Ye Ole Bookstore

Books are great. I love the feel of a new book. There is just something about the smell of the paper and the feel of the pages as you turn them. When I read a paperback, I turn down the page corners to mark my place. I never do that with a hard cover books. I use the book jacket to mark my place in that case. I’m mildly embarrassed that I turn down the page corners in a paperback. I didn’t do that when I was young, but it’s expeditious and doesn’t involve some sort of bookmark that might dislodge and lose my place.  

Bookstores are sort of magical places, don’t you think? It’s like walking into a place chock full of possible trips into imagination. Open any cover and travel off into another world. I get a min-rush each time I enter a bookstore because the store is the promise of unknown marvels. 

The thing is, in this brave new world of publishing, there are over twice the number of e-books published each year than conventional “books”. That means that most of us are reading books in some format other than paper and binding, and are buying books in some place other than a bookstore. 

Someday, I reckon, bookstores will be rare. It’s sad in a way because going to a bookstore and browsing the aisles results in book finds that I’d maybe never stumble over in an on-line search. As an aspiring writer, I’d love nothing better than to see my novel on a bookstore shelf, but I’m beginning to see that some sort of digital offering is a must.

I do love a book, but I also love my Kindle, which holds a trunk load of books, but fits in my purse on a trip. I also love audio books. I down load them to my phone and play them in the car as I drive. All these options let me have reading material anytime, anywhere, in any format I like. It’s a ‘brave new world’ for publishing. People have many choices for reading/ consuming books. 

 I hope expanded options will not result in a decline in quality. I hope that the decline of paper books relative to digital books will not change the wonder and sensation of reading. 

Laurie

Working Through Hell

I recently came across two quotations from men I admire.  Thomas Edison was speaking to the subject of opportunity and had this to say:

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Sir Winston Churchill wasn’t speaking to opportunity, exactly, but I think his words can be applied to work along with a lot of other aspects of life.  Here’s what he had to say:

“If you are going through hell, keep going.”

Now, these two quotations from very different men, given at different times, and for different reasons were very important to me this week because they applied to me in ways I’m sure these learned gentlemen weren’t considering.  These quotations spoke, I felt, directly to my own writing experience.

I am in the midst of another edit of my current manuscript and this one happens to be a fairly significant project.  I’m making some extensive changes to the order of action and contemplating a pretty large change to the personality and history of my main character.  This, my friends, is big stuff for me.  It’s also really, really hard.  

I set aside the novel for a while because my husband and I were remodeling an older house and restoring it to “house” status after more than twenty years as an office.  Since the project was taking up so much of my time and energy, the novel slipped into the back seat for a nice rest while I demolished, patched, painted, built, and a variety of other hard things.  Smaller writing projects such as short stories and micro fiction could be fitted in to my schedule but I just couldn’t pull together the focus for the large scale work I felt I needed to do to the novel.  Now, however, the remodeling is winding down and I’m itching to get back to work.  So, I began to reread the manuscript and make notes to get back into the rhythm of that story.

Oy.

People, I did not like what I saw.  I had begun building in the changes to my main character and it isn’t working for me at all.  It put a hard edge on her that just doesn’t sit well with me.  I spent this past weekend fretting over this and trying to decide if I should take up this mess and fix it or if the time had come to file it in the back of the drawer and begin anew.  

Cue Mr. Edison and Sir Winston.

Anyone who has ever really devoted themselves to writing will tell you that it’s no joke.  It’s WORK.  Goodness knows, you don’t need me to tell you this.  You’re living it.  I think everyone who’s ever written can recall moments when they stared at a manuscript, trying to decide if it stayed on the desk or went into the circular file.  I reminded myself of this and had another look.  My manuscript has its overalls on and is ready to pick its way through the brimstone.  The question is, what do I plan to do about it?  Well, that manuscript isn’t quite ready for the bin.  I’m not entirely sure how I’ll fix it.  Yet.  But I’ve hauled out my own overalls and my asbestos accessories and I’m back at work.   

 Mr. Edison, Sir Winston, I thank you.

~Sandy

Observation

“Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature” Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC)

What is the thing that makes a reader wish to read your story?  There are lots of answers to this question.  The reader is interested in your plot. The reader empathizes with your characters.  The reader feels bound to keep up at book group. (well – it’s true!)

All of these reasons have merit, for sure, but to me, the thing that keeps me savoring a book is the way the writer brings out the sensory elements in a scene, plays with them, and pulls me into that experience, so that I feel I am there.

When I was an under-grad in English Lit., a professor was encouraging me to read Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past.” It’s not a book for the faint of heart, for to sum it up – it’s a long and windy tale that is conjured up in the mind of the narrator as he recalls the flavor of a bit of cake.  The writing is exquisite, and very erudite. What I recall most from my time with Proust was his description of a girl with  “…eyes like the tides…” WOW! Not – “She had blue eyes”, or “She had eyes that locked on you and pulled you in.” He picked a metaphor that gave the girl’s eyes an unexpected power and magnetism that is memorable – and did it with four little words.

I am blown away when an author can give me a description of a place, person, thing or idea that is so perceptive and so original it makes me stop and relish the image they have created.

“All I can remember of her is how she loved the burned bottom of bread." - Toni Morrison, “Beloved”.  What an image! I have no idea what this person looked like but I can see and smell that bread, and feel its texture.

Or this:

“He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage." Stephen Crane, “The Red Badge of Courage.”  To describe a war wound as a red badge of courage is brilliant. It is both succinct and visceral. The best fiction is peppered with eye-opening, illuminating metaphors and descriptions such as these. 

The art of the writer is to give us images that surprise us, and excite us. Inspiration for such textural feats is all about us. An artist is always an observer.  A writer is an artist who works in the medium of words, and words can paint pictures as vivid as any Van Gogh.

How often have you seen tree blowing in a storm, or watched a fire crackle, and an amazing description leapt to your mind. You knew you wanted to incorporate it into your writing. It’s often that moment of inspiration that can turn a common description into something amazing.  So, what did you do about it? I used to make a firm commitment to myself to “remember it”.  That never works, alas. What does work, is to keep a small notebook at hand and jot such gems down as you are thinking of them.  Later – take those notes and create a marvelous picture for your reader to delight in. It’s what writing is all about.

Laurie