Dear Mike: Do you prefer interview writing or another style?

Reader Question: Do you prefer "interview" writing or another style?

Mike: I don’t enjoy doing simple Q&As, even though they're much harder than they look, but I adore profile writing. It allows me to combine my talent as an in-depth interviewer with my skills as a narrative storyteller. I especially love interviewing very well-known people, who have been interviewed a zillion times before, and getting them to say something totally original, if not "drop themselves" so revealingly it makes news.

Bill Minutaglio's Book on Molly Ivins Hits Bookstores!

Please make sure to go to your local bookstore and check out Bill Minutaglio's definitive biography about "one of the most provocative, courageous, and influential journalists in American history," "Molly Ivins: A Rebel Life."

It can also be ordered on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/Molly-Ivins-Rebel-Bill-Minutaglio/dp/1586487175
Click here

As a matter of full disclosure, let me say that Bill is one of my best friends and has been for decades, a truly kind and generous man. He's also, without question, one of country's best journalists, as well as an utterly dazzling writer. I only wish I could put words together the way Bill does. He makes every sentence sing!

Bill sent me this about the book:

Molly Ivins was, for a while, the most powerful woman in journalism—and she was one of the toughest, most tragic, women in America.
She had enormous power and influence: Presidents, senators and royalty called her. She appeared in over 300 newspapers, had huge national bestselling books, was on 60 Minutes, Letterman and Leno. She had millions of followers. She punched men out in Texas—and once knocked George W. Bush's most important political partner to his knees in a bar in Austin. She rode motorcycles—and could drink any man under the table. She eventually became a profoundly high-functioning alcoholic - in and out of rehab, causing a ruckus around major political figures (like Nancy Pelosi), and managing through it all to write for every major magazine and news outlet imaginable. Her work was compared to Mark Twain, Rabelais and Mencken.
She broke open the doors for Maureen Dowd, Arianna Huffington, Gail Collins and almost any other woman who wanted to have an opinion column in America. She suffered death threats and bomb scares. She raised millions of dollars for civil liberties and other causes across America. She personally supported hundreds of people over the life of her career—she gave away, in the end, millions of her own dollars, to strangers, friends, the homeless. She was unfathomably generous.
And, her entire life was defined by her relationship with her father -- who was the autocratic, racist, head of Tenneco, one of the most powerful energy corporations in the world. She grew up in unbridled affluence, she grew up as friends with George W Bush, she attended the finest private schools in America and studied in France -- and she rejected all of it to become of the most fiercely liberal voices in American history. She lived with one of the most radical activists in America, she was engaged to be married to a wealthy man who wanted to start a "master race”—and Hollywood producers continually talked to her about making a movie of her life.
There really was never a figure like Molly Ivins. And there will probably never be. She was like Amelia Earhart meets Annie Oakley.
Her story was one that needed to be told—it was so intensely narrative (which explains, I believe, why those producers, screenwriters and directors were wanting to make that movie based on her life). She fought sexism at every turn in her life. She lived large, fought hard and told the top editor of The New York Times to fuck off. And just when she seemed ready to beat back her raging, drunken nightmares, she was hit with cancer. She battled three wicked bouts of cancer.
And through it all, she laughed her ass off, spoke truth to power, gave away even more money -- and never stopped working. Her friends—Maya Angelou, Dan Rather, Willie Nelson, Ann Richards, Bill Clinton—marveled at her stamina. And when she died there were enormous memorial services around the country, including ones in New York City and Texas.
For a narrative story teller, Ivins's story was inevitable. There were so many breathtaking twists and turns in her life. I knew her a bit and knew some of her story. But not all of it. It simply became richer, more intense, as I researched it.
With one of her former researchers, we worked on the book for 18 months. We did research across America. We delved into her personal archives, her diaries (including scalding, intense ones where she talks about her fight with alcohol, her lovers, her fights with the most powerful people in American publishing and politics), her personal letters. She was the most profound self-chronicler imaginable, and we had access to hundreds of thousands of documents, papers, letters, touching on almost every aspect of her and her family's personal history.
I learned that, when you weigh Molly Ivins in historic context, her story is a grand, outsized American saga. She was often "the only woman in the room"—and she fought like holy hell to be heard, to be respected, to change things for the good of America. She was a trailblazer and a firebrand. Again, to say she lived large is really an understatement.

Lisa Witter: A New Approach to Writing

10 Pieces of Writing Advice

Andre Dubus III: Don’t outline your stories. DO NOT outline your stories. I know some writers do this, but I think the writing process asks us to surrender to the mysteries of the unknown. Nowhere in our culture is this taught. You have to trust your gut, trust your characters to take a story where it’s going to go; and, more often than not, it does that. That’s my two cents.

Elizabeth Evans: Read the best books and write as often as you possibly can. And be respectful of your work. Give it your best shot.

Carolina Garcia-Aguilera: Don’t give up. It’s not a hobby. You can’t be a weekend dabbler. You have to commit. If you can, take a few months off from your job. Writing is not a part-time occupation. And remember that publishing a book is not just writing--you have to promote the book, read the contracts. I didn’t know anything about publishing when I began. I still can’t believe I’ve published books. You know how writers say they don’t really feel like a writer until they see someone on an airplane reading their book. Well, that happened to me recently at the gym. The woman on the bicycle next to me was reading one of my books. I asked her if she liked it. She said yes. And I decided to tell her I was the author.

Olivia Goldsmith: Write every day. Find the hours that suit you. Sit there until something comes. Don’t judge what you write that day--you can do that tomorrow. And if nothing comes, you can edit what you did before. One more thing...your agent does NOT know more than you do, and neither does your editor. I listen to advice, but I don’t always follow it.

Barbara Gowdy: Read everything, especially the classics and poetry. Eavesdrop on real conversations. Don’t watch too much TV, nobody talks like TV people do. Don’t ever be too attached to anything you’ve written; you are the vehicle for the word, not it’s creator. Write what you’re obsessed by.

Beth Gutcheon: My advice to aspiring writers is, of course, read. But more important, and maybe less obvious (though I’ve already said it once) is, if you aren’t constitutionally suited to being alone for really long stretches, and can’t handle the fairly tricky part of the job description which reads paychecks and reality checks may only arrive every three years, it may not be for you. How does any writer know if she’s good or merely deranged? It’s not a small problem.

Kathryn Harrison: Revise.

Mo Hayder: The usual advice: write, write, write. And, when you’ve done that, write some more. Don’t give up. If you’re unclear about where to pitch your voice, whether you’re steering the right course between the obtuse and the condescending, then imagine yourself as the reader. You have to write for yourself--if you start indulging in writing for a market you’re lost.

Alice Hoffman: No one knows how to write a novel until it’s been written.

Craig Holden: Become a long distance runner. Read a thousand short stories and poems, and hundreds of novels. Write every day. Marry some money, but not too much.

Spotlight Interview: John Atwood

John Atwood, National Magazine Editor-in-Chief

John Atwood has been one of the top editors in the national magazine business for over two decades. Currently the editor-in-chief of Travel & Leisure Golf Magazine, Atwood has been the editor-in-chief of Sports Afield and, most notably, was one of the founding editors of Men’s Journal.

Here’s my exclusive newsletter interview with Mr. Atwood:

Mike: So what does an editor-in-chief of a major national magazine really do?

Atwood: You’d be amazed how little of it has to do with actual hands-on editing. In addition to my responsibilities on the editorial side, I have to work with the publishing side, the production side, the circulation side, the marketing side, the public relations, the executive level people at the magazine, our advertisers. Overseeing the editorial is only 50 percent of what I do. No more than that. This is something that usually shocks people when I tell them—unless, of course, they are, or have been, editor-in-chiefs.

Mike: Did you ever write?

Atwood: I have, but never for a living. I still write stuff from time to time, and I actually find it a lot of fun. I’ve been edited a lot too. I’ve learned a lot about writing, as well as editing, from good editing experiences.

Mike: How have writers responded to your editing over the years?

Atwood: I have found that good writers actually appreciate the editing process. Occasionally, you run into an egomaniac that has difficulties with it. But, ultimately, those aren’t writers you respect or are ones you can continue working with.

Mike: What relationship do you like to have with your writers?

Atwood: I want it to be close enough where I really know who they are as people, not just writers. When I decide to take on a new writer, the first question I’ll often say is, “So, tell me about your life.” I want to know the writer’s passions, life experiences of where he/she’s been and done, the subjects that turn him/her on. I want to know all those things way before I ever assign that person something. Once I fully understand what makes the writer tick and what he/she cares about, I know what topic or topics would be the perfect fit and what from the person’s experience would be valuable to the readers.

On the flipside, it’s not a bad idea for the writer to have a deeper understanding of the editor they’re working with too. Some editors are real line editors, wanting to go through every story sentence by sentence. Some editors are concept editors, focusing almost entirely on the ideas illustrated in the story. Editors, like all people, are very different and demand different things.

Mike: So, under ordinary circumstances, would you rather assign a story to the writer or take a pitch from the writer?

Atwood: It’s been my experience that the best ideas are the ones that come from writers, not editors. If you’re talking about narrative non-fiction, writers have the time, experience, and interest to fund the really cool stuff. They’re out there in the real world following it. We editors are indoor creatures, though that’s not to say that editors can’t come up with great ideas too.

Mike: What’s your advice on pitching to editors?

Atwood: Write about what you know. If you have a particular passion, no matter what it is, then that’s what you should be writing about. Because then you don’t have to get over the hurdle of not understanding the subject matter. When you’re starting out as a writer, make sure to pick topics that you not only know extremely well, but also look to say something new about it. Make sure you have a special, unique take that no one else can do but YOU.

Don’t just pluck something out of the blue because it’s interesting.

That’s why I’m a strong believer that young writers looking to build a long-lasting, in-demand career should take up niche writing. Having a specialty, especially an area that you might know better than most, if not everybody, has always been a good road—and with the way things are going, it might be better now more than ever, because magazines are getting narrower and narrower in focus.

Mike: What about query letters?

Atwood: I get tons of them, by both snail mail and email. And I must admit that I respond to very few. Being the editor-in-chief, I’m probably the worst person in the world to send a query letter to. My time limitations, as with most people in my position, are simply too great. Your chances are much better if you send it to another editor down on the masthead. Just make sure it’s the right editor for your pitch. That’s very important.

When I get a query letter, though, the first thing I’ll do is look at the name on it, and I only respond to those people whose reputations precede them, whose byline names I recognize. Or occasionally ones that come with a personal reference, someone I know and respect recommending them.

Mike: Okay, then, let’s assume the writer hits the right editor at the right time. At that point, what query letters work best?

Atwood: Ones that move quickly. Introduce yourself in the first graph, tell the editor who you are—but very briefly. Get right past the intro and go straight to your idea. If you want to embellish on your credentials, and why you’re the right person for the story, that’s fine—but do it at the end.

The idea is paramount. Is it something I’ve never heard of before? Or is it the same old same old? For any editor, that’s big when a writer hits you with something very different. That’ll capture an editor’s eye better than anything, trust me. But it still must come from a fairly known entity, with a good track record for delivering quality stuff. To accept even a great pitch from an unknown writer is rare at the high-level magazines. Just because you have a great idea doesn’t mean you’ll be able to successfully write about it to the standards of the publication you want to write it for. I’ll take a chance with someone every now and then, but it’s rare.

And one more last thing: Unless you’re a famous writer, keep your letter to no more than one page.

Mike: What are query letter killers?

Atwood: Number One, by far, is not understanding the publication in the least, or not being familiar with what stories the publication has run recently—a major turnoff.

You have to tailor your pitch precisely to the publication and its readers’ needs. Which means you need to care enough to read it a lot and see what it is that they do and what they have covered. Don’t waste the editor’s time with things they’ve already done to death.

Mike: So, what do you suggest for young, new, or relatively new writers to do?

Atwood: You have to start small, but at the same time dream big. Keep making the steps you know that you can make. Keep your expectations low. And keep plugging away.

So many writers, it seems, want to start out working for big magazines. That’s not the right way to go. The big general-interest titles, with few exceptions, forget about it. You’re not going to get published by them until you’ve proven yourself somewhere else. I don’t know one exception personally.

You should start out by writing for the small local newspapers and magazines. You build up your clips. You learn some skills. You develop your chops. Then, after you’ve paid your dues for awhile, you can try to get published by the bigger publications.

Some believe that beginning writers should try to publish small, front of-the-book items in big magazines to gain profile and use the name of the magazine in their resume and subsequent query letter. I’m not one of those people who think that works. At the end of the day, the item is usually so small it doesn’t really show your talent and other than the high of seeing your name in a big magazine, I’m not sure what you’re really going to get out of it.

My advice: Go in slow, gradual steps. And if you have any talent, you’ll get to the bigger publications in due time.

Rush the process and you risk having one door shut on you after the next, which will only frustrate you to no end and do nothing to nurture your developing talent.

Writing for top publications, while it can sometimes be very rewarding, can be a tough experience, with editors that really know their stuff and who will make you work hard. It’s best for you to know what you’re doing before you get to that place.

Mike: What do you think about simultaneous submissions? Are they okay, or a major no-no?

Atwood: If I were the writer, this is what I would do: send it to the magazine I’d most like to see the story in, give the editor two weeks, and then submit it somewhere else. That’s perfectly reasonable. In fact, I would write that very thing in your query letter—but I’d word it in a way that flatters the editor and the editor’s magazine. In other words, write: “This is a great story for your magazine. You’re my first choice, and I’m truly hoping that you’ll say yes. But if I don’t hear from you within 2-3 weeks, I’ll assume you’re not interested and I’ll take it somewhere else.” There’s nothing wrong with that at all.

Mike: Any final words?

Atwood: Yes, and they’re critical. You have to ask yourself again and again why you do this and whether you have the drive to go it for the long run.

I think the most common misperception is that writing and getting published are easy. They’re not. The freelance market is so impossibly difficult that most freelance writers are doing bartending or waiting or some service industry jobs to make a living. They’re forced to do other things. And the act of writing itself, for most writers, is a hundred times more painful than it is for the rest of us.

That means that if you want to do this for a living, you have to love it and want it with everything you have inside you. Because the reality is, it’s an incredibly tough life and the only thing that can overwhelm this reality is that intense desire to do it. You do it because you have to, because you want nothing else.

Believe it or not, the same is true of us editors. We have to love it—and want it—just as badly.

Interview with Lee Gutkind

Lee Gutkind, Editor/Writer/Teacher

Lee Gutkind is the founding editor of the anthology series Creative Nonfiction: The Literature of Reality, a teacher, filmmaker, and an award-winning author/editor of over a dozen books. He’s often been called “The Godfather behind Creative Nonfiction.”

Here is my exclusive interview with Mr. Gutkind:

Mike: What is the best piece of writing advice you ever heard?

Gutkind: That you need to build a habit of writing. To write every day and on a schedule.

Mike: Should you edit your work during the process or after you’ve finished?

Gutkind: Every writer has his or her own way of doing it, a way they’re most comfortable. But I would suggest you be like a sculptor. First get your big block of clay on the table and let your imagination run wild. Be expansive. Go off on tangents. Be creative. Experimental. Just let go. Don’t worry about editing. Just make it come alive. Then, once everything is there, slowly chisel it down piece by piece.

Mike: What quick hits could you give to my members so they can improve their writing immediately?

Gutkind: Everybody wants quick hits today. The thing is, Hemingway didn’t learn from quick hits. He learned by reading the great works. Unfortunately, all the quick hits, like reading as much of the great works as you can, take a long time. But it’s very important that you learn to read not just as a reader but as a writer. I focus on this in my workshops. By this, I mean to look at it through the eyes of a writer. With a critical eye.

Mike: What books have influenced you the most?

Gutkind: Thomas Wolfe’s and Ernest Hemingway’s books struck me during my youth. Hemingway’s ability to tell a story, as well as to go back and forth from fiction to non-fiction, using the techniques of each in doing the other, was just amazing to me. Later, Gay Talese’s “Fame & Obscurity” changed the way I viewed nonfiction writing. It’s like a Bible to me now.

Mike: What makes great creative non-fiction?

Gutkind: The passing along of information using great storytelling and poetic writing. To write in scenes. For storytelling techniques, I’d advise your members to read my book, “The Art of Creative Nonfiction.” For poetic influences, read the works of Diane Ackerman, Annie Dillard, and the first parts of Talese’s “The Bridge” or his incredible piece, “Sinatra Has A Cold.” Contrary to popular belief, poetry is closer to nonfiction than one might imagine. On the most basic levels, poems are, in essence, nonfiction: spiritual and literal truth told in free form or verse.

New York Writers Workshop's Non-Fiction Pitch Conference/Feb. 13-15

New York Writers Workshop's Non-Fiction Pitch Conference

w/editors from Scribner's, Rodale, Viking, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and others.

Friday, February 13 - Sunday 15, 2009
Ripley-Grier Studios, 16th Floor
520 8th Avenue (btw 36th & 37th St's)
New York, NY

http://www.newyorkwritersworkshop.com/
Click here

John Updike's Classic "Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu"

Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu
by John Updike

Author: John Updike ©. Published: 1960-10-22. Appeared On: The New Yorker.

Fenway Park, in Boston, is a lyric little bandbox of a ballpark. Everything is painted green and seems in curiously sharp focus, like the inside of an old-fashioned peeping-type Easter egg. It was built in 1912 and rebuilt in 1934, and offers, as do most Boston artifacts, a compromise between Man's Euclidean determinations and Nature's beguiling irregularities. Its right field is one of the deepest in the American League, while its left field is the shortest; the high left-field wall, three hundred and fifteen feet from home plate along the foul line, virtually thrusts its surface at right-handed hitters. On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 28th, as I took a seat behind third base, a uniformed groundkeeper was treading the top of this wall, picking batting-practice home runs out of the screen, like a mushroom gatherer seen in Wordsworthian perspective on the verge of a cliff. The day was overcast, chill, and uninspirational. The Boston team was the worst in twenty-seven seasons. A jangling medley of incompetent youth and aging competence, the Red Sox were finishing in seventh place only because the Kansas City Athletics had locked them out of the cellar. They were scheduled to play the Baltimore Orioles, a much nimbler blend of May and December, who had been dumped from pennant contention a week before by the insatiable Yankees. I, and 10,453 others, had shown up primarily because this was the Red Sox's last home game of the season, and therefore the last time in all eternity that their regular left fielder, known to the headlines as TED, KID, SPLINTER, THUMPER, TW, and, most cloyingly, MISTER WONDERFUL, would play in Boston. "WHAT WILL WE DO WITHOUT TED? HUB FANS ASK" ran the headline on a newspaper being read by a bulb-nosed cigar smoker a few rows away. Williams' retirement had been announced, doubted (he had been threatening retirement for years), confirmed by Tom Yawkey, the Red Sox owner, and at last widely accepted as the sad but probable truth. He was forty-two and had redeemed his abysmal season of 1959 with a—considering his advanced age—fine one. He had been giving away his gloves and bats and had grudgingly consented to a sentimental ceremony today. This was not necessarily his last game; the Red Sox were scheduled to travel to New York and wind up the season with three games there.

