How to be a writer

While writing an article praising the publishing success of Octavia E. Butler in a genre dominated by white men, I opened up Bloodchild and Other Stories, a collection that also includes two essays, one about how Butler got her start as a writer and another entitled “Furor Scribendi” (a rage for writing).

Butler’s advice for how to become a writer is probably the best I’ve ever read, a friendly encouragement to me as I’m trying to publish my work.  Here’s what she says.

1. Read about writing and read the type of books you want to write.
2. Take classes and go to writers’ workshops.
3. Write every day, even if you don’t want to.
4. Revise your writing until it’s the best you can make it.
5. Submit your work for publication.
6. Persist.

And that’s it.  It isn’t easy, but it isn’t really hard either.  If I keep at it for a few more years, I’m bound to make a professional sale.  Because there’s talking about wanting someday to be a writer and then there’s doing what Octavia E. Butler tells you to do.

I plan to take her advice.

And now for more grading

Thank goodness for the feedback sandwich!  There are three essential parts to helpful feedback for any piece of writing.

1. A compliment.  Since students are sensitive about their writing, a commenter should always give a genuine compliment to encourage students in what they are already doing well.

Example: Vivid voice! You have a confident, authoritative sound on the page.

2. One area for improvement.  A good piece of feedback doesn’t point out every little mistake, but gives an overall goal to work on for next time.  It’s pointless to say something like “Learn about comma splices” instead of looking at what the root of the problem might be.

Example: You’ve written a lot of comma splices and run-ons.  Think critically about organization and how you want your ideas and sentences to connect.  Consider using transition words or dividing some of the longer sentences.

3. Encouragement.  And that’s why it’s a sandwich.  Good feedback begins and ends with something nice–the spoonful of sugar, if you will.

Example: Good work thoroughly evaluating this topic.

Multiply this sandwich by seventy, and you’ll get a feel for how my Thursday is going to go.

Things Not to Do in a Coffee Shop

I was in a locally owned coffee shop this morning, a really nice place that shares its location with upscale secondhand furniture, of which patrons can avail themselves while studying and sipping some chai.  My zen-like productivity experience was destroyed, however, by my fellow customers’ and even the shop’s failure to observe these five simple rules.

1. Please do not play bad Christian music.  I’m glad you’re playing Christian music, but let’s keep it to songs written in the last decade, and no choruses.
2. Please do not hum to the Christian music.  Especially not off-key.  Especially not loudly.  Especially not for all three hours that I’m there.
3. Please do not have a long and loud conversation on your cellphone.  Other patrons do not care whether the files were or were not received in a timely manner.  Also, you are not an ostrich.  Just because you can’t see us doesn’t mean we can’t hear you.
4. Please do not spontaneously sing “Happy Birthday” to Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was clearly not having his birthday party at your coffee shop, so there is no need to go on about it.  People who do not know Jeremiah should not feel the need to join in.
5. Please do not play your guitar.  Other people are working, plus there is already way too much music happening.  A coffee shop is not a recording studio.  Shall I repeat myself?  A coffee shop is not a recording studio.

If humanity would just observe these simple rules, or even, say, half of them on any given day, I would be inclined to revisit said local coffee shop.  Unfortunately, guitar girl was the Last Straw, and I have officially brushed the dust off of my sandals or whatever metaphor of moving on will suit your cultural and/or religious ideologies.

When I am angry, I speak in a flat voice and use long words.

Timed Writing

Here is how I get myself to write something that I’m reluctant to write.

I set the timer, for ten minutes to an hour.  I work hard and intently, without getting up from my desk, typing as quickly as is reasonable, until the timer goes off.  Then I stop.

Perhaps it is the timer’s promise that the amount of time I have to struggle with my writing is finite which makes the process work so splendidly.  Perhaps it is also reminiscent of Peter Elbow’s freewriting theories and of the no-holds-barred madness of NaNoWriMo.  Write fast, edit later.

I’m about to write for forty-two more minutes on the last paper of the semester.  (Because forty-two is the answer to the ultimate question, and by then it will be just after 9:30, when I will become creatively brain-dead.)  After that, I’m going to read in bed, knowing I’ll have worked long enough and well enough for this evening.

Setting the timer.  It’s magical.  You should try it sometime.

