What I Know about Writing

First person perspective

2012-02-06T00:50:00.000-08:00

I love books written in 1st person [First person, a grammatical person (e.g., "I", "we", "me", "us"), according to Wikipedia.]. Autobiographies, most travel books, and many novels are written as 1st person perspectives. In my mind, the advantages (A) of 1st person outweigh the disadvantages (D).

In 1st person, the writing seems fresh and spontaneous (A), unfiltered through any mind except the narrator's. Of course in fiction, this spontaneity is false, as there is no "first person" except the author, who's making it all up anyway. But in travel writing, first person adds to the reader's experience by making it easy to imagine being the traveler, as the reader feels as if he or she is getting inside the traveler's mind. Paul Theroux is a good example of a travel writer who makes no apparent effort to prevent the reader from living inside his thoughts and actions, be they flattering to Theroux or not.

[Of course, Theroux's "1st person," whom the reader assumes to be Theroux himself, could be a complete fiction; who can say what really goes on in another person's mind? This is a (D) to the reader who wants facts only, or suspects that the narrator's candor is a sham.]

On the (D) side, first person in a novel is strictly limiting. The reader can only understand the plot, setting, mood, theme and writing style as the narrator sees it. If the narrator is lying, or mentally challenged, or emotionally disturbed, then the reader has to play a guessing game to figure out what's really going on.

Told from the perspective of a person with a very low IQ

Imagine Jane Eyre written from the 1st person persepctive of Rochester's wife who lives in the attic.

Another (A) of 1st person is the ability to make an emotional connection to the narrator. The Diary of Anne Frank comes to mind. Anne's feelings about her life resonate within the reader--Anne's secret capivity is strange to most readers, but her falling in love is familiar to almost everyone.

Anne Frank's joyous, youthful beauty touches hearts

The (D) of 1st person, however, is that the reader may not be able to identify with the narrator, making the book dull and difficult to read. Many, many autobiographies suffer from this (D); the person may have had a fascinating life, but his or her inability to reach out to the reader will make the book unreadable. Or the narrator is repulsive to many readers: think of Mein Kampf, written in 1st person by Adolf Hitler.

The dilemma of the (A) and (D) of 1st person is the dilemma of all efforts at communication: the challenge of taking what is in one mind (the writer's) and transferring it to another mind (the reader's). This challenge has existential, psychological philosophical, cultural, phemonemological, gender-related, generational, geographical, social, metaphorical, historical, religious, and linguistic dimensions that are simply magnificent--as Basil Fawlty's psychiatrist guest remarked of Fawlty Towers, "There's enough material here for an entire conference." Or for an entire lifetime.

Basil Henson as Dr. Abbott

Thus do writers fearlessly jump into a vast sea of meaning, possible meaning, pseudo-meaning and misunderstanding. Yet I still like 1st person, for the thrill of burrowing deep inside the psyche of a stranger. Or so it seems.

Blog fever

2012-01-27T00:54:00.000-08:00

I am feverishly writing blog entries, having started a new blog (number 9) and being reenergized by the need to please my reading public.
My blog site tells me how many pageviews each blog has, gives me a graph of viewing activity over time, and tells me how the viewers found my blog (what site they entered from). My Feedjit tells me where some of the viewers are from, geographically.

Although I didn't start writing blogs to build a readership, I find that knowing that my readers are "out there" is very stimulating. When I teach, I can see the students right in front of me, which produces a strong motivation to say something worth listening to. Writing in my blogs is similar, when I realize that someone will want to read what I've written.

So this morning is Blog Fever morning, here in Prague. Please check out my new blog,

http://basicbags.blogspot.com/

for some pictures and information on felting, if you have any interest!

Imaginary Jesus

2012-01-17T02:09:00.000-08:00

I downloaded a free ebook on Amazon last week. It looked like it might be cute. Well.

More than cute, I'd say. Jarda and I are reading it aloud, one chapter at a time. It starts with a fistfight between Jesus and Peter, the apostle, in a hip Portland coffee house. So far we have had some pretty good discussions about the tone (zippy-quick and semi-serious) and setting (cool Portland, where our daughter used to live--we visited and liked it very much).

Here's the Amazon description:

Imaginary Jesus is an hilarious, fast-paced, not-quite-fictional story that’s unlike anything you’ve ever read before. When Matt Mikalatos realizes that his longtime buddy in the robe and sandals isn’t the real Jesus at all, but an imaginary one, he embarks on a mission to find the real thing. On his wild ride through time, space, and Portland, Oregon, he encounters hundreds of other Imaginary Jesuses determined to stand in his way (like Legalistic Jesus, Perpetually Angry Jesus, and Magic 8 Ball Jesus). But Matt won’t stop until he finds the real Jesus—and finally gets an answer to the question that’s haunted him for years. Be warned: Imaginary Jesus may bring you face-to-face with an imposter in your own life.

2012-01-06T12:02:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you have a project that just doesn't come together easily. Our book in progress, 21st Century Christianity, is such a project.

During our 2012 planning meetings, Jarda and I decided to finish the book this year. We first envisioned this book in 2008, and wrote about half of it before realizing that it was not the book we really wanted to write. We put it aside while working on 21st Century Jobs, the book we published in 2009.

on a church in Kolin

I think that the problem with 21st Century Christianity is that the topic is too vast, yet too limited at the same time. We can't come up with a narrative that will lead us into the book. The drafts so far have had these less-than-successful qualities:

1. too factual, too dry, and so data-driven that the book will be outdated by the time we publish it.

2. too opinionated, ending up as a diatribe that doesn't even interest us, let alone anyone else.

3. too general and sweeping, covering centuries of complex history in a few paragraphs, distorting the importance of events.

