High School Teacher Appreciation Day

Hunter College High School
(formerly the Squadron A Armory)

I was having a talk with someone about mentors and influences, and I hadn't really thought I had many "official" mentors... but it has occurred to me that one need not explicitly and personally take a student under one's wing in order to be an influence. So, here's to two English teachers who I now realize were, in fact, inspirations to me, simply by loving their jobs and doing them well.

Daniel Rous

In addition to being an English teacher, Mr. Rous was also an opera-quality singer, although I don't know if or where he ever performed. When I hear Kelsey Grammer singing show tunes as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons, I think of Mr. Rous singing for us in class (maybe once a year, when all exams were over) and how damn good he was. He also managed to tell my class -- twice! -- that his wife was in labor with their son for four days. (Perhaps obviously, they just had the one.) He was unwaveringly passionate about the books he taught. He clearly adored all his students, and when they didn't adore him back, he just let it roll right off him. I cannot remember ever once seeing him in a bad mood. It was a joy to be in his class, and I hope he thought it was a joy to teach me in return. I remember hating (and having no respect for) at least one book in every English class I ever took... except his. Somehow, he made it so that I appreciated them all.

Parker Baratta

Parker was profane, sarcastic, and fabulous. Rumor had it that he'd had an affair with a senior at one point, and ended up married to her. I have no idea if this is actually true, but it fit nicely with his persona as the teacher who treated his students like adults. He let us in on all the jokes (in particular one obscene joke about a dolphin, but that's not the point). By the time I took his class, I was coasting pretty comfortably in all my English classes. I was getting As without even reading the materials by twisting the assignments into what I really wanted to write about, and I did it with enough flair to carry it off in most cases. But Parker busted me. On my third-semester report card, he gave me a 65. A sixty-five. Now, I'd gotten a couple bad grades from him (one in particular for a truly abysmal Great Gatsby paper about that damned green light), but not D-minus bad. I went to him to ask WHY? He looked me dead in the eye and said, "Because you can do better." The third-semester report card didn't count on the permanent record, and he was using it to make a point. He was right. I could do better, and he f*cking knew it. I got something in the high 90s for my final grade from him that year.

Gentlemen, THANK YOU.

P.S. Elena Kagan, HCHS class of 1977! WOOT!

HuffPo Loves Me

In yesterday's Huffington Post article The Making of a Novel: Can You Write a Real Person Into a Fictional Story?, author Jennie Nash mentions this blog. Specifically, the guest blogger post by Audrey Beth Stein: Writing About Real People.

Okay, so if you read the article you'll see that HuffPo really loves Audrey; my blog was just the incidental host. But I loved Audrey first. So it totally counts.

Conversations with my family

Conversation #1:

Husband: Serious Girl, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Serious Girl: I don't know.
Husband: Well, you could be an astronaut, or a doctor...
Serious Girl: A doctor!
Husband: Yeah! Or a writer, or a fire fighter...
Serious Girl: I want to be a writer.
Husband: What are you going to write?
Serious Girl: I don't know.
Husband: Are you going to write stories?
Serious Girl: Yeah!
Husband: What kind of stories are you going to write?
Serious Girl: Stories about elevators and toys.
Me: Serious Girl, did you know that you really can do that? There are some really famous and wonderful stories about exactly that -- elevators and toys.
Serious Girl: Also, I want to be a turtle.

Conversation #2:

[Husband finishes telling Serious Girl the story of Pandora's Box.]

Husband: Serious Girl, do you know what that story's about?
Serious Girl: Did everything get away and go way up in the air?
Husband: Yes. But really, it's about telling girls what to do. Every culture has some story that tries to tell girls that they shouldn't be smart or curious. You should be both. You should open every box.
Serious Girl: Really?
Husband: Really. You see, it was a trick. The gods would have let out all those bad things anyway, but they wanted to blame it on Pandora. Never do what you're told just because someone else says you have to. It's up to you to figure out the right things to do.
Serious Girl: Really?
Husband: Really. Can I have a smooch?
Serious Girl: Of course.

A Day in the Life, w/o nanny assistance

All will be explained in time.

6:00am: Wake up because Serious Girl has woken and is asking for more music. Restart album of lullabies on dedicated iPod in her room, go back to bed hoping she will let the whole album play without complaint so I can get the whole half hour additional sleep.

