Over the past week, the Confabulators have shared their favorite web resources they use for writing. Below you will find all of the links collected in one place for one wicked list of writing tools. Also, keep an eye out here at the Cafe. We’ll be creating a web resources page with this information for quick and easy reference, as well.
Category: Ephemera
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What are you reading?
Writers tend to be voracious readers. Some of us even read multiple books at a time; I’m reading three simultaneously at the moment. What we read, as you may have seen in some of our previous posts, often influences what we write, and we all need that constant input. The more we read, the better our writing becomes.
Because we all read so much, we like to check in now and then to share with each other what we’re currently reading.
I’m currently reading the Mistborn trilogy, by Brandon Sanderson ( http://www.amazon.com/
Mistborn-Final-Empire-Book- ). Interestingly enough, the first book seems to be a caper story set in a fantasy world. Given that I’m in the (slow, agonizingly slow) process of reimagining my most recent manuscript, a sci-fi caper novel, this first book is decidedly apropos.ebook/dp/B002GYI9C4 There are currently three books in my “reading” rotation. I alternate American Gods by Neil Gaiman and A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin on the Kindle. When I’m taking a walk or doing housework, I listen to Annie Jacobsen’s Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. It’s my second time through the Gaiman and Jacobsen books. Both warranted a reread.
I am currently reading My Life in France by Julia Child and Alex Prud’Homme. I was trying an experiment where I read only memoirs for a while, and this book is a capstone to that experience. It is well written and full of personality. The introduction describing how Prud’Homme helped his great aunt record the story of her life is very touching. The way Child describes Paris of the 1950’s you can tell she was really in love with that city. My mother told me once that people often fall in love with Paris. She said I should go there because it might turn out to be the love story of my life. I have not taken that on yet, but from reading this book it is becoming a very compelling idea in my imagination!
When it comes to books, I have a bit of ADHD. For some reason, I can never read just one at a time. Usually I try to balance the books I’m currently reading by choosing something fiction or fun paired with something that’s either a classic or nonfiction, in addition to whatever we’re reading for book club. Right now I’m reading The Great and Secret Show by Clive Barker (one of my favorite books and favorite authors), and The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (because I’ve really gotten into true crime lately). For book club, I’m reading The Law of Dreams by Peter Behrens, which I’m enjoying more than I thought I would. Book choices for book club can be a little hit and miss.
I’m currently reading half a dozen books, some in hardcover and some on my Kindle. I’ve been reading Ray Bradbury’s Zen in the Art of Writing, taking in a chapter here and there for inspiration. And I’m reading George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones (which is a lot more time-consuming than watching it on HBO). I’m also working my way through a biography, a book of poetry, a cyberpunk novel, and an old mystery. Some day I’ll have “time enough at last.”
I’m reading a few books. For a modern novel, I am reading Requiem for a Dream by Hubert Selby, Jr. For short stories, I am reading The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Conner. I also keep a set of books going on my Kindle. Currently, those are How to Tell a Story and Other Essays by Mark Twain, The Adventurous Boy’s Handbook by Stephen and Finn Brennan, and The Damned by Algernon Blackwood.
I finished reading “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern today and was disappointed, even though the story is intriguing. The text is replete with comma splices, misused words, and even sentences with scrambled words. Evidently her editor is incompetent or under order not to change. It is one thing to purposefully employ experimental writing techniques; it is quite another to continually abuse the English language to the detriment of the story. Morgenstern crafted a fine, although ethereal story, and it deserves better treatment than found in the present version.
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What’s your Day Job?
Writers are a bit like superheros. Not all of us make money with our writing, so we have to hold down regular jobs while we fight crime in our off hours. So this week, we’ve asked the Confabulators what they do to pay the bills to support their writer alter-ego.
I have had many jobs over the course of my life. Janitor, waitress, web designer, movie crew, but currently I am staying home with an infant.
I’m administrative support at the University – which is basically a glorified secretary, but as everyone knows, secretaries are the ones who really run the office. So, not to brag, but I’m a bit of an office goddess.
