Writers Unbound

I am amazed at how many writers don’t spend time reading. I’ve been that kind of writer before, and I produced mainly shallow, meaningless stuff I kept regurgitating and rephrasing from a shallow, meaningless pool of my own snot.

Some writers (usually not very good ones) are afraid that if they read, they’ll lose their own voice and simply become mimics. I say, better to mimic a great voice than to coddle your own not-so-great one. Of course we want to grow past mimicry. But let’s be honest, guys, we’re not all great writers. I know my prose isn’t sparkling; about 95% of the time it’s muddier than it is anything else. I get wordy. I use the same examples over and over. I get preachy. I irritate myself sometime.

So if I’m ever going to grow as a writer, I had better start being a good reader. My own voice might get squished sometimes. You might notice choppy sentences. Or fragments. Or perhaps I will become verbose, dangling word after word before you, throwing down metaphors like peanut shells at a roadhouse restaurant, stretching each point out to the very limit of human attention until all you want to do is reach through the computer, grab my wordy neck, and shake it until I spit out the point, the meat, the only thing you started reading the stupid sentence to find out.

Whew. At least it won’t be boring.

So read! Get a book! Sit down. Find time. Make time. Carry a book in your purse, or briefcase. Keep a couple in your car. Use your lunch hour. Listen to audio books during your commute. Turn off the television and pick up a book. Read a chapter every night before you go to sleep. What the heck, read two chapters! Get books into your life, somehow, some way, every way.

And your own voice? The one you sit down and hope will speak to you? The one that hides behind excuses before it finally comes out? The one that’s a little weak, a little timid, a little confused still? It will grow in the company of many clean, strong voices. It will stretch out. It will expand. It will still be yours; it will just be better.

More:
Paul Combs at Suite101 provides a list of books every writer should read. A great list to start on if you’ve been slacking in book life and don’t know where to begin.
And here’s a rather different perspective on reading from the accomplished writer of Word Munger.
And from Stuart Evers, a post supporting writers who read: in particular, writers of contemporary fiction reading the same. He doesn’t buy that “lose-my-own-voice” argument, either.

I’d say that pieces of my young life were craptastic enough for a memoir, but probably not craptastic enough for a bestselling memoir. Recently, though, all you need to do to fix that is” embellish” a little. “Embellishing” your published works are all over the news.

• A couple weeks ago I posted about a mother and child who embellished an essay to win Hanna Montana tickets.
• Of course, we all know about the James Frey mess that happened a couple years ago.
• Turns out that Misha Defonseca’s memoir  ”Misha: A Memoire of the Holocaust Years” was totally fabricated. You can read about it here, in an article that the Boston Globe appropriately entitled “Den of Lies.”
• …And today’s news of the fake: Penguin-published author Margaret P. Jones admitted that “Love and Consequences” was pretty much made up.

So, what’s with all the fakery?

First of all, the James Frey debacle should have raised some red flags for other memoir-fabricators. Obviously, that’s not the case.

So why all the fake memoirs? Possible reasons, simply off the top of my head here…

• Memoirs are “in,” fiction is much harder to crack.
• Fiction is not as respectable. ?
• Naive new authors don’t know any better.
• This version is much cooler than what really happened.
•  Mo’ money, mo’ money, mo’ money.

 Sidenote: Parts of the book “A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” have been called into question, however the publisher and author stick by this book and no claim has been made that it is totally fabricated.

Such issues are nothing new. In the 90s, Mayan Rigoberta Menchu was accused of falsifying portions of her autobiography.

So, what’s the deal here?

I was recently blessed to come into contact with Leo Babauta, who runs a very successful blog, Zen Habits. He started up a new writers blog, Write to Done, and allowed me a guest post. I also interviewed him for About Freelance Writing.

In a recent post at Write To Done, Babauta suggests that one copy the style of other freelancers. He advocates reading great copy (stories, whatever) and then making it your own.

I was also able to get a review copy of Christina Katz’s Writer Mama, which I will also cover at About Freelance Writing shortly (I’m on the last chapter). Christina echoes Leo’s suggestion. She advises those who are looking to get into magazine print to break down the articles of your target publications. For example: how many subheads are standard? Does the author use humour or is the copy completely serious? Does the word count seems standardized across issues, features and departments, or is there some give and take? You are then to use your investigation in crafting your submission.

Finally, I’m thrown back to my undergraduate years, when one of my favorite professors lectured on Ben Franklin and assigned his autobiography. It happens that Franklin taught himself to write by carefully dissecting great works, studying their pieces, and then attempting to reconstruct the text as the original author had. Talk about self taught! Sure enough, Franklin’s autobiography is a piece of precise writing that accomplishes its purpose without self-aggrandizement.

