The Elephant's Bookshelf

Any Day, Now. Any Day

2012-02-14T22:16:00.000-05:00

I don't mean to sound coy, but Spring Fevers is almost ready to launch. It'll be any day now. In fact, it could be as soon as this week. We have the cover (isn't it purrrty!) and all the copy is ready. We're just finalizing some of the legal mumbo jumbo, as one of our writerly friends likes to put it, before we pull the string on the chute.

I'm also in the midst of updating my Website and intend to have links both there and here. If all goes as expected, there'll be versions available through Smashwords and Amazon.

Stay tuned!

I Could Get Used to This

2012-02-03T14:44:00.003-05:00

The signed contracts from the writers in our upcoming anthology, which is called Spring Fevers, have started rolling in. Soon, I'll be able to post our launch date and where else you can find these writers online. For me, nothing beats writing. But I must admit, publishing has its cool elements too.

Look Who's Talking!

2012-01-17T11:47:00.003-05:00

This was fun. I was interviewed for Jacqueline Gardner's blog, so I thought I'd share the link here and make sure you're aware of her wonderful blog, too!

Hope everyone had a pleasant long weekend. What are you writing today?

A Busy Year Ahead

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

Regular visitors to the Elephant's Bookshelf may have wondered why my posts have been sporadic over much of the past year. Well, there are several reasons, two of which are now three years old, and as any parent knows, kids take up a lot of time. My work-a-day life is also quite busy and isn't going to slacken.

But another reason is something I'm going to announce here, now. I've been working with a few friends of mine in the AgentQuery Connect community to put together an anthology of short stories. It's called Spring Fevers.

In a nutshell, the stories are about relationships: Love, requited and unrequited; friendship; anger and resolution; parenting. These writers shared so much, and I'm very excited about what you'll see.

It's my first venture into electronic publishing. I even bought myself a Kindle to make sure I know what this -- and future projects -- looks like before it goes out to readers.

Although we're still weeks away from launch, I can say that there's something for everyone in the anthology. These stories from about a dozen writers touch on matters of the heart, but you won't be sweetening your coffee with all of them. As we all know, relationships can be bumpy rides. The stories in this anthology will be no exception.

Although attention will be called to his contributions (and his excellent stories!) within the anthology, I want to publically thank Robb Grindstaff for copy editing the stories and working directly with the authors to bring their visions to life. He also suggested its name.

Over the coming weeks, in addition to finishing everything off on the anthology, I also intend to get a few interviews ready, including links to interviews of writers who will appear in the anthology and other writers I want to share with everyone. As the year progress, I hope I'll be able to post on a more regular basis. Both here and of course at From the Write Angle. Let me know if I get too annoying.

Tidings of Comfort and Joy

2011-12-25T10:59:00.001-05:00

For those who celebrate it, I wish you a Merry Christmas. And for those who don't, may you enjoy the good tidings of the season. And I hope we all have a peaceful, joyous new year in 2012.

Looking for a Few Good Book Reviewers

2011-12-05T13:33:00.001-05:00

I try not to mix my business writing with my pleasure writing on this site, but from time to time I've posted book reviews in the field of nonprofit organizations and foundations, public policy, and fundraising.

Now I have an opportunity for you, dear readers. The Website I edit is looking for new book reviewers. These would be paying jobs, but I can't say we pay a lot. Still, it's a publishing credit, which might be very attractive to some of you.

What's the catch? Well, the books we review are all nonfiction and all related to the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. We'd be assigning the books to you; these aren't books you'd be choosing by yourself. Still, many people find the topic fascinating. You may just be one of those people.

Ok, if you're interested, please send me an email at mws@foundationcenter.org and in the subject line write "Off the Shelf reviewers." I get hundreds of emails every day and it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff sometimes, so that subject line at least will help. Also, please include a link or two to show me some writing samples if you have any.

If you're assigned a piece, you'll be given a deadline by which to submit the review. We'd send you the book and cover postage for its return as well. (Sorry, you can't keep the book.) Reviewers will be paid upon publication.

If you have questions, ask away.

Soon It Can Be Told

2011-11-16T09:03:00.001-05:00

I'm excited about a project I'm not ready to fully divulge just yet. It saw a deadline pass the other day. A few of you know what I'm talking about.

Suffice it to say, it will involve writing. Quality stuff, I'd venture to say. And at least one writer with a book in traditional-publication production is involved. The final number of participants has not been determined yet, but I believe that when all is said and done, we'll have something to write home about. Certainly something to talk about on our blogs. I know I'll be doing so.

Soon. Soon, my precious....

A Return to NaNormalcy?

2011-11-01T16:45:00.000-04:00

Well, life has quite the repertoire. It throws knuckleballs, sliders, change-ups, as well as hellacious curve balls. Lately, I've faced a bunch of different pitchers who successfully twisted me into knots. The gap of nearly two months between posts should be evidence of that.

Now that baseball season is done, however, National Novel Writing Month has begun. Once again, I've entered NaNo WriMo (see my little "participant" badge?), and I'll take on a new set of knot-twisting challenges. But today I actually did something different: I ate my lunch in a room with an electrical outlet, which enables me to use my archaic laptop. I use the outlet to spark up the gerbils that run on the Intel wheel inside. As a result, I was able to write today.

It only accounted for 400 words so far. Maybe I'll get more tonight after I put the girls to bed. But it feels good to go out of my way to write creatively.

How are you doing? Are you participating in Nano? Are you feeling creative?

10 Years After

2011-09-11T17:33:00.000-04:00

Where I live, the events of 9/11 were not just images on a television or messages of heartfelt sadness. They were those things, of course, but they were also a motorcade of funerals, a stream of floral arrangements, a vital Thanksgiving meal months later. That day led to random moments of pain and sadness when otherwise meaningless things were noticed to be missing. And it also led to phone calls from people whose voices had almost been forgotten, calling..."just because, well, it's been a while, you know?" and we knew.

For me, 9/11 was highly personal for reasons I won't get into here. But it changed things in me about my writing, about what I wanted to accomplish and be remembered for: Writers write.

Those who know me personally or even merely from random lines in places like AgentQuery Connect or From the Write Angle or via Twitter probably get a sense that I like to joke around. Often, I joke because I take most of life so seriously — sometimes too seriously, perhaps. After 9/11 I took my manuscript very seriously. It had been mostly notes before that day. Maybe a few dozen pages of tripe were written. I don't think any of it survives except for its setting. My story took place in Hoboken, New Jersey, which is just across the river from New York City. The attacks were a point of demarcation unlike any other in my lifetime and I needed to decide when my story took place.

I decided that it was to be a year in the life of a family: From 9/10/00 to 9/10/01. I wrote nightly for months and most of that ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak. It was my first serious attempt at a novel, and I made the mistakes that most writers make on such efforts. Too much back story, too many details that don't matter. I ended up putting it aside for months and working on other things. Short stories, mostly. A lot of freelance assignments. Some of which I'm proud of.

Eventually, I went back to my story, took it apart piece by piece, and started to build again. Perhaps too subtly, I wove 9/11 into the manuscript. It's there, but the story takes place before the events, so it must be done with care. I've had people tell me to change the date of the story or to make it more apparent. And I still think about it. The manuscript still has elements I'm uncertain about, and I've put it aside several times to work on other projects and let my mind work through those elements and help me decide if they're flaws or just need a bit more polishing.

By the time the polishing is done and it goes off to agents, I suspect I'll have come close to finishing another manuscript and several other short stories and a bunch more articles I'm proud of. But this story is one that will be with me forever, whether it gets published or not.

In a sense, it will be part of my personal 9/11 legacy. If nothing else, I have that.

Chickens, Eggs, and the Coop

2011-08-16T17:23:00.002-04:00

A question has popped into my mind lately. It's one of those odd things that doesn't have a right answer but depends entirely upon individuals and their circumstances. But the question is this: Which comes first, the title of your manuscript, the story or plot, the characters, the setting, or is it something else entirely?

I've been writing short stories lately, and on a couple of them the title came first. But I found that as I was writing, the title stopped mattering, so now their names are changing. I imagine they'll change again as I edit the stories.

I suppose the question isn't far removed from my most recent post, but I'd love to hear what your experiences are. Do you come up with a title first? Do you see characters and work to find a story for them? Do you have a story idea and see where things go? Do you just write by the seat of your pants and let fly with whatever comes to mind? (I know many people like that. Works for them!)

What works for you?

What's in a Name

2011-08-02T19:07:00.000-04:00

Over at AgentQuery Connect, there's a challenge going on: Post a title to see what readers think. Will they pull it off the shelf? Or maybe you can think of it as, if you were an agent and saw this title, would you be intrigued?

There have been many wonderful titles and a few that make you scratch your head — which is better than those that leave you simply passing by and looking for a different title. For writers who've never had a book published (and, yes, that rather large group includes me), it's a good lesson to engage in as we attempt to write a manuscript that attracts the eyeballs of people who pay for books (also a rather large group, thank goodness!)

But how realistic is it? Do you buy a book purely based on its title? Does the title have enough gravitational pull to attract your arm in order to slide the book off the shelf? Maybe, but I'm not 100 percent convinced. I'm one of those readers who loves finding new writers, but I tend to have them recommended to me by other readers. And when they do so, it's the writer's story, not the title, that I'm looking to fall in love with. That's how I met the works of Michael Chabon, Christopher Moore, and John Connolly — three writers whose individual styles and voices all appeal to the reader in me.

Had I been looking for adult books to read in the early 1970s (I was still engrossed in the Richard Scarry and Dr. Seuss collections at that point), would I have picked up Carrie? Probably not. What about Moby Dick? What about that title screams white whale or obsession? Rudyard Kipling's The Elephant's Child? Definitely, but I'm an elephant guy.

Mind you, I am not saying titles are unimportant. Perish the thought! Because people do skim the shelves and find writers they didn't know. A title can attract someone's attention. It's the first step. The hopeful reader slides the book out a little bit. Is the cover art appealing? Yes, off the shelf it comes! Perhaps she stares at the cover a second more, hoping the author's name or the title suddenly ring a bell. If not, the next milestone is turning the book over and reading that back blurb. Remember all that work that went into crafting your query? You have even less time to attract the reader on the back cover than you did when you were trying to ensnare an agent's interest. I've stopped reading before the first sentence was done. Back to the shelf with you!

Perhaps the book has an inside flap. Bonus! Those are great ways to gain a reader's confidence. I've bought books based on the inside flap. It contained the bones of a story. But that half-ream of dead trees in between the covers needed to be filled with flesh and blood, sweaty excitement and tangy irony if the writer wanted me to remember her name and inquire about another tryst.

You know when a title has mattered to me? After I was done. Has this happened to you? Have you finished a book and found yourself wondering not about what would happen next to those characters you just fell in love with, but rather about why the author (or agent, or editor, or marketing department, or publisher) decided to call it That. To me, that's when a title's problems come to the forefront.

What about you? Do you buy a book based on its title?

Familiar Ground

2011-07-18T08:39:00.001-04:00

The new blogger interface notwithstanding, I find myself on familiar ground. Or more accurately, I'm there again — staring at a bookshelf filled with books, most of which I've read before, some I never had interest in to begin with, and not a single title is screaming at me to read it. The pile of books on my side of the bed? Same story. The pile next to my wife's side? That's what I've been diving into for the past couple months and there's nothing left but the greasy, fatty skin left from the work of a writer I won't name here. And no, that's not a Voldemort reference; I want to read more of those, actually, but only have the first book.

Sometimes I go through phases. A year ago, I swept through the John Connolly books again, and not long before that I was into Christopher Moore for a second go-round. I can always crack open Tolkein, but after you've read it a dozen times, you start to wonder why you want to make that type of time investment again; the pleasure of reading is very much still there, but ... well, sometimes you crave something different.

So I've decided to dive into short stories again. I've been getting into the One Story items that I don't always have time for when they arrive. The joy of short stories is, even if they're not great, they're not so long that you feel like you wasted your time. And when they're really good, you feel like you've discovered a new element, seen a shooting star, or met the person of your dreams. You're willing to keep learning more about that writer. Of course, sometimes when you do so, you find out that the element was discovered long ago, or it was just space junk, or maybe she isn't nearly as pretty as you thought in the dark bar.

Ah, the joy of discovery!

So, what do you do when you're not sure what to read next?

Return Books by....

2011-06-20T17:57:00.004-04:00

I had an interesting experience this weekend: I gave up books I loved. It wasn't a particularly difficult thing; they weren't mine, after all. A dear relative has been one of the most helpful fellow readers, introducing me to Christopher Moore and John Connolly, who have become two of my favorite authors. She's done it again by letting me read her copy of World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kuntsler. Many years ago, she also introduced me to Michael Chabon.

If you're familiar with these authors, you'll recognize that they are three completely different types of writers. Moore writes farce and satire, Connolly has the suspenseful crime thriller (with a dose of paranormal) down pat, Kuntsler may be better known for his nonfiction writing, and Chabon is simply one of the greatest literary novelists writing today.

This weekend, I returned several Connolly novels — almost exclusively the Charlie Parker series (plus Bad Men, which has a couple Parker cameos). I suppose what was odd about this experience is that these were books I would be willing to read many times over. Indeed, I have.

But they're not my books. I've bought other Connolly books since — the later ones in the Parker series — but the ones I handed back to their rightful owner were a little different. Because, in a way, they own me. I became engrossed in the stories and characters. In a strange way, I felt enmeshed within the pages.

I know I have nothing to fear. These books are not only widely available, but I know these stories now. They're part of me.

Are there any books you would refuse to return?

Idle Thoughts While Waiting for the AC to Kick Into Gear

2011-05-27T18:14:00.004-04:00

The best laid plans of mice and men... I never had much interest in what mice were thinking, much less what they planned to do. Perhaps that's one reason we have cats. But that's the phrase that came to me from some back nook of my noggin.

There are so many things that cross one's mind when plans don't work out quite as expected. For example, I arrived home today — easily the hottest day of the year, topping 90 degrees not a dozen days after it was in the mid 40s — to discover that the air conditioning wasn't working. It's built into the same system that powers the furnace that went out last winter and which might be older than me.

Apparently, in addition to my oh so necessary jobs of mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, buying diapers, and finding some time to play with the cutest, most loving and loveable girls in the world, I also need to figure out how to deal with a system that's giving up the ghost right before its season debut. And still we write.

It seems that nothing will ever be easy, not even three-day weekends. I realize this sounds whiny. It is whiny. But so it goes.

As writers, it's easy to become despondent. We struggle to gain a foothold in the world, to get some sort of acknowledgement that our work is valued by readers. Heck, I cherish a rejection letter I received some twenty years ago that called the characters in one of my short stories "wispy" because it at least acknowledged that there was an interesting story; it just needed more work.

So that's what we do. We plug away, we edit, we read, we write and rewrite and rewrite some more until we're so sick of these characters that we consider creating a new storyline in which some crazed individual hires a hitman to whack the characters from the other story. Or maybe that's just me; I am from Jersey, after all.

Yes, it pays the bills, but it also keeps us sane — or it's our obsessive-compulsive means to keep the world in order and scare away the monsters. For me, it's the best way to know that I'm alive and making a minor mark in the world.

How about you? How important is writing in your life?

The Way Things Work

2011-05-17T22:45:00.002-04:00

Recently, I've had a run of bad luck. Not terrible luck. I didn't lose a family member or find a lump. There were no insects crawling through my nasal cavity or strangers in my bed. I'm talking missed train connections, minor disappointments, relatives venturing close to Benjamin Franklin's deadline ("House guests, like fish, stink after three days...") These are just the way things work when life is moving from day to day. And things need to keep moving if you're going to keep a reader's interest.

Indeed, when you write, these things can make all the difference. You might say, bad luck is the new black. Ok, maybe you wouldn't say that, exactly, but without a good deal of tension, your story might get a little ... well, constipated.

So, if you find yourself a little (writers') blocked up, why not shove a little writing laxative into your system. By that I mean, do whatever you need to do to get your ideas moving along. Change chapters. Write from a new perspective. Add a character you know you won't keep. Draw a map of your character's neighborhood. Send your character's boss a nasty letter.

What comes out may not be worth keeping, but at least it's out. And if the ideas that had been in the way were already a little stale, what comes next might be the real deal.

What do you do to keep your writing flowing free and easy?

Getting to Know You

2011-04-29T14:48:00.002-04:00

If you haven't seen it yet, my latest post on From the Write Angle went live earlier today.

Please check it out and let me know what you think. In the meantime, I'm finishing off a new post for the Elephant's Bookshelf. Hope you come back soon!

