I'm amazed at how much fun I'm having writing fiction.
Longtime readers of this blog (grandma) will recall that I often whine about the difficulties of writing. I've likened it to digging ditches. I've written at least a half dozen posts about how I have to trick myself into writing everyday.
But since I've started this book, I can't wait to get back to it each morning. And when I'm at it, I stay at it. And sometimes I even come back to it in the afternoon, which I almost never did before.
Plus, when I'm not writing, I'm thinking about it. Playing around ideas. Jotting notes down in my journal.
Why did I put this off for so long?
(I've got 19 pages written so far. About a tenth of the way through, I figure.)
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
freedom
Earlier this week, I downloaded Freedom and I've been using it every day since. It disables your internet connection for however long you specify. Great writing tool. Today I set it for three hours.
One of the toughest tasks of a writer is keeping your butt in the chair -- or at least keeping your eyes on whatever it is you're writing. Whenever I'm writing and I hit a spot where I'm not quite sure what I want to write next, or if I've got a complex thought I can't figure out how to word, I find myself reaching for the mouse to see what's happening online.
Invariably, nothing is happening online -- at least not anything that can't wait for me to finish writing. But still I go looking for it.
The temptation to do so is so strong that I've had to go to extremes to avoid it. In times past when I've had particularly difficult passages to write, I've escaped to small towns where there's no Internets to speak of, or to a Motel 6 off I-435.
But now, with Freedom, I can deprive myself in the comfort of my own home.
One of the toughest tasks of a writer is keeping your butt in the chair -- or at least keeping your eyes on whatever it is you're writing. Whenever I'm writing and I hit a spot where I'm not quite sure what I want to write next, or if I've got a complex thought I can't figure out how to word, I find myself reaching for the mouse to see what's happening online.
Invariably, nothing is happening online -- at least not anything that can't wait for me to finish writing. But still I go looking for it.
The temptation to do so is so strong that I've had to go to extremes to avoid it. In times past when I've had particularly difficult passages to write, I've escaped to small towns where there's no Internets to speak of, or to a Motel 6 off I-435.
But now, with Freedom, I can deprive myself in the comfort of my own home.
Monday, November 02, 2009
art of fiction
A couple weeks ago, I grabbed John Gardner's The Art of Fiction off of Allie's shelf and started reading. It turned out to be just the thing I needed to get me started writing fiction.
I've wanted to write fiction for years. But whenever I try to start, my mind locks up. I become overwhelmed by the immensity of the task ahead of me. Fiction offers so much freedom that it's stifling.
Nonfiction, on the other hand, has always seemed easier to break down into manageable steps. You just collect your info, lay it out in front of you and write your way through it.
Gardner describes novel writing roughly the same way. A novel is just a collection of polished scenes that connect and build on one another.
I found this helpful. I sat down the next day and I wrote a very short scene. Not much happened in it. But it was a scene.
The next day I wrote another. This morning I finished up one more. I've got the next two scenes roughly planned.
That said, I'm not sure I would recommend Gardner's book. He's kind of arrogant, and he goes off on a lot of unnecessary rants about his contemporaries.
I've wanted to write fiction for years. But whenever I try to start, my mind locks up. I become overwhelmed by the immensity of the task ahead of me. Fiction offers so much freedom that it's stifling.
Nonfiction, on the other hand, has always seemed easier to break down into manageable steps. You just collect your info, lay it out in front of you and write your way through it.
Gardner describes novel writing roughly the same way. A novel is just a collection of polished scenes that connect and build on one another.
I found this helpful. I sat down the next day and I wrote a very short scene. Not much happened in it. But it was a scene.
The next day I wrote another. This morning I finished up one more. I've got the next two scenes roughly planned.
That said, I'm not sure I would recommend Gardner's book. He's kind of arrogant, and he goes off on a lot of unnecessary rants about his contemporaries.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
frankenblog
I've going to bring this blog back to life one more time.
Partly because someone posted a comment last week asking my to write more here. Partly because my grandma isn't on Facebook. But mostly because I have an idea of what to write about: writing.
For the next several months (or weeks or days or years, however long I can keep it up), I'm going to post about my experiences as I write a novel, teach college composition to freshmen, work my way through a graduate writing program, etc. -- whatever I'm going through that I feel like sharing and writing about.
I'm also going to take the opportunity to look back over my career. I'm going to dust off some of my earliest stories, scan and post them so I can pick them apart to find stuff I did wrong or stuff I accidentally did right. I'm gonna post the proposals that didn't sell, and the one that did--including the early drafts, just to look at how it came together. I might even post some winning proposals my friends have written, if they'll let me. And I'll tell some of the stories about how I got into writing -- the first paying jobs, how I got an agent and published a book, and so on.
