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The Scrum of Speed Dating

At the New York City Department of Education Library Services Conference in Brooklyn (that’s a mouthful) I was invited to do speed dating with librarians. I’ve done this before. At BEA in NYC . At ALA in New Orleans. As a matter of fact one woman I speed dated at ALA liked what I said enough to invite me to this NYC event. I feel like I can get a librarian to date me (or read my book which is probably more important). Well, you know what I mean. Connections, connections, connections. It is about relationships.

So these are the rules. There are tables full of librarians and in this instance all the authors were grouped together at one side of the room. There were some dozen tables and about 14 or 15 authors. I have to say I had to fight the competitive response. Because as soon as the microphone sounded authors sprang into action to find the biggest table first.

Some observations.

I shared my first table with a more established writer. We were nice to each other. Cordial. Smiled. We shared our time. But I could see it in her eyes. Neither one of us was going to share a table again.

When the buzzer sounded to shift tables you had to be fast or you wouldn’t get another table and would have to wait or share your time. I have to say. I’m slow and I need to get faster. Either that or talk less. At the least I have to be more aware of the buzzer. Because if you’re slow you miss the chance to get a seat at another table. The woman in charge took pity on me and found me an empty table three times in a row. Thank you, un-named librarian who helped this author to find his groove. Five librarians bought my book that afternoon – always a good thing. By the last table I, having to skip one round because I wasn’t quick enough to grab a seat, waited behind an author at a large table and as soon as the buzzer rang, took her seat. Another author raced over to try to sit in what would be my seat. I looked at him and shook my head slowly. Not this time. He moved away with a strained smile.

Some events just bring out the best in me.

 

Posted by  |  November 11, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Events, Librarians, Open Wounds, Publicity & Marketing | Leave a comment

Real Writer’s Write Right

Speed Dating Authors NYC DOE Library Services Conference

Authors who Dated at Speed

I took notes at the Library Services Conference in NYC on Tuesday.

One thing that really struck me (there were many things but this was the first) was a comment by Walter Dean Myers (yes, him again). He said he spends his time doing three writing tasks:

  1. Planning
  2. Writing
  3. Re-writing
It’s such a simple paradigm. When I heard it I thought it was brilliant. I like simple. Plus it resonated with me. I find the distinction between real writing (usually defined as the first draft) and all the rest of the writing process to be artificial. It’s just the way I see it. If I spend three months planning a project (researching, thinking, daydreaming, putting plot points together in my head in imaginary lines, maybe outlining, maybe taking notes, listening in on conversations my new characters have in my head, picturing them standing in front of me, listening to them breathe – what? doesn’t everyone do this?) that’s a very real and essential part of my writing process – and for me it’s writing. The putting down of the first draft is the most fun but it can’t happen for me unless I’ve spent the time before, planning. And then of course there’s re-writing or revising, over and over again. That can take even longer than the writing part depending on how the process goes. But no book is finished and ready for an editor’s eyes until it has been perfected in the revision process. Most writers don’t like the re-writing process, understandably. It’s the hardest part but for me too but it is also the most satisfying part because when it works and I find the right edits to make a manuscript whole, it feels wonderful. Searching for the edits sucks. It’s that simple. But finding them… ahhhhhhh.

Posted by  |  November 10, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Events, On Writing, Walter Dean Myers | Leave a comment

1000 Pages a Year

Walter Dean Myers

I saw Walter Dean Myers today. Let me be clear. I didn’t meet him – though I wanted to – as he was swarmed by New York City Department of Education Librarians and I couldn’t get close. I went to a talk he was giving at a conference I had been invited to attend to do some author speed dating. I got there early to see him speak. He was speaking about his writing, the writing process, his family, the tapestry that is his writing life. He’s an amazing writer and an amazing man. I’ve only read three of his books so far and enjoyed each of them. He’s written, as of his own count, 102 (from picture books to YA novels to a memoir).

Don’t get depressed by this but here’s some figures about his writing life. If you are a writer look away as it may knock the wind out of you. He writes 5 pages a day, every day. He works on three projects at a time. He writes about 1000 pages a year and has contracts for books to be written through 2017 – as he says, “If I live that long.” Now granted he’s about 80 and has been writing full-time for a while. But this guy is not only prolific but damned good and prolific. Read his Vietnam war book Fallen Angels. It’s incredible.

So, if you are a writer, don’t despair. You’re not him and I’m not him. Obviously, yes, but still. Every writer has their own process, their own life, job, family, kids, dogs, cats, hamsters, fish, and coral snakes (coral snakes? don’t ask, don’t ask) to factor in.

