Writing Advice: By Writers, For Writers

A recent post on The League of Extraordinary Writers blog inspired my own post, as I began thinking over all the writing advice I've read over the past few years. This is particularly helpful to me right now as I haven't written anything other than an email or a letter to various relatives the past 3 weeks. If I'm not writing, I'm still reading, and as cleanliness is next to Godliness or something of the sort, so reading about writing should be next to actually doing it.

What a treasure trove of advice I've rediscovered!  The first advice that comes to mind is Elmore Leonard's essay for the NYTimes series "Writers on Writing". A complete archive of that column can be found here. I believe writing advice is as personal as shopping advice: if it doesn't fit your style, you're not going to pay attention to it. I want my writing to be the spare, pointed, hooptedoodle-lacking writing Elmore Leonard is encouraging, and so I take his advice. (Blogging is different, this is more like chatting to strangers.) But his advice might not fit you, which is why you should read through that archive; I know I'm planning to.

I also take the advice of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott, because even if I don't remember everything she says, that core concept is comforting - we all have to begin somewhere, and might as well take it bird (word) by bird (word). Though I read this before grad school, I believe it was suggested or required reading for a course or two, and so I enjoyed it again, along with Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft and Aspects of the Novel by E.M. Forster, books I'm not sure I would have picked up had it not been for classes Writing I & I.

Some of my favorite books on writing are actually for children, most notably Avi's A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End: The Right Way to Write Writing, illustrated by Tricia Tusa.  This book is a sequel to The End of the Beginning: Being the Adventures of a Small Snail (and an Even Smaller Ant), which, while not about writing, does make some clever commentary about the nature of books and fables. As extra prizes for the Odyssey Book Shop's annual children's writing contest last year, I had the pleasure of handing out both A Beginning, a Muddle, and an End and another book on writing for children, one about the more technical aspects, entitled Spilling Ink: A Young Writer's Handbook by Ellen Potter, Anne Mazer, and illustrated by Matt Phelan. Both present encouragement and advice for aspiring young writers.

Just at the time I began writing this post, I discovered two more books about writing I need to look through. One, How Fiction Works by James Wood, has been compared to E.M. Forster's work mentioned above, but the second is the one I'm most interested in. Off the Page: Writers Talk about Beginnings, Endings, and Everything in Between is a compilation of authors' input marketed as a "literary tell-all". Edited by Carole Burns, with an introduction by Marie Arana, authors are quoted under section titles such as "Haven't I Seen You Somewhere Before?: How Characters Come to Life", "All That Jazz: Playing with Language and Style to Suit the Story", and "Good Writers Borrow, Great Writers Steal: The Writers Whom Writers Love and Why". The list of authors includes Tobias Wolff, Colm Toibin, Art Spiegelman, Marisha Pessl, Tim Parks, Joyce Carol Oates, Walter Mosley, Alice McDermott, Andrea Levy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Edward P. Jones, E. L. Doctorow, Michael Cunningham, A. S. Byatt, Russell Banks, and Paul Auster to name a few.

What books about writing inspire you?

Nom de Plume...

...a.k.a. pen name a.k.a. pseudonym a.k.a. literary double a.k.a. alias.

Do not be concerned, I am not talking about this Halloween costume supply shop.

I'm talking about the custom of a person who was born with one name adopting another (or several other) names under which to publish their books.

This was, and still is, a common practice among writers for various reasons. At one time (think at least two hundred years ago), female authors often used male pen names, fearing no one would read their books if they knew the author was a woman. In more contemporary times, authors who are established in one genre and want to break into another genre, may use a pen name so readers don't make a judgment based on what they've previously written. 

AbeBooks has written a great post on their website, showcasing the books of many talented writers that wrote under a name different from their original. Of course they mention the classics like Mark Twain (actually Samuel Langhorne Clemens), and for me, Nora Roberts, who is also well-known for writing as J.D. Robb.

I remember how shocking it was for me to find out Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb were the same person. (Okay, shocking may have been an overstatement, but I was surprised.) Do you remember any "big reveals" in your life?