7:30am: Wake up again. Miracle! Serious Girl actually went back to sleep too! Start morning with Serious Girl: hugs, potty, milk.

8:00am: Move through house cleaning up and removing tempting fragile items from within reach of those who are toddler-height; Serious Girl is responsible, but we are hosting her playgroup today, and I do not know how responsible the other five 3-year-olds are. Move SG's play stove, food, and table & chairs into living room for "kitchen/restaurant" play. Get SG dressed. Realize I have totally forgotten to feed SG breakfast, provide blueberries and toast at last minute.

9:00am-11:00am: Playgroup. Kids entertain themselves primarily with toy kitchen area, SG's dollhouse, and SG's extensive supply of toy cars. Some disagreements over who is allowed to play with the stuffed Backyardigans, and when, and how. Snack of blueberries, peaches, and string cheese is devoured by all. Other moms/nannies are awesome about helping to clean up when they leave, and certain parts of the house end up cleaner than when the guests arrived.

11:15am: Final farewells to guests. SG plays patiently (read: relieves the sofa of all its cushions, builds mountainous pile of pillows, takes flying leaps from former onto latter) while I check email. Lunch! Mom & daughter chores -- taking down the trash and recycling, putting away clean dishes, etc. -- and settling down for nap.

12:30pm: Paperwork and writing while SG naps: completing forms for preschool, signing up for "toddler tumbling" gymnastics, writing and submitting short non-fiction piece, submitting two short fiction pieces. Email best writer-friend, indulge in complaints about writing, parenting, how much more sleep we need, and how damn old we are. Check to make sure chicken in fridge is still edible, rejoice when expiration date is days away: no trip to the grocery today.

2:30pm: SG is awake! Hang out together listening to music, then get up for milk. Finish some of my work on the computer while SG plays patiently (read: sits quietly with some stuffed toys in her lap, oh crap, she's probably coming down with something). Off to kitchen: prepare dinner while SG eats raisins. Peel & slice potatoes, season potatoes & chicken. SG says she has to do some work, drags stool over to kitchen computer, turns it on, opens Twitter, sends out some status updates. Clean up lunch dishes. Check flight information, realize Husband doesn't get home until midnight, probably could have gotten away with cooking a smaller meal.

3:30pm: Pressed into singing Jim Croce songs by SG. Finish obsessive email checking, ask SG if she wants to go to the pool. SG says yes, but we have to wear our cowboy hats first. Pack for pool while wearing hats.

4:00pm: Arrive at gym, get changed for pool, climb pool stairs, informed halfway up that pool is closed because someone threw up in it. It will take an hour to clean, at which time kiddie swim will be over and we will not be allowed in pool even if we wanted to. SG takes news with grace and aplomb; spend next hour in empty yoga studio, stretching and playing with the giant yoga balls.

5:30pm: Arrive home, told to put cowboy hats back on. Put dinner in oven, tell SG she can watch cartoons while I work. Cartoons refuse to play on any computer except the one I was planning to work on. Promise eventually fulfilled to SG; nothing else accomplished during cartoon time except checking email on iPod. Call Husband during layover in TX. Inexplicably, SG starts sobbing hysterically and saying that I can't call Husband. Husband does not answer phone. SG is inconsolable, does not want to talk to Daddy, does not want me to talk to Daddy. Phone rings: it's Daddy. SG leaps to answer phone, has lovely chat with Daddy. Take SG's temperature after phone call. She normally reads quite low, but now is 99.4 degrees: SG is definitely coming down with something. SG begs for me to read a book, ends up ignoring me and playing with Han Solo and Boba Fett action figures instead (see photo).

7:00pm: Dinner. Books.

8:00pm: Getting ready for bed. Books. Ritual bedtime kisses and farewells.

9:00pm: Album of lullabies ends, SG asks for more music. Return to her bedroom, re-tuck her in, remind her we only play the album once at bedtime. Ritual bedtime kisses and farewells.

9:15pm: Back to computer. Until husband gets home (scheduled arrival at Logan airport, 11:43pm), there will be writing, paperwork, Twitter, further emails to best writer-friend, and general kitchen clean-up. Make mental note to buy more Diet Coke.

9:25pm: SG sobs hysterically for me to fix her covers. Return to bedroom, tell her of course I'll fix them, she doesn't need to cry. SG: "I'm not crying. I'm just screaming a little bit." Tuck SG back in, ritual bedtime kisses and farewells. Back to computer. Lather, rinse, repeat...