I work full-time so I don’t get in writing every day on my book, but I do write every day – at least a page of something whether it’s blog, letter writing, or novel. I work on my novel all the time (and I mean all the time) in my head but on paper one or two days a week when I can get at least an hour to work with no interruptions. I can get a full draft of a novel length work done in  a year, six months if I push it and have no social life (social life?). I used to write much more but then my son was born and I try to make sure that he comes first – though I’m not always successful. I bring my computer everywhere with me in the hope of a few minutes to write. My son and my wife both complain that I’m staring at the computer screen and not them when we talk in our dining room. Sometimes I am. Well, my computer is in the same space and our dining room is very small and I am distracted easily by shiny objects. That plus I spend so much time in my own head it stops me from being the best listener. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

It’s my process. If you’re a writer you have your own process too. The more efficient it is (write when you can write, think when you can think, procrastinate rarely) the more productive you will be. Now it’s back to work.

I’ve got a day job to get to.

And if I let this go on any longer… I’ll be procrastinating.

Posted by  |  November 9, 2011 | Categories: Blog, Events, On Writing, Walter Dean Myers | Leave a comment

Broads and Johnny D.


One of the first writers I read as a writer, and not just as a reader was John D. McDonald – and specifically his Travis McGee private eye series. I found his books in the Peace Corps library in Honduras. Now you have to picture the volunteer’s library as a large shelf of mostly paperbacks next to the nurses office where you get shot in the but with gamma globulin twice a year. Always some interesting sounds coming out of that place. The couches outside in the courtyard were where you waited for your turn to get shot. The bookcase was next to couch furthest away from the nurses door.

In Honduras I read a lot. I’ve always read a lot, but in Honduras, without TV and with lots of long car, bus, and walking trips to occupy my time with a good book, sometimes two was a must have in the backpack. I picked up The Scarlet Ruse first, then worked my way through the 20+ books in the series. A group of four of us traded them back and forth reading them together over two and a half years.

What I loved about McDonald’s series was the hard-boiled atmosphere, the floating houseboat called the Busted Flush, the alcohol consumed, the beautiful women who showed up as damsels in distress, the sidekick Meyers, and the violence, that could come out of nowhere and end as quickly as it began.

One book, though really made me stop and think about the whole writing process. I mean this was a genre book that followed the formula of a mystery. But this one book, A Deadly Shade Gold, turned the genre on its head. No book after it in the series played by the rules either.

About half way through the book the mystery is solved. I remember wondering what the rest of the book was going to be about if the mystery was already solved. But there was no need to worry. Travis McGee was such a fascinating character and I was so involved with what happened to him, mystery or no mystery, that I’d basically follow him anywhere. And for each of the books after that, I did. The story transcended its form.

Character, in this instance,was more important than plot. Character isn’t all, but if your character is good enough the reader will follow you far and wide, from jungle to desert and back again.

Posted by  |  November 7, 2011 | Categories: Blog, John D. McDonald, On Writing | Leave a comment

Nadi Blood and Captain Aldo

Why did you write a historical novel and why did you want to write about fencing? This is a question from Ms. Maddy Black’s 8th grade class last week.

The truth is I had no desire to write a historical novel. I had no idea I had one in me. As I realized my story was going to take place in the past I even fought against it. I knew I would not be able to rely on my contemporary point of view for the novel and since I’d never worked without that before I grew overwhelmed by the concept of a historical novel very quickly. How could I possibly speak with confidence about what it was like to live in 1936 or 1942? I wasn’t even alive back then. And the more research I did the more overwhelmed I became. It seemed in order to be an expert on the era, or to feel competence in my knowledge of the era I would have to read an incredible number of heavy, thick, dry-looking books and microfiche newspapers.

But at some point my curiosity and interest in the period overcame my anxiety and I began to write. I even became so involved in the research that I overdid it and had to cut about half of what I looked up, out. I even found I enjoyed the details of life from that time period. I found it fascinating.

Also, my protagonist, Cid Wymann, was 7 in 1936 so I either wrote about him in 1936 or wrote about a different character. I’ve written before about the vision I had of a 72-year-old Cid dueling with épées on the roof of the Chelsea Hotel so I won’t go into it here – but those were my constraints. I either wrote about him when he lived or I wrote about someone else. but no one else haunted me the way Cid did. That image wouldn’t go away.

Andrew Smith (author of Stick, The Marbury Lens, Ghost Medicine, and In the Path of Falling Objects) says his stories come through him, as if he was a medium for a story that had to be told. I see writing very much the same way. The characters gnaw at me. They worry me like a dog with a bone until I start to tell their story. Writing for me is then very much a journey to figure out who the protagonist is and what his story is that needs to be told.

And why fencing? I have been in love with swordplay since I was a kid, fenced since college, and taught stage combat to actors. I find I write about things that I do, that I feel a passion for. And so the man on the roof of the Chelsea hotel was fencing and his tale began when he was 7 – when Aldo Nadi, the greatest fencer of the 20th century, perhaps of all time, came to New York City and gave a fencing exhibition at The Plaza and on the same weekend that Errol Flynn’s Captain Blood premiered. I guess you could say I had not choice. Open Wounds would be a historical novel and there would be swordplay in it.

Posted by  |  November 4, 2011 | Categories: 8th Graders, Andrew Smith, Blog, Events, Middle School, On Writing, Open Wounds | 2 Comments