Positive Jealousy: When Comparison Helps

You've heard it said that comparison is the thief of joy. In many ways, I feel that I could look in the corners of the Antipodes and not find a truer saying. When I give in to comparing my life to other peoples' lives, my body type to that of other women, my income to others' income, my relationship status to someone else's, my indie-publishing to that blogging-friend's big-publisher book contract, the joy ebbs like a low-tide. But there is one way in which comparison has served as a catalyst for inspiration. See, the amusing burden of being a reader and a writer is this: one spends half one's time thinking:

"Golly, what a phrase. Wish I'd thought of it first."

My most common thought while reading is not, "Oh, what a lovely book! I'd like to read more like it." Rather, it's much more of a, "What a killing plot. I'd like to write something like this in my genre before anyone else does." I am only halfway in jest. My best ideas are always already in the works. Isn't that terrible? Two days before hearing about Liam Nisson's film, Non-Stop, I said to a friend while crossing a downtown city street:

"You know what'd make a great mystery? A murderer committing his crimes on a plane."

Well thank you, Hollywood, for stealing my thunder. So although I still appreciate a good book for a good book's sake, I try to harness that honest enjoyment and make it work for me. Wild horses may not be able to drag secrets, but they can certainly drag me a few miles before giving it up as a bad job. I have learned to use this "positive jealousy" to understand more about a given genre. I keep a list when reading mystery novels to note what tactics this author seems to be using to reveal clues, corral suspects, and work out the denouement. By this, I hope to learn how to write a better mystery novel.
Obviously I don't intend to copy any author wholesale but I see nothing wrong in learning where their road went right and benefitting from the general trailblazing spirit. What a stupid lot the pioneers would have been if they insisted on cutting their own Oregon Trail. Rather, the whole group worked off of their own and others' prior experiences, wisdom, and knowledge of the way. The ruts of their wagon-wheels can still be seen in some parts of the prairies today. That's called teamwork. Avail yourself of it.

Perhaps the best moments of this useful jealousy come to me when I am standing in the children's section of Barnes & Noble or other bookstores like it. Try as I might to be a grown-up, there is something about children's books that I find utterly irresistible. I never walk down the contemporary fiction aisle. I skip science fiction entirely. Romance? I wouldn't know where to begin with all the covers that look identical and promise hunky heroes and willowy heroines who, no matter the direness of their circumstances, always inherit a dukedom and the arrogant duke to go along with it. Of course the heiress ditches the duke in favor of a humble peasant who, after the suitably humble wedding, realizes he is a marquis in real life. Bad luck, Duke-y darling. Anyway. Groping my way to the children's section via P.G. Wodehouse, Georgette Heyer, and the mysteries, I stand strangely dry-mouthed in the presence of my childhood incarnate. The feeling that my creative and artistic breakthrough which, like the Fountain of Youth or Eldorado, must be just around the next cape or continent or end-cap, is nearly palpable. Have you never felt it? It thrums around me...
The sense that I could write The Book With No Pictures if BJ Novak hadn't done it first.
That Harv Tullet simply beat me to the fingerpaints with his Press Here.
That Lemony Snicket's wit is only my own, rather scalded by life and choosing to laugh through the pain.
That A.A. Milne is my kinsman.
That Newberry Honor Medals are handed out like gold stars for participation.
Of course I soon realize that success is not quite as even-handed as indie publishing would have me believe. The Book With No Pictures is brilliant because BJ Novak did the nearly-impossible and made accessible to millions something so obvious none of us could see it. A way to teach children to adore the written word for mental pictures it can conjure: show them a good time with not a single picture by putting the adult on display and pointing out the fact for the kid's edification: "You just had a blast without asking once to see the pictures. Get it now?"
Making an obvious abstract tangible for the laymen and children among us is a terrific and talented effort. I applaud Novak and Tullet and Mo Willems and so many other authors of the children's books coming out today for their creativity in story-telling, art, and an understanding of children. Their work reminds me that there are authors as talented and inspiring as Margaret Wise Brown, or Margaret and H.A. Rey, or Ludwig Bemelmens, or Kay Thompson in the present day. And more to come. We are still going strong, we race of authors. Not all of us will gain a place in the hearts of hundreds of thousands of children...not all of us will so impact someone's childhood that they stand in that section Barnes & Noble reliving their childhood through the dear book-faces on the shelf. But some of us will. Some of us will....and I could be one of those.
That is why I say comparison is not always the thief of joy. I am given a gift when jealous inspiration thinks, "You know, if I just keep working, I can do that too." Harness it. Follow it. Let it drag you across genres and art mediums and indie publishing and query letters and rejections and contract offers. Let it have you. Experiment. Enter contests you'll never win. Write in a tone that is unlike anything you've used before. Choose a chancey subject and write it well. Or try. Fail and try again. And again. You never know when you'll find that Eldorado. The brain has so many, many trails to blaze.

