Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
I grew up in a community of folks who knew how to party well on Saturday nights. Charming, funny, clever and lovely, they nearly all enjoyed a drink or two. And then they thought themselves funnier, more clever and devastatingly attractive. I learned early to distrust alcohol and the words of people even “slightly under the weather.”
Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Hunter Thompson and Lillian Hellman all were famous for their “alternate reality” ingestion while creating literature. I’m sure we all know more authors who had a problem with drink and drugs. Did it help their creativity?
Hemingway notoriously said, “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Is it possible these talented writers needed the alcohol to get them past the personal horrors from which their writing came?
And is it only alcohol and drug abuse that’s the problem? (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jul 1, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Life, Productivity, Writing Life | 9 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Pity F. Scott Fitzgerald, a talented Ivy Leaguer who fell in love with a beautiful Southern belle of exceptional creativity and beauty with a terrific name: Zelda.
Their flamboyant life during the Jazz Age–a term Fitzgerald coined himself–served as backdrop to some of the finest writing done during that period. But the toll of trying to pay the bills and keep up with a wife diagnosed with schizophrenia drove Fitzgerald to the brink of emotional breakdown himself.
Depression, in particular, seems to be a frequent problem for writers. Someone told me once “depression is anger turned inwards,” and with a career based in rejection and on the hope of acceptance, writers would seem particularly vulnerable. Among noted writers who struggled with depression were L. M. Montgomery, Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath and Virginia Woolf. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jun 30, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life | 8 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Yesterday I wrote about my own challenges with writing; today we’re going to talk about what others have dealt with.
Prior to fifty years ago, blindness was a common problem in many parts of the world. You may not be surprised to know, therefore, that one of the greatest works of English literature never actually was read by its author.
John Milton wrote his definitive Paradise Lost over a ten-year period in the mid-seventeenth century by dictating to whomever was available to transcribe–most notably his daughters. They read back his work, and he edited by voice.
Other notable blind writers include Homer, Jorge Luis Borges and Helen Keller. To write blind in the past, you needed someone with a pen in hand or supreme confidence in your touch typing ability. (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jun 29, 2010 in Authors, Blog, Life, Writing Life | 6 Comments
Blogger: Michelle Ule
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
It started innocently enough at Thanksgiving. My adorable two-year-old grandson began to cry. When I picked him up, I nearly dropped him from the strain on my thumbs. Hyper-extension? The pain stabbed through my thumbs and left my hands throbbing.
I typed carefully, but by Christmas I could barely function–using scissors burned my hands like fire. I longed to rest and tried icing, heating, Ibuprofin and temper tantrums demanding help. Nothing soothed the dragons engulfing my thumbs. I bought carpal tunnel splints I called “mitts,” but typing actually didn’t hurt all that much–it was everything else I did using my hands that hurt, including playing the clarinet.
I scoured the Internet and became more frantic. When I finally saw the doctor, he was matter-of-fact: “Not carpal tunnel. Severe tendinitis in both thumbs. Take Aleve, rest as much as possible and stretch. Do you have to type?” (more…)
By Michelle Ule on Jun 28, 2010 in Blog, Life, Productivity, Writing Life | 11 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Still hot
At a recent writers conference, I was surprised to see that two of popular tween author Nancy Rue’s books in the Lily Series are set outside the U.S.—one in Paris and one in Rome. I bought the one about Lily in Paris and noted the text contained easy-to-understand words and phrases like mademoiselle and gendarme, tres magnifique and petite dejeuner in this fast-paced story for middle-grade girls. Along with the mention of famous French sites and French character names, these words did a lot to maintain the feel of the story without being a distraction.
Whether you’re writing for kids or adults, I’d like to know how much play you give to a different language when it’s appropriate. Here are some questions for evaluation:
- Have you ever set a book in a foreign country? What opportunities and what obstacles did it present?
- Has an editor or reader ever questioned your use of a non-English word in a manuscript?
- Have you ever tried reading a portion of your manuscript to an ESL American citizen?
- In writing fiction, do you tend to see your characters act rather than hear the tone and timbre of their voices in dialog?
- What non-English ancestors do you have, and how many generations back were they? Are there still family practices you can trace to that heritage?
We are truly a melting pot—and the richer for it I think. At least our characters can be.
