Folks, I cried when I read this, so I’m reblogging from Publishers Weekly. Get out your tissues:
http://blogs.publishersweekly.com/blogs/shelftalker/?p=10803&cpage=2#comment-80676
Author Archives: Jilanne Hoffmann
Writing Styles – What is Yours? A Test
Check out the writing analysis in a post by Joe N, a nurse working, living, and writing in Nepal.
The tool he highlights dovetails nicely with a book I’m reading, Stanley Fish’s “How to Write a Sentence.” It’s an interesting analysis of writing styles, but the tool found in Joe’s post may also use verb selection and placement, sentence length, and vocabulary to make the analysis more complete. Continue reading
Filed under Craft
Shakespeare – Sonnet for Writers
Sonnet LXXVII
“Thy glass will show thee how thy beauties wear, Thy dial how thy precious minutes waste; The vacant leaves thy mind’s imprint will bear, And of this book this learning may thou taste. The wrinkles which thy glass will truly show, Of mouthed graves will give thee memory; Thou by thy dial’s shady stealth mayst know Time’s thievish progress to eternity. Look, what thy memory cannot contain, Commit to these waste blanks, and thou shalt find Those children nurs’d, deliver’d from thy brain, To take a new acquaintance of thy mind. These offices, so oft as thou wilt look, Shall profit thee, and much enrich thy book.”—Shakespeare
Those “in the know” believe this sonnet was inscribed in a book with blank leaves.
Put it at the top of your own blank page for inspiration.
Happy day after the great Shakes Day!!
Filed under Howling at the moon
Pixar’s Story Tips
This dog
was wandering around through someone else’s blog this morning, Circles Under Streetlights, and discovered a fab reblog of Pixar’s story writing tips from the Indie Writers Guide.
Check out both sites for additional great info.
Hope your Thursday writing selves are getting things done!
Filed under Craft
True Words from Chinua Achebe
“…mediocrity destroys the very fabric of a country as surely as a war — ushering in all sorts of banality, ineptitude, corruption and debauchery,” wrote Achebe…
This observation rings true for all societies, not just Nigeria. It’s one that all writers, all artists, all workers should take to heart. Be wary of “good enough.” Be wary of those who disparage learning. Strive for perfection. Although you will never reach that goal, your work will be far better for the struggle. Rest in peace, Mr. Achebe. You have earned it.
Filed under Howling at the moon
Putting the Egg Together – Writing Picture Books
The fallacy: “Writing children’s picture books should be as easy as, well, cracking an egg from a long drop.”
This fallacy shares a bed with: “It’s only a few hundred words. I can crank that out in my sleep.”
And there’s another hiding under the covers: “I read picture books when I was a kid, and I’ve read them to kids. That makes me an expert.”
Makes for a pretty crowded bed, eh?
Shortly after stripping the bed and exposing these thoughts to the world, writers begin to mutter, “I didn’t know it would be this difficult.” Continue reading
Filed under Craft
Students of the essay take note: the above post from Café Casey is a lovely take on the learning process, whether it is painting, composing, or writing. Owning and then transforming “influence.”
I was looking at a picture of bamboo. I love bamboo. I have spent so many hours painting it. In my sumi-e practice, I have painted a million bamboo plants. In the beginning, I thought this was insane repetition. In Western schools you don’t sit and write the letter “e” a million times. Maybe that’s why I always flunked handwriting.
I used to sit and work on the same image or same kanji hundreds of times. Eventually, I learned, it was all the same. To create an image a thousand times is to create it once. Bamboo, chrysanthemum, a cherry blossom–whatever. The goal is to reach perfection. The reality is that perfection doesn’t exist. The perfection is, in fact, in imperfection. Sometimes, our drive to be perfect consumes us. We suffer. Practicing these arts teaches us eventually that the learning–the experience–is in the journey–perfection is just a destination to imagine…
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Filed under Craft, Howling at the moon
Waiting for Robin Hood
While I ponder the nature of time, taking the time to find the right word, create the right sentence, and place those right sentences in order until I have a piece that “works”—I am filled with a sense of dread as challenges to write 12 books in 12 months or to write a novel in a month pop up online like prairie dogs. Now I’m not slamming those particular endeavors, no siree. Anyone who can put out that many words deserves respect for their hard work.
And yes, it does light the fire of urgency under writers who are sitting on their thumbs. It gets their hands out from under their butt cheeks and on the keyboard or wrapped around a pen, putting words on the page. But let’s now talk about a little thing like QUALITY. Continue reading
Filed under Craft
The Grapes of Mocking
I had to re-blog this from 101books.net. It is just too hilarious. Thank you, Robert!
Filed under Rants
Composting 101
| Symptoms | Problem | Solutions |
| Story has unpleasant odor. | Not enough air due to overwrought word choice or compaction.
If there is an odor of ammonia, too much pure crap is standing in the way of the real story. |
Strip the pile of its dense, soggy materials and replace with crisp, crackling prose to soak up excess bulls#!t.
Turn the pile, add fresh material, and move narrative elements around to aerate. Cover pile (put in drawer to rest) until inclement weather subsides. |
| Story is rich and warm only in the center. Failure to build heat/tension. | Pile is too small. Narrative elements are missing.
Insufficient conflict. Not enough air. See first symptom. Lack of nitrogen. Rich material is superficial. Go deeper. |
Make pile bigger. Identify missing narrative elements.
Add water by sticking a garden hose into the center in several locations. Turn the pile to aerate narrative elements. Mix in nitrogen, otherwise known as conflict. Add or remove backstory. Toss and start over!!!! |
| Story temperature exceeds 160°F. | Not enough air, lack of carbon, prose is turning purple. | Turn the pile to aerate.
Mix in 2 parts Hemingway for every one part bad Faulkner. |
| Large, undecomposed items remain in the story even after considerable time has passed. | Ya got some clunkers there. | Read to friends and remove sections that make them grimace.
Shred clunkers before adding new material. |
| In the middle of the night, rodents, coyotes, and raccoons lurk in the shadows near the story, waiting for a chance to raid the juicy bits. | Your prose is attracting aggressive nocturnal elements. | This is usually a sign that the writing is going well. Animal-proof your work area only if this bothers you. |
Filed under Craft
Dogpatch Writers Collective 