A Million Words

Nova is nine months old tomorrow and she's working on walking.  When she was younger, people often commented on how alert she seemed compared to other babies her age, and even in the womb, in the long weeks of gearing up for labor, her activity level drew comment whenever I had monitors strapped to me.   I attribute her frequent kicking and subsequent explorations in part to the constant stream of caffeine I send her, first through the umbilical cord and now through breastmilk, but I think it's also just her personality.  Still, it didn't seem important until recently, when she's gotten much more mobile.   We've met up with several babies her age lately, and she enjoys their company but she's crawling circles around them, poking at their eyes, grabbing their noses, and sometimes even stepping on them.  Many other babies her age, especially boys, are still inching around on thier bellies.  The differences are getting a lot more noticeable.  She's generally ha...

I finished reading Enchantress of Florence yesterday afternoon, while Nova was taking her second nap of the day. It was a good day for napping and reading, dark and rainy as Ireland's reputation, and much colder than August should be.  I am proud of myself for having finished the book in less than a month, which shouldn't be much of an accomplishment but it's the most I've read in a single month since Nova was born. Enchantress of Florence is by far the best book I've read this year, with the possible exception of Good Night, Gorilla . I also enjoyed it more than other Rushdie books I've read, namely The Moor's Last Sigh and the first 2/3 of Satanic Verses .  I loved the juxtaposition of Mughal India and Renaissance Florence, and the fluid boundaries between art, life, and death that characterize the story's world. It was, of course, beautifully written, but I never felt like the plot got lost in flowery description.  I should get around to finishing ...

I recently started a new draft of a novel, and I'm trying a new approach with this round. I've always written through start to finish, and then edited the whole manuscript in one go, or in blocks of about three chapters.  This time, I want to make sure my scenes are working, to analyze a bit as I go.  I plan to use this checklist primarily as an editing tool.  Many other scene lists are designed to be used before the scene is written, and I've tried that and found that it doesn't work so well for me.  I need to discover what's going on as I write, and I prefer to write without looking over to double-check my preconceived plans as I type. The scene checklist below is designed to catch some of my most common slip-ups, especially lack of tension and my tendency to rush through things too quickly. I looked at three scene checklists before writing this one:   The Big Twelve , a scene list from The Scriptorium , and another one I can't find the link for anymore, which...

Character-Conflict-Change Scene protagonist: Who is he/she? What does he/she want? How does he/she feel? What actions does he/she take to reach the goal? Scene antagonist: Who is he/she/it? What does he/she/it want? How does he/she/it feel? What actions does he/she/it take to reach goal? Other characters: Role in scene? Is each necessary? Distinct as an individual? Is the conflict strong and/or clear enough? What is the worst thing that could happen in this scene? Scene-Setting-Senses-Story What does the reader learn about the story’s world in this scene? Do they need to know that information at this point? Can any information be held off until later? Is any necessary information missing? Does the reader get a vivid, multi-sensory sense of the setting? Does the setting contribute to scene tension? Are the character’s senses and emotions engaged? Does the scene stop at a point with forward momentum? Do you want to turn the page to the next scene? If not, can you end the ...

One should never trust a woman who tells her real age. If she tells that, she'll tell anything. --Oscar Wilde Once upon a time I knew a woman who lied about her age. She said that she was “almost thirty” when in fact she was a decade older. I always kind of wondered how she got away with it. I certainly never guessed until someone told me about it, and her other lies had begun to catch up with her. Now I have a birthday coming up this week, the once that will push me over the edge from mid- to late-thirties. I can see 40 on the horizon, but it looks like a pretty benign signpost from here. I’m married now, and have a baby, which makes it easier to look at the future without anxiety. If I were still alone, I think 40 would look pretty lonely, but I like to think I wouldn’t get too wound up about it. What I can see, now, is how easy it would be to just drop a decade and turn 28 this week. My old acquaintance looked a little weather-beaten for a 29-year-old, but she had...

I haven't looked at my blog in a week and a half.  I'd like to say that I've been busy writing, but that would be only half true.  I've been busy thinking about writing instead of actually doing it -- what I should be working on and whether I'm up for this rewrite. I spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to make a living as a novelist.  I've known a few people who've done it, so I know it's possible, but I also know that very few writers ever make it to that level.  I understand that hard work is more important than talent, and that connections can be handy but won't carry anyone all the way, and that luck has almost nothing to do with it.   I figure that about 1,000 living writers are making a living as novelists in the English language market today.  I know a couple of them, a handful of writers who have published novels but won't be quitting their day jobs any time soon, and many, many more who are steadily working at their craft an...

At 8 months old, Nova is crawling, climbing stairs, standing with support, and pulling things of shelves.  She's speeding ahead as usual, but the last week has been tough, with a head cold, two new teeth cutting in, and immunizations to top it all off.  She's getting sticky and dirty and occasionally a bit bruised and scraped from her crawling and climbing adventures, but she's still having a good time.   She's also enjoying "eating"and I think some of the food has started to go in.  So far, I'm having mixed success keeping her off salt, sugar, wheat and dairy, since that's all most people eat around here.  She's still enjoying her carrots, apples, bananas, pears, porridge, avocado, rice cakes, etc.  It's nice being able to set her up with her own tray of food when we're all eating dinner, so we don't have to take turns holding her while we eat.   She's also getting a lot better at keeping herself entertained, especially when she ha...