- You've got to see this awesome video of a crazy fish called the barreleye. It has a transparent head! And tubular eyes that can look forward or rotate up so it can look through its aforementioned transparent head! It is incredibly, delightfully strange.
- I was much struck by this question for readers on Jennifer Crusie's blog: "On what do your base your expectations of what a book will be like?" Author, flap copy, cover, etc.? I'm working on my talks for the Missouri SCBWI retreat right now (as well as going through SQUIDs), and one of the things I'm thinking a lot about is how writers set up the reader's expectations for the book in the first chapter, and how that shapes everything that comes after. . . . If you have anything to add to the discussion, I'd be glad to hear it in the comments.
- Editor Martha Mihalick has a wonderful blog: A Curiosity Shop.
- And former Harper executive editor Alix Reid has a great, reflective blog called Delightful My House. I especially liked her post "Is it the editor's fault or the writer's?" ... I consider this question a lot when I read a book that I think could be better (most recently with Twilight), and the answer is usually: The ordinary reader can't know. We can guess, comparing it to other books the author has written or the editor has edited (if you go that inside-baseball), but even then only the editor, author, and maybe the agent know what happened on the page. I'm just grateful for the times this question doesn't come up.
- Our church book sale raised over $15,000 -- thanks to any and all of you who came out and bought books!
- The lovely Marcelo in the Real World has accumulated five starred reviews!
- And Lisa Yee had a terrific Q&A in a recent issue of the PW Children's Newsletter.
- Finally, I'm posting another video of a song I mentioned last year: "Die, Vampire, Die," from [title of show], this time in a Sims recreation of the original musical number. Again, this is the best creative expression of the varieties of artistic self-doubt I think I've ever seen, and the best musical encouragement to overcome them. (It rhymes "sock drawer" with "old French whore"!) Do check it out:
BOOK SALE!
Yes, it's time again for the fabulous annual Park Slope United Methodist Church Book Sale! This Saturday from 8:30 to 4:30 and Sunday from 12:30 to 4:30, you can pick up used books, CDs, DVDs, videotapes and records for ridiculously wonderful low prices -- $2 for hardcover, $1.50 for trade paper, $1 for kids' paper, $.50 for mass-market. I helped sort and carry books tonight and came away with some prizes already:
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman (which I've wanted to read ever since I saw this blog post)
- Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (my first-ever Pratchett)
- Feeling Sorry for Celia by the lovely Jaclyn Moriarty (read it ages ago, but now I have a copy of my own)
- A book of knitting cartoons as a gift for a friend's mother
- Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra
- The Learners by Chip Kidd (The trade paperback isn't quite as blinged-up as his hardcover of The Cheese Monkeys, which has the most awesomely designed book package for a novel I have ever seen in my life; but I liked the content of Cheese Monkeys as well, so I'm looking forward to this sequel.) (Just saw this video . . . dang. Maybe I should hold out for the hardcover of The Learners as well.)
PSUMC is located at the corner of 6th Ave. and 8th St. in Park Slope; take the F to 7th Ave. or the R to 4th Ave./9th St. Donations are also welcome from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday, at which point we become an all-retail enterprise, one well worth your time. Hope to see you there!
The Song in My Head This Week: "On the Radio" by Regina Spektor
(my 600th post)
The lyrics I love most here:
This is how it works
You're young until you're not
You love until you don't
You try until you can't
You laugh until you cry
You cry until you laugh
And everyone must breathe
Until their dying breath
No, this is how it works
You peer inside yourself
You take the things you like
And try to love the things you took
And then you take that love you made
And stick it into some
Someone else's heart
Pumping someone else's blood
And walking arm in arm
You hope it don't get harmed
But even if it does
You'll just do it all again
(ba dum, ba dum bum bum
ba dum, ba dum bum bum)
Things I Have Learned While Proofreading This Evening
- "Coffeehouse" (the noun) is one word, not two.
- "Forebear" is strictly a noun used to refer to one's forefathers and foremothers; "forbear" is the verb for "to restrain oneself from doing something" (though it can also be an alternate spelling for "forebear").
- A sepoy is a native of India in the military service of a European power (most frequently the British).
- Xbox has a capital X, no other cap. (I thought it was "xBox." I blame this ignorance on my mother, who refused to allow us to have a Nintendo when I was growing up and hence has deprived me of all video game knowledge as well as a fair amount of eye-hand coordination.)
- (Per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, "video game" is two words, no hyphen.)
- Hatton Garden ("Garden" definitely singular) is the jewelry district of London.
- The word "moil" means "to work hard; drudge" or "to whirl or churn ceaselessly."
- The word "execration" can mean the act of cursing, the curse itself, or an object of a curse.
- Quite a few interesting facts about Zoroastrianism.
- Laini Taylor writes like a goddess, and her collection of three novellas about kisses, Lips Touch: Three Times, coming out from us in the fall, is as delicious as Daniel Craig holding a Jacques Torres chocolate bar.
Foursquare
- This month's SCBWI-Tokyo newsletter (PDF) carries a very nice interview with me all about Moribito, The Snow Day (both books translated from Japanese), and acquiring and editing translations. Thanks to Sako Ikegami for the thoughtful interview questions and putting it all together!
- More international SCBWI news: I'll be appearing at SCBWI-Paris on Saturday, May 2, to give a craft talk (not sure on what subject yet). This will be near the conclusion of a Barcelona + Paris jaunt my sister and I have been planning for months now; if you know of any off-the-beaten-path places in or near those cities that we should especially check out, do say the word.
- I was fascinated by this personality test on Joe Posnanski's blog -- I said "square," and goodness, was that right. (Plus it's nice to have something else in common with Daniel Craig.)
- The radio silence for the last week will probably be the norm here for the next couple of months as I burrow on through all I have to do. Thanks for your patience and sticking around.
And What Does the Swedish Chef Say When He's Stressed?
"Work work work!"
Which is me also these days. Two novels still being line-edited that are due to copyediting by the end of March; four conference presentations to write; twenty critiques to prep; one article to finish; and that's on top of the daily responsibilities of my job and the other mss. waiting their turns for editing or reading. The good news is that I have a decent first draft of the article done, and a fairly organized plan of attack for everything else in my mind, but if you don't get an e-mail back from me or something, it's really, really, really not personal.
