Indholdsfortegnelse for November 2013 i The Writer

Last year, THE WRITER staff conducted a survey in which we asked readers what area of writing interests them the most. The largest percentage replied: book-length fiction, followed closely by short fiction. Surveys are always tricky, but if I had to put my money on it, I’d bet that writing the “great American novel” (or any country’s “great novel”) is a dream that is alive and well, at least among our readers. That is very exciting, indeed. As our editorial team assembled this issue on the general theme of “making novels,” we approached the topic obliquely with interviews featuring practitioners from several genres talking about how and why they write stories. Andre Dubus III, Hannah Moskowitz, Helena Maria Viramontes, Alexander Maksik, Amor Towles and a bevy of emerging authors were…

On November 29, we celebrate the birthdays of three iconic writers: Louisa May Alcott (1832), C.S. Lewis (1898) and Madeleine L’Engle (1918). Decades apart, these birthday triplets transformed the way we write for younger audiences. In honor of the trio, we asked six contemporary children’s writers what influences their work. “The greatest influence on my writing was and is my mother, whose imagination was as wide as the sky. She told stories with paint and canvas, and I do with my pen. I was influenced by the wild stories of her childhood in Peru and the world of paintings and books she surrounded me with as a child. Dr. Seuss was a particular favorite because he showed me that there were no rules, and any limits would be my own.”…

I use a lot of idioms in my writing because it seems to me that is how my characters would talk. I use phrases such as “She’s slower than molasses” and “That fits her like a glove.” Are these considered clichés? Should I avoid them? A cliché is a commonplace phrase or expressions. (A stereotyped character or a well-worn style can also be cliché.) So, yes, the idioms you’re using can be clichés. Whether you need to avoid them or not depends upon the context. If you’re using them in dialogue or in a first person narration, which tells the story in a specific character’s voice, they may contribute to crafting a distinctive voice. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral,” the narrator and his wife use phrases such as “hit…

We asked our Facebook followers to share a favorite first line, and the answers offered an impressive reading list we decided to pass on to our print readers. Surprisingly, “Call me Ishmael” didn’t appear in the original list. Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and Leo Tolstoy did. We’ve left them off this list but you’re welcome to “like” them on Facebook or add more first lines to the virtual conversation. See if you can match the first line with the title and author. 1 “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board.” 2 “It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” 3 “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” 4 “We were somewhere around Barstow, near the edge of the desert,…

Pack your vacation time with creative fuel that will last all year. It sounds like the start of a best-selling novelturned-Hollywood blockbuster starring Julia Roberts: Last March, I sold my car, put my belongings into storage and quit my job (seven years as a script supervisor on the soap opera The Young and the Restless) to spend the rest of the year visiting the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Australia, Bali, Nepal, Turkey, Jordan and more. I had anticipated and saved for this trip for years. I wasn’t in search of life-changing love or months of meditation in an ashram; the only goal was to document my adventures on my newly launched travel photography blog. I departed LAX with a passport in one hand and my camera bag in the other.…

Although we know we live in a visual culture, the idea of using visuals to sell words might seem oxymoronic. But with YouTube’s ranking as the thirdmost popular website in the U.S. and the second most popular worldwide, video is a marketing tool that more authors should be embracing. Producing a video isn’t complicated. Anyone can do it with basic equipment such as a webcam, the video-capture feature on a digital camera, a digital video camera or even a smart phone. Video-capture software or video-creation software, such as Microsoft’s Windows Movie Maker or Apple’s iMovie, are also helpful, and a working knowledge of how to upload to a video hosting site, such as YouTube or Vimeo, supports the process. Subjects for a promotional video can be as simple as a…

