Book Beginnings

Now here is some good news to get this blog started in the new year:

According to a new National Endowment for the Arts study, reading among American adults is up for the first time since 1982.

DID YOU HEAR WHAT I SAID? READING IS UP!

This is fantastic news for writers and lovers of literature.

And check this out:

Young adults show the most rapid increases in literary reading. Since 2002, 18-24 year olds have seen the biggest increase (nine percent) in literary reading, and the most rapid rate of increase (21 percent). This jump reversed a 20 percent rate of decline in the 2002 survey, the steepest rate of decline since the NEA survey began.

You can read more about the study here.

I am thrilled, and I hope you are too. Here's to a great, positive new year!

Book Ends

More chatter about the end of the publishing industry showed up in the Los Angeles Times yesterday in this article written by Tom Engelhardt.

The article updates a lot of similar articles that this site has linked to and discussed in the past with new information about recent layoffs and cutbacks in the industry. So in some sense, it's a traditional "Here lies the publishing industry" piece. However, one new bit of insight is Engelhardt's commentary that the book has resisted the presence of advertisements more effectively than any other print media:

This, in our world, has to be considered some kind of unnoticed miracle. Yes, early books sometimes had quack medicine ads in them and, for years, certain paperbacks had ads for other books (by the same publisher) at the back, but the book largely resisted the ad. Even after publishers began wrapping book covers around anything from movie novelizations to material that had once been confined to "police gazettes" or Hollywood fan mags, the ad still -- against all logic -- stayed away.

Now that is interesting. And even at the expense of the industry, I hope the ad continues to stay away from the novel.

Thanks to the many people that drew my attention to this article.

Reading as a Memory

In a recent interview with Jacket Copy, the Los Angeles Times literary blog, National Book Award finalist Salvatore Scibona, author of The End, says about reading:

For me, ideally, a novel should be read slowly, in some version of solitude, in a state of willfully suspended disbelief, while alert, with a lot of sympathy to spare, while warm, in a room without too much unnecessary light, while one is 16 years old, lonesome, lovelorn, while there's something else one is supposed to be doing, late at night, hoping a certain person will call; and she doesn't call.

That simple but clear description made feel for the sixteen year-old boy reading in the dark room. It made me feel like I was him.

More importantly though, it reminded me of my own reading memories: a rare overcast day, curled up in the reading corner I'd carved out of my childhood bedroom, beside the window, my grandparents' red down comforter in various states of wrap over and underneath me, alternately reading and praying for rain. To this day, that memory is exceptionally strong for me. The way it felt, the way it smelled, the feeling of satisfaction in the reading.

That is where I fell in love with reading, and it is an experience that is long lost to me. As I continue to read, I will create new reading memories that will also be a part of my passion for books, but none will ever rival that first.

What about you? Do you have a memory of reading, more powerful than all others?

Now That's What I Call Success

At Barnes and Noble the other day, I begged Sven (To Make a Long Story Short) to snap this pic for me on his iPhone. It's a little blurry, but you get the idea. An entire wall of the Twilight series, floor to ceiling. And had his camera phone wide screen capability, you'd see two more panels of shelves on either side.

Needless to say, I was stunned.


Woah.

The End Has Come.... Somewhat

The Tribune Company, publisher of the Los Angeles Times, filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday. I'm not at all surprised. Not only because of the current economy, but because the weakness of the Los Angeles Times, and other print media, was a topic of discussion on this blog back in July.

I can't save the Los Angeles Times. It should be able to save itself. It is a pulitzer prize winning brand, and I am convinced that if they begin to think of themselves as a news and content provider instead of a newspaper provider, they will be able to refocus on what parts of their company they need to rebuild and expand to get revenue flowing in the right direction. As we've been saying on this blog for months now, publishing will survive, we just need to reimagine it and change our expectations.

So I won't say that this is the end of print media, or the end of the Los Angeles Times.

