Bake several heart-shaped cookies. Use flooding technique in white, red, and pink, then rim the edges with sanding sugar. Pipe Necco Wafer ALL CAPS messages onto the flooded cookies.
So, Stephanie Meyer is re-releasing the Twilight series, but with all the names and genders changed? That’s a new way to milk a cash cow, I guess. I wonder if she’ll make Edwardine a creepy stalker in the image of her male precursor. (I don’t wonder enough to go out and read it. But if anyone else reads it, let me know, yeah?)
Breaker Morant is on television right now. This is a fantastic film. Get it. Watch it. Thank me later.
I’ve been reading a slew of conservative books. (So far, David Mamet is the clear winner in terms of artful language. Big shock, that is.) I suspect that they suffer from the same problem as left and right news outlets, not to mention every single person expressing political opinions on social media: The choir being preached to already knows what will be said and has no reason to listen; the opposition will sniff haughtily, slap a derogatory label on it, and ignore it completely. So why bother?
It struck me today at my job that 90 percent of bad writing isn’t really my biggest problem as an editor. It’s fairly easy to fix bad writing if you can figure out what’s bad about it. My biggest problem as an editor is a particular form of bad writing—I have a terrible time with sentences that wander around, stop for coffee, see shiny things and chase them, and end up in a place on the exact opposite side of the globe from where I thought they were going at the outset. Any advice on this particular issue is welcome.
I am waiting one more week to prod the agent about the book. I am a coward. Or maybe I’m just lazy. Or a lazy coward. Probably that one.
When we were on vacation, the little camp store at our timeshare was selling these silly mantra rocks. I had been wanting a worry stone anyway and intended to get one. But when the next trip to the store arose, I was too embroiled in my book and too lazy to get up and go along, so I told my husband to pick one for me, and let our kid pick one for himself.
The kid got one that said “Relax.” Fitting, in that he gets all spun up very quickly on fairly minor things. Funny, because we were on vacation and so relaxed at that moment in time as to be comatose.
The rock above is what was brought home to me. Anyone who knows me knows that exercise and I are not particularly well acquainted these days. So this was a cheerful tongue-in-cheek motivator to get off my duff and move. It made me laugh.
After I’d had it for about a week, however, I realized that it was a useful command going in the other direction, as well. When I was losing my temper and ready to snap or scream or throw something, “walk” was a reminder to take a breath, slow down, be patient. (And, yeah, sometimes, clench my teeth.)
I dropped the thing in a parking lot shortly after getting it; that’s why the left side is all jagged like that. But that’s been good, too. I keep rubbing the rough edge, intending that in another 35 years or so it will be smoothed down (unless I drop it again, natch). I find this fitting. Walking is a slow, steady process that leads one to a destination. Rubbing off a rough edge is a similarly slow, steady process — be it a rock or a personality.
But, you know, it still requires getting off one’s duff and moving.
I love wordplay like this. Anyone who has a twofold word they turn to in this manner should please say so in the comments!
(I only ever hear this phrase in my head as spoken by David Foxxe on that Sting song “St. Augustine in Hell.” This is not so odd for someone of my age and musical taste. What IS weird that I remember the speaker’s name is David Foxxe. As far as I know, I’ve never seen him in anything else and have zero reason to remember this bit of minutiae.)
Anyway.
It has been a lovely summer of sloth in terms of Self-Improvement. I have been working like a dog, I took some good vacations, I read nothing but brain candy, albeit well-written brain candy. Eighty-kerbillion pages and five months later, I’m very happy my mom handed over her copies of the Outlander series. Diana Gabaldon has an engaging voice and many enjoyable characters, and I learned some interesting techniques on characterization and plot points. My only critique is that some of the blind spots she was obliged to create as a means of maintaining suspense seemed rather forced, to the point that I found myself going, “What? No. Come on. Why would you assume THAT?” But if there were three of those in 80-kerbillion pages, that’s not such a bad track record.
I am also glad that I’ve finished it, so that my mom can stop gloating that it took me five months to accomplish what she did in one (though she does acknowledge that she doesn’t have an office job, or a kid to raise, or very many reasons to go outside between December and March).
So now I am resolved to plow through some stuff that’s been on my to-read list for ages. This morning’s commute saw me begin the audiobook of William Manchester’s A World Lit Only by Fire. I’m not far enough into it yet to have an opinion, except to say that he’s a very engaging writer and I enjoy his voice. I’m not part of the Manchester fan club; I’ve only read bits of his Churchill books. (I’m sure that my husband, upon seeing this, will stack the full bibliography on my pillow tonight.) The rabble-reviews on Amazon and Goodreads seem fairly polarized, but I can’t tell if that’s because he’s flagrantly disregarding the facts or people just can’t stand his opinions.
