A to Z Blogging Challenge

The premise of the Blogging From A to Z April Challenge is to post something on the blog every day in April except for Sundays. In doing this bloggers will have 26 blog posts--one for each letter of the alphabet. Each day bloggers will theme their post according to a letter of the alphabet.

We're going to give it a try here at Seton Hill Writers, with, obviously, a writerly theme. :)
So, check back here starting on Friday, April 1 (Hhm...April Fool's Day), to see how it goes.

literature as art

Academic Alan Ziegler says Some people afford painters more leeway than writers to interpret (or defy) reality, but all artists should share the same freedom. This prompted me to wonder how free are we as writer artists? Where's the literary equivalent of Cubism, of Surrealism, of insert-your-favorite-art-movement-here? It does exist. Perhaps one of the most famous is Franz Kafka's 1915 existential novella The Metamorphosis, in which a traveling salesman wakes to find himself transformed into a giant insect.

In recent years it seems we must turn to the genres of fantasy and science fiction to examine the nature of reality. In China Mieville's Perdido Street Station the "Remade" technology makes much of the world appear Cubist. For example, in the bordello, Each room contained some unique flesh-flower, blossom of torture. David paced past naked bodies covered in breasts like plump scales; monstrous crablike toros with nubile girlish legs at both ends... It just gets more freaky from there.

The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester gets quite surreal towards the end: Sound came as sight to him, as light in strange patterns. ...Motion came as sound to him. He heard the writhing of the flames, he heard the swirls of smoke, the heard the flickering, jeering shadows...all speaking deafeningly in strange tongues... The surreality continues as Color was pain to him..., Touch was taste to him..., and Smell was touch...

It's curious that so much of modern art has left representation behind but modern literature embraces it. Perhaps readers don't want non-representative prose? What do you think?

write slow or write fast?

I've been reading an interesting book lately The Writing Workshop Note Book by Alan Ziegler, who's on the faculty of Columbia University's Creative Writing program. The book includes quotes and information on creating, writing, language, revising, workshopping, editing and more. One discussion that caught my attention was about the speed of writing. At one point Ziegler says

It takes skill to work slowly. When I was in graduate school, a classmate complained, "I wrote for five hours today and only got one paragraph."

I replied: "I'm not a good enough writer yet to do that."
Clearly there are two different approaches to writing: slow or fast.

For example, here are some more quotes related to writing:

• If my doctor told me I had only six minutes to live, I wouldn't brood. I'd type a little faster. --Isaac Asimov
  
• Write your first draft with your heart. Re-write with your head.--the movie Finding Forrester
  
• Don't get it right, just get it written.--James Thurber
  

Personally, I think there's something to be said for getting the first draft finished without getting bogged down by your internal editor/nay-sayer.

So, how about you? Do you write slow or write fast?

Sambuchino Interview

In my MFA program the other day we had a chat about literary agents. One of the advertised topics was to be 'Why get a literary agent?' We didn't quite get to that but...
Some of my writer friends over at the Chiseled in Rock blog today have An Interview with Chuck Sambuchino, famous for his Guide to Literary Agents Editor's Blog.

Among many other things, Sambuchino says As writers, we all have certain hopes for our books. We want them to be in every bookstore across America. We want them to be translated and available in Europe. We want a book tour. Essentially, we want the book to have a chance to break out and sell lots of copies. Etc., etc. To do these big things, you need to get published by a large publisher who can make these goals realities. But big publishers won’t take unsolicited submissions from writers; you need an agent to get the attention of the large houses in NYC and elsewhere.

He has a lot of other good info. Check it out.

open door month

I don't recall what I've posted where, so I thought I'd remind folks that March 2011 is "Open Door Month" over at Angry Robot Books. They say
We’re publishing novels, either standalone or as part of greater series. Our novels are for adult readers; we’re not currently looking at work aimed at young teens or children.
All our books are “genre” fiction in one way or another — specifically fantasy, science fiction, horror, and that new catch-all urban or modern fantasy.
Our books will be published in all English-language territories — notably the UK, US and Australia — so we’ll be buying rights to cover all those.

Beyond all of this, what we’re really looking for in your writing is this:
• A “voice”, that comes from…
• Confident writing
• Pacy writing
• Characters that live, have real relationships and emotions, even in extreme situations
• A sense of vision, a rounded universe that lives and breathes
• Clever construction, good plotting, a couple of surprises even for us jaded old read-it-alls
• Heightened experience – an intensity, extremity or just a way of treating plot or situation in a way we’ve not come across before. “Goes up to 11″, if you know what that means.

Check out the website for more info. Good luck!

evolution of a query letter

UF Author and Seton Hill University Professor, Nicole Peeler, has a very interesting post up on her blog: Dr. Peeler Does Querying which shows 3 iterations of her query letter that led to a sale. Check it out!

a writer's life?

Do you think of yourself as a writer?

I came across a blog post by PaulsPen: Thou Shall Have Balance: The Ten Commandments of Teaching Creative Writing which touches upon many interesting ideas. For now, I'll focus on a writer's life. The author says, Creative writers, like most artists, need to be in it for the long run. and a little later, Within the writing life we also build a sense of community of likeminded people, a group that shares our appreciation for what is, inherently, a lonely, almost futile, pursuit. It’s good to have someone else along for the journey.

On the same subject, Natalie Goldberg says, in Writing Down the Bones, “Art lives in the Big World. One poem or story doesn’t matter one way or the other. It is the process of writing and life that matters.” Do you agree? Disagree?

Have you fashioned a writer's life for yourself? If not, why not?

If so, how?