I'm reading Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and I can't even wait to finish it to praise it. Atwood's imagination and writing are enthralling. She makes me want to study with her to learn how she does it. This is a book about an imagined time, yet the story is so believable how a woman who once had a job, money, a husband, and a child now is no longer even allowed to read. Her ovaries are her only redeeming feature. She now must lie with the Commander and his wife once a month, hopefully to give them the baby she conceives. Atwood writes: But isn't this everyone's wet dream, two women at once? They used to say that. Exciting, they used to say. The Handmaid is the narrator. In a particularly beautiful passage she discusses time: There's time to spare. This is one of the things I wasn't prepared for the amount of unfilled time, the long parentheses of nothing. Time as white sound. If only I could embroider. Weave, knit, something to do with my hands. I want a … [Read more...]
Where should my novel go from here?
I've received comments back from four of my second-round beta readers, and I'm still awaiting to hear from two more. Of the four received, two raved about the book, one said I needed to do a lot more work to lift it from a first draft status to a publishable novel, and the fourth, whom I heard from this week, basically told me to start over, that it's a poorly written mess with parts that make no sense at all. Years ago I read Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way. In it she has a chapter about the creative U-turn. Ever since reading about U-turns I've been avoiding them ( as I wrote here). I haven't allowed negative reviews or feedback to make me come to a full stop and do an about face. However, this time it feels different. I've worked so long and hard on this novel and written about how I've avoided the creative U-turn so many times before, that the thought of starting over or doing almost a total rewrite just seems too hard. You probably wonder what this latest reviewer said … [Read more...]
The Yiddish language is making a come back
An October 2013 article in the Huffington Post discusses the revival of training in Yiddish that is helping to keep the language alive for the next generation. This is of great interest to me since I chose to use Yiddish words in my novel, Papa's Shoes. My resources were online Yiddish to English dictionaries and a wonderful old book called The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten. My mother gave my husband a copy back in 1970 when we got married. I think she was trying to entice him to convert. One of my novel's beta readers, who is also not Jewish, did a study of the words I used in the book, dividing them into three categories: Words he uses in his own vocabulary, for example: Goy a person who is not Jewish Kibitz to offer unsolicited advice as a spectator Mazel tov good luck Mensch a special man or person, someone respected Nebbish a nobody, simpleton, weakling Schmooze talk, conversation, chat Shtup push, vulgarism for sexual intercourse Tokhter … [Read more...]
John Updike writes love
I've been reading John Updike's Rabbit quartet since December 2014, and I'm finally about finished with the fourth: Rabbit at Rest. I'm dragging the last fifty pages out because I know Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, the main character, is going to die before I turn the last page. However, I'm happy to say I have one more Rabbit book to go Rabbit Remembered a 2001 novella still there on my book shelf. I've learned a lot from reading Updike. He's a master of description and very long and detailed descriptions at that. His characters are perfectly drawn. I've gotten so I can almost predict how each of them will react to certain situations. He also knows how to write about love and sex. While he can be very graphic at times, I found the following passage quite lovely and tame. I've always felt we can write erotically without having to go into all the gory details. From Rabbit at Rest by John Updike: ¦Her eyes widen in the dim face inches from his on the pillow. Tiny … [Read more...]
Happy 90th birthday, The Great Gatsby
The Los Angeles Times posted an op-ed piece by Meg Waite Clayton* today commemorating the 90th anniversary of The Great Gatsby. The history of the book and its interest to readers when it was first published is fascinating. It wasn't well-received or reviewed. I reread The Great Gatsby a couple of years ago as an assignment for the novel revision workshop I attended. That it's still taught in schools and still beloved in the film industry three actors have played Gatsby (Alan Ladd, Robert Redford, and Leonardo DiCaprio) is definitely contrary to its early reception. I loved rereading it. I loved the last film. I can never get enough of the old sport. So, I've decided to publish Ms. Clayton's op-ed piece verbatim (fully acknowledging the Los Angeles Times and Meg Waite Clayton). I hope you find it as interesting as I did. Goes to show even famous authors have their ups and downs and perhaps their so-called duds. Gatsby, literature's party animal, turns 90 By Meg Waite … [Read more...]