4. too specific and nit-picky, devolving into minute theological disputes, descriptions and explanations that are boring and irrelevant to the truth of Christianity.

So we are still searching for an approach, a handle, a hook--some way to enter into a reasonable, well-informed discussion about this huge, emotionally-charged topic. Maybe part of the challenge is that we are both long-time committed Christians and therefore not at all objective. Our vision of Christianity is positively biased, not impartial.

Anyway, we're going to try to finish this book by 12/12/12, our 17th wedding anniversary.

Writing in bits and pieces

2011-12-02T00:36:00.000-08:00

I love to read novels, and won't buy one that's fewer than 300 pages long. I also love non-fiction: travel books, biographies and accounts of businesses/institutions/historical events are among my favorites.

But when I write, I prefer to compose in bits and pieces. The 1000-word article is my favorite form of writing. I've been writing newsletters for 26 years, and really enjoy the compressed format. My writing tends to be loose and wandering, so the limits of a two-page newsletter tighten up my writing, reining in my verbosity.

Samples of my newsletters are here

I have 7 blogs, and love this format, too. I use lots of photos and very little text, styling myself as a copywriter.

Praguepies, one of my blogs

Someday I will write long novels. I have written several fiction and non-fiction books already, none longer than 120 pages, with relatively short chapters.

My goal for 2012 as a writer is to write longer pieces that are just as focused and economical in their wording as my short pieces. One book I'm already working on (for the past several years!) is non-fiction, 21st Century Christianity. I also have a couple of novels rumbling around in my head.

Kindle, Kindle, Kindle, 1, 2, 3

2011-11-10T04:07:00.000-08:00

I have gotten very comfortable with my Kindle reader. So far, after 9 months of owning it, I've paid for only one book--99 cents, by mistake. There are enough free books to keep me happy. I read a book every couple of days. With that kind of sampling of books, I can list the three top things that keep me engaged in a book:

1. Interesting setting. I just finished For Time and Eternity, a romance about a young woman who runs away with the Mormons as they trek to Utah. The writing was good, the characters were okay--what hooked me was the setting in Utah as the Mormons drove out the Indians and claimed their own Zion.

2. Decent dialogue. The Velveteen Rabbit, a kid's book, features some lovely conversations between the rabbit and the other toys. I admire authors whose dialogue sounds natural and unforced.

3. A fast-moving plot. Dracula by Bram Stoker has a nice, quick pace. It also has a great setting: Transylvania. The dialogue is pretty stiff, but maybe 19th-century upper-class Brits and vampires really talk that way!

Any of these 3 will keep me clicking the "next" button on my Kindle.

Kentucky history: The Frontiersman's Daughter

2011-10-16T08:24:00.000-07:00

This novel was a freebie on the Kindle website at Amazon. I "bought" it because of my Kentucky background, and didn't expect much as it was billed as a romantic, Christian novel which often means boring!

I was wrong. This was a heart-rending, well-written, fast-paced adventure story that was wrapped in Kentucky history. I loved the book.

From Amazon.com:
Lovely but tough as nails, Lael Click is the daughter of a celebrated frontiersman. Haunted by her father's former captivity with the Shawnee Indians, as well as the secret sins of her family's past, Lael comes of age in the fragile Kentucky settlement her father founded. Though she faces the loss of a childhood love, a dangerous family feud, and the affection of a Shawnee warrior, Lael draws strength from the rugged land she calls home, and from Ma Horn, a distant relative who shows her the healing ways of herbs and roots found in the hills. But the arrival of an outlander doctor threatens her view of the world, God, and herself--and the power of grace and redemption.

This epic novel gives readers a glimpse into the simple yet daring lives of the pioneers who first crossed the Appalachians, all through the courageous eyes of a determined young woman. Laura Frantz's debut novel offers a feast for readers of historical fiction and romance lovers alike.

my failure to write

2011-09-24T21:01:00.000-07:00

I have not written much of anything for more than a month. Excuses include the following:

I was on holiday
I didn't have my computer
I've been busy

Imagine if Dickens, or Shakespeare, or Stephen King used this excuses. Lame! The real reason is that I have been living more than observing and analyzing, which are necessary for me to write. So I am writing again. Starting today.

The Discovery of Slowness and Ars Poetica

2011-08-02T08:26:00.000-07:00

In June, I bought a book at a library book sale for 10 kc (fifty cents) called The Discovery of Slowness by Sten Nadolny.

It's a ficitonalized acccount of the life of John Frankin, an English sailor in the Royal Navy who was in several sea battles, then sailed into the Arctic, looking for the Northwest Passage. Huh? I may have heard of John Franklin, vaguely, and I never heard of Sten Nadolny, who didn't even write in English--he was German, and the book is translated by Ralph Freedman.

But it's a Penguin book, and they are nearly always a safe bet for quality and style, so I plunked down my 10 kc and took the book home. I started reading it and am finding it's a dense, satisfying book. Nadolny paints a picture of Franklin's slow, one-thing-at-a-time, intensely methodical nature by writing as if he, the author, too, is "afflicted" with slowness.

Franklin stutters; he can only avoid stuttering if he pauses between each sentence ( a LONG pause) to allow all the random chattering ideas and memories in his head surrounding that sentence to play themselves silently in his brain. The writing is the same--sentences seem to stand on their own, singular and ominous, making sense only after several paragraphs or pages have been read and thought through.

I've known people who were slow, and often I came to see that their slowness was not a lack of intelligence, but an overabundance of sensory input that needed to be sorted carefully and meticulously so that it didn't overwhelm the person. I have a bit of the quality myself; in very stressful situations everything slows down around me so that I can process the rapid input and react in an appropriate way.

