Journal of a Novel

My favorite example of these types of journals are two volumes of Steinbeck letters that are available.; Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters, and Working Days: The Journals of The Grapes of Wrath.

What he did and what I am thinking about doing is you write a long series of letters in the notebook he also wrote the novel in. The right side of the page is where you write your novel, and the left side of the page is where you keep the letters. Steinback said he used to do it to get his mind in the zone. Any writer knows how much of a key issue this is in the writing process. No matter what other kind of external influences are going on at the time, if you are in the zone, have the focus and discipline to immerse yourself into the world of your story you know as well as I do is that this is the place were your words come from. So I am willing to follow in the footsteps of those masters that have come before me and adapt their tactics there methods.

I would also like to get copies and read both of Steinbeck's books as all I have read are romantic descriptions of them. In one way though I would like to just keep that thought and do them how I imagine they are instead of reading and copying his style.

One of the things I do know about his technique that I am going to adapt is that he would set down to write, sharpen his pencils and start of by warming up and writing letters to his publisher and friend on many subjects.
 
I have a great idea of how I am going to do it. I am going to write a letter to someone who is new to the art of writing and has not read the books. For those of my readers who are occult inclined I am going to do a sort of writing version of Magick Without Tears by: Crowley.

Of course now I am at the point when I am trying to read like 15 books at the same time. My room is starting to become a path of books leading to the bed, books and music. Not that I think that is too much of a bad thing really.

I am going to and read for the rest of the evening and then tomorrow begin this work!

Anderson, Faulkner, and Me!

I was shopping in a local bookstore the other day and found a book by Faulkner I had not know existed. It is called New Orleans Sketches, and it is amazing, One of my favorite books is Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio. I have always considered working on a similiar work of inter-connecterd short stories. New Orleans Sketches is Faulkner's verions of Winesburg.

I think I am going to adapt this style for my crime novel. I worked a lot on plot stuff yesterday, and it went very well. I think I have an outline of some of the "sketches" I am going to do. I am going to spend the first half of the novel just doing character sketches on each of the main characters, and some of the locations totally described.

I am going to set the whole novel in a small town called "Fair Hill". It is a small mountain town in the Ozarks. So with it being a small town there will only be probably 8-10 characters total, so I am think probably 20 or so chapters/sketches. I am going to try and write one sketch a week and I am also going to start submitting them to short fiction magazines. I want each of the stories to be tight stories that can stand alone and also that will form the chapters of some connected novel.

I am planning on going down to the office twice a week and writing a rough draft of story by hand, then spend a day typing it and doing first revision, then step back for a day and not think about it (start working on new story idea), then I will comeback and spend 2-3 days revising the story and then the 7th day or so I will submit that story to magazine. Then after all that my plan is just to rinse and repeat.

Okay I am going to go make some coffee now and work on some more plot stuff I will keep everyone up to date on the novel progress as it happens.

Read these amazing books now!

The Sacred Text of Writing

The weather here is going insane. Been snowing almost non-stop since yesterday afternoon. Everything is covered in snow and ice. When I went to the office yesterday it was crazy slick and the computer says it has been snowing all night, but I have not looked outside yet. I got a few more things at the office last night and now I am rethinking both my sacred text.

I really need to have two sacred text I can fall back on when I am writing and I do not change one of the very often, and this time it looks like I may change both of them.
I am going to replace The Writing Life with another book by Anne Lamott called Bird by Bird.  I read the first 15 pages last night and it is amazing so far. It is written in the same style as The Writing Life, but seems more polished perhaps. I will not know really until I get more into the meat of the book itself. I think this will be a great sacred text and should keep my on track with my writing projects.
She talks about getting in print in the introduction and it makes me think. Always makes me think of short fiction. Perhaps I should try to work on some mystery/crime short fiction and submit that. I can write and polish a short story in a few weeks. If I could write a rough draft in a week and then spend two weeks revising it, and then send one story a month off to a magazine then surely I could publish this year. That would be a big step for me and would give me a chance to work on the mystery genre without worrying about novel length stuff.

Okay I am going to go spend a few of these morning hours making some coffee and reading on that Silva novel.