Writing about places we can’t personally visit
Please welcome Karen Mann. I'm so happy to have her with us today because I very much resonate with her topic. When I was writing my novel I couldn't travel to Poland or have first-hand knowledge of the time-period in which my novel takes place - the early 1900s. Karen's novel, The Woman of La Mancha, takes place in the sixteenth century Spain. Here's what she did instead of personally visiting Spain and having a direct experience of the time period she writes about. When You Can't Do Seat Research, Then What? By Karen Mann Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Ahab's Wife, talks about doing seat research for her historical novels. Sit where your characters sat, live where your characters lived, and you can write about how it smells, looks, sounds, tastes, and feels. But what if you can't do that? When writing my novel The Woman of La Mancha, I was unable to go to Spain or even more specifically, I was unable to go to sixteenth-century Spain, yet my readers tell me I have made that … [Read more...]
Introducing Shirley Loeb and her debut novel
I'm so happy to welcome Shirley Loeb today as she tells us how she created her debut coming-of-age novel, The Y Sapphires. First a brief synopsis of The Y Sapphires: It is a coming-of-age story that will satisfy adolescents and adults. The 12-year-old protagonist, too tall and too fat, is lost in the new world of high school. She's funny, lovable, and reads people accurately. She joins the Y Sapphires, a club of the "not-so-popular" and begins a friendship with a sophisticated but troubled classmate. Can she remain true to herself and still fit in the club she loves? Here's Shirley: "The process was lengthy. I started writing this book about 25 years ago. I always loved the protagonist but somehow could not sit down long enough to complete it. It was left languishing for years at a time. Funny as it might sound, I felt I had abandoned Sylvie, the 12-year-old protagonist, and that I owed her the debt of completing her story. I was in a writing class where the members … [Read more...]
Character description
As I go through my novel chapters during this revision I'm continually checking back to the character descriptions I wrote up prior and during my writing process. One of the main considerations is keeping the characters' descriptions and actions and attitudes consistent throughout or revealing how they have changed as time goes by. One of my four main characters is described below (though a bit haphazardly). I've been told she is the most interesting. Please let me know what you think. Ruth Schuman, wife of Ira, mother of Charles and Ava Physical appearance: heavy-set, huge breasts, smooth white pale skin, short about 5 feet, Always wears an old tight-fitting black dress usually with a dirty apron over it until she transforms. Wears a wig at first, then her hair pinned in a bun until she gets it cut in a modern 1920s style Dark brown eyes At first all for going to America until the death of her three sons changes her so that she doesn't want to leave Sokolow and the … [Read more...]
Revisiting John Updike
It's a given that reading is just as important as writing or maybe even more so. I'm always reading something. In the last month I read the first two novels that John Updike wrote about Rabbit Angstrom (Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux). My intent is to read some well-known and well-regarded books written by people of my generation. Philip Roth is on my list as well. I have no doubt I can learn a thing or two about novel-writing from these books. I won't get into a discussion of plot and characters here. I am more interested in Updike's writing style. The books are long. I bought old paperback editions and the typeface is so tiny I could barely get through five to ten pages at a sitting. Recently new novelists have been told to vary the length of their chapters and sentences and paragraphs and use a lot a dialogue instead of long narratives. Updike consistently breaks those rules. The two books I read had long, long chapters, paragraphs and sentences and little dialogue. … [Read more...]
Does NaNoWriMo make sense for me or not?
I'd love to get involved with the NaNoWriMo challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days, but I'm not sure it's right for me. I'm almost finished with the first run through of my revisions based on my beta readers' comments on my existing novel and plan to be complete in time to start the challenge on November 1. However, I don't know if making major revisions and rewrites rather than writing a new novel qualifies. I know the warning not to edit as we write makes a huge amount of sense and definitely slows down our writing. Take my advice for those of you in the challenge. Just keep you fingers moving. Don't stop to think. Just write. However, my situation is totally different. I've already written my first draft and even spent hours and hours revising and editing it. Now it's ready for another major revision. As I've marked up my hard copy with my yellow marker and red pen, I've identified places to cut, to add, to rearrange, to carry through a whole slew of … [Read more...]
