tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44369593569114831122024-02-20T04:39:36.048-08:00The Secret Secrets of WritingInitially 11 secrets I will be doling these out one at a time, possibly extending for fun beyond the eleven. But as you peruse my family of blogs where all your entertainment needs are met expect things to slow down on this page after awhile. Should be lively enough at first though!Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-75161763798776536682013-07-25T11:29:00.002-07:002013-07-25T11:29:23.851-07:00Not so much a secret exactlyJust, if you would,<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://wikimagenta.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-case-of-bob-dylans-harmonicas-mere.html"><span style="color: red;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">click here</span></span></a></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-72525902710445368992013-05-02T03:00:00.000-07:002013-05-02T03:00:05.037-07:00Secret 11
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">11.
Write what you love.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Okay.
Do I start now? </span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Traditionally
this one has been “Write what you know.” And though it might
behoove me to get all humble and dissembling and say I don’t know
much, I actually know gobs of stuff. Most of it is not going to cut
it on the written page. Somewhere along these lines Henry David
Thoreau said “How vain it is to sit down and write when you
have not stood up to live.” which greatly impressed me as a young
man and freed me up to watch a lot of television. I have followed in
the great Thoreau’s footsteps not so much in defiantly standing up
to live, but in occasionally saying pithy things that diss others and
elevate myself. See, I just did it now to poor Henry David Thoreau?
Unfortunately I have learned that this isn’t a terrific life
strategy, and when I say “Isn’t terrific” I mean it’s the
soul’s equivalent of cigarette smoking: it’s addictive, can look
stylish and sophisticated and produces malignant interior cancers
with magnificent facility. You’d think it would also make people
like you less, but it doesn’t, so much, unless a little like with
the cancer, tending to appear as you get older.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">What
does all this have to do with writing what I love? Wow, nothing,
really, except, I’m thinking, if I’m not tearing too much down
there’s enough that I love that generally it just shows up when I
write. Writing sort of makes a space for it. What I start out writing
hardly comes into it. And the same with what I know and with what
I’ve lived. It all just shows up. Writing is a party! It’s a
feast! It’s a tiger pit trap. Wait, where did that come from, but,
yes! Writing is exactly like a bunch of pretty leaves scattered on a
sunlit forest path, all in the most natural, random way possible, and
you innocently step there and, wham!, right through the ground into
the deep tiger pit trap you go. That’s exactly what writing is
like, but a little more in a good way, but only a little. Which
explains why I am out here roaming these woods, looking for tigers
and carrying my shovel and my ladder. And my ladder has eleven steps,
and they are the secret secrets of the secrets of writing. Come on
up. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-14668909623149497572013-04-30T03:30:00.000-07:002013-04-30T03:30:01.090-07:00Secret 10<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">10.
Finish what you started.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Kurt
Vonnegut said something about giving the reader as much information
as possible as soon as possible. I have taken this to mean I should
tell the reader everything. Yes, you are the reader and I am going to
tell you everything! If this goes wrong I think we should hold Kurt
Vonnegut wholly responsible. Although the advice that you should
finish what you started came from Neil Gaiman, who actually said
finish what you’re writing, and, reasonably speaking, Kurt Vonnegut
then should not alone carry the weight of the failures here. Neil
Gaiman must shoulder some of that load as well.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">So
this is secret secret number ten, you must finish what you started
and my telling you everything according to the fearsome dictates of
Kurt Vonnegut begins and ends with the troubling truth that I cannot
finish it. This is rough draft number six or seven for me. I have
experimented with the idea of stopping this mid sentence, mid
paragraph (get it?). I wrote all about how I wasn’t going to stop
it mid sentence. I discussed Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the
hare at great length but could never work out why. I brought Kurt
Vonnegut into it all early, expanded and contracted the Kurt Vonnegut
portions but could never quite get rid of him, eventually settled for
holding him responsible in a way that I think we can both see won’t
stick. And now, sinking into a quicksand death of this essay I find
my only solution is to break the fourth wall.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">You
may be thinking “But in non-fiction there is no fourth wall!”
