Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label writing. Show all posts

Friday, September 9, 2022

Farewell Summer - Hello Autumn

@mudhousebooks Matters of Convenience will be #Free in #Kindle format at #Amazon for 1 week in mid-September. Consider it a #backtoschool #giveaway ♬ Give It Away - Red Hot Chili Peppers
@mudhousebooks

The Absolutely Amazing Adventures of Ava Appelsawse - available at Amazon

♬ original sound - Roy
Thanks for everything, Serena! Including your form of graciousness. Took long enough but happy to see arrival of this day. whatever you tell creatives will be largely ignored by them. After all, what's the point of being a creator if the art you make must be dictated by the silly whims of others? 








  MATTERS OF CONVENIENCE
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Rules to Write By

Dearest scribblers of words.  Follow the prose writing rules you'll find below religiously.  Or else break them at your own risk because writers at heart are rebels with a cause.  At the very least though, make sure that your blog posts pass the "Weird Al" test.  Happy Writing! - RLP





Elmore Leonard’s 10 Rules of Writing



These are rules I've picked up along the way to help me remain invisible when I’m writing a book, to help me show rather than tell what’s taking place in the story. If you have a facility for language and imagery and the sound of your voice pleases you, invisibility is not what you are after, and you can skip the rules. Still, you might look them over.

  1. Never open a book with weather.
    2. If it’s only to create atmosphere, and not a character’s reaction to the weather, you don’t want to go on too long. The reader is apt to leaf ahead looking for people. There are exceptions. If you happen to be Barry Lopez, who has more ways to describe ice and snow than an Eskimo, you can do all the weather reporting you want.
  2. Avoid prologues.
    3. They can be annoying, especially a prologue following an introduction that comes after a foreword. But these are ordinarily found in nonfiction. A prologue in a novel is backstory, and you can drop it in anywhere you want.
    There is a prologue in John Steinbeck’s Sweet Thursday, but it’s O.K. because a character in the book makes the point of what my rules are all about. He says: “I like a lot of talk in a book and I don’t like to have nobody tell me what the guy that’s talking looks like. I want to figure out what he looks like from the way he talks. . . . figure out what the guy’s thinking from what he says. I like some description but not too much of that. . . . Sometimes I want a book to break loose with a bunch of hooptedoodle. . . . Spin up some pretty words maybe or sing a little song with language. That’s nice. But I wish it was set aside so I don’t have to read it. I don’t want hooptedoodle to get mixed up with the story.”
  3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
    4. The line of dialogue belongs to the character; the verb is the writer sticking his nose in. But said is far less intrusive than grumbled, gasped, cautioned, lied. I once noticed Mary McCarthy ending a line of dialogue with “she asseverated,” and had to stop reading to get the dictionary.
  4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said” …
    5. …he admonished gravely. To use an adverb this way (or almost any way) is a mortal sin. The writer is now exposing himself in earnest, using a word that distracts and can interrupt the rhythm of the exchange. I have a character in one of my books tell how she used to write historical romances “full of rape and adverbs.”
  5. Keep your exclamation points under control.
    6. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose. If you have the knack of playing with exclaimers the way Tom Wolfe does, you can throw them in by the handful.
  6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
    7. This rule doesn’t require an explanation. I have noticed that writers who use “suddenly” tend to exercise less control in the application of exclamation points.
  7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
    8. Once you start spelling words in dialogue phonetically and loading the page with apostrophes, you won’t be able to stop. Notice the way Annie Proulx captures the flavor of Wyoming voices in her book of short storiesClose Range.
  8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
    9. Which Steinbeck covered. In Ernest Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants what do the “American and the girl with him” look like? “She had taken off her hat and put it on the table.” That’s the only reference to a physical description in the story, and yet we see the couple and know them by their tones of voice, with not one adverb in sight.
  9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
    10. Unless you’re Margaret Atwood and can paint scenes with language or write landscapes in the style of Jim Harrison. But even if you’re good at it, you don’t want descriptions that bring the action, the flow of the story, to a standstill.
    And finally:
  10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
    11. A rule that came to mind in 1983. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. What the writer is doing, he’s writing, perpetrating hooptedoodle, perhaps taking another shot at the weather, or has gone into the character’s head, and the reader either knows what the guy’s thinking or doesn’t care. I’ll bet you don’t skip dialogue.
    My most important rule is one that sums up the 10.
    If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.