So here's to standing gape-mouthed in book stores. Here's to relentlessly pursuing creativity. Here's to blazing the trails together. And here's to applauding those who have written the literature that has affected our lives from the moment we realized what stories were. May we all try our hardest to be like them and add to the beauty of literature.

Independent Authors? Not Really

"What have you written, madam?"

"A...a book. I call it a novel."

"And for whom do you write?"

"Literate Society."

(brain fragments)

I've been arranging my blog tour for Anon, Sir, Anon. The "birthday party" will extend from the release date (November 5th) through the course of a week (November 11th). There will also be a super fun giveaway, so please keep your eyes out for this. Also, I got the proof of Anon, Sir, Anon in the mail. I am now reading through it and seeing what needs tweaking before sanctioning the thing entire.  Yesterday, I crept into a real-live library with my proof copy and wandered among the stacks feeling terribly clandestine. I also made the "mistake"  of picking up Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye and flipping to the first page. I have this thing about the beginning of novels. I like to see how great writers achieve what they achieve. Gosh, he's good:

"There was a girl beside him. Her hair was a lovely shade of dark red and she had a distant smile on her lips and over her shoulders she had a blue mink that almost made the Roll's Royce look like just another automobile. It didn't quite. Nothing can."

Stephen King talks about good description making a reader "prickle with recognition." That description up there made me prickle. I love being in awe of certain lines. Of course, Anon, Sir, Anon doesn't measure up to Raymond Chandler--I don't pretend it does--but I was still proud to carry it into that library and leave with it in my hands and think quietly to myself, "November fifth is not so far off."

Feeling awkward while posing in a parking lot after a long workday. Hence, my scarf is awry.

There is a common failing among young authors who are striving to find a balance between humility and pride in their work, and this failing could be labeled as "comparison". The prideful crowd always overestimates the value of their literary contribution and seems to think that they've written something award-winning (it happens, but rarely). The humble crowd lets comparison become the thief of joy and can barely lift their heads to realize that they've gifted the world with something better than Captain Underpants, and there's something in that. My natural bent is to fall in the latter category, but as I've grown in my craft and as a person (the two often entwined) I have come to realize that you have to have a bit of both. And it can be hard. I am easily swayed into thinking little of my writing when I read something like old fancy-pants Chandler's Roll's Royce line, but the thing that really gets my goat is when I read something fabulous by one of my "colleagues." It's easy for anyone to admit that Raymond Chandler is a better writer than most. I mean, really now, how many people have reached that level of legend? But when you get "pen-slain" by a someone in your genre, your age-group, or in your pool of writing friends, it can be debilitating. I know I am never more vulnerable than when comparing my work to the work of someone in my world. It's really a hard-scrabble thing. We're both young hopefuls who have poured a considerable amount of time, effort, creativity, (and money) into the product we present to the public...and we are, after a fashion, competitors. I don't have a fighting spirit about most things. I take simple pleasure in lines of my own that I think are especially good and I am just as quick to applaud someone else. I've never understood the shrinking-pie mentality of some people that make them reluctant to interrupt their blogging schedule to announce a colleague's release, or refuse to mention a contemporary's book they've read and enjoyed for fear of distracting the readership down other avenues than their own novel.

We call ourselves independent authors but we're really terribly dependent on just about everything except a publisher. We depend on readers to buy our books, we depend on readers to review our books, we depend on readers to recommend our books. We depend on bloggers to blog about our releases, giveaways, or sales, we depend on fellow writers to let us peek into their pool and share a little of their untapped resources. The prideful among us keep these resources to themselves and do well for a while--I am reminded of Dickens's description of Blandois in Little Dorrit:

"He had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and a certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world."

