Another WIP for Critique

Here's another one. These are the first couple of pages from a novel. The writer asks specifically, 'is it clear? does it make you ask questions about what will happen next and if so, what are the things you wonder about? is there anything confusing or anything that stops you as you read? is there appropriate tension? do you want to know what comes next?"

Here's the excerpt:

You’ve never seen this picture, but the room in the photo is large and white like the one we stand in. The windows are similar, too. If you were to hold the photo, letting your eyes move across your father’s face and past the angle of his shoulder, you’d see paint flaking off the walls in lacey strips behind him. You’d see water stains and a wooden shutter hanging by a single hinge. The studio was decaying even then, you see. Not at all like this house.

The room we’re in now was Donald Browne's library -- masculine, overflowing with visuals, vaguely erotic. From this one spot I can see a Warhol, a little Manet, several gilt-edged collages, the dark little Buddhas (are they jade?) and three or four hunting trophies. African symbols hang in large relief below wide crown moldings. Heavy, copper-colored drapes frame the windows. A low couch of chrome and mushroom leather is stacked with cushions.

In the mirror, you’re bobbing and swaying to the music that blares from Donald’s massive old cabinet stereo. The stately room throbs with deep, incessant back beats. The band’s called Quiver, I think. You’ve explained it to me already. You like the lyrics, but the group is breaking up.

The photo in my hand proves only that your father once posed for me, wearing a rumpled shirt. He looked at me in exactly this way, too, burrowing through the glass lens and the body of the camera and the thin membrane of my eye, just as this flat surface does now, as I look back at him. (I used the little Nikkormat for this one. I developed the film myself, in the basement lab.).

Only widows and orphans are expected to hold onto evidence as tightly as I do. I might be forgiven my little obsession if your father had died that first summer, if I hadn't sat with him at dinner last night, and the night before. I'm not sure who made the rules, but only love that ends catastrophically should be this big, it seems.

“Yo, Jack," I call out loudly, without turning. I hold a small bronze statue out to you awkwardly, behind my back. “Fertility goddess. Extra breasts. Avert your eyes and wrap her up.”

In the mirror, you come up behind me still dancing. You take the figurine. “Yikes! Check out those bazoombas,” you say over the music, and we both laugh.

You set the bronze goddess down in front of a grouping of similar objects that you’re preparing to pack away and I slip the photo of your father back into my pocket. Late afternoon light filters in at just the right angle. The mahogany table glows yellow-orange. The song fades into silence.

“Aunt Catherine?” Even your voice is becoming his. You’re leaning over the table, caught up in the moment.

"Yep?"

“Do you think it would be okay if I brought my camera in and took some pictures of this place? I wouldn’t let it stop me from working or anything. It’s just that sometimes something looks really cool, you know?”

You adjust your little procession of gods and goddesses, stepping back and rearranging until their shapes and shadows fall into a perfect interplay of light and dark. The fertility goddess leads the way, bare-chested and thin at the waist, her arms stretched wide, a curving snake in each hand. Sunlight flickers over the figurines and burnishes the delicate, curved profile of your neck and shoulder and back, highlighting the length of your outstretched arm.

“That should be fine, Jack,” I say.

Today's Quote - Frank Conroy

Everybody is scared, everyone approaches the empty page with a mixture of dread and hope, and knowing this helps.

New Work on the Crapometer

BTW, there's also a new posting of a writer's synopsis up on Elektra's Crapometer for review and critique, if you're interested.

A Reader's WIP - For Review/Critique

A reader has asked for some assistance with a current WIP - I'm not sure of the genre but will see if I can get details. This is from the opening of the book...the writer specifically wants to know; does this feel like a good beginning (it was originally elsewhere in the story, but seemed to gradually move up to the front), do we get a sense of the characters at all, from this? Or are we confused?

But today was hot and getting hotter. Ruby yawned, legs crossed, and fell backwards into a haphazard pile, braids twisting beneath her. She rested the comic she had been reading open-faced on her round stomach, watching it rise and fall and rise.

“It’s magic today,” Ruby heard, Ma’am yelling from around a couple of
corners. Ruby tilted her head back until she could see that broad
Hawaiian-flowered back, upside-down. She thought about this for a long
moment.

“You think so?” she said, chewing on a braid.

“The Egyptians, them were magic,” said Ma’am, “Look outside.”
It seemed, for a moment, as if she was right—air in anticipation. Ruby
couldn’t tell where the sidewalk ended, merging into the shimmering
heat, into the ripe burning air into the cloudless sky cradling the
teetering tops of New York buildings. She scratched an armpit and crawled
upright again, sinking back into her book.

Two hours.

This was a home for the books, not customers, and most first-timers
were intimidated by the row upon row upon bookshelf upon box, of comics
and posters and dried spearmint candy, and the door that always opened
with a silver crash. Ma’am’s counter was connected by a twinning path to
both the backstairs and the entrance, while bookshelves draped and
canopied the wanderer. The floor was a scuffed wooden affair, barely
visible in the dappled shadows, the light twisting around Wonder Woman’s
slight frame.