I arrived early. The Orioles were hitting fungos on the field. The day before, they had spitefully smothered the Red Sox, 17-4, and neither their faces nor their drab gray visiting-team uniforms seemed very gracious. I wondered who had invited them to the party. Between our heads and the lowering clouds a frenzied organ was thundering through, with an appositeness perhaps accidental, "You maaaade me love you, I didn't wanna do it, I didn't wanna do it . . ."

The affair between Boston and Ted Williams has been no mere summer romance; it has been a marriage, composed of spats, mutual disappointments, and, toward the end, a mellowing hoard of shared memories. It falls into three stages, which may be termed Youth, Maturity, and Age; or Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis; or Jason, Achilles, and Nestor.

First, there was the by now legendary epoch when the young bridegroom came out of the West, announced "All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street folks will say 'There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived.' " The dowagers of local journalism attempted to give elementary deportment lessons to this child who spake as a god, and to their horror were themselves rebuked. Thus began the long exchange of backbiting, bat-flipping, booing, and spitting that has distinguished Williams' public relations. The spitting incidents of 1957 and 1958 and the similar dockside courtesies that Williams has now and then extended to the grandstand should be judged against this background: the left-field stands at Fenway for twenty years have held a large number of customers who have bought their way in primarily for the privilege of showering abuse on Williams. Greatness necessarily attracts debunkers, but in Williams' case the hostility has been systematic and unappeasable. His basic offense against the fans has been to wish that they weren't there. Seeking a perfectionist's vacuum, he has quixotically desired to sever the game from the ground of paid spectatorship and publicity that supports it. Hence his refusal to tip his cap to the crowd or turn the other cheek to newsmen. It has been a costly theory—it has probably cost him, among other evidences of good will, two Most Valuable Player awards, which are voted by reporters—but he has held to it from his rookie year on. While his critics, oral and literary, remained beyond the reach of his discipline, the opposing pitchers were accessible, and he spanked them to the tune of .406 in 1941. He slumped to .356 in 1942 and went off to war.

In 1946, Williams returned from three years as a Marine pilot to the second of his baseball avatars, that of Achilles, the hero of incomparable prowess and beauty who nevertheless was to be found sulking in his tent while the Trojans (mostly Yankees) fought through to the ships. Yawkey, a timber and mining maharajah, had surrounded his central jewel with many gems of slightly lesser water, such as Bobby Doerr, Dom DiMaggio, Rudy York, Birdie Tebbetts, and Johnny Pesky. Throughout the late forties, the Red Sox were the best paper team in baseball, yet they had little three-dimensional to show for it, and if this was a tragedy, Williams was Hamlet. A succinct review of the indictment—and a fair sample of appreciative sports-page prose—appeared the very day of Williams' valedictory, in a column by Huck Finnegan in the Boston American (no sentimentalist, Huck):

Williams' career, in contrast [to Babe Ruth's], has been a series of failures except for his averages. He flopped in the only World Series he ever played in (1946) when he batted only .200. He flopped in the playoff game with Cleveland in 1948. He flopped in the final game of the 1949 season with the pennant hinging on the outcome (Yanks 5, Sox 3). He flopped in 1950 when he returned to the lineup after a two-month absence and ruined the morale of a club that seemed pennant-bound under Steve O'Neill. It has always been Williams' records first, the team second, and the Sox non-winning record is proof enough of that.

There are answers to all this, of course. The fatal weakness of the great Sox slugging teams was not-quite-good-enough pitching rather than Williams' failure to hit a home run every time he came to bat. Again, Williams' depressing effect on his teammates has never been proved. Despite ample coaching to the contrary, most insisted that they liked him. He has been generous with advice to any player who asked for it. In an increasingly combative baseball atmosphere, he continued to duck beanballs docilely. With umpires he was gracious to a fault. This courtesy itself annoyed his critics, whom there was no pleasing. And against the ten crucial games (the seven World Series games with the St. Louis Cardinals, the 1948 playoff with the Cleveland Indians, and the two-game series with the Yankees at the end of the 1949 season, winning either one of which would have given the Red Sox the pennant) that make up the Achilles' heel of Williams' record, a mass of statistics can be set showing that day in and day out he was no slouch in the clutch. The correspondence columns of the Boston papers now and then suffer a sharp flurry of arithmetic on this score; indeed, for Williams to have distributed all his hits so they did nobody else any good would constitute a feat of placement unparalleled in the annals of selfishness.

Whatever residue of truth remains of the Finnegan charge those of us who love Williams must transmute as best we can, in our own personal crucibles. My personal memories of Williams begin when I was a boy in Pennsylvania, with two last-place teams in Philadelphia to keep me company. For me, "W'ms, lf" was a figment of the box scores who always seemed to be going 3-for-5. He radiated, from afar, the hard blue glow of high purpose. I remember listening over the radio to the All-Star Game of 1946, in which Williams hit two singles and two home runs, the second one off a Rip Sewell "blooper" pitch; it was like hitting a balloon out of the park. I remember watching one of his home runs from the bleachers of Shibe Park; it went over the first baseman's head and rose meticulously along a straight line and was still rising when it cleared the fence. The trajectory seemed qualitatively different from anything anyone else might hit. For me, Williams is the classic ballplayer of the game on a hot August weekday, before a small crowd, when the only thing at stake is the tissue-thin difference between a thing done well and a thing done ill. Baseball is a game of the long season, of relentless and gradual averaging-out. Irrelevance—since the reference point of most individual games is remote and statistical—always threatens its interest, which can be maintained not by the occasional heroics that sportswriters feed upon but by players who always care; who care, that is to say, about themselves and their art. Insofar as the clutch hitter is not a sportswriter's myth, he is a vulgarity, like a writer who writes only for money. It may be that, compared to managers' dreams such as Joe DiMaggio and the always helpful Stan Musial, Williams is an icy star. But of all team sports, baseball, with its graceful intermittences of action, its immense and tranquil field sparsely settled with poised men in white, its dispassionate mathematics, seems to me best suited to accommodate, and be ornamented by, a loner. It is an essentially lonely game. No other player visible to my generation has concentrated within himself so much of the sport's poignance, has so assiduously refined his natural skills, has so constantly brought to the plate that intensity of competence that crowds the throat with joy.

By the time I went to college, near Boston, the lesser stars Yawkey had assembled around Williams had faded, and his craftsmanship, his rigorous pride, had become itself a kind of heroism. This brittle and temperamental player developed an unexpected quality of persistence. He was always coming back—back from Korea, back from a broken collarbone, a shattered elbow, a bruised heel, back from drastic bouts of flu and ptomaine poisoning. Hardly a season went by without some enfeebling mishap, yet he always came back, and always looked like himself. The delicate mechanism of timing and power seemed locked, shockproof, in some case outside his body. In addition to injuries, there were a heavily publicized divorce, and the usual storms with the press, and the Williams Shift—the maneuver, custom-built by Lou Boudreau, of the Cleveland Indians, whereby three infielders were concentrated on the right side of the infield, where a left-handed pull hitter like Williams generally hits the ball. Williams could easily have learned to punch singles through the vacancy on his left and fattened his average hugely. This was what Ty Cobb, the Einstein of average, told him to do. But the game had changed since Cobb; Williams believed that his value to the club and to the game was as a slugger, so he went on pulling the ball, trying to blast it through three men, and paid the price of perhaps fifteen points of lifetime average. Like Ruth before him, he bought the occasional home run at the cost of many directed singles—a calculated sacrifice certainly not, in the case of a hitter as average-minded as Williams, entirely selfish.

After a prime so harassed and hobbled, Williams was granted by the relenting fates a golden twilight. He became at the end of his career perhaps the best old hitter of the century. The dividing line came between the 1956 and the 1957 seasons. In September of the first year, he and Mickey Mantle were contending for the batting championship. Both were hitting around .350, and there was no one else near them. The season ended with a three-game series between the Yankees and the Sox, and, living in New York then, I went up to the Stadium. Williams was slightly shy of the four hundred at-bats needed to qualify; the fear was expressed that the Yankee pitchers would walk him to protect Mantle. Instead, they pitched to him—a wise decision. He looked terrible at the plate, tired and discouraged and unconvincing. He never looked very good to me in the Stadium. (Last week, in Life, Williams, a sportswriter himself now, wrote gloomily of the Stadium, "There's the bigness of it. There are those high stands and all those people smoking—and, of course, the shadows. . . . It takes at least one series to get accustomed to the Stadium and even then you're not sure.") The final outcome in 1956 was Mantle .353, Williams .345.

The next year, I moved from New York to New England, and it made all the difference. For in September of 1957, in the same situation, the story was reversed. Mantle finally hit .365; it was the best season of his career. But Williams, though sick and old, had run away from him. A bout of flu had laid him low in September. He emerged from his cave in the Hotel Somerset haggard but irresistible; he hit four successive pinch-hit home runs. "I feel terrible," he confessed, "but every time I take a swing at the ball it goes out of the park." He ended the season with thirty-eight home runs and an average of .388, the highest in either league since his own .406, and, coming from a decrepit man of thirty-nine, an even more supernal figure. With eight or so of the "leg hits" that a younger man would have beaten out, it would have been .400. And the next year, Williams, who in 1949 and 1953 had lost batting championships by decimal whiskers to George Kell and Mickey Vernon, sneaked in behind his teammate Pete Runnels and filched his sixth title, a bargain at .328.

In 1959, it seemed all over. The dinosaur thrashed around in the .200 swamp for the first half of the season, and was even benched ("rested," Manager Mike Higgins tactfully said.) Old foes like the late Bill Cunningham began to offer batting tips. Cunningham thought Williams was jiggling his elbows; in truth, Williams' neck was so stiff he could hardly turn his head to look at the pitcher. When he swung, it looked like a Calder mobile with one thread cut; it reminded you that since 1953 Williams' shoulders had been wired together. A solicitous pall settled over the sports pages. In the two decades since Williams had come to Boston, his status had imperceptibly shifted from that of a naughty prodigy to that of a municipal monument. As his shadow in the record books lengthened, the Red Sox teams around him declined, and the entire American League seemed to be losing life and color to the National. The inconsistency of the new superstars—Mantle, Colavito, and Kaline—served to make Williams appear all the more singular. And off the field, his private philanthropy—in particular, his zealous chairmanship of the Jimmy Fund, a charity for children with cancer—gave him a civic presence somewhat like that of Richard Cardinal Cushing. In religion, Williams appears to be a humanist, and a selective one at that, but he and the Cardinal, when their good works intersect and they appear in the public eye together, make a handsome and heartening pair.

Humiliated by his '59 season, Williams determined, once more, to come back. I, as a specimen Williams partisan, was both glad and fearful. All baseball fans believe in miracles; the question is, how many do you believe in? He looked like a ghost in spring training. Manager Jurges warned us ahead of time that if Williams didn't come through he would be benched, just like anybody else. As it turned out, it was Jurges who was benched. Williams entered the 1960 season needing eight home runs to have a lifetime total of 500; after one time at bat in Washington, he needed seven. For a stretch, he was hitting a home run every second game that he played. He passed Lou Gehrig's lifetime total, then the number 500, then Mel Ott's total, and finished with 521, thirteen behind Jimmy Foxx, who alone stands between Williams and Babe Ruth's unapproachable 714. The summer was a statistician's picnic. His two-thousandth walk came and went, his eighteen-hundredth run batted in, his sixteenth All-Star Game. At one point, he hit a home run off a pitcher, Don Lee, off whose father, Thornton Lee, he had hit a home run a generation before. The only comparable season for a forty-two-year-old man was Ty Cobb's in 1928. Cobb batted .323 and hit one homer. Williams batted .316 but hit twenty-nine homers.

In sum, though generally conceded to be the greatest hitter of his era, he did not establish himself as "the greatest hitter who ever lived." Cobb, for average, and Ruth, for power, remain supreme. Cobb, Rogers Hornsby, Joe Jackson, and Lefty O'Doul, among players since 1900, have higher lifetime averages than Williams' .344. Unlike Foxx, Gehrig, Hack Wilson, Hank Greenberg, and Ralph Kiner, Williams never came close to matching Babe Ruth's season home-run total of sixty. In the list of major-league batting records, not one is held by Williams. He is second in walks drawn, third in home runs, fifth in lifetime averages, sixth in runs batted in, eighth in runs scored and in total bases, fourteenth in doubles, and thirtieth in hits. But if we allow him merely average seasons for the four-plus seasons he lost to two wars, and add another season for the months he lost to injuries, we get a man who in all the power totals would be second, and not a very distant second, to Ruth. And if we further allow that these years would have been not merely average but prime years, if we allow for all the months when Williams was playing in sub-par condition, if we permit his early and later years in baseball to be some sort of index of what the middle years could have been, if we give him a right-field fence that is not, like Fenway's, one of the most distant in the league, and if—the least excusable "if"—we imagine him condescending to outsmart the Williams Shift, we can defensibly assemble, like a colossus induced from the sizable fragments that do remain, a statistical figure not incommensurate with his grandiose ambition. From the statistics that are on the books, a good case can be made that in the combination of power and average Williams is first; nobody else ranks so high in both categories. Finally, there is the witness of the eyes; men whose memories go back to Shoeless Joe Jackson—another unlucky natural—rank him and Williams together as the best-looking hitters they have seen. It was for our last look that ten thousand of us had come.

Two girls, one of them with pert buckteeth and eyes as black as vest buttons, the other with white skin and flesh-colored hair, like an underdeveloped photograph of a redhead, came and sat on my right. On my other side was one of those frowning, chestless young-old men who can frequently be seen, often wearing sailor hats, attending ball games alone. He did not once open his program but instead tapped it, rolled up, on his knee as he gave the game his disconsolate attention. A young lady, with freckles and a depressed, dainty nose that by an optical illusion seemed to thrust her lips forward for a kiss, sauntered down into the box seats and with striking aplomb took a seat right behind the roof of the Oriole dugout. She wore a blue coat with a Northeastern University emblem sewed to it. The girls beside me took it into their heads that this was Williams' daughter. She looked too old to me, and why would she be sitting behind the visitors' dugout? On the other hand, from the way she sat there, staring at the sky and French-inhaling, she clearly was somebody. Other fans came and eclipsed her from view. The crowd looked less like a weekday ballpark crowd than like the folks you might find in Yellowstone National Park, or emerging from automobiles at the top of scenic Mount Mansfield. There were a lot of competitively well-dressed couples of tourist age, and not a few babes in arms. A row of five seats in front of me was abruptly filled with a woman and four children, the youngest of them two years old, if that. Some day, presumably, he could tell his grandchildren that he saw Williams play. Along with these tots and second-honeymooners, there were Harvard freshmen, giving off that peculiar nervous glow created when a quantity of insouciance is saturated with insecurity; thick-necked Army officers with brass on their shoulders and lead in their voices; pepperings of priests; perfumed bouquets of Roxbury Fabian fans; shiny salesmen from Albany and Fall River; and those gray, hoarse men—taxidrivers, slaughterers, and bartenders—who will continue to click through the turnstiles long after everyone else has deserted to television and tramporamas. Behind me, two young male voices blossomed, cracking a joke about God's five proofs that Thomas Aquinas exists—typical Boston College levity.

The batting cage was trundled away. The Orioles fluttered to the sidelines. Diagonally across the field, by the Red Sox dugout, a cluster of men in overcoats were festering like maggots. I could see a splinter of white uniform, and Williams' head, held at a self-deprecating and evasive tilt. Williams' conversational stance is that of a six-foot-three-inch man under a six-foot ceiling. He moved away to the patter of flash bulbs, and began playing catch with a young Negro outfielder named Willie Tasby. His arm, never very powerful, had grown lax with the years, and his throwing motion was a kind of muscular drawl. To catch the ball, he flicked his glove hand onto his left shoulder (he batted left but threw right, as every schoolboy ought to know) and let the ball plop into it comically. This catch session with Tasby was the only time all afternoon I saw him grin.

A tight little flock of human sparrows who, from the lambent and pampered pink of their faces, could only have been Boston politicians moved toward the plate. The loudspeakers mammothly coughed as someone huffed on the microphone. The ceremonies began. Curt Gowdy, the Red Sox radio and television announcer, who sounds like everybody's brother-in-law, delivered a brief sermon, taking the two words "pride" and "champion" as his text. It began, "Twenty-one years ago, a skinny kid from San Diego, California . . ." and ended, "I don't think we'll ever see another like him." Robert Tibolt, chairman of the board of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, presented Williams with a big Paul Revere silver bowl. Harry Carlson, a member of the sports committee of the Boston Chamber, gave him a plaque, whose inscription he did not read in its entirety, out of deference to Williams' distaste for this sort of fuss. Mayor Collins presented the Jimmy Fund with a thousand-dollar check.

Then the occasion himself stooped to the microphone, and his voice sounded, after the others, very Californian; it seemed to be coming, excellently amplified, from a great distance, adolescently young and as smooth as a butternut. His thanks for the gifts had not died from our ears before he glided, as if helplessly, into "In spite of all the terrible things that have been said about me by the maestros of the keyboard up there . . ." He glanced up at the press rows suspended above home plate. (All the Boston reporters, incidentally, reported the phrase as "knights of the keyboard," but I heard it as "maestros" and prefer it that way.) The crowd tittered, appalled. A frightful vision flashed upon me, of the press gallery pelting Williams with erasers, of Williams clambering up the foul screen to slug journalists, of a riot, of Mayor Collins being crushed. ". . . And they were terrible things," Williams insisted, with level melancholy, into the mike. "I'd like to forget them, but I can't." He paused, swallowed his memories, and went on, "I want to say that my years in Boston have been the greatest thing in my life." The crowd, like an immense sail going limp in a change of wind, sighed with relief. Taking all the parts himself, Williams then acted out a vivacious little morality drama in which an imaginary tempter came to him at the beginning of his career and said, "Ted, you can play anywhere you like." Leaping nimbly into the role of his younger self (who in biographical actuality had yearned to be a Yankee), Williams gallantly chose Boston over all the other cities, and told us that Tom Yawkey was the greatest owner in baseball and we were the greatest fans. We applauded ourselves heartily. The umpire came out and dusted the plate. The voice of doom announced over the loudspeakers that after Williams' retirement his uniform number, 9, would be permanently retired—the first time the Red Sox had so honored a player. We cheered. The national anthem was played. We cheered. The game began.

Williams was third in the batting order, so he came up in the bottom of the first inning, and Steve Barber, a young pitcher who was not yet born when Williams began playing for the Red Sox, offered him four pitches, at all of which he disdained to swing, since none of them were within the strike zone. This demonstrated simultaneously that Williams' eyes were razor-sharp and that Barber's control wasn't. Shortly, the bases were full, with Williams on second. "Oh, I hope he gets held up at third! That would be wonderful,'' the girl beside me moaned, and, sure enough, the man at bat walked and Williams was delivered into our foreground. He struck the pose of Donatello's David, the third-base bag being Goliath's head. Fiddling with his cap, swapping small talk with the Oriole third baseman (who seemed delighted to have him drop in), swinging his arms with a sort of prancing nervousness, he looked fine—flexible, hard, and not unbecomingly substantial through the middle. The long neck, the small head, the knickers whose cuffs were worn down near his ankles—all these points, often observed by caricaturists, were visible in the flesh.

One of the collegiate voices behind me said, "He looks old, doesn't he, old; big deep wrinkles in his face . . ."

"Yeah," the other voice said, "but he looks like an old hawk, doesn't he?"

