 For Authors: April 06, 2016 Issue [#7568] |
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This week: You Know You Are a Writer When... Edited by: Fyn  
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We all write poems; it is simply that poets are the ones who write in words. ~~John Fowles
Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.~~Anton Chekhov
As a writer, words are your paint. Use all the colors.~~Rhys Alexander
Revision is one of the true pleasures of writing. I love the flowers of afterthought~~Bernard Malamud
Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.~~Gloria Steinem
Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted.~~Jules Renard
The profession of book-writing makes horse racing seem like a solid, stable business.~~John Steinbeck
I have been correcting the proofs of my poems. In the morning, after hard work, I took a comma out of one sentence…. In the afternoon I put it back again.~~Oscar Wilde
If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn’t brood. I’d type a little faster.~~Isaac Asimov
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You know you are a writer when ... You and your friends share laughs over texts that could be taken SO WRONGLY!
I'll never forget texting a friend that, "I did it! I killed him. Was easier than I thought it would be," She got it. She understood, but then, she's a writer! Can only imagine if the wrong eyes saw it! Another time, "Hubby helped me work out killing the step-dad. Amazing the things you can do with a cast-iron frying pan. Kitchen sure is a mess though...Poor hubby, almost brained him in the process. - danged thing is heavy!"
Along the same lines is the 'search history' after researching things like 'How long after death does rigor mortis set in?' and 'How much of 'x' would someone have to ingest to not quite overdose?' or 'What is the minimum sentence for 2nd degree murder in Michigan?' Seen out of context, eyebrows would go flinging towards the ceiling. Lord help me if I ever need to have a character bomb something!! (Avoiding THAT scenario!)
You know you are a writer when ... you are interrupted mid-thought by someone (anyone!) with a question about anything that doesn't concern a family member who isn't dead, dying or bleeding to death!
It had taken me hours to write a particular scene, a love scene where the characters were making love for the first time. It was her first time ever so the tone needed to be a certain way. The language needed to be just right, enticing, yet not over the top. My head was there in that Paris garret, the scents wafted from the opened windows overlooking the busy Parisian street below. My mind was in hers as she experienced the nerves, the fears, the desires; all of which were very new to her. I was in the zone and happily clacking away on the keyboard when hubby interrupted to tell me about a funny election bumper sticker he'd seen. WHAM! I was back at my desk, with a cold cup of coffee, irritated and totally out of that mood I'd been in. He blithely said, "Well, I'll let you get back to your writing." Sure. Uh huh. I'll just zoom back into 'being seconds from 'the big moment' when my brain was somewhere a zillion miles away in frustrated, have to start all over land.
Any writer I've ever mentioned this to came right back with their version of the same sort of scenario, being pulled out of that place we writers inhabit and rudely slammed into a wall. Then we'd laugh. Sure, it is funny in retrospect, but in the moment? NOT! This past Christmas, my daughter (who gets it, who is also a writer) gave me a chalkboard to hang on the door that I can write a message on ... like 'Enter at Your Own Rick!' or 'Stay OUT!' Worked great until I forgot to turn it around and hubby was afraid to come in! OOps!
You know you are a writer when ... you carry a note book with you everywhere or constantly are making notes in your cellphone or you take pictures of random things that are cool or exactly right but that no one ever stopped a car, got out and took a picture of.
Odd phrases someone says, a particular way the sun slants through the pine woods up north, the way the fog bank creeps up on the Macinaw Bridge at dawn or a random front porch that is exactly like so and so's porch in Chapter Three. I constantly make notes in my Kindle when I read an odd phrase like 'old winds' or someone doing something like an 'unfinished paragraph.' (Thank you, Craig Johnson!) I'll take notes on a strangers funky jacket, a super scruff pooch or an oddball sign. (We saw one in a front yard that read: Private Sign: Do Not Read!) I'll stop to take pictures of unusual trees, snow on daffodils, or a spectacular sky. My daughter gets it and often points possibilities out to me as we drive down the road. My husband sometimes hunts with a muzzle loader and he keeps his supplies for it in what is called a 'possibles bag.' These are my 'possibles.'
