Mother Writers

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reading

Well, in a week I’ll be finished with my last design project for a while. This won’t be a complete sabbatical, since I’ll design some stuff for my Etsy shop, I’m sure, but it is a break from commissioned work, which is rewarding, but also very, very time- and brain-consuming.

I’m also giving birth in the next month(ish), so that will take up quite a bit of time and brain power. However, I would like to take this opportunity to get back to writing, even if it’s slow going.

How & when do mothers write?

That’s something I’m trying to figure out. Apparently there’s a book on the subject? (If you’ve got tips, please share.) The more I read about writers, the more I see a pattern—if they are women, they aren’t publishing while raising very small children. But I think they are still writing and reading, and I should be writing and reading, too, even with a toddler, puppy, and soon-to-be howling, hungry infant.

The baby steps are these:

  1. Read one literary novel each month
  2. Read short fiction and poetry once a week
  3. Create and execute one writing assignment biweekly or weekly
  4. Finish one poem or flash fiction piece per month

Eventually, the idea is I’ll get up to writing 1,000 words per day (excluding blogging and status updates), and then work my way up to 2,000 words per day.

That last one could take about ten years, or until the last of our brood is of school-age. We are well on our way to becoming brunette, American Weasleys over here.

Read one literary novel per month

I’ve got a book club going, and we are working through the Newbery (US) and Carnegie (UK) Medal Winners for juvenile fiction. They are short, simple reads that are deemed literary by librarians. Good place to start.

Read short fiction and poetry each week

The idea is to get as many contemporary voices into my head as possible. The Newbery and Carnegie medals are awarded each year, so 90% of the winners aren’t contemporary writers. I probably won’t blog on these a bunch, because that will soak up my writing time, but I’ll post recommended readings (what I liked) to my Facebook page. Feel free to share your own recommended readings for short fiction and poetry there, too! I’ll also post recommended readings on my blog under the Reading and Poetry tabs. (I just added one there this morning—check out Amy McCann’s “Human Climate” via Revolver)

Writing assignments and finishing poems

In an attempt to write more poetry and short fiction, I’ll be posting weekly or biweekly writing assignments here on the blog and then completing them for myself. The idea is that by the end of the month, I’ll have at least one I can turn into something more polished. I’m calling these short assignments “Fifteen Blinks,” the idea being that, whether the piece yields poetry or prose, you could read it in about 3 minutes.

If you want to join me on these assignments, please let me know! If I know other people are participating, I’m much more likely to stick to it and keep generating writing exercises. It’s an accountability thing.

I honestly have no idea what day of the week I’ll be posting Fifteen Blinks. Mondays I’m going to try to devote to motivational works and Author Chats. It’s going to be irregular at best, so your best bet is to subscribe to WriteLaraWrite via email (see right column for sign up) or follow me on Facebook.

Author Chats: Stephen King

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Motivation

So I read this lengthy interview of Stephen King, and I can’t decide if it made me like him more, or like him less. I suppose it just made him more real to me, since all I’ve read of his is his nonfiction about writing (which is stupendous).

I think it’s a worthwhile read, but it is hard to sum up, since the interview spanned a few years. Here are some topics to think about and reflect upon after reading the interview.

Getting Ideas

King often takes experiences and observations, then asks  “What if ____” over and over again, until a story sprouts. He refuses to focus on the next idea while his current work is in progress:

“I mean, I’ve always got a couple of ideas for future stories whenever I’m working on something. But you can’t think about what you’re going to do next. You’re like a married guy who’s trying not to look at women in the street.”

Movie Adaptations

King positively hates Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining.

Where to Write

“It’s nice to have a desk, a comfortable chair so you’re not shifting around all the time, and enough light. Wherever you write is supposed to be a little bit of a refuge, a place where you can get away from the world. The more closed in you are, the more you’re forced back on your own imagination. I mean, if I were near a window, I’d be OK for a while, but then I’d be checking out the girls on the street and who’s getting in and out of the cars and, you know, just the little street-side stories that are going on all the time: what’s this one up to, what’s that one selling?”