(SQUIDs will continue to be a bit delayed under the current regime, I'm afraid. But I'm keeping up with my agented reading.)
The also good news is that I love the work, especially the line-editing. When I told one of the authors whose novels are on my desk "This is the fun part," she gave me an extremely dubious look, which I understand; but this really is the most fun part of the editorial process for me: looking at how all those words become sentences and sentences become paragraphs and paragraphs become scenes and do-we-need-this? and but-on-page-87 and what-about-. . . and love-this, over and over, till all those things work together to take on their sharpest, clearest, richest meaning -- or they will once the author responds. It is like I am having a very intense conversation with both the manuscript and the author through the manuscript, and as I adore both author and manuscript, it's almost like an affair. (Or what I imagine a really good affair is like.) "Mechanic's delight," as Brian Doyle said. I don't get a charge out of writing, really -- I like blogging, sharing neat things and odd thoughts with the aether, but fiction-writing is far more curiosity than compulsion for me. But I get my PaperMate mechanical pencil in hand, an eraser and 1.5" Post-Its by my side, and a good ms. on my clipboard, and I am a happy girl.
Clearly all this work is addling my brain. Or else I've got a strange disorder in which line-editing causes dopamine surges or somesuch. Nonetheless -- back to it.
Which is me also these days. Two novels still being line-edited that are due to copyediting by the end of March; four conference presentations to write; twenty critiques to prep; one article to finish; and that's on top of the daily responsibilities of my job and the other mss. waiting their turns for editing or reading. The good news is that I have a decent first draft of the article done, and a fairly organized plan of attack for everything else in my mind, but if you don't get an e-mail back from me or something, it's really, really, really not personal.
(SQUIDs will continue to be a bit delayed under the current regime, I'm afraid. But I'm keeping up with my agented reading.)
The also good news is that I love the work, especially the line-editing. When I told one of the authors whose novels are on my desk "This is the fun part," she gave me an extremely dubious look, which I understand; but this really is the most fun part of the editorial process for me: looking at how all those words become sentences and sentences become paragraphs and paragraphs become scenes and do-we-need-this? and but-on-page-87 and what-about-. . . and love-this, over and over, till all those things work together to take on their sharpest, clearest, richest meaning -- or they will once the author responds. It is like I am having a very intense conversation with both the manuscript and the author through the manuscript, and as I adore both author and manuscript, it's almost like an affair. (Or what I imagine a really good affair is like.) "Mechanic's delight," as Brian Doyle said. I don't get a charge out of writing, really -- I like blogging, sharing neat things and odd thoughts with the aether, but fiction-writing is far more curiosity than compulsion for me. But I get my PaperMate mechanical pencil in hand, an eraser and 1.5" Post-Its by my side, and a good ms. on my clipboard, and I am a happy girl.
Clearly all this work is addling my brain. Or else I've got a strange disorder in which line-editing causes dopamine surges or somesuch. Nonetheless -- back to it.
Three Excellent Things
1. The exuberance of the headline on this report about a prehistoric giant snake -- not to mention, of course, the snake itself. It had grapefruit-sized vertebrae! It could eat cows (but probably mostly dined on alligators)! It was forty-two feet long! This report totally brought out the previously unknown eight-year-old herpetologist in me. So. Cool.
2. David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College commencement speech (via). This apparently has been on the Net since he delivered it back in 2005, but I only read it today, and was much impressed by its honesty and thoughtfulness about real adult life:
2. David Foster Wallace's Kenyon College commencement speech (via). This apparently has been on the Net since he delivered it back in 2005, but I only read it today, and was much impressed by its honesty and thoughtfulness about real adult life:
As I'm sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head. Twenty years after my own graduation, I have come gradually to understand that the liberal arts cliché about teaching you how to think is actually shorthand for a much deeper, more serious idea: learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed.3. Your choice of goofy video: Stephen Colbert protests his lack of a Newbery, or, in related news, the Swedish Chef makes a banana split. Bork bork bork.
Happy Blogiversary!
Today, February 4, is the fourth anniversary of Brooklyn Arden. (I hoped this would also be my 600th post -- hence the flurry of posting on Sunday -- but alas, that milestone is still a few days further off.) And just to be totally self-indulgent, here are ten of my favorite posts from the last year, in no particular order, judged solely by my pleasure in writing them:
- Baby Got Book
- The Author-Editor Relationship
- Behind the Book: Timothy and the Strong Pajamas
- Welcome to the Neighborhood
- A Grave in Green-Wood
- What Words Are Worth
- Flap Copy: Three Takes on Operation Yes
- Spreading Some Canvass
- A Hypothesis of Sweets
- Go, Go, Go, Said the Bird
Behind the Book: ABSOLUTELY MAYBE by Lisa Yee, Part I
Today is the official release date of Lisa Yee's new YA novel, Absolutely Maybe. Hooray Lisa! She is celebrating over on her livejournal and at her official website for the book, Absolutely-Maybe.com. (Especially worth checking out: the multiple cover designs the book went through.) For the Behind the Book here, I asked Lisa if she'd collaborate on a sort of oral history of how the book developed and the changes it went through editorially. She agreed, so here's what happened with the first draft:
Lisa: ABSOLUTELY MAYBE came out of nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere, but it did take me by surprise.
Originally titled CHARM SCHOOL DROPOUT, the novel was supposed to be a humorous middle-grade story about a goth girl whose ex-beauty-queen mother ran a school for beauty pageant contestants in Florida. Maybelline (named after her mother's favorite mascara) was slated for a major makeover by her mother to get her pageant-worthy.
Only, it never happened.
As I began writing, I discovered that Maybe was more cynical and sensitive than I had imagined. And her home life was awful. So I upped her age from twelve or thirteen years old to sixteen years old when the book begins. By making her older, it gave me more latitude with the story, like having her run away to Hollywood with her two best friends. It went from a frothy story to one with more depth as Maybe struggled to come to terms with her alcoholic mother and herself.
