Jen & Kerry

Awhile back I mentioned that two local nonfiction writers are running a series on how to get your books published. The one I'm attending started this month and continues for one evening a month through June. Their names are Jennifer Worick and Kerry Colburn and you can find out more about them at http://bizofbooks.wordpress.com/about/. Between them they have penned over 40 books and they also used to work in the publishing business, so they have lots of good tips on what will catch a publisher's eye.

Once again they spoke on NPR this afternoon and took questions from callers. An interesting query I heard was from a woman who had just finished her memoir. She wanted to keep the surprise ending of her life story a secret from her future publisher as well as from her perspective readers, but Jen and Kerry reminded her that her book will first need to get past a number of people (publisher, agent, marketing, etc.) before it is ever seen by a reader, and that it's necessary to spill the beans in her proposal, however loath to do it she may feel.

In the first evening's class I attended earlier this month, Jen & Kerry gave us a lot of tips on looking for the right publisher. We should find a book whose topic, voice, style, format, etc. is similar to what we'd like for our own work, and see who published it. They advised us to think big and imagine other formats that might spin off of our books. An interesting example that stuck with me is having a deck of cards follow up the printed book. (Jen's was of scenic walks in Vancouver, each of which fit on a single double-faced card.) Both Jen and Kerry do a fair amount of humorous writing, which lends itself well to these more unusual formats.

They offer a few different series, including "The Proposal Series" and "The Publishing Series" which are seminars with about 100 attendees, while their workshops are more hands-on and limited to 15 participants. Tickets can be obtained at Brown Paper Tickets.

The Power of Words

As writers we are always pushing and struggling with our word choices. A colleague forwarded a video clip that beautifully illustrates why that struggle is worthwhile.

Click here to view a short video about the difference a change of wording can make.

Travel Hacking Cartel

On a recent blog post from Evernote they had a guest blogger - Chris Guillebeau.

Chris Guillebeau is a a self-employed entrepreneur who has visited 150 countries to date, written for many major publications, and is the author of Art of Non-Conformity which came out last year.

His newest endeavor is Travel Hacking Cartel. It is a membership organization that promises to help you accrue travel miles rapidly and provides many other travel tips. "Currently in the final two years of a five-year journey to every country in the world, Chris maintains a million-mile Frequent Flyer mile balance spread among six different airline programs."

The disclaimer here is that I know nothing about this other than reading a snippit on how he wrote the business plan using Evernote and taking a look at the website. The site and organization looks like it could be useful for people planning to do much travel writing.

Researchers believe that as many as 1 in 25 Americans display enough of the sociopathic behviors listed below to qualify to join that exclusive club. Maybe your boss. Maybe your spouse. Maybe your writing professor! Just kidding. I post this as a public service and so that all of you can, as I did when I first saw it, question your own sanity.

Twenty Common Sociopathic Behaviors

1. GLIB and SUPERFICIAL CHARM

2. GRANDIOSE SELF-WORTH

3. NEED FOR STIMULATION or PRONENESS TO BOREDOM

4. PATHOLOGICAL LYING

5. CONNING AND MANIPULATIVENESS

6. LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT

7. SHALLOW AFFECT

8. CALLOUSNESS and LACK OF EMPATHY

9. PARASITIC LIFESTYLE

10. POOR BEHAVIORAL CONTROLS

11. PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR

12. EARLY BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

13. LACK OF REALISTIC, LONG-TERM GOALS

14. IMPULSIVITY

15. IRRESPONSIBILITY

16. FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS

17. MANY SHORT-TERM MARITAL RELATIONSHIPS

18. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

19. REVOCATION OF CONDITION RELEASE

20. CRIMINAL VERSATILITY

Context of "rim-lit sunset clouds"

When we tightened the wordy sentence from David Foster Wallace's The Pale King in class a couple of weeks ago, his use of the word "outside" left me wondering about the context of the sentence and if "outside" was a transition (I was also curious because I'm reading a collection of Wallace's essays for my book report). I searched Google Books for the sentence - here's the whole paragraph, part of a chapter that takes place in a bar called Meibeyer's:

Drinion rotates his upper body slightly in his chair to see just where Keith Subusawa is at the bar. Rand is 90 percent sure that the movement isn't any sort of performance or anything that is meant to communicate something nonverbally to her. Outside in the sky to the northwest are great sheer walls of rim-lit sunset clouds in whose interior there is sometimes muttering and light. None of the people in Meibeyer's can see these clouds, although you can always tell physically that rain's on the way if you pay attention to certain subliminal physical signals like sinuses, bunions, a particular kind of incipient headache, a slight felt change in the quality of the cold of the air-conditioning.

