Midge’s blog about writing . . . reading . . . and everything in between

I recently discovered a new toy online: Wordle, which generates nifty “word clouds” from text that you provide on its web site. Input your text or a URL, and you’ll see where your passions lie: The largest words in your cloud are the ones that appear more frequently in your source text. Here’s the word cloud created from my blog:

And speaking of discovering your passions, Poets & Writers has listed its Top Ten Topics for Writers, a compilation of the most important issues for writers today. The list includes literary magazines, publishing a book, literary agents, vanity presses, writing contests, book publicity, and copyright, among others. Check it out — and even better, support P&W and subscribe.

You may have heard the sad news about the end of Andrew’s Book Club, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still enjoy all its fabulous content, from more than a year’s worth of short-story picks to author interviews to author dialogues, like this conversation between Tracy Winn and Robin Black, to name just one. Visit the ABC web site to enjoy the archival treasure.

I liked this NYT article about wandering minds, which finds “daydreaming to be remarkably common — and often quite useful.” As you already know if you’re a writer, sometimes the best ideas come to us when our minds are wandering, and it’s always reassuring to have an expert like Jonathan Schooler of the University of California, Santa Barbara, tell us that “for creativity you need your mind to wander.” Thank you, Dr. Schooler.

For pure enjoyment (as well as what not to do if you’re looking for an agent), check out Slush Pile Hell, a hilarious blog by a “grumpy literary agent” who answers writers’ questions as well as posts some of her weirder author queries. A sampling of the helpful tips: do not send agents shirtless photos, demands for seven-figure deals, or tell them how God helped you write your manuscript. A sampling of actual letters received: “Greetings agent. I have written the most important book on earth”; “Readers of Eat, Pray, Love; Twilight; Tuesdays with Morrie;  and The Da Vinci Code will love my book” [correct usage of semicolons added by me]; and “After reading my manuscript I think you’ll agree that I may be the next generation’s greatest author.”

Equally amusing is this post about writing “a lot” as “alot,” which has always been one of my pet peeves, along with “alright.” (Two words, people. Two words.) Anyway, this inventive grammarian created an imaginary creature “to help me deal with my compulsive need to correct other people’s grammar.” I love it and feel a lot less peevish already. (And thanks to my writing buddy Sean A. for sending the link!)

And finally, to leave you with a writing exercise, check out One Word, a beautifully simple web site that offers a one-word writing prompt with the instructions, “Don’t think. Just write.” Enjoy.

I stole the first portion of this headline from Nathan Bransford’s recent blog post, mostly because I love that he not only dared but quite successfully managed to fit so many key points about this “rotund, ginormous, massive, weighty, of-gargantuan-proportions” topic into one post. (I’d have begun with character development, but that’s just me.) And keep in mind that Nathan is not only a writer but a literary agent, so his advice comes at least in part from what he looks for in a new client. So if you’re writing a novel, or want to, check it out.

And, for all you really efficient novelists out there, Bransford followed up a couple days later with another post on how to write a query letter, also excellent, with plenty of helpful links.

And, if you’re curious about the path toward publication, I’m following a couple of authors’ adventures that you might also enjoy. On her wonderful blog Practicing Writing, Erika Dreifus offers “Pre-Publication Posts” on Thursdays, in which she writes about an aspect of the publication process as she prepares her own forthcoming book, Quiet Americans, for publication. She covers everything from e-books to review angst to readings — and she recently posted an excerpt from her story collection. Her blog is terrific every day of the week, so be sure to subscribe.

And John Yunker is blogging about taking the self-published route with his novel The Tourist Trail, which is another adventure entirely, though it has good tips for anyone with a forthcoming book, whether or not you’re your own publisher. Visit his blog to learn more about D.I.Y. publishing, from creating cover art to getting reviews, as well as book promotion and e-books.

This LA Times blog post titled “Fiction is dead. Again?” was accompanied by a gripping image: a hearse. This photo  sums up this topic so well: every few years, someone somewhere claims that fiction is dead. And then we all move on.

Yet each time, the notion seems a little more alarming.