With each pitch, Williams danced down the baseline, waving his arms and stirring dust, ponderous but menacing, like an attacking goose. It occurred to about a dozen humorists at once to shout "Steal home! Go, go!" Williams' speed afoot was never legendary. Lou Clinton, a young Sox outfielder, hit a fairly deep fly to center field. Williams tagged up and ran home. As he slid across the plate, the ball, thrown with unusual heft by Jackie Brandt, the Oriole center fielder, hit him on the back.

"Boy, he was really loafing, wasn't he?" one of the boys behind me said.

"It's cold," the other explained. "He doesn't play well when it's cold. He likes heat. He's a hedonist."

The run that Williams scored was the second and last of the inning. Gus Triandos, of the Orioles, quickly evened the score by plunking a home run over the handy left-field wall. Williams, who had had this wall at his back for twenty years, played the ball flawlessly. He didn't budge. He just stood there, in the center of the little patch of grass that his patient footsteps had worn brown, and, limp with lack of interest, watched the ball pass overhead. It was not a very interesting game. Mike Higgins, the Red Sox manager, with nothing to lose, had restricted his major-league players to the left-field line—along with Williams, Frank Malzone, a first-rate third baseman, played the game—and had peopled the rest of the terrain with unpredictable youngsters fresh, or not so fresh, off the farms. Other than Williams' recurrent appearances at the plate, the maladresse of the Sox infield was the sole focus of suspense; the second baseman turned every grounder into a juggling act, while the shortstop did a breathtaking impersonation of an open window. With this sort of assistance, the Orioles wheedled their way into a 4-2 lead. They had early replaced Barber with another young pitcher, Jack Fisher. Fortunately (as it turned out), Fisher is no cutie; he is willing to burn the ball through the strike zone, and inning after inning this tactic punctured Higgins' string of test balloons.

Whenever Williams appeared at the plate—pounding the dirt from his cleats, gouging a pit in the batter's box with his left foot, wringing resin out of the bat handle with his vehement grip, switching the stick at the pitcher with an electric ferocity—it was like having a familiar Leonardo appear in a shuffle of Saturday Evening Post covers. This man, you realized—and here, perhaps, was the difference, greater than the difference in gifts—really intended to hit the ball. In the third inning, he hoisted a high fly to deep center. In the fifth, we thought he had it; he smacked the ball hard and high into the heart of his power zone, but the deep right field in Fenway and the heavy air and a casual east wind defeated him. The ball died. Al Pilarcik leaned his back against the big "380" painted on the right-field wall and caught it. On another day, in another park, it would have been gone. (After the game, Williams said, "I didn't think I could hit one any harder than that. The conditions weren't good.")

The afternoon grew so glowering that in the sixth inning the arc lights were turned on—always a wan sight in the daytime, like the burning headlights of a funeral procession. Aided by the gloom, Fisher was slicing through the Sox rookies, and Williams did not come to bat in the seventh. He was second up in the eighth. This was almost certainly his last time to come to the plate in Fenway Park, and instead of merely cheering, as we had at his three previous appearances, we stood, all of us—stood and applauded. Have you ever heard applause in a ballpark? Just applause—no calling, no whistling, just an ocean of handclaps, minute after minute, burst after burst, crowding and running together in continuous succession like the pushes of surf at the edge of the sand. It was a sombre and considered tumult. There was not a boo in it. It seemed to renew itself out of a shifting set of memories as the kid, the Marine, the veteran of feuds and failures and injuries, the friend of children, and the enduring old pro evolved down the bright tunnel of twenty-one summers toward this moment. At last, the umpire signalled for Fisher to pitch; with the other players, he had been frozen in position. Only Williams had moved during the ovation, switching his bat impatiently, ignoring everything except his cherished task. Fisher wound up, and the applause sank into a hush.

Understand that we were a crowd of rational people. We knew that a home run cannot be produced at will; the right pitch must be perfectly met and luck must ride with the ball. Three innings before, we had seen a brave effort fail. The air was soggy; the season was exhausted. Nevertheless, there will always lurk, around a corner in a pocket of our knowledge of the odds, an indefensible hope, and this was one of the times, which you now and then find in sports, when a density of expectation hangs in the air and plucks an event out of the future.

Fisher, after his unsettling wait, was wide with the first pitch. He put the second one over, and Williams swung mightily and missed. The crowd grunted, seeing that classic swing, so long and smooth and quick, exposed, naked in its failure. Fisher threw the third time, Williams swung again, and there it was. The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field. From my angle, behind third base, the ball seemed less an object in flight than the tip of a towering, motionless construct, like the Eiffel Tower or the Tappan Zee Bridge. It was in the books while it was still in the sky. Brandt ran back to the deepest corner of the outfield grass; the ball descended beyond his reach and struck in the crotch where the bullpen met the wall, bounced chunkily, and, as far as I could see, vanished.

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.

Every true story has an anticlimax. The men on the field refused to disappear, as would have seemed decent, in the smoke of Williams' miracle. Fisher continued to pitch, and escaped further harm. At the end of the inning, Higgins sent Williams out to his left-field position, then instantly replaced him with Carrol Hardy, so we had a long last look at Williams as he ran out there and then back, his uniform jogging, his eyes steadfast on the ground. It was nice, and we were grateful, but it left a funny taste.

One of the scholasticists behind me said, "Let's go. We've seen everything. I don't want to spoil it." This seemed a sound aesthetic decision. Williams' last word had been so exquisitely chosen, such a perfect fusion of expectation, intention, and execution, that already it felt a little unreal in my head, and I wanted to get out before the castle collapsed. But the game, though played by clumsy midgets under the feeble glow of the arc lights, began to tug at my attention, and I loitered in the runway until it was over. Williams' homer had, quite incidentally, made the score 4-3. In the bottom of the ninth inning, with one out, Marlin Coughtry, the second-base juggler, singled. Vic Wertz, pinch-hitting, doubled off the left-field wall, Coughtry advancing to third. Pumpsie Green walked, to load the bases. Willie Tasby hit a double-play ball to the third baseman, but in making the pivot throw Billy Klaus, an ex-Red Sox infielder, reverted to form and threw the ball past the first baseman and into the Red Sox dugout. The Sox won, 5-4. On the car radio as I drove home I heard that Williams had decided not to accompany the team to New York. So he knew how to do even that, the hardest thing. Quit.

Exclusive Interview with New Yorker Writer Susan Orlean

Susan Orlean, Writer/Journalist/Author

Susan Orlean, 53, a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992 who authored the best-seller The Orchid Thief, is one of the great literary journalists of the last quarter-century.

With sentences stunning in their purity and a droll sense of humor, Orlean has an amazing knack for not only revealing the extraordinary in the ordinary but completely immersing you into the world of her subjects.

Getting to know a subject very well “can lull you into a different sense of mission,” Orlean once said of her own immersion process. “The sharp edges blur and you're into the protoplasm of the person rather than the outline.”

In addition to publishing several books of nonfiction (Little Lazy Loafers, My Kind of Place, The Bullfighter Checks Her Makeup, Saturday Night, Red Sox and Bluefish), she has also written stories for Vogue, Rolling Stone, Esquire, and Outside.

For more information on her life and career, please check out her Web site at:
http://www.susanorlean.com
Click here

The following is my exclusive newsletter interview with Ms. Orlean:

Mike: How did you become a professional writer?

Orlean: I can’t quite tell you how writing began, since I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t in my life. It’s the only thing I ever wanted to do. From the time I was able to conceive of the idea of writing, I was writing little books and always gravitated toward writing in school. And when the time came to think about professions after college—I didn’t know how you became a writer professionally or whether I’d make a living at it—it was the only thing I was excited about pursuing.

I was around 21 years old and living in Portland, Oregon, after college, biding my time before what I feared was my inevitable descent into law school, or graduate school for English, or something similarly practical but unappealing. Then, out of nowhere, I stumbled into a writing job, for which I was entirely unqualified, except for my absolute, utter enthusiasm about it.

I saw an ad for a little magazine that was getting started. I just couldn’t contain myself and immediately applied, saying that while I had no experience or qualifications, I was dying to do this.

I mean, I was the editor of my high school yearbook and an English major at the University of Michigan, but I didn’t work for my college newspaper because I never wanted to be a newspaper reporter. That just didn’t seem to me to be the kind of training I was after. So I didn’t have any clips, other than one book review for the Michigan Daily. I was just passionate, knew I wanted to write.

They were paying hardly anything and, luckily, they were hiring young people without experience. It wasn’t as if I got a job at The New York Times. But it was a real magazine, with a real budget.

In retrospect, I don’t think it was a bad hiring decision, or a foolish one. I think that being passionate is the most important thing. Everything else is useful and important, but not the critical element. And I had the critical element—-a true, honest desire to tell stories.

Mike: Did you think you had talent at the time?

Orlean: Yeah, I think I did. I mean, I was always told by my English teachers that I wrote really well. So I had gotten…

Mike: …positive feedback?

Orlean: Yeah. I felt I was a good writer. And in college, I did take a lot of writing classes, and poetry. And I read great writing.

Mike: What were you reading?

Orlean: Mostly fiction. I was really in love with James Joyce, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Hemingway. The big guns.

Mike: How long did you work for that magazine.

Orlean: For a year, where I did feature pieces and came up with stuff that was fairly creative for somebody who didn’t know what they were doing. Then, from there, I went to an alternative weekly, where I was first hired to be the music critic, reviewing rock and pop, although very quickly I transitioned into doing features, because, for one thing, I didn’t like being a critic. I mean, I love music, but that wasn’t really what I wanted to do.

Mike: What did you write about at the weekly?

Orlean: I was working off assignments, like profiling a local city councilwoman. But then, at some point, my editor sensed that I had an instinct for coming up with stories on my own. And he let me do just that. So I did pieces like the one about the old main highway, which ran through Portland and had become a strip of cheap motels and prostitutes and refugees who were flooding into Portland at that time. Stories that weren’t different from ones I would be doing now.

I was really lucky. I had a fabulous editor who let me feel my own way, follow my interests. We had pretty liberal space to do longer stories on subjects that weren’t breaking news. There was a lot of freedom.

Mike: Could you describe your writing process?

Orlean: Well, the whole thing begins with coming up with the idea, because 99 percent of my stories are my own ideas. Generally, I throw myself into something, learning about it from zero up.

I’m attracted to subjects I know nothing about. So, the first part is learning, taking notes by hand—pen and reporter’s pad—and gathering as much information as I can. A lot of it is unlikely to end up in the story, but it gives me a richer sense of the subject or person or whatever I’m working on. And I report and report and report until usually I have to stop because the story is due. It’s hard to tell when you have enough.

My stories tend not to be so focused, so my reporting is very diffuse and broad. And while I’m working, I often think that I don’t even know what this story is about. So I have to keep going and going. There’s a point where I think, “Aha, now I know what it’s about.” Or, “Uh-oh, it’s due and I better figure out what it’s about.”

With most stories for me, the writing is the journey. I’ve learned about something or someone intimately. The writing of it is often when I start thinking, “Why was I interested in this, of all the stories in the world? I’m able to write about anything I want. Why this story? What was it that interested in this? Why do I feel there’s a story to tell?”

I generally don’t figure that out until I’m actually writing. So it can be a little bit of an unnerving transition from reporting to writing, because I don’t know where I’m going with the piece. The writing has a very transformational quality, because I’m finally putting two and two together, understanding why a story interested me and seemed important.

Mike: When you begin a story, do you have to have a lead before you go on?

Orlean: Yeah, I do. I sure wish I didn’t. I write stories in succession, from top to bottom, beginning to the end: first sentence, second sentence, third sentence. As often as I dream how it would be much easier for me to write it in chunks and assemble them, I’ve never even been able to do that. And it’s partly because it is storytelling. I cannot imagine in the normal, oral conveying of a story that you wouldn’t need to first tell the first sentence.

Mike: Does it have to be a fully-polished lead or a sense of the lead?

Orlean: I really need it done and have it ready to roll. There are times, when it’s all said and done, where I’ll go back and tweak it a bit. But generally it’s done and with very little changes.

Mike: You have so much material to organize. How do you do it?

Orlean: My memory is, surprisingly, good. And part of it is, I am really genuinely learning the material, not just recording it.

That’s why I don’t like using a tape recorder. I like to feel like I am really listening, really thinking, really paying attention. So, for example, if all my notes got burned up, I could probably still tell you the story. I would have to look up the facts again, of course, and obviously it wouldn’t have quotes, but I would know it just as well.

My method is this: I write a lead and that first chunk—the extended lead of around 300 words that moves you to the body of the piece. And then I review it all in my head until it all sounds right and make an informal punch list. Not an outline. Just things I know that need to be told.

For example, I just did a story about a guy who invented a new umbrella and my punch list said simply: 1) Have to tell the history of the umbrella 2) his connection to umbrella. Etc., etc.

It’s all in longhand and sits next to me as I’m writing.

Then, after I’ve typed up all my handwritten notes and highlighted everything I think I’ll use—the stuff that seems to have a place in the piece—I have all the material printed out and spread out in front of me, so visually I have it all there.

Mike: What hours do you work?

Orlean: I tend to work best in the afternoon when I’m working on a book. I’m less formal about this when I’m working on a magazine story.

But my writing process always includes a per-day word quota. I can’t knock off for the day until I’ve written 900 words. And I’m pretty tough about that quota (although I’ll give myself credit for revision). I use it as both a punishment and reward. By doing this, you can project when you’ll be done with the piece. I know that if I keep up that pace, I’ll be done by such and such a day. I find that very helpful, because it can existentially be very distressing to be looking into the void and think, “Oh, my god, I’m never going to be done with this.”

Mike: Are we talking about just 900 written words or 900 fully-polished words?

Orlean: I don’t write a rough draft. I tend to write a rough sentence, then tinker with it and tinker with it and correct it, and then move onto the next sentence. I feel like I can't think the next thought until I get the sentence finished. I’ll tweak and revise a lot as I go along, but I don’t do a super rough draft initially.

Mike: Do you have any ritual before you sit down and write—like Hemingway did by sharpening pencils?

Orlean: The only thing I do, if it’s a magazine story, is read what I wrote up to that point. Usually out loud. I want to hear the rhythm of it, hear the awkwardness, the parts that are boring. It’s the only way to edit what I’ve already written.

Mike: Do you work on a laptop computer or desktop?

Orlean: I have both, but I prefer working on my big computer, even I’ve written a lot, for better or worse, while I’m not at home. I’m not fussy about that. I am not somebody who needs a very, very particular environment. All I need is my notes. I can be pretty adaptable.

Mike: Did you ever read any how-to writing books?

Orlean: No, I never did. The only thing I ever read along those lines was an interview with John McPhee, where he described about how he writes, how he transfers notes onto index cards—-which is how I do books, laying them out in front of me. That interview was very helpful. I followed that system and it was a comfort to think that John McPhee does it, so it must be good.

I’m pretty much self-taught. I sometimes wonder how much I would’ve benefitted from a little bit more formal training. I learned from good editors and from trial and error. And, at this point, I kinda do it the way I do it. Every time I look into something that supposedly will help me organize my stuff better, it doesn’t feel natural to me and so I just haven’t done it.

Mike: For the young or new writers out there, how does one become a professional?

Orlean: I say to people: Go anywhere you have to and write. Go to the smallest town newspaper and just start writing and writing and writing. The more you write, the better you’re going to get.

And make yourself indispensable, either by working really hard or thinking of great stories. Make yourself the person that has to be on a staff.

I urge people to go to a small town, or a place where they can afford to live as a writer from the very start of their career, just so that writing is what they’re doing full-time.

I’m not a great believer in going to The Big Place and taking any job you can and wiggling your way up.

I’m a believer in getting good anywhere, developing your style and voice, and then when you’re ready, getting the good job at The Big Place.

Of course, it’s different for everybody. You have to do what temperamentally is going to work for you.

Mike: Do you still worry about rejection?

Orlean: Oh my god, yes. I’ve had this experience a few times lately, where I’ve turned something in, even something fairly minor, and I didn’t hear back from the editor quickly. I was really nervous and upset and imagining that they hated it. Instead, it ended up they simply assumed that at this point, I didn’t need (the assurance).

I think that as you get more experienced your standards just get higher and your appreciation of how success and failure feel is much more acute.

I also think that there are certain bad habits that get more and more ingrained. But I obviously have more confidence. I trust my perceptions and my instincts more.

Mike: What’s the biggest difference between your writing from years ago and your writing now?

Orlean: Aside from normal maturity, I used gimmicks back then that I would never use now.

Mike: How you ever gone through writer’s block?

Orlean: No, not in any big way. I mean, I’ve certainly spent time staring at a blank page. But I never not gotten a piece done, or been significantly late on a deadline.
I feel that true writer’s block is a neurotic problem, has really nothing to do with being a writer. I think it’s got some deep psychological stuff happening. It would certainly be a distressing thing to experience, and while I’ve been at times really stuck, I never thought I had writer’s block.

Mike: Do you think you’ll ever write fiction?

Orlean: In a perfect world, sure. It would be fabulous. But I have a feeling I won’t. Only because, as much as I love fiction and read it avidly, I’m not sure I have the tools to do it.

I’m a bit of a workhorse. So, if someone said to me, you have an assignment to write a short story and get it in by next Friday, I think I could probably do something passable. The lack of structure, where I idly think about fiction, but without any specific urgency about it, I’ve never been patient enough to try.

I do write poetry, however.

Mike: Has your poetry ever been published?

Orlean: No, and I’ve never tried. I’ve thought about it occasionally. I would be thrilled, gigantically thrilled. It would be so cool. In fact, I talked to the Poetry Editor at The New Yorker a couple of years ago and said, “Could I show you some stuff?” But I didn’t follow through. I guess if I feel really strongly that I have something ready to show, I’d be delighted to do it. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Mike: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever gotten?

Orlean: It’s not one of those big, sweeping spiritual things, but long ago, a good friend of mine, a wonderful writer and a highly perceptive reader, said to me once, “Loosen up a little. Not everything has to be so tight and perfect.” At that point, I was so used to building my stories like dry-laid stone walls, where you couldn’t budge a piece of it without the whole thing collapsing. That advice really stuck in my head. To me, it addressed more the issue of confidence. That you can play a little, that you can relax a little, that the reader is listening to you as long as you’re telling a good story. It’s the piece of advice I think of the most often. It’s not profound, but it’s the most significant.

Mike: What advice do you give to others?

Orlean: To really try when you’re working on a story to look deep inside yourself and try to figure out why you’re drawn to this story or this take on the piece. Like being a method actor. What’s your motivation? What’s really interesting about this subject? What resonated for you? If your notes were burned up in a fire, what would you remember about this?

Also, don’t be afraid to enter stories unprepared but to let them happen to you. Let your learning happen.

That’s the way I go about my stories, although I’ll concede it might not the best approach for everybody.

Mike: Do you ever pinch yourself that you have the dream job of writing for The New Yorker?

Orlean: Oh, yeah. I do all the time. Listen, it never gets old. It’s totally thrilling. I feel enormously lucky with the way my professional life has turned out. It’s been fantastic. I’m amazed in a good way. I’m not jaded at all. I genuinely feel fortunate. But it’s not like someone sprinkled fairy dust on me. My good luck was coupled with working very hard along the way.