By putting themselves out as as the best thing since squeezed lemons, the prideful crowd gains a following. That following, however, grows very slowly. The prideful crowd wants homage paid, but refuses to pay for homage. They are never against being featured on a writing blog (provided it has at least five-hundred followers), but as to featuring someone on their blog, well they really couldn't possibly fit it in anytime in the next three months. The humble crowd, on the other hand, is easily immobilized. They forget all about networking, being involved in a community, and publicity of any sort because, really, who would want to bother with their book when there are so many others--much finer--in the world? 

Surely there is a peaceful shore between the two. I am constantly striving to think enough of my work while still admitting the extent of my talents and abilities, and I have so much enjoyed becoming a more active part of my indie-author community. We do depend on each other and none of us are so fabulous as to be able to succeed without a boost from our companions. That being said, The Inkpen Authoress is available to help those of you who need that hand. I want to lend my blog space, my readers, my friends, my community to support up-and-coming authors. I couldn't succeed in my indie-publishing journey without you. You can't succeed without others either. Let's stop comparing and continue working together.

Much Love,

            Rachel

Child's Play

"I like the idea that every page in every book can have a gem on it. It's probably what I love most about writing--that words can be used in a way that's like a child playing in sandpit, rearranging things, swapping them around. They're the best moments in a day of writing--when an image appears that you didn't know would be there when you started work in the morning."
-Markus Zusack, author of The Book Thief

"Don't dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast..."

I have been traveling, ladies and gents. That being said, today's post is late. In fact, I sat down and didn't quite know what I was going to write about, so I committed the seventh deadly sin of all writers and decided to "check Facebook" quickly before getting to work. Contrary to the general run of luck, checking Facebook was exactly the thing I needed to do because my brother's girl's sister-in-law (but we shall refer to her as Abby) had posted a link on my timeline that I found rather apropos. The link lead to The Art of Manliness which (while for the gents) is hilarious, informative, and full of good, old-fashioned tips on how to be a real man. I read it occasionally and pass the information I glean on to my brother and cousin and anyone else who will listen. It's seriously entertaining! Anyway, the link was a bit of writing advice from the legend, Jack London, in an article written 1903 called "Getting Into Print" and it was such good advice all around (though we might differ in a philosophy) that I had to "reprint" it here:

       Don't dash off a six-thousand-word story before breakfast. Don't write too much. Concentrate your sweat on one story, rather than dissipate it over a dozen. Don't loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don't get it you will none the less get something that looks remarkably like it. Set yourself a "stint," [London wrote 1,000 words nearly every day of his adult life] and see that you do that "stint" each day; you will have more words to your credit at the end of the year.
       Study the tricks of the writers who have arrived. They have mastered the tools with which you are cutting your fingers. They are doing things, and their work bears the internal evidence of how it is done. Don't wait for some good Samaritan to tell you, but dig it out for yourself.
      See that your pores are open and your digestion is good. That is, I am confident, the most important rule of all.
       Keep a notebook. Travel with it, eat with it, sleep with it. Slap into it every stray thought that flutters up into your brain. Cheap paper is less perishable than gray matter, and lead pencil markings endure longer than memory.
      And work. Spell it in capital letters. WORK. WORK all the time. Find out about this earth, this universe; this force and matter, and the spirit that glimmers up through force and matter from the maggot to the Godhead. And by all this I mean WORK for a philosophy of life. It does not hurt how wrong your philosophy of life may be, so long as you have one and have it well.
        The three great things are: GOOD HEALTH; WORK; and a PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE. I may add, nay, must add, a fourth--SINCERITY. Without this, the other three are without avail; with it you may cleave to greatness and sit among the giants.

-Jack London "Getting Into Print" 1903

Dear Silas...

{and a midget library just for fun}

This evening I remembered a certain post I'd written on my other blog waaaaay back in 2009. It was just a very short story made up entirely [pretty much] of the titles of famous books. The piece had made me laugh back then and I thought of it fondly enough to rummage through my archives and hunt it up. Because I thought some of you might get a laugh over the reading of it, I have "reprinted" the piece here. Have a laugh and a wonderful weekend afterward!

"Dear Silas"

A {very} short story

        "The Scarlet Pimpernel, at The Sign of The Beaver, Kidnapped David Copperfield, and had Great Expectations to take him to Treasure Island. So Tom Sawyer and Pollyanna dived 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea To Kill A Mockingbird, but instead killed Moby Dick. 

