down the writer's path

Does your dog read?

Meet Teddy. He dreams of becoming a reading mentor in a READ program. Some call them Reading to Dogs literacy programs, others say Sit, Stay, and Read. Teddy and I learned about these programs a number of years ago and he quickly became immersed in reading to anyone who would listen.

Teddy is one of 5 rescue dogs who live with me. Other members of the pack are Waco the Wonder Dog, a Great Pyrennes, whose ambition is to become a service therapy dog; Riley, a vociferous Cocker Spaniel who is a dedicated petrologist and has been rock collecting for years; Charlie, a 10-month old Pug and newest to join our clan; and Freddie, the dancing bear Maltese. The boys love reading and they have a particular passion for books that feature dogs. Like any reader, they are always in search of a good book so please share your favorites with them.

Over the last few years, the boys barked incessently about their desire to have their own blog. My Reading to Dogs blog is the result. I've combined my three passions: writing, reading, and dogs. I'll be sharing information on dog literacy programs and everything and anything about dogs. I've heard rumors that the boys have their paws to paper and are pushing pens on paper. Apparently they have a lot to say and I've heard there may even be book reviews coming.

WRITERS: Looking for a positive way to promote your work and help literacy at the same time? Send a photo of you and your dog reading together with your permission to post the photo [email protected] with subject line: Reading to Dogs photo, and I'll post it to Reading to Dogs with your name, the name of your dog, the book's title and anything else you add. (Yes, you can borrow a dog and no, it doesn't have to be one of your books.) Act now before Teddy yaps at your heels in pursuit of a good book. Quick! Grab a book and a camera. Call your canine pal and read!

Where have all the well-read writers gone?

Once upon a time reading was the fertile bed for emerging writers. The two were inexorably linked and their natural habitats were public libraries and bookstores. Many came from homes where reading was a priority. Others had teachers or librarians who knew how books could release the imagination. Life is different now. So are the folks who want to write. Unfortunately, today it's all too common to hear writers admit they don't read. Frankly, I find this wrong on so many levels.

The idea of a writer not being a reader is such a contradiction. It goes to the heart of why someone would want to become a writer. At its most basic, a person who writes wants to capture their thoughts, feelings, expressions, and ideas. Journal writing fulfills that need. After that most writing ultimately requires a reader in order to achieve its fullness of expression. At their core, writers have a need and/or desire to communicate and these storytellers require an audience to complete the circle. If a writer doesn't read, doesn't like to read, why on earth would he or she want to work in a medium that requires readers? Why would they expect anyone else to read what they write? And how do they support their industry if they don't read and if they don't buy books?  

Today the visual reigns supreme in movies, videos, games, etc. Illiteracy rates continue to climb and the culture seems less and less intent on prizing the skill of knowing how to read. The classics have fallen away or have been dumbed down to the point where the few young readers who make the effort fail to gain their full import. Learning how to read has been reduced to recognizing a group of letters without gaining an understanding of the more advanced reading skills dealing with comprehension, context, subtext, and other subtleties.

Writers who don't read come to the table empty-handed. They have no idea of the conversations that exist between writers and their readers and amongst writers from one generation to the next. That loss can lead writers to make mistakes and wrong assumptions in their pursuit of the craft. How can they weigh their ideas for originality when they're clueless as to what's gone on before? How can they identify clichés? How can they participate in the ongoing conversation when they aren't privy to it? 

Writers who do read come with embedded knowledge gained from years of reading. They've been engaged with authors who sought to communicate ideas and create worlds built on words, sentences, and paragraphs. They understand the dance of white space. They take in the natural rhythms and inhabit a variety of worlds, hear different voices. They've soaked in craft without realizing it. They have an innate understanding of what a reader wants because they've been one. When they take up their walking stick, they start much further down the writing path toward their goal.

Movies are high value in the culture today. I understand that even though I seldom watch them. If I see any, they're at least 2-3 years old and on cable. It's been eight years since I've gone to see a movie. While I have enjoyed the experience, it's not one I tend to want to repeat. I am a book person. I love being surrounded by books, revel in experiencing them and having my imagination fully engaged in the way only books can do. I willingly return to books to repeat the experience. That said, I spent two years studying screenplays and analyzing films, and I continue to keep up with the form. We are, after all, a visual culture and my readership has been imprinted with those storytelling techniques. So why are writers neglecting the very foundation of their craft?