Blogging in the New Year!

Okay, I have been thinking about the subject of New Years resolutions since writing my last post. I have been feeling unmotivated the past few days and have spent all day in my head searching for the reason and trying to figure out how to get motivated. I hope taking on a fiction project for the new year will give me some of the motivation I am seeking.

The reading I have been doing lately is also in hopes of lighting a fire under my ass in the fiction department. I have been reading the type of fiction I want to start writing in hopes of it rubbing off on me in some way. I also have not turned to my usual sources of writing motivation, so maybe that is effecting me also.

I usually turn to one of two books when I need to start writing; The Writing Life by: Anne Lamott and also A Moveable Feast by: Hemingway. I think now though I may have added the third book to this list of sacred text; The Triumph of the Thriller by: Patrick Anderson.

We will see how well it works in about a week. I have found that while I am actually doing the writing I can not read too much fiction or it influences the work I am doing. So I think I am going to finish reading the Silva novel while I outline the novel. I may continue reading because I am working in a genre I am not familiar with.

My usual writing routine however is to hand write my first draft, then type and then do revisions on a computer. I can not usually write at home, so I usually go out and work. My best writing is done at coffee shops and bars. The office will not work either because there are too many distractions. So I think I will start going to the coffee shop across the street from it to work. I also need some music on my MP3 player so I can tune out everything. be more zen about it all. I have to be careful on my music choice though. I can not work if the music has words, so I am limited to classical, techno, and jazz. So I need to start working on getting some music together for that.

I need to be very simple to get work done. I do not need much, but the things I do need have to be just right; the right kind of pens, a new notebook, the outline index cards, my MP3 player with good music on it, and a book. Anything else I have with me will only distract me.

One of the other distractions I have to avoid when I am writing is also the most difficult for me; the Internet! It is also the reason I can not write fiction on a laptop really. This is why I am trying to get money for a NEO Alphasmart word processor.

Okay I am going to quit ranting about this for now and go start on the outlining for the novel. I promise to keep you, my dear readers, updated on my progress.

At the Office on a Cold Winters Day

I am at the office again today. It has been a week since I have been here since it is so cold. It was worth coming out for several reasons. One, is the new issue of Harpers is out and the cover story is on Warren Buffett who is amazing, also I was getting slight cabin fever yesterday. It has been a week or more since I left the house to do anything other than check the mail. Also I needed coffee and they have great coffee here.

I have been reading a lot of post on Problogger as I am going through the 31 Days program I started on xmas day, which I think is going very well. I am only on day three but can already see and feel good changes.

Also this morning, early, I finished Michael Connelly's books The Closers, it was very good. It had 40 or 50 pages that were a little slow like 3/4 the way through the book, but other than that it was page turning and very good. Engaging story and characters I could identify with. I am going to start my first Daniel Silva book now The Kill Artist. I want to spend the next few monthes reading main stream mystery/thriller fiction. I can not help but think of what I think Robin Cook said the best way to learn how to get on the New York Times bestseller list is to go out and read every book right now on the NY Times Bestseller list and then copy what they are doing.

So with that in mind I have about 10-12 bestselling thriller/mystery novels stacked next to the coffee table and I am going to do just that. I figure if I learn one or two things from each of them then it is all worth it. Plus they are pretty good reads overall.

I am also on the advice of a close friend, going to go today and get index cards and try to outline a novel on them. This is suppose to help you see the novel in full even if it is not written yet. Plus in mystery it will help with foreshadowing and leaving clues for the reader to follow.

So after I leave here I am going to go to the store and get some index cards and bagels. The cornerstone of any good writing sesssion. I will post again later this evening I just wanted to get my thoughts of the moment down on paper.

Plot, Structure, and The Big Lie

I went today to look for a book that a friend requested for Xmas and in fact found two copies at the local bookstore. I went ahead and grabbed both of them, one for him and one for me. The name of the book is Plot and Structure by: James Scott Bell. He is a author who writers suspense, mystery, and historical fiction. I have a few other book in the series so I thought I would check it out. To my surprise I was totally sucked in after the first page or two. He begins by talking about how he became a writer and the First Rule of Writing:

• "...writing can't be taught."