Now It Can Be Told

2011-04-01T00:01:00.014-04:00

I'm one of those rare people who is fortunate enough to love what he does for a living. I write. Always have, and I hope I always will.

You know what one of the things I love about writing is? The ability to time travel. You can go backwards and forwards — even sideways if you want. In fact, you can go forward in time on blogs, too. I'm doing it right now, actually.

You see, I'm setting this post to go live later than what my watch is telling me right now. It will go live at 12:01. On press releases, you often see things embargoed until 12:01 on such and such a date. Why not 12:00 midnight? I suspect it's because people get confused as to which day that actually is; a minute later, there's no doubt involved.

And what, pray tell, could be so darned important that we've embargoed it? And who the heck are "we"? Well, now it can be told. And no, despite the date, this is not an April Fool's Joke.

If you click on this link, you will go to a new blog that's just gone live. It's called From the Write Angle. It's not your typical blog. It's more of a writers' collective.

You see, writers don't always know exactly what it is that makes them who they are — at least, that's how I see it. We perceive things in our own particular way, and sometimes we experiment with other ways of seeing things. Points of view are important. Context is crucial, except when it isn't. And as in Roshomon, different people can see the same thing and interpret it in a completely unique way.

We Write Anglers — the fourteen of us — are writers who do what we do in our own unique way. Some write thrillers, others write for young adults. There are writers of erotica and there are writers of paranormal fiction. (And I bet some of those paranormal characters get downright kinky in their own ways, too.) There is even a literary fiction writer who also does a fair amount of nonfiction writing. Hmmm, now I wonder who that good looking guy might be?

The idea of From the Write Angle is to share our perspectives on not just the writing process but the publishing process — and beyond. When you visit, you'll find a good baker's dozen or more articles already in place in various genres and discussing a bevy of topics, and we'll be filing new posts on a regular basis. If you're a writer, I think you'll find it helpful, insightful, even entertaining. And we're already talking about new ideas to pursue as a group.

Truth is, when you get enough creative firepower together, you start to believe you can achieve just about anything you put your minds to. That's what writers should believe.

At least, that's how I see it. What do you think? Let us know. We look forward to hearing from you.

New York Writers' Workshop Fiction Pitch: Meet the Agents

2011-03-29T23:03:00.001-04:00

I’ve been feeling and sounding more intelligent lately, at least as far as it relates to the publishing industry. No, I didn’t take a special pill that enabled me to know that the line about only using 10 percent of our brains is a bunch of BS — I knew that already. It’s actually because I recently had an opportunity to attend an agent panel session of the New York Writers’ Workshop Fiction Pitch earlier this month.

Let me just say, if you’re in the NYC area, you should check out their "perfect pitch" conferences. They offer writers opportunities to workshop their pitches with folks who are active in the industry. The workshop is the teaching division of an organization called New York Writers’ Resources, and they also have a webzine called Ducts that publishes personal stories — both fiction and nonfiction — and a publishing arm called Greenpoint Press, which is about to publish The House on Crash Corner and Other Unavoidable Calamities.

Anyway, the agent panel that morning brought together three agents who shared their insights on what’s happening in the industry. Being one of those annoying reporter types, I asked a bunch of questions — especially during the "meet the agents" discussion afterward. I came away feeling that I learned a lot more than I knew going in, and I don’t think of myself as ignorant.

The agents were Jenny Bent, Erin Cox, and Sarah Dickman. Bent, who set out her own shingle — the Bent Agency — after working at a few places, has been an agent since the mid-'90s. But she was no industry curmudgeon; rather, she struck me as being very much on top of how things are changing. In fact, since attending this workshop, I started following her on Twitter (@jennybent) and have found her to have interesting things to say and share about "independent publishing" (a term she prefers to "self-publishing"; don’t you prefer driving a "pre-owned" vehicle to a "used car"?) as well as about traditional publishing.

Like the other agents on the panel, Bent stressed the importance of voice in the manuscript. She also loves comp titles. (Who doesn’t?) She made a few interesting comments that led me to believe she foresees some major changes happening. One question was raised about the importance of agents as the industry changes; she commented that agents aren’t as vulnerable as publishers are in this new era of e-publishing. And she also called the e-publishing and digital revolution "the Wild Wild West" a view I hold also, but it means a lot more coming from her.

Erin Cox hasn’t been an agent for very long, but she’s been in and around the book industry for more than a decade. She’s with Rob Weisbach Creative Management and has been a publicist for several years after working in advertising. In fact, she’s still does freelance publicity on the side. The Weisbach group sounds very intriguing to me.

Apparently, Rob Weisbach was a publisher and wanted to provide more for the writers he worked with to help them advance their careers — and presumably his own — so he went to the agent side to create a team with a variety of talents (such as publicists) to help train writers for the long haul in the industry. Sounds good to me!

Cox said that about 75 percent of her authors are first-timers. She, too, was looking for a great voice in the work. She spoke of needing to love the work. "And you can’t just write. You need to sell yourself to me." And she’s willing to find out quickly if there’s chemistry. She said writers should send their whole manuscript right off the bat. If she’s intrigued by the query, she doesn’t want to have to wait.

Speaking one-on-one with her, Cox sounded as though she thought e-publishing was just about to burst. She said she expects that it won't be long before it's a major area within publishing. Frankly, I've been seeing changes in the weeks since I met her.

Dickman works for the Nicholas Ellison Agency, and if I’m reading their website correctly, they represent one of my favorite writers, Christopher Moore. (And they inked a movie deal for his vampire trilogy of Bloodsucking Fiends, You Suck and Bite Me. I can’t wait.) The thing that really sank in for me about what she said was that Ellison is absolutely concentrating on traditional publishers at this point, as that’s where the money is. It’s an honest answer, and she didn’t share any insight as to how long she thinks things will stay that way.

"There’s a decrease in profit margin, and the volume of e-books hasn’t caught up with digital rights," she said. But given what Cox and Bent were saying about e-publishing and digital rights, I have to believe Dickman and the Ellison Agency are preparing for the future too.

Overall, I found the workshop very informative and helpful. I think it had something to do with the caliber of the agents as well as the people attending. You could tell by the questions that these were writers with experience, and some were looking to learn about what pioneering might look like in the Wild Wild West of e-publishing.

When it comes to taking on unpublished or "debut" authors, they couched their answers a little: Bent readily admitted that she takes on "fewer (debut authors) than other people," but she also spoke about how exciting it is for her to help new authors get their initial sales. I was impressed by Bent in general, but I think she was trying to put a sunny smile on the debut author thing. She's been in the industry for a good fifteen years and she probably doesn't have to work with anyone she doesn't want to work with (which I think says something for the NYWW group, frankly).

With fewer years as agents, the other two were far more likely to take on first-time authors. Cox said 75-80 percent of her writers were pitching their debut and the numbers were a little lower for Dickman but in the same ballpark. But both of them might receive requests after they've been vetted by an assistant.

Even if an author gets signed, getting their books sold is difficult. I happened to ride down the elevator with Cox and the man who moderated the panel. She reps one of his nonfiction writers and she's having a very difficult time selling the woman's book. She thinks the woman has a decent platform, but publishers aren't buying it.

During the Q&A, I asked Cox about the agency model and how it's different than most agencies. While she talked about how Weisbach wants to develop writers for the long haul, I also had the sense that they were able to manage costs differently by having a variety of talented people involved when needed. I didn't have a chance to delve too deeply into the cost structures of the services they provide their writers, but I do think it's something that deserves more investigation.

Still Cox talked about the challenges that were going on in the industry: smaller royalties, fewer payments, which meaning a different cash flow for authors and it probably means the cash flow is a challenge for the agency.

I can't help but wonder what the industry will be like by the time the fall event comes around.

Platform and Credentials: The Other Side

2011-03-09T17:04:00.006-05:00

In the comment section of a recent post, newly minted Elephant's Bookshelf follower Angela Ackerman suggested I look at when a writer has a marketable book concept and a great platform but no credentials for writing the book.

To me, it begs the question: How has this person developed a platform? Well, one obvious way is that he or she is a celebrity. Think Snookie of Jersey Shore infamy. Now, I'll admit that I can be a little snobby at times and I see no value in that particular show, but it's clear that many people love watching morons who put themselves into stupid situations. Heck, the fact that the Jackass movie brought in millions of dollars helped prove that point almost a decade ago. So, Snookie's placement on the bestseller list should shock no one who keeps an eye on American pop culture these days.

Perhaps a better example came to light more recently. Kelly Oxford, who writes the Eject blog. I've never read it, and just now as I checked it out, I saw nothing worth digging into. (Top post was about her book deal, the next posts were about how ill she was feeling, and other gossipy stuff I didn't care about.) I'm not sure what she's selling, but the Canadian writer now has a publishing deal with two HarperCollins imprints.

My initial impression is that this is just more noise added to the cacophony (or should it be "caca-phonies"?) And publishers have every right to produce books that are likely to sell. This is a business, after all. If nothing else, it helps buttress the belief that we writers who don't (yet) have agents or publishing deals need to work on our platforms as well as our credentials. But I can't help but ask myself — and you, dear readers — can't we find better people to write books that will attract an audience?

And platform is no longer just a nonfiction term (though I still feel most comfortable thinking of it that way). But in the fiction world, what is generally meant by platform is having multiple access points for readers to find you; I think of them as conduits rather than platforms.

I suspect this is a topic I'll return to often. Anyone care to suggest any other points on this or other matters?

Archaic Points of View?

2011-02-28T21:46:00.000-05:00

I was poking around the various bookshelves in my house recently, trying to find something I'd not read before (or at least not in a while), when I found a Robin Cook novel that came with my wife. (A bookreading spouse is a definite plus in my opinion, and one who doesn't mind when I attempt to be funny is even better!)

The book, Godplayer, was not one I was familiar with, but within 35-40 pages, I had a fairly good idea what was going on and who the probable bad guy was (turns out I was wrong, which is a good thing.) But what I'm writing about today isn't about whether a story is predictable or not. Rather, I'm speaking to the passage of time.

A long time ago, in a readership far, far different from what we see now, it appears that commercial fiction allowed things to happen that are frowned upon by we sophisticated 21st century readers. Two points in particular caught my attention: dialogue tags and shifting points of view. First a couple of definitions for those Bookshelf readers who might not be familiar with the jargon of writers.

A dialogue tag is the stream of "he said, she saids" that sometimes accompany dialogue. It can also include those annoying Tom Swifties. For example, "I won't wear the snow plow," Thomas tooted haughtily. The adverbial descriptor is not only unnecessary, it distracts the reader from the story.

Elmore Leonard is a proponent of using "said" almost exclusively. But Leonard also doesn't add words that needn't be added. The following would probably piss Elmore off:

"I shot him," she said.
"But why?" Crispy asked.
"Because I couldn't stand the idea of him leaving me," she replied.
"But he wasn't leaving you. He was breaking up with her. He told me so himself," Crispy said.
"Oh no! What have I done?" she sighed.

Ok, aside from it being terrible dialogue, I think you'll understand what I mean. This conversation takes place between two people, so we don't need to identify who is speaking each and every time. Context means something.

The other thing I wanted to address was point of view shifts. Perhaps this helps:

Without turning on the light, Sandy threw her coat on the bed. She missed Derrick, and it pained her to have to spend another night alone. As she unbuttoned her blouse, she stroked her hand along her cleavage.

"I would be happy to help you with that, if you'd like," Derrick said.

She jumped at his voice and stumbled into the closet door.

Derrick smiled. He wondered whether she was happy to see him or whether she'd forgive him for sneaking into her apartment. ...

Did you see that? All of a sudden, we're in Derrick's brain. How'd that happen?

While I've read lots of older books in which perspective hops from head to head in subsequent paragraphs, the approach is frowned upon these days — at least by many readers I know and talk with. One reason is because it's annoying. A reader likes to feel like she's in the character's mind, seeing everything from that perspective. Then, faster than you can say "Being John Malkovitch," you're in someone else's head!

Back to Godplayer. What I noticed in Cook's book is that not too many years ago, head-hopping was publishable. Today, not so much. You can still jump from perspective to perspective, but you need to show breaks — asterisks between paragraphs or empty space between paragraphs — to allow a reader to understand that things were changing.

Like I said, sometimes the tool can be effective. It can help show a scene in a camera-like manner. But if you do it too much, it's more annoying than the hand-cam view that's become popular in films since The Blair Witch Project.

Will head-hopping and flagrant dialogue tags ever come back into vogue? I doubt it. What do you think? And what other literary tools do you think have outlived their usefulness?

Platform vs. Credentials

2011-02-07T17:20:00.006-05:00

This was originally posted in the nonfiction forum I moderate on AgentQuery Connect. I thought I'd share it here. Comments are always welcome.

While reading through agent blogs recently, I came upon a wonderful distinction that sums up quite well one of the challenges that frustrates writers of nonfiction: Platform vs. Credentials.

For example, say you're the president of a small company that produces widgets. You started in the field as unpaid internship in widget making, got a full-time job after graduating widget school, and worked your way up the ranks to be chief widget operator and finally president. You're a big wig in your little widget world. Congrats. You have credentials.

But do you have platform? Not necessarily.

You're running a small regional operation that until recently was struggling to make payroll, remains virtually unknown outside of the widget world, and makes decent widgets but is not recognized as an innovator. To make matters worse, you cancelled your subscription to Widget World Times ten years ago. I mean, who does that?

You don't have a great platform. As far as the widget world is concerned, you're a dinosaur. In fact, if it weren't for your son, you might be facing difficult decisions about the future of your little company.

Your son, who you hired a year ago after he earned his masters in widget management even though he followed at your heels since he was a kid, not only gets a subscription to Widget World Times, he's been quoted dozens of times in its competitor publications and has a column in the Widget Gazette. In addition, his blog, Widgetwatcher.com, is quickly becoming a must-read for the widget cognoscenti. Not only does he boast of his hundreds of blog followers, his frequent Twitter posts get retweeted regularly by the 4200+ followers he has there. And comments? Jeez, he pays your teenage son $10 a week (and supplies him with a six-pack of beer on occasion -- but you didn't hear that from me) to moderate the comments on Widgetwatcher.

Your son is developing a strong platform. If he can help you grow that company, then his platform becomes even stronger. Because he doesn't quite have the credentials yet. Maybe you and he could write a book together.

Does that help?

Stretching Out

2011-01-30T15:54:00.000-05:00

As January closes, I look back on a blur of a month. Maybe it was all the snow and ice that distorted my vision, but I can't believe we've had a month of days already this year. On some of those days, I ran some miles and established a nice — albeit tenuous — foundation in my exercise plan for the year. In a similar fashion, I've been building up my freelance writing "miles." But before I get too far on my running or my writing, I need to pause and make sure I'm not about to injure myself.

To me, writing and running are a lot alike: Once you know how to do them, you can pick them back up without too much difficulty, but to get the most out of them you need to keep doing them consistently. That's how you stay in shape. When it comes to my legs, now that I've got a simple base down, I'll make sure that I stretch out my muscles, keep proper form. I'm concerned more about the long haul than reaching a random goal. In the same manner, I'm approaching my freelance — and my novel writing — by ensuring that I keep my tools (interviewing skills, grammar, language, voice) all sharp and ready for action.

Sometimes just a quick blog post is enough for me to feel I'm ready to bear down on finishing a profile or to get my mind thinking of questions to ask.

What do you do to keep your writing tools sharp?

New Year, New Challenges, New Inspirations

2011-01-04T17:27:00.017-05:00

Not wanting to rehash the same old "resolution/goal" post, I found what I didn't know I was looking for in the blog of another aspiring author. The blog is Tikiman1962, which I only saw because I follow N.M. Kelby on Facebook. I don't know the guy who writes Tikiman. (Is he familiar with Martel's Tiki bar at the Jersey Shore? Or does "tiki" mean something else for this guy?) But I already feel a bit of kinship with him. He writes, he's done NaNoWriMo for several years, he's married and appreciates the help his wife can provide him in his writing. And he appears to speak with his own voice on his blog.

Good qualities all.

His 2010 wrap-up piece made me think about what I accomplished in the year that's already packed in a Hefty bag and lying on the curbside. I posted 30 items on The Elephant's Bookshelf in 2010 — more than some years, fewer than others. A couple were book reviews by writing friends. Some were very short pieces that I slapped together on the fly. What I really loved about the majority of them, however, is that they seemed to find an audience. I thank all of you who commented and hope I inspire you to do so in 2011.

