Maybe music is something you'd rather think about when you're cooking dinner or when you're getting ready to go to work (if you still do that) or when you're outside watering the roses and zinnias and petunias. It doesn't get much better than listening to your favorite tunes while you spritz the flower garden and look up at the blue sky (if you live in the country) and watch clouds scudding by.
But what if you're sitting at your computer, writing?
I think (and remember, I'm saying I think) whether listening to music benefits your work or detracts from it depends if you're right or left brained (or maybe you're one of those fortunate people who uses both left and right sides equally ... one who is ambidextrous brain-wise).
If your muse dwells in the left side of your brain, chances are you prefer to leave the radio and the iPod turned off while you're writing. Any outside noise probably distracts you and keeps you from concentrating. Chances are, if you listen to music, you wind up playing computer Solitaire or reading your Facebook page (or even submitting a brief post).
If your muse dwells in the right side of your brain, chance are you work more efficiently if your efforts are accompanied by music. The more familiar the music is, whether rock or classic, the more efficient your work; music you've not heard before might interfere, but only slightly. You're not likely to take your hands from the keyboard, put them in your lap while you sing-along, or wave them in the air if the music is Bizet's Carmen Suite No. 1 with Leonard Bernstein conducting.
But the best possible scenario is if you use the left and right sides of your brain equally. If that's the case, then turn on the boom-box as loud as it will go. Your writing is going to be Pulitzer Prize stuff if your fingers move on the keyboard to the beat of Elton John or Luiz Miguel or, better yet, Francis Albert Sinatra singing a duet with Antonio Carlos Jobim.
And that's my take on the subject.
6/24/10
What does Technology have to do with it?
Remember when they said computers would do away with paper?
If that's true, why am I sitting here looking at two cases of copy paper I just bought? Actually, it's two cases, less four reams. Those four reams are in a plastic bag waiting to be toted out to the trash bin so they can be hauled away to our local landfill. And I wonder ... after all the trash from my neighborhood reaches that landfill, and just the act of dumping rips many of the bags open, will the air be filled with swirling 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper (printed one side only) soaring ever upward like a kettle of turkey vultures circling in warm air currents, until finally the sky over the landfill looks like a snowstorm that obstinately decided to fall upward instead of down to earth?
So, here I sit, contemplating technology and how it's helped me as an author ... while my fingertips tap my computer keyboard and the computer waits patiently for me to send this post around the world in ... what ... two seconds? And while my fingers tap out this message, I listen to Michael Buble on an iPhone that's running by magic called WiFi (and those little WiFi lights on something called a Router blink to the beat of the music) ... while I realize that technology has gone so far beyond my understanding ... and for some strange reason, I still try to understand it.
Well, the easy answer is: technology has made my life as an author possible. I don't think I would have enjoyed, or even participated in, the kind of authorial life that, say, Tolstoy, enjoyed.
Every day, writing becomes simpler. I can sit at my desktop computer with it's mammoth monitor that makes viewing my work easier on the eyes, and for those who didn't learn to type as long ago as I did (when the typing teacher walked around the room with a ruler to make sure each typist had her wrists fairly rigid, keeping the line between hand and arm nearly straight), well, those poor typists who've developed carpal tunnel syndrome, technology has helped by creating keyboard pads. Not to mention the ergonomic chairs we lucky author-typists sit in.
I remember the first version of Word I ever used. It ran on a DOS-PC, where the monitor was a green or yellow screen, and to use the word processor required switching 5-inch floppy disks between the two diskette drives because there wasn't room on the 20 megabyte hard drive to load any programs. Windows users don't know how good they've got it. (Okay, you're probably saying, I sound like your father telling you how he used to walk to and from school every day and it was uphill in both directions.)
Well, when an author has walked those two-directional hills, and today uses Word 2007 on a desktop PC with a hard drive that stores so much stuff it might as well be called a Pantry, that author is likely to think technology is a really, really good thing. Funny, though, this author also has a laptop for those times when the desktop PC is inconvenient (traveling, sitting on the porch at sunset, editing stories while watching Dancing With The Stars on TV), and this author also has a Mini-laptop when the regular-sized laptop is inconvenient (ditto above parenthetical), and this author has also discovered that, in a pinch, small bits of writing can be done on the iPhone Notes App (since it's possible to email those Notes back to any of the above computers).
Or maybe, when considering how technology has helped me as an author, time and not technology is what I'm really considering. You know what I mean? When an author reaches maturity (and I mean age-wise, not writing-wise), it's just a matter of looking back at where we've come from. Technology-wise, I've come from the Stone Age. And I'm ever so grateful.
Uh-oh, that's my iPhone beeping me to remind me it's time to get back to work on my novel.