Mike: Why did you succeed, do you think?

Orlean: Well, I think it’s a combination of things. My mind and temperament are quite ideally suited to what I do. Writing is just an extension of who I am. How I look at the world. How I like to tell stories. It’s just a good fit. And that’s not always the case for people. The naturalness of me in this career is very significant.

I have a pretty good sense of how to get on in the world, to deal with the sort of annoying career stuff. That’s a necessary part of succeeding. Knowing how to get by when it comes to the practical stuff. I have a decent instinct for that.

New York Times: How to Publish Without Perishing

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A Conversation with Studs Terkel

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Mike's Writing Newsletter/August Issue!

Vol 1, Issue 8 Aug. 5, 2008

Editor in Chief: Michael P. Geffner
Layout & Design: Bailey-Shropshire Professional Writing Services
Logo Designer: Jennifer L. Miller
Staff Writers: Jeanne Lyet Gassman, Bev Walton-Porter, Kim McDougall, Marilyn L. Taylor, Barbara Crooker, Patricia Fry, Whitney Lakin, Forman Lauren, Mark Terence Chapman, Angela Wilson, Joshua James, Lea Schizas, Dee Power, Hugh Rosen, Julie Ann Shapiro, Sheila Bender, Sandy Z. Poneleit, Krysten Lindsay Hager, Ruth Folit, Rachel V. Olivier
Copy Editor: Melinda Brack

A Word from Mike


Dear Newsletter Subscribers,

Did you ever see the 1991 Billy Crystal comedy “City Slickers”? And if you did, do you remember it?

Because there’s one scene I want you to think about.

It was the film’s key moment: Crystal’s city-slicker character, Mitch Robbins, and Jack Palance’s Curly were riding along on horseback, side by side, when Mitch suddenly asked:

“What is it that makes life really matter and how do you know when you've found it?”

Curly, the grizzled cowboy, held up one index finger and grinned.

“Only one thing,” he said and stopped right there.

To which the utterly puzzled Mitch responded:

“What is it?”

Curly looked him straight in the eyes and with something between a wink and a knowing nod said:

“That’s what you have to figure out.”

And that, my friends, is what I’d like for all of you to try to figure out.

What “one thing”—and only ONE THING—do you really want out of your writing career?

What’s your ultimate wish?

Do you want to be a newspaper columnist, a best-selling novelist, a magazine feature writer, a poet published in literary journals, a screenwriter selling scripts to major studios?

And if you can, get even more specific:

A columnist for the New York Times.

A best-selling mystery novelist.

A feature writer for Esquire.

A poet published in The New Yorker.

A screenwriter making movies for Paramount.

And once you decide what that one singular goal is, WRITE IT DOWN on a piece of paper. And keep that piece of paper in a place you can always see it.

In other words, make your dream concrete. Make it alive in your head. And make it your driving purpose, hurling every sliver of your creative energy and determination and talent toward making that “one thing” happen.

One thing.

That may be the secret for you and your writing life.

Good luck!

Best always and stay positive,
Mike, Editor in Chief

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Read…Write…Live!



INSIDE THIS ISSUE
1 The Spotlight Interview: Laura Friedman
2 Jeanne’s Writing Desk
3 Affirmations to Write By
4 My Time at the BEA WD Writers Conference
5 Journal Like a Pro, Write Like a Pro
6 Inside the Writer’s Brain
7 Slice of the Writing Life
8 Announcements
9 The Writer’s Mindset
10 Helpful Resources
11 Looking for a Writing Job?
12 Bookings
13 Publishing to the Power of Dee
14 The Language
15 Writer Beware
16 On the Writing Business
17 Writing Quotes of the Month
18 A Bevy of Writing Knowledge
19 Writing Promptly
20 Marketing
21 Guest Column: Jo Parfitt
22 Tip of the Month
23 Wordplay
24 The Writing Life
25 On Poetry
26 Poetry Tips/Prompts of the Month
27 Gold Member Sponsors






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The Spotlight Interview



Laura Friedman, Movie Producer/Filmmaker

Laura Friedman was a low-level script reader when she left New York City for Hollywood at 25 years old. Within a couple of years, Friedman was one of the film industry’s rising young women executives.

In charge of all areas of project acquisition and development, she was Vice President at the Paramount Pictures-based Cort/Madden Company, producers of such films as “Runaway Bride,” “Mr. Holland’s Opus,” and “Something The Lord Made.” She also served as the Head of Development for Rysher Entertainment from 1994 to 1997, overseeing the production and development of approximately ten films a year with combined budgets upwards of 85 million dollars, as well as several syndicated and network television series. At Rysher, she supervised the films “Turbulence,” “Hard Eight,” and the multiple award-winning “Big Night” and “Howard Stern's Private Parts.”

Her producing credits include: Executive Producer of “Foxfire” and “Zeus and Roxanne,” Co-Producer of “It Takes Two,” and Associate Producer of “House Arrest” and “Aberration.”

Besides working in theatrical motion pictures, Friedman originated the concept for the highly acclaimed HBO dramatic series, "Oz,” and has taught film producing at UCLA and Chapman College. She’s currently an independent filmmaker/producer.

The following is my exclusive interview with Ms. Friedman:







Mike: What's the best way for a new screenwriter to break in?

Friedman: Write three great screenplays and find a good agent or manager.

Seriously, there is no single best way. The obvious answer is to write a fantastic commercial screenplay. If you really and truly do that, Hollywood will beat a path to your door.

Other things to consider: Enter every legitimate screenwriting competition you can find. Network like crazy. Try submitting to managers and some of the boutique agencies. They accept introductory letters from new screenwriters. Managers especially are easy to approach. They tend to be more open to new screenwriters than agents, and a good one can help you land a decent agent. Forget about submitting to the major agencies. They almost never sign unemployed, non-credited writers unless they come highly recommended by someone they know or have won some kind of major contest.

Mike: Can a screenwriter have their work read without an agent?

Friedman: Yes, but it is difficult. You can send one page pitch letters to production companies. The best look like professional business letters, mentioning awards, education you've received, and a few sentences about what your screenplay is about. The worst are printed on funny paper, mention names of big stars, and try to be “cute.”

If you get someone in the biz to read and like your script, the first thing you should ask is: Please help me find a good agent or manager. They really serve a valuable function.

Mike: What makes a great screenplay?

Friedman: If I knew, wouldn't I have written one myself?

Start by examining successful films that you like. What was it about them that drew audiences? What common themes, structures and characters do they contain? What did a bad film or one that couldn’t find an audience have in common?

Watch successful films, then read the screenplays and figure it out for yourself. Generally, it's easier to sell projects featuring appealing characters who undergo interesting journeys to which people can relate.

Mike: What separates a great screenplay from a bad one?

Friedman: About $150 million opening weekend, sequels and an Oscar.

Good screenplays are about dialogue, character development and structure. Good projects are about that, plus roles that stars want to play, stories that are fresh and timely, and plots that intrigue and audience.

Mike: Could you explain what you did when you were a reader, then as a producer, picking scripts?

Friedman: I read the first five pages. If I didn't really want to keep reading, I passed. If I kept reading, I usually still passed. If I read it and could visualize the film poster and star, and know why the star would want to do the project, I would consider taking it on.

When I was a reader I had to finish the script, write a brief synopsis (usually four paragraphs—one establishing, then one for each act), then write an evaluation. I evaluated the writing separately from the potential of the script. When I was an executive producer, I had the luxury of passing if I didn't want to keep reading after the first seven pages.

I looked at two separate issues: the talent of the writer and whether I wanted to make the film. Even if I passed on the project, I'd meet with the writer if I thought they were particularly talented. In the meeting, I'd expect them to pitch me another project or two—something they wanted to write that we might be interested in developing with them.

When evaluating the project, I thought about whether it was a viable film: Was it easily marketable? Would it attract a star? Did I feel passionate enough to work on it for several years if I had to? Was it fresh? Who was the audience? What did the poster look like? Which actors would be in it, and why?

Mike: What are the biggest mistakes new screenwriters make?

Friedman: Either writing something so overly formulaic that it isn't special or unique, writing something so personal and “small” that it feels more like a short story than a feature film, or writing something derivative, reminiscent of a recent hit.

Mike: Assuming the writer has talent, what is the number one most common, avoidable mistake a writer makes when submitting his/her screenplay?

Friedman: Not being professional and knowing the etiquette. Not knowing enough to target the companies who would be most interested in his/her genre. Trying to submit too high up the ladder, such as directly to studios or companies unreceptive to unsolicited submissions. Writers need to get an agent or manager and let the system work for them, rather than fight against it.

Mike: What do you think are the most common misconceptions writers have about getting their screenplays read, sold, made into movies?

Friedman: That your screenplay is better than anyone else’s screenplay. And that just writing a screenplay is enough.

The biz is so much more than that. You have to learn, and ultimately know how to be a professional: to be able to secure meetings, to network, to work with executives. It's a process, and a real business that has to be learned.

Mike: What's the best advice you could give a screenwriter?

Friedman: My strategy would be: Get the highest paying job that gives you the most “free” hours, then use those free hours to write like hell. Keep the day job. Which means you should know how you are going to pay your bills over the next year or two. Find a way to LIVE that doesn't involve depending on money made writing and pursue writing as a passion.

Mike: What is your advice for writers who get notes from producers for script changes and the producer doesn't speak dramaturgically (example, you get notes like “make this part funnier,” or “make the hero more interesting here”), what's the best way to handle that situation?

Friedman: Are you asking about a situation in which something is in development, or in which a general comment is given in a “pass” letter?

If you're talking about a script in development, ask for clarification. Ask the exec or producer to show you exactly where the script isn't working for them. Don't be afraid to take a meeting and have a dialogue.

If it’s a general comment given by someone who is passing on it, it probably isn't fair to ask for a meeting (unless they are on the fence about the project and would be willing to read a rewrite). You have to decide if their comment is valid and whether you want to address it in a rewrite.

Mike: What is the number one thing you look for when you pick up a script from an unknown writer?

Friedman: I look for the same things I look for in any script. I don't judge it any differently than a script from a known writer. A bagel is a bagel no matter where you got it. If you like it you'll bite, if you don't you'll toss it.

Mike: What's the best screenplay you ever read? And why was it great?

Friedman: I've read a lot of great scripts. They keep you engaged, make you care about the characters, contain universal themes, clear structure, and satisfying resolutions.

One that sticks out was a biopic about Bela Lugosi. I don’t remember the exact name. It was a very difficult project, probably best suited for cable, but it was really beautifully written. It took you into the world of old Hollywood while exposing Lugosi as a tortured and complicated individual. It started with his entering a drug rehab clinic to get off heroin, then was told through flashbacks as he went through cold turkey. His alter ego of Dracula acted as a kind of narrator, tormenting Lugosi as he evaluated his own life.

I remember wanting to buy “The Rock,” because I loved the idea of a group of men trying to break into prison. Ron Bass (“Rain Man”) has a great writing style. I’d recommend reading some of his scripts.

Mike: What do the best writers always do automatically, and talented beginners seem to need to learn? In other words, what do the best have in common?

Friedman: They are great pitchers and have an instinctive understanding of what kinds of stories people want to see. They understand the motivations of the buyers and try to give them what they want. They write simply and tell good stories.

Mike: What is the most important thing a writer should be aware of when he/she submits their script to a producer?

Friedman: That EVERYONE is TRYING to find a GREAT SCRIPT. But…no one owes you a read. All script reading is done in “off time” out of the office. It is a big deal for anyone to spend an hour reading your script, and you should be grateful when they do and understanding when they won't. Agents and assistants perform a very important function as filters. They are not your enemy. If you really, truly have a great story to tell AND have great writing talent, Hollywood will beat a path to your door. Unfortunately, the sad fact is, 99.9% of non-professional writers are mediocre at best. About 95% of unrepresented writers are not worth reading. I read scripts for about 15 years and only read about five great scripts by unrepresented writers. The rest were, at best, so-so. Given this fact, don't get bent out of shape that no executive wants to read your unsolicited script or responds to your query letter.

Mike: Writers are always told that all submitted screenplays should be between 100-120 pages in length, yet we often see movies at the cinema that are longer than that . . . is there ever a time a writer can submit a longer screenplay?

Friedman: Just like directors or stars, writers can only deviate from the norms when they've earned it through past successes. Given the difficulty of getting anything read, much less bought, why make your chances even more difficult?

Mike: Are there any stories or genres to be avoided at all costs?

Friedman: No. In fact, doing a traditionally “difficult” genre can actually get your script attention, as long as it is brilliantly executed. That script will in all likelihood never be made, but it might work as a great sample. For example, I know a TV writer who wrote a spec script in which the guys from "Taxi" picked up in their cabs the women from “Sex in the City.” That script got the writer a job because it was so creative.

Just know that a difficult genre probably won't sell, and should be written for the purpose of being a writing sample.

And what is “difficult”? Costume dramas, period films, "small" dramas that don't involve big issues or a role that will give a star an Oscar, any genre that is currently over represented, and anything with a sad ending.

Mike: What is your advice for dealing with rejection /negative feedback?

Friedman: Listening to the comments very closely. Don’t take harsh critiques personally. Instead, use them constructively, as a way to improve.

Mike: What's your favorite movie of all time?

Friedman: I don't have a single favorite movie. Some of my favorites are: The Sweet Smell of Success, West Side Story, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Roaring Twenties, and Annie Hall.

Mike: Are there any books you recommend as must-read for aspiring screenwriters?

Friedman: There are hundreds of books on screenwriting, yet most, if not all of the authors make their career out of teaching screenwriting rather than actually writing screenplays (example: Robert McKee).

That's a better question for writers. The only book I've read about Hollywood is “Hollywood Babylon.” I'd suggest reading as many scripts as you can get your hands on. I know some good writers who have worked in Hollywood as script readers. It's a great way to learn, and an even better way to network and get your script read.

Actually, instead of reading a ton of how-to screenwriting books, I'd recommend that you study film theory and history—especially history. You can't be a good filmmaker if you don't know the canon. You should see the great German silent films as well as the important films from each era of the 20th century. If you don't know film references and history you won't be taken seriously in Hollywood. Believe it or not, Hollywood is filled with film buffs who really know the medium.

You should read screenplays of movies they liked, read the reviews of top critics. Try to find the reviews of The New Yorker magazine’s Pauline Kael. She was a great critic.

The only RECOMMENDED reading is “The Hollywood Reporter” and “Daily Variety.” You MUST, MUST, MUST read these every day to be able to succeed in the biz. You have to learn all the important executive's names and the important companies. You have to know how to talk and what's going on around town. I can't stress this enough.

A good movie to see that really shows what it’s like in the biz is Kevin Bacon’s 1989 film, “The Big Picture,” in which he plays a boy-wonder director.



DARK NEST

A futuristic fantasy novella by Leanna Renee Hieber
E-Book now available from Crescent Moon Press!

http://www.crescentmoonpress.com

Praise for DARK NEST: “Fabulous read! Once I started, I couldn’t stop until I reached the very satisfying end.” – Isabo Kelly, award-winning author of MARSHALL’S GUARD



Chief Counsel Ariadne Corinth has just found out her long-time lover, the powerfully gifted Chief Counsel Kristov Haydn, has died. Newly evolved psychically gifted humans have been sent by the Homeworld on a space mission aboard two distinct “Nests”. Relationships between the Light Nest and the Dark Nest have faltered and Ariadne is sure there’s something insidious behind it. In a matter of hours, Ariadne must find out what really happened to Kristov, unite her people to discover vast new powers the Homeworld denied them, or else submit to genocide.

Visit the author at http://www.leannareneehieber.com

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Jeanne’s Writing Desk



Seven Things You Should Know About Your Book
By Jeanne Lyet Gassman

Perhaps the second most exciting moment for any author occurs when he types the words, “The End,” after a book has been revised and polished. The most exciting moment for an author occurs when the author receives that important contract from a publisher saying, “We want to publish your book.” Before the writer can move from finished book to published book, however, he needs to go through the process of submissions to agents and editors. For nonfiction works, this means creating a book proposal. For novels, the writer needs to write a solid query letter. In order to create a selling proposal or query letter, the writer needs to know the answer to the following seven things…

1. My book belongs to ______genre and is _____words. What kind of book have you written? If it’s fiction, is it commercial or literary fiction? Is it a fantasy, a romance, a mystery, or a thriller? There are even sub-genres within the main genres. For example, mysteries include cozy mysteries (bloodless crimes about insignificant victims), police procedurals (emphasizing factual police operations), and suspense (the antagonist pursues the protagonist). Nonfiction books fall into such categories as self-help, memoir, true crime, and biography. You should also know the word count of your book and what the market expectations are for word count in your genre. The average novel is between 75,000 and 100,000 words, but some genres, such as fantasy, can be as long as 120,000 words. Nonfiction manuals and guides can be as short as 50,000 words. Know your genre; know your market’s word count.

2. My book would appeal to readers who like _____. Who are your readers? It’s easy to say that you think your book will appeal to everyone, but the truth is that readers today tend to focus on particular authors or genres. To find out who would read your book, take a trip to your local bookstore and find works that are similar in subject matter, style, and/or genre to your own. Imagine where your book would be placed on the shelves. If you know your competition, it’s easier to know how to make your book stand out.

3. The market for my book is _____. What are the demographics of your potential readership? This is especially important if you have written a work of nonfiction. In other words, if you’ve written a self-help book, will this book appeal to Baby Boomers, Millenniums, or members of Generation X? Each one of these age groups has different needs, and not every self-help book is multi-generational. Demographics apply to more than age groups, however. They can also apply to racial/ethnic groups, economic groups, or regional groups.

4. I am qualified to write this book because ____. Too many first-time authors overlook their qualifications because they feel that the only qualifications that count are publishing credits. But there are other reasons why you may be the best person to write this book. If you’ve written a novel, do you have a professional or personal background that gives you insight into your subject matter? For nonfiction, your qualifications could include your training, personal experience, research, or educational background.

5. My writing experience includes ____. Most agents and editors want to know if you have publication credits. If you’ve written a novel, but have published nonfiction, the credits are not as relevant, but they do show that you have the ability to produce work that is publishable. You should not mention self-published books, blog posts, or personal Websites, as these are not considered to be legitimate publication credits. Other important writing experience includes education (particularly degrees in creative writing) and awards (including writing grants, contest awards, and awards for published work such as a Pushcart Prize/Nomination).

6. My plans for future books include ____. Have you started writing a new book? Agents and editors do not want to invest in a one-book writer. They want authors who see their writing as a life-time career in which they will continue to produce new books on a regular basis. In fact, the best time to be writing the next book is while you are submitting your current book to agents or editors.

7. Finally…The Elevator Speech. Imagine that you are at a writer’s conference and you’ve just stepped into the elevator with your Dream Agent. You punch floor number 9; Dream Agent punches the button for floor number 5. As the doors close, you introduce yourself to Dream Agent and Dream Agent asks, “What is your book about?” You now have approximately four minutes to tell Dream Agent about your book before she steps off onto her floor. What do you say? You give her the elevator speech, a one-sentence description of your book that will make Dream Agent forget to exit at her floor while she asks to hear more. Can you do it? Can you describe your book in one sentence? Here is an example of a one-sentence description of the novel, Carrie, by Stephen King:

Carrie is the story of an abused and outcast teenage girl with telekinetic abilities who uses her special powers to exact revenge on all of her tormenters at the prom.