BLURRING THE “Y” AND “A” Despite what you see in bookstores, YA novels are not all teen paranormal romances and clever or not-so-clever twists on Twilight. That ship hasn’t yet sailed, but it is by no means the only ship in the harbor. What many teens seek in YA novels are edgy topics – controversial ones such as self injury, depression, sexuality, grief, traumatic events – without the typical After School Special lessons of old, without PSAs such as: “Kids, if you’re depressed, talk to a parent, teacher or school counselor, and it will all be OK.” If there’s a “The More You Know” segment on TV, most teens roll their eyes. They don’t want trite “clean-ups” in novels. They know life is messier than that. It could be that…

Each January, a symphony of languages fills the lush lawns of India’s Diggi Palace. Rainbow-colored streamers festoon the stone arches, banners crown the frescopainted walls and the largest literary festival in Asia-Pacific, Jaipur Literature Festival, becomes a paradise of words. Namita Gokhale, a novelist and co-director of the festival, compares the event to a “great Indian wedding, full of sound and color, joy and music” and pulsing with “tangible energy.” Book lovers from around the world flock to Jaipur for the five-day literature spectacular, packed with thought-provoking readings, panels, debates, workshops and performances – 170 sessions in all. The lush city of Jaipur, which is known as the Pink City of India, is filled with exquisite palaces and rich cultural life. The festival was founded in 2005, and in 2013…

Amor Towles After seven years of labor-intensive writing, Amor Towles realized his novel was a dud. “There were paragraphs that I had written in the first year and never changed that I still loved,” he says. “And there were paragraphs I’d been working on for seven years that still drove me crazy.” Because he had not carefully outlined in advance, Towles knew his unpublished novel set in Russia had little hope for success. He approached his next book with a fresh strategy, allotting himself 52 weeks to write a 26-chapter novel. The result, Rules of Civility, became a New York Times best-seller and has since been published in 15 languages. Set in 1938, the story follows Katey Kontent, who, after a chance encounter, rises through the glittering world of New…

Not long ago at a university bookstore, I came across a paperback copy of Richard Bausch’s debut novel Real Presence. The paperback caught my eye because many years back, Bausch was my first writing teacher, and I’ve followed his career through publications, interviews, reviews and chance encounters with other writers who have cited him as an important influence on their writing. Real Presence is about an aging and exhausted monsignor who is assigned to a country parish in rural Virginia. His biggest challenge, besides staying awake during confessions, comes in the person of Duck Bexley, who shows up in town with his pregnant wife and five children. The whole Christian agenda is on the line when the Bexleys petition the priest for a place to live despite his desire to…

Paula Petty enjoys combining The Writer and coffee along the mountainside in Grecia, Costa Rica, which is a long way from Chattanooga, Tenn., where she lives. Kathleen A McLaughlin, playwright and creative nonfiction writer, catches up on her reading at Otay Mesa in San Diego, Calif. Rex Owens enjoyed catching up on his reading while visiting Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore in Montreal, Quebec. When Jerri Bell goes to Boy Scout camp at Broad Creek Memorial Scout Reservation in Maryland, she reads – until ideas emerge in a fresh and exciting way, leading to an urgent need to work on a new story. Blogger Angela Sanders took her reading to Falls Creek Conference Center in the Arbuckle Mountains of Oklahoma during Falls Creek youth camp, for which she wrote the Christian curriculum.…

NECK TIE Journalists breaking into the business will look sophisticated in this subtle newspaper print tie designed by October Sage. Pair the tie with a crisp black dress shirt for extra pizzazz. Starts at $38. zazzle.com LITTLE BLACK BOOK IPHONE CASE Turn an iPhone into your new favorite notebook. Perfect for organizing all those industry contacts, the Spanish bonded leather cover with bookbinding cloth feels just like a beloved notepad. A wood frame holds a phone snugly in place, and the case comes with an optional pocket to carry business cards or cash. Starts at $40. padandquill.com SCARF Wrap up in your favorite novel with a stylish book scarf from Storiarts by Tori Tissell. Whether draping yourself in Pride and Prejudice or slipping into A Tale of Two Cities, the…

