Tag Archives: writing

The Ceiling that Started It All

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palmer house cornerJack and I were sitting in the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago when my book sold; I talked to two different publishing houses, chose one, and off we went.

It’s a story I’ve been reliving from telling it at back-to-back literary festivals these past three days, and because my friend Tele Aadsen has sold her memoir. Rejoicing at a fellow writer’s recognition sparks happy memories.

Tele’s book on being a fisherwoman, which caught bids from no less than four publishing houses, will be out in about a year. Her blog is HOOKED; it comes right up if you google her. If you want to read my “sold the book” story, it’s “THE DAY THE BORDERS CLOSED AND OPENED AT THE SAME TIME” in the December blog postings.

palmer house ceilingBack to that ceiling: The Palmer House Hotel in Chicago is a wonderful place, and since Jack and I got it on a last-minute half-price deal a week before we left, it wasn’t ruinously expensive. And they have a swimming pool. Getting into water always makes me happy.

I sat under this glorious human-made sky, feeling like anything in the world was possible, the day the competing editors talked to me about their vision for my book. It was a heady time, and Editor Nichole turned out to be as lovely as she sounded that first day. She shaped and smoothed, guided with a gentle hand, and smiled the whole time with more than just gritted teeth. She was having fun, and that was fun.

teleWhich is what I’m wishing for Tele, whose sky and sea are of a different hue and temperament, and for all my new friends made these past three days. Whether you self-publish or work with a house, may you have a voice you trust, a hand whose firmness is comforting rather than restraining, and fun, fun, fun. Underneath the miasma of economics and marketing and other underbelly necessities of publishing, there are stories waiting to be told. Great stories, quiet stories, honest and enlightening stories, tales that will make us laugh and think and remember.

So here’s to all the storytellers giving us back the tales of our lives. I lift my own cup of overflowing happiness to you, and wish you well.

The Jabberwock vs. the Narrative Arc

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So the last time I finagled a weekend away from the bookshop and holed up to write, the Jabberwock roared and a lot of work got done. But I also discovered something. Three days isn’t as good as two days.

If you have three days, well, it stretches out, luxurious, like a snake in the sun, SO much time to get things done. If you have two days, you arrive the night before and haul your writing utensils onto the desk and slam some food in the fridge and start making notes to yourself so you can get up in the morning and hit it hard.

I come from a long line of procrastinators – which is in itself an oxymoron; think about it–so it doesn’t surprise me that time is the first thing I squander when there’s “plenty” of it. And this past weekend, with just two days to write, I got double the word count of my three-days wonder in late January.

It was less listening for the roar of the Jabberwock (if you’re going “huh” just now check out the blog postings from a few weeks ago) and feeling his claws pull me in, than constructing a framework on which to build: “this goes here, write a section that bridges that,” managing word flow and putting things where they make a cohesive narrative arc.

Oh, that sodding term again. For those unfamiliar with it, the narrative arc is what distinguishes a series of fun, comedic episodes forming individual chapters from a story with a beginning, middle, end, and series of events and consequences that spark other events and merge into a whole. A whole, not a hole. Narrative arcs are what make stories compelling because you want to find out what happens next, as opposed to just a pleasant read one can dip into and come out of at will.

Narrative arcs are flippin’ hard work. But once you get the frame up, they really help move the story along.

Which is a roundabout way of saying, sorry we forgot to put a blog up yesterday and we’re back on schedule now: Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, with Jack guesting once a week.