We write to make
suffering endurable,
evil intelligible,
justice desirable
and
love possible.
Purpose
Tag: writing
#ROW80 8/10 & Advice from The Help
We have read your manuscript with boundless delight. If we were to publish your paper, it would be impossible for us to publish any work of lower standard. And as it is unthinkable that in the next thousand years we shall see its equal, we are, to our regret, compelled to return your divine composition, and to beg you a thousand times to overlook our short sight and timidity. ~Rejection Slip from a Chinese Economic Journal, Quoted in The Financial Times
A writer friend e-mailed that her novel has been rejected for publication.
The editor declining the manuscript wrote a personal letter explaining the reason for rejection. The editor also encouraged the writer to query again when her next manuscript is complete.
That’s a good rejection. Not so good as the one quoted above, but better than a standard form letter—”Your manuscript does not suit our needs at this time”—which leaves the writer without a clue.
Is it the quality of the writing? The subject? A poorly developed plot? Too much graphic violence? Not enough graphic violence? Overuse of dialect? A boring first line? A typo on page 3?
Or that the manuscript really didn’t suit the publisher’s needs at that time?
The truth may hurt, but it at least leaves you knowing where you stand. And possibly the direction in which you should go.
I’ve heard that in the context of submission and publication, rejection isn’t an appropriate term. Editors who reject manuscripts are really bowing out and allowing other editors the opportunity to accept.
To me, that’s a bit like calling a scheduled test date Opportunity Day. But whatever works…
I haven’t received many rejections, not because my submissions for publication are universally accepted, but because I haven’t done much submitting. There are several reasons for that, among them that I haven’t written much short fiction and I haven’t completed a novel, so I’ve had little to submit. I’m working to rectify that.
If I’m successful, by this time next year, I’ll have rejection slips all over the place.
Every writer—and that includes all of us, not just those who’ve been published—has read about authors who have received negative word from editors before finally reaching print. Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time was turned down by twenty-six publishers. J. K. Rowling received a dozen rejections for Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. William Golding’s Lord of the Flies was rejected twenty times.
Sometimes, editors’ comments stray into the personal.
On Rudyard Kipling: “I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”
On William Faulkner’s Sanctuary: “Good God, I can’t publish this.”
The Help, Kathryn Stockett’s bestselling novel, was rejected sixty times before a publisher picked it up. Acceptance came after five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection. The movie adaptation of the book is slated for release this week.
“…I can’t tell you how to succeed,” says Stockett to others aspiring to see their works in print. “But,” she continues,
I can tell you how not to: Give in to the shame of being rejected and put your manuscript—or painting, song, voice, dance moves, [insert passion here]—in the coffin that is your bedside drawer and close it for good. I guarantee you that it won’t take you anywhere. Or you could do what this writer did: Give in to your obsession instead.
Stockett racked up rejections because she was industrious enough, and brave enough, to put her work out there.
Instead of invoking the Muse, I’m going to start invoking Stockett. First thing tomorrow, I’ll print out her picture, clip it, and tape it to my monitor. When I’m working–or not–hers is the face I need to see; hers is the voice I need to hear.
#ROW80 8/7 & 100 Words
On Sunday, I wrote on assignment: 100 words.
The assignment was extraordinary because someone asked me to write it.
People don’t often ask me to write. I usually ask myself, and then I either grant or refuse my own request.
If I want me to write a blog post, I write it.
If I want me to write something requiring effort, I make a list of all the housework I need to do, and then I sit down and start an old P. D. James mystery on Netflix and immerse myself in e-mail.
Or I take Ernest to the vet.
Never mind. That was last week. Monday has arrived, and with it new resolve.
Today: Draft new Molly scenes and send to critique group.
I’d like to add a sunny little punch line here. If one occurs to me later, I’ll add it.
*
Image by Dmgerman at en.wikipedia [Public domain], from Wikimedia Commons
My Writing Day: Extremism in Defense of Liberty
Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist’s Way, stresses the importance of both writing and playing. At the WLT Summer Writing Retreat, Karleen Koen reminded students of Cameron’s Artist’s Date—a weekly solo “adventure” to feed the soul and allow for continued creativity.