By Etta Wilson on Jun 25, 2010 in Blog, Reading, Writing Life | 17 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Still hot
After writing about words for three days, I’ve realized that the hardest writing may be description–not dialogue–because description is more visual. It calls for painting pictures with words, and that’s really difficult to do well. It’s hard to evoke the feelings derived from texture, smell and color.
This summer in Nashville we have the most spectacular exhibit of colorful glass sculpture by Seattle artist Dale Chihuly. From the 30-foot tall, massive golden glass spiral at the entrance to the glass balls in the Japanese sand garden to the blue glass crane shapes in the reflecting pool, and on and on, everywhere you look there is one or more entrancing pieces of beautifully colored blown glass. As I listened to the exhibit chief talk about the installation, I was struck by how low-key and plain-spoken he was. Then I realized that he knew the exhibit would speak for itself as it was viewed. Words can’t do it justice. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jun 24, 2010 in Awards, Blog, Children's books, Writing Life | 8 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such Nashville Office
Weather: Hot and rainy
The subliminal thinking behind my posts about non-English words being more in use is the oil spill in the Gulf. On a personal level, the white sand beaches of Gulf Shores are a favorite vacation spot, and here in Nashville, we enjoy lots of fresh Gulf seafood on our menus. I had hardly thought about the number of oil rigs sitting in that body of water–until about two months ago, that is. Aside from the consuming questions of responsibility and recovery time and the dreadful impact on wildlife, I notice how language has been misused or misunderstood in the process of hand-wringing and backtracking. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jun 23, 2010 in Blog, Writing Life | 6 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such, Nashville Office
Weather: Hot
Nowhere is the mashup in our language more obvious than in computer land. Sitting right in front of my screen or laptop I can find a vast array of foreign words and phrases that are apparently now au courant in English. Some are being used for novelty and freshness, some because English lacks the exact meaning desired, and some for a sort of secret code. Some like espirit d’escalier, which means failure to deliver a timely response, may fit in any of those categories
I can hear readers reminding me that we’ve had books of these words and phrases around for quite a time. Very true, and they keep coming. Foreignisms: A Dictionary of Foreign Expressions Commonly (and Not So Commonly) Used in English by Tad Tuleja is a recent one. But using that book means a trip to the library or bookstore, while Google will immediately throw up a list of richly rewarding sources such as Luke Mastin’s “Foreign Phrases Commonly Used In English.” A quick search of the 25 German phrases listed at his site revealed such words as angst, gesundheit, kitsch, verboten, and zeitgeist. A few of those words sprinkled in a historical novel about German settlers will really help characterization. (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jun 22, 2010 in Blog, Reading, Writing Life | 6 Comments
Blogger: Etta Wilson
Location: Books & Such, Nashville Office
Weather: Hot and Humid
Going around town, I notice more and more businesses and ads use two languages–English and Spanish–to say the same thing. A nearby neighborhood grocery now has a Spanish and a Korean section. In bookstores, I see more books in foreign languages, although most have an English subtitle. (What are the poor translators doing for work these days?) A local government official on television was recently discussing U.S. health care issues and said it was much more difficult to devise a system in our country because we are such a “melting pot,” with new nationalities and languages constantly being added. Watching the Tony Awards, I hear words that are either new jargon or lifted from another lexicon–they’re Greek to me.
The kind of foreign words that authors and editors have to be most careful about are words that may cause a reader to stumble or wake from the fictional dream in an effort to understand the meaning. This problem is complicated even more by the passage of time. If you are writing a novel that takes place thirty years ago and your character is eating quesadillas, the setting had better be the Southwest. Now quesadillas are common fare all over the country. If you write, “She chose the blue pongee for the evening,” would the meaning of “Chinese raw silk fabric” be obvious to readers today or perhaps only to a seamstress? (more…)
By Etta Wilson on Jun 21, 2010 in Blog, Reading, Writing Life | 19 Comments
Blogger: Rachel Zurakowski
Location: Books & Such Main Office, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Friday!
We made it!
I like to use my Fridays as reading days. I enjoy reading and look forward to it, so it’s a nice, end-of-the-week treat. I read manuscripts and proposals by authors that I’m considering representing, but I also read proposals and manuscripts by my current clients. Some agents don’t bother to put in the time to read over a proposal before it’s submitted, but my reputation is on the line. I like to be sure that everything is in place so the project has the best chance of selling. (more…)
By Rachel Zurakowski on Jun 18, 2010 in Agents, Blog, Book Proposals, Fiction, Nonfiction, Reading | 7 Comments
