My Top 5 Favorite Books on Writing

As I mentioned in a previous post, the most important advice to any writer is simply: Sit your butt down and write. And read a lot, too...

However, it's also good to learn about how other writers do their thing, especially if you're looking for a little inspiration, some good tips, or you need a kick in the butt to get you going. It can also make you feel like you're not so alone in this writing business.

So here are my top five favorite writing books. If you're interested in any of them for your own collection, you can click on any of the images or titles to take you to my affiliate links at Amazon. Otherwise, look for them at your favorite bookstore or library!



Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

This has a lot of great practical advice, as well as a frank look at many of the realities of being a writer. Whether you're a fan of King's novels or not, I think you'll find a lot of great nuggets in here.



Ray Bradbury's Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity

When reading this, I couldn't help but feel Bradbury's pure joy for writing. Very inspirational. I always think of Bradbury as the ultimate storyteller.




Natalie Goldberg's Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within

Highly recommended, especially to those just starting out on their writing journey. Goldberg's enthusiasm and humor act as a huge shot of adrenaline straight to your brain, heart and soul.



John Gardner's The Art of Fiction: Notes on Craft for Young Writers

A wonderful book on the writing craft. There are many great tips and techniques here, as well as a lot of great advice.




John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist

Yep, another one by John Gardner, and another great book on writing. One of my favorite parts about this one (aside from all the great advice) is how he compares the novelist's personality to that of a serial killer!

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On Reading and the Writer

One piece of advice writers hear a lot is that to be a writer, you also need to be a reader.

This is so true. However, I've heard a number of people say they want to write a book, but in the next breath say they don't read much, if anything. "I'm not really a reader," they say.

The way I see it is that if you read a lot, the rhythm of words becomes imprinted on your brain. The music of sentences, the symphony of paragraph after paragraph, page after page gets embedded in your skull. You subconsciously get the structure of the written word locked into your soul. Can you dig it?

When I've read the work of someone who doesn't read, I can tell right away.

Reading a lot makes writing a lot easier. Simple as that, as the King says.

So, read lean and mean prose like Hemingway.

Read challenging work, like Malcolm Lowry or Faulkner.

Read poetry.

Read plays. Hell, one of the best classes I took in college focused on the plays of Sam Shepard. Though it wasn't a writing class, I learned more about writing in that classroom - the possibilities of it - than in any of my actual writing classes.

Read classics.

Read contemporary novels.

Read short stories.

And fer chrissakes, read for the pure joy of it. Because reading should be a joy.

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The Best Writing Advice I Know

I've been to a number of writing conferences, read a lot of books and articles on writing, taught writing classes to kids and adults, interviewed writers for my blog and chatted with fellow writers.

Basically, I've garnered lots of writing advice.

Some of it borders on ridiculous. I once saw a first-time published author on a panel at a conference tell a packed room of attendees that all novels must consist of ten scenes. (Even as a neophyte at the time, I knew that was bullshit.)

I've heard all sorts of methods. The "Five Draft Method", the "How to Write a (fill-in-the-blank) in 7 Easy Steps", etc.

The thing is we all have our different methods and means of writing. And just because one person wrote one or three dozen novels doesn't mean that what they do will work for you.

Sure there is good, even great advice; tips and tricks to make your writing smoother. But one writer's method is not sacrosanct, one writer's advice is not The Way. Maybe it worked for them. Maybe it's worth trying out (especially if you're stuck). You never know what might get that hand of yours moving across the page.

Reading books about writing can even recharge you and get you excited all over again to write. And that's wonderful.

But ultimately, you have to find your own way. Nothing is universal.

Except...

Except that old nugget followed by all the successful writers I know, which basically comes down to:

Ass in chair. Write.

Move that pen. Pound those keys.

Then rewrite.

That's what it all comes down to.

Oh yeah, and read. That's important, too.

Oh wait - don't take any wooden nickels. That's apparently important.
And whatever you do, do NOT count your chickens before they hatch, because hoo-boy, you will be sorry.

And perhaps also

because Wesley Snipes.

Just remember; ideas are a dime a dozen. Hell, a penny a dozen. It's the execution of an idea - crafting the story or novel around it - that's the hard part.

To sum up:

Ass. Chair. Write. Rewrite. Read.

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Searching for Truth - Characterization

What makes interesting characters in fiction? What makes you fall in love with a character so much that you're bummed when the novel ends - it feels like you're losing a good friend or a delightfully memorable adversary? Is it their quirks? Is it the qualities we find recognizable in ourselves? Is it the way they face obstacles?