            White Fang, The Last Of The Mohicans, sent a letter saying "As You Like It! Much Ado About Nothing!" to Emma who posessed great Sense and Sensibility, though she was sometimes blinded by Pride and Prejudice. Emma lived in Cranford during times of War And Peace, with her husband Ivanhoe. The Wives and Daughters named Elsie Dinsmore and Lorna Doone, along with The Lady Of The Lake, went Around The World In Eighty Days. 

            Dr. Doolittle, (a Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court) after much Persuasion wrote The Federalist Papers for Peter Pan. By the time it came to Middlemarch in The Secret Garden, The Count of Monte Cristo had sent out The Three Musketeers from his Bleak House. 

          Crime and Punishment followed. The Brothers Karamazov burned The Pickwick Papers, and wrote The Anti-Federalist Papers. It's only Common Sense that The Wind in The Willows whispered, "The Red Badge of Courage" to Oliver Twist. And that, Silas Marner, is The Tale of Two Cities of the Wuthering Heights."

Call me Ishmael

When I picked Moby Dick up at a library sale I bought it mostly for its age. It was an oldish copy with gilt waves on the binding and illustrations--always a plus! I knew I ought to read it. I am always keeping a copy of Ought To Reads much as some people keep To Do List. They are no necessarily books I think I'll love, but ones I know a well-read person should have in their repertoire. I had always considered Moby Dick the sort of   book little eleven year old boys devour and coerce their older sisters into reading. But immediately upon beginning Moby Dick I was astounded--the writing is humorous, salty, and even beautiful. I have so enjoyed reading Melville's Moby Dick that I had to share some of his genius with you. Here are a few examples of Herman Melville's gilded ink:

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.

~ ^ ~

The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns!

~ ^ ~

These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.

~ ^ ~

"I am ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time."

Another Favorite Author...

I cannot believe that out of the scores of posts I've written on my dear blog, I have not done a single one about an author that has actually (now that I go back and read her again) vastly shaped my writing . Two authors, actually, but this post is only about the one. (Edith Nesbit and I have a kinship in our children characters, I do believe) This woman was the marvelous Eleanor Estes.

As a child, among the legions of books Mama read aloud to us, lurked many about the Moffats. Now and then we had one about the Pyes thrown in, and a very odd story (that I like now) called "The Hundred Dresses". It's rather sad actually, that when I look up this precious author on Wikipedia, they say very little about her. Apparently the world is very deprived of one of its best children's authors. I have to say, Eleanor Estes is brilliant. She had C.S. Lewis' knack of pinning down childrens' (sometimes) abstract thoughts. Her books, without exception, take you back to a time when life was simpler, summer stretched for what seemed like years, and one had time to think of things like The Oldest Inhabitant, what a street looked like from a certain fence, and what your mother (a seamstress') modelling bust was named. She is a master in the art of telling a simple story in a captivating way, and I love her books fiercely. :) [Not to mention they are illustrated by the wonderful Edward Ardizonne who was a genius. :]

Read them if you ever get a chance. That's all.

Among the ranks of her characters, one is my absolute favorite: "Uncle Bennie". He's only 4, but he's certainly an uncle, and his thought-process absolutely cracks me up. He wonders what "Great Relish" tastes like. After all, his older sister (Jerry and Rachel Pye's mother) is always saying people ate her dinners with "great relish." He catches crickets and names them all "Sam" because he doesn't  know which is which. When he wants them to sing all he has to do is say, "Sing, Sams." And one or another will start to chirp. He is a darling, and by the first paragraph about him, you're in love. :) Pretty nearly by the first paragraph of any of her books, you're hooked. I highly recommend Eleanor Estes as an under-appreciated but thoroughly deserving author. Please rummage up one of her books at the library ASAP. :)

"At first Uncle Bennie's mother did not want him to go. A whole summer seemed like such an awfully long time to be parted from him. But since he was looking pale, having just had the chicken-pox, she finally said, "All right."
After all, Uncle Bennie would be with Mrs. Pye, who was his own big sister, which made him the uncle of Jerry and Rachel, though he was not half as old. He was only three, and he had been born an uncle. Some people are never uncles, but he had been one from the start, ever since he was a minute old; a minute-old uncle is what he had once been.
Since his mother still looked sad at the idea of a long separation, Uncle Bennie said to her, "If the fire's too hot on that island that's on fire, I'll come back. I'll swim back. I can swim, you know," he said indignantly, though so far no one had said he couldn't. "On the bottom of the bath-tub, I swim."
                                     ~Pinky Pye by Eleanor Estes

Gold--pure gold

"All That is Gold"

J.R.R. Tolkien

All that is gold does not glitter,

Not all those who wander are lost;

The old that is strong does not wither,

Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,

A light from the shadows shall spring;

Renewed shall be blade that was broken,

The crownless again shall be king.