That is not so. There is always a fourth wall because the “camera”
is always somewhere. In this case I, writing, am the camera and if we
turn the camera (so to speak, I don’t want to put quotes on it
anymore) many illusions about the room we are in (this conceptual
writing, reading space) are exposed (we also unavoidably create a new
fourth wall with the camera that looks at the camera but that gets
infinite and makes me queasy.) One illusion is that we (me writing
and you reading) exist in the same time-frame. Yes, there is some
element of time travel magic where as these words spill from my pen
you read them, but there is also the fact that to me you are a future
being reading this in any possible way, possessed of strange and
mundane future based knowledges I could not possibly know because
they haven’t happened yet, whereas I, this writing, it’s form,
content and context, am to you an artifact, immutable, defined, and
historical. The writing voices in letters and words, on loose pages,
books, computery devices or magazines don’t usually talk about this
because, besides breaking some useful illusion of absolute unity, it
is of limited interest. But I bring it up here because it is
necessary to explain how you, by virtue of the fact that you even
exist, know that this will be finished, is indeed finished. I
don’t.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Except,
to my genuine surprise, I find, suddenly, that I am, actually, pretty
much finished. Weird. Well, there’s a lesson in here somewhere.
I’ll just let you sort it out from here.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-28634819573234645412013-04-28T05:00:00.000-07:002013-04-28T05:00:01.764-07:00Secret 9
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">9.
Have a backup plan.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">I
understand this sounds pessimistic. It seems to suggest you may not
have a successful career as an author. Well, let me tell you, you are
going to be </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">extremely</span></span></i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;">
</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">famous.
You are going to be successful and rich! Unfortunately this may take
80 to 140 years to kick in, thus the need for a backup plan. I’m
not saying you can’t make your way off the lay of the land while
waiting on the big time, but I am saying without a backup plan you
might find yourself poor in a way that adversely affects your ability
to write as excellently as possible. Impoverished writers are
frequently too cold and hungry to concentrate properly. Should they
defy the odds and really get going on something white hot, like a
version of </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Pride
And Prejudice</span></span></u></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">,
taking place in the future, with some of the characters as dragons,
they are going to be easily interrupted by irresistible opportunities
like learning that a large lot of only two day post expiration date
cheese has been thrown out into the large, unsecured dumpster of
their third favorite grocery store’s parking lot. And if, later
that same day, sitting in a rickety chair that’s missing one leg
with a cracked plate full of cheese, cheese, cheese and cheese
sandwiches our impoverished writer does manage to get back to how a
future dragon could be pretty much exactly like Darcy in an almost
more than Darcy kind of way, they will only be thrown off again when
their turn comes to huddle at the one tiny space heater they share
with their seven roommates. </span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">If
said writer had instead chosen a nice backup plan like “Become
Professional Baseball Player” they could sit in a cozy, craftsman
style, 11,000 square foot writers study, lulled into a deep
concentrative state by typing into the same typewriter John Steinbeck
used to type </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Tortilla
Flat </span></span></u></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">(modified
to store the typing digitally), all on P. G. Wodehouse’s old
mahogany writing desk while the servants, well out of earshot,
whisper excitedly to each other “The master is not to be disturbed
during writing time!”</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Baseball
player was a random choice for a backup plan, but it’s a good one
and worth seriously considering. It pays well, gives late fall and
winters entirely off, and has a retirement age of about 37. But
what if you’re too old for that and not athletic anyway? How about
President of the United States? The benefits of the Presidency do not
stop at a superbly generous retirement package for as little as four
years of work, but also pretty much guarantees a lucrative publishing
contract for your first book. Yes, it will have to be about your
Presidency, but it’s a foot in the door of an ever more challenging
to crack publishing industry. I know the Presidency can be a hard job
to get, but being a Governor or Senator can provide many similar
benefits and there are loads of Governor and Senator Jobs (150!).
Indeed any backup job in what I call the “Fame” line tends to
provide a handsome income and wonderful entrees into the publishing
world. Don’t think of your backup job as a Prima Ballerina,
Rockstar, News Anchor, Movie Director, Fashion Model, Nobel Prize
Winning Physicist, or Movie Star as giving up on your dream. Backup
plan is really just a shorthand way of saying that you should have a
long term plan that takes into account the many subtle things in life
that lead us to success as published writers, such as being next door
neighbors with the CEO of Random House.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br />
</div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-3943547144995116212013-04-26T02:00:00.000-07:002013-04-26T02:00:01.192-07:00Secret 8
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">8.
