Restless without a book you're sunk into?

I'm reading a couple of books (always, a couple of books, it seems) I'm enjoying (The Artful Edit and Claire Davis' Labors of the Heart), but when I'm not deep into a book, I feel ... restless.

I came across Marisa de Los Santos' Love Walked In at my local Barnes & Noble. I wrote down the title and contacted the publicity department. I wanted to talk to Santos on my show. This week I've been restless without a book I'm crazy about and today her book arrived (she's on the show next month). And now that I have a book I feel I may love, I feel more relaxed.

Do you go through this, too? Without a book you're mad about, you feel at loose ends?

Bookstore report

People are not reading as much as they use to--or at all--so say the reports on reading and the Internet and book sales, but I'll tell ya, I've been to my local Barnes & Noble a few times in the last couple of weeks and it's busy! It's New York busy! Lots of people milling about, looking at books, buying books, and hanging around. I love it.

What's your bookstore like? C'mon....time for bookstore reports! (And I hope books are making up at least a portion of your holiday gifts.)

Have a great holiday...!

Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach

Seems I pick up so many books these days--for the show, mostly--that I just can get into. I don't know if it's me or the book. Probably a combination of both.

But I have read one that I loved: On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan's new book. It's received mixed reviews, and I think part of the problem is that it's a book for older readers who've made choices that in retrospect may not have been the best choice.

If you haven't read the book and plan to, then don't read on. What's to come is a SPOILER of sorts.

But the main character, Edward, makes a decision on Chesil Beach that changes the course of his life, that he regrets to his dying day, and realizes if he hadn't been stubborn, if he'd reached out to Florence, if he'd been more patient and loving, he might have lived out his days with the girl of his dreams. But he wasn't.

I don't think younger readers can relate to that and maybe that was the problem. When you're young, you think you'll live your life with no regrets, that the choices you make are all valid, good ones. And later you find that perhaps not all of them were.

So what are you reading that you love? I ask this question a lot, don't I?

Too busy to write?

I love the holidays but I'm with everyone else: Things become so busy and accelerated that it's hard to find time to write. Not to write emails, of course, and Christmas cards and this invitation and that, but to work on fiction--it's the last thing I put time into doing. After my ongoing deadlines--The ASJA Monthly and teaching, there are cookies to bake, shopping to do and costumes to construct. (Tonight my one class is having our annual party, and this year we're going as literary characters. Brian and I rented costumes yesterday so I think we're going as characters from a Dickens novel or The Count of Monte Christo.)

So this is one more thing I love about the holidays, this year, anyway: I'm too busy to work on my book. So Starletta awaits me, and I dwell on what I want to do with her and the story when I return to it. Which is good because I've hit another wall and need to figure some things out.

Are you finding time to write?

Grammar/style guides

One of my online students feels she's lacking in the basics and asked me which books I recommended she read.

Here's my short list:

Elements of Style by Strunk and White

Spunk & Bite by Art Plotnik, a great follow-up to Elements

Woe is I and Words Fail Me by Patricia O'Connor

And if you're interested in writing fiction, Writing Fiction by Janet Burroway and Ron Carlson's Ron Carlson Writes a Story would make for a great beginning.

What are your recommendations?

Books into movies

Interesting article in this Sunday's New York Times Book Review on how Hollywood is affecting novels.

Some worry that movies and the desire to have your book made into a movie negatively influences the writing, but Diane Johnson said screenwriting has helped her sense of structure.

And Tom Perrotta said, "Writing screenplays has the paradoxical effect of making me a more literary writer, much more conscious of what I can do in a novel that I can’t do in a script: the ease of a flashback within a flashback, how you can have immediate access to any event in your character’s life.”

A movie just came out about a novelist that I want to see: Starting Out in the Evening.

But movies made from books: Accidental Tourist worked well. I can't say I finished The English Patient, but I'm thinking the movie worked better than the book (don't hit me, all you readers who loved the book; I loved the writing, but I just wasn't compelled to finish). I liked Wonder Boys very much. I didn't like Perrotta's Little Children as a film, though I loved it as a book. What other movies translated well--or didn't?

