Seven Deadly Sins

We writers are a twitchy lot, and when we are away from our computers and into the society of people who are bemused, intrigued and largely ignorant about we do, we get asked a lot of questions. So in the interest of keeping harmony, I’m going to offer some suggestions of statements to avoid when speaking to a writer along with their passing thoughts.

1. What do you write?

“I wrote for periodicals but now it’s primarily articles, web and online content. I also write fiction.”

This is where they stare at me dumbfounded completely lost for words and end up more confused about what I do than when I first started talking.

2. What are you working on?

I don’t want to talk about it. I think my new manuscript is good, and if or when I decide to speak (which is not my style until it is finished) and give you a brief summary, you’re likely to say: That’s interesting. Then I’ll spend a week wondering why you said interesting instead of great. Should I start over?

3. When is your book coming out?

I don’t know. If I knew, I’d say so, right up front. I’d walk right up to you and hand you bookmarks and buttons and talk all about it. I wouldn’t be trying to keep it a secret. So if I don’t say anything, it means there’s nothing to say.

4. I was just reading this really bad book and thought of you. You don’t write any worse than she does. Why don’t you have a series?

I need to get out of here!  

5. Would you read my manuscript?

Have you ever heard time is money? Listen up, get your wallet out!  You wouldn’t ask a doctor to give you a free medical procedure, would you? Aside from the fact that it would take me about ten hours, which I don’t have, if I read your manuscript I would feel like I should come up with constructive advice, in order to be helpful. Every time I give someone constructive advice, they wind up giving me infinite explanations (as if I didn’t know what they meant) or getting hurt and never talk to me again. This doesn’t happen in the classes I teach, so all I can figure is that people who expect you to do something for nothing have different expectations than people who are serious and are willing to pay to study the craft of writing.

6. Have you considered self-publishing?

Everyone considers self-publishing because it’s all over the place. People who self-publish pay a large chunk of money in order to produce a book that very few people will read. I would rather be paid for that honor.

7. Is your book something I would know?

How the heck do I know what you read? I’ve never had an interest in what everyone reads or what Oprah endorses.  My mind doesn’t work that way. 

So what should you say to a writer in a social situation? I would stick with the tried and true: politics and religion.

Silence is Golden

After waiting three months from the time I first learned about the film The Artist  I got around to seeing it this week.  French director Michel Hazanavicius has fashioned a wonderful period piece, set in the late 1920s, filmed in black and white.  Drama, comedy, and romance are intertwined in this gorgeously photographed and brilliantly directed film with a soaring score that is ideally suited to the material.  

The 1920’s era is beautifully recreated as is the aura of the Golden Age of Hollywood; that I felt like I stepped back in time.  Had I been in an old revival movie house instead of the bland box multiplex where I attended the screening along with an orchestra– I would have been transported.

Jean Dujardin plays George Valentin, a smoldering Rudolph Valentino look-alike who we first meet at a lavish film premiere of his latest silent movie in 1927, basking in the adulation of his audience. One of his fans, a wannabe starlet named Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), through some creative circumstances, breaks into showbiz and her talking pictures take off; as the wave of the future, while Dujardin’s lose favor.

Despite that arc, this film doesn’t have any spoken dialogue– except for a single scene that still has no talking but some sound effects – it’s silent from start to finish with white-on-black title cards.

With only his Jack Russell terrier named Jack (Uggie in real life) Valentin loses his fame and fortune, and spirals down into squalor.  

Of course it’s up to Peppy to save George.  

Dujardin and Bejo are mesmerizing, both as masters of physical comedy with exquisitely expressive faces. The supporting players  are also very good; from the studio boss, to the Chauffeur, and the passive aggressive wife– but if I could cast a vote, it would be for Uggie the dog that steals the show, proving who man’s best friend is.

It’s a very simple storyline; still the film is charming.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8K9AZcSQJE

Lost Translation

Language can be tough to master. Today I found a list of English words that Russian multilingual novelist Nabokov (the author of Lolita en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lolita) reportedly found difficult to pronounce. He used diacritical marks to help him remember which syllable to stress.

In high school, I learned French from a native speaker.  In college, I had two French professors; one spoke with a British accent, another was Belgian who tried to sound American.  I suppose it reflected where they had done their graduate studies. All this made for an entertaining mix of regional dialects with foreign accents. So when I moved to Europe, I was never entirely sure how to pronounce certain words, words I came across mostly by listening to Radio France International and Canal Plus. Then there were the baffling exceptions, words which didn’t sound at all the way they were pronounced. But eventually, my ear grew accustomed to the nasal sounds of Paris French. Then I arrived in New York and went to film screenings at the French Institute Alliance Française http://www.fiaf.org.  After the movie a discussion would take place in French.  And intoned by a native New Yorker they had such a hard edge to them. I dared not speak! I never compiled a list —but now know had I implemented the Nabokov method I would have comprehended more and been less lost.  

What about you? Ever learned another language and been utterly confused ?

