Posts Tagged ‘writing’

My thoughts exactly, Betty.

Any author can tell you this:  by the time your book gets to copyedits, you can barely read it any more.  I well remember flipping the book upside down in frustration and tackling the edits just one more time, back to front, reading every sentence out loud to myself in search of errors. Yet still I bemoan books that go to press with errors intact…there’s no excuse.  Right? 

This week I got an email from a sharp-eyed reader pointing out what two copyeditors, an editor, my agent, countless beta readers, my own sharp eyes, and all of my readers didn’t:  the dreaded typo! 

In my Alice Walker chapter (figures) on page 57 of The Heroine’s Bookshelf, I correctly state that Alice Walker married in 1967.  Things go south on page 59, however, when the book erroneously states that Alice Walker was divorced in (you guessed it)…1967.  I can only speculate, but I have a feeling a slip of my fingers on some far-away laptop caused me to confuse the two numbers, because Walker actually divorced in 1976. 

Thanks to eagle-eyed Julie A. for pointing out the mistake.  Life lesson learned:  double-check all dates. 

What’s the most egregious copy error you’ve found in a book? 

So, it’s Emily Brontë’s birthday, and I am reminded of the strangeness of families. 

Emily Brontë, as painted by her brother Branwell.

See, Emily was a bit…odd.  She had a really hard time being out in the world (not that Haworth afforded her much of a chance of that).  She didn’t identify with others.  I always think of her thinking as orthogonal or perpendicular to that of the people she was surrounded with at the time (yes, I just used a math metaphor; no, it won’t happen again).  I truly think she saw life differently than those around her.  She identified with the nature and the animals with which she chose to pass her time.  She was familiar with a kind of passion that is still scary and transgressive these days. 

But she was also a sister, and vital to her family in her small way.  Mrs. Gaskell reports that sister Charlotte was haunted by the lost howls of Emily’s dog, Keeper, in the hallway outside of Emily’s door once she had gone.  Anne’s grief over the death of Emily surely contributed to her early decline.  Emily herself had suffered greatly with her anger and grief when her brother, Branwell, preceded her in tubercular death. 

I guess what I am reminded of today is that Emily, no matter how different from her family, no matter how unsociable or inscrutable, was also as much a member of her family as the close-halled, quiet parsonage in which they lived and died.  She was as much a part of her sisters’ (and her brother’s, though he did not pursue a literary career in adulthood) writing as they were themselves.  Many recent circumstances remind me that we keep our families with us wherever we go, whether they are intractable and difficult or not.  They can be part of us in mysterious ways, as I am discovering in a small way (my mom and grandmother are both participating in next week’s readalong…what were the odds?).  I am glad we have this literary family to look back on and remember.  Happy birthday, Emily. 

First of all:  WOW. Over 118 people will be joining me for The Great Gone With the Wind Readalong starting August 1! I’m humbled and thrilled…and of course you’re still very welcome to eavesdrop or join in.

Secondly, time flies when you’re (not?) having fun. I’ve been writing professionally for over six years, and I still struggle sometimes with work/life balance. 

Sometimes, it’s hard to turn off my work so that I can participate in life…other times, life hangs over work like a big black raincloud and complicates everything.  I guess this is just a complicated way of saying that I’m still here, still working on the precarious concept of balance, still unsure if I’ll ever manage. 

It’s easy to get mired down, but then…oh, but then.  Then I run into things like this:  the story of a woman who sewed the sad story of her life into a sampler that still exists today (via Writing Women’s History). 

What will become of me ah me me, she stitches, telling the story of her ordeal and her personal struggle.  And I am reminded that people like Elizabeth Parker have always existed and will always exist, people who turned life into art not because it was beautiful, but because it was necessary.  By all accounts she survived her own darkest hour and lived into old age.  This is what I was talking about when I wrote about being the protagonist of your own life, of the sustenance of reading and writing, and I’m so grateful I saw it today and that Elizabeth, all those hundreds of years ago, was brave enough to give it to herself and to us.

Okay, head ‘splosion happening over here.  I just ran across a GalleyCat post that poses an unthinkable question…should writers read?

I'll admit it. I'm overjoyed at the chance to use this picture.

I’m going to try to avoid the kneejerk “omfghowcouldyouevensuggestotherwise” and say…

I’ve run into this question before.  Usually it’s coupled with some kind of discussion of the dangers of tainting your voice, style, or goals with the work of another writer.  I myself sometimes limit the genre or amount I am reading while working on certain pieces of writing…it can exert a strange pull that takes me away from myself, not to mention the many procrastinatory dangers of the pile of books that’s sooooo much more tempting than the pile of crap I produce while drafting.

Yes, these are valid reasons to perhaps limit, dampen, or avoid reading in certain situations.  But dear God!  How could you commit words to paper without a love of words, and paper, and books, and libraries, and readers, and escape, and fantasy?  How could you go down the long-ass road to publication, replete with pitfalls, hissy fits, self-doubt, ego crushes, and challenges of every kind, without loving the end result? Not to mention the fact that being at least semi-well-read is even more important once published so that you don’t sound like a complete boor.  Believe me.

We don’t all need to be crazy bibliophiles or even lovers of the classics.  But I’m not sure I want to read anything from a writer without a love of books and the written word and media of all kind and an active, inquisitive, engaged reading habit.

Talk me off the ledge here, friends.  Do you think writers should have an active reading habit?

One of the motivations behind The Heroine’s Bookshelf was to remind readers (and myself) that we are protagonists of our own lives.  Call me egotistical, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t see ourselves as heroines, stars of our own particularly tricky novels, no matter how mundane or convoluted.

Tonight I had the pleasure of speaking with the North Metro Area Writers’ Meetup on the idea that leaning into your unique voice, purpose, and path can bolster a writing career. In my experience, when you stop thinking like a supporting character and start accepting a leading role in your writing life, interesting things happen.

Ordinary Jerrica...or Holograms Lead Singer Jem?

Too often, we’re fed the line that writers merely have their ear to the floor, that they’re glorified secretaries taking dictation from finicky muses.  I’m never going to claim that writing isn’t (freaking) mysterious, but I do think that it’s too easy to discount ourselves in the process.  Instead of railing against the unfairness of there being approximately three story ideas ever, none of them original, we would do well to lean into what we bring to the table.

Maybe our Brooklyn childhood and WPA political schooling taught us to look out for detail about the poor immigrants who make the machine of the United States go (Betty Smith).  Maybe our brother shot us in the eye and taught us to see things slightly askew (Alice Walker).  Maybe we want to bring a bit of magic into the world (Frances Hodgson Burnett).  Each of these authors tackled the coming-of-age story, but they did it so uniquely and with such beautiful difference that we will always view them as individuals.

Along with many writers I know, I’m thinking a lot about My Next Step.  What do I bring to the table?  What do I suck at?  What can I live with?  What perspective is unique to the enthusiastically vestigial Southern Californian history nerd with the scarred-up roller derby knee and the obsession with the everyday details of history?  At times like this, I lean into the possibility of Erin-as-protagonist, secure that at the very least, I’m in good company.