Here's what a few other writers have had to say about the art of writing:

The tension between standing apart and being fully involved; that is what makes a writer. That is where we begin. ~ Nadine Gordimer

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause. ~ Mark Twain

You have to surrender to the act of writing, give up to it, and trust that if you have anything, It will discover it for you.
~ E.L. Doctorow
Literature is the ditch I'm going to die in. It's still the thing I care most about. ~ Thomas McGuane

You may think I never make it to a second chapter because I play it by ear and depend on inspiration which never comes.  In fact, the reason I stop writing is because I am not creating a masterpiece and would rather stop and try again than carry on with mediocrity.  I prefer failing at greatness to succeeding with something commonplace. ~ from FEEDING THE SQUIRRELS (by yours truly) 
















In addition to rules for writing, perhaps someone needs to write up some rules for civilized book publishing/selling.  There's a war taking place in the publishing industry, which of course means that there have been plenty of casualties.

WRITER LIFE PINTEREST BOARD


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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

WHY I WRITE WHAT I WRITE


I see a great deal of discussion about Young Adult literature nowadays. The fan base for this genre appears to be larger than ever. I'm not sure if teens are doing the majority of reading and talking about it though. They're not the ones I see discussing it on Twitter and elsewhere in the World Wide Web. I assume teens continue to be the target audience for YA lit, but they certainly are not alone in appreciating it. This observation along with the following tweet gave me pause for thought which I proceeded to document.


RT @JustineLavaworm I am critical of how near monolithically white & straight & middle class (if not upper class) YA is.

My debut novel Patches of Grey focuses largely on the lives of teens but I can't say it quite qualifies as YA. Had I known how big the genre would blow up…

I probably wouldn't have changed a thing. As a teen I read books intended for adults. As a writer I write for adults, including mature teens.

To date I haven't made any of my characters vampires or zombies or wizards. I don't rule anything out for the future but I doubt you'll ever spot me on that crowded bandwagon.

I didn't think about the sparsity of teen/young characters of color in fiction when I sat down to compose Patches of Grey. I wrote about such people because that's what I knew, not to fill a void.

Perhaps in the future I'll write more strategically because that's good for the wallet & I now have a family/mortgage/other grown stuff.

Then again, I may always say "F it" and write what's in my heart/gut/mind. If it turns out to be trendy, great! If not, so be it. Usually if you write what you need to say, and do it well, you'll find people it seems to have been written specifically for.

Some write for an audience, others write for themselves. I write for myself, & I happen to be an avid reader, so I end up writing for unknown readers as well.

When I'm done editing my second novel I plan to move on to a series of kid books. Not sure how naturally it will come to me but will give best shot.

With the planned children’s books I'm well aware in advance that there is an under-served POC market out there to be tapped. I'll write for my daughter. If she can inspire me to be a better person surely she can also inspire me to be a better writer.

So long as you write about issues & for people that are important to you, your work will have integrity. That's a major goal for me.

If you've ever read my prose you've read about subjects I am legitimately interested in, not something scribbled for a quick buck or web hits.

Just as my main training for writing novels was reading a ton of novels, my training for the planned kid books has been reading a whole lot of them. I read for myself because I love intelligent fiction and read to my daughter because that’s what a parent should do. The fact that reading for pleasure has also turned out to be research for my writing is primarily a happy accident.

I happen to be married to a fantastic illustrator (an example of her work is up above), which is pretty darn convenient for a first time children’s book author.

