So wake up -- and get writing. Fulfill your dream! Just don't write about it when you're looking in the mirror.

Nothing Personal, But...

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.

~Walter Wellesley "Red" Smith

Our writing, we hope, is the very best of us. Our best words and thoughts strung together melodiously -- and when we publish it online or in a book or even in an email -- we've attached a metaphorical megaphone. The words fly through the air, through cyberspace and rearrange themselves in the eye, ear and mind of the reader, the listener.

And we, the writers, hold our collective breaths.

Because even if we're not writing about ourselves, our writing is of ourselves. We write our own truths, be they for actual or fictional characters. Even if we would never do what our character would do, or believe what she would believe, it is her truth, and that makes it true.

The worst feedback I've gotten on my writing is the one that says "Great job." But then? Anything that starts with "Nothing personal but..."

Face it folks, it's all personal.

So, don't be tellin' me that what I say is wrong. Please just tell me that the way I am telling it might be wrong for you.

If something doesn't ring true, say it doesn't ring true for you. Don't say it could never be, say it's not believable to you.

And then tell me something good, even if it's the use of a great name for a secondary character or choice of font. That will help me balance it all -- and remember that it's not personal.

Even though it is.