Think

This article, by Graeme Paton, originally appeared on The Telegraph UK site on 3/7/13.

Research shows that rising numbers of 13 and 14-year-olds – including the brightest pupils – are opting for simple texts aimed at children towards the end of primary school.

Academics from Dundee University analysed children’s reading habits throughout primary and secondary education and found the relative difficulty of books “declined steadily” as pupils got older. Boys were also more likely to shun problematic books than girls.

It emerged that The Twits by Roald Dahl was among the most popular books for pupils aged 13 to 16 despite also featuring among the top titles for seven and eight-year-olds.

The study suggested that primary school teachers were more likely to push children towards challenging books because of awareness of the importance of developing literacy skills at a young age.

But the study warned that there was “something seriously amiss” in secondary schools, suggesting that a failure to promote reading may cause pupils to effectively go backwards between the age of 11 and 16.

It follows the publication of official school-by-school league tables earlier this year that showed one-in-six bright pupils performed relatively worse in English exams sat at 16 compared with tests taken at the end of primary education.

Read the The Telegraph UK site.

I’m always trying to tweak my process to become more productive. On the one hand, I don’t like to work on edits and rough draft of something else at the same time on the same day because it feels like multi-tasking. Why not finish the most close-to-being-ready thing and then move on to the next thing to take your full focus?

At the same time, when I do that, what tends to happen is I will get out of the “writing groove”. So while it can take a lot of time and energy to switch between tasks as one does with multi-tasking, it can sometimes take longer to get into a new groove after it’s gone, particularly with writing.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

Chuck Wendig wrote a post that I found inspiring toward this end: How To Push Past The Bullshit And Write that Goddamn Novel: A Very Simple No-Fuckery Writing Plan To Get Shit Done

From the very beginning I knew that this was going to be great because anybody who says No-Fuckery is someone I feel I ought to listen to just on principle.

I had previously tried a 250 words a day writing goal. The idea was to JUST START and even if you JUST do the 250, you’ve got some word count down and you started and if you write more awesome, and it adds up over time. It’s like stealing your novel through fifteen minutes here or there. And while it can take that long to even get into a groove, period, if you do it every day, the time it takes to get into the groove is much shorter.

So, I figure… even while I’m editing, there is a burnout point. There is a point at which I’m not going to edit any more that day. I’m going to do a certain amount generally and then the rest of my time for that day is my time. So, in THAT OTHER TIME, the non-editing time… I can’t carve out 15 minutes to work on my WIP? REALLY???

One of my excuses is that I have to outline/plan a book and that’s hard to do while also editing a book. But I have a WIP in progress right now that I can chip away at. Yes, in the long run it’s going to need to percolate some because I’m a little burnt out on that pen name and I need to get back to Zoe and write Hadrian and Angeline’s book but still… chipping away at it while I work on edits for the other book and then planning for Hadrian and Angeline is forward momentum. And that’s what I need. Forward momentum.

So 350 words a day. Anybody can do that.

This is a reprint from Zoe Winters’ weblog.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s no such thing as a pantser when it comes to writing. And I say this as a self-confessed pantser. I’ve stood up and defended the position of writing from the hip against those pesky planners. I’ve defended the greater creative purity of the unplanned writing session. But it’s all bollocks. And you know what? There are no real planners either. This is a bell-curve, so there will be those outliers, but I’ll get to them later.

Firstly, in case you’re the one person who doesn’t know what a pantser or a planner is, let me explain. When it comes to writing fiction, there are two primary camps – people who plan everything and decide on each detail of the plot before they start writing, who are called planners, and people who plan nothing and just let the story all pour out au naturel, called pantsers. These people have also been referred to as architects and gardeners, and in that post I talk about being a bit of one and a bit of the other. But here I intend to make the bolder statement that we’re all a bit of both.

I’ve always identified mostly as a pantser. I don’t like to know everything that’s going to happen in a story before I start to write. What’s the point in writing it then? It’d be like writing it twice – once in note form, then again in detail. But I do make some notes. I have a good idea where things are going and what major events are going to occur in a story. I sometimes don’t know exactly how a book or story is going to end, but I have a good idea where I’m going with it and the ideas I’m playing with. The process of discovery that accompanies the writing then, as my subconscious tells the story through my characters, is the thing I love most about writing. So I do write a lot by the seat of my pants. But I plan too.

It’s the same for planners. Any great writer, no matter how strictly they might plan a book, will gladly let a new idea or an unexpected turn take the story somewhere else. That may mean that they stop and re-plan, based on the unexpected revelation. Or they may just roll with it. The bits and details in between their carefully planned markers will still need filling in, and they will have to cover those transitions and interstices with writing from the hip.

So no pantser never plans, and no planner never pants. Like I said above, it’s a bell-curve. I think it’s more a case of where on the curve you sit. Not whether you’re a pantser or a planner, but to what degree you plan. We’re all plantsers – we all sit down with a story idea and we work on it. We have to. There needs to be some ideas in mind of what we’re writing about, who our characters are (at least in their most superficial incarnation to begin with) and where we’re going with it. That’s planning. But the degree to which we plan that, or how much we leave open, is the only thing that separates our writing styles.