To be sure, the largest contingent of commenters came from the community of writers I belong to at AgentQuery Connect, which I think is the most honest, critical, and supportive writers' site on the Web — at least those I'm familiar with. I also say thank you to Caroline Hagood, whose witty, wonderful blog Culture Sandwich has been a joyful discovery for me. Caroline shared a book review on the Bookshelf, and I wrote a blog post in the Sandwich. In between, we both seemed to enjoy what the other was writing. I call that a great example of how the Internet can expand your horizons and help you develop opportunities. Plus, creating friendships with other writers always strikes me as good karma.

If the opening days of 2011 are any indication, the new year is replete with such opportunities, too. So, whether you're looking forward or peeking in your rearview mirror, I wish good luck to my fellow writers as we all look to typing, scribbling, or scratching out word after word after word.

McCarthy's Bar by Pete McCarthy

2010-12-05T12:45:00.001-05:00

From time to time, I read books that confound me. In my middle-dotage, I've started shoving those books to the side with a phrase along the lines of "There's not enough time in the world to finish tripe like that." Within the first fifty pages of Pete McCarthy's McCarthy's Bar, I found myself wondering what the heck was his point. But I continued. I love Ireland and I'm not averse to drinking. And McCarthy has a way with words and phrases. At that point, I wasn't so sure about his having a way with books, but like I said, I'm not averse to drinking.

Before I'd reached page 100, I had realized it was basically a travelogue. He's driving around Ireland drinking in pubs, visiting stone circles, being accosted by killer cows (ok, not a killer), waxing philosophical and spiritual at times, and sleeping in B&Bs of all sorts. And telling stories about the many, varied people he meets in all these places. I don't really read travelogues too often, but that's fine. I mean, the guy's funny, so why not?

See, this is where I had a problem. McCarthy is funny. I would laugh out loud at times, which can be a little strange when you're sitting among weary commuters heading to or from New York. By page 150 or so, I'd decided that I would finish reading the book even though I was having a hard time justifying it to my inner book-reading snob.

Along the way, I discovered that the book has more going for it than just a travelogue. It really is about learning about your identity. McCarthy's asking, "Where do I belong?" He was born in England, though his family is Irish and he still has cousins and uncles living in Ireland. His accent is English, so there's no BSing about it to the Irish. (He's not visiting the U.S., after all.) And those he meets on his travels include people from Germany, Belgium, Russia... I think there may even have been an Uzbek in there somewhere. And they're becoming Irish — at least their kids are.

So can an English-born guy with Irish roots claim to be Irish? I'll let you read for yourself.

So carry the book with you for a few weeks. I wouldn't recommend you read it all in one sitting, unless you've got a lot of beer and hearty food with you. No, take it with you to a pub, read a few pages over a pint. Mark your place when someone sits down near you and chats (it may help to stop in an Irishy pub; they're everywhere now, which also is a point McCarthy makes), and enjoy the craic.

You may not remember every single person you meet on these pages, but you don't have to. This is one of those books where the journey is far more important than the destination. But when you've reached the last page, you'll realize you've found a nice place for resurrection.

Irene Goodman Auctioning Off Critiques to Support Blindness Research

2010-11-17T13:49:00.003-05:00

Hello, fellow writers. I'm passing along some information that came to me from a colleague — one of the many talented writers who make up the community at Agent Query Connect. His name is Robert K. Lewis, but this post is related to the agency that represents him.

Irene Goodman is auctioning off critiques of partial manuscripts via eBay (i.e., critiques of the first fifty pages or so of a complete manuscript), with the proceeds going to the Foundation Fighting Blindness, the Deafness Research Foundation, and Hope For Vision. She's doing this every month; the next auction will begin on December 1.

Mind you, this is not a gimmick. It's a real cause being supported by a real agent who's volunteering her time in order to raise money and awareness of diseases that cause blindness. Why? One major reason is because her 23-year-old son has Usher Syndrome, which is causing him to lose his hearing and vision.

So, take another look at her guidelines for what she'll critique, but again, this is a cause worth supporting regardless of whether or not you write in the genres she represents.

Book Review: The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee

2010-11-07T15:24:00.001-05:00

I know Halloween is over. I've already qualified for the free turkey at my local supermarket. But I still like a good scary story, and almost as good is a well-written review of a good scary story. I found one of these not too long ago at the blog of one of my followers, Brian James who's a pretty darn good writer himself. With his permission, I'm reprinting his review of Lewis Buzbee's The Haunting of Charles Dickens. Feel free to post a comment here or on Brian's blog. And if you have a review you'd like to see reposted here or posted here for the first time, please contact me. You can do so via mwsinclair@gmail.com or via elephantsbookshelf@gmail.com.

The Haunting of Charles Dickens by Lewis Buzbee
(Feiwel & Friend 2010)

Sometimes there are stories that float around in my mind that I want to read, but know not within what pages they lie. As soon as I began this book, I knew it was one of those stories I'd been searching out for a long time.

This book is so wonderful on so many levels that it's hard to know where to begin praising it. But I'll start with what is always the make or break for me and that is character. The main character, twelve-year-old Meg, is one of those characters you don't want to leave off and who keeps you reading. She's smart, courageous, and altogether real. I love when the child characters are real heroes in middle grade novels. And though set in Victorian London, Meg is not unlike a modern character. After all, a twelve-year-old is a twelve-year-old no matter what scenario you drag them through.

The story moves at great pace, always leaving the reader wanting to push ahead. The central mystery is full of adventure that unravels perfectly. And the book doesn't talk down to the reader. Even at its most complicated, it's direct but never condescending. This is something that I think young readers will really respond to.

The themes of this book are incredibly relevant to our world. In many ways, I think our world has reverted to the industrial and corporate greed of Dickens's time. Child labor is as much a problem today as it was in Victorian times. Just because it's not happening in the streets of Western Civilization's shining cities, it shouldn't be ignored. It's important for children today to be reminded of the cruelty that comes with this practice, especially when the very same practice is partially responsible for enabling most of us to have cheap electronics and clothing.

There isn't anybody I wouldn't recommend this book to. It's one of those rare stories that can transport you into it's world and make it so you want to stay. I can't imagine any reader not cheering Meg on and feeling proud of her each time she succeeds.

Thoughts on Branding, Voice, and Dedication

2010-11-02T22:36:00.000-04:00

I'm not sure if this is something that comes with age or it's just a facet of the age we're living in, but I'm finding it more and more difficult to meet my many goals. For example, just to write a blog post each month has proven to be a major challenge. Of course, that's not nearly enough to maintain a consistent following (and I thank all of you who do come back post after post.)

Earlier this week, I pulled out a book about writing nonfiction book proposals. It's from 1995. To be sure, a lot has changed in the past fifteen years. But then again, many things remain the same. A writer still needs to have a saleable idea, a marketable product, and the dedication and enthusiasm to see those ideas and products brought to frution.

That's not exclusive to nonfiction. Fiction writers, too, need to have those elements in abundance. My fiction tends toward "literary fiction" and with that often comes slow, character-driven plots. There simply aren't as many people willing to spend their time reading the work of an unknown writer whose story is slow-paced.

But if a writer can sell his product 𔄤 fiction, nonfiction, memoir, poetry — and become virtually synonymous with his own style of writing, he can develop an audience who loves his work. That's not easy, but I think that's what separates the wannabe's from the superstars.

I used to hate Stephen King. I hadn't read his work, but back when I was in high school, it seemed that he could put all his disjointed nightmares on paper and sell a few million copies. What kind of writer would allow himself to descend to such levels, I wondered. After I saw the movie Stand By Me, which I later discoverd was based on his novella The Body, I softened on Mr. King. I softened further when I met the woman who is now my wife and who loves King's work. And I softened even more when I read his work On Writing.

What happened while I was getting all squishy is that I realized what I thought I knew about King was completely wrong. He wasn't a horror writer — not that I have anything at all against horror. He was a masterful story teller. He wa not always a great writer, but he could spin a yarn as well as spider could spin a web. First and foremost, he wrote about people. But he also wrote to, knew, and appreciated his audience. Read his forewards and afterwards. You can't help but get to know the guy. And like him.

I wouldn't call myself the biggest Stephen King fan in the world, but I've read enough of his work now to say that he's got a definite style. The marketing folks would talk about his brand of story. Others would reference his voice. To me, his work shows that he's put his time in and still does.

How about you? Are you able to put as much time in as you need to your writing? What would you need to sacrifice to meet your goals for yourself?

An Actual Trip

2010-10-07T06:44:00.000-04:00

Not that I've exactly been burning the blogosphere up with the past of my postings, but I'll be away from a computer for the next several days on an actual trip. But I've already got a blog post yearning to breathe free. Actually, it'll be an interview with an agent! I might post something else before I conduct the interview, but I believe it's fair to say that before October is history, you'll see more activity here on the Elephant's Bookshelf.

In the meantime, feel free to read and write at your leisure.

(And no, the person in the image at the side is not me, not my wife, not anyone I know. Just someone writing on a plane. During my travels, however, I'll be the guy with the young child on his lap.)

Book Review: Shiver

2010-09-22T17:27:00.021-04:00

I don't know if you feel it too, but I think someone punched the afterburners into high gear. I could have sworn Labor Day was a week ago. (And no, I still haven't taken that vacation...) It's also hard to believe that the year is almost three-fourths done. Around New Year's, I asked readers if they'd like to contribute book reviews. I got one back then. Now I have another to share with you. Though I know the writer's name, she prefers to be identified by her Agent Query moniker, Big Black Cat. Thanks, BBC, for your contribution.

Yes, I'm a YA librarian and I hadn't read Shiver yet. There, I said it.

With that off my chest, I have to share that I approach all YA romance with trepidation. I'm virulently anti-love-at-first-sight, which is so common in the genre. Maybe I'm a jaded adult, or perhaps I was just an unattractive teen, but I find the idea of love at first sight is usually an excuse for not having to bother with character development vis a vis the relationship. So I found myself pleasantly surprised by Shiver — but I digress.

The story's basic plot is human girl loves werewolf, which had me gagging at hello. But guess what, BBC was won over by something I didn't expect — really good writing. Stiefvater does a stellar job of using a cliched genre as a vehicle for some excellent writing. She also takes a big leap by introducing YA readers to a little culture, such as the German poet Rilke. Yes, that's a true statement.

While there is an element of "ba BOOM I'm fantastically in love," the rather complicated backstory of Grace, the female main character, and her obsession with a wolf pack, produces a relationship that builds on (gasp!) friendship and trust before evolving into something else. True, the male MC (werewolf Sam) is in his wolf form at the time, but hey — building blocks are building blocks, and if you can’t dig interspecies relationships you have missed the YA bus.

Another pro for me in this book was the supporting cast being well written — something you don't always see in YA, or adult literature for that matter. Teen characters often come off as stereotypes, so I was pleased to find an exception. There were perhaps two characters that I didn't feel I "knew" by the end, but for the most part the whole group was well written and individualistic.

Maggie Stiefvater is represented by Laura Rennert of the Andrea Brown Agency, and I can tell you, I'm jealous as hell about that.

When Writing Takes a Vacation

2010-08-24T19:27:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder if these pauses of more than a week in posts concern the readers of The Elephant's Bookshelf. (It's probably worse for readers of Matt Sinclair's Coffee Cup, which often goes several weeks without an update.) But then again, it's still summer, and readers and writers often take vacations.

You know vacations — those all-too-short respites from the workaday jobs that pay our salaries, feed our families, and are the source (too often) of stress as well as self-definition. The problem is, I don't know them very well. As a writer and father of young children, I tend to live without too many luxuries, such as disposable money, a flush savings account, and a reliable car. I've also been a writer long enough to know that even if I'm fortunate enough to sell the novels I write, they'll likely never account for much supplemental income. But I'd like some supplement, anyway.

Which brings me to the challenge. Should you take a vacation from your writing? I don't know about you, but having failed to take any time off this summer, my brain is much more fried than any portion of my skin. So I'm wondering if the work I'm putting into the manuscript is good enough or if I'm just wasting my time.

Of course, it could be that the evil demon over my shoulder is whispering snippets of doubt and pessimism into my ear.

My inclination is to keep writing and reading it after I've done — or have my trusted readers give it another go.

What do you think? And what do you do when faced with writing while mentally fatigued?

How Do You Do It?

2010-08-10T19:25:00.009-04:00

I don't know if you regularly look at the comments on these posts or return to see what other folks have said after you've left your mark; I get the wonderful task of moderating all that lands on the Elephant's Bookshelf, so I see them all. But if you didn't come back, you may have missed a great question from a reader who I presume is a relatively new writer.

Dr3am3r said, "I've just begun working on a manuscript, and the enormity of the task freaks me out like nothing I have ever before experienced. How do you all do it? What keeps you focused and how do you not become overwhelmed?"

As someone who has penned stories and poems and songs and anything else my little heart imagined since I was a small child, I can't really speak to the whole freaking out part of things. I've always written and started without any expectation of making money at it. As I grew up, I was more concerned with telling stories that I thought were interesting, and if I could get other people interested in them too, all the better. But I've worked with writers most of my professional life, and I've seen some of them freak out. I accept that the blank sheet of paper can be daunting.

The question reminds me of the story behind the name of Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird. I don't have the book in front of me at the moment, but it went something like this: As a young girl, she was putting together a report about birds and hadn't done all her research. The night before the report was due, she was in tears and her father asked why. She confessed what had happened and he agreed to help her. "How are we going to get it done? There's so many of them!" And he said, "We'll go through them one at a time, bird by bird."

Again, I may have gotten some of the facts wrong, but the gist of it is that her dad helped and explained that to reach your goal, you take it step by step. Perhaps I even said something like that when I offered a review of Bird by Bird back when the Bookshelf was still a young elephant.

But I'll ask you all, fellow readers and writers, how do you do it? What compels you to tell a story? What makes you go back to the story you've started to make it better? How do you overcome the seemingly enormous task of writing a novel? What have you been smoking to make you think you can do this and do it well?

Rediscovered Quote

2010-08-01T14:26:00.001-04:00

I'm in the midst of cleaning a desk and found several old notebooks from conferences I covered as a reporter. Written on the inside cover was this quote. It's probably not mine, but I'll claim it if no one else will. It sounds like something I'd write.

If you stand around waiting for destiny, you will only meet fate.

It seems appropriate today, as we start a new month. I've had a sense of destiny lately. Some things are clicking, and the revisions of my "completed" manuscript are moving ahead nicely, though I've put the work-in-progress on hold for the summer. Of course, as we discussed in a previous post, we're always writing and I know of some significant changes I'll be making to that manuscript once I return, and I'm sure it'll be much improved.

So, welcome to August, friends and fellow writers. What are you working on?

Getting Personal

2010-07-25T13:57:00.005-04:00

First, I'd like to say thank you to all the new followers. I believe you all arrived after a thread of conversation on Agent Query, which, for the uninitiated, is a site that includes tons of information about how to query a literary agent, information on agencies, and a community of writers — both agented and not.

That particular thread also broached a topic that I thought I'd like to address here: personal information.

Here's a little story about myself and my blogging. When I created my first blog, Matt Sinclair's Coffee Cup, one of my brothers visited and warned me to be less informative about my personal things. At the time, I think I was just discussing the random things going on in my life — umpiring baseball games, watching baseball games, drinking a beer while watching baseball on television after having umpired a game that night... I wasn't griping about work or calling someone names or whining about a hangover or anything completely idiotic like that. But I understood where my brother was coming from, and I toned down some of what I discussed. When my kids were born, I became even more standoffish about personal information, especially as it pertains to them.

But there are times when personal information is useful to making a point. As a writer, a lot of my scenes in what I write are informed by what has happened in my real life. They're fiction, but they might have a germ of reality in them that morphed into some imaginative piece of crafted prose (or maybe something else that starts with the letters "cr.")

A blog post is different, but the goal can be the same: engage the reader, be honest, be interesting, and oh yeah, be honest. As John Lennon sang "All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth."

I ask you, faithful readers, followers, friends, Romans... How much personal information do you include in a blog post? How much do you allow to enter your fiction? Do you think of these things as different? Mutually exclusive? Closely tied together? Wrapped in leather?

Come on, you can tell me....

Versatility and Range

2010-07-11T09:01:00.001-04:00

The other night, on a softball field off the East River in the sweltering city of New York, I did something I hadn't done since I was a little kid. Not only did I hit two home runs — I wouldn't call myself a power hitter, by any stretch of the imagination — I also pitched. I've played baseball-like games since I can remember. When I was two years old, clad in an elephant shirt, one of my brothers would pitch Wiffleballs to me that I'd chop at with a little orange bat. So I've been around a ball field pretty much all my life and have played every position.