Writing Every Possible Day

PARIS REVIEW—Did you write this morning?

KING—I did. I wrote four pages. That’s what it’s come to. I used to write two thousand words a day and sometimes even more. But now it’s just a paltry thousand words a day.

Using a Computer versus Longhand

PARIS REVIEW—You use a computer?

KING—Yes, but I’ve occasionally gone back to longhand—with Dreamcatcher and with Bag of Bones—because I wanted to see what would happen. It changed some things. Most of all, it made me slow down because it takes a long time. Every time I started to write something, some guy up here, some lazybones is saying, Aw, do we have to do that? I’ve still got a little bit of that scholar’s bump on my finger from doing all that longhand. But it made the rewriting process a lot more felicitous. It seemed to me that my first draft was more polished, just because it wasn’t possible to go so fast. You can only drive your hand along at a certain speed. It felt like the difference between, say, rolling along in a powered scooter and actually hiking the countryside.

Finishing the First Draft

PARIS REVIEW—What do you do once you finish a first draft?

KING—It’s good to give the thing at least six weeks to sit and breathe. […] When you return to a novel after that amount of time, it seems almost as if a different person wrote it. You’re not quite as wedded to it. You find all sorts of horrible errors, but you also find passages that make you say, [that’s] good!

Your Editor’s Suggestions

“I don’t think it’s me, I don’t think it’s a best-seller thing, I think it’s a writer thing, and it goes across the board—it never changes—but my first thought was, She can’t tell me that. She doesn’t know. She’s not a writer. She doesn’t understand my genius! And then I say, Well, try it. And I say that especially loud.”

Popular Fiction and Literary Fiction

“The keepers of the idea of serious literature have a short list of authors who are going to be allowed inside, and too often that list is drawn from people who know people, who go to certain schools, who come up through certain channels of literature. And that’s a very bad idea—it’s constraining for the growth of literature.”

Naming

King has been criticized for his use of brand names in literature. Excedrin, for example. Pepsi. I haven’t read King’s fiction, but I have read fiction that does this poorly. I think it’s good to be specific.

“Do you see generic shampoo, generic aspirin? When you go to the store and you get a six-pack, does it just say beer? When you go down and you open your garage door, what’s parked in there? A car? Just a car?”

At the same time, overuse of brand names can feel like a commercial. Be specific, but don’t let it come across as product placement. Your peer editors and beta readers can point this out to you if you think it’s going to be an issue.

If you’re curious to read commercial fiction that reads like the author’s been flipping through the home shopping network, try Heat Wave, the novel commissioned by ABC and written by a ghost writer posing as the fictional crime writer Richard Castle.

—

So that’s all for Stephen King for now. I hope you caught the little bit about e-readers thrown in there (the interview came from 2001-2006). It amused me, anyway.

If you have a Facebook account, be sure to become a fan of my page, where I post more frequently. It’s much easier to repost something interesting than to actually blog about it. That said, I do have some queued up blogs for the next few weeks, so hopefully we’ll start getting back on track with content over here on WordPress. And then I’ll have my baby and probably disappear again for a few weeks.

Author Chats: Julian Barnes

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Motivation

I took Ethan Rutherford’s advice and started reading interviews and posts on The Paris Review. One of the interviews I came across was conducted in 2000 and featured author Julian Barnes. Barnes has won the Man Booker Prize once, been shortlisted for the same award several times, and has been awarded the David Cohen Prize for Literature. In the 1980s, he wrote crime fiction under the name Dan Kavanagh. One great thing about The Paris Review is that they show images of the authors’ marked-up manuscripts. Below is an image (lovingly taken from the website) of his 2000 novel Love, etc.

You can read the interview in its entirety on The Paris Review here or by clicking on the manuscript page above.