A Day in the Life

I wrote this for my husband so he could see what Serious Girl and I were up to while he was away on business, but then parts of it struck me as funny, so I thought I'd share it here as well. Please note that this is not a completely typical day, because (1) we had our nanny ALL DAY which is extremely rare, (2) I had a writing class this evening, (3) we are in the middle of a personal bookkeeping overhaul, hence my focus on paperwork instead of job-hunting or writing. Note also that (2) and (3) explain (1).

7:00am: Wake up.

7:15am: Wake up again. Read emails in bed, on iPod.

7:30am: Feel bad about pile of unfolded laundry on bench under window. Start folding/pairing up Serious Girl’s socks.

8:00am: Serious Girl wakes up. Hugs, potty, milk, dramatic readings of Emma’s Turtle and Elephant & Piggie books, breakfast.

8:30am: Nanny is late. Get Serious Girl dressed, packed for playgroup. More books, multitasking computer work with Serious Girl sitting on lap or playing nearby with blocks.

9:00am: Nanny and Serious Girl leave for playgroup. Consider showering. Decide not to shower until after sweaty errands are done. Compose several emails on PC for ease of typing, save them, then send from iPad instead because PC cannot be trusted not to crash. Check plants: all are still moist from being watered by Nanny yesterday.

9:30am: Start going through papers looking for certain financial documents, doing basic reorganizing. Realize need to run sweaty errands now, because we need more printer paper.

10:00am: Take shirts to cleaner, including Husband's white shirt with weird black spots on back. Cleaner apologizes, says they are steamed-in specks of lint because her person failed to clean the shirt-pressing machine again. Go to Staples for printer paper, shredder. Checking out takes forever. Get rebate forms, refuse warranty on shredder. Realize that the reason I can refuse the warranty is because my other credit card offers warranty protection. Return items, repurchase on different credit card. Lug items home.

11:00am: Back home. Check email. Fight with new shredder, which does not want to power up. Eat breakfast: grapefruit from [not-so-local fruit market]. Realize belatedly that we have no grapefruit spoons. Fruit is delicious, but manage to get juice on otherwise clean shirt, in eye. Shower. Change shirt. Realize new shirt is basically see-through. Layer tank over it rather than change shirts again.

11:30am: Serious Girl gets home from playgroup. Hugs and kisses. Nanny shows me cell phone photos of Serious Girl playing in what appears to be a kid-sized silver convertible, possibly a BMW. Serious Girl likes cars. Commence paperwork; like the document review I did as a lawyer, but without promise of high paycheck.

12:00pm: Attempt to file Staples rebate online. PC crashes. Try again. Feel smug for remembering to claim rebate funds right away, but also feel like I’m turning into my mother.

12:30pm: Remember how much I hate document review; you never find what you’re looking for, and you never know what to do with what you find. Loving the new shredder.

1:30pm: Have done enough financial paperwork that we are [amount redacted] richer. While going through the old papers, find Staples rebate form that expired in 2009. Earlier smugness vanishes; realize that my mother never feels this way. Take break before my head explodes: put in load of laundry (darks, because Husband is almost out of socks). Eat random leftovers from fridge and call it lunch.

2:00pm: Take down stinking garbage from kitchen, which starts leaking furiously in the elevator. Take second trip to basement with recycling and smaller garbage from bathrooms, clean elevator floor during the ride down. Return to endless pile of papers in home office. Try not to cry. Handle a few more matters, then start cleaning up. Since about 1pm, Serious Girl has been napping, Nanny has been cleaning the bathrooms for us (no housekeeper this week), ironing, finishing the laundry I started, and making a batch of her famous black beans for Serious Girl.

2:50pm: Crap! We’re going to be late for ballet!

3:15-4:00pm: Ballet class. Serious Girl is the only kid who pays attention. She is very literal during the games they play in class: she chooses to eat yellow corn, be a black-and-white penguin, and drive a black car, when all other girls choose pink or rainbow-colored everything. She also chooses a green scarf and blue ball to do her ballet exercises with. When asked where she wants to fly today, she says “to Daddy!”

4:40pm: Arrive home after class. Eat fruit and frozen yogurt together to celebrate last day of class and acceptance to preschool. Let Serious Girl and Nanny read Shark vs. Train while I reenroll Serious Girl in ballet, one level up, for the coming fall.