If that's true, why am I sitting here looking at two cases of copy paper I just bought? Actually, it's two cases, less four reams. Those four reams are in a plastic bag waiting to be toted out to the trash bin so they can be hauled away to our local landfill. And I wonder ... after all the trash from my neighborhood reaches that landfill, and just the act of dumping rips many of the bags open, will the air be filled with swirling 8-1/2 x 11 sheets of paper (printed one side only) soaring ever upward like a kettle of turkey vultures circling in warm air currents, until finally the sky over the landfill looks like a snowstorm that obstinately decided to fall upward instead of down to earth?
So, here I sit, contemplating technology and how it's helped me as an author ... while my fingertips tap my computer keyboard and the computer waits patiently for me to send this post around the world in ... what ... two seconds? And while my fingers tap out this message, I listen to Michael Buble on an iPhone that's running by magic called WiFi (and those little WiFi lights on something called a Router blink to the beat of the music) ... while I realize that technology has gone so far beyond my understanding ... and for some strange reason, I still try to understand it.
Well, the easy answer is: technology has made my life as an author possible. I don't think I would have enjoyed, or even participated in, the kind of authorial life that, say, Tolstoy, enjoyed.
Every day, writing becomes simpler. I can sit at my desktop computer with it's mammoth monitor that makes viewing my work easier on the eyes, and for those who didn't learn to type as long ago as I did (when the typing teacher walked around the room with a ruler to make sure each typist had her wrists fairly rigid, keeping the line between hand and arm nearly straight), well, those poor typists who've developed carpal tunnel syndrome, technology has helped by creating keyboard pads. Not to mention the ergonomic chairs we lucky author-typists sit in.
I remember the first version of Word I ever used. It ran on a DOS-PC, where the monitor was a green or yellow screen, and to use the word processor required switching 5-inch floppy disks between the two diskette drives because there wasn't room on the 20 megabyte hard drive to load any programs. Windows users don't know how good they've got it. (Okay, you're probably saying, I sound like your father telling you how he used to walk to and from school every day and it was uphill in both directions.)
Well, when an author has walked those two-directional hills, and today uses Word 2007 on a desktop PC with a hard drive that stores so much stuff it might as well be called a Pantry, that author is likely to think technology is a really, really good thing. Funny, though, this author also has a laptop for those times when the desktop PC is inconvenient (traveling, sitting on the porch at sunset, editing stories while watching Dancing With The Stars on TV), and this author also has a Mini-laptop when the regular-sized laptop is inconvenient (ditto above parenthetical), and this author has also discovered that, in a pinch, small bits of writing can be done on the iPhone Notes App (since it's possible to email those Notes back to any of the above computers).
Or maybe, when considering how technology has helped me as an author, time and not technology is what I'm really considering. You know what I mean? When an author reaches maturity (and I mean age-wise, not writing-wise), it's just a matter of looking back at where we've come from. Technology-wise, I've come from the Stone Age. And I'm ever so grateful.
Uh-oh, that's my iPhone beeping me to remind me it's time to get back to work on my novel.
6/23/10
How Important is Word Count?
The subject of word count is important to an unpublished novelist. And remember, we're talking manuscript word count here. The publisher will translate word count from manuscript to printed book. But, how important is word count?
I think word count is something to consider while a book is still in the planning stage. You don't plan? You just write? Even then, an author must (and I use the word must advisedly) give some thought to word count. Notice I don't say, he must adhere to any suggested word count formula. I do say, he must give some thought to word count.
That sounds a bit ambiguous? Well, to clarify, I suggest that any author would not want to spend thousands of solitary hours (maybe years) in front of his computer pouring his heart into a novel, then be told by the first agent he submits his work to that the story is too long.
That happened to me.
I could have taken the prize for Newbie of the Century. I knew nothing about writing, except that I wanted to do it, and I had a story to tell. And, yes, I often awoke in the middle of the night, toiled over my novel from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., grabbed another hour of sleep, then got up and went to work, came home, toiled for a couple of hours, went to bed, then got up again in the middle of the night ... for almost a year. When my novel was complete, I started querying agents (always including the page count: 126,000 words). One or two encouraged me by asking to read a few chapters. Then, one day, an east coast agent asked me to submit the complete manuscript. A month later, I received a heart-stopping two-page letter from the agent who said, "Your story is so close to being wonderful that I'm almost considering going against our agency's policy and taking on your book as-is, but . . ."
Take a deep breath here.
In the next paragraph or two of that heady letter, the agent told me 126,000 words was much longer than any publisher would consider from a previously unpublished author, and for my novel to be considered, it would have to be shaved to a maximum of 90,000 words.
Can't do the math?
I had to cut 36,000 words from my manuscript. But how?
The agent gave me the formula. Cut anything that does not: (1) move the plot forward or (2) develop character.
That's just great. Remember, I said I was a newbie in the writing arena. How green was I? I was so green, the EPA could have used me as its poster child.
What is moving plot forward? What develops character? Hmmmm, I thought for one nanosecond, maybe I ought to step back and take a look at what this thing is that everyone calls craft.
I didn't.