Ruby played jungle games here, sometimes, on the slower afternoons.
She took her shoes off first, but always left the jacket on. It was a
gift from her father, maroon red, with a double march of buttons down the
front to mid-thigh, hiding all but a hand-span of dress. Crawling, ears
perked for lions or bears, she would hunt, emerging hours later eyes
ragged, hair wild, claws wicked instead of human paws. Once, Ma’am closed
and forgot her, leaving that wild tigress to curl beneath a swollen
moon, the jungle bed softened, breathing slowed, by dreams of silent
super-men.

“Ruby, honey?” Ruby pulled herself out of the wretched streets of
Gotham.

“Ruby?” Ma’am yelled again.

“…Yeah?”

“Take care of the store, only for a bit, will you please? I’m running
to the attic for lunch.” Ruby nodded, turning back to her comic.
There’d only been two customers since she’d arrived, and she knew Ma’am would
be back there for a while, reading her son’s journals and going through
boxes twenty or so years old-- a one o’clock habit of hers. Ruby
settled deeper within her nest and propped her feet up on the bookshelf
before her.

Today's Quote - Leslea Newman

You cannot write and rewrite simultaneously. Writing involves keeping a steady forward motion. Rewriting involves going back over what you have just written with a friendly but critical eye. You cannot go forward and backward at the same time.

The First 10 Lines - #1

This is a new feature, called "The First 10 Lines". Periodically, I'll post the 10 opening sentences from a debut novel that was published in 2003 or later. I'm playing with a couple of ideas here...Miss Snark's advice to look at recently published first novels, and literary agent Noah Lukeman's writing advice in his book,The First Five Pages.

If you've already read the work the excerpt is from, please let us know if the ending is foreshadowed in the first few lines, or how far into the story we are when we 'arrive', or any other structural elements you think are interesting. And what did you think of the book, overall?

If you haven't read the novel, please comment on whether or not the ideas, language or characterizations hook you and make you want to read on, what you expect from the novel, whether or not you're surprised that it sold, etc...Or critique it, as if its from a colleague's WIP.

The first excerpt is from Accidents in the Home by Tessa Hadley. From what I understand, Hadley wrote secretly for years, while her children napped. This first novel was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award. Here are The First 10 Lines:

The weekend that Helly brought her new boyfriend down to meet Clare, Clare’s younger brother, Toby, was also staying with them, following them round with his video camera, making a documentary about the family for his college course.
Clare gave the camera one quick, exasperated glance when the doorbell rang and the guests arrived. The food should have been ready but she was still chopping hurried amid a debris of vegetable leavings, her fingers stuck with parsley bits.

--Oh, Toby, stop it!

Her deep glance at the camera--she has looked at the lens and not at Toby, as if it were his eyes--is caught forever on the tape. She is wishing she had time to change into the nicer clothes she had planned. Her hair is in a short, thick, black plait on her shoulder fastened with a rubber band. She looks tired. When she is tired (she believes) all those things that at her best make her look like an intellectual make her look like a librarian; small eyes, neat straight brows, thin lips, a square, high forehead. She has good skin but it is pink and hot because she is flustered. Her glance is naked and hostile, her last moment of free expression before she has to put on a smiling face.

Today's Quote - Philomene Long

My advice is to hold your pen as if you are holding a small bird in your palm. Not so loosely that it flies away, not so tightly that you crush it.

Assignment #3 - The Commitments

Lately, the writers I know have been talking about process. What works, what motivates, what compels, what holds them back. A couple of successful writer and artist friends have offered some excellent advice to me recently, which I think makes for an interesting assignment. It's a riff on that slightly new-agey concept of 'speaking your commitment', (which is a little like the idea of coming to call yourself a writer for the first time).

One thing I've learned recently about commitment, is that there is no such thing as not doing it. (And that goes for relationships as well as art.) We are always committed to something - because our actions are our commitments. We're never lacking commitment, but we do sometimes commit to the wrong things.

For instance, the cliched bachelor with a fear of commitment is actually fully committed - to having meaningless relations with lots of women. There's no lack of commitment, its just that he's chosen something other than you to cling to. You see what I mean?

There's also the opposite extreme - the young lovers who passionately 'commit' that they'll never notice another human's existence, they'll never feel attraction to anyone but the current flame, EVER. And that, of course, is just not realistic.

So, how does all this translate into writing? Its important to acknowledge our commitments, good and bad. To bring those unspoken choices out into the open.

ASSIGNMENT #3: Speak your commitments to the rest of the group. Write them out, in 500 words or less and post them in our comments trail. Just write, in plain English, your current actions related to writing, (good or bad), with a bit of a worthy goal added on for good measure. Then, go public! Here are the rules.

DON'T set unrealistic goals. Don't say that you'll have published your first novel in 90 days, or that you'll write for eight hours a day, or that you'll give 98% of your first advance to charity.

DO be specific. For instance..."I'm committed to keeping a notebook in my purse so that when I come up with an idea for a title or overhear an interesting dialogue, I can write it down"...or..."I'm committed to identifying myself as a writer when I meet new people"...or..."I'm committed to spending 45 minutes a day putting words on paper, without judgement or editing"...or..."I'm committed to readiing Wordsicle or the Crapometer only after I've written 800 words on my WIP"...or...(well, you get the picture).

