Bird by Bird

Dialogue...Dialogue...Dialogue....the importance of Dialogue...how great art thee??? Lamont definitely believes that dialogue plays a big part to becoming a good writer. When doing your writing...your dialogue should have a voice to it that readers can hear. She said that, "in the right hands, dialogue can move things along in a way that will leave you breathless." Lamott says to help you along with your dialogue you should listen to all the conversations from people who are around you. Also you should be able to identify each of your characters from their dialogue. Not saying that this will happen overnight, but you definitely should put ur time and effort into it.

This was definitely useful to me because in a sense, what advice she gave, I've already began to do so. Its fun for me to make characters and not so much describe them, but let your dialogue tell the tale of who they are.

I love this story . . .

Check out this link: http://www.slate.com/id/2292099/pagenum/all

Found this on slate.com. A writer that uses his wife to edit his work and they are still married and in love! LOL.

Thanks to Ellen

I have always wondered what makes a good writer. I have also always wondered if one persons eccentricity could help or hinder what they write. The similarities in Ellen's personality and mine are scarry. Please do not misinterpret my intention. Our personalities are very similar in that when she is totally focused on something, everything else is secondary, and she talks about the ways to get to that point. Truly, she dives into her writing and her focus isn't sidetracked by anyone or anything. To tap into this kind of dicipline isn't easy but I believe she gave me the right direction to go in order to achieve this kind of centerd focus. THe five main points that has helped me immensely , and that I owe total gratitude to Ellen are:
1. To sometimes break the rules a bit, because that is where creativity can sometimes strike an awsome and critical point in writing.Another words, something great can happen outside of the box and that is really where it originates.
2. Ellen's attention to detail in what others may not give a second thought too. Ellen has a way with her writing that the mundane becomes unique upon her perception of it .
3. To READ is a very important element in fueling a writer with creativity and to inspire as well as direct where the writer can go .
4. Sometimes, not always but sometimes, our direction that we go in seems to take a completely different route in life than we anticipated, but the destination is still the same. Very much so is our writing in that sometimes, we have to stop, reword, rethink, subtract, add to, and start over but to be persistent and patient with our work.
5. I love the fact that she expressed what contribution someone's writing truly gives to others. If you write something that appeals to others, satisfaction that knowing you are a part of what your society found not only intersting, but sometimes enlightening and that in itself is a reward that cannot be substituted monetarily.
Ellen gets a thumbs up from me on every level.

Writing

I am thinking about changing the book that I am reading. This book doesn't really give any advice about the art of writing. It does however, offer helpful tips about writing. This is good, but I don't think it really goes into writing from the prospective of a writer. It is good for style, langugage, composition, and deatiling. Those are true very important. If you are looking for advice on writing then it is not the book that you would want to read. I will be posting another post when I get a different book.

From Ernest Hemingway on Writing

A lot of the book contains a bunch of different quotes from writers on whatever topic that chapter is discussing. I was reading the chapter about Advice for Writers. One quote talks about writing exactly what happened in action so that the reader envisions what you saw and hopefully will feel what you felt. I think that is a really helpful note because a good writer makes people feel an emotion. This is one of my favorite quotes so far in the book, "You see I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of actual life across-not to just depict life-or criticize it-but to actually make it alive. So that when you have read something by me you actually experience the thing. You can't do this without putting in the bad and the ugly as well as what is beautiful. Because if it is all beautiful you can't believe in it. Things aren't that way. It is only by showing both sides-3 dimensions and if possible 4 that you can write the way I want to." -Dr. C. E. Hemingway I like this quote because it talks about making the writer feel something you do that by writing something believable. I know I talked about that in the past post, but it is repeated in this book, and I'm starting to see that it is very important. There was also another quote that talked about listening and observing. It said when you walk into a room you should be able to sit back and observe and be able to tell everything you saw and what happened. And what made you feel the way you did when you left. I think this is very important because when you write you have to know how to portray emotions, believable ones. I think it is also good to observe because you learn about different types of people. That can broaden your horizons on your characters, too.