I was too thrilled that an agent was about to sign me up and would get my book published to do anything sensible like studying the craft of writing. Certainly I wasn't going to try to find out how to give myself a better chance at this game. Oh, and one other thing, this was the early 1990's. The Internet was as new a word and concept to the general public as was the word freeway in the 1950's. My gosh, I was writing on a computer that had a green screen (pre-Windows), used 5-inch floppy disks (and they really were flexible), and had a huge 20 megabyte hard drive. (OMG, I have a flash drive that's triple that size.) I mean, if this happened today, an author could glean mountains of ideas and suggestions and expert advice about this and any other subject on the Internet.
But this was the 90's. So, I started cutting. And I did wind up with a novel that maxed out at 85,000 words. But it wasn't the same story. I'd cut one character out entirely. But I'd slashed so deeply into the characters' hearts and minds, the story was left with a lifeless narrative and dialogue that made no sense. The smaller manuscript was resoundingly rejected.
And that brings me back to the dilemma and oft-asked question: how important is word count?
My answer: It might not be important at all.
Oh brother, you're probably saying. That's a big help.
Well, here's my assessment of the word count dilemma. If your prose is so beautiful and your plot so intriguing and unusual and your characters so fully developed that an agent or publisher cannot resist your novel, then the manuscript's word count is truly unimportant. If, on the other hand, you've not mastered the craft of writing and your plot is humdrum and not at all unusual and your characters are cardboard cutouts, then word count might be ... well, even then, word count is unimportant.
But if you still want to add word count to your list of things to adhere to, then go to the websites of a variety of agents and publishers and check out writing competitions (like AWP) and review their submission requirements. Each will give minimums and maximums for different genre. Example: many say an average novel contains 60,000 to 80,000 words. The average mystery maxes out at 65,000; the average thriller at 80,000 to 90,000; while category romance maxes at 55,000; sci-fi and fantasy at 130,000. That AWP competition, by the way, defines a book length novel as containing at least 60,000 words.
Remember, these are guidelines.
But you know what I find interesting? As a newbie, all my novels were long, long, long. Today, seventeen years after I first took up writing fiction, I have a hard time maxing out a novel at the minimum word count for my genre. Go figure.
I think word count is something to consider while a book is still in the planning stage. You don't plan? You just write? Even then, an author must (and I use the word must advisedly) give some thought to word count. Notice I don't say, he must adhere to any suggested word count formula. I do say, he must give some thought to word count.
That sounds a bit ambiguous? Well, to clarify, I suggest that any author would not want to spend thousands of solitary hours (maybe years) in front of his computer pouring his heart into a novel, then be told by the first agent he submits his work to that the story is too long.
That happened to me.
I could have taken the prize for Newbie of the Century. I knew nothing about writing, except that I wanted to do it, and I had a story to tell. And, yes, I often awoke in the middle of the night, toiled over my novel from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m., grabbed another hour of sleep, then got up and went to work, came home, toiled for a couple of hours, went to bed, then got up again in the middle of the night ... for almost a year. When my novel was complete, I started querying agents (always including the page count: 126,000 words). One or two encouraged me by asking to read a few chapters. Then, one day, an east coast agent asked me to submit the complete manuscript. A month later, I received a heart-stopping two-page letter from the agent who said, "Your story is so close to being wonderful that I'm almost considering going against our agency's policy and taking on your book as-is, but . . ."
Take a deep breath here.
In the next paragraph or two of that heady letter, the agent told me 126,000 words was much longer than any publisher would consider from a previously unpublished author, and for my novel to be considered, it would have to be shaved to a maximum of 90,000 words.
Can't do the math?
I had to cut 36,000 words from my manuscript. But how?
The agent gave me the formula. Cut anything that does not: (1) move the plot forward or (2) develop character.
That's just great. Remember, I said I was a newbie in the writing arena. How green was I? I was so green, the EPA could have used me as its poster child.
What is moving plot forward? What develops character? Hmmmm, I thought for one nanosecond, maybe I ought to step back and take a look at what this thing is that everyone calls craft.
I didn't.
I was too thrilled that an agent was about to sign me up and would get my book published to do anything sensible like studying the craft of writing. Certainly I wasn't going to try to find out how to give myself a better chance at this game. Oh, and one other thing, this was the early 1990's. The Internet was as new a word and concept to the general public as was the word freeway in the 1950's. My gosh, I was writing on a computer that had a green screen (pre-Windows), used 5-inch floppy disks (and they really were flexible), and had a huge 20 megabyte hard drive. (OMG, I have a flash drive that's triple that size.) I mean, if this happened today, an author could glean mountains of ideas and suggestions and expert advice about this and any other subject on the Internet.
But this was the 90's. So, I started cutting. And I did wind up with a novel that maxed out at 85,000 words. But it wasn't the same story. I'd cut one character out entirely. But I'd slashed so deeply into the characters' hearts and minds, the story was left with a lifeless narrative and dialogue that made no sense. The smaller manuscript was resoundingly rejected.