I’m cleverly disguised as a full-time novelist. I wish the disguise came with a paycheck, but the first royalty statement won’t come until next January. By then we should have an idea of whether I should go back to being an Administrative Assistant. Or maybe a circus clown.
Actually, I do fight crime during my day job. I am a cop. It’s been a hell of a career. I’ve seen and done things I never could have imagined when I was in college studying the arts. Some days are good, some are bad, but nothing else could be like it.
When I graduated college with a degree in English, I thought I would be able to get a job writing or editing. With no experience, that proved impossible. I started a long road through several jobs that included customer service, technical support, and management in an IT department. Finally, at the urging of my wife, I decided to change careers. For the past five years, I’ve worked as a copywriter for a digital marketing agency.
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The key to a productive writing session
Writers know that a muse can be a very fickle creature. She can be scared off by loud noises, the smell of dinner, or the sight of a pile of dirty dishes. In her native habitat, the muse is at rest and feels welcome, but creating the right atmosphere to lure her in can be a difficult undertaking. The slightest thing can upset her, causing her to vanish for days.
Here at the Cafe, we try to help each other capture by encouraging good conversation and consistent writing. So, we were wondering what our writers do to create the perfect atmosphere for their muses. Is it hot beverage? Quiet music? Soft morning light?
Here are some of our answers:
The less, the better. I do my best writing when it’s just a pen and paper and maybe a cup of coffee close at hand, but no computer or music or distractions!
My mouse. I’m terribly uncoordinated and can’t function well without it. I usually have a bottle of water or a cup of coffee, but they aren’t always nearby. I have a tendency to get up, refill my drink, and remember an hour later that I left it in the kitchen. Good thing I enjoy cold coffee.
My day job as a copywriter has allowed me to learn to write under a number of different conditions. I can write in a crowded room or a quiet one. I can write with music or without. At a desk, a kitchen table, or on a comfy couch. To be truly productive, I need only one thing — a deadline.
I seem to work best when I have an inspiring beverage nearby — red wine in the evening, and coffee in the morning or afternoon. I basically need something to reach for when I get stuck, so I have an excuse to take a break. Coffee stimulates and wine inebriates, so that’s why I choose those particular beverages to help me write.
The key to a productive writing session is my ass glued to a seat and my hands glued to a keyboard. Anything else is just window dressing. I am a firm believer that the only way to write is to sit down and do it. Is coffee nice? Yes. Wine, scotch, music? Yes. No distractions? It would be nice. None of that is really necessary. When you get down to it, the physical act of writing involves seat of the pants to the seat of the chair, and nothing more.
If I’m going to have a productive writing session I need my writing playlists — which might also mean I need headphones depending on where I’m writing. Caffeine, or at the very least a glass of water, is appreciated, but not required. Usually though, I can just plop down, prop my feet up, turn on the laptop, start up some music, and begin writing. Well, after I goof around on Facebook for half an hour, but that’s normal, right?
Food and beverage are nice, but not essential. What I desperately need is an Intenet connection and access to Google and Wikipedia. Without them, I feel COMPLETELY lost during the writing process. Being able to look up trivia, locations, historical figures, scientific theories, etc. are critical to my process.
I’m a mood guy. I need music. Most of what I write has a tongue-in-cheek quality to it, so I prefer songs that amuse me. Flight of the Conchords, Infant Sorrow, Lyle Lovett, and Barenaked Ladies are all in heavy rotation on my playlists.
My most productive writing & editing days this month included a pair of earbuds and a tailored playlist. Earbuds are essential; if I don’t have them, I’m guaranteed to get distracted. Speakers make music a communal experience — my husband all my neighbors can hear it and get involved. Headphones I’m ambivalent about. Earbuds become an internal, isolated, often deafening experience. I can feel the music and relate to it without letting anything else in. Coffee helps, but not nearly as much.
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How do you balance your busy life with time to write?