It was March of 1976 when I finally mustered enough courage to walk into the principal’s office and announce my resignation from the teaching staff effective that June. Most of my friends and family were unanimously convinced I was crazy to leave behind the enviable lifestyle afforded by a ski resort nestled in the mountains of the California High Sierra. Not to mention abandoning the job security of teaching and coaching. “And for what purpose?” everyone felt compelled to ask. To write the next Great American Novel, I kept telling myself, except I was traveling to Portugal. “Well, good luck with that,” my colleagues said as they rolled their eyes in disbelief. Success as a writer rarely comes from a singular “eureka” moment; sometimes it requires living with an idea…

Stacey D’Erasmo’s slender craft book The Art of Intimacy: The Space Between opens with a riff on two artists. The first is E.M. Forster and his epigraph to the novel Howards End: “Only connect.” The second, and more formative thematically, is the photo exhibition Scopophilia, which pairs Nan Goldin’s photos with paintings and sculptures from the Louvre. D’Erasmo saw the show in New York City, and her experience at the gallery – the “intensity of an intimate moment” through the art and her inability to explain her reaction – propelled her to write this book on the structure of intimacy in novels and novel writing. The starting point for her study is the idea that there are spaces, more figurative than physical, between characters that inform the way they connect.…

WHEN I WORKED AS AN EDITOR AT A GREETING CARD COMPANY, MY BOSS SAID, “BOREDOM ISN’T A BAD THING. IT INSPIRES CREATIVITY.” Boredom and loneliness are the reasons I became a writer. As a child, I often rode my bike to the Northeast Regional Library in Philadelphia and piled books into a purple, flowered basket. Inside those books were friends who placated me for my dearth of real friends. Boredom drove me to our kitchen table with pen and paper one evening when I was 10, where I wrote my first short story – “Happy-Go-Lucky” – about a horse that died. (The horse was neither happy nor lucky.) My mom’s enthusiasm for the story clinched my decision to become a writer. But too much boredom or loneliness can also stop…

In the process of writing his second novel, A Marker to Measure Drift, Alexander Maksik had to sift through various characters before finding Jacqueline, the Liberian refugee stranded homeless and alone in the coastal tourist towns of Greece and the anchor for his book. As Maksik moved her through her story, recording her struggle from one meal to the next, one temporary shelter to another, all the while uncovering her horrific past in a country filled with unspeakable violence, the author found himself falling in love with his creation. That love allowed him to weave a character so deep, so complex, that the reader surrenders to being dragged through one painful memory after another in hopes of finding resolution. How does a writer create a character? What steps did Maksik…

Literary mothers may turn to many magazines reflecting their parenting experiences; there’s Mothering, Hip Mama, Working Mother and Brain, Child. Although some of these publications include male voices, fathers will find profiles and essays dedicated to their part in Kindling Quarterly, a glossy journal that celebrates its first birthday this winter. But don’t try to buy the first two issues online; they’re completely sold out. “It’s a huge affirmation,” says editor David Michael Perez, who began contemplating fatherhood while his wife was pregnant with their now-toddler son. “I started thinking about how it would change my identity, and I wasn’t seeing this addressed in a way that spoke to me. We talk about fatherhood in outdated dichotomies. I wanted to have more discussion with other men about what this all…

Helena Maria Viramontes was born and raised in East Los Angeles, Calif., an economically deprived area and the setting for her most recent novel, Their Dogs Came with Them. The story follows the lives of four young Mexican American women who come of age there during the 1960s. Their personal struggles are set against a backdrop of the formation of Chicano gangs, the disruption faced by families as highways are built through the middle of the neighborhood and Quarantine Authority roadblocks, purportedly set up to keep residents safe from rabid animals but that restrict the residents’ freedom of movement. Viramontes is also the author of the novel Under the Feet of Jesus, which follows the lives of a family of migrant farm workers in California and the short story collection…