Since leaving the retreat, I’ve been thinking about possibilities for my Artist’s Dates. A visit to the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is a candidate, though it’ll probably wait until spring. Central Texas affords plenty of potential for adventure.
But having just returned from a week-long Artist’s Date, I decided to concentrate first on writing.
I designated yesterday, my first day out of post-retreat depression, a day for writing.
Here’s how it went:
I rose at a reasonable hour and prepared to leave for my coffee-shop office.
Downstairs, doling out catfood, I realized that in the half-hour I’d been up, I’d seen no cats. This had never happened. William often sleeps late, but Ernest is up with the chickens and frequently makes sure I am, too.
I called, ran upstairs, searched, called. William, draped across his pagoda, opened his eyes and blinked but offered no opinion as to Ernest’s whereabouts.
I ran downstairs, called, searched, dropped to my knees and peered under furniture. I ran back upstairs, etc.
Finally dropping at the right place, I found Ernest under the bed. He was sitting in that compact way cats have, with all his feet neatly tucked in. His look wasn’t warm and welcoming. When I tried to drag him out, he wriggled loose and ran into the hall and thence into the guest room and under that bed.
At that point, I remembered a get-well card I sent my great-aunt Bettie: On the front was a drawing of an orange-striped cat, looking bored, and saying, “Feeling poorly? Do as I do.” Inside, it said, “Crawl under the porch.”
We had no porch, so Ernest crawled under the next best thing.
I put batteries in the flashlight and girded my loins. Negotiating the guest room is not a task for the faint of heart. There’s stuff in there.
Back on my hands and knees, aka standing on my head, I again located Ernest. He was lying, neatly tucked, in the corner near the wall. Stretching out on the carpet, I reached under and scratched his ears. He didn’t protest. His big green eyes, however, told me I’d better not make any sudden moves.
I didn’t.
Then I did.
Ernest is heavy and muscular. His twenty toes are tipped with talons. He has teeth.
Like Barry Goldwater, he believes extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.
I believe in keeping as much of my blood as possible on the inside of my skin.
I also believe extremism in the pursuit of getting my children to the veterinarian is a necessary evil. This evil was necessary.
Ernest suffers from what might be termed a sluggish constitution, which is aggravated by his habit of putting foreign objects into his mouth. And swallowing them. Mainly bits of string and thread. They don’t have to be on the floor. He pokes around on tables and steals anything that strikes his fancy.
The first time he withdrew from society, two years ago, I had to authorize X-rays, ultrasound, and a simple procedure he really really didn’t like. It seemed best, this time, to seek medical attention before a minor problem became major.
Well, to summarize: Ernest hid under the bed from 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. I spent a goodly portion of that time supine on the floor trying to regain his trust. I spent the rest of the time downstairs, sneezing my head off because of all the dust bunnies under there with him.
In desperation, I took his jingly collar, the one he refuses to wear, and lay down by the bed and jingled at him. He purred and gnawed on the collar. Then he flopped over onto his back and I administered belly rubs. He had a lovely time. I went back downstairs and sneezed until my throat was raw. Then I coughed. I couldn’t stop coughing.
Having neither cough drops nor unexpired cough medicine, I poured a tiny bit of some extremely aged Jim Beam (my mother bought it to put on her Christmas applesauce cakes over twenty years ago) into a glass and added the dregs of David’s hummingbird sugar and drank it from a spoon. The first sip tasted pretty bad, and it didn’t do much for the cough, but by the time I was finished sipping, my concern for Ernest had eased considerably.
Anyway, as I sat in the living room taking my medicine, Ernest appeared downstairs. He sashayed into the kitchen. I heard him crunch two or three bites of food. Then he doubled back. Sneak that I am, I lured into my lap. Then I grabbed him and stuffed him into the waiting crate and headed for the vet’s.
Ernest protested, of course, at first. But as soon as the two big dogs in the vet’s waiting room charged up to his crate to pant hello, he decided confinement had its advantages and shut up.