You know you are a writer when ... you take negative moments, people or conversations and KNOW they will end up in a book.
OPD - Other People's Drama is such good fodder! When someone does something wrong, mean, rude or senseless, it will end up being used. Or when they are just being themselves but mimicking a character. One of my authors was suffering from 'where do I go next-itus.' She was writing a book about a motorcycle gang. While she was up here for an event, we took her to dinner at a local biker bar that has amazing food. She could have been eating cardboard! She was totally entranced watching different couples (read future characters) interacting or nodding at one saying, "That guy is like Reaper came to life!" She was here with us, but her brain had zoomed three hours away and was back to writing! I was okay with it when she left for home a short while later, I could see her fingers just itching to get back to writing!
Be around us and do or say something hilarious? Fodder. Pull a bonehead maneuver? SO getting used. Make a special recipe and leave out a vital ingredient? Oh yeah! Create a priceless moment? Absolutely. Writers know that the lives of everyone on the planet is grist for the mill. We tend to be cautious around each other, but even then sometimes things happen and there is a conversation about who is going to use it first!
You know you are a writer when ... you have a word collection.
Plethora ... surreptitious ... finagle ... cacophony ... words that I've filed away. Place names like Munising or Kitchitikipi. The fact that Lima, Peru and Lima, Michigan are pronounced differently. As are Milan, Italy and Milan, Michigan. There've been violent arguments over correct pronunciation! The president was QuinCEE, the town, however is QuinZEE. You know it is an exultation of larks, a parliament of owls, a cauldron of bats and a prickle of porcupines. You've become a walking dictionary because you actually look up unfamiliar words because you might need just that word some time.
You know you are a writer ... when you are also a voracious reader!
You've read the classics and have a smattering (or a lot!) of bits and pieces of famous poetry memorized. You always find time to read. You read for pleasure, enlightenment and research. You aren't always fussy either, because you never know when something might come in handy! And, possibly, because you are bored and it is the only thing available: Lists of ingredients, the unpronounceables incorporated into your blood pressure meds, the backs of shampoo bottles and the varying different kinds of vanilla (beans, extracts, flavorings) in your ice cream!
You know you are a writer when ... you are a walking trivia wasteland.
You are the annoying one with most of the answers when you catch Jeopardy. You know the Inuit language has a gazillion words for snow and what a third of them mean. You've taken trains merely to see what your country's 'back yards' look like, checked out more than the typical tourist traps on vacation and catch the mistakes when you stumble across an incorrect fact in a book or while watching a movie. More, it prompts entire conversations. You tend to give folks directions by more than street names, you fill in the surrounding details because you've actually noticed that there is a red mailbox at the corner of M-59 and Argentine Road where they need to turn left. You know when you see certain clouds like 'mare's tails' in the sky that the weather will change and that the ring around the moon is ice crystals. You know salt isn't always white and that black is full of color. You know about possibles bags.
You know you are a writer when ... you couch-direct movies because it should have been done this way or that way.
You tear apart the story because that particular character would never have done whatever. You get upset when another writer has incorrectly described something and it drives you nuts or they have their facts messed up and have something happening fifteen years before it was invented, because, well, you know these things! Or, conversely, you watch, spellbound, and at the end say, "I wish I'd written that!" You deconstruct characters and reconstruct scenarios the way you'd do them.
You know you are a writer when ... you have a personal library and book shelves everywhere!
If it came down to room for excess almost anything or books, books would win hands down. You have several (or in my case) many old books, really old books. The kind with leather bindings, gilt-edged pages and you have actually read them, carefully turning whisper-thin pages. You are likely to have bookshelves in odd places. (We even have them in the bathrooms, the hall ways, my office - of course, the living room, the kitchen, the basement, the dining room and the garage.) You've been known to come across an old book and open it to inhale the scent that only an old book has. You also have been know to do the same thing with a brand new book because, in either case, it smells of adventure, the unknown and pure anticipation!
Your Kindle/Nook/tablet carries the weight of hundreds of books, of millions of words and you don't delete them because you might want to read them again. You also have one of the free dictionaries loaded on it.
