Category: Writing

In Translation

A language is more than just words. I can speak a few words in a few languages, but not enough to get by. Sometimes, it seems we share a language and still miss something in communication. Other days, I’m not sure I’m even fluent in my native language…

A friend of mine (from Sweden) said she was reading something British and she didn’t quite get it until she remembered it was British. After that, it was funny. She reminded me it wasn’t enough to read the words, but stories also can require a switch in mindset. Since my friend has lived in both Britain and America, it explains how she might identify it differently.

She also recommends translations of a few books from Swedish authors. Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell are the ones I’ve read so far, and both of them write intricately-plotted crime fiction. Many of the comments I’ve heard about it before and after I read it is that it takes 50-100 pages to get into the story, to be truly hooked. I felt that was accurate, though the second and third books by Larsson did not have the trouble because they followed after the setup of the first.

I know a couple people who don’t want to wait that long. I’ve heard of editors and agents who want to know by the first five pages, by the first paragraph.

What I really wonder is what that says about us, that we aren’t willing to give it a few pages. Does it say something if you read the last page first, if you skim through the book and then read it over in detail, or if you carefully devour everything on the page. Or is it something more about how short life is, that we want to jump into something that immediately takes us away.

Then it leads me to wonder if our work, translated, meets the same resistance when it travels over to someone else. If they need to switch to a part of the brain where they understand it, or if the translator doesn’t manage to change the ideas from what we intended to something that makes sense in that culture.

When I look at my work again, I start wondering about creating new languages. Y’know, because I’m always thinking about space adventures and aliens and I swear one day I’m going to finish that world I’ve created and the story that’s just beyond me at the moment. Those translations remind me that it isn’t just about figuring out the character’s mind, but also in making sure the reader sees it as well as I do.

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Draft Finished?

Right. I know. I said I finished it. I felt good about finishing it.

So why is it that the little things I changed keep rummaging around in my head and whisper more little details to me? That’s not finished, that’s a work in progress.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. How do you know, definitively, that you are done? I’m struggling at the moment, but I will manage.

I’m moving on to the next draft, but I hope the susurrus moves to silence. After I fix that just. one. more. thing… After that, I also need to make that definite decision of what I’m doing next. I refuse to allow myself more than a week or two before making the next move. Only one manuscript will languish away in the drawer of death for five years. NO MORE!

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Dedication

Today’s space is reserved for all the writers I know (and maybe some of them I don’t know) who ought to be out there, sharing their work, who are stopped by just one person: themselves.

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Preschool Graduation Tomorrow!

My daughter’s ceremony has taken up a lot of my time today. Why do I think it’s necessary to make not one kind of cookies but three? Picture to follow… Today is set for getting ready and figuring out some kind of outfit and getting the camcorder ready to go.

Hope everyone out there is having as much fun as I am.

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Readers and Writers

Writers are readers. We can’t help it – what draws us to words is love. Sometimes I end up thinking about the writing side and neglecting the reading side, but not this week.

This week I went to a book club. It’s called Dagobah, and they focus on science fiction books. At least, I think they do. It’s a small group and they meet once a month to discuss the books they read. It’s different from what I often think about for a book club, where you choose one book and everyone reads and discusses it. 

[I know a friend currently trying to force herself to the end of her book club’s selection, and I hope she makes it. I also hope nobody has to do that with one of my books!]

The cool part about sharing books this way is that I get to hear about books I might not have chosen and I get to share books I love. It’s also a great way to keep me reading, because with limited time sometimes that is what falls by the wayside. 

It shouldn’t be, I know. It’s hard to keep up with a genre when so many books are published (traditional and indie). 

One thing I thought interesting: most of the people seemed to read older novels. It might just have been this month. And I can’t say much for myself, I’ve been listening to the BBC production of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

For the future: watch for news of The Art of Science ebook!

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With the Nose

One of my weaknesses, writing-wise, is food. I know it seems like such an odd thing, because it isn’t like I forget to eat regularly. Actually, maybe that would help…

No, seriously, I won’t starve myself. I know one of my handicaps as a person is that I cannot smell many of the things that other people take for granted. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I called my friend to remark about how I could finally smell the laundry aisle at the store, because it was the first time I could remember having that sensation. At first she remarked, duh, but then we talked about how I was in the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy, and that it took that much to get me to smell those scents. My nose is more sensitive to certain kinds of aromas, and others I miss completely.

Unfortunately, I can smell diapers. I could smell the mulch outside my daughter’s preschool this week. But I can only vaguely remember what the flowers smelled like during my pregnancy. I’ve never smelled most of them on my own, but not for lack of trying. My husband (before we were married) would bring me flowers. I would bury my nose in them and inhale deeply. It isn’t because I can smell the roses – I literally can’t – but it is one of those automatic gestures I do when I receive flowers.

When I started editing Don’t Tell Your Mother, I have several places where the characters have food or it is cooking. My critique partners underlined them, asking what they were eating, what they smelled at that point, or something else along those lines. Sometimes, I just can’t even imagine what I’m supposed to put in there. Even when I can describe the actual food, whether there are cherries in the dessert or rosemary in the pot roast, I don’t always know if those things give off enough of a smell for most people to identify them.