I had no idea I had written a young adult novel until my agent, Jodi Reamer, read the story. She called me and said, "I love this, but it isn't what Arthur and Cheryl are expecting. You need to tell them it's a YA before they read it." Then I got scared, because I wasn't sure if I'd breached my contract by writing something wholly different than what we had decided on. So, I told my editors to prepare themselves for a novel for an older audience, sent in the manuscript and held my breath.
Cheryl: Arthur and I have been working with Lisa for five books now, and even if we know more or less beforehand what voice she's tackling or where the plot is headed, it's always exciting to get a new manuscript from her. So the news that CHARM SCHOOL DROPOUT had become a YA novel made us doubly excited and curious -- not just "Yay, a new novel from Lisa!" but "Wow, Lisa's doing a YA! What's that going to be like?"
Well, the answer was wonderfully fresh and character-driven as always. It was the character of Maybe that set this story in motion -- both literally and literarily. But the supporting characters were just as clear and real and full of life: Ted, her hilariously honest best friend; Hollywood, the aspiring filmmaker who crushes on Maybe and takes both her and Ted to California to look for Maybe's dad; and looming over the entire journey, Chessamay Chestnut Abajian Wing Marshall Wing Sinclair Alvarez and soon-to-be Himmler, Maybe's alcoholic, ex-Miss-Florida mom.
Arthur and I read the novel and talked about it, and while the book had all the strengths of Lisa's middle-grade novels, we also thought it reflected the very YA theme of identity -- how you figure out who you are, and how your parents, your friends, and your own interests all contribute to or fit into that. But Lisa had created an embarrassment of riches in terms of her storylines and characters, and not all of them were carrying their equal share of that theme. We asked her to reconsider the roles of two characters in the book in light of that fact (they still appear in the final novel, but in greatly reduced screen time). More importantly, Maybe herself wasn't really carrying her share of the novel; she felt a little too passive to us in the search for her father, her reconnection with her mother, her whole Getting a Life. We wrote in an editorial letter:
So what is the change that Maybe needs to make in the course of the book—not in relation to her dad or Chessy, but within herself? Who does she want to be, and how can we see her evolve into that? . . . What we suggest is that you look back over the course of the book and see if there are places throughout where Maybe could take more action . . . Could you show us something in Maybe’s choices that might lead to [a certain event] instead?We sent this letter back to Lisa, and, after she'd had time to digest it, we talked on the phone to be sure Lisa was comfortable with everything in the letter and we all knew where things were headed. Then it was her turn to respond . . .
Stay tuned!
Some Notes on the Kindle
Rumor has it that Amazon.com is going to announce the Kindle 2.0 shortly, and for those of you who have been curious about this device, here are some quick notes on my experience with it.
I love my Kindle for one simple reason: All my manuscript reading fits into my purse! Last week I took multiple trips to Midtown to see a friend (about 45 minutes from Brooklyn each way), and I got a good half of a manuscript read in that time without having to juggle a huge mound of loose paper. And most agents now submit manuscripts electronically, so it works out very well. I don't plan to use it for general slush (that is, SQUIDs), but if I request a full manuscript from an unagented writer, I will probably ask that he or she e-mail it to me.
I wanted a Kindle rather than a Sony Reader because (a) it has a keyboard and (b) it has a wireless connection. With (a), I can do text searches through the various manuscripts I'm reading, or make notes within those manuscripts (though the keyboard isn't the fastest or most comfortable keyboard to use -- my note-making is limited, though I like the search option). With (b), I get the New York Times delivered to my device every day! I can download any book I want from the Kindle Store at any time. And I can download manuscripts to the device, or certain other people (only those registered with my account) can send manuscripts to the device, without my ever touching a computer -- very useful if I'm working at home on a Friday, say, and a colleague wants to send me a manuscript to read over the weekend.
(I've never tried out a Reader, so I don't know how it compares usage-wise. . . . Looking at it online, I see the new ones have a built-in reading light and a touch screen, and the Kindle 1.0 doesn't have either of those. The new Readers also have a virtual keyboard in the touch screen, so that eliminates that advantage.)
To transfer a manuscript to my Kindle (file formats accepted: .doc, .pdf, .jpeg, several others), I e-mail it to one of two special Kindle addresses, depending on how I want it delivered. One address will convert it to the Kindle format and deliver it wirelessly, but charge $.10 to my Amazon account for it; the other will convert it and deliver it to my gmail account for free, and then I can download it to my desktop and transfer it manually using a USB cord. The latter process is kind of cumbersome, so I try to do a bunch of USB downloads all at once, but for individual manuscripts, sometimes the wireless option is just TOO easy and seductive . . .
I can make the font size bigger or smaller, which is very useful. It is EXTREMELY easy to read the screen -- just like reading the printed page, with none of the vibration of long hours spent reading a computer screen. It's also extremely easy to turn a page accidentally, thanks to the huge "Next page" button on the right; and, when I'm holding it by the spine in its book cover, it's hard to hit the "Prev Page" button when necessary. I hope also that the 2.0 version will have some indicator that correlates the location marker in the digital version with the page number of the printed page. But those are small complaints.
I bought a cookbook from the Kindle Store, and while the Kindle is not very good for navigating a big browsey book of that kind, I love the fact that I can look up a recipe on my subway ride home, stop by the store and do all my shopping, then head home and cook without ever touching a piece of paper.
I've found I don't like reading the Kindle in bed at night, that it doesn't deliver the same relaxing experience of a physical book . . . probably because of the inherently electronic nature of the device, the fact that one side is thicker than the other (so it feels imbalanced when you hold it between two hands), and the fact that it's associated so strongly with work for me. And there are some literary experiences I still want to have on paper -- I tried a sample of Marilynne Robinson's Home, for instance, and I think I'm going to hold out for getting the book. But for things like the Times or manuscripts, which I'd just be reading on flimsy paper anyway, I'm delighted to have the Kindle.
I love my Kindle for one simple reason: All my manuscript reading fits into my purse! Last week I took multiple trips to Midtown to see a friend (about 45 minutes from Brooklyn each way), and I got a good half of a manuscript read in that time without having to juggle a huge mound of loose paper. And most agents now submit manuscripts electronically, so it works out very well. I don't plan to use it for general slush (that is, SQUIDs), but if I request a full manuscript from an unagented writer, I will probably ask that he or she e-mail it to me.