Study the masters. Choose a muse and find out what it is that draws you to that muse. Take the pieces that you will from them, and make those pieces into your own work and styling. Now, go write!  

Good morning readers and writers. It’s Writers Work Wednesday. Let’s get some dollars going.

• Avalon sure is friendly to potential authors. Their ”want list” is almost always updated. They’re currently putting the call out for a guide on travel to Honduras.
• Are you new to blogging? You may want to see if you can get on board with the Families.com blog network.
• Veteran writers based in San Francisco may want to check out this posting.
• Tech and custom car blogger needed. Be sure to bookmark this board, it’s great because it tells you how long ago the job was posted.
• Here’s a magazine I would read: Mexico Xpatz is seeking freelance writers. I’m burned out on writing about Mexico right now, so I won’t compete with you! (I’ll just subscribe and read you later!)
• Habitat Magazine is looking for journalists.
• Novelists: Twelfth Planet Press has put out a call for novellas numbering between 20,000 and 40,00 words.

 Another thing I want to bring up this Writer’s Work Wednesday is this wonderful book I’m reading that WILL get you motivated to query magazines and GET ASSIGNMENTS. I’m not even done with it, yet I CANNOT wait to recommend it to you: Writer Mama by Christina Katz.

Christina takes you through the process of becoming a writer for magazines, from beginning to end (and beyond). One book has never generated so many ideas for me before. I am reviewing it for About.com Freelance Writing, and carefully crafting my review. But don’t wait, get it today! 

Ahh, I love Thursday Thirteen lists, I love talking about books, and I like blogging. Let’s get on with the Thursday 13 list o’ the day!

• Lady Chatterleys Lover by DH Lawrence: Whew. Have I read it? Mutiple times. Why I recommend it? Well, it’s racy. It’s a good time…er, I mean..read ;}
• Twelfth Night by Shakespeare. Ok, so it’s a play, but Twelfth Night has been banned in at least one school because one of the main characters disguided herself as a man. (Oh the carnage! geez) Have I read it? Yes, in college I studied it extensively. Would I recommend it? Yes, although if you’re not up to the challenge, you may prefer the movie with Helena Bonham Carter.
• Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya was banned in one school in Arkansas because of its depiction of paganism. I would especially recommend it to those interested in Latino literature. 
• The Awkening by Kate Chopin. I haven’t read it, I’m sorry! But it is very much on my list. It is banned due to…you guessed it…sex. Oh my. <–Note sarcasm here.
• The Bluest Eye and
• Beloved both by Toni Morrison were two of the most alarming books I’ve ever read. More sex, and again being hcallenged in Arkansas. Who else is picking up on this pattern?
• Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe. I can’t recall if this is a book or a short story, as I read it in an anthology and I recall devouring it all in one sitting. Best read with
• Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I adored this book, too.
• The Satanic Verses. Ok, so I haven’t yet read this famous banned book, but it is most definitely on my list.
• How is this for irony? Read Farenheit 451, a baned book with themes about banning books! Oh, the hilarity.
• A couple to read with your kidlings: A Series of Unfortuante Events and
• Harry Potter series and
• The Lorax.

Happy Reading to you!

Hi Readers & Writers,

Short n sweet today because I got stuck in the Big Apple this week for longer than I intended, and my work is inexcusably behind. So some quick tips from my New York City trip:

• When you meet other writers, authors and editors, pick their brains. It’s amazing to me how many people use different resources. On the net, almost every writer I run into knows most or some of the same sites and resources I use. However, when I met my colleagues in NYC, we all got some new perspectives.
• People watching on the subway is excellent practice in characterization.

Here’s an honest Thursday Thirteen.

If you’re anything like me, …..?…….., you care about books. I mean, seriously care. I notice what people are checking out at the library, what people are reading on planes, and what books bloggers write about. I adore books.

So, it’s hard for me to do this Thursday 13 honestly, because I truly don’t know what’s lying around right now. Guess we’ll see.

13 Books In My Office:

1) Premium Green Markets Ebook. Ahh, that’s a mystery to ya, huh? Guess you’ll have to visit Women on Writing to see what the heck I’m talking about.

2) The 2006 Writers Market. Yes, 2006. Yikes.

3) 100 Banned Books by Karolides. LOVE it.

4) 100 Years of Solitude by Marquez. The English version. The Spanish one is in my living room.

5) They Take Our Jobs and 20 Other Myths About Immigration. 