DO be honest about your current negative commitments, too. Like "...I'm currently committed to ignoring my friends and my bills...I'm committed to messing up my life while I focus on writing..." or "...I'm obviously committed to avoiding rejection by not submitting my work..." Once you put it down in black and white, maybe you'll find a way to change it.

Remember - your commitments can always change. Just be aware of your process. When you're ready to alter your commitmnet, write the change out. Commit to where you are, now - you can always decide later to write more...or less...once you see how you do.

For now...just define how your actions and goals as a writer translate into commitments - and share them with your colleagues here. The act can be enlightening - and hopefully motivating!

Fear of Writing

A reader says:

Think it's a minor fear of the big blank page...or something. The desire/need to write is there, yet I can find a hundred reasons why NOW isn't a good time to sit down. Wait! the dogs need more water in their dish! My oven needs cleaning! ...I can't believe I let this much dust build up on the top of my refrigerator! ...etc.

I've had those 'fear of writing' phases, too. I think of it as a kind of 'fear of intimacy'. Maybe it comes from being afraid of where I might go if I start to write, of what kind of emotion I might open myself up to, perhaps even of the truth that is in me that I try to avoid.

The same reader goes on...

if i keep talking in circles on here then I dont have to go edit my WIP that I suddenly decided I hated two days ago. I like it again today, but... well...yanno.

I also completely understand the love/hate relationship with a WIP. There are times when I think, "goddammit, I'm bloody brilliant", followed immediately by "what the hell am I thinking? acting like I can write or something? its embarrassing. I should just stop now...before anyone else knows that I thought I could do it..." That last part intensifies to the point of being unbearable, the day after a partial has been dropped in the post. I imagine the staff at Selected Literary Agents rolling their eyes and laughing at my overwrought prose as they open the package...arrrrggggh.

It was incredibly freeing for me to find that even the most celebrated writers have admitted to feeling that same surge and plummet of emotion. I thought it was just me...

Today's Quote - David Bradley

...you have to keep close to people who see you as a writer. In this sense, new friends may be the best friends.

Plotting Against Ourselves

A reader posts the following:

I see the first draft as a very, very detailed outline, and writing it is often drudgery because, well, you have to write, from scratch, every day--my quota is 2,000 words a day and 10,000 a week.

Of course, that was with my first novel, maybe this time I will have a different view.

My big problem right now is plotting. I have a list of characters I like, I understand the conflicts, I understand the themes, the setting--I just wish I could get a handle on the climax before I move on the chapter 2. I like knowing where the thing is going.

But, I haven't figured it out yet, so I'll just start writing and see where it leads.

Ken, I'm with you...I have to write to see where it goes, despite my absolute determination to know it all in advance. Even if I think I know, the characters and the situations develop in ways I hadn't planned for (just to spite me).

I also thought novel number two would be different, now that I've 'gotten the hang of it'. But I'm still not sure exactly how it will all work out. With the first one, the entire plot changed dramatically, when I suddenly realized that the real story, the real conflict, should be happening about 17 years later in my fictional world. The original 'defining conflict' was trivial backstory...and now takes up very little of the book.

Good luck, and just wondering - do you meet your quote everyday? How about those of you who have mentioned discipline as a particular challenge? Do you set goals (manageable, realistic goals based on your own circumstances) for yourself?

Pruning is Such Sweet Sorrow

I wrote for two and a half hours this morning, even before breakfast. Actually, it was more editing and rearranging than anything else. But I worked. Then I went outside and pruned the grapevines.

February is the right time to do it, and the day turned unexpectedly warm. I dug up some garden gloves, still dirty from last year and found the shears. And as I began to trim, I realized that part of my brain was still writing. It felt good.

It also reminded me that pruning is a lot like editing.

The vines are thirty years old or more and gnarled and twisted at the base. Before I started cutting there were long, bent tangles and tendrils cascading down over one end of the trellis. The vines have suffered some serious neglect - mine and others'. But this year, they'll be pruned and the soil will be tested and by golly, we'll have grapes.

To make that happen, I had to cut out that really sweet bit along the post, where birds had abandoned a nest. I really loved that part. It was lovely and romantic and losing it was hard. I had to take a big chunk out of the middle, too, because the vine had started to twist in on itself and choke.

I had really loved the wildness of it. In the end, it became more spare but still sculptural, I think. In a different way. Simpler. Almost stately. And after all the editing, I think my vines just might produce fruit. Now if only I can be as ruthless with the writing.

The Conscious Writer #1: Room to Write

One of the challenges for me, in becoming a person I felt could be called a writer, was to transfer the little tickle at the back of my brain that said 'I want to write' into a conscious committment to write. Conscious intent, understanding and follow through have been as important to me in writing as the same concepts are in a relationship.

For me, one of the first things I had to do was create a space that was my personal, dedicated writing space. Not easy to do when you live with someone and even harder to do when you have kids. But essential for you own development as a writer.

