Writer's Digest Links

My friend Angela on Wicked Wordsmith posted the link to the following Writer's Digest site. The link lists the 101 Best Websites for 2008. I haven't checked them all out, but I will.

Hard work pays off -- for two of us

Last week was a busy week. My son, Michael (age 5), and I both graduated from our respective programs. He will be moving on from preschool and will start kindergarten in the fall. I graduated with my MA in English-Creative Writing from Missouri State University and, for the moment, plan to simply enjoy the diminished amount of stress that comes with finishing the degree -- and that pesky thesis. What will I do with all of my free time? Maybe I'll be a dad and tinker with that novel. What do you think?

Here is a photo of the two graduates. Enjoy!

Someone Knows My Name

Today, I have read nearly 100 pages of Lawrence Hill's Someone Knows My Name.

Amazing book. It's so real, I can't believe it's fiction!

(I want to write like him)

Tragedy dodged

This is a piece of sound advice from someone who almost screwed up royally:

BACK UP YOUR FILES!!!

This past Monday, I went to pull my jump drive from my pocket and it wasn't there. As panic slowly trickled through my body, I began to realize that more than 30 pages of my thesis (and more than half of my novel) were lost. For two days, my wife and I scoured every inch of our house, our cars and my office to no avail. I retraced my steps and called almost every restaurant I've visited since last Thursday. Then, at 5 p.m. this evening, a co-worker asked if I'd called a restaurant that we visited on Monday.

Guess what. That's where it was!

Thank you, Lord! And thanks to my awesome wife for putting up with a frazzled grad student.

I was ready to throw in the towel and bypass a spring graduation and shoot for the summer. Now, I have a renewed hope to finish this thesis and graduate on May 16.

So please, if you pray, drop one in for me -- that I might stay motivated to complete my thesis, pass my comprehensive exams, graduate and continue writing my novel!!

Archival treasures -- and a little apology

First off, I want to apologize for the "little vacation" I took from this blog. It had nothing to do with the blog, other than the fact that I hadn't worked much -- if any -- on the novel or my thesis for about four weeks! I was preparing for a final, writing the paper for my linguistics course and gearing down for the Christmas break, which is now over.

This is crunch time for my thesis, as the first draft is due in February. I'm sticking with the creative non-fiction and have found some new inspiration for some essays that I will write.

Since I have been working at Missouri State University, I've been captivated by our archives in the Meyer Library. People actually donate documents and memorabilia from their lives that -- if combed through carefully -- tell fascinating stories.

When was the last time you "dug" through your own archives?

The Christmas break allowed me some time to do that. I am so blessed to have a mother that has boxed up most of the things from my childhood, as well as momentos, writings, etc. from high school and college years.

In my old bedroom closet sits a wooden toy box with a treasure trove of Eric memorabilia. Right now, it is only of interest to my mother and me; but, hopefully, my sons will one day enjoy browsing through the items.

This Christmas I was on a quest to prove that I was once a promising artist. I was scouring the Eric archives for a high school sketchbook. After locating it (and realizing that that path probably wasn't as promising as I believed), I also found a manilla envelope. In the envelope was the only hard copy of an essay that I wrote in 1994. I hadn't seen this essay since my senior year in high school, and I was very excited to find it.

The essay chronicled a four-hour visit with Baseball Hall of Fame broadcaster and longtime St. Louis Cardinal announcer Jack Buck -- a St. Louis legend, who is father to now uber-popular Joe Buck.

Over the years -- mostly at parties -- I have called forth my memories from that evening at KMOX radio. But this essay, which was written as part of a class project, filled in so many gaps that I had forgotten.

I intend to use this essay to help me write a portion of my thesis. Finding this work helped me to understand just how important "original" work can be -- especially when the goal is to provide accurate history.

I'm also convinced that EVERY life is interesting and adventurous in one way or another. That's why being a storyteller is so much fun!

Sinclair Lewis

OK...I know little to nothing about Sinclair Lewis, but I DO know that he changed my life.

How's that, you say?

Glad you asked.

As some of you might know, I am a former newspaper reporter. Back in 2001, while working for the Springfield News-Leader, I had the pleasure of working for an executive editor named David Ledford. I don't think that I impressed him much as a writer, but he took a chance and devoted a lot of time to me. When I struggled with a story, he'd sit with me until the early morning hours to make sure I got it right. When I needed a push, he was there to give it. He's a gruff fellow, and not everyone enjoyed his approach to editing, but he knew how to motivate me.

Ledford encouraged his reporters to let the readers "see" what we were seeing as reporters. He drilled into us the importance of narrative writing. He held workshops, sent us to seminars, etc.

One day, he called me into his office and he asked, "Have you ever read Sinclair Lewis' Main Street?"

"Um, no."

"Read that and you'll know how to write."