But in high school and college I was a catcher. When I could no longer allow a few at bats to justify a plummeting grade point average, I decided that my baseball career was, sadly, at an end. So my softball career started in earnest. Long story short, I've played everywhere, filling a utility role on strong teams and leading mediocre teams from whatever deep hole needed filling. But as I've aged, I've found that sometimes I can't do the things that used to be so easy. I can't move as quickly or as well as I did when I was in my twenties (or, GASP!, my thirties). The other night, it made sense for me to pitch. I was more useful there.

What does any of this have to do with writing?

Versatility and range often go unheralded in writers. "Those are traits of journalists," some might scoff. And while that's not untrue, I wonder why fiction writers don't always allow them into their world. Or maybe it's not the writers.

How many of you either say or think you'd like to write in more than one genre? I bet there are many of you; I'm one. And I'm not talking about writing fiction and nonfiction. I mean writing, say, literary fiction and science fiction, or thrillers and young adult.

If you're fortunate enough to have an agent, you might hear her say, "Stick with what you do best and make yourself even better." Indeed, that's good advice in my opinion.

But what about those of us who feel not only comfortable but capable of writing in a variety of manners? What about the versatile writer? Perhaps this is where you develop a pen name (or second pen name, if you write under one already) to keep the distinction clear. Let's face it, I doubt most Stephen King readers would feel warm and fuzzy about finding a romance novel by their favorite author — unless, of course, the readers' eclectic tastes include such flavors.

But I'm not sure even that is necessary. Graham Greene would step back and write his "diversions" — humorous stories like Our Man in Havana — that aren't steeped in Catholic symbolism and issues of great import. A more contemporary writer, John Connolly, came to my attention through The Book of Lost Things (a wonderful read if you've not tried it!), which is essentially a coming of age fantasy story. Connolly is perhaps best known as the writer of the highly engaging (and sometimes wince-inducing) Charlie Parker thriller series. Again, brilliant stuff.

As a reader, I trust Connolly implicitly to tell any type of story. Perhaps it matters that he also plied his trade as a journalist.

So I wonder, do you write all that you can write?. Are you telling the stories you want to tell? Do you write to the market you think you can sell or do you write the story and let things fall as they might? Inquiring minds want to know.

The Daily Deed

2010-07-02T13:34:00.004-04:00

As we head into what promises to be a lovely and exciting holiday weekend (at least around here in God's Country, a.k.a. New Jersey), I find myself with something I'm not too accustomed to having much of: free time. Like now, for example. The wife just left for an appoinment and the girls are getting drowsy as Bert and Ernie sing about words starting with the letter "l."

Now, a conscientious writer would head into the current work in progress (or two as the case may be) and continue where he left off. I, on the other hand, am squeezing in a moment to post a blog, maybe check up on Facebook (where I'll likely post a link to this on the Elephant's Bookshelf page -- feel free to follow me there, too!), and check out a writing site or two, like Agent Query.

These are not unimportant things, but they are distractions from the primary task at hand, which is to prepare my manuscripts for heading out into the big blue world of publishing. Their first stop, presumably, will be an agent. I don't know who that will be yet, but sites like Agent Query certainly help me get closer to answering that question. Yet, if the manuscript isn't written and as polished as I can make it, then searching for an agent is wasted time.

That brings me to a question: Do you write every day? And perhaps more importantly, does writing that isn't directly related to your manuscript count?

For example, I don't work every day on my manuscript. Try as I might, I just can't guarantee that I'll have the time and access between my workaday life and my home-with-babies demands. But my workaday life is a writing life. Does that count?

The other aspect of this question is, who is asking? I ask it of myself all the time. I ruminate over the lives of my characters often. What would Bonnie do, for example, if she never were able to return to Antarctica? Could she handle returning if Taylor had died in a helicopter crash? Is that what the death of her parents prepared her for? Or is their death meant to spring her into thinking about love and her future? Those are questions that can only be answered fully by writing and revising. Because her life isn't just about her — there are several characters moving across the pages — and I'll only pull back the veil on her life by allowing her to live it in combination with those characters.

But if a non-writing friend is asking how my novel is going, I'm going to say, "It's going well. I'm making progress every day." I might even offer a word count, because that can be impressive to people, even though I've done enough of this to know that 57,000 words now means nothing until after I've gotten through the first draft and started reshaping that collection of words, removing thousands of the wrong ones and adding hundreds if not thousands of others.

I write every day. Just not always with a pen or computer.

Brush Brush Here, Brush Brush There....

2010-06-24T16:05:00.008-04:00

That squeezy sound you heard was me shoe-horning a moment into my busy work week to finally affix an award onto my electronic wall, courtesy of Lisa Gibson at Random Thoughts to String Together. (Thanks, Lisa!)

Like many of these awards, it comes with no financial prize, no guarantee of a bump in readership, and, despite my repeated requests, no suspension of the rules of space and time. Given the state of the economy, the need to show advertisers how you are growing your readership, and the coolness aspect of suspending time, you may wonder why any self-respecting writer would accept such accolades. Of course, we writers already know the answer to that: We have no self respect. If we did, we'd never share the painful pieces of our personality with readers who may end up on our doorstep and scream, "Finally, someone understands me!"

Just kidding, of course. (And no, I have no advertisers that I communicate with for this blog. Even I don't completely care about growing my readership via ads just yet.)

I'm posting this because I like what Lisa does on her blog and because I like helping other writers.

But wait, there's more!

The award also comes with a few tasks. I don't think I'll fall into a deep abyss should I fail to accomplish one or two of these tasks, but I'll list them for one and all anyway.

I'm required to:
1) Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award. (Check!)

2) Share 7 things about yourself.

3) Pass the award along to 15 bloggers who you have recently discovered and who you think are fantastic for whatever reason! (In no particular order...)

4) Contact the bloggers you've picked and let them know about the award.

So, let me try this. Hmmmmmm, seven things about. Well, I'm a Pisces and like long walks in the dark..... Nah, that's not helpful.

2.1) I trace my love of writing to falling in love with music and lyrics; I made up songs while walking to and from kindergarten
2.2) I have loved elephants since childhood.
2.3) I'm a registered Democrat, despite my love of elephants
2.4) I learned to read in the summer between pre-school and kindergarten, when I couldn't get my family to read The Elephant's Child by Rudyard Kipling often enough.
2.5) I've played baseball at least as long as I've made up songs and stories
2.6) I created a wiffleball team to compete with my brother, who loved turtles. My team: The New York Elephants.
2.7) If I'd realized my dream of becoming a major league baseball player, I still would have become a writer. I know this as certainly as I know that Heaven has baseball fields.

As for numbers 3 and 4, I'm going to have to get back to that. Lisa and I know several of the same bloggers, so that might seem like overkill. Then there's the chain-letter aspect of this request. Of course, Lisa didn't say anything about cute kittens or puppies dying or babies going without diaper rash ointment should I fail in my appointed quest, so I suspect I'll be ok. But then those faithful readers who stop by might not learn about other writers, as I'm learning from Lisa's list.

I'm pretty sure I can add three or four to the list and will do so soon. I promise.

Once again, thanks Lisa, and thanks to everyone else for reading this far.

Multitasking Manuscripts

2010-06-23T08:17:00.000-04:00

June has been a funky month. Aside from the usual torrent of busy-ness at work and at home, my modicum of a writing life has been tossed about on a crazy train.

In one of those "fish or cut bait" moments, I decided to quit whining about how I don't have any time to get my first novel out the door. But I'm too much of a perfectionist to not give it one last massaging, taking into account the many prescient comments my early readers have offered. If you're a writer, you know what I mean: "I liked it, but I'm not sure I know what value [insert name of character] provides." Or "I can almost taste that room, but I think I'm getting lost there. Too descriptive!"

Masked in compliments, remarks like those are vital to getting a manuscript in shape, because they cut to the heart of the matter: It's not ready yet. However, while I've appreciated the support of my carefully selected early readers, I didn't always hear what they said. As writers, we're trained to put a finished draft aside for several weeks and work on something else before going back to revise. In a sense, I've found that I needed a similar bit of time to let my readers' comments simmer too. Finally, the remarks have sunk in and I'm eager to get this puppy out into the field to run.

So, I've reopened the manuscript, stripped out some of the detail, added more character development to those people who needed it, and even happened upon a couple typos that somehow escaped the typo-spray I'd shot at the manuscript months if not years ago. Damn insects!

But I don't want to lose the momentum on my current work in progress. I've made great progress in a short amount of time, and I intend to finish the first draft by the end of the year. Hence, the challenge: How do you get a manuscript in shape for agents when you're also writing something new?

For me, the biggest challenge is time. (I know, I know. Not only have I joined that club, I serve on the board, which hasn't helped at all.) So trying to manage multiple manuscripts is like keeping two toddlers safe when they're exploring the house in different directions. I know whereof I speak.

What advice do you have for your fellow writers? Do you focus on one manuscript at a time? Do you move back and forth each week or each day? Do you have other suggestions? Feel free to share.

Write On! Stephen King's On Writing

2010-06-02T12:26:00.006-04:00

After an altogether disappointing reading experience with Firefly by Piers Anthony, I decided to go for something I knew I'd enjoy. So into my backpack went my copy of Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. To my mind, this is one of the best primers out there for aspiring novelists, and I was surprised at how long it had been since I last read it from cover to cover. Put it this way, tucked between a couple pages is a small calendar page from January 2005, and I don't have this book listed among those that I read that year, so I probably used it only for reference purposes at that point. It has been too long.

In the book, King breaks things down into digestible bits and helps readers/writers understand that if things stink pretty bad on the other end of that process, that's ok too. After all, rewriting is a vital part of writing. Anne Lamott had a similar sentiment in her widely acclaimed Bird by Bird: All first drafts are shitty.

But one of the things that I enjoy most about this book is the author's voice. On each page, King sounds not like some pompous jerk telling you how he succeeded and why he's earned a mint on his books. Rather, this is the voice of your favorite teacher as he offers suggestions and a healthy dose of laughter. This is the guy you want to impress with your own stories and whose class you're disappointed to leave when the bell rings.

In the opening sections of the book, he recounts his impoverished fatherless youth, his development into an alcohol- and cocaine-addicted commercial-publishing megastar, and finally his progression into the prolific write-every-damn-day author we know him as today. At the same time, it's his answer to that annoying question: "Where do your ideas come from?"

So, if you're a writer and you've never read this, put it on your list of must-reads. If you can't remember the last time you read it, pull it off your shelf and rediscover his simple lessons. If you're a writer who doesn't like reading, Steve has a special message for you too (though you're not going to like it). And if you're a fan of Stephen King but not looking to write anything of your own, you'll find more than enough to keep you entertained as well.

What Do You Do? What Do You Do?

2010-05-24T17:47:00.003-04:00

As some of you may have noticed, I've not written much here lately. There's a very good reason for that: I've been awfully busy. Things are getting set aside, brushed aside, looked at sideways. Aw, hell, I've just been frigging busy.

I've been able to keep working on my current novel, which now tops 52,000 words, but that's because I have a very clear routine to it.

Which brings me to my question, inspired somewhat by the oft-used Keanu Reeves' line in Speed, What do you do?

In this case, it goes like this: You're a writer with an idea burning in your head that needs to be written down. But you've got a job, a spouse, a family of kids twisting you every which way but to the computer, and you know that if you gave them all up, you'd be more screwed up than if you kept struggling to get by with the status quo.

So what do you do? How do you get that manuscript out of your brain, onto paper or a computer, out the door, and into the minds of agents and readers?

Me? I keep writing. I sequester these stories in my computer and pray that a lightning bolt doesn't make me regret that I've not backedup my files since the Bush Administration. There's probably some psychological term for this — other than denial, which everyone seems to suffer from. But it doesn't make me feel any better.

What do you do?

When the Time Comes: Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs

2010-05-05T13:55:00.007-04:00

This morning, it happened. I hit that page. You know the one I mean: the page when you realize you don't have much left in the book you're reading and you'll have to find something else to read — or start the same book over from the beginning.

There are few writers whose work I enjoy enough to do that, but Michael Chabon is one of them. A co-worker let me borrow her copy of his latest, Manhood for Amateurs. Now, my being a man probably makes this a more enjoyable read than it was for her — and she enjoyed it. But, from my perspective, what makes it worth immediately re-reading is that it rekindles thoughts about childhood while simultaneously making me wistful for my future years of parenthood.

Like the best nonfiction, Chabon makes everything in this collection of essays feel like a short story. From his own recollections, Chabon transports me to my special hidey-holes of kid-dom. Those secret paths through the woods where I tracked tribes of Indians. The moments on home movies long since muted when I didn't know I was being filmed. Even the essay about the changing of a radio station's playlist brought back car rides along roads I haven't traveled in years.

Though I sometimes wonder if people who aren't blessed with a good vocabulary and the knowledge of how to use a dictionary can fully appreciate the nuance and virtuosity he applies to each sentence, he also scars the landscape with enough f-bombs to make any 13-year-old boy proud.

So here I am, poised to begin page 301 of his 306-page book, and I wonder whether I'm man enough to do it all over again.

Do You Like Me? Join the Herd

2010-05-05T13:19:00.002-04:00

In a mad dash to scoop up as much money as possible ... Ok that's not even close to true. Let's try again.

The Elephant's Bookshelf is now on Facebook. I haven't quite figured out what to do with it yet, but so far, I think it'll complement the blog. Perhaps we can get into more complex discussions about the things we're writing or reading these days. Or maybe you're an evil stalker wondering how to infiltrate my life and riddle me with spam — or worse.

We'll see if this is a good idea, but for now, I will formally invite you to check it out, "Like" it, and share your thoughts and ideas. Welcome to the family.

Is It Ok to Cheat on Your Manuscript?

2010-04-27T19:20:00.005-04:00

After years of stops and starts, I've gotten back into a fairly consistent pattern of writing. The Antarctica novel is progressing slowly but surely; I should top 48,000 words during my next session. And I'm getting to know both my characters and their worlds better each time I write.

But I'd kinda forgotten about the other thing that happens when I write regularly. Strangers come between us. Other characters, some sexy, some surly, some childish, some selfish, slip into my mind when it's otherwise fairly blank. Story ideas emerge. Other novels or short stories or songs that I should write knock on my synapses, doing all they can to get my attention — to distract me from the work in progress.

Some mornings, I indulge such fantasies. What's wrong with a little literary flirtation, after all. It's not like anything will really get in the way of my manuscript. After all, I've been with it for so long, I must see it through to its logical conclusion.

I know I'm not the first writer to have had wildly attractive characters pop into mind and promise excitement beyond anything I've written so far. "Write about me," said the character on the New York subway train. "I'm younger than your current character. She's much stuffier than I am." I will admit, there are a couple paragraphs that would shock my current protagonist. No, not shock; she's a scientist. She'd understand, but she'd also know how to get back at me.

Still, when I get on my commuter train each night — sometimes with a beer — I know who I'll go home with.

Have you ever cheated on your characters? Was it a long-term affair or were you able to keep everything on the up and up?

Interviews Galore

2010-04-13T19:28:00.003-04:00

As someone who writes for a living — both as a journalist covering a distinct beat and as a freelancer of various stripes — I often find myself conducting interviews. Sometimes I just get into journalist mode and put any unsuspecting rube who crosses my path or sits on the barstool beside me under an impromptu game of 20 questions.

But lately, since I kinda call a lot of the shots for my full-time gig, I don't get to do many interviews. Perhaps that seems counterintuitive, but I won't bore you with the details. Suffice it to say, I don't have a lot of time to conduct the types of thorough interviews I enjoy doing.

Tomorrow, however, that will not be the case. I'm interviewing a leader of a major nonprofit arts organization (which I won't divulge here; I try not to mix work with pleasure too much, the same way some children don't let the brocolli touch the chicken.) And later I'll be interviewing someone for my college's alumni publication. Beyond that, I hope to conduct another interview with the researcher who works in Antarctica to get some more details about life there for my novel.

Which brings me to my point. Do you as writers of fiction feel you know how to conduct interviews? Do you wish you were a journalist? Or were you like me when I graduated from college aspiring to be a Writer (emphasis and capital letter added for pomposity).

Well, from my perspective it's good to conduct interviews to keep those intellectual muscles in shape. Because readers ask questions. They may just let them linger in their brain, but don't you love it when you're thinking about these characters and then all of a sudden a scene emerges that basically addresses exactly what you were thinking about? A character's love life? Why does he do certain things day in day out? What does she see in that new guy in accounting?

If you don't already, give it a try: conduct interviews. Chat with your kids. If they're teens, grill them about what's going on with their lives and those of their friends. You may not like the answers, but if you can use it in your fiction, perhaps it's useful on multiple levels.

