"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."-Alfred Hitchcock
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Photo from Wikimedia Commons and is used under Creative Commons license
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Quote of the moment...
Labels:
Quotes
"Drama is life with the dull bits cut out."-Alfred Hitchcock
---
Photo from Wikimedia Commons and is used under Creative Commons license
Saturday, December 12, 2009
There's a Monster At the End of This Post
A mixed bag post, because I haven't done one in awhile...
Lost & Found I don't usually report on the whereabouts of missing library books or the people reluctant to return them and pony up the fine. Neither does the Times of London. Nevertheless, the Times reports that Harold Pinter's overdue library book was finally returned after 59 years. It wouldn't be that big a story, even considering the Nobel laureate status of the borrower, except that it happened to be a rare first edition of Samuel Beckett's Murphy and apparently Pinter had no intention of ever returning it. At that point, I think a man of lesser celebrity would be accused of stealing it rather than borrowing it.
The bookseller handling the sale of the playwright's library returned it in order to buy it back so that Pinter's library would be complete and without the sort of provenance problems that crop up when one of the books in the collection didn't really belong to the man in whose home it resided. Read the whole tale, including the sort of oddly happy ending that could only occur in the bookworld at the Times website.
Can I Make you a literary mix-tape? WIRED continued its coverage of the transition from ink to electrons with a profile of a grad student who MacGyvered his own book scanning equipment to digitize his textbooks and is now teaching others how to do the same. Now Daniel Reetz is at the eye of a copyright kerfuffle (which was inevitable) about whether or not what he's doing is a high crime or a misdemeanor. So the question is begged... since the inception of the computer, it's been possible to digitize your library either by laying the books on a scanner, photographing them or just typing them into a document file. There's even court precedent from the days of audio tapes that says you can copy your collection for personal use as long as you're not trying to profit. But those arguments got gutted in the Napster fight and are further eroded by decision after decision that creates a legal difference between the laws governing tangible copies and digital copies.
Right now, the world over, libraries are digitizing their collections, effectively turning them into e-Books. From national institutions like the Library of Congress and the British Library to the libraries of Harvard and Yale to the commercial ventures like Googlebooks and the Intenet Archive, the physical is being tranferred into a digital format. . . but who owns the bytes? Is it legal for me to copy my extensive library if I'm not doing so to turn a profit? I think it meet that we reflect on the outcome of the Pinter-Beckett affair and remember that the bookworld is a universe of its own creation where the outcomes that might be expected as we recall the chaos that surrounded the digital translation of music are not fait accompli.
Digital Monsters There's no end of monsters on the internet. From the trolls that lurk beneath blogs and comment threads, spewing vitriol to the sort that players fight in online roleplaying games, and many others, the internet seems overrun by monsters of all sorts. So when I tell you that I am ecstatic to report one more monster on the internet, it may sound strange. That is, until I tell you that it's none other than the legendary blue monster that watched over my childhood... Grover. The Children's Television Workshop has put one of my favorite books of all time online as a free e-Book for new generations of parents and children to enjoy. There's a Monster at the End of This Book was more than a children's book, it was a watershed moment in my literary life. It's the first children's book I read (besides perhaps Where the Wild Things Are) that delivered something wholly different than everything else put in front of me. It's entry-level suspense fiction of the highest order with a twist ending sure to delight everyone. Re-reading it as an adult (or rather having Grover read it to me) was an eye-opener, and no lie.
Now, I'm off to do some Christmas shopping. Good reading, everyone!
Lost & Found I don't usually report on the whereabouts of missing library books or the people reluctant to return them and pony up the fine. Neither does the Times of London. Nevertheless, the Times reports that Harold Pinter's overdue library book was finally returned after 59 years. It wouldn't be that big a story, even considering the Nobel laureate status of the borrower, except that it happened to be a rare first edition of Samuel Beckett's Murphy and apparently Pinter had no intention of ever returning it. At that point, I think a man of lesser celebrity would be accused of stealing it rather than borrowing it.
The bookseller handling the sale of the playwright's library returned it in order to buy it back so that Pinter's library would be complete and without the sort of provenance problems that crop up when one of the books in the collection didn't really belong to the man in whose home it resided. Read the whole tale, including the sort of oddly happy ending that could only occur in the bookworld at the Times website.