And that brings me back to the dilemma and oft-asked question: how important is word count?
My answer: It might not be important at all.
Oh brother, you're probably saying. That's a big help.
Well, here's my assessment of the word count dilemma. If your prose is so beautiful and your plot so intriguing and unusual and your characters so fully developed that an agent or publisher cannot resist your novel, then the manuscript's word count is truly unimportant. If, on the other hand, you've not mastered the craft of writing and your plot is humdrum and not at all unusual and your characters are cardboard cutouts, then word count might be ... well, even then, word count is unimportant.
But if you still want to add word count to your list of things to adhere to, then go to the websites of a variety of agents and publishers and check out writing competitions (like AWP) and review their submission requirements. Each will give minimums and maximums for different genre. Example: many say an average novel contains 60,000 to 80,000 words. The average mystery maxes out at 65,000; the average thriller at 80,000 to 90,000; while category romance maxes at 55,000; sci-fi and fantasy at 130,000. That AWP competition, by the way, defines a book length novel as containing at least 60,000 words.
Remember, these are guidelines.
But you know what I find interesting? As a newbie, all my novels were long, long, long. Today, seventeen years after I first took up writing fiction, I have a hard time maxing out a novel at the minimum word count for my genre. Go figure.
6/22/10
Writing Description, and the sense of smell
Yes, there are five senses, Virginia. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste.
But do writers use them all? Do they even use half of them (would that be two and a half senses?)
I don't see many of the senses used in writing today. For example, I'm just starting a national bestseller, Julia Glass's Three Junes. And while the sense of sight is used almost immediately and often through descriptions of color, I noticed that the sense of smell is non-existent until page 16, and then it's only by the author saying in narrative prose that some animals smelled. Since I've not been around that type of animal, I was unable to dredge up anything from my memory, so I continued to read without feeling any closer to the characters or the story.
As a reader, I need more than visual description to get me tucked inside the character's experience. Including audial description helps, but when the author includes description that tweaks my nose ... well, from that point, I'm lost inside the character's head, heart, and life.
Now, why is that? I asked myself this morning. Why is the sense of smell so often ignored and so important to me?
Following that train of thought, it occurred to me that fewer people wear cologne today than did when I was a teenager and even a young adult. Or so it seems to me. In my rural neighborhood, I so rarely smell anything in the local supermarket other than those luscious sugary cake and doughnut aromas in the bakery section, smells that put pounds on every time you inhale; or the fresh outdoor scent when you pass a mound of peaches in the produce department; or the sharp, throat-burning smell of bleach when you walk down the "cleaning goods" aisle and find a bottle toppled from a shelf. Notice, I said rarely.
Once, a few years back, I was walking down an aisle in the supermarket. This was in the morning when only early risers were shopping. No one else was in the aisle with me, and I heard no sounds around me, not even supermarket music. And then, I felt a choking sensation, while at the same time, I smelled a ghastly, yes, ghastly perfume, so powerful a scent that I pictured the owner spilling a whole bottle on herself (or himself). I didn't know which way to run. Didn't matter, because in the next instant, a woman appeared at the end of the aisle, and I could almost see a rainbow aura of perfume around her ... as she walked ... oh, no ... toward me. I turned and fled. But no matter what aisle I went down, as I completed my shopping, the scent was there, as if she'd left a physical trail while she zigged and zagged her way through the market.
Recalling that incident, I went further back in my mind and remembered when I stopped wearing cologne or perfume altogether. I was working in an office filled with Dilbert-style cubicles, when a woman in a nearby cubicle chose that moment to spritz herself with her favorite scent. The air-conditioning quickly picked up the airborne droplets and scattered them over every other cubicle within thirty yards ... it was a very large office. That was when I first discovered I had an allergy to strong perfume. While I choked and coughed, it occurred to me that my own perfume might be causing distress to those around me. That was the last day I used cologne or perfume.
And this brought me to my musings this morning and I found I could encapsulate my life in the various scents I wore over the years.
I think the first two perfumes I wore (sneaking to wear them as I recall when I was a pre-teen) were influences from my mother: Prince Matchabelli's Wind Song and Bourjois' Evening in Paris. If I recall, I continued wearing one or other of those into my early teens after I got my first job and could buy my own perfume ... I think either one could be purchased at the five-and-dime (what we oldsters used to call J.J. Newberry's and Woolworth's).
In my late teens and early twenties, I graduated to Tweed by Lentheric (pronounced, I believe, lawn-thur-eek). I still had not discovered my true scent, and this time was following the lead of an older sister who had chosen Tweed as her perfume.
