My life in books 3

The story started in part 1 with Bambi and Christopher Pike and continued in part 2 through Stephen King and "literary stuff."

In this, the last of the series, I move to Scotland in search of Glaswegian accents and easy access to Europe. Hello, crime fiction!

It was my early 20s. I had a Bachelor degree and a massive backpack with a Canadian flag sewn on it. Intending to springboard from the UK into the rest of Europe, I accidentally settled in Edinburgh. It wasn't my fault. I found work in a discount bookstore where staff were allowed to read the books so long as they appeared un-read when you were finished (shhh.) And the #1 author in Edinburgh's bookstores was Ian Rankin, with his series about DI Rebus.

Now I know that setting can be a character, but I didn't until I moved to Edinburgh.

So my introduction to this city was an insider's view. Old city, new city, proud and dirty and gorgeous, with Arthur's Seat, extinct volcano, overshadowing both the Queen's palace and the council estate where I shared a flat with three other travellers. At the heart of the city is the castle, still used by the military yet a tourist attraction, too. I walked to work through the real alleys where fictional DI Rebus investigated bloody murders. Rankin has said that the city personifies Deacon Brodie (a real life Jekyl & Hyde) who operated in its streets. Edinburgh is amazing. It can be setting, character, and moral all at once.

I won't tell you where I worked
but it's in this photo.
So I loved Edinburgh, and I loved the Rebus novels. Combined with Val McDermid's Tony Hill series, Louis Bayard's surprising portrayal of Edgar Allan Poe, and a half-dozen others who appeared at just the right time, this helped me realize that if I needed a guide, genre could give it. I began to understand my stories as beginning with a problem: the body; and a mystery: who did it? From this skeleton I could start to bring something to life (ha.) Though my writing style would later change again it was this shift from amorphous "stuff happens" towards the Crime & Mystery genres that gave me the structure I needed to finish a book.

A good book, I mean. Not the crap I was writing before.

And no surprise that the first "good" book I wrote was set in Edinburgh.

In the last post I promised to tell the truth in this one. And here's why.

I do not believe that any of my previous favourites wrote stereotypes, but it's true that fictional characters need to be sympathetic, they need to be understandable, and they can't alienate their readers too much or they won't have any readers. And yet, most real people are layered with varying degrees of disturbed. As a woman I might like a female hero, but the women of fiction are difficult, swinging between white-washed and wiped-out.

I moved back to Canada and began working in a public library. It was there I picked up Sharp Objects (because of its stark and intriguing cover) and I was amazed by what I read. I dare you to read the first chapter and not recoil, and yet be ultimately tempted to continue. Gillian Flynn said, "Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women." Cain and Slaughter also presented me with their heroes, heroes that made me wonder, Them? Really? Are you sure about this?, and yet compelled me to read on.

This was real freedom. I rewrote a book, its protagonist transforming from Meh to Holy Crap! I then edited her back to Oh Dear, and that experiment was worthwhile. I wanted honesty, and I wanted to know that line before I lost my reader, and dance on it a little. Gauguin said that all art is either plagiarism or revolution and I've never wanted to be a copy. Writing men or women, I wanted them to be real. These books demonstrated to me that "real" was possible.

There's a lot more I could say in my exploration of my life through books. There are authors who deserve great thanks (Thomas Perry, Tess Gerritsen, Kate Atkinson) but I'm stopping here because I think I've already accomplished what I intended: to show how important books have been to my life, that they have inspired and changed me, and not just as writer-- but especially as a writer.

I've had a few comments that others might try a similar exploration of their lives in books. I'll be glad to read them! And what an amazing thing for these authors, if they know that their words have had such an effect. As a reader I thank them. As a writer, I want to be them.

Guest Post: Jim Wisneski on Time Management

This week I'm starting work on a certain short story for a certain interconnected anthology (shh!) Please welcome guest blogger Jim Wisneski, author of one of my favourite serial stories, Guns n' Graves.