Every year we all get the same amount of Time: 12 Months, 52 Weeks, 7 Days, 24 Hours. Everyone gets this, not just writers or athletes or the person behind the counter at your favorite bookstore. It’s what we do with that Time that differentiates us from one another. Some of us have families and significant others and day jobs and clubs and we can barely find Time to keep up with what we’re supposed to do let alone what we want to do.
So it’s not really about having Time to do Things at all, is it? It’s more about taking the Time to do Things.
This week, the Confabulators are pondering how they do it: how do they find the time to write when life is so full? If there are tips in here that we can find useful, do you think we’ll take advantage of that? Or will we be too busy?
I have found that no matter how important I say something is, waiting around for free time to do that thing will lead to it never happening. Instead of waiting for the moment to arise, I schedule time to write. I believe in scheduling things that are important to me and writing is important to me. If anyone reading this thinks “I wish! There is no free time!” I would strongly encourage trying out a month without cable tv,, netflix, etc. I thought I was busy before when I had those things, but cancelling them helped me find upwards of 2 extra hours per day.
My busy life consists of staring at the dirty dishes and writing novels. I’m very lucky. Right now, writing is my job. If I’m not making an effort to track down that weird smell hiding somewhere in the house, I should be writing. My husband works to support my writing, sort of like when one partner puts the other through med school. If this all goes belly up, I’ll have to get a real job. But if everything falls into place, he can eventually stay home and write, too.
There is no balance. My life (family and work) comes first. Any time that’s left over is what remains for writing. Of course, the nice thing about writing is that I can steal little bits of time (a car ride, a long shower, a few vacation days) to write. For me, writing has to be separate from my busy life, not a part of it.
It is nearly impossible. There has to be a constant effort to make time for writing. It isn’t going to happen just when I have time. If I don’t work it in with a couple of hours here and there, nothing is ever going to get done. I think it is that way for most writers who don’t make their living just by writing. You have to get creative with your creativity.
I’m a Libra. My whole life is about balancing everything. I can try to schedule things but that gets blown up pretty quickly. Instead, I look for the moments: a few minutes here and there to do the things that need doing. I’m better about telling my wife that I need time to write and she’s good about letting me do that but if I never spoke up and said anything, I’d never have finished the draft of the novel that’s waiting to be edited on my hard drive. When I do that, though, I have to make sure she gets equal amounts of time, too. In a nutshell, speaking up is how I do it.
I don’t. The busy life (read: kids)come first. Since it’s not my main livelihood, writing takes adistant backseat. Partly because it just has to be that way, butalso because I’ve learned I’ll be too frustrated if I expect it to beany other way at this point in my life. Having said that, I know I’ll go crazyif I don’t write, so I’ve pushed down the guilt that I should betaking care of something else, joined writing groups for support ,and have forced myself to leave the house to carve out an hour or twoevery other day for writing, sometimes more in the form of retreatsand conferences. It can be done!
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What is your goal as a writer?
Goals are tricky things, like New Year’s Resolutions in a way. They are things that everyone has in their minds. Sights that are set, whether realistic or not, as plateaus to be attained. Writers are dreamers – in general – and sometimes those goals are lofty indeed. This week, the Confabulators are challenged to tell us what their goals are. Setting things like this down in stone (really pixels but who’s quibbling?) are tough for us to do, too.
So check out what we have to say on the subject of what we want to do or what we want our writing to be. This’ll be interesting for sure.
Tangible goal: receive a publishing offer from a legitimate publishing house. Ephemeral goal: write stories that entertain my audience.
Is it shallow if I say I’m really looking forward to groupies? Oh, wait . . . do we have literary groupies? Are they hot? Shit! That does sound shallow. Just say peace. Yeah, peace. I’m looking forward to my writing bringing about world peace. Suck on that, haters!
I’m very fortunate right now that I have two novels contracted. Realistically, I know that’s not going to be enough to bring in a living wage. My goal is to write and sell enough books to build up a backlist and have a steady income from it. I figure, oh, I don’t know, a gazillion should do it. Maybe two gazillion. The economy is a little rough.
