‘I heard this typing. I went down in the basement of the UCLA library and by God there was a room with 12 typewriters in it that you could rent for 10 cents a half-hour. And there were eight or nine students in there working away like crazy.’
This was Ray Bradbury, speaking about the genesis of his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953. According to the writer himself, he went to the bank and got a heap of change in dimes. Then he went to the basement and started to put dimes into one of the typewriters, topping it up every half-hour. Nine days later, he’d written a short story, ‘The Fireman’, which would develop into Fahrenheit 451. And the rest, as they clichaically say, is history: the novel has been studied and analysed – and, most importantly of all, especially given its subject-matter, read
While A is away, the blog still gets to play. Please welcome Marie Ann Bailey, from 1WriteWay.
Brittany woke to the sharp odor of damp soil and something else, something familiar, something sweet. She tried to stretch out her legs. Her feet touched a solid barrier before her legs were fully straight. She was lying on her right side, in a fetal position. She tried to lift up but, again, she met with a barrier. She opened her eyes wide but it was dark all around her. Her throat tightened and she felt a rising hot bubble of panic coming up from her stomach. She was in a box of some kind. Soil beneath her, wood on the sides and above her. She stretched out her hands and felt around the small, close space. The smell of the soil and the “something else” was adding to her panic. She…
This morning I had the good fortune to come across this post from Dave at According to Dave. He shares a post from a NaNoWriMo forum. You can read the original post at http://nanowrimo.org/en/forums/reaching-50-000/threads/114149, or go to Dave’s blog for the full text. In short, the post is about a fear that many writers have: the fear of being thought ridiculous. Not unskilled, not inexperienced, but ridiculous as in your writing can be “laughed at, scorned, lampooned.”
I’m currently participating in Camp NaNoWriMo and am going through the usual “this novel is s**t” roadblock. And I recognize the fear that the poster writes about, the fear that makes me question every page, every paragraph, every word I type. I know I’ve written about this in other posts of mine and in comments about writing workshops and the like, but apparently it’s not a dead subject for me.
In a college-level workshop that I took about 20 years ago, one of my stories–the ending, specifically–was laughed at, mocked. The mocking was led by the professor and I assume since he was known for getting young writers hooked up with agents and publishers, some students took his cue to impress him. At least one student saw the devastation and humiliation writ large on my face and tried to comfort me later. I’ll admit the ending was melodramatic and the story had a lot of problems overall. But I’m not convinced it was necessary to humiliate me.
Ironically, my final story for that semester was one that the professor crowed about, to the point of introducing me to someone important (an agent, maybe? a publisher?) at a writing conference. If he was offering me an opportunity at that point, I missed it because I couldn’t reconcile his willingness to humiliate with his willingness to praise one and the same writer. I remember standing in the room, between him and this important person, and being dumbstruck because I hadn’t anticipated his praise. I had no 3-minute elevator pitch. I had nothing. I just smiled at him. I might have said thank you. They walked away. The important person was obviously unimpressed.
Although the wound still aches and I still fight the fear of being found unworthy, of being found a figure for ridicule, I also now feel unimpressed by the professor and his connections. I realize that some of the dynamic in that workshop, in that whole writing program, was based largely on his influence, his power to anoint the next “golden boy” or “golden girl” writer. It wasn’t to guide us into becoming better writers, but for him to find the diamonds in the rough and nurture them. Like many in academia, professors seek out those students who make them look good.
Fortunately this professor was not my only access to guidance. And I did learn a lot in his workshop, technically speaking. It’s a sorry state to be past my mid-fifties and still coming to a near froth over that experience. But it’s time to move on, to write my “ridiculous” novel, if that is what it is, to take a cue from a young woman who, although still afraid, “cannot shut [her] mouth from shouting the music that has swelled in [her] lungs.”
This is actually a writing post…kind of. We all know I like titles that drag you guys in because I am a comment whore.
Plus Julian Froment started this conversation and asked me not to tell everyone even though he said it in the comments. He is a very reserved gentleman who would never swear and/or make a lewd comment to anyone anywhere. What we like to refer to as proper English Gent. I lie. I digress. Go check out his blog anyway. I hang out there. We can have a drink.
So here is the question. When you are writing and reading, how important is it to you that the characters fall in love with one another before they fall into bed? Do they ever have to fall in love or is the act itself good enough to satisfy you?
There is a new collaboration in the works that includes Marie Ann Bailey of 1WriteWay at http://1writeway.com and John W. Howell of Fiction Favorites at http://johnwhowell.com We thought it would be fun to put our heads together one day a week and come up the Top Ten List ofWhat Not to Do in a number of situations. This idea was born in a discussion about Top Ten Lists and so we thought we would have a go at it. The lists will be simu-published (new word) on our blogs each Monday. We hope you enjoy.
