Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Global Reading Challenge 2011

Recently I came across this Global Reading Challenge, hosted by Dorte H (via Ari at Reading in Color). The idea is that you read a certain number of books from each continent (for Antarctica, you can substitute a genre such as historical fiction, sci fi, or fantasy), with each book from a different country or state. What an awesome idea! Since I've been meaning to expand my reading this year, I decided to sign up for the expert level and read three books from each continent.

I've already read one from the USA (Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison), so I want my other two North American books to be from Canada and Mexico. And I've read one from Europe--Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome (UK).

I've also reserved two African novels at the library--Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria), and Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (Zimbabwe).

I could really use some suggestions for the rest of the books, especially Asia and South America. Please feel free to make recommendations in the comments. Also let me know if you're going to sign up, and what books you are planning to read.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Libraries and writers

Big Chimp and I moved into a new house over the weekend. The new place is great, and it even has an office/writing room where we've set up a creative space with our typewriters, notebooks, writing and editing books, and art supplies.

The only thing is, we won't be getting our Internet connection set up until the beginning of February. So, until then, I'm using the computers at our local library. It's small, but quiet and peaceful. With a possible drawback of having lots of books I want to take out but won't let myself until I've finished the ones I've already renewed three times.

So, what about you--how important is your local library in your writing? Do you write there? Edit there? Do your research there? Or do you prefer to work at home? How important are local libraries to writers?

Friday, January 14, 2011

Exercise and creativity

When I'm stuck on a writing project--the words just aren't flowing, I'm getting distracted, feeling frustrated, etc.--I find that there's one solution that pretty much always works: exercise. I'm not the world's greatest runner--my endurance isn't very high, I get stitches all the time, my lungs ache, and my nose gets all runny and gross. But I find that getting out in the fresh air, seeing other people (and hoping they don't look too closely at my red face and runny nose), and getting the blood pumping to my brain really puts me in a creative zone. There's something so invigorating about running along the pavement with a good playlist on my MP3 player. I find that this is a great time to think through writing problems--plot points that just aren't right, flat characters, whatever.

But the real magic happens when I get back from running. After a run and a hot shower, I can concentrate crazy well, like an ADHD kid who's taken his Adderall. I feel calm, relaxed, and really focused.

And I'm not alone. Apparently, the link between exercise and creativity is well documented. This is from Newsweek:

"Almost every dimension of cognition improves from 30 minutes of aerobic exercise, and creativity is no exception. The type of exercise doesn’t matter, and the boost lasts for at least two hours afterward."*

Cool, right?

There has been some debate about whether exercise improves creativity on its own, or whether the increase in creativity is due to the good mood that most people experience after exercise. Some people from the British Journal of Sports Medicine wrote a paper on the subject in 1997, suggesting that these two benefits of exercise--good mood and creativity--may occur independently of each other.

Whatever the case, the end result is the same. For writers, artists, musicians, and other creative types, exercise can be an amazing (and, importantly for starving artists, cheap) tool that can help us reach our creative goals.

So next time your WIP is bugging the crap out of you, try 30 minutes of vigorous exercise. Your brain will love you for it.

*From the article "Forget Brainstorming," July 12, 2010.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

WIP update: it's DONE!

Today, a full six weeks later than I had planned, the rough draft of Water Magic is complete! I don't know what happened, other than I kept realizing I had more things that needed to be resolved, so I kept adding new scenes which turned into new chapters. Still, the important thing is, it's done. Whew!

Here are some fun facts about the book:

Idea first dreamt up in: Autumn 2005
Started writing in: March 2009
Genre: Young adult fantasy
Contains: Magic, faeries, kidnapping, dragons, giant lizards, water spirits, moonbirds, orcas, demons, and a binturong.
Final word count: 100,685
Chapters: 53

Now comes the long wait. I'm putting the manuscript away for a month before starting revisions. The fun part? I get to work on something new! I've got lots of ideas clamoring for attention in my head, so it's just a matter of which one wins out--sci fi story? Children's book? Magical realism novel? Contemporary YA? Paranormal? A weird combination of all five?

I'll let you know.