Time Management with Writing… and Life

Here are the projects that are sitting on my plate as I type this:

• Novel writing – wrote a 107,000 word novel from January 1 2010 to April 24 2010, and I’m currently 17,000 words into my next!
• Short story writing – weekly #fridayflash and stories for submission.
• Serialized story (1) – Guns n’ Graves. Posted weekly.
• Serialized story (2) – Living Lost. Posted weekly… and comes with music.
• Music – always working on new songs!
• Soft Whispers – my ezine featuring poetry, art, pictures, and short-short fiction. Also has monthly issues and anthologies.

So, the million dollar question is HOW TO DO IT ALL? Believe it or not, it’s easy. Here is the checklist that I follow:

• Set a plan and GO
• Don’t overdo or over commit
• Recognize failures and LET GO
• Learn from failures

My plan is always set and I always follow it… first thing in the morning, I update Soft Whispers. I email that day’s author and then I get to Twitter and Tweet it. I always have a notebook handy. I keep my notes separated so items don’t get mixed together. Then, at night, I always – ALWAYS – get 1,000 words written. It can be for a novel, a short story, an article… you get the point.

I know it may seem like a lot and trust me, with two kids, it can be. But I keep moving, keep writing, keep thinking… if I’m working on my novel and I get stuck, I move to something else. I grab a notebook and see what’s next for Guns n’ Graves. Once I get tired of that, then it’s time for Living Lost. Again, you get the point.

I always stay ahead by one week. There are a few reasons for this. First, you never know when the unexpected will happen. And for me, when I commit to something, I stay committed no matter what. And just to prove what I’m saying is true, my wife gave birth to our second son on Mother’s Day and not a single story missed a beat! Because I was ahead one week, I had no worries of missing a part of the story.

Another reason I stay a week ahead is to edit. There’s nothing worse than scrambling to get something written a few hours before it’s to be posted.

Finally, I stay a week ahead just in case I need a break… I mean, come on, we are all human and sometimes we have to walk away. And it’s good to be prepared in case that moment comes.

For #FridayFlash, I always have my story done by Tuesday night. AND if I don’t have a story for that week, no big deal. There’s a very important thing to remember about the internet… it’s vast, yes, which works to your advantage if used right… but you have to respect it. No matter the writing, if you share it, it’s out there forever. Make it count. To me, whether I get paid for writing or not, it’s still my writing. Now, am I saying that all my stories are top notch perfect? Nah. But each story that is posted as a #FridayFlash or available for free has had the same care and consideration as stories that are in print or ones that have been paid for.

Okay, now I talk about some failures… as I mentioned, you have to recognize failures and learn to let go. And you have to learn from the failures, too.

I had an idea for a site where it would be ALL links. Links to writing topics, to literary agents, publishing, etc. I called it Writers n’ Writers. I would wake up every day and look for link after link after link and post it on the blog. Then I would Tweet each link. I did it to help others out but all I was doing was wasting time. Close to ALL of the links I was posting were already available on Twitter. It took me a while to figure this out. My test was not doing anything with Writers n’ Writers for two full weeks. What happened? Nothing. I still had the same followers on Twitter, still had the same traffic on my sites. That told me that Wn’W had to go.

Another example is Soft Whispers. The original idea was to have Soft Whispers as a print magazine of short stories and poetry. I bought a printer, a paper folding machine, and went to work… and failed. First, I was flooded with stories and poetry. More than I wanted and WAY more than I liked. The final straw was when the people submitting to me started writing nasty emails. That’s when I ended my editor duties. BUT I decided to change the Soft Whispers idea… make it poetry, stories under 150 words, and have an outlet for art and pictures. I recruited regular contributors and the site has been running since January 2010 with great success.