I haven't read the whole chapter, but the way Wallace words the sentence makes more sense to me now, as an example of form reflecting subject matter. The characters are IRS office workers (the whole book is about boredom and centers on a tax-return processing center), and there is something precise and technical ("90 percent sure") about the way they are interacting and perceiving things that is mirrored in the specification of "Outside in the sky to the northwest." It's like they need a disclaimer that the sky is outside, and must be fed each detail in separate prepositional phrases (much like the tax code, I can attest from having just struggled through Publication 590). The "in whose interior there is sometimes muttering and light" reads like a technical specification of a thunderstorm for people (like office workers who hang out in windowless bars after work) who haven't been outside to witness one in a long time. It's like a lyrical piece of tax code describing how the sky works.

(But who knows, I may be projecting - while I don't spend a lot of time in dingy bars, I do have experience consuming all my weekday day-lit hours working in offices where lots of dull technical work is done and every rule must be unambiguously stipulated, and the only way to ascertain what is happening outside is to visit weather.com. And I am still recovering from a mighty struggle with my taxes.)

Sentences

My nightstand, once populated with important things like my Pap's WWII bible from, jars of Shea butter and a glass box holding prayer cards and trinkets, now looks like this.

I can recite classics like A Fly Went By - modified, of course, to remove references of killing - and Goodnight Moon and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (Black fish, blue fish, old fish new fish....). Sometimes it feels like all this sing-songy nonsense has pushed out important information, such as how to spell or be on time, or notice large gobs of food lodged in my hair.

But every now and again there is something special. I came across this shortly after Larry visited our John class, and chugged like a train over a sentence, and it still makes smile to myself when I read it aloud, which is often on days when my son is around.

There is no harmony in this sentence, and it rises & falls in all the wrong (but right) places.

That screechy-squeaky melody of marching bands that play off-key....

A brilliant grouchy sound.

Places to Submit Your Travel Pieces

I stumbled upon a blog post a few months ago that listed ten publications for travel article submissions. While some were fairly well known, such as the San Francisco Guardian, most were new-to-me and some even seek first-person narratives. You can read the post by clicking here.

The blog post is dated July 2010, so a bit of legwork will be required before sending off queries.

Phoenix - The City We Love to Hate

Continuing our riff on the desert southwest, did you see this recent New York Times article on dying grass green in Phoenix?

From The Journalists Craft

"Don't tell readers. Show them. Give them a example. Examples are the stained glass windows of the Mind." - Vladimir Nabokov

"Kipling's vocabulary was rich. He chose words, often very unexpected words, for their color, their precision, their cadence. He knew what he wanted to say and said it incisively. His prose had pace and vigor." - Somerset Maugham

"The best sentences have their own sound - with the stresses shifting with the sense." Robert Frost

"The better writers write with their ears, listening to the inner music of sentences." Anthony Burgess

Sentences that sing

This coming Tuesday (4.12) we'll be looking into the inner lives of sentences—great sentences, which communicate more than their literal content. I can't wait to serve up a few from David Foster Wallace's posthumous novel The Pale King:

“An arrow of starlings fired from the windbreak’s thatch.”

“The broken centerline shot Morse at them.” ( a road trip)

“Outside in the sky to the northwest are great sheer walls of rimlit sunset clouds in whose interior there is sometimes muttering and light.”

That third one is a little strained and wordy, despite its rich imagery. How would you simplify and polish it?

Writer's Read @ Ballard Library

I have been thinking about attending this Writer's Read to check it out. This announcement just came into my inbox of April's meeting. They meet the second Thursday of each month.

'It's About Time Writers' Reading Series'
at the Seattle Public Library Ballard Branch

Thursday, Apr. 14, 2011, 6 – 7:45 p.m.

The Ballard Branch welcomes the 258th meeting of the "It's About Time Writers' Reading Series," featuring author readings and open mikes.

This month's presentation features the work of Mike Hickey, Donna Miscolta and Madeline DeFrees, with a short lecture by Arleen Williams on The Writer's Craft. Between author readings, open mike time is available for three minutes per person.

My second piece for Earshot Jazz was published April 1. It's a profile of a saxophonist living in Spokane. Click here to read it.

Beginning My Blog

I set up a blog a year ago with the intent of commenting on my musical works in progress. With all my focus on the music, I never posted anything.

Now that I'm writing, I invite you to visit my first posting at http://stevegriggsmusic.blogspot.com/

-Steve