Getting his weight was the first order of business. I was not surprised to learn he weighs 17 pounds. My spine had already intimated I would be making a trip to the chiropractor in short order.
After some poking and prodding and determining this was indeed the result of ingesting thread, and addressing that problem, the doctor said cats like linear objects. I said I’d noticed.
He gave me three choices: take him home and give him meds and watch him for 24 hours; leave him there for meds and the procedure he really really doesn’t like and pick him up at 5:00 p.m.; or be referred to another vet for X-rays because he’s moving his office up the street and his machine was all to pieces.
He said choice #1 would have been fine for his cat, but I told him I liked choice #2. Leaving Ernest would ensure he was unclogged. If I took him home and he crawled under the bed again, I might never get him out.
I hated sentencing him to a procedure. But if he hadn’t eaten something unacceptable, he wouldn’t have been in this fix.
As agreed, David and I picked Ernest up at 5:00 p.m., bought a tube of Laxatone, and hauled him home. He’s fine now, thank you, and appears to have forgiven me. I assume the scratch I got trying to remove him from my person in the middle of last night was unintentional.
That is the story of my day set aside for writing.
I’m trying to decide whether it qualifies as an Artist’s Date.
*
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Taking Off the Ruby Slippers
As I’ve no doubt made abundantly clear, I spent last week at the Writers’ League of Texas Summer Writing Retreat in Alpine, Texas.
The seat of Brewster County, Alpine, population 5905, lies at an altitude of 4485 feet.
My altitude, during the retreat, was about double that of Alpine’s.
I was enrolled in Karleen Koen‘s Writing the Novel: The Basics class. Karleen, author of four historical novels, is an inspiring teacher. I won’t attempt to replicate her class here—couldn’t anyway, if I tried, because I have neither her expertise, her experience, nor her personality, all of which are necessary for the full effect.
I don’t have any little bells, either. There must be bells.
I will simply say that Karleen kept us writing and loving it for five days straight. She reminded us that to make art, we must play. And play we did.
On the last day, however, she reminded us of something decidedly un-playful: On arriving home, she said, we would fall into depression. And we must quickly find our way back to writing.
That was not news to me.
Long ago, I learned that retreats are like Disneyland—great to visit, but impossible to homestead.
After every one, I come home, embrace my family, babble about the glories writing, and the next morning wake to discover that, in addition to rapturous fervor, I’ve brought back a suitcase filled with a week’s worth of dirty laundry. And awaiting me are grocery shopping and cooking and all the responsibilities I’d set aside while I was away being an artiste.
Just a glimpse of the Crockpot is enough to take the oomph right out of me.
Oh, Auntie Em, I want to say, there’s no place like Oz, and with three clicks of the ruby slippers, I’m back there in a flash.
So it goes, and so it has gone.
I spent yesterday on laundry detail, surfing to fill in gaps made by wash, rinse, spin, and dry.
Today I turned on Netflix and watched an old PBS Mystery: P. D. James’ The Black Tower. All six episodes. With sound and video badly out of sync. Then I started episode one of Devices and Desires.
But things are looking up. Last night I went to critique group.
In the morning, if all goes as planned, I’ll swim for a half hour, then head for a coffee-shop office and transfer words from brain to hard drive.
If things don’t go as planned, I’ll save the swimming for later.
Climbing out of post-retreat depression is a delicate activity. Too much vitality too early in the process could prove a shock to the system.
*
Karleen Koen is the author of four historical novels. Her latest is Before Versailles. 
#ROW80 7/31 and Lizard
Home from Alpine retreat yesterday evening, slept all day today, preparing to sleep all night tonight.
I rest a little better knowing I left my lizard roommate behind in Alpine. I hope.
(Roomie was smaller than the lizard pictured here. If he’d been this size, I would have ceded him the cabin and slept in the car.)
Retreating
Exhausted.
Drove for seven hours, arrived only fifteen minutes before orientation, no time to change out of scruffy clothes before meeting instructor and classmates.
Dragged suitcases plus kitchen sink into a cabin at a 1950s-style motor court.
Foraged for food.
Prepared to fall into bed asap.