The writing style mimics Franklin's mind. Here's a sample. Franklin is in China, waiting for his next Navy assignment. He's talking to an artist who's been traveling on his ship, painting the wonders of the world.

"I've been painting the wrong pictures. This won't do anymore! One has to paint differently," Westall said in a low voice, with a furrowed forehead. "All I've done is describe everything in exact detail--forms of the earth, plant growth, human figures, exactly as in nature--to be recognized."

"But that's good, isn't it?" John remarked.

"No, it's deceptive. We don't see the world as a botanist who is at the same time an architect, a physician, a geologist, and a ship's captain. Recognizing isn't at all like seeing; the two often don't even agree, and it's a somewhat less effective way of determining what is. A painter shouldn't know; he should only see."

This reminds me of a lovely poem:

Ars Poetica by Archibald Macleish

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit,

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb,

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown --

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds.

*

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs,

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind --

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs.

*

A poem should be equal to
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf.

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea --

A poem should not mean
But be.

Do you have to be bored to write?

2011-07-03T04:07:00.000-07:00

Last night Jarda and I were talkng about writing. We are working on a book, 21st Century Christianity, that's about half-written. Somehow I can't get excited to finish it. Jarda noted that he has to be bored to sit down and write, rather than doing one of the many other, more stimulating things he can do in Prague. Since we haven't been bored at all living in Prague for the last 11 months, we aren't writing.

There's some truth in this. But I know that I won't write until I have to, when either the need to express myself overcomes my inertia or when I have a deadline. This is the appeal of journalism--the pressure of the deadline squeezes writing out of you.

My biggest problem with writing is that it's so much more fun to read than to write. So as long as there's a book anywhere in the house that I haven't read, I'll read before I'll write.

What I need is a boring life in a place with no books, where I have strict deadlines. A cabin in the woods?

Book sale! Read to write better

2011-06-06T23:33:00.000-07:00

The Christian Library of Prague had a sensational book sale last weekend. I bought lots of books, for 10, 25 and 50 koruna each ($.50, 1.50 and 2.50). Books are not cheap here, so this was a great bargain.

At the sale I met one of my friends from church, a Greek student studying dentistry in Prague. Since he's a student, he has very little time to read for fun. When he saw my piles of books, he was impressed! When he asked how many books I read a week, I admitted that I read all the time, because I'm a writer.

It sounds strange, but reading is what makes me a better writer. I absorb the writing styles, use of language, knotty grammatical structures and imagery of other writers. Inside my brain this material is transmuted into ideas and plots, characters and styles, that I then use when I write.

These book sale finds will take me a long way in developing my skills and insights as a writer. Thank you, Christian library!

Too Big to Fail, or Biting the Hand that Feeds You

2011-05-22T02:04:00.000-07:00

I'm reading a book, Too Big to Fail, about the financial crisis on Wall Street in September 2008. The firms that were "too big to fail" (Bear Stearns, Lehman, AIG, Merrill Lynch) did, indeed, fail.

But their complete failure was not allowed by the US Federal government and by other huge Wall Street firms such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.

Why? Because all the firms were so inextricably intertwined through deals, counterdeals, insurance, counterinsurance, derivatives, toxic assets, subprime mortgages and all kinds of arcane financial strategies, that for one to fail would bring all of them down.

The US far-right political view of these partial rescues was that Wall Street was bailed out by the Federal government in an unfair and illegal way. "Main Street" (solid, working-and-middle-class Americans) was contrasted to "Wall Street" (greedy, thieving financial barons); the Bush and Obama administrations were villified for helping to avert or at least mitigate a world-wide financial melt-down.

This is an example of "biting the hand that feeds you." Capitalism is built on the principle that you spread risk by investing your money (your capital) in a variety of businesses, thus avoiding losing it all if one business fails. The beauty of capitalism is that this investment principle makes money available to many businesses that would otherwise not be able to operate--start-ups, small businesses with only a bit of capital, and thriving businesses that need an injection of cash to continue to grow.

Capitalism's prime virtue is that ts spread risk by spreading money--in other words, it's based on "income redistribution"! Those hateful words that sound like Socialism, the far-right's most hated policy!

But think about it--if all the rich people simply held on to their money, how could the economy grow? There must be a ready supply of capital--money--to pay for economic expansion. Spreading the money around is like spreading fertilizer around--it's good for growth!

So those far-right complainers are not capitalists at heart. They are not "real" Americans at all! And they are biting the hand that feeds them as most of them have jobs that depend on their employers being able to access capital when needed. Their employers go to--GASP!!--banks, those "evil" institutions, to get money for their businesses, so that they can pay their workers.

In short--we are all in this together, economically speaking.

The capitalist way of running an economy has produced countries with the most equally-distributed wealth known to history, especially the USA. Pharoahs, sultans and kings may have been fabulously wealthy, but their people didn't share that wealth; they lived in poverty and sickness.

For American citizens to protest the economic principles of capitalism is truly biting the hand that feeds them.

And by the way--if these far-right types are neither capitalists nor socialists, then what are they? People who put their money in a sock under their mattress? What kind of economy would that produce? A kind of Wild-West uncivilized world where everyone has to be armed and willing to shoot to protect their possessions, as there's no money to pay the police/sheriff. I don't want to live in that world!

George Eliot--she could really write!

2011-05-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

Breaking news--George Eliot, English writer and author of Middlemarch and The Mill on the Floss, was a woman, Mary Ann Evans. In her day (1860), it was easier to publish a book if you were a man, or at least appeared to be one.