5:00pm: Nanny and Serious Girl head to playground. Finish cleaning up/organizing paperwork, finish putting away the folded laundry from this morning, pack bag for tonight’s writing class. Remove toddler ballet shoes, socks, hairbrush, sippy cup, and stuffed Backyardigan from my purse.

5:35pm: Leave house to meet fellow lawyer-writer so she can drive us to tonight’s writing class. Find Serious Girl in playground for kisses before I leave. She asks if I have to go to school, gives me a big hug, then goes back to playing the "wow, that's slippery!" game on a sandy slope.

6:30-10:00pm: Writing class, “Funny is the New Deep” with Steve Almond. Take copious notes so that I might be able to blog about the class days later when I finally have time.

10:30pm: Arrive home, thanks to lift from my lawyer-writer friend. Listen to friend's lawyer woes on the way home; unemployment suddenly feels awesome. Print out boarding passes for Nanny’s vacation (which starts tomorrow), register her international travel with the State Department, photocopy her passport & itinerary for security. Provide her with snacks for tomorrow’s stressful last-minute packing.

11:30pm: Buy Amtrak tickets for travel to NYC tomorrow. Write blog post. Decide not to bother looking for photo to go with the post, because I'm tired, and I still have to put away the ironed and folded clothes our Nanny handled while I was in writing class.

12:00am: Sleep.

What Form Rejection Means To Me

This one's for you, Rejectionist!

On April 15, 2009, I sent out my first query letter, to Nathan Bransford. I did NOT choose Nathan because he was my dream agent. I mean, he seems like an awesome guy and his blog is terribly helpful for new writers, but based on the research I did, and the list of books he represented, I actually didn't think he was a particularly good match for my novel.

So why did I choose him as my first query target? Because he usually responds to queries within 24 hours. In my case, I think I got my form rejection in about 3 hours. And that's exactly what I was looking for. So, why was I so anxious to get my first form rejection?

Because form rejection means you've put yourself out there. It means you're playing the game. Writing can be lonely work, and getting back form rejections means that you've decided to get out of your own head and share the work with the publishing industry, to perhaps one day share it with an actual reading audience.

Mur Lafferty on her podcast once asked her listeners to participate in a year of rejection: to try to gather as many rejections as they could within a year. Because lots of rejections means you're submitting LOTS of short stories to LOTS of magazines. It means that you're doing your research about which markets are right for your work. It means you're building a thicker skin. It also means you've opened yourself to the possibility of success; how many people write and edit forever, scared to put it out there, scared to find out their work isn't perfect?

The lottery commission says you can't win if you don't play. In publishing the odds may also be bad... but you can control the quality of your entry. You can increase your odds of winning by sending out multiple entries, and with so many agents and magazines accepting email queries, it probably won't cost you a thing.

I needed to know that I was no longer working in a vacuum. I needed to get a response from the publishing world to prove to myself that I really had sent my writing out, that I was being heard even if the answer was NO.

So when Nathan rejected me, I didn't think That's so unfair! or Wow, he just made a big mistake...

I thought, Let the games begin!

I thought, BRING IT.

HIATUS: no more scheduled blogging

It's come down to this.

I know, I know, I suck. First I blogged every day. Then I cut back to 3x/week. And now I'm going all "whenever the mood strikes me and I have time" on you. I'm sorry.

But as much as I love my internet friends, I have a couple things that have to take priority: my family, and my fiction. Right now, given my schedule, there IS NOT ENOUGH TIME for blogging as well. (Or maybe there is, but I'm not quite good enough at what I do to make it all happen. You know how it is.)

I realize that blogging less may mean I lose some of my readers, but... well, I'd like to eventually be paid for my writing. You see my concern.

Thanks for understanding.

COMING UP WHENEVER I FIND THE DARN TIME:

One more blog post about Unruly Fiction.

Also, this week I am taking yet another intensive course at Grub Street, "From Revision to Submission" taught by James Scott. I've even taken a photo to go along with my first post for this course! Here's the summary:

Intended for the writer who needs a final push to submit their work, this class provides one last objective look to make certain that the writer is in the best possible position for publication. The first half of the class will be a revision workshop, focusing on the art of sanding down, smoothing out, and touching up the writing. The second half will help students discuss and find markets for their work. The last class will partially be devoted to assembling submissions and celebrating finished pieces.

