It took me a whole week to figure out how to participate but it finally clicked and I’m in. This Pay It Forward Blog Fest is brought to you by Matthew MacNish and Alex Cavanaugh. Hop, hop, hop!
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How Lawrence Block Saved My Ass
A writer friend of mine and I were talking recently about her present writing project and, being interested in her project and wanting to help her out, I offered to read a sample chapter for her. She said yes,with a big smile and we were off and running. Before I left though I turned to her and asked, “Okay. What do you want me to do?”
“What do you mean,” she said, still smiling but straining a little.
“You can ask me for what you need when I read it and I want to make sure I help you out so… what do you need me to do, in addition to reading it?”
She looked at me for a long moment, then , smile disappearing, said, “I don’t know. I mean…what do you mean? I never thought about that.”
“I can critique , look for strengths, look for weakness, line edit, read and give overall impressions, look at narrative structure or character, read and tell you I love it, read and tell you to send it out immediately – does that help? I want to help but I want to help you the way you need help.”
The smile appeared again. “I never thought about it that way. Let me think what I need and I”ll let you know when I send the manuscript to you.”
“Excellent. I’m excited to read it.”
This was not the first time I”ve come up against this. In a writer’s group I was in once we allowed each other to ask for what we wanted in a critique – since critique means different things to different people. One new writer auditioning for the group said to me, “But what good is it if you don’t get feedback that tells you what needs to be improved?”
I said, “Sometimes you need just to hear yourself read a piece out loud or get an audience reaction (facial, verbal, energy, laughter, snickers). It all comes back to what you need. Not everybody needs a knife taken to their work.” He didn’t like this and decided not to be a part of the group – probably for the best.
A couple of years later I was working on a memoir of my time working at Gay Men’s Health Crisis doing HIV/AIDS work and it was very painful stuff to put down on paper. At a writer’s retreat I decided to read some of it out loud to the other writers. I asked for what I wanted before I read. I was used to doing this by then so I did. I just wanted to hear what it sounded like. It was too personal to be critiqued yet and I said so. When I was finished reading, one writer raised her hand to comment and when I called on her she started to take it apart. I stopped her in the middle of her fourth or fifth sentence and said, “I don’t want a critique. I’ll take a question about the material – ” and she interrupted me. “But you need to hear -” and that’s when Lawrence Block saved me. He said (yes, he was one of the writer’s at the retreat – the Lawrence Block of Matthew Scudder, best seller, fame), “Didn’t you hear what Joe said? He said he just wanted to read it out loud.”
There was scattered applause, like softly popping incendiaries. Then I took my seat back in the group and another writer took the reader’s chair.
Thank you, Larry.
Ask for what you need. You’re allowed.
On Stick by Andrew Smith
Stick came out today, a new novel by Andrew Smith, the author of Ghost Medicine, In the Path of Falling Objects, and The Marbury Lens. These are three of my favorite books, each for different reasons but more than anything they are three books about the relationships young men have with each other, and more specifically, brothers. Stick is similar in that it explores this territory, Andrew Smith territory, but it is, like each of Andrew’s other books, different.
Synopsis from Amazon: Fourteen-year-old Stark McClellan (nicknamed Stick because he’s tall and thin) is bullied for being “deformed” – he was born with only one ear. His older brother Bosten is always there to defend Stick. But the boys can’t defend one another from their abusive parents. When Stick realizes Bosten is gay, he knows that to survive his father’s anger, Bosten must leave home. Stick has to find his brother, or he will never feel whole again. In his search, he will encounter good people, bad people, and people who are simply indifferent to kids from the wrong side of the tracks. But he never loses hope of finding love – and his brother.
This is a subtle book beautifully written, sensitive, and innocent. But what I like more than anything are two things Andrew does: 1) His uncanny ability to write from the perspective of fourteen-year-old Stick. It is his trademark as a writer – to be able to get inside the heads of these protagonists. There are no wrong turns in the story because Stick does what he needs to – nothing more and nothing less. This is an incredible feat of writing. The second thing that Andrew does that makes him stand out is write beautiful prose. Some writers write pretty words but you notice them because they write that way for the sake of writing that way. Andrew crafts every sentence and every sentence sings as part of a larger tapestry that is his novel. His prose seems effortless and his narrative flows without a hitch because of it. And this is not just the way he writes Stick’s thoughts, jumbled up sometimes and filled with holes another as if the words bang around inside and can’t exit – an ingenious technique he uses to show how Stick hears and perceives the world.
Here’s one of my favorites: “And none of what happened to us would ever make sense if I didn’t let the biggest monsters that swarm in my head come up and reveal their teeth there is no love in our house only rules.” When you read the context for this it will blow you away. In the land of realistic fiction for young adults, Andrew Smith is king.
Book of the Month at Treasured Tales
Open Wounds has been chosen by Alishia at the book-blog Treasured Tales for Young Adults as her book of the month for October. She’s written a lovely review of Open Wounds also. It’s an honor to be chosen and to be reviewed with all the books out there today so thank you, Alishia and I’m glad you enjoyed Cid Wymann’s story.
Of the Number One Thousand
Open Wounds has gone into its second printing.
As of last week 1,042 copies have been sold and some 968 copies are out there in the USA at Ingram, Baker & Taylor, other distributors, Amazon, and independent bookstores near you.
So the decision was made to do a second printing.
This is good news mostly due to the help of my terrific publicist Julie Schoerke and the JKSCommunications gang of Marissa, and Sami. And of course, all the folks who gave up their cash and pulled the book off the electronic or wooden shelf.
Thanks everyone.
Lunievicz 