I would be woefully amiss if I did not mention that I count Tolkien among the best of my favorite poets. His poetry does something to me. Strikes chords of passion and emotion I didn't know were there, bids me go a'gypsing, and generally makes me sigh with an echo shaking my heart that says, "This is genius, this is beauty, this is gold." And in these moments I can't even think "I wish I could write like that" because in the face of such gold, there's no room for anything but quiet wonder.

Glimpses of Greatness

Sometimes, as in hearing our own voice for too long, we can grow weary of our own writing. Or at least I can. I begin to feel that my problems with my story, my issues with word choice or plot progression are all there is in the realm of literature. Thank heaven that is not true, for what a pickle we'd be in! So I like to refresh myself with delicious excerpts from other writers. They refresh, while at the same time challenge me to examine my writing and try to do better. So I thought I'd share with you a few excerpts that thrilled me:

Gentian Hill by Elizabeth Goudge (haven't read the book, just this quote. :)

"My name is Stella Sprigg, " said Stella. "What is your name?" To her, as to all children, names were tremendously important. Your Christian name, joining you to God, your surname linking you to your father. If you had both names you had your place in the world, walking safely along with a hand held upon either side. If you had neither you were in a bad way, you just fell down and did not belong anywhere, and if you only had one you only half belonged.
"Zachary," said the boy.
"Only Zachary?"
"Only Zachary."
"Just a Christian name?"
"That's all."
Stella looked at him with concern. Only God had hold of him. He was lopsided. She had noticed it in his gait when she first saw him walking. Then she remembered that but for Father and Mother Sprigg she would have been lopsided too, for her nameless mother had died. This memory deepened her feeling of oneness with Zachary, and she put out a small hand and laid it on his knee.
"Do you know where you come from?" she asked wonderingly.
"From the moon," replied Zachary promptly. "Haven't you seen me up there?" .....
"Zachary Moon," she said with pleasure, and felt she had got him a bit better supported upon the other side.

A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time, when no one knows it."

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"As she came closer to him she noticed that there was a fresh clean scent of heather and leaves and grass about him, almost as if he were made from them. She liked it very much, and when she looked into his funny face with the red cheeks and round blue eyes, she forgot that she had felt shy."

 Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery

"For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement."

The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis

“It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among mountains. And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass. And as you turned away from the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again, in the looking glass. And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the same time they were somehow different - deeper, more wonderful, more like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much want to know. The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.” 

The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

“Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out – single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves which were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.”

 The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

“One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”

Oh mercy. I could go on and on with C.S. Lewis' Narnia all day...that man had the elusive knack for tacking down an idea with just the right word so you can practically smell what he means. :) I hope you enjoyed reading these quotes. :) What are some of your favorites? ~Rachel

Facts of Fame- 10 things you never knew about your favorite authors ;)

I am sorry I haven't posted for awhile...the growing season is creeping up on us, and with it less time for writing and blogging! :) But since I just discovered that it has been two weeks since I have posted anything on here, I feel rightfully ashamed of myself, and I mean to reform. I thank every one of you who hasn't forsaken this blog, even though it has dabbled too much in inactivity!
If you are anything like me, you love random facts about people, places, anything! And that's a key to writing: finding out the things that others pass over, and twining them into your stories somehow. :)
So here are 10 facts that I hope you won't already have heard about famous authors. ;) Enjoy them! :)

1. C. S. Lewis's gardener, Fred Paxford, was the model for Puddleglum in The Silver Chair. Upon finding out that he only inherited 100 pounds after Lewis's death he remarked: "Werl, it won't take me far, wull it?"