Writerly links

A few sites to peruse to eat up your writing time. Kidding! You should only visit web sites and waste time when you've doneyour writing. (Uh-huh...)

The Quality Paperback Book Club. I used to belong and I'm thinking of joining again (like I really need more books). I found editions of books I didn't see anywhere else. A little compendium of Hemingway quotes which I still use.

A Los Angeles Times story about the graying of protagonists in fiction (thanks, Elle, for the tip).

And a blog with writers' tips (submitted by Allison Johnson).

That's all for today. Time to get out of these PJs and go to an event at a Barnes & Noble in Covina. Other speakers will be Susan Kandel and Lisa Fugard. Maybe see some of you there?

Book proposals: a question

Rob says....

"One more question, if I can. I am also looking at a non-fiction work. How much information will I need in my proposal before sending it off? Is there a good on-line resource for putting together the proposal/query?"

My book proposal for Pen on Fire ran around 50 pages. Parts include the overview of the project, a bio, marketing plan, comparison survey, chapter outline and three chapters or 30 pages or so of text from the book.

I don't know if there are online resources but I'll tell you what book served me well: Michael Larsen's How to Write a Book Proposal. I followed it pretty much to a T and my agent garnered a great deal for me. There may be other good books on writing book proposals but this one worked for me. (Larsen is an agent in San Francisco.)

Novel revision

My Goodreads.com buddy said, But what if you don't want to change the story, what if you want to remain loyal to your original premise or the characters/people you're writing about?

It's a dangerous thing, to want to control the show, if you ask me. I tend to follow the story and not try to remain loyal to what really happened. As someone who likes to base fiction on real life, for me, that's just a starting point. My original draft looks far different than what my 7th draft looks like. For me, this is a good thing.

I know authors, though, who say they don't put their projects through a zillion drafts, who say they work to get the sentence, paragraph, page perfect before moving on and then do minor revision. Interesting way to work, but it's not me.

Revision styles are as individual as voice. How do you revise? (Post here, for others to benefit from. I love getting your private emails, but then everyone here can't benefit....)

A question from a listener re: novels....

An email from a podcast listener (who gave me permission to post it here):

Barbara,

I discovered your podcast about a month ago and I have been listening to the old ones first. I am still in September but I am absolutely loving the show!! It is so refreshing to hear writers talk about their writing process. When I first thought about writing, I took up a conversation with a "writing" friend of mine. The friend said I needed to sit down and outline my story, define my characters and so on. The very process became frustrating such that I put my pen down for nearly three years. Then, I decided I would just sit and write--with no idea where the journey would take me--I found this process exciting and I could write and write and write. And now, after hearing some of your interviews, I find that I am not alone--many of your writers have said they use the same process--how exciting!!!

So, thank you. The interviews with agents has also been very illuminating. I am really getting excited about the novel writing process.

I have a question; From some of the interviews you've had with agents, I am thinking that it is possible to sell a novel without even having a completed book to show--is that true? In other words, I can write the query, maybe an outline and a few chapters. If this is true, and a sale is made, then how much time does the author have to produce the entire manuscript? And, is any money disbursed before the entire manuscript is delivered?

Thank you so much for the Podcast!

Rob Rainey

.....

Okay, an answer for you, Rob...
These days, even for most published novelists, partials are no longer possible. Just about all novelists I talk with must write the entire book and before submitting it to their agent. Nonfiction books are most always purchased without being finished, but with a book proposal. Even many memoirs. But novels, no. I wish! It's so hard to know how the writer will pull of the story and characters and ending, without reading it in full.

If any authors reading this have a different experience, please, post it here.

The 7th draft

A friend on Goodreads.com sent me an email and said, "I'm fascinated. Tell me about the sixth draft of a novel. How does that process work? When can you decide that you've said what you wanted to say? Why didn't you say that the first time? What changes between drafts, when is it finished and, when it is, is it the same novel?"

Great questions. I'll see if I can answer them.