Picked up a novel, had to know how it ended, found out.
Turned out lights at 1:24 a.m.
Sat in class for five hours, writing, writing, writing.
Crashed in cabin, foraged again, crashed again.
Started on homework.
Homework. Honestly.
Who goes on retreat to do homework?
It’s been a pretty good two days.
ROW80 7/24 & a Valediction
I’m off to a writing conference where Internet access will be iffy at best.
We’re about to load the car. David is getting the cat hair off my suitcase so people will not think I’m a cat lady. First, however, he will have to get Ernest off.
I’m supposed to take my very favorite novel, not the one I talk about to impress people. I don’t know what my very favorite novel is. I have several. It probably doesn’t matter too much anyway. I have a feeling everyone in the class will show up with a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird.
There’s a long drive ahead, so I must hit the road.
Talk to you when I get back.
ROW80 7/20: Rejection, Registration, Research
ROW80 Report:
- I received a rejection letter.
- I registered for a writing retreat.
- I found my car.
#1 was easy. I opened my e-mail and there it was.
I did not wail, Alas!, and fall to the floor in a faint. I said, Okay, I’ll send the story out again.
A fair and balanced response.
#2 was a little more difficult. I held out until the last day, weighing my options: Retreat or new chair, retreat or new chair…
Friend Emmie helped me with the decision. She said, “Listen, the chair will fall apart whether you go or not. And when it does (after you’ve gone to the retreat) you will be amused at the incident and will write a great bit on your blog which will make all the folks that read it very happy.”
I value Emmie’s advice. She knows what I want to do, and she always tells me to do it. Her justification misses the point, and I don’t know how I’ll blog, or make anyone happy, after the chair collapses and I’m buried in the rubble. But I’ll think about that tomorrow.
#3 proved more difficult. Because of street maintenance scheduled for today, David parked my car on a designated side street. I forgot to ask which side street. Wanting to use the car, I called David at work and asked where he had left it. He told me. I tramped down the street and around the corner.
The car wasn’t there, but the street had been plowed up. We hadn’t been told that street would be plowed up. We had been told to park there.
I asked two young men manning some kind of truck where they thought the car might be.
They said they were just subcontractors and didn’t know anything, but that it hadn’t been impounded, just towed somewhere else so they could plow up the street, and they were sorry. I said I understood and it was okay.
One of them gave me John’s phone number. The number bore a Fort Worth area code.
I called John and got his voice mail. I left a message. Then I tramped back to my air conditioning.
Did I mention the temperature was approaching triple digits?
John called me. He said he was just TXDOT and he didn’t know where the car was and he was sorry.
I said I understood and it was okay.
He said it was probably on Summersby.
I said, No, that’s the street we were told not to park on.
He said he was sorry but he didn’t know anything and it was definitely on Summersby.
I said Summersby is only two blocks long, and I had stood on the sidewalk and looked both ways, and the car really, really wasn’t on Summersby.
He said what kind of car was it.
I said I didn’t know, because I wasn’t sure which one my husband had taken this morning.
He said there was a blue car down on Silverdale.
I said that was my car, and thank you so much.
He said he was so sorry but he was just TXDOT.
I said I understood and it was okay.
I hung up.
As soon as I did, David called to say he had found the car on Silverdale and was driving it home.
Technically, I suppose, I didn’t really find the car. David did. But I did extensive research that produced the desired result. Except by then I couldn’t have cared less.
I had no intention of hiking down to Silverdale until Hell froze over.
*
To see how other ROW80 writers are doing, click here.
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Telling the Truth, Mainly
A friend asked recently, “Why do you blog? It’s for the numbers, right?”
No.
Numbers are nice. I won’t pretend I don’t look at them. Several times a day, in fact. Compulsively. As one who for a long time was her own audience, I’m delighted by every little hit.
Better than numbers, however, are what the numbers represent: people who take the time and make the effort to visit, read, subscribe, like, and comment. People I’ve gotten to know and like through reading their blogs. People who boost my morale and my ego.
Possibly more of the latter than is good for me, but that’s no reason to stop.
