Stealing

Recently, London Mabel and Judy³ posted some lovely writing office pr0n on their own blogs and it got me drooling. So here's me tearing the pages from their books (wrong metaphor?). I give you *drumroll* my Top Five Dream Writing Offices!

5. Bright and airy with many bookshelves.

(There was a picture here of an office with that description. Now, not even the original site has it. My apologies. But, really, it was pretty.)

4. Red! Except, y'know, there would be actual books on the bookshelves instead of just the word red, which I feel is kind of redundant in this situation.

(There was a lovely photo of a red office here, which can now be viewed here.)

3. Needs a little red. Or maybe lime green. Otherwise, thumbs up!

(This was an office in black and white. It was gorgeous, and totally worth clicking through to see.)

2. Mmmhmm...Closer.

(This one was just bookshelf heaven. Really. Go see it.)

1. Boom! There it is! That's the stuff.

(You probably shouldn't click this one, though. If you're anything like me, you'll be on this site for hours and when you're done, your computer won't work anymore because of all the drool in the keyboard. If you decide to do it, though, it was the round one at the bottom of the page.)

Le sigh. In case you didn't remember the reality of the situation, it's here. Hey, a gal can dream, right? And if you're going to dream, dream big.

Like this.

(Bookgasm! Click for more. You know you want to. Although, it's the same site as the one I told you not to click, so... I take it back? I guess? If you do, it's the second one.)

I swear this is in someone's house.

What about you folks? Do you dream of home libraries that just happen to have desks in them, or is that just me? And can someone please tell me why, no matter what I search in Google images, there will always be pictures of naked women? I mean, what exactly about "beautiful home library" says "squish those puppies together for the camera"? I don't get it.

WTSWIH: Somerset Maugham Edition

It's Friday again! Are you all psyched? Yeah...


I am told by the CDC handouts that came home with the kids from school that what we all had was Norovirus. You know, that virus that they always freak out about when it hits a cruise ship? Except no cruise. (Bummer.) I hope none of you have had to experience it. Not pleasant.


On to more positive things.


What They Said:
If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn't matter a damn how you write. ~ Somerset Maugham


What I Heard:
Emotion is everything. ~ Mr. Maugham


I have read some truly horrible books, books that made me wonder if the publisher had an editor on staff. They were repetitive, they had plot holes the size of Brazil, each paragraph had a three cliche minimum...bad stuff. But I loved them. Some of them I love so much I reread them periodically.


Similarly, I've read impeccably crafted books -- everything exactly where it should be, the language both succinct and dynamic, the plot tighter than Steven Tyler's pants -- and I put a bookmark in them and never picked them up again. Most times, it's not even a conscious choice; I simply forget about them.


A few years ago, when I decided to become a clown in this particular rodeo and lassoed me some writing seriousity, I started to ask myself why. Why does this technically horrible book keep me up all night, unable to stop turning pages, while the editor's dream is completely forgotten before I close the book? 


Because the "bad" book made me feel something: horror, pity, love, tension, warmth -- something. The "good" book left me wanting, and not in the right way. I needed a reason to care.


Look, craft is important. Tight writing, thoughtful plotting, good pacing, grammar, spelling, syntax, rhythm -- these are all essential things for any would-be career author to learn (and they can be learned). However, the ability to evoke emotion in your reader trumps everything.


Make 'em feel it. That's the ticket. (cliche!)


What makes you keep reading (or looking, this applies to visual art, too)?


P.S. You may have noticed that there's a Facebook button over there <== in the left margin. Feel free to come on over and Like me. I promise not to do a Sally Field. 


ETA: I have no idea what's going on with the wonky spacing. Blogger is weird sometimes. Sorry 'bout that.

Yet Again (plus updates)

I registered for another conference last night. And, once again, I'm all nervous about it. I swear, one of these days, I'm going to grow some courage. But, as Aragorn said, it is not this day. This day, I bite! (My fingernails.)

I'm going it alone this time, no friends there to coddle me, so the big challenge will be not hiding in my room between workshops. Also, the last (and only) conference I attended was great about feeding everyone, which provides ample opportunity to make chit-chat with strangers. Not so this one. I'll have to approach people. In the wild! Gah!

I'm working on it.