I wanted a Kindle rather than a Sony Reader because (a) it has a keyboard and (b) it has a wireless connection. With (a), I can do text searches through the various manuscripts I'm reading, or make notes within those manuscripts (though the keyboard isn't the fastest or most comfortable keyboard to use -- my note-making is limited, though I like the search option). With (b), I get the New York Times delivered to my device every day! I can download any book I want from the Kindle Store at any time. And I can download manuscripts to the device, or certain other people (only those registered with my account) can send manuscripts to the device, without my ever touching a computer -- very useful if I'm working at home on a Friday, say, and a colleague wants to send me a manuscript to read over the weekend.
(I've never tried out a Reader, so I don't know how it compares usage-wise. . . . Looking at it online, I see the new ones have a built-in reading light and a touch screen, and the Kindle 1.0 doesn't have either of those. The new Readers also have a virtual keyboard in the touch screen, so that eliminates that advantage.)
To transfer a manuscript to my Kindle (file formats accepted: .doc, .pdf, .jpeg, several others), I e-mail it to one of two special Kindle addresses, depending on how I want it delivered. One address will convert it to the Kindle format and deliver it wirelessly, but charge $.10 to my Amazon account for it; the other will convert it and deliver it to my gmail account for free, and then I can download it to my desktop and transfer it manually using a USB cord. The latter process is kind of cumbersome, so I try to do a bunch of USB downloads all at once, but for individual manuscripts, sometimes the wireless option is just TOO easy and seductive . . .
I can make the font size bigger or smaller, which is very useful. It is EXTREMELY easy to read the screen -- just like reading the printed page, with none of the vibration of long hours spent reading a computer screen. It's also extremely easy to turn a page accidentally, thanks to the huge "Next page" button on the right; and, when I'm holding it by the spine in its book cover, it's hard to hit the "Prev Page" button when necessary. I hope also that the 2.0 version will have some indicator that correlates the location marker in the digital version with the page number of the printed page. But those are small complaints.
I bought a cookbook from the Kindle Store, and while the Kindle is not very good for navigating a big browsey book of that kind, I love the fact that I can look up a recipe on my subway ride home, stop by the store and do all my shopping, then head home and cook without ever touching a piece of paper.
I've found I don't like reading the Kindle in bed at night, that it doesn't deliver the same relaxing experience of a physical book . . . probably because of the inherently electronic nature of the device, the fact that one side is thicker than the other (so it feels imbalanced when you hold it between two hands), and the fact that it's associated so strongly with work for me. And there are some literary experiences I still want to have on paper -- I tried a sample of Marilynne Robinson's Home, for instance, and I think I'm going to hold out for getting the book. But for things like the Times or manuscripts, which I'd just be reading on flimsy paper anyway, I'm delighted to have the Kindle.
A Character-Based View of Plot
(I am, for silly personal reasons that shall be revealed eventually, going to be posting quite a bit this week. Consider yourself forewarned.)
Last fall, when I was working on my talk about plot for the Illinois SCBWI conference, I found myself thinking a lot about Laurie Halse Anderson's wonderful "Plot vs. Character Cagematch" talk at Kindling Words last year -- particularly her emphasis on the fact that good plotting grows out of the complications inherent in good characters, and the choices and situations those characters are driven to make. This is something I believe strongly too, but it wasn't something emphasized so much in all of the talks I'd given on plot up to that point. So working off Laurie's ideas, I came up with a character-driven view of plot construction, in which a a good book develops its story in five simple steps:
1. The book establishes a complex character—someone with:
5. The flaw in the character is faced and dealt with**** or
** Steps #1 and #2 can happen simultaneously (and sometimes should) -- think of the opening of The Lightning Thief, in which we learn all about Percy as he "accidentally vaporizes his Pre-Algebra teacher," as the chapter title says. Or the first book in The 39 Clues series, where Dan and Amy Cahill light two million dollars on fire in the first sentence -- that tells you plenty about them just as it kicks off their adventures.
*** This is one of my two favorite writing quotes ever, tied with David Mamet's "All art is where you put the camera."
**** "Dealt with" does not necessarily mean "corrected" -- the character can and probably will make mistakes involving that flaw again, after the book ends. But it does mean, I think, "recognized and acknowledged," so that the flaw no longer wreaks its havoc unconsciously -- there has been growth.
I like this formulation because it puts the emphasis upon the protagonist's choices and actions, and books in which a character does a lot and chooses a lot are, I think, generally more compelling and interesting than books in which things just happen to the character -- or worse yet, in which things happen to other people while the protagonist observes. Also, I have met writers who claim to be scared of plot, but I've never met one who claimed to be scared of characters, so I hope it might be more comfortable to think about. And I think this view of plot could ultimately work well paired with the plot structures I've talked about before (particularly Freytag's triangle), so that the choices and actions get consistently bigger and bigger, ultimately building to point #5 above. Maybe this view of plot would be especially useful to writers feeling their way through the first draft, and then the other plot structure could be useful in the revision stage, as people check the sturdiness of the structure they've created.
Last fall, when I was working on my talk about plot for the Illinois SCBWI conference, I found myself thinking a lot about Laurie Halse Anderson's wonderful "Plot vs. Character Cagematch" talk at Kindling Words last year -- particularly her emphasis on the fact that good plotting grows out of the complications inherent in good characters, and the choices and situations those characters are driven to make. This is something I believe strongly too, but it wasn't something emphasized so much in all of the talks I'd given on plot up to that point. So working off Laurie's ideas, I came up with a character-driven view of plot construction, in which a a good book develops its story in five simple steps:
1. The book establishes a complex character—someone with:
- A flaw of which he or she may not be aware
- Something to gain or lose
- Or both.
- One that will evoke the flaw—again, possibly unbeknownst to the character
- Or in which the thing that can be gained or lost will be gained or lost
- Or both.**
- John Gardner: "Real suspense comes from moral dilemma and the courage to make and act upon choices. False suspense comes from the accidental and meaningless occurrence of one damn thing after another."***
5. The flaw in the character is faced and dealt with**** or
- The thing to be lost or won is lost or won
- Or both.
