Wed, 19 Jun 2013 21:37:59 -0800WeeblySat, 09 Mar 2013 08:35:41 GMThttp://walterrice-author.com/1/post/2013/03/back-at-it.htmlI haven't blogged for quite a while, but the explanation doesn't matter. What is important is that I'm starting again, perhaps with more modest goals and better ideas about how I might entertain and enlighten the five people who read this blog. (I know there are five because I've put them all on the payroll. And now they'll have something to do besides sit on their paychecks.)

Obviously publishing my new mystery novel Holes in My Armor has cleared the path to some extent. Of course, I'm not completely done with that task. I've written the novel, edited until the cows came home, formatted the ebook and put it up on Amazon. Now I have to format the book for paperback. If anyone asks you which is harder to do, raise your hand when you hear the word paperback.

After you have a decent ebook, then you need to add a snappy back cover and a spine, all designed in colors and fonts that complement the cover. Maybe there's also a picture. Now it's getting complicated.

Then the inside of the book, the part you hope people will actually read, will have to be in a certain font at a certain point size with appropriate leading. After that you can dress up chapter headings and chapter beginnings. Now that you've done the easy part, clear the decks for page numbering and headers that show the author's name (you) and book title, unless you have fancy chapter names that are more interesting than your own name. (Hard to believe, I know, but still possible.)

When you're all done, the lefthand pages will be on the left, and the right on the right, and the page numbers will run sequentially and there won't be any blank pages and you haven't left out anything.  If something on that checklist went wrong, then you're not done. If everything went right, tie a bow on it, make .pdf files and send them off to people who can turn your hard work into a paperback. After you get the proof back, you can fix what you earlier thought was totally perfect and then call it a day.

Nothing to it.]]>Sat, 23 Jul 2011 18:33:08 GMThttp://walterrice-author.com/1/post/2011/07/how-we-read.htmlHow do you read a book? If you’re a writer, maybe you read differently than most people.

Do you read as a consumer in the same way that most of us are consumers of shampoo, hamburgers, gasoline sitcoms, t-shirts, beer, airlines, phones, computers, vitamins, video games, toothpaste and ketchup?

If you’ve ever been a producer of something, you probably have a different idea about that than the average person. Maybe you consider yourself an insider. For instance, I’ve produced canned pumpkin and green beans, frozen strawberries and raspberries, bread and hot dog and hamburger buns. And since I grew up on a farm, I helped produce wheat, beef and pork. Those were the early years, but for most of my adult life I’ve been a journalist and produced news. I’ve also produced art, music and literature.

All those producer experiences inform how I think about those areas now, even years down the road.

Now, back to reading. Our experiences influence how we read. Are we consumers or producers? Or perhaps something in between such as students or hobbyists? Do we read with expertise or from a place of little knowledge?

Thinking about all this led me to break down my book-reading spectrum into four broad classifications, with a supplement:

1) Juvenile: The time period is pre-college and partly into my freshmen year. During those years I read for entertainment and youthful rebellion, though I was beginning to read the classics because I sensed there was a reason people kept talking about certain authors.

2) Literary: Like most college English majors (my life before journalism) I learned how to find themes, analyze characters and conflicts, put works into historical context, try to match the author's life with the book in question and generally read like a classically educated scholar. At the same time, I started to get serious about my own writing, which even then probably colored how I read someone else's work.

3) Editor: Building on the first two phases, I then started to read like an editor. Obviously, this began with my first newspaper editing job three months out of college. Once you've been an editor for a while, it's hard to read almost anything without wanting to edit and rewrite it. Although I’m focusing on books here, this tendency to want to edit almost everything isn’t limited to books. Of course, this is a definite handicap in reading normal people's casual or business writing, especially on Internet forums, where illiteracy is too often the norm. 

4) Writer: Overlapping and building on the editor phase, I now read like a writer. To some extent, reading like a writer ratchets back the critical intensity of reading like an editor. I spent many years editing for style and even wrote stylebooks, so I think I know the subject about as well as anyone. But as a writer I care less about style than I used to. I read nonfiction for knowledge, rarely entertainment, though I still read fiction for entertainment (who doesn't). The writer phase probably began in my early 30s when I first wrote an (unpublished) novel. At that point I had sympathy and understanding for everyone who's ever written a novel, or tried.

The writer phase continued to grow as my wife and I published a couple of romantic suspense novels. And now I can't read a novel without visualizing the author's process and analyzing the techniques and decisions that led to the book in hand. I also appreciate good plotting and characterization much more, knowing how hard they are to do well. And I really appreciate a book that reads so smoothly that any desire to edit it recedes far into the background.

