Category — On Reading

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.

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.

Okay, now on to Day 2 of the Richard Hugo House Writers’ Conference.

After much coffee on Sunday morning, I presented Think Outside the Book — a session on the myriad ways to market one’s book. We talked about Web sites, social media, blogs, building one’s platform, and the importance of “think not what your local bookstore can do for you, but what you can do for your local bookstore.” Here are a few DOs and DON’Ts from the session:

• DO be generous (with readers, other authors, bookstores, etc.).
• DO be flexible. Be open to new ideas for events, readings, etc.
• DO team up with other authors for support and joint events, and to share ideas.
• DO be prepared not only to do your own legwork but to spend your own money. Depending on your publishing contract, you may have to cover many promotional expenses yourself, from travel to your web site to postcards and bookmarks.
• DO keep your blog open to comments, and DO take the time to respond.
• DON’T be all about you, all the time. Don’t tweet or update Facebook so incessantly that you risk tiring your followers/friends. Be relevant and interesting.
• DON’T automatically connect all social media; think about how you can use each platform to best highlight your work to different audiences.
• DON’T take bad reviews or nasty comments personally, and don’t respond to them. You can’t please everyone, and you don’t need to. Engage only with those who are positive and supportive.

After my own session, I sat in on poet Kelli Russell Agodon‘s fantastic workshop on applying for grants and residencies. As both a winner of numerous grants and residencies as well as a panelist on award committees, Kelli had some terrific advice. Among the gems: Set yourself apart (selection committees read hundreds of applications, so it’s important to stand out); keep it simple (don’t offer too much information, which can be distracting, and remember that committees can be very diverse — send a work sample that connects with people on a human level rather than a strictly artistic one); and follow the guidelines exactly (one of the surest ways to be disqualified for a grant/residency is to have an incomplete application). She also emphasized that often winning is all about luck and timing, and quoted Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take.”

Attorney Mark Wittow’s session Know Your Rights provided a great overview of legal issues for writers, focusing mostly on copyright laws. I learned a couple of new and interesting things — for example, that research data is not protected by copyright (only the expression of the facts is protected). Copyright laws are fairly complex, but writers with questions can visit the U.S. Copyright Office web site for more info. Also, for a $20 donation, Washington writers and artists can visit a free legal clinic run by Washington Lawyers for the Arts.

This blog can in no way summarize the entire weekend, and it can’t capture the wonderful energy of so many writers together for two straight days, sharing ideas and information and enthusiasm. If you couldn’t make it this year, stay tuned to Hugo House, and register early for next year’s conference.

I spent the entire weekend blissfully immersed in all things writing at Richard Hugo House’s first writers’ conference, which centered around the theme of Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century. Panels and sessions were divided into three tracks: publishing, self-promotion, and writers’ tools. Other than the fact that I was, sadly, unable to be in two (or three) places at once, it was a fantastic weekend — and I thought I’d share a few highlights.

Saturday morning’s plenary with Matthew Stadler was inspiring. A novelist as well as a longtime publishing pro and co-founder of Clear Cut Press, Stadler believes that, despite all the current woes and gloom currently surrounding the publishing industry, the twenty-first century will be better for writers than the twentieth. He believes publication should be cheap and easy, and that our goal as writers should be to connect to our audiences one person at a time, one book at a time, and to develop lasting conversations within our communities. His current project, Publication Studio, is “an experiment in sustainable publication” whose books include works by Seattle authors Stacey Levine and Matt Briggs.

After the plenary, I sat on a panel about support networks for writers with Janna Cawrse Esarey, Tamara Kaye Sellman, and Jennifer Culkin, in which we shared our experiences of how writing networks have helped us market our work, from the submission stage through book promotion. Most important, we all agreed, is having clear goals in mind, meeting regularly, and not only sharing ideas but joining together for events and conferences.

