Children's Books: An Angelic Autumn
Karen Springen, Publisher's Weekly
Are angels the new vampires? Does the new bad-boy hottie come with a pair of wings? According to Karen Springen, they are and, yes, he does.
Apparently, angels are in and vamps are on their way out. Of course, last month I heard that mermaids were the new thing in the YA market.
For me, naming any trend the newest, bestest plot/character gimmick means a wave of quickly-written, poorly-edited books flooding the market. Not that the urge to chase the elusive market is not tempting. I don't think, however, the publishing industry can accurately predict where the market will go or what will take off and be the next blockbuster hit. Markets are led by early "alpha readers" who latch onto a book, talk it up, and spread the word, and knowing what they will like is anyone's guess.
You can know this simple truth: They'll love a good story. For my part, I'll aim to write a good story. The market can work itself out.
Steinbeck had it right when he said, "The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business."
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Monday, June 28, 2010
Paula Fox on writing ... and a little Pavese for good measure
"Hard and unremitting labor is what writing is. It is in that labor that I feel the weight and force of my own life. That is its great and nettlesome reward.
It is not easy to convince people who take writing courses just how much labor is required of a writer.
After all, their mouths are full of words. They need only transfer those words to paper. Writing can't be really difficult, like learning to play the oboe, for example, or studying astrophysics.
Pavese, in his diary, also writes:
'They say that to create while actually writing is to reach out beyond whatever plan we have made, searching, listening to the deep truth within. But often the profoundest truth we have is the plan we have created by slow, ruthless, weary effort and surrender.'
Most students of writing need little convincing about the deep truth they have within them, but they are not always partial to 'slow, ruthless, weary effort.' Few of us are. Yet there comes a time when you know that ruthless effort is what you must exert. There is no other way. And on that way you will discover such limitations in yourself as to make you gasp. But you work on. If you have done that for a long time, something will happen. You will succeed in becoming dogged. You will become resolute about one thing: to go to your desk day after day and try. You will give up the hope that you can come to a conclusion about yourself as a writer. You will give up conclusions."
Paula Fox, "Imagining What You Don't Know"
The Guardian has published a wonderful article online about Fox and her works. Click on the link above. It gave me hope to read she didn't publish her first novel until age 43. I turn 43 this December. Perhaps it is not too late for a successful writing career.
It is not easy to convince people who take writing courses just how much labor is required of a writer.
After all, their mouths are full of words. They need only transfer those words to paper. Writing can't be really difficult, like learning to play the oboe, for example, or studying astrophysics.
Pavese, in his diary, also writes:
'They say that to create while actually writing is to reach out beyond whatever plan we have made, searching, listening to the deep truth within. But often the profoundest truth we have is the plan we have created by slow, ruthless, weary effort and surrender.'
Most students of writing need little convincing about the deep truth they have within them, but they are not always partial to 'slow, ruthless, weary effort.' Few of us are. Yet there comes a time when you know that ruthless effort is what you must exert. There is no other way. And on that way you will discover such limitations in yourself as to make you gasp. But you work on. If you have done that for a long time, something will happen. You will succeed in becoming dogged. You will become resolute about one thing: to go to your desk day after day and try. You will give up the hope that you can come to a conclusion about yourself as a writer. You will give up conclusions."
Paula Fox, "Imagining What You Don't Know"
The Guardian has published a wonderful article online about Fox and her works. Click on the link above. It gave me hope to read she didn't publish her first novel until age 43. I turn 43 this December. Perhaps it is not too late for a successful writing career.
Friday, June 25, 2010
misbehavin'
" . . . part of me was still a writer, I guess, and a writer is a man who has taught his mind to misbehave."
Mike Noonan, protagonist of Bag of Bones by Stephen King.
Mike Noonan, protagonist of Bag of Bones by Stephen King.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
time on task = success
When I was teaching high school and middle school English, the easiest way to explain to students and parents how to bring up a student's grade was to simply "do the work and try to do it well." In most cases bad grades had less to do with intelligence and talent than it had to do with "time on task," how long the student spent on an assignment or independent study. Greater time on task equaled better grades.
The same case can be made for success in writing. Here's what novelist David Morrell has to say about accomplishing the task of writing a novel in his non-fiction work on the subject, The Successful Novelist.
My goal is to average a 1,000 words a day, but I don't write every day. I'm happy if I write 7,000 words in a week, even if it means nothing on one day and 2,500 on another, as long as I make my 7,000 at the end of the week.
What's your writing goal?
The same case can be made for success in writing. Here's what novelist David Morrell has to say about accomplishing the task of writing a novel in his non-fiction work on the subject, The Successful Novelist.
"To accomplish the task, the goal has to be redefined. When I sit down to write a novel, I don't think of it as a novel. Oh, sure, I've made my preparations. I know the scope of the plot and the nature of the characters. But if I keep reminding myself of the size of the job, if I constantly bear in mind that I'll be sitting at this same spot a year from now, working on the same project, I'll quit with exhaustion before I get started. For me, the goal isn't to write a novel. It's to write five pages a day. They're not perfect. They need frequent revision down the road. But at least they exist.
If you're someone who doesn't have the luxury of writing all day, restrict your goal to so many words per day or week. The mathematics is interesting. A page a day is 365pages a year, the length of a novel. The key is to subdivide the huge task of a novel into smaller steps. By achieving the manageable goal you've set for yourself, you'll have a sense of daily accomplishment. Focus your attention on the short term, and the novel will take care of itself."
My goal is to average a 1,000 words a day, but I don't write every day. I'm happy if I write 7,000 words in a week, even if it means nothing on one day and 2,500 on another, as long as I make my 7,000 at the end of the week.
What's your writing goal?
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
and . . . scene!
Yesterday I struggled with two scenes from the novel. What did I need each scene to do? How did these scenes advance the plot? How did each scene mirror the novel as a whole? Had I entered and exited each scene effectively?
Often the universe will point me in the right direction when I reach out. Here's where it took me.
From The Craft of Writing by William Sloane:
Often the universe will point me in the right direction when I reach out. Here's where it took me.
From The Craft of Writing by William Sloane:
"The experience of fiction is accumulative as well as sequential. All scenes are contributory and all scenes are contributory on most of the various levels of the novel. List, if you must, what each scene does for the action, for the characterizations, for the foreshadowing, for the reader's entire experience at your fiction. Lay the scenes out in front of you and look at them in as relaxed a way as you can and see what they say back to you. But keep in mind that a scene that shows the reader nothing except a couple of characters being all too forgettable is not a scene but a fictional entry.
Scenes are something like miniature stories. They have in them the germ of the entire story or book, and they are like the larger whole in other respects. Scenes have a beginning and an ending, like any complete story. Each scene has a means of perception. Occasionally more than one, but rarely. Each scene has a setting -- it takes place somewhere. Each scene poses the same problems that the story or novel poses. It must establish the reader as fast as possible. It must give evidence as soon as possible that it intends to continue the contract with the reader."
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