Pick a room or a part of a room or the edge of your dining room table. If your writing room can be dedicated to writing all the time, great. Set it up exactly as you want it. Let it be as messy or as organized as you wish it to be. Own that space and make it sacred to you in some way - investing in a computer that is just for writing, if you can, and if that works for you. Or putting out a selection of pens that you like writing with and the kinds of notebooks or paper that make you feel good about writing. (Sometimes something too precious can be intimidating, so don't buy the leather and gold-bound, acid free blank book unless you know you can handle it!)

If flowers help you free youself, put flowers in your writing space. If stacks or shelves of books make you feel safe in your writing, furnish your room accordingly. Give yourself good light - put your glasses where you can reach them - stock the table with bottled water or strong coffee. (I refuse to tell you to stock it with gin or tequila or malt liquor - but only you know what works for you!)

But what if you don't have a spot that you can dedicate to writing, full time? Pick a spot that is your writing spot until it must be used in some other way. The edge of a table, for instance. Now make that area special during the time that use it for writing. Ritualize your process...bring out the water and the pens and the lamp or the flowers and then sit down, as a writer, to create in that space.

Be conscious about everything you do and especially about your writing process. If you're not sure what your ideal writing space looks like, try writing it out. Judy Reeves advises writing for a few minutes, beginning withe the lines, "My ideal writing space is...." Then write again, describing your current writing space. Now, how can you bring at least some of your 'ideals' into your reality?

Now back to work.

What's Your Biggest Challenge?

What are the biggest challenges you're currently facing in your writing, or your writing career?

Are you stuck on plot development in your current work in progress? Are you having a hard time believing that you're good enough' to be called a writer? Are you inundated with ideas but finding it hard to pick one and see it through, or are you not coming up with anything creative to write about?

Is your challenge finding the time and space to write? Are you obsessing about first lines or titles or character names? Are you finding lots of ways to avoid writing, even when you sit down to do it? Are you stuck doing historical research to the detriment of your project?

Is your weak point writing dialogue, or descriptions? Can you tell that your current WIP is overly sentimental, but aren't sure what to do about it?

Or are you stuck at the submission stage? Hard at work on a synopsis or query letter? Desperate to make those first 50 pages flawless?

Please add your biggest challenges to the comments trail...(Remember, admitting it is the first step!)

Today's Quote - Natalie Goldberg

Basically, if you want to become a good writer, you need to do three things. Read a lot, listen well and deeply, and write a lot. Don't think too much. Just enter the heat of words and sounds and colored sensations and keep your pen moving across the page.

A Word in Time...(Okay, Yuk!)

Bad title...

But here's my question. Tuesdays have heretofore become Assignment Days...(dunno, just happened). Also, I'm thinking about including a timed exercise one Tuesday...something along the lines of "at ten o'clock on Tuesday, Mar XX, the assignment will be posted. You will have ten minutes to complete the assignment...." That sort of thing.

Anybody have any thoughts about that? Yes, no, maybe...or just keep going with random exercises?

An Obvious Improvement!

Check out Susan's re-written piece for Assignment #1, too. She's posted a new version in the comments trail. Great job, Susan.

Today's Quote - Stephen Dunn

I don't think I'd complain if I were overrated.

KenBoy's Piece for Critique

This is from Assignment #1. The assignment was to desribe a scene, choosing details noticed by a character to help define the character's moood.

Please post your crtiques in the comments trail.

He sat on one side of the bench, the left side, rather than in the middle. Slowly he smoothed his hand over the seat and the back and each arm in turn, feeling the solid substance of the thing. The cold wrought iron. It took the day‘s heat or cold, and exaggerated it, like a magnifying glass. Just like a glass. For instance, today the air was cool but not yet freezing. The bench, though, felt like ice at the bottom of a glacial crevice.

The smells were the winter smells, dead fish and dead leaves. Mud. Very different from the summer, when the blooms were out, every tree with its own fragrance. The soft sweet of honeysuckle.

It had been hot the day many summers before when they had discovered this place, an unexpected little gem to go with their new house. It was so near home, yet not like home at all. Woods and meadows and birds and fish--wonderland for a little boy.

Especially the birds. That very first day, they’d heard a splash and looked up to see a bird--they didn’t know its name, though later they made a kind of study of it--rising from the water with a small fish in its clutches. Tommy had squealed with delight and pointed, and they had laughed about it the rest of the morning, and so many times again over the years since.

He coughed and brushed back a shock of gray hair before checking his watch. It was time. His other hand still lay on the cold metal, and he reluctantly pulled it away as he stood. A quick glance told him his black suit--the color of the still pond beneath the old wooden dock--was still crisp.

He walked back along the dirt trail towards the houses just visible beyond the bare trees ahead. Then he head it--splash! Or he thought he did. When he spun around the pond was still smooth, the sky still empty. His sight now blurred as the tears flowed down his cheeks, and the clouds changed shape, took kaleidoscope form.

“Goodbye, Tommy.”

Assignment #2 - Character Intimacy

Tuesday is assignment day. Today's assignment is about getting to know your character/s - even better than you do already. Use a character from your WIP if you have one. This exercise may or may not figure into your novel/short story in the end - but it's main goal is to help you think about new aspects of your character.

So...first off...pick a character. If you don't have a WIP, make up a character or, as a last resort, use someone you are acquainted with in real life. Now...

