Fiction Scribe

Let the 11th edition of the Bird by Bird discussions commence!

(Isn’t that better? You know you were getting tired of the ‘hello and welcome’ introduction.)

I am thinking about discontinuing this discussion (but in all honest, likely will keep it going simply because I’ll keep reading) due to lack of responses. If you’re reading along or even if you aren’t reading but have an opinion on something I’ve said, please do leave a comment to say hello. (We bloggers are a bit of a fussy lot and get nervous when we don’t know if anyone is reading.)

Last week we had a lovely assignment of “Looking Around” and “The Moral Point of View”. This week we’ll be talking about the interestingly named “Broccoli”, “Radio Station KFKD”, and “Jealousy”. I’ll try to keep things concise and to the point, so if there is anything I miss that you’d like to talk about, you know what to do…

Now to the discussion! (more…)

The Bird by Bird book discussion will be continuing tomorrow, don’t forget!

Remember to have your copy of Bird by Bird and have read “Broccoliâ€?, “Radio Station KFKD”, and “Jealousy”.

Thank you to all who participate. Feel free to jump in at any time on the discussions.

(This was on the radio, but the woman was reading the headlines, so I say I still get to put it in my list of writing-related pet peeves.)

Coming home from a road trip with Mr. Scribe, we heard a news reporter on the radio say this:

“We are currently looking for people who left before they arrived.�

(People leaving before they’ve arrived? Now that’s something I’d like to see.)

What she should have said was, “We are currently looking for people who left before the ambulances arrived.� However, the ambulance drivers had been mentioned in previous sentence so she took for granted the listeners would know who ‘they’ are.

We did, but that doesn’t make for good writing.

Say what you mean to say clearly.

I’ve mentioned double meanings in the past, but I think this point needs to be mentioned again because of the more subtle double meaning. (The example I used was “Please submit a list of all employees broken down by sex� which is definitely a bit more obvious.)

This one is a bit tough and something I have also grumbled over.

“He glared at Adam until he sat down� may seem perfectly fine in context and/or in your mind, but who is doing the sitting? He or Adam? That’s the problem. Unfortunately, you can’t always reword things so you don’t double up on using a name. “He glared at Adam until Adam sat down� is the (simple) way to go with that one (unless you want to completely change it to something else).

You have to love language. Even if it is tough sometimes, pay attention to what you say. It’ll likely come through in what you write.

Hello everyone!

I’m back from the writer’s conference – Conflux – and vacation, and I’m feeling good. I apologize for the lack of answering comments, but internet connections weren’t exactly abundant. I didn’t much care to work during my vacation anyway.

I have a bunch of lovely things, events, and people to write about from Conflux, so you’ll have to forgive me if you’re sick of Conflux stuff and I’m still on about it in a couple weeks. It was truly an inspirational event.

I hope you all enjoyed banned books week. A truly heartfelt thank you goes out to all of you who supported me in my time of upset. I’m in the process of getting the rest of my books sent out here ASAP. I’ll also be buying another copy of the destroyed book when I can afford it. (Shipping to Australia…bah.)

Tomorrow we have the Scribes blog carnival going up, so I’m going to hold off on my reminders until later, though I have a fairly long list. I’ll be talking about NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, and other future things coming to Fiction Scribe. (Check out NaBloPoMo if you’re unfamiliar with it because I have a nice pressie to send one winning participant…)

I’ve answered all the comments now and am catching up on other news. If there’s anything I missed that you think I should know about you can, as always, feel free to contact me.

As far as this week’s weekly challenge goes, you’re let off the hook again, as I’m sitting here with stacks of papers and books to deal with, and I’m just this side of frazzled with everything. I’ll have something up next week for you to do, though.

Next week will also bring a return to the lovely Luna Nina’s Unconscious Mutterings instead of the FS style ones.

And finally, keep checking in for a big announcement which will make you wonder if I’ve truly gone off the deep end…

I say … and you think … ?

1. Sing:
2. Beer:
3. Cloud:
4. Light:
5. Yellow:
6. Glance:
7. Flip:
8. Antoinette:
9. Ball:
10. Spirit:

Idea courtesy of Luna Nina

The Washington Post’s “Style Invitational” asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

Foreploy:
any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of obtaining sex.

Doltergeist:
a spirit that decides to haunt someplace stupid, such as your septic tank.