In this Mother Jones article, Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, writes about the struggles of literary magazines to keep publishing amid declining subscribers and “an even greater dent in their cultural relevance.” The most interesting statistics in this article are those that add up to one simple fact: today’s writers are not reading. In other words, they are not supporting the literary magazines to which they submit.

Earlier this year, the New York Times covered the struggle of Harper’s magazine, another sad story in the fiction world (the Atlantic has already ceased publishing monthly fiction).  In order to keep readers and draw new ones, many prestigious journals are offering online content in addition to the print editions — Mississippi Review, Missouri Review, Harvard Review, and AGNI among them — while others, such as TriQuarterly and Shenandoah, have been forced to go exclusively online. As Genoways notes, many magazines facing deep cuts or extinction are among the best.

The LA Times post, in response to Lee Siegel’s Observer piece calling fiction “culturally irrelevant,” this post outlines in detail — from the book-based “Twilight” craze to the lively conversations generated by The New Yorker’s “20 Under 40″ list — why fiction doesn’t need a hearse just yet. But if readers don’t support the books and magazines that keep it alive, its future may be more tenuous than we’d like to believe. On The Huffington Post, Anis Shivani chats with the editors of seventeen literary journals that he thinks will survive the digital age. It’s good to see, amid the challenges, that most of the editors are hopeful about keeping their magazines going — and of course I hope the list of journals that survive and thrive goes well beyond these seventeen.

In this economy, it’s hard to justify the extras that many of us need to go without right now. But if you’re a fiction reader — and especially if you’re a fiction writer — this is the time to support these magazines in any way you can. If you give up only one month’s worth of lattes, you can subscribe to a literary magazine. If you enter a contest, you’re supporting a literary magazine or a small press. If you can’t afford a subscription, buy a journal at an independent bookstore, supporting both bookstore and the journal. We all have to make trade-offs in a poor economy — but for writers, these are choices that could make a big difference for the future of our work.

Some of you may already be following my husband’s blog about his adventures in self-publishing — and the adventure gets more interesting (and inspiring) every day. Last week, The Tourist Trail was featured in the Kindle Nation newsletter and quickly soared to the top of the Kindle Store’s “Movers & Shakers” list.

Not bad for an author whose agent was told by editors that there was no audience for his book.

Fortunately, digital publishing and print-on-demand make it easy for authors to find their audiences — and these days it seems as if this is becoming a necessary first step. And there are no shortage of success stories out there: This Newsweek article highlights several self-published authors, among them Boyd Morrison, who was courted for his self-published book, The Ark, by the same publishers who had previously rejected him. This New York Times Magazine piece reminds us that self-published writers include Gertrude Stein, Anaïs Nin, and Edgar Allan Poe. And The New Yorker takes a good look at the industry through the changes that digital media have brought to publishing.

Self-publishing isn’t simple or easy, by any means, as John’s blog will tell you. And promoting yourself without a publisher behind you is even more daunting. But it’s well worth it if you believe in your book and want it to find readers. This NYT story is about a writer who sells his books on New York subway trains — and he’s sold more than 14,000 books over the last three years, one at a time.

Anis Shivani writes in this snarky article on the Huffington Post: “As for conglomerate publishing, the decision-makers wouldn’t know great literature if it hit them in the face.” Ouch. But this is an important article about the ways in which our experience of literature has been limited by the gatekeepers in the publishing industry — and how the gates are now opening up in a huge way. And this means that it’s the readers themselves who now decide what’s worth reading.

Q: How do you write a first-person character whose voice doesn’t sound like the writer’s own? At some point does the character just take on his/her own life and you, the author, disappear? — J.W., Seattle

A: Many writers choose to write in a first-person POV because this voice comes naturally — it’s similar to writing in a journal or writing a blog entry. But, as J.W.’s question points out, when it comes to fiction writing, an author needs to make the sure the character can live and breathe on his or her own.

First of all, it’s not the end of the world if your character sounds a lot like you — as long as this character is real, engaging, and true to life. An author may want to avoid characters that resemble themselves for a couple reasons — for example, if you plan to write more than one book or story, you’ll want to diversify; also, you may want to distance yourself and your own life from your characters (a brief note to fiction writers: everyone will think it’s you, anyway, so don’t worry about this too much).