January 16

1.  Halfway.  I have reached the halfway point of my January NaNoWriMo novel, at five complete chapters and a total of 25,000 words.  Fortunately or unfortunately, the novel will be longer than 50,000 words, so it’s not exactly halfway yet, but it’s halfway of my writing goal for January, so I consider it cause for celebration.

2.  Science Fiction.  Thus far this January, I’ve read as much science fiction as I can, working on instinct that during the semester, I won’t be able to read as freely as I prefer.  However, this semester I’ll be taking a science fiction literature class, so my extracurricular reading can become “additional research.”  After I finish rereading Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde (Thursday Next #4), I’m thinking of picking up Jingo by Terry Pratchett, or, for a more widely recognized classic, The Crying of Lot 49.

3.  The King’s Speech.  It was a tremendously well-acted movie, which I enjoyed a great deal.  Except for the fact that what appeared to have been the entire retirement community had also chosen our 1:10 showing, and we were forced to sit in the third-to-front row on the floor.  I’m sure it’s an even better movie if one can see it properly.

4.  Parting Wisdom.  Peanut butter fudge ice cream is really good.  You should never pass up an opportunity to eat some.

January 14

A Short Rant on Endings

Here are two types of endings I greatly dislike.

#1.  The There’s Another Book Ending.  You are reading along, happily engrossed in the characters and plot, when you realize that there are only fifty pages left.  How, you wonder, will the author manage to tie up all the loose ends before then?  Unfortunately for you, she won’t.  Instead, she’ll simply stop fifty pages later, and you’ll turn the page on an advertisement for book two or book four, to be released in hardback eight months from now, and in paperback a year after that.  In this type of ending, there is no closure whatsoever, meaning that eighteen months later when you finally pick up the end of the story, you’ll be confused for the first half of the novel.  The only way that this type of ending is forgivable is if it is blatantly advertised on the front or back covers, since a sudden “Surprise, there’s another book!” just doesn’t cut it with you.

#2.  The What Just Happened Ending.  This ending is either too abrupt or too abstract to give a satisfactory sense of resolution.  Some of the many What Just Happened strategies include narrating the final chapter from an entirely new character’s perspective, killing the main character without explaining the significance of or achievement gained by his death, and failing to account for all the subplots or smaller stakes in a climax that is far too grandiose or too loftily described.  You feel tricked by this ending, disappointed and angry because your investment, in a sense, did not pay off.  Not only do you not know what just happened, but you also don’t know what happened to the quirky bookseller whose livelihood was dependent on the protagonist’s victory or whether the space-time continuum really was preserved when the white hole exploded with all those lovely streaks of light.  This book, too, you would like to fling across the room, except that you are afraid of damaging its resale value.

Here is what I have learned:  A book is like a contract between an author and a reader.  The author promises to tell a complete story as well as she possibly can, and this reader, at least, promises to read as much of it as interests her.  If an author tells an excellent and whole story, the reader will read the entire thing attentively and will feel, at the end, not angry but enriched.

March 16

1.  Megan Whalen Turner.  Since she is one of my top ten favorite authors, I am delighted to be rereading Turner’s third Thief novel, The King of Attolia, for the third? sixth? eighth time.  What makes me even happier is that book four, A Conspiracy of Kings, is coming out on Tuesday, March 23.  A week from today.  So if I don’t seem to be paying attention to the thread of a conversation, I’m not: I’m daydreaming about Eugenides.

2.  Literary Crushes.  Eugenides.  Sherlock Holmes.  Ender Wiggin.  Paul Atreides / Lawrence of Arabia.  Genly Ai.  I am attracted to dark, intellectual loners who save civilizations.  I can’t help it.

3.  Reading List.  For a brief Tuesday through Friday trip, I’m bringing four books (The Art of the Novel by Kundera, The Dew Breaker by Danticat, Dubliners by Joyce, and The King of Attolia)—but they’re short, and I’m already halfway done with one of them.  I’m concerned that four might be too few, but I reassure myself by the fact that I will be only half an hour from a bookstore, in case I need another one.  Periodically I consider paring down my books to absolute favorites, i.e. less than a hundred, but then I laugh.  I could live without them, but I won’t if I don’t have to.

4.  A Hobby.  Nevertheless, at times I feel that I need a hobby besides reading and writing.  (Knitting doesn’t count because it’s just something you do in front of the TV.)  Any ideas?