Publicist Alice B. Acheson offered an invaluable session on book marketing, speaking on everything from a writer’s “pre-pub platform” to filling out that seemingly endless Author Questionnaire (and yes, every single paragraph of that thing is important for one reason or another). She had good, practical advice for planning events (BYO postcards and posters; always confirm in advance that books have been ordered), reminded everyone that marketing starts when you begin your book (think of your audience), and encouraged good karma: visit independent bookstores often.

Priscilla Long‘s Tricks of Virtuoso Creators focused on the balance between creating work and getting it out into the world, and she pointed out that most masters of their art are able to create masterpieces because they are constantly creating. She set herself a goal of submitting one work each day, and while she fell a little short, she did finish 300 submissions, and got 11 acceptances. Doing this, she points out, not only gives you an idea of your acceptance rate but also keeps the cycle going: In order to submit, you must create; once you create, you then have work to submit. A couple more tips from this session: Keep a list of everything you’ve ever written, and write for at least fifteen minutes a day.

More coming soon, covering Sunday’s sessions…

While most writers know that book titles can’t be copyrighted, we have yet to see another Moby-Dick or Gone with the Wind. What’s far more common, as this site shows, is using same cover art for many different books.

Doesn’t every writer love a good malapropism? This NY Times article reminded me of my days living in Taipei, when I’d encounter various bizarre English translations. Visitors to Shanghai won’t be able to enjoy similar mistakes much longer, thanks to the Shanghai Commission for the Management of Language Use, which is fixing everything from menus to street signs. So long to menus listing “monolithic tree mushroom stem squid” and restroom signs reading “urine district.” Check out the Times slide show for a few hilarious examples, including the one below.

Speaking of being lost in translation: From Jhumpa Lahiri to Chuck Palahniuk to Donald Barthelme, authors’ names are often mispronounced with such authority that soon even the correct pronunciation sounds wrong. Click here for a guide.

I rather enjoyed this Life magazine slide show entitled “Famous Literary Drunks & Addicts.” If nothing else, it made me feel pretty healthy by comparison.

Having trouble jump-starting your latest story? The American Book Review lists the best 100 first lines from novels here … it’s inspiring, if a little intimidating.

And finally — and definitely inspiring — is this blog from Alan Rinzler on finding courage as a writer, with such advice as not being afraid to talk to yourself, to let things simmer, and to start over.

Enjoy.

It’s been only a couple of years since National Short Story Month was designated by Dan Wickett of the Emerging Writers Network — and as this Poets & Writers article notes, the idea was first floated by The Story Prize‘s Larry Dark back in 2003: “I think the story needs advocacy as a cultural institution the way poetry has done … There’s a national poetry month, and I think there should be a national short-story month, too.”

While National Short Story month may not yet have the organizational and institutional support of, say, National Poetry Month, it still deserves recognition, celebration, and support. Here are a few ways in which readers and writers can do just that …

– Read and support the literary magazines that publish short fiction. There are far too many to name here, but this month, consider one of the many magazines devoted solely to short stories — Zoetrope, Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, Freight Stories, and Fiction Magazine, to name a few.

– Visit web sites devoted to short stories, such as Andrew’s Book Club and The Short Review. Check out the many diverse collections highlighted on these sites, and treat yourself to one (or more).

– Mark your book club calendar. If you’re in a book club, designate May as the month you read a story collection, if you haven’t already. If it’s too late to make this month’s pick, mark your calendar for May 2011.

– Think about the last short story you enjoyed, whether it was in a journal or a book-length collection, then talk it up: tell your friends, family, colleagues, and/or book club about it. Share the love; spread the joy.

Happy Short Story Month to all.

I (finally) saw the film Up in the Air, and as I watched it with my Midwestern husband, I learned a few interesting things. One, that the wedding scenes’ “rural Wisconsin” hotel was actually the Chesire Inn in St. Louis. Two, that George Clooney’s character’s “Omaha, Nebraska” apartment is actually in the Mansion House, also in St. Louis. And three, that the Vera Farmiga character’s “Chicago” brownstone is also, yes, in St. Louis (right down the street from my brother-in-law’s house, in fact). Had I not been sitting with a St. Louis native, I’d have known none of this — other than that Lambert-St. Louis International Airport did play itself in the movie (though, as this article notes, it also served as a setting for a few other airports as well).