That was the first time I'd ever heard an editor or any instructor of journalism say that reporters should read literature to become better news writers! What a novel idea!

So, to keep up my good standing with my boss, I went to the library and checked out Main Street. I read the first dozen pages and caught on to what he was talking about -- but that was as far as I'd ever been with that book. However, I did decide, at that point, to concentrate on my storytelling, to become the best writer I could possibly be. I got away from "just the facts ma'am" reporting and became a storyteller -- trying to let the readers "see" what I was seeing. And since then, I've taken a new approach to all writing -- whether it's a news article, press release, magazine feature, etc.

All this to say that I've finally gotten around to picking up my copy of Main Street and I'm devoted to reading it this winter. It's a pretty good book so far, and I'm excited to get lost in Gopher Prairie.

Have any of you read this book?

P.S. I'm sorry I haven't posted in awhile (I know that's a cardinal sin with blogging), but I've been busy with "end-of-semester" things like papers and a linguistics final -- and, of course, making arrangements to finish my thesis. By the way, I received an A in my linguistics course, so all I have left are comprehensive exams and this thesis! Keep me in your prayers.

Cliff-hangers and chapter organization

I posted earlier with a question about chapter length and organization. Although I received no comments on this site, I also posed the question to the Crimespace community. Here are some tips that I receieved:

* Some readers don't like to be burdened with having to hang in there for 20 pages before turning off the light. Others get irritated by one page chapters. In the end you have to do what feels right for your book.


* Virtually all of my scenes end with some sort of cliff-hanger. Not all of them are of the Bad-Guy-Pulls-A-Gun variety either. I try to end with some sort of a twist or reversal which increases tension and (hopefully) forces the reader to go on to the next chapter.

* Let your writing flow naturally. It's better than having a preconceived notion of what it's supposed to "look" like. If you're on your second chapter, chances are it will end up looking a lot different in the second draft anyway. My chapters in the last book start out long in the beginning and get shorter and shorter as I raised the pulse of the reader.


Personally, one of the best books I've read (in terms of cliff-hangers) was The Da Vinci Code. When I read that book (prior to all of the plot points being revealed on every major network), I couldn't put it down. EVERY chapter left me wanting more. I read it in about three days but had to force myself to put it down on the night stand and go to bed.

I thank everyone who took the time on Crimespace to answer. I've decided to just write and break to a next chapter when it feels right. I'm in the middle of Chapter 3 right now, but I've already started Chapter 4. Now, I just need to fill in the gaps!

Things I'm learning along the way

This blog is actually working...

No, there are not very many comments coming in (yet), but by writing my occasional posts, I have been motivated to work on my book and to seek out resources that I didn't know existed before I started this (Wicked Wordsmith, Crimespace, etc). As of today, my book is at 22 pages and I'm well into chapter 2! This is exciting for me because I have a definite direction for this work -- and that is a huge accomplishment for me, as I've started many things that just kind of fell flat.

Some things that I'm learning along the way:

1. The characters really do drive themselves. Yes, I have a conclusion in mind, but my protagonist has a life of his own. I often find myself saying things like: "He'd do this instead of that" or I'll go back and make significant changes because I'd have Tommy doing something that was totally out of character.

2. I read somewhere that you shouldn't introduce secondary characters without having them reappear again with some significance. That makes a lot of sense, when I think about it. I've actually introduced some characters for flavor, but coming across that advice, I need to figure out how they'll reappear. I'm actually very excited about this and have some ideas.

3. I need to write when I don't want to write. The other night, my wife and I were lounging on the couch and flipping channels. I told her: "I hate nights like this when you feel like you've just wasted an entire evening." She said "Why don't you go write?" At first, I felt like saying "I'm tired" or "I just don't have it in me tonight." Instead, I got up and dragged myself to the computer and pounded out three pages or so. I started to get tired and wanted to quit midway through a scene, but I continued to write -- just to finish the scene and "turn the corner." Before I went to bed, I had revised the first chapter (again) and was well on my way into Chapter 2 (It might even be time to move to Chapter 3). I was tired the next morning, but something had been accomplished -- which is the point, right?

4. Do chapters have to be similar in length? At this point, I'm deciding they don't because my second chapter ends naturally at about half the length of the first. Is this appropriate, or is there some rule regarding chapter length?

Looking forward to some comments!!

Resident Tiller of the Soil

Are you the "resident tiller of the soil" or "the trading seaman?"

In Walter Benjamin's "The Storyteller: Reflections on the Works of Nikolai Leskov", the author examines these two groups.