In the Beginning

2010-03-30T17:15:00.003-04:00

A few of you have heard or read my descriptions of the inspiration of my current work in progress, which is set "in part" in Antarctica. For those who don't know, the idea came from a press release that crossed my desk. I read about a strange salt deposit that doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. From what they've learned there, scientists and researchers are exploring all sorts of things such as whether the existence of life in that environment might suggest how life might exist in extreme cold on other planets and moons.

At least so far, my story doesn't explore the questions of life on other planets. Rather, it explores whether there might be love for one scientist in particular. Or is she locked in a cold, barren wasteland in which an occasional, potentially devastating warm wind blows? I've never been a love story writer, so in some ways this is uncharted territory for me, too.

Still, when I first saw that press release lo these many years ago, I had an almost immediate image of characters and how the novel would start. But this past weekend, in between cooking scrambled eggs and driving to Home Depot, I pondered a change. What if the story doesn't begin where I thought it did? Or, another way of looking at it: Why do I start a novel that I always describe as "taking place in Antarctica" on a road in California, where the scene culminates in a fatal car accident? Why does a reader care? And at 40,000 words written, is it too late to change?

A fellow writer who helped me think about my previous novel called on Friday. He writes science fiction — a genre I like very much though I've not written much of it lately — and we chatted about our current WIPs. He remarked about how our pieces had one fundamental similarity: world building. That phrase and all it implies lingered with me even as I worked on the novel as I had before we spoke.

Recently, I returned to some research notes and rediscovered the incredible variety in the landscape surrounding my setting in Antarctica. And I realized my friend was right: readers need to know what this place looks like. Of course, I don't want to load my first pages up with icebergs of backstory, but I've begun rewriting my opening chapter — and probably several early chapters will need to be changed.

What I've written previously remains viable. After all, those people must die. But I think I've made a significant shift. I hope it will be a fruitful change. If nothing else, I will get to use more of what I've learned researching Antarctica. California simply is nowhere near as fascinating to me.

How about you? Have you realized in the midst of writing a novel that you've got some fundamental flaws? What did you do about it?

The Best Laid Plans

2010-03-19T12:41:00.004-04:00

This was going to be a special week. I was going revise my "complete" manuscript while also writing more of my work-in-progress. But then there was a torrential rain storm. With the sounds of a crash and a splash, my vacation writing plans shifted like the now-warped tabletop that fell to the floor of my basement. (The table was on the way out anyway, which is why it wasn't attached to its legs.)

These few words here are the only bits of quasi-creativity I've written all week. Dozens of diapers later, I've cleaned most of the basement and gotten the clothes dryer to work again. But it's Friday and my vacation is almost over.

There's a saying I've shared before that seems appropos here: How do you make God laugh? Tell him your plans for tomorrow.

So here goes:

Are you there, God? It's me, Matt.

First, thanks for the sunshine. It's a fair sight better than the frigging ark weather you laid down on us last week, but I don't want to sound ungrateful. Now, I need to do a couple errands before the whole shebang collapses around me — milk for the wife, diapers for me, maybe some scotch for the cats... And then I'd like to actually put some writing time in. But if that's not to be, as Kurt Vonnegut said, "So it goes."

I've still got a great family and this sun of yours is supposed to keep burning brightly in the sky for most of the weekend. And as long as my guardian angel hasn't been downsized due to the economic doldrums that seem to be affecting everything, can you remind him or her that I need to avoid the spring bloom of potholes in the road if I actually get a chance to jog.

Thanks again, God.

Oh yeah, Live long and prosper.

Matt

What, you didn't know God was a Vulcan?

Salman Rushdie on Love, Sex, Writing, Friendship. What Else Is There?

2010-03-08T07:54:00.000-05:00

Emory University posted a video of writer-in-residence Salman Rushdie talking with Chris Hitchens about various subjects. If nothing else, I want to have this somewhere I won't lose it so I can view it when I get a chance. In the meantime, check it out. Feel free to share what you think.

Spring Springing

2010-02-21T15:41:00.005-05:00

I know there's still snow on the ground and more forecast in the near future, but I swear that I smelled spring in the air yesterday. And with spring, a male writer's mind turns to thoughts of ... love scenes.

Ok, not all the time. At my age, I need a little bit of time in between writing such scenes. But in my work in progress, I'm getting very close to determining what kind of story I'm really writing. Is it a love story or is it a tale of love gone cold?

It has all the makings of a love story. There's thousands of miles of distance, rancor between family members, young kids who tell it like they see it... It opens with death. Love story all the way!

Here I am, 35,000-words-plus into the story (with lots of holes since I've kinda leapfrogged over some of the important 'What the hell is happening?' stuff), and I'm about to print things out so I can literally cut and rearrange chapters and scenes. It's not the way I handled my first novel, but this one feels different and feels like it needs some back-to-basics "storyboarding" tactics.

I'm not sure this will work, but when it comes to love, I've found that you never know exactly what will work until it doesn't. I've got to be myself and let the shreds of story fall as they may.

How do you approach a crossroad in your story?

J.D. Salinger, You Goddam Phony

2010-02-07T11:32:00.006-05:00

Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, for a guy who's supposedly dead, you've been in the news an awful lot.

And for a guy who mostly hid out in his hermit hole, coming out on occasion to scream at trespassers, get eggs and coffee and shoot the shit about the weather at the local place in town, and gawk at the girls at the high school, you've been getting a lot of how ya' doins by all those folks who you probably wouldn't give the time of day.

Seems to me that all that talk of phonies (I mean, who talks like that?) seems, how should I put it? hypocritical now that you're back on the literary circuit. When's your next book coming out, anyway?

I keep seeing folks on the train reading your previous work. As if you're going to rehash that old tripe! I mean aren't the Glass family pretty much half empty at this point? Off to the vapor, with you Zooey. And don't forget to send Esme a bit more squalor, Seymour. Bananafish, bah!

Jerry, you've found a new family to write about, right? The people of New York became boring long ago. But what's been going on down at the Cornish, New Hampshire, Post Office? What have you been listening to down at the barbers where you get your ponytail waxed? No, that probably wasn't you, actually. But it coulda been.

I don't know, Jerry, I think you've probably got it all wrong. You actually can't stay locked in the 1950s and '60s. Literature needs to breath or else it gets really dusty. But then that might have explained your penchant for younger women. Keeps us young, they say. But, Jerry, you were 91 years old when you died! Goddam, that's pretty friggin old.

Still, you did ok, man, God love ya. Maybe it's all right that you might have new works come out as long as you don't have to deal with the media freak show that would have occurred if you'd actually had them appear during your lifetime. Maybe your kids will go into seclusion in your stead if new works by you emerge from your Cornish cave.

Hey, stranger things have happened.

Ad Astra, Jerry

2010-01-28T14:03:00.008-05:00

By now, you've probably heard that J.D. Salinger has died.

Rest in peace, you old curmudgeon. It's a goddam shame.

My thoughts go out also to my high school English teacher, Robert Kaplow (who wrote the novel that became Me and Orson Welles). I remember how hard he took it when Welles died. I can only imagine how much tougher it is for him now that his biggest literary hero has typed The End.

Naked Guest Post (Safe for Work)

2010-01-27T17:10:00.005-05:00

Earlier today, my first "guest blogger" post was published at Caroline Hagood's blog Culture Sandwich. I have to admit, I love seeing creative things I've written on sites that I don't control.

It's a topic I wouldn't normally blog about — nakedness. But Caroline's got a great site with a fun voice and perspective, and I felt comfortable there. She writes poetry as well as commentary and was my first outside book reviewer here at the Bookshelf.

Not that anyone was asking, but no, I was not in my birthday suit when I wrote it. And I'm sure you're all happier about that.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Resolutions/Goals Update

2010-01-24T11:43:00.004-05:00

The decorations are down, the bottles have been recycled, and even the fruit cake is gone (and who knows if the same one will be resurrected next Christmas). All that's left are the promises we made to ourselves to work hard to achieve our personal goals.

So, we're a few weeks into 2010, and outside of still having trouble starting with a "1" in the date, I'm doing ok with my goals. I've been writing about 1,000-1,200 words a week so far, which for me is a whirlwind of activity

But how are you guys doing? Are you changing things up already? Are you surpassing your expectations? Have you forgotten those Champagne-induced promises? Have you gotten that impromptu elopement annulled?

Care to share?

Book Review: House of Leaves

2010-01-16T15:01:00.003-05:00

The following is the first of what I hope will be many book reviews written by a guest reviewer. Thanks so much to Caroline and to other followers of The Elephant's Bookshelf who've said they would like to write reviews. ~ Matt

House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Review by Caroline Hagood

Every once in a while, a reader falls in love with a different kind of fiction that changes how we as readers (and writers) think about characters.

In House of Leaves, Mark Danielewski uses the house in the title as a trope for the challenges of written testimony. Here, he has secured himself a space outside of time and narrative from which to survey both.

The inner flap reads: “House of Leaves by Zampanò with introduction and notes by Johnny Truant,” (two of the characters) with no mention of Danielewski. This is followed by an introduction from an edgy countercultural youth (Truant) who claims to have found a collection of writings in the home of an old man who has recently died (Zampanò).

The papers he finds are Zampanò’s scholarly analysis of The Navidson Record, a documentary by yet another one of Danielewski's characters, the world-renowned photojournalist, Will Navidson. The film catalogues Navidson's exploration of the house he moves into on Ash Tree Lane that is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

With input and copious footnotes from still more authors and critics real and imagined, the text addresses the physical and psychological world that Navidson examines. The quality that makes Navidson’s house different from the average home is that it suddenly develops new doors, staircases, and hallways; this tortuous structure becomes the novel’s central metaphor for writing.

The labyrinth at the heart of the novel is not only a single location that the characters explore, but also a symbol of the intricate structural composition of the narratives of each of the authors, including Truant, Zampanò, Danielewski, Navidson, and even Navidson's wife, Karen, who also contributes a short film to the novel’s roster of texts.

Since the majority of the critics and authors mentioned either do not exist, or exist but did not say what the novel claims they did, House of Leaves critiques writing's truth claims when it comes to representing individual and communal history.

Danielewski is not at all interested in our progressing right-side-up trip through his literary phantasmagoria. Clearly, authorship is being turned on its head as unstable meaning is filtered through multiple creators. But how do we read a book like this? Easy: we have to change the way we read.

Danielewski is not concerned that we locate an answer; rather, he wants us to note how each new interpretation changes the labyrinth of the narrative structure. In this way, Danielewski demonstrates that the trajectory of history, or present reality, can be altered.

That one writer’s analysis is not an absolute truth is made clear to us as readers of a heap of invented criticism. In a novel that comprises stories from multiple authors, as well as criticisms of these authors that we are forced to engage with as though they were, like us, real outside readers, we are confronted with the changeable nature of written "truth."

In the end, the house represents not merely language but metalanguage. It is the commentary on all stories, both fictional and historical; it's a chance to rewrite reading, writing, and history.

Caroline Hagood is a poet and writer living in New York City. She has written on books, film, and culture for Film International, Film-Philosophy, Film Catcher, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Campus Progress, The Journal of Popular Culture, The DVD Lounge, in her own column on writing for Blogcritics, and her own blog, Culture Sandwich, among others. Her poetry has appeared in Shooting the Rat (Hanging Loose Press), Movin' (Orchard Books), Oxymoron, Angelic Dynamo and Ginosko. This is her first review for The Elephant's Bookshelf.

So You Say You Want to Write?

2010-01-09T13:49:00.007-05:00

It was the best of times it was the worst of times. Or something like that.

Lately, I've been feeling rather optimistic about a lot of things (and yeah, I've been worried about a lot of other things too.) While this blog is certainly not the most important thing in my life, I have to say I've been thrilled by the increase in visitors and the number of "followers" I've been able to see. I know most of it is related to my fellow aspiring novelists at AgentQuery, but I don't think all of them are.

I've also been a bit concerned about the state of freelance writing; I'll admit that part of my concern is due to my desire to do more of it in 2010 to help supplement my income and keep diapers on my babies' butts. (Note to self: Invest in companies that produce A&D ointment!)

But maybe I can mix these two things a bit and create a Net positive. An Internet positive, if you will. As those of you who read the short interview I did with Victoria Dixon of the Ron Empress blog already know, I had intended this blog to be a place where I could write and edit book reviews. So now that I have nearly twenty followers, I thought I'd see whether any of you have any interest in writing book reviews.

I'd be willing to post them here, I'd give it a quick copy edit (or depending on the quality, more than that, perhaps), and voila! you'd have a book review published. I know, getting a review published on a free blog is nothing too difficult; you could easily do it at your blog too. But I kinda like seeing stuff that I've written posted elsewhere. Maybe you do too.

To be honest, I don't expect many of you to agree to this — especially since I can't pay a dime. Indeed, it's possible I'll remain the lone book reviewer here at the Elephant's Bookshelf (Quick review: Blindness, by Jose Saramago is both disturbing and excellent!) But if just one joins, then I'll be happy as a clam.

So, what do ya say? If you're interested, you can let me know via the comments section or send an email to elephantsbookshelf@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

I Resolve to Call Her Up...

2009-12-29T19:42:00.004-05:00

I'm not the biggest Police fan in the world, but I always liked the lyrics to "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic." And the line "I resolved to call her up a thousand times a day" fit me pretty well when I was a teen resolved to not being stuck only with unrequited lust — though I was certainly familiar with it.

But as I grew older and wiser, bolder and wider, I recognized that I not only was capable of experiencing happiness, but also writing about it. So now that I'm a family man with responsibilities beyond the occasional blog post, I have gotten into the habit of writing down my resolutions.

Not everyone is a fan of resolutions and that's fine. I used to resolve to not make resolutions, and you might say I still do that: I write down my goals for the year, with target dates for achievement. I split them into work-related goals, personal and family goals, and writing goals.

I thought I'd share a couple here with you, and I'd love to hear what writing goals you have and are willing to share.

o Finish the first draft of my current novel in progress by 12/31/10. Right now, I'm at more than 25,000 words, which is probably about a quarter of the way to the goal. Not the ultimate goal for that particular novel, mind you, which I expect to clock in around 80,000 to 85,000 words. But I'm shooting for 100,000 in the first draft. From there, I'll need to revise. During my first edit of a manuscript, I try to trim about 10 percent of the words, which will hopefully account for the mess and repitition and all out crapola that's inevitable in first drafts. As Anne Lamott writes in Bird by Bird: All first drafts are shitty.

o Send at least one query out for my "completed" first novel by 6/30/10. This should be an easily attainable goal, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist (or maybe just a coward). In all seriousness, I made a conscious decision several months ago to not send any queries out in 2009. With my newborn daughters, I knew I'd have precious little time to spend on editing or revising the manuscript, and if I were lucky enough to get a healthy nibble on my hook, I'd be hard-pressed to reel it in with revisions while still feeding my girls and remaining married.

Ok, that's way too much about me. Please, let me know what you're shooting for in your writing in 2010. It doesn't have to be overly detailed. Maybe "Write every day," for example. Indeed, that's an excellent goal for any writer. I might just try that myself.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

2009-12-15T22:00:00.007-05:00

Every once in a while, a nonfiction book crosses my path that amazes me. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy nonfiction. Heck, I write a lot of it myself — probably a lot more than I write fiction. But when I read nonfiction, it often seems to drag through example after example, factoid after factoid, until I can't wait to sink my body into the soothing waters of imagination and cover my head so that every possible dream and idea can be absorbed into my brain.

But Malcolm Gladwell had me from the first page of Outliers and he hasn't let go. This is a book that addresses the key questions of what makes one person more successful than another, and the answers can be amazingly simple. To be sure, luck and innate talent have a lot to do with success, and he would completely agree. But while two different baseball players at the same position may have similar skills and talents to succeed enough to make the major leagues, what sets them apart from each other — what makes Derek Jeter a superstar and Orlando Cabrera merely a former Gold Glove winner — might surprise you.

Actually, my example, isn't fair: Gladwell doesn't examine those two. But chapter one is about the differences between the top Canadian junior hockey league players and the kids who played in high school but don't get much closer than enjoying the game on television. It's not simply about talent.

This book also makes me think about myself: what is it that has allowed me to succeed where others might have fallen short; why have I fallen short when others I believe I'm better than have advanced?

Gladwell has had his articles published in the New Yorker for years, and I think several of these essays appeared there first. He's also the author of the now famous Tipping Point and Blink. I've not read those others, but I definitely will now, having enjoyed Outliers so much. The book is thought-provoking while remaining a real page turner. It's like no other nonfiction work I've read all year. Check it out.