Of course, not everyone picked up on (or cared about) these little details — and we all know that film crews go where the locations are cost-effective and convenient. As writers, though, we really have no excuse for misrepresenting place in our writing. Watching Up in the Air reminded me of the workshop I did a couple of weeks ago at Warwick’s, at which we talked about, among other things, this very issue — how best to write accurately about place, especially knowing that somewhere out there, a reader is going to know if you’re trying to fake your way through it.

The best option for a writer is to visit the place about which you’re writing — but, like filmmakers, we too have budgets (and they’re usually a lot smaller). But if you can’t visit a place, you can always interview someone who’s from there; you’ll probably find all that you need, and more. When I began writing the story “First Sunday” (which appears in Forgetting English), I’d never been to the Kingdom of Tonga and had no hope of visiting any time soon. So I did some research on my own and also called and nagged my sister for information, translation questions, and random fact-checking. She’d lived in Tonga for two years and not only helped make sure my story was accurate in terms of setting and culture, but she also gave me a few ideas that helped shape the story — ideas I’d never have gotten from doing book or Internet research alone.

While no writer will please every reader (especially when each person’s experience of any one place can vary widely), I think we should strive to be as accurate as possible with our settings.

So if you are able to visit a place in person, here are a few tips…

- Take a ridiculous amount of notes. You will always want to have far more information than you can use.

- Take photos. Yes, you’ll look touristy, but places fade from our memories faster than we think. And having such “visual” notes will come in handy later.

- Talk to people. If you plan on writing dialogue, which is likely, you’ll want this to be as accurate as your details. Every region has a local dialect of some sort; every place has nicknames for landmarks, shops, taverns, etc. Find out what they are.

- Visit a museum. Even the smallest of towns may have a history museum, a historical society, etc . — check them out. You might discover wonderful ideas that will add layers to your story.

And if you still worry that your details aren’t adding up to an accurate portrayal? If you’re writing fiction, you can simply create a fictional place. This is a great option, especially if what’s happening in a story is less important than the place itself. For example, in my fictional world, Seattle now has a hospital called “Bayview Medical Center” because I found myself needing to set a scene in a hospital and didn’t want to worry about the details (what neighborhood? how many floors, and on which one is the ICU? and on and on…). So with my fake hospital, I can focus on the characters and what’s going on in the scene rather than worrying about a doctor or lab tech reading my story years from now and wondering where I got all my bad info. And who knows … maybe it’ll seem so real that one day someone will ask where it is — like the woman on 6th Avenue last week who asked me for directions to “Seattle Grace Hospital” (anyone who’s seen Grey’s Anatomy will know why this was amusing).

Happy researching … and/or creating.

In honor of National Poetry Month, poet and blogger Kelli Russell Agodon has gathered together 51 generous people to give the gift of poetry, i.e., free books. What better way to celebrate?

To enter the drawings, visit Kelli’s blog for links to the participating bloggers/poets/poetry lovers.

Enjoy — and spread the word!

Happy National Poetry Month.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before it happened again — publishing drama in the form of a publisher pulling a nonfiction book because significant parts of it are, in fact, fiction. This NY Times piece offers details: Charles Pellegrino originally claimed he’d been duped by a source while writing The Last Train From Hiroshima, and then the book’s publisher later learned that other people in the book may not exist, and that the author’s Ph.D. may not exist either.

This is certainly not the first or even the most dramatic revelation of questioned work — remember James Frey? Margaret Selzer? Herman Rosenblat? to name just a few — but it comes at a time when publishing is at a precarious spot in its industry’s history. As novelist Kurt Andersen told the Times: “If book publishers are supposed to be the gatekeepers, tell me exactly what they’re closing the gate to.”

