Sarah Wrote That | The Writing Life

Chance and Attention →

I have a guest post over on HTMLGiant about teaching creative writing:

Ideally what happens in creative writing classes is less different from the way we write on our own than academic trappings and the rituals of workshop™ might make it seem. We’re hopefully reading widely and intently regardless, developing a personal canon and an ear for line-level nuance, an eye for overall shape. We identify techniques, try them out, learn to recognize our failures, and move on. We do most of this on our own, and presumably want to.

Read on →

I’m handing in the first chunk (out of a likely 3) of my novel on Tuesday, just over 20,000 words, 90 pages with the formatting I’m using.* I’m hoping for an eventual ±60,000 words and really, really not hoping for 400-500 pp, but I’m consciously letting it find its own duration, and three times now this has been the point where initial arcs have progressed far enough that I could start to see an overall shape, what was working, what didn’t belong. The first time, I kept 4,000 words; the second, 12,000 words.** I suspect that now, if anything, I’ll be filling in gaps, developing b-plots, etc.***

The manuscript is too early on for real line editing, but one thing I did this weekend was check every place where—I’d like to think in the rush of first-drafting—I’d written that a character felt or thought something, instead of directly stating the thought or describing the feeling. It may seem gimmicky, but it made a striking difference to the flow of the prose. The only instance where it made sense to keep the usage was a character thinking about her own previous thoughts. Where it was me, the author, saying now we’re in [x]’s head!—gone; and even where I had to re-work the sentences completely, I prefer the new versions.

I’m acutely aware with this manuscript that I haven’t learned how to write “a” novel, only a bit about the one I’m working on.

* I remember sometime last year a lit blog, I forget which, derisively advising aspiring novelists not to dissuade passing agents by revealing to the Internets how far their projects were from completion. As if one is going to be able or want to hoodwink an agent! They do want to actually see what they’re taking on…

** I’ve read much inveighing against such editing while in progress—just write straight through, let it be bad, don’t lose momentum, etc. I agree to an extent; except when later events are going to result from events that are going to entirely change.

*** But I could be wrong! So wrong!

Q: Do you have exceptional literary talent?

A: I thikn so

[from filmsourcing.com]

"To my surprise, after all that paging, she had no plans for dinner. Sure, I said. By that time I was thinking “I am having a New York experience,” and in fact many times in subsequent years I would recognize from earlier that afternoon the queasy sense of being assigned a non-monetary but definite value."

- Sarah Malone, Finite + Flammable (more)

Wednesday! I will be reading more from this! (Remember when pagers were status symbols? And we didn’t have web sites, we had to print our pages out all by ourselves? In the snow.) There will be wine and amazing other readers!

Reblogged from finite + flammable

So what’s it like in Ceylon? I’d much rather go to Mars or the Moon.

tinglealley:

Near the end of Out of Sheer Rage, Geoff Dyer mentions a D.H. Lawrence letter that he describes as Lawrence’s “grouchiest letter ever - the grouchiest letter ever?” and a “masterpiece” of irritability. Dyer quotes choice bits from the letter; but if you were ever curious about how the whole thing read, here it is. I hunted it up at the library a while back. It was written to Lawrence’s friend Earl Brewster in 1921, the same year this photo of him and Frieda was taken. (Photo via.)

To E.H. Brewster, from Fontana Vecchia, Taormina, 2 November 1921

Dear Brewster: Yours and Achsah’s from beyond Crete received today: and by coincidence, one from Alpha. So the family voice was uplifted in one strain on this feast-day of All-Souls. Anyhow you’ve got as far as Port Said.

No, I don’t understand a bit what you mean about rightness and about relationships and about the world. Damn the world, anyhow. And I have ‘understanding’ people, and I hate more still to be understood. Damn understanding more than anything. I refuse to understand you. Therefore you can say what you like, without a qualm, and never bother to alter it. I shan’t understand.

Read More

I’m always amazed by how Lawrence’s sentences land perfectly, and yet are totally natural, uncrafted-seeming and unaffected. Such an elemental writer. And I love this:

Is everybody there as beshitten as here? I’ll bet they are.

Reblogged from Tingle Alley

I need to remind myself

how different the euphoria of completing a draft—catching ideas before they dissipate, adding new elements that get a story closer to what it wants to be—is from the cool sense of realizing a story is no longer mine to fiddle with, and that I’ll only muddy it if I do.

More difficult for me to reconcile myself to: a 4,000-6,000 word story may take me a year or more.

joepompeo:nobodysdiary:

I contributed!! check it out!

finiteandflammable: Please join us to celebrate the launch of Finite + Flammable at ABC No Rio on Dec. 7! There will be zines, to buy and to browse. (More than 12,000 of them!) Also, a little bit of reading time, with our illustrious contributors. And a lot of wine.

Speaking of which, if anyone has a suggestion for a decent cheap wine other than Two Buck Chuck, don’t be a stranger!

Vinho Verde - $5 for a tall-size bottle, can’t be beat (unless you prefer red).

So psyched to be a part of this.

Reblogged from I Had A Dream, Joe

"Our economic injustices are chronic, and so then must be the protest."

- Dana Spiotta

15 Nov 2011 18:37

finite + flammable: f+f updates! →

finiteandflammable:

Woah, have you been to Staples recently!? Do you know what the prices are like at the copy center?? It’s hilarious! It makes you say things like, “In my day we had to walk a mile to the Citgo station to make our zines, and copies were only three cents a page.” And so forth.

Anyway, we’re not deterred. We’re up to our ears in Elmer’s, readying F+F for a post-Thanksgiving launch. In fact, we’re taking pre-orders right now, for $5, postage paid! If you haven’t been to Staples recently, let’s just say that this is a bargain. In fact, it probably means we’re going to end up paying you to read this thing.

But we’re willing, because we can’t wait to share it! Not to be whatever but we’re totally blown away by the amazing submissions we received. So excited, in fact that we’ll be unveiling a few sneak peaks here in the days come. (And by a few we mean A FEW.) Meanwhile, if you’re curious, our (more or less) official contributors list is up right here.

And! Stay tuned for details on the official launch party in early December. We didn’t have parties for zines back in the day. But, you know, things have changed.

Grinning ear-to-ear to be alongside these amazing writers.

Reblogged from finite + flammable

somethingchanged:

The things they don’t teach you in art school | Frieze

I feel the same way about writing, so fortunate to be able to spend my time with words, so intent on making something of it.

Reblogged from Something Changed.