Anyway, I’ve wanted for a long time to say thanks, and now I’m saying it: Thanks.
*
A recent post concerned my being behind in reading, writing, and a number of other activities. It occurs to me, not for the first time, that sharing my troubles, especially those I myself generate, might not be wise.
As I said, people read these posts. They might get the wrong idea.
So, once more, I shall explain: Like Mr. Mark Twain, I tell the truth—mainly.
In other words, it’s never as quite bad as I say it is. Except when I lock the keys in the car.
I periodically vow to stop yowling about my little quirks, but doing so would raise another problem: I wouldn’t have much to write about.
Posts would go something like this:
*
The new refrigerator didn’t come again today, so we are still surviving on microwaved frozen entrees (the freezer works), P. Terry burgers, Wendy’s salads, and Chinese take-out.
[At one time, I could have made that into lively, amusing fiction. But I’ve lost all enthusiasm for the topic. David kindly left work and brought me a McDonald’s burger for lunch today. I think that’s about the point at which enthusiasm began to leak.]
*
On Saturday afternoon, our right front tire began to unravel at 60 mph in the middle lane of IH-35. It went flap-flap-flap, and we knew intuitively that the rubber had met the road and intended to take up residence there. Fortunately for all southbound traffic, it didn’t abandon us completely. We exited the freeway, crept back home, and set out again in the other car. The ailing vehicle is spending the night at the tire store, being completely reshod.
*
There are the facts, no yowling, no self-recriminations, just the happenings of the past week. Not the stuff of which blogs are made.
One thing did happen today that I would love to post. The bare naked facts, lacking all embellishment, would raise laughter from stones. I’ve been all giggly ever since I hung up the phone. Or perhaps since I relayed the story to David. He didn’t laugh, but I saw the corner of his mouth turn up. That was just after I said, “You were right all along, and you may now say, ‘I told you so.'”
But as much as I want to share, I can’t. Won’t. I am a good, kind, generous, compassionate person of maximum integrity, and I cannot in good conscience send that story into cyberspace. No matter how much the main character deserves it.
What I can do is to tuck it away, let it age, and bring it out again as fiction.
I’ve spent all afternoon trying to figure out how to fit it into my current novel in progress.
But if that doesn’t work, stay tuned. All this laughter is shaking my integrity to its very core. Sooner or later, it’s bound to crack.
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- How do you find how old a tire is when you buy it (wiki.answers.com)
ROW80 and an Important Announcement
I’m pressed for time tonight.
ROW80:
I submitted a 550-word story for publication.
IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT:
Mary Ann Loesch’s NEPHILIM is on sale at Amazon tomorrow, July 18. Hurrah, Mary Ann!
In Arrears
A business teacher of my acquaintance, when asked by a student what arrears meant, answered, “It means you’re behind.”
Not the definition her class expected.
But a good story for the teachers’ lounge, and a fitting introduction for this post.
For I am in arrears.
In reading blogs, in answering comments, in answering e-mails, in reading books, in preparing for tomorrow’s meeting of Just for the Hell of It Writers, and in submitting Wednesday’s A Round of Words in 80 Days report.
Last things first: the title of this post will have to suffice as my ROW80 report.
It will have to do for the rest of the post as well, or I shall also be in arrears with respect to sleep.
One specific item: This morning I shot off my mouth and announced to a Facebook group that I would submit a story for publication as soon as I’d proofed it five or six more times.
But after a good twelve hours, I still haven’t clicked Send.
I’m not afraid of rejection per se. I’m afraid of rejection because of some idiocy on my part: omitting the word count, formatting incorrectly, forgetting to do some tiny but important bit of business.
So the story sits in the draft folder, waiting for one more proof.
Fortunately, I’m not on deadline.
The window it is busted and the rain is coming in
If someone doesn’t fix it I’ll be soaking to my skin
But if we wait a day or two the rain may go away
And we don’t need a window on such a lovely day…
ROW80 7/10, Short-shorts, and Emily Dickinson’s Ribs
It’s no longer Sunday where I am, so my report for A Round of Words in 80 Days is now late.