You may not need to put all of this information into your query, but if you are ever asked to prepare a platform or pitch your story to an agent or publisher, you will be prepared.

You’ve written your book. Now it’s time to get to know your book. Happy writing!

Newsletter contributing columnist Jeanne Lyet Gassman is an award-winning author whose fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry has been published in magazines, newspapers (including The Arizona Republic and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), and anthologies. In 2002, Ms. Gassman was the recipient of an Encouragement Award in Creative Writing from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and in the 2005 Preditors & Editors Reader’s poll her story, '”Healing Arts,'” was ranked among the Top 10 in the nonfiction category. She also teaches writing classes and conducts workshops in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Please visit her Web site at:
http://www.jeannelyetgassman.com
____________________________________________________________ Affirmations to Write By

I allow myself plenty of time for my writing projects, no matter what.

I write clearly and effectively and easily.

I make writing a priority.

I love that writing has a way of making me feel so fulfilled and at peace with myself.

I understand my needs as a writer and I do everything possible to meet those needs.

I know my deadline and I organize my life in order to make myself hit that deadline.

I know that when I revise my work it gets better and better.

I use my outline to guide me as I write, but I allow myself to be inspired outside the boundaries of my outline.

I use a dictionary, thesaurus, and other important tools to help me write well.

I read works by writers whom I admire, not only as a way to inspire but to show me the way to greatness.


My Time at the BEA Writer's Digest Writers Conference
By Rachel V. Olivier

It was 8:20 AM and already hot, the Southern California sun beating down, sweat dripping into my eyes, as I trudged from the bus stop up 11th Street to Figueroa, where Writer’s Digest, Book Expo America, and all the information on the internet had assured me would be where the Los Angeles Convention Center was, and where the Writer’s Digest Books Writers Conference would be held.

Well, there was a big building there but no signs and no way in. Being a bit perturbed, I remained undaunted as I walked down Figueroa along the Convention Center to see where I could possibly get in. I followed the outside of the building around, and around, and around again until I found an open door. Then I saw a small sign that said: Book Expo America. The door was open. I decided to try my luck within the air-conditioned building.

Book Expo America, the annual Bookseller Association Convention and Trade Show, is primarily for people in the bookselling and book buying business: publishers, bookstores, agents, schools, educators, and already published authors. Attendees use this event to network, look over stock and place orders, though there are author signings and speakers.

The day before the BEA, however, is the Writer’s Digest Books Writers Conference, an event for writers, by writers, held this year in Los Angeles, California at the LA Convention Center on May 28, 2008. This was the event I was going to attend come hell or high water.

Now, just to be clear, let me ’splain my vehemence. About a week and a half before, my roommate and I (aka, my cat) had a disagreement ending in a bitten leg - mine. He sulked; I attended to cleaning and medicating said wound. A couple of days later, guests came into town, we went to Disneyland only to be assaulted by rain whilst in sandals and shorts. I ended up with a twisted ankle (same leg) and a cold. I had paid $199 to go to a conference close enough to attend using a city bus. I was not going to miss this.

Wednesday dawned way too early. It was tempting to go back to sleep after the alarm went off. I almost missed the bus as it was, what with all the wrapping of the ankle, attending to the wound (still not healed), and making sure I’d taken the correct cold medicine and packed a month’s worth of cough drops. I made sure I had a notebook, pens, and even brought my commuter cup of coffee because when you’re broke, you make it at home and bring it with you, and I needed coffee.

I found out when I got there, I didn’t need it after all. Coffee and water were provided for free.

I wasn’t too worried about making it to the conference on time until I was hobbling up to the convention center and saw no signs for the conference. As I limped around this very large conference building, I finally found an entrance and asked a helper person who directed me around even further, but at least now I was in an air-conditioned building with escalators. While I was beginning to see BEA signs, I still saw no sign for the conference. I was beginning to wonder if I there really was a conference.

Finally, I stumbled upon people with nametags, books, empty tables with people sitting at them waiting for attendees. Hot and sweaty, I found a seat inside the conference room; glad I had finally made it.

The LA Conference Center is like many others, made up of halls with rooms for speakers, restrooms for attendees, and a food court on the lower level. The rooms all have soundproofing along the walls. The carpeting is very practical indoor matting and everything is in muted blues, tans, and grays. Perfect generic background for whatever signs would be used for the many conventions passing through. All the colorful signs for the writers conference and the BEA were hung on the west side of the building, where the hotels and the parking lot were. They weren’t expecting unemployed, working class writers coming in by bus, bike, or rides from friends (though there were plenty of us there) and who would end up landing on the east side of the building.

The truck carrying Writers Digest’s materials and titles was held up in traffic on the way in. The conference heads were told the shipment may or may not make it by noon. Attendees were promised free issues of the 2008 Writer’s Market, and WD planned to make extra money by selling some of their titles. This was a bit of a setback for a conference deemed by the end of the day to be their “best yet.”

It was a packed day beginning at 8:30 AM with an opening speech by Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Cage of Stars, followed by two “Breakout Sessions” (WD’s term for seminars or panels), lunch, with speaker Blake Snyder, another “Breakout Session” and last, but not least, the Pitch Slam Session.

The speech by Jacquelyn Mitchard combined personal anecdotes, relevant information, and helpful, realistic advice. In the midst of a changing publishing industry—putting out 350,000 books per year—writers have stiff competition when shopping their books for publication, and publishers have less money available for editing or marketing those books.

This has created an atmosphere where agents and editors look for impeccable manuscripts, placing the onus on writers to proofread and copy edit their work carefully. Ms. Mitchard suggested using professional editors for writers who need it. Iowa Book Doctors offers discounted manuscript critiques and proofreading. It is a group of professional writers who provide their expertise at reduced prices. Professional editors charge a range of $3000-$5000 to edit a manuscript for publication. According to Ms. Mitchard, Iowa Book Doctors halves that amount. (I need to raise my rates.)

I thought it extremely interesting that Ms. Mitchard compared writing to the priestly vocation. For many writers it is their religion, as well as their career. It is their passion. Ms. Mitchard also reminded the audience that writing is new every time the writer sits down to the blank page. It’s a craft to be practiced every day, just as a priest says mass every day. In addition, she exhorted writers not to trap themselves in any one genre or in any one way of thinking. Try everything.

After the keynote speech, there were seven different “Breakout Sessions” (panels or seminars) for the 9:30 slot:

Fire in Fiction with literary agent Donald Maass
Putting Thrills in Your Mystery Novel with author Hallie Ephron
Book in a Month with author Victoria Schmidt
Finding a Home for Your Personal Essay with author Victoria Zackheim
Get Known While You Sleep—A Platform Primer with author Christina Katz
Screenwriting: Exploring Genres with screenwriter-author John Truby
Getting Started in Writing for Television with Richard Hatem

I had looked over the list and finally decided on Putting Thrills in Your Mystery Novel with author Hallie Ephron because I like Nora Ephron movies, so I thought I just might enjoy a discussion with Hallie Ephron—and I did.

One of the most important points Ms. Ephron made was the importance of the writer to use a good narrative hook to grab the reader within the first 200 words. Many writers make the mistake of putting too much backstory at the beginning. Save the backstory, because at the beginning of the story, the reader is not invested in the main character and won’t care about backstory. Your first job is get the reader to care about the protagonist, establish setting, and let the reader know something is afoot. Ms. Ephron suggested dropping in hints of backstory throughout the novel, rather than frontloading your book. Layer it in with the secrets each character holds. She pointed out it’s the middle of the book that tends to sag, so use the secrets and the backstory to help hold up this section.

Again, for the 10:30 slot there were many different sessions to attend:

Plotting a Novel They Can't Put Down with author James Scott Bell
Fictional Seeds with author Lisa Lenard-Cook
Panel: Creating and Contributing to Anthologies with Victoria Zackheim, Jane Ganahl, Aimee Liu, Aviva Layton
Effective Use of the Internet for Authors with author Bill O’Hanlon
Panel: Ask the Editors: A publishing Q&A with WD experts
Panel: Meet the Script Agents and Managers


I almost decided on the Plotting the Novel seminar, but at the last minute veered for the panel on Creating and Contributing to Anthologies. I love anthologies of fiction, of genre fiction. I was hoping the panel discussion would cover how putting together anthologies works, such as rights for stories, choosing contributors, payment, etc., and then, most importantly, how to get it published. They did touch on some of that.

Typically, the editor of the anthology uses the small advance they receive from the publisher for the anthology to pay the writers and then hopes for royalties later. Sometimes there’s a call for submissions in the writer community, and sometimes it’s an established group. Ms. Zackheim said it almost always worked better if you found at least one well-known person to contribute. However, the panelists, most of them serious literary authors, all had agents already, so they assumed one would pitch whatever anthology idea one had to one’s agent, and assumed the anthologies in question were all going to be surrounding serious issues or extremely literary in nature. By the time I left, I wished I had gone to Plotting the Novel. This panel felt too much like my modern “literachur” classes in college, which is okay -- if you’re still in college.

By lunch, the books, both WD titles, and the loads of Writer’s Market to give away to attendees had arrived. Trying to scoot in to grab my copy at the table where they were piled was a little like trying to get at the dessert at a free buffet. But I made it through.

The meal itself was a little unorganized. Apparently the WD coordinators did not expect the turn out they got. About a quarter of us had to wait as extra food was slapped down in the kitchen and extra tables were set up and set for us. We were still on salad when many others were on their dessert and coffee. I did enjoy my tablemates. I wonder if there is such a thing as “geekdar” as I write speculative fiction and I ended up between a graphic novelist and someone who writes paranormal/fantasy romantic comedies. There were a couple of men at our table I labeled the “LA Schmoozers,” who were obviously writing partners probably there to pitch a movie idea. They were not as friendly as most of the people at the table, or the conference. Most of the people, speakers and attendees alike, were very pleasant. Nice folk.

As soon as people were settled in, Blake Snyder, screenwriter, producer, and author of the book on screenwriting, Save the Cat began his talk on storytelling. One of his most important points was the importance of looking at the opening and closing of a story. Something needs to change by the end. The question asked at the beginning needs to be satisfactorily answered by the end. In addition, he talked about some of the points all good stories include, such as the need to have the audience care about protagonist from the beginning (by having him save a cat, or help someone, etc), a false victory somewhere in the middle, and a rousing end after the character has hit bottom.

At 1:30 PM the Afternoon Breakout Sessions began, which included:

Revising a Novel They Can't Put Down with author James Scott Bell
Panel: Ask the Literary Agents moderated by GLA's Chuck Sambuchino
The Times They Are A-Changin’: Being a Successful Author Amidst Transformational Change in Book Publishing with WDB Editorial Director Jane Friedman
Panel: From Book to Film/TV: How Your Work Comes Alive
Practice Your Pitch with Lauren Mosko

Since I had missed out on Plotting the Novel, I chose Revising a Novel with James Scott Bell. Mr. Bell emphasized the need to write hot and revise cold. Finish the novel before you start really revising it. Many writers go back to revise before they finish the novel itself, ending up in a vicious revision loop, and never completing their work. Write it hot. Take notes as you go and go back later and change things – or just go back as far as what you wrote the day before to revise before continuing on.

After you’ve completed your book, walk away. Leave it for three weeks if you can, two weeks minimum. Mr. Bell then suggests printing out the entire work, putting it in a binder, complete with a false cover. You are going to read this work as a reader, not a writer. Reading and proofing the hard copy is not only easier on your eyes, but it will give you a different perspective. What may seem obvious to the writer may not be to the reader. I walked out of this seminar with a bunch of notes (he was very organized, having a Power Point Presentation available) and glad I had redeemed the afternoon.

I was not going to attend The Pitch Slam Session initially, having nothing to pitch. Later in the day, I considered maybe going long enough to watch it and understand how it worked to be prepared for the next time. However, my best friend texted me telling me to pitch my story—or die by his hand. He was talking about something I had written a long time ago and then abandoned. I decided to at least go to the info session to hear how all this worked and consider pitching my story.

Notice, there was an entire seminar dedicated to making a pitch. Media Bistro includes weekly articles on how to pitch certain magazines. My monthly writer’s group is constantly discussing working on the elevator pitch. Knowing how to pitch your story, and getting practice on it, is as equally important as writing a good query letter. I had never, ever, even considered pitching this story, and didn’t know the first thing to say about it. There was no way I was going to be able to scribble out a winning pitch during the 15-minute info session beforehand. But I tried. I figured, if nothing else, this was good practice.

Writer’s Digest is known for their Pitch Slam Sessions, which operate on the speed-dating concept. Most of the attendees had come with this session as their ultimate goal. WD invites approximately 50 literary agents to attend the conference and in the conference schedule includes the biographies, likes, and dislikes of each agent. Writers look through this list, decide who may work for them, then line up for their turn to pitch. Each writer has 3 minutes with the agent. Coordinators suggest a brief 30-60 second pitch to allow for two minutes discussion, and to choose more than one agent to pitch to. Since the session is two hours long, a writer might conceivably pitch seven to ten agents (depending on the length of time). This raises the probability of someone showing interest.

I looked through the biographies and found one agent who looked promising to me, if not now, at least in the future. There were also a couple of others I was interested in. I sidled into line behind other writers who stood where my “dream” agent’s name appeared at the table nervously reviewing what I might say. The session was going to start at 3 pm sharp. Coordinators had stopwatches and bells at the ready after reiterating the instructions. But there was a glitch and a delay. The agent I was going to pitch to had not come to the conference after all, having taken sick on the plane before it took off. (Yes, she was on the plane, on the runway, when she got violently ill and had to be taken off the plane.) Therefore, we were going to be pitching to her assistant, who was running around making sure the rest of the agents in this, er , agency were settled.

Then the bell rang.

Every three minutes the bell rang, writers stopped talking after being told by the agent whether or not the agent was interested in said project. The line moved up. The butterflies in my stomach and the lump in my throat were competing for my attention as I continued to work on my pitch. Finally, it was my turn. I got to the assistant. We introduced ourselves. And then I blurted out, “It’s a fantasy,” before getting a deer in the headlights look and blanking out on the rest of the pitch.

Fortunately for me, this assistant knew how to jar me out of my panic with a simple question and I was able to, very lamely, continue to pitch my story. But I must emphasize, it was a very lame pitch, with lots of “uhs, ers, ums” and generalities.

He must have seen something of value in it because by the end he asked me to send him two chapters. The bell rang, we shook hands and I walked out in a daze. Found the nearest bathroom, cried, then waited until I got outside to call someone, scream, and do a happy dance.

I realized later I could have stayed to pitch to other agents, but they all belonged to the same agency anyway. I was lucky. This assistant was willing to take a chance (and that’s all it is -- a chance) on my two chapters, but I would have been far better off if I had a set pitch ready for my story. Work on your pitches. Work on your query letters. You might have the next Great American Novel, but no one will know unless you can get them to read it.

For more information, go to:
http://www.writersdigest.com/bea

Guest writer Rachel V. Olivier writes, proofreads, and copy-edits from her closet-sized office in Los Angeles, California. She is currently juggling short story, poetry, and novel writing with making a living as a freelancer (Putt Putt Productions).

Her articles and reviews have appeared in Chocolate Zoom and Tyrannosaurus Press’ Illuminata. Her poetry and stories can be read in Aoife’s Kiss, as well as on Pennoir. org, SheVibe. com, and in Arch and Quiver. Future work will appear in Electric Velocipede and on Bewildering Stories and Mindflights.



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Journal Like a Pro to Write Like a Pro
By Sheila Bender

First and foremost, writing is a re-creation of experience--experience we had in the world and experience we've had within ourselves. Experience is lived through the five senses--it is what we see, hear, smell, taste and touch that add up to the impressions from which we form our attitudes, take actions, and create dreams. Even though you are only writing for yourself in your journal, if your writing does not include details and images that appeal to the five senses, you will not be immersed in your experience when you are writing. Without the necessary immersion, you will become disinterested in your own efforts because your words will seem shallow and dull and short-circuit your ability to mine your experience for deeper experience. If you write "beautiful" and "wretched" for instance, you are telling yourself how you think you feel toward whatever you are writing about. Imagine you think a philodendron in your living room is beautiful. If you say, "The leaves on the philodendron in my living room had variegations that reminded me of tributaries on the maps I loved to read when I was in grade school," you are setting up experience that cannot be gotten to by labeling the leaves beautiful.

You might want to concentrate on building up your use of sense imagery one sense at a time. Here are some exercises for more work with sight, which is the sense we most often rely on in our descriptions and writing:

1. Look at an object in the room or place you inhabit right now. Describe what this object--say a desk-- looks like without relying on adjectives. For instance, instead of writing "the rectangular wooden desk," write something like, "The desk is made of pine, with 10 boards about 6 feet in length joined side-by-side to the width of a canoe's belly." Now that the word "canoe" has come up, it is easy to leap into an association like, "and lucky days, writing at this desk, I feel myself paddle without a ripple among lily pads and marsh grasses, capturing the tadpoles and minnows of my thoughts even as they dive under the water or hide behind the tall grasses under the wide leaves." Notice what enriching your descriptions in this way brings up for you to write about or how it helps you create richer scenes, characters and narrators.

2. Practice with similes and metaphors that utilize sight comparisons to widen your observations and bring in fresh experience. All writers need to have facility with this kind of comparative thinking. It enlivens your writing and your view (or that of your characters or narrators) of the world and thereby keeps you intrigued with your writing. You can practice this simply by saying one thing looks like another thing:
A mirror looks like a lake.
A cornflake in a bowl of milk looks like a dolphin swimming in the ocean.
A shoe with its lace untied looks like a toaster with its electric cord
unplugged.

Dropping the like construction, you can practice inviting your metaphor-making mind into your writing:

I sit at my desk, a marionette with no one holding the strings.
The 30 student papers on poetry in my briefcase are a thick sandwich.
Dressed up in the front seat of my husband's convertible without a scarf on my head, I see my hair in the visor mirror, madly waving fronds at the top of a stately palm tree.

You can do these two exercises whenever you are bored with what you have been writing or don't know what to journal about or think the descriptions in your writer's journal are not stimulating your writing.

Sheila Bender publishes Writing It Real, an online instructional magazine for those who write from personal experience. She has authored many books on writing, including 40 Writers and Their Journals, A Day in the Life, Keeping a Journal You Love and Writing and Publishing Personal Essays. She has also written instructional content for LifeJournal for Writers software.








Mike’s Writing Workshop Named to the
2008 List of Writer’s Digest’s 101 Best Websites for Writers!



The entire list can be found at:

http://www.writersdigest.com/101BestSites/?m_nYear=2008&m_sCategory=all







Inside the Writer’s Brain


Grab Your Reader With Conflict
By Lea Schizas

No, not conflict of interest or conflict within your being, but conflict found in a story.

What exactly is conflict in a story? Simple. A problem/obstacle your main character needs to overcome by the end of the story. Think of it as your engine that drives your car forward. Without one your car remains idle, collecting dust in the driveway. Give your car a super booster engine and you’ll be coasting the streets with no worries. Well, until the police stop you.