Evans wrote both fantastic dialogue and lovely lyrical descriptions. Here's a meditation from The Mill on the Floss, the story of stolid Tom and mercurial Maggie, on the memories of our childhood days and how they forever color our view of the world:

"Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth so well if we had not childhood in it,-if it were not the earth where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn's hedgerows; the same redbreasts that we used to call "god's birds," because they did no harm to the precious crops. What novely is worth that sweet monotony where everything is known, and loved because it is known?

The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the capricious hedgerows,-such things as these are the mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all the subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception into love."

Back to basics

2011-04-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

Today I was tutoring one of my Korean students. He wants to take the TOEFL exam and the SAT for admission to a US university, which means he'll be writing timed essays.

We looked at some practice essay prompts, and he wrote his responses. They were imaginative and interesting, but had some grammar, spelling and syntax issues. I felt like an old fire-engine horse that hears the bells in the firehouse. I was energized! I don't know how much my student enjoyed my critique, but I surely enjoyed trying to help him raise his score on the writing section.

Rhetoric

2011-03-26T00:59:00.000-07:00

We had a seminar and graduation ceremony this week for our "Your Next Job" and "Looking Ahead" participants. It was a lot of fun, as we shared in Czech and English what we had learned about ourselves and our careers in the seminars.

One joke, told in Czech, involved rhetoric. I couldn't quite follow it, but everyone who speaks fluent Czech laughed. I imagine that they were making fun of the use of rhetoric by politicians. Czechs love to insult their politicians, who make (as many Czechs believe) empty promises and grand, meaningless statements.

This is, of course, one use of rhetoric, the art of persuasion. Politics, business, education, and religion all are guilty of misusing the power of rhetoric towards their own ends. Good rhetoricians can "carry people away" with their ideas and offerings, causing normally cautious people to agree to things that they later regret.

But is it fair to blame the art of persuasion, invented and perfected by the Greeks, for the people who misuse it? No, it's not fair at all. The power of rhetoric is the power of well-arranged, meaningful words. Mastering rhetoric is a life-long pursuit, worthy of respect.

Would you make fun of triathalon winners because some poor out-of-shape guy couldn't finish the competition? Would you call French cuisine a fake because one shabby restaurant, with an untrained chef, produced poor French food?

Of course not. Rhetoric is a tool; how people use that tool doesn't determine the value of the tool. Rhetoric is art; the level of talent of the artist doesn't determine the value of all art. The more you know about rhetoric, the better you can identify the charlatans of rhetoric. They won't be able to fool you!

My new Kindle

2011-03-05T14:03:00.000-08:00

My son bought me a Kindle for Christmas, but I just picked it up in Florida last week. It's quite the piece of technology. I downloaded about 40 freebies (books, copyrighted or not, written prior to 1923) and have been having a ball reading bits of this and that. I think what I like the best is the way you turn the page--it's a little tab on the side (either side) that "turns the page" forward or back.

That little tab just fascinates me--I want to press it! So I read fast, faster than I usually read a book that has paper pages to turn. My feeling is that reading a Kindle is an entirely different experience than reading a regualr book, but not in a bad way. I'll report again later, when I have some better insights into why I love my Kindle.

Maps

2011-02-21T01:51:00.000-08:00

Old map of Bohemia

Maps are a special kind of writing, combining words and symbols in a graphic way. I love maps!

Just do it

2011-02-18T09:42:00.000-08:00

Of course, Nike beat me to this slogan. But I don't think they'll mind if I tag along with their thought--sometimes the only way to do something is just to do it.

When I write, I have two modes. One is painstaking--I edit as I write. I often write in my head like this, to pass the time on the tram or at the dentist. This is slow, painful and no fun at all--I do it to distract my thoughts from the present moment. The writing produced may be exact and appropriate, but it doesn't exactly sing. Your soul doesn't take flight when you read it.

The other mode is more like journaling, or writing poetry. Teenagers often write like this, pouring their emotions and longings into their words. This writing moves you even when it's ragged and raw.

When I can't get going on a writing task, I switch to mode 2--just do it. You can always refine it later, or scrap it. Just doing it builds fluency and creativity into your writing skills repertoire.

Rhetoric, again

2011-02-15T03:30:00.000-08:00

Repetition is one of the primary tools of rhetoric. Little children know this instinctively; when they learn a new word that they like, they repeat it gleefully. Repetition of sounds is the basis for rhyming poetry. Here are just a few of the many kinds of repetition used by the Greeks in their rhetorical studies.
A good website you may look at is Repititon in rhetoric

Repetiton of sounds:

ALLITERATION is repetition of initial word sounds: silly Sara, Marilyn Monroe, Sylvester Stallone, Coca-Cola, American Airlines, Patek Philippe, and so on.
ASSONANCE is the repetition of vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u,y) in adjacent or nearby words. Mad cat, go home, sweet dreams, General Electric, Toyota Camry, London Town. Sometimes the end sound is also repeated, making simple rhyme: hurry-scurry, fat cat, surround sound, fly high.
CONSONANCE is repetition of consonant sounds in adjacent or nearby words. better butter, little battle, jumpy chimp, Wonder Bread, Cadillac Escalade, and so on.

Although these examples of repetition may sound silly, as if you'd never use them, in truth repetition is very common. Once you look for it, you'll be amazed that you never noticed it before.

Theme in writing

2011-02-09T00:11:00.000-08:00

To complete my original task of delineating the 6 major aspects of writing, today I'll talk about themes.

The word "theme' is not unfamiliar. We go to theme parks, we know that TV shows have theme music and the old-fashioned word for an essay is theme. Decorators have themes (color schemes, seasons of the year) and sermons have themes (sin, redemption).

The freedictionary.com defines theme as follows (note the derivation, from Greek to Latin to Old French to Middle to English to Modern English):
theme (thm)

1. A topic of discourse or discussion. See Synonyms at subject.

2. A subject of artistic representation.

3. An implicit or recurrent idea; a motif: a theme of powerlessness that runs through the diary; a party with a tropical island theme.