It is, however, the end of 2008, and like the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times released their 2008 Favorite Books list. I particularly like that they sectioned out Science Fiction, Children's Fiction, and Crime Fiction - a nice way to draw some deserved attention to those genres - and took the time to actually explain their selections. Check out their various lists here.

Though I have to ask, can someone please explain to me why "Books" are categorized in the "Living" section of the website, along with "Health" and "Autos" among others, instead of "Arts/Entertainment?" Los Angeles Times, if you're going to start fixing things, that might be a place to start.

Before You Shop...

Well... I have to admit... I still have two gift cards to the book store. I know, I know. I've been pestering you all for help and still can't make up my mind! While I appreciated all of the suggestions, notwithstanding Lesbian Erotica (I'm looking at you Prince, Sven), I still haven't stumbled on that paperback I'm excited to read.

So if you're anything like me, it might be wise to prepare yourself before heading to the bookstore for some shopping where the broad scope of options may dazzle you into paralysis.

Thankfully, the New York Times Sunday Book Review is doing its part to help. Check out their recently released 10 Best Books of 2008. While none of these books appear to be out in paperback, they just might make the perfect holiday gift you've been looking for.

As for me... I'm still searching for that perfect purchase...

Roswell vs. Twilight: BATTLE ROYALE

Way back in August, I wrote this post about the similarities between Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and the old TV show Roswell that used to air on the WB and later UPN. That single post has drawn more readers from web searches than any other post from this entire year. Clearly, I was on to something.

Today, Mike Moody over at the TVSquad (cheers, Mike) went up with a side by side comparison of the Roswell series and the Twilight movie. Check out his excellent post here.

While I have been very hard on Twilight on this site (this was my original review of the book) I do think there is something encouraging about its smashing success. According to Box Office Mojo Twilight raked in a near $70 million on its opening weekend, a bigger opening than Quantum of Solace the most recent James Bond effort. That's some big money.

Why is it encouraging? Because it demonstrates, yet again, that young women have buying power and that they are a demographic worthy of the attention of publishers and studios alike. And for someone like me, a writer of fiction with a decidedly female bent, that is nothing but good news.

I still hold that the comparison between Roswell and Twilight simply reveals the formulaic foundation upon which they are each built. And it's to that formula, the teen love rescue gambit, that I attribute the success of both. Women (and pre-teens, tweens, teens, whatever) enjoy a good romance now and again, and if you combine that with some creativity, and some quality writing (hopefully) you're increasing your odds of success in that market.

So who is the winner in the Roswell/Twilight showdown? Well, I know which way I vote, but the bottom line is, we all win.

Act 1 - Light Your Story on Fire

There is so much housekeeping to do in Act 1, that once you're writing, it's easy to forget that you still have structural work to do. You have to establish your characters, you have to establish your setting, and you have to establish your tone. So before you even get to that point, let's take a look at the outline and see what needs to be done in the framing:

Act 1
-Inciting Incident

The Inciting Incident is the very first event that begins the series of events that will make up your plot. It is the spark that starts the fire. Without it none of the events that follow would ever have occurred.

In a murder mystery, which is the simplest example, the inciting incident is the discovery of the body. In Field of Dreams the inciting incident occurs when Ray hears a voice ("If you build it, he will come.") in his cornfield. In Star Wars: A New Hope the inciting incident is Luke's discovery of Leia's urgent message.

How is the inciting incident different than the plot point at the end of Act 1?

If the inciting incident is the spark, the end of act one is the first gust of wind that turns your spark into a fire. It builds on the inciting incident and propels your reader forward with a clear sense of the story's direction.

At the end of act one, your reader should know the overall plot of the story and the goal of the main character - whether it's find the killer, build the baseball field in the corn, or rescue Princess Leia, your reader should have some sense of which direction the story is moving. Of course there will be twists and turns - your story would be boring without them - but at the end of Act 1, your readers should at least see some of the path ahead.

