These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

Snow White on Twitter sent me a question, asking what my favorite book is. I had to tell her that I have so many favorites, it's almost impossible to choose. So, I thought I'd do a blog post about it and arrange some of my favorites by genre.

Historical Fiction

Margaret George is probably my favorite historical fiction author. I have read her magnificent Autobiography of Henry VIII at least a dozen times. She's not always 100% accurate with the historical aspects, but her work is well-researched and well-written. Other favorites include Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Pauline Gedge's Child of the Morning (about Pharaoh Hatsheput), and Colleen McCollough, who wrote a wonderful series about ancient Rome.And who doesn't love the Outlander series?

Sci-fi/Dystopian

Probably my favorite sci-fi/dystopain novel is Children of Men by  P.D. James. I also love Fahrenheit 451, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower, Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and The Handmaid's Tale, and Stephen King's The Stand. The Hitchiker's Guide is probably a given.

General Fiction

I have a passionate love for Harry Potter (though I've never been temper to write an HP fic. Strange, huh?) The His Dark Materials series was also good. Angela's Ashes was an amazing read.

Romance

Catherine Anderson is a favorite because her romances are usually very sweet. I liked the Black Dagger Brotherhood books up until book five. Larissa Ione's Demonica series was pretty cool, because she developed entire races of beings and their cultures. And I liked Jacquelyn Frank's Nightwalkers series for the same reason.

Graphic Novels

Betcha weren't expecting this category, eh? I adore V for Vendetta, The Watchmen, From Hell, Maus, and The Walking Dead. (Terribly disappointed in the TV show.)

"The Selkie Wife" Returns!

My Fandom 4 LLS story is a Selkie Wife sequel.

 "I will find you again, my love." As one life ends, another begins. True love never dies.

For twenty years, Bella has searched for Edward. She finally discovers him again, in the New Plymouth Colony. Will Edward's soul remember hers? Will he fall in love with his selkie wife again as they build another life together in this new world?

Sneak peek:

“Edward.”

He heard the soft voice behind him and turned to see a woman standing behind him. She was tiny, the top of her head barely reaching the center of his chest. Dark hair peeked from under the edge of her white linen cap and the huge eyes in her heart-shaped face were equally dark, but as soft and gentle as a doe’s.

Edward bowed and quickly retrieved his doublet from the stump where he’d left it. He’d taken it off to work in his shirt and he blushed slightly to be seen in such a state of undress in the presence of a lady. And a lady she must be, for her light blue gown was made of soft, fine wool and her slender white hands bore no callouses.

She gazed at him expectantly and Edward’s blush deepened a bit. “I beg pardon, Madame,” he said. “You have me at a disadvantage.”

Sadness settled over her and she dropped her eyes. “I had hoped you would recognize me.”

The strangest thing was that he did, in some deep recess of his mind. He tried hard to place her, for surely if he had ever met such an enchanting creature, he would have remembered. Still, she seemed familiar in some way, like a forgotten word dancing on the tip of one’s tongue. “Your pardon, my lady,” he repeated.

“I am Bella,” she said and gave a small curtsey when he bowed again, an automatic action which told him that his assumptions of her status had been correct. “I have searched for you.”

“For me? Wherefore would you—“ He stopped, for a strange fragment of a memory, like a recollection of a long-ago dream flitted through his mind. He saw Bella, though she was dressed in a jewel-encrusted gown with a wide lace ruff framing her neck and shoulders. He blinked and the vision – if that’s what it was – vanished.

“Your heart remembers, even if your mind does not,” Bella said. “Your soul knows mine, Edward.”  She reached out and took his hand into hers and he felt a strange tingle pass along his nerves. 

Why We Write

In my novel, Ghostwriter, Seth writes as a way to escape from a tragic past. Today, while finishing up the final round of edits, i thought about what makes writers want to put a pen to the blank page.

The answer to the question, Why do you write? is as varied and unique as each writer themselves. Some do it because they must, others because they want to share or create. In the movie V for Vendetta, Natalie Portman's character Evey says: "My father was a writer. You would've liked him. He used to say that artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up."

I came across this lovely letter written by poet Rainer Maria Rilke. He had been sent a letter by an aspiring poet named Franz Kappu. Kappu sought to know whether he should continue as a poet. Rilke wrote back to him, and a correspondence began between them which was to last for five years.

Search for the reason that bids you write; find out whether it is spreading out its roots in the deepest places of your heart, acknowledge to yourself whether you would have to die if it were denied you to write. This above all—ask yourself in the stillest hour of your night: must I write? Delve into yourself for a deep answer. And if this should be affirmative, if you may meet this earnest question with a strong and simple, "I must," then build your life according to this necessity; your life even into its most indifferent and slightest hour must be a sign of this urge and a testimony to it. 

