Tag: Writing

What Is Your Novel About?

On By Robert EvenhouseIn My Novel8 Comments

I am having trouble coming up for the synopsis for my book. Funny right? I am the author and even I don’t know what my book is about. It’s not that. It’s just I am having trouble with finding out where my synopsis begins.

My story is one of suppressed histories and nasty secrets that eventually come back to haunt the characters in my book. So, I thought, I should start with the secrets. No, I don’t want to give too much. Should I start with the discovery of the secrets? No, I want that to happen during my novel and not giving it away in its explanation.

I’ve written about twenty drafts of my synopsis. All of them are terrible. I was sitting down in despair because this is a huge part of the proposal. It has to be good enough to capture the agent or reader to spurn them on and create an appetite to continue reading.

My wife eventually said why not start with a quote from my book, something a character says? Or why not start with the beginning of this novel only? I know it seems simple, and it was. Thanks to her I have a great start on description and I will finish it and post it tomorrow.

How about you? Are you having trouble with any particular portion of your proposal? If you’ve written one, what was the most difficult part?

Keep Writing.

Cheers,

Bob

C.S. Lewis, On Stories

On By Robert EvenhouseIn World of Writing2 Comments

I like essays. I like essays by any notable writer because it helps me get into their mind, read what makes them tick, and hear what formed their world and life and why this translated into book form.

C.S. Lewis is one of my favorites because he can write something like this:

My dear Lucy,
I wrote this story for you, but when I began it I had not realised that girls grow quicker than books. As a result you are already too old for fairy tales, and by the time it is printed and bound you will be older still. But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. You can then take it down from some upper shelf, dust it, and tell me what you think of it – C.S. Lewis’ dedication of the Lion Witch and the Wardrobe.

If you have read any of the Chronicles of Narnia, you will know they are nothing like the Disney film travesties. They are wonderfully written. Read them.

I write this post today because of something I read in a collections of essays by Lewis titled On Stories and Other Essays on Literature edited by Walter Hooper. One of these essays is titled “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s To Be Said”.

It goes like this:

In the Author’s mind there bubbles up every now and then the material for a story. For me it invariably begins with mental pictures. This ferment leads to nothing unless it is accompanied with the longing for Form: verse or prose, short story, novel, play or what not. When These two things click you have the Author’s impulse to complete. It is now a thing inside him pawing  to get out. He longs to see that bubbling stuff pouring into form…This nags him all day long and gets in the way of his work and his sleep and his meals. It’s like being in love.

Crazy huh? Does your work get in the way of your meals? Does it keep you up at night? Well, I think it should and so does C.S. Lewis. If, perhaps, it does not, is it worth your time?

Something to ponder for sure.

Keep writing.

Cheers,

Bob

The 47 Endings of Hemingway

On By Robert EvenhouseIn World of Writing2 Comments

It is a myth that writing comes out perfectly the first time. I don’t think I have ever heard of a writer penning a novel, posting it, and mailing or emailing it off to be printed. I discard and rework almost every part of my writing. Most of the time if I do not like a chapter I rewrite it entirely. I have several drafts of all of the chapters in my book. If I were to go as far as forty seven drafts of a single chapter, I might just have to give up. However, that is exactly what Hemingway did, on ONE novel.

A Farewell to Arms is not my favorite novel. In fact, I am not a huge Hemingway fan at all. His writing is brilliant, but his stories are far to bleak for me. Not that I despise bleakness, my novel ends quite awfully, but its hard to take at times when real life is just as dark.

I wanted to link a post to the article about the forty seven endings to remind the writer how much we have to give to finish well. How much the writer must persevere. How much the writer must refine and how much writing is not just about getting the grammar right.

Find sometime to write today.

Cheers,

Bob

J.K. Rowling’s New Novel: The Casual Vacancy

On By Robert EvenhouseIn World of Writing8 Comments

J. K. Rowling merely sold 600 million Harry Potter books. So, you might ask yourself why is she writing another one? Because her audience grew up. The Casual Vacancy is J. K. first novel for adults.

Here’s a description from amazon.com:

When Barry Fairweather dies unexpectedly in his early forties, the little town of Pagford is left in shock. Pagford is, seemingly, an English idyll, with a cobbled market square and an ancient abbey, but what lies behind the pretty façade is a town at war. Rich at war with poor, teenagers at war with their parents, wives at war with their husbands, teachers at war with their pupils…. Pagford is not what it first seems. And the empty seat left by Barry on the town’s council soon becomes the catalyst for the biggest war the town has yet seen. Who will triumph in an election fraught with passion, duplicity and unexpected revelations? Blackly comic, thought-provoking and constantly surprising

the release date is September 27th and I cannot wait!