In Field of Dreams the inciting incident is the first time Ray hears the voice, but Act 1 ends with his choice - his choice to plow under his corn and build a baseball field, his choice to follow the direction of the voice. In Star Wars: A New Hope the inciting incident is Luke's discovery of Leia's message, but Act 1 ends only after the death of his aunt and uncle and his decision to go with Obi-Wan to rescue Leia. If it were not for the death of his aunt and uncle, Luke would not be able to leave the farm. Their death is the plot point that propels him forward and allows him to pursue his hero's quest.

As you think about your inciting incident, don't think of it as a burden or something mechanical that has to be in place. Instead, think of it as your first opportunity to engage your reader. When you're sitting down to write your query letter to an agent, this is the moment you're going to describe. This is what happens that RIPS your main character from his normal life and THRUSTS him into something unusual, something that makes your reader want to join him for the journey.

When the first invite to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry arrives for Harry Potter, it's the first letter he's ever received - AND IT WON'T STOP COMING. That's the level of build and excitement that should be your goal as you think about your inciting incident. And your Act 1 plot point should be as loud and declarative as the pounding of Hagrid's fist on the door of a small shack in the middle of a storm. Let that be your inspiration as you sit down to your outline and think about your story.

So now you have your fire. Next we're gonna turn it into a blaze.

In Defense of Outlining: Raising a Barn Begins With a Frame

It's really simple - if you don't frame your barn first, you may later discover a weakness in the structure, and before you know it, the roof is caving in. FRAME YOUR BARN.

Stories are no different. At some point in school, your teacher taught you about the three act structure, and as you progressed as a writer, maybe you took more classes or learned a bit more, but somehow you picked up a few more terms:

Act 1
-Inciting Incident

Act 2
-Rising Action
-The Turn

Act 3
-Climax
-Denouement/Resolution

If you've written a first draft of your book without having at least a general sense that you are hitting those beats, you may have a problem. Let me tell you, it's easier to fix a structural problem with your story in outline form rather than tens of thousands of words.

You may be wanting to argue with me right now that storytelling shouldn't be a paint by numbers affair, that plenty of writers have manipulated the three act structure to serve their own purposes. That's very true. None of those writers are you. Until you have successfully mastered and understood the three act structure, you're not in a position to invert it.

Over the next few days, I'm going to break down the three act structure in detail. Outlining makes your story work for you, and understanding story structure can help get you out of a bind when you're stuck.

Let's take a look at that frame before we get to our barn raising.

Gift Card Dilemma: Too Many Books, Too Little Money

I have a $10 gift card for Barnes & Noble.

I'm all caught up on my guilty pleasure series.

I want to buy Anathem by Neal Stephenson, but I want to try to keep to the paperback books.

Anyone have a suggestion? Something out in paperback that I absolutely MUST read?

And Now Back to Our Regularly Scheduled Programming

I have a confession: Writing has not been my number one life priority as of late. Which is essentially my way of saying that I have not been working on my writing.

How terrible of me! This is National Novel Writing Month, and not only have I not accepted the challenge, I have already wiled away the last two weekends, not to mention blowing off the entire month of October.

My engine is stalled and it looks like I'm gonna need a jump.

That makes this the perfect opportunity to share some ideas on how to get yourself back on the writing track and building momentum again:

1. Brainstorm - Get back into your project by investing time exploring your characters and the world they inhabit again. Work on descriptions, details, imagining new scenes and conflicts. As you open yourself up to the possibilities of your story, new ideas will form and you'll turn up something to get excited about again.

2. Jump Ahead - It seems logical that you would need to write a novel in a linear fashion, but if you're following along with an outline but struggling to build momentum, a jump ahead might be the perfect solution. Look for the scene that you're most excited to write, and then dive right in. By moving forward in the story, you may actually reveal an idea that you want to use earlier on in the book, and that will give you a motivation to go back to the beginning and start plowing ahead.