Most writers are not as skilled in reading as they were when I was young and, unfortunately, either they don't understand the need or don't have the desire to develop their reading skills. They don't know or don't care that their lack of reading has an impact on their development as a writer and on the stories they create. If you fall into one of those categories, perhaps you'd like to give this reading thing a try. There are books that can guide you and offer suggestions on where to start. Why not create a New Year's resolution to take up reading but do it with a defined purpose: Read to learn your craft. 

Do you write the New Year in?

Okay, okay, we all know January approaches and with it the annual decision: To goal or not to goal. Writers run the spectrum when it comes to this ritual. Where do you fall? I confess I practice a fairly extensive annual goal setting and year-end reflective writing. In fact, I like to write in the New Year.

My ritual consists of a fairly comprehensive review of the passing year. My focus is not limited to my writing life. I look at my mental, emotional, spiritual, physical, financial, and lifestyle areas. I also take a look at friends and family, recreation, and my creative life. Did I achieve my original goals? Did I adjust them as the months passed? How successful was I in the practice and commitment of my intentions? I also take a look at what things may have happened that either worked for or against the goals set in January. Did I complete any goals, projects, or major tasks? All of this I assess through writing. I do think there is something about setting my thoughts on paper or in a computer file that makes them more concrete. The writing definitely makes my thinking more specific. Because I do this annually, I can review what I wrote and often piggyback off of those thoughts. Since I take stock every 3 months during the year, I"ll often find notes reflecting on the progress at that point. It makes for an interesting couple of days when I do this. There's so much I often forget by the end of the year.

As I finish with the current year, my thoughts turn to the new one. What are my intentions? What do I want to accomplish during this new year? I tend to get very specific. No vague thoughts for me. My goals are clear and simple. I even break my major goals down into smaller subsets. This whole process is easy to do and really helps me get ready for the new year. I open a journal or a file and just start writing.

Today there are plenty of tools to guide you through the process and even help you with your goalsetting and with goal-related habit-making. I found one earlier today called Joe's Goals. It's a cool tracking program to help you initiate and instill your goals. It sets up in minutes. Here's mine.You can click on the badge to see them all.

Writers, are you reading?

Do you read? There was a time when I never thought I'd have to ask that question of a writer. Times change and with them writers and their habits evolve. Today you're more likely to hear a group of writers rave on about the latest movie they've seen than talk about their latest read. While I understand all the reasons writers give for their near-obsessive chatter about movies, I confess I don't understand this compulsion to trade movies for books. I can't tell you how many times I meet writers who admit they haven't touched a book in months or years but want to write a book. Why?

Yes, I understand screenwriting and movies are great for understanding structure and scene development. They're great to tap today's cultural pulse. But unless you understand the difference between a movie and a book and how that translates into writing, you may be hurting yourself. Each has its own strengths. Each can be helpful in developing your knowledge of writing. But if you're going to write a book, for heaven's sake, do read. A novel or a short story has its own peculiarities, its own domain. As a writer it's good to get to know the landscape. Looking at a map is helpful but it's not enough. You'll miss that wonderful creek or the new road that replaces the old dirt road everyone keeps talking about.

The question of what you read seems to be the follow up question. Do you focus on the top 10 novels in your genre and say the hell with everything else? Or do you choose 2 or 3 top writers in your chosen genre? That's good as far as it goes but what about the other genres? Can you learn anything by reading outside your box? I think so.

William Faulkner didn't write romance but he knew the value of relationships and how they play out with the reader. Why else commit the boy-meets-girl structure to paper writing it over 500 times? Stephen King translates daily life onto the page and makes it real enough for readers to lose themselves in the worlds he constructs. He taps into our fears and plays them out across his literary landscape and the readers take them as their own and follow him. Like many writers of the past, Michael Crichton spun new science discoveries and extrapolated them into the future creating bestseller cautionary tales. Lawrence Block, Harlan Coben, and Dennis Lehane don't just thrill us with the latest in serial killer techniques but probe the human psyche for the reasons why men do the evil that they do.

Each genre has stout pillars that support the tales and serve as guideposts for the readers. Mapping their layouts and then reading to see how each writer makes the generic landscape his or her own is one reason why it's important to read. Read Tom Clancy or Jodi Picoult. How did they put their own stamp onto a generic form? Why did so many readers respond? Read as a writer but more importantly read as a reader. And above all, please don't wait for the movie.

