I couldn't resist Blogger's new free photo posting function, Bloggerbot - this is me, with (ahem) slightly darker hair than I have now. 

More Sequel to The Suspicious Room: The Goth Twins

Links and Links

Silly me! I just realized yesterday that when I switched templates, the new one had no space for links; I made a place in the sidebar, reconstructed, and voila, they're back, although at the left instead of the right. As you can see my excerpts and such are now pulled into their own section. Meanwhile, in browsing about, I found the following article: How to be a writer. Not sure who the sponsoring group is, but I did like it, and think it has some basic, sound information about how to get started and a general plan to follow. Let me know what you think, should you be so inclined. You can comment below or, now that my email link is back up, you can email me.

Blogs and Book Contracts

Thought you all might like this, excerpted from today's Publisher's Lunch (the free part of the ever-useful Publishers Marketplace - you can sign up for it anytime). Love their wicked wit regarding all those critics and pundits. And note that Blogger talked about Salam Pax on its home page ages ago, and Publishers Marketplace is well aware of him, but the New Yorker seems curiously in the dark.

And take from this article this useful lesson - if your way of doing a page a day is to blog, go for it!

The Latest Trends in Trend Pieces

For a different take on the trend-piece-as-personality-piece hybrid (usually it's one or the other), this week's New Yorker looks at bloggers who become authors. Or actually it's a future trend; "Suddenly, books by bloggers will be a trend, a cultural phenomenon," when "Two years from now-give or take-Elizabeth Spiers, the founding editor of the gossip Web sites Gawker and The Kicker, will publish her first novel."

At least they know how the paper of record works. "You will probably read about it in the Sunday Times." But they can't resist declaring that it's really all due to one person: "When that happens the person to thank-or blame-will be Kate Lee, who is currently a twenty-seven-year-old assistant at International Creative Management."

As befits such a venerable traditional publication, they must deliver a facile swipe along the way: "Lee does not so much read as prospect, sifting through sloppy thinking, bad grammar, and blind self-indulgence for moments of actual good writing." The other bloggers the enterprising Lee represents are the writers behind Hit & Run, The Black Table, Dong Resin, Zulkey, Low Culture, Lindsayism.

What this proud publication is blinded to (or at least misses in their overstatement), amidst their impeccable grammar and dandy sentence structure, is that plenty of other bloggers have struck book deals (among them Baghdad blogger Salam Pax, the UK's notorious Belle de Jour, the Julia/Julia Project, Cantonese columnist Mu Zimei, the eponymous Real Live Preacher).

Miller column
Style piece
New Yorker

A Word of Encouragement: Even Shakespeare Had a Day Job

A lot of the time new writers are convinced they won't be able to write unless they somehow become independently wealthy overnight and can quit their day jobs. Untrue!

Shakespeare (according to our best information) worked in his glovemaker father's shop before spending his early twenties as a schoolteacher, and throughout most of his career supplemented his writing income by acting. He invested in his theater company and also made some extremely sound real estate investments. He did not leave his livelihood to the capricious market. And when the playhouses were closed for two years because of the plague, he tried another avenue - that's why we have the sonnets. Guy de Maupassant spent much of his adult life as a civil servant, writing all the time.

The point: NOT that can't ever expect to make your income purely through writing if you want to. That's a goal you can work on and which is certainly achievable. But if you haven't achieved it yet it doesn't make you any less of a "real" writer. You are in extremely good company!

And doing much better this week with the writer's block, thank you. A couple of days off and some focus on one project - the sequel to The Suspicious Room - seems to have done the trick. I set out to do my at-least-one-page this morning and came up with two.

Keep writing! A little at a time is all it takes - really.

Who'd Have Thought? A Touch of Writer's Block

Which almost never hits me anymore, since I try to hold myself to all my exhortations . . . but really, three mornings in a row, I've had a very hard time. Hmm. Possibly because I have three ideas and am trying to work on them all in turn? Not letting me live enough in the world of any of them? Hmm, can you say "expectations of myself too unrealistic?" That'll teach me.

Now, let's see, what would I tell one of you to do? I would say, rest up, have yourself some fun for a couple of days. You've probably written yourself out, spent all your aesthetic energy without replenishing it. Give yourself a small, sensual treat to get things going again (doesn't even have to cost much, or indeed anything - an hour on the couch listening to your favorite music, a great hot bath, kicking back and watching the game on TV guilt-free, a really good pastry). Then, after a day or two, focus, one project at a time, and make yourself write just a half hour or so.