4. A short composition assigned to a student as a writing exercise.

5. Music The principal melodic phrase in a composition, especially a melody forming the basis of a set of variations.

6. Linguistics A stem.

7. Linguistics See topic.

tr.v. themed, them·ing, themes

Usage Problem To provide with a particular topic or motif. See Usage Note at themed.

[Middle English teme, theme, from Old French tesme, from Latin thema, from Greek; see dh- in Indo-European roots.]

Here's a poem about a theme:

THEME FOR ENGLISH B

By Langston Hughes

The instructor said,

Go home and write
a page tonight.
And let that page come out of you---
Then, it will be true.

I wonder if it's that simple?
I am twenty-two, colored, born in Winston-Salem.
I went to school there, then Durham, then here
to this college on the hill above Harlem.
I am the only colored student in my class.
The steps from the hill lead down into Harlem
through a park, then I cross St. Nicholas,
Eighth Avenue, Seventh, and I come to the Y,
the Harlem Branch Y, where I take the elevator
up to my room, sit down, and write this page:
It's not easy to know what is true for you or me
at twenty-two, my age. But I guess I'm what
I feel and see and hear, Harlem, I hear you:
hear you, hear me---we two---you, me, talk on this page.
(I hear New York too.) Me---who?
Well, I like to eat, sleep, drink, and be in love.
I like to work, read, learn, and understand life.
I like a pipe for a Christmas present,
or records---Bessie, bop, or Bach.
I guess being colored doesn't make me NOT like
the same things other folks like who are other races.
So will my page be colored that I write?
Being me, it will not be white.
But it will be
a part of you, instructor.
You are white---
yet a part of me, as I am a part of you.
That's American.
Sometimes perhaps you don't want to be a part of me.
Nor do I often want to be a part of you.
But we are, that's true!
As I learn from you,
I guess you learn from me---
although you're older---and white---
and somewhat more free.
This is my page for English B.
1951

Using rhetoric to persuade

2011-02-08T23:57:00.000-08:00

The ancient Greeks invented and perfected the art of rhetoric, which is simply the use of language to persuade. In days past, a classical European-style education included an in-depth study of rhetoric. Three men who used rhetorical devices with confidence and authority are Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Winston Churchill. Their speeches are textbooks of rhetoric.

Rhetorical devices are not difficult to identify. Here is an example of the use of contrast:

"The difficulty lies, not in the new ideas, but in escaping the old ones, which ramify, for those brought up as most of us have been, into every corner of our minds."~John Maynard Keynes, economist.

Keynes contrasts new and old ideas, but with a bit of a twist. Instead of aplauding the power of new ideas, which you might expect from an influential economist whose ideas shaped the study of economics for decades, Keynes points out the immense power of old ideas, which are so imbedded in people's minds that they impede progress. It's a bit of a whine, but said so skillfully that it sinks into the mind through the art of rhetoric.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs!

2011-02-06T01:29:00.000-08:00

I love sign. They are like poetry, in that they compress meaning into a few words or just images. Here are some Prague signs.

Learning language

2011-01-25T08:43:00.000-08:00

My husband and I have on-going debates about the best way to learn a language. He insists that immersion is the only way to learn quickly. He loves to remind me that he learned enough Norwegian in 2 weeks of living in Norway to get a job and enroll at the University of Oslo. He jumped into spoken Norwegian, using listening and speaking skills.

One of my friend Ron's clam pictures.

I, though, am a writer. Even in my native language, English, I prefer to read and write rather than listen and speak. In fact, I consider listening as my least favorite way of communicating. I lose patience quickly when I have to listen more than about 10 minutes at a stretch. I can talk for long periods, if I know a lot about the subject. This is a skill I polished as a teacher, where I had to convey complex information to five classes in a row, every day. I can talk, as my students will testify.

But I vastly prefer to read and write. I like reading just a bit more than writing--reading is relaxing, while writing is work. But a good writing session fills me with a sense of accomplishment that I can't find any other way.

Lenin, Stalin and Hitler

2011-01-07T01:13:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went to Luxor Palace of Books, a large bookstore on Vaclavske namesti. They have a decent selection of books in English, mostly from British publishers. I love to browse here. If someone gave me 100,000 crowns I could spend it in 5 minutes, as I know exactly where the books I want to buy are shelved.

I had about 450 crowns (about$20), the last of my Christmas "mad money." I perused many great books, and eventually bought Lenin, Stalin and Hitler. The author is a Canadian historian who now teaches at FSU in Florida. He's an expert on the political art of public denunciation, which is the main tool of all totalitarian regimes. I started the book and counld barely put it down!

Imagery and symbolism in writing

2011-01-07T00:31:00.000-08:00

As an English teacher and tutor, I am accustomed to hearing groans, sighs and yelps when I talk about imagery and symbolism. To me, finding images and surmising what they symbolize is easy and fun; I guess not everyone thinks that way. It's probably like a mathmatician saying calculus is easy and fun.

anyway...imagery is simply the use of words to convey pictures, sounds, smells, tastes and tactile qualities in a work of fiction. Take this little imagist poem:

so much dependsupon

a red wheelbarrow

glazed with rainwater

beside the whitechickens.

(William Carlos Williams, 1923)

Here you are presented with an image of an everyday scene. The poem is the equivalent, in words, of a picture. The images are not just visual, though: the "rain" conjures up a sound in your mind; the "chickens" conjure up a smell. The water on the wheelbarrow makes your fingertip feel wet. The whole poem conveys a mood of nostalgia and peace; the first line adds a portentious tone, as if something great is about to happen.

