Writing on writing : Amlokiblogs

Writing about Lists of Best Books

2008-09-24T09:07:00.004+08:00

Browsing Books as per Best Books Lists

I have always believed that books should be read for their own sake. I've never really pursued award-winning books, or books featuring on "best of" lists of any kind.

But lately, I 've been going to sales by Payless books, where I have picked up books for 3-6 RM, or 1-2 USD. At such times, though I have picked up books at random, by reading blurbs, what's inside for a page or two, etc. I've been wondering if I'm missing out on good books.

A book winning an award or being on someone's "best-books" list is not necessarily a book I will enjoy (enjoyment and not education has always been my prime motive, lol).

But I've come to realize that when poring cross-eyed through badly arranged rows of books can be a blinding and painful process, and one that is often enough not rewarding despite the throwaway prices. This is because I sometimes miss books I ought to have picked, if only for their value as part of my collection. Or maybe because they may come in handy some day I decide I need to read a book because it is highly recommended.

I've been collecting a list of lists, so to speak, of books I should pick up at such sales. Today, I thought why not share it, and maybe somebody in some corner of the earth may find it useful.

So, here, goes:

The Booker Prize-winning Books List : This is of course somewhat of a bible for readers who aspire to be writers of literary fiction, and most of the books featured on this list have undeniable merit.

The Pulitzer-winning Books List: Ditto for this one.

Times 100 Best Novels List: This is a pretty authoritative list, and though I do not agree with all the choices, and feel I can add to the list, that is just another subjective viewpoint. All the books in this list deserve a look-see.

A Best British Novelists List: Having grown up in a country with a colonial past, this is of course the list of which I have read the most books. A whole lot of them were part of my college curriculum.

Oprah's Book Club Top Ten List: I would never have thought I would include this list but I have read some of the books on it, and they are not bad.

An Indian Fiction List: I am an Indian after all, and while this is definitely not the list for me, and some of the best novelists in regional languages have been missed out, it still gives an idea of the sort of books Indian authors in English have earned praise for.

A List of Top Ten Books Set in Japan:
I am slowly exploring works written in Japan, and find this list intriguing. Murakami has become a firm favorite, and I will sure pick up the books by other Japanese authors. Whether I will find them at used book sales in Malaysia is a different question altogether.

A List of Top Russian Works in the Twentieth Century: I was introduced to Russian Literature fairly young, and though I have not read a few on this list, I've liked what I've read.

A list of Best Russian Works of All Time: Ditto on this one.

50 Outstanding Translations from the Last 50 Years: I have always been interested in books written all over the world, and am currently reading two translations. This list does overlap with a few of the others, but I see no harm in that :)

25 Greatest Novels of the 21st Century so far: This list is again a subjective opinion, but one I happen to agree with it in parts.

The Best Work of American Fiction in the Last Twenty Five Years: Ditto on this one.

A List Of Latin American Literature: This is not the best list ever, but one that will work, for now. I wish I could find a more exhaustive and representative list though.

Although I have been a fan of a few French, African and German authors, I have not found good lists for any of them so far. I would continue searching, and edit this post when I find them.

At the next book sale when I'm going crazy, I'll try and keep a print-out of some of these lists (I hope). In the meanwhile, if anyone has list of books to add, feel free to do it in the comments section.

Writing about Editing Out Words

2008-09-22T09:13:00.003+08:00

I was revising one of my old drafts, and found that cutting out the fat was the answer in a lot of cases. I just trimmed and pared out words and the resulting writing was stronger.

In writing, it is essential that the point gets across to your reader just the way you want it. I came across this article which tells you about ten words to avoid, and why:

10 Words to Avoid When Writing.

When trying to edit my work, I tried out the advice in this article, and it works!

Writing about Truth in Writing

2008-09-19T08:32:00.005+08:00

The Human Truths in Writing Fiction

Writing is a challenging activity, especially if it is fiction. Too many times you see published writing that is stilted, that does not feel authentic. I have had friends confess to me that though they know what they are writing about, have been where the protagonist is supposed to go, their writing lacks flow.

This is possibly because they are too close to what they are trying to write about, and are not ready and willing to revisit the pain, anger, or fright buried in that experience.

I have started reading the book "Fast Fiction" by Roberta Allen, a creative writing teacher who recommends speed-writing and these lines struck a chord:

"As a writer, you owe it to yourself to tell the truth. Writing is a process of self-exposure, a process of telling what you know so others can share in your "humanness". It is not enough to tell half-truths. If you are to create an experience in the reader, you must first create that experience in yourself".

Writing in a way is an act of stripping, stripping in public, and that can be frightening. Writers find their way around it through disguising themselves, through using the experiences of others, and creating characters who are shadow-real.

Roberta goes on to say: "There is no energy in reproducing life. Stories are not imitations of reality. They create new realities."

And she gives you the permission to take facts, give them your own interpretations and a new wardrobe, and turn them into universal truths:

"When stories ring true, we feel those stories, sometimes deeply. For the writer and the reader, stories happen in the mind. When you are writing, you must give yourself the freedom to make up the truth."