Experience which is passed on from mouth to mouth is the source from which
all storytellers have drawn. And among those who have written down the tales, it
is the great ones whose written version differs least from the speech of the
many nameless storytellers. Incidentally, among the last named there are two
groups which, to be sure, overlap in many ways. And the figure of the
storyteller gets its full corporeality only for the one who can picture them
both. “When someone goes on a trip, he has something to tell about,” goes
the German saying, and people imagine the storyteller as someone who has come
from afar. But they enjoy no less listening to the man who has stayed at home,
making an honest living, and who knows the local tales and traditions. If one
wants to picture these two groups through their archaic representatives, one is
embodied in the resident tiller of the soil, and the other in the trading
seaman. Indeed, each sphere of life has, as it were, produced its own tribe of
storytellers. ...

The actual extension of the realm of storytelling in its full historical breadth is inconceivable without the most intimate interpenetration of these two archaic types. Such an interpenetration was achieved particularly by the Middle Ages in their trade structure. The resident master craftsman and the traveling journeymen worked together in the same rooms; and every master had been a traveling journeyman before he settled down in his home town or somewhere else. If peasants and seamen were past masters of storytelling, the artisan class was its university. In it was
combined the lore of faraway places, such as a much-traveled man brings home,
with the lore of the past, as it best reveals itself to natives of a place.

At this point in my "career" I consider myself a resident tiller of the soil -- "the man who has stayed at home, making an honest living, and who knows the local tales and traditions."

As a journalist, I have taken what others have told me, organized it, and passed it on. So far, that's been my form of storytelling (which, Benjamin would argue -- along with the novel -- is a step down from the oral tradition).

There's a lot more to the essay than what I've shown here, but I like the imagery of digging up the stories and sharing them with others. As writers, that's our job -- whether the stories come from others or from our own personal experiences, expressed in both fiction and non-fiction.

What do you think?

(Actually, I think I confused myself in all of this ...)

Three hours of writing!!

This was an amazing night. Very unusual, as I had three hours of time to write. My older son went to bed early, and our baby went down soon after. So, I fought the temptation to channel surf and buckled down to write. I reworked the first chapter and I love the changes I've made.

It's still not perfect, but it's time to move on to chapter two.

The original version led off with my protagonist, Tommy, sitting in the back of a Catholic church wating his turn to jump in the communion line. But after much consternation and a nagging feeling that it was all wrong, I went back and changed it -- not the story line, just the opening pages.

Now, I lead off with a pretty nice narrative of the church (a central theme to this novel) and I put Tommy at home in bed as the church bells begin to ring -- waking him up to the realization that he is late, again. It's odd, but this slight change has allowed me to better define Tommy, to give him more depth and to introduce several integral elements that need to be revisited throughout the story.

I was just so excited to actually have the time to sit and write. If I had any alcohol in the house, I'd make a toast!

Also, I have begun to receive some comments on this blog. That is very exciting too. Please keep them coming, and I will try my best to make this site worth visiting. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Personal Interviews

I have interviewed many interesting people in my life, and by using this tool of communication, I've found that some of the most ordinary people live the most extraordinary lives.

The last couple of years, I've been "interviewing" my grandparents. Unfortunately the conversations are usually so impromptu that I don't have a tape recorder set up, but I've been able to absorb some wonderful historic information. This weekend, my grandmother visited for my son's dedication at church. We sat and talked for hours; she told me stories about herself and others, filling in many gaps about relatives I thought I'd known. And while it was fun to learn about my relatives, I couldn't stop thinking plotlines and characters. I know they'll show up in my writing.

My grandmother was born in the Old Mines area of Missouri, just north of Potosi. The area was mined first for lead; and when that ran out, they began digging for tiff. There's an amazing French culture that is literally dying out.

For those who are writing any health-related, suspense or (dare I say -- horror) fiction, my grandma told me the story of her grandmother's funeral. This would have been in the early 1930s. Apparently, my great-great grandmother died of dropsy -- we know it as edema -- when your organs swell with fluid. Before she died, she told her husband to wait three days until she was buried. He abided by her wishes, but those three days proved to be a bad idea. You see, my grandmother's body continued to swell with fluid. During the funeral procession, the casket was put in the back of a horse-drawn wagon. Much to everyone's dismay, the body was so bloated that it DRIPPED fluid from the house to the graveyard. Yuck.

Anyway, here's the reason my great great grandmother wanted to wait three days to be buried. Back then, when people fell into a coma, people thought they were dead because the diagnoses were so innacurate. So....the rumors were that many people were buried alive.

There were other stories, but that's the one that was most vivid. My grandmother is a great storyteller -- and I'm thankful that she's taking the time to tell me and she's also writing these things down for me.

Feel free to share your personal interview stories.

Crimespace

I recently became a member of Crimespace ("a place for readers and writers of crime fiction to meet").


Angela, Wicked Wordsmith, revealed on her site that Crimespace was hosting a short story competition. The theme is "Australia" and the use of this theme is very broad. I think I might enter.

One author finds time

I was reading a story in the New York Times about Anne Enright, the winner of Britain's 2007 Man Booker Prize for her novel "The Gathering." (I haven't read the book, but it must be pretty good.)