3. Set Aside a Time and Place to Write - We say this time and again, but nothing could be more true: sometimes you just need to sit down and do it. Putting yourself in a comfortable place with a good block of time that you're devoting to writing can be really helpful to get you back on track and back in the writer's vein. Writing, after all, is just as habit forming as exercise. Push yourself to do it over and over and someday it will just stick.

4. Writing Exercises - If none of the above is working, try setting out just ten minutes of time for a quick writing exercise using your characters. Imagine your protagonist trapped in an elevator. How does he get himself out? What does he think about while he's there? How does he relate to the other people trapped with him? Little exercises like that can be less intimidating than trying to work on the whole project, but sometimes all you need is to get the pen flowing again.

Anyone else with ideas?

Have Books, Need Love

In the most recent episode of Valentine over on the CW, an already canceled show about the Goddess of Love (don't ask me why I watch these things), Peter is reminded just how much he loves his wife Xan... because he loves books. And in a very bookish turn of events, love is rediscovered when the corporate shackles of big box sellers are tossed aside for the truly romantic life in an independent bookstore.

Ah... now that is love.

Do You NaNo?

On your marks... get set... GO! NaNoWriMo has begun!

It's November 1st, and that marks the beginning of National Novel Writing Month.

The ten year history of NaNoWriMo actually began in July of 1999 when 21 friends in the San Francisco Bay Area challenged each other to write a novel (50,000 words) in one month. The goal was not to write something of quality, but to focus on the quantity. Complete an entire novel in just one month!

Now settled in November, NaNoWriMo attracts many participants who spend every spare moment of the month working on their novel. Participants track their progress on the NaNoWriMo website and share frustrations and words of support with fellow writers.

Focusing on completing a novel in such a short period of time is a great exercise as a writer. It teaches you to push through blocks, and to minimize bad habits such as the tendency to edit as you go. Sometimes you just have to spit out that first draft, then see what you have to work with. Too many times, writers get tripped up on their way and lose all momentum. NaNoWriMo is all momentum. Just let your fingers and imaginations fly.

So what do you say? Anyone out there working on a November NaNoWriMo novel?

While the Campaign is Being Waged...

Here's a little something to tide you over until Wednesday, November 5th when writing will replace campaigning as my number one priority:

An interesting article from the New York Times about life imitating art - Following the Script: Obama, McCain and 'The West Wing.' Read it here.

In the meantime, I encourage my American readers to confirm your polling place, and make sure you schedule enough time in your day to vote. For my Californian readers, I encourage you to Vote No on Proposition 8 and Proposition 4. Links go to the Los Angeles Times Editorial endorsements for both of these positions.

Writer's Block

Yes, that is a pencil.

More Than a Story/More Than Words on a Page

Crack open those calendars and check your availability because starting tomorrow, REDCAT is holding what they are calling a two-day conversation about writing, Untitled: Speculations on the Expanded Field of Writing. If you haven't heard of it, REDCAT is CalArts multipurpose theater venue located at the back corner of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Some of the events of the next two days will include discussions about inclusions of non-alphabetic characters in writing and the relationship of conceptual writing to conceptual art. Guest speakers and panelists include Kenny Goldsmith (Soliloquy, 2001) and Young-Hae Chang of Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries. For a full list of events, please check out the conference schedule and information page here.

And speaking of Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries, if you haven't heard of them or seen their work, I recommend that you check it out here (warning, NSFW). They are a Seoul-based art-duo who bring new meaning to the idea of flash fiction.

The Water Glass is Half Full

The sky is falling. I'm not sure if you've noticed that, but it is. It's crashing down around us, harder than the falling stock market, deeper than gas prices, louder than shouting political analysts, and faster than melting polar ice caps. The sky is coming down, and I, for one, have been in a duck and cover position for the last few weeks.