You wander a yard sale and get very excited at finding boxes of books for perhaps a quarter each. You rifle through them, checking every title, mentally checking off the ones you do or don't have. You buy an armful. Why? Because you can and you can't resist. You are incensed when folks throw books away.
You know you are a writer when ... you still remember your favorite authors as a child and still have many of the books.
The authors are as old friends and the books themselves like family. The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, On Beyond Zebra, (both by Dr. Seuss) my old Nancy Drew books, Titch by Pat Hutchins (a titch, I learned later actually is a small person) and others I found after I had the kids. The Giver series by Lois Lowry, the Dealing with Dragons series by Patricia Wrede and all of Anne McCarrey's Dragonriders of Pern books.
You know you are a writer when ... if you go for too long without writing you get cranky.
Writing for me is as necessary as breathing. It is how I interpret the world around me, make sense out of the bazaar, give logic to the illogical and indulge my imagination. Poetry, short stories, novels...ideas simmer but when the assorted bits of detritus comes to a full boil, I am locked in my nook, chalkboard declaring to the world to leave me alone and madly clacking away, usually talking to myself as I type, holding conversations with the folks that to me are living and breathing because, they are - I brought them to life.
One day I was in a decidedly witchy mood and my hubby's response was to 'Go write something! You need dilemma fix!" He was write err right!
We writers are a unique breed. We are our own special conglomeration of half written paragraphs, unfinished discussions, far flung destinations and a headful of people living in our minds, all actively going about their business, and often, going off in directions we never intended them to go. Our characters are like our kids: get them to a specific point and they think they know it all! I sometimes wonder about what goes on in the uncluttered minds of the non-writers, the excess space the non-creatives have echoing in their brains. Hubby says that that is an unfair statement and that engineers, teachers, doctors and the like have their minds crammed with a bazillion facts. (Yet I think of them as creative sorts too.) Probably, it is an unfair generalization, but if you are a writer, you know exactly what I mean!
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Joto-Kai  says: Memoir is sensitive enough, but when it is still hot off the press, in its first few drafts, one should very carefully control who should read it. Other work, one would hope, the writer will evolve to the point where he or she can brave the random, painful feedback. But sometimes, a thing is just too private! I remember when my every reading considered the audience; I only showed what I thought that person could appreciate. I'm glad I'm over that now, for the most part!
silverpen  writes: I read the story about your friend who wrote about her alcohol addiction. I have written several poems to try and help people deal with both drug and alcohol problems and for those who were affected by loved once who had these problems. If you get a chance please visit my main poetry site www.poetrypoem.com/apoetslaststand. You will find several of these poems there. I can (tell) you it does help, I have heard back by over 100 people who left me messages saying they decided to quit drinking with the help of a few of my poems there.
Patrece ~  adds: Every time I read one of your newsletters, you strike a chord in me. This one especially, opens ones eyes to why they may get several strongly positive reviews on a piece, and then one very critical review. (Which has happened for me recently.) I believe the one review which was very critical, was because the reader had their own agenda for what I wrote. The person wanted to take over and make it their story, instead of my own. Thank you again, for a very thought provoking and informative newsletter!
ANN Counselor, Lesbian & Happy comments: I'm glad you informed readers just how mean family members can be when a writer writes his/her truth. I write truth about my life and never asked a single family member to read it; it is my story, not theirs. Sometimes we can write truth by using fake names and places; other times we just write it. I encourage the writer to write her story but do it under a pseudoymn unknown to her family where her readers will appreciate the personal story knowing it can help many people. Of course publishing a book filled with names and places can bring about lawsuits and worse, so the use of real names and places can become a problem but the personal story can be real and written completely because it is personal. Other writers here have had, still have, family members angry and no longer speaking to her/him because such people don't want the truth 'out there'. Be strong and find the path that allows your story to be told how you choose to tell it. Certainly I have told details of my life and people have been helped because I wrote.
radicalrhoda says: I couldn't agree more on why we write. Thank you for putting it into words.
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