In the meantime, anyone have any good revision tips? I'm going to need all the help I can get.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Winter reading

My Christmas loot:



Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (Books + magic!)
The Symposium by Plato (Who doesn't like Plato?)
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (It's been on the to-read list for years.)
Castle Waiting by Linda Medley (described as "feminist Chaucer," so of course I'm dying to read!)
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein (Childhood favorite.)
Fruits Basket Ultimate Edition: Volume 2 by Natsuki Takaya (Fruits Basket just makes me happy.)
Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine (Gender differences? They're mostly not genetic.)
Le Morte Darthur by Thomas Malory (I love me some Middle English Arthurian legend!)
Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (Given to me by my brother. I don't know what he was trying to tell me.)
The Longest Whale Song by Jacqueline Wilson (An amazing British children's author.)
The Norton Shakespeare by William Shakespeare, edited by Stephen Greenblatt (It's so beautiful! I'm afraid to open it lest I get sucked in.)
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, illustrated by Lauren Child (I've never read it, but was obssessed with the film version when I was little.)

I've already finished Fruits Basket and Inkheart, both of which I loved, the former for its optimism and the latter for its wonderful allusions and the way it describes reading and stories. I really, really want to dive into the rest of my Christmas books, but I've got a few library books I need to finish first.

Anyone else get any good reads for Christmas/Festivus? Or, what books do you wish you'd gotten?

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Just write.

This year on the blog, I want to talk a bit more about the things I've learned during the last few years I've been studying and practicing creative writing. I'd love to get into conversations about the actual process and craft of writing.

So I thought I would start with some of the best and simplest writing advice I've ever received: 

Write.

On the first day of our writing workshop at the University of Sussex three years ago, Big Chimp and I, along with four other optimistic MFA students, sat across the table from our grumpy old American tutor (which is what they call academic instructors in Britain--er, "tutor," not "grumpy old American tutor" (except in this case, because he was)), and he said to us, "Listen, because I'm now going to tell you the most important thing about writing."
I picked up my pen eagerly and poised it over the clean white expanse of my notebook.
"Put your pens down and watch," he said, grumpily.
I put my pen down.
"Okay," he continued. "This is how you don't write." He crossed his arms and stared into space. He stroked his chin, said "hmmm," uncrossed his arms, chewed the end of his pencil, and sighed dramatically. Then he straightened up.
"Okay. Now, this is how you write," he said, and he put his pen to the paper in front of him and started writing.

In other words, daydreaming, thinking, brainstorming, etc. aren't writing. Sure, they're important and they have their place in the creative process, but they don't count as writing! The only way to be a writer is to write. A lot. Spending all day pondering about writing, thinking about your Big Idea, dreaming about your future book deal--that can be fun, but it won't help you find your voice or hone your craft. Practicing writing is the only way; there are no shortcuts.

Pretty simple advice, right? But I think we've all been through the Dreamer stage. People who are writers are natural dreamers. When I was a teenager I dreamed about being a writer. I even sometimes wrote--when I felt like it. When inspiration struck. Looking back, I call it the Wannabe stage. Lots of dreaming, not a lot of work.

The spring after that fateful writing workshop, Big Chimp and I attended the 2008 Guardian Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts (which quickly became one of my favorite events of the year).While there, on a cold rainy night (it was in Wales, after all), in a big tent that was in danger of being blown away by the storm, we heard a talk by Augusten Burroughs, the author of Running with Scissors, a memoir that I absolutely adore. Afterward, Big Chimp bought me Burroughs's latest memoir, A Wolf at the Table, and we stood in line for him to sign it. When we got to the front I told Burroughs how much I had liked Running with Scissors, and shyly mentioned that I was trying to be a writer, too. He looked at me with these startling blue eyes and said:

"Write every day. You don't have to write about something, you just have to write."

So that's what I've been trying to do: actual writing every day. Sometimes it's difficult. While I try to write 1,000 words a day, over the holiday period when I had two jobs, at times I only found the time to write a couple hundred words per day. But I always try to at least write something. Because I'm over the Dreamer stage; I'm a writer now.
 Sometimes, the simplest advice is the best.