Some of the authors who immediately come to mind (who use pen names) are children's book authors like R.L. LaFevers (real first name - Robin) and E. Lockhart (the E stands for Emily, but her real last name is Jenkins). I don't know why R.L. LaFevers writes under that name, but E. Lockhart writes on her website:  

"What does E stand for? What’s your real name? And why do you go by E?
E. stands for Emily, and I use it on my teen books because I write other kinds of books using my whole, legal name. My dad calls me E., and I always liked it."

As we new writers look into getting published, I think it's a legitimate question to ask ourselves - do we want to write under our own legal names or not? If you decide you do, but can't decide on a name, this handy dandy Pen Name Generator website will create one for you.

Mine is apparently Cindy Capleton. What's yours?

John Scalzi Post All Writers Should Read

John Scalzi has a brilliant (I know I'm overusing that word) post entitled "Why In Fact Publishing Will Not Go Away Anytime Soon: A Deeply Slanted Play in Three Acts".

Particularly appropriate for authors or authors-to-be in the current publishing/book industry market today.

Also, hysterical.
Please read.

Sigg Water Bottles

Today, my coworker Emily C. was rounding up Sigg water bottles and their caps for a return she was putting together. Don't worry, Sigg is a great product, they were switching out some styles for us, and if you don't yet have a Sigg bottle, you should run out to your nearest independent provider and get one. Anyway, there were a bunch of Sigg screw tops around and I was idly picking them up and slipping them on my fingers when it occurred to me - these would make a great impromptu engagement ring! Imagine that earthy crunchy backpacker in your life getting down on one knee, or being proposed to, on one of their various hiking trips with significant other this or that - perfect, no?!

Well, Emily and I thought so, so when I got home this evening, I promptly sat down and wrote this out and now am sharing it with y'all. It's about 80% true; the part that's not, being the proposal. Oh, and my name's not Jules, and I didn't hike Petra with anyone named Thad. In fact, I don't even know anyone named Thad. But the rest of it really did happen to me, so if any of you were ever curious as to what my backpacking experiences were like, here's a small snippet. With, of course, an embellished proposal. Sigg should pay me money for this.

We’ve been hiking Petra all day. The sun burnishes the sandstone to hues of red and gold; Thad and I will find the dust in our packs for weeks to come. Thad’s Keene boots and my Merrill trek sandals tramp the canyon crevices and stone steps carved into the cliffs, following ancient trails left by water, widened by people and the passage of time.

Our first glimpse of Petra was a Florida-shaped opening between the walls of the Siq. The gorge was once the Eastern entrance into Petra, the major trade center in a date and time followed by the initials B.C.E. At times narrow and winding, there were large sections where it was easy to imagine the bustling life of farmer’s market style trade thousands of years ago. Small channels were recessed into the walls of the Siq; these clever troughs held oil that could be lit at dark to ensure the busy cosmopolitan atmosphere continued round the clock.

Today, there were few people to be seen in the ruins of the city. Thad and I had been hiking alone for hours, having long left the more traversed tourist paths to explore the secrets of Petra on our own. We poked in and out of cave dwellings, peered through twisted, veined rock, taking picture after digital picture to weed through on our laptops back at our hotel.

The Cleopetra Hotel was more of a hostel than a George V, but I thought the name was funny and the Continental breakfast was free. The night before, we had arrived late and tired from a long, hot trip out of Egypt, through the tip of Israel, and finally into Jordan. Our hosts, two brothers in their early thirties, served us delicious Bedouin tea before showing us to our room. One bed, barely larger than a twin, lined the far wall of the room like a window seat, as the window in the wall ran about the length of the bed. At the foot of the bed was the wall that separated bedroom from bathroom. A broken accordion door was pushed open, revealing a sink, next to a toilet, next to a nozzle coming out of the wall for the shower. The whole bathroom was tiled and was so narrow, you had to sit sideways or spread your legs to either side of the toilet in order to do your business.

Bedouin tea is delicious for two reasons: first, the combination of habuck, marmaraya, and other herbs is sweet and refreshing; second, sugar is boiled in the water with the tea leaves. Despite having traveled for about 8 hours that day, one cup of tea had revived Thad and I to the point that at 11:30 at night, we found ourselves in the hotel common room, where the brothers tried to teach us dance moves to the Jordanian pop music playing loudly on the hotel TV.