The great artists break all the rules, but you must master the rules
before you can break them.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">You
came here for the secrets of writing, not necessarily for anything
concerning the rules of writing. That is why I think this is a good
time to mention my 14 volume set: The </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">19,765
Rules For Writing, 3rd Edition</span></span></u></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;">
</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">which
is now also available as an ebook and as a searchable app, which, for
those of you used to buying very reasonably priced, often free, apps,
will seem amazingly expensive. It also doesn’t work very well and
is complicated to install on most devices. But it does have a social
connectivity element and most writers you meet at this point will
pull out their phone or ipad and say “I have this ‘Rules For
Writing’ app that’s actually sort of helpful when it works” in
a way that will make you feel like you’d better get it too. So you
will, only remembering this paragraph when you fail to get it to work
properly, find that it doesn’t work properly, and then finally
realize that this is, unbelievably, how it actually </span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">does</span></span></i></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;">
</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">work.
But we are not here to discuss technology, we are here to discuss
writing!</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">The
fact that there are 19,765 rules of writing that you must master must
sound a bit intimidating. Fortunately dozens of these are well known
to you already, like “Capitalize the first word of each sentence”
or “Do not give two characters in the same story the same name”
or “Get a cat.” After these there is a slightly more challenging
chunk of rules that you may or may not know, but once you read them
through a few dozen times they will seem self evident, like “A
prepositional phrase should never modify or refer to a noun that is
being acted upon by 2 adverbs, 2 adjectives or 2 verbs unless
contained in a subjective clause or in direct service of a
traditional Mystery or Romance Genre plot (known as “The Rule of
Two”)” Sadly when you get to the hard rules, like the rule where
you have to learn Ancient Acadian, you may become distraught. You
might decide to see if there isn’t maybe an abridged rules of
writing that perhaps you could use instead. Happily there are tons of
these. Few writers in history have been able to resist laying down
all kinds of helpful rules for writing. You could probably pick your
favorite writer ever, put in a little search for their rules of
writing, and you’ll be all set with a compact, concise and very
well written list of rules for writing. The only downside to this is
that it will teach you to write exactly like that writer, except not
nearly as good.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">My
suggestion then, if you refuse to Learn Ancient Acadian, which you
really should learn because your cat will love it when you talk to
him in Ancient Acadian, is to go ahead and break all the rules, willy
nilly. Go for broke and figure that people’s terrible reasoning
powers will kick in to your benefit. “Gosh,” Your legions of
readers and critics will say “To break this many rules this author
must have mastered the hell out of them!” </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-28640837426775887722013-04-24T03:00:00.000-07:002013-04-24T03:00:16.811-07:00Secret 7
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">7.
You must revise and revise again.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">This
means going through your work over and over trying to fix all its
little problems until you realize it is impossible and you give up.
Here is a little experiment for those of you who are thus far
enjoying, or enjoying enough, my essay on the secret secrets of the
secrets of writing. If you aren’t enjoying my essay this experiment
isn’t really for you, but I do commend you on your tenacity. I
don’t think I could stick with this sort of thing as long as this
if I wasn’t enjoying it. As a reward I will tell you you can quit
now. Really, you don’t have to keep reading. I was just kidding
about the secrets of writing. There aren’t any. That’s why I said
“secrets” three times. It was to be silly. But thanks for
sticking with me so long and for giving me a fair chance.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Okay,
so now that I’m here with just the enjoyers I’d like you to all
stop reading here and go back to the beginning of this essay (1.
Writing is hard work.) and read through to this point, then do it
once more. I’ll wait here until you’re done.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Done?
Good? Okay, I know you didn’t. I wouldn’t, that’s for sure, but
had you actually gone back and read through this essay two more times
I am confident you would not be enjoying it so much anymore. Besides
being bored by the repetition, the flaws and flimsiness would start
leaping out all over the place at your restless reader eyes. Counting
from the time where I am writing this sentence fresh, in it’s first
version, I have read through some version of this essay maybe fifteen
or twenty times, and though that number will only go way up, as it is
now the flaws are already leaping out at me in a staccato fashion.
This causes me to frantically revise, which causes more rereading,
which causes it all to fall apart even faster. So I am saying, yes!
revise and revise again! But I am also saying that it is all hopeless
and we are all doomed, which is actually a big secret of writing I
was hoping to keep under wraps, but I guess it’s too late for that
now.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-49335389828023966932013-04-22T05:00:00.000-07:002013-04-22T05:00:16.955-07:00Secret 6
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">6.
Show don’t tell.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">A
gray drizzle falls on a dense confluence of narrow alleys in Venice.