Can I Make you a literary mix-tape? WIRED continued its coverage of the transition from ink to electrons with a profile of a grad student who MacGyvered his own book scanning equipment to digitize his textbooks and is now teaching others how to do the same. Now Daniel Reetz is at the eye of a copyright kerfuffle (which was inevitable) about whether or not what he's doing is a high crime or a misdemeanor. So the question is begged... since the inception of the computer, it's been possible to digitize your library either by laying the books on a scanner, photographing them or just typing them into a document file. There's even court precedent from the days of audio tapes that says you can copy your collection for personal use as long as you're not trying to profit. But those arguments got gutted in the Napster fight and are further eroded by decision after decision that creates a legal difference between the laws governing tangible copies and digital copies.
Right now, the world over, libraries are digitizing their collections, effectively turning them into e-Books. From national institutions like the Library of Congress and the British Library to the libraries of Harvard and Yale to the commercial ventures like Googlebooks and the Intenet Archive, the physical is being tranferred into a digital format. . . but who owns the bytes? Is it legal for me to copy my extensive library if I'm not doing so to turn a profit? I think it meet that we reflect on the outcome of the Pinter-Beckett affair and remember that the bookworld is a universe of its own creation where the outcomes that might be expected as we recall the chaos that surrounded the digital translation of music are not fait accompli.
Digital Monsters There's no end of monsters on the internet. From the trolls that lurk beneath blogs and comment threads, spewing vitriol to the sort that players fight in online roleplaying games, and many others, the internet seems overrun by monsters of all sorts. So when I tell you that I am ecstatic to report one more monster on the internet, it may sound strange. That is, until I tell you that it's none other than the legendary blue monster that watched over my childhood... Grover. The Children's Television Workshop has put one of my favorite books of all time online as a free e-Book for new generations of parents and children to enjoy. There's a Monster at the End of This Book was more than a children's book, it was a watershed moment in my literary life. It's the first children's book I read (besides perhaps Where the Wild Things Are) that delivered something wholly different than everything else put in front of me. It's entry-level suspense fiction of the highest order with a twist ending sure to delight everyone. Re-reading it as an adult (or rather having Grover read it to me) was an eye-opener, and no lie.
Now, I'm off to do some Christmas shopping. Good reading, everyone!
Thursday, December 10, 2009
B&N Nook Review from WIRED.com
Labels:
E-Books,
E-Bookstores,
Wired
WIRED reviewers give the new B&N Nook e-Reader a blah rating, contending with slow lagtime to contend with and some perplexing differences from the industry leader. For instance, the WiFi support for Nook will only only be available through Barnes & Noble's in-store network, which seems an odd decision compared to Kindle's borderless approach.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
One caveat to rule them all...
Labels:
Caveat,
Grammar Check,
Stories,
style,
Words,
Writing Tips
I create a lot of lists. Some of them are personal guidelines I follow while I'm writing. They're not rules because I firmly believe that there aren't very many hard and fast rules to writing.
In fact, there's only inviolate rule I can think of...
Elements are in service to the story, the story is never in service to its elements.
I've stated it here before, but it's been awhile and it bears repeating. All of the suggestions I bring to the table can be summed up by that one.
Cormac McCarthy taught us that even punctuation is optional under the right circumstances and Anthony Burgess and Irvine Welsh taught us that language is infinitely malleable if the story is served. Under the correct circumstances, you can and should throw it all to the wind and tell your story.
And in the spirit of brevity, I find to my surprise that that's all I have to say today.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
If I had a hammer... :: 8 Tips For Recognizing When You've Gone Astray
Labels:
Ideas,
Lists,
Words,
Writing Tips
The biggest jam-ups I encounter in the course of my writing come from trying to force an idea into a hole in a story that isn't the same size and shape.
My subconscious mind amuses itself by running through my current projects, poking at the thin bits and offering up suggestions, usually when I should be sleeping.
These suggestions are the bane and boon of my existance because if I'm afflicted with an idea that's just-too-cool-to-let-rest lest-I-forget-it, jotting it in the notebook on the nightstand won't do. I have to get up immediately and shoehorn it into my current story regardless of the hour.