The Top Ten List of What Not to Do When Meeting Potential In-Laws for the First Time
10. When asked where you live; do not say “together,” even if it is true since there is a good chance you can mumble the city name and get away with it.
9. When asked about your ambitions in terms of employment; do not say “I’m happy with my government job” since there is a good chance they will consider you a lardbrick and unworthy of membership into the family.
8. If asked to dinner and you are asked your favorite food ahead of time; do not say “Lobster,” even if it is since there is a good chance the parents will kill themselves to get you a meal you will like and hate you forever.
7. If the potential mother-in-law asks you where you bought something; don’t say “Neiman Marcus,” even if it is true since there is a good chance she has never shopped there and will think you are a spoiled brat. (Which you probably are).
6. If the potential father-in-law asks you what you are driving and you know he has a truck; do not say “BMW,” even if it is in the driveway since there is a chance he will think you borrowed it.
5. When asked what your favorite sport is; do not say “soccer” since they will likely be perplexed at the idea of grown person hitting balls with their heads.
4. If you are offered a drink; do not ask for a shot of Tequila with a beer chaser since there is a good chance the man of the house will drink you under the table and you will get sick and be forever embarrassed by your actions.
3. If there are brothers or sisters of your intended present; do not ask about school, church, hobbies or favorite songs to curry favor since there is a good chance they have some emotional problem and hate you anyway.
2. When asked about your own parents; do not say that your parents have married and divorced each other several times and you no longer remember who your real father or mother is since there is a good chance they may worry about your own stability.
1. When it is time to say goodnight; do not pat your intended on the butt on the way out since there is a good chance the parents will instantly become jealous and hate you forever.
I am disappointed that roughly two weeks have gone by since my last update, when I had intended to make weekly updates. Oh … d**n … I just blew Goal #1 … again :(
(1) Get off my own back. Yadda yadda. They’ll find a cure for the common cold before they find a cure for my self-flagellation.
(2) Set up a schedule of posting that gives me time to write, but doesn’t make followers think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth. I adjusted this goal down to posting to The Community Storyboard and my blog, perhaps on alternate weeks. That all depends on whether someone has posted an engaging writing prompt and/or I:
(3) Get organized. What a joke this goal is!! Especially right now when our kitchen is in such disarray. The good news is that the cabinets are all in. We have to wait on the countertop but in the meantime my dear hubby laid plywood over the cabinets so we have workspace. And we can start unpacking and filling in the upper cabinets. But I still have to wash dishes in my shower. And now that we’re moving things around again, I’m feeling disoriented (doesn’t take much).
(4) Write the third novel in my series, The Widow’s Club (working title). This is the one goal I may actually be succeeding with: I’ve written 13,147 words so far. At this rate, I could be done ahead of schedule, but I’ve had the luxury of a long weekend. Tomorrow (Monday) it’s back to the workday world and I’ll be happy to get any writing done.
So that’s my update. I probably won’t make another RCC update until end of July, just to spare myself from having to admit that I’m still behind on most of my goals. I mean, really, I’m not that much of a masochist, am I? (No one has to answer that question.)
CREATE A FAN PAGE AND PROMOTE IT ON ALL YOUR OTHER MEDIA OUTLETS. Author 101: Link it with your blog, your website. Tweet it. If you belong to the Independent Author Network, make sure it’s there. Everywhere you have an online presence, include it.
CREATE ONLY ONE PAGE. I have two, as I said above: one for my first novel and one promoting me. It’s too much. It’s too much of a hassle to keep one…
A couple of months ago, I created a Facebook Page. You can find it here or click Like on the widget in the right-hand column (gotcha!). Initially, I was hesitant to start a Facebook Page because I have strong but mixed feelings about Facebook in general. I managed to avoid Facebook until a few years ago when I discovered that one of my nieces had started posting all her children’s pictures there. I opened an account immediately. Seeing pictures of adorable baby boys as they grow up was a huge incentive. At that time, Facebook was fairly easy to navigate; that was before it started to emulate Twitter.
Over the years since then, I’ve accrued a fair number of “friends.” A large majority of my friends are actually family (I have a lot of cousins). The rest are former classmates, coworkers, former coworkers, and a few are friends. Now, making these distinctions, especially between friends and coworkers, is not to suggest that I don’t consider my coworkers or former coworkers to be friends; many of them are. In fact, I actually like everyone I’m “friends” with on Facebook; in many cases, I love them. What makes my personal Facebook account awkward for me is the degree (or lack thereof) to which I can be fully myself. The thing is: my Facebook friends represent a vast spectrum of likes and dislikes, political and otherwise. I don’t hide the fact that I am a “bleeding heart liberal.” (In reality, I’m more moderate, but compared to some people, yup, I’m a bleeding heart.) Yet, I still feel uneasy when I express my political views, when I express myself. I don’t separate the political from my personal life. I don’t because I live the political everyday. I have a government job so I know first-hand how political winds will affect whether or not I can accomplish my agency’s mission. I’ve been a social worker, counseling victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, so I know first-hand how legislation can help or hinder a victim’s recovery. I’ve taught college-level courses in composition and social work, so I know first-hand how university politics can ultimately shortchange a student’s education by not teaching him writing or critical thinking skills. So, for me, politics is personal.