I was nearly forty before I found my own path through the maze of perfumes in the larger department stores where I lived. I'm not sure why I selected what I did, but do you remember Youth Dew by Estee Lauder? A major recollection, and I still laugh about it, was when a fellow worker (a male) asked me what I was wearing ... when I said Estee Lauder Youth Dew, he said back, "Estee Lauder Used to?" Oh, one other thing. Back in those days, women I knew did everything they could to keep their scent strong, and one way I did that was by soaking a cotton ball with the cologne and wearing it inside my brassiere. One thing about Youth Dew that I especially remember is its rich brown color. Well, Youth Dew faded as my youth dew faded, and for a while I used whatever cologne I received as a birthday or Christmas gift.
Then, somewhere in my mid to late fifties, I'd undergone a renaissance (which often means a personality change for a female), and I decided it was time to settle into a new scent. This time I selected Shalimar by Guerlain. I'd come a long way from Evening in Paris to Shaimar, and my pocketbook knew that fact the most. (OMG, I just Googled Shalimar and looked at the 1 oz. parfum I used to buy, and it's $317.00. That alone, is a good reason to stop wearing a scent.) But it wasn't price that made me stop. It was just that life took me to rural America where the sky is always blue, the air fresh and clean with the outdoor scents of juniper or lilacs blossoms in the Spring or roses in the Summer (along with the acrid smell of smoke during wildfire season). And now, in the twilight of my life, perfume is the farthest thing from my mind when I don my work clothes and gardening gloves and wide-brimmed hat and step into the bright sunshine to prune trees or rose bushes or dig up the soil in my herb garden or fill the water dish I put out for the local birds and other wildlife.
But I bet you can see why it's so pleasurable for me to read a book whose author has chosen to include the sense of smell in their story.
And one afterthought. I still have a spray bottle half filled with Shalimar eau de parfum. It's been on a shelf for more than twelve years. I lifted it to my nose a moment ago, and it still smells spectacular, a rich floral scent with undertones of woodsy and fruity and a bit of nutmeg, like you might want to spread it on a piece of toast. Hmmm, probably not the way Guerlain would describe it, but yummy nonetheless.
But do writers use them all? Do they even use half of them (would that be two and a half senses?)
I don't see many of the senses used in writing today. For example, I'm just starting a national bestseller, Julia Glass's Three Junes. And while the sense of sight is used almost immediately and often through descriptions of color, I noticed that the sense of smell is non-existent until page 16, and then it's only by the author saying in narrative prose that some animals smelled. Since I've not been around that type of animal, I was unable to dredge up anything from my memory, so I continued to read without feeling any closer to the characters or the story.
As a reader, I need more than visual description to get me tucked inside the character's experience. Including audial description helps, but when the author includes description that tweaks my nose ... well, from that point, I'm lost inside the character's head, heart, and life.
Now, why is that? I asked myself this morning. Why is the sense of smell so often ignored and so important to me?
Following that train of thought, it occurred to me that fewer people wear cologne today than did when I was a teenager and even a young adult. Or so it seems to me. In my rural neighborhood, I so rarely smell anything in the local supermarket other than those luscious sugary cake and doughnut aromas in the bakery section, smells that put pounds on every time you inhale; or the fresh outdoor scent when you pass a mound of peaches in the produce department; or the sharp, throat-burning smell of bleach when you walk down the "cleaning goods" aisle and find a bottle toppled from a shelf. Notice, I said rarely.
Once, a few years back, I was walking down an aisle in the supermarket. This was in the morning when only early risers were shopping. No one else was in the aisle with me, and I heard no sounds around me, not even supermarket music. And then, I felt a choking sensation, while at the same time, I smelled a ghastly, yes, ghastly perfume, so powerful a scent that I pictured the owner spilling a whole bottle on herself (or himself). I didn't know which way to run. Didn't matter, because in the next instant, a woman appeared at the end of the aisle, and I could almost see a rainbow aura of perfume around her ... as she walked ... oh, no ... toward me. I turned and fled. But no matter what aisle I went down, as I completed my shopping, the scent was there, as if she'd left a physical trail while she zigged and zagged her way through the market.
Recalling that incident, I went further back in my mind and remembered when I stopped wearing cologne or perfume altogether. I was working in an office filled with Dilbert-style cubicles, when a woman in a nearby cubicle chose that moment to spritz herself with her favorite scent. The air-conditioning quickly picked up the airborne droplets and scattered them over every other cubicle within thirty yards ... it was a very large office. That was when I first discovered I had an allergy to strong perfume. While I choked and coughed, it occurred to me that my own perfume might be causing distress to those around me. That was the last day I used cologne or perfume.
And this brought me to my musings this morning and I found I could encapsulate my life in the various scents I wore over the years.
I think the first two perfumes I wore (sneaking to wear them as I recall when I was a pre-teen) were influences from my mother: Prince Matchabelli's Wind Song and Bourjois' Evening in Paris. If I recall, I continued wearing one or other of those into my early teens after I got my first job and could buy my own perfume ... I think either one could be purchased at the five-and-dime (what we oldsters used to call J.J. Newberry's and Woolworth's).