I have three goals for my writing. I want to have someone publish my 1) novel, 2) short story collection, and 3) book of poetry. If I can accomplish these things before I die, I will consider myself a successful writer — even if they don’t sell a single copy.
My goal would be to make a living writing full-time, but I am a bit of a realist. I would be happy with making enough of an income out of writing that I could actually say it contributed to my yearly income in a meaningful way. I would like to publish a novel, a short story collection, and have a screenplay produced. I would also like to write academic papers and teach literature or writing. I’ve also thought about starting a small press in retirement, editing a literary journal and publishing small regional titles. My goals are pretty vast, but sometimes those are the best ones to have.
Consulting my crystal ball (the oracle is on vacation, stoned on a beach somewhere) I can honestly say that I’ve got some pretty high-falutin’ goals: getting a novel published by a Name House and parlaying that opportunity into a full-time writing career. It’s not likely, but it’s possible. I can see just the barest pinpoint of light on the horizon. Maybe that’s a star. Or torches and pitchforks. I don’t know, but I have to go now. Time to start walking that direction and see what I can see.
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Who’s Your Favorite Fictional Character?
The Cafe is full of creatures and people of all sorts, populated by the Confabulators’ imaginations. We do our level best to bring each of them in, fully formed, to enjoy the ambiance of the Cafe.
This week, after asking several questions about vampires and fantasy novels and such, we’re going to pin our contributors down and ask them, specifically: who is your favorite fictional character? The answers, given our penchant for wild invention, may surprise some us.
I love Grendel, from John Gardner’s Grendel. He is such a complex, unnerving character. As a reader you bounce back and forth between sympathy and hate. He is utterly human in his lack of humanity. Gardner was genius in bringing to life Beowulf‘s monster in a way we have never seen before. I laughed. I loathed. I loved. It was spectacular.
Characters become friends when I’m reading. Whatever book I’m reading at the time, my favorite character is from that book. There are a few that have stuck with me long after finishing a book, though, and the one that demands my favoritism is Jericho Barrons from Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series. Just the name itself gives me goosebumps. This is a man who is older than dirt, knows everything, goes after what he wants, isn’t ashamed of what he is, and has more honor than any knight. Plus he’s sexy as hell, to boot.
I’m a comic book guy, you all know that by now. I’ve never been a huge Batman fan because, well, in order to be Batman you have to be extraordinarily wealthy. Yes, he’s a normal guy who trains like a demon and is, in fact, a supreme bastard. Out of the three things I’ve listed, the only one I have going for me is the bastard thing. I’m more a Superman fan because, well, he’s an adopted Kansan and he and I share some important values. I understand him as an outsider just trying to fit in, trying to do good where he can. As Clark Kent, he has a job and friends. I have a job and friends, too, and I fell in love with a co-worker the way he did. My wife doesn’t get into the same jams that Lois Lane does, but it’s similar. Superman is an ideal of goodness. That’s more my speed.
Wow, tough one. I like a mercenary in the Thieves’ World anthology named Tempus Thales. He’s cursed by a wizard to live forever, be scorned by anyone he loves, and anyone who loves him dies horribly. Such a perfect tragic figure.
Anne Shirley still qualifies as my all time favorite fictional character. She’s bold, talks a lot, and doesn’t let her awkwardness prevent her from leading a full, vibrant life. She is a writer and a teacher and a mom, and despite the fact that she was created over almost a century ago still provides a model for strong, loving women everywhere. She manages to imbue her fairly ordinary life with meaning, and I love her for it!
My favorite fictional character is Superman. I could (and often do) go on at length why he is such a great character. But it comes down to this: Worldwide, Superman is a recognized symbol of hope and humanity. He is a non-religious example of what people should strive to be: always helping others, doing the right thing, and inspiring the best in others.
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Are You Editing Your NaNoWriMo Novel?
The Confabulators have been meeting once a month for the last several years. Every November, they’re the core group of WriMos who encourage others to sit down and write 50,000 words in a month. The local message board is rife with taunts, excerpts, questions and support that I’m sure happens in every region for National Novel Writing Month.