(Do read the rest of the letter. It's one of the prettiest love letters to writing itself that I've ever read.)

Perhaps a question much like this was in Emily Dickinson's mind when she wrote this line: "This is my letter to the world/ That never wrote to me ..."

I do not know who wrote this. I wish I did.

From an essay written by Joan Didion:

 ... I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. I knew I couldn’t think. All I knew then was what I couldn’t do. All I knew was what I wasn’t, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.

By which I mean not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hourse are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?

And perhaps, in some instances, there's a bit of ego involved. Reginald Shepherd wrote this response:

 I write because I would like to live forever. The fact of my future death offends me. Part of this derives from my sense of my own insignificance in the universe. My life and death are a barely momentary flicker. I would like to become more than that. That the people and things I love will die wounds me as well. I seek to immortalize the world I have found and made for myself, even knowing that I won't be there to witness that immortality, mine or my work's, that by definition I will never know whether my endeavor has been successful. But when has impossibility ever deterred anyone from a cherished goal? 

Some write because they find reality unsatisfactory. In honor of National Day on Writing (which, apparently, is a thing) The New York Times asked writers to Tweet their reasons for writing. Neil Gaiman Tweeted this: “Because I can lie beautiful true things into existence, & let people escape from inside their own heads & see through other eyes."

The reason why I write is a combination of all of the above. I've always written; I cannot remember a time before I was dreaming up fantastic realms or exploring possibilities in this one. The difference is now that I'm actually typing out the words instead of "writing" the books and stories in my head. I'm not particularly interested in immortality for myself, but I like the idea of my stories living on after I am gone.

So, You're Stuck: Part II

Today's post is dedicated to the memory of  Gisela Gagliardi, who died yesterday after a tragic accident outside of Comic Con. I never met Gisela, but my heart goes out to her family and friends. A fundraiser has been established to assist her family with her final expenses.

______________________________________________________________________________

The last time I wrote on this topic, I gave some tips for getting the creative juices flowing when you feel like you've hit a brick wall. Writer's block is a very common affliction, but it doesn't have to be a roadblock. Think of it as a rest-stop, a chance to refresh your batteries and approach your work from a new angle.

One of the first ways to do this is to consider your goal for the particular story/chapter/paper. Do you want to convince your reader of something? Do you want to create a certain mood or to stir a certain emotion in your reader? Scare them, make them laugh, make them cry? The words you choose will greatly affect the outcome. Social scientists have long noted that the way a poll or article is worded has a heavy influence on the responses it will get.The reader may be completely unaware that the word choice is "nudging" them toward a certain conclusion.

 In a second study when positive and negative statements were combined (“… removing homes and extended roads”) 40% of people thought he would be re-elected. When the tense was switched (“…removed homes and extending roads”) 56% of people thought the politician would be re-elected.

Make a list of the words that you associate with the emotion you want to draw from your reader. Do an internet search for websites that deal with the topic. Read some of the stories and copy down phrases which you think captured the mood or stirred emotion. Now, think about how your characters would employ those words to describe their situation.

One of the things that once gave me a bit of inspiration happened when I was researching a word. I looked up the etymology and discovered its first recorded usage. Looking up that particular piece of text led me to an amusing anecdote that inspired a moment in the piece I was writing.

I never imagined I would find an "etymology" cartoon. God, I love the internet!

 Another idea is to write a "fanfic" of your own story. Write a few paragraphs from another character's perspective. Sometimes, we get "stuck" in the mind of our main character and that can limit your perception of the whole story.

Try a different narrative style. Have you been writing sequentially? Skip ahead and write the scene that's giving you trouble as a flashback. Have one of the characters call a friend and describe what happened in dialogue. Write it in a different tense.

One writer I once discussed this subject with said that she was "unblocked" when she decided she wasn't going to be able to complete her story, so she wrote out a summary of how it was going to end, intending to post it for the story's fans, so they'd at least be able to have some kind of resolution. As she was writing it, it got longer and longer as she added more detail, and before she knew it, she was writing the rest of the story as she'd hoped.

Simply talking it out with a friend can also help you. Call up a friend who can listen to your ideas and offer suggestions, or even just chat with a stranger over the internet. One writer online suggests talking to your dog or cat about it. (I swear I'm not making this up.)

Maybe you'd be better off talking to a dog. Cats aren't famed for being good listeners.

Maybe you need to take the story in a new direction. Supposedly, Mark Twain was stuck when he was writing Huckleberry Finn when he suddenly had the idea that Huck and Jim would take the wrong fork in the river and get lost. Maybe having your own characters get "lost" in something and fighting their way back will help you get back on track, as well.