Amid the struggle to get published, my fellow writers and I end up talking a lot about self-publishing, which usually has been viewed as the only option for writers who aren’t “good enough” to find a “real” publisher. Yet many writers are choosing to self-publish these days — and it’s not because they’re not good enough (Steve Almond is certainly good enough – check out his story in this LA Times piece) or because they won’t be able to sell enough books (we all know John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, can sell books, and Publishers Marketplace recently announced that he is self-publishing his latest, Venus On Fire, Mars On Ice). They’re choosing it for other reasons, among them making more money, having more control over the process, and, as Steve Almond puts it: “No marketing plan, no guilt-inducing advance, no royalty statements, no remainders.”

This is not to say that, just because another questionable nonfiction book has slipped through the cracks, we should abandon the publishing world and do it all ourselves — not at all. Self-publishing, of course, is not for everyone — having no marketing plan, for example, is only a good option for someone who already has an audience or has a great deal of experience in book marketing — and in general, having gatekeepers is necessary and good. But for those with great books that can’t sell in today’s market, it’s good to have other options, and slipping under the gate might not be such a bad idea.

Victoria Patterson, author of Drift, wrote in a recent article about autobiographical fiction for The Millions that her writing group would call her by the name of her protagonist, despite her assertions that her character was fictional — and that she endured a “condemning two- to three-month silence” from her family after her book was published.

One of the most interesting things about Patterson’s article is a conversation she had with her father, who brought up an event that he said he wished “had gone better,” to which Patterson replied, “Dad, that never happened. It’s fiction. I made it up.” Which is another challenge of autobiographical fiction: If people recognize parts of the story as true, they may well believe it’s all true.

I’m often asked about how much of what happens in the stories of Forgetting English actually happened in real life. Last week, when this came up at a book club I was visiting, we joked about how they all might want to lock up their jewelry (and their husbands) … but the truth is (quite boringly) that Forgetting English isn’t autobiographical — at least not in the strict sense. Every story contains bits and pieces of my life — some more than others; “The Road to Hana,” for example, was inspired by a real stolen ring, even if I wasn’t the one to steal it — but these pieces are not necessarily reenactments of my own experiences.

In a reading I gave last week at a local college, I was asked about “The Ecstatic Cry,” the Forgetting English story about a scientist living in Antarctica — a character about as opposite of me as one could imagine, in that I hate the cold and barely passed most of my science courses. Yet I acknowledged that this character — a loner who spends as much time as she can at the bottom of the world, who cares more for animals than for humans — does reflect a concerned (and rather cranky) part of myself, a part that wishes we all treated animals and the planet a little better. And while in my everyday life, I express this part of myself in small ways by volunteering and supporting organizations with similar goals, I enjoyed giving it a voice and a life of its own.

If you’re writing purely autobiographical fiction, then you already know about the questions that will await you. And even if you’re not, those same questions will still await you. This is because readers know as well as we do that nothing is ever entirely fictional — even if we did make it all up.

I enjoyed seeing this LA Times blog post about England’s new American Idol of publishing: TV Book Club. Perhaps one day, like other British programs, an American version will make its way across the pond. How great would it be to see an entire show dedicated to books?

And I’ve been following William Boot’s “Do I Have To Read…?” series for the Daily Beast on reviewing commercial books. In Boot’s opinion, only 44 of the 279 pages of Elizabeth Gilberts’s new book, Committed, are readable. The number of readable pages in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help? “All of them.”

As I schedule new events and classes, I’ve found a handy resource in Teach Street. Whether you’re a student of writing or a teacher of writing (or of anything else, for that matter), check it out, if you haven’t already. It’s a great way for students to find classes and for instructors to list classes.

If you’re into publishing news and you’re also on Twitter, you might get a kick out of following FakeBookNews, satirical tweets about publishing and literary culture. Among the stories: “Success of bestselling novel leads to blog deal for author” and “Michiko Kakutani gives up using ‘fierce,’ ‘limn’ and ‘deeply felt’ for Lent.” (Note: Click here for a non-satirical piece on going from blog to book.)