Yeah. That ought to do it. Physician (or wordsmith?) heal thyself.

How's everybody else doing? How are all you writers coming along?

Apropos of Writing in Front of the TV

Raelynn Hillhouse, soon-to-debut thriller author whose book is creating a lot of buzz, says on her Publishers Marketplace blog:

"I hate being apart from the action. Peace just doesn't work for me. Give me three big dogs swirling around and some Star Trek reruns I'll automatically force myself into my most productive concentration."

So you might want to add three big dogs to the equation.

Tip: If You Can, Write While You Watch TV! (I Swear)

Okay, I know this one sounds weird. And I want to preface it by saying that not everyone can do this, and that is fine. If you are the kind of person who likes or needs complete silence when you write, who likes the library or your own quiet den or bedroom, then that's what you need. Don't force yourself into this suggestion. But if you're the kind of person who likes music on when you write, who likes to be out at a cafe to hear the bustle, who used to do your homework on front of the tube, see if this works for you.

The point of this is not that you should turn on the TV if you are already happily writing away. The point is to try to pleasantly utilize the time that you spend collapsed and exhausted in front of Seinfeld reruns when you get in from work (who? me? collapsed in front of Seinfeld reruns?), or just bored and channel surfing.

Keep your notebook or laptop or whatever by the couch. When you are vegging out in front of the TV, reach for said notebook or laptop or whatever. Start writing, working on whatever you want. It's okay if you stare at it vacantly a lot and just put down a few sentences every now and then. It's okay if you don't follow what's on the TV and it fades into the background (hey, they'll rerun it in summer, even if it's not already a rerun). You may find that when you stand up, you haven't only just watched an hour and a half of TV, but you've also written a page. (And it's okay if it wasn't your best page - you can revise it later.)

I do particularly well in front of That Seventies Show reruns and, for some reason, the A&E production of Pride and Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth. Go figure.

Just see if it works.

From the Mountains of Marin

While I'm Away . . . and a Tip: Don't Go Back to the Top of the Page You're Writing

As always, don't forget the mantra: write a little bit, and write more or less every day - an hour every day, a half hour every day, forty minutes every weekday, fifteen minutes a day, one hour every weekend day, two hours two or three days a week, whatever you have worked out. Even three hours in a chunk once a week is good, if that is all your schedule allows and it's not too big of a chunk of time for you to stick with. Hey, even one hour once a week will yield results. The important thing is that it be a little bit at a time, achievable, and inviolable.

And by the way: a friend (hi!) mentioned that she sometimes writes a page and then goes back to the top to perfect it. And then goes back to the top again. And again. My tip is: stop that. You can make and make it perfect later. The point is to go with the momentum, keep moving. So no more going back to the top of the page!

And don't forget to tell me what you think of the new template (or anything else that's on your mind). You can comment at the bottom of the post immediately below this one.

Have a great weekend!

Change in Template

I got all excited with Blogger's new features and changed my template to something called "Scribe," because it seems so very writerly. Let me know how you like it! (Click on the newly enabled comments link below, then post a comment.) And off to Northern California again this weekend, to go to the dentist and watch my nephew graduate from Berkeley. We're very proud. Then I may lay low down here for a while, writing the sequel to The Suspicious Room and (I hope) sipping margaritas.

Another Glimmer Train Contest

Glimmer Train has another one going on. Deadline is July 15. Below is their spiel:

Competition: Glimmer Train's Summer Fiction Open.

Eligibility: Open to all writers, all themes, subjects, and lengths.
Your entries must be your own, original, entirely unpublished stories.
Multiple entries are okay, but, please, no simultaneous submissions.

First-place winner receives $2,000, publication in Glimmer Train
Stories, and 20 copies of the issue in which it is published. Second-
and third-place winners receive $1,000/$600, respectively, and
acknowledgement in that issue.

To submit your stories, go to our site, www.glimmertrainpress.com, log
in, and click on FICTION OPEN. Reading fee (payable by visa or mc) is
$15 per story.

Entries will be accepted through July 15th. Winners will be called by
October 15th. Top 25 list will be emailed to all participants by that
date.

We are eager to read more of your work!

Now, remember - you don't have to enter contests if you don't want to. There are many other ways to get your work recognized. (And see my post on January 9 this year for what to watch out for and how to keep from being scammed.) But this is a reputable, reasonably priced one, so if you are into them, what the heck? Look over your work, send something in, or finish what you have (you can write a good, even great, short story by July 15 if you work a little each day), and send it on in. It's good practice.

Deep in Berkeley

audio post powered by audblog