Lastly, Google Images is your friend. Got a word or phrase that conveys what you want to say? Type it in as a search term. Browse through the image results. If you find one that grabs you, make another list of words that describes it. Use that image and the words as the basis for a paragraph of text. You may just find yourself expanding on it bit by bit.

And Now For Something Completely Different ...

I thought I'd try something a little different with today's blog post and I may turn it into a regular feature: My Favorite Writers & What They Taught Me. See? I even made a logo for it ...

I'm sure you're in awe of my mad Photoshop skillz.

Raum asked me about my favorite authors in one of her columns, and what I had learned from their work. I said, "The best writers are bibliophiles. As our mind devours each page, we're also learning the way to present a scene, to build up tension or foreshadow. Each writer has their own unique "voice", but just like a baby learning to talk, we learn by experiencing the voices of others."

I thought I'd discuss a few of those writers I mentioned and what I learned from them. The first author I mentioned was Stephen King, who seems a good choice for my inaugural column on this subject, as he is a writer with whom most people are familiar.

I read a lot of Stephen King when I was young. My mother is a fan of horror/dystopian novels and so the latest Stephen King novel was likely to find its way to our home quickly. The only works of his that I've never read are his Dark Tower series and Eye of the Dragon, and my mom hasn't yet loaned me her copy of the JFK novel.

King made a big impression on me, and I'm not just talking about the nightmares brought on by It.

As if Tim Curry wasn't scary enough already ...

King has a reputation, as he somewhat inelegantly puts it, of "having diarrhea of the word processor." Some people mournfully posit that he's not as good as he once was, but really, he's been known as a under-edited "hack" for his entire career. But then again, so was this guy:

Ever read/seen Titus Andronicus?

There were a few things I gathered from King as a writer:

He could create an entire character using only a few words. A good example of this may be the character of Dodie Eberheart from The Dark Half. Don't remember her? Probably not. She was only in the story for one chapter, but he somehow managed to create a vibrant character, complete with back-story, in just a small handful of pages.

This particular line always stuck with me:

[W]hen Dodie Eberhart raised her voice to its maximum decibel level, windows cracked, the eardrums of small children ruptured, and dogs fell dead.

It's the traditional King tongue-in-cheek humor, probably emphasized by the hint of alliteration, but it's a rich and colorful image.

Not that kind of colorful, but I didn't want to look for "ruptured eardrum" or "dead dog" images.

The next passage illustrates two things I also assimilated from King: the way he writes chpaters from an animal's perspective and his invention of words. Here, a ghost is trying to convince Horace, the dog, to take to his owner, Julia, an envelope that has fallen behind the sofa. Horace is distracted by the popcorn he finds back there.

 Julia would never eat anything that had been in his mouth, Horace knew this from long experience. Even if he pushed it out with his snout she wouldn't eat it. It was peoplefood, yes, but now it was also floorfood.

"Aw, man, you know the human is going to throw that perfectly good hotdog in the trash!"

Two new words in the space of just a paragraph!

Those of you who have read my story The Better Angels of Our Nature may remember the passages written from the puppy, Dave's, perspective.

 The winged-man had told him they were going to defend their territory from other humans that Dave thought of as baddogs, a terrible term that made him quail when he heard it applied to him, the worst thing he could think of to call them. The baddogs wanted to take the winged-man's female.[...]

 They began to open the smaller dens and pull out the pieces of flatfur that humans put on over their hairless skin. Dave growled deep in his throat at the way they threw around his humans' things; and they didn't even run to fetch them, so what was the point? One of the baddogs must have heard it even though humans were mostly deaf. (They barely had a sense of smell either; Dave wondered how they managed to navigate the world.)[...]

Forlorn at having to abandon his den, Dave searched the soil for the scent of the winged-man in ever-widening circles until he found it. His tail wagged in delight. He followed it; the winged-man and his mate had walked this way relatively recently. It was a long walk and rather frightening as large roaring beasts which smelled like burning and had sunshine eyes ran at him. Dave dodged many of them on his way and they did not chase after him.

It was a very entertaining writing exercise, to try to write from Dave's perspective, to define objects through his eyes, to interpret actions as he would see them. How does a dog think? Certainly not as we do. When we think of a dog's actions, we tend to define it from a human perspective. "He's jealous," or "He's feeling guilty." Well, if a dog could narrate, wouldn't they define our actions from a canine perspective? He would likely pity us for our dull senses and see our trips to the grocery store as successful hunting missions and our interactions with other humans as a struggle for pack dominance. King set me on the path of wondering about these things, and in playing with the English language to create new "dog words."