I wanted to highlight one particular passage from the interview in which Barnes talks about the writing process

BARNES—I think you should like the process [of writing]. I would imagine that a great pianist would enjoy practicing because, after you’ve technically mastered the instrument, practicing is about testing interpretation and nuance and everything else. Of course, the satisfaction, the pleasure of writing varies; the pleasure of the first draft is quite different from that of revision.

Paris Review—The first draft is fraught with difficulty. It’s like giving birth, very painful, but after that taking care of and playing with the baby is full of joy.

BARNES—Ah! But sometimes it isn’t a baby, it’s something hideous and malformed; it doesn’t look like a baby at all. I tend to write quickly when I’m on the first draft, and then just revise and revise.

PR—So you rewrite a lot?

BARNES—All the time. That’s when the real work begins. The pleasure of the first draft lies in deceiving yourself that it is quite close to the real thing. The pleasure of the subsequent drafts lies partly in realizing that you haven’t been gulled by the first draft. Also in realizing that quite substantial things can be changed, changed even quite late in the day, that the book can always be improved. Even after it’s published, for that matter. This is partly why I’m against word processors, because they tend to make things look finished sooner than they are. I believe in a certain amount of physical labor; novel-writing should feel like a version—however distant—of traditional work.

PR—So you write by hand?

BARNES—I wrote Love, etc. by hand. But normally I type on an IBM 196c, then hand correct again and again until it’s virtually illegible, then clean type it, then hand correct again and again. And so on.

PR—When do you let go? What makes you feel it is ready?

BARNES—When I find that the changes I’m making are dis-improving my text as much as improving it. Then I know it’s time to wave good-bye.

PR—What do you use your computer for, then?

BARNES—I use it for e-mail and shopping.

—”Julian Barnes, The Art of Fiction No. 165.” The Paris Review No. 157 (Winter 2000)

I much appreciate what Barnes says about the process of writing—that it should be enjoyable, because you are practicing and improving with every word. I like that he makes it very clear that the first draft is not the final product, but that you can still derive pleasure from the first draft. (I’m working on that skill.) And I like that he actually keeps on improving his drafts until he isn’t improving them anymore—it’s always difficult to know when to step back and say something is finished.

What did you think of the interview? To read more wisdom from successful writers (e.g. not me), click here for a list of Author Chats.

Reading & Writing: Dr. Seuss

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Fiction

Writing The Cat in the Hat

The Cat in the Hat contains 1,626 words (source). Reportedly, Theodor Geisel thought he could write it in a couple weeks. It ended up taking him “a year and a half” (source).

Just something to think about.

reading

How to Read Dr. Seuss

You know, I’m really not a Dr. Seuss fan. It really isn’t his fault, except for the creepy way he illustrates feet. Mostly I blame the people that read his work aloud, because 99% of them read his rhymes in that ploddy, sing-song voice that is worse than the sound of two pieces of Styrofoam grating against each other. Take this page, for example:

(From Anita Silvey’s Children’s Book-A-Day Almanac)

Some people read it like they are learning to drive a stick for the first time:

Putmedown said the FISH

Thisisnofunat ALL

Putmedown said the FISH

Idonotwishto FALL

And then there’s those who read like first-year poetry students, trying to guess the meter:

Putme DOWN saidthe FISH

Thisis NO funat ALL

Putme DOWN saidthe FISH

Ido NOT wantto FALL

Just a note to readers of verse: inflect the words like a normal person. Just because something is written in meter doesn’t mean you should read it like you are sitting on a galloping horse. Ignore the rhyming words and line breaks and read it like a narrator during the narration, and an actor during dialogue.

“Put me dooooown!”

said the fish.

“This is no fun at all. Put. Me. Down!”

said the fish.

“I do NOT wish to FALL!”

Actors and actresses interpret dialogue differently, so each reader should read aloud differently. If you find yourself reading like the first two examples, break the habit, give yourself some credit as a reader, and have some fun with the reading!