I know, this is awesome, and I want to share it with you, but I have to actually revise my own work first. Hang in there.

Finally, on Friday I hope to post about What Form Rejection Means To Me for Le R's contest.

I'll be around as much as I can. Hang in there with me.

Oulipean Games Revealed! The surreal vs. the constrained

Image from Oulipo in New York

Once again, I am so sorry for my internet absence this week, in particular my failure to blog on Wednesday. I have had computer issues. The kind of issues that result in routinely getting pop-up messages that say "The data has failed to save and is lost." No data appears to have ACTUALLY been lost, but my ability to send emails and post comments/blog posts has been seriously restricted. Emergency back-up computers are now in use.

So! Oulipean games. Oulipo is an originally French movement, founded in 1960, the name of which derives from the full title: Ouvroir de littérature potentielle; roughly translated, "workshop of potential literature." More specifically, the Oulipo is a loose gathering of writers seeking to create works using constrained writing techniques: "the seeking of new structures and patterns which may be used by writers in any way they enjoy."

So, what EXACTLY does that all mean? Ultimately, it is a kind of rebellion against surrealism. While the surrealists saw rules as a damaging constraint, and dreams and irreality as the key to human potential, the Oulipo (many of whom were also mathematicians) went the opposite direction, believing that it was under constraints that potential can be most clearly realized.

Classic techniques of the Oulipo included:

• LIPOGRAMS: writing with the absence of certain letters or sounds. Most famously, Georges Perec authored A Void (La Disparition), a 300-page novel that entirely excludes the letter E. (And then it was translated into a number of different languages, and all the TRANSLATORS managed to refrain from using the letter E... or, in the case of the Spanish translation, the letter A. I think that might even be more impressive, actually...)


• UNIVOCALISM: text written with a single vowel (also can be described as a lipogram in all other vowels). Christian Bök wrote a novel that includes Chapters A, E, I, O, & U, in which each chapter has a coherent narrative using only one vowel.


• TAUTOGRAMS: writing such that the first letter of each word (or at least every primary word in the text) starts with the same letter.


• SNOWBALLS: in which the first word of the text has only one letter, the second two, and so on. (Also, "melting snowballs" in which the pattern is reversed and the text decreases down to a single letter.) Here's the one I did as an exercise in class today, using word lengths from one to eleven:


I
am
she,
ever
aware,
highly
engaged,
absolute.
Endlessly
anarchical.
Captivating.


• N + 7: a technique in which every non-proper noun is replaced with the seventh noun following it in a dictionary. Obviously, this requires both an original text and a dictionary to be chosen, and the depth and breadth of the dictionary will determine the results.


• WORD LADDERS: a game in which a word is transformed into another by changing one of its letters at a time. Although the word ladders themselves may not have yet resulted in any works, the Oulipo speculated on the method as having inspirational potential, perhaps for the creation of a narrative using all the concepts in a given word ladder.

I did this in high school, actually. We would challenge each other with word combinations, and you had to get from on to the other in as few moves as possible. In rare instances, the addition or subtraction of a single letter was allowed. The trick was always moving the vowels to the right place... anyone care to write a short story based on one of my winning high school word ladders, moving from the word JUST to the word WHAT in the fewest possible steps?

JUST

LUST

LOST

COST

COAT

CHAT

WHAT

Although these are clearly extreme and occasionally ridiculous exercises, there are examples of actual narrative fiction for each of these. They say that necessity is the mother of invention: that you are more likely to use your creativity to design that which you desire in the absence of plenty. Shows like Top Chef thrive on constraints, challenging contestants to create magical dishes with limited menu items, specific inspirational guidelines, and rules about how (or for how long) one may cook any given dish. Why not writing?

Indeed, as instructor Tim Horvath said, perhaps EVERY piece of writing is under some constraint (lack of time, need to meet a publishable word count, even the attempt to produce a narrative arc or a likeable character is a kind of constraint)...

As someone who has only been published three times, each of which was under very specific language restraints (two pieces were Twitter-length fiction, required to be 140 characters or fewer, one was a "drabble" which must be precisely 100 words long), I may well be an Oulipian.

DO YOU THRIVE TO PLAY WITHIN THE RULES, OR DO YOU CHAFE AGAINST THE RESTRAINTS? What do you make of the Oulipean Games?

Christian Bök reads from "Chapter I" of Eunoia,

a univocalist novel in vowel-specific chapters

Click HERE if you're not seeing the embedded video.