Imagists like Williams resisted the additional layer of meaning that symbolism involves, insisting that they simply wanted to create images. But the human mind is made so that it sees symbolism everywhere. Religion, myth, folklore, fairy tales, superstitions, propaganda, painting, literature, advertising, design--all these are based on the connection the mind makes between two things in which one things symbolizes, or stands for, the other.

Symbolism is an economical use of words--you get "two for one." That's way poetry, which can be defined as "compressed meaning," takes advantage of the power of symbols.

Back to basics: characters in writing

2010-12-26T01:41:00.000-08:00

Now that the holidays are winding down, it's time to go back to our original task: to define the 6 major elements of a work of fiction:

1. Setting
2. Mood/tone
3. Characters
4. Plot
5. Imagery & symbolism
6. Theme

Characters are central to any work of fiction, or story. They can be human, animal, or imaginary. Nature is often a character, as is history, religion, a place or the future.

Examples:

1. Human: Jane Austen's creation, Emma

2. Animal: Black Beauty (a wonderful horse)
3. Imaginary: R2D2 or Jabba the Hut

4. Nature: the tornado in The Wizard of Oz

5. History: the Black Plague in The Doomsday Book

6. Religion: Buddhism in Siddhartha

7. A place: Narnia

8. The future: 2001

즐거운 성탄절 보내시고 새해 복 많이 받으세요

2010-12-13T04:44:00.000-08:00

즐거운 성탄절 보내시고 새해 복 많이 받으세요
(jeulgeoun seongtanjeol bonaesigo saehae bok manhi bateusaeyo.

This is "Merry Christmas" in Korean, both in theKorean alphabet and in the Latin alphabet. (btw, I am interested in Korea these days due to my new student Taehyeong, who is Korean. Talking to him has made me realize how very little I know about Korea).

I can't help but wonder what this phrase actually says, since Korea is not a traditionally "Christian" country. "Christmas" means "Christ's Mass," a reference to a church service in the Roman Catholic tradition of Europe. How does something so culture-specific translate into another language with an entirely different development?

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Just for your edification, here's some information about the Korean language, along with the alphabet:

The Korean language is spoken by more than 65 million people living on the peninsula and its outlying islands as well as 5.5 million Koreans living in other parts of the world. The fact that all Koreans speak and write the same language has been a crucial factor in their strong national identity. Modern Korea has several different dialects including the standard one used in Seoul and central areas, but they are similar enough that speakers/listeners do not have trouble understanding each other.

Linguistic and ethnological studies have established that the Korean language belongs to the Ural-Altaic group of Central Asia, which also includes Turkish, Hungarian, Finnish, Mongolian and Japanese.

Han-gul, the Korean alphabet (originally called Hunmin chong-um) was invented in 1446 by a group of scholars under the patronage of King Sejong, and consists of 10 vowels and 14 consonants which are used to form numerous syllabic groupings. Han-gul is easy to learn and write, which has greatly contributed to the high literacy rate of Koreans. (www.asianinfo.org)

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Anyone who has studied a foreign language knows that you can't translate directly from one language to another. Idioms, associated images and sounds, historical connotations, exclusive language (sexist, racist, etc), and a host of other cultural contexts make it quite difficult to say something accurately in any language other than the one in which the saying originates. The best you can do is try to match the intention of the words you translate.

Then how can "merry Christmas" mean much of anything to any non-European person who's not familiar with Christian tradition?

In the USA, neo-evangelical Right-wing Christians bristle with offense when they are wished "Happy Holidays" or some such universal expression of good will. They want to "keep the Christ in Christmas," as if using any other phrase would actually remove Christ from the religious celebration of His birth. Silly, aren't they?

"Happy Holidays" includes Hannukah (with its changing dates), Boxing Day, New Year's Eve, New Year's Day, Kwanza, Epiphany (the Three Kings' Day, though the dates of celebration don't match), and a bunch of days where nobody does much work and kids don't go to school (not to mention all kinds of national holidays I know nothing about--sorry for what I've left out). So "Happy Holidays" can't possibly diminish Christmas, since it's a saying that covers a mixed bag of celebrations.

Back to my original question: "how does Merry Christmas translate into Korean? I think the Korean phrase must mean something like "happy celebrations" or "be nice to each other for 24 hours." That okay by me.

The Black Plague in medieval England, updated

2010-12-02T00:52:00.000-08:00

I just finished a fantastic (literally!) book, a science fiction novel called "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis. The title is a play on the "Domesday Book," a medieval record of daily life in the age when every Christian belonged to the One True Church and the average life expectancy was 37 years.

The premise: A young woman from Oxford time travels from 2052 back to 1328, but the time machine messes up and she ends up in 1348, the year when the Black Death laid waste to England. How will she survive? How will she return to Oxford? Will she find true love?

The book has it all:

1. Broad and deep plot, full of twists and turns, with a satisfying conclusion that pulls it all together.

2. Vivid, idiosyncratic characters, not cardboard-flat stereotypes.

3. Evocative descriptions of the terrain, the villages, the hovels and the manor house (not so much better than a hovel), the animals, the church, and the cow (really!).

4. Great pacing, like a well-made movie. Just when you start to get bored with a scene, Willis takes a new turn, keeping your interest all the way (579 pages).

5. A subtle examination of God and His will for people. It seems that the medieval people thought the Black Plague was the end of the world. Entire villages perished (btw, Bohemia and Poland escaped this plague). The question of "how can a loving God allow such suffering?" is woven into the book.

I wish I could write even one book as powerful, entertaining, informative and memorable as this one. It took Willis 5 years to write, and it took me one week to read it. But I'll be thinking about it for at least 5 years.

Judging a book by its cover.