When I first started taking writing seriously, plot was king for me. I didn't put much thought into characterization, other than maybe adding a certain tic here or there as an afterthought. As I've learned more and read more and talked to more people, I've learned - a bit slowly, perhaps - how important character is. I've tried putting my finger on what makes good, memorable, and interesting characters.

In real life, I've found that those folks who seem to be the most interesting - or those that I feel would make interesting characters in a novel or story - are those who've figured out their own truth. They already know who they are.

But most novels are basically about someone on the cusp of change - it's the whole caterpillar turning into a butterfly process. The caterpillar is the naivete, the cocoon is that struggle toward truth against outside forces, and the butterfly is the discovery of who one really is. This is encapsulated perfectly by Harry Potter, for example, or Frodo from Lord of the Rings. Their struggle shapes them and soon they, in turn, shape the struggle.

So the already established character - that person who already knows their truth, who is already comfortable in their own skin - would perhaps make a better secondary character, or sidekick, or antagonist.

In Silence of the Lambs, for example, Hannibal Lecter already knows who he is. He has mastered his truth and has come to grips with it by the time we meet him, while his nemesis Clarice Starling is in the process of discovering who she is. In the Harry Potter series, Dumbledore, Voldemort and Hagrid all know who they are; they've already become, while Harry, Hermione and Ron are in the process of becoming.

The process of the character discovering his/her truth - that is usually what we save for the protagonist, and perhaps a few other characters as well.

 Of course, there can be back-story (if it's integral to the plot) where we find out how a character who is already established in their truth became that way. This can be quite interesting if handled well. It can be learned in little bits here and there as the story progresses, or in a flashback. Just remember to handle any flashbacks carefully so that they don't yank the reader out of your story's flow.

So, what about you? How do you handle characterization? What makes a memorable character for you?

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The Care and Feeding of Writers

Congratulations! You have a writer! 

Follow these simple instructions to get the most enjoyment out of this recent addition to your family. 

Housing:   Keep your writer warm and dry. Change its bedding often as writers tend to slough off dreams of fame the older they get. 

Food:   Make sure your writer has plenty to eat, as well as a daily multivitamin. If left to its own devices, it may try to consist on nothing but coffee and Pop Tarts. If your writer becomes jittery, assume it's doing this secretively and correct its behavior with a rolled-up newspaper or the promise of a writers' conference. 

Exercise:   Make sure to take your writer on daily walks. It may grumble about this, but assure your writer it's for the best. Bring along treats to entice it, and don't forget a few plastic bags to pick up any unnecessary adverbs it leaves behind. 

Obedience:   Make sure to use strong, firm commands with your writer. It may bristle if you use five words when only one will do. Again, if your writer remains obstinate after repeated commands, a rolled-up newspaper is appropriate. Make sure to give lots of praise when your writer receives an acceptance or takes a shower, as both are cause for celebration. 

Follow this simple advice and your writer will provide years of companionship and detached bemusement.

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Writing and Me - A Dramatization

Me - 'Time to get some writing done.'

Writing -  'Can't we do it later?'

Me - 'We've procrastinated long enough. Come on - let's get going.'

Writing - 'Isn't there a Forensic Files marathon on?'

Me - 'That can wait.'

Writing - 'You haven't checked out YouTube for a few hours. What about that?'

Me - 'Stop it. Get over here.'

Writing - 'What about email? Facebook? Twitter? When was the last time you jerked off?'

Me - 'Now that was uncalled for.'

Writing - 'But it's so hard to get me started.'

Me - 'But remember how good it feels once I do get you started?'

Writing - 'We're still talking about writing, right?'

Me - 'Get off your ass! Now!'

Writing - 'Settle down. Geez.'

Me - 'I'm waiting.'

Writing - 'You know I can block you if I want.'

Me - 'Not today you won't.'

Writing - 'Wanna bet?'

Me and Writing lunge at each other and grapple on the floor.

Me - 'I'll rip out your adjectives!'

Writing - 'You don't have the chops.'

Me - 'Stop struggling!'

Writing - 'You're the one struggling.'

Writing kicks Me in the nuts, and Me strikes back at Writing's run-ons.
Writing writhes on the paper as Me takes a huge bite out of Writing. Writing bleeds unnecessary dialog all over.

Writing - 'Okay - okay...I give. I give.'