Well, that’s my writing life as it stands now. Is it tons of work? Yes. Why do I do it? That answer brings me to my last point… you have to do what you love. I love writing. I love sharing stories, poetry, writing novels, entering contests, getting things published, and running Soft Whispers. I enjoy the people I speak with everyday and take the rejections with a smile. And when I wake up in the morning and my giant list of to do’s is waiting in my mind, I can’t help but smile. This is my dream and I’m living it.

Visit Jim at his blog or on twitter @Wisneski.

Friday Flash: "The Idea"

"The Idea"
by Jen Brubacher

The idea is a sphere pressing against the inside of my skull. It touches every part of my brain, insisting and important. It starts out small, but it grows, and soon I feel like it's going to kill me.

I get to the computer-- after work hours, past school books, the television, other books to read, people to see, my phone, my cat, my life. I get there as if it's a center of such awesome gravity that I keep spinning around it. I'm almost there, but then I think I should make some coffee. I'm almost there, but then I need a sweater. I'm almost there... and finally I sit. The getting there is an event in itself.

The sphere is going to kill me. It's enormous now, and it hurts my eyes. I put my hands on the keyboard and sit for a long time, waiting to die. The cursor doesn't blink because even that would be too much distraction. Someone is talking through the wall of my apartment. The heater is ticking. Everything is at odds with creativity and peace, and there is no manual for this extraction.

Then I'm writing.

Then I'm not. It could have taken hours, or just a few minutes. It could have been easy or hard. I can't remember. In a mindset above and apart from anything I can name or analyze, I've written out the idea, and it isn't gone but transposed with perfect grace from the inside of my limited skull to the outside, the real world, where it exists by itself. It's a birth, but we're still breathing in time with each other. It's gone, but there it is. Simple.

And now I can walk away.

---

Click here for my previous Flash Fiction.

This piece was born from an exercise created by Ev Bishop some years ago.

Photo: Bubble by Zero1o1 on flickr

Facebook, privacy, wake-up call

Facebook was great, wasn't it? All of a sudden everyone you'd ever known was right there and you could: 1. catch up with them and be "friends" again or 2. pacify that sneaking curiosity about what they might be doing with their lives, who they might be dating, whether they're very successful, and if they've had children. It was like your 10 year high school reunion except you could hide behind your computer. In fact, Facebook became popular right around the time my 10 year high school reunion should have taken place. So we all became friends on the website and nobody showed up to the reunion. Our ex-Student Council was shocked.

And, of course, Facebook made us a part of something, part of a group that didn't depend on any of our acquired hobbies, whatever knitting website or writing group we'd ever joined. Based on nothing except ourselves, it was an equalizer. Your ex-boyfriends joined Facebook, but so did your mom. And together we poked and status-updated and and Farmvilled to our heart's content.

There are some neat side-effects of the information gathered by Facebook. Status updates can be used to display and predict the general happiness of each country around the world. And with so many different applications their system of setting privacy levels for each bit of information, each action taken by their users, is impressively complicated. No, wait: I mean it's awful. It's so complicated you have to drill down several clicks just to find out that your Facebook page and all its private content has been linked to Mashable, TV.com, and a hundred other sites you had no intention of sharing. Or you aren't told anything at all until your user profile photo is used in an online dating ad.

In fact, Facebook isn't even the same site we joined a few years ago. Don't take the constantly shifting Terms of Service as indication. Look at this nifty graphic, Evolution of Privacy on Facebook. Click the years on the right and see how much more of your information is public and available to everyone, by default. In fact, the only thing that is no longer available to everyone on the Internet by default right now is your birthday. And in my experience, most people set their birthday as public anyway-- lovely, carefree people, sharing their special day, completely forgetting that government and banking institutions still use this special day as a security question. This, and your mother's maiden name. Oh look, there she is, your mother, on Facebook. And believe me, her maiden name is no mystery.