Cheers,

Bob

Writer’s Bootcamp: Get Into Writing Shape!

On By Robert EvenhouseIn Writing TipsLeave a comment

I don’t know much about John Dufresne. I haven’t read anything he has written. But, as I was at the local library on Monday, I went to the writing reference section and checked out some books on writing including his book The Lie That Tells a Truth. I found such wonderful exercises at the beginning I could not help but share. If you like these, you may want to check out his book which is turning out to be a very inspiring and helpful read.

He begins the first chapter which is titled Getting in Shape by asking you to stop reading. Doesn’t that sound a bit odd? Probably not the greatest way to sell books, leaving out the elementary writer’s rule of hooking the reader and all. Then he lists three writer’s exercises which I recommend doing now. They will help you both tone and discover those specific writing muscles we let turn into flab from time to time.

Remember before you begin, remove all distractions. Phone, family, work, email, internet. Remove yourself from everything and dive into the writer’s bootcamp.

1. Here and Now! This is the first exercise. Write about where you are physically. Your writing room, bed, kitchen, outside, where ever. Write in first person, present tense.  Write about what your senses pick up – see, hear, touch, taste, smell. Use each one to create a sensory “image” of where you are right now.

At the end he leaves a handy little quote worth remembering by W.H. Auden – “The first act of writing is noticing”.

2. Something Missing. Evaluate your life. What is it that you wish you had but do not. It could be a relationship, something you lost perhaps an heirloom, or deeper. For instance, something that keeps you awake at night and causes you to wake up in cold sweats. Write about whatever this is and allow it to take form.

3. Where you were born. Think about where you were born, where you grew up. What was it like? How does it defer from where you live now? If you are still there, write about what has changed since you were young.  Where did everyone work? What was the “talk of the town”. How did people talk, walk, or dress? What were the stories of the town, the old building round the corner, the decrepit ice cream shoppe (and why the sign read shoppe and not shoppe)? Write about your school, the places people did not mention, where the uppity people lived, and the haunting secrets buried in that dilapidated mansion over which grey clouds always seem to linger?

Now you’ve written unbridled for thirty minutes. Well done you’ve effectively lifted writer’s weights!

Check out his book. Buy it, or rent it from your library, give your writer’s self a present today. After all, you’ve earned it.

Cheers,

Bob

How Does A Writer Keep Writing?

On By Robert EvenhouseIn The Writing Process8 Comments

The start of something new can be invigorating. Whether it is a new beginning at college, a marriage or a move, there are moments in life that leave us full of energy and full of joy, thinking we might literally fly or perhaps, merely climb Everest.

I have felt like that many times with my writing too.That I could sit down and work through the night. My novel would be done and I can move onto the next project I have swirling in my mind. I admire Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes for his unquenchable energy and vigor or the characters in Jules Verne’s stories or the pace at which Dickens can lay down a story for the simple fact that their prose can move so ferociously fast and be so strikingly precise that you cannot help but be swept along by their current.

But what happens when your mind is not abuzz with ideas? When you are trying to drill down for water that just isn’t there to quench your parched aesthetic tongue? Can you simply pick yourself up by your bootstraps and march on? Not if your boots have been stolen.

So how do you continue writing during the dry times, whether in life or in the writing process? How are you encouraged to press and get to your writing implement to churn out more of your novel?

 

Cheers,

Bob

Effective Writing: By Schedule or By Whim?

On By Robert EvenhouseIn The Writing Process4 Comments
Don’t lose these!

I am a list maker. I live and die by them at home and at work. Sometimes I get sidetracked and provided that the lists do not get lost, they are essential to me to obtain measurable progress and complete tasks.

This translates to writing as well. I jot down ideas for blogs, stories, tangents, and the like to finish later. If I did not, I am sure the stoke of genius (or so I think!) would rush out of my mind just as fast as it invaded. So for me to be a successful writer at this stage of life I have to plan and be intentional. I have to fight for time to write. If I do not it gets crowded out.

This made me think (and perhaps you can do this along with me) about what makes me successful in my writing? Would it be allowing a jolt of inspiration to come tingling into my mind while I least suspected it and then feverishly scratching it on paper, the laptop or any device that spits out sentences? Or rationing out time every day at the same time to plod along, however dull and uninspiring that might seem.

So how about you? Are you better at waiting for the stroke of genius to come, then churning out fifty pages? Or are you better suited to write two pages a day, every day, until your novel is completed?  My suspicion is that when you evaluate the structure of your daily life, or lack there of, you will have your answer.