2. Dickens was obsessive-compulsive over his hair- he looked in the mirror and combed it hundreds of times a day!

3. Mark Twain considered Lucy Maud Montgomery's "Anne Shirley" to be the best girl in literature since Lewis Carroll's "Alice"

4. Jane Austen first tried to publish Pride and Prejudice with the title: First Impressions

5. Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote over 5,000 poems in her lifetime

6. The famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglass, took his name from Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake

7. Poet Walter de la mare, for the last 17 years of his life, lived in the same street that Alfred Lord Tennyson had lived in

8. Laura Ingalls Wilder, although falling into ill health in her early eighties, told everyone that she wanted to live to be 90 "because Almanzo had". She achieved the goal, dying 3 days after her 90th birthday

9. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the Sherlock Holmes stories, believed in fairies, partly convinced by some photos of fairies, taken by two young cousins. The cousins, though they admitted the pictures were a hoax, were too embarrassed to admit it publicly, after fooling such a man as Sir Arthur

10. Thornton W. Burgess wrote at least 169 story books about woodland animals for children :)

"Once Upon A Time"?

It has often been said that the most important part of your story is the first sentence. If you hook your reader in the first few words, and continue to write an interesting story, chances are, they will continue reading! But first sentences really are important. You may have a great sentence down the next paragraph, but as someone once said, "If your reader doesn't get that far, he'll never read it!" :) "Once Upon a Time" is a dear, old-fashioned opening, but let's agree, it is over-used by now! :) I was thinking about this idea, and so I thought I'd examine some famous books, and see how great their first sentences were! :)

Mary Poppins by P.L. Travers: "If you want to find Cherry Tree Lane, all you have to do is ask the policeman at the crossroads." Right away, we wonder what Cherry Tree Lane is, and why the policeman knows. We continue to read! :)

The Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens: "Marley was dead to begin with. There's no doubt whatever about that." Ha! I love this one. Obviously, this captures our attention magnificently, as it is an extremely uncouth way to begin a tale! :)

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett: "When Mary Lennox was sent to Misselthwaite Manor, to live with her uncle, every one said she was the most disagreeable looking child ever seen." Don't you wish to find out what made her disagreeable?

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: "Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents!" grumbled Jo, lying on the rug." Well, why don't they have any presents this year? We keep reading! :)

And the best one of all! :) Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen: "It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."
Oh boy! You begin laughing from the start, and that single sentence has entirely captured your attention! :)

Do you see what I mean? How very important first sentences are? I am afraid I don't do a great job of first sentences....the best one I've come up with is....well...it's not great so I'm not posting it! :P Hope this helped inspire you to come up with witty openings! :) -Rachel

Are You Procrastinating Too? ;)

I am guilty, at times, of procrastinating....I am not the type who uses "Things are never quiet enough" for an excuse. I have lived too long in a family of 10 for that! But I am guilty of having 2 dozen projects going on at once, and burying the writing I know I must accomplish under those 24 other things, instead of going to it and doing the rewriting and editing. I do realize, however, that some of you may not have the privilege of the wonderful training life in a large family may give you! Here are some tips from famous authors, that I have found so, so, so true! :)

“The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.” – Walt Whitman.

Agreed! This is a very true statement! :)

“A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper.” – E.B. White.

Again, I totally agree. Just as in life you cannot stand by waiting for sunny days, in writing, you must just begin to write! The words will come when you least expect them, and, as you continue writing, nine times out of ten you will end up with something infinitely more clever than you could have pounded out if you tried!

"The best time for planning a book is while you’re doing the dishes" ~Agatha Christie

This woman has got it right! Really! I have scraps of paper littering my drawer and writing desk with idea for poems, stories, and many things, that have come to my mind while doing the most mundane tasks! Do try it! If you try to put off writing, I challenge you to sit down as soon as you can, begin writing, and see what comes of it! :) -Rachel

Excerpts From a "Green Gables Letter"

I absolutely love reading "behind the scenes" bits and pieces of famous authors' lives. Generally the best ones come from their letters and journals, where their true thoughts were spilled out, and thought "safe" from the public eye! :D We have a thin volume entitled: "The Green Gables Letters: from L.M.Montgomery to Ephraim Weber", published by Borealis Book Publishing, and I have read it several times. One part in particular is very amusing. Miss Montgomery was in the midst of writing the second "Anne" book, and was writing to Mr. Weber about the process:
"I don't like my new Anne book as well as the first but that may be, as you say, because I am so soaked and sated with her. I can see no freshness or interest in it. But, I suppose if I took the greatest masterpiece in fiction and read it over, say, a hundred times, one after the other with no interval between, I wouldn't find much of either in it also. I felt the same, though no so strongly when I finished Anne......The book deals with her experiences while teaching for two years in Avonlea school. The publishers wanted this-- and I'm awfully afraid if the thing takes, they'll want me to write her through college. The idea makes me sick. I feel like the magician in the Eastern story who became the slave of the "jinn" he had conjured out of a bottle. If I'm to be dragged at Anne's chariot wheels the rest of my life I'll bitterly repent having "created" her."

