Finding my writing mojo

It’s hard to believe that five months have slipped by since we last put up a post. So much has happened over the past year – in particular, new, time-consuming jobs for both me and Nik – that blogging and writing and even reading, at times, have slowed tremendously. (As have housework and hobbies and all sorts of other things I used to have time for…).

But I want this. I do. I want to finish the books I’ve started as well as the ones still in my head.

I’m taking advantage of the extra time afforded by the summer break from school (no more God-awful early mornings and endless evenings of homework, at least for the next 10 weeks) to get back my writing mojo. It’s not easy. The words are stiff, the characters blather, and I can’t see where it’s going. But I’m pushing through, planning out writing sessions during my commute so when I get to the computer I know exactly what I’ll work on. Kind of a brute force approach, and progress is slow. But it’s there.

I recently started playing the piano again after a 25-year hiatus (amazing how time flies!) and the experience is very similar. At first, stiff fingers, poor pacing, and a complete absence of anything even close to resembling musicality. But the more I play, the easier it becomes and the better it sounds. I have very high hopes that my writing will follow suit.

I have four tween/teen novels underway, one racy adult story, two cookbooks, and a notebook full of story ideas. So no shortage of options and no excuses for writers’ block. I’m planning an August writing trip while my kids are away to complete a first draft of one of the kids’ books and to get a good start on cookbook #3.

But enough about me. We want to hear from you. If you’ve lost your writing mojo at some point, how did you get it back? Plow through it and hope for the best? Writing exercises? Elves and fairy dust? Winn-Dixie? Please share!

Have you noticed?

Firstly, a Merry Christmas to all of you at home. I hope that Santa brought everything that you asked for.  

When the mail began to drop through again after the holiday, there was an official-looking envelope that didn't appear to be a regular bill, so I opened it. It turned out to be from a store where I bought a new washing machine nearly two years ago. 

"Dear Mr Forester" (it said)

"We've noticed that the two-year manufacturer's warranty on your washing machine is about to expire."

I thought that was a lovely piece of phrasing. Nothing too officious, threatening or peremptory. It didn't say, for example:

"Your washing machine warranty is about to expire". (Oh, no, what do I do? What do I do?!)

"Did you know that your washing machine warranty is about to expire?" (My word, no, I didn't, what a fool I've been!)

No, it just implies that Derek in accounts was sleepily sorting through some old files, and luckily happened to "notice" that my warranty was about to run out, so they thought that a friendly note might be useful to me. So they could sell me an extension to the warranty that cost almost as much as the machine itself.

I wasn't going to fall for that no matter what the letter said, but it did make me smile, and I certainly noticed it.     

TMI, Mr. Fforde. TMI.

As I type this, I'm about two hours into a 13 hour plane ride. I've achieved the rank of Peggle Master in my latest app obsession, and am working my way through my second tiny bottle of a surprisingly good Pinot Grigio.

Buy from Amazon: First Among Sequels

I'm also working my way through Jasper Fforde's fifth book in his Thursday Next series, "Thursday Next, First Among Sequels". And I'm not particularly happy.

Oh I'm happy about the trip, despite the fact that I'll likely miss my connection flight. And I'm happy that I have a row to myself, nice wine, and the rumble of jet engines to lull me to sleep.

But I'm not happy about the book. I adore Ffforde's writing, I really do. And his stories are amazingly creative, and whimsical, and funny. But having read the first 14 chapters of First Among Sequels, I'm terribly disappointed. It's just one long back story so far, 124 pages whose sole purpose seems to be to catch up the story for new readers.

To make matters worse, the plot devices for revealing said backstory are weak and shallow. In one case, Thursday, a Jurisfiction agent in BookWorld, drones on and on to her cadet trainee: explaining how BookWorld works, taking tours, going on ad nauseum about stuff that was delightfully woven seamlessly into books 1-4. In another case, Thursday takes her son to a ChronoGuard recruiting seminar, where, similarly, a recruiting officer drones on and on about time topics also covered in depth in the earlier books. The only light spot is when her son, Friday, asks, "Is this going to take long?" My thoughts exactly!

Now as an author whose first novel is still very much a work in progress, this has me thinking (or maybe it's the wine): When writing a sequel (or two or three or four), how do you catch up your new readers without boring your loyal followers to death? You can't just pick things up without some sort of transition (or can you?)? But holding the reader captive while lecturing the finer points of earlier novels doesn't work either.