Here are a few exercises to help you bring your characters to life…

• Take one scene and write it from several different POVs: first person (the “I” voice), second person (the “you”) voice, and third person (the “he/she” voice). This helps you get out of your own head and more fully into your character’s. You might also find that you prefer one of these POVs even more than the one you began with.
• Consider some of your character’s opinions, and note where they’re similar to your own — is this necessary, or just convenient? That is, if you and your main character are both married, if you both hate beets, and if you both have German shepherds, perhaps you need to think outside the box a little. Every characteristic of your fictional characters should exist for a reason related to the story, not because it’s simple or easy to assign certain traits.
• Finally, fill in the blanks below — and because this isn’t by any means a comprehensive list, add a few more categories of your own (favorite band, favorite ice cream, shoe size, etc.). This exercise will help you get to know your character as someone separate from yourself.

• Name:
• Nickname:
• Age:
• Gender:
• Education:
• Occupation:
• Passion, if not same:
• Finances:
• Sexual orientation/status:
• Sexual history:
• Friends & enemies:
• Family:
• Hobbies:
• Possessions:
• Politics & religion:
• Books & music:
• Food:
• Flaws:
• Most noticeable feature / idiosyncrasy:

And I’d love to hear from you with some of the ways that you develop living, breathing characters — let me know! Happy writing.

I recently adopted a new writing space, and I love it — most of all because it looks like this:

It’s been well over a year since my desk has been a clutter-free zone — and probably since my mind has as well. But now that I have a nice, clean writing area, I am delving into projects with more mental energy than I’ve had in a good while. It’s a beautiful thing.

Writers, here’s an assignment for you: Take half an hour of your dedicated writing time and clear your space. Get rid of everything except what you need to write, whether it’s a laptop or a notebook and pen. You’ll be amazed at the focus you’re able to achieve: clearing the desk truly does clear the mind.

Of course, we can’t always have this level of order in our lives, so flexibility is key; clutter will likely find its way back into your writing space eventually. So, as a rule, try to spend a little time each month revising your workspace so that it fits your writing needs. I already have at least one intrusion into my writing space…

…but this is simply a reminder that life — like any good story — shouldn’t be too predictable.

I hope this post finds you writing … if not, here are a few things perfect for a little helpful procrastinating.

This post on The Elegant Variation offers advice for writers, which sort of segued into advice for the lovelorn — and shows how interchangeable the words love/writing can be when it comes to advice, from “Love should bother you” to “Every day you will have to recreate your love.”

And Janet Fitch offers 10 Rules for Writers on the LA Times blog — from killing cliches to stretching out your sentences for variety.

I enjoyed reading Charles Stross’s blog on being a working writer, with insights into what the full-time writing life is really like. It’s not all writing, all the time — “we work in bursts, and the rest of the time gets filled up with administrative junk and social fluff” — and the solitary nature of it can be trying –  “I have office-mates, but they’re not co-workers: at best they’ll stand on the keyboard and meow at me.” After outlining the drawbacks of this “wildly unstable, lonely occupation with an insane income spread” — Stross concludes that “it sucks,” a refreshingly honest conclusion about the true nature of writing as a full-time job.

Writers of fiction should check out this post on Alan Rinzler’s blog about how to eavesdrop to help with writing dialogue. I constantly assign fiction students to eavesdropping as a way to practice getting an ear for dialogue — and often they look at me rather strangely. So I loved seeing this post, which points out, first of all, that Norman Mailer did it (and not very subtly either), and offers tips and possible haunts for good listening.

I recently discovered StereoMood, which offers playlists for just about any type of mood (from energetic to sad to sexy) or activity (from cooking to road-tripping to making love) you can come up with. Readers and writers, check out its playlist for writing and playlist for reading.

And finally, I was initially intrigued by the idea of I Write Like, which (supposedly) matches your writing style with famous writers. At first, I was a little confused by the writers I was paired with, which I think would surprise most of my readers, too: I tested out excerpts from different stories and discovered that, apparently, I write like Chuck Palahniuk, David Foster Wallace, and/or Stephen King — all flattering comparisons, of course, but not at all what I’d expect. Oh, and my novel-in-progress is evidently in the style of Dan Brown. (Clearly, the excerpt I entered is a very rough first draft. And too bad this little algorithm isn’t measuring commercial potential.)