Bird by Bird

Perfectionism, like many other authors believe, does not exist. In the words of Lamott, perfectionism will ruin your writing, block inventiveness and playfulness and life force.

This truly means when ones tries to write their best so they don't have to go back and make corrections. But those corrections you would make could possibly be the beginning of something really good that you wouldn't think about otherwise. This runs together with the issue of the polaroid developing. She stated that your first draft is like watching a polaroid picture develop, you're not supposed to know what your work is going to look like until it has finished developing. If you want everything mapped out in the beginning, it would't be any fun for you writing and not fun for the reader to read either.

Characters were also an important factor Lamott added. She said that you should discover what each character looks like on the inside and out. For instance, the pain they feel, what they look like when they get made, their sensitive side, and just how they say things in their dialogue. Building your character is very important I know that first hand, because you have to make your person you create as believable as possible.

More of Ellen Gilchrist

I think what I am finding out about Ellen is the way she perceives what it takes to be a good writer from every angle possible, not implying that we use every single one mentioned, but suggesting that by closely evaluating what we write as well as what we read. Ellen states, "Young writers should be careful about what they read" implying that what we read can affect our writing as well. This is something I guess I never really considered but makes complete sense. She also says that when she lived at the beach, she would read a poem of Robert Frost every morning and this would set the tone for her creativity at the beginning of her day.

In addition, Ellen also states that a good writer is a person who can hear within their own writing the way a sentence will be heard by their readers. Therefore, having this ability will create a direction that not only makes your readers more attentive, but keeps your writing interesting and of good quality.

WELL----My writer, Karen Armstrong, has finally come to the conclusion that she should be a writer--HALFWAY through the book! Heretofore she has been agonizing over the seven years she spent in a convent and trying to undo the damage done while she was there. Stay tuned for what happens next. Has anybody read "Ash Wednesday" by T.S. Eliot? She refers to that frequently. I haven't read it yet but hope to. Went to "Oliver" in Cape Charles Sunday & it was very good. Brought back memories of the time my daughter played "Nancy" many years ago.

Announcement

Guess what! Yours truly is the 'costume mistress' at the North Street Playhouse. My first assignment is to make/find costumes for a period piece (1860's) for a play that will take place in about 3 weeks! Yikes! If you are creative and can sew, let me know, I could use the help.

The play is Is He Dead? by Mark Twain. This was a long lost play discovered a few years ago. Gonna be interesting to say the least.

Pen on Fire

I have chosen a book called Pen on Fire, by Barbara DeMarco-Barrett. I love this book. She is around my age and describes a busy life that includes kids, a husband, hosting a radio show, editing, and teaching writing courses at a college. She says she used to get sidetracked by the myth that 'as soon as I get time I will write.' I feel the same pressure. I claim to sit down as soon as time presents itself. She says that you have to take time rather than wait for it. She subscribes to carrying around a note book to jot down notes, poetry, etc. every free moment she finds - waiting in the doctor's office for her appointment, waiting on her kids when picking them up. Five, ten, fifteen minutes here and there gives you more writing then not writing till she has the time. I've tried this this week and guess what! It works for me.

"Bird by Bird"

The more and more I read this book the more and more I get into it. I've reached the point where she puts major emphasis on shitty first drafts. As she says they are truly meant to be shitty. I see exactly where she is coming from because this helps you get down everything that you have on your mind which leaves you later to take out whats not needed. If you don't have that first draft and try to put don't your best work, you aren't doing anything but eliminating the possibility of what great things you could come up with. Perfectionism, as Lamott states is not possible, nor real. When you try to do things perfect you truly only end up making mistakes anyway. Writing is truly more than just writing, it's an experience to put down what interactions you have going on in your mind. If you are truly trying to be a writer, trying to write a perfect story is not going to help you at all!