For me, the process of writing a novel is a matter of finding the story, chipping away. I'm not an outliner. The one time I actually tried outlining a novel, by the time the outline was done, I was so bored with the story. So now I write to discover what I'm trying to say. An instructor of mine, Judith Beth Cohen, once said this, that she didn't write because she had answers but because she had questions.

So the first draft is the discovery draft. I kept about 30 pages--the last 30!--of the very first draft of Starletta's Kitchen (working title). The next draft had all sorts of things going on in it that I later realized didn't belong, or were story lines, or characters, that bored me. If I'm bored, then my readers will be bored. Chris Bohjalian has said this, that he'll stop writing 100 pages into a book if he's bored.

A couple of my drafts were read-throughs. Another draft was comprised of carving. And now this draft....I'm cutting, streamlining. The story is coming into focus. I doubt that this is the final draft.

So many of the novelists I respect go through many, many drafts. First (and second and often third) novels are on the shelf, in storage. The novel I end up with will not be the same one I started. But...why should it be? A novel is written over a few years. You're not the same person you were when you started it. A novel will change as you change.

When is it done? Someone said a project is never finished, but abandoned. Or published. I could tweak my first published book, Pen on Fire, still. It can be painful, seeing things you'd like to change but it's published! So you know you're done when you feel you've done the best you can do or you have no energy left or an agent likes it and shops it and it sells.

A way to keep organized, by the way, is to type subsequent drafts on different colored paper. My 7th draft is on blue. I'm going to buy pink paper for the 8th draft. Maybe it will be a happy draft...pink...happy...finished! But who can say?

James Frey

Every so often I listen to an old show of mine and yesterday I listened to the James Frey show when he was for My Friend Leonard. (He shared the hour with Roxana Robinson, one of my favorite essayists who also writes short stories and novels.)

Frey talked about how he was doing what Kerouac and Kesey and others had done before him--taking their life and embellishing a bit. He talked about how he had come to his own voice. As I was listening I was thinking how I liked him and liked what he had to say, and how no one would have ever lanced him over A Million Little Pieces had it not become such a mega-seller.

I wondered then--and I wonder now--how his publisher might have saved him (and themselves) a ton of tears had they simply classified his book as a novel. But of course the fever for true stories was festering, and he went along with whatever they wanted. A big mistake. When I listen to him on this recording, I think: He was an innocent guy who was grateful for a publishing deal and would have said it was a cookbook if that's what they had wanted.

What's wrong with a novel based on truth? Often that's how you have to do it, and for me, I enjoy these types of novels--sometimes even more than memoirs. And how many authors make it all up, anyway?

Tomorrow's show: Emily Listfield and Tom Perrotta

On "Writers on Writing" tomorrow, Marrie Stone and I will talk to Emily Listfield, author of Waiting to Surface and Tom Perrotta, author of The Abstinence Teacher. You can listen at iTunes (go to Public Radio, look for KUCI-FM) or go to www.kuci.org and listen live. If you're in the O.C., it's at 88.9 FM.

Listfield based her novel on her husband's disappearance. Perrotta did some research into abstinence at a Christian church or community in NJ, and is author of Little Children, so he should be interesting as well.

You can hear a ton of shows at http://writersonwriting.blogspot.com.
.......

Vegetable plagiarism and Nanowrimo

Did Jessica Seinfeld crib recipes or not? Mr. Seinfeld, on the David Letterman show, seems to be a bit wacky over the whole thing.

I don't know about anyone else out there, but when Travis was a wee tot, I mushed up vegetables, too. I haven't seen the cookbooks so I don't know how close the recipes are, but the books came out at the same time, so I don't see how Ms. Seinfeld could have cribbed--unless the publisher cribbed for her. Now the casserole thickens....

What do you think?

....

Also it's Nov. 1 and that means it's Nanowrimo month. Who's writing a novel this month? Only have to hit 50,000 words, a book the size of Brave New World or 1984. On your mark, get set, go!

Happy Halloween

I don't think a Halloween has gone by when I didn't dress up. Well, maybe in college (but why not??).