We like to think our group is special because we don’t just write in November. We started the Cafe to share our enthusiasm with the rest of the world. This last November we had several successes. Among them, one of the books completed during NaNoWriMo is going to be published. This barista can’t tell you whose it was or when or where it will be published, but maybe you’ll find a hint here in the Ephemera question for this week: Are you editing your NaNoWriMo novel?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Ahuh. Sorry. Ahem. Yes, I’m editing my NaNoWriMo novel. I laugh because I had intended to have a real first draft done and out to my sharp-eyed friends who would so kindly read it. Obviously I don’t have that done yet, but I am in the process of trying to get to that point. I can offer all kinds of excuses (and you can read them on my blog) but I’m diving headfirst into in come April 1. Ask me again in a month how it’s going.
Yes, I’m editing my 2011 NaNo book. I’ve gone through it in hard copy and wrote a long, act by act treatment/synopsis to find the holes, explore what to expand on, and determine ways to raise the stakes for the various plot lines and characters. I’ve gotten some great feedback from the few readers that would put up with the super-rough NaNo draft. Now I need to get busy rewriting so I can send it out for more. It’s going to take awhile to revise to my satisfaction, but I love this story. Wish me luck!
Not yet. I have a strict rule that I will not edit without writing something else in between as a palette cleanser. With Script Frenzy being in April, a screenplay will allow me a complete mental break from my novel. My plan is to start editing Kill Creek Road in May, and hopefully have it ready for submission by the end of the Summer.
As of right now, no, am not editing my NaNo novel. I want to. Someday. It deserves the attention. I received invaluable feedback and a great deal of encouragement from my fellow writing group members for it. So I plan to. When the thought of revising it doesn’t make me want the throw up anymore, I will.
If I said, “yes” I would be lying. If I said “no” I would equally be lying. A better response to whether I’m editing my NaNoWriMo novel would be that I’m trying. I’ll get a solid week of editing in before I get distracted by something… anything. It’s a bad sign when cleaning the litterbox is more appealing than editing. I keep telling myself I will dive back into the editing process–I’ve already gone through and made the edits on paper, I just have to type them up–but it’s really hard to get motivation. Especially when there are books to read… and reread.
Am I editing my NaNoWriMo novel? No. I’m still writing the first draft. 🙂
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What’s the latest non-fiction book you read and why?
Fiction writers need to read. It’s how we absorb stories best. Drinking coffee fuels the actual writing but things from the “real” world actually fuel the imagination. This week we’re asking each other what we’ve read that comes under the category of non-fiction. Whether it’s a biography or a science book, something about history or journalism, it’s going to be about something real and that’s what will inspire us to write something fantastic.
Have you tried the dark roast we have? It’s excellent, but then so is the organic coffee. And did you know that we only buy free trade?
Most of the non-fiction books I read have to do with the craft of writing. With book three in my series looming, my main characters are going to have to sleep with each other soon. I can’t get around it anymore. So, I’m currently reading Be a Sex-Writing Strumpet by Stacia Kane. That’s right. There’s a how-to book out there for everything.
The last non-fiction book I got was about writing (and that may be a theme here today) but the last one I read was a biography of a writer. Robert A. Heinlein: In Dialogue with His Century was fascinating and manages to collect the bits and pieces of a biography of the Grand Master from other biographies of authors into one place. I’m also spending some time with Brian Greene’s The Hidden Reality, though it’s not at the top of my reading list every day as the science there is mind-bending though the writing is sharp and crisp.
The last non-fiction book I read was How Good People Make Touch Choices by Rushworth M. Kidder. Oh, you probably meant something that I didn’t read for a class. That would be The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. It was much more interesting and will be much more helpful when the zombie apocalypse happens.
The Long Walk – Slavomir Rawicz
This astounding book reads like a novel – a Polish teenager gets caught up in Russian deportations to Siberia in the early days of World War II, is taken to a prison camp, befriends the wife of the camp director, steals supplies, breaks out with a small group, heads south, adds a 16-year-old girl who is escaping from another camp to their group, walks across Siberia and Mongolia before losing two members in the Gobi desert, heads on through Tibet, loses another group member, see yeti, and end up in India, where he loses his mind for a month but finally recovers.