So what then? In the types of writing I do daily – scholarly scientific articles, test plans, project proposals, and the like – there's always a backstory. In some cases, depending on the topic, the foundational work goes back decades, or even centuries. Now most articles in technical journals are dry and dull enough without years upon years of backstory, so deciding which elements to include and how to include them is a sort of art form. Is it necessary to mention the Wright Brothers when developing a new test procedure for jet engines? Probably not. But if adding a new term to an existing equation, discussing the original work is a good idea.

Many authors approach the issue of previous work by just stuffing a few paragraphs into the intro. Something along the lines of: Guy1 did this stuff [see reference 1], guy2 did this other stuff [see reference 2], guy3 did some more stuff [see reference 3], blah, blah, blah until it's practically unreadable.

The better authors, in my opinion, not only weave the past work into appropriate sections of the paper rather than blast the reader with a tally sheet of backstory, but they also include a discussion of how the earlier findings contribute to the current work. 

This approach isn't unique to technical writing. Look at some of the hugely successful sequels, such as the Harry Potter books or the Series of Unfortunate Events or any number of multi-book stories. The best sequels don't bore the reader with in-your-face, not-letting-you-go-until-I've-had-my-say backstory. Rather, they introduce relevant points through the actions of their characters, or the setting, or natural dialogue. Could Fforde have describe BookWorld without the tedious tour scene? You betcha! Tuesday could've whisked her cadet away on their first assignment (after a behind-the-scenes tour and in-processing, presumably) and the important details of DiscWorld would've been revealed more naturally. Ditto for the ChonoGuards and time travel – introduce the concepts when they impact the current storyline, not before.

Okay, I've had my say and I'm ready for another tiny bottle of wine. Feel free to direct me back to this post if at some point in the future my (wildly successful) sequels have you bored silly.

Reaching a peek of despair

Here's the latest instalment in my "just because the spell check is OK doesn't mean it's the right word" series.

"sneak peak"

Which one can only assume is a particularly untrustworthy Alp.

The best fiction of the Twentieth Century?

The Folio Society Edition

Over the last three years, I've been re-reading the Aubrey/Maturin novels of Patrick O'Brian. The Folio Society reissued them as a beautiful run of illustrated hardbacks, and despite owning the set already (twice...), the new editions were too good to miss. The books have sustained me through many a long-haul flight. Coincidentally, I stumbled across some first editions of the books recently, and had to restrain myself from bankruptcy. 

These are astonishingly good books: fantastic works of prose, meticulous in the detail of the period, and simply some of the best works of fiction ever written. Don't just take my word for it.

The books are set in the British Navy during the Napoleonic wars, and follow the fortunes of Jack Aubrey, a naval Captain, and his friend Stephen Maturin, a surgeon and spy. The range of storytelling that O'Brian wraps into that framework is amazing, from the obligatory naval battles to prison breaks in Paris to a trial for Stock Exchange fraud. Many of the stories are based on or set around historical events.

O'Brian published 20 Aubrey/Maturin books in his life. The twenty-first, untitled and unfinished book was published after his death: three Chapters that he had typewritten, and some pages of handwritten drafts. Because the books have a continuous narrative running through each of the individual tales, it's better to have these pages than not at all, though it makes for a greater poignancy than if book 20 had been the end of the story.

Buy from Amazon: The Final Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey

One of the things about the presentation of the two versions of the text in the volume I have of 21 is seeing O'Brian at work as a writer. The words change from his handwritten draft to the typewritten version (and it's observed that he would almost certainly have revised and re-revised even further), always for the better. It's a real lesson to budding writers about the need to rewrite and revise and polish and polish and polish in order to make a text the best it can be.

O'Brian's works will outlive most of the fiction of the last century, because it's as near to perfection as he could make it. If you haven't experienced one of his books, now is the time to change that.

For me, it's back to the start with Master and Commander for my next trip away. Can't wait!

Buy from Amazon: The Complete Aubrey/Maturin Novels

To comma or not to comma?

Full disclosure: I like commas, always have. They’re cheap, widely available, and so darned cute. And I fully admit to overusing them, on occasion. Like now, for instance. Did I need the comma between “overusing them” and “on occasion”? Nope, not at all. The sentence would’ve read fine without it. I just like 'em.

But while some commas are optional, one must-have comma, ground into me since childhood grammar lessons, is  the “serial comma.” This is the one that precedes the “and”  or “or” at the end of the list, and is 100% non-negotiable (well, for me at least). For example, if one were going to pack for an exciting trip abroad:  

Correct: She packed her stockings, garters, and heels.