A couple of years ago I was a pirate and looked like Johnny Depp. Last year a plastic surgeon (surgeon's aqua costume, wrapped plastic wrap about my head, waist.....). This year a repeat of the silver siren with a black wig, silver makeup, black and silver big drapey costume with a high collar. (I'll post a pic tomorrow.)

When I was a kid, I'd start trick or treating three days before Halloween. My mother would drive me. We’d begin with the far reaches of the neighborhood. I had three costumes, one for each night.

People would open their front doors and look at their watches, look at each other and say, Is it Halloween??

Just about, I’d say.

They mostly gave me money and apples. I didn’t know that you should confine Halloween to just one night and apparently neither did my mother.

Who has Halloween anecdotes out there? Let's hear them!

Voice, and Maira Kalman

If you get the Los Angeles Times, then this morning you most likely read the book review and perhaps noticed the review of Maira Kalman's new book, The Principles of Uncertainty. I love Maira Kalman--her voice, her art. I discovered her way before Travis was born when I worked at Rizzoli bookstore at South Coast Plaza and saw Max Makes a Million about a dog who longs to be a poet and ends up getting a million dollar contract. (Uh-huh, right, you say.) The artwork was fabulous--Matisse/Chagall like--and the voice of the writing was singular.

Voice...it's what impresses me, in the end, more than plotting, I must say (but this could be because plotting is not a virtue of mine).

So, for your Sunday entertainment, here's a little video from Kalman's site. It's so Kalman.

James Baldwin

I'm reading the Paris Review Interviews, Part II, the interview with James Baldwin and about the essay, he says, "....An essay is essentially an argument. The writer's point of view in an essay is always absolutely clear. The writer is trying to make the readers see something, trying to convince them of something. In a novel or play you're trying to show them something..."

So true. When I'm compelled to write an essay, I need to convince the reader (and myself) of something.

Essayists, and those studying the form, what do you think? Why do you write essays? Any essayists you love?

And of talent, Baldwin says, "Talent is insignificant. I know a lot of talented ruins. Beyond talent lie all the usual words: discipline, love, luck, but, most of all, endurance."

I love the Paris Review Interviews.... All of the collections....

Arthur Plotnik Q&A

It's no secret that I'm a fan of Art Plotnik, his columns in The Writer and his book, Spunk & Bite.

So the other day I emailed him and asked him to be a guest blogger.

BDB: I'm known as someone who advises against using adverbs but now that I've read Spunk & Bite, the right adverb can make all the difference. Where did we get this idea that adverbs were bad?

AP: It’s the old story--a few rotten apples putting the reek on whole adverbial barrel. Among the rotten pomes are these: the tired and limp (really good); redundant (cleanly laundered), the cliché (greatly exaggerated), the hedgey (somewhat terrifying, differently abled) and the excessive (marvelously, gorgeously attired).

Such stinkers obscure the point of adverbs; for, you see, vee must haff vays to get more information out of adjectives and verbs. Adverbs are the best means of doing so. For example, in a story by Antonya Nelson, the teeth of a homeless girl are described as “flawless.” But here comes more information: They were “orthodontically flawless”--an important clue that the girl was from a high-society family.

BDB: Your writing is so liquid and lively and has such voice. Do the words pour out of you effortlessly?

AP: Excuse me while I slurp up that bubble drink of praise. Ahh. But word flow? About as effortless as breaking out of San Quentin. Writing! All those trite and tired habits of expression to escape, all that tunneling between too much and too little, all those police to circumvent--grammar police, PC police, thought police, trend police. Most people can gab effortlessly, but gab is the antithesis of writing. Writing is the gift you give of agonizingly crafted language in a thrillingly felicitous assemblage that somehow sounds effortless.

BDB: Have you always had a distinct voice or did you work to develop it?

AP: I’m not sure that, outside acting, you can work at voice. Okay, maybe I’ve always gone for the odd yok, and maybe I’ve habitually mixed my dictions. But what I’ve worked at is being liked (which I suppose can influence voice) and getting heard. I think that most writers, as they read, get a ton of stylish voices in their heads--the voices that say “literature” or “journalism” to them. Into this mix come the diction and locutions acquired from family, certain teachers and peers, pop culture, and assorted role models. This melange, if one is not too self-conscious about it, can give rise to a distinctive voice, a personality, even as one concentrates on the fundamentals of writing.