What tickles me about that whole passage, is that every one of us writers who have taken our books to the end and edited them, knows exactly how Lucy Maud Montgomery felt! And it is wonderfully reassuring to know that even when one is famous, that feeling does not change! :) I have read my book to shreds, picked it apart, looked at it inside out and upside down, till I doubt there is any originality, or continuity in the thing. That is when I lay it aside and forget about it for a little while. If ever you are in a blank spot in your writing, it really does help to read the famous authors' private writings....you never read of writer's block in the text of....well, "David Copperfield" for instance, and yet, perhaps Dickens had a few blank moments! :) Anyway, whether you benefit in your writing from reading such things, I know they are at least, amusing and insightful! -Rachel

I Wish I Could Catch It Like a Cold! ;)

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader; No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." -Robert Frost

As writers, we all have experienced that moment when we know we have accidentally written something wonderful! It may be only a sentence, it may be a twist in the story, but whatever it is, each author treasures that warm pleasure that seeps through your mind when you have penned it, and captured the moment. Suddenly your writer's cramp disappears, and for the next few moments, all else is oblivious to you as you scribble as fast as you everly can to secure your idea. This fleeting, illusive, rare feeling is what most people call "inspiration". I often look at famous authors' writing, and marvel at the creativity in their works. How did Baroness Emuska Orczy manage to write such thrilling books about The Scarlet Pimpernel over and over and still make them heart-stopping? How did Jane Austen manage to create such witty dialog between her characters? How did Lucy Maud Montgomery know that the perfect name for her red-headed orphan was Anne Shirley, and that she had to live at a house called Green Gables? How did Charles Dickens learn to describe so perfectly the little idiosyncrasies of humanity? How did Frances Hodgeson Burnett write about the transformation of Sara Crewe's attic in such a way that her readers can almost see the room for themselves?
I could go on for a much longer span of time. One thing I have learned, is that inspiration does not come when you'd like it to, and it only comes at times when you least expect it! :) Often the times I am inspired are when I am hanging laundry out on the line, or spreading mulch in our landscape business, with nary a pen or piece of paper in sight. So I hold fast the idea in my brain, mull it over, and by the time I get home, run up the stairs, grab a notebook, and begin scribbling at least the bare bones of it. Have any of you ever had a moment of "inspired-ness"? :) There are times when I read over my writing, and think, "Wow. That is actually a neat name." or "I actually wrote that? That's pretty good!" as well as times when I think, "Oh mercy! I ought to burn this!" :D I tend to have bits and pieces of ideas I hoard. Mostly names. Names of houses, names of characters, names of places.....I am saving them for the perfect moment, and it has not yet come! :) One name I have spoken of before is "Katharine Durrant". I think it is a beautiful, regal name...the problem? I have yet to write a story where a beautiful, regal, woman comes in to take possession of the name! :D I have named three houses in three separate stories "Windyside Cottage". None of the stories have made it to completion. The name of that cottage belongs to a place in my mind that I have not yet been able to recreate! Names do not stick if they don't belong to the character! :) I've learned that the hard way! At some point I will tell you my grand, name-thinking-up strategy, but that belongs to another post! :) Anyway, I am doing a post about inspiration, because I am scrubbing around for some in my brain, and as all too often happens, it doesn't want to come right now! Can you imagine the amazingly, awe-struck feeling the writers of the Bible would have had when God inspired their writing? I cannot begin to fathom that idea! :) I began a tradition last year of writing a Christmas tale for a gift to some member in my family. Last year, it was "A Tale of Fairfax and Cloves" for Sarah. I will post it in full around the holidays, but do remember it had absolutely no editing done to it, so it isn't extremely good writing! But I need to get some inspiration for this year's story, so I'm keeping my thinking cap on! I need one of Josephine March's "Scribbling Suits"! ;)

"Her `scribbling suit' consisted of a black woolen pinafore on which she could wipe her pen at will, and a cap of the same material, adorned with a cheerful red bow, into which she bundled her hair when the decks were cleared for action."