 

 

Use Your Writing Talents To Better The World

On By Robert EvenhouseIn The Writing LifeLeave a comment

Writing is for the writer. Albeit writing could also be for ones family (providing a small bit of money), but most would agree their spouses or children do not get much out of writing besides perhaps a saner you.

I believe no matter what you are good at, you should use that talent or gift for the better of others and the world.

Here are a few ways you can enrich not only you but also the world around you through writing. If you can think of more ways please post below.

  • Write an article or blog for a non profit you believe in at no charge.
  • Write thank you notes. Not exactly a riveting idea, but stop and think for a moment. When is the last time you said thank you in a profound way?
  • Write a note of encouragement to someone who is struggling to let them know you are thinking of them or praying for them. Not some cheesy half-hearted attempt, use your creative mind!

Writing is competitive and for the individual. Stop for a moment today to use it for someone else.

Cheers,

Bob

Contacting A Literary Agent

On By Robert EvenhouseIn The Writing Process9 Comments

As I was creating a spreadsheet of various agents to contact I came across a few things that surprised me. I would like to share them with you. If you have started the query process please post any helpful websites or information you discovered, thanks!

Not this sort of agent, though they might help…

I discovered most of the contact information for various agencies using AgentQuery.com a splendid site. Simply selected the type of novel you are writing and follow the directions. I do not count myself a detail oriented person but even I, who am as easily distracted as a house cat, can be sure to find an agent or two to submit a query or chapters. The marvelous thing about AgentQuery is that they tell you if a particular agent is open to submissions and if they accept email queries to speed up the submission process and target agents who want to hear from writers now.

The first thing I need to finish is my query, but some agencies want a variety of items. Some just want a query, others want a query and a bio, more want a query a bio and a few sample chapters, and even more wanted a query a bio and fifty pages of your novel sent. Once I get a list of about fifty or so, I will begin putting the queries and chapters each agency requires.

The submission guidelines are relatively easy to locate, just click the link in Agentquery to access a particular agent and click on their submission guidelines. I was surprised how easy it is to submit the required information. Most encourage new writers with open arms and even tell you ways to interact with them so they can get to know you as you submit your work.

Another nugget of assistance was discovered on an agency website The Knight Agency. They listed information on how to write a proposal, query, and how to make your work stand out. I was also happy to discover most agents provide helpful tips on many things like query letters, tell you how to get through spam filters and why disqualifies most authors, besides poor writing.

How about you? Are you are the submission process yet? What is your plan of action?

Cheers,

Bob

Attend Princeton, Penn, and U of M, For Free!

On By Robert EvenhouseIn Uncategorized1 Comment

I like to learn. My guess is that most people enjoy learning if the topic is interesting enough. I often think about getting a Masters Degree in creative writing, however, when I think about saving up for one or the loan debt as a result, it gets a bit overwhelming. That’s why I am tremendously excited to share with you a little website called Coursera.

Coursera is a wonderland for those want to get more education on a variety of topics for free. Yup, free. Though these courses are not accredited, they are taught by professors from Stanford, Princeton, The University of Michigan, The University of Pennsylvania, and other university lending credit to the course and professor simply because of the institution behind them.

Here is the about section from the website:

About Coursera  We offer high quality courses from the top universities, for free to everyone. We currently host courses from Princeton University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and University of Pennsylvania. We are changing the face of education globally, and we invite you to join us.

The section that I am most interested in, which may come as no surprise, is the humanities section. Since I am a glutton for punishment, I signed up for three courses. They are listed below. Why did I sign up for these specific courses?

Because I am a writer and most writers like to learn. I believe there are a lot of stories that can be forgotten as time moves on and many of them contain elements that could be extracted and inserted into a story I might be writing. History, Greek and Roman Mythology, and fantasy and science fiction are three of my favorite subjects.

A History of the World since 1300

Jeremy Adelman

This course will examine the ways in which the world has grown more integrated yet more divided over the past 700 years. Princeton University

Fantasy and Science Fiction: The Human Mind, Our Modern World

Eric Rabkin

We understand the world — and our selves — through stories. Then some of those hopes and fears become the world. University of Michigan

Greek and Roman Mythology

Peter Struck

This course will focus on the myths of ancient Greece and Rome, as a way of exploring the nature of myth and the function it plays for individuals, societies, and nations. University of Pennsylvania

Here’s to hoping that my desire to learn is not larger than the amount of free time I have to do it!

Cheers,

Bob