The New Oxford American Dictionary defines a haiku as “a Japanese poem of seventeen syllables, in three lines of five, seven, and five, traditionally evoking images of the natural world.”
I enjoy Tweeting haikus with a nature theme, like these:
My feet run the trail
Spiderwebs adorn my hair
As birds call above.
A withered leaf falls.
Its scent crushes the present
And brings forth the past.
The short story I’m writing collided with real life on Friday. There I was, sitting in a subway car, looking over my pages. Nothing unusual about that, right? I was reading through the scene that takes place at a blues club, when a man stood up a few seats away and positioned himself in the center of the car. I knew I was going to get a musical performance whether I liked it or not.
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The other day a writer friend and I discussed Robert Johnson, the late, great blues player, and his legend of making a deal with the Devil at the Crossroads to play well. Talking about it made my fingers itch to get to the computer keyboard and continue working on a short story I’m writing for an anthology.
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“I’ve changed my mind—I don’t want to be the villain.”
“But I’m not in love with her.”
“I’d rather kill them than save them.”
To any nonwriters out there, understand this: my characters can (and do) change even in the midst of my writing them, even when I’ve already got the idea what they’ll be. I can’t explain it, that’s just the way it is.
To writers out there, I’m sorry to say that when it happens, when it alters your plot and the surrounding characters who are then required to react differently to this new facet of your character (let’s call him Smith), there’s no choice. If the change rings true, you’ll need to revise your story.
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A fellow writer asked me to copyedit her latest cookbook. Although my editing background is in a different field, she knew I loved to cook and loved reading cookbooks. She handed me a checklist and away I went, happy to immerse myself in the world of food.
Until I realized that no matter which recipe I read, even those including ingredients I wouldn’t eat, I was constantly reaching for things that were sweet or salty or spicy. And extra portions of…well, anything. The numbers on the scale crept up.
You’ve written a book. You want readers, right? Of course you do.
So you market (hopefully before your book is available). You use social media to get the word out and you’ve created a website or blog page. You want your site to be exciting and popular. So you dazzle with lights and colors and action.
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You might be making a big mistake.
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I like book categories. They save me time. I know exactly where to go to find the books I want to read. (And I’m very unhappy with my library’s decision to remove the mystery and science fiction categories and place everything under “fiction.” Come on, people! How much time do you think we have to go through the stacks?)
I was horrified to walk into a number of used bookstores and discover that the urban fantasy authors I liked to read were not in the fantasy/sci fi section. Instead, for some inexplicable reason, they were all in the paranormal romance section. And some of the stories didn’t even have a romance in it! (A nasty little voice in my head whispers it’s because they’re written by women but I hope I’m wrong.)
I use categories to help me find other books, other authors, who might not fall on my radar screen. Mislabeling means we, as writers, become more invisible.
Mislabeling drives me bats. What can we do about it? Any ideas?
*Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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After writing my blog entry The Joy of Reading Indie a while back, I bought a Kindle so that I didn’t need to read books off my computer. It was a wise decision. I waded through Twitter, Amazon reviews, and websites I stumbled onto and picked a number of indie books to read. Some were misses. (Yes, I really do mind grammar and spelling errors because they take me out of the story. And please stay on target with your plot.) Some were simply okay. Other people might have enjoyed them better than I did. That’s fine. Here, I prefer to focus on the ones I enjoyed and will read again:
I’ve been decluttering lately. The paper monster reared up and attacked. At first I defended, then I pressed the assault.
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The first skirmish was a draw. I still felt tired and overloaded, unable to write a word.
The second, third and fourth skirmishes were better. Then I lost count as I continued paring down the piles of the past. It takes time and effort to think about each line written.
There’s a brief respite now as I pause to write this. Here’s what I’ve learned.
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I’ve been spending the past week decluttering. And it’s been tough. But the paper monster rose up to the point where I couldn’t write. Couldn’t focus. So I’m heading back to an earlier post I wrote on this topic and I’ve got my paper shredder primed:
https://www.jmlevinton.com/writing-amid-clutter/
See you next week on the other side of the pile.
*Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
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