Yes, my wife is a saint.
All too often, this requires at least some rewriting, some juggling of storylines and sometimes scrapping or changing significant parts of the narrative altogether. It's the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. The really cool idea waits for no man (or woman). But sometimes, despite all the coffee, dictionaries, source material, writing books and sage advice in the world, it doesn't always work. Cool idea or no, the dawn still finds me with a sheaf of scribbled notes and a blank screen, blood sweat and tears staining my handkerchief.
Because there are times when an idea - no matter how good it seems - just doesn't fit.
You can round the peg or square the hole, but if you do either, you have to irrevocably change one of them to bring them both into harmony.
This is the moment all writers dread -- when you realize you need to either get a bigger hammer or a different peg. Usually I find myself going through a series of progressively larger hammers until I've beaten it to death and have to backtrack to a point where both are still recognizable.
Everything's easier to deal with if it has a name, and I call this the Hammer Point.
It's not always day-dreams and cool ideas that get me into trouble. Sometimes getting out of trouble gets me into trouble. Recently, I got into a snag by following my own advice. Those seven ideas I posted awhile back can be blessing and curse. They usually work for me, but they're no panacea. Mental tricks (like envisioning the Microsoft cursor flipping you off ) are harmless enough, but if you kill off a character or send your people on a road trip, it can end up changing the story to a degree that isn't always for the best.
Sometimes the sunrise finds me with notes but no narrative because I've been pounding the idea with a succession of larger hammers until it's not a peg anymore. The Hammer Point has been passed. These are the most common flavors I've encountered on the road to the Hammer Point...
These are indicators that you should bench these ideas, not delete them altogether. Well, the character complaint should be deleted, but the rest might be recycled in the right circumstances. In fact, I have a file for each project that's called "Snippets" which get moved into a common folder on my computer once I've either finished the story or feel assured I won't find a use for it later in the story. (Incidentally, another trick for getting out of a jam is to trawl the snippets folders for ideas that might fit this story even if they didn't fit the last one.)
Sometimes a good idea that changes the characters or the story entirely can be a good thing. If a story just isn't working, something's gotta give. Maybe that hole should be square. Maybe you really did just need a bigger hammer. Maybe that off-the-wall idea was just the shot of espresso your story needed in order to wake it up and get it moving. It's entirely up to you how big a hammer you're willing to try before you decide to quit swinging and save it for the sequel.
These suggestions are the bane and boon of my existance because if I'm afflicted with an idea that's just-too-cool-to-let-rest lest-I-forget-it, jotting it in the notebook on the nightstand won't do. I have to get up immediately and shoehorn it into my current story regardless of the hour.
Yes, my wife is a saint.
All too often, this requires at least some rewriting, some juggling of storylines and sometimes scrapping or changing significant parts of the narrative altogether. It's the nature of the beast, I'm afraid. The really cool idea waits for no man (or woman). But sometimes, despite all the coffee, dictionaries, source material, writing books and sage advice in the world, it doesn't always work. Cool idea or no, the dawn still finds me with a sheaf of scribbled notes and a blank screen, blood sweat and tears staining my handkerchief.
Because there are times when an idea - no matter how good it seems - just doesn't fit.
You can round the peg or square the hole, but if you do either, you have to irrevocably change one of them to bring them both into harmony.This is the moment all writers dread -- when you realize you need to either get a bigger hammer or a different peg. Usually I find myself going through a series of progressively larger hammers until I've beaten it to death and have to backtrack to a point where both are still recognizable.
Everything's easier to deal with if it has a name, and I call this the Hammer Point.
It's not always day-dreams and cool ideas that get me into trouble. Sometimes getting out of trouble gets me into trouble. Recently, I got into a snag by following my own advice. Those seven ideas I posted awhile back can be blessing and curse. They usually work for me, but they're no panacea. Mental tricks (like envisioning the Microsoft cursor flipping you off ) are harmless enough, but if you kill off a character or send your people on a road trip, it can end up changing the story to a degree that isn't always for the best.