This comes pretty naturally to me. In my youth, I've been guilty of embellishing facts in letters and e-mails, not only in order to make them more interesting, but also to say something on a different level, not merely the factual. And I've never called it "invention", I have leaned more towards "discovery"!

Writing about Marathon Reading

2008-09-13T12:11:00.006+08:00

As usual, I have been reading like a maniac, also because I have so many books to read right now, I can make an igloo out of them. I went to two book sales, and for about 100 usd have got about a 100 books, on top of the books I already had on my reading shelf.

I just finished Of Mice and Men last night, and went to bed crying, convinced I could never ever write that well, and am wasting my time learning to write.

I am also wading through My Name is Red, it is a wonderful, but slightly laborious reading. I am halfway through, and I keep going back to it every once in a while.

When I'm tired, I thumb through The Winter Queen, and love how this guy writes a mystery novel in such beautiful language. When I put stuff in the microwave, for my functional, edible, and intermittently delicious cooking, I have a book handy near the kitchen. Last month it was a charming little book called Portofino, and now that I have finished it, I am looking for a suitably light replacement from my shelf.

Of course, there is the mandatory book that lies around in my bathroom, that I read while waiting for the water to heat up, for the face pack to dry, and er....while on the throne! This month's book is The Shape of Fiction, so I can take it one short story at a time.

I'm living my dream, just reading, reading, and reading some more. Er,....and also writing the best way I can, when I can fit in times in between reading.....lol

Writing about the enchanting Gathering

2008-08-19T21:44:00.007+08:00

I have been writing about my disenchantment with books. Not that the stuff I have been reading hasn't been good, quite to the contrary, but it has been a long time since I encountered magic. Anne Enright's The Gathering gave me that magic. It is a bleak, almost painful book, and in parts it hurts to read it. I am not exaggerating when I say it sent me into a minor depression. But I had to keep going back to it, much like a child (probably a boy) picking at scabs, making a healed wound bleed again.

I have moved on since to Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which has been a good antidote with all its dreamlike strangeness. I sometimes feel I should read less and see more, have more conversations, but then I am drawn back to books by an invisible elastic cord that gives me some leeway, but pulls me back all the same.

Reading has somehow become an organic part of my daily routine: if I cant find a novel, short story, or poem, I will find a magazine or newspaper, if I cant find those, I will find a brochure, or a menu, or a manual. Failing all this I will go a little cuckoo in my head and snap at people around me. Somewhat like when I am hungry and there is no food---the minute I'm bad-tempered my hubby asks me if I'm hungry, I guess he should add 'do you need a book' to his query. Reading is the best education there is for writing, so I suppose I should not be complaining.

I have been writing the past few days, and two of my short pieces got put up in the local webzine, so everything is mostly on the up and up. I should be happy, "should' being the operative word, but that is okay too, because I find that I tend to write more and write better when I have this nameless melancholy.

Writing about Poems

2008-08-13T21:12:00.004+08:00

Writing poems has always been something to do when I am particularly stressed, as a sort of catharsis, to be purged out of my system and never to be bothered about again.

It is only after writing on a few of Rick Mobbs' paintings, using them as springboards, that I have had the confidence to let my poetry stand up for itself. Leon Wing has started off a great website which is all about poetry and flash fiction, and has kindly put up the poems I sent him. I have quite a few more lying around, but I am not being too enthusiastic about sending them out. When it comes to poetry, I have always preferred reading rather than writing! (Some would say with good reason, lol)

A good friend has lent me quite a few books, and I am set for a long stint of reading. First on the list are The Gathering and Reef and I am hoping to be surprised and enchanted by both, as they come highly recommended:)

Writing about Reading, Disenchantment

2008-08-08T15:44:00.005+08:00

For some reason, I find writing on this blog far more difficult than on the other one, and when I think of the fact that this blog has subscribers, I feel shamed into updating it. Apologies to all my subscribers, for having been a sorry blogger!

But I find that on this blog writing meaningfully is much more important to me than writing often.

In this article, Annie Dillard says:

“Write as if you were dying. At the same time, assume you write for an audience consisting solely of terminal patients. That is, after all, the case. What would you begin writing if you knew you would die soon? What could you say to a dying person that would not enrage by its triviality?”

I am not sure what I write here has that acute relevance Dillard demands, but I can say honestly that I only write here when I feel I have found something to share, mourn or puzzle out, usually something meaningful.

Recently, I have begun again to look at books with a critical eye. Not the critical eye of a reader, or critic, or even an editor, but the critical eye of another writer.

And though I find much beauty, a variety of fresh perspectives and great understanding of human nature, I find I have not been astonished by a book in a long time. That feeling of "Bugger! This is so simple yet brilliant! Why didn't I think of it?" has not come by.

This could be because I am jaded, or have simply lost the eyes of an innocent reader. But what if I have not? Frightening thought, that one, one I am sure is all delusion. Or maybe I am reading the wrong kind of books entirely.