But last night I had a phone call with a friend that had me laughing so hard my cold-afflicted lungs gave new meaning to the phrase "whooping cough." And that laughter made me feel better than I have in weeks, and eventually sent me off to sleep with unusual feelings of warmth and happiness.

These are some serious times, so it's easy to forget that sometimes the best way to cope with life's curve balls is a complete lack of seriousness.

Over on Living the Romantic Comedy, blogger Billy Mernit has followed that theme in his last couple posts, including his most recent review of Mike Leigh's new film Happy-Go-Lucky, beginning with the powerfully declared statement: If there's anything I've learned in my short time on this planet, it's that when you lose your sense of humor, you're toast. Read the rest here.

Of course, Billy was not the only writer discussing humor recently. Yesterday on NPR's All Things Considered, Shalom Auslander, author of Foreskin's Lament, talked about his favorite bed table book, which happens to be The Groucho Letters: Letters from and to Groucho Marx. In Auslander's words, Groucho is ideal protection against all things overly serious:

On that same small table, there are also books of philosophy, theology and a few that have been blessed enough to qualify as "Literature" (the qualification process is brutal, with a $50 nonrefundable Literature Application Fee and a 17-page questionnaire that must be notarized by James Wood). These books approach life and its myriad questions with seriousness and focus, and after just a few pages, they make me want to kill myself. Which is why Groucho is never far away; I can't do an hour shot of Beckett or Carver without an unstiff Groucho chaser.

You see, I've long been of the opinion that life is too serious to be taken seriously, and if that is my religion, then Groucho is the pope.

Even with recent events seeming particularly dark and dire, those who make their living on comedy have certainly been taking advantage of the opportunity to find the ridiculous in the serious, case in point, the recent resurgence in the quality of political satire over at Saturday Night Live.

There's a great scene in Sullivan's Travels (1941), a Preston Sturges film about a director who wants to make a movie about the struggles of the common man. To research for the movie, he strikes out on the road posing as a hobo and after a series of mishaps he finds himself a prisoner on a chain-gang. In the classic scene, the director and the rest of his beaten and weary fellow prisoners are treated to a showing of a comedy cartoon in a church. And as the movie rolls, the director looks around and sees something that startles him... the prisoners are laughing.

So the sky may be falling. Harder than the stock market, deeper than gas prices, louder than shouting political analysts, and faster than melting polar ice caps. But I tell you what. I'm sure as hell going to find a way to get my laughs as it comes crashing down.

Textual Inspiration #10

And then the sandy scrubland was domesticated by farm life. Overgrazed fields were dotted with cows, their withers shriveled and papery, their lowing desperate. An emptiness settled in the farmyards. Once Glinda saw a farm woman standing on her doorstep, hands sunk deep in apron pockets, face lined with grief and rage at the useless sky. The woman watched the carriage pass, and her face showed a yearning to be on it, to be dead, to be anywhere else other than on this carcass of a property.

- From Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Spreading Germs One Post at a Time

An entire week has gone by and I haven't posted, but I assure you all, I'm still here and planning lots of great literary posts soon. I've just been a little busy with a few things:

Being Jewish.

Being an Obama campaigner.

Being a good employee.

Going to the movies.

Having a cold.

So I'll be back soon, don't delete me from your bookmarks yet!

And uh... make sure to wash your hands after reading this post... I just sneezed on the blog.

For Those Who Like Poetry

Compliments of a good friend, I bring you this beautiful article, The Poetry of Sarah Palin by Hart Seely, from Slate.

A sample:

"Befoulers of the Verbiage"

It was an unfair attack on the verbiage
That Senator McCain chose to use,
Because the fundamentals,
As he was having to explain afterwards,
He means our workforce.
He means the ingenuity of the American.
And of course that is strong,
And that is the foundation of our economy.
So that was an unfair attack there,
Again based on verbiage.

(To S. Hannity, Fox News, Sept. 18, 2008)