4a. Linguist: I add this is a parallel track or subtrack, not a discrete phase in the timeline. As my knowledge of etymology and language development grows, I tend to think a little harder about things like word arrangement, spelling options, historical spelling changes, and word choices, especially among synonyms. I'm understanding more that other languages have their own virtues but may not offer the challenges or opportunities in word choices that English does. The historical blending of layers of English is complex, but it's also what provides the language’s richness and its ability to convey so many shades of meaning. Regional versions such as American English add to the mix.

As an editor, I aimed for simplicity—get in, tell the story, get out, go home. For instance, I was ruthless in changing the verb "purchase" to "buy" and not looking back. Though I still believe "purchase" as a verb is mostly just a snooty way to say "buy," I now have a better understanding of why we have that choice. And I have a better insight on how word choices in speech and writing characterize the people who make them. It's fascinating and makes me wonder how all of us, even those who don’t read or write much, became the amazing word users that we are.

Just a few weeks ago I learned about a common English word that came from the Wolof and Mandingo languages in the Senegal area of West Africa and went through Spanish and Portuguese on its way to English. That word is "banana," just as it is in those old African languages. Every day when we speak English, we also speak French, Latin, Greek, Norse, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and even a little Wolof. It's a crazy salad, and it tastes good.]]>Mon, 11 Jul 2011 05:17:21 GMThttp://walterrice-author.com/1/post/2011/07/author-to-author.html

I broke out of my shell the other night and took some of the family to a book signing in Seattle by my friend Wendy Wahman. (If there's any doubt about identity in the picture, Wendy is the better looking one on the left.) Wendy is an artist who knows how to tell a story, both with her illustrations and the words that accompany them. That night, she also had a great rapport with the kids listening to the story. 

This particular book is called A Cat Like That.  It's more than a children's book about cats -- it's a story about understanding cats. I went to college, but must have slept through that course. Before the other night, I hadn't seen Wendy in a while, but on reflection I think she's probably done a mind meld with the spirit of the entire feline species because, among other things, she knows how many sounds cats can make and probably when and why. (Since three cats roam my house, it's obvious that I've got something to learn here.) Bottom line, Wendy knows cats and you should pay attention.
 
Before the increasingly famous Wendy Wahman wrote and illustrated A Cat Like That, she did much the same for dogs in Don't Lick the Dog.  Wendy's strength in these books is entertaining the readers (kids and grownups alike) while gently educating them in the ways of the pets that grace our homes. (That's code for Listen up, people, you only think you're in charge.)

In addition to all that, Wendy can make a cat's tail say things that even cats can't. I really enjoyed her illustration of the cat's secret hiding place (hint: your bed). I'm just curious about two things: First, how did the cat's tail grow so long? And, second, when did Wendy sneak into my house to sketch one of my cats taking a 12-hour nap? (I know, I know.  She had 12 hours, so there is a possibility.)

About the photo: It was was taken at Secret Garden Books in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle by a member of my family who wishes to remain anonymous. As for permissions, Wendy and I and the nameless photographer agreed that we could all use the photo. Wendy's book is on the table and on the wall rack in the upper right. I'm sorry that the display of her book isn't really prominent in this photo, but I don't blame the photographer. Obviously the problem is that I'm taking up way too much space in the middle right. (I was showing Wendy a copy of my mystery novel, Smarty Havarti, and just couldn't stop myself from hogging the camera lens.) 

Full disclosure: Wendy and I worked together several years at a now ancient (and former) newspaper called the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.  Wendy did great illustrations of whatever was assigned to her (newspaper artists rarely get to choose), while I worked on the news copy desk writing headlines and editing new stories before moving on to be a systems editor, which means I helped manage the newsroom's computer system that put out the paper. We often worked on different floors and, as you might have guessed, our individual duties usually didn't affect each other directly. So you might say that I appreciated her work from a distance while she probably had no idea what I was doing with the computer system. While much of that computer stuff remains a mystery to just about everyone, I can now reveal that I did write a macro that let another editor paste in Wendy's artwork credit with a click of a mouse. I didn't get a bonus or anything, but I think it was one of my finer moments at the old P-I.

Next: I believe Wendy has another book in the pipeline, but since I'm only a reader in her realm, I'll leave it to her to tell you what it is. For more about Wendy and her work, check out wendywahman.com and you'll be glad you did.

---

]]>Sun, 03 Jul 2011 01:40:55 GMThttp://walterrice-author.com/1/post/2011/07/the-danish-connection.htmlThis is a follow-up to my previous post about the issues around autobiographical fiction. Some people who know me fairly well can tell you that I have been to Denmark on work assignments. And a handful of co-workers went with me, so they also have a Danish experience, though not necessarily mine. By and large, there’s nothing unusual about going to Denmark—it’s fairly easy to do and many Americans have done it. On the other hand, most of them don’t write novels set in that country.

