Being Still and Listening

July seems like a good time to re-post advice I'm still working on.
Of course, it never hurts to be in a place where your choices for Internet Background Noise are limited.

My husband's great-grandmother hung this where she could read it every day during the summer months she spent in this quiet place.

 (Here's a reposting from two years ago.)
"The discipline of the writer is to learn to be still and listen to what his subject has to tell him."
                 Rachel Carson

This morning I read Candice Farris Ransom's post about switching off the internet and listening Here it is. What do you think? I don't think I can completely unplug. But I'll try to strike a balance.

I'm leaning toward the advice of Laurie Halse Anderson, 
in her blogpost about Social Media.

Cut the amount of time you spent on social media and reading blogs about writing and getting published by 75%. Yep. If you spent 10 hours a week on that stuff, then from now on, spend 2.5 hours. Use the time that you get back for writing your novel and for reading great books. That will make your chances of getting published much stronger than any Facebook post ever will.

Of course, I'd spent an entirely productive time cruising around on Laurie Halse Anderson's blog.  She's got some great advice and fantastic visuals so I'll be back.  She'll be in my 25%.

It's the other internet background noise I may be able to live without. 
It's a lot easier to be still and listen when the background noise isn't clutter.

Bye, bye, Character...

I've done it often. Said goodbye to a character who wasn't carrying his weight. Given the ax to someone who was the same as somebody else.

I could read every word Laurie Halse Anderson writes about writing (not to mention quite a few of her fiction words).

Click for her thoughts on the subject:

http://madwomanintheforest.com/revision-tip-19/

Here's a bit of what she advises:

1. List all the characters. 
2. Define – using only a few words – that character’s relationship to the main character. Examples: comic foil, trusted friend, villain, complication, love interest. 
3. If (like me) you have two or more characters that serve the same purpose, get out a magnifying glass and sharpen your scythe. Is it possible to have one of the characters take over scenes from the others? 

In my past book lives, I've said goodbye to a boy named Zach and an aunt named June (or maybe it was May. My critique group laughingly called her Aunt May June because we never could remember. That right there tells you something about how interestingly she was written).

Possibly a lot of my characters have left the building. And have long been forgotten.

Have you had the nerve to chop a character right out of your story? Scary, no?
But totally worth it in the end!

Write Revise on!

 

Why Read?

While hanging out on Laurie Halse Anderson's excellent blog, perusing her advice on revision, I clicked over to her recommended link, a Washington Post article mostly about what kids are reading and why, or why not.

James Blasingame is an English professor at Arizona State, among other things. And he's reporting in from the recent National Council of Teachers of English conference. Great posting, including a couple of gems like this:

We read books for many reasons. Sometimes we read books to access information and to broaden our knowledge.
Sometimes we read books just for fun, to escape from the world for awhile and indulge our imaginations.
And sometimes we read to make sense of our lives, to better understand the world and our place in it.

And from one of my favorite writers of all-time:
Katherine Paterson, United States Library of Congress Living Legend Award winner, once explained that literature allows young people to prepare for life’s difficulties by experiencing them from the safe distance of reading.

The Safe Distance of Reading. Don't you just love that?


Here's hoping Santa brings you and yours lots of wonderful reading this holiday season!

Revision: Quote of the Day

A writer's best friend is a wastepaper basket.
Isaac B. Singer. 

Mine's been emptied five times today.
Revision, I love it.

Pretty much everything you need to know about a great way to revise, via Laurie Halse Anderson:

http://madwomanintheforest.com/wfmad-day-18-revision-roadmap/