Tag: writing

I need to vent. Somebody just said something that almost pushed me over the edge. It was a gentleman looking for some help with his writing, and he asked me to read something for him, and I asked him what sorts of things he likes to read and he said, “Oh I don’t read. I don’t have time for it.”  You might just as well hit me with a stick. First of all, if you don’t read, but you’re writing, that means you are expecting other people to do the exact thing you don’t have time to do. Or to put it another way, You expect me to read your book, but you will not read mine. Why? That’s just me being petty, of course. The deeper reason is that we learn so much from reading. Every time you read a book, you are absorbing structure. You may not be conscious of it at the time, but it’s happening. Your mind is storing away all these templates and so when you start to lay out your story, your mind will automatically help you do what you need to do.  Alternatively, if you do not read, you do not absorb that structure and very bad things happen. I promise. I teach a novel-writing class (and they are very good writers!) and there is nothing so fun as when we all begin discussing the books we’ve been reading. Novelists have a passion for books. This is how it should be. We know we’re part of a wide community of people and we respect that community. Or, as the great Stephen King writes, “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have time to write.” Amen! How about you? What issues push your buttons?

I’ve been working on my current novel for five years. Thinking about it for ten, or even more. I remember that when the idea first hit me,  I was out to dinner with my husband and we had to go home because we had a babysitter. My daughter is now planning her wedding. So that gives me some orientation.  Of course, I haven’t been working on it non-stop for all these years. During the time I’ve been working on this one, I wrote another book, about India, and then my two Maggie Dove books. Still, the story for this one has been running like an undercurrent through everything I’ve done, and when I run into old friends they always ask, How’s that book? I know I’m not alone. Several of the students in my novel writing class have been working on the same manuscript for years. They’re working hard, thinking, revising. It’s great to be with them because we’re a sort of support group for each other.  But why is it taking so long? Partly because I chose a subject that I didn’t know much about, but wanted to, and in order to feel qualified to write about it I had to study and learn. Partly because the characters were complicated to me and I had to spend a lot of time trying to understand them. Partly because it took me forever to figure out the right point of view, but once I did, everything fell into place. Also, it took me a very long time to understand how the crime could be committed.  But now that I’m almost done (I think) I’m really pleased. I’ve given it my best shot. I think it warrants all the time I’ve spent on it. Or I hope so. How about you? What’s the longest you’ve ever worked on something?   

 I finished a notebook today. I used the last page to write this blog post. Time for a new one. Another ninety-six pages representing unlimited potential. I have a thing for notebooks. Blank books, journals, notepads. The name doesn’t matter. If blank paper is bound between covers, I’m a fan. I write longhand so paper matters. It has to be smooth enough for my pen to glide across it without skipping but have enough tooth to hold the ink without smudging. It has to be thick enough to keep ink from bleeding through to the other side. It has to be small enough to be easily portable for writing on-the-go but large enough to record my thoughts without constantly flipping pages. Notebook covers speak to my imagination. I’m drawn to displays of colorful notebooks in bookstores and office supply stores as if by magnets. Soft covers, hard covers, made of leather book cloth, metal, wood and decorated with paint, embroidery, embossing, printing forming an endless variety of both representational figures and abstract patterns. As an author, I have the best excuse for adding to my collection. The more notebooks I have to write in, the more I write. Are you a notebook fan? How do you use blank books and journals?