At night, I’m working on Ben Shapiro’s Primetime Propaganda, which I am enjoying a lot. Much of what he says is fairly obvious (to someone of my stripes, anyway), but it’s nice to see that other people watched Family Ties and thought Alex Keaton’s lines were funny-because-true, not funny-because-dumb. It has also left me wondering why vast investment has been made in conservative news, talk shows, etc., but none has been made in the field of TV entertainment. I’d like to see that happen. No idea how to make it so. I’d like to see a TV show where teenage girls are funny because they are smart and kind, not because they are vicious and sex-crazed. I’d like to see a TV show where men open doors and women let them and it isn’t a big debate about NOT HELPLESS and MALE OPPRESSION, but a simple gesture of respect and recognition of that gesture. Civility, not mockery or defensiveness or noise.
(For the perfect — if outdated — representation of this, I direct you to the movie Singles: He opens her car door, she reaches over and unlocks his. And without a word actually spoken between them, these gestures are perfectly understood by the receiving party. More, more, more of that, please.)
In other news, I heard from the agent. I am still on hold. She seemed to like the writing, but have no confidence in finding a buyer/market for the story. I was more or less prepared for that and ready to shop it around to smaller, niche houses, but she waved me off and has a colleague looking at it now. So I can still go to sleep at night with an ember of hope in my heart.
While that is going on, I am resolved to wrapping up and maybe shopping around some fiction. I have promised my kid that he and I are going to work together on some projects; based on previous experience, this will end in a combo plate of enjoyable memories mixed with passionate, angry-tears arguments about absence of logic and stomping of creativity. If nothing else, it will be an exercise in teamwork. If more comes of it, that will be nice, too.
And, of course, there’s always the day job. Word work is word work, and finding elegant ways to rephrase clunkers is always good practice.
Still working my way through the Diana Gabaldon series.
Still enjoying my summer and not working very hard on improving myself in a literary fashion.
Still in a holding pattern on the book.
Still not working on a Next Project.
Still prefer Facebook to Twitter and not doing much to boost my presence on either, much less any other social media.
Still not going to ag school.
Still pretty happy with life, all things taken together.
All of which serves to explain the month of silence, and may be an indicator of more of the same in the coming month.
All is well.
Honestly, it’s been a bit of a relief to not be writing anything beyond work and blogs. I’ve spent that time reading and watching a lot of movies, instead. (Along with the usual job/yardwork/etc.)
Last week we went to see Jaws on the big screen as part of the Turner Classic Movies thing. In the introductory bit, Ben Mankiewicz referred to it as a movie that has had people “jumping out of their seats” for 40 years. I murmured to my husband that I’d seen it countless times and not jumped once.
This is the difference between seeing a movie on TV and on the big screen. I jumped at least twice.
But honestly, I was more impressed by how different that movie feels when you watch it in a theater. With no distractions, in a dark theater, it’s a very different experience, and one of the few movies I’ve really felt that difference. The pacing feels like a slower buildup, and it’s more of a treat to watch how the different pieces fit together.
I haven’t read the book. I should, I know. It generally goes against my philosophy to see a movie before (much less without ever) reading the book. But this movie came out when I was five, so I wasn’t about to read the book then. And although I didn’t get around to seeing it until 20 years after that, it’s always been “that movie” more than “that movie adaptation.” I’m not sure I knew there was a novel until about the same time I saw the movie for the first time.
It’s also, really, a masterfully crafted story. There’s the shark, of course, and the money shot at the end that sold all the tickets when the movie first came out. But what’s really amazing is the structure of the story and the characters. Brody serves as the audience proxy, bringing us along as he gathers information and explanations. Hooper is the voice of reason, the smart guy who can offer those explanations. And there’s Quint, who’s deliciously crazy and creepy and impatient and keeps things interesting.
The big monologue in the movie is Quint’s, of course, talking about the USS Indianapolis. But to me, the best scene is where Brody is at the dinner table with his son and the kid is mimicking his moves. It’s humanizing and sweet and touching, in a way that invests you in the character.
Admittedly, this is pretty much a Spielberg trademark. Many of his best scenes are the “make you care” small moments, set around a family table. Think pizza in E.T., breakfast in Poltergeist. Maybe it’s hokey as all get out. Maybe it’s a cheap manipulative trick. Don’t care. It works, and well. And it’s those small moments that make the big horrors seem That Much Bigger when they come along.
And not for nothing? Humanizing moments are hard, y’all. I know they’re hard to write, and I bet they’re hard to act. It requires utter sincerity and a willingness to show total vulnerability. I think it’s safe to say that most of us care more about our families than anything else and at the same time are at our most exposed with them. It’s hard enough to do that in real life, when it’s a real thing and the emotions are real. Trying to conjure up that feeling when you are creating a scene about someone else, and do it in such a way that will affect a reader or viewer, even further removed from the scene—it almost borders on arrogance. But when it’s done well? Wow.