You know what's really strange? I don't react this way when I have specific obligations. I've held jobs that required me to interact with the public, often in an authoritative manner. No problemo. I've had jobs that required me to speak in front of crowds on a regular basis. Easy peasy. I'm killer when I'm in charge. It's the whole getting to know people personally thing where I come up short. Sad, that.

Anyway, I've got lots of work to do to get my materials ready, which ought to keep me busy. Hopefully, this will distract me from idleness and fretting. And then when I get there, my nerves will take over and I'll babble incessantly at people and they'll be all, "Oh dear God, get me away from this woman!" Or, if I'm lucky, "I like her. She's friendly." I'll shoot for the latter.

To sum it up: I'm excited. I'm nervous. Most of all, I'm extraordinarily grateful that I get to go.

Resolutionary Updates!

• With the exception of The Week of the Walking Plague, for which I give myself a pass, I have kept up with my writing goals. Just as I suspected, one paragraph quite often leads to much, much more, which leads to me being on track to finish my MS. A nice beginning.
• Dude. I cannot seem to remember to get my butt out of the chair once my butt is in the chair. I'm still working on the whole moving around thing. (Note: This does not mean I have blown the resolution and will now be giving up. It just means I haven't hit my stride yet.)

How are the rest of you doing? Going anywhere exciting? Anyone else fall to the plague? Do share.

WTSWIH: Nathaniel Hawthorne Edition

First and foremost, it's my twins' birthday week. My #1 Son and Only Daughter are officially one year away from teenagerhood (new word!). I plan to take up drinking. Happy Birthday!

Moving on.

It's What They Said, What I Heard Friday once more. I had a few quotations lined up and was having a hard time choosing, until John Scalzi's blog directed me to this nonsense*. I read it, and I knew.

*Warning: High probability of head asplosion.

What They Said:
Easy reading is damn hard writing. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

What I Heard:
Don't be a noodge, Judgey McJudgerson. None of this is easy. Yours, Nate

Okay, here's the argument as I understand it.

Literary People: You genre people aren't real writers. An LSD-laden macaque could follow his hallucination across a keyboard and produce better "prose" than you. You're all about the flash-bang, pandering your hog fodder to the internet-and-television-dazed masses. If the world were more intelligent, you wouldn't sell a word.

Genre People: It's not our fault you couldn't find a plot if it were stapled to the insides of your eyelids. Take away your adjectives and your helpless. Hey, why don't you take a break from stewing in your own angst and learn how to tell a story, Holden Caulfield? The world has enough depressing crap in it, it doesn't need yours.

Me: Thing is, none of it matters. Do you know why? Every single author out there, no matter what he or she writes, has gone through the same amount of trouble, work, worry, editing, rewriting, and agony over choosing the exact right word for this precise situation.

That book you call erudite? Hard work. That book you call trash? Also hard work. Jonathan Franzen does not work harder than Jennifer Weiner, or vice versa. It's just as difficult to make people feel your characters fall in love as it is to make people feel your character's disenfranchisement with society.

It's all work. It's all hard. Your chosen genre (and I contend that "literary" is, in fact, a genre) does not make you any better than anyone else. Get over yourself.

(Incidentally, I don't think this is what Hawthorne meant. But, as every writer knows (or should), just because that's what you meant, doesn't mean that's what they heard.)

What's your preferred genre?

A Plague On Both Your Houses

The first of our number succumbed Friday night. We made him as comfortable as we could and kept vigilant watch that no other victim should be taken. We quarantined him. We fortified our defenses with bleach and Lysol. But it was all to no avail. By Sunday, five of the six of us had fallen.

Still, we guard our one survivor, the youngest of us, with everything we have. As of this writing, he remains untouched. We clutch our Lysol and pray that our good fortune holds.

WTSWIH: Sidney Sheldon Edition

It's What They Said, What I Heard Friday (the 13th)! And Blogger finally enabled nesting comments and delete buttons! Will the awesome never end? Speaking of awesome (bad segue)...

What They Said:

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it to be God. ~ Sidney Sheldon 

What I Heard:

Creation isn't easy. Creating something completely from scratch is even harder, but you're a writer and that is what you must do. Get on it that, will you? Regards, Sid

There are precious few writers in this world (if any) who've never looked at a blank page or screen and frozen like a popsicle that's never met Katy Perry, utterly unsure how to begin or what to do next. (Oh yes, blank page syndrome can be just as paralyzing in the middle of the book. Worse, sometimes.)