I am personally fascinated by tales of survival and the triumph of the individual; this one was a one-sitting read.
Story by Robert McKee. Seminal screenwriting text, that I’m never not reading. This book, more than any, has helped me with story structure, character, plot, image, and how to make decisions at all phases of the writing process. It’s a great how-to on the work and art of storytelling
I’m right in the middle of reading The Self-Sufficient Life and How to Live It: The Complete Back-To-Basics Guide by John Seymour. I have this fanciful dream of someday acquiring a couple acres of land and try to live as simply and self-sufficiently as possible, but I have no idea where to even start. I figure it’ll be handy to have my own self-sufficient community for when the zombie apocalypse occurs.
I have been reading The Ultimate Screenwriter’s Workbook by Ron Peterson. Ron’s bootcamp was the first writing workshop I had ever attended. Coming up on April’s Script Frenzy, it seemed fitting to re-read his book. I’m not sure if you can actually buy the book, I have never been able to find it anywhere other than at his class, but it is the basis of my screenwriting process. Ron will always sit right next to Robert McKee, Syd Field, and Aristotle on my desk.
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Who is your favorite literary vampire?
Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula is the book that started it all. Though he was far from the first literary vampire (Wikipedia lists Lord Byron’s The Burial: a Fragment published in 1819 as the first of the breed), Count Dracula was sexy, seductive and primal. He’s been the subject of stage plays, musicals, comic books and – of course – films. He’s been the inspiration for countless imitators. Authors from Byron to Charlaine Harris have added their little touches to the mythos of vampirism. From Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles to Charlaine Harris’ The Southern Vampire Mysteries, there have been dozens of variations of Stoker’s classic in the last forty years alone. This week, we’re asking the Confabulators who their favorite literary vampire is. Read on to find out if your favorite is mentioned.
If you only know Dracula from the movies, you don’t really know the whole story. Reading Bram Stoker’s Dracula for the first time, I discovered a world unlike anything I imagined. The thing that surprised me most was the richness of his minor characters, like the vampiric “Sisters.” I loved the Sisters, both for their animalistic hunger and sexuality. Like sirens, succubi, and other mythological femme fatales, the Sisters entrance and lure unsuspecting men to their death. For me, they were more memorable than Dracula himself. Of course, they’re in the original 1931 film with Bela Lugosi, but they get overshadowed by the Count in endless film and television adaptations.
I have a very soft spot for Louis and Armand from Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles series. They both changed how I thought about vampires and what they wanted from life. That said, my very favorite vampire is Fred Saberhagen’s version of Vlad Tepes in The Dracula Tape. He’s really humanized in that book and Saberhagen does a great job of combining history and Bram Stoker’s book.
Asher from the Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton. Hot, tortured (but not in a sparkly-emo way) and he’s got that sex-magic thing going for him. Okay, maybe he’s only hot on half his body, since the other half was severely burned hundreds of years ago with holy water. Also, he’s always going to be second fiddle to Jean-Claude. I prefer the sidekicks and underdogs of the world. Don’t judge me.
My favorite literary vampires are the sisters from Dracula by Bram Stoker. If you go back and read that scene, it is smoldering with sexual overtones. As a teen reading Dracula for the first time, it was enough to make me a fan of the three sisters for life. If you are going to become the latest vampire victim, what better way to go than triple-teamed by hot, ravenous hellspawn?
Ever since my Dad told me my very first vampire story when I was little, I’ve been obsessed with vampires. His vampires were proper vampires: vicious, terrifying, bloodthirsty, and disintegrated into dust in the sunlight. I will read every vampire novel I can get my hands on now because I find all of the different versions of vampire mythology to be fascinating. My favorite thus far is Matthew Clairmont from Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness, however I love him more as a character than a vampire. My favorite literary vampire is probably the evil Smoking Vampire from my own vampire novel The Monsters of Lawrence. He is a true monster, and a true vampire.