In a story, conflict moves your character through various situations he must overcome. This intrigues and pulls your reader deeper into the story, connecting them with your character’s predicament. A character needs to have a hurdle tossed at them, making for an intriguing situation to find out the outcome. Without an outcome, there is no magnetic charge with your reader.

Before writing your story and making up your character profile, ask yourself these questions:

1) What will be the main goal my character will face and need to overcome?

2) Who will be my target audience?

The second question is important because it will help to focus your words and subject matter to suit the appropriate audience. For stories aimed at children, your focus will need to adapt to a child’s view of the world around them. Most of the time, the story is told through the character’s point of view aged a few years older than the intended audience. For example, if you aim your story for the 8-10 age group then setting a story for a twelve year old character would be best since kids always like to read and associate with kids a bit older than them.

What subject matter can you write about for this age group? Middle grade readers love mysteries, soft spooky tales (no knife-wielding maniacs, head chopping, blood and gore etc, more suspenseful and goose-bumping tales like in the “Goosebumps” books), magical tales (Harry Potter), even teeny bopper stories like “The Babysitters Club” or “Sweet Valley High.” These latter ones are suitable for the Young Adult market, too.

TYPES OF CONFLICTS:

Here are some examples of conflicts in some books:

—The almighty tried and successful (good against evil)

Think Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Little Red Riding Hood, The Three Little Pigs—yes, these fairy tales were using the good against evil method if you sit down and think about it. The wolves in both fairy tales were intent on overcoming their so-they-thought weaker counterparts.

In the above examples, something stood in the protagonist’s way:

Harry tries to defeat Voldemort but problems and other antagonists along the way make this quest difficult for him.

The Lord of the Rings finds Frodo’s quest to destroy the Ring but evil and dark forces stand in his way, too.

Luke Skywalker in Star Wars needs to defeat the new order of evil, and he, too, faces many obstacles and characters along the way.

In each of these examples, these obstacles (new smaller conflicts against the bigger goal they are after) causes a reader to continue reading to find out if he’ll be successful, how he will outsmart them, and what change will this cause in the main character. Along with these obstacles, throwing in some inner conflicts alongside the outer emotions helps to cast them more as three-dimensional beings, for example:

Luke Skywalker deals with the knowledge he has a sister somewhere out there. His inner being and emotions help to make him more sympathetic, which eventually bonds the reader to him. The same with Frodo; his world has been thrown for a loop when he takes on the quest of the Ring. Along the way he begins to doubt if he, indeed, is the best man for this job. Also, he questions his will power to avoid succumbing to the dark forces once he has tasted the Ring’s power.
Another example to show you what inner conflict means:

Let’s assume your book is based on a police officer that mistakenly shoots a young child while pursuing a suspect. It’s dark in the building and the kid jumped out of nowhere with a toy gun. The police officer is suspended while the case is being investigated.

INNER EMOTIONS:

How he deals and is dealt by his immediate peers

His struggle to remove the visions of the killing

The emotional turmoil as he waits for the investigation to conclude.

His dealings with the parents of the child he accidentally killed.

Throughout all of these emotions the one factor that will bind your reader to continue will be: How will he fare at the end of this book? The way you first portray this particular character in the beginning will be totally different by the end because of the various upsets he’s had to deal with. Show him as upbeat, nonchalant, no change at the end and you will lose your reader’s interest in the book and in you as an author.

Think of real life: if you had to go through a trauma as the officer in the example above, how would it change you? A writer needs to wear his character’s shoes and get inside his head to fully understand him. Write a story with a stick person and you get stale material. Write a story with powerful emotions and you have one interesting read.

THE ALMIGHTY ENDING

By the end of your book all inner and outer conflicts need to have reached a conclusion. Whether your character overcame or failed is not as important as making sure he tried to meet them head on. You cannot place a conflict (or foreshadow) without making sure by the end of the story some sort of a resolution was made. This is cheating a reader and they WILL notice, especially if one of those conflicts was the one he’s been hoping to see the outcome to.

Contributing newsletter columnist Lea Schizas is founder and co-founder of The MuseItUp Club (http://museitupclub.tripod.com) and Apollo’s Lyre (http://www.apollos-lyre.com), both named among Writer’s Digest Best 101 Web Sites for Writerss and which have received several Preditors and Editors awards. Ms. Schizas is the author of the young adult fantasy novel “The Rock of Realm,” and the paranormal/thriller “Doorman’s Creek.” She is also the editor and co-author of “The Muse On Writing,” a writer’s reference book, and the fantasy novel “Aleatory’s Junction.”

For more information on Lea Schizas, please check out her site:

http://leaschizaseditor.tripod.com/



Slice of the Writing Life


Excerpts from Joan Didion’s, “Why I Write”:

Of course I stole the title from this talk, from George Orwell. One reason I stole it was that I like the sound of the words: Why I Write. There you have three short unambiguous words that share a sound, and the sound they share is this:

In many ways writing is the act of saying I, of imposing oneself upon other people, of saying listen to me, see it my way, change your mind. It’s an aggressive, even a hostile act. You can disguise its aggressiveness all you want with veils of subordinate clauses and qualifiers and tentative subjunctives, with ellipses and evasions with the whole manner of intimating rather than claiming, of alluding rather than stating but there’s no getting around the fact that setting words on paper is the tactic of a secret bully, an invasion, an imposition of the writers sensibility on the readers most private space.

I stole the title not only because the words sounded right but because they seemed to sum up, in a no-nonsense way, all I have to tell you. Like many writers I have only this one "subject," this one "area": the act of writing. I can bring you no reports from any other front. I may have other interests: I am "interested," for example, in marine biology, but I don't flatter myself that you would come out to hear me talk about it. I am not a scholar. I am not in the least an intellectual, which is not to say that when I hear the word "intellectual" I reach for my gun, but only to say that I do not think in abstracts. During the years when I was an undergraduate at Berkeley, I tried, with a kind of hopeless late-adolescent energy, to buy some temporary visa into the world of ideas, to forge for myself a mind that could deal with abstract.

In short I tried to think. I failed. My attention veered inexorably back to the specific, to the tangible, to what was generally considered, by everyone I knew then and for that matter have known since, the peripheral. I would try to contemplate the Hegelian dialectic and would find myself concentrating instead on a flowering pear tree outside my window and the particular way the petals fell on my floor. I would try to read linguistic theory and would find myself wondering instead if the lights were on in the bevatron up the hill. When I say that I was wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron you might immediately suspect, if you deal in ideas at all, that I was registering the bevatron as a political symbol, thinking in shorthand about the military-industrial complex and its role in the university community, but you would be wrong. I was only wondering if the lights were on in the bevatron, and how they looked. A physical fact.

I had trouble graduating from Berkeley, not because of this inability to deal with ideas--I was majoring in English, and I could locate the house-and-garden imagery in "The Portrait of a Lady" as well as the next person, "imagery" being by definition the kind of specific that got my attention--but simply because I had neglected to take a course in Milton. For reasons which now sound baroque I needed a degree by the end of that summer, and the English department finally agreed, if I would come down from Sacramento every Friday and talk about the cosmology of "Paradise Lost," to certify me proficient in Milton. I did this. Some Fridays I took the Greyhound bus, other Fridays I caught the Southern Pacific's City of San Francisco on the last leg of its transcontinental trip. I can no longer tell you whether Milton put the sun or the earth at the center of his universe in "Paradise Lost," the central question of at least one century and a topic about which I wrote 10,000 words that summer, but I can still recall the exact rancidity of the butter in the City of San Francisco's dining car, and the way the tinted windows on the Greyhound bus cast the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits into a grayed and obscurely sinister light. In short my attention was always on the periphery, on what I could see and taste and touch, on the butter, and the Greyhound bus. During those years I was traveling on what I knew to be a very shaky passport, forged papers: I knew that I was no legitimate resident in any world of ideas. I knew I couldn't think. All I knew then was what I couldn't do. All I knew was what I wasn't, and it took me some years to discover what I was.

Which was a writer.

By which I mean not a "good" writer or a "bad" writer but simply a writer, a person whose most absorbed and passionate hours are spent arranging words on pieces of paper. Had my credentials been in order I would never have become a writer. Had I been blessed with even limited access to my own mind there would have been no reason to write. I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking, what I'm looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear. Why did the oil refineries around Carquinez Straits seem sinister to me in the summer of 1956? Why have the night lights in the bevatron burned in my mind for twenty years? What is going on in these pictures in my mind?







Announcements



The Author’s Repair Kit is a NEW ebook designed to help you breathe new life into your faltering or failing book. Use Patricia Fry’s post-publication book proposal system and heal your publishing mistakes. The Author's Repair Kit, only 27 pages: $5.95. http://www.matilijapress.com/author_repairkit.html.


Sheila Bender’s Writing It Real: No-contest contest. Enter up to six double-spaced pages, prose or poetry; receive a year’s subscription AND Sheila’s detailed response to your work. $45. www.writingitreal.com July 1- September 31. http://www.writingitreal.com/page.php?p=essay_contest



The Writer’s Mindset

Writer’s Block?? Tear Down the Wall!
By Jeanne Lyet Gassman

Writer’s Block is the inability to begin a writing project or the inability to complete a writing project already in progress. Somewhere, in the back of your mind, you hear that nasty little editor saying to you, “You call this good writing?? This is garbage. Why are you wasting your time? You’ll never write anything worthwhile.” That voice may even sound a lot like your former seventh grade English teacher! So, how do you shut that whiny, negative internal editor down and get back to work? Here are some suggestions you might find helpful.

Permit it. Give yourself permission to write a crappy first draft. Just get those words on the paper. It doesn’t matter if the first draft is filled with misspelled words, rambling thoughts, and questionable grammar. Just get the ideas written down.

Date it. Make a date with yourself to write. Pick a time and a place and tell yourself, “On this day I will write one paragraph, no more, no less. It doesn’t matter how good it is.” When that paragraph is finished, take yourself out for a special treat. Buy a new book, go out for ice cream, go for walk; do something special that you’ve been putting off. Gradually increase your writing expectations until you find that you’re producing a lot of good writing without knowing how it happened.

Open it. Take your writing out of the box you normally work in. If you write at a computer, buy a bound composition book and write a few pieces by hand. Keep a journal. If you work in a home office, go outside. Or, go to a library, a coffee shop, or a mall. A change of scenery can often work wonders for the tired mind.

Join it. Take a writing class or workshop. Join an online critique group, a writer’s forum, or a local critique group that meets in person. Attend a writing conference. Communing with fellow writers who understand the writing process can be wonderfully invigorating. Just don’t allow your socialization to become an excuse for procrastinating.

Change it. Are you working on a novel? Try writing an essay or poetry. Do you write non-fiction? Rough out a few short stories. Experiment with different forms and genres, and you might find a whole new writing interest.

Create it. If you find you can’t write at all, then don’t. Do something else that is creative that you enjoy. Other creative activities can include: cooking, gardening, music, painting, crafts, etc. I’m a firm believer that creative endeavors begat more creativity. The most important thing is to get that right brain working again.

Time it. Set a timer for five minutes and start writing about any topic you choose. Don’t stop until the buzzer goes off, and don’t waste your precious five minutes correcting misspelled words, fixing grammar, etc. Just write. Five minutes is a long time. If you write without stopping, you’ll be amazed by what you can produce in a mere five minutes.

Move it. Sitting at a desk for hours on end can be stultifying. Get out and get moving. Regular exercise increases your sense of well-being and gives you more energy. Exercise also frees your mind to organize your ideas more effectively.

Share it. Find a writing partner who will help you set deadlines and expect you to meet them. A good critique group can work in this fashion, too. If you know that someone is expecting chapter ten of your novel by next Tuesday, you may find yourself working into the wee hours just to get the chapter finished. Deadlines--real or artificial--create pressure. That pressure could be enough to get you over the hump of writer’s block.

Storm it. Rather than struggle to write something linear and organized, take some time out to do some brainstorming. There are several popular methods for brainstorming. You’ll find links to those listed below. Remember the cardinal rule of brainstorming: All ideas are good.

Stop it…in the middle. Many writers have done this. They stop work in the middle of a sentence, a paragraph, a conversation, or an idea. That forces them to finish yesterday’s thought before they start today’s. Just retyping and editing yesterday’s work can often be enough to get the creative juices flowing again.

Remember it. Once you begin writing again, always remember to—Oops! Did I say stop in the middle?? I guess I’ll have to finish that thought tomorrow!

Happy Writing!
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HELPFUL RESOURCES

Books to Inspire Creativity

Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott
The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron
On Writing, by Stephen King
Writing Down the Bones, by Natalie Goldberg

Writing Prompts
Need something to jump-start your writing? Try these sites for some fun and challenging writing prompts:

http://www.oncewritten.com

http://www.writersdigest.com

Online critique groups

Online critique groups vary greatly by specialty, requirements, and members’ level of experience. Be sure to read the group’s guidelines carefully before you decide to participate. Here are a few established critique groups that have a reputation for being helpful:

http://www.critters.org

http://www.all-story.com/virtualstudio.cgi

http://www.writersdigest.com

To find a local critique group that meets face-to-face, visit the places writers like to congregate. Look for critique groups in bookstores, libraries, community colleges, coffee shops that host readings, and community centers. Do visit the group a few times before you make a commitment to join and actively participate. Every group has its set of dynamics. You need to choose a writer’s group that best fits your needs.


Organization and Brainstorming

Sometimes you just run out of good ideas. Here are some sites to help you with brainstorming and generating new ideas:

http://www.swc.utexas.edu/samples/writingprocess/brainstorm.shtml

http://writing2.richmond.edu/writing/wweb.html

Are you having a problem starting or finishing a novel? Then you might want to take a look at this article by Randy Ingermanson. It offers some terrific tips for mapping out that big project:

http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/the_snowflake.html

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Looking for a Writing Job?

Check out these sites:

http://www.mediabistro.com/joblistings

http://www.pw.org/joblistings

http://www.ed2010.com/jobs/whisperjobs

http://careers.poynter.org/search/results/

http://www.writingcareer.com/writingjobs/index.php

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PayingWriterJobs

http://www.sunoasis.com

http://www.writerfind.com/freelance_jobs

http://www.freelancewritinggigs.com

http://www.tjobs.com/new/writers.shtml

http://www.online-writing-jobs.com/

http://www.thefreelancewriterslounge.blogspot.com/

http://jobs.mediageneral.com/

http://www.writejobs.com

http://www.aasfe.org/jobs/index.php

http://journalism.berkeley.edu/jobs/listings.php?view=job

http://aboutfreelancewriting.com

http://www.creativehotlist.com/index.asp

http://www.gofreelance.com/?AID=10414556&PID=2398750

http://jobs.problogger.net

http://jobs.freelanceswitch.com/categories/3

http://www.blogher.com/forums/blogher-news-forums/job-listings-and-gigs-0

http://www.poewar.com/jobs-by-category/jobs/

http://www.indeed.com

http://www.writersweekly.com

http://www.bloggerjobs.biz

http://www.mediajobmarket.com/jobs/index.jsp

http://allfreelancewritingjobs.com/

http://www.jeffqaulin.com

http://authorlink.monster.com

http://www.writingjobroll.com/

http://www.newsjobs.net/

http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobs/list/o-27304

http://www.freelancedaily.net/

http://www.wahm.com/jobs.html

http://www.journalismnet.com/jobs/

http://www.elance.com/p/landing/buyerwriting.html

http://www.guru.com/index.aspx

http://www.allfreelancework.com/

http://www.journalismjobs.com

(Disclaimer: I only recommend these sites as interesting ones to check out. If you decide to purchase any products or services, or become a paid member of a site or apply for a posted job, you do so at your own risk. Please use your discretion and common sense.)




Bookings


A Manual of Writer’s Tricks
By David L. Carroll
Award-winning television writer David L. Carroll’s indispensable reference manual is packed with advice for fiction and nonfiction, professional and amateur writers alike. I carry this slim book almost always when I’m working on a story. It not only has great little tips for working through rough spots but can also do wonders to trigger the creative juices. His ingenious devices and tried-and-true literary shortcuts will help you save time, improve style and structure, avoid common pitfalls, and have more expressive writing. I keep it alongside my dictionary and thesaurus.

Adventures in the Screen Trade
By William Goldman
Written by the two-time Oscar-winning screenwriter, Goldman’s 1983 book (as Nelson George noted in the above Spotlight Interview) is an absolute must for any screenwriter or anyone interested in the inside game of Hollywood. Witty, poignant, incisive, and incredibly compelling.

Fiction Writer's Handbook
By Hallie and Whit Burnett
The coeditors of Story Magazine published the first work of many noted writers—Norman Mailer, J.D. Salinger, Truman Capote, Joseph Heller, William Saroyan, Tennessee Williams, and Carson McCullers. In this 1975 guide, they pass on practical advice on every aspect of writing novels and short stories.

Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular
By Rust Hills

Long-time fiction editor of Esquire, Hills has written a nuts-and-bolts guide for making the pieces of writing fit together as neatly as a puzzle. This valuable resource debuted in 1977 but continues to offer timely tips.

Structuring Your Novel: From Basic Idea to Finished Manuscript
By Robert C. Meredith and John D. Fitzgerald

Written in 1972, this book examines the challenges of writing a novel. It puts some of the greatest novels under the microscope—Tom Jones, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, Madame Bovary, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Grapes of Wrath—to show how they met these challenges.

Publishing to the Power of Dee


Behind Closed Doors: What Happens at the Publishing House
By Dee Power

Have you ever wondered what happens behind the closed doors at a publishing house? Who makes the decision to offer a contract for a book and how that decision is made?

The editor reviews the submissions and selects those book projects he or she feels the most excited about, fits the house’s list at the time and will sell well. The editor presents his or her selections at the publishing house’s editorial meeting. And each of the other acquisition editors does the same. The publisher, editorial director, marketing vice president, sales director and the publicity manager attend these meetings and have a direct say in whether a title will be accepted.

Questions and answers follow to determine if the book has a market, if it’s well written, what the competition is and what the potential “hook” for publicity might be. All this information should be in the book proposal for nonfiction. Finally a decision is made about which books will receive an offer—and what that offer will be.

Money, Money, Money: Advance$

The agent and editor, or if the author doesn’t have an agent, the author and the editor, negotiate the advance, royalties and other issues of the contract. The advance and royalties are payment to the author in exchange for the publisher to exclusively publish the book. Most publishers these days want all rights, including print, electronic, syndication, audio, foreign, movie and TV rights.

If the publisher sells any of these additional rights the author gets a share of the payment. The payment can be in addition to the advance or can be used to earn out the advance.

The advance is based on how many copies of the title the publisher believes will sell. The royalty is a percentage between 5-15% and can be calculated using the suggested retail price, the net price to the publisher or the profits to the publisher. The royalty can be negotiated.

The suggested retail price is simply the price that is printed on the book and embedded in the bar code on the back. The net publisher price is discounted from the retail price and is the price the publisher receives from the wholesaler, distributor or bookstore. The net publisher price can be 20% to 55% less than the suggested retail price. For example Amazon.com demands a 55% discount. A book that has a suggested retail price of $20, would generate $9.00 to the publisher. In other words Amazon.com pays the publisher $9.00 for each copy they buy. The royalty would be paid on the $9.00. The profit price is not used by many legitimate publishers because it can easily be manipulated.