Naturally, I found myself wondering: Where are the women writers? So I tried a little experiment and pasted in excerpts of a few of my favorite writers to see what would happen. The results? According to this web site, Ann Patchett and Joan Didion both write like Kurt Vonnegut, Amy Hempel and Lorrie Moore write like Stephen King, Toni Morrison and Annie Proulx write like James Joyce, Jane Hamilton writes like Chuck Palahniuk, and Melanie Rae Thon writes like Vladimir Nabokov. Hmmm.

A few weeks ago, I was meeting a friend for happy hour in one of the more popular restaurants in Pike Place Market. As I waited for my friend and our table, I pulled out my iPhone — just to check email. Then to check Facebook. Then to play a couple rounds of Words with Friends. Then to text my husband.

What I realized later, as I chatted with my friend, a poet, about writing and publishing and technology, was how much I’d missed out on by having my nose buried in my phone. I’d barely registered the couple waiting next to me, growing more impatient by the moment, exchanging irritable whispers in that way couples do so it won’t seem as if they’re actually arguing in public. I hardly glanced at the tourists wandering in, the group celebrating someone’s birthday. While normally I’d have been eavesdropping and otherwise taking mental notes, I pretty much ignored it all.

The gadgets we have are a great way to pass the time while waiting for a table or waiting on line at the post office, but I’m starting to miss the old days, when I had to look outward to pass the time. I find myself wondering what I used to do before I had a phone to play with.

The answer is simple: I used to watch and listen. And more often than not, I ended up with great story ideas or snippets of dialogue.

It goes without saying that the more “connected” we are, technically speaking, the more disconnected we become from the real world — and for writers, this isn’t always a good thing. In this essay in the NYT Book Review, Gary Shteyngart concludes that the real connection (the one having nothing to do with cellular service) happens once we turn our phones off, or get out of range of a cell tower.

I’m not as addicted to my phone as some people — it definitely gets put away if I’m in the presence of real people — but it does away from the normal solitary pleasures I used to enjoy: all those interesting people to observe, all those conversations to overhear. So I’ve decided that next time I’m in line at the post office or waiting for a bus, I’m determined to ignore that enticing little screen, and to look around me instead.

I’ve recently fallen back in love with the idea of writing without any particular goal in mind. Naturally, we writers have to stay focused on our goals if we ever want to accomplish anything — yet at the same time, being too strict about writing can limit the reaches of our work. So this summer I’ve made an effort to spend a little time each day, or at least each week, on writing for no “productive” purpose whatsoever. It’s been not only enlightening but fun — and I’m glad it’s become a regular part of my writing practice again.

Give it a try. It will not only help remind you that writing is joyful (often hard to remember when cranking through a first draft), but it will also allow for the free flow of ideas — and this, in turn, will do wonders for your projects, and you’ll end up meeting those goals anyway.

In the spirit of writing for no reason, I’ll offer an exercise from the recent issue of my free e-newsletter for writers. Take a notebook; leave your house;  sit and write. Do this at least once a week, and do it for no fewer than twenty minutes. It doesn’t matter if you go to a cafe on the other side of town or to a lawn chair in your backyard: The important thing is that you step away from your life and into your writing. You can go with something specific to work on, but it’s even better if you make this a time for generating ideas, for letting your mind be free.

Happy writing.

As many of you know, I publish a free e-newsletter for writers, and I just sent out my annual double issue for the summer, which included a couple of exercises designed to keep you going but not be too taxing in the summer heat (or cold, I suppose, depending on where you live).

Here’s the first exercise: Choose one piece of writing to polish up for submission in the fall. Because many literary journals don’t accept submissions during the summer, this is a perfect time for revision. Whether you’re thinking of submitting a manuscript to an agent or a short story to magazine or contest, spend time this summer revising, polishing, soliciting feedback, and whatever else your project needs to be ready to submit when fall rolls around.