Writing Style

There are many different types of styles to writing. The book that I am reading says, that no two people have the same writing style. However, each style may be along the same lines. That is easy to understand becasue no two people are exactly alike. Even twins though they may be identical will have something that one likes and the other doesn't. That makes it easier to understand why no two people will write the same way. What I like is different from what other people may like. When writing you are writing what is on your mind. As we know the mind is a great thing. When you think about writing you think about what situations you have experienced. Style gives way to all of these thoughts.

Writers [on Writing]

My second book is actually called “Writers [on Writing]” and it’s the first of three volumes of collected essays from The New York Times. This volume has essays by no less than forty-six writers, including personal favourites such as E. L. Doctorow, Ward Just, Ed McBain, Annie Proulx, Jane Smiley, Scott Turow and Kurt Vonnegut Jr: other esteemed contributors include Joyce Carol Oates, John Updike and Saul Bellow.
This book is somewhat different from everyone else’s because each contributor is restricted to one or two thousand words for a newspaper article and therefore cannot begin to tell the story of their lives (which is probably good discipline for me to learn). It also means that I can dive in at random, which, ultimately, I will doubtless regret. For example, though I have a number of ideas in my head for this blog, I now have no idea where in the book I found them!
The first couple of essays I looked at are concerned with the question of whether creative writing can actually be taught at all (and might be of great interest to our instructor), and several have actually taught courses and workshops on the basis that they’ve had their novels published, not because they have any talent for teaching. Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who taught creative writing long before his reputation was established, notes that our best teachers are always going to be our editors (and publishers) if your main objective is to be published and read by as many people as possible. Several writers, including Vonnegut and Higgins, have stated the belief that a writer who claims a different objective is lying.
I’ve discovered some interesting ‘exercises’ which I’m actually glad we weren’t put through, such as writing short stories with absolutely no adjectives, or no adverbs, as ways to appreciate the power of unqualified verbs and nouns. Or of writing of a childhood experience through the eyes of the child you were, and then repeating the piece through the eyes of the adult you’ve now become. Vonnegut also points out that the best teachers (and editors) may not be able to write well themselves, but we should value them highly nonetheless.
The originator of the series, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, novelist and editor, John Darnton, tells a little of his early life as a writer and his idea for the series (in one thousand words) and relates this encouraging advice he personally benefitted from: one thousand words a day, every day, means you have a completed novel in three to four months.
Finally (for now) a piece by Anne Bernays, born in 1930, a well respected writer, editor and publicist whom I’d never heard of, who spent a large part of her career teaching others: “There’s a sureness to good writing even when what’s being written about doesn’t make all that much sense. It’s the sureness of the so-called seat of an accomplished horse-back rider or a sailor coming about in a strong wind. The words have both muscle and grace, familiarity and surprise.” I take encouragement from that. The trick, it seems to me (and probably applies to most of us) is to maintain self confidence while still be willing to take criticism and advice.
I guess that’s true about everything, not just writing.

Ernest Hemingway On Writing

So far, this book has a few quotes about writing and then like a section on the same topic written about it after. One of the quotes that I really liked so far was in the section titled The Qualities of a Writer. It says, "The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it." I think that is a great quote because I think it talks about being real and believable. I also think it means to be true to yourself with how/what you are writing. Because if it isn't honest in your own mind and isn't believable, no reader will believe it. When you create a character you have to know your character like you know yourself, if you don't it isn't believable which would be where a writer should know it isn't from the, "shit detector."

Poetry that is just for our class I think

I am a Verb

For too much of my life
I have been a noun;
child, boy, man, father, whatever;
nouns of identity.
Often, preceded by too many adjectives.

I seem to be the subject,
or the object,
in the sentences of life.
Sometimes a proper noun,
But most often
just a plain, old, common one.

Is this I?
Not really.
The real me is continually in the process
of doing, being, living.
I am a verb, active tense;
not a verb past tense;
rarely a verb intransitive.

I exist through my living,
not because of some label.
Descriptives enhance mind pictures,
but do not define the essence of my spirit.
I am living. I am being.
I am not a noun.
I am a verb.

—Gene McParland, North Babylon, NY