Five Questions for ... Matt Sinclair

2009-12-07T07:31:00.001-05:00

Victoria Dixon, a fellow member of the online community of writers at AgentQuery who blogs at Ron Empress, asked who among us was willing to subject ourselves to a short interview. Nothing too dangerous, just five questions based on her reading of our online Blogger profile.

Here's what we came up with. Feel free to ask me any additional questions in the comment section. I may just answer them!

1) What is your metaphysical reason to blog? What do you get from it beyond contacts, marketing tools, etc. (This is akin to asking why do you read.)

The short answer to your question is that blogs help me think. I read to know; I write to express. When it comes to blogging, it’s somewhat more complicated. I’m a chronic thinker, and blogs allow me to vent or ramble on a variety of topics as I try to think them through.

To me, blogs can be less formalized, less complete, than any novel or magazine article I write. But to layer on the metaphysical aspect of your question, I do like the element of permanence — or at least endurance — that an electronic compendium of my thoughts offers.

In my personal writing life, I write fiction because I love to imagine. We all have our own lives, our own realities; a great number of readers would prefer to learn about realities they’re not already aware of (i.e., they prefer nonfiction). I love to enter a world created by another writer. I love getting lost in my imagination, exploring ideas that wouldn’t come up in my every day life otherwise.

On another point, I won’t discount the marketing and contact aspects you cited, but those are not my chief reasons to blog at this time. If and when I have published novels to hawk, I’ll be far more targeted in the marketing of my blogs. One of my projects for 2010 is to create a Web site for myself as a writer of fiction and nonfiction. My wife and I decided to work on a book project together related to the work she’s done for the past twenty years. It’ll be nonfiction, but I think I’ll be able to get that published before I get a fiction agent and sell any of my manuscripts.

2) Speaking of your amazing number of blogs, what's the purpose behind each? This is where you get to remind your readership of some of the things you have to offer. :)

I’ve started several blogs, but I only have two that matter in my writing life. The first was Matt Sinclair’s Coffee Cup, which I created in 2004. I expected it to be basically a place where I could write some early morning thoughts on the day ahead or the day behind while drinking a cup of coffee. The posts were supposed to be no longer than it took me to write while sipping my morning caffeine. As such, the topics could go anywhere, and usually did.

One of the beauties of blogs is you can learn something about a writer’s personality through them — at least as far as the writers allow — even as they discuss the most mundane things in their lives. After my daughters were born in December 2008, I knew my blogging time would be vastly cut back. I was surprised at how much time I had to write during their first couple of months of life. I started a new section of posts, called “Matt Recommends,” about things that were really helpful to my wife and me as new parents. This was my attempt at recognizing the importance of advertising. I’ve worked for many years in magazines and I’ve never felt very comfortable with the (necessary) role of advertisers. “Matt Recommends” was my way to acknowledge that if I had any future in getting money out of my blogs, I’d have to push products that I believed in.

But once the girls were about two or three months old, the sleep deprivation hit full bore and my work schedule got tougher. Blogging regularly over coffee just wasn’t possible.

My second blog, The Elephant’s Bookshelf, arose not long after the first, but I wanted it to be focused on writing and reading. I had hoped it would evolve into a writing community — this was before I knew about AgentQuery — and I could get people to write book reviews, which I’d edit and post. I’m still open to that possibility, but I’ve not really pursued it. Elephant’s Bookshelf has also expanded a little beyond its original intent to include my thoughts on lots of things at least tangentially related to writing and reading — awards, contests (including National Novel Writing Month) films, the death of newspapers...

The others, including one you probably didn’t see in WordPress, were half-hearted attempts to discuss things like traffic in New Jersey, book stores, reviews of book fairs and readings, and other things that I’ve since forgotten. At least one was established so I could help teach a sibling how to create a blog.

3) In your favorite book list, you mention authors for the most part. What is your all-time-favorite, cannot-do-without book?

For me, that’s very hard to answer. I don’t think there is just one. But if I were forced to live in the world of Ray Bradbury’s Farenheit 451 and "become" a banned book until society allowed books to exist again, I might choose Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay or John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany. I also loved John Connolly’s The Book of Lost Things, which now that I think of it might be the book I’d memorize. It has so much of what I love in a novel: intelligence, humor, a story that is both engaging and meaningful. That’s what I hope my works will offer readers. I like to share things I’ve learned without being too didactic.

4) If an editor/publisher came to you and said, "We'll pay you to write this book," what would be the worst possible topic they could think of?

One that I not only knew nothing about but which I had no interest in learning anything about. A history of defecation comes to mind. I’d call it “I Don’t Give a ...”

5) What would be the best?

The universe is my oyster! There are so many things I’d love to write about. If I could get interviews with all the surviving Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronauts, for example, I’d love to do something with that. But Andrew Chaiken’s already written A Man on the Moon and I don’t think that’ll ever be topped; it was the basis for the HBO series “From the Earth to the Moon.” Other topics could include something related to my first love: baseball. And if a publisher has a hankering for an interesting tale that takes place in Antarctica, well, I’m about 25,000 words into it.

But that barely scrapes the surface of the types of books I want to write. I have a list of a couple dozen novels, screenplays, short story collections, and other works that I hope one day to write. In all honesty, I doubt I'll live anywhere near long enough to write all I hope to write. But I'll do what I can.

Thanks, Victoria, for the opportunity.

Not Quite, but It Was Worth the Attempt

2009-12-01T06:47:00.000-05:00

Well, I didn't quite get to where I wanted to go with my 2009 attempt at National Novel Writing Month. I had less than a thousand words to go with five days in which to write them, but between babies and other family demands, I wasn't able to spare any time. That happens.

Much thanks to all those who joined me in this and encouraged me to keep at it. I know several of my NaNo buddies topped 50,000, including a co-worker who I suspect is quite proud of herself — and justifiably so. She knows that 50,000 words is just the beginning; there's more to be written, revised, shaped, and decided. A novel doesn't happen in a month, but the writing can.

Congratulations to all you NaNoers who put in the time. Whether you completed the 50,000 goal or not, you should be applauded for making the attempt. While that's all well and good, if you truly believe you want to write a novel, keep going, regardless of your "winning" status. On the NaNo site, they often mention that "December is for revising." (Or do they say 'editing'? I may need to revise that.)

For me, I have 9100 words that I didn't have on October 31. That's on top of the 15,000+ words I'd written for this manuscript last November. Who knows what the next tweleve months have in store for me. I'd like to believe that by next November I'll have finished this particular manuscript, or at least written too much more to use Nano to complete it.

What have you written lately? Please share a story about your latest story.

NaNo 2009: Two Weeks In

2009-11-15T09:38:00.002-05:00

I thought I'd get much further last night, but all I ended up doing was starting a new chapter, jotting down a couple scenes, and then quickly outlining some thoughts I'd had throughout the day about where the story needed to go. It got me over the 7,000 word mark, which is less than a third of the way toward the overall goal, but still is farther along than I expected this year.

Of course, the main reasons my bar is set so low were crying much of the day, ill and uncomfortable. As probably any writing parent knows, it's not very easy to write when the kids are sick, especially when one parent is away for a business trip.

Back to the kids and computer, but before I do let me ask: How'd you all do?

I know that several of my NaNo buddies have topped 20,000 words and all I can say is congratulations and keep going!

Nano '09: One Week In

2009-11-08T14:44:00.003-05:00

What started off well has quickly fizzled for me. I wrote 2000 words the first and have been unable to match that total since, but I still hold out hope for today.

Meanwhile, the babies are stirring, calling me away from the computer once again.

Write on, fellow Nanoers!

[Update: I've topped 4300 so far and am diving in for more.]

What Do You Mean You're Not Done Yet?

2009-11-01T09:12:00.003-05:00

And so it begins: National Novel Writing Month. I'm about to embark on another writing adventure with the ultimate goal of writing 50,000 words within the month of November. I'm already more than nine hours behind!

I'll keep this post short and sweet. But I look forward to hearing of other people's successes at this wonderful challenge of imagination and dedication. As a writer who's not yet written 50,000 words total toward this project in the two years I've done it, Nano is not about the success as much as it is about the attempt to be more for tomorrow than who you are today.

Have fun, fellow Nanoers. Write well, write often.

T-Minus 20 Days to NaNo

2009-10-12T17:28:00.005-04:00

I'm surprising myself. I'm getting psyched up for NaNo (National Novel Writing Month, or NaNo WriMo) and I already know I won't succeed. I'm not a pessimist. I didn't succeed either of the past two years I started NaNo novels, and I have even less time this year. I don't need to be an Antactic researcher to know it'll be a cold day in hell before I finish 50,000 words when I'm lucky to get five hours of sleep and four or five hours of family time per day.

Novel writing includes a lot of sacrifice. I'm willing to do that. Indeed, I've done that. But this year, not quite as much will be allowed.

Still, I'm getting psyched. Why? Because I've got Twitter friends who are encouraging me. Many of these are part of the online community of writers at AgentQuery, which is probably my favorite writing-related site, but I've also come across other NaNoers. Some of them even follow me through my work-related Twitter account, which is kinda cool.

I'm eager to get started, though I'll admit I'm of two minds about what to write. I could easily get back into my work from last year, which requires much more than another 50,000 words, especially since I only got about 15,000 written last year during NaNo and far fewer once December hit. (And virtually none after the closing days of the year brought me two bundles of happiness and poopy diapers.) But I also could return to writing funny stuff (well, funny at least to me.) And like many who've been treated like a cat toy over the past year, I could use a couple laughs.

Perhaps I'll post updates on Twitter like this: Fell asleep on the train again while writing 30 words. It's 30 I hadn't written before.

Regardless, I know that I need to get back into my writing. My girls deserve it.

Good luck fellow NaNoers. The most grueling days are before us. Keep your pens, pencils, and minds sharp.

Working Toward Nano?

2009-09-27T09:48:00.003-04:00

With October just around the corner, I can't help but think about November, when National Novel Writing Month begins. I've done it the past two years (I've yet to reach 50,000 words total during my NaNo experiences), and this year with two small kids demanding the time they deserve from daddy I feel safe in saying I won't reach 50,000 words.

So I'm thinking it's still appropriate to work on the novel I started last year, regardless of the rules. I know I need to write more than 50,000 words before it's going to be "done," anyway, so I don't think I'm flouting the rules.

But writing doesn't necessarily require rules. Of course, grammatical rules should be adhered to, except when there's a point to side-stepping them. But point of view is something you can play with, as is the believability of the narrator. The novel can be structured in almost any manner these days. Personally, I prefer to have characters and story I can follow easily. I don't relate to characters in adult stories that are bananas or armoires. Still, when it comes to Nano, all bets are off.

What's my point? The point is writers write. Writers who are new fathers pine away wanting to write. But they write in their heads all the time. Ok, I write in my head all the time. I miss doing it on paper or a computer screen for myself. Over the next few weeks, I'll review what I wrote last year and try to get back into those people's minds. It won't be quite the same, but it's time for me get back into writing. My kids deserve it.

My 9/10 Novel

2009-09-10T07:30:00.001-04:00

Living in northern New Jersey, it's difficult, if not impossible, to not think about the events of 9/11, 2001. Indeed, it's probably bad for your mental health not to think about it from time to time if you lived through it here. I suspect I will always remember exactly where in my commute I heard about the first plane hitting one of the Twin Towers. I chastised myself for assuming we were under attack — especially after the guy on WDHA amended his comments saying that it had been a small plane, not a large plane as he initially had heard.

In between the time I parked my car and turned off the engine and I entered my office, the second plane had struck. It immediately struck me: We're at war.

This blog is focused on writing, however, so here's my point: By 9/10, 2001, I had begun my first novel and written about thirty pages. I was stuck not on what to write next but when did my story occur. Was the time significant? On 9/11, I realized that we had just experienced an important line of demarcation in history; there is a pre-9/11 world and a post-9/11 world. From there, I had to determine how this affected my novel

I decided to use it obliquely. My novel begins on 9/10, 2000 and ends on 9/10, 2001. Because such attacks were barely contemplated by the average person, nothing more than faint glimpses of fear and omen are displayed. The story takes place in Hoboken, New Jersey, a town I know well that lies directly across the river from New York City. Ground Zero is within view. Indeed, the clouds of smoke and debris floated above the river after the towers fell.

Whether my oblique references to the tragedy of 9/11 should remain part of my novel — and not an overt focus of it — has been a frequent point of discussion with my initial readers. Usually I bring it up, but some of my readers have anticipated the question. I still think it's more than just a moment of inspiration; I think it's important to the story, subtle though it remains.

So, each year, I think a lot about the people who experienced 9/11 first hand. I lost a friend that day and thank God that I didn't lose more people who were close to me. I lost some innocence as well, which is largely what my novel is about — not my loss of innocence, but the nation's; or maybe it's that our eyes were opened to the terrible possibilities. And I reflect on those fictional people who mean so much today who came to life on 9/11.

With my young innocents at home, I have had almost no time to work on the latest novel much less to send my "finished" one out to agents. I respect their time and my own too much to look for representation when I don't have the time to respond appropriately if I should actually get an offer. It's like going fishing without the strength to reel in the fish.

Remember 9/11, my friends, in your own way. It's important for all Americans, regardless of political party or ideology.

Dude, Where's My Second Novel?

2009-08-25T21:16:00.012-04:00

Thanks to a co-worker, I'm reading what may be my favorite book in several years: Michael Chabon's Wonder Boys. Almost certainly, it's my favorite "new" book this year. I realize the book has been around since 1995, but it was on my list of books I wanted to read and hadn't (a long list).

Why do I love it? Because it's flat-out funny. Laugh out loud funny. This man leaves me chuckling on the PATH train, wishing I could share with someone. Chabon writes simple sentences that make me look back in awe.

For those who aren't aware of it, the story is told from the perspective of Professor Grady Tripp, an English professor at a college in Pittsburgh. He's been working on his second novel for the past seven years — more than a thousand pages in and the end isn't really in sight. On the weekend when this story begins, he's in the midst of a not-unexpected separation from his third wife, the totally unexpected pregnancy of his lover (who happens to be the married chancellor of the college where he teaches -- married to the chairman of the English department), and the imminent arrival of his editor, who's about to lose his job.

His editor is coming to the campus for a conference (WordFest!), and during Tripp's final class before the event, the work of one of his students is skewered by the class — a verbal disemblowling that Tripp doesn't disrupt much less discourage — leaving the young movie-buff writer contemplating suicide.

Throw in a drag queen, a dead, blind dog, the stolen jacket of Marilyn Monroe, and a roadtrip with the aforementioned student to attend Passover seder at the family home of Tripp's Korean-Jewish wife. Sprinkle in a lot of pot smoking and you have the makings of a comedy classic. But there is so much more to it than the surface story, as is usually the case with Chabon. I'm more than 200 pages in and I don't really want it to end.

Chabon writes like no one else. Do yourself a favor, read this book.

McCourt's Ashes

2009-08-16T18:12:00.005-04:00

After the sad passing of Frank McCourt recently, I decided it was time to reread Angela's Ashes. It must be almost a decade since the first time I read it, and I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. Perhaps the forgetting was a defense mechanism, for his tale is so sad and depressing that forgetting seems like the most appropriate way to deal with it.

But, as McCourt's life of survival and success would suggest, remembering it and talking about it makes all the difference. For Frank McCourt, survival was success. If you're unfamiliar with his story, McCourt was born in the United States to parents who were on the cusp of poverty and quickly fell deep into it as the children arrived with regularity. Two of young Frankie's brothers and his sister died from hunger and ignorant neglect. His father's alcoholism and inability to hold a job hammered nails into his children's coffins.

It is a powerful story, made doubly so because it is true. As a lover of fiction, even I must admit that this memoir stands above many of the greatest works of fiction. It is written from the perspective of young Frankie, and he hides nothing from his audience — not even his frequent masturbation — making him indelibly real in the reader's mind.

I haven't read his other works: Tis or Teacher Man, but he will be best remembered for Angela's Ashes. And I recommend it to all. It is a sad tale, but it is most certainly worth reading.

Wet Invigorated Toes

2009-07-17T12:23:00.000-04:00

As usual, I have no time. But I wanted to get this information out to those writing friends who stop by from time to time. As some may recall, I noted a few months back that I'd stepped my toes in the water of the agent world by sending my completed (to distinguish it from the one I began in November, not to imply it's really done) to an agented friend.