My second novel Matters of Convenience is strictly grown folk stuff. My synopsis of it is: it's a love rectangle. Quite proud of the brevity for it doesn’t come naturally to me. Love square would also work geometrically, but I think love rectangle has a better ring to it. Besides, all sides are rarely equal in love and war.






Author Spotlight Q&A

As always, Happy Reading!


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Thursday, January 20, 2011

What do YOU read?











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The following posting was originally written as consecutive tweets on Twitter. I routinely see interesting observations and links to informative articles about the world of book publishing when I'm on there, but I also find plenty that troubles me. The latter is what inspired this series of mini soundbites bemoaning what publishers are opting to print, which of course is prompted first and foremost by what people are choosing to read. Once done with school and no longer in possession of a required reading list, we're on our own to decide what to fill our heads with. I like a little brain candy sometimes as much as the next person, but as we were warned as children, if you consume too much sugar while neglecting fruits and vegetables and other stuff critical for your development, inevitably important things will start to rot.




In recent days, understandably, I’ve seen various sarcastic shots taken over the fact that reality star Snooki has a Best Selling book out. I joined in too, remarking on my sobering suspicion that there’s likely more I can relate to in her book, regardless of what percentage of the writing she actually contributed to it, than the various vampire novels pubbed seemingly hourly.





Those following my tweet of thought probably think I have a major problem with vampire fiction. My sister, for example. But that’s not the case. I believe ALL topics are fair game for literary examination.




In the vampire milieu I’ve enjoyed 2-3 Anne Rice titles & The Historian. Fine reading indeed.





What I take issue with is formulaic writing, cookie cutter books churned out like so many near identical widgets on an assembly line.




The appeal of such books to anyone over the age of 10 continues to elude me. At some point a mature person should demand more bang for their buck, no?




Some people crave a particular genre. Okay, c’est la vie. They don’t know what they’re missing by refusing to be more adventurous but...




Hopefully those who exclusively plunder a single category within a particular genre at least try to find whatever diversity may exist there.




But at what point is there simply nothing new to say about how cool vampires are? Surely the possibilities have been exhausted by now.




I can only conclude there are people so anti brain use that they basically read the same book over & over, the next version of it already pre-ordered.




Obviously those who churn this stuff out are out to make a buck, plain & simple. They require & expect no comparison to Faulkner.




I’m cool with capitalism & what it yields. Some enter the medical field to save lives, some for $. Some enter the law profession to fight for justice, some for $. Writing is no different.




There are authors who hope that their books will be assigned to your great great grandkids in school one day, others who are simply looking to make quick cash.




I have no beef with those who write from the wallet rather than heart. Where there is demand, someone will always take advantage & supply.




I suppose this means I have a problem with readers so unimaginative that they refuse to digest any more than one flavor of book. This practice simply astounds me. Could you eat the same thing everyday? Watch the same movie & nothing but? Listen to the same song to the exclusion of all others? Surely this would become maddening.




If nobody was affected by such singleness of purpose, no harm done I suppose. But there is an effect from such mindsets. Fresh, bold books by legitimately talented writers do not see the light of day because shelf space in what bookstores are still left standing is taken up by the 30th title in some insipid series.




So I funnel my frustration toward those who know not what they do, even though I firmly believe in freedom of choice, which includes the right to make bad choices.




I suppose I’m left with no option but to be peeved at God. Hopefully HE/SHE reads my tweets or this blog.




What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you wholeheartedly agree or vehemently oppose my opinion? Have at it. This space is very lonely without reader feedback.




If I've offended anyone for any reason, most likely I meant to. Sorry about that. This space is meant to express the truth as I see it, not to conform. Hope that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends.


~


~


Here's my reading list: past, present & future. What do YOU read?