The fact of the matter is that your book is a scratch-baked cake. Whether you've set your story in present day New York or on Mars in the year 2718, your world is unique. 

Take the Empire State Building, for instance. It's a place we all know, either personally or through cultural osmosis. But when seen through your character's eyes, in your character's situation, it could be anything from a lover's meeting place (Sleepless in Seattle/An Affair to Remember), to the closest thing resembling a high, protective tree the big gorilla can find (King Kong). 

Is your character looking at it from the POV of an assassin (high vantage point, but difficult to escape)? Or from the POV of a disabled woman in a wheelchair (nice view, but fire trap if the elevators go out)?

In the way you tell your story, even the familiar is your creation. You are the god of your story (or goddess, if you prefer), and being god ain't easy. It's both complex and persnickety, microcosmic and macrocosmic. It requires you to think of everything from the personality and appearance of the people who populate your world, to the relative coarseness of the grass and the scent it releases when they walk on it. 

And it's downright impossible if you never accept the challenge, pick up your pen, and get on that bad boy. 

Have you ever been paralyzed by the blank page or canvas? How did you get past it? Please share, page seventy-five is killing me.

Okay, this will probably seem lazy...

Because I'm going to mark a tiny event, then send you somewhere else. But, BUT, I wouldn't do it if I didn't think it worthwhile.

So, the event. Last week, January 3rd to be precise, was my second blogiversary! Wheeeee! *throws confetti* *regrets mess* *thinks, "what the hell? the mess is already made," and throws some more* 

Now on to more serious things. I would like to refer all of you, ALL OF YOU, to this excellent article by one Doctor Nerdlove regarding Nerds and Male Privilege. It should be required reading for the whole world. The Whole World! (Crikey, I'm repeating myself a lot today, aren't I?)

Also more than worthy of your time and attention is the follow-up, Nerds and Male Privilege Part Two, Deconstructing the Arguments.

These are lengthy, so I won't make this post any longer. Except to put in a little something in for Magoo. (I don't have a picture right handy, so a video of the song that's been on constant loop in my head for the past week is going to have to do.)

(There used to be a video of Shake It Out by Florence and the Machine here. It's not anymore, obvs, but you can find it here.)

Please stop back and let me know your opinions on those articles, I'd love to hear them. Otherwise, see you all Friday!

What They Said, What I Heard: Jack London Edition

Welcome to the first edition of What They Said, What I Heard. This is going to be my new Friday Feature for, I dunno, as long as I feel like doing it, I guess.

Anyway... Confession time! Hi. My name is Delia and I'm a quotations nerd. I find them (dear God, forgive me)...inspirational. I KNOW! What can I say, I'm a closet sap.

In fact, I can say without a hint of irony that it was an authorial quotation that finally moved writing up my mental hierarchy from Hobby to Career Aspiration. Since then, I have come across other quotations which have inspired me, prodded me, and caused me to see things in new and surprisingly effective ways. And now I'm going to share them with you (in the hope that I'm not the only sappy quotation nerd here).

So, without further ado,

What They Said:
"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." ~Jack London

What I Heard:
Stop making excuses. Seriously, do you think you're the only one who has problems with this stuff? Get off your lazy ass and do it already. Yours, Jack London 

I spent my youth as a lady-in-waiting to La Muse. I truly believed that there was no way I could be a writer because inspiration did not drench me daily in a Calliope-scented rain shower. I wrote my little stories when and if life handed me the time, which wasn't often because there were always More Important Things To Do.

Then one day, I came across a Piece of Flair on Facebook (I shit you not, good folken, Pieces of Flair. Clearly, I was a busy woman.), with this quotation on it. Misquoted. (It said sword instead of club.)

It rattled around my brain for weeks. I even had a conversation with Magnum about it. A few weeks later, when we went out to celebrate our anniversary, he gave me the tiny sword that had held the olives in his martini (which, dude, hella-romantic gesture). I taped it to the side of my computer monitor to remind me that this job, writing, is hard for everyone. The right words, the most vivid descriptions, plots, structure, character, they're all elusive. If you want them to serve you, you'd better damn well grab your club.