In my late teens and early twenties, I graduated to Tweed by Lentheric (pronounced, I believe, lawn-thur-eek). I still had not discovered my true scent, and this time was following the lead of an older sister who had chosen Tweed as her perfume.
I was nearly forty before I found my own path through the maze of perfumes in the larger department stores where I lived. I'm not sure why I selected what I did, but do you remember Youth Dew by Estee Lauder? A major recollection, and I still laugh about it, was when a fellow worker (a male) asked me what I was wearing ... when I said Estee Lauder Youth Dew, he said back, "Estee Lauder Used to?" Oh, one other thing. Back in those days, women I knew did everything they could to keep their scent strong, and one way I did that was by soaking a cotton ball with the cologne and wearing it inside my brassiere. One thing about Youth Dew that I especially remember is its rich brown color. Well, Youth Dew faded as my youth dew faded, and for a while I used whatever cologne I received as a birthday or Christmas gift.
Then, somewhere in my mid to late fifties, I'd undergone a renaissance (which often means a personality change for a female), and I decided it was time to settle into a new scent. This time I selected Shalimar by Guerlain. I'd come a long way from Evening in Paris to Shaimar, and my pocketbook knew that fact the most. (OMG, I just Googled Shalimar and looked at the 1 oz. parfum I used to buy, and it's $317.00. That alone, is a good reason to stop wearing a scent.) But it wasn't price that made me stop. It was just that life took me to rural America where the sky is always blue, the air fresh and clean with the outdoor scents of juniper or lilacs blossoms in the Spring or roses in the Summer (along with the acrid smell of smoke during wildfire season). And now, in the twilight of my life, perfume is the farthest thing from my mind when I don my work clothes and gardening gloves and wide-brimmed hat and step into the bright sunshine to prune trees or rose bushes or dig up the soil in my herb garden or fill the water dish I put out for the local birds and other wildlife.
But I bet you can see why it's so pleasurable for me to read a book whose author has chosen to include the sense of smell in their story.
And one afterthought. I still have a spray bottle half filled with Shalimar eau de parfum. It's been on a shelf for more than twelve years. I lifted it to my nose a moment ago, and it still smells spectacular, a rich floral scent with undertones of woodsy and fruity and a bit of nutmeg, like you might want to spread it on a piece of toast. Hmmm, probably not the way Guerlain would describe it, but yummy nonetheless.
6/21/10
Research and Google Maps and Street View
I made a great discovery today as I began the opening chapter of my new novel. Although I'm a believer in visiting sites to get a real flavor of a location in a story, I wasn't ready to make a trip to New York. Since that's only where the story's opening occurs, and my main character may never return there, I didn't want to put out the price of a plane ticket, hotel, meals, etc. etc., for just one chapter and a few sentences to describe my main character's place of business.
And that's where friends kick in, followed by Google Maps and Street View. Perfect.
My friend, who knows NY well, suggested the address, and I simply Googled the street in Google Maps, then took a look around, zooming in for details, and zooming out for a long look at the neighborhood. Unbelievable how far our technology has taken us. Don't you just love it?
I remember in the 1990's when I was writing a novel that had a main character who lived in Newport, Rhode Island. Back then, no Google, and no Street View. So, I traveled there, and had a marvelous vacation, by the way, but also came away with photos of Rhode Island Sound and Newport mansions and street names and everything else I needed to create one or two lines of description in the novel that even Rhode Islanders would believe.
We've come a long way, baby, and I'm so glad we have.
And that's where friends kick in, followed by Google Maps and Street View. Perfect.
My friend, who knows NY well, suggested the address, and I simply Googled the street in Google Maps, then took a look around, zooming in for details, and zooming out for a long look at the neighborhood. Unbelievable how far our technology has taken us. Don't you just love it?
I remember in the 1990's when I was writing a novel that had a main character who lived in Newport, Rhode Island. Back then, no Google, and no Street View. So, I traveled there, and had a marvelous vacation, by the way, but also came away with photos of Rhode Island Sound and Newport mansions and street names and everything else I needed to create one or two lines of description in the novel that even Rhode Islanders would believe.
We've come a long way, baby, and I'm so glad we have.
6/20/10
Point of View, the easy way
But that's the problem, isn't it? There is no easy way to decide which point of view is the best one for a particular story. Wouldn't it be great if an author could say to himself, hmmmm, since this is a mystery, I'll write it in first person. Or, let's see, my mainstream family saga ought to be written in multiple points of view.
It doesn't work that way. At least, it hasn't for me.
And I have this story that I'm aching to write ... actually I've written it eight or ten times. In a number of points of view. And none has felt just right. You know, when you finish the manuscript, and you put the last punctuation mark after the last sentence, and you know in your heart that you got it right? Well, that hasn't happened for me. So over and over again I've set this story aside and have gone on to other things.
Until today. Today I believe I've solved the point of view problem ... finally. And now I'll begin a new edition of the book, writing the story from scratch, because I'm bringing in an entirely new character. He will tell the story, in his singular point of view. So in a way it will become a whole new story. One in which the main character is only spoken about in reminiscences by people who knew him, each with widely different opinions of the character.