Incorrect: She packed her stockings, garters and heels. 

So when Nik and I started writing together, I was amazed that he omits, more often than not, the serial comma. I know times are tough and we all need to economize, but there are many more commas I’d cut before the serial. 

The great comma debate: Well, as it turns out, the serial comma, also known as the Oxford comma, isn’t blindly used across the UK. In fact, as I started Googling the situation, it seems that there’s something of a raging debate over said comma, the so-called Oxford-Cambridge divide. 

Now far be it from me to insert myself in a centuries-old feud, but here’s a quick who’s who:

Team Comma: 

• The US Government Printing Office Style Manual

• The Chicago Manual of Style

• Elements of Style - Strunk and White

• MLA Style Manual

• The Oxford Style Manual

Team Only-When-Necessary-to-Avoid-Ambiguity:

• Style guides for The Guardian, The Times, The NY Times, and The Economist

• The Australian Government Style Manual

• The Cambridge Guide to English Usage

For lack of a comma. One of the most famous examples of the ambiguity that can result from a missing serial comma comes from a documentary of Peter Ustinov published, somewhat ironically, in The Times (“Planet Ustinov,” 22 Nov 1998):

“highlights of his global tour include encounters with Nelson Mandela, an 800-year-old demigod and a dildo collector.”

Not knowing how Mr Mandela occupied himself in his spare time, I can’t comment on his alleged collection. And he could've be a demigod, for all I know. But I’m fairly certain he wasn't 800 years old. 

Here are some more examples, I’m making these up in my head as I fold the laundry:

Happy to be home, he hugged his sons, Charlene and Abigail. 

Touring the city, she purchased gifts for her mother, lace panties and cigars.

He visited his aunt’s house, a massage parlor and a bookstore. 

See? I could go on and on. 

Fully admitting my bias, I think Garner’s American Usage has the best take on the situation:

“Whether to include the serial comma has sparked many arguments. But it’s easily answered in favor of inclusion because omitting the final comma many cause ambiguities, whereas including it never will.”

Or will it? Try as I might, I can’t seem to come up with an example where my beloved serial comma actually introduces ambiguity. Can you?

20,000 hits (under the sea)

Thanks to y'all out there (see, I can write like Jay, too), we've now hit 20,000, ummm, hits.

Yippee!

As a celebration, we're going to give the blog a bit of a spring clean, weeding out those old posts written in a drunken stupor at 2 am, sprucing up the ones that were neglected over a holiday season, and proudly polishing for re-reading (y)our favourites.

The blog started off following a conversation between me and Jay about Fifty Shades, leading to some hugely popular posts poking fun at that book and puzzling over written erotica in general. Well, we've moved on since then to much more interesting and enjoyable stuff, so we have a new strap line and we'll be burning those embarrassing photos from the past. Sorry, posts.

Thanks for staying with us this far. We'll keep sharing our love of books, and hopefully, before too long, you'll be able to criticise the ones that we're writing right at this moment. Aren't you, Jay?

Just Use A Bloody Hyphen

So there I am, innocently reading a book, and come across this word that stops me in my tracks. 

Coopted

Yep, that's it. Google away to your hearts' content. Is it something to do with being locked up in a coop, do you think?

Of course it should be co-opted. Punctuate appropriately or suffer ridicule on the the spike of my pen. Reference my earlier posts on how to punctuate and not appear to be a total thickie:  Speling. and Punctuation' and Shear Ignorance.

Oh, and people are still writing phased when they mean fazed. Stop it. 

Book Musing: When Characters Seem Too Old

Nik’s post on Jonathan Gash’s Prey Dancing got me a-thinking: what makes a character read “old” (older than the author intended, presumably)? Words, actions, setting? All of the above?

Like Nik, I was completely surprised to find out that the main characters in Prey Dancing are only in their 20s:  Clare, the doctor, is 28, while Bonn, the mail prostitute, is 20. They read much older than this. I’d pegged Clare at mid-forties and Bonn at early-thirties.

To me, Clare reads older for three main reasons:

1. She has a servant. Well, a housekeeper. But the type that fixes the meals, including tea, and basically runs the household. The type who has the final word on all things house-related and with whom one darest not argue. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, but for me, twenty-something yuppies (do people still say yuppy?) don’t have servants. They’re for people in their forties.

