What's the first book you remember?

 

I'm not talking about the tedious little readers we had in grammar school. "See Spot Run, or was it "See Dick Run?" In either case, Dick and Spot ran while Jane watched. You see, I go way back.  Now Spot, Dick, and Jane all run.

 

My mother read my first chapter book to me. It was Anne of Green Gables. She also read Black Beauty, but that wasn't a good idea. I didn't know about muckraking books in those days, and the treatment of that horse put an ache in my heart that never left.

 

But, when I discovered Walter Farley's The Black Stallion, I fell in love with that magnificent wild black horse, the author, horses, and reading. Next, I read Heidi and Jack London's Call of the Wild—those writers kicked ass.

 

You know what I mean, their boot didn't touch anybody's backside; they touched our spirit. They made us love books. They gave us adventure and set us on a never-ending reading trail.

 

Join the group. Write your book. It's worth the effort, even if your work gets shot at.

 

Don't you sometimes read words that make your mouth water?

 

An author who can seamlessly blend structure, setting, character, genre, and dialogue kicks ass. We know it when we see it, but doing it? That's another matter.

 

If you are at the place where you hear lofty words in your head, you see the story, you have good taste, you recognize good writing when you see it, but when you read your words and they sing off-key, chances are, you're in the GAP.

 

That means you're here and want to be there.

 

The gap will close. Keep on writing.

 

It's good that you have discerning eyes and that you can be objective.

You know that the writing life is magical, painful sometimes, yet worth the doing.

I'm not here to teach you how-to-write. I'm going to give you ten books to do that. I'm here to nudge. I could say kick your ass into believin', persevering', and doin'. (I've been reading Where the Crawdads Sing and have developed a southern drawl.) Talk about salivating over words. That woman kicks ass.

 I was motivated to write a little book titled, I'm Writing, Come Join me. It's available on Amazon, after reading an online list of the five best books on writing, and screamed, "There are more, and I can name them!" My list is ten. But the world needs one more—mine. You can have all the best advice in the world, but it you don’t keep your butt on the chair, it won’t work. I’ll tie you to the chair.

Kindle version, a bargain at $2,99. Read free on Kindle unlimited. 

Amazon.com: I'm Writing: Come Join Me eBook: d, j

On the Horns of a Dilemma

 

You’ve heard of being on the horns of a dilemma—big rascal that he is. Not a good place to be. 

 

I was conflicted about the lady in the Assisted Living Apartment who I felt was being mistreated. (I wrote about it in my other blog, https://www.wishonwhitehorses.com) What to do? I was upset regarding her treatment. How much will I get the caretaker in trouble? I know people don’t act for those reasons. 

 

And then another dilemma. A publisher contacted me, saying they wanted to talk to me. I had submitted a manuscript to Europe Books because someone pointed out that they were taking submissions for a specific time frame where I fit. What the heck, I submitted a book based on ancient mythology that I thought might appeal to a European audience. I forgot about it until I got the email. 

 

The editor and I Zoomed for 40 minutes while this beautiful young Italian woman spieled off what she liked about my book. I was impressed that she had read it. She knew the names of my characters and named various scenes she particularly liked. She told me that it would be distributed in Italy, German, Portugal, and England. It would be taken to several book Fairs, submitted for awards, etc., etc. With my permission, she was going to present it to the deciding publishing group. 

 

The following day I received a contract.

 

All the things they were going to do for me, it sounded awesome.

 

The trouble was I had to purchase 200 books at retail price.

 

The books would sell for 14.90 GBP (British Sterling). That is $20.47. Total would be 2,980 GBP $4,094.81. 

 

If my book sells 500 copies, I will get that money back. 

 

I sat with it for a day. I thought, well, if you have a book professionally edited and with cover art, it would be that expensive. Two hundred books sitting in my garage? The chances of selling 200 books at $20.47 plus shipping is about like filling a colander with water to save it.

 

In publishing, a rule of thumb is, money should roll toward the author, not the other way around.

 

Thanks, but no thanks.

I Love This Guy

 If you happened to see this blog before today, it had  all CAPS from Fahrenheit 451 quote on down. I don't know what happened. Here we go again. 

This is how I remember him.

Ray Bradbury.

 

Remember him?

He says the reason we remember so many of his stories is because he is strong in metaphor. 

 “With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and charcoal ruins of history.”-- Fahrenheit 451

Wow, you’re full of them, aren’t you, Bradbury?

 I’m terrible at them. It must be something in my brain that stops me from saying something is something else. But I can learn.

 “If Life is a Bowl of Cherries—What am I doing in the Pits?” Bradbury is right. I remember that title (1985) when I don’t remember Erma Bombeck’s book, except that it was funny.

 I remember Forrest Gump’s metaphor, “Life is a box of chocolates—you never know what you’ll get.”  

 But back to Bradbury. I saw today that this year, 2020, Bradbury would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Hope you’re having a good time Ray.

Whether you are a fan of his books or not, he was one of the most enthusiastic writers. He loved writing. He relished in it. He woke up in the mornings, ready to run to his typewriter. Yep, typewriter. I think he and the computer had an adversarial relationship. 

 “If you don’t love it, don’t do it,” he said.

  “Writing is not a serious business. It’s a joy and a celebration. You should be having fun at it. Ignore the authors who say, oh my god, what work, oh Jesus Christ, you know. No, to hell with that. It is not work. If it’s work, stop it, and do something else.”

Once upon a time, I attended a writer’s seminar in San Diego, where Bradbury and about 12 students at San Diego State University sat outside on the grass while he talked of writing. (Like Socrates teaching his students.) And although I don’t’ remember what he said, I walked on air when I got out of there. (Is that a metaphor?)

 Another time I attended an Optics Conference with my husband where Bradbury was the key speaker. Wow, he sat those scientists on their eats, and instead of shaking my hand, he hugged me. I figured I was blessed.

 -from a 1974 interview with James Day:

 Don’t write towards a moral:

[Trying to write a cautionary story] is fatal. You must never do that. A lot of lousy novels come from people who want to do good. The do-gooder novel. The ecological novel. And if you tell me you’re doing a novel or a film about how a woodsman spares a tree, I’m not going to go see it for a minute.

 Read these three things every night:

 What you’ve got to do from this night forward is stuff your head with more different things from various fields . . . I’ll give you a program to follow every night, very simple program. For the next thousand nights, before you go to bed every night, read one short story. That’ll take you ten minutes, 15 minutes. Okay, then read one poem a night from the vast history of poetry. Stay away from most modern poems. It’s crap. It’s not poetry! Now if you want to kid yourself and write lines that look like poems, go ahead and do it, but you’ll go nowhere. Read the great poets, go back and read Shakespeare, read Alexander Pope, read Robert Frost. But one poem a night, one short story a night, one essay a night, for the next 1,000 nights. From various fields: archaeology, zoology, biology, all the great philosophers of time, comparing them. Read the essays of Aldous Huxley, read Lauren Eisley, great anthropologist. . . I want you to read essays in every field. On politics, analyzing literature, pick your own. But that means that every night then before you go to bed, you’re stuffing your head with one poem, one short story, one essay—at the end of a thousand nights, Jesus God, you’ll be full of stuff, won’t you?

 -from “Telling the Truth,” the keynote address of The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, sponsored by Point Loma Nazarene University, 2001.

 That’s quite an assignment isn’t it?

 Advice from a Master.

 Carry on,

 I’ll keep writing.

  How about you?

Joyce