I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt.
This week's word is ONE.
Earlier this week there was a piece published in the online magazine LitHub by author Jonathan Franzen:
It wasn't a very helpful list, to be honest.
Some of the "rules" sounded more like fortune-cookie proverbs: "You see more sitting still than chasing after."
Some were vague: "Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting." Uh ... ok ... would you like to proffer, bestow, or furnish some examples, Jonathan?
And some were just head-scratchers: "It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction." First of all, what if you have a job as an accountant and then come home and work on your novel: how does having WiFi at work make you a poor fiction writer? (Why not just say, "Stop surfing the net when you're supposed to be writing your novel," if that's what you mean?) Also -- "his workplace"? What is this, 1950? Or does this rule only apply to male writers?
I just have One Rule For Writing, and it's an adaptation of a quote attributed to Mother Teresa talking about prayer:
WRITE AS YOU CAN,
NOT AS YOU CAN'T.
I don't mean "You're as good a writer as you're ever going to be, so just churn out whatever comes easiest and don't challenge yourself."
What I mean is, find the time, place, style, tone, voice, genre, or structure of writing that works for you. If you can't get up at 5 a.m. to write for two hours, don't. If it isn't possible for you to write every day, don't worry about it. If your style is earnest and thoughtful, don't try to write light, quirky material just to cater to popular audiences.
And the paradox is: as you focus on writing "as you can" -- finding your unique style and gift -- one day you'll look back and see that you are writing more and better than you ever thought you could.
Today I'm participating in Modern Mrs. Darcy's Quick Lit linkup, where we share short reviews of what we've been reading.
This month I read one memoir and two novels, all of which were excellent.
Fire Shut Up In My Bones by Charles M. Blow. When Chapters had its moving sale a few months ago I picked up several $1 or $2 books, including this one. I wasn't familiar with Blow's work as a journalist or even with his name, to be honest; I chose the book simply because it looked interesting. I'm glad I did, because it is a beautifully-written, moving memoir of Blow's life beginning with his boyhood in Louisiana with a philandering father and hard-working mother. Blow always felt lonely and different in his family, which he says contributed to his being taken advantage of sexually by a cousin -- an event that separated his life into before-and-after and was the catalyst for his lifelong exploration of both his sexual identity and his identity as a black man. Well worth reading.
Commonwealth by Ann Patchett. The only other book of Patchett's that I've read is her most famous, Bel Canto. Commonwealth doesn't quite live up to that standard, but I still really enjoyed it. It begins with a long scene in which the Keating and Cousins families intersect, setting in motion two divorces and one marriage. The story focuses mainly on the six children (two Keatings, four Cousinses), who are thrown together in the wake of their parents' breakups. Their troubled relationships come to a head when they grow up and one of the daughters becomes involved with an older writer who uses her family's story as inspiration for what becomes a wildly successful novel. There are a couple of minor subplots that didn't seem particularly significant, but overall I loved how the plotlines interwove together, filling in the details of past events from various characters' perspectives. Patchett is such an accomplished writer: she knows just how much detail to provide in any given moment so that we understand the situation without requiring a huge amount of backstory, and her characters are distinct and believable. This is an excellent novel about how families can come through very tough situations, reconfigure, and become even stronger.
Virgil Wander by Leif Enger. I loved this novel. It starts slowly with narrator Virgil Wander, a middle-aged bachelor, recovering from concussion symptoms after a freakish car accident and reorienting himself to his quiet life in a down-on-its-luck Minnesota town. In the early chapters we meet a whole cast of quirky characters: a kite-flying stranger seeking information about his son, a beautiful woman whose husband went missing years ago, a local boy who made it big (maybe?) in Hollywood and is now back and attracting attention ... and more. At first it's hard to keep everyone straight, but Enger is such a warm, trustworthy storyteller -- and Virgil is such a likeable person -- that soon I was fully absorbed in the lives of all the characters. Then, about halfway through, the plot kicks into gear with a series of unsettling events that kept me turning pages and rooting for Virgil and his little community. So good.
I'm linking up with Five Minute Friday, writing for five minutes on a given prompt. This week's word is REPEAT.