ASSIGNMENT: Answer one of the following, two-part questions about your character, in 500 words of less. Don't post your first draft...post your most polished version of this exercise.

Pick either 1 or 2. Then complete part A before continuing on to part B. Don't plan ahead. Just write. Then...step back...and edit.

The questions to choose from are:

1) A) Describe what is in the top drawer of your character's chest of drawers or nightstand. Socks, lingerie, tee shirts, magazine clippings, shell casings, turtles? B) Once you've answered the first part, rifle around in that drawer until you find something that the character has hidden or misplaced, that is also lying at the bottom of the drawer. Be descriptive and concise. Now go back and edit the two descriptive bits into a cohesive piece that shows us something about your character.

2) A) What is the first thing your character notices when s/he meets a member of the opposite sex? Hands, eyes, breasts, smell, diction, shoes, valuables? B) Once you've answered that question, let yourself travel through your characer's memory to discover how what they notice is connected to their past. Be descriptive and concise. Now go back and edit the two descriptive bits into a cohesive piece that shows us something about your character.

Post your edited 500 words in the comments trail. Tell us if you'd like to be critiqued. And feel free to comment on how this exercise worked (or didn't) for you, too.

Today's Quote - Japanese Proverb

Fall seven times. Stand up eight.

The Elegant Variation

Writer Mark Sarvas runs a literary weblog called The Elegant Variation, where he (and guests) review mostly new books.

I always find reviews to be interesting reads in and of themselves, and not just as potential motivation to go out and buy a particular book. I like to see what a well-read stranger sees and likes in a novel or non-fiction piece. Reading reviews makes me think about things I might not think of, when it comes to writing, too. Reading reviews is a good thing, I think, once you're in the editing phase.

Maybe I'll feel differently when my own novel is published. I mean, I haven't had my own work reviewed by someone who broke up with his lover the night before, or had his editor reject his WIP via e-mail.

(Would it be interesting to review the reviews, I wonder? To find the underlying personal angst the reviewer is tapping into as s/he reads a specific book?)

Anyway...

One of my favorite things about Sarvas's blog is this quote:

The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous.

Ah, yes...'overstrained efforts at freshness...' (Note to self...)

You Should Read This

'Nuff said.

The 39 Steps - For Writers

Another Piece for Critiquing

Here's another piece posted by a writer under Assignment #1. The goal for that assignment was to show a character's emotions by describing the world through his/her eyes instead of telling us how/what the character feels.

If you haven't already, please read the Wordsicle Rules of Engagement in the previous 'constructive critiques' post before adding your opionions to the comments trail.

Here's the piece, for consideration:

“Sharon! Are you listening to me?!”
Sharon looked up from the spot of coffee table she’d been staring at, glanced at her sister and gave a dutiful nod. “Of course.” Then her eyes slid to the curtains Lysa had pulled back, evening sunbeams now poured through the windows. She’d been vaguely aware of Lysa talking to her from the moment she’d arrived, but Lysa was always talking. After a while the words just rolled over her, none of them pausing long enough to sink in. Sometimes it was almost soothing.
Sharon let herself be pulled to her feet and led to the bedroom. Then she sat on the bed and watched as Lysa rummaged through her closet, pulling things out, and putting them back and pulling out something else. Eventually there was a casual skirt lying on the bed next to one of her favorite blouses and a pair of sandals. Sharon tentatively reached out and played with one of the blouse buttons. Her hand began to tremble. She quickly pulled it back and wrapped her arms around herself.
Her hands clenched and unclenched around the faded and worn fabric of her robe. She swallowed the sob that was suddenly threatening to choke her and turned her face away from the sympathetic gaze of her sister. She stared out the window, refusing to let her eyes travel to the picture of her and Eric beside the bed. It had been taken a month before the accident. She could still hear the sickening crunch of metal when she tried to sleep at night. She kept her face to the window. Arms still squeezed tight around herself, she took a few whispered steps and rested her forehead on the rough wood of the window frame.
The paint on the other side was beginning to peel. She hadn't noticed before. Why did that suddenly seem so important? She closed her eyes and let the crimson beams of sunset wash over her.

Today's Quote - Vladimir Nabakov

There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skilfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (in such general terms as: 'honey-colored skin', 'thin arms', 'brown bobbed hair', 'long lashes', 'big bright mouth'); and the other when you instantly evoke, on the dark innerside of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors.

A Writer Asks for Constructive Critiques - UPDATED

Good response to assignment #1! Cool.

One poster asked for assistance with something she's already described as a primary challenge. (Okay, her exact words were that she 'sucks' at descriptions!)

She wrote her descriptive paragraphs and has asked for constructive criticism.

But first, and these apply to all critiques, not just this one, here are the....
_______________

Wordsicle Rules of Engagement

For Everyone:
1) We're a writing site - and we're obviously here because we want to challenge ourselves to write better.
2) Objective, honest critiquing is hard to find.