Giraffiti:
vandalism spray-painted very, very high, such as the famous “Surrender Dorothy” on the Beltway overpass.

Sarchasm:
the gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the recipient who doesn’t get it.

Impotience:
eager anticipation by men awaiting their Viagra prescription.

Reintarnation:
coming back to life as a hillbilly.

DIOS:
the one true operating system.

Inoculatte:
to take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

Hipatitis:
terminal coolness.

Taterfamilias:
the head of the Potato Head family.

Osteopornosis:
a degenerate disease.

Karmageddon:
It’s like, when everybody is sending off all these like really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it’s like a serious bummer.

Hindkerchief:
really expensive toilet paper; toilet paper at Buckingham palace.

Deifenestration:
to throw all talk of God out the window.

Acme:
a generic skin disease (alt: the *best* skin disease).

Dopeler effect:
the tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

By Gillian of Food Past

Every time I reach the halfway mark in a novel (writing, not reading!) I find it a struggle to continue. I have talked to many other writers about this, and quite a few of them have the same difficulty. So how do you get past the half-way hump when you know exactly how to write the rest of the thing and it just won’t happen?

I use several techniques. Firstly, I set myself a wordcount. It doesn’t matter if the words are garbage, I write 100 or 300 or 500 or 2000 words a day until I’m writing enthusiastically again. I allocate extra time for editing this section, of course, since garbage needs to be got rid of, but editing is way more satisfying than never finishing the project in the first place.

What else do I do? I use my favourite TV programs and say I have to write a certain amount before I’m allowed to watch them.

Sometimes I follow Geoffrey Blainey’s advice and finish the day’s work mid sentence. I have no excuse for not finishing sentences even on my worst days, so that gives me the impetus to write again. I set myself a deadline and I finish the thing by that deadline (I love deadlines).

The other thing I do is take time out. Proper time out. I don’t worry about the novel or nag myself about it. I do something I’ve needed to do or wanted to do. I take a holiday or buy some gourmet chocolate or go to the movies with friends. Then I sue the other techniques to revv up again.

The big thing is I always finish. The middle of novels are always a bit of a dire zone for me, but I always, always get through them. Sometimes it takes every single measure I can think of to make it happen, but happen it does.

If you liked Gillian’s advice, check out my interview with her here.

Thirteen Reasons I won’t Read Your Writing

1. You start with, “It was a dark and stormy night.�
2. You use a (computer) font or color that makes me go blind.
3. You have an addiction to over-punctuation.
4. I can predict the ending of your book without finishing the first chapter.
5. Reading your writing involves sorting through napkins and post-it notes.
6. You like writing in crayons, markers, or brightly colored pens and prefer people to read those drafts.
7. I’ve read your characters somewhere before…
8. You read one of the books I’ve read while writing and the plot lines and characters have seeped into your writing.
9. The phrase “I’ll call you when I’m finished� doesn’t mean anything to you.
10. You insist on declaring yourself the next Tolkein, Lewis, Eddings, Rowling…
11. You insist on sitting with me while I read so you can give me ‘sideline notes’ while I’m reading.
12. You feel the need to explain everything using written, taped, verbal, and other notes.
13. You can’t take anything but compliments.

By Gillian of Food Past

Writing is never one size fits all. Writing blocks are only one size fits all when you least want them to be.

It’s taken me a long time to learn what causes my writing blocks. I have had a vast flow of meaningful words this last fortnight, after not writing for months. This was because I’m writing something with a fiendishly complex plot and my mind had to sort it out enough to be able to get a handle on it.

Last time I had such a major block, it was because I had lost the voice of the main character. If I had written without that voice clearly in my mind, I would have written something much less good.

For the first, I kept dreaming up plots and solutions and conflict and curious situations until I was at a stage where I could draft the dreams that worked (as opposed to the many dead ends I played with) into a detailed outline. That’s what I’m doing now. Writing notes and writing up notes. The outline is so detailed that I will be a third of the way into the book before it’s finished. This is as it should be for this particular novel.

For the other, it was terribly important to find that lost voice and I did. At least, I hope I did. I took my time and didn’t push and the book is with my publisher for editing. I guess I’ll find out if I really did find a voice when I get those editorial comments back.

