Race & Chase

Today, faced with relative oceans of free time for writing, I pondered.  Now that I have the luxury to do so, to what, exactly, should I turn my attention?  I browsed through my files and made a list.  I have:

• Two finished-but-unpublished novels that need significant revision. 
• Two more barely begun novels and about 10 short stories-in-progress, all of which still hold my interest. 
• An idea journal so full of seeds and kernels of books that I could write every day for the next twenty years and not explore them all. 
• And there's Unsubscribe, another unfinished novel, the first three chapters of which I sent to an editor at a major publishing house back in July as part of a query package, assuring him that I planned to finish it soon. 

The answer is probably obvious to you. As I contemplated this morning, it was to me as well.  But I still equivocated.  It's gray and rainy out; wouldn't it suit my mood better today to work on a dark and otherworldly fantasy story instead of experimental (though still quite dark) chick lit?  Hmmm.

As she always does, Brillig set me straight in a heartbeat.  "Work on Unsubscribe," she advised.  "It's definitely your high-priority project." (I'm paraphrasing her slightly.)

As we discussed both my hesitations and her current work-in-lack-of-progress, I suddenly had an idea.

"What about a race?" I suggested. 

(You may not have noticed this, but Brillig and I are both a touch competitive.) 

"YES!" she answered. 

So: as of two hours ago, Brillig and I are racing to finish first drafts of our respective projects.  I've written 12,836 words and estimate that I have 57,164 to go before I'm done.  I don't know what Brillig's current word count is, but I know her goal is 45,000 (her novel is YA). 

That might seem like an unfair race, but I have more time to write right now than she does, so I think things are pretty even.  We're both going to post our word counts on our blogs so that y'all can keep track of how we do.  (My next task is to figure out how to do that.)

When will we finish?  We'll see.  What's the prize?  Pretty much all it takes to motivate me are bragging rights, so that's how we've set it up.  And maybe a badge; badges are cool.  Anyone care to set up a pool?

Ready?  Set.  Go!

And There Was Much Rejoicing

Re-entry: what can I say?  It has been…interesting. 

It’s good to be home, though, and we're now in the routine of a new school year.  It is awfully quiet at the Perkins Corral once 8:15 rolls around each morning.  By then, Patrick has gone to his office and five of the six kids are a half-mile away at our tiny but fabulous school.  Here’s a quick status report on the older five:

• Daniel loves all things kindergarten.  
• Tess likes her third grade teacher, who is new to the school but seems like a keeper so far.
• Hope is navigating the treacherous waters of fifth grade as serenely as a French swan.
• James is savoring being at the top of the middle school heap, knowing well that next year’s high school debut is not that far off.  
• Christian is a Junior (pardon me as I shudder with the faint horror that word still evokes in me) and is coping well with A/P classes and the idea that dating and driving privileges are only weeks away (pardon me as I shudder again, much more profoundly this time).

And Anne and I?  We’re adjusting to the lonnnnnng stretches of quiet time.  Since school started, Anne’s naps have been nearly twice as long as usual; if this continues, I may well have three or four solid hours of alone time each and every day, unprecedented riches that I plan to spend writing, writing, writing.  

But enough about us.  You, my faithful and patient readers, are waiting for the results of the August contests.  Without further ado:

Je Mange France! #1, for which contestants submitted their favorite made-up words.  Let me just say here that I am so glad that I passed the judging buck to others, since there’s no way I could have chosen just one.  I loved many of your submissions and have already started using them in regular conversation.  My illustrious panel has come through, though, and the winner is:

“Failtastic,” submitted by Charrette!

Je Mange France! #2, the “speed dating” challenge, as Whitney so aptly put it.  I numbered the entries, then went to random.org and generated a random number.  The winner is:

Eowyn!

Je Mange France! #3, in which contestants wrote 50-word stories inspired by a photo of young Christian dressed up like Jack Sparrow.  My illustrious panel loved all the stories and had a difficult time settling on their favorite, but finally I can announce that the winner is:

“Black Bart” by TC!

Honorable mentions go to, well, everyone, but I must say that Tyler’s spectacular (but disqualified-due-to-length) poem is pretty swoonworthy.

Thank you to ALL commenters in the month of August.  It was very cheering to read your words once we got home.  And huge thanks to my darling Brillig, who posted the contests each Monday.

I’m contemplating posting a summary of our trip to France in a few installments.  Are you at all interested?   I can't imagine that you would be.  But maybe I'm wrong.  Let me know.

Finally, here’s a piece of news that has caused me much rejoicing in the past few days: I sold my short story “Fugue” to an anthology! How satisfying it is to find a home for that story after so many rejections.  The bonus is that will appear in print; my short stories have so far been published only on the web.  "Fugue," a dark fantasy story about a the supernatural misadventures of a young piano teacher, will appear in the third volume of Candlelight, edited by Jonathan Schlosser.  I’ll post publication details as soon as I get them, since I know you'll all want your very own copy. :D

That’s it for now, folks.  TC and Eowyn, please email me your addresses and I’ll send you your prizes (Charrette, I still have your address).  Hearty congratulations to all!

Heart and Mind

Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Woman Reading

I subscribe to David Farland’s Daily Kick in the Pants, which means that I get regular, pants-kicking advice from Dave via email on all things writerly. Lately, Dave’s been talking a lot about why people read and why writers need to know why people read. His analyses have gotten me thinking about both why I read and why I write. Muse with me, won’t you?