It’ll be interesting for me to watch Jaws again next time it’s on TV and see if I have the same reaction to the storytelling. I bet I don’t jump out of my seat, though.
This morning I put final touches on the book, and it is now in the hands of an agent. And so, the waiting and a new flavor of fretting begins.
I am not sure how to feel about it. Part of me is ready to cast about for new ideas to research. However, I’m not even sure if this one is going to launch, so that’s obviously a bit premature. Part of me is ready to turn back to previous projects and see what I can do with those, although that raises a number of other questions that I’ll need to address, because they are completely different in tone, focus, and audience, and I don’t know the ethics and etiquette of agent or publishing politics. (And, let’s be honest, I’m not sure I’d be terribly effective at juggling that many checklists/emotions/calendar items. Mostly emotions.) Part of me looks at the bigger picture and curls up in a ball for a nap.
So I think, perhaps, I will go on hiatus. Summer break starts for our school district tomorrow. I have all manner of plans for our youngster, and many of them involve reading. I suppose I would not be ill-advised to make up a list of similar plans for myself. I know I want to finish the Outlander series, and then I have a whole shelf full of other books—two shelves, even— that I won’t have time to finish before school starts again.
Happy Summer Reading Program, everyone.
One more week, and I should have something resembling progress on my book to share here. In the meantime, I’m delighted to report that the man who brought you America 1844 (and to whom I am married) is now contracted to follow up with a book on 1856. This puts him in the lead among the writers of the family, but I’m fired up and thisclose to being ready to cut his lead by half.
We are also waiting to find out what kind of grade our 12-year-old got on his first attempt at something resembling a novel—a 30-page outing about a kid who goes to DragonCon. I’m not sure I could have come up with 30 typewritten pages on a single topic at his age, so that’s an accomplishment in itself.
Meanwhile, it’s just more editing and reading and generally wordsmith-y endeavors over here!
There are big doings afoot, but I feel like if I talk about them before they happen, I will jinx them. So instead I will share something that made me laugh harder than the comments on the Hutzler 571 banana slicer.
When I was in Kentucky a while back, the big draw of the event was Diana Gabaldon. She said she is often asked, “How did you go from being a scientist to an author?” and her answer is, “Well, I wrote a book. It’s not like you have to get a license or anything.”
As someone who has written more than a couple books and is still in the process of going from writer to author, I can tell you there’s more to it than just Writing a Book. However, that is definitely the first hurdle to clear.
And thanks to a link from my dear friend Kris, I am now aware that wikiHow is at the ready to assist, with How to Write a Book. The writing, the suggestions, the illustrations, the fact I got a blank screen when I clicked the Sample Excerpts—it was all fried gold. My personal favorite: “The only caveat for true non-fiction is that it be factual.” Excellent protip, wikiHow!
Yes, I know some translations say it should be “love” instead of “charity,” but I need more of the latter than the former right now—and I like to think that I try to pay all three of those forward to the best of my ability (in my bookish pursuits, at least).
You see, I honored the commitment I made in my last post and stayed up crazy hours to finish my book. In an effort to make it better and save me from myself, I have handed it off to three people: a beta reader to tell me if it’s boring, an editor to tell me if I’m a grammatical disaster, and a local history expert to tell me if I’ve got my narrative’s events completely ass over teakettle.
I have faith it’s a good story. I hope I did well in telling it. I need charity from these parties in their reviews and the time they spend on them, to make it the best it can be.
When I get those back, middle of next month, I believe I will finally have a book fit to print.
In the meantime, there are several tasks I need to accomplish. I have to check a few more citations at the library. I have to do a little more research about the time period that is not going into the book but that I feel I’ll need if I’m ever called upon to talk about the book. And then there are the human contacts: There are still a couple of descendants I must try to get in touch with, not because I think they will have anything to tell me that I can use (though I will certainly ask, see that business about “hope” above), but more as a sort of courtesy alert that I am trying to move this into a real, bona fide pipeline to publication.
Still, this is the best I’ve felt about things since I started this project. I daresay I’m ready to start thinking about another one!
In other news, I also handed in a completely unrelated essay to another outlet and I’m hoping to hear something about that some time soon, though I’m not sure if what I provided was really what they were looking for. Time will tell!
Lucien Fewell shot James Clark after he apparently ran off with Lucien's 16-year-old sister. The murder trial that followed featured two Confederate generals and a former Virginia governor. What was the verdict? (also on Amazon.com)
Arwen Adams Bicknell 