This is a photo of Sam the World's Ugliest Dog. Yes, he was real, and so was his title. No, he wasn't horrifically injured or deformed; that's what his breed looks like. Yes, at some point, a person said, "I want to breed a dog that looks like this." And if that isn't a scary thought, I don't know what is.

King also has a knack for describing how ordinary people would react to extraordinary circumstances. This passage is from The Moving Finger, one of the stories in Nightmares and Dreamscapes:

A finger had poked its way out of the drain-hole in the basin.

A human finger.

For a moment it froze, as if aware it had been discovered. Then it began to move again, feeling its wormlike way around the pink porcelain. It reached the white rubber plug, felt its way over it, then descended to the porcelain again. The scratching noise hadn't been made by the tiny claws of a mouse after all. It was the nail on the end of that finger, tapping the porcelain as it circled and circled.

Howard gave voice to a rusty, bewildered scream, dropped the broom, and ran for the bathroom door. He hit the tile wall with his shoulder instead, rebounded, and tried again.  This time he got out, swept the door shut behind him, and only stood there with his back pressed against it, breathing hard. His heartbeat was hard, toneless Morse code high up in one side of his throat.

 In this story, Howard never discovers what the finger is doing in his drain. The story is mainly concerned with his bewilderment and reaction to the scenario. He tries to explain it away, tries to convince himself he didn't see it, but ultimately brings himself around to the conclusion he must combat it. It's the slow transformation from disbelief to terror which makes this tale so compelling.

Stephen King once said that many of his stories begin with the simple thought, "What would happen if ..." He's made me think along the same lines.

And Now For Something Completely Different ...

I thought I'd try something a little different with today's blog post and I may turn it into a regular feature: My Favorite Writers & What They Taught Me. See? I even made a logo for it ...

I'm sure you're in awe of my mad Photoshop skillz.

Raum asked me about my favorite authors in one of her columns, and what I had learned from their work. I said, "The best writers are bibliophiles. As our mind devours each page, we're also learning the way to present a scene, to build up tension or foreshadow. Each writer has their own unique "voice", but just like a baby learning to talk, we learn by experiencing the voices of others."

I thought I'd discuss a few of those writers I mentioned and what I learned from them. The first author I mentioned was Stephen King, who seems a good choice for my inaugural column on this subject, as he is a writer with whom most people are familiar.

I read a lot of Stephen King when I was young. My mother is a fan of horror/dystopian novels and so the latest Stephen King novel was likely to find its way to our home quickly. The only works of his that I've never read are his Dark Tower series and Eye of the Dragon, and my mom hasn't yet loaned me her copy of the JFK novel.

King made a big impression on me, and I'm not just talking about the nightmares brought on by It.

As if Tim Curry wasn't scary enough already ...

King has a reputation, as he somewhat inelegantly puts it, of "having diarrhea of the word processor." Some people mournfully posit that he's not as good as he once was, but really, he's been known as a under-edited "hack" for his entire career. But then again, so was this guy:

Ever read/seen Titus Andronicus?

There were a few things I gathered from King as a writer:

He could create an entire character using only a few words. A good example of this may be the character of Dodie Eberheart from The Dark Half. Don't remember her? Probably not. She was only in the story for one chapter, but he somehow managed to create a vibrant character, complete with back-story, in just a small handful of pages.

This particular line always stuck with me:

[W]hen Dodie Eberhart raised her voice to its maximum decibel level, windows cracked, the eardrums of small children ruptured, and dogs fell dead.

It's the traditional King tongue-in-cheek humor, probably emphasized by the hint of alliteration, but it's a rich and colorful image.

Not that kind of colorful, but I didn't want to look for "ruptured eardrum" or "dead dog" images.

The next passage illustrates two things I also assimilated from King: the way he writes chpaters from an animal's perspective and his invention of words. Here, a ghost is trying to convince Horace, the dog, to take to his owner, Julia, an envelope that has fallen behind the sofa. Horace is distracted by the popcorn he finds back there.

 Julia would never eat anything that had been in his mouth, Horace knew this from long experience. Even if he pushed it out with his snout she wouldn't eat it. It was peoplefood, yes, but now it was also floorfood.

"Aw, man, you know the human is going to throw that perfectly good hotdog in the trash!"

Two new words in the space of just a paragraph!

Those of you who have read my story The Better Angels of Our Nature may remember the passages written from the puppy, Dave's, perspective.

 The winged-man had told him they were going to defend their territory from other humans that Dave thought of as baddogs, a terrible term that made him quail when he heard it applied to him, the worst thing he could think of to call them. The baddogs wanted to take the winged-man's female.[...]