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Monday, April 19, 2010

Writer Defined


























This morning I happened upon the blog of paranormal author Jo Lynne Valerie. She posed some interesting questions that I felt compelled to answer about why someone is defined as a writer, by themself as well as by others. I liked a response that came after my own in which the person wrote that one can be able to dance reasonably well without being considered a dancer, or sing pleasantly enough without being considered a singer, so surely not everyone who has written should be considered a writer. Now everyone dances and sings and writes, but when it comes to the latter while everyone does scribble thank you notes and emails and shopping lists, surely not everyone has it in them to write a book. Writing an entire book (I'm not referring to a ten page children's book here but a text with some heft to it) is most definitely an accomplishment, even it the thing happens to be atrocious. That's why people will congratulate you even though they haven't read it and have no idea if it's coherent, just as someone will congratulate a woman for giving birth even if she hasn't parented yet and they have no idea if she'll be any good at it. The initial congratulations is earned by the act of labor. Writing a book, writing a readable book, and writing a good book are three very different achievements indeed. If you only manage to pull off the first task, it's still more than many who think of themselves as having writing talent manage to do. In short, you can write without talent and you can be talented without writing. And unfortunately, you can also write with talent without being read by very many. Below is what I wrote in response to her query.


* * * * *

I suppose I hold a distinction in my mind between "writers" and "those who have written books". Yet I don't have a hard and fast definition of where the line is to be drawn. As one with an old school mindset about the art and business of writing my impulse is to say that those who do it primarily with monetary gain in mind, who would quickly abandon it if something less taxing and more lucrative was stumbled upon, are not true writers. Writers are artists who create because they must, right? Whether or not they find an audience and make a profit is beside the point. They tell their stories because the alternative is implosion, then move on to the next one. Surely that's why Hemingway and Faulkner and all the other legends put pen to paper, right? On the other hand, I consider talent (part God given, part very hard work to gain mastery of) as a critical ingredient as well. Truth is, there are some who write because they feel it's a calling who do it so poorly I'd hesitate to call them writers. And there are some who come up with a "gimmick", perhaps latching on to a trendy genre of the moment, who write primarily because they've figured out how to make it pay, and do it well enough (even if with more head than heart) that respect must also be paid. You ask: Is there really a difference between authors who write books geared toward marketability, from those who write a book because they believe in it? I answer: Yes, they are very different types of people. But that aside, if both these types of writers can "bring it" then both types will satisfy their audience, and in the end the reader is both jury and judge. If you've earned the right to call yourself writer, regardless of how and why you earned it, readers will let you know.

It is obviously essential today for writers, particularly those who self publish or are published by small houses, to gain a measure of expertise at marketing and promoting if they want readers to find their books. These are critical components in becoming a "book seller", but have nothing whatsoever to do with being a "writer". Writers today perform multiple tasks because it's hard to grab people's attention with so many competing distractions out there. It's essential to wear the hat of both writer and book seller if you want to move units. These tasks are related to each other, but are not one and the same. A writer who doesn't sell much because he/she doesn't market well is still a writer. And an author who does sell many copies because he/she plays the game well does not automatically qualify as a talented artist on account of this. Some are merely effective salespeople and the product they're hawking just happens to be a book.

* * * * *

If you have read my prose, a short story or perhaps one of my novels or my children's book, yet have yet to meet me in person, it's because I fall under the category of one who defines himself as a writer by the writing he has done, not by the strength of advertising campaign. You probably have not seen me at a book festival or heard me at a bookstore reading, though I have dabbled a little. Chances are that even if you actually want it, you don't have my autograph. The extent of my PR blitz to date has been confined to the infinite internet. Slowly but surely I am planning to change that, to get out there and meet with potential readers, press the flesh like someone running for office. I'm up for kissing baby foreheads if that's what it takes to make a sale, not because of the money, but because a major reason I write is for it to be read. My stories are not meant to be strictly for me. Even if the writing of some of my tales has served a self therapeutic purpose, my desire is always for the eyes of others to fall upon my prose. If the mountain won't come to me, then I'll head off to the mountain. Public speaking is not a strength of mine, but life is too short not to take your best shot at it. If you see me at a book signing someday and I seem at all nervous, a big smile and a book purchase will go a long way.