** Steps #1 and #2 can happen simultaneously (and sometimes should) -- think of the opening of The Lightning Thief, in which we learn all about Percy as he "accidentally vaporizes his Pre-Algebra teacher," as the chapter title says. Or the first book in The 39 Clues series, where Dan and Amy Cahill light two million dollars on fire in the first sentence -- that tells you plenty about them just as it kicks off their adventures.
*** This is one of my two favorite writing quotes ever, tied with David Mamet's "All art is where you put the camera."
**** "Dealt with" does not necessarily mean "corrected" -- the character can and probably will make mistakes involving that flaw again, after the book ends. But it does mean, I think, "recognized and acknowledged," so that the flaw no longer wreaks its havoc unconsciously -- there has been growth.
I like this formulation because it puts the emphasis upon the protagonist's choices and actions, and books in which a character does a lot and chooses a lot are, I think, generally more compelling and interesting than books in which things just happen to the character -- or worse yet, in which things happen to other people while the protagonist observes. Also, I have met writers who claim to be scared of plot, but I've never met one who claimed to be scared of characters, so I hope it might be more comfortable to think about. And I think this view of plot could ultimately work well paired with the plot structures I've talked about before (particularly Freytag's triangle), so that the choices and actions get consistently bigger and bigger, ultimately building to point #5 above. Maybe this view of plot would be especially useful to writers feeling their way through the first draft, and then the other plot structure could be useful in the revision stage, as people check the sturdiness of the structure they've created.
Kidlit Drink Night -- SCBWI Winter Conference Edition
Yes, just four scant days after our last event, and with just two days' notice, we're delighted to announce the third annual Kidlit Drink Night -- SCBWI Winter Conference Edition, this Friday night, January 30. We'll be at the Wheeltapper Pub on 44th Street between Lex and 3rd, starting at 9 p.m.
Conference-goers who are new to the city might also be interested in this list of great New York activities my blog commenters and I compiled a few years ago.
Hope to see you here!
Conference-goers who are new to the city might also be interested in this list of great New York activities my blog commenters and I compiled a few years ago.
Hope to see you here!
This Makes Me So Happy.
Via bookshelves of doom; click the picture for details.Next I hope they do Emma the Vampire Slayer -- though the Regency is still a bit too early for Edward Cullen, I guess.
(P.S.: Longtime readers may remember Melissa W.'s work of Pants genius in the comments here; it's almost equally amusing to substitute "BRAAAAAINS!" in the same quotes.)
So, I Had a Nice Day Today.
The kidlit readers here will know this already, but: Today was a very good day for me, as two of my dearly beloved books won ALA awards in Denver this morning.
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce won the first-ever William C. Morris Award, which honors “a book written for young adults by a first-time, previously unpublished author.” This was the first novel I ever acquired and edited wholly on my own -- not a translation, without Arthur's co-editing, the whole bit. I met Elizabeth in the course of a critique at the Arizona SCBWI conference in 2004, pestered her until she sent me the manuscript a year later, and bought the book in early 2006. She worked incredibly hard on revisions for it, resulting in a stronger and better manuscript at every stage, and I’m delighted that her gifts for “masterly writing and vivid characterization and setting,” which shone through in even the two chapters of our very first critique, were recognized by the committee. Congratulations, Elizabeth!
And then Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for outstanding translation. Originally published in Japanese in 1996 as Seirei no Moribito, the book was written by Nahoko Uehashi and translated by Cathy Hirano. The excellent Janna Morishima acquired the book for Scholastic and hired Cathy to translate it; when she left the company, I took over editorial responsibilities -- with great pleasure, as Cathy and Nahoko are both incredibly talented and wonderful to work with. And the book is just awesome -- I once pitched it as "Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 stars in an Ursula K. LeGuin fantasy in Japan." The Batchelder Committee Chair Sandra Imdieke said of it, “This sophisticated and complex Japanese epic is filled with political intrigue, mystery and danger,” but it also has marvelous character development and fascinating relationships and mythologies. . . . I'm so pleased its quality was rewarded. The sequel, Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness, will be out in May.
Hooray!
A Curse Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce won the first-ever William C. Morris Award, which honors “a book written for young adults by a first-time, previously unpublished author.” This was the first novel I ever acquired and edited wholly on my own -- not a translation, without Arthur's co-editing, the whole bit. I met Elizabeth in the course of a critique at the Arizona SCBWI conference in 2004, pestered her until she sent me the manuscript a year later, and bought the book in early 2006. She worked incredibly hard on revisions for it, resulting in a stronger and better manuscript at every stage, and I’m delighted that her gifts for “masterly writing and vivid characterization and setting,” which shone through in even the two chapters of our very first critique, were recognized by the committee. Congratulations, Elizabeth!And then Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit won the Mildred L. Batchelder Award for outstanding translation. Originally published in Japanese in 1996 as Seirei no Moribito, the book was written by Nahoko Uehashi and translated by Cathy Hirano. The excellent Janna Morishima acquired the book for Scholastic and hired Cathy to translate it; when she left the company, I took over editorial responsibilities -- with great pleasure, as Cathy and Nahoko are both incredibly talented and wonderful to work with. And the book is just awesome -- I once pitched it as "Linda Hamilton in Terminator 2 stars in an Ursula K. LeGuin fantasy in Japan." The Batchelder Committee Chair Sandra Imdieke said of it, “This sophisticated and complex Japanese epic is filled with political intrigue, mystery and danger,” but it also has marvelous character development and fascinating relationships and mythologies. . . . I'm so pleased its quality was rewarded. The sequel, Moribito II: Guardian of the Darkness, will be out in May.Hooray!
On Occasional Poems
First a small bit of doggerel -- bad, I admit -- for Betsy's and my own open occasion tomorrow evening:
Tomorrow night we come to drink
And argue, gossip, chat, and think
About the kids' books we love most
And which awards we'll jeer or toast.
We'll gather at the bar Gstaad,
In the back, where space is broad,
At Forty-three West Twenty-Sixth,
Just down the block -- it's right betwixt
Broadway and Sixth Avenue.
Half-past six. (Later will do.)
Come raise a glass! It's a good time.