Happy revising!

As the author of a short-story collection, I’m often asked such questions as “How did you decide how to order the stories?” and “When did you know you had enough stories for a collection?” I love talking about these things — and all other story-related issues — and I’ve been fortunate to have had great Q&As with such people and publications as The Short Review, Andrew’s Book Club, and Diana Joseph, author of I’m Sorry You Feel That Way.

But I also love hearing how other story writers do it … and I thought you might, too. I enjoyed these insights from Maile Malloy, who writes about her new collection, Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It, in this Amazon article.

And Hobart‘s fabulous roundtable discussion on first books includes several short-story writers — among them Caitlin Horrocks, Laura van den Berg, Kevin Wilson, and Holly Goddard Jones  — and great insights into putting collections together and getting them out into the world.

Enjoy.

I recently received an email from a writer who suggested I devote a column to answering writers’ questions — starting, naturally, with his.  I thought this was a great idea (thanks, Jerry!), and I’m looking forward to making this blog more of a dialogue.

So consider this the first official “Ask Midge” column — and I hope you’ll write with your questions on everything from grammar to characterization to narrative structure. I won’t claim to have all the answers, but whenever I don’t, I will point you in the direction of someone who does.

Please send all questions (on writing, publishing, grammar, and all other things writing-related) through this form on my web site — and please let me know whether you’d like me to use your full name, first name only, or initials only. I’m looking forward to your questions!

And here is our first…

Q: How does a writer make the narrator sound like a juvenile without making the writing sound juvenile? — Jerry Guern, San Diego

A: Voice is one of the biggest challenges for writers, especially when tackling a voice that’s very different from one’s own. And it’s especially important, as Jerry is realizing, to make sure the writing itself is separate from the character, i.e., that the character can sound like a child without the writing sounding childish.

First, I suggest getting to know the character well, as sometimes this is the problem. If you’re writing from the POV of a juvenile, for example, make sure you’re seeing the world from this character’s eyes; try living in this character’s head as much as you can while you’re writing, as if you’re an actor playing a role. Our sense of a character’s age comes from the way he/she sees the world: a teenager will look at something very differently from the way a six-year-old would, or a thirty-year-old, or an eighty-year-old — so think about how your character (from the POV of age as well as his/her unique history) sees what happens around him/her, and describe it in detail. Everything that your reader perceives will come through the details.

Second, choose a POV that fits well what you’re trying to get across in the story — i.e., do you want an intimate, first-person POV (think Catcher in the Rye), or a more distant voice (if the kid is much younger, for example, you may find it easier to use third person to get across things that a child may sense but not be able to articulate in his/her own voice)?

Third, think of your audience — it’s often challenging to create a young voice that appeals to adult audiences, and this appeal (or lack thereof) will depend not only on the voice but on the story itself. There are always exceptions, clearly (not only Catcher in the Rye but books such as The Lovely Bones and the entire Harry Potter series). So try taking an objective look at your story; you may find that if your writing doesn’t sound adult, perhaps your story’s audience isn’t meant to be adult. And if it is, we’re back to POV: third person might be best, as you don’t need to limit your vocabulary as much as in the first person voice.

Also, read as much as you can in the POV you’re going for — this will help you get a feel for what works well. As you read, consider the ways in which these writers succeed in making their characters vivid while at the same time giving them authentic voices.

And finally, make use of a writing partner or writing group to help you judge how well you’ve succeeded. Ask, for example, how old your group thinks your character is, and see how this feedback helps you find that perfect pitch.

Happy writing!

This totally random photo is courtesy of Tim Ellis of Seattle Bubble, a real-estate blog which every month or so posts “some of the most bizarre listing photos from around the Seattle area.” This is only one of many, many rooms in a 7,000+ square-foot house on the market in Kenmore, Washington (visit Tim’s blog for a link to the actual listing). I must say I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

With all that’s going on in the publishing industry these days, self-publishing has emerged as far more than a last-resort option. The stigma of “vanity presses” is giving way to a myriad of alternatives for writers who either haven’t yet found their places in the traditional publishing world — or those who choose to forgo traditional presses altogether, for many different reasons.