Here is to reading well and writing better. Books on my reading shelf right now: The Enchantress of Flo rence, The Sewing Circles of Herat, and The Silmarillion.

Writing about writing good dialogue

2008-07-28T14:22:00.003+08:00

Learning to write good dialogue

Writing fiction has many aspects, and the importance of dialog writing cannot be over-estimated. Realistic dialog pulls you right in to a story or dialog, whereas stilted stuff gets rejected after a few lines.

You listen to people talk all the time, right? So it should be easy to write dialog, right?

Unfortunately, the answer is NO!

I am not sure how good my own dialog writing is, and so I have been looking up some resources. The best I found so far was this book: Writing Dialogue, by Tom Chiarella. This guy gives you some really neat tips.

You can also read some excellent tips on dialog writing (as I did), here, here, and here.

Writing about Writing Fast, Really Fast

2008-07-25T20:38:00.008+08:00

Advantages of Speed Writing

I have been free-writing and doing my "write-as-you-think" journals for quite a while. But it is only recently that our writing teacher introduced me to the idea of speed-writing. The problem with the way I was doing my free-writing was that I did not write at break-neck speed, which gave the "cynical me" or my "inner critic" the leeway to raise its ugly head from time to time.

But speed-writing, specially speed writing on paper, is a visceral experience, blistering in its speed. Your eyes flip, your arm aches, your pen almost slips, the paper nearly burns with the brush of your hand as you whip yourself to the end of the page, frothing out quantity, with absolutely no respect for quality: no grammar, no punctuation, no pauses, no thought, no looking back. It is just take the pen and run, run, run.

My poor inner critic (I scoff at it nowadays as I spill out more than 2000 words under an hour) gets chopped, chopped, its weedy little head cut neat away every time by the furious scythe my pen has become.

I write five minutes on nothing in particular, five minutes about a random word picked from a dictionary, 10 minutes on a piece that has 5 random words picked from a dictionary, and then I make fun lists (timed, of course): lists of things lost, things gained, things that have hurt me, things that have humiliated me, things that have caused me total agony, and so on......or I pick up a writing prompt and then just run with it, letting my pen scamper off like a page in a historical novel, with a momentous message to deliver on pain of death. The only rule is that there are no rules. I start off with something I buried, and end up on a post-mortem table. (Quite right too, wouldn't you say? lol)

I churn out a lot of crap, but as a friend put it the other day, the crap needs to come out. I need to get it out of my system before I can do anything meaningful.

At other times I am hit with moments of self-realization:

I can make it happen. There is no hurdle but my own self, no problems but my own doubts, and I have to cast them aside no matter how hard or real they seem before my work is truly begun.

After I have done this sort of 100 m sprint in preparation for the marathon, and shat out my 2000 words for the day, my writing flows easier, and an article on domaining, blogging on blogging, or a macabre short story are all in a day's work. To use a rude analogy, I feel as a severely constipated person must feel after the successful use of a laxative. (Yeah, I know, ugh, but the relief in being able to write without getting stuck throughout the day is enormous!)

Speed spurs creativity, and that has been known in most spheres of art. When you are expected to come up with something in extremely limited time, your sub-conscious takes over. It short-circuits its way to create something, anything, but usually something that the rational/logical part of the brain can never hope to produce.

As I said in a recent post, something speaks to you, something outside of you, and people infinitely worthier than me have felt it too. The absolutely marvelous poet, Sharon Olds, says:

"It's a little more hearing - it's almost as if I hear them just before they come out the end of the pen. I don't hear them, but it's as if they're in a chamber just outside my hearing. I don't usually try to write a poem unless that's happening. The poems come to me, I don't go to them."

But to hear that voice, you have to be there, be willing to write every day. And the faster you write, the more chances you have of hearing something truly extra-ordinary. It is like being a radio-enthusiast, and being tuned in to some divine channel purely by accident. Speed creates these accidents oftener.

Speed writing is popular as a technique, and much celebrated. If you want you can write a novel in three days, or a month, or win a poetry contest that always begins two days before the deadline. Or, if you want to experience it every day like me, just get a countdown timer (my cellphone has one) and get writing right now.

Writing about Novels and Short Stories

2008-07-08T08:15:00.005+08:00

Writing about novels and short stories is not easy without drawing a comparison.

Which is the better genre? Which is the more lucrative? Which is the easier one to write?

I was talking to an editor friend of mine today, and she said: "Well, they are different genres which require entirely different skills. Just because you are good at one does not automatically mean you would be good at another. The opposite, that you would suck at both, is also not true. You could be writing a brilliant novel and only an average short story, or vice versa. Very few people, like Thomas Mann , were masters of both, you know."

As to which is the more lucrative, well, that is easy. The novel. Wait, maybe the answer is changing slowly, as this article in the Guardian tells you.

There are a lot of authors who have vacillated between the two forms, or compared the two,
but essentially it has turned out that both forms demand equal amount of devotion from the author. A lot of people make it straight as a novelist, without having published any short stories at all.