“Can writing be taught?” asks this Atlantic piece, which offers advice on writing from Wallace Stegner, Francine Prose, Gail Godwin, and others. John Kenneth Galbraith, while acknowledging that the difficulty of writing is enough to drive any writer to drink, nevertheless advises staying away from booze: “Any writer who wants to do his best against a deadline should stick to Coca-Cola. If he doesn’t have a deadline, he can risk Seven-Up.”

And finally, for anyone who’s ever thought about using a pen name, check out this blog post from literary agent Nathan Bransford. (Important: Deal with the pen name after you’ve found your agent: “When I receive your query,” Bransford writes, “I don’t want it to be from your pseudonym.”) The post has an interesting list of pros and cons, especially tuned in to the Internet age, and includes reasons I’d never really thought of — for example, if you have a very common name, like Jane Smith, you might consider a pen name for search engine optimization (of course, with a name like Midge, you can see why I’ve never thought of this).

Enjoy.

I always enjoy presenting at the Southern California Writers’ Conference in San Diego, in part because it’s a great excuse to travel south from Seattle in February (it was not only sunny but in the 70s!) — and also because it’s an exhilarating, exhausting-in-a-good-way weekend. Even better, I get to see old friends and meet amazing writers.

Among the friends at this year’s SCWC were Clare Meeker, who presented on creating commissioned stories (she’s in San Diego all week promoting her book Charge Ahead, commissioned by KPBS public television in San Diego as part of a national “Raising Readers” grant to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from the U.S. Department of Education). Among the gems of Clare’s presentation were reminders that a writer always needs to be thinking outside the box, and not to take no for an answer: an editor who once told Clare that they only used in-house writers later published two of Clare’s books.

During the banquet I got to catch up with Judy Reeves, whose A Writer’s Book of Days will be reissued this fall; keep an eye out for that, even if you already have a copy  — the new edition will have all new prompts and literary quotes. I also had the pleasure of sitting with Tammy Greenwood, whose new novel, The Hungry Season, was published in January. She gave an inspiring keynote that evening, as well as a great session the next morning on creating substantive characters.

I always enjoy the agent/editor panel, and this year, I felt a bit more optimism about publishing in the air. The panel talked about book promotion, making a few important points, among them: Writing and selling a book is half the process, while promotion is the other half; there’s less and less money available for in-house publicity, so this job is falling more and more to authors; authors must be creative with marketing and/or save some of their advance dollars to put toward hiring a publicist.

They also talked about e-formats, and none had any violent thoughts on the subject, which indicates that the non-retail part of industry is becoming more accepting. One editor noted that the e-formats do not affect print runs at her publishing company — they do the same print run they’d do with or without e-books, and adding e-formats only increases readership beyond what they’d be seeing with traditional paper books.

In response to a question from the audience, the panel addressed self-publishing, noting that they don’t normally take on self-published books (the average sales for a self-published book is about 100 copies), but that their interest is piqued whenever a self-published book sells 2,500 copies or more.

And of course, members of the panel talked about their pet peeves — and I always think this is worth noting in detail. The list seems to be the same year after year, but apparently this is because writers are making the same mistakes year after year. So take note: among the most common submission mistakes to avoid are…

- approaching an agent or editor the way he/she does not want to be approached (calling when guidelines specify email contact only, for example)

- sending material the agent doesn’t represent or the editor doesn’t publish

- sending work that has not been edited or proofread

- sending work that is too long (noted one agent: “Anything over 100,000 words is a red flag — it’s hard to sell anything over 90,000 words”)

- sending emails to multiple agents at the same time

- misspelled words in a query letter (including — and especially — misspelling the word query)

- telling agents or editors that they’re going to “miss out” or that the book is “a guaranteed bestseller”

- writing, “here is my fictional novel”

- forsaking professional writing when using email – queries should still be written professionally

Overall, the conference was informative and also inspiring. One of the best things about this conference is that because it’s in February, it’s still early enough to make good on the new year’s writing resolutions. So now, back to work…

As someone who loves traditional books — the look and feel and weight of them — I have a confession to make: I really like using the Kindle.