Egad! Am I writing The Great Gatsby?
It doesn't work that way. At least, it hasn't for me.
And I have this story that I'm aching to write ... actually I've written it eight or ten times. In a number of points of view. And none has felt just right. You know, when you finish the manuscript, and you put the last punctuation mark after the last sentence, and you know in your heart that you got it right? Well, that hasn't happened for me. So over and over again I've set this story aside and have gone on to other things.
Until today. Today I believe I've solved the point of view problem ... finally. And now I'll begin a new edition of the book, writing the story from scratch, because I'm bringing in an entirely new character. He will tell the story, in his singular point of view. So in a way it will become a whole new story. One in which the main character is only spoken about in reminiscences by people who knew him, each with widely different opinions of the character.
Egad! Am I writing The Great Gatsby?
Writing is a Solitary Pursuit
Amen to that. Writing is a solitary pursuit.
But does it have to be?
I've been examining that notion for a while now . . . as I sit alone at my computer and look out my window at the empty valley below . . . nice view, by the way, but I digress.
What writers among us have mentors, people we interact with almost daily while we work on a new creation? I'm one of those more fortunate writers of full-length fiction who has a live-in mentor. And just today, we hashed out some of the finer points of a new novel that I'm about to start. We sat almost all the way through the final round of the U.S. Open and, instead of watching the tournament leaders blow putt after putt, we tossed ideas back and forth about protagonist motivation, general story line, character names.
So, where's the solitary in that?
But let's say, for the sake of argument, you don't have a live-in mentor. Well, how about finding a good friend, hopefully one who reads obsessively, who is interested in an author's creative process, and one who can keep a secret?
That's your mentor.
Now, all you have to do is find time to get together (with you paying for lunch), and spend the whole time talking about your project. Present your ideas, ask for honest input, and listen to what comes your way. Sometimes the weirdest input winds up being just what you need to flesh out that vapid character, or gives you the missing link that brings your story together at a crucial point.
Oh, and one other thing. When you make the lunch invitation, make it clear up front that you'll be doing all the talking . . . that this is, in fact, a business lunch.
Well, it's just an idea . . . .
But does it have to be?
I've been examining that notion for a while now . . . as I sit alone at my computer and look out my window at the empty valley below . . . nice view, by the way, but I digress.
What writers among us have mentors, people we interact with almost daily while we work on a new creation? I'm one of those more fortunate writers of full-length fiction who has a live-in mentor. And just today, we hashed out some of the finer points of a new novel that I'm about to start. We sat almost all the way through the final round of the U.S. Open and, instead of watching the tournament leaders blow putt after putt, we tossed ideas back and forth about protagonist motivation, general story line, character names.
So, where's the solitary in that?
But let's say, for the sake of argument, you don't have a live-in mentor. Well, how about finding a good friend, hopefully one who reads obsessively, who is interested in an author's creative process, and one who can keep a secret?
That's your mentor.
Now, all you have to do is find time to get together (with you paying for lunch), and spend the whole time talking about your project. Present your ideas, ask for honest input, and listen to what comes your way. Sometimes the weirdest input winds up being just what you need to flesh out that vapid character, or gives you the missing link that brings your story together at a crucial point.
Oh, and one other thing. When you make the lunch invitation, make it clear up front that you'll be doing all the talking . . . that this is, in fact, a business lunch.
Well, it's just an idea . . . .
Oops! Web and Blog Design
Maybe those of you who have been following my blog are curious why I suddenly changed its design. Maybe, like me, you've noticed how a lot of author's websites have changed. Take Jeffery Deaver, Robert Crais, for example. A few years ago, I'd go to their respective websites, and I'd come to a page with a dramatic black background, a brilliantly colored banner, and white or gray type. Very pretty, but kinda hard to read.
Check out those same websites today, and you'll always see a white or beige background, maybe or maybe not a similar colored banner, but black, black, black type. Check out: http://jefferydeaver.com/ or http://robertcrais.com/ or http://michaelconnelly.com/. All have white background, black type, and the color is most often in the book cover art.
Another thing I've noticed, is that the best websites are simple, easy to read, and easy to navigate, with all the important stuff right there in your face, easy to get to via good links. Permalinks. Those links that take you directly to the end-zone, without having to go from screen to screen to screen before you get where you want to be (like the last play in a football game where one runner passes to another and to another and to another). Nice. User-friendly. A link like this, for example, (if I wanted to send you directly to Michael Connelly's bio): http://michaelconnelly.com/Biography/biography.html.
Well, if you're famous like these guys, I guess you can have any kind of web design you want. But if you're an aspiring author, methinks it's prudent to follow the old advice: KISS.
Check out those same websites today, and you'll always see a white or beige background, maybe or maybe not a similar colored banner, but black, black, black type. Check out: http://jefferydeaver.com/ or http://robertcrais.com/ or http://michaelconnelly.com/. All have white background, black type, and the color is most often in the book cover art.