I believe that the length of the story is decided by the story itself. If you have a wide, sweeping story to tell, which has a cast of hundreds, you can hardly fit it into a short story. On the other hand, if you see events not as a continuous motion but as fragments of time, short stories are your best bet.

I have loved reading novels, always. But then, there is nothing to beat a collection of short stories or an anthology when you are in the mood for a multi-flavored literary snack, is there?

Writing about Freelance Writing Charges

2008-06-26T19:16:00.007+08:00

Tips to Decide Freelance Writing Rates

Writing comes easily to a good writer, but "freelance writing" is rarely about writing alone. If you are a freelance writer, you have to do more than write: find clients, send queries and samples, chase payments.

In the course of doing these "non-writing" jobs, a newbie writer's first question usually is :

BUT, HOW MUCH SHOULD I CHARGE FOR MY FREELANCE WRITING?

Here are some tips to help you decide your charges throughout your freelance writing career:

Freelance writing charges for newbies: If you have just started out writing, one of your first objectives should be to build a portfolio of writing. Write aggressively and charge less, so you have a bunch of published samples to show for your efforts. Some new writers start off with as low as 1 cent a word.

Freelance writing charges if you have a little experience: If you already have a few articles behind you, and feel confident about handling a project, hike up your rates a little. This is the stage to start looking for higher-paying markets.

Freelance writing charges online and off-line: Off-line publications usually have stricter requirements and bigger budgets than online publications. You can try and build a portfolio online before bidding for off-line projects.

Freelance writing charges depend on quality and research: If you write good English and are capable of writing articles researched in depth, you can charge more for your work. A lot of website owners are looking for uniquely written and keyword-rich content, and could not care less for quality and research. These clients are good to write for when you break into the market, but if you want to make serious money without suffering burnout, search for quality work as soon as you have some work behind you.

Freelance writing charges depend on location: If you go to a freelance writing site that is based on bidding like Guru.com and Getafreelancer.com then you have to settle for low pay. Most writers on such sites are from countries like India where the low cost of living allows them to quote below par rates for their work.

Freelance writing charges depends on ownership of rights: If you are willing to give up the ownership to your writing completely, you can charge more. If you are determined to keep the article rights to yourself so as to be able to use it again, you have to drop your prices a little.

Freelance writing charges may vary according to deadline: If your client gives you a short deadline you are within your rights to charge a premium for the prompt service.

Freelance writing charges change according to client relationship: If a client gives you regular work, and pays on time, you should give him/her a break on the price. Makes long-term business sense. If the client gives you a byline in a big magazine when you are a relative beginner, it is a very good thing for your portfolio. Grab that irrespective of the remuneration.

It is very hard to set a bar on rates to be charged. But a beginner freelance writer online can hope to make make 1-3 cents a word, an experienced one can make anything from 5-20 cents. A freelancer for magazines would usually get 50 cents to 2 usd per word. Rates could also be lumpsome for the project, on a per page basis or at an hourly rate.

The rates for freelance writing do not follow any hard and fast rule. It is a world where you have to use horse sense to get yourself the best rates possible, keep abreast of the rates going in the market, and keep searching for better-paying clients.

The winning mantras for freelance writing: know your skills and don't sell yourself short.

Writing about Reading Across Genres

2008-06-24T17:07:00.006+08:00

I am not writing much right now, other than work and poems on my other blog, obviously. But I am reading like only a grumpy old bookworm can. I am losing my temper when I am denied my reading.

I currently have a thriller, a collection of short stories, a fantasy, a scientific journal, a biography, an epic poem( ...err, is it really that many? I checked, and it is!) and God knows what else. I seem to be back in the days before a graduation in English literature robbed me of the pleasure of reading. I fit in a lovely short story reading in the middle of writing this post too!

Reading books with different voices, locales, ideas and themes really helps....it kind of goes into a compost heap somewhere. When I am writing some of my own stuff, strange connections between diverse bits of info get wired together in my mind, and surprise me. Words of wisdom don't hurt either.

I love being surprised by my own writing, it usually means I am doing well. For now, my writing seems to have taken a short hiatus. I am still content, reading some really convoluted short stories by Updike on the nature of love, seems to keep me from fretting over my temporary writer's block!

Writing About the Writing Muse

2008-06-11T23:16:00.004+08:00

Learn to let your writing grow organically they say, do not try to build it. Let it come from that molten space within you from where flows the magic of creation, do not analyze or rationalize in any way, put pen to paper, or in this case, put finger upon keyboard and let the dance begin. Let the rhythm decide the movements, not conscious thought. Let your heart and your senses guide you, don’t let your mind mess with it.

But what happens when that molten space closes upon itself like a crystal egg, shiny, tempting, but impenetrable? What happens then? What if each word that comes on to the screen or the paper has to be pulled out by force like a broken cork stuck in a wine bottle, with no guarantee that the cork will not be broken in the process, nor the bottle broken?

On days like this, what happens on such days?