For Those Reading/Reviewing Work Posted on Wordsicle:
3) Anyone is welcome to offer their opinions as to how to make the piece in question better.
4) Never attack the writer behind the piece - and try to be diplomatic in how you phrase your critiques.
5) At the same time, and perhaps more importantly, provide your honest responses to how the specific words, rhythms, action, etc. affect you.
6) Include ideas for improvement.
7) If you like something, be sure to mention that too.
8) If you are posting as one of the many 'anonymous' posters, please provide a signoff (your initials, a fun moniker or other identifying 'x') to help us keep you straight.

For Those Requesting Critiques of their Work:
8) Remember that one of the primary benefits of criticism is to help you distance yourself from your work. Writing is like memorable sex - you want to totally immerse yourself in the intimacy of it during the act, but you're probably going to need a little breathing room afterwards. (That's called editing.)
9) Stay true to your own voice and art - learn to trust it - but pay attention to things that new eyes see in your work, too.
10) Never forget that we are all just a bunch of strangers with opinions.

__________________

Now, on to the piece...NOTE: these descriptive paragraphs were written for Assignment #1, in which we attempted to show a character's emotions by describing the world through his/her eyes. Please post your comments and critiques in the comments trail:

The tractors pound the dirt here coming back and forth from the shed. Now it’s a compacted, dense rut of hardened mud. Two small lines weave in the red earth, not four. She walks upon the straight tracks, her thin, tanned arms spread, one mud-encrusted Dora sneaker in front of the other, balancing on the thin indention.

The bicycle now rests on its side in the tall, uncut grass by the pond, its pink handlebars spiked in the deserted ant mound. The Barbie reflector flashes hot pink when the heavy cumulus mountains open for the sun.

Along the lake edge, where the slimy tree roots reach the water, the wave-less motion of the black mottled cottonmouth cuts the surface to the crumbling, clay embankment. It raises its head, letting it dance slowly side to side, then returns to the earth, curling around and around itself, until its black diamond head rests just below the Barbie princess pedal.

Assignment #1: A Classic

Okay, this may be THE classic writing exercise. You may have done it a million (little) times. But it seemed like a good place to start anyway, since it serves its purpose so well.

Picture this: An old man is sitting next to a pond in a field. His only son has just died and is to be buried later today. What details does the man notice? Murky water? Choking vines? Damp breezes? How can you "show" but not tell his mood? What he sees, hears, smells can convey his sense of loss and mourning.

Alternatively: The same pond. The same field. A young girl has just learned to ride her bike. What does she notice here? How does the same scene look and sound through her eyes? Sun shimmering along the water? Birds trilling?

ASSIGNMENT: Write a maximum of 500 words. Don't tell us what has happened. Don't tell us what s/he feels. Show us the mood and emotion of your character by showing us what s/he sees, hears, etc.

Use one of the scenarios above - OR if you have a WIP that you think this might help with, use one of your own characters and settings. Post your writing in the comments trail.

Just remember to SHOW not tell.

Today's Quote - Romare Bearden

You do something, and then you improvise.

Writing a Wrong

A reader recently posted something in which she explained where her ideas come from. I was particularly fascinated by one thing she wrote, in which she described the complexities and pain of writer Mary Shelley's life. She was struck by the story of a five-year-old Shelley niece who died alone, in a convent, after being taken from her mother. A baby, really - who died alone. In her post, this reader commented that her current WIP includes a woman sacrificing everything to save a child. Susan, the writer who posted this, wonders if she is writing to try and 'fix' this past wrong, this trespass against a child.

I'm fascinated by the concept. I think there is a deep truth in it...maybe for more writers than care to admit it. I'm thinking about many of my own short stories, the last novel, and the next one that is just beginning to take shape. And yes, in each one, there is a little glimmer of 'righting' something in the past. Some are minimal - like making sure that someone feels loved despite their physical limitations (which came from a half-sleeping moment in real life in which I clearly saw a lover's insecurities), to trying to give a human face to political turmoil (in a novel set during real life wartime).

Is the creative spark triggered by an innate but helpless human desire to change what is unchangeable?

This reader's comment also triggered a murmur of a thought - nothing concrete yet - about time travel as literary and cinematic ploy. Isn't all writing about time travel, really? About being transported to another place and time? And are all those movies-of-the-week in which scientists travel back in time and face history-altering decisions really tapping into our need to re-create the past? To right past wrongs?

Thanks for giving me something new to think about!

Build-Your-Own Quote Day

I love reading everyone's posts. I've been struck by certain lines and decided I'd let you know, just for fun. Some of the lines are from posts you put thought into, and some are from casual posts you've just dashed off. But they're good!

For instance, lines that struck me as potentially engaging first lines for a novel or short story:

My brain doesn’t work, it broke about one year ago…

and

I have to go alone and for the matinee, hoping I will be the only one in the theater.

and this one...

Feel free to ask me anything.

I'd want to know more about a character who just began speaking to me like that...at the beginning of a story...hi...'ask me anything'...

Then there are the lines that elevate tension...I love how these lines are simple and descriptive and not at all melodramatic, yet manage to create a subtle shift in the reader:

I can hear twigs and leaves crunching beneath my feet even though I’m still inside.

and...

Something I can’t see or hear has chased them off and they glide deeper into the trees.