(And I swear: No further rhyme.)
Then to continue the discussion of a magnitudes-superior occasional poem, I really enjoyed this clip of Elizabeth Alexander on the Colbert Report Wednesday night, particularly Stephen's concerns about J. Alfred Prufrock's mermaids and the difference between a metaphor and a lie. Highly commended to all those with an interest in poetry:
Tomorrow night we come to drink
And argue, gossip, chat, and think
About the kids' books we love most
And which awards we'll jeer or toast.
We'll gather at the bar Gstaad,
In the back, where space is broad,
At Forty-three West Twenty-Sixth,
Just down the block -- it's right betwixt
Broadway and Sixth Avenue.
Half-past six. (Later will do.)
Come raise a glass! It's a good time.
(And I swear: No further rhyme.)
Then to continue the discussion of a magnitudes-superior occasional poem, I really enjoyed this clip of Elizabeth Alexander on the Colbert Report Wednesday night, particularly Stephen's concerns about J. Alfred Prufrock's mermaids and the difference between a metaphor and a lie. Highly commended to all those with an interest in poetry:
"Praise Song for the Day," by Elizabeth Alexander
(A transcription of today's Inaugural poem, as provided by the New York Times and CQ Transcription Service. I will be very interested to see where the line breaks fall in the final version, but in the meantime, I like the plainspeakingness, and the call to work, love, and hope.)
(Update: Susan Marie Swanson pointed out that the proper text of the poem, with line breaks, is here.)
Praise song for the day.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.
Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.
A woman and her son wait for the bus.
A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."
We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.
We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."
We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.
Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.
Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.
Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."
Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.
What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.
In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.
Four Little Writing Things + Poll
- My lovely author Olugbemisola Rhuday Perkovich is writing a monthly "Five Faves" column for AuthorsNow.com, and her excellent agent Erin Murphy and I are both quoted this week on "The Book That Changed Everything."
- Another lovely author, Francisco X. Stork, has a wonderful post connecting the disciplines of writing with those of Buddhism: "The Six Perfections of Writing."
- If you've written a fantasy novel, or really any novel with a Big Bad, you should read through the list of The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became an Evil Overlord and make sure your villain tries to abide by them. (In other words: So much as possible, avoid the cliches contained here.) I particularly like #12: "One of my advisors will be an average five-year-old child. Any flaws in my plan that he is able to spot will be corrected before implementation."Also #29: "I will dress in bright and cheery colors, and so throw my enemies into confusion."
- I tweaked my submissions guidelines this week, removing the "Closed to submissions" bit from the top (so there's no more confusion about that) and adding these lines:
-- Any submission without an SASE will not receive a reply.And the poll: Cruising cable last weekend, I came across the last twenty minutes of The Empire Strikes Back, which I hadn't seen in ages. After I finished watching it, I saw that it was labeled "Episode V" in the cable guide, and I thought how strange it would be to actually watch it as the fifth film in the "Star Wars" saga -- to know already the big "NOOOO! NOOOO!" fact revealed at the end of the movie -- and how Episodes IV, V, and VI would all feel very different with that knowledge. And then it occurred to me that I will someday have to decide in which order my (putative, theoretical) children will see the series. What would you all do/are you doing?
-- I like books about characters who do things, who take action in their own lives, who love and lie and take risks and fight to get what they want, who are faced with and make difficult choices.
-- Some people think that literary fiction doesn't have action to it -- that literary fiction is people sitting around and feeling and talking at each other. This is not true. It's just that in literary fiction, the writer is as interested in the characters' emotional development as he or she is in the action the novel portrays, and particularly in the relationship between the two [the action and the emotional development], even if that relationship isn't spelled out in so many words.
-- If you've written a book, particularly a picture book, for the sole purpose of teaching a lesson to children, like "Be kind to everyone" or "Don't play doctor with the pit bull": Your manuscript will probably not be right for me.
The Quote File: Work
With particular attention to the work of writing, as I have about two hundred quotes on that topic; and also happiness, vocation, time, discipline, excellence, and the meaning of life.
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing. -- Robert Benchley
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need. -- Voltaire
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. -- Anatole France
Until the age of fifty we have to learn, and after fifty we have to work until the end occurs. –- Jose Saramago
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. -- Teddy Roosevelt
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -- Robert Heinlein
Nothing good in the world has ever been done by well-rounded people. The good work is done by people with jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things and leave an imprint, a
design. -- Harry Crews
First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do. -- Epictetus
What you have to do and the way to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that is another matter. -- Peter F. Drucker
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand. -- Thomas Carlyle
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. -- Diane Arbus
I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work. -- Thomas Edison
A problem is a chance for you to do your best. -- Duke Ellington
Don't hope more than you're willing to work. -- Rita Mae Brown
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. -- Theodore Roosevelt
Happiness is a by-product of cheerful, honest labor dedicated to a worthwhile task. -- Sidney Greenberg
The main thing that separates happy people from other people [is] the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench. -- Barbara Kingsolver
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. -- Joseph Addison
There are three ingredients to the good life; learning, earning, and yearning. -- Christopher Morley
To love what you do and feel that it matters -- how could anything be more fun? -- Katherine Graham
All happiness depends upon courage and work. -- Honore de Balzac
The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man. One must believe that Sisyphus is happy. -- Albert Camus
Life begets life. Energy becomes energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. -- Sarah Bernhardt
People don't choose their careers; they are engulfed by them. -- John Dos Passos
If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature ... you will be happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this. -- Marcus Aurelius
I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint -- and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. -- Oprah Winfrey
Every calling is great when greatly pursued. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr
Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence. -- Honore de Balzac
Maybe the best we can do is do what we love as best we can. -- Galway Kinnell
When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. -- John Ruskin
A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. -- Louis Nizer
You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint paradise, then in you go. -- Nikos Kazantzakis
It’s difficult to beat making your living thinking and writing about subjects that matter to you. -- Eleanor Holmes Norton