On such days I am so jealous of writers that write with such seeming ease, like these lines from Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, pray, love”:

Time-- when pursued like a bandit--will behave like one; always remaining one county or one room ahead of you, changing its name and hair color to elude you, slipping out the back door of the motel just as you’re banging through the lobby with your newest search warrant, leaving only a burning cigarette in the ashtray to taunt you. At some point you have to stop because it won’t. You have to admit that you can’t catch it. At some point as Richard keeps telling me, you gotta let go and sit still and allow contentment to come to you.

While I love the passage here for its literary merit, I think I can also draw a parallel to writing, or to the writing muse, if you will.

The more you chase after her, the more she shies away, hiding herself out of reach. When you give up, and are not even thinking about her, perhaps running at the gym, driving out of town or taking a shower, she would come to you, prodding, teasing, compelling, just when it is the most inconvenient.

I need to discipline this lady, make her visit me at least some of the time at my bidding, and not purely according to her sweet will. But I guess that is what writing practice is for. Time to haul ass and start writing.

Writing about Slow-Motion Writing

2008-06-09T14:50:00.004+08:00

I like the way some writing lends itself to slow motion.

I was settling the books on my shelves, when I saw my old foe, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I hated it during graduation, because it was rambly and quite difficult to fit in my reading schedule. I started on the first page, and with new-found appreciation I read these lines:

`Hold your noise!' cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from among the graves at the side of the church porch. `Keep still, you little devil, or I'll cut your throat!'
A fearful man, all in coarse grey, with a great iron on his leg. A man with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared and growled; and whose teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin.
`O! Don't cut my throat, sir,' I pleaded in terror. `Pray don't do it, sir.'

Firstly, I dig the way Dickens throws in the man's description between the threat by the man and the boy's plea in reply. Time seems to have stopped for the boy in his shock and terror, and he notices all the details of the man's appearance. So apt.

Secondly, I realize that the whole para is made of incomplete sentences. There is no verb, no action. Again, very, very relevant. If time has stopped, there can be no action, because time itself is a function of motion.

In conclusion, I understand how terribly debilitating studying literature can be, and how it takes away from the enjoyment and appreciation of a book. I was blind to these lines and their effect for all these years, ever since I had skimmed over them for the first time, quite possibly before some exam or the other.

Writing about Writing Rules vs Imagery

2008-06-02T18:02:00.011+08:00

Writing about Imagery through the Written Word

I have been browsing through the writings of Nora Ephron, who wrote and directed movies like Sleepless in Seattle and When Harry Met Sally.

I am reading Crazy Salad right now, a hilarious look at a particular stage in the evolution of modern American life. Even after the passage of years, when a lot of the incidents Ephron describes have lost their relevance, the freshness of her incisive irony never fails to make me laugh.

But what I really, really love about the collection of essays is Ephron's undeniable talent in conjuring up images through words strung together every which way. I like the way I can see in a motion picture of sorts in my head, the things she is writing about. The book is strewn with passages that call up memorable scenes:

It is September, just before school begins. I am eleven years old, about to enter the seventh grade, and Diana and I have not seen each other all summer..... I am walking down Walden Drive in my jeans and father's shirt hanging out and my old red loafers with the socks falling into them and coming towards me is.....I take a deep breath...a young woman. Diana. Her hair is curled and she has a waist and hips and a bust and she is wearing a straight skirt, an article of clothing I have been repeatedly told I will be unable to wear until I have the hips to hold it up. My jaw drops, and suddenly I am crying, crying hysterically, can't catch my breath sobbing. My best friend has betrayed me. She has gone ahead without me and done it. She has shaped up.

I love how the description brings up images for me. Ephron has two long, wandering sentences in the paragraph, one of which has four "and"s. She seems to have thrown writing rules to the winds. But who cares about the rules of grammar and writing when the imagery is strong?

Writing on Ironic Juxtaposition

2008-05-29T16:01:00.009+08:00

Writing technique: Ironic juxtaposition

I was flipping through “Madame Bovary”, written by Gustave Flaubert, when something struck me about a particular dialog. Rodolphe, a confirmed cad and runner-after-women is trying to seduce the pretty and bored wife of a country doctor, Emma.

The venue is an agricultural fair, and I am struck by how Flaubert manages to tell us exactly what he thinks of Rodolphe through the contrasting background voices that intrude into Rodolphe’s seductive monologue:

*--------------------*

"Thus we," he said, "why did we come to know one another? What chance willed it? It was because across the infinite, like two streams that flow but to unite; our special bents of mind had driven us towards each other."

And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it.

"For good farming generally!" cried the president.

"Just now, for example, when I went to your house."

"To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix."

"Did I know I should accompany you?"

"Seventy francs."

"A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you--I remained."

"Manures!"

"And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other days, all my life!"

"To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin for a merino ram!"

"And I shall carry away with me the remembrance of you. But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a shadow."

"To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame. Porcine race; prizes--equal, to Messrs. Leherisse and Cullembourg, sixty francs!"

*-----------------------*

I searched, then and searched some more, and figured out that this writing technique is called the ironic juxtaposition.