There are the visually-telling phrases...(ah, yes...I see it...)

Perspiration pooled in tiny drops on his forehead as we waited patiently…

And there are the lines that describe and ennoble the writing process:

Concentrating on the technicalities of the poem releases my mind from trying to say anything in particular.

Love that! Was just what I was trying to say in my own earlier post, but so much more eloquent.

And...

I just let my characters do their thing and record it for them…

Reading posts is a little like eavesdropping I guess. You're listening to the message that the reader conveys, but as a writer, you're sometimes struck by a certain lilt or a sudden visual or a moment of recognition, as well. And everything around you, every day is potential fodder for a story.

I generally percolate on specific lines or potential titles for a while. They sit at the back of my mind, pretty much out of the way but every now and then nudging me like a cat that wants attention. And then, one day, another line comes to me - either I misread a billboard, or I make a word joke with a literary friend, or I see a stranger making a specific gesture, or I hear a child say something completely true - and BOOM! the story begins.

Do you know where your story ideas come from? Are there A-HA moments for you?

Today's Quote - Rainer Maria Rilke

Most of my life has been spent not understanding, and I can assure you, it was not easy.

On Poetry

A new reader asked if anyone would mind if a poet/short story writer joined our circle. I said, 'welcome'!

Which reminds me...

My current WIP is a piece of literary fiction. I'm very focused on the language and rhythm of the piece. I often find it helpful to read poetry before I write. Something in poetry's cadence and precision and purity flips a switch in my brain. I think differently, hear differently, see differently, after immersing myself in poetry.

I sometimes also try my hand at writing poetry before I begin work on the novel. Doing this does two things. 1) It reminds me that I am not a poet and 2) it silences the distracting chatter that keeps me from writing well.

What are some of the things you do to prepare to write?

Learning from Other Writers

K.G. Schneider calls herself a "techno-librarian, writer, gadfly..." I think her advice on writing, culled from other writers and both teachers and students in her MFA program, is spot on. Have a look.

Today's Quote - Stanley Kunitz

I dream of an art so transparent that you can look through and see the world.

Writing a Visual Memory

A Wordsicle reader is currently in The Netherlands. One of my favorite memories was created there. I don't know exactly what the area was called...

My friends and I drove to the gates of a park. We chose bicyles from rows of public (white) ones and rode slowly and casually through the gates and along a path. We came to flat fields of wild heather. The moors, Martineke called them. On either side of us, all we could see was the gray-lilac sway of heather. We rode on, breezes lifting our hair.

After a while, we came to a grove of trees. We turned onto a narrow path and left the bright sun of the moors behind as we rode into the cool shade of the woods. It was late summer. The ground was layered with mossy browns and burnt oranges and the dry, crisp edges of dead leaves. The tree trunks were narrow and tall. It was early afternoon, but it felt almost as if evening was approaching as we rode deeper into the forest. The air grew cooler and damper. Light faded under the blanket of branches.

We rounded a corner and suddenly, there in the distance, was the blurry glow of a giant, red neon circle. The forest around the circle glowed pink. The neon seemed suspended in space, hovering amongst the trees.

As we rode closer, we saw that the neon was behind long sheets of glass. Closer still, we found we were approaching the modern, glass-walled wing of an art museum. The low, contemporary glass and steel structure jutted from the main building, out into the forest and from the angle we'd approached, it had seemed to melt into the landscape. Only the red neon sculpture against the back wall stood out from the organic background.

The image is unforgettable.

I remember my friend turning back to me and smiling, as she raised herself from the bicycle seat and pedaled faster. She had planned the entire moment. The neon glowed red over her shoulder. Her hair, long white-blond curls of it, blew back and covered her face. She was giggling.

We went inside and saw antiquties and paintings by Dutch masters and many wonderful contemporary pieces, including the neon circle, which seemed quite ordinary, as we stood in front of it in the museum. If I remember correctly we had some tea and biscuits and then we chose new white bicylces at the museum's entrance and rode back to the car. It was a perfect day.
____________________

Write and post your single most visual memory. No critiquing. Just write....

Literary Envy

So I just read two NYT reviews for my friend's new novel. Its her first book, although her reputation proceeds her (she's a bit of a personality). One review called her brilliant and witty, another called her trite and predictable. I'm so jealous.

I want to be happy for her. I adore her. We don't see each other often any more, 'though we used to get together at least once a week for intimate conversations. I know her life isn't perfect. I know she's had struggles. But right now, a petulent voice inside me is saying, "It's just not fair!"

Why does she get to be published before me? Who died and left her brilliant and marketable? I write better than she does. (I mean, I'm capable of it. Right now, my latest work-in-progress looks worse than anything in Elektra's crapometer.)

I want to say congratulations and mean it, but it's like watching the love of your life marry your best friend. A tightness in my chest, a crushing weight, a flutter in my womb...and a definite urge to run.

Goddammit, girlfriend. I'm proud of you. I mean, I am.

(Bitch!)

Today's Quote - John Barth

Technique in art...has about the same value as technique in lovemaking. That is to say, heartfelt ineptitude has its appeal and so does heartless skill, but what you want is passionate virtuosity.