2. She’s amazingly well-established in her profession. I might have the timeline wrong for Britain, but in the States, one graduates from college with a degree in pre-med about 22 or 23, then possibly a year for the MCAT and applications, and then another 4 years of medical school. So upon entering a residency program, one would be about 26 to 28 years. Residency length varies by specialty, but is typically 3-7 years, sometimes followed by a 1-4 year fellowship for certain fields.

Assuming Clare was on the fastest possible track to a basic GP - no year off, minimal residency, no fellowship - she’d have been 25 when she started practicing. I suppose now that I’ve done the math I can see how she could be an established physician at age 28, but that’s definitely not the typical path.

3. She’s astonishingly confident, professionally. Given that she has at most 3 years of real doctoring under her belt, Clare stands up to the nursing staff like she’s run the place for decades. Which isn’t necessarily odd - she could be a supremely confident young woman - except she’s not. Her husband manipulates her to a criminal extent and she crumbles under Bonn (although, to be fair, perhaps that’s more him than her). 

Ah, Bonn. The ultimate female fantasy, able to deliver to a woman exactly what she needs and how she needs it. Able to read a woman, understand her, pleasure her. Pleasure so good that she’s willing to pay for it. Sorry Mr. Gash, but unless things were different in 1998 Britain (and if so, get me to a TARDIS stat), I’m just not buying a 20 year-old’s ability to perform to this degree. Call me ageist, but I just don’t find an almost-still-a-teenager uber-lover a believable character. Now, I’m willing to be proved wrong (wink wink), but in my mind, I’m keeping Bonn at 32.

So what do you think? Does a dichotomy between projected age and actual age bother you as a reader? Do you take it at face value and move on? Drop the book? Or simply rewrite their ages in your mind and get on with it?

Amazon: Prey Dancing

I sent my kid to school naked

As a research engineer, I author a lot of dry, science-y technical stuff. Everything from scholarly journal articles and tech reports to test plans, lab manuals, and memos. Besides the snore factor, one thing that sets this type of writing aside from fiction is that it’s often not necessary to provide smooth transitions from one part of the document to the next. It’s perfectly acceptable, for instance, to jump right from  “specimen preparation” to “instrumentation requirements” without any words to link the two sections. Just write up the former in its own titled or numbered section and do the same with the latter. No need for anything fancy, such as: 

“it was raining hard outside the laboratory, providing a soothing white noise for prepping the samples….later that afternoon, however, that same pounding rain made it almost impossible to concentrate on the instrumentation plan...”

As I plunge into fiction-writing, however, I’m learning that the same sort of brevity and shorthand doesn’t always work. In fact, sometimes it produces quite unexpected results.

Case in point: My 9-year old loves reading my WIP (see, I’m picking up the lingo). Or maybe it’s just an excuse to mess with my MacBook which is supposed to be completely off-limits to children. Heck, the boys have a tricked-out gaming PC that if we were to battle, would blow my little laptop away, but the allure of the Apple is great. Anyway, about two or three times a week he’ll open up my manuscript file to see what I’ve written. It’s a MG (more lingo!) novel aimed at boys, so he’s a perfect beta reader. 

I usually hover around while he reads, feigning business while actually gauging his reaction. I love his looks of surprise, his chuckles, and his outright laughter. He’s not shy or quiet about giving me feedback, either, which is great. If something’s funny or confusing or too complicated he lets me know right away. 

So this morning, he read through the last four or five pages that I added last week. Very serious he was, watching the story unfold word-by-word, until he stopped, looked up at me, and burst out laughing. I didn’t recall writing anything all that funny.

“What? What’s so funny?” I asked him.

“Mom, you sent the kid to school naked! Look! Naked!” he said and pointed to the screen. “See, he took his shower then showed up in school without EVER PUTTING ON CLOTHES!”

I tried to bluff my way out of it, claiming it was Naked Day at the fictional school, like when my own kids have Pajama Day or Jersey Day or Hat Day or Finding-These-Silly-Outfits-Is-Too-Much-Work-For-Mom Day, but he didn’t buy it. And he was right, of course. One minute the kid was sudsing up under a warm stream of water and the next minute he was apparently transported to his homeroom au natural. 

At least he didn’t have to walk. Now that would've been embarrassing.

Photo courtesy of nh313066 at www.sxc.hu.