Hollywood award’s season came to a close this week and I realized how many of this year’s nominated films I had missed in the theaters. Many of them looked so good I need to find a way to rent or stream over the next months (Lion and Moonlight in particular, although I noticed that the winning documentary – The White Helmets – is on Netflix so I may start with that). I love movies, but I’m not an aficionada. I simply enjoy them. Movies let us enter an unfamiliar world, inhabit the space of another person or culture. Arguable books do the same – as writers we create a world expressed through words on a page that readers can inhabit and interpret. The reader sees and tastes and feels and hears. I asked my fellow MissDemeanors if they turn to movies for things not found in a book or vice versa…..and what about move adaptations? Cate Holahan – The movies in my head that play when reading are often better than the adaptations I see, later, on screen. There are exceptions. Harry Potter was pretty great in both forms, IMHO, probably because the filmmakers took such pains to keep everything true to the book. I tend to enjoy action stories more when watching them on the screen and mysteries more on paper. That said, I think adding Amy Adams to anything makes it better. She’s like the seasoned salt of Hollywood. One of my favorite films is Fight Club which I actually think is a better movie than a book. (I know, sacrilege for a writer to say). It’s not just because Brad Pitt spends half of the flick with his shirt off either. I think Ed Norton played the protagonist in an amazingly believable manner, an incredible feat since the main character is an unreliable narrator. I also think that the script had a fluidity that the actual book, which is broken up into vignettes, didn’t. I appreciated that continuity of story that the movie brought. I LOVE Chuck Palahniuk though. He’s brilliant and his dialogue is carved with an X-Acto blade. I try to read everything he writes.  Alexia Gordon – Why choose either/or? Be greedy and choose books and movies. I don’t have a strong preference for one form over the other except action/adventure. I prefer action movies to action novels, with one caveat–the movie action sequences must have awe-inspiring choreography. I like movie adaptations of books. (TV adaptations, too. I adore David Suchet as Hercule Poirot.) Sometimes the movie really is better (Field of Dreams vs Shoeless Joe being a prime example). Seeing the movie before reading the book doesn’t ruin the book for me. I don’t much care for book adaptations of movies. Screen-to-page adaptations don’t seem to have the same depth as page-to-screen. My favorite movie is Casablanca. Laura and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir are in the top ten. So are Hidden Figures and Rogue One. Laura, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and Hidden Figures are all based on books and Casablanca is based on a stage play. And Ring Lardner, Jr. co-wrote the screenplay for Laura. Paula Munier – This is a dangerous question because there’s nothing I’d rather do than read books and watch movies. I love books and movies and TV and theater. Which is just another way of saying I love good stories. (But if I had to choose only one, I’d always default to books.)Many of my favorite films are based on my favorite books: Enchanted April, Sense and Sensibility, Emma, The Jane Austen Book Club, The Maltese Falcon, The Godfather, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Princess Bride, to name just a few. Just as many are based on screenplays or stage plays rather than books: Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Annie Hall, Gosford Park, Amadeus, Moulin Rouge, Singing in the Rain, anything by Shakespeare, again, just to name a few. And of course as a mystery fan I have enjoyed virtually every mystery series on television–from British cozies and Scandinavian police procedurals to New York cops and Los Angeles private detectives.But when it comes to the screen, what I love best are movies about writers: Midnight in Paris, Cross Creek, Barton Fink, Stranger than Fiction, Adaptation, Henry and June, Shadowlands, Becoming Jane, Impromptu, My Brilliant Career, Il Postino, Field of Dreams, Finding Forrester, Out of Africa, and more. These are the stories that inspire me to become a better writer…and they are the best of all! Susan Breen – The other day my daughter harangued me into going to see La La Land because she said she knew I’d love it, which I did. From the moment the story began, I was hypnotized, but part of what I loved so much about it was sitting next to her and sharing the experience. There’s something communal about movies that you don’t always get in books, though perhaps that’s why book clubs are so much fun. On the other hand, I genuinely feel as though some of my best friends are characters from books, and I don’t think you get to know actors in the same way. But the bottom line is, I’ll read or watch just about anything. I love stories. Robin Stuart – I have a go-to movie for reminders not to play games with readers. I practically studied The Departed. I have no idea how many times I’ve seen it. The audience is clued into all but one twist within the first 15 minutes yet it’s still fraught with tension. I re-watch Silence of the Lambs periodically to see how Jonathan Demme (a genius) and Ted Tally (the screenwriter) encapsulated so much backstory into compelling scenes without data dumping and just a dash of misdirection. It’s remarkably true to the book, which is one of my favorites, but I like the movie more. I also gravitate to Jake Gyllenhaal’s films because he makes interesting choices that are almost exclusively character studies so I’ll usually see them several times to catch the layered nuances. The same with Ashley Judd’s films with Morgan Freeman, based on books by Joe Finder and James Patterson. High Crimes and Kiss The Girls are two favorites that are great stories where we see the evolution of believable characters. And I second Cate’s feelings about Fight Club. The book is great but the movie stands on its own. Unreliable narrators are tough to pull off in visual form and this movie accomplishes it beautifully. Michele Dorsey – I have lots of confessions here. I have to confess that movie going and television watching were casualties in my legal career, especially since I taught evening courses for thirty years. I’m looking forward to catching up on movies and television series. Of course, I haven’t missed everything and have found reading a book before seeing a movie works best for me. I’m often disappointed by the movie version, but like Paula, I am a book lover first. One of the exceptions was Mystic River, which I thought was very well adapted. And here’s another confession. I love romantic comedies, starting with the Jane Austen movies but anything directed by Nancy Meyers will do. I adored a rocom about a mystery writer called American Dreamer. Finally, my last confession. I love Cinderella movies, especially the ones where Cinderella is feisty. Ever After is my favorite. Whew, that was a lot of confessing.  What about the rest of you? Any favorite movie adaptations? Any love lost between movies and books?    