In a closed Japanese restaurant calm figures in a window that
overlook a minor canal prepare for a lunch rush that will not
come. It is late February and the normally overcome streets of the
city are merely busy and alive. Bundled tourists mill about making
their discoveries in free and chilly joy. The Venetians are carefully
dressed in fur and leather, the Italian tourists in sleek black
leather and snug down, and the Internationals are swaddled in a wide
variety of multi coloured hi-tech fabrics. Despite the grey drizzle a
glowy Adriatic light manages to enrich the deep colors of wet stone
and stucco, water and wood. A vigorous, grey-haired woman’s boot
heel slips subtly on a wet, slightly rounded pavement tile and as it
twists her lower body to the left she throws her arms wide to seek
balance. Her husband of 28 years on that very day, still madly in
love with her, manages to catch her around her waist, but in his
instinctive action towards her a white paper shopping bag slung
loosely on his shoulder slips off and drops. The densely decorated
millefiori glass globe in the bag drops too, hits the solid ground
with a great ringing noise, but, amazingly, does not break. Instead
the giant ornament springs from the bag and from all its elaborate
packaging and begins rolling hurriedly towards the Grand Canal. The
couple, quickly recovering, shouts and begins pursuit. A gloved hand
reaches for the ball as it races by, but it has already become wet
and slippery on its dash through the glowing drizzle and along the
saturated ground and the hand finds no purchase. The couple narrows
on the rolling globe and it seems they might intercept it when a
spirited child, running excitedly at the glass from a side street,
nearly collides with them, and, though the three of them do a wild
dance, none fall. Still, ground is lost in the chase.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">A
Viennese scholar in a new hat, resting on a stone wall on a Campo on
the Grand Canal hears the commotion of a small mob and looks up to
see the glass and its pursuers racing towards him. He springs to his
feet and looks clear to save the day. Unfortunately, between him and
the glass is a small group of pigeons. As the ball hurtles into them
they burst explosively towards the scholar. The scholar, a veteran of
Venice, is prepared for this, but his new hat is not and slides over
his eyes causing him to clutch wildly at it and wobble sideways. The
globe rolls neatly between his legs as he flings his right arm out to
his bobbling hat, knocking it sharply into the wind which carries it
into a roll roughly following the globe.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;">“</span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Mein
hut!” He cries, and the Anniversary couple race past him after the
globe and hat both. They are terrifically close now, but time appears
to be run out on their rescue operation. The woman, who so recently
bobbled so clumsily, now comes to a strangely balletic one-legged
bouncing stop on the rim of the Grand Canal. The globe, more
beautiful now, wet and spinning in the Venice air, than it ever was
in the shop, fulfills some inner secret destiny of its own by almost
gently tipping into the Grand Canal. The husband, who near the end
had his hand just inches from the ball, straightens, attempts his own
bouncing halt, but as he realizes he has left it all too late and
would rather not risk injury on the embankment, flings himself up and
out and, flailing, splashes magnificently into the green water. His
wife shrieks, but, as he comes sputtering to the surface, begins
slowly to laugh until soon, she can hardly breathe. The scholar’s
hat only makes the humor worse by flopping merrily down onto the
drenched man’s head. The man laughs now himself as the glass globe,
completely unharmed, floats to the surface mere inches from land’s
edge. A small crowd on the shore is seized with hysteria and it takes
a surprisingly long time, with many relapses of contagious laughter,
before the man, the hat, and the millefiori globe are all fished from
the cold waters of the Grand Canal.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">This
little scene above is an example of me violating this cardinal rule
and telling you instead of showing you. Ideally what I should have
done was flown you to Venice in February and positioned you at an
advantageous location on the Campo that in the one direction had a
clear view up the street to the Japanese Restaurant near where the
globe is first dropped, and in the other an unobstructed line of
sight across the Campo to the Grand Canal. I would also politely
request that, no matter how tempting, you not scoop up the glass ball
even though it will be rolling just a few feet in front of you.
Remember, you are here strictly to watch and learn. And what are you
learning? Exactly! Show, don’t tell. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-87031471666653444112013-04-20T14:06:00.000-07:002013-04-20T14:06:00.371-07:00Secret 5
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">5.