Use irony to hilarious effect by putting two contrary things together.

I am so kicked with the way Flaubert has used it, I am going to try and use it in one of my stories. I know this is no writing technique for a novice, but there is no harm in trying, is there?

Have you found other examples of such writing, where the author uses the contrast to such telling effect?

Fiction Writing: Playing the Waiting Game

2008-05-27T08:08:00.012+08:00

Writing Fiction: Using the Right brain and the Left brain

My creative writing teacher has been echoing in each class the value of waiting.

Of waiting for an ending to come to you when a story is going nowhere.

Of waiting for a period to read the story again to see if it is worth sending to an editor.

Here’s his reason for waiting before looking at a piece of your own writing again:

Writing is a combination of Left brain and Right brain activity:

The Left Brain is Logical, Sequential, Rational, Analytical, Objective, Looks at parts

The Right Brain is Random, Intuitive, Holistic, Synthesizing, Subjective, Looks at wholes

Most individuals have a distinct preference for one of these styles of thinking. Some, however, are more whole-brained and equally adept at both modes. In general, schools tend to favor left-brain modes of thinking, while downplaying the right-brain ones. Left-brain scholastic subjects focus on logical thinking, analysis, and accuracy. Right-brained subjects, on the other hand, focus on aesthetics, feeling, and creativity.

So, fiction writing stems from the right brain, but needs to be examined by the left brain in order to really work for a reader.

The waiting is all about letting the left brain take over from the right, which can only really happen if you let some time pass, between writing a story and looking at it again.

Benefits of waiting after writing: the story that emerges

You are able to detach yourself from the story, to look at it as if it was written by someone else.

Your subconscious might have been working on the story while you did other things. When you come back to the story a few weeks, months, or even years later, the solution for some dilemma in the story might be right there, waiting for you.

You will have a better fleshed story, and be able to identify and cover up the holes in the plot.

You will probably be able to eliminate spelling or grammatical mistakes.

You might be in a better mood while you are looking at your work after a period: this might give you a fresh perspective, tell you what the story is really about.

You might be an older, wiser writer, better at your craft, and your story gains from it.

The other day I was reading an article that said Kafka had a placard placed over his writing desk, saying “WAIT”.

I am thinking of doing the same. The next time I have the temptation to shoot off something I have written, I am not giving in.

I Do Not Want to KISS: the Long and Short of Writing

2008-04-09T16:55:00.009+08:00

Writing: Long or Short?

I have been writing about short, pithy writing, high on impact, low on fluff. Apparently the best in the business agree with me.

Here is Stephen King talking about paring it down in his now classic “On Writing”:

Mostly when I think of pacing, I go back to Elmore Leonard, who explained it so perfectly by saying he just left out the boring parts. This suggest cutting to speed the pace, and that’s what most of us end up having to do (kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings)...I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: “Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”

But I have a problem.

I love reading puffy passages like this one from the Brazilian author Jorge Amado in his “Dona Flor and Her Two Husba nds”: the widow of a profligate dead husband grieves for him:

Now it was a wait without hope; it availed her nothing to listen to the footfalls, those of the drunks, especially, to the cautious sound of the key in the door, to a scrap of song, to a tune lost in the distance.

Yes, to a tune lost in the distance. Because there had been nights during her seven years of marriage and waiting when Valdinho had come to awaken her with a serenade, with guitar, violin and flute, trumpet and mandolin, repeating that other unforgettable seranade of Ladeira do Alvo, when she had first learned the true nature of her love: poor, without a penny to his name, a petty employee, a chiseler, a deadbeat, a drunk, a libertine, a gambler.

I am seduced by the beauty of the words, by its voluble Latin American charm.

I am lulled, much like the women spellbound by the unbridled passion of the incorrigible charmer Valdinho.

I so wish I could write like this: sometimes I do not want to KISS: Keep it simple, sweet.

I’d much rather be seductive and complicated like Valdinho, and by implication, Jorge Amado.

Eight Tips on Freelance Travel Writing

2008-04-02T00:05:00.010+08:00

How to Start on a Freelance Travel Writing Career

You love traveling, you love writing, so travel writing is the natural next step. Easy, right? Wrong!

As many aspiring freelance travel writers with their softboards covered with pinned rejection slips will tell you, travel writing is not one of the easiest markets to break into. You need a passion for seeing new places, and an insisting, continuous itch to share your experiences. And even then travel writing assignments don’t come easy.

To pitch for an assignment you need to have the winning mix in your writing..... here are eight tips on good travel writing which could help you achieve just that:

Write a Travel Journal or Blog: Maintaining a journal or a blog of your travels, however short, like day trips, hikes or short treks, gives you the writing practice you need. It also gives you ready material for future travel writing assignments.

Take travel pictures: When you get to become an established travel writer you might get an expert cameraman to collaborate with you. For now, you need to have a camera with you wherever you go, and snap pictures of whatever you like on your trips. It will give you the ability to figure out the right angle and perspective to show your audience when you are travel writing for real. Who knows, you might even become an established cameraman in the process: this travel blog is an absolute delight in this respect.