Today, he called back and offered me some great advice about ways to improve it. Since I have the book out with another friend who's an editor, I don't want to offer the exact details here, but suffice it to say I believe I now know what had been aggravating me about my book. I knew it wasn't perfect (and if it's going to go to an agent, I believe a first novel should be pretty damn close to perfect — as far as a particular novel can be), but he pinpointed what was missing.

I still have little time to work on the novel, but I don't think it will require months of work. Indeed, there's some rearrangement of material, but not a lot of new writing. I may even need to remove some detail and add some more that I'd removed from earlier drafts. This is why I keep everything!

Hope you're all well and all finding time to write. It's not easy. But it's worth it.

Writing Freedom

2009-07-04T07:17:00.007-04:00

I find so little time to write, much less to blog, these days. But with today being Independence Day, it seems appropriate to jot down a few remarks (or as many as I can before the babies arise.)

I was on the train the other day when an old friend said hello as we headed into our stop. I'd been writing on the train and was off in my own world, but I'd been writing about something that had angered me. She asked how my novel was going, and I explained that since the girls were born I'd had very little time to write. Yesterday, while taking the girls out for a stroll, I met a neighbor I'd only spoken with on the phone. I knew she was a writer — a playwright — and our conversations had almost always been about writing. Like my friend on the train, she said that I would have very little time these next couple of years in which to write.

I think I'll find the occasional moment to write, but I don't think I have the time currently to pursue an agent for my finished work. It's not merely the pursuit; if I actually got a bite, I'd not have enough time to respond appropriately.

It's frustrating, but the reality is that we only have so much time, and I already don't have enough time to spend with my girls. But the time I spend I hope is of quality.

Happy birthday, America. May your many wonderful freedoms continue, including the freedom to speak one's mind, to write one's thoughts, to pray to one's God — all without fear of being imprisoned for doing so.

Long Time No Write

2009-05-24T11:49:00.002-04:00

The past month has been replete with opportunities — to work my butt off on things other than my personal writing. Aside from a 5-10 minute visit to my main characters in the Antarctica novel, I've done virtually nothing about that book except imagine. I value imagination. Indeed, it's crucial to developing a story and believable characters.

But it's not writing.

My time since vacation has been spent making the house acceptable to the many family members who arrived for the girls' baptism. It was a wonderful celebration, and I'm happy with how it all went (despite the mouse-induced hole in a hose to the dishwasher, but that's another story). But now it's done, and the summer is upon us — at least in New Jersey we define the summer as Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend. You gotta problem wit dat?

So my summer resolutions are about to kick in: sending the completed novel out to agents (yes, a repeated theme from many previous posts), working on the new novel, and reading to my children. I suspect these things won't happen in the order I've listed them. But as long as they get done, I'm fine with that.

Vacation Writing

2009-04-23T07:25:00.003-04:00

This week of vacation is different than most of my previous vacations the past few years. This year, I'm not re-editing my novel. I have one copy of it out in the world and I will send others out either this week or soon after. (Of course, I've said that before.)

Instead, I've been working on stuff around the house and feeding and diapering children. But I should also get a chance to restart my new manuscript, begun in November. No guarantees, of course, as children will demand all sorts of attention and I'm willing to give them a lot.

Are you writing daily?

Rereading Is Like Falling in Love Again

2009-04-19T06:39:00.006-04:00

I recently began rereading John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath — right after finishing John Connolly's The Book of Lost Things for the second time in three years. Of course, this isn't the first time I've reread something. I've read John Irving's The World According to Garp numerous times. (And what is it I seem to have for books written by people named John?) But it's interesting to go back to a world, an era, a setting that was familiar once and becomes even more detailed and nuanced again.

In the case of The Book of Lost Things, I had been singing the book's praises so much that I initially worried it might not be as good as I'd remembered. But I loved it once again. A coming-of-age tale set against well known fairy tales and laced with grim battles that would keep young children stocked with a month of nightmares, TBOLT vividly traces the path of an angry boy through a world of his fears and fantasies. Connolly, a gifted writer, can choose words that linger like a scar. And when one faces man-like wolves and crooked men that personify evil, that gift gets ample use.

Steinbeck was one of my first "adult" loves as far as literature goes. While some teens were discovering J.D. Salinger's Holden Caulfield, I was getting enwrapped in Steinbeck's simple declarative sentences. I'd forgotten where Grapes began; in my mind it was the scene of the "land turtle" that gets flipped onto its back, a symbol of the traveling Okies struggling to survive both the Depression and the Dust Bowl. And while I've been reintroduced to preacher Jim Casy, I'd forgotten how he recalled his trysts with the girls after preaching them into a fervor. (After all, it's been decades since I read this work.) But it's still the same gritty, difficult era that I remember and which still catches me surprised.

Perhaps saying that rereading a book is like falling in love again is going too far, but it's certainly enough fun that such dreams and sentiments are within the realm of possibility. And that's what good fiction provides.

Toes in the Water

2009-04-09T15:23:00.000-04:00

I don't really have time to type this, but for those who've asked in the past about my completed novel (in italics because I know a novel is never finished until it's published), I have sent it to a friend who is an agented writer. He offered to take a look at it and consider passing it along to his agent.

I don't really expect anything to come of this, but at least I have sent it out with the intention of getting it to an agent. So I am celebrating my having done this ... not with actual Champagne but in my brain it is the first step in a long walk.

Readings From the Tenement Museum

2009-03-31T13:32:00.005-04:00

An acquaintance of mine informed me about free events coming up at the Tenement Museum including a poetry reading in recognition of National Poetry Month. That same night, there is also a talk about sex and sin that sounds interesting.

For those in the New York metropolitan area, you may want to check out them and other free public events. Keeps the mental juices flowing.

Elephant Guy Says "I'm Still Here"

2009-03-26T13:47:00.002-04:00

Don't worry, dear readers, subscribers, and followers. I've not fallen off the same cliff as the U.S. economy, science reporters, and little bits of dirt and rubble.

I've just fallen into the Daddy Zone. Not much time to do things as I used to. Even this brief missive is squeezed in between tasks.

But I promise to return very soon, hopefully with good news about looking for an agent and working on the new novel.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Real Man

2009-03-14T22:04:00.001-04:00

Ok, this is old news by now, but I still think the whole Shakespeare portrait story was pretty cool. To think that such a painting was simply hanging in some wealthy family's home boggles my mind and makes me wonder what else is out there, waiting to be discovered.

I'm not expecting anyone to find the Holy Grail — neither literally nor metaphorically — but it would not surprise me to read about a long lost writings by Mark Twain or Emily Dickinson. I bet there's the equivalent of another few dozen clay pots full of Jesus-era writings tucked inside a long-forgotten cave or tomb in Israel somewhere. It's happened before, so why not again? Again, I'm not expecting new gospels or major discoveries, but neat old stuff. An autographed original of Milton's Paradise Lost, perhaps?

Historical discoveries help counterbalance contemporary idiots like "Octomom." (Note to the Newsweek reporter: No, we weren't wrong. The woman's insane.) I'm not convinced the world needed her right now. Wait until the economy recovers, Octomom, before you look to capitalize on your 14-strong brood. (I'm confident most literary agents understand she's not going to have an audience for a memoir.)

I look at the face in that portrait of the man we believe to be Shakespeare and wonder what he'd blog about, who he'd follow on Twitter, what he'd think of contemporary society.... The man in the portrait appears to be of his time; I'd expect Willy Shakes to be a multimedia superstar today. Writer, producer, actor, director ... a veritable Roger Corman. ;-)

I'm a Full-Fledged Twit

2009-03-10T10:25:00.004-04:00

Or is that Tweeter? I've started to tweet, come follow me @elephantguy68

And if I've posted that incorrectly, I'll update it. This 21st century social-networking communication is still a little new to me.

UPDATE: I'm gathering up lots of new followers on Twitter, which I greatly appreciate. For those who're new to tweets, I'll be sending out info that I find interesting to readers, writers, and other literate folks whose IQs are at least above 100, and I'll let people know about the posts I place here in my little corner of the blogosphere.

English Reader = Liar?

2009-03-08T18:25:00.000-04:00

So, what good books have you lied about reading? According to a recent Reuters article, nearly two-thirds of Britons surveyed have lied about having read particular books. Their most popular book to lie about is George Orwell's classic 1984. (I swear) I re-read that after the start of the War in Iraq in 2003, to remind myself about the concept of doublethink. Other popular unread books were War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and James Joyce's Ulysses.

I don't know what books Americans have lied about reading. Anyone care to venture the books you've falsely claimed to have read?

Liar, liar, pants on fire.

More Foolish Stuff

2009-03-03T22:06:00.005-05:00

It's amazing what slides in under the electronic door! In my elephantsbookshelf@gmail.com mailbox, I received a very nice note from the assistant producer of KQED, the public broadcasting network in San Francisco.

He wanted me to share with my wonderful readers (and followers!) that Christopher Moore recently stopped by their studios to record a chapter from Fool.

Having read the book, I know that it's a lot of fun (perhaps a bit too bawdy for some, but in a past life I was a groundling.) I'm going to check it out, if for no other reason than to hear what Christ Moore's voice sounds like.

Have fun, fellow Fools.

Christopher Moore's a Fool in Love

2009-02-18T08:35:00.001-05:00

Ok, I'll admit, I'm a bit biased because I have inducted myself in the cult of Christopher Moore, not that I had any authority to do so, but that kinda goes with the territory. And it has nothing to do with the fact that we happen to look kinda similar. (It's the gray-speckled beard.)

Anyway, whether you're a Chris Moore fan or never heard of him or somewhere in the middle, you may want to check out this interview that ran in Good Reads. I'd never heard of Good Reads before this, and I may want to check it out myself, though I don't have much time any more.

So if you like Good Reads — or even the Chris Moore interview — I'd love to have you drop a note here — and let me and other readers know what it is we're missing.

Nonfiction Writers Wanted!

2009-02-10T09:06:00.005-05:00

If you're a writer of nonfiction who's looking to get his book idea into shape for agents, you might want to visit and join AgentQuery Connect, where a nonfiction discussion group was recently established. For those of you who are familiar with AQC, you probably know that it's primarily populated with fiction writers, but nonfiction remains the biggest segment of the publishing world and AQC recognizes that.

I don't work for AgentQuery, I'm simply an active member of that community, and while I'm there to gain insight into getting my fiction published, I'm a working journalist with ideas for several nonfiction works, so I'll be an active participant in that area too.

There simply haven't been many participants yet, so come on in and join on the ground floor of an active online community of writers. I'm sure you'll like it.

The Rabbit Died

2009-01-27T13:40:00.007-05:00

John Updike has died. Possibly best known for his Rabbit novels, Updike was a consummate and prolific writer, chronicling the changing world and his changes within it. My condolences to his family and to his readers everywhere.

Tell Us About New Writers

2009-01-26T08:35:00.005-05:00

As I've noted on this and my other blog frequently, I spend a fair amount of time in a community created on AgentQuery. (And for other writers who've not heard about it, this is a great place to get honest assessments of your work, including your queries or synopses, before submitting them to agents.)

But lately that has gotten me thinking about where do new writers come from — from a reader's perspective. I've been fortunate to have a broad array of books cross my path, most of which are from friends and family. Sometimes these are gifts, other times, they're simply recommendations people make. I suspect some of the books are simply neglected children that they know will find a good home in my collection.

But when new writers, like those people I've struck up friendships with in AgentQuery Connect (like Facebook for writers), finally get their big break, how do they get others to know who they are and what their writing is about? Obviously, that's a marketing issue, and the marketing of writers — including the added importance of writers promoting themselves — is a big business.

I think nothing is as important as word of mouth. So I'd like to allow you to share names of favorite new writers you've found. If it's yourself, that's fine, too. And if you can share a Web site, I'm fine with that. In fact, if there's demonstrated interest shown, I'll start a new link list of writers that Elephant's Bookshelf Readers recommend.

How do you find new writers and who are your new favorites?

It's True, Fiction Is on the Rise!

2009-01-17T09:05:00.000-05:00

Now this is good news! The National Endowment for the Arts is reporting that fiction is becoming increasingly popular.

After twenty-five years — a generation — the downward trend toward reading fiction has reversed. But this report asks people whether they've read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the past twelve months. One. Uno. I believe most people have at least one imaginative thought per day. Can't more than half of America read more than one piece of literature during a year?

I'll take the good news and happily praise Americans for getting back on their duffs as long as they're reading literature — even bad poetry is better than nothing at all.

But I look forward to the day when at least 15 percent of Americans say they read at least one piece of literature per month. I haven't drilled down into the report to see how far off from that mark we are, but I don't expect it's anywhere near that.

So read up, America! Fiction, nonfiction, newspapers, poetry. Order a subscription to One Story or visit your local library. Imagine gas is still close to $5 a gallon and take the train, where you can read during your commute.

And while you're at it, imagine. Imagine a world without literature. It's a dark, dismal place. People are despondent, hopeless, angry. It's worse than what you see today, because half of America reads literature. But if everyone read just a little bit, I suspect the world would become a bit brighter, a bit more hopeful. Perhaps it might even spur the imagination and inspire ways to turn the economy around. Just imagine!

Writing in Float Mode

2009-01-10T01:07:00.006-05:00

This week has been different. And now that the "work" week is over (I'm on leave), I find myself quietly hanging by the computer, an empty glass in front of me, trying to remember to let the kitten back in from the porch before I go to bed.

It's hard to write in this setting. As I expected, my latest novel has been on hiatus since the girls arrived. Despite the cold weather, it's hard to think about Antarctica when there are children to think about.

But it's important to continue. So, I get back up, brush off the grit that collected on the seat of my jeans, and start tapping at the keys again. It's Saturday. As if that matters.

Writers write.

Salinger 2009?

2009-01-06T08:34:00.004-05:00

I can't help but wonder why the New York Times posted someone's book report on J.D. Salinger. Ok, perhaps that's unfair, but would this recent article — a fairly lengthy one that appeared on the final day of 2008 — have been published if it weren't the end of the year?

Now, it's true that Salinger's birthday was on Thursday; he turned 90 on New Year's, so an argument can be made that there's a news hook to attach to the piece. But otherwise, it's primarily a review of Salinger's last published short story. At times, the piece seems eager to poke at Salinger, to prod him as though he might start publishing again.

But honestly, what's the point? He's 90 and whether he's healthy and vital or old and infirm, he has made his place in the world of literature. If there is anything of his to publish after his death — and I suspect there will be — then why hustle in that new era of regard for Mr. Salinger.

There will be at least three periods of Salinger: his active writing, during which he penned some of the greatest short stories and wrote The Catcher in the Rye, where he developed at least one of the most enduring characters in American literature; his quiescence, during which Salinger was an enigma; and his literary resurrection. We don't know what will come of this next life. For sure, there'll be new devotees who emerge. He may come to redefine American literature again. Or he may show that he has been truly a hermit and his work has not advanced but merely rehashes his Glass families foibles, leaving Salinger like some sad scientist who can't turn away from his samples to see how the real world is changing.

Of course, I will read the next Salinger – living, dead, somewhere between or above. What writer wouldn't? Goddam, he's J.D. Salinger! But the thing about great literary writers is that they survive forever, regardless of when their bodies start to decompose. It's their minds that zombies like me devour.

So, I suppose I've answered my own question — the one about the book report and the Times. Because there's other people like me out there who love to read about J.D. Salinger, even if he hasn't published a word in four decades.

Happy Birthday, Girls!

2008-12-30T23:05:00.001-05:00

I will never write anything as lovely as you, Cathleen and Shannon.

Love,
Daddy

Antarctic Winds

2008-12-29T20:23:00.002-05:00

I have begun reading The Entire Earth and Sky by Leslie Carol Roberts, which I received for Christmas. Though I'm only a couple dozen pages in, I already am thrilled at what it is showing me. Of course, I have selfish reasons: I'm in the midst of writing my Antarctic novel. And I suppose it helps that winter has descended upon us and given me a nasty cold to boot. But Roberts includes the tasty human details that I am looking for to make Antarctica seem real to readers.

While I might edit things a little differently than her editors did, her voice is there, and that is essential (as it is in any book – fiction or non-fiction.) Indeed, I might even reach out to Ms. Roberts to see if I can learn more from her about Antarctica, though I'll wait until after I've finished her book.

In the meantime, I will listen to the winter wind, feel grateful for my heavy coat, my scarf, hat, and gloves, and imagine my characters in their fictional Antarctica, perhaps catching the music of Icestock at New Years. I wonder if there's live streaming... Will wonders never cease?

2009: Predictions for the Year in Reading

2008-12-27T15:55:00.005-05:00

Soon we will turn the page on 2008. To my mind, not a bad year over all, though I know of many people who don't have the same affection for 2008. I have much to be thankful for: a good year at work, though I can do more; the joy of impending fatherhood; I got my novel in shape to be seen by agents. And I read a lot of books.