Don’t be afraid of writing badly.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">My
understanding, probably based on television shows, is that if you are
afraid of spiders and no longer want to be an arachnophobe, you go to
see a kind, gentle person who keeps just loads of tarantulas in their
spare bedroom. There, in that spider wonderland, you gently acclimate
to the spidery presence. Since I am afraid of spiders and have never
undergone this delicate cure, the very phrase “Spidery presence”
give me the absolute willies. However, supposedly, if I went to this
beneficent, saint-like spider herder and spent regular hours with
these miraculous eight-legged creatures that I shouldn’t fear
because they are our friends and help control the number of nuisance
insects in the world, if I hung out closer and closer with these
spiders, I would, before long, be letting them crawl all over me
while I blithely sipped cappuccinos and made Indiana Jones
jokes.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Since
this works, theoretically, so well with spiders, I thought I would
take it as my model for helping cure my possibly damaging fear of
writing badly. The idea would be to carefully jot down just a line or
two of terrible prose and then breathe a lot and have warm drinks and
tell myself kind things. Unfortunately it turns out that I am
incapable of producing bad writing on purpose. No matter how wise and
pure my intentions are the moment I sit down to write all my plans
dissipate. It’s like a fever that seizes me without warning. I
suddenly want to be funny, graceful, expressive, winsome and
clear-headed. Yes, when I write, I can be boring, pedantic,
egotistical, maniacal, cumbersome and obtuse, but I can’t do it on
purpose! It just sort of jumps out at me, like a spider, causing me
to shriek and flail and go hide in my room for a couple days trying
to soothe myself. If a spider herder professional tried to cure
people of their arachnophobia by waiting until they were feeling calm
and comfortable and then flinging spiders at them they would be
disbarred from the Arachnophile Professionals Association faster than
a black widow spider can eat the head off of her
mate.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Coincidentally
that’s just about how writing something awful makes me feel, the
same way thinking about one spider eating the head off of another
spider makes me feel. Nevertheless I do understand that both these
things, cannibal spiders and bad writing, are part of the natural
order of things. They are the way of the world, they happen, and I
should not fear them, but instead should embrace them. Not literally
though as I would get web and poisonous oozing spiders all over my
shirt. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
</div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-2839914283576757372013-04-18T01:30:00.000-07:002013-04-18T01:30:00.693-07:00Secret 4
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">4.
To be a good writer you must read! Read, read, read!</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">To
be a good bartender you should be a heavy drinker. A good Police
Officer should definitely knock over a few banks, and if you go into
marketing or Public Relations it would be best if you believed
everything, all the time, no matter what. If you want to be a writer
you have to read; the printing on grocery bags, tags on clothing,
peoples’ post-it notes that they’ve just left lying around where
anyone can see them. Read license plates and the ads that come in the
mailbox. Read missing cat posters in your neighborhood wishing they
included more text because it is exactly when you are walking around
your neighborhood that you are most likely to suffer from a paucity
of the written word. Besides, there is always more to say about a cat
who made a run for it! Read your phone, your blender, your espresso
machine. Read kids books, mystery novels, door signs, smoke
detectors, bumper stickers and food packaging. Read T-shirts and
things scratched into walls and trees exploring their subtext if they
have any which they don’t, but if you can find a book that goes on
and on about how they’re actually loaded with subtext then read it
cover to cover, twice.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">And
why, as a writer, should you read, read, read? Some say it is because
to become a better writer you must study how others do it, but no one
said anything about studying. No one said anything about studying!
I’m reading, not studying! Hemingway said you read so you know what
your competition is. I’m comfortable with that mostly. For
instance, I am a much better writer than the person who wrote my
espresso machine. They couldn’t even formulate words, it’s all
just faintly confusing symbols. But the secret secret about this one
is that it is no more a should situation than if I were advising you
on how to have a really bad cold. If you’re going to have a really
bad cold, you should cough, a lot.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-33589582410128802312013-04-16T05:00:00.000-07:002013-04-16T05:00:05.857-07:00Secret 3
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">3.
