How to Cripple a Book

Some of my books are crippled, disabled, handicapped. Oh, sorry. I mean challenged. Others are outright banned--cut out of library circulation and/or schools. I'm so proud of my little defectives!

Banned Books Week 2010 will occur September 25 through October 2. I mention it now, because I doubt this blog will be active at that time. BBW will focus attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States. It highlights the benefits of free and open access to information--the foundation of writers everywhere, all times. (Challenges are failed attempts to ban).

See the latest list. Can you believe Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird still meets challenges - last time it was because someone thought that reading it might upset black children. Well, I should hope so. It certainly upsets me!

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Brag About Yourself

Where do you find topics to write about? Both beginning bloggers and other types of nonfiction writers often ask this. Instead of my usual "everywhere, all around you" response, I'll detail exactly how this post came about: social media networking. A member of one of the groups I belong to in LinkedIn posted a link to the Psychology Today article as a discussion topic. I saw that item listed in an updates email that LI sends me regularly. I clicked, read the article and thought, "Whew. I'm doin' it right," as the LOL Cat People say. Just last night I'd been adding information to my Amazon Author Page biography section, bragging really. And in third person. Feels weird.

Sooner or later every kind of writer is required to provide a blurb or bio. For me, it's the most difficult writing of all. Worse than a synopsis. It's the same for pitching your services (yourself, really) to potential clients, or bragging about yourself in your website.

If this is difficult for you too, read How to brag about yourself without being seen as narcissistic | Psychology Today by Joshua D. Foster and Ilan Shrira. The secret, it seems, it to mention ONLY yourself, your accomplishments, and not compare them to others. I thought of the latest round of campaign ads in which one politician tries to run down the opposition. Makes me want to vote for the latter.

How about you? When you are dressed to impress, do you denigrate a competitor's accomplishments? Are you positive you write better than ...

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Adopt a Cat Here

I know, I missed inserting a LOLcat for silly Saturday.  Herewith, in honor of Adopt-a-Pet week or month or whatever is my recommendation for writers:

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When is Rewriting Writing?

Of course rewriting is writing, but is the real writing in the rewrites? In a long work, maybe or maybe not so much. I'm one who writes an article in my head before I commit it to paper or bits. Granted, I couldn't do this with a book-length piece. However, I learned long ago in watercolor painting to get it almost perfect the first time, otherwise you "make mud." Watercolor is a very unforgiving art medium requiring planning before painting.

In writing shorts, the skills of brevity, concision, and picking exactly the right word might emphasize the rewrite. (Just think of Twitter!) The shorter the piece, the easier it is to be misunderstood, hence the most urgent need for clarity. But with a book, especially a novel, some urge you to vomit out the first draft; all the art is in the rewriting, they say, which is more than simply refining. How could it go wrong? Just listen to what Anne Rice has to say:



How many time has a writer outlined (maybe only roughly) a novel and then had one of the characters "simply run away" with the plot? Incidentally, that kind of thinking is as surely a crutch, a rationalization, as saying you couldn't help hitting someone because they "made me mad." Who is in charge of your [writing] behavior? Where does the story come from? You are responsible for both.

Don't write to "see where the story goes," and then moan about being unable to finish anything or having writer's block. Maybe you wrote yourself into a blind alley! Get the story straight before you write the manuscript. If "outline" is too mechanical a term for you to apply to creative writing, how about "framework?" Still too concrete? Try this: write the synopsis before you write the book. This will probably force you to research only necessary parts, too. Then you will not only have completed the most difficult writing of all, you'll also have a "literary guide" to "just write the damn thing!"

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