I see myself as someone who drops tiny crumbs of nourishment, in the form of comment and conversation, into the black enormous maw of the world's discontent. I will never fill it up or shut it up; but it seems my duty, not to mention my pleasure, to attempt to do so, however ineptly. See me as Sisyphus, but having a good time. -- Fay Weldon
Every day I'll wake up around noon. Then I'll go to the track and I'll play the horses ... Then I'll come back and I'll swim and ... have dinner and I'll go upstairs and I'll sit at the computer and I'll crack me a bottle [of wine] and I'll listen to some Mahler or Sibelius and I'll write, with this rhythm, like always. -- Charles Bukowski
The intellect of man is forced to choose / Perfection of the life, or of the work, / And if it take the second must refuse / A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark. -- William Butler Yeats
While writers dearly love to work, they stand with parsons and painters and philosophers in loving just as dearly to be paid for it. -- Dalton Trumbo
Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day. -- Robert Hass
Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful, lest you let others spend it for you. -- Carl Sandburg
We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. -- Charles Baudelaire
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime. -- W.E.B. Du Bois
I learned that you should feel when writing not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like children stringing beads in kindergarten -- happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. -- Brenda Ueland
The best work is done with the heart breaking, or overflowing. -- Mignon McLaughlin
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. -- Jack London
I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done. -- Barbara Kingsolver
Plumbers don't get plumbers block and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expect sympathy for it? -- Philip Pullman
The work never gets easier. It gets harder and more provocative. And as it gets harder you are continually reminded there is more to accomplish. It's like digging for gold. And when you find the vein, you know there's a lot more where that came from. -- Sam Shepard
If your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt. -- Henry J. Kaiser
Miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work terribly hard for them. -- Chaim Weizmann
Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves. -- Andrew Carnegie
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. -- Zen Buddhist proverb
A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules. -- Anthony Trollope
Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. -- Gustave Flaubert
I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything. -- Michael Phelps
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. -- Samuel Johnson
Genius is eternal patience. -- Michelangelo
Patience is also a form of action. -- Auguste Rodin
The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea. -- Isak Dinesen
Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better. -- John Updike
The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. -- Vince Lombardi
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word -- excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. -- Pearl S. Buck
The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you’ve just done something as well as you can do it. -- Lloyd Dobens, Clare Crawford-Mason
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity. -- Louis Pasteur
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. -- Abraham Lincoln
I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. -- Frank Lloyd Wright
The artist is nothing without gift, but gift is nothing without work. -- Émile Zola
Whatever you can do, do with all your might, for there is neither deed, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, toward which you are heading. -- Ecclesiastes 9:10
I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done. -- Marie Curie
I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult. -- E.B. White
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. -- Marie Curie
The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. -- George Eliot
The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good. -- Ruth Benedict
All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough. -- Anna Quindlen
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand. -- Woodrow Wilson
We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know. -- W.H. Auden
Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn't the work he is supposed to be doing. -- Robert Benchley
Work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need. -- Voltaire
To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe. -- Anatole France
Until the age of fifty we have to learn, and after fifty we have to work until the end occurs. –- Jose Saramago
It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. -- Teddy Roosevelt
Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something. -- Robert Heinlein
Nothing good in the world has ever been done by well-rounded people. The good work is done by people with jagged, broken edges, because those edges cut things and leave an imprint, a
design. -- Harry Crews
First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do. -- Epictetus
What you have to do and the way to do it is incredibly simple. Whether you are willing to do it, that is another matter. -- Peter F. Drucker
Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance but to do what lies clearly at hand. -- Thomas Carlyle
The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation. The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. -- Diane Arbus
I find that the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it--but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
The reason a lot of people do not recognize opportunity is because it usually goes around wearing overalls looking like hard work. -- Thomas Edison
A problem is a chance for you to do your best. -- Duke Ellington
Don't hope more than you're willing to work. -- Rita Mae Brown
Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. -- Theodore Roosevelt
Happiness is a by-product of cheerful, honest labor dedicated to a worthwhile task. -- Sidney Greenberg
The main thing that separates happy people from other people [is] the feeling that you're a practical item, with a use, like a sweater or a socket wrench. -- Barbara Kingsolver
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. -- Joseph Addison
There are three ingredients to the good life; learning, earning, and yearning. -- Christopher Morley
To love what you do and feel that it matters -- how could anything be more fun? -- Katherine Graham
All happiness depends upon courage and work. -- Honore de Balzac
The struggle to reach the top is itself enough to fulfill the heart of man. One must believe that Sisyphus is happy. -- Albert Camus
Life begets life. Energy becomes energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich. -- Sarah Bernhardt
People don't choose their careers; they are engulfed by them. -- John Dos Passos
If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you might be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature ... you will be happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this. -- Marcus Aurelius
I've come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that's as unique as a fingerprint -- and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. -- Oprah Winfrey
Every calling is great when greatly pursued. -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr
Vocations which we wanted to pursue, but didn't, bleed, like colors, on the whole of our existence. -- Honore de Balzac
Maybe the best we can do is do what we love as best we can. -- Galway Kinnell
When love and skill work together, expect a masterpiece. -- John Ruskin
A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist. -- Louis Nizer
You have your brush, you have your colors, you paint paradise, then in you go. -- Nikos Kazantzakis
It’s difficult to beat making your living thinking and writing about subjects that matter to you. -- Eleanor Holmes Norton
I see myself as someone who drops tiny crumbs of nourishment, in the form of comment and conversation, into the black enormous maw of the world's discontent. I will never fill it up or shut it up; but it seems my duty, not to mention my pleasure, to attempt to do so, however ineptly. See me as Sisyphus, but having a good time. -- Fay Weldon