2010-11-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

I buy books to read myself based on several highly-questionable characteristics:

1. The cover. I figure if the cover doesn't appeal to me, the whole book is not for me. The cover should reflect at least some aspects of the publisher, the author and the story inside. I hate shiny, plasticized covers. I also dislike hard-cover books--they won't stay open when I knit. And I cannot stand the dust jackets that are on some hard-cover books--I take them off right away.

2. The font. I can't stand fonts that are too small, or too large or that have too much white space, or too little white space. I prefer serif fonts to sans-serif fonts. I don't like huge page margins, or tiny scrimped page margins. I don't like shiny paper.

3. The length. If I'm going to the trouble of getting involved with a book, it needs to be at least 275-300 pp. long. Otherwise it's not worth the effort. 500--700 pp is a good length, and anything up to 1200 pp is fine with me, if the book is interesting enough.

4. The smell. Some ink-paper combinations have a strong acid-y smell. I don't like it.

I read the front and back matter--the copyright, author's other works, dedication, afterword, and "about the author." I dip into the book here and there--around page 68, then up to 144, and maybe near the end.

And that's how I buy a book.

Dialogue

2010-11-18T12:46:00.000-08:00

Dialogue is a written account of a conversation, either between characters or in a character's head (inner dialogue). Strictly speaking, a dialogue is between 2 characters (di=two), but usually any conversation is refrred to as dialogue in contemporary literature. Incidentally, when one character speaks, it's a monologue. Dialogue and monologue are terms taken from classical Greek drama.

Most plays are, of course, composed of dialogue, with some stage directions and tips on design. Short stories are usually heavy on dailogue, as there isn't enough "time" in a short story to develop the inner lives of characters or go into detail as to setting,backstory, etc. A novel, however, has the luxury of sufficient "time" to lavish on such frivolities as flashbacks, foreshadowing, character development (through the musings of characters), finely-detailed description of the setting's geographical and historic situation, meandering plot lines, sub-plots and author rants disguised as speeches,newspaper articles and letters.

So the novel is not so dependent on dialogue as are other forms of literature. For example, I just opened my current book, The Bone People by Keri Hulme, at random to page 225. On that page, only about 10% of the words are dialogue.The rest is long chunks of action recounted as narrative (a story) rather than as dialogue, quotes from other works, and descriptions of the characters and their surroundings.

How does dialogue differ from narrative? Like this:

"Joe, I need to go home now," Keri said at last.
"O no, you can stay a bit longer, now, " Joe replied.

as opposed to

As the fire turned to coals, Joe and Keri fell into a deep silence. At last Keri said she needed to go home. Joe tried to get her to stay as bit longer.

The advantages of dialogue are the same as its disadvantages. It must sound authentic, as if the character might say such a thing in such a way. The advantage of well-crafted dialogue is that it adds to the richness of character development and provides a break from narrative, which tends to get boring in long paragraphs. The disadvantage is that dialogue is hard to write. It can easily sound stiff or even comical:

"Joe, I need to go home now," Keri said.
"But, Keri, I was hoping we could play another game of chess. I know I can beat you!"
"No, Joe, it's time for me to go."

Capturing the vocabulary and rhythms of speech is a special skill. When people talk in real life, they often mumble, stammer, use filler words like "umm.." and "well...", make grammatical errors, and generally sound unpolished. Crisp, clever dialogue (think Jane Austen) is just not how the average person talks, And if you try to write as people talk (like Faulkner does in As I Lay Dying), you end up with confusion and lack of clarity. Which just about describes many actual conversations.

I cannot write consistently good dialogue. Before I know it, my characters sound like parodies of themselves. I'd rather write narrative, but contemporary fiction is disdainful of narrative, preferring the scatter-shot dialogue of real life. I don't know how many readers have the patience to read the stories that I like to write.

Mood

2010-11-10T10:59:00.000-08:00

Mood is, to say it simply, the emotional response of the reader to the text (piece of writing). Setting is a huge contributor to mood: contrast a text set in deep winter, in a mountain fortress inhabited by vampires, with a text set in a Tahitian coral reef. Before the writer even begins to explicate the plot or introduce the characters, the reader's mood is being created.

In the picture above of the Vltava River on an Indian summer day, the misty light sets a nostalgic mood of peace and tranquility. The reader's emotions are already active, without knowing what he or she will read.

more on setting

2010-10-31T05:12:00.000-07:00

The Glass Room by Simon Mawer also uses setting as a character. In fact, the glass room of the title is the protagonist (character around which the action circles) of the novel. I bought the book because it's set in Brno, Czechoslovakia, prior to WWII. Brno is slightly disguised, as is the glass house, but most readers will know that the house is based on one designed by Mies van der Rohe, famed German architect, in 1930: the Tugendhat house. In it'sday, it was shockingly modern.

Some of the lit crit I read about this book is, I think, quite superficial, looking at the glass room as a symbol of coldness and of lack of space for hiding the truth. My opinion is that the glass room represents the optimism and internationalism of the First Republic of Czechoslovakia, where newly-free and newly-wealthy Czechs reached out into the world around them for ideas and to develop relationships. The architect in the novel is Viennese, not German, to show the rapprochement between the old empire and the new country.

My interpretation is, by the way, a historicist cirticism, whereas the other interpretations are more psychological. Post-modern theorists would have yet another opinion, which I cannot reveal, as Idon't know what it would be.

Setting in a work of fiction

2010-10-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

In Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez uses setting as a character. He so thoroughly interweaves the setting (time and place) into the fabric of the story that they become inseparable. Before we discuss Marquez, though, first let me define setting.