On the other hand, it’s Sunday somewhere, so no sweat. I have plenty of time.
(Twenty years ago I wouldn’t have written no sweat in anything but a letter to my nearest and dearest. And I wouldn’t have turned in an assignment, even a non-essential assignment, late. But twenty years ago, I wouldn’t have worn shorts to the grocery store, either, no matter the temperature. Things change.)
First the report:
I wrote another short-short story, shot for 200 words including the title, and made it. The plot already existed, part in a file and part in my head; finished, the story would have comprised several thousand words.
I’d intended to submit it last January to a contest for an online magazine. Unable to finish by the deadline, I set it aside and didn’t pick it up again. It was one of those things I could have worked on forever and never completed.
So, in search of a plot for a 200-word piece, I pulled up that one and stripped it to its bare bones.
The result was like an X-ray: for the first time, I saw the basic structure, what held the story together and kept it upright. Or what, in its previous semi-incarnation, didn’t hold it together.
In its earlier state, it meandered all over the place. Like what would happen if you removed the skeleton from a body: it takes more than a heap of muscle to get from here to there.
A word in my defense: I believe in over-writing. I start with some characters, a setting, and a couple of lines, and see what happens. I do not–cannot–know exactly what happens before it happens.
For me, writing is thinking.
But in this case, I had thought several thousand words. With that, I could start paring down.
Then, after letting the 200-word version sit for a day or two, I began to expand, a few words at a time. It’s now 250 words and, I think, fairly decent. When I finish here, I’ll e-mail it to my critique group for some less biased opinions.
Constructing the short-short was an exercise. I enjoy reducing word count, tightening the pieces I write. If I had time, I would cut this post. I may come back and tamper with it next week or next year.
Writing can be drudgery, but cutting is always reward.
In stripping away unnecessary words, however, I discovered an unexpected benefit: seeing the plot clearly will make it easier to write the story I’d originally intended.
If I ever write it. I’m so enamored with the undernourished version that I might leave it alone.
Another thing: I selected the photograph above because 1) it was one of the shooting places for the 1956 version of Around the World in 80 Days, and 2) it’s in the public domain.
But as I typed away about bare bones and skeletons, I remembered Emily Dickinson’s poem about the train:
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its ribs, and crawl between,
Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a star,
Stop–docile and omnipotent–
At its own stable door.
I read the poem to a class of sophomores when I was student-teaching, about a million years ago. We discussed Dickinson’s use of figurative language. The students were a savvy bunch and they had good answers and asked good questions.
One boy, for example, said, “What does it mean ‘To fit its ribs?’ What are its ribs?”
For me, that was one question too many. I’d never considered the ribs. I had no idea what the ribs were.
I stood before the class, mouth agape, understanding for the first time the true meaning of tabula rasa.
But before I could get a word out, another student said, “It’s the track.” Except the way he said it, it sounded more like, “It’s the track, dummy, can’t you read?”
I am indebted to those two boys: the answerer, for keeping me from looking like a dummy; and the questioner, for being a kindred spirit.
I addressed the “dummy” tone so the kindred spirit didn’t feel like a dummy. If I’d been teaching more than a week, I’d have said, “I don’t know. Anyone have an idea?” and delighted the entire class.
Kids like teachers who don’t know things.
A few years later, when I was “real,” a student wrote that I was the first of her teachers who had ever admitted being wrong. I suspect that was because I was the first of her teachers who was wrong. But however it worked, she thought the admission was pretty cool.
Having, like my unfinished story, meandered, I shall draw this bit of self-indulgence to a close.
Back to the report: Since Sunday, I’ve worked on the two short-shorts and finished editing the SinC Heart of Texas newsletter. And written this post. And tried to figure out Twitter.
To see how others are doing on ROW80, click here.
*****
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A Round of Words in 80 Days: Goals
Another round of ROW80 begins today, and I’ve signed on. I would like to say I’m doing it because I was so successful the first time, but that would be overstatement bordering on a lie. In fact, it would be a lie. I became so tired of reporting that I couldn’t even remember my goals that I stopped reporting and just wrote whatever came to mind.