Ceci N'est Pas Une Syllabus

Click to enlarge.

With this kind of classroom guidance, how can we fail to improve our writing?

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Grub Street classes, and Tim Horvath in particular? I'm having massive computer issues right now, but so far we've investigated

• stories in other forms (such as lists, menus, indexes, and how-to articles);
• the Q&A story (which may sometimes be missing the Q or A part); and
  
• stream of consciousness

I'll post more when I can.

School's In For Summer

The original Grub Street

Today's the first day of the first writing class (out of many) that I'm taking at Boston's Grub Street this summer. All this week I'll be taking Unruly Fictions with Tim Horvath:

In this intensive version of the popular weekend seminar, we'll look in particular at works that have been dubbed "experimental," flagrantly challenging the conventions of narrative order and logic, cause and effect, plot and characterization, time and space. In several cases, they don't even look like stories. By trying out the exercises in this class, you will stretch yourself and explore some unconventional narrative modes. But this class is by no means geared exclusively toward those who already find themselves drawn to the literary avant-garde. The guiding assumption is that all writers can benefit from the ways in which such work galvanizes our minds and our pens, uncovering latent potential in whatever work we are already doing. By trying out everything from stream of consciousness to Oulipean games, montage to typology, you'll get fresh vantage points on your characters and storylines already in progress, whether in your mind or on the page.

Yeah, I have no idea what half those words mean, either. But as the week progresses, I'll try to tell you what I can.

WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON RIGHT NOW?

ETA: If you're here because you saw my article in the most recent print edition of the Grub Street Rag, welcome! That article was summarized from this post on The Muse and The Marketplace... I hope you'll read the original version, and stick around!

Things I Realized in France (part 2): FOCUS

Enjoying a beer at 8:15am in Arles

These observations obviously may not apply to everyone in France (and maybe even the people we stayed with act differently in the absence of visitors), but:

People multi-task less in France, which means that their focus is less diluted. Meals are not eaten while writing emails at a desk. Businesses close for lunch, and the only multi-tasking that happens over meals is conversation. The internet is not constantly open in people's homes. Checking email twice in one day on a Blackberry made us appear to be obsessed with work when indeed we considered ourselves to be rather fully checked-out from the workplace. Email is still like regular mail: a letter is a letter, and replies need not be instantaneous. Laptops stayed closed for days rather than being constantly left open (although perhaps hibernated) with two email programs, Twitter, and three blogs open (the state of my current machine-in-use).

I think this may be a better way to live. I'm going to try to be constantly-online less, but respond personally more. And I'm going to take actual lunch breaks instead of snarfling food in front of a computer monitor. (We've already tried to cut down on the dinner-in-front-of-the-tv habit. We don't always win, but at least we try, or we pick a worthy movie instead of doing it thoughtlessly.)

Oops. The kid's awake from from her nap. Gotta go give her my full attention.

;-)

WHAT DO YOU WISH YOU FOCUSED ON MORE?

Things I Realized in France (part 1)

I don't describe places in my fiction.

I mean, I do, to the extent that a character is observing something s/he finds relevant, but I haven't ever written one of those panoramic scenes where the locale is described ever-so-vividly to the reader.

My first novel is set in New York City, where I grew up. As a result, I never worked to describe the city in which my characters work and live and play. For me, Manhattan simply is. It's a city, like any other. Sometimes the bustle of the streets or the interior design of an office building lobby or the particular content of a neon sign stands out for my main character, and when it does, the reader sees what she sees, notices what she notices. But do I spend any time actively describing New York City in the novel? No. I didn't think it was relevant.

And then I spent a day in Paris.

How on earth would I even BEGIN to describe Paris? The profusion of architectural detail alone is staggering. Sure, I could describe any one individual landmark if it was integral to the plot, but what if it's incidental to the story? How would I handle the fact that you can pass Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and about three dozen other incredible bridges, sculptures, and buildings of great antiquity and beauty within a single 2-hour walk? I can't describe it all without bogging down the story, but neither can I gloss over it entirely, writing as if it's not there at all...

This will require some serious pondering. And I may have to write a story set in Paris just to figure it out. ACK!

WHAT IS ONE THING YOU THINK YOU DON'T DO (or don't do with natural ease) IN YOUR WRITING?