I am the co-owner of a Kindle; I probably wouldn’t have bought one on my own, but my husband is a geek (though he prefers the term “early adopter”) and got one right away. It’s mostly his, and I’ve only used it a couple of times … until this week, when I brought it with me on a solo trip. And I have to admit, the Kindle makes an awesome travel companion.

Given all the airline restrictions and baggage fees, I wanted to travel as lightly as possible, which for a writer isn’t always easy (notebooks, laptop, books, etc.). But instead of carrying three or four books with me, I downloaded a few books onto the Kindle — books I’ve been wanting to read but didn’t yet own in physical form. And so I had all my reading material in one lightweight, slender place.

Well, almost all my reading material. I did bring a couple of magazines with me because Kindles are among the devices that must be put away during takeoff and landing.

Among the things I appreciate about the Kindle are: being able to enlarge type size so that I don’t have to dig through and/or haul my bag out of the overhead bin looking for my glasses, which are likely in my checked baggage anyway; being able to read one story, flip to another collection or anthology to read another, then return to the first, all without doing the aforementioned digging around; being able to look up a word at the click of a button; being able to buy a new book at the click of a button.

Spending some quality time with this e-reader made me glad that Forgetting English is available on the Kindle. Many writers would still prefer that their books be available only in traditional form — but I think this is changing. While I still believe that those who love traditional books will continue to buy them — I’d have bought the books I’m reading now in paperback if I hadn’t had a Kindle for this trip — I’m hearing of more and more readers who read exclusively on the Kindle these days. And once I saw how easy it is to download a book — within moments, it appears in your library — I was glad to know that my own book is available at the click of a button. Yes, it’s cheaper and we all make a bit less money — but given the choice, I’d rather have fewer dollars than fewer readers.

I found this NYT article about James Patterson fascinating: the story of this author’s spectacularly successful career, from the struggle to get published in the 1970s, when he sold 10,000 copies of his first book, to today (last year he sold 14 million, outselling Stephen King, John Grisham, and Dan Brown). It also shows how, depressingly, the publishing industry has changed: “Thirty years ago, the industry defined a ‘hit’ novel as a book that sold a couple of hundred thousand copies in hardcover. Today a book isn’t considered a blockbuster unless it sells at least one million copies.” (No pressure, writers.)

The article offers a little background on the history of the blockbuster, pointing out that Patterson is not only a beneficiary but a catalyst (he’s described in the piece as “Little, Brown’s most prized possession”). These days, bestselling authors are not writers — they’re brands. (And, like a handful of other bestselling authors, Patterson doesn’t write his books himself but with a series of co-authors.)

The piece reminded me of something a writer friend of mine recently heard at a conference: a literary agent, when asked what she was looking for in an author, replied, “A franchise.” For most writers, this isn’t great news.

But as always, I try to look for the silver lining. As the article notes, “Patterson built his fan following methodically … like a politician aspiring to higher office, he was shoring up his base.” He also discovered the joys of reading later in life than many writers and blew off a chance to go to graduate school. And yes, his first book was rejected more than a dozen times.

I got a kick out of the story’s glimpse into Patterson’s book tour — he calls a gathering of 300+ people “a fairly respectable crowd” — and it shows well the bond between author and reader, no matter the genre (or brand, as the case may be). Of his own work, Patterson says, “this is not high art,” but his devoted fans don’t mind: the woman who read his books with her grandmother and wanted to bury a signed copy with her; the trucker who has listened to every book while on the road.

A writer can’t have everything — and in Patterson’s case, it’s the love of critics (the Daily Beast’s William Boot calls Patterson’s detective Alex Cross “a moron”). But as Patterson tells the Times, his readers are happy: “So what’s the big deal?”