It's insane. This erosion of our privacy, and our ignorance of the erosion, is really very surprising. But it should be terrifying. Last week I saw someone's Twitter profile where they listed their birthday and place of birth. Place of birth, too? Yes. Another security question, out in the open. As a friend put it, "What, no credit card number? Where's the trust?" But don't worry. Amazon has all your credit card numbers. Just wait until they automatically connect with Facebook without telling you. Won't that be fantastic?

Further reading:
"Facebook's Gone Rogue"
"Facebook CEO Doesn't Believe in Privacy"
"Facebook's High Pressure Tactics: Opt-in Or Else"
"Even Mark Zuckerberg Doesn't Understand Facebook's New Privacy Settings"
That Nifty Graphic Again

But don't blame the CEO. Take control of your own information and ensure that there is nothing (absolutely nothing) on Facebook (or at any other public site!) that you would not want everyone to see. And by "everyone" I don't just mean your mom and your potential employer. I also mean the guy trying to steal your credit cards and your identity.

No, really.

---

Photos: 100 procent privacy by BlubrNL, Facebook by Balakov, & Facebook by Franco Bouly, on flickr

Friday Flash: "A Trick of Memory"

"A Trick of Memory"
by Jen Brubacher

Hermes and Mneme looked down on the city from a cloud the colour of London brick. She, Muse of memory, finally pointed at a street.

“Him. He’ll be the first.”

A young man was holding a briefcase above his head, between himself and the blackened sky. It needed to rain. The air was thick with it, damp and holding, the whole city crouched beneath the promise of a downpour that wasn’t coming.

Hermes the Trickster wasn’t sure she was right. The mortal below appeared just as the rest of them, except for his preemptive umbrella. But Hermes grasped at Mneme’s hand anyway as if he was ready. She seemed so certain.

The young man ducked into a bookstore and shook his shoulders. There was so much thunder over the horizon he seemed surprised he was still dry. A clerk smiled a greeting and the young man nodded in response. He didn’t want to be there, wanted to keep walking, but the weather was about to turn. He wandered in through the shelves and picked up a novel to pass the time.

It was a favourite.

Mneme tensed. Hermes started to feel it, too. Maybe she was right.

The man flipped through The Great Gatsby and settled on a page near the end. A passage he admired. Something he’d remembered his whole life. He smiled and read.

And then he frowned.

The Muse of memory clapped her hands and laughed. And Hermes had to grin.

Human beings— such trusting creatures— took a lot to be convinced. At first the clerk listened to the young man’s complaints and went through his particular book, then every copy of The Great Gatsby on the shelf, and together they stood bewildered between the shuffled shelves and decided it was the publisher’s fault. It must have been printed wrong, gotten the pages mixed up with another book perhaps, or it was a practical joke. This “new ending,” where Gatsby killed George Wilson and ended up with Myrtle, was an isolated mistake. It had to be.

But word spread and experience deepened. At a Waterstone’s across the city someone found a copy of Pride & Prejudice in which Elizabeth chose Mr. Wickham. And then, worse, someone else discovered another copy where Lizzy chose Mr. Collins.

The reader fainted right into a Booker Prize display.

Twitter exploded with betrayed bookworms lamenting their newly altered Stephen King collections, incensed that not a single person died in the whole of The Stand. Shakespeare First Folios throughout the country produced Romeo & Juliet living happily ever after in Milan, and Ophelia poisoning Hamlet and ruling Denmark on her own. Amazon opened a warehouse full of The DaVinci Code, except in these copies God intervened and told “the truth.” While the Vatican reconsidered its opinion on Dan Brown, a shipment of Twilight arrived at a Manchester W H Smith that saw Bella stay in Arizona with a subsequent three hundred blank pages.

And The Edgar Allan Poe Society denounced a new collection that saw The Raven fly away in the first verse.

Not a single ending of any novel or poem in the world remained untouched. Websites sprang up trying to counteract the problem, recording for posterity the true ending of each story and refusing to acknowledge other versions. But then one author added a twist. She read her own paperback book— a bestseller, if not a blockbuster— and offhandedly told The New York Times, “I was thinking of ending it that way anyway, before re-writes.”