A few years ago I wrote a children's story called "Peter Repeater."
It's about a little boy named Peter who repeats everything other people say.
He repeats what his parents say.
He repeats what his older siblings and his baby brother say.
He repeats what his classmates say.
He repeats what his teacher and principal say.
He annoys EVERYBODY with his repetition, and he won't stop.
I said, he annoys EVERYBODY with his repetition, and he won't stop.
Then one day his teacher takes the day off (trust me, she needs it) and his class gets a substitute teacher.
Peter tries his repeating ways on this new teacher -- but he gets more than he bargained for. The teacher says so many long, complicated sentences, with such big, silly words in them, that Peter can't keep up. Finally he has to admit he's met his match. His new teacher just isn't repeat-able.
There are lots of people out there doing what everybody else is doing. But you can stop others in their tracks by being original.
Thinking outside the box.
Going where no one has gone before.
It's so freeing when you realize you can just BE. You don't have to be a repeater.
My fellow blogger and book lover Elliott Blackwell recently wrote a post called "The Classics Book Tag" on his blog Begin In Wonder. In that post he answered ten questions about classic books and issued a challenge to others to do the same. Here are my ten questions and answers.
1. What is an overhyped classic that you didn't really like?
That's easy: Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. At 55 pages, it is the shortest book I ever hated too much to finish -- and I am sure I had it assigned at least twice in university courses. I think on both occasions I just read the first five pages and the last five pages. I just hated it! I think it is probably an important book to read in the context of discussions about race and colonialization, so someday I may give it another try........................................................ actually no, I probably won't.
2. What is your favourite time period to read about?
Many of my favourite books (not necessarily classics -- yet) are set in/around World War I or II: All the Light We Cannot See (Anthony Doerr), The Light Between Oceans (M.L. Stedman), Everyone Brave is Forgiven (Chris Cleave), The Secret Keeper (Kate Morton), just to name a few.
But I think actually my favourite setting (if not time period) for fiction is rural: whether it's the "good country people" of Flannery O'Connor's fiction, or the Avonlea-dwellers in L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series, or the poor migrants of John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. I just love reading about -- and writing about -- rural life and the things that go on behind the simple bucolic exterior.
3. What is your favourite fairy tale?
Hansel and Gretel. As a child hearing this story I admired the children's resourcefulness in leaving their breadcrumb trail, and I loved the idea of them nibbling parts of the gingerbread house. I thrilled at the idea of the witch being tricked when Hansel holds out a bone instead of his own finger -- and of course seeing the witch pushed into the oven was great!
None of the disturbing parts of the story, such as why the children were alone in the forest in the first place, ever bothered me.
By the way, Jonathan enjoys the PBS show Super Why in which the Super Readers fly into a fairy tale to solve a mystery using the power of words. In the Super Why version of Hansel and Gretel, the children must "ASK FIRST" before biting a piece off the witch's cookie house; once they do, she's perfectly fine with it and doesn't try to eat them at all. (It just shows you what good manners can accomplish.)
4. What is the classic you are most embarrassed you haven't read yet?
Maybe not exactly embarrassed, but I confess that I have not read any of the great Russian classics except Anna Karenina. I have not read War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, or Crime and Punishment. Nor have I read Hugo's Les Miserables -- not Russian of course, but a large novel (in size and influence) that I've yet to read.
5. What are the top 5 classics you would like to read soon?
A Tale of Two Cities by Dickens. It is one of my brother Lincoln's favourites, and he gave me his copy when we were in PEI this summer.
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
Cry the Beloved Country by Alan Paton.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.
The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. I love Wharton's writing, and this is one of hers I haven't read yet.
(Notice how none of these are the same novels as in #4?)
6. What is your favourite modern book/series based on a classic?
I liked Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and David Wrobleski's The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, both based on Shakespeare plays.
I also enjoyed -- much more than I expected to, in fact -- Jo Baker's Longbourn, about a servant in the home of Pride and Prejudice's Bennet family. It's not a sequel to or a rewriting of the original, just a really good stand-alone novel that someone who'd never read P&P could enjoy.
7. What is your favourite movie/TV version of a classic?
I love the BBC version of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, with Hattie Morahan and Charity Wakefield as Elinor and Marianne Dashwood.