Even in a pared-down live-small lifestyle I think that people have at least one item that serves no practical purpose but, instead, is a talisman. It could be a reminder of a person or place, or a reminder to dream of the future (a simple postcard of a beach you have visited or want to visit). I am guilty of having many such objects, but one collection is both fanciful and concrete. Technically it’s my husband’s, begun with a simple set of metal bookends, etched with the shape of a building, inherited from his mother. From there the metal building collection started. In my mind, one object is solitary and is endowed with meaning. Two play off each other. Three is a collection. With nearly 300 metal buildings, my husband’s qualifies. It started a little tongue in cheek, then was added to in remote locations, some were given as gifts, some purchased in antique stores. We started to compare the variety of metals and craftsmanship. Next thing we were connoisseurs.  It’s a diverse collection. Some are simply buildings. Others are jewelry boxes topped by a building, a few are desk sets with calendars. My favorite happens to be a salt and pepper combo. Much rarer are the coin banks. We have been fortunate to travel extensively and when I glance at the collection I am reminded of places we’ve visited. More than that, I dream of places I have yet to go.   Do you have a talisman (or collection) that serves as an aide-memoire? For me these memory aides are also reminders of a bright future.  

I spend most of my time holed up in my office and occasionally going into the woods with my dogs. But on Wednesdays, I venture into New York City. There I teach writing classes for Gotham Writers. So every Wednesday I walk from Grand Central over to Eighth Avenue, and every Wednesday I see some amazing things.   First, I go past Library Walk, which I love. It’s a collection of plaques on the street which feature quotes by various writers. (Let me tell you that it was not easy to take this picture. I was almost trampled alive.)  Then, I keep on going until I get to the flower beds in front of the NY Public Library. In the spring, this is filled with tulips. In February it has these white branches, but it’s always changing and I never know what to expect.   Then I continue on, heading West, and the vibe begins to change. Things begin to get a bit more gritty and crowded.  I pass by the Millinery synagogue, which is an old building tucked in between a lot of new ones. I always stop and pay my respects.   Then I keep on going west, and I pass by what I think is the single most disgusting menu in New York:  Keep going west and now I’m in the heart of the Garment District, which I love. There are so many stores filled with zippers and buttons and beautiful fabrics. In the summer there are sample sales and for $5, you can buy clothes off the rack. Occasionally I am almost run down by one of those racks.                          And then I’m at Eighth Avenue and it’s time to work, and I walk into my office, chat for a few minutes and then begin talking about novels with my students. How do you get to work?