Me and Writing calm down. Me and Writing reluctantly start working together - slowly at first, then faster and faster. Writing and Me soon remember why they are together. They work for hours. Finally, spent and exhausted, they call it a day. They stare at each other wistfully. Finally, Me looks away, embarassed.

Me - 'I'm sorry for that whole biting thing.'

Writing starts to walk away, then looks back over its shoulder.

Writing - 'That's okay. I'm screwing your wife.'

Me - 'What?'

Writing - 'Never mind.'

End

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Vanessa Martir's Blog Post about the 2015 AWP Conference

Vanessa Martir wrote a blog post about her experiences at the AWP 2015 Conference in Minneapolis this last weekend, and part of it was about a man who appeared passed out across the entryway to one of the men's restrooms. People not only ignored him, but also stepped over him to get into the bathroom. Vanessa was understandably upset and brought it to the attention of a security guard, who called for help and got the guy the attention he needed.

You can read her post here, if you'd like.

Anyway, after reading that I wondered what I would have done in that situation. I was at the AWP Conference, too, though not in that area at the time.

What would I have done?

I would like to think I would've acted the same way Vanessa did. I hope I would have. But that's the thing - I don't know if I would have.

I lead a creative writing group at my daughter's junior high once a week after school lets out. It's a very informal thing, and a dozen or so kids show up each time. I usually give them a writing prompt, or we do a writing exercise. Sometime I let them choose a prompt, and if they want to, they can read their work out loud. So today, I used Vanessa Martir's experience as a writing prompt. I gave them the background of the situation, and asked them to write about what they would have done if they had been there.

As you can probably guess, all of them wrote about coming to the person's rescue, or contacting a security guard. (One of them even added the twist that the person on the floor was her parent!)

I bet if you had asked any of those people at the convention center what they would have done prior to the incident Vanessa talks about, the majority of them would've given similar answers to the kids in my after-school writing group.

But...

Imagine you're in this big convention center. Imagine there are hundreds of people walking around. Your mind is filled with the panels you have been to or are going to, or perhaps you're on your way to see some fellow writers you haven't seen in a long time.

Then you see this guy passed out in the entryway of a bathroom.

But...

There are so many other people there, all wandering around, and the more people there, the more you become diluted in the crowd. You become assimilated into the herd. The herd ignores the man, and your herd mentality coalesces with the rest, and surely someone else will come along to help the guy.

Plus, you didn't prepare yourself for this. It's not in your wheelhouse. You didn't think before heading out to the convention, okay, what do I do if there's something out of place? What if I see a guy passed out in the entryway to the men's bathroom?

And what about those who actually stepped over him on their way into the bathroom? Surely they should have done something? Or was it that herd mentality again? Well, the last couple people stepped over him, so I guess that's the thing to do.

The larger the crowd, the harder it is to get out of that follower mode.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying any of those are good excuses. They're piss-poor, to be sure. And I'm thankful that Vanessa Martir acted as she did. I'm thankful she blogged about it.

I wish we all had that sense of the here and now that she did, the sense of not only something being out of place, but also the sense to do something about it.

And I hope...I really hope...I would have done the same thing she did.

But to be honest, I just don't know.

Anyhow, check out Vanessa's novel, Woman's Cry: Llanto de la mujer.

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White Crosses - a short mystery

My newest story. This one features the same two main characters that first appeared in my story Leave No Wake which was originally published in the Minnesota Crimewave's Resort To Murder anthology.

I got the idea while driving highway 191 between West Yellowstone and Bozeman through the Gallatin Canyon. There are so many white crosses there to indicate where someone died in a car accident. I tried counting them one time, and lost track at some point after fifty. This stuck in my mind for a long time, and finally a grain of an idea started to form. It really started coming together once I decided to use the Dick Varney and Noah Johnson characters from Leave No Wake.

Here's a little about it:

Mr. Varney and Mr. Johnson are on vacation out west, travelling in an old school bus they’ve converted into an RV. When thirteen-year old Kelly befriends them at a campground in Gallatin Canyon, they suspect that her guardian is up to no good. Is she the unwitting victim of a kidnapping? Or is something more sinister going on?

As Varney tries to make peace with a tragedy that happened years before, he and Johnson try to decide just how involved they should get in the suspicious circumstances that surround their new young friend.

The characters of Joel Arnold’s short mystery Leave No Wake are back for another adventure in this latest mystery short, White Crosses.