 They began to open the smaller dens and pull out the pieces of flatfur that humans put on over their hairless skin. Dave growled deep in his throat at the way they threw around his humans' things; and they didn't even run to fetch them, so what was the point? One of the baddogs must have heard it even though humans were mostly deaf. (They barely had a sense of smell either; Dave wondered how they managed to navigate the world.)[...]

Forlorn at having to abandon his den, Dave searched the soil for the scent of the winged-man in ever-widening circles until he found it. His tail wagged in delight. He followed it; the winged-man and his mate had walked this way relatively recently. It was a long walk and rather frightening as large roaring beasts which smelled like burning and had sunshine eyes ran at him. Dave dodged many of them on his way and they did not chase after him.

It was a very entertaining writing exercise, to try to write from Dave's perspective, to define objects through his eyes, to interpret actions as he would see them. How does a dog think? Certainly not as we do. When we think of a dog's actions, we tend to define it from a human perspective. "He's jealous," or "He's feeling guilty." Well, if a dog could narrate, wouldn't they define our actions from a canine perspective? He would likely pity us for our dull senses and see our trips to the grocery store as successful hunting missions and our interactions with other humans as a struggle for pack dominance. King set me on the path of wondering about these things, and in playing with the English language to create new "dog words."

This is a photo of Sam the World's Ugliest Dog. Yes, he was real, and so was his title. No, he wasn't horrifically injured or deformed; that's what his breed looks like. Yes, at some point, a person said, "I want to breed a dog that looks like this." And if that isn't a scary thought, I don't know what is.

King also has a knack for describing how ordinary people would react to extraordinary circumstances. This passage is from The Moving Finger, one of the stories in Nightmares and Dreamscapes:

A finger had poked its way out of the drain-hole in the basin.

A human finger.

For a moment it froze, as if aware it had been discovered. Then it began to move again, feeling its wormlike way around the pink porcelain. It reached the white rubber plug, felt its way over it, then descended to the porcelain again. The scratching noise hadn't been made by the tiny claws of a mouse after all. It was the nail on the end of that finger, tapping the porcelain as it circled and circled.

Howard gave voice to a rusty, bewildered scream, dropped the broom, and ran for the bathroom door. He hit the tile wall with his shoulder instead, rebounded, and tried again.  This time he got out, swept the door shut behind him, and only stood there with his back pressed against it, breathing hard. His heartbeat was hard, toneless Morse code high up in one side of his throat.

 In this story, Howard never discovers what the finger is doing in his drain. The story is mainly concerned with his bewilderment and reaction to the scenario. He tries to explain it away, tries to convince himself he didn't see it, but ultimately brings himself around to the conclusion he must combat it. It's the slow transformation from disbelief to terror which makes this tale so compelling.

Stephen King once said that many of his stories begin with the simple thought, "What would happen if ..." He's made me think along the same lines.

Edit Ruthlessly!

In my first draft of Ghostwriter, I had a long scene about the anarchist bombings of 1919. I had to cut it and I was reluctant to do so. I told myself that it was important to establish the setting, necessary for the reader to understand the time period.

But, in the end, I had to admit it needed to go. There was no real reason for the scene. It didn't establish any necessary details about the story, reveal anything important about the characters, nor did it move the plot forward.

"But it's a great scene! One of my characters meets a historical figure most people have never heard of!"

Those who have read my story The Selkie Wife know how I love to indulge in historical detail. I'm a nerd. I like that sort of stuff. I once saw a post on a FF board which asked if The Selkie Wife had ever stopped being a history lesson and gone back to being a fanfiction story. They had a point.

But fanfiction is for fun. I could indulge my nerdy side a bit. A book is something entirely different. Authors who become self-indulgent drag down their own work. In the end, I found I could reduce the scene down to a single line and still convey what I needed for the story.

That's not to say it's easy. Writing is an intensely personal process for many authors and they have an emotional investment in their work. Being told that part of it doesn't work can actually hurt. It's like being told your child is ugly.

Stephen King once said that the best advice he ever got on editing was this:

In the spring of my senior year at Lisbon High—1966, this would’ve been-I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever.  Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot:  ‘Not bad, but PUFFY.  You need to revise for length.  Formula: 2^nd Draft = 1^st Draft – 10%.  Good luck.”

I wish I could remember who wrote that note . . . .  Whoever it was did me a hell of a favor.  I copied the formula out on a piece of shirt-cardboard and taped it to the wall beside my typewriter.  Good things started to happen for me shortly after.”

Another of his quotes that I find particularly pertinent:

In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.