All hell broke loose.

Mneme and Hermes watched from above. The muse’s eyes glittered as the trickster turned and quirked an eyebrow.

“We’re going to be in so much trouble.”

The thunder on the horizon burst toward them.

---

Click here for my previous Flash Fiction.

Photo: City Below Big Gray Sky by lopolis on flickr

My life in books 2

Last week I posted "My life in books 1" and the start of this tale. I loved hearing about everyone's first favourite books! If you haven't yet, go back and join the conversation.

As my friend Nicole (an old friend, who perhaps knows too much about me) mentioned in those comments, there was one book in particular I had to put face down in a closed drawer before I could sleep.

When I was very young I found It in my dad's bookcase. It was that cover, above on the left. The cover unsettled me. Later, when I read it, I bought myself a version that had Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown on the cover. You guessed it-- this was the book that had to be locked up at night.

It terrified me. I loved it. I had no idea horror could be so fun. I was too young, maybe twelve years old when I read the "bonding" scene at the end. (If you've read it you know what I mean. What do you think: what's "too young?") I moved right on to The Tommyknockers, Salem's Lot, Nightmares & Dreamscapes. Eventually something occurred to me: it wasn't the horror on its own that was so great. His movies prove it. The films that focus on the scary elements are usually bad-- really bad-- and the ones that focus on the characters (Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Stand By Me, Dolores Claiborne, Apt Pupil) are so good it's difficult to convince non-King-fans that they're based on his stories. His stuff has depth, and maybe it's sometimes missed in the thrill of the story, but it's there, no question.

I bought The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for my mom, to try to justify my long obsession. She read it in a night, remarked with surprise that he was actually very good, and in return read and recommended On Writing, which has become one of my favourite writing books. Whatever readers might think of Stephen King, most writers agree that he knows a lot about good writing, that he didn't arrive where he is on luck alone, and that there's something to be learned there, something important. I'm one of that crowd. But I may be more unique in having absorbed his more worrying stories at a somewhat worrying age, and whether I consider the result "scarred" or just "tweaked," it's permanent.

Actually, I like that. King "tweaked" me. Thank you, King.

I've never considered it before, but I guess I might have been one of those kids who people worry about, saying, "She reads a lot, but all she reads is crap."

It's true that I've never been a book snob. If a book was referred to as "Literary," I often snobbishly preferred something else. (I know.) But at some point a few books broke through that bias. First of all I read Oscar & Lucinda in preparation for the film and fell completely, irretrievably in love. Further proof, if I needed it, that it's the characters that make the book.  In university I studied a minor in English Literature and was force-fed classic Atwood until I finally read The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx & Crake on my own and realized how great they were, and how great is that?, to write a book like that, a well-crafted character-driven story about a possible future, sci-fi and more? And a boyfriend lent me Slaughterhouse 5 and I finally understood genius, and felt a little cheated because I knew that wasn't me. (The boyfriend later became my husband, but I'm sure it wasn't just about Vonnegut... probably.)

Literary books don't have to be misery. A book doesn't need a genre label to be fascinating, imaginative, and insane. I had to learn this, just like some people have to learn that a book doesn't need to win an award to be brilliant. A story needs to stand on its own no matter the biases stamped onto it by the publisher, the bookstore, whoever. As a writer this lesson is gold.

So I learned it. And then I knew my imagination was limitless. I knew I could write my own books, my own stories, whatever they were. Like much of life when you're just out of high school, floating in the murk of pure university "wisdom," everything seemed limitless. Freedom was absolute. That's great, and it's also, um, really confusing. What I really needed, to be frank, were guidelines.

Anyone else get a little lost in the freedom of it all when they began taking their writing seriously?

Next time on "My life in books:" No more Miss Nice Writer! And I start to tell the truth.