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Thursday, April 1, 2010

Advice for Aspiring Authors







So much of what I have had to say lately, particularly that expressed in writing, initially comes out one tweet at a time. I'd consider this a bad thing except that Twitter's constraint of 140 characters and the fact that I sometimes receive tangible proof that people are paying attention has turned out to be liberating. Who knew I had so much to say? Well, truth is, I did. But now others, mostly strangers, do as well. An actual audience. Nothing wrong with that to go along with my slowly growing list of blog followers. For my latest commentary, this one about the writing process, see below. Responses always have been and always will be greatly appreciated, especially now that I've adjusted my blog settings to keep out the Spam. So please share your own thoughts after perusing mine. Happy reading, and for the aspiring authors who happen upon this entry, happy writing as well.



Since joining Twitter I've read countless tweets joining forces with countless snippets of advice elsewhere in cyberspace giving authors tips ranging from the rather obvious to the pretty useful.

These innumerable tips for authors have regarded how to query, to submit, to market, to promote, to sell, etc. Tons of information out there to be sopped up like gravy with a biscuit.

Whether you're self pubbed, pubbed by small publisher, or a minor author pubbed by a big publisher scarcely aware of your existence, much of the promotional work is in authors' hands nowadays.

Literary agents want authors to do their work for them so pitches to editors are made easy. Editors want authors to do their work for them so pitches to marketing department are made easy. Marketing department wants authors to do their work for them so pitches to public are made easy. Quite a lot heaped on plate of author who thought his/her work was done by completing their book. Turns out the work has just begun.

Some authors are better at promotion than others. Some have more of a temperament for it or are more industrious or more tech savvy or have more time to dedicate than others. All must play the game if they wish to sell much more than a handful of copies.

Who better to sell your sweat/blood/tears than you? Writers are no longer allowed to simply be writers. They must now be PR people as well. C'est la vie in the world of publishing 21st century style.

So it's understandable why there are so many out there advising authors on how to better promote themselves. But how about advising the aspiring on how to write?

There are all sorts of writing courses out there, but on the most basic level one can't be taught how to be a writer. Simply put pen to paper and let your words flow. Your brain and heart and imagination will determine which ones come out in what order.

As a child I decided I wanted to be a writer. As a young man I decided to write a novel. Conceived plot & characters in my head. Now what?

I knew I could get plenty of words on paper via stream of consciousness. The sum total would make a story, but would it really be a novel?

I decided this technique would not result in a real novel. It would be too raw, without the shape readers need. What I required was a template to work from.

There is no better teacher of becoming a novelist than the completed novels of others, preferably good ones of course. One problem though. Every book I had read prior to attempting to write my own was read strictly for pleasure, or for school assignment that then became pleasure.

I needed to study a novel, really study it. How do I make dialogue authentic so it doesn't read as something written, but rather, something said?

People rarely make speeches. They talk over each other, they umm and ahh. They have trouble coming up with right word sometimes or lose their train of thought in the middle of expressing it.

People think as they speak, about what they're saying, about what they want to avoid saying, about other things related & unrelated to the words coming from their mouths. They think a million times faster than they speak. Many thoughts can pass through a character’s mind in the time it takes to speak a line or two.

Convincing dialogue takes some time to master, coming more naturally to some writers than others. An author cannot stop at just mastering dialogue though. Readers need to see the characters & their surroundings. If you want to focus primarily on dialogue, write a play.

The reader needs to see what the characters observe & what the characters miss. Such description & dialogue need to seamlessly intertwine. Some do the describing in more artsy fashion than others, but whatever your style it cannot be neglected.

When I decided to make a serious attempt at writing a novel I picked a published one up to serve as instruction manual. The novel I used as my "instruction manual" was Ordinary People by Judith Guest. Not a bad choice at all.