[Yes, I’m still editing Don’t Tell Your Mother. I’m still struggling over some of these food descriptions.]

I started asking other writers about food in stories. A few of them find it brings out their experience to have these things described. To bring them into focus even though the food itself is not dragging the plot forward, in most cases.

The other problem with that novel is that it takes place on a farm, where the smells are different than they are in the city. Livestock is kept on the farm, and there are certain smells that I’m sure I haven’t delved into the descriptions nearly enough for people who have never visited one. Thinking of that makes me want to print off another copy and highlight all the places where I might have missed some smells or other sensory perception that would aid in creating my setting.

What is it you look for in a scene where food is present? Scent is supposed to be linked strongly with memory, so do you find it more interesting when there are smells, tastes, and textures along with the sights and sounds? It’s definitely part of the “show, don’t tell” advice to bring in all the senses to bear when using description. Or does all of that just get in the way of the narrative when you’re reading?

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Writing-

Always writing. It’s one way I know I am a writer, because I can’t stop. [See December, when I tried to take a break.]

750 Words is a site where I write privately. I’ve blogged about it before. Today they went to a subscription service to help pay for the site for new members, and asking older ones to donate when they can. I have donated this year, and if I have extra I will again soon.

As of today, I have been a member at 750 Words for 2 years. I have written on 675 days (of 731 total). I have written as few as 750 words and as many as 6827. I am currently on a 57 day streak. That break last December didn’t just break my habit, it made it very hard to resume. My average number of words per day came out to 994.

I find it much more satisfying to say I’ve written 671,196 words. It also makes me want to go add four more to today’s total. I’m quirky that way. It’s not even all the words I’ve written, between rewrites in the current draft and blog posts and a few other things that didn’t get captured in on the site because I wrote them without internet access. I’ve even done my 750 on my phone once because we weren’t connected to the internet any other way. With that much dedication I ought to have a longer streak than 57 days, but I will be patient and I’ll get there again.

It’s silly how much harder I try to do something like that when they tell me stats and give me little badges because I’m on a streak of so many days or I completed 500,000 words.

I think I need to do something special when I hit 1,000,000 words. Just because I can keep track of them now, not because I haven’t written that many in the past. I wish I knew when I hit that first million words, but it might have been before I ever joined 750 Words.  

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How Long Can Seven Chapters Take?

I suppose the real answer is: forever if I do not work on them.
 
I’ve been playing around with the new Surface tablet. Just got the new “typing” cover, which means that while it is three times as thick as the touch cover, I can type nearly three times as fast and the thing is still pretty thin. Thinner than the first generation iPad my daughter loves to play with. Thinner than the second generation iPad that this thing is supposed to replace (with case and Bluetooth keyboard that I never did get accustomed to using).
 
Saw the commercial for the Surface since purchasing one, and I told my husband it looked like the pen was included, but it is not.
 
So tonight, after getting the kids to bed, I need to make it my goal to also finish editing at least one chapter. And tomorrow night, and the night after that. And by next week I will be finished with only that one subplot to stuff into the middle weave into the narrative.  
 
I know part of this is still the resistance to finishing the thing. It’s almost like I don’t want to send it out. Like I’m afraid it will get summarily rejected. That it isn’t good. That it isn’t good enough.
 
But good enough for what? It will soon be as good as I can make the story with the tools available to me. It is a good story. Definitely worth sharing. Or it will be when I am done.
 
Focus on the prize. I will finish it. I will share it. I will shop it out and stop letting this undercurrent of unknown undermine me.
 
In other news, my daughter seems to have stopped taking naps again. That might also explain a bit of my lack of progress, but maybe we can start running laps around the house (or the park) so she goes to bed earlier…
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New Technology

Michelle Tuesday had a commentary about the recent uproar in the publishing industry about the future of writers, publishing, and royalties, but the part that really clicked in my head was when she referenced Who Moved My Cheese?

My husband bought me a new Microsoft Surface tablet for Mother’s Day. Yeah, it isn’t until next month, but he’s the kind of guy who likes to take advantage of triple points at Best Buy. Silly, huh?

I’ve been frustrated with it. The apps are different than the iPad I currently cling to. But is it like the mice and the humans and the cheese? Sometimes I resist the changes to new things. It’s not all bad to change platforms, but some of it just doesn’t transfer.

The worst part is typing. It’s something I had mostly given up on with the iPad. I can do it on the virtual keyboard. I have a Bluetooth option, but I don’t like how hard I have to push on the keys to register the movement. When I write, I like to follow where my thoughts are and I make my fingers keep up with the mess. Last November with NaNoWriMo, I was trying to get 3000 words in half an hour. I haven’t made that yet, but I might one day. With the Surface, I have struggled with the magnetic keyboard. I haven’t been able to break 40 wpm. The errors are atrocious. I hooked up my USB keyboard and things are looking up.

It’s enough to get over the worst of the frustration. But I also want to try other options than this keyboard with typing tests before I decide on which one I will be stuck with. Otherwise, I’ll probably have to drag a lovely USB option around to annoy my husband.

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