Total Submission - UPDATED

Okay, okay...so my post title is a bit melodramatic. But a new reader, Susan, asked about getting started in this online writer's circle.

Here's what I'd ask when you submit work, critiques or comments: you are are welcome to post using your blogger identity, or another identity. You don't have to 'register' to become part of this circle. However, when you are posting under the anonymous blanket, please use a consistent sign off (your initials, a cute moniker, etc.) so that we can get to know you as an entity. Doing this helps create trust. Plus, as we begin to critique and comment on each other's work, the truth is, we will each begin to factor in the poster's personality as we decide, for ourselves, which part of their comment makes most sense to our own work and our own personality.

Make sense?

And welcome, Susan. You're good to go as is - or you can create a blogger identity if you prefer. I hope you'll submit something relating to balance for our comment trail, in the previous post.

UPDATE: Sorry Susan...I called you Anne in the first version. No idea why. Welcome, SUSAN!

Writing is a Balancing Act

Glad to have some new writers to add to our circle. MReese posts the following:

My biggest challenge at the moment is balancing learning the ropes, work, kids and a mostly absent husband.

But everyone has a reason they don't have time to write. I have to make time to write otherwise I go bonkers. It's like breathing, once you start you don't ever want to stop.

I agree. The hardest part is finding balance. And if you do a little research on some of our finest novelists, you'll find that many never found it. They were reclusive or alcoholic or suicidal, etc. Doesn't mean WE have to be. Just saying that the challenge of finding balance is a real one.

Personally, I've found that as I submerged myself deeper into my novel, I had to let go of many other things that mattered. I began to choose writing above all else. I'm not saying this was right or that it would be necessary for anyone else. But for me, it was.

It certainly helps to have friends who understand when you go into 'hermit mode' for days at a time. It helps to have either a supportive (or mostly absent, lol) partner.

I'd like to challenge you to write INTO yourself...go deep into the feelings that are below the surface. The fear (of success, of failure, of exposure, of ridicule, or not being enough, of allowing yourself to be called a writer) can be a block. The only way to get through that mountain is to tunnel through it with words.

If you're new to this blog, please write 50 words - honed and real and as close to your own truth as possible - that describe the fears you have relating to balance and writing. Post them here in the comments trail.

Perimeters are important...so write lots of words to get you to the truth...but post only the best 50 words here.

Looking forward to reading your work...

Tina's Wordsicles of Wisdom

A blogger named Tina posted the following words of wisdom on Elektra's new Crap-o-meter site, and I think its worth repeating:

I have a writer friend (quite brilliant and successful) who says that feedback is mostly worthless...(but) necessary because it gives you practice in separating yourself from your writing. And it teaches you to see FOR YOURSELF what works and what doesn't. Critiques are as fallible as the humans behind them. Writers have to learn to take it all in -- good, bad, snippy, sunshiny -- and find what's true for their story...We're helping each other be better writers...A critique...can be too dishonest, too wishy-washy, but kindness is a different quality. Even the snarkiest comment can have kindness at the bone (visit the Snarkives for beaucoup examples).

The best critiques I've ever gotten were along the lines of, "This is very good, this too, this needs work, what were you thinking here, but nice touch there." Not...slams...(or) puff jobs, but...honest critical kindness. And learning to give that kind of feedback made me a better writer too.

My own experience tells me the same thing. One of the hardest thing for a writer to do is seperate from the work. But anything that helps hone your internal, self-directed critical eye is a good thing and can only make your writing better.

I find that working on staying open enough to actually hear critiques, without defense, is actually a physical process. I have to focus on my body...breathe into the moment...widen my chest...feel my spine move down my back. I have to remind myself that other's opinions of work does not define me as a person...and that there may be helpful information in amongst the stinging nettles.

This doesn't mean that I BELIEVE every critique I get. But I do try to stay open enough to HEAR every critique. As I've gotten stronger and more confident in my own writing, I'm able to use every comment to test whether I am accomplishing what I want to accomplish with my work.

How do you generally respond to critiques? Why not write something really honest about the emotions you feel when your work is analyzed and commented on?

Welcome to Wordsicle

You know the old 'mother of invention' line, right? Sometimes you're looking for something and you just can't find it. So you have to create it.

I've been looking for a good writer's circle - a group of like-minded people who are willing to talk about words and rhythm and line tension and character development and plot arcs. Folks who will critique and be critiqued. People to share their ideas about how to get unstuck when you can't seem to make progress on your novel or short story or (heaven forbid!) memoir.

I've gotten lots of inspiration lately from Miss Snark, The Literary Agent. She's a rock - and she rocks. Her accomplice, Killer Yapp and a young protege, Elektra, have been enormously helpful, too. (KY specifically for fashion advice.) But I'm wondering if there's anyone else out there like me, who'd like to experiment with some writing exercises and discuss the writing life? And not because you're avoiding your work in progress.

I'll start with a little getting-to-know-you bit, just like we would if we were sitting on the floor in my small apartment, taking lemon thins from a plate and drinking coffee in paper cups and beginning our first meeting of wordsmiths anonymous.

Here's what I'd like to know: Are you a writer? What do you write? What's your latest challenge?