Patches of Grey is actually the second novel I started writing. I made my first foolishly brave attempt when in high school. Surrendered a few chapters in but wrote enough (probably quite badly) to know I had a full book in me someday.

My boss at the first job I got after graduating college was a copywriter. When I told him of my literary aspirations he asked how many pages I could write in a day. Ten was my confident reply. How long would you say the average novel is, he asked next. 300 pages I supposed. Write one book per month then, he said. Easier said than done, that’s for sure, but his point was effectively made. You want to write…write.


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Thursday, July 2, 2009

Interview with Urban Reviews


Urban Reviews: Tell our readers about Patches of Grey.
Roy L. Pickering, Jr.: Patches of Grey tells the story of a struggling African-American family. It is set in the Bronx, NY in a time not too long ago, but pre-dating the “rise of Obama”. Its narrative focus alternates among members of the Johnson family with primary focus on the eldest child Tony, a high school senior embarking on the first great love affair of his life. Tony has a contentious relationship with his father in part because the girl he has fallen for is white, in part due to collegiate ambitions and a color blind mindset that do not mesh with his father’s prejudiced outlook, and largely because their many differences in perspective are accompanied by similarly willful temperaments. Over the course of a tumultuous year Tony's brother is entangled in gang culture; the chastity of their sister is tested; and their mother shoulders the load of marriage to a man drowning his disappointment one drink at a time. When things fall apart, their last hope is that the blood they share will be strong enough to hold them together.


Urban Reviews: How did you come up with the story for this novel?
Roy L. Pickering, Jr.: Inspiration by definition is basically a mystery. My goal writing a first novel was to write what I knew, and as a young man who was not especially well traveled, I can’t say I knew all that much. But I knew about family. I knew about love. I knew about struggling to define yourself in a manner that contradicted what many others expected of you. I knew about being judged at a glance rather than by the content of my character. I knew how people spoke to each other and what they communicated through silences. These were my experiences, so I concocted a story that allowed me to utilize my awareness of the ways of the world along with my self-awareness rather than attempting to re-invent the wheel. The remainder of the process was manufacturing inventions and lies to reveal my tale. What is fiction after all if not the telling of lies to uncover truths?


Urban Reviews: When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Roy L. Pickering, Jr.: I’ve been a voracious reader since first learning as a grade school boy how to decipher the patterns of letters that make up words. The first full blown novels I read were “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne. I was amazed by the affect words on page could have, the places they could take me, and decided that I would attempt to one day dazzle and delight readers with my own words. Somewhat surprisingly the Verne books did not make me a genre specific fan. I did not proceed to strictly devour fantastical sci-fi stories. Instead I became a devotee to the power of books in general, and over the following years my preference for literary fiction developed.







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Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Writing, Tennis, & Aging like a fine wine







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My fiction and sports writing are typically intended for separate audiences. But since I have a passion both for athletic games and for the telling of stories, I have found opportunity to merge them on occasion. In the past I have incorporated my appreciation of basketball and boxing as major themes in short stories. I also penned a short story that focuses on a tennis match. Who knows? Perhaps I can do for tennis what Ernest Hemingway did for bull fighting.

Three of my idols are pictured above. Hemingway's succinct pen strokes were brilliantly effective in telling his stories, much as Serena Williams' mastery with a tennis racquet puts her multiple levels beyond the reach of her peers and Roger Federer similarly defies the aging process when working the various angles of a court.

I took up the sport of tennis far too late to dare dream of elite status. Yet I stubbornly persist in trying to become as good and consistent a player as possible. My daughter has already mastered the Serena Williams grunt and fist pump so I'm hoping to be as good at coaching and inspiring as Serena's father Richard. As for me writing with the skill of Mr. Hemingway, I haven't given up on that dream yet. Unlike tennis and sports in general, entering my 40's does not place me beyond my prime and incapable of progressing to top ten territory. When it comes to writing I'd like to think that I'm just beginning to hit my stride, with plenty of literary aces left to serve.

- Roy L. Pickering Jr.
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