Grant Faulkner is executive director of National Novel Writing Month, the annual November event where more than 350,000 writers form a worldwide kickyour-tush support group for 30 days of daily writing. Each person’s goal? A 50,000-word novel by 11:59 p.m. Nov. 30. Participants can update their word count daily or post excerpts from the work-inprogress. They can write with a local group, a virtual group or alone. But write they must. We asked Faulkner to tell us more about the crazy ski-jump event of the literary year. WHAT CAN A WRITER LEARN FROM NANOWRIMO? The best way to write a novel is to simply do it. Make a goal. Set a deadline. Write with abandon – along with a community of support – and you can become a novelist. WHAT’S…

Kaiti Kooistra-Mein @kaiti_meinnn Oh hey, writers block. It’s been a minute. #haventmissedyou Aral Bereux @aralbereux Writers Block? Take a walk, start a new project, explore a new medium. Breathe! #writetips Magic Johnson @Trippy_Tut Getting bit up on my porch by these mosquitos while I try to conquer this writers block. Although, it’ll be worth it in the end. Diane Leow @dianeleow Writer’s block. The cure? Just keep writing until it actually turns into quality writing. Lori Ann Bloomfield @loriabloomfield Show up every day and write. This is what makes a writer. So simple. So hard. #writers #amwriting #writetips PushPrayGrind @MrA_Minus Writers block finally lifted. Time to vent and enlighten with this pen to this paper #spokenWord Olivia Howard @D3LFUEGO I’m actually so excited I’m over this writer’s block. Now I…

While working on a YA sci-fi story, I ran into a problem with one of my characters. I had a vague idea of who this person was, but I didn’t know much about him, his history or his motivations. Since I work as a journalist and editor during the day, I decided to write a feature article about this character during his younger years. Here’s the opening. It’s a beautiful spring morning, the air crisp and clear, as I drive out to the Halloran equestrian reserve for my interview with Peter Halloran. Elysium Mons rises in the distance, the cone of the extinct volcano creating a picturesque backdrop to the open fields, barns and horse paddocks of the reserve. It’s almost enough to make one believe that he or she…

Not many enter the Cave, except author Andre Dubus III. Every morning, he descends 16 stairs, turns right, then left and up another steep dozen, a large cup of black French roast coffee in hand. He steps through a narrow doorway to a 5-by-11-foot room. Think large walk-in closet. He covers a tiny window to block out light. He sits down at a small table and switches on a desk lamp. No telephone. A silver laptop. Noise-canceling headphones on a hook. One – and only one – wide-ruled, marble composition book. And pencils, a few of them, to make verbal sparks fly. Few writers have crossed literary genres as Andre Dubus III has. Roman numerals follow his name to distinguish him from his father, Andre Dubus II, the famed short…

The energy is volatile. Tension pulses through the theater, sharp and electric. Head bent, breathing deeply, Las Vegas poet Vogue Robinson stands before the microphone. She glances once at her hand, where she has written the names of five women, one for each finger. She runs the poem through her mind a final time before, with a long inhale, she raises her head and speaks. At a slam poetry event, writers such as Robinson have only minutes to pour out their souls onstage. They are the firsthand witnesses to their communities, exposing the raw, unspoken truths of culture and personal life. But they have to combine those insights with time limits and performance quality. “The poem is me finding a place to contain my energy,” Robinson says. “Wherever you’re from,…

J.K. Rowling and R.L. Stine may be two of the best-known authors who’ve tried to break into a new market, but they are far from the only ink slingers who’ve adapted their styles to audiences of all ages. Indeed, those authors join a long line of writers who have tried to cross over from writing for children to writing for older audiences and vice versa. Judy Blume, Roald Dahl, Philip Pullman and Rick Riordan have all written books for both children and adults. Stine, best known for the Goosebumps series, published his first adult novel, Superstitious, in 2000 without much fanfare. More recently, Sweet Valley High series creator Francine Pascal reintroduced readers to a grown-up Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield in Sweet Valley Confidential and the electronic novella series The Sweet…

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