This is what he calls "The Big Lie" and goes on to give some examples of why he thinks this is true. He decided at the age of 34 (lucky for me, I still have a couple of years) that he wanted to be a novelist. He went to the local bookstore and got the two writing books that had been recommended to him the most:

• Writing the Novel by: Lawrence Block
• Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting by: Syd Field

He claims that these two books taught him how to write, what plot was, and that is the cornerstone of any good novel writing attempt. He then goes on to list the six things that one must do as a writer to discover what plot is and why it is so important to all of us.

1. Get Motivated.
2. Try Stuff.
3. Stay Loose.
4. "First get it written, then get it right."
5. Set a Quota.
6. Don't Give Up.

He covers each of this points with a paragraph or two and then goes into the meat of the book. He ends the introduction by putting forth questions to the people (writers) reading his book. I will exert the few line here so you will have something to think about;

"Are you ready now? Are you convinced of the Truth? Do you dream of writing novels with plots that keep readers up at night? Then come along. I'm going to do my very best to show you how."

The "Truth" he speaks of is that anyone can be taught to write if one applies themselves. Writing can be taught as he was taught from Mr. Block and Mr. Field's wonderful books.

I have always know I was going to be a writer. It is my Will and no matter what happens in life I do not feel quite right about it until the writing is done. It has always come natural to me. But some people need to learn the craft of writing from books, schools, mentors, and others. Where as some people just have the knack for it. Now I think the truth is neither of these approaches are "right" or any "better" than one another. These are just different approaches to the supreme craft we all find ourselves surrounded by.

Once I get more into this amazing looking book I will rant about it further, but for now I will leave you with another question;

• What books, teacher, mentor, writer influenced you or gave you the strength to write?

"Creation of a Genre" or "Orwell and Ferriss"

There is a crazy type of books that I like. I do not know if they all fall in the same genre, other than mind-blowing, life-changing text, but then again I do not know if that is a genre in the proper sense of the word. And all loyal readers (all two of them at this point) know that I must have everything proper.

Okay so now that I am feeling the coffee and slightly rambling I will share with you the books I have by my side that will form the backbone of this new genre I am creating as I go. I am going to try to track them in order if I can so you can see the evolution of this genre.
Now the two books I am reading now are the first and newest books in this genre. Okay here is the list I may go more in-depth in some of them at later dates:

• Down and Out in Paris and London by: George Orwell
• A Moveable Feast by: Hemingway (probably my favorite book EVER!)
• Tropic of Cancer by: Henry Miller
• Vagabonding by: Rolf Potts
• Dishwasher by: Pete Jordan
  
• The 4-Hour Workweek by: Timothy Ferriss

Now I think this represents a small selection of books in this genre, the Canon perhaps of the new way of looking at life. I will steal a term from Ferriss and call the genre "Lifestyle Design" I am going to start using that term when discussing this type of thing.

Okay the two beside me now are Down and Out, which I have never read before. It is amazing so far. I am only 40 pages into it now, but the writing is so forward, and ranting like. It is one of the main text that inspired me to do this blog. His way of just laying out what is going on now matter how harsh or real it is. He is not scared to write about anything, which is of course true also in his later works. I will rant more about this book later in it's own post after I read more of it.

The other book is the Expanded and Updated version of 4-Hour Workweek, which is a mind-blowing book that everyone who is reading this blog or in fact anyone that reads at all should get now and read. Ferriss is amazing and coined the term which I named this genre after; Lifestyle Design, and he explains how to do just that is a very easy to read and informative way. I say this not having read the new version yet, but having read through the older version multiple times and also listening to the entire book of CD as I was traveling. WOW is all I can say. You will notice I have a quote at the top of the blog that will change from time to time; (I am quote junkie as you will learn) the next few quote will come out of this amazing book as he is a more of a quote junkie than me or Brother Catfish are.

Okay now coffee is empty and I need a refill. I am going to go get some more coffee and mess with Mafia Wars for a little while before the game. More in-depth reviews and breakdowns of these and many wonderful books coming in the future.