(Oh, joy. The Internet is down again and I must reboot the router. It’s okay. I get a lot of exercise walking across the room and toggling a little switch.)
Back to ROW80.
One of my CPs came across the following post on the blog Letters of Note. It’s a copy of a letter in which Pixar animator Austin Madison tells aspiring artists how to handle times of “creative drought.”
“In a word,” he writes, “PERSIST.”
So I dive into ROW80 once more because I’m persisting.
And because I want to. I discovered some interesting/entertaining/informative blogs during the first round, and I hope to discover more.
It’s also good to write in the company of others. Not to be accountable to them, but to share their energy. We’re all working toward the same thing.
Part of the ROW80 contract is a statement of goals. I’ll keep it simple.
- During the next 80 days, I will spend a portion of every day WRITING. Not answering e-mails, not composing blog posts, not commenting on blogs. Not playing Bejeweled (I’m getting pretty good at it). I will WRITE (which includes revising, editing, organizing) something intended for submission, and not for self-publication. Five hundred words a day is a nice round number, and something to shoot for.
-
During the next 80 days, I will submit chapters to my critique groups. The other members haven’t threatened to kick me out if I don’t get back to writing, but they are beginning to look at me with a different expression. Sort of like the Aggies look at Reveille. As if they’re going to start giving me little head pats and perhaps a dog biscuit if sit quietly while they’re discussing their manuscripts.
My third goal is to eschew perfectionism, but I’ve been eschewing so competently that I don’t need to put it in writing.
I hope everyone reading this post will click over to Austin Madison’s letter. His ideas aren’t new, but they’re often forgotten. Sometimes we need to read them in new words, from new people, and we need to read them again and again.
*****
Image of Reveille by Patrick Boyd (cropped from [1]) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
Book Review: Kaye George’s CHOKE
Question: If you combined Lucille Ball with Inspector Clouseau, what would you get?
Answer: Imogene Duckworthy, amateur PI and main character of Kaye George’s new mystery, CHOKE.
Immy is a delight–the 22-year-old unwed mother of 3-year-old Nancy Drew Duckworthy (Drew), she lives with her retired-librarian mother, Hortense, in Saltlick, Texas; slings hash at her Uncle Huey’s cafe; and wants with all her heart to be a detective like her “dead sainted father.”
When Immy up and quits her job (Huey wants her to work double shifts again), and then explains her sudden unemployment by telling Hortense that Huey pinched her bottom (well, he DID pinch the other waitress’s bottom), Hortense heads to the cafe to give Huey what-for. Then Huey is murdered, the police take Hortense to the station, and Immy has her very first case. Guided by the Moron’s Compleat PI Guidebook, she sets out to find the perp.
The Moron’s Compleat PI Guidebook says nothing about staging a jailbreak, holing up in a Cowtail motel, or color-coding her list of suspects. But it does mention disguises, just what Immy needs to investigate on her home turf. An outfit that combines “Buns of Foam” with “Boobs and Belly,” however, leaves the amateur PI in need of the Jaws of Life, and the reader in stitches.
Kaye George’s CHOKE is a different kind of mystery. In most detective novels, the reader watches the sleuth-protagonist work his way through chapter after chapter, picking up clues and discarding red herrings, until he finally comes up with the answer. In CHOKE, however, the reader picks up clues while watching the gullible, ultra-literal, but enthusiastic Immy charge through to the solution while remaining blissfully clueless.
With CHOKE, first-timer Kaye George has accomplished something special: an original mystery, an original Immy, and a novel that leaves readers laughing and wanting more.
FTC Disclaimer: No one gave me this book. I bought it with my own money. Kaye George is one of my critique partners, but our relationship did not influence my review. I did not tell her how to write CHOKE, and she did not tell me what to write in my review. In fact, I never even critiqued the manuscript, and my introduction to the novel came when my copy arrived in the mail. I wish I had critiqued it, because I would like to take credit for “Boobs and Belly,” and the part about the letter opener, and the chicken. But the whole thing was Kaye’s idea. Even the orange pickup on the cover.
M. K. Waller 