So here's to brilliant ideas! Keep those pens scribbling! :)
Waiting for a good idea to stumble upon me,
Rachel

My Thoughts On Poetry, And A New Something

Hey guys! Thanks for telling me all your opinions on poetry! So here are mine:

1.) First and foremost: Poetry ought to be inspired by something. I have seriously found that unless the idea for a poem pops up in your mind, it usually isn't worth writing. I mean, sometimes you can come up with something, but the really good poems aren't written, they sort of write themselves. I am like Abigail- usually a couple lines pop into my head, and I write a poem around them! :)

2.) As for styles of poetry....I am a bit narrow-minded in this area. Usually, I go with poems that rhyme. Now, I do agree that it probably takes just as much talent to write a good freestyle poem as it does to write one that rhymes, but unless you are an exceptional writer the cadence of a well-written rhyming poem, is lost in a freestyle one. I KNOW that many people would disagree with me, but these are just my feelings on the subject, and are subject to change. I have read some free-style poems that capture a thought splendidly, and probably better than a poem in rhyme, but I am typically NOT a fan of Carl Sandburg, Dorothy Aldis, and those sorts of poets. Feel free to disagree with me! Those are just my sentiments! :P
I think I'll start a monthly post of interesting facts about famous authors! So the rest of this post will be devoted to the subject: Ladys and Gents, Welcome to the Very First: "Dickens did NOT!" ;) If I think of a better name, I'll change it, but that sounds sort of catchy! ;P

1. Jack London, author of White Fang and The Call of The Wild was once a freight-train hopping hobo, and was arrested for vagracy at Niagra Falls

2. The word "boredom" first appeared in print in Charles Dicken's "Bleak House"

3. William Shakespeare's tombstone reads: "Blest be the man who casts these stones, and cursed be the man who moves my bones." There has been some speculation that several unpublished works were buried with him, but no one has followed the theory with any evidence- possibly because they are afraid of the epithet on his tombstone!

4. Louisa May Alcott as a child, was friends with the famous Henry David Thoreau, and would often take walks with him in the woods and fields of Concord and the surrounding countryside.

Alright! That's all for now, because my computer time is up! :) -Rachel

A Prolific Man Indeed!

Here is a question for all of us amateurs to ponder:

"How on earth did Dickens manage to write so many, many, 4-inch thick books, and still present each one with a pound of humor and wit that never grows old?!?!"

That is what I am wondering. I marvel at this man's great talent! And have any of you been driven crazy by the knowledge that Dickens died before telling anyone the ending of the book he was writing: "The Mystery of Edwin Drood"? Argh! A mystery without an end! :( Charles Dickens was a "Maniac, and a man, and a marvel in a million!" ;) *smiles at Sarah, and anyone else who has seen "Our Mutual Friend"*

Where Art Thou Cooperation?

I am in a spot where I am feeling just like Leanna when she quotes, "My compositions are like your paintings: Mediocre copies of another writer's genius!" I am really understanding today that I am NOT a Dickens, Austen, Twain, Alcott, etc. I am an aspiring author and nothing more. I made the grand and glorious mistake of reading Northanger Abbey right before taking out my little endeavor. Bad idea. Northanger Abbey drips with wit and vivacity, and my poor little story looked like milk-toast beside it! :( It may sound funny, but my characters and story are missbehaving. They won't be written the way I want them to. I know exactly how I want my story to come out, but it won't obey!!! It is most irritating, because I know for a fact that I have control over my pen! (of course!!!) Nevertheless, if my story was a child, I need Supernanny! :) The characters won't do as they should, the story won't be smoothly laid down on paper, and I have a most terrible crop of "subject, verb, subject, verb....blah, blah, blah". I have half a mind to stuff my poor manuscript under my bed to dry-rot. But I won't really. This is a temporary problem, and one that shall disappear if I proceed and make it behave! :) I always like to write through one of these fits, and sometimes by the end I have actually written something worth reading, that may have been missed otherwise. One of my worst writing moments came when I was writing the most emotional chapter in my whole book: Someone erased it accidently on the computer!!! Terrible! So I rewrote it, and something happened to that! And I rewrote it again and something happened to that! I ended up reliving and rewriting that scene 3 or 4 times! I was emotionally drained by the end! ;) That was hard work. Each time I wondered if I had really captured the emotion of the first time, but I think I did okay! Thanks everyone for your ideas for my writing-club story! I haven't decided what I am finally going to write about, but I'll let you all know! Keep the ideas coming! -Rachel (Who is not feeling like Josie Ava Inkpen today! :)