The royalties can escalate based on the numbers of copies sold. For example the first 5000 copies sold have a royalty of 5% of the suggested retail price. The next 10,000 copies sold earn a royalty of 6% of suggested retail price. The next 50,000 earn a 7% royalty. There can be a ‘bestseller’ clause that says that additional royalties will be paid or a bonus advance will be paid if the title gets to a certain position on one of the bestseller lists. The bonus advance isn’t in addition to earned royalties but a prepayment of them.

The advance is ‘earned out’ when the royalties on the total sales equals the paid advance. If a publisher thought that a title would sell 25,000 copies at a retail price of $20 and the royalty rate was 5%, the advance would theoretically be $25,000. In reality the publisher will hedge its bets and only pay an advance of say, $10,000. If the title does sell 25,000 copies, the author will get the remaining $15,000 paid as the books sell.

The advance is usually split into payments, sometimes as many as four or five.

The first payment can be when the contract is signed, the second when the first half of the manuscript is completed, the third when the manuscript is completed, and the fourth when the book is published. The payments don’t have to be equal. The five figure advances we have been paid for our nonfiction books were 50% upon signing the contract and the remaining 50% when the manuscript was accepted by the publisher.

Advances can range from a few thousand dollars to seven figures for bestselling authors. If the author has an agent, the advance is paid to the literary agent who then deducts their commission, and sends a check for the remainder to the author.

The author does not receive any further payment from the publisher until the advance is earned out, (unless of course, additional rights are sold) in other words until the royalties earned from the book exceed the advance previously paid. However the author doesn’t have to repay the advance or any portion of it, if the book doesn’t earn out the advance.

Many small presses can’t afford to pay an advance. That doesn’t mean they aren’t legitimate. Sometimes the advance will be a token, from $100 to $500 to show good faith. The author will still receive royalties.

You can negotiate the number of free books you receive. It can range from 2 to 100. Usually the publisher offers a discount to the author when the author wants to purchase their own book. This discount can be negotiated. Most publishers prohibit their authors from selling books to bookstores for resale. That’s the publisher’s sales staff’s job.

In most cases, the copyright for the book remains with the author. The publisher registers the copyright with the Library of Congress in the name of the author.

All of these alternatives are spelled out in the publishing contract.

Newsletter contributing columnist Dee Power is the co-author with Brian Hill of The Making of a Bestseller: Success Stories From Authors and the Editors, Agents and Booksellers Behind Them and the novel Over Time.



Be Creative!




The Language

Don’t let these commonly misused/misspelled words and phrases trip you up
By Mark Terence Chapman

Continuing my series of articles, here are some more words, phrases and forms of punctuation that are commonly misused or misspelled. A conscientious writer should use these correctly. More importantly, using these words/phrases correctly will reduce the odds of your writing being rejected by an editor due to excessive errors. (Editors don’t want to waste time on pieces that require an inordinate amount of their time to clean up.) Even if you write only business reports and emails, you still wouldn’t want people chuckling over your misuse of the English language, would you?

Disc vs. disk
Wrong: My hard disc crashed.
Right: My hard disk crashed.

Disc and disk are both valid spellings, but are used differently. If referring to CDs, then use compact disc. But when talking about floppies (diskettes) or hard drives, spell it floppy disk drive or hard disk drive.

Singing vs. singeing
Wrong: He says he’s grilling steaks, but what he’s really doing is singing the hair off his arms.
Right: He says he’s grilling steaks, but what he’s really doing is singeing the hair off his arms.

Although it looks odd, singeing is the correct spelling, to distinguish it from the act of making beautiful music via one’s vocal cords—or in some cases, making sounds like a strangled cat.

Dying vs. dyeing
Wrong: I can’t go out with you tonight because I’m dying my hair.
Right: I can’t go out with you tonight because I’m dyeing my hair.

Unless a woman is changing her hair color at the bottom of the ocean, most likely she’s dyeing it, not dying.

Ink pen
Wrong: Can I borrow your ink pen?
Right: Can I borrow your pen?

Because all writing pens (as opposed to, for example, pig pens) contain ink and only ink, saying ink pen is redundant.

Proved vs. proven
Right: He proved his case.
Right: She was proved wrong.
Right: She was proven wrong.
Right: Unless I’m proven wrong, my decision stands.

Proved is correct in either usage, while proven must be proceeded by a form of the verb “to be” (is/was/will be/will have been). In the latter case, the two words are interchangeable. However, sometimes one sounds better than the other. (Personally, I feel that proved wrong, when spoken, doesn’t flow as well as proven wrong.)

Shear vs. sheer
Wrong: She cried out in shear terror.
Right: She cried out in sheer terror.

Shear means to cut, so unless she’s being menaced by pinking shears, it’s sheer, as in utter.

Niggardly
Right: He left his waitress a niggardly tip.

Perhaps due to the unfortunate similarity to another word, some people mistakenly assume niggardly is a racial slur of some sort. In fact, it simply means miserly or stingy. Still, due to the potential for confusion, perhaps it’s best to use a synonym instead.

This reminds me of the story of a politician who used dirty tricks in a campaign, by claiming of his opponent that “He has been seen masticating in public and his wife is a known thespian.” The politician evidently counted on the voters possessing poor vocabularies. Similarly, you might enjoy this spoof of a campaign speech by Bill Garvin, published in Mad Magazine in 1970: http://www.mendosa.com/politics.html.

Squash vs. quash
Wrong: Saddam Hussein squashed the rebellion.
Right: Saddam Hussein quashed the rebellion.

To squash is to crush, flatten, or pulp. To quash is to suppress, quell, or subdue. Although a dictator might be said to crush a rebellion, he does not literally press it into a flat mass to squeeze the juice out of it. The correct term for ending a rebellion, or to deny a legal motion, is to quash it.

Purposely vs. purposefully vs. on purpose
Right: You did that purposefully.
Right: You did that purposely.
Right: You did that on purpose.

Purposely means intentionally (as opposed to accidentally) or on purpose. If you do something for an express purpose, you do it purposefully. Both expressions are correct, but be sure you use them correctly.

Spaded vs. spayed
Wrong: Have your dogs spaded or neutered.
Right: Have your dogs spayed or neutered.

To spay means to have a female surgically sterilized. Spaded means shoveled as with a spade. Do you really want to encourage people to shovel their dogs?

If you’ve ever been confused about any of these words or phrases, tack this article to the wall by your desk. It’ll help you avoid similar errors in the future.

Mark Terence Chapman writes in various genres: He’s a poet, short story writer, novelist, humorist, and even a nonfiction writer tackling computer topics and nanotechnology. To find out more about Mr. Chapman, please visit his Web site at: http://tesserene.com or his blog at: http://tesserene.blogspot.com
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Writer Beware

Warnings About Literary Fraud and Other Schemes, Scams, and Pitfalls That Target Writers

Do yourself a favor and check out this great sites to keep you safe in the publishing world:

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

http://accrispin.blogspot.com

_________________________________________________

On the Writing Business



What Can You Expect From Your Editor?
By Patricia Fry

I’ve been doing quite a bit of editing, lately and I’m loving the work. I’ve edited a fantasy, a thriller, a few spiritual books and memoirs as well as a true crime, a historical, some how-to and self-help books and mass market novels.

While the books are different in content and purpose, there are some similarities between many of them as far as editing goes. Are you curious as to what they are? Here’s my tell all:

1: Most writers still leave two spaces after a period, question mark, etc. The rule now is one space after all punctuation. You’ll save yourself some money if you will correct this problem throughout your manuscript before turning it over to an editor. If your editor doesn’t know about the one-space-after-a-period rule, maybe she/he isn’t the right editor for you.

2: Many authors still leave the em-dash dangling between two words. The em-dash is correctly placed when it is about the width of the letter “M” and it connects the two words—thusly. Also, make sure that you use the em-dash appropriately within your text. I can see that I need a new Associated Press Stylebook. While there is text within the book in which the em-dash is used correctly, the punctuation section of this 1992 edition still shows the em-dash as a dangler. Use the em-dash to denote an abrupt change in thought within a sentence, to set off an explanatory element of the sentence and sometimes it’s used in place of a comma. My 2003 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style shows the em-dash (or dash) used correctly.

3: Many authors engage in what I call “muddy writing.” They sacrifice clarity for some sort of desire to use complicated, go nowhere sentences. Write so that you can be understood, or why bother.

4: Writers use incomplete sentences. Make sure that your sentences can stand alone—in other words that it has a subject, an action and appropriate connecting words.

5: New authors commonly write sentences that are too long and/or too complex. If someone has to read a sentence through again just to figure out what it means, the author has failed that reader.

6: Novice writers tend to repeat themselves. As an editor, I spend a great deal of my time suggesting that authors replace copycat words with fresh ones. When you finish a paragraph, read through it again to make sure that you haven’t repeated words such as, “had,” “also,” “very,” etc. When you are writing about a dog, vary the way you refer to him. Use his name, call him pup, the old guy, pet, canine, four-footed friend, fur kid, man’s best friend, etc.

7: I see some excellent, fresh writing and some boring, stale text. Make your paragraphs more interesting by varying the size and style of sentences and using unexpected words and phrases. One way to jazz up your writing is by increasing your vocabulary.

8: I also see manuscripts where authors use words that are too fancy and even obscure. Again, think about your audience. Ask, will they enjoy reading this or will it become a chore for them to make their way through unfamiliar territory?

9: Many authors aren’t sure where to break for a new paragraph. I deal with a lot of paragraphs that are too long.

10: Most authors use far too many instances of quotation marks. Often, it is Italics that they should use in order to emphasize a word or a phrase. Use Italics sparingly, however. Likewise, authors use quotation marks incorrectly in dialogue. They put punctuation outside of quotation marks and omit the comma before the quote, for example. Some don’t capitalize the first word in a quote—you should, you know. And, in dialogue, each new speaker starts a new paragraph.

11: Many writers today still use the passive instead of the active voice. Instead of writing, “The worm was put on the hook by the fisherman.” Say, “The fisherman baited the hook.” Rather than, “The chick was thought by us to be stunning.” Say, “We all agreed that the chick was hot.”

12: Probably the most consistent problem I see in editing is lack of consistency. Rather than charging my clients to fix inconsistencies, I generally suggest that they use the find and replace tool on their computer and do it themselves. When you finish your manuscript, make sure that the words you want capitalized are all capitalized, that the names of your characters stay true, without different spellings throughout, and that your facts stay the same.

13: Some authors lean too much on their editors. When I edit a manuscript for a client, I provide lessons as I go along. I teach the rules and techniques in hopes that the author actually learns from the experience. But, alas, some of them send me their second manuscripts with the same mistakes I encountered in their first. I guess some writers just aren’t interested in developing new skills.

Contributing newsletter columnist Patricia Fry is the author of 25 published books, including, The Right Way to Write, Publish and Sell Your Book. She is also the president of SPAWN (Small Publishers, Artists and Writers Network, www.spawn.org).

Visit her publishing blog at:

www.matilijapress.com/publishingblog

Ms. Fry’s free guide to writing a Post-Publication Book Proposal can be requested by emailing her at:

PLFry620@yahoo.com
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Write It Right!
















Writing Quotes of the Month

“You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.”—F. Scott Fitzgerald

“A writer is a person who cares what words mean, what they say, how they say it. Writers know words are their way towards truth and freedom, and so they use them with care, with thought, with fear, with delight.”—Ursula K. LeGuin

“In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself; to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.”—Alfred Kazin

“The faster I write the better my output. If I'm going slowly I'm in trouble. It means I'm pushing the words instead of being pulled by them.”— Raymond Chandler

“Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!”—Edna Ferber

“I have no theory of stories, just a theory for each story I write. A particular form is right for a given story and that's all. I don't like generalizations about literature -- I think the general is the enemy of the particular and the particular is the friend of the writer.”—Tobias Wolff

“Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.”—Erica Jong

“A writer writes not because he is educated but because he is driven by the need to communicate. Behind the need to communicate is the need to share. Behind the need to share is the need to be understood. The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.”—Leo Rosten

“In the beginning you may be writing around what you want to say instead of getting to the core. Keep writing. The route may be circuitous but after you zero in on what you truly want to say, you'll see that during all those false starts and detoured storylines, you weren't wasting time, as you feared. You were developing as a writer, developing a discerning eye and ear, finding your own voice, learning to respect self-imposed deadlines.”—Madeleine Costigan

“To me the greatest pleasure of writing is not what it's about, but the music the words make.” —Truman Capote


A Bevy of Writing Knowledge



Making the Leap from Part-time to Full-time Freelancer
By Bev Walton-Porter

When is the right time to go from part-time, moonlighting freelancer to work-at-home full-timer? There are guideposts to go by, progress that you can chart. In this article, we'll discuss how to assess your readiness for full-time freelancing so your entry will be as smooth as possible.

Now, I do understand there are a lot of you who freelance just as a part-time proposition, and maybe you're never planning on going full-time. Hey, that's no biggie! Not everyone goes full-time—nor should they. But still, there are quite a few people who want to go full-time, but the idea of making the jump into uncharted waters scares the doodles out of them.

To be sure, making the decision to go full-time is not for the faint of heart. If you're the type of person who has to have a future that's constantly stable and predictable and who has to have everything just "so" all the time, then don't freelance full-time. If you do, you'll end up getting gray hairs if you don't have them already, or you'll chew your nails down to the utter quick—and maybe past the quick!

What does it take to be a full-time freelancer? Well, there are many combinations of traits, and it's probably true that all freelancers aren't alike down to the tooth and nail, but I contend that if you're a full-time freelancer, you're probably an optimistic, confident risk-taker at heart.

Some people may say, "Oh no! I'm not a risk-taker! I'm very well-organized and blah blah blah—anything but a risk-taker." I disagree. In your heart of hearts, you are a pioneer and a risk-taker. With the boldest of actions, you have chosen to go where most men and women in life never even dream of traveling: into the wild, unpredictable wilderness of working without a net.

When you work without a net, that means you are not guaranteed the same paycheck every two weeks (or, perhaps, every week) like most workers. Your job doesn't guarantee health care or dental insurance—although you can sign up for such plans through writers' organizations. You literally have to go out and find jobs over and over again. You also have to be a marketer, a salesperson and a publicist, among other things. You not only have to sell a product, you also have to sell yourself, in a manner of speaking.

By the same token, there are benefits to freelancing full-time, not the least of which is the satisfaction of working for yourself and not a boss who stares over your shoulder all the time. You can also work anytime you want—day or night. You set your own hours.

However, this is a double-edged sword; you must be disciplined enough to work without supervision. You have to motivate yourself each morning to get up and get cracking. Of course, nothing motivates people more than a looming house payment!

What are the telltale signs that you're ready to consider striking out on your own as a full-timer? Here's a list to get you thinking:

1. Increasing sales. Are you pulling in assignments on a consistent basis? Have you gone from selling four articles in one year to selling 40? If so, this is a good indicator of your ability to sustain regular assignments.

2. Have you mastered the art of composing an effective query letter? More importantly, are your query letters targeting the appropriate publication markets and pitching ideas that fit just right most of the time? Are your queries hitting the target more often than not? If so, this is a good indicator of full-time readiness.

3. Before you slap that feather in your cap and begin to whistle a song of self-employment bliss, you'll have to take into account your ability to wear many hats: writer, administrator, marketer, salesperson, promoter, publicist, researcher and producer.

Full-time writing is not just writing, period. If you have a difficult time managing more than one job responsibility, then you'd better be a quick study in multi-tasking. Until you get financially successful enough to hire people to assist you with these tasks, then you'd better get used to the idea of being a one-man or one-woman band!

4. So, you can write, but can you market what you write? If you plan to sell regularly, you'd better figure out how to market. What is marketing? It involves not only figuring out what to sell to which market, but also how to advertise it, put it together into a pleasing product and deliver it on time to your client.

In my experience with freelancing, I've learned that marketing is just as important as the written product. Writing without marketing know-how is like a car without wheels—it may be a nice ride, but without wheels, it isn't going to take you anywhere!

5. Do you have a manager hidden inside? If you're planning to go full-time, you should have an ability to manage not only your time, but your finances as well as records, too. You should also know how to think ahead and decide how many assignments you plan to tackle for the next month, six months or a year.

6. Can you fend off procrastination? Will you be able to slay writer's block? These are deadly enemies to the full-time freelancer.

Often you'll have to turn out articles or other projects dealing with a range of subjects, and you'll have to research, too. Being able to hit the ground running with interviewing and research, as well as writing on the fly, are assets. You don't have time to be inspired or motivated as a freelancer when deadlines are looming. Motivation and inspiration often equals butt in chair (as I've heard many times before!).

One caveat: beware of too much research—you don't have to be the world's foremost expert on a subject to write a decent article about it. Get the best facts you can and the best, most informed sources you can. Interview by recorded phone call or e-mail whenever possible -- when you get the experts' replies in their own voices or writing, it's hard for them to say they've been misquoted!

7. Another eater-away of your writing time are unwelcome interruptions. Can you effectively handle interruptions and complete your writing assignments despite all sorts of scenarios that may pop up? Because time means money when your bounty pays the bills, watch for time stealers. Interruptions, unnecessary phone calls during your working hours, an overabundance of e-mail that has nothing to do with writing. These are all ways to entice you to procrastinate or waste time. Here I'll admit e-mail is my biggest downfall, so be especially wary of that. Oh, and online Scrabble [TM] is another downfall of mine as well!

8. Finally, do you have a financial Plan B? What I mean is this: until you get the hang of full-time freelancing and are firing on all eight cylinders, do you have a nest egg or a spouse to help pay the bills when they come due? When I began freelancing full-time back in 1997, I made sure my family could live on my husband's salary. It was tight, to be sure, but we met the basics and there were places I scaled down our lifestyle and saved money. Things were more difficult when he died unexpectedly in 2001, but I've managed to stay at home writing despite that unexpected and tragic event. You can never foresee the future, so plan with care!

When I began freelancing, I counted on zero guaranteed income for my first year. Luckily, I brought in much more than zero, but I did the math and covered all the bases, nonetheless. By the second year, I made $7,000 more than I made at my previous city government job. Three years into freelancing, I had enough income that my husband was able to quit his job and take time off to look for new employment in a different state—Colorado—so we could finally move to the place we'd longed to move to for years.

Remember, however, that freelancing isn't all about money. It's about earning enough so you can keep doing what you love the most—writing—so you won't ever have to go back to working in a less-than-appealing work environment. Freelancing can offer monetary rewards, but if you don't want to write from the heart, the money won't mean much.

Let me say this again: freelancing does not offer a guaranteed income and before you make the decision to do this full-time, cover all your bases -- most especially your financial ones.

Hopefully I've given you some valid points to consider in your quest for full-time freelancer status. In no way does this article cover all the ins and outs of making the leap, but this can at least give you a jumping-off point for exploring all the avenues and the pros and cons of your future decision.

Newsletter contributing columnist Bev Walton-Porter is a professional writer/author who has publishing hundreds of stories on a wide variety of subjects and written three books: “Sun Signs for Writers,” the contemporary romance “Mending Fences,” and “The Complete Writer: A Guide to Tapping Your Full Potential,” co-authored with three other writers.

She has also worked as a contract editor for NBC Internet and Inkspot.com, among others, published in the award-winning e-zine for writers, Scribe & Quill, for the past nine years, and is a member of The Authors Guild as well as the co-founder of the International Order of Horror Professionals.