I'm not quite prepared to go over what I read that most impressed me. (After all, who really cares what someone else has read, unless they can say well why someone else should read it?) But I think I can offer a few thoughts about what I and other hardcore readers will be reading in 2009.

I expect to see lots of Dress for Success and job-search books on the trains this coming year. I don't know whether ye olde What Color Is Your Parachute is still a go-to help book in this Internet, "information era" age, but there's probably something of that ilk that'll be flying off the shelves -- at least at the library, since no one has any money any more.

Other books of choice will be along the lines of "How to do more with less." As someone who grew up with Depression-era parents, I feel well indoctrinated about that sort of lifestyle. I've always been frugal, and with my kids on the way, I'm sure that'll continue.

I suspect that there'll be a renewed interest in stories of the 1970s, because that's the era that will be most similar to what we're embarking on. The Great Depression, with its breadlines and Hoovervilles just doesn't seem quite as likely as the '70s lunchbox, baby-sitting relatives, PBJ sandwiches, TV dinners, and other forms of parsimony. I wonder if That '70s Show will stage a revival...

But I'm a fiction writer. What's in it for me? I honestly don't know. I suspect that fiction could become slightly less popular than it already is — and it's already fairly unpopular. So read up America! Fiction, nonfiction, whatever you enjoy. And keep or gain employment. Keep this country literate and great!

A Different Reading

2008-12-25T13:48:00.000-05:00

And so this is Christmas, for old and for young. Another year over. A new year just begun. And so happy Christmas, I hope you have fun.

In the background, as you may have guessed, is John Lennon's And So This Is Christmas, a song from the CD that my wife bought me for Christmas. (Yes, Virginia, there are CDs.) Another reason for celebrating this Christmas is because I have finally reinstalled the Internet to the computer, which is now part of the makeshift office/nursery. We have set up the house in preparation not exactly for the Christ child, but for the two little girls who are coming to join us.

When? That's not exactly for us to know, just yet. Suffice it to say, it could be any day now. It could be today. It could be almost three weeks from now. But it won't be any longer than that. Alas, these children will be born within a Bush presidency, but at least they will never truly know it.

But unto us shall be born quite soon two children, who shall know love and joy and music and words — such beautiful words have not yet been spoken.

This morning, as I sat at Christmas mass (during the boring priest's homily) I read the readings that I'd missed because I was late. And in one was a line I'd not remembered; I think it was from the Old Testament. It was about a city not forsaken. I've forgotten much of what was said already (it was 7:30 mass and I was tired), but I suspect that line was not talking about my children. Yet, that's how I took it.

I intend to not say much about my children on this blog. It is too unprivate. Too exposed. Those who I wish to share thoughts with of that nature know where to find me. But on this Christmas day, when all things are possible — even peace on earth — I can't help myself.

These children provide me with a modicum of hope. I long to meet them, to share with them, to feed and nourish them as they will nourish me. I long to feel their hair, to smell their skin, to clean and pamper them. (And Pamper them ... or whatever brand name we end up with.) They find me unforsaken. Brimming with hope. Happy.

Merry Christmas, everyone. May peace be upon you.

Return of the Hot Red-Headed Vampire

2008-12-12T23:08:00.002-05:00

Thank God for Christopher Moore. After trudging through the slow but worthwhile history about Benjamin Franklin's work as ambassador to France during the Revolutionary War, I needed something light. So I picked up a copy of Moore's You Suck. I'm more than 200 pages in and so happy that I returned to the humorous worlds of Chris Moore's creation.

If you're unfamiliar with his work, I whole-heartedly recommend you start with Practical Demonkeeping, which is his debut novel. Then go for Bloodsucking Fiends, which introduces the red-headed vampire Jody and her boyfriend (and minion) C. Thomas Flood. They're the happy couple in You Suck, which begins where Fiends ends: with Jody biting Tommy.

Moore also tends to give his characters cameo appearances in other novels. For example, the demon Catch from Practical Demonkeeping, unexpectedly appears in Lamb, which is the gospel according to Biff, Jesus's best friend.

Though not every book is a complete winner, I suspect I'd read anything he produced. And he has a new one coming out in February.

Ben Franklin and the Slow-Moving Book

2008-12-06T11:10:00.004-05:00

I should know better. For the past couple of weeks, I've been reading A Great Improvisation, which is a history about Benjamin Franklin's work as ambassador to France during the American Revolution, written by Stacy Schiff. I have always admired Franklin, though my real understanding of his work is based on childhood schoolbooks and movies.

The book is well written and obviously well researched. But God, is it slow! Of course, I began it while I was still working on my NaNo novel, which meant I read it mostly while on the morning portion of my commute. Still, nonfiction — especially densely packed nonfiction — tends to only go at about a 20-page per morning pace, whereas I usually knock out about twice as much for a novel.

But these types of books also allow for a better sense of what a character looks like, and that's nice every once in a while (though I very much enjoy imagining what a person looks like). And a history can inspire other ideas — screenplays, for example, other histories, even plays. I only have a hundred pages left of the 400-plus, and while I probably won't finish it this weekend, I should have it back on a shelf before next week is relegated to history.

National Novel Continuation Month

2008-11-30T17:44:00.001-05:00

November is almost over; just about six hours to go here on the East Coast. And with the end of November arrives the close of National Novel Writing Month. Though I have topped 15,000 words, it is not physically possible for me to get to 50,000 today unless I were to steal words from other documents and paste them into my work in progress. That's not going to happen. I respect myself and my fellow writers too much to do that.

But that doesn't mean I'll stop writing what I have begun. I'm still getting to know the characters in my new novel, Blood Falls. They're interesting and I'm sure there's a lot more complexity to them than has been shown so far. But that's what you learn when you first meet people. I know something about my main character's family, how her parents died, the awful disease her sister has, the brother who seems about as deep as the condensation on a bottle of beer. I met people I didn't know about, like the niece of my main character, who strikes me as smart and precocious and potentially uplifting as this family's story progresses.

I've also gotten to know a couple fellow writers better. For that I am most thankful. I feel like I've been welcomed into a community of writers and I've already learned a lot from them; I suspect that more will come. I hope I've helped at least as many people as have helped me.

But tomorrow, despite the board meeting I must attend and the mountains of work I must tend to, begins National Novel Continuation Month(s). Most likely, it'll extend into the new year. It may also overlap with the beginning of Local Life-Interrupted-by-Babies Lifetime, but I'm ok with that too. Because they will be a big part of my writing life for years to come. Indeed, I expect them to garnish a huge chunk of my salary over the next 20-25 years.

So, off I go to live the life of yet another aspiring novelist -- albeit, one with a novel to show for it and another on the way and dozens of workable ideas to pursue after that. I'll probably reach about 16,000 words on this year's Nano. I strongly suspect I'll start something else next year, but this year's word count may end up as a high-water mark for a while, unless I start fictionalizing what my kids do. Lord knows what tomorrow brings.

Is There Any Such Thing as Bad Sex?

2008-11-26T13:07:00.002-05:00

Proving that there can be an award for anything, the British Literary Review has bestowed its annual Bad Sex in Fiction Prize on the venerable John Updike. While he may have created a famous character named Rabbit, it seems his characters in general have not quite shown the same joie de vivre as a warren of horny bunnies.

Updike was honored for a lifetime of crude, tasteless, or ridiculous sex scenes. Although he's never won the annual award, he apparently has been on the short list (ouch!) four times. "Good sex or bad sex, he has kept us entertained for many years," the Review's editors said in a statement.

As someone whose written sex scenes have been both wince-inducing and enjoyed, I feel I can say that I'd rather not be known as a writer of bad fictional sex. However, I'd prefer that to being known for bad real sex.

Putting Things Right

2008-11-24T22:16:00.005-05:00

Life has been very busy lately, and not merely because I'm still struggling to write daily on a new novel. I've got major projects to finish before the end of the year and a freelance piece I intend to finish tonight and miles to go before I sleep...

While procrastinating about 10 minutes ago (before this arguably more valuable procrastination), I read a review of Stephen King's new collection of short stories, Just After Sunset. At the same time, I found another writer's MySpace page and she had cool background music, which has put me into a mellow mood (cue the single malt!).

So I read the review and took it in. And you know what? This guy is right: Stephen King's power as a writer is his honesty. I mean, anyone who knows how to write knows that King's work isn't a stellar example of art — and King knows how to write. Get it? Stephen King is an honorable craftsman, and I enjoy his work — even those that are pedestrian, like Dreamcatcher. He wrote to pay the bills, to get his wife a birthday gift, to feed his alcoholic needs while those terrors enlivened his early writing. He kept writing because it's all he really knew to do. I respect that. Even the drinking part. (The coke habit I can do without, thank you.) He kept writing because it's what he was meant to do. And he believed. Amen.

Read the review on your time. I'm going to put my time in to finish this profile. Because I need the money, and I've done the interview, and it's interesting. And I'm the only one who can write it right now the way it's supposed to be done. So be it.

Brief Update on Nano WriMo 2008

2008-11-11T22:45:00.005-05:00

For those who might care, I've not been able to write often here. I have a couple posts in the hopper, but I'm trying to write a new novel this month as part of National Novel Writing Month, and I just don't get much time to write anything else.

As you can see by the cool little widget on top of the sidebar, I've written more than 7000 words. If that sounds like a lot, I thank you. It's not. I'm way behind pace. And these 75 words or so don't count.

If you're a fellow Nano, feel free to visit me. I'm elephantguy.

Dracula in the 21st Century

2008-11-06T22:18:00.002-05:00

Lately, I've been reading Dracula — the original by Bram Stoker, not some comic book version. I'd never read it before and I must admit I was surprised. I had expected that there was more going on than a simple scary story. People often talk about the sexual (and even homosexual) innuendo and movies embellish the vanity, but a reader can really sink his teeth into the allusions to class distinctions and religious differences that Stoker included.

But even the structure of the novel is unique. He told his story through telegrams and journals — a product of his time that, like a vampire, can survive forever if properly fed. Most (well, a lot if not most) of my reading the past couple of years has been devoted to contemporary literature, and I'm not much of a consumer of experimental literature. (A collection of short stories that I bought at the Brooklyn Book Festival was about inanimate objects. Sorry, I can't relate to that. I'll never get that dollar back.)

But a well crafted story that demonstrates an interesting use of structure can be captivating. I've got an idea that I won't go into here for a 21st century horror story. I haven't figured out yet how it would sell (not whether it would sell...how). Bram Stoker lives!

One for the History Books

2008-11-04T21:34:00.000-05:00

All right! You don't have to be a math whiz to see the blue ink on the wall. With Ohio now declared for Sen. Barack Obama, Pennsylvania unsurprisingly going Democratic, and Florida looking ready to go Democratic too, it's time to stick a fork in Sen. John McCain's campaign. It's done.

There's a party in Grant Park in Chicago, and I think there will be celebration throughout much of the United States. Barack Obama is on the verge of history!

President-Elect Obama will have a lot of work ahead of him, and there remains much to learn about the House and Senate races as the night goes on, but short of an unspeakable catastrophe, he has accomplished what many African-Americans never thought possible in their lifetimes.

This may sound silly to some, but I'm proud of America. We're still a nation with deep racial divisions, but at least it can be said now that we have elected a black man president. There's never been a black prime minister of England or a black president of France. Don't even think about Germany in this equation. I don't know for certain, but I'd be shocked if there's been an Aboriginal PM of Australia.

This truly is history. I'm proud to have witnessed it and to be part of this historic vote.

NaNo Site Problems, So What Else Is New

2008-11-04T14:02:00.003-05:00

I'd forgotten how much of a pain in the butt it can be to access the National Novel Writing Month Web site during November. Honestly, the only thing I want to do there is update my word count, but I can't get into the site.

I don't know if it's because there's so much activity or because they have so little bandwidth available... all I know is it's a hassle.

This year, I'm far ahead of my pace from last year, though I haven't maintained the pace I need to reach my goal. Basically, I'm a little farther than two days in using the average of 1666 words per day; today is November 4th, so I need to catch up. This month is too busy to let things get behind.

Hope everyone out there participating is able to write regularly. If I can borrow from the old joke about voting (on this Election Day), Write early, write often.

Funny, it's more appropriate this way.

T-Minus 24 Hours to NaNo...

2008-10-30T23:56:00.001-04:00

In 24 hours it begins: National Novel Writing Month, 2008. I'm geared up. I've been mentally playing out scenes, wondering what types characteristics make up the people in this story, much of which will take place in Antarctica. What are her siblings like? Where is she when she hears about her parents' tragic death?...

I attended a kick-off event tonight. I chatted with a woman who's planning to write an office murder mystery. It sounds like a lot of fun, actually. I wondered who I might want to kill in my office. What would be my motivation? Money? Anger? Trying to get ahead? Trying to frame someone else? Maybe in 2009, I'll write something with a murder or two in it. I'll kill a couple characters in my new novel, but it's not quite the same.

So, to all you fellow NaNos, I bid you good luck. And if you must kill, make sure you do it on paper first.

Haruki Murakami, Cal, and Obsessive Lonely Men

2008-10-26T08:36:00.002-04:00

Haruki Murakami, one of my favorite short story writers (and an accomplished novelist), recently received the inaugural Berkeley Japan Prize — that's Berkeley as in University of California at... (a.k.a. 'Cal' for those who wonder if people wearing a Cal hat are actually named Cal.)

I don't read enough of his work, but wherever I find something about him, I enjoy learning about a man who is either a natural writer or the most unlikely writer you'd ever meet. To my mind, that obvious contradiction is an example of why he's so interesting a writer. For example, he decided while attending a baseball game that he was going to become a writer. No training. According to the Cal press release: "When asked about the revelation that led him to writing at age 29, the author described watching his favorite baseball team, the Yakult Swallows, in 1978. An American player on the team, Dave Hilton, hit a double, and as Murakami cryptically explained it, 'On that sunny day drinking beer, I just knew I could write.' Soon thereafter he submitted his first short novel, Hear the Wind Sing, to a publisher, and saw it win the Gunzou Literature Prize for promising young writers in 1979."

I wasn't aware that his nonfiction book Underground was based on interviews with people who survived the 1995 Sarin gas attack in the Japanese subway system. The victims — mostly commuting workers — told boring stories, he said. But, he added, “if you try hard to listen, to like them, to love them, then their stories become interesting. Everyone has his own story.”

I couldn't agree more.

My boring/interesting story is this: In 1994, I attempted to become a teacher of English in Japan through the YMCA. I was working in a Y at the time and a colleague who knew I was unsatisfied with my job encouraged me to try the teaching program in Japan. He was Japanese and said he thought I would fit in well there, unlike many Americans (I'm not entirely sure I understand why, but I took it as a compliment.) I studied and prepared and I thought I did well in my interview. For reasons I've forgotten now, I'd felt that I would probably end up in an area near Kobe. But I never made it to another round of interviews. The number of available spots was severely cut back (I'd been among 32 people interviewed for 16 spots, but then the number was cut to either eight or four, I don't recall which now.) I left the job and, as fate would have it, ended up meeting the woman who is now my wife. Kobe, Japan, experienced a devastating earthquake. And I was left that classic writer's question: What if?

It was more than ten years before I read Haruki Murakami again. Perhaps none of this is related.

There's a Word for People Like That

2008-10-14T07:40:00.001-04:00

One of the things I love about newspapers (and their websites) is that there's always something interesting to read, regardless of where it's placed. For example, I went into the science section of today's New York Times looking to see what might be new in that fascinating world. What did I find there? News on the science of words.

Interesting stuff, indeed! While I don't know whether I'd go through the difficult rigamarole to analyze what my characters say in a novel or how they say it, perhaps it would be time well spent. It could offer a level of characterization that readers and teachers study for years. I remember English classes in college when we'd ponder what the author intended in various scenes. Sometimes I thought such analysis was daft, but now that I've completed a novel and begun imagining new characters for my next one, I realize that an author does — and should — consider things like how a reader may interpret a character.

I didn't realize, for instance, that men tend to use more articles (a, the) than women, who are more likely to use pronouns (I, she, they). For the novel I'm imagining now (I won't start writing till November, when National Novel Writing Month begins), the protagonist is a woman in her 30s who works as a research scientist in Antarctica. Now that I've read the Times article, I may ponder even more about how she thinks and speaks. Perhaps her mannerisms alter slightly as change occurs in her life. Or maybe she's so frozen in her mannerisms that she can't break out.

This is one of the many reasons why I love writing!