6) Aura by Fuentes. Another excellent selection

7) Raising Nuestros Ninos by Rodriguez.

The 5 Love Languages by Chapman. A little too religious for my taste, but not bad.

9) The Essential 55 Workbook. Haven’t read it yet.

10)Writer Mama by Katz. Cannot WAIT to get to this one, looks promising.

11) Make Money Reading Books by Fife. Bought this the day I graduated with my English degree. Hasn’t failed me yet.

12) Great Jobs for English Majors. See above.

13) Starting Your Career as a Freelance Writer by Allen. Read in one delightful weekend a year ago. Perfection.

That’s it for today’s Thursday 13. Someone pulled all the books off the topshelf of my library, and now I have to go put them back. Grrr.

I’m with you on this one. Seems I only get through one or two books per year, usually over Christmas Break or on a plane somewhere.

However, this year, I just got tired of it, and one of my resolutions was to fix it. This is what I did.

1) Begin with outlining what challenges you, i.e. Why is this so difficult?

Me: Time, too many books, and too many books half-read.

2) Brainstorm the challenges one by one. Figure out which is the biggest challenge. 

Me: It wasn’t really about Time. In reality, I always try to pick up a book or magazine at the end of the night. If my computer is backing up or taking time to upload, I try to pick up a work-related book to kill the time. So the other two challenges were the real issues. Really, it came down to not knowing which book to pick up, and/or where that particular book was.

3) Solve the big one. Solving the biggest challenge will in and of itself help the others along. Therefore, put your effort into this specific one first and foremost.

Me: It was all about organization and location. So, I cleared a shelf and designated it as mine. No one else’s books can go on this shelf. Then, I resolved to read one book at a time! No more half read books lying about the house.

I placed the books in order that I want to read them on the shelf and voila! a book is always right out front, easy to find, and ready to go at the end of the night.

As writers we all like to read, right? But let’s remind ourselves that it is absolutely vital that we hone our craft by picking up others writing. Let’s make a commitment to training ourselves in this way.

So, what’s your #1 reading challenge? 

Novelists, how many times have you hesitated in selecting the next word, the next turn of phrase? Don’t worry- this is a good thing!

Portions of my work in progress take place in Mexico, and although the English language has three times the vocabulary as the Spanish language, I’ve found that some of the character’s sentiments simply cannot be expressed in English. I’ve counted on the surrounding dialogue and context to clue in my non-Spanish speaking readers, and my reading group has been receptive so far.

A reading group is, of course, one of the best ways to deal with word selection. Having a trusted group of individuals to give feedback is tantamount. If you’re too shy or simply lacking in time, try out a virtual writing group! 

Another option when dealing with word selection is to read major works by famous authors for clues. This would be a very academic undertaking, but the results are worth the effort.

For example, I would recommend Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw for word selection hints. In this book, the main character (the Governess) is constantly concerned with her word selection when telling her ghostly tale. In fact, the story has been said to be a story about reading and interpretation of prose. Of course, this is an aspect of the novel I would have missed if I had not studied it (hard) years ago as an undergrad, so be sure to not only read the book, but also some critical essays on the book for hints like this.

Is word selection as important as characterization or plot in your novel? I think so. I strive for a whole package in what I write and what I read. What’s your opinion?

word selection, novels, fiction writing

My novel is …crazy. It really is. It has the first chapter. And of course, that first chapter is near perfection. Then it has this medium sized middle. The problem is, the middle is allll out of order. And then I just wrote the end!

Now, I’m sure you can tell by the general subject matter of WritersUnbound that I tend to know the freelancing side of things better. Sigh. ‘Tis true. I work for a regional publication, and I freelance mostly as a biz-tech writer. So, these things I know. However, how do you learn something more? By doing it, of course!

But that doesn’t mean that I don’t need some direction in the midst of this rough draft. Here are the sources I turn to when things get all crazy. Like this morning.

• How To Write Your Novel in 100 Days: Ok, don’t write it off because of the average title. This is not an average article, course or post. This is pure inspiration. Written from the POV of a Peace Corps worker reaching out to other Corps volunteers with a tale to tell, this is as simple as three paragraphs a day to read with one short TO DO. It really works. If you are really serious about writing your novel, you must at least read the story about Sinclair Lewis on the front page. 
• About.com Guide To Fiction Writing. Yes, I work at About.com, and yes, that’s how I found this page- but this is not a personal plug! This page and the writer have some excellent tips and ideas, in addition to a great forum.
• How To Write Your Novel and Still Have Time For Sex. Really, do I need to say more? You know you’re going to click on this!

Happy “novelling”!

novels, write your book, goals