BDB: If someone wants to strengthen their voice, what do you advise?

AP: A good start is to jettison all hackneyed expression, especially clichés, catch phrases, and trendy locutions that make writing sound like cellphone patois. When you replace generic expression with something inventive, your particular brand of inventiveness will help distinguish your voice. Consider how Michael Chabon invents a fresh way of saying “Landsman wakes up and smells the coffee” in his novel, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union: "The coffeemaker begins its expectorations around seven. A few thousand molecules of coffee vapor tumble into the bedroom and worry the hairs inside Landsman’s beak." And there you have that personifying, comic-bookish- yet-literary Chabon voice.

BDB: How do you revise--or do you?

AP: All I do is revise. Write three words, revise two, and revise all three the next day. Why? Because, in writing (as opposed to speech) I can do so! Because opportunities are always out there for more concise, more evocative turns of phrase. Because when I’m finished with a piece of writing, I don’t always have to feel “I shoulda said this, or I should said that,” as I so often do after opening my mouth.

I revise as I go along, which may be a deadly method for anyone who hasn’t been a career editor. Editing--questioning how something will strike an audience--has made me the compulsive reviser I am. I revise e-mails, notes to my wife on who telephoned, everything I write. But an editing/writing career has enabled me to work right and left brains in tandem, like walking a pair of rambunctious terriers. The better way for most people, of course, is to write freely, tell their story; then, donning the merciless-editor’s hat, go back and revise.

BDB: Tell me, and everyone who visits this blog, one thing they shouldn't forget.

AP: To writers: Either tell your readers something they don’t know, or tell them something they know in a marrow-churningly inventive way.

.......

I love this guy....

Voice

My friend and former student Jordan, who goes by many names here (don'tcha, J?), keeps bugging me for a new post. Seems a few days go by and he needs something new. When I tell him to start a blog, he says he has nothing to say electronically. But he has lots to say in the comments portion of my blog. Okay. Whatever.

So I'll talk about voice, because that's how I knew it was him, commenting, just under a new screen name. I always know when it's him. Because of his voice.

I've talked about voice before, but it seems you can never say too much about voice. Voice is the writer's fingerprint. Take away the name of the writer and if you still know who wrote the piece or the book, that writer has got a strong voice.

Ron Carlson has a strong voice. So does T. Jefferson Parker. And Hemingway. And Melissa Bank. And...and...and...

Who do you think has a strong voice? Names...we want names!

The leaf blowers....

...are making a racket next door. Can't the gardeners just use a broom? Are leaf blowers prevalent in other areas of the country, or just here in the O.C. where autumn leaves aren't seen as beautiful but seen as a mess on the sidewalk and yard? You won't find O.C. kids jumping off swings into piles of leaves because there are none!

I'm really not in a bad mood.

It's just that Jordan (I'm gonna out you, J., and tell everyone you're "Sweetness" in the comments section) just wrote to me accusing me of laziness for not blogging lately. But I've been working on an essay this last week, J.! That doesn't matter to J.; he's just sick of checking back here and seeing the post on the Helen Schulman podcast (he doesn't listen to podcasts but wants me to transcribe. Uh-huh, right....). I understand, though. When I check blogs and it's the same old stuff, I become frustrated and if I knew the blogger, I'd do just what Jordan did, and I'd write to him or her and say, Whassup?

Just so this blog post isn't complete nonsense, I have one discovery for you. As I said, I've been working on an essay the last week and when I started the essay, I didn't know what it was about. I just knew I'd been wanting to write about this thing that happened about 15 years ago. And I had a first line. But I didn't know where it was going.

The piece started out as a five page sketch, swelled to a 12 piece essay, and shrunk to eight pages, and in the meantime, I discovered what it was about and found my ending. So my tip for you is, regarding essays, don't wait until you know exactly what it's about to begin writing your piece. The discovery is in the writing. I love essays and I love discovering along the way what I mean to say.

Okay, Jordan, happy?