Available for the Kindle, the Nook, and other ereaders.

Thanks for stopping by!

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J is for Junk Drawer

It's J-day in the 2014 A to Z Blogging Challenge.

Seems like everybody has a junk drawer; a place to put the detritus of life that accumulates over time and doesn't necessarily go with anything else. So it ends up in a drawer. Here's our junk drawer:

It's in our kitchen, and among other things, it contains an extra door-stopper, some felt pads, slides, tape, various nails and screws, pencils, a cigar-cutter, a paint swatch, lanyard, etc, etc. Every so often, we might look through it and try to organize it, but it's so far down on our priority list that we're lucky if we get to it once a year.

A writer's mind can often be like a junk drawer. It's full of bits of plot, characters, scenes that you haven't found a home for yet and don't really fit anywhere else. So they're stored in the junk drawer of your mind, waiting for a chance to be put to use. But this junk drawer is helpful. It's necessary. Every once in a while, when you're looking for just the right word or scenario or memory to cull, there it is, waiting for you in that mental junk drawer, looking for a good home.

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I is for Incubation

Today's letter for April's A to Z Challenge is I. And for I, I'd like to talk about Incubation.

Okay, not that kind of incubation. I'm talking about creative incubation. 

Um, well - that's not what I meant, either.

For writers, sometimes we have to allow our ideas time to incubate. You might have a great idea for a story, but as you plot it out or write it, you get stuck. You realize that point A doesn't transition into point B. Or maybe point C doesn't jive with point D. 

What's your point?

So what many of us do, instead of just throwing the whole idea out the window, is we let the story sit in our mind - we let it incubate in our subconscious. Maybe we sleep on it for a day or two. Maybe a month or more. The great thing is that many times when we're not expecting it, the solution to the problem pops into our head. The problem has boiled around in our grey matter, played ping-pong with our neurons, and suddenly, with a dash of cerebellum and a soupcon of parietal lobe, our problem is solved.

For me, that's one of the funnest things about the writing process; how problems often resolve themselves if we just give them enough time and let them incubate.

Like this, but with less chicken.

Thanks for stopping by!

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Content Mint - not all blog content is equal

One word we often hear when it comes to creating a successful blog is content. "Create content," they say. "Content is King!"

But see, the town dump contains a lot of content, too.

Content!

When a writer is told to create content (Content! Content! Content!) that's like telling a painter to throw as much paint on as many canvasses as quickly as he can.

Content is often just another word for filler.

What you want to create is something memorable. Something worthwhile. Something that makes the reader learn something, look at the world in a new way, blink in wonderment. At the least, put a smile on their face, or make tears well up in their eyes. Hell, you can even make them angry - not for wasting their time, but for pointing out some injustice in the world.

So yes, create content. But make sure it's thoughtful content. Make sure there's a reason for that content other than for just filling up your blog. There is already so much damn content out there, the least we can do is make that content count.

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Some Advice for Newer Writers - or - how my naivety reared its oblivious head

I’m naïve in many ways. I’m a slow learner. For a long time when I watched panels at writing or other types of conventions, I assumed all the people up there were invited for their vast knowledge of that topic. Sure, some folks are invited to sit on panels for that very reason, and they all have (hopefully) some knowledge on the subject, but here’s what I finally realized. Many of those panel participants weren’t initially invited. They asked to be up there. Sure, not everyone who asks gets to be up there, but if you don’t ask…

Was this obvious to everyone but me? Like I said, I’m a bit naïve.

Like this, but with less fur and more beer gut.

Same thing with newspapers. I figured you had to be popular enough that an editor seeks you out. Again, that happens, but you know what? I’ve been in a number of newspapers and newsletters and on blogs simply because I contacted them first. I sent them a polite email saying something like, Hey, I have this book and it takes place in your area…or…I’m from this area…or…I grew up in this area.

See what I’m saying?

Again, obvious? Then why didn’t you tell me!?

Same thing with book signings and readings. Some are invited. A lot of others ask. Do you always get what you ask for? Of course not. But again, if you don’t ask…

Ask a blog you admire if they’d let you contribute a guest piece. Ask a book reviewer if they’d consider giving your book an honest review. As a con organizer if you can sit on a few panels or give a reading. Hear about some literary happening in your area? Ask if you can participate.

Ask, ask, ask.

Even if they say no, they might keep you in mind for something else down the line.

Ask, my friend, ask.

Sometimes the answer might just be a great big Yes!

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