Keep your sense of humor: Very important. To prove my point, here are two descriptions of Paris: the first, an excerpt from the New Yorker, and the other a paragraph I randomly copied off the internet.

“In Paris they warn you before cutting off the water, but out in Normandy you’re just supposed to know. You’re also supposed to be prepared, and it’s this last part that gets me every time. Still, though, I try to make do. A saucepan of chicken broth will do for shaving, and in a pinch I can always find something to pour into the toilet tank: orange juice, milk, a lesser champagne.”

and the other, which I randomly copied off the internet.

"Paris is a grand, evocative and stimulating place to visit. The French revolution ensured the development of a certain spirit of thought, now a particular western mentality, and a strong sense for the individual prevails. It has also paved the way for an inventive and creative spirit in the arts, architecture, literature and music which enhanced the development of science and technology".

Which would you like to keep reading on? There you have it, if you have a sense of humor, bring it to your travel writing.

Keep your travel writing humble: Nothing is more irritating than a travel writer who is full of himself or herself. The more self-deprecating you are, and the more capable of preventing your personality coming in the way of the story, the more successful you will be.

Give them facts on travel: You may not be writing a travel guide most of the time, but even for a feature piece, the reader would like some facts on how to get there, what is the best time of the year to go, where to stay and so on. In case you don’t fit all this info into your piece, make sure you have a small sidebar on such facts about your destination. But if you can, fit in facts, like in this post from Beijing, because in a diverse culture this might make interesting reading.

Give them your feelings during travel: When you write, it is important that the reader vicariously experiences your destination, so tell them how you felt: describe the sounds, the smells, the sights--- bring it alive for them.

Travel writing is all about the story: When submitting to a travel editor, the most important thing to remember is that the success of your pitch lies in the story you tell. The same destination may have been covered by a lot of other people, but it is your story that hooks the reader in.

Submit your travel write-ups online: Before querying the big magazines, it might be useful to send in your submissions to online travel zines. They give you the required experience and help you build up a decent portfolio.

Travel writing tips are all very well, but what you really need is the urge to change your location, become a vagabond, immerse yourself in the experiences of the places you see, and then try to capture them in words.

Happy travel writing, and hope these tips help you as much as they helped me in my writing.

Motivational Writing: How to Set Your Readers on Fire

2008-03-17T10:19:00.011+08:00

Tips on Motivational Writing from an Expert

Today's post is by MUKUL SAXENA, who has spent a lot of time motivating people and writing motivational text at institutes and organizations. Here is what he has to say on how to write copy that truly motivates in every sense of the word:

We’ve all read articles and books that motivate us. They seem to suddenly make us come alive, to bring back the enthusiasm to do something, make a difference to our lives or to someone else’s. We rarely stop to think about how the authors did it.

How did they come up with the style and content that ended up motivating not only us, but a whole lot of people? I’m sharing here what I’ve found about motivating and about motivational writing through my own experiences.

Let's understand a bit about Motivation itself.

To motivate is to create a motive, a purpose. But do you actually create a motive? Or do you just remind people of the simplicity of realizing it?

The motive or purpose might have been forgotten, or put aside in the worry and scurry of other things that took priority in our minds. You feel motivated when you are reminded of what was important to you to begin with, what needs to be paid attention to first.

How do you know what to share, and how to share so that your readers are motivated? There are several approaches to consider, and you will choose at different times based on what you know and what you think.

Know your readers: what are they interested in, what are they challenged by, what do they want to achieve.

Helping them with knowledge and the encouragement to move ahead on their path is the simplest way to motivate. Increasing their focus and their knowledge adds the momentum and the edge they need to chop through the firewood of life.

Make people think. Be real, be simple, be hopeful.

Believe in the positive eternally, believe in the readers’ potential to achieve, and share that belief unstintingly.

Let them know who you are (role model), what you care about, where you are coming from (the context), and where you want to go (create).

In the final analysis, the best motivational writing originates from a firm and clear set of beliefs of your own, and the care you demonstrate in sharing them with your readers.

It is important to have integrity and completeness in what you know and believe, before you write and share your care for communicating it to your readers. The trick is in simply being good, and then in being your true self.

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Seven Tips That Helped Me Write

2008-03-14T10:10:00.006+08:00

Here are the seven tips that I have shared on this blog so far.

I actively use all of them in my own freelance and fiction writing, and I find them invaluable!

1. Poetry writing advice: This one was a post on distilling, as much as possible, the art of writing poetry for someone who wants to attempt it seriously.

Writing poetry? Not!.....but if you want to try....

2. Capturing writing ideas: This post talks about the ability to capture and record ideas easily using available technology.

On Ideas, Dictaphones and Writing

3. Flash fiction as a genre: This post was all about writing flash fiction, and is illustrated with an example and useful links

On Writing Flash Fiction

4. Freelance writing entry levels: This post is a brief list of areas where an aspiring freelance writer can try and break in, and the future possibilities this will lead to.