Every day I'll wake up around noon. Then I'll go to the track and I'll play the horses ... Then I'll come back and I'll swim and ... have dinner and I'll go upstairs and I'll sit at the computer and I'll crack me a bottle [of wine] and I'll listen to some Mahler or Sibelius and I'll write, with this rhythm, like always. -- Charles Bukowski
The intellect of man is forced to choose / Perfection of the life, or of the work, / And if it take the second must refuse / A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark. -- William Butler Yeats
While writers dearly love to work, they stand with parsons and painters and philosophers in loving just as dearly to be paid for it. -- Dalton Trumbo
Take the time to write. You can do your life's work in half an hour a day. -- Robert Hass
Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein. -- H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful, lest you let others spend it for you. -- Carl Sandburg
We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. -- Charles Baudelaire
Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime. -- W.E.B. Du Bois
I learned that you should feel when writing not like Lord Byron on a mountain top, but like children stringing beads in kindergarten -- happy, absorbed and quietly putting one bead on after another. -- Brenda Ueland
The best work is done with the heart breaking, or overflowing. -- Mignon McLaughlin
You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. -- Jack London
I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done. -- Barbara Kingsolver
Plumbers don't get plumbers block and doctors don't get doctor's block; why should writers be the only profession that gives a special name to the difficulty of working, and then expect sympathy for it? -- Philip Pullman
The work never gets easier. It gets harder and more provocative. And as it gets harder you are continually reminded there is more to accomplish. It's like digging for gold. And when you find the vein, you know there's a lot more where that came from. -- Sam Shepard
If your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt. -- Henry J. Kaiser
Miracles sometimes occur, but one has to work terribly hard for them. -- Chaim Weizmann
Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves. -- Andrew Carnegie
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. -- Zen Buddhist proverb
A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labors of a spasmodic Hercules. -- Anthony Trollope
Be regular and orderly in your life so that you may be violent and original in your work. -- Gustave Flaubert
I think that everything is possible as long as you put your mind to it and you put the work and time into it. I think your mind really controls everything. -- Michael Phelps
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. -- Samuel Johnson
Genius is eternal patience. -- Michelangelo
Patience is also a form of action. -- Auguste Rodin
The cure for anything is salt water -- sweat, tears, or the sea. -- Isak Dinesen
Effort is only effort when it begins to hurt. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Any activity becomes creative when the doer cares about doing it right, or better. -- John Updike
The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor. -- Vince Lombardi
The secret of joy in work is contained in one word -- excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it. -- Pearl S. Buck
The only lifelong, reliable motivations are those that come from within, and one of the strongest of those is the joy and pride that grow from knowing that you’ve just done something as well as you can do it. -- Lloyd Dobens, Clare Crawford-Mason
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity. -- Louis Pasteur
Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. -- Abraham Lincoln
I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen. -- Frank Lloyd Wright
The artist is nothing without gift, but gift is nothing without work. -- Émile Zola
Whatever you can do, do with all your might, for there is neither deed, nor planning, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, toward which you are heading. -- Ecclesiastes 9:10
I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done. -- Marie Curie
I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult. -- E.B. White
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful. -- Marie Curie
The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men. -- George Eliot
The happiest excitement in life is to be convinced that one is fighting for all one is worth on behalf of some clearly seen and deeply felt good. -- Ruth Benedict
All of us want to do well. But if we do not do good, too, then doing well will never be enough. -- Anna Quindlen
You are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand. -- Woodrow Wilson
We are here on earth to do good to others. What the others are here for, I don't know. -- W.H. Auden
One Last Request for Writerly Help
Normally I don’t ask for help from readers three times in eight days, but: I have been hired to write an article based on my talk The Art of Detection: One Editor’s Tips for Revising Your Novel. (This will actually be just the second time ever I’ve gotten paid for my own writing—and hey, getting paid for one’s thoughts is pretty cool!) But before I go forth dispensing my wisdom to all and sundry, I wonder: Is it really wisdom? If you’ve read the talk, have you tried any of the techniques? Did any of them seem particularly helpful, or NOT helpful? Anything I should push further? Drop altogether? Are there revision topics you wish I had covered that I didn’t—e.g. actual practical techniques for working through a revision, like, say, “Keep a running outtakes file”? While goodness knows not every technique works for everyone (so I'd expect a wide variance in answers here), your honest constructive feedback is appreciated. Many thanks!
A Hypothesis of Sweets
In the course of my Christmas baking, I formalized an until-then casual Hypothesis of Sweets that I have advanced several times over the years. This hypothesis is:
A. There are three kinds of sweet tastes.
A. There are three kinds of sweet tastes.
- 1. The Dry Sweet. That is, dry in texture, with little internal moisture (and often hard), but still sweet in taste. Examples: sugar cookies, shortbread, vanilla wafers, the chocolate part of an Oreo, gingerbread men, the crust of a pie or crumble, brownies, the plain digestive biscuit.
- 2. The Creamy Sweet. Creamy in texture; the sugar level can vary. Examples: the creamy filling of an Oreo, the chocolate on a chocolate-covered graham cracker or digestive biscuit, the marshmallow in a Mallomar (also the outside), the peanut butter in Little Debbie's Nutty Bars, whipped cream or ice cream, caramel, pudding.
- 3. The Fruity Sweet. AKA the tangy sweet, sharper in taste, but still with a sweet takeaway. Examples: the raspberry filling of a rugelach, the fruit in a crisp, pie, or cobbler.
- 3a. The Banana Exception: Because of its texture and relative blandness, Banana shall be regarded as a creamy sweet, not a fruity one.
- 1. Proof: Oreos, linzer tarts, Mallomars, s'mores, Moon Pies, oatmeal cream pies, McVitie's Plain Choc digestive biscuits, tiramisu, chocolate-dipped strawberries, cheesecake, caramel-covered apples, Twix, Thin Mints, those Girl Scout peanut butter sandwiches, pain au chocolate, black and white cookies, rugelach . . .
- 2. Many desserts involving only one type of sweet can be improved by adding another: chocolate-dipped graham crackers, for instance, or the cheesecake brownie, or the brownie a la mode, or ice cream with fruit sauce, or banana pudding with vanilla wafers.
- 3. The Jaffa Cake Exception: Jaffa Cakes are the only known dessert to successfully integrate all three sweets.
- 1. This exception should be invoked with care, however, as the third can also be disastrous.
- 1a. Examples of Positive Add-Ons: Whipped cream or ice cream on a fruit pie or crumble; strawberry shortcake; cherry cheesecake; cherries or strawberries on a hot fudge sundae; chocolate-dipping a linzer tart.
- 1b. Examples of Negative Add-Ons: Anything fruity ever added to an Oreo.
- 1. Proof: One can construct a perfectly good dessert table with berries, chocolate pastilles, and shortbread cookies. Or fondue!