So what I want to do here is lay out is how my particular Danish connections might or might not have affected my novel Smarty Havarti. In that spirit, I hope the following provides some clarity, not only about me but also about the differences between autobiographical fiction and factual grounding based on research and casual experience. 

I went to Denmark on assignment from an old newspaper called the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and I worked with a Danish publishing system company. I mention the newspaper and my role in all that because I want to be clear that Smarty Havarti is not about those things at all.

During my three visits to Denmark, my head was swimming just trying to understand the inner workings of this publishing system company and its software, and I wasn’t thinking at all about writing a novel set in Denmark. I was a journalist with some technical savvy and interest and had become a newsroom superuser to help introduce this new system to my colleagues back in the Seattle newsroom. So any “research” on Denmark then would have been done more or less unconsciously. 

Later, when I started writing the book, I did ordinary research on Denmark, and Sweden, the sort of research any novelist would do to flesh out facts and locations to help provide an authentic feel for the story. Writers of historical fiction and fact do this very well because that’s about all they can do — they weren’t alive way back when for firsthand experience. To me, that’s not much different from contemporary research except that it seems much harder to do. 

As a sidebar, my maternal grandfather immigrated to America from southern Denmark (Haderslev) in 1892 and settled in Kansas. Once there, he found other Danes already busy farming, and before long he married a young Kansas lady who spoke Danish and whose own parents had come from Denmark. My mother could count to 10 in Danish and speak a few Danish words, though I learned later that she and my grandfather used a dialect that’s now fallen out of use. Curiously, I never heard my grandmother say a word of Danish.  Although there’s nothing in Smarty Havarti about my Danish ancestry, I can’t help believing that it gave me some kind of support during the writing of the book.

To wrap up the historical what’s what, I think it’s fair to say that my Danish travels and contacts, and perhaps even my lineage, have informed my book, but that’s much different from autobiographical fiction.

]]>Fri, 01 Jul 2011 05:04:31 GMThttp://walterrice-author.com/1/post/2011/06/post-title-click-and-type-to-edit.htmlThere's a question about Smarty Havarti I've been waiting for. Is the novel autobiographical? The answer is generally no, though I would allow a half percent, which would amount to about a page and a half in the print version. And that wouldn't all be in one place. So if you're looking for some juicy tidbits that really happened to me, you'll be disappointed.

I have no way of telling for sure, but I'd guess that my half percent autobio estimate is considerably less than much fiction as a whole, but fairly standard for genre fiction such as mysteries, sci-fi and romance. I base my thinking on two factors.
 
First, genre fiction writers are usually more prolific than mainstream literary fiction writers, though Joyce Carol Oates is probably an exception. If the writer is intent on creating fiction about the self, then his or her autobiographical treasures could easily be exhausted in a single novel, two at the most. Certainly by the time the writer got around to the third or fourth novel, he or she would have to do what most fiction writers do: make it up. That's why it's called fiction. I've never wanted to write autobiographical fiction. Perhaps it would be too introspective for me to handle, but mostly I think it wouldn't be compelling enough to make a good book. Of course, I, like most writers, use real life as the seed of fiction, which means bending “real” events to fit the characters and the plot. As a novelist, I have far more interest in telling a good "story" than in telling the "truth" about a real event.

Second, novelists who write a lot of autobiographical fiction tend to think differently than I do. Some of them are very successful, so who can question their methods? People write what they're driven to write, but if they write about themselves book after book, then those books will soon blend together. Just this week the esteemed American novelist Philip Roth won the Man Booker International Prize, but one judge objected to awarding him the honor on the basis that he wrote the same book again and again. I like Roth's work and think that's a little harsh, but there's probably some grain of truth there. Even if that judge's opinion is true, Roth gets away with it because he does it so well. It's not something most writers can carry off.

If the real events are so important that they cannot be bent or distorted, then they probably don’t belong in a novel. I’d say the better approach for that is the nonfiction novel that Norman Mailer and Truman Capote were known for. Smooth the edges into novelistic form, but don’t let anyone think the book is anything but the truth. Of course, In Cold Blood, is about a couple of brutal killers, not Capote. Writing the blockbuster nonfiction novel about yourself seems to be much steeper climb.

All that said, there probably is one good reason to write an autobiographical novel. You’re a whistleblower or you have the inside scoop on something very big, but you can’t write it as nonfiction because you’ll lose a multimillion-dollar libel case and never write again. So you tell your story anyhow, but as fiction. Then you’re not libeling anyone because, after all, your book is just a story.
]]>