(And, sorry for the delay in posting what should have been a Wednesday post. Computer issues up the wazoo over here.)

I'm Baaaaack!

THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW:

The winner of Audrey Beth Stein's guest blogger contest is Stephanie Colombo! Stephanie, I will be trying to contact you starting later tonight, but please email me sooner if you see this. Congrats!

Felix Gilman's guest blogger contest is still open until July 9th.

How French women stay so thin: there are a million stairs in France. And we didn't even try to climb the Eiffel Tower. In particular, for those of us with 3-year-olds, all the restaurant "potties" tend to be up or down an incredibly narrow spiral staircase. I have no idea what people with leg injuries do in that country, seriously.

And also, they all smoke. Yet none of them smell like cigarettes the way American smokers seem to. Freaky.

Finally, when you eat food that good, you don't need to eat as much of it. HOMEMADE FOIE GRAS. Amazing. And why can we not get bread like that in the United States? I'm not getting over this anytime soon.

Okay, I'm going crazy trying to catch up on laundry and grocery shopping, plus my daughter has her first ballet class today, so I'll write more tomorrow. I know you all missed me terribly...

Motivational Poster Interlude #2

Created by Triceratophat aka Merit Badger, inspired by The Rejectionist.

Published Author: Ask Him Anything! (guest blog #4, with CONTEST!)

"Vivid and accurate prose, a gripping, imaginative story, a terrifically inventive setting, a hard-bitten, indestructible hero, and an intelligent, fully adult heroine -- We haven't had a science-fiction novel like this for a long time."
-- Ursula K. Le Guin

Last Monday, you heard from my best childhood friend, Sarah, on the perils of loving a writer. Today, you get to ASK THAT WRITER ANYTHING! Felix Gilman will tell you his background himself, but you should know that he's British, so that you can imagine this post read aloud to you with the driest of Jeremy-Irons-esque accents.

Hello, all. I’m Felix Gilman, and this is a guest post while Carrie’s in wherever. [France! Back next week. -ed.] My own blog is at felixgilman.com/wordpress and gets updated essentially never. [Which is why he's written more books than I have. -ed.] I’m the author of two novels published by Bantam: Thunderer and Gears of the City. My third book, The Half-Made World, will be published by Tor in October. About a week ago I finished a fourth book, and my agent sold it to Tor. That one doesn’t have a title yet. These are what you might call fantasies, or secondary-world fantasies, if you prefer. Thunderer was billed on the hardcover version as a “High Fantasy,” which with hindsight was probably a mistake: it makes people think of Dwarves and Elves, which I don’t care for. [These novels are in fact in urban settings! The New Yorker in me loves this immensely. -ed.] Later it got described as New Weird. I don’t exactly know what that means. [Felix also has a short story in a collection called The New Weird, edited by Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, and I read it, and I don't know what it means, either. -ed.]

The Half-Made World gets described as steampunk. I don’t know exactly what that means, either. But everything has to be called something. People ask, and I say, I don’t know, just books. But that doesn’t work, they keep asking. There has to be an answer. Whereof we cannot speak, we cannot market. Anyway, I suppose all this means I’m in early-mid-career as a writer.

"Career" -- probably the ugliest word in the English language.

So far I’ve got by on blind luck and also not caring all that much if it doesn’t work out. Also, everything I’ve published so far was written or begun or at least substantially committed to before my first book was published. Now, for the first time, I’m planning out a new book with some sense of the shape of the market and my place in it and where I might want to be in five years’ time and where I might actually realistically expect to be... It’s a very different experience. There are things to balance that I’m not sure really can be balanced.

I suppose I don’t really have a point here. Does anyone have any questions about publishing or my views on writing after a couple of books? Boy, have I have got some vague and unsatisfying and potentially inaccurate half-answers for you.

Also there should be a contest. A copy of my first two books to (1) the best cute animal YouTube posted in comments; (2) the best song posted in comments, according to my own arbitrary tastes; (3) any person who proposes a workable and cost-effective solution to the Deepwater Horizon leak.

Please note that the video below is the most recent one sent to me by Felix, so the standard for cute/funny animal YouTube is HIGH, y'all.

I'm keeping this contest open until the end of next week, July 9th at midnight EST, to give the first contest some time to settle before the winner of this one is announced. TWO BOOKS! Enter now!