Sometimes the sunrise finds me with notes but no narrative because I've been pounding the idea with a succession of larger hammers until it's not a peg anymore. The Hammer Point has been passed. These are the most common flavors I've encountered on the road to the Hammer Point...
- The Dialogue Drug -- Clever conversation is a drug and should only be used under doctor's supervision. The difference between dialogue and chitchat is that dialogue moves the plot forward and chitchat just takes up space.
- Schizophrenic Much? -- When your main characters don't act like themselves in order to sell the idea, it's inherently a bad idea.
- Don't Complain -- It sometimes seems funny in the dead of the night to have a character complain if the story is dragging. It's not. If the story is dragging enough that even the characters notice, you should fix it, not make fun of it.
- Don't Explain -- How much expository dialogue does it take to set the scene for your oh-so-clever idea? There's an old adage that if you have to explain a joke, it's not funny. Adages generally only grow to a ripe old age because they're true.
- Creator's Remorse -- If you introduce a new character for one scene, you might find you are stuck with them. Is this gag really worth the trouble of fleshing-out and then disposing of another character?
- Save Gas -- I know I said "Take it on the road" but try not to change settings just because you thought up a good gag that won't work in the setting you're already inhabiting.
- Alcoholism -- There's a tendency on film and in books to have the characters drink for comedic effect or as the lubricant for a social scene. I think it's a bit trite and I even made one of my characters a recovering alcoholic just to cut myself off from this particular trope.
- Will It End? -- If your new Really Cool Idea forces you to change the ending you were working toward, it's probably worth reconsidering. If it moves the end beyond the standard word count for your genre, it's definitely a bad idea.
These are indicators that you should bench these ideas, not delete them altogether. Well, the character complaint should be deleted, but the rest might be recycled in the right circumstances. In fact, I have a file for each project that's called "Snippets" which get moved into a common folder on my computer once I've either finished the story or feel assured I won't find a use for it later in the story. (Incidentally, another trick for getting out of a jam is to trawl the snippets folders for ideas that might fit this story even if they didn't fit the last one.)
Sometimes a good idea that changes the characters or the story entirely can be a good thing. If a story just isn't working, something's gotta give. Maybe that hole should be square. Maybe you really did just need a bigger hammer. Maybe that off-the-wall idea was just the shot of espresso your story needed in order to wake it up and get it moving. It's entirely up to you how big a hammer you're willing to try before you decide to quit swinging and save it for the sequel.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
A confession of sorts...
Labels:
Bookhunting,
Humor,
Words,
Writers
Hello. My name is Scott and I... I am a book nerd.
It started with a prescription from Doctor Seuss and before I knew it, I needed it every day. I couldn't help it. I didn't realize I had a problem until the day I found my father's New American Collegiate Dictionary and read it cover to cover.
Before I knew it I was waking up with strange books in bed next to me. I prowled libraries and bookstores, looking for my next fix. Eventually it wasn't enough and I started doing the hard stuff... I started... yes, I started writing my own books.
Watch out, America. I'm out there somewhere, in the back alleys and bookstore basements, mainlining words until my mind can't hold any more. I'm reading dictionaries and encyclopedias looking for the next story, the next bigger better word.
Beware parents, Sam I Am is a dealer, pushing more than his suspiciously-tinted eggs and pork products.
They start out free, a gift from someone else, but soon you're buying them, working just to afford them. Doing unspeakable tasks like... like running a bookstore, just to get to your next fix.
Books are dangerous, they lead to thinking and learning and the ever-increasing desire for more. I am a junkie. Stories are my compulsion, an addictive ride on the spines of a dragon of paper and ink.
There will be no interventions and I'm afraid there is no cure.
It started with a prescription from Doctor Seuss and before I knew it, I needed it every day. I couldn't help it. I didn't realize I had a problem until the day I found my father's New American Collegiate Dictionary and read it cover to cover.
Before I knew it I was waking up with strange books in bed next to me. I prowled libraries and bookstores, looking for my next fix. Eventually it wasn't enough and I started doing the hard stuff... I started... yes, I started writing my own books.
Watch out, America. I'm out there somewhere, in the back alleys and bookstore basements, mainlining words until my mind can't hold any more. I'm reading dictionaries and encyclopedias looking for the next story, the next bigger better word.