Please visit her Web site at:

http://www.bevwaltonporter.com

Writing Promptly

Write about…

your secret wish.

the most interesting person you ever met.

your favorite dream.

the best movie you ever saw.

your perfect job.

a penny.

your favorite vacation.

the trait of which you’re most proud.

your childhood idol.

the worst thing that ever happened to you during childhood.

Marketing



Fresh ideas for the marketing weary
By Angela Wilson

It’s tough to find fresh ways to market your work. After long, grueling hours of hard marketing using standard techniques, your brain is fried, and trying to think of a new technique is the last thing you want to do.

Finding those ideas isn’t as hard as you think. You just need to get inside of your story to find outside-the-box marketing ideas. Your novel may offer a key component that will offer new venues to sell, subtle ways to promote your work or a stroke of brilliance that you can promote to other authors.

Here are some great examples from successful authors – and a few tips of my own.

• Maggie Sefton pens the A Knitting Mystery series featuring protagonist Kelly Flynn. Inside her latest, she includes a recipe and knitting pattern and Sefton signs and sells her books at fabric stores like Lambspun of Colorado.

• Offer value added items to your site – not just summaries, cover art and sales pitch. For example, if you have a character dying of cancer – even a minor character – put links and information on your site about cancer. Not only is it a value to readers, but the meta tags will spread your messages throughout search engines anytime someone looks up information on the disease.

• Coffeehouses are not just for poetry anymore. Many coffeehouses are looking for talent to fill an hour or so a night. Hook up with local coffee shops that offer entertainment and arrange a book reading, where you can also autograph and sell. Better yet, if a character in your book likes a particular drink, see if, just for that night, the shop will name it for your character – an added sales feature for both yourself and them.

• Austin Camacho, author of Successfully Marketing Your Novel in the 21st Century, decided to check out airport shops to introduce readers to his signature character, Hannibal Jones. He was an instant hit – and continues to get invites back. Camacho puts a “local author” sticker on the books so people can use it as a trip memento, or for an in-flight read.

• Doctor’s offices always need new reading material. Consider printing up the first chapter of your novel in a mini-book to leave in waiting rooms.

• Book club members love to meet authors – and with technology, you are not constrained to just your hometown. Consider using Skype or even a call on speaker phone to chat it up with readers about your latest and what’s ahead for you. Not only do you have immediately sales for readers in the group, but the personal touch will help sustain them as fans and customers.

• You can post all the flyers you want on bulletin boards, but inevitably they will get covered. Consider doing buttons of your book cover instead. It can’t get covered, and people will use it to hold up other items, so it will always be prominent. Button machines are inexpensive. It is also likely your local school district will have one that you can borrow.

• How do you market a children’s book about making candy turtles? That was Sara Ann Denson’s quandary as she worked to promote her book, Christmas Turtles. Denson targeted elementary schools for speeches, where families could preorder books, but she knew she needed something more to sell her print run. A Google search led her to several pecan growers associations. She signed on for the Texas Pecan Growers Association convention – chosen strategically because of it’s location in the center on the nation – and found instant success among pecan growers. Many bought her books to sell with their products – especially the tins that hold pecans, which were prominently featured in the book art. They also recommended her to other growers, who passed along those recommendations when they called to order. As a bonus, Denson was not expected to purchase items from vendors, which eased the financial pressure. (After all, how many people need a machine that shakes pecans from trees?)

• Get inside a Mom Pack. This innovative idea allows moms everywhere to network with other mothers and put their announcements into packets, which are left at doctors’ offices, garage waiting rooms and other places where people are craving reading material. Find out about current packs at http://www.mompack.com/mompack/.

• The library isn’t the only place that takes book donations. Check with your local Ronald McDonald House, developmental centers, daycares, senior centers and other community areas to see if your genre fits their needs.

• The Fall 2007 edition of Visit Detroit featured a short vignette about P.J. Parrish, the pseudonym for native sisters Kristy Monte and Kelly Nichols. This slick glossy is published by the Detroit Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau. Put your local chamber on your news release list. Develop contacts and campaign (quietly) for a feature story or other item highlighting your work and connection to the region. This could be especially useful in smaller, touristy areas.

Creative marketing ideas are just a thought away. Delve into the back story of your novel or your own life to find them.

Contributing newsletter columnist Angela Wilson is a Web producer, author publicist, and marketing/PR specialist. When not writing, she manages the author virtual book tour blog at:

http://popsyndicate.com

Also find her on the Web at:
www.angelawilson.net, www.wickedwordsmith.com, or www.myspace.com/angelawilson

Got a marketing question you want answered in this column? E-mail Angela at: authorangelawilson@gmail.com
_________________________________

Guest Column


From the Editor’s Mouth: 10 Sure-fire Ways to Make an Editor Say Yes
By Jo Parfitt

These tips came from my editors at Stamford Living, Dial, Embrace, Eurograduate and American in Britain.

Tip One
Appear serious about writing. An editor would rather be approached with a handful of good ideas from someone who really wants to be published rather than someone who’s just been on holiday and wants to write about their time.

Tip Two
Know the publication (and ideally editor’s name!). Round robin communications or thinking the magazine is consumer when it's customer etc. is a big faux pas. Show a genuine interest and understanding in the magazine. Do this and your feature ideas will be perfectly tailored to the readers.

Tip Three
Let the editor feel he or she can have confidence in you and that your ideas are both good and properly researched. Show that you can write, that you will follow the brief and that you will deliver on time. Most people can string a sentence together the editor wants evidence that you've got va-va-voom. Ideally, demonstrate this with how you word your communication, with details of work that's been published or with articles that haven't if you haven't.

Tip Four
Feature ideas that are topical and that can be backed up with research, surveys and/ or quotes are more useful than a feature that is purely the writer's opinion.

Tip Five
Make the editor believe that once the readers have read the article that they will know something that they didn’t know before.

Tip Six
Be prepared to go the extra mile and help a desperate editor with a tight deadline. Help him out and do it well in double-quick time and you have the chance of becoming a regular writer for the publication. Be confident and say, "Sure, I can."

Tip Seven
Become an expert in your field and thereby show the editor that you can make a useful contribution to the publication.

Tip Eight
Make the effort to provide good headlines, standfirsts, subheads and resource lists for your articles. Save the editor time.

Tip Nine
Do not pester the editor with weekly emails offering stories. Offer a few great ideas that are perfect for the market every three to six months at most.

Tip Ten
Offer to source photographs for your piece. Maybe you are capable of taking them yourself with a digital camera? If you are writing a piece about someone in another city or country an editor may appreciate a connection with a local photographer.

Jo Parfitt is a journalist, author, publisher and teacher known as The Book Cook.

Please visit her Web site at www.summertimepublishing.com, where you can sign up for her free newsletter, The Inspirer, and tips book, "So, You Want to Write a Book."

_________________________________
Tip of the Month

Spy conversations—and learn.

Without being conspicuous, spend a couple of weeks listening in on other people’s conversations in public places, such as Starbucks or McDonald’s, and writing them down verbatim in a tote-around notebook. Study hard the rhythms, inflections, words, accompanying body/face movement, and keep them all in memory—to be used later as dialogue or even as the basis for a story.

Wordplay

Unusual but cool sounding, interesting words to occasionally sprinkle into your writing.
Caution: Go very gently and wisely, lest you risk over-spicing your prose to point of the reader’s irritation.

Oblique—Slanting; expressed indirectly, not going straight to the point.

Ablution—A ritual cleansing. This can literally be a bath, or, more commonly, a spiritual purification. Vestal virgins probably engage in this kind of activity, since they have a lot of time on their hands.

Nonplussed—Completely perplexed.

Scurrilous—Incredibly abusive, obscenely nasty. Villains are guilty of scurrilous deeds.

Puerile—Juvenile, immature.

Acrimony—Biting sharpness or bitterness. It’s used to describe words, attitude, or disposition, not food. Old coffee is bitter; hostile divorces lead to acrimony between partners.

Runtish—An undersized person or animal.

Fey—Showing unnaturally high spirits, playful, mischievous, having a strange, otherworldly charm.

Besotted—Mentally stupefied, especially from drink.

Scabrous—Covered with small bumps, rough, sometimes a bit slimy or scaly; full of difficulties; scandalous, lacking in delicacy, salacious.

Final Suggestion: Before you unveil these words in public, look them up in your dictionary, learn all the different shades of meaning and uses, and roll them around on your tongue—and inside your head—until they feel comfortable to you.

The Writing Life



The Hard, Joyous Work of Writing
By Richard Turner

Anyone who has seriously engaged in writing knows that it is hard work, that finding the right words and putting them in the right order is anything but easy. Like any skill, it requires practice; like any process that involves the mind, it requires concentration—sometimes intense concentration. To become really good at writing, one must understand and apply the rules of grammar, acquire a varied and versatile vocabulary, and develop a good ear for language and a sense of style.

No matter how successful aspiring writers are at meeting all of these demands, however, they must meet one more requirement. They must love to write. The desire to write well is an admirable ambition, but without all the work and a passion for writing that wells up from the core of one’s being, this ambition is not likely to be realized. At least, that has been my experience.

It all begins with a curiosity about language. We all develop a fascination with words at a very early age. As we learn that tangible things have names—and, later, that even intangibles such as emotions have labels—we embark on the great adventure of exploring language. Our earliest ventures into this magical land are strictly oral, but we soon learn that we can miraculously put together otherwise meaningless symbols into written words that other people can read and understand. Thus begins a bond without which, I dare say, civilization as we know it, could not exist—the bond of readers and writers.

For reasons I don’t pretend to understand, some of us place more importance on this bond than others do. Some are satisfied to be mainly readers, to be consumers of writing rather than producers of it. (A few, of course, develop little interest in either and are satisfied to exist in a predominantly nonverbal world, as much as is humanly possible.) Some find their niche in other means of self-expression and communication—all of them worthy contributions to the bonds that link mankind: by creating art or music, by designing buildings, by engineering roads or bridges, by inventing tools and machines—the list is endless. And some of us choose and feel compelled to write.

As I said at the beginning, it’s hard work. Nevertheless, for those who endure and prevail, it becomes joyous work. Writers, I think, are much like musicians and composers in this respect. Except for rare geniuses, musicians must endure the painfully difficult tasks of learning scales and doing exercises before they are even halfway good. Similarly, writers must learn the rules of the language—grammar and syntax. As they become more practiced—that is, as the basics become almost automatic—musicians may take some liberties with traditional musical conventions and may begin to experiment with their own style, though not to such an extreme that the music degenerates into meaningless cacophony. Likewise, writers may begin to bend traditional rules and take stylistic liberties, but not so far as to undermine clarity and sense. One must master the rules before one can creatively and effectively bend them.

Yet, after all this effort, the result is tremendously satisfying. It is like the thrill of a musician who has given a virtuoso performance, and the readers who experience what a skillful writer produces may feel exhilarated too, as one does when one listens to an accomplished musician. The masterful writer is a virtuoso of sound and sense.

Because I teach writing, I place considerable emphasis on rules, though I prefer to think of them as “conventions.” If writers are unaware of, or ignore, the rules or conventions of language, they will not succeed. They will have broken the “contract” between them and their readers, whether they are telling a story, presenting images, or stating facts and opinions.

On the other hand, since I have also been a professional editor, I am aware that there’s much more to effective writing than following the rules. A writer may adhere to all grammatical conventions and may still be obscure, verbose, and dull—in a word, uncommunicative. Most editors spend more time addressing stylistic weaknesses than they do correcting outright blunders.

Only someone who is fascinated by language and in the thrall of writing will take the pains to go beyond mere correctness. Only the most dedicated and persistent will seek the best words rather than those that are merely adequate, to search for the creative turn of a phrase that makes language vibrant and memorable. Writers who love their craft constantly try to find the words that will make readers respond with “Right on!” or “Wow!” We do not and cannot always succeed, of course, but we keep trying—because it matters and because we derive great joy from making it happen.

In his distinguished career, Richard Turner has been a writer, editor, and teacher.

Postscript—Turner emailed this fascinating addendum to his bio:

“Apart from the dry career facts, the following is perhaps more illuminating and relevant to my article. I was blessed, at a very early age, with an interest in words and writing, though I have no idea where this interest came from. At age 9, I used my parents’ old typewriter to peck out (with one finger–I still type with one finger) something that grew into a roughly novelette-length adventure story. The manuscript was lost in our family’s travels, but I recall that it was very bad, even if it was an ambitious undertaking for a nine-year-old. From that time on, I was a student of words and language. Though I enjoyed reading, the creative process of writing gave even greater satisfaction. I dreamed of writing the “great American novel,” but fiction was never my forte; I found my niche in expository writing—the essay. This form allows me to explore ideas without having to construct a plot or to develop characters. Perhaps, at some unconscious level, I developed the conviction that, though writing should be entertaining, its primary function is to inform and enlighten. I have discovered that, even with respect to reading, I prefer nonfiction to fiction; I read more to be informed than to be entertained, though the acquisition of information is itself entertaining. Moreover, whether I’m reading or writing, I always focus, almost automatically, on how words are used to express ideas. Once, in writing a college essay about a novel, I responded to the question “With what character in the book do you identify?” by writing that I identified more with the author than with any of the characters.

“Hardly a day goes by when I am not writing something, whether it’s a long letter or an attempt at an essay. When I don’t write for a number of consecutive days, I experience something resembling withdrawal symptoms. Just as many people walk or jog to keep their bodies healthy. I write to keep my mind healthy. Besides, I can’t imagine not doing it.”

On Poetry


Poetry—Where does it stand nowadays?
By Rob Parnell

There was a time when poets were regarded as rock stars are today.
Poets could live very well on the sales of their work and commanded
respect and admiration wherever they traveled.

Less than two hundred years ago the likes of Keats, Shelley, Byron,
Wordsworth, Browning et al. were seen as bold heroes, creating
important and magical works of art within their writing.

Now, there are few markets left for selling poetry and unless you're a multi-award-winning writer or a celebrity, most publishers won't touch poetry with a stick. In fact they're more likely to use the stick to keep a poet away from their office.

Now, romantic poetry is more often regarded as insipid or worse, irrelevant. But that doesn't mean it's still not a popular art form. From the amount of requests I get to provide information on it, I can tell you that it most definitely is.

Poetry enables us to use words in such a way as to translate, encapsulate and communicate certain emotional and mental states that straightforward fiction cannot. Writing a poem can be a rewarding experience. It can be cathartic. It can be intellectually stimulating and of course, great fun.

But is it still a valid art form in today's world? And, more importantly, can you still make money from writing poetry?

It depends on your definition of poetry of course.

I would contend that Rap is the latest form of poetry. Hard edged and confronting some of it may be, but rap is largely dependent upon rhythm and rhyme, even if that means most of the lines ending with y'all!

Seriously, Rap music makes millions. If you can write Rap for an artist, you could really start to bring home what they call “the bling.”

There's also poetry around that we're not always aware of, as in greeting cards, advertising copy and song lyrics. There are plenty of opportunities to write poetry professionally if you keep your eyes open and think laterally.

Some writers sell poems specially written for ceremonies and special events like births, death, marriages and people's parties, bar mitvahs and anniversaries. Sometimes local councils, government bodies and commercial companies will commission writers to compose poems that celebrate events or promote their products and services.

Of course, one of the largest markets for poetry is the children's book market - with especial regard to pre-school picture books.

There's a common misconception that you need to present illustrated children's books to publishers. Nothing could be further from the truth.

99% of picture book texts are accepted with no illustrator involved. That part is the publisher's job. They find the illustrator they think will be most appropriate for your text. So don't feel shy about submitting your children's poems to publishers but, as always, read their guidelines first.

There are still magazines that publish poetry and a quick scan of
Writer's Marketplace will provide you with a list. And of course, there are many Internet sites that allow you to post your own poetry, including discussion and critique groups too.

Anthologies sometimes call for submissions but be warned, not all of them are on the level. Just remember that you should never pay to be published - and in no circumstance get involved with poetry.com.

Competitions can be a good source of extra income for poets that sometimes give out generous prizes. Plus these will look good on your writing resume.

Rob Parnell is a prolific writer who’s published novels, short stories, and articles in the U.S., U.K., and Australia, and a teacher who’s conducted writing workshops, critique groups, and seminars.

Please visit Mr. Parnell’s Web site at: http://easywaytowrite.com

Poetry Tips/Prompts of the Month

By Marilyn L. Taylor
http://www.mlt-poet.com/

Prompt 1: Word choices

Take a poem you have written and eliminate all the descriptive adjectives and adverbs. Every single one. Does the poem still hold up? If not, go to the thesaurus and force yourself to replace the nouns and verbs with much stronger ones. You might end up with a much better poem than the one you started out with!

Prompt 2: Bad Poems

Pair up with a partner to write the worst poem imaginable. Then revise it to make it even worse. Be aware of what makes it so awful; clichés? Terrible rhymes? Hideous metaphors? It’s a great way to internalize what to avoid like the plague in your “real” poems! (Optional: when you’re finished (if you have the nerve), think up pen names and submit your bad poem to one of those on-line poetry sites that will publish virtually anything. Does its awfulness stand out? Are the other poems almost as bad? This can turn into a great lesson in critical reading!)

Prompt 3: Three extended metaphors

I. Write a poem (or take a poem you have already written on the topic) about sex. Then rewrite it, substituting words having to do with warfare for the words having to do with sex.

II. Write a poem (or take a poem you have already written on the topic) about love. Then rewrite it, substituting words having to do with government for the words of love.

III. Write a poem (or take a poem you have already written on the topic) about god and religion. Then rewrite it, substituting words having to do with a political figure whose policy you oppose for words referring to faith and god.



Explore Your Mind for Fresh Ideas


I need some motivation

If you think you are beaten, you are
If you think you dare not, you don't
If you like to win, but think you can't
It is almost certain that you won't
If you think you'll lose, your lost
For out in the world we find
Success begins with a fellow's will
It's all in the state of mind

If you think you're outclassed, you are
You've got to think high to rise
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize
Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man
But sooner or later the man who wins
Is the man that thinks he can!
—Anonymous


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Credits, Disclaimer, and Copyright

Michael P. Geffner, the founder/editor-in-chief of this newsletter, has been a writer/journalist for nearly 30 years. He's appeared in hundreds of publications, including the New York Times, USA Today, Details, The Sporting News, Men's Health, Cigar Aficonado, The Village Voice, FHM, Texas Monthly, and Los Angeles Magazine. He has won two Associated Press Sports Editors awards, been awarded first place for magazine profile writing in 2000 by the Society of Professional Journalists (NJ), voted Best Sportswriter in New York City in 1990 by New York Press, and acknowledged for excellence six times by the annual anthology, The Best American Sports Writing.

Mike’s Writing Newsletter does not guarantee any offers made by any of the advertisers, sponsors, or business opportunities mentioned herein. While every business and persons associated with said businesses are believed to be reputable, this publication cannot and does not accept responsibility for their actions; therefore, readers using this information do so at their own risk.

This newsletter is protected by U.S. and international law. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Unless an article is in the public domain, or not protected by copyright, trademark, service mark, trade name or other legal means of ownership, it may not be used in any manner without consent of Michael P. Geffner.



















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