Staying awake ‘til wee hours of the morning meant Thad and I got a late start to our Petra day hike. We paused for lunch around 2:30, breakfast having been eaten around 9, and found a cool cave up in the cliffs in which to take our respite. Cans of tuna in olive oil were opened, drained, and eaten from with grimy fingers. Israeli pickles, so good I still crave them years later, fresh pita bread, and an apple completed our meal, one of the most refreshing in my memory. We wiped our oily mouths and fingers with a bandana and sat near the edge of the cliff, just looking at the same views of uninterrupted rocks, cliffs, valleys, and ledges the people who used to live in this cave saw daily centuries before. To sit in that place made me feel simultaneously insignificant and timeless, like I was the smallest being in the universe, and yet, so completely connected.

I unclipped my Sigg from my daypack, chugged some water, than passed it to Thad. Moments later, I reached out to reclaim the water bottle and felt something slip onto the fourth finger of my right hand. Looking down, I saw the screw top of the Sigg, the hole where I clipped my carabineer to clip it to my daypack fitting perfectly onto my ring finger.

“Jules,” Thad said, my eyes locking onto his, “will you marry me?”

My grin stretched my chapped lips and I tasted blood as Thad and I kissed, water sloshing out of the Sigg still held in Thad’s hand.

“Yes,” I said, half laughing, half crying, staring at the Sigg top on my finger as if it were the most expensive jewel in the world, “yes, I will marry you.”

A while later we stood at the edge of the cliff, hand in hand, pausing for a last moment before beginning our hike back out of Petra. There are some moments in life that are too precious; it’s hard to believe they’re really happening. Holding onto Thad’s hand, staring out over Petra, it was as if we were looking into the physical manifestation of the eternal promise we would make to each other eight months later. Petra had survived; modernity could not affect it. We had experienced it ourselves, the timelessness, that mysterious quality of knowing the past and holding the hope of the future. Petra humbles the spirit, then builds it up again, so that I knew, as we began to descend the cliff face, that as Petra had withstood the test of time, so would we.

Writing Prompt One

For whatever reason, I'm finding it difficult to sit down and make the time to write. You'd think with no more class twice a week nor the homework required for them, I’d be writing reams every day. Sadly, this is not the case. While I want to blame it on the myriad of other interesting things I’ve found to do with that “free time”, I have to admit to a certain lack of inspiration. Some of the voices have become more subdued. As odd as it sounds, I have to chalk it up to my own summertime happiness; I seem to write better when I’m angsty and stressed (if I can find the time – go figure, huh?). I think it also has to do with the lack of a weekly writing group, like the one I have during my actual school year. This will not do, I’ve told myself, and as a result of last weekend’s grad school BBQ, I’ve made a firm resolution to write a little bit, if not every day, then certainly every week.

To get back in the spirit of things, I've decided to post my weekly responses to a writing prompt featured on this blog. The blog belongs to (or is written by) a former professor of mine, Jo Knowles, who has one published teen novel (Lessons From a Dead Girl) and is eagerly awaiting the publication of her second (Jumping Off Swings). When she was my professor, we would begin each class with an 8 minute writing prompt – she would give us the prompt, we would scribble away furiously for 8 minutes, and then go around the room reading these little unedited gems of whatever monthly, weekly, or daily neurosis had worked its way into our creative brains. We all agreed that those prompts were the best way to begin any creative writing class. In my own experience, the first inkling of what is now my teen novel-in-progress came out of one of these prompts, so I owe Jo quite a lot.

As much as I would like to commit to “every Monday morning at x-o’clock, I will sit down for this 10-minute writing exercise,” the reality of that happening is a little shoddy at best. Instead, I will firmly announce that sometime over the course of a week, I will answer the call of the prompt, and will not only write it, but will also post it for the world to see and possibly comment upon, if they so see fit. Comments are accepted, though not expected, and they don’t have to be nice either, feel free to tell me my writing is crap. I can take it.

Of course I’ve taken so long to write this post announcing my intention, that I have not left myself any time to actually answer this week’s prompt. I’ll have to get back to you on that. Stay tuned!

Word of the day: Awry

I like this word because it’s fun to say with a silly inflection, and also can be defined with one-word definitions that also both start with “a”.

Definition: 1) askew; 2) amiss