Take Steve Almond, for example, who is chronicling his leap into self-publishing in a series in Poets&Writers. And then there’s Joe Konrath, who blogs about publishing his latest thriller, Shaken, with AmazonEncore, Amazon’s publishing imprint. (In answer to the question about whether he’ll “piss off traditional publishers,” he responds, “Traditional publishers had a chance to buy Shaken last year. They passed on it. Their loss. Their big loss. Their big, huge, monumental, epic fail.” He’s publishing the Kindle version prior to the print version, offering it at a price far below what traditional publishers can: $2.99.

Another writer whose book was rejected by a couple dozen publishers has found success in e-publishing: Boyd Morrison reports that his novel The Ark hit number one on the Kindle store’s technothriller bestseller list, finishing higher than such established authors as Tom Clancy: “In three months, my three books sold 7,500 copies and were selling at a rate of 4,000 books per month.”

And check out the statistics from PublishersWeekly, which notes that last year, “the number of ‘nontraditional’ titles dwarfed that of traditional books whose output slipped to 288,355 last year.” Meanwhile, the article notes, “a staggering 764,448 titles were produced in 2009 by self-publishers and micro-niche publishers.”

Self-publishing is becoming more mainstream than, well, mainstream publishing. Yet this doesn’t mean it’s the best option for all writers. On his awesome blog, literary agent Nathan Bransford offers Ten Questions You Should Ask Yourself before self-publishing, from research to design to assessing your entrepreneurial spirit — all critical questions for anyone going down this road.

And if you find yourself ready to go for it, you can follow one writer who’s currently in the process of self-publishing and blogging all about it: my entrepreneurial husband, John Yunker. After his agent was unable to find a home for his novel, The Tourist Trail, John decided to publish the book himself. Being a tech, he opted to launch the e-versions first (which allows more time for editing and book design), and The Tourist Trail is currently available on the Kindle and forthcoming on the iPad. To get self-publishing and marketing tips (and to learn from his mistakes), check out John’s blog.

We’re often reminded of authors who self-publish and later get lucrative book deals — Brunonia Barry’s self-published novel The Lace Reader, picked up by William Morrow in a $2-million, two-book deal; or Elle Newmark’s The Book of Unholy Mischief, bought at auction from Simon & Schuster — but keep in mind that not all self-published authors need, or want, a traditional book deal. These days, with e-publishing and print-on-demand being efficient and cost-effective, an author can find his or her niche outside of mainstream publishing, if that happens to be the better fit.

I’ve come across a few job-related posts and articles lately that have reminded me of past day jobs — and made me quite nostalgic. As much as I love being self-employed and having more writing time, I have to admit that there are (a few) days when I actually miss the nine-to-five life. It’s not just because self-employment is a rather exhausting 24/7, or because if I really did the numbers, I’d probably discover that, in the end, I make less than minimum wage — it’s that the workplace provides such wonderful camaraderie, so many challenges…and yes, so much good material.

I’m often asked what inspired stories from Forgetting English, and probably the one that piques the most curiosity is “The Road to Hana,” which came directly from a day at the office: One of my colleagues received a ring in the mail, sent by an alumna who had stolen it from her roommate years ago and hoped we could return it for her. Immediately intrigued but not knowing anything about these people, I began filling in the blanks on my own, and this fictional backstory became a large part of “The Road to Hana.”

Other projects of mine are more directly about the workplace, as is a lot of contemporary and classic fiction — this New York Times article about work in literature covers John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath to Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road to Adam Haslett’s Union Atlantic. And this NYT blog post is about writers themselves working, which most of us have to do if we also want to eat (and, perhaps more important, drink). Note that Charlotte Bronte lived on $1,838 a year, adjusted for inflation, and William Faulkner on about $18,000 in his job as postmaster.

The best work there is, of course, is that which fulfills us — and better yet, leaves a little extra time for writing. But even unfulfilling work can provide amazing material (not to mention the rent and beer money). So use it as much as you can, even if it’s just keeping a journal (sometimes we need time to process, after all). And, just for fun, check out this NPR slideshow on obsolete professions — many of them in publishing.