Web Freelance Writing Opportunities

5. Mind maps and their use in writing: This post defines mind-maps and explores the ways in which they can inspire and unclog all kinds of writing.

Writing and Mind-maps

6. Using a camera to inspire writing: In this post I explain a method I always use to hunt for new ideas, the free-association triggered by an image.

Writing Inspired by a Digital Camera

7. Blog in order to write better: This post is all about how blogging works to help not only your writing skills, but also your writing career.

Writing a Blog to Help your Writing

Each post addresses a different aspect of writing, but all of them have one aspect in common: all the tips I talk about are tried and tested, and really, really work.

Writing a Blog to Help Your Writing

2008-03-10T16:15:00.018+08:00

How to Become a Better Writer Through Blogging: Five Tips

1. If you clicked on the link above, you already know the first way in which blogging can help your writing. It keeps your writing muscle exercised, which is very important whether you are a web writer or a novelist, beginner or an established writer. Good writing skills are basic, and blogging helps you keep them sharp.

2. The second, often overlooked way blogging helps writers (especially fiction writers), is when they browse the blogosphere, which is a hotbed of ideas just waiting to be harvested.

Someone has a bad day and rants about it, another is depressed and gets drunk and ends up in bed with a perfect stranger, someone wants to bake brownies but they bounce off the oven......all these personal confessions can be picked up, distilled and assimilated in a fiction writer's mind and find its way out in his or her work. Fresh, original, and completely unrecognizable from the blogs it was inspired from.

While browsing, you can check out those blog gems out there as well which provide useful information for writers: great for inspiration and advice. Or how about reading up on the journal of a writer just like you? You are sure to learn a lot!

3. The third way a blog or an author website is a must for a writer is because it gives you someplace to showcase your work, and apparently literary agents think it is important you have a blog or an author's website; whether you are an established, published author, or a rank beginner.

A blog could actually help your writing career, because an agent or editor you have queried might just want to look you up on the internet before taking things further. A professional looking blog or author's website can sometimes be your ticket to eventual publication.

On the other hand, a blog by an established writer like Neil Gaiman, for instance, can provide wonderful insight into the writer's thought processes and win over new fans. A publishing author could also consider blogs and blog tours as marketing tools.

4. If you post your writings on your blog, it could be a way for you to get feedback and criticism. Your readers may leave you comments, and that can only help you improve your writing.

What is more, the posts which get the most comments, or attract the biggest number of hits can be your metric for judging which kind of writing you can do is more popular than others.

5. A blog becomes an online networking tool. If you are a writer who contributes to writer's forums with links to your blog, read and comment regularly on the blogs of editors, agents and fellow writers, you can slowly build up a presence in the writing community.

If you are a writer, blogging definitely is the way to go.

This picture from concurringopinions.com says it all, as far as I am concerned:

But before you rush off to start your own blog, or even if you have recently started one, Arachne Jericho has some great blogging advice for writers that you might like to thumb through. ( Some of this advice could come in handy even if you are looking for freelance blogging gigs).

If you need some tips on Blog writing, check here for some sound advice.

And for those with apprehensions, here is some encouragement from the Fragmentist.

From here on out, here's to all the writers, would-be writers, and all those with the writer in you: Happy Blogging!

Writing Inspired by a Digital Camera

2008-02-20T15:58:00.012+08:00

How to Use a Digital Camera to Inspire Writing

I have often been stuck for a writing prompt. Some days, the words would not come.
I suppose it is the same with everyone, and like me, each of us tries to find inspiration in the things around us. This is where I find that my gallery of photographs taken by my Olympus digital camera handy.
Whenever I am traveling, or even going out of the house, my digital camera goes with me. And sometimes when something around the house or the view from my windows catches my eye, out comes the camera. The resulting pictures go into a CD.

They stay there, and on days when I do not know what to write about, I browse through my gallery and pick out the pictures that make me look twice. Take the picture below, for example:

It was taken on a trip to a museum in Malacca, Malaysia. The ornate beauty and the time taken to decorate a functional item like a ceiling fan was so emblematic of the unique atmosphere of Melacca, a quaint little historical town, quiet, laid back, almost sleep-inducing.

And from there on, I wrote a short story about a lonely old man in a small town whose life consists of chatting with his aged friends, good food, waiting for the yearly visits of his children and grandchildren, and a passion for collecting knives with ornate handles. He takes his time about everything he does, and the story is a contrast between the jet-setting life of his offspring, and his own attitude of taking each day as it comes, enjoying it, and giving it his best.

So to trigger off your writing inspirations from a digital camera, you need to:

Carry your digital camera with you wherever you are.
Snap things that catch your eye, and make a mental note of why you liked the thing before you enough to shoot it.
Save your snaps on a CD
When stuck for an idea, insert the CD, and browse through the pictures, trying to recapture the emotions you felt while taking the picture.
Let those emotions trigger images and associations and write those down.
Make a mind-map with them, if you like, because it is an ideal brainstorming device.
Flesh out the ideas that emerge into your writing, and voila, you have a story!