Another thing I've noticed, is that the best websites are simple, easy to read, and easy to navigate, with all the important stuff right there in your face, easy to get to via good links. Permalinks. Those links that take you directly to the end-zone, without having to go from screen to screen to screen before you get where you want to be (like the last play in a football game where one runner passes to another and to another and to another). Nice. User-friendly. A link like this, for example, (if I wanted to send you directly to Michael Connelly's bio): http://michaelconnelly.com/Biography/biography.html.
Well, if you're famous like these guys, I guess you can have any kind of web design you want. But if you're an aspiring author, methinks it's prudent to follow the old advice: KISS.
Can an Amateur Sleuth Become a Series Protagonist?
I recently read a post about mystery protagonist types, and an unequivocal no was given as an answer to the title question.
I think many authors who write mystery fiction realize the benefit of utilizing the series. Why? If readers like the first book, then it's probably because they become attached to the protagonist (and the author's style). Remember how you felt after reading your first Elvis Cole mystery? You were hungry for more. That's how it was for me. And sometimes the attachment is so great, readers remember the protagonist's name and can't remember the name of the author.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. As an example, go to amazon.com and in Books, search for Elvis Cole. What comes back is a complete listing of all Robert Crais' novels. See?
We all know about the success Robert Crais had with his Elvis Cole mysteries. But what about a protagonist who, unlike Elvis Cole, isn't a private investigator? What if he's a pastry chef, who gets involved in his first investigation after a family member gets killed and he gets mad? Does that mean the man who said an amateur sleuth is only good for one book is right?
Well, maybe, unless in the second book of the developing series, the pastry chef, now ensconced in his own bakery, gets a call from an old friend, a retired newspaper reporter, who tells the now-bakery owner that he might be interested in talking to a reporter in another city who's looking for someone to take an unadulterated look at a puzzling death that no one, so far, has been able to explain. Hmmmm . . . that might work.
Those books I'm talking about?
First in the series is: Murder at Third Base, currently in pre-publication (that's code for seeking a buyer). Third Base is the story of what happens when a murder investigation brings to light the fifty-year-old murder of a Mexican boy in Chávez Ravine, and when pastry chef, Larry Gar, gets involved and tries to solve the crimes, he must face his prejudices about his own heritage.
Second in the series is: A Green Star in Scorpius, currently in progress. Green Star is the story of a man afflicted with Neurofibromatosis, who is accused of kidnapping a child, but who dies in a peculiar manner before he can be arrested. Chef Gar answers the call from an old friend, a newspaper reporter, who asks if he'll take a fresh look at the unexplained death.
Third in the series is: All the Marbles, currently on the drawing board. Marbles is the story of a suspected heist of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum that comes to light just before Chef Gar visits London on a recipe-gathering vacation.
I think many authors who write mystery fiction realize the benefit of utilizing the series. Why? If readers like the first book, then it's probably because they become attached to the protagonist (and the author's style). Remember how you felt after reading your first Elvis Cole mystery? You were hungry for more. That's how it was for me. And sometimes the attachment is so great, readers remember the protagonist's name and can't remember the name of the author.
That's not necessarily a bad thing. As an example, go to amazon.com and in Books, search for Elvis Cole. What comes back is a complete listing of all Robert Crais' novels. See?
We all know about the success Robert Crais had with his Elvis Cole mysteries. But what about a protagonist who, unlike Elvis Cole, isn't a private investigator? What if he's a pastry chef, who gets involved in his first investigation after a family member gets killed and he gets mad? Does that mean the man who said an amateur sleuth is only good for one book is right?
Well, maybe, unless in the second book of the developing series, the pastry chef, now ensconced in his own bakery, gets a call from an old friend, a retired newspaper reporter, who tells the now-bakery owner that he might be interested in talking to a reporter in another city who's looking for someone to take an unadulterated look at a puzzling death that no one, so far, has been able to explain. Hmmmm . . . that might work.
Those books I'm talking about?
First in the series is: Murder at Third Base, currently in pre-publication (that's code for seeking a buyer). Third Base is the story of what happens when a murder investigation brings to light the fifty-year-old murder of a Mexican boy in Chávez Ravine, and when pastry chef, Larry Gar, gets involved and tries to solve the crimes, he must face his prejudices about his own heritage.
Second in the series is: A Green Star in Scorpius, currently in progress. Green Star is the story of a man afflicted with Neurofibromatosis, who is accused of kidnapping a child, but who dies in a peculiar manner before he can be arrested. Chef Gar answers the call from an old friend, a newspaper reporter, who asks if he'll take a fresh look at the unexplained death.
Third in the series is: All the Marbles, currently on the drawing board. Marbles is the story of a suspected heist of the Elgin Marbles from the British Museum that comes to light just before Chef Gar visits London on a recipe-gathering vacation.
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