Internet Writing Tools: iGoogle

One of the things I like best about today's tools found on the web is the way they bring everything to me. Instead of having to go out and search, much of the material I like to skim, surf, and read arrives via my iGoogle home page and various tabbed pages. On my main page the common links I use pretty much daily are found in the two "box of links" areas on the right (see the images below). I can immediately click to my project manager that is dedicated to my current project at TeamworkPM or I can click to Facebook or MyLibraryThing, etc. When I click on the reading tab I'm taken to my page where I have used gadgets and feeds to gather book reviews, quotes, columns, magazines and topics that interest me to spur my thinking and stimulate my creativity. On the iGoogle writing page I have a writing sprint 5 minute hour glass timer, a clock, writing quotes, word links to dictionaries, etc. Sprinkled throughout I have timers that tell me how many days, weeks, hours, and minutes until my various deadline dates whether it's for a workshop, a completed draft, or any other writing-related project. Often these are self-imposed deadlines. On my writing project page I have gadgets that gather information that may be relevant to my book. It took a little bit of time to put my home page and tabbed pages together but now it saves me many hours. I can quickly find the things I tend to use on the web and move on. I have a total of 16 iGoogle pages full of things I like to use. Best of all no matter where I am or what computer I'm using, my iGoogle page is ready and waiting.

Writing Tools: Pen vs Keyboard

In this computer society it's easy to move from the pen to the keyboard and give little thought to the consequence. But what are we sacrificing? Julia Cameron has spent a lifetime extolling the virtues of the direct connection between writing by hand and tapping into the creative force that exists in all of us. Her books, including the classic The Artist's Way, urge everyone to spend twenty minutes a day first thing in the morning taking pen to paper. No keyboarding allowed.

But how does that translate into the everyday life of the writer? As a former Artist Way facilitator for six years and a journal writing instructor, I have seen the value and impact of the pen at work. But as a writer I understand the need for the keyboard. I wrote my first novel entirely by hand in a large Mead notebook that I picked up at the local drugstore. Then I had to enter all that material into the computer. Sure, I edited as I went along but then and there I decided to teach myself to create at the keyboard. Doing so has given me a great skill that I rely on daily.

I know: Not everyone can create at the keyboard. Not everyone can type fast enough to keep up with their natural word flow. For some the act of typing gets in the way of their creative mind. It's only practical and necessary to spend time with pen and paper. Despite the digital revolution, many writers continue to write their first drafts by hand. These writers often feel they have a special connection to the imagination and that there is a direct link between their mind and their hand. They also enjoy the freedom from the keyboard. Best-selling NYT author Susan Wiggs is one who continues to write her first drafts by hand.

Of course there are many who are unable to write by hand. They have physical disabilities and are incapable of even holding a pen or holding it steady enough to write word after word after word. But for everyone else there is a choice. What is yours and why?

Writers direct a stream of emotions

The mystery of creative success lies in the writer's ability to capture and preserve the quality of a given moment in time. The success of a novel or story depends on its intensity, on its ability to re-create an ambience and a sense of emotional contact that make the reader and writer one. Empathy and identification, these qualities that involve the reader with fictional protagonists, rely on the chimeric web of words the writer spins, a web that will, strand by strand, engage the mind and the heart so that pages will be turned and fictional men and women and vanished times will achieve lives of their own. There is no given technique for the creation of mood and emotional identification. Each story rises from its own whirlpool of feeling and memory; it's the writer's job to sort the currents and direct them to the steady stream from which each separate story flows.

--Gloria Goldreich, The Writer, April 1979

Tech note: A recent issue of The Writer's Magazine republished this quote. When I found the quote I emailed it my Posterous account for later consumption. Now I'm using Typepad's Quick Post to transfer the quote directly to my blog. I'll be posting about Posterous and how I use it soon. -- vikk's posterous - Home .

I write fiction. I don’t need no stinkin’ social network.

Most writers are solitary souls: they inhabit their own universe apart from the rest of the world. The clutter of life is a distraction. All this new social media network stuff is nothing but quicksand guaranteed to suck your attention away from the important work: the book. So why bother to plug in? For sure, fiction writers don't need Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and all the finely tuned and gently nuanced applications built to support these behemoths. Storytellers have been telling their tales for centuries without them. But is that the real question?

Except for a brief excursion now and then I stayed away from the new social networking world. I could see marketing application readily enough. I wasn't there. But then my fictional universe became populated with all these kids who were fully plugged in to the 21^st century. Their daily lives reflected the impact of this social networking and even governed how they interacted. I watched as their actions became a direct result of their use of Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, and Live Journal. What's a writer to do?