Of interest to me were a few paragraphs at the end of the article regarding Anne's writing time:

“The kids go to school; I sit down and write,” she
said. “The kids go to bed; I sit down and write.” Her husband, Martin Murphy, who runs a theater outside Dublin, works at night, which makes finding time to be together a challenge. “At the Booker dinner I thought maybe we could talk about our holiday plans,” she said, laughing. But in different ways they were both too nervous.

Oddly enough, Ms. Enright said, having children — she has two, 4 and 7 — has made her work easier.

“I find that the whole sense of anxiety and largeness, the sense that you’re writing everything, the allness of it, disappears completely,” she said. “You have just three or four hours a day, and you’re going to write a book, and it just shrinks the work into its proper proportion.”

Obviously, Anne is a full-time writer. Personally, I can say with authority that having two kids doesn NOT make writing easier. It gives you something beautiful to write about, but the actual TIME to write all but disappears. I'm very thankful to God for providing me a wife who realizes this and does what she can to help me find the time.


Ahh...just more encouragement to make it, right?

Tips for creative nonfiction

On a tip from my friend Angela (Wicked Wordsmith), I browsed the "Velda Brotherton" section of her Web site. Velda is an Ozarks writer with several novels and works of creative nonfiction under her belt.

As you know, I'm working on a series of creative nonfiction pieces for my thesis. I found Velda's posts -- including those on character development and historic research -- very encouraging and I've made note of several tools and tips.

See Velda's Wicked Wordsmith posts here.

Velda's professional site is located here.

Wicked Wordsmith

Last week, I was excited to hear from an old friend, Angela Wilson, who worked with me at the Springfield News-Leader several years ago. Angela is an aspiring novelist. But she is also a communications professional who works to market books, as well as provide resources, tools, reviews, etc. to other writers.

She currently maintains a professional blog called Wicked Wordsmith. I would encourage any writer to frequent this awesome resource.

Like me, Angela is writing a novel and she's seeking encouragment. She's been kind enough to share with me a few pages of her manuscript, and I can say this: It is suspenseful and well written.

Keep writing, Angela!!

I look forward to following her career.

Maurice Medland

In the late 1990s, when I was preparing to graduate from Truman State University, I had the opportunity to meet Maurice Medland. At the time, Mr. Medland (a Truman alum) had recenlty published his first novel, Point of Honor, and he was signing copies at the university bookstore. We stood and talked for about twenty minutes. And during that brief time, he encouraged me to follow my dream to write. I purchased a copy of Point of Honor and Mr. Medland signed it for me. It was a very good read -- very suspenseful and extremely detailed. Mr. Medland was in the Navy, and his knowledge of ships is unparalleled.

For several years, I waited for a follow-up. That novel, China Star, is now available, and I look forward to reading it. I recently wrote to Mr. Medland and recounted the story of our brief meeting. Here is part of the response that I received:

I'm glad to hear that you're doing well--congrats to you on your marriage, your family, your career, and your studies. That's the very foundation we all need to pursue a writing career. When I was starting out, I corresponded with Dean Koontz a bit and he said, "It's a tough business, but stick with it; the rewards are great." He was right on both counts. I have to say that the fiction market is tougher than ever, but publication is still possible for those who learn the craft and have the talent to apply it. So stick with it, my friend. Don't let anyone or anything stop you.

This is the encouragement I needed, and I appreciate his counsel. I encourage you to pick up a copy of either book. I can definitely vouch for his debut, and I'm betting that the follow-up is just as fun.

Click here for the first two chapters of Point of Honor and the first chapter of China Star.

Enjoy -- and tell me what you think!

The Novel Approach -- why this blog exists

Has anyone ever told you, "You know? You should write a novel."

Or, have you said to yourself, "You know? I should write a novel."

Or, "That would make a great novel."

Or, "I've got a novel floating around in my head. I just have to write it down."

Or, "There's just no TIME!!!!"

It's maddening, isn't it? You know you can do it, but something always gets in the way.

Welcome to The Novel Approach.

The idea for this blog was sparked by a group of folks (several are friends or acquaintances of mine) who contribute to a blog devoted to running marathons. Members of this group post anything and everything about marathons: training techniques, news stories, personal essays, poems on marathon running, etc. But their most important contribution is encouragement.

They push each other to the proverbial finish line.

Well, writing a novel is like running a marathon. And writers need encouragement.

We also need tools, resources, prompts, and feedback.

That's the primary goal for The Novel Approach.

My name is Eric. I'm 30 years old. My wife, Corinn, tells me I should write a novel. I want to write a novel. I've got one floating around in my head. I just have to write it down. But with a full-time job, night school and two children, there's just no time.

If you're like me, it's time to make time. It's time to do it.