Setting refers to time and place:
1. Time is the context of the story in terms of days, weeks, months, years, centuries, millenia. In Ulysses by James Joyce, the story spans one day; James Michener's novel Hawaii covers millenia. Often a story moves backward or forward in time, to fill in plot details or foreshadow future events. A common device, called framing, begins and ends at one point in time, while the main story is in a different time. The movie Titanic used framing to begin and end the story.

It can confuse readers if the author jumps around in time.Traditional narratives are usually chronological (events happen consecutively, as in our normal concept of time) to imitate "real life" or increase ease of understanding . Postmodern works often purposely make the time unclear or shifting, to increase the ambiguity (lack of clarity) of the story, indicate the inner mind of a character, or simply make the story mysterious.

2. Place is the physical location of the narrative. Like time, place can be unclear, changing, concrete (named and labeled as a "real place," such as Berlin or Siberia), or imaginary. Stories with a strong sense of place run the risk of alienating readers who have no knowledge of or interest in that particular place.

Obviously time and place are also journalistic tools. It's no surprise that some of the authors most skilled in using time and place are former journalists, as is Marquez. He uses the city of Cartegena, Colombia, the former colonial capital, as both backdrop and metaphor for impossible love in Love in the Time of Cholera.

The melancholy, lost splendor and somnolence of Cartegena provides a tender location for the story of two adolescents who fall into hopeless love but are kept apart by social constrictions, as the city is as lost in dreams as are the lovers. "...the time of cholera" is a past event, within living memory of the characters, but is more importantly, another metaphor for love as an illness that strikes people and leaves them helpless.

When you choose a setting for a story, take into account the emotional and intellectual connotations of the time and place you choose. Most great narratives can't be transferred to another setting without destroying some of the fabric of the story. I know, I know, West Side Story is an update of Romeo and Juliet; Claire Danes and Leo were in an update of Hamlet; but I contend that the stories, when moved from their setting, lost most of their power.

an aside on writing and publishing

2010-10-24T23:52:00.000-07:00

I promised to write about settings in narratives next, but first I want to make an aside.

Ahem...

No one who wants "to write" has an excuse anymore not to write AND get published.

"Published" simply means "made public." In the past, you had to write a novel, let's say, and then find an agent to sell it to a publisher, who then sold it to the public. This was a 2-3 year process, with no guarantee of success. Publishing involved making and distributing a physical book, with ink on paper and bound by covers.
If you sell it to a publisher, you no longer own it. That's a poor choice, in my opinion, unless you're confident that the publisher will sell enough copies to make it worth your while (remember, the author only gets a royalty on each book--maybe 10% of the cover price per book sold. Do the math.)

Kafka had trouble getting published. Would he have blogged?

If you want a physical book, you can either sell your book to a publisher, who assembles it and sends it to a printer (the 2-3 year process, see above) or write and assemble it yourself with publishing software and send it to a printer (a 6-9 month process, see below).

If you self-publish, you incur the initial costs, but every book you print is all yours. If you sell it yourself, you get 100% of the money. If you sell it to/place it in a bookstore, they get a cut (usually 50-60%) but that's still a better deal than selling the book to a publisher, who then has exclusive rights (you are excluded), as you own the book. You can also make your book available as a downloadable E-book, either free or for a fee. You can then sell it yourself on your own website or contract with an e-commerce website to sell it for you, but again there's the question of who owns the book.

OR..

you can go to Google blogs, press "create a blog" and be published in three minutes. I am an enthusiastic blogger. Blogging keeps me alert for situations that I can write about, and keeps me limber as a writer.

So here are some choices for the aspiring writer:
1. toil away for several years to write your magnum opus, then peddle it to a publisher, who will then own it.
2. publish it yourself, either as a pyhsical book or an e-book.
3. create a blog for free.

:>) Easy choice, no?

narratives are stories: narrators

2010-10-22T13:50:00.000-07:00

The most enduring form of writing (except perhaps graffiti) is the narrative. A narrative is a story that's told by someone (the narrator). But--pozor! (Czech for "be careful"--my Czech teacher says this frequently when we answer a question in class). The narrator is not necessarily the author, who is the person(s) who writes down the story, although in fact, the author may not be the person who first told the story (as in the case of a fable or legend) or even the first person to write it down (as in fairy tales and children's Bible stories). In any event, the narrator needs to be identified and distinguished from the other characters by the writer.

So your first task as a writer when writing a narrative is to delineate the narrator. Is the narrator yourself? Very rarely is the author the narrator, except in autobiography (written in 1st person--"I"). A book written in third person ("he, she, it, or a person's name") may not seem to have a narrator. But, since every narrative by definition and by custom must have a narrator, in 3rd person the narrator is implied. Omniscient narrators know everything (thought they may not share all they know). Limited narrators know some things but not everything; unreliable narrators (children, mentally ill people, liars) can't be trusted. You need to decide on your narrator's identity, qualities and characteristics in the initial stages of writing the narrative.

Of course, postmodern writers often ignore everything I just said. But their narratives are usually hard to follow, for a number of reasons, one of which is ambiguity as to the narrator. Multiple narrators are a great way to avoid deciding who the narrator actually is. Faulkner used this device in As I Lay Dying; The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver also employs multiple narrators. Both novels require a nimble mind to keep up with the changing narrators.

The second task of the writer of a narrative is to develop a setting for the story. That's my next post.

Five blogs, six newsletters and a website are not enough

2010-10-21T23:42:00.000-07:00

My mother-in-law Charlotte and me in New York, 1982. Note the reading material in my hand.

All my life I've been a reader. If I got paid for all the books I've read...well you know the rest. Now that I'm in the prime of life, all the reading has bubbled up to the surface as knowledge about writing.

Hence this blog.

It also gives me a good excuse not to work on my novel.