Who's In Charge Here? (guest blog #3)

The Scene Stealer

Today's blog post is brought to you by Lisa M. Palin, who I met at my last law firm job. We were good friends and working in offices directly adjacent to each other for MONTHS before we each realized the other one also wanted to write... while sharing a taxi home from a firm holiday event, we realized we had both done NaNoWriMo that previous November. She writes primarily romance, but usually a genre-blend version of romance rather than straight category (including overtones of mystery, literary fiction and supernatural YA/"New Adult"). She blogs about solo hiking and camping at Her Side Of The Mountain, and can be found on Twitter: @joanarc4. She hopes to be around today to chat with you in the comments. Enjoy!

Let's face it. Characters can -- and frequently do -- take on a life of their own. This can be fun. That's when writing is like a wild ride, and as the writer, you hang on for dear life and enjoy the thrill. Sometimes, however, you're confronted with characters who simply. won’t. cooperate.

What then?

There are several different kinds of unruly characters, including:

• The Scene Stealer: though she's not supposed to be the center of attention, she captivates everyone, including the other characters;
• The Mule (i.e. stubborn as a): he refuses to do what you want him to do and you have to drag him kicking and screaming though the plot;
• The Lazy A**: he'll do what you ask, but with the energy of pea soup; and
• The Control Freak: she thinks she's directing the action and knows better than you.

Today, we'll talk about the Scene Stealer. The Scene Stealer is perhaps the most difficult to deal with, because, let's face it, she's so gosh darn cool.

About a year ago, I got an idea for a novel. I put fingers to keyboard and began to write. At first, it was going really well. The heroine was interesting, the hero enigmatic. I had a great villain ready-and-waiting in the wings. The action was exciting, the world interesting, and I thought to myself: Lisa, you have an incredible thing going here. Finally!

Then, she walked in. And ruined everything.

It happened so quickly, I barely had time to catch my breath before the story came to a screeching halt. Her name was Lily, and she glowed. Without my having thought too hard in advance about her -- she was a supporting character, a means to an end, after all -- she swept in and stole the scene. When it was time for her to go her own way, I found myself looking longingly after her, wanting to follow her and see what she would do next, rather than staying in the scene with my main characters.

As a test, I gave the first couple of chapters of the story to a frequent beta-reader of mine. He read the chapters, and said, “this is great. But that Lily, she’s something. What happens to her?”

Darn it.

Suddenly, my story was at an impasse. I couldn’t move forward because Lily was there, on the sidelines, being sexy and interesting and smug about her awesomeness.

So what do you do with the Scene Stealer? How do you keep him or her from derailing your really quite great story?

• Make her less awesome. You could go back, force her into submission by making her less dynamic and interesting. I don’t like this, because it smacks of Harrison Bergeron. Why snuff out a shining light in order to even out the playing field? Feels like a waste.
• Distract her. When I was a kid and raising hell, my dad would distract me by giving me something different and new to focus on. It can work on unruly characters as well. Take your Scene Stealer and put her in a different -- maybe uncomfortable, if you’re feeling spiteful -- situation. Write a few pages, let her get tangled up in some new mess with other characters. She’ll like the attention, and then perhaps be distracted long enough for you to make headway on your story while she’s otherwise occupied.
• Give in. Temporarily, anyhow. You want to follow the Scene Stealer for a while? Do it. See what happens. At worst, you might end up with unusable but insightful character study. Maybe you’ll hit on a seed for a new story (to work on LATER, once you finish what you started). And who knows? Maybe you’ll end up with some usable nuggets that will make your story better. (Just make sure you don’t get too carried away and get back to the original story before too long.)
• Make your other characters better. What makes the Scene Stealer so interesting and dynamic? That something is clearly missing from your other characters, or else she wouldn’t be so easily able to steal the spotlight. Instead of handicapping the Scene Stealer, look hard at how you might solve the problem by bringing your existing characters up to the level of the Scene Stealer. Give her some competition.
• Smack her into submission. You can do it. You’re the writer. She may think she’s in control, but it’s an illusion. Ignore her long enough and she’ll settle down. If she doesn’t, then you’re probably looking for a distraction, and that’s an entirely different subject.

I brought Lily into submission, and saved my progress on the story, by giving in for a while (I gave Lily her own story, which I sketched out and set aside) and by making my hero and heroine more interesting. Turns out, they were just waiting for the opportunity to shine.

Have you ever encountered a Scene Stealer? What did you do to deal with this unruly character?