Confrontation is not a dirty word

Last Saturday I was on the phone with an old-timer. He verbally bashed the newspaper I use to work for, telling me how it had gotten into the hands of the wrong people altering its political slant. Then he went on to say how newspapers were convenient, something that we had to have, current events that were transportable. Did I mention he was an old-timer? But I went on to tell him how the mainstream news media is hemorrhaging and predicted the death of journalism, at least as we've known it, will fade completely in another 2-3 years. But take heart, the free press is alive and well in small towns across America, thanks to the editors of thousands of weeklies who, for very little money and a fair amount of aggravation, keep telling it like it is. Sometimes they tell it gently, in code only the locals understand. After all, they have to live there too. But they also tell it with courage, and stand up to powerful bullies, from thugs to corrupt politicians.

Of course, most of these newspapers are not uncovering major scandals on a regular basis. That's not what keeps them pumping out editions; it's the steady stream of news that readers can only get from that publication - the births, deaths, crimes, sports and local shenanigans that only matter to the 5,000 or so souls in their circulation area. It's more than a little ironic that small-town papers have been thriving by practicing what the mainstream media are now preaching. "Citizen Journalism," – this is one of the latest buzzwords of the profession. But the concepts, without the fancy names, have been around for ages in small-town newspapers.
(View the other LL)



You may be wondering about the Internet threat? Many of these small-town editors have learned a lesson from watching their big-city counterparts: Don't give it away. Many weeklies, charge for their Web content, and, because readers can't get that news anywhere else, they're willing to pay.

I wouldn't be so bold as to predict their future, not in a media landscape that is constantly shifting. But it's refreshing to remember a different kind of newspaper, one that lives in the hearts of weekly newspaper editors and reporters who keep churning out news for the corniest of reasons-because their readers depend on it.

I am deeply interested in the progress and elevation of journalism, having spent my life in that profession, regarding it as a noble profession and one of unequaled importance for its influence upon the minds and morals of the people.

Joseph Pulitzer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Pulitzer

Entirely Novel

I'm often asked about the publishing process.  So I thought I’d clue you in dear writer on what you need to know before you send your work out.

   

1. Do your homework. Know who you are submitting your work to.  Request guidelines, sample copies, editorial calendars and/or catalogs. 

2. Don't send a short story to a magazine that accepts only nonfiction. Don't send a historical novel to an agent who handles everything but historical novels. 

3.Do submit neatly typed, error-free letters and manuscripts.
4. Don't call in a few days to ask the editor or agent if he or she received your manuscript. 

5. Do learn the jargon. For example, know the difference between a multiple submission and a simultaneous submission.    
6. Don't assume an agent or editor will make allowances for your grammar mistakes, typos or smudgy printer.  They won't. 

7. Do send your work to reputable publishing houses and literary agencies. Know the scams and what to avoid. 
8. Don't make costly mistakes, such as calling your work a fictional novel. All novels are fiction.  Redundancy shows your amateur status. 

9. Don't pay reading fees or jump for your credit card if you are asked for money.  There are sharks out there.

10.Don't plaster the copyright symbol all over your manuscript. Your work is already automatically copyrighted. Agents and editors know that; your copyright sign will  again notify them of your amateur status.

11.Do show from your correspondence or phone conversations that you are an agreeable, flexible person. Agents take personality into account when deciding whom to represent. An agent/client relationship can last a long time. No one wants to work with someone who is unpleasant. 

12. Don't burn any bridges. No matter how frustrated or angry you are, it will not do you any good to vent or write nasty emails or publish remarks on a blog. The publishing world is smaller than you think. You don't want to brand yourself as “difficult."

Stalling

Almost a week has lapsed and I hear the seeds sprouting. Little grumbles at first, then a full complaint. Write something! How am I convinced of this proclivity? I keep a journal. Faithfully, each day I record the happenings of the night before and the previous day. Once entered, pen down, I re-read events of a year ago.

Then it builds. As the pages turn throughout the year, I witness my own mental packing up. Then, sure enough, after the first itch, comes the inevitable leave-taking. I am perusing online sales, taking the dog out for a walk, stowing my yoga mat away,  emptying the gym bag, and cleaning out closets.

You might think this sequence of orderly events would lower my creativity, make me angry at myself for putting my house and body in order and for making excuses.  Au contraire. I'm proud that I know when I’m slacking. Certainly, others may scold my example of imperfection. But I counter and praise my willingness to coming closer at jumping in.

As I might expect, eyes may roll as I fashion myself a hero rather than a gadfly. No matter. As long as I can convince myself that each new experience will bring me something new from which to gather material. And so, life goes on. But for now, you'll have to excuse me. PBS Masterpiece Theatre (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey/) awaits with the much anticipated season 2 of Downton Abbey.

Rural England

Over the holidays like most I went to the movies.  Movies about horses range from the competitive race horse sagas like Seabiscuit to the coming-of-age tear-jerkers like National Velvet to companionship tales like The Black Stallion.  But War Horse doesn't really fit into any of these genres. It seems to mimic the basic storyline of Black Beauty in that it follows the interaction of a horse with a number of different people, but it focuses on the lives of those people more than the life of the horse. It is as though the horse is the window through which the audience is able to see the struggles, tragedies and triumphs of these people. Yet that window, being a living being, has perspectives, feelings, fears, and affections that are reflected as well. It is as though the horse is the narrator, relating much of the story through his eyes, and this duality is what makes War Horse distinctive.

Not only is War Horse is a wonderful movie, beautifully shot with moving music; the kind that you feel in your chest, but it’s a melodrama, a war film, an allegory, a history lesson, an epic and best of all a family film that will remind you of the power in loving an animal.