So I did.

What about you? Has anything ever given you an unexpected shot of motivation? What turns you into a nerdy sap? Do tell. I don't want to be the only one.

Resolution and Other Dirty Words

A goodly portion of the folks who follow this blog came to do so through a community we refer to as The Bettyverse. It started roughly two years ago here and continues today here. If you're not a Betty and you're curious, you can go and read those things if you like. However, in the interest of expediency, I'll sum it up for you.

By and large (there are, of course, exceptions), the Betties don't believe in resolutions. Many don't believe in goals in general. The logic here is that resolutions and goals are quite often unrealistic and arbitrary and do nothing but lead to guilt, which is largely considered a useless emotion.

So here's where I go all anti-Betty. I believe in resolutions. I believe in goals. And, brace yourselves, I don't believe guilt is a useless emotion. Also, I believe in coincidences, which will aggravate the holy hell out of Julie, but that's a-whole-nother blog post.

Warning: I am about to engage in some next-level pseudo-intellectualism,with a pinch of navel-gazing. Certain readers may wish to skip to the end. I won't be offended. Okay? Good.

The way I see it is this, without resolutions and goals, we drift. I dreamed for decades of writing a novel, but until I set goals and resolved to see them through, I got nowhere. Those things were necessary to move me along, to stop dreaming about it and do it already. And guilt, guilt is what makes me stay up until midnight writing when I'm exhausted and want to crawl into bed at ten. Guilt over letting myself down. It's my cue that I'm not living up to my own expectations.

I think where most people go wrong with these things is when they set unrealistic goals. If you live alone, responsible for no one but yourself, and resolve to write at least one or two thousand words per day, that's a realistic goal. If you work full time and come home to a house full of kids who need to do two hours worth of studying in fifteen minutes so they can shove some food down their throats and make it to basketball practice on time, well, maybe not.

Similarly, I believe guilt is only useless in two situations. One, when it is undeserved. Two, when you wallow in it. Example: Say first person and second person set the same two thousand word goal and both lapse and begin to feel guilty. First person, for whom the goal is realistic, can use this guilt to get her butt in the chair and fingers on the keyboard where they belong. She feels guilty because she's broken a promise to herself, a promise it was within her power to keep. She feels the same way she would had she broken a promise to a friend, and the guilt she feels has the power to put her back on track if she doesn't wallow in it, tell herself how much she sucks, and use it as yet another excuse not to pursue her goals. (I'd also like to point out that if she's making so many excuses not to write or [insert resolved activity here], perhaps she should reevaluate whether she really wanted to do it in the first place.)

Second person, on the other hand, set her goals too high. She made promises to herself based on what she'd like to provide, not what she could realistically provide. Guilt is of no use to her. No amount of it will bend the space/time continuum to allow her to accomplish her stated goal. It may, however, help her to set new goals rather than abandon them completely. Follow?

Right. So. Resolutions.

I'll be making a few, and here they are.

I resolve to:

• Write every day. I'm not setting a specific word goal, because life happens. But life has been happening way too often lately, and I'm sick of it pushing me around. I write better when I write every day. I suspect I'm not alone in this. Also, should I ever find myself fortunate enough to be writing under contract, I don't believe "life happens" is a valid excuse for missing a deadline. Best if I just get used to it now. For my purposes here, my minimum is one paragraph or five full sentences. It doesn't seem like a lot, but I find that once I get one paragraph down, it's natural to keep going and often leads to much more. And if it doesn't, well, at least it's one paragraph more than I had before. 
• Finish the first draft of my next manuscript before March. This one will be hard, but I'm pretty sure I can do it. I'm not starting from scratch, here. It's a continuation. March isn't an arbitrary deadline, either. I have a conference I plan to attend, and they're going to have some workshopping available. I'd like to take advantage of that. So, new first draft of a manuscript by March.
• I will be more conscious of the amount of time I spend sitting. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard is necessary. It's also bad for you if you do it for extended periods of time. Which I do. The plan is to make sure I get up and move a bit at least once an hour. Again, it doesn't sound like much, but when I get going, I can spend hours without moving. Not good, hence the resolution.

That's it. Nothing complicated, all realistic, no wallowing. I think I'm good to go. 

What's on your agenda?