Am I going to take a creative U-turn?
Today is the day I asked my novel beta readers to send me their comments. So far I've received two sets. And of course I'll very patiently await the rest. I feel my readers are doing me such a huge favor that whenever I get their comments will be okay. My dilemma now is with the two conflicting sets of comments I already have. One set says my novel is amazing, well written, and gives my writing lots of other kudos. The other set suggests major rewrite, reorganization, and more work shopping before I send it out again. This second set of comments reminds me of Julia Cameron's section on Creative U-turns in her book, The Artist's Way. It makes me want to stop working on this novel altogether because the task is too deep and too tall. I fear that I don't know how to pull it off. Cameron says: We usually commit creative hara-kiri either on the eve of or in the wake of a first creative victory¦.Creative U-turns are always both from fear fear of success or fear of failure. It … [Read more...]
How to write a novel
I was smitten with the following photo that pranced around Facebook yesterday courtesy of Melissa Foster. It makes the writing of a novel seem so simple and the deterrents to writing a novel so easy to solve. I've been working on my novel for about four years off and on. I revised and got my memoir, Leaving the Hall Light On, published in the meantime, and I spend a lot of time every day marketing it. However, I don't let any of that take away from my writing time and my commitment to my novel. What I want to do is to briefly comment on the photo I've shared here and let you know where I am in my novel's process. Think up a story I was fortunate to have a story fall into my lap from my aunt's lifestory writing, and when I presented the idea at my first novel-writing workshop, it was very readily accepted. I've, of course, fictionalized her true story, making up characters, dialogue, events, and locales. However, I've tried very hard to be historically accurate about … [Read more...]
Gathering inspiration for your novel
I like Cate Russell-Cole's great advice about gathering inspiration for historical fiction. I've been googling all morning to get inspiring images for my historical novel. Her way is much better. Thanks again Cate. The Power of Day Dreaming in Fiction #Writing by Cate Russell-Cole Set Building I am a fantasy writer, who has hassles with description. Day dreaming and visualising is the only way I can cut through all the one sided fuzz that runs through my head. Otherwise my writing just sounds like a monologue! For me it's a challenge as I am very analytical. I am more interested in the ˜why' and ˜how' of the story, than telling it. I have a few tricks for getting over this: Pinterest, story boarding and set building. The last two set my ideas in concrete; Pinterest shows me things I can mull over, and all these techniques expand and improve my work. I find I rarely click on the links in Pinterest, it is the images or quotes which give me the ideas, so … [Read more...]
Dr. Heather Friedman Rivera’s creative writing journey, Part Two
Thank you for returning to read the rest of Dr. Heather Friedman Rivera's story. I'm so pleased she offered to write a guest post here on Choices. In Part Two she relates how she wrote Quiet Water, the first novel in her Golden Raven Series trilogy. Part One was posted on January 22. Part Two The Writing of Quiet Water and the Golden Raven Series The following week in Dr. Miles' class just as usual she started with a guided meditation. When I relaxed into meditation I saw an image of a woman sitting on a curb. This woman started talking to me. She said her name was Tess Whitaker and she just moved to the apartment she was sitting in front of. I was surprised by what I was being shown but I told myself to just allow the images and words to come. I wrote quickly what she related to me and then over the next six months she spoke to me daily telling me her story. Some days I could not type fast enough. Quiet Water was born. I finished the book and it was published in September … [Read more...]