For me, a book needs to engage both heart and mind. All fiction ranges on a continuum between these two oppositional yet complementary parts of the soul, and I don’t embrace either extreme to the exclusion of the other. If I want purely intellectual exercise, I won’t read a book; I’ll do some sudoku or contemplate the periodic table of elements. If I want purely emotional exercise, I’ll snuggle my baby or ride a rollercoaster. When I read, I want both intellect and emotion engaged to one degree or another. I want to be somewhere in the middle of the spectrum.

I love gorgeous, powerful language. But as a reader and as a writer, I am acquainted with the dangers of self-indulgent, distracting verbiage as well. I want to fall through the words into the story, but sometimes the words get in my way.

One of the things I dislike about a lot of what makes up the genre called “literary fiction” is this lack of transparency. Many otherwise skillful writers get caught up chasing the mirage of pretty language at the expense of the narrative. The result for the reader is like listening to The Allman Brothers play a live gig: you know the band is having a grand time showing off during the twenty-minute solo, but the (non-stoned part of the) audience starts yawning and looking around after awhile.

Another thing I don’t like about literary fiction is the snob factor. Lit fic usually takes more patience to read; that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is better, or that its readers are smarter. My opinion is not widely shared, I fear. Put any David Foster Wallace fan next to any Diana Gabaldon fan on a subway train and see which one gets a smug look on her face first. (Hint: it won’t be the Gabaldon fan; she is too busy cavorting with Jamie Fraser in eighteenth-century Scotland to notice anything that is going on around her.)

On the other hand, emotional, purely plot-driven novels (I call them “airport books”) tend not only to leave me cold, they tend to leave me entirely once I’ve finished them. I’m a Bear of Very Little Brain, and what little I have is sieve-like: only the rich stuff stays with me.

I remember going on a Robert Ludlum kick the summer I lived in BYU’s French House; I read about seventeen of his novels back-to-back. Even a month later, I doubt that I could have distinguished the plot of The Parsifal Mosaic from that of The Matarese Circle. Ludlum’s stories gave my adrenals a stiff kick, but left my brain right out of the narrative equation.

I am not disrespecting the plot-driven novel. It is an art form that serves a valuable purpose. I admire the craft that goes into them on every level and I think their creators are very good at what they do. I treasure many of them (see Gabaldon, above). They are a form of transport that is cheaper than a jaunt to Bermuda and (usually) less dangerous than recreational drug use.

And I love evoking emotion when I write. I like it when people praise my form and style, but I love it when readers tell me that I made them cry or laugh or shudder. If I've touched their hearts, I know I've done something right.

One of the reasons I love speculative fiction is that I find within the genre a higher-than-average ratio of successful marriages between story and idea. And it’s no secret that I give science fiction and fantasy preferential treatment; often a really cool premise can help me overlook underdeveloped characters or middling style.

But the best books have it all, don’t they? Round, ripe characters, suspenseful conflicts, and fascinating premises or thoughtful explorations of humanity’s great questions, all portrayed through graceful and clear prose—they coexist frequently enough to keep even the most voracious reader busy. Classic literature abounds with such blissful combinations of heart- and mind-appeal; you don’t need a list of those from me. The last century has produced many more, however. My tip-top favorites are among those listed here; other strong contenders for my hypothetical desert island library are:

Sharon Kay Penman’s Here Be Dragons
Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon
Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman
Frank Herbert’s Dune
Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter
Marisha Pessl’s Special Topics in Calamity Physics
Charles Palliser’s The Quincunx
China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station
John Crowley’s Little, Big
Toni Morrison’s Beloved

(Just for fun, here are my ten least favorite books.)

What about you? What is your personal recipe for a great read? What books have stayed with you or have demanded re-reading from time to time? Where are you on the heart-mind continuum?  If you are a writer, what is your goal in this regard?

Caveat: some of the books listed here are not for those of delicate sensibility.  Please do not assume that just because I'm the bishop's wife, I read only rated 'G' material. 

Welcome to Kashkawan

Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog, Caspar David Friedrich, 1818

"Kashkawan" means "it is foggy" in Algonquin. It's also a fictional village in the Hudson Highlands; most of my stories are set at least partially in Kashkawan.

(Kashkawan is also a kind of cheese. Mmmm, cheese....)

On a clear day, you may be able to see forever, but when it's foggy? That's when the really interesting things become visible.

Comfortably Yum

Drum roll, please! My cookbook Comfortably Yum: Food for Body and Spirit is now available at an e-store near you! It will show up on Amazon sometime in the next week, but this link is working fine.

It's gratifying to hold a copy of it in my hands after so many months of work. Looking through it, I think it's a pretty great collection of recipes, and I'm very excited that all my favorites are now in one place. If you're new to my blog and wonder what kind of stuff you might find in the cookbook, click on any of the posts tagged Delicious Dish.

I owe big thanks to many people on Planet Blog for their generous support; all my readers are wonderful, but a few stand out. Deb Barshafsky and Charrette for coming up with the book's title. Kymburlee, Brillig, Annette Lyon, and Anne Bradshaw have been fabulous angels of generosity.

Now I think I'll go make something from Comfortably Yum to celebrate. Hmm...Sticky Toffee Pudding? Stuffed Mushrooms? Tuscan Chicken? Dulce de Leche Squares? So many choices....

**UPDATE** CreateSpace (the company I used to publish my book) DOES ship orders internationally. Those of you in Canada, Europe, and the U.K. should not have any problem using the link above to purchase my book.