Does it become a matter of research only? Should you skim the surface, assume you know what's going on, and skate on your fictional characters' assumed knowledge? Or do you take a deeper look at what's happening and actually experience it? For me the answer led to my having accounts with Twitter and Facebook and then branching out into some other applications. It meant reading more about this phenomenon of collapsed walls between people and allowing myself to fully experience its impact on how I socialize, work, and act. To monitor how I respond during the day and watch to see if it remained a simple tool or took on a deeper, more enhanced connection.

Today this galloping online networking is embraced by millions of people. The swift and intimate connection with strangers is accepted and even sought. But what does that mean at a deeper level? What does it say about us as we slide into a world where there are no borders, no walls, and no constraints? How do we respond? Are we even able to keep up with this constantly evolving world? And what does it mean for our characters and our plots? How does all this sculpt our characters in ways that we, as fiction writers, never had to tackle before?

As fiction writers we might sit behind our safe monitor and screen the world, safe in the knowledge that we inhabit an imaginary universe that never collides with reality. But can we afford this luxury? If we want readers to connect with our characters and to believe in the imaginary construct of our fictional world, shouldn't we at least experience what is going on?

You tell me. Have you peered past the distraction and noise of Facebook and Twitter to consider how it really shapes you, your world, and that of your characters? Leave a comment or enter the new world. You'll find me—and this blog—on Facebook. Or just bite the apple and Twit me.

A writer’s tools: Carrots, contests and chocolates

The ability to self-motivate is a skill most writers need to cultivate. Staring out a window or glaring at a blinking cursor can hypnotize a writer right into a blank page coma. And while sharpening twenty pencils might help some well-known writers, how many of us are able to realize a rite from a distraction? So what’s a writer to do? Well, a few well-placed carrots or a series of self-imposed deadlines can activate a dead butt-in-the-chair a lot faster than the promise of a chunk of chocolate at the end of a writing session. Okay, maybe not if it’s dark chocolate but you get my drift. Like many writers I spent a number of years using contest deadlines as a means to getting words on the page. Nothing fuels a white heat draft more than an approaching contest deadline—except maybe a publishing house contract. Suddenly the words pour out across the page and characters who’d absolutely refused to come out before now dance and prance all the while spouting monologues and sharpening dialogue. 

What else can be used? The gathering of two or three writers over manuscripts and coffee is a well-worn carrot. But, really, who goes to gather critiques when the opportunity to vent and rant and rave over coffee, lunch, or even drinks beckon? I don’t think I’ve ever made it to a writing meet-up yet that didn’t involve at least a half hour of kvetching. But after the buzz the pages come out and few folks want to be empty-handed. Trips and retreats are useful especially for those major goals. This year I’ve linked a couple of self-imposed draft deadlines to self-styled writing retreats where I’m meeting with two of my writing buddies. Since our agreed intention is to discuss our drafts, said drafts have to have been written and sent off before we gather. Not only have we linked accountability, but, because of the airfare we have a monetary investment to up the ante even more. The reward of an afternoon at a day spa on the last day is bubbling as a potential pay-off for work drafts delivered and work done. We all have times when the river of words dries up and pages refuse to come. Tell me, what do you do?

Edgar Allan Poe, a father to many of today's writers

Edgar Allan Poe would have turned 200 years old in January had he been blessed with exceeding longevity. The event has proved a boon for anything Poe. Publishing houses have lit the candles in hopes of a Poe revival. Well, they didn’t need to strike a match for me to come to the table. I remember as a teenager being sprawled across a giant armchair reading and turning pages while my heart rate increased as if to somehow sync with the heart beating in The TellTale Heart. I tried to make Poe the subject for my thesis in an American Literature but too many other students had claimed in so I had to settle for Emerson. Today my appreciation for Poe translates to having a major fictional character in my novel be a fan of Poe’s work and rereading Poe has become one of my more enjoyable tasks associated with this project.

In honor of Poe’s bicentennial Mystery Writers of America has put together a collection of tales combined with essays of top mystery writers and edited by Michael Connelly titled In the Shadow of the Master: Classic Tales by Edgar Allen Poe. Clearly I stand in the shadow of much brighter lights who tip their hats to the master. Those who owe a debt to Poe include Stephen King, Jeffery Deaver, Tess Gerritsen, Sue Grafton, and many others. Writers and readers have long been fascinated with the “darker side of humanity,” and Poe’s ability to mine the dark deep that lives in the heart of man continues its call across the centuries. If you, like me, enjoy reading Poe and reading stories where Poe is incorporated into the work, take a moment and let us know.

--Links: Mystery Writer's of America, Poe's biography