All I Want for Christmas...is more time to read!

Dunno if I like the graphic or the text better in this image!

More than once I've wondered if being the headmaster of a boys' prep school wouldn't be about the best job ever...or, mebbe, better still, being the underutilized librarian at said school! Mmm...books and learning...learning and books, yum!

Are you someone who loves to look around you and see rows or heaps and piles of books? Or, do you buy and read then pass along or resell? Me, I'm by nature acquisitive (and inquisitive!) but am learning to simplify, unacquire, and down-size. Happily, both my wife and I have always been library people...sadly, I tend to salivate to excess in bookstores or libraries! So many books, so little time!

There are some books that just MUST be acquired, read, and reread. Lewis and Tolkien, Scripture, and Robert Frost are life-long keepers for me. Howzabout you?

A Well-composed Book: Magic Carpet or Tribute to Perseverance?

A well-composed book is a magic carpet on which we are wafted to a world that we cannot enter in any other way.

 

Caroline Gordon, author, critic.

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A well-composed melody or another work of art does the same, imho. But, isn't it fascinating: what I consider well-composed is someone else's compost!

Here are some examples of great authors who didn't give up, despite being compost-piled by (idiotic) publishers:

After 5 years of continual rejection, the writer finally lands a publishing deal: Agatha Christie. Her book sales are now in excess of $2 billion. Only William Shakespeare has sold more.
 
The Christopher Little Literary Agency receives 12 publishing rejections in a row for their new client, until the eight-year-old daughter of a Bloomsbury editor demands to read the rest of the book. The editor agrees to publish but advises the writer to get a day job since she has little chance of making money in children’s books. Yet Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone spawns a series where the last four novels consecutively set records as the fastest-selling books in history, on both sides of the Atlantic, with combined sales of 450 million.
 
Louis L’Amour received 200 rejections before Bantam took a chance on him. He is now their best ever selling author with 330 million sales.
 
“Too different from other juveniles on the market to warrant its selling.” A rejection letter sent to Dr Seuss. 300 million sales and the 9th best-selling fiction author of all time.
 
“You have no business being a writer and should give up.” Zane Grey ignores the advice. There are believed to be over 250 million copies of his books in print.
 
140 rejections stating “Anthologies don’t sell” until the Chicken Soup for the Soul series by Jack Canfield & Mark Victor Hansen sells 125 million copies.
 
Years of rejection do not break his spirit. He only becomes more determined to succeed. When he eventually lands a publishing deal, such is the demand for his fiction that it is translated into over 47 languages, as The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis goes on to sell over 100 million copies.
 
“It is so badly written.” The author tries Doubleday instead and his little book makes an impression. The Da Vinci Code sells 80 million.

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As Sir Winston said--Never, never, never...don't ever give up.

 

PS: do you really need anything else said, some little spoon-fed summary or a pretty pink bow? If you cannot figger out some application for yourself, all by yourself...aw, heck, you read this fah...I think you got it!

 

The Story Behind the Story, part 3: FROM IDEA TO STORY.

Idea--duly noted and written down.

Nudge--rib cage elbowed yet again, urging the body into action.

And the idea became flesh and dwelt among us...

How do I take an idea, a fleeting phantasm, and dress it in skin and sinew, bones and brains, and give it vibrancy and voice?

Some authors use outlines for the plot:
"Here's the conflict...now, how to heighten it? How to intensify it into a crisis? What does the crisis need in order to resolve it? How will the characters act and interact?"

...and, they create many-page biographies for their main characters:
"Now, this is where this character was born, what parents were like? Personal likes and dislikes? How do they dress, what do they eat, where work, how play and with whom? Relationships? Tastes in food, drink, entertainment, autos? Townie or city or rural?"

Other authors, whose approach to writing resonates with me, suggest, "Take a strong character. Throw them into a situation. Let's see how they cope and what they do to get out of it." As Stephen King says, "I'm the first reader of my stories. I have no idea of what's coming next, and I can hardly wait to see how it'll work out!" [A decent paraphrase, not quite verbatim, from ON WRITING: FOR LOVE OF THE CRAFT.]

So, I took the idea of dogs attending the Nativity. Now, what would make dogs more interesting than they already are? Howzabout these dogs having a perfect understanding of human language? And the ability to talk to other beasts? Sure, talking animals, not the first time that's been done? But, it's still fun, huh? Narnia and Middle Earth don't have a monopoly on the notion--altho I don't expect to see it done better than Lewis and Tolkien!

What do dogs do? Eat, play, interact with humans...duh. Just because they can understand human speech, they're still dogs and they gotta act like dogs or else they have no integrity, they become something less believable if they don't chase their tails, right? What dog travels from point A to point B directly? Of course not, they travel thru X, M, T, and U whilst sniffing, wagging, and panting, and then pause only to go racing in yet another direction. Just because my dogs add on dialog such as, "Hey, lookit over here! C'mon...this smells great!" doesn't take away from their intrinsic dogginess...in fact, come to think of it, I hope it actually adds to their native canine cool!

That's a little peek under the creative hood of story writing and how it works for me. Woof!