Make a regular writing time and stick to it.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">I
am pretty sure I read somewhere that Flannery O’Connor woke up at
dawn every day, fed her peahens and then wrote for six hours. Or it
could have been someone like Flannery O’Connor and it might have
been for five hours or three hours a day on weekdays before eating a
large, farmhouse breakfast. The point is that I could easily look it
all up on the Internet because research time definitely counts as
part of writing time and if I were having my writing time while
sitting at the computer right now you would not be reading this. That
is because I would almost certainly be researching Flannery O’connor
and anything related to her in anyway possible until I should have
gone to bed three hours ago, at which point I would have logged so
many writing hours that I’d have to take a week or so off, by which
time I would have abandoned this project because I could no longer
remember what I was going to say. Which just goes to show how you
should keep regular hours and stick to them tenaciously like, maybe,
Flannery O’connor, who, off the top of my head and going on
memories of very old research, had a disease called Lupus, raised
Peahens, didn’t think well of John Steinbeck, lived in the South,
and was a super good writer if you don’t mind not knowing sometimes
if things are supposed to be funny or not.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">One
final caution here: Counting research as writing time is a lot like
counting tax deductions. You can only count what you use. This is why
I am trying to develop a writing style that attempts to include, by
name and specifically, everything I have seen, watched or read, ever.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-47863683449854947162013-04-15T14:02:00.000-07:002013-04-15T14:02:00.559-07:00Secret 2
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">2.
Keep writing and you will get better and better.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Everyone
enjoys the hope that their labors will have a purpose, that practice
makes perfect and that, generally speaking, we improve. I
particularly dislike wasted effort. If I ruin a perfectly nice sauté
of caramelized onions, red peppers and brussels sprouts by tipping in
too much salt I am quite capable of spending six agonizing hours in
the kitchen throwing in lemons and whole cauliflowers, arugula,
olives, turning it into a soup, add potatoes, curry, coconut milk,
emptying the larder in the process, transfer to a succession of
larger pots, try adding 6 cups of brown basmati rice, rush out to the
store while it simmers to get more ginger, some honey and turmeric,
and one dozen quart jars to freeze it all in so that I can carefully
thaw them out in seven months and then dump it all into the compost
bin.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Did
this make me a better cook? Absolutely! For months I will be more
cautious with salt. I have also learned that gradually adding all the
food I own into a large pot with a predetermined amount of salt until
it reaches an appropriate salt to food ratio is not a sound culinary
endeavor. And so it is with writing. Just because you drift off into
some vaguely analogical tangent about cooking a ruined meal doesn’t
mean you have to follow that through to the bitter end and come up
with some dodgy grand lesson or conclusion from it. And I am now
almost certainly the better writer for it.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">So
clearly it plays out in the world around us. Great writers like
Harper Lee encounter so much in a life of writing, mistakes and
successes, that though each individual lesson may be small, their
wisdom and craft accumulates around them like mighty oaks soaring
gradually out of a ragged meadow of damp weeds. </span></span></span></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">To
kill a Mockingbird </span></span></u></span></span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background: transparent;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">has
certainly moved many, me included, but it will always be the endless
graceful charm and profoundly rooted craft of her later work that
guides and inspires true writers.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4436959356911483112.post-66496894482477768492013-04-14T14:01:00.002-07:002013-04-14T14:01:39.220-07:00Secret 1
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">1.
Writing is hard work</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">Well,
typing is hard work. I don’t like typing. I particularly despise
any letter I have to type with the little finger of my left hand. And
I find sometimes double clicking on an icon on my desktop that allows
me to write can be excruciating. But since I can do that with my
pointer finger that’s less physical and more emotional. Likewise if
I’m going to be writing in my spiral notebook retrieving my spiral
notebook can be a pretty hard-core chore, like an afternoon of ditch
digging condensed into 7 seconds. I dug ditches, so I know what I’m
talking about. It Was On Kibbutz Yahel in the early 80s. That is in
Israel. Not the 80s but the Kibbutz. Me and Jay worked together
digging a very big ditch in sand for a tough, wiry Israeli who was
distinctly unimpressed with the amount of work we got done. Jay had
curly hair and was a bit dodgy just in general but he certainly
seemed to me to be a reasonably diligent shoveler. We smoked a lot of
hash once we figured out how to acquire it and got so drunk one night
on cheap wine that I could not remember what happened that night. The
funny thing is that 30 years later I can remember very few things
that happened on any given night back then and so now the one night I
cannot remember is one of the nights I remember the best. In fact,
I’m pretty sure a lot of stray evening events from that time have
just drifted over to conveniently have happened on that night.</span></span></span></span></span></span><br /><br /><span style="color: black;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: transparent;">What
does this have to do with writing? Well, it is writing. Was it hard
work? No, it was more like an accident that happened while I was
planning to do the excruciatingly hard work of writing. Was anyone
hurt in this accident? Only you can say.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
Feldenstein Calypsohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04896259011478481374noreply@blogger.com0