But I know that my views are not shared by every one of my Facebook friends, so I censor myself, at least I try. I’m sure there are some friends/family members/coworkers who would like me to try harder. And there are some friends whose views I totally disagree with. I don’t ask them to censor themselves; instead, I simply hide their posts. The downside of that is I then miss the occasional good news, latest baby picture, etc., unless I go directly to their Facebook page, which is not something I always remember to do. There have been many times when I thought about just deleting my account altogether. If any one of my Facebook friends really want to stay in touch with me, they have my email address or they can call my mom and get my phone number. I’ve lived at the same street address for almost 22 years. I’m not hard to find.
But those pictures of the little ones get me every time. I have five grandnephews and one grandniece. They live in different states so to see them grow up, I need to keep my Facebook account.
But I still think of closing my account and here’s another reason why. Now that I have a Facebook Page, I feel lonelier than ever on my personal account. My birthday last week came and went with only one person from my personal account wishing me a happy birthday and that was done through a direct message, not on my Timeline. Yet, I blogged about my birthday and when the post showed up on my Facebook Page, it went “viral.” According to Facebook, it got the most Likes and was viewed by more people than anything I’ve written to date. Now, I usually don’t broadcast my birthday. I tend to keep it under the radar, but this year was special to me and I wanted to celebrate. That so many in my blogging community celebrated with me was a wonderful experience. That there wasn’t a peep on my personal Facebook account brought me up short. [Caveat: three friends from my personal account did Like my blog post on my Facebook Page and left messages.]
The difference is that on my Facebook Page, I am a writer and everyone I Like through that page is a writer. That’s my focus. On this blog and through my Facebook Page and Twitter account, I stay pretty focused on writing. I have nothing to censor and I can be totally myself. It’s ironic to me that, through my blog, I feel more myself than through any other media. And I don’t feel lonely. Yet, I do, at times, on my personal Facebook account.
There’s been many discussions about loneliness and Facebook, studies done, reports published (like this one from the Atlantic Monthly). My husband cites these studies as one reason why he doesn’t and will never have a Facebook account. Being a shy, sensitive introvert, I do become easily paranoid (“Nobody likes me!,” “I’m persona non grata and I don’t know why!”). Thus, I have to remind myself that this problem with Facebook is of my own making. I should know better than to think that “silence” on my personal account indicates anything. The dark side of social media is that your expectations get raised beyond reasonable levels. Before Facebook, I was tickled by every birthday card I got, and I didn’t think about the ones I didn’t get. A bit more effort goes into selecting and sending a card whereas with Facebook all you have to do is point and click. And so we (at least I) have a tendency to expect more from people now then I did pre-Facebook days. And that’s simply not a fair expectation.
I started off this post thinking I had every reason to feel unhappy with my personal Facebook account. But now I realize it was my own unreasonable expectations that have caused my unhappiness. I’ll keep that personal account because it’s a great way to see the kids in my family grow, see my mom with her great-grandchildren, occasionally exchange political views with like-minded comrades, and keep track of my wealth of family and friends. My Facebook Page is for the writer that I am now and the author that I hope to be.
I’m excited to be kicking off a blog tour for Pipe Dreams today. The tour will include interviews, guest posts, and reviews. There are lots of opportunities to win a free copy. Hope you follow along. Here are the dates and links:
Tuesday, July 2 @ My Fiction Nook
Visit My Fiction Nook to read an excerpt from Pipe Dreams and an author spotlight on Destiny Allison. Plus, enter to win a copy of a the book! http://www.myfictionnook.com
Friday, July 5 @ Thoughts in Progress
Destiny Allison, author of Pipe Dreams, shares the difference between writing non-fiction and fiction in a guest post. http://masoncanyon.blogspot.com
Thursday, July 11 @ Selling Books
Visit Selling Books as Destiny Allison answers questions about her writing life and the types of books she likes to read for…
This was Ray Bradbury, speaking about the genesis of his most famous novel, Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953. According to the writer himself, he went to the bank and got a heap of change in dimes. Then he went to the basement and started to put dimes into one of the typewriters, topping it up every half-hour. Nine days later, he’d written a short story, ‘The Fireman’, which would develop into Fahrenheit 451. And the rest, as they clichaically say, is history: the novel has been studied and analysed – and, most importantly of all, especially given its subject-matter, read
Marie at 1 Write Way 