8. What is the worst classic-to-movie/TV adaptation you've seen?
The worst for me would have to be The House of Mirth starring Gillian Anderson. Anderson does her best, but this movie has serious casting problems. And the writers made an abysmal, nonsensical decision to combine two characters (Gertie and Grace) into one, obliterating one of the most important subplots of the novel. I could go on and on and on, but this is just an awful treatment of one of my favourite novels.
Two other adaptations I strongly disliked were The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (I gave up after half an hour) and Earthsea, based on Ursula LeGuin's wonderful book A Wizard of Earthsea. That one is brutal.
9. Favourite editions you'd like to collect more classics from?
I don't have an answer here; I don't collect any particular versions.
10. What is one under-hyped classic you would recommend to someone?
Make that two -- and they're very different:
Silence by Shusaku Endo - about Portuguese missionaries to Japan in the 1600's.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith - about a teenage girl, Cassandra Mortmain, who lives in a tumbledown castle with her eccentric family in 1930's England. I think of Cassandra as a cross between Anne of Green Gables and Jane Austen's Emma. She's delightful.
Well, it's been fun answering these questions. I always enjoy thinking, talking, and writing about books.
Today I'm linking up with Modern Mrs. Darcy's monthly Quick Lit post where we share short reviews of what we've been reading.
A Light So Lovely: The Spiritual Legacy of Madeleine L'Engle by Sarah Arthur.
This recently-released book reflects on the life and work of Madeleine L'Engle, author of A Wrinkle in Time and over 50 other works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Arthur organizes her material according to paired concepts like Sacred and Secular, Faith and Science, Fact and Fiction, etc. L'Engle was both a revered and a controversial writer; while A Light So Lovely reveals aspects of her life that many of us may be unaware of, it also reinforces her influence as a writer of deep faith, intelligence, and imagination. Excellent book.
Aching Joy: Following God Through the Land of Unanswered Prayer by Jason Hague.
In
this memoir, released just a couple of weeks ago, Hague shares his journey as a dad coming to
terms with his son Jack's autism diagnosis and learning more about
prayer, dreams, and hope. So good and so real. You can read my full
review HERE.
Only Dead On the Inside: A Parent's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse by James Breakwell.
I follow Breakwell (a.k.a. @XplodingUnicorn) on Twitter and enjoy his funny tweets about life with his wife, four young daughters, and pet pig*. Amazon has this to say about the book: "This step-by-step manual teaches you how to raise happy, healthy children in a world overrun by the undead." Just as silly and fun as it sounds.
(*By the way, one of Jonathan's favourite things to do while we wait for the school bus is to watch a video Breakwell posted of his family singing Happy Birthday to their pig, Gilly, as it eats a watermelon birthday cake they've placed ceremoniously in the middle of their living room carpet.)
Tell Me More: Stories About the 12 Hardest Things I'm Learning to Say by Kelly Corrigan.
If you picked this up thinking you were getting Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life, I have great news: this is not that book! I stumbled upon Tell Me More, which I'd never heard of, at the library this summer and it looked intriguing, so I took it out. Corrigan shares stories from her family life and friendships, focusing on 12 key phrases that are important in relationships -- phrases like "I was wrong," "I don't know," and of course "Tell me more." This book is a quick, enjoyable read with some profound takeaways. Some of the stories took a little long to get going, but overall I liked it a lot.
Fifteen Dogs by Andre Alexis.
This is the only piece of fiction I read since my last Quick Lit post, and it's an unusual one. In the first scene, Greek gods Hermes and Apollos make a bet over whether dogs would be happier or less happy than humans if they could speak and think like humans. They happen to be passing by a Toronto vet clinic, so they give human consciousness to the fifteen dogs inside. The rest of the book explores how this change affects the dogs as individuals and as a group. I read this for a book club, and it was certainly interesting to discuss issues the novel raises like what is happiness? how do we react to change? how do we experience time? etc. It is intriguing and original, but I can't actually say I enjoyed it: it felt choppy, and the overall atmosphere of the book was pretty bleak.
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on any of these books, or on anything you've been reading. Please comment!