Dr. Heather Friedman Rivera’s creative writing journey, Part One
I am thrilled to welcome Dr. Heather Friedman Rivera to Choices. I find her background, research and writing about past life regression fascinating. What do you think? Do you believe in reincarnation and past life regression? Do you believe past life regression therapy can heal? Whether or not you do, I'll bet you'll be drawn to this topic as much as I. Here is Part One of Dr. Rivera's journey in becoming a creative writer and how she wrote her first novel, Quiet Water. *** Part One How I Found My Creative Writing Voice After what felt like a lifetime of school and the all-consuming doctoral dissertation I had something akin to empty nest syndrome. Some have called this phenomenon Post Dissertation Stress Disorder. For years I had structure, purpose and a goal and then finally the day arrives and I receive the letters I dreamt about many times . . . PhD. In an instant my life completely changed. No more books to tackle, no more tests to cram for, and no more papers to write … [Read more...]
Bonnie Milani, author of Home World, discusses book critiques
I always love to host WOW Women On Writing blog tour authors. It's a great way to meet new authors and to be introduced to book genres that I don't normally turn to. Home World by Bonnie Milani is on of those books. Today Bonnie shares her thoughts about book critiques, which are particularly timely for me. I just lived through some hard-to-take critiques about my novel from members of my writing group. Please comment here for a chance to win a copy of Home World, a fast paced well-written story about the power and the price of love. A winner will be picked at random and announced on Monday, December 9. Here's Bonnie.... What Makes a Good Critique? Ah, critiques. They're the bitter part of the writer's bittersweet craft. Having just had an infected/impacted /fused-to-the-jaw bone wisdom tooth pulled, I'm most cogently reminded just how painful a critique can be. Actually, that's a pretty good analogy, come to think of it. Because as the pain in my jaw fades, I'm becoming … [Read more...]
Ace Antonio Hall is back. Hooray!
I am so happy that Ace Antonio Hall has agreed to come back to Choices. He wrote a wonderful piece about the gray haired women in his life in July and got a huge readership. Please take a look here. His writing is endearing and insightful and so, so loving. Today, he's going to discuss his novel, Confessions of Sylva Slasherand try to convince us to read it. Thank you, Ace, for being so generous with your answers. Madeline:Please tell me why I should read your zombie horror novel, Confessions ofSylva Slasher ? Ace:Reading my novel, Confessions of Sylva Slasher, is like drinking a large exhilarating can of fun, with an added lemon twist on the end! It's a coming-of-age story about a young girl who has to realize that she doesn't need any guy to validate her, the power comes from within. Once Sylva gets that, she faces her fears with courage and is able to overcome her undead challenges she calls deadheads. Listen, I grew up enamored with Alfred … [Read more...]
Thoughts about novel beginnings
Chuck Sambuchino is always a wealth of information about writing, about publishing, about platforms, about finding an agent. In a guest column on the Writer Unboxed website today, he quotes many agents' thoughts about: What Not To Do When Beginning Your Novel I'll just share a few quotes that resonated with me. Please go to Writer Unboxed to see the full list. I just signed up to get it regularly. You may want to as well. Prologues are usually a lazy way to give back-story chunks to the reader and can be handled with more finesse throughout the story. Damn the prologue, full speed ahead! - Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary The [adjective] [adjective] sun rose in the [adjective] [adjective] sky, shedding its [adjective] light across the [adjective] [adjective] [adjective] land. - Chip MacGregor, MacGregor Literary I know this may sound obvious, but too much ˜telling' vs. ˜showing' in the first chapter is a definite warning sign for me. The first chapter should … [Read more...]
Novel revision next steps
I've finished the big read of my novel, made brief notes in my notebook not on the book itself to remind myself what inconsistencies and repetitions I've found, and I've hung the whole book, page by page, on six by eight foot, quarter inch foam board panels on my hall wall. (I used Moore aluminum push pins. And by the way, each board has space for thirty 8-1/2 x 11-inch sheets, which allows me some room to grow). Now I'm ready for the next step: i.e., experimenting with first person narrative. I am going to see if I can rewrite a couple scenes in first person. If that works I'll take on the job of rewriting the whole book in first person. If not, I'll move on to Part Two of my novel revision process: rewriting and fleshing out the later chapters of the book to catch them up to the level of the first eleven chapters, which I've worked over several times already. Then I'll start the real revision, starting at the top. It looks like I have months of work ahead of me. … [Read more...]