Why?
Bunch of reasons. Some good. Some vain. Doesn't really matter. If you want to follow along, by all means, make yourself at home. If you don't, don't.
(Oh yeah, I think I might even wrap up the 80s series with a couple quick posts about my Deadhead days.)
Partly because someone posted a comment last week asking my to write more here. Partly because my grandma isn't on Facebook. But mostly because I have an idea of what to write about: writing.
For the next several months (or weeks or days or years, however long I can keep it up), I'm going to post about my experiences as I write a novel, teach college composition to freshmen, work my way through a graduate writing program, etc. -- whatever I'm going through that I feel like sharing and writing about.
I'm also going to take the opportunity to look back over my career. I'm going to dust off some of my earliest stories, scan and post them so I can pick them apart to find stuff I did wrong or stuff I accidentally did right. I'm gonna post the proposals that didn't sell, and the one that did--including the early drafts, just to look at how it came together. I might even post some winning proposals my friends have written, if they'll let me. And I'll tell some of the stories about how I got into writing -- the first paying jobs, how I got an agent and published a book, and so on.
Why?
Bunch of reasons. Some good. Some vain. Doesn't really matter. If you want to follow along, by all means, make yourself at home. If you don't, don't.
(Oh yeah, I think I might even wrap up the 80s series with a couple quick posts about my Deadhead days.)
Friday, October 30, 2009
time for fiction
Earlier this month I sent a proposal to my agent for a book about my experience in the mayor's office. It's the third proposal I've written about the subject over the last year. When I heard back a couple week's later, the message was pretty much the same: "Great story. Great writing. Not quite enough there to warrant a book."
This time around the angle was to use the Funkhouser story as a device to examine the decline of the American newspaper. I offered the Kansas City Star as a model for the Great American Newspaper and the Funk saga as an example of the paper exerting its power and directly impacting a city. The time frame for the story conveniently includes a period when the Star lost tons of staff and its news coverage became more anemic than ever, causing the news makers themselves to essentially give up on them and start feeding news directly to a dude who lives in his mom's basement.
It's a different take on the much talked about story of the death of the newspaper. It's not about the ideal of the Fourth Estate -- the noble watchdog -- slipping away. It's about what happens when an institution of power loses its strength, what happens to its power.
Great subject and story, no doubt. And I just about had it nailed, except for two obstacles: 1. I'm too close to the story; 2. I couldn't figure out the news hook for two years from now, when the book would come out.
I think I could probably deal with the first one with good old self deprecation and lots of it. But still. It wouldn't be easy. I am too close to the story.
The second one? That's a really tough hurdle. The problem is that things are happening so quickly in the news industry that I can't even begin to suggest what the world's going to look like when the book comes out.
So I'm putting this one on the shelf to revisit as a memoir years from now.
What now?
Young adult fiction!
I've started a novel about a group of nonconformist druggies at a suburban high school who mount a bid for the student body presidency and win.
I'm only a little ways into it and I'm loving the hell out of it. I've got a lot of the plot mapped out, and a solid theme is starting to emerge.
And the timing is perfect. I'm in the graduate writing program at KU. Next semester I'm taking a writing workshop and literature class with Laura Moriarty. Except it's not really a literature class. She's teaching the modern novel as a form. The class is geared toward writers; we'll pick apart acclaimed books and figure out what makes them work.
Also, my recent switch to a new agent better fits the new plan. She spent most of her career as an editor at various publishing houses, most recently FSG (she bought my book), where she edited a couple of my absolutely favorite books (1, 2). About half of her clients are novelists; she's got lots of experience helping writers pull books into shape.
All in all, I'm quite happy on the writing front. I wish I had an advance to live off of. But you can't have it all.
And for those of you hoping for more deep, dark secrets about the Funk and Gloria show, you might get your wish. My article for Salon.com didn't fully exorcise my demons. I'm more than likely going to write a multi-part series for KC Downtowner.
The Salon piece was geared toward a national audience. A lot of the material was familiar to locals. Plus, it was more about all the weirdness and a lot less about the policy stuff. And there's some pretty interesting policy aspects of the story.
Really, the question isn't so much if as when. I was planning to roll it out sometime next year, when the race for mayor heats up. But I might start as early as next month, depending on whether or not some of the rumors that are swirling around City Hall are proven true.
The thing that got me thinking that now is better than later was an email I received this week from someone wanting to know: How did a man who ran on bringing an end to secretive, deal-making, vindictive politics turn into such a secretive, deal-making, vindictive mayor?