Voice was so important to that novel that I would have waited years if necessary. I didn’t just wait, though. I read and reread what I had written. I thought of the world I had constructed and the particular dreams and themes I had brought into play. All the time I wasn’t writing, my mind was processing stuff at a deep level.

These days I let my mind do the deep thinking while I do something fun that helps. Right now the ‘something fun’ is Battlestar Galactica. It deals with some of the plotting issues I need to understand and it gives me time out and it’s brilliant to boot. What more could I ask?

Maybe I could ask for a solution to the less dramatic everyday writing blocks? I have those solutions and I promise, I will write a post on them. Just watch this space.

“I could care less.�

Oh? You could? And here I was thinking you didn’t care at all. It’s good to know there is a possibility of you caring less and thus meaning you do care at least somewhat for what we’re talking about.

I believe the correct phrase, and what you meant, is: “I couldn’t care less.�

Just because they are my pet peeves doesn’t mean they can’t amuse me.

While, technically, this kind of statement is contextual and could work when it’s in the correct place, I have never once heard someone say, “I could care less� and mean it that way. What they are really going for is “I couldn’t care less�.

Am I the only one who laughs at people who act snooty and snarky and then go on to say something like, “I could care less�? Whenever someone says that to me, I very seriously and say, “That’s good to know, but I’m more concerned about you caring a bit more, not less.�

I am probably the only one who finds this funny, but that’s okay.

Honestly, I think it’s all a matter of herd mentality. The whole “LOL� thing, saying things – like irregardless – that are wrong or overdone can all probably be blamed on herd mentality. We pick up traits from the people we like, our family, and the media.

I can imagine someone standing up at this point and saying, “I could care less.�

(Please tell me someone out there is amused by this could/couldn’t care less thing as I am.)

Bottom line: Think about what you’re saying and what it truly means.

The Bird by Bird book discussion will be continuing tomorrow, don’t forget!

Remember to have your copy of Bird by Bird and have read “Looking Aroundâ€? and “The Moral Point of View”.

Thank you to all who participate. Feel free to jump in - especially now as we start Part Two: The Writing Frame of Mind - at any time on the discussions.

Hello once again Fiction Scribe readers. Welcome to this week’s edition of the Bird by Bird discussions. Last week we talked about “False Starts,� “Plot Treatment,� and “How Do You Know When You’re Done�. While I had expected them to go differently, I wasn’t in the least disappointed in the content. Once again, Lamott presented valuable lessons in a simple but effective way.

This week we’ll be talking about “Looking Around� and “The Moral Point of View.� Please join me in the discussion – even if you disagree. I’d be happy to hear from you.

I started this chapter slightly confused, admittedly, about what she was talking about. It took me reading a few things twice to grasp what she was trying to talk about – and that is a number of different things.

The first message is one of reverence. Writers need to look at people not so much with their own eyes, but with the detached eyes of someone who realizes everyone is struggling through their own huge piles of crap – self-made or otherwise. It is in realizing that and applying it when you look at people that you lose some of the predispositions that could get you in trouble in your writing.

“Anyone who wants to can be surprised by the beauty or pain of the natural world, of the human mind and heat, and can try to capture just that – the details, the nuance, what is. If you start to look around, you will start to see.�

(more…)

Back in July I had the pleasure of interviewing Glenice Whitting, the author of a book that encompasses war, depression, and an Australian German’s life: Pickle to Pie.

Early this month, I had the honor of attending the book launch of Pickle to Pie. Glenice is back on Fiction Scribe talking about this stage of her book being published and her future plans.

Hello Glenice! Welcome back to Fiction Scribe.

I had the pleasure of attending your book launch, and I think it went fabulously. What was the experience like for you? Were you nervous?

Hello Jaime. It was great to see you there. It was such a wonderful day. I love the old redbrick malt house that is now home for the arts in Melbourne, and the main venue for the annual Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Ilura Press had to apply in May to have the launch there and we were thrilled when Pickle to Pie was accepted. It was a gloriously sunny day, the place was crowded, anyone who was anyone in literary circles was there and I felt honoured to be a part of it. But the best thing of all was that I had all my family (Jason and Karen and granddaughter Tahlia had flown down from Queensland) and my friends and colleagues were there. I was totally happy and that wonderful feeling killed any nerves that threatened the occasion. The memory will keep me warm for the rest of my life.

How did you feel signing copies of your own book? (more…)