Beware parents, Sam I Am is a dealer, pushing more than his suspiciously-tinted eggs and pork products.
They start out free, a gift from someone else, but soon you're buying them, working just to afford them. Doing unspeakable tasks like... like running a bookstore, just to get to your next fix.
Books are dangerous, they lead to thinking and learning and the ever-increasing desire for more. I am a junkie. Stories are my compulsion, an addictive ride on the spines of a dragon of paper and ink.
There will be no interventions and I'm afraid there is no cure.
Sherman Alexie on Colbert
National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie rails against the e-Book and changes to the publishing industry to Stephen Colbert.
Presented for your consideration.
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Sherman Alexie | ||||
| ||||
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
NaNoWriMo No Mo'! (a wrapup)
It's amazing how quickly you can go from "50,000 words in thirty days? Great idea! Let's do it!" to "Why didn't someone hit me with a pie when I said that?"
It's a bit like the double-dog dare. Before I knew it, I had my tongue stuck to the flagpole.
I don't know if it speaks well of me that I was so relieved to see the calendar page flip over to December, but I definitely felt a weight lift from my shoulders as it happened. I also admit that this was the impetus necessary to uncork an idea I've been unable to get down on paper for quite some time. And much like the kid in the movie cursed with a bad case of flagpole tongue, I couldn't have made it here without a bit of pressure from my friends. Dierdre Sargent, Maggie Secara and Joel Reid were the three people most active in my long-distance Facebook writing group. These three were my constant companions, challengers and cheerleaders in this endeavor and admitting defeat to them kept me stuck to the project when I wanted to throw it aside in disgust halfway through.
Gladly, I stuck with it and found paths through and around the rough patches and to these three should be apportioned a fair share of both credit and blame. Each will find their names in the acknowledgments of the book if I ever develop it from its current state into an actual publishable project. Luckily, hot coffee is good for getting tongues off of flagpoles.
Anyway, the current edition of that story is now printed-out and sitting on my desk in a folder, practically obscured by all the notes, post-its and red ink. Such is the life-cycle of the novel. If you didn't finish your NaNoWriMo, you can always join NaNoFiMo http://www.nanofimo.org/ so that you can join everyone in March for NaNoEdMo http://www.nanoedmo.net/ at which point you are at risk of slipping over the fabled Meme Event Horizon and into the black hole of the internet. As for me, I will be celebrating NaNoNapMo (National Novelist Napping Month). http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/
(No actual internet memes were harmed in the creation of this blog post. All meme activity was monitored by the American Humeme Society.)
It's a bit like the double-dog dare. Before I knew it, I had my tongue stuck to the flagpole.
I don't know if it speaks well of me that I was so relieved to see the calendar page flip over to December, but I definitely felt a weight lift from my shoulders as it happened. I also admit that this was the impetus necessary to uncork an idea I've been unable to get down on paper for quite some time. And much like the kid in the movie cursed with a bad case of flagpole tongue, I couldn't have made it here without a bit of pressure from my friends. Dierdre Sargent, Maggie Secara and Joel Reid were the three people most active in my long-distance Facebook writing group. These three were my constant companions, challengers and cheerleaders in this endeavor and admitting defeat to them kept me stuck to the project when I wanted to throw it aside in disgust halfway through.
Gladly, I stuck with it and found paths through and around the rough patches and to these three should be apportioned a fair share of both credit and blame. Each will find their names in the acknowledgments of the book if I ever develop it from its current state into an actual publishable project. Luckily, hot coffee is good for getting tongues off of flagpoles.
Anyway, the current edition of that story is now printed-out and sitting on my desk in a folder, practically obscured by all the notes, post-its and red ink. Such is the life-cycle of the novel. If you didn't finish your NaNoWriMo, you can always join NaNoFiMo http://www.nanofimo.org/ so that you can join everyone in March for NaNoEdMo http://www.nanoedmo.net/ at which point you are at risk of slipping over the fabled Meme Event Horizon and into the black hole of the internet. As for me, I will be celebrating NaNoNapMo (National Novelist Napping Month). http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/naps/
(No actual internet memes were harmed in the creation of this blog post. All meme activity was monitored by the American Humeme Society.)
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