I'm not sure I can fully answer those questions -- Mark Funkhouser and Gloria Squitiro are profoundly strange and impossible to fully comprehend, even for those who become very close to them. But I think I can shed some light.
More importantly, I hope, I can show how the whole debacle emerged out of our system of government and the culture that dominates City Hall at this moment in Kansas City's history, and some of the ways the whole ordeal has altered city governance -- most of them for the worse.
So stay tuned.
As for this site, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I got a nice note the other day asking me to post more personal stuff. I haven't been lately because I've been absolutely swamped with school and writing a column.
But one of my favorite sayings is, "If you want something to get done, give it to a busy person."
My experience is that the more I have on my plate, the more I can add to it, and the more I get done.
Maybe it's time to test the limits of that theory.
This time around the angle was to use the Funkhouser story as a device to examine the decline of the American newspaper. I offered the Kansas City Star as a model for the Great American Newspaper and the Funk saga as an example of the paper exerting its power and directly impacting a city. The time frame for the story conveniently includes a period when the Star lost tons of staff and its news coverage became more anemic than ever, causing the news makers themselves to essentially give up on them and start feeding news directly to a dude who lives in his mom's basement.
It's a different take on the much talked about story of the death of the newspaper. It's not about the ideal of the Fourth Estate -- the noble watchdog -- slipping away. It's about what happens when an institution of power loses its strength, what happens to its power.
Great subject and story, no doubt. And I just about had it nailed, except for two obstacles: 1. I'm too close to the story; 2. I couldn't figure out the news hook for two years from now, when the book would come out.
I think I could probably deal with the first one with good old self deprecation and lots of it. But still. It wouldn't be easy. I am too close to the story.
The second one? That's a really tough hurdle. The problem is that things are happening so quickly in the news industry that I can't even begin to suggest what the world's going to look like when the book comes out.
So I'm putting this one on the shelf to revisit as a memoir years from now.
What now?
Young adult fiction!
I've started a novel about a group of nonconformist druggies at a suburban high school who mount a bid for the student body presidency and win.
I'm only a little ways into it and I'm loving the hell out of it. I've got a lot of the plot mapped out, and a solid theme is starting to emerge.
And the timing is perfect. I'm in the graduate writing program at KU. Next semester I'm taking a writing workshop and literature class with Laura Moriarty. Except it's not really a literature class. She's teaching the modern novel as a form. The class is geared toward writers; we'll pick apart acclaimed books and figure out what makes them work.
Also, my recent switch to a new agent better fits the new plan. She spent most of her career as an editor at various publishing houses, most recently FSG (she bought my book), where she edited a couple of my absolutely favorite books (1, 2). About half of her clients are novelists; she's got lots of experience helping writers pull books into shape.
All in all, I'm quite happy on the writing front. I wish I had an advance to live off of. But you can't have it all.
And for those of you hoping for more deep, dark secrets about the Funk and Gloria show, you might get your wish. My article for Salon.com didn't fully exorcise my demons. I'm more than likely going to write a multi-part series for KC Downtowner.
The Salon piece was geared toward a national audience. A lot of the material was familiar to locals. Plus, it was more about all the weirdness and a lot less about the policy stuff. And there's some pretty interesting policy aspects of the story.
Really, the question isn't so much if as when. I was planning to roll it out sometime next year, when the race for mayor heats up. But I might start as early as next month, depending on whether or not some of the rumors that are swirling around City Hall are proven true.
The thing that got me thinking that now is better than later was an email I received this week from someone wanting to know: How did a man who ran on bringing an end to secretive, deal-making, vindictive politics turn into such a secretive, deal-making, vindictive mayor?
I'm not sure I can fully answer those questions -- Mark Funkhouser and Gloria Squitiro are profoundly strange and impossible to fully comprehend, even for those who become very close to them. But I think I can shed some light.
More importantly, I hope, I can show how the whole debacle emerged out of our system of government and the culture that dominates City Hall at this moment in Kansas City's history, and some of the ways the whole ordeal has altered city governance -- most of them for the worse.
So stay tuned.
As for this site, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I got a nice note the other day asking me to post more personal stuff. I haven't been lately because I've been absolutely swamped with school and writing a column.
But one of my favorite sayings is, "If you want something to get done, give it to a busy person."
My experience is that the more I have on my plate, the more I can add to it, and the more I get done.
Maybe it's time to test the limits of that theory.
Monday, September 07, 2009
ethics schmethics
I have a new column at kcdowntowner.com . At issue this week is a $750 political donation made with city funds -- which is against the law. A low-level employee lost her job. But the city's top dog, City Manager Wayne Cauthen, in whose name the donation was made, has faced zero scrutiny. What gives?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
