Beginnings

Inspired by the Florida SCBWI event in Miami and my fabulous critique group- Let's write!

There's nothing quite like a blank page/ computer screen.





Dusting off my trusty Scrivener. Putting all my scribbled notes into folders (the Scrivener kind).






I'm reading a few encouraging quotes about beginnings.

Here's a good one

That's how a good story starts. It doesn't spell everything out for you. A good story gives you something to think about. It raises as many questions as it answers.

~ Eric Kimmel
(via Bobbi Miller's website. Lots of good stuff for writers. CHECK IT OUT, HERE. )

How about this from a little notebook I scribbled in frantically during a Maryland SCBWI event. Maybe 2009? (I never throw notebooks away, do you?)

The only way to figure out who a character is is to write. Write a whole draft.
You will never know what you are doing. 
You will discover.
from Coe Booth, though possibly paraphrased, so don't quote me/her.

And another hastily scribbled note, from Roy Clark at the St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading, Fall, 2011:
Our writing standards are too high, too quick. Lower them at the beginning of a project. After you have a draft, raise your standards.


Here's to new beginnings, 2013. As we flip our January calendars, how are your beginnings?
Your revisions and your revisits?

Here's what's on my desk this morning. Enough inspiration! And now, to write.

Writing Music

Of course, I don't mean writing music. I haven't attempted that since my middle school buddy Beverly and I sat at my piano and pounded out chords to bad verse. But the idea of listening to music while writing, music to write by, is something I'm trying to get my head around. I need quiet spaces for writing.

But if you know Eric Puchner's writing and especially if you are into 80s music, check out this piece on the New York Times blog, on writing his just-published novel, Model Home.

Since my stack of To Be Read Books is taller than a small child, the librarian in me had to return Model Homes to the library yesterday. It was "overdue and others are waiting." But I'll try to get back to it as soon as my book tower shrinks. 80s California might not be my thing, but the writing was terrific and I was smiling a lot as I read. All good things to say about a book.

And in honor of the recent holiday (remember Valentine's Day?), I'll quote a small portion of Puchner's blog entry's song list . You need to click on over to read the rest.

Girlfriend, the Modern Lovers. This is a night of cuddling in the backseat, talking about what to name the kids you’ll have together some day. It’s the precise antithesis of “Pacific Coast Highway,” by Sonic Youth. This song was originally recorded in the 1970s, but I’m including it here because it was rereleased on vinyl in 1986, when I was 16, and played a large part of my first year behind the wheel.

Title Picking

I actually have a file in my computer with this name. In it, I've pasted every piece of good advice I've ever read about selecting a title for your writing. It's something I'm not at all good at, picking a really great title, and it's something I think I should be.

When I was a librarian, the youngest kids would ask for "the red book with the dog on the front," but by the time they were old enough to read for themselves and to pay attention to the recommendations of their friends, they usually remembered the title, or at least some part of it. Kind of like me now with Potato Peel Pie Society. See, I can't ever get it all out, but I know enough to find it at the library.

So I think this article in the current Glimmertrain is worth saving in my file. Written by Eric Puchner, it's filled with gems likes these:

"...there seems to be very little correlation between producing something brilliant and the ability to come up with a half-decent name for it. Perhaps it's a different skill set entirely. I sometimes think there should be professional titlers: just as we wouldn't ask a carpenter to tar the roof of our house, we shouldn't expect writers to work outside their métier."

Some people are just plain good at titles, and fortunately I have a few of those in my writing life. Because I agree that it's crucial to have a good one. I mean, would you have loved The Great Gatsby as much by another name?

"..keep in mind it wasn't Fitzergerald's idea. He wanted to call the novel Trimalchio in West Egg, which sounds like something Dr. Seuss might have dreamed up for the Playboy channel."

That's my gift, via Eric Pucher and Glimmertrain, to you today.