Colouring up

I was listening to the radio a few weekends ago, and a listener had written in to Terry Wogan (one of the world's best hosts) to ask if Fifty Shades of Grey came with a colour chart. Tee hee. The response was that it will certainly make you colour up!

I wonder if E. L. James blushed her way through any of the writing. I've been going quite well on Chapter 1 of our book, though it's become a bit convoluted and probably needs to be split up. The are things I need to have in place before Chapter 2 that mean it's starting to look overly long.

But the main problem is I'm having to write my first sex scene, and it's a bit of an embarrassment. I keep looking over my shoulder to check that no-one's watching me type. I skip ahead to write bits of Chapter 2. Anything but carry on. There's been kissing, and hands have wandered, and clothing is severely disheveled, but I'm shying away from the next bit.

There wasn't even going to be sex in Chapter 1, but the plot has run away with me a bit. "You created us," say the characters, "We're not hanging around not getting any until it's convenient for you."

Right, I'd better get back to it. Enough of this, even writing for the blog is a distraction activity; but it's been cathartic and made me reflect. I need to man up and face what has to be written. It's crystallized things in my mind, and I know just what the next words have to be.

"The phone rang."

Shear ignorance

Since I posted my rant about spelling and punctuation, I've stumbled over another couple of horrors. Perhaps this is going to turn into a theme.

So here are the latest. To spare the blushes of the authors and the editors responsible, I won't name names.

"Slight of hand".

Should be sleight, of course.

"The metal was sheered away by the force of the blow."

Should be sheared. For the technically-minded reader, ductile materials like metals fail by the action of shear stress rather than normal stress. OK, you didn't need to know that.

"univerisity". Poor proof-reading.

Finally, for now, misuse of words: using "infer" or "inference" when what is meant is "imply" or "implication". I don't need to explain the difference to you, do I?

A young woman from South Carolina

Photo courtesy of Cieleke at stock.xchng.

Asimov? Dirty limericks? BRB…Okay, book in hand (gotta love the internet!), let’s go!

There was a young woman named Susan
Who found it completely amusin’
To make love to three men
Although who did what when
Was frequently rather confusin’.

Brilliant.

Asimov published Lecherous Limericks in 1975 at age 55. Over the next decade, he created five additional collections (see the complete list at the end of this post), three in a “limerick duel” with poet John Ciardi. 

I thoroughly enjoyed Lecherous Limericks - they’re funny and clever and, well, charmingly dirty! For each limerick, Asimov also included a page of commentary:  where they were composed, the inspiration, the reactions when he recited them aloud. A  fabulous insight into the mind of one of the most unique individuals of the twentieth century. We find out about trips he took, people he spoke to, his wife’s opinions, club memberships, even his thoughts on women’s rights in the 1970s*. 

Utterly captivating. 

Asimov took the art and philosophy and mechanics of limerick-writing very seriously. If you care to give it a go, here are his suggestions:

1. Use proper metrical form, with close attention to rhythm and rhyming. 

2. Focus on content. In particular, a good limerick should, according to Asimov:

• Tell a complete story

• Be humorous; ideally, in a vulgar way. Says Asimov, 

“Clean limericks…lack flavor, like vanilla ice cream or pound cake. They are perfectly edible, but, to my taste, are tame, flat, and unsatisfying.”

• Have clever or unexpected rhymes 

• Include, generally (although not required), a proper noun (name or location) at the end of the first line

 3.Think about recitation - where to pause, where to speed up, etc.

Here’s another one - this was one of Asimov’s all-time favorites, although Nik doesn’t care for the rhyming (or lack thereof, he says):

A young woman from South Carolina
Placed fiddle strings ‘cross her vagina.
With the proper-sized cocks
What was sex became Bach’s
Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Although the Asimov limerick books are largely out of print, you can find them on eBay, Amazon, and various used books sites. Here’s a complete list with ISBNs and links to Amazon:

Lecherous Limericks – ISBN 978-0449028414

More Lecherous Limericks – ISBN 978-0802705150

Still More Lecherous Limericks – ISBN 978-0802771063

Limericks (Asimov and Ciardi) – ISBN 978-0517208823

Limericks: Too Gross (Asimov and Ciardi) – ISBN 978-0393045307

A Grossery of Limericks (Asimov and Ciardi) – ISBN 978-0393331127

*Wrote Asimov, “I think that the women’s liberation movement is going to make lots of demands on masculine stamina. It’s going to be put up or shut up, I’m afraid.” 

Right on, brother!