Kim Wilkins is a writer with something like 24 published novels and she is quite vocal about being a very detailed planner. Whenever you raise the subject with her, she will simply cry, “Two million words in print! I rest my case!” and she does kinda have a point. But really, all she’s saying is that she plans a lot, not only a little bit. There’s a case in her argument that everyone should plan a lot. I disagree. I don’t plan in anything like the detail Kim does, but I do plan to a certain extent. We all do. And no matter how much Kim plans, no matter how much of an outlier she is on one side of the bell curve, I bet there’s some pantsing in there too. Just like the person who pretty much pants the whole way will still have a small amount of planning, somewhere in the back of their mind. And even when someone pretty much pants the thing entirely, there comes a point when they need to pull it all together at the end and that requires a bit of planning.

There’s no such thing as a pantser or a planner. There’s just the degree to which we plan.

This is a cross-posting from Alan Baxter‘s Warrior Scribe site.

Yesterday, as I was searching for descriptions of San Francisco Theaters in 1880 (I am hoping to have a scene in a theater in my next historical mystery, Bloody Lessons), I ran across the following paragraph and laughed out loud.

“Last evening, as I was hurriedly walking along Dupont street, near Post, in the gloaming, I saw before me a young dude, who, instead of minding his business of walking decently, was projecting his face and hat into the visage of his girl companion to the left, while with his dexter paw he twirled a light cane, which extended half way across the curbstone, and which I tried to escape, but which, notwithstanding, hit me square upon my nose, which is a long one.” Etiquette on the Street, by Silver Pen in San Francisco News Letter and California Advertiser Jan 9, 1886

You see, I am a fan of the movie the Big Lebowski, whose main character called himself “The Dude” and spoke of himself in the third person, and, as a result, the use of the word dude in this 19th century context cracked me up.

The next thing that occurred to me is that if I tried to use the word dude in my 19th century fiction, I would probably bring the reader right out of the moment because it would sound so modern. As I investigated the word and its meanings, I discovered that the term has undergone a profound transformation from its 19th century origins to its modern-day uses.

In 1883, when the above paragraph was written, the term dude was very new. A history of the word in Wikipedia says that the word first appeared in print in the 1870s in Putnam’s Magazine, making fun of how a woman dressed. However, a variety of sources, including the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, agree that by the 1880s it had become American slang for “a man extremely fastidious in dress and manner,” often suggesting that they were aping the style of the English upper

In other words, dude meant a dandy. While most sources agreed that the first printed use of the term with this meaning was 1883, obviously three years later the humorist complaining about modern mores felt comfortable that his readers would understand his use of dude when describing the rude young man who was strolling down a San Francisco street, twirling his cane. I am inserting a picture of Oscar Wilde, who was considered the personification of a dandy, from his 1882 tour.

At the exact same time, the word was taking on another, albeit related, meaning, as the term dude began to be used (for the first time in 1883 in the Home and Farm Manual) to describe men from the city (Easterners) who demonstrated their lack of knowledge about rural life (the West) by behaving and dressing inappropriately.

These two uses of the term were clearly related since to a working rancher or farmer there would be nothing more ridiculous than some dude (whether from an eastern or a european city), who came to the American West, dressed in fancy duds and pretending to be a cowboy.

By the early 20th century the term began to be applied to ranches that catered to these eastern “city slickers.” In fact, in the mid 1960s, my very suburban family spent a week on a “Dude Ranch” in upstate New York, where we rode horses, went on hay-rides and did square dances in a barn. If you had asked me the meaning of the word then, I would have clearly understood it to mean “city slicker.”

Yet, by the late sixties the term had also become a general form of slang used by men when addressing other men, and it seemed to have emerged within urban Black culture. As a young adult in the late sixties (who spent the summer of 1968 taking classes and living in a dorm at the traditionally all black college, Howard University, and then spent a good deal of time the next two years hanging out with my future husband who lived in the primarily African-American male dormitory at Oberlin College) I had become used to African-American men referring to each other as dude. Unlike its original meanings, this was a positive form of address, and it had nothing to do with city slickers.

Pretty quickly, whites who wanted to sound cool, expropriated the term (it shows up in the movie, Easy Rider) and by the mid-to-late 1970s, just about the time I arrived in Southern California, the term became associated with that region, specifically attributed to “stoners, surfers, and skateboarders.” See the Urban Slang Dictionary.

Robert Lane who has written a piece on the word, points out that int 1982 Sean Penn’s character, Jeff Spicoli, in the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High, personified the kind of young man who was called, and called others, dude.

While this new use of dude, as an informal form of address among young people, began to predominate, the older meanings didn’t fade away completely. My young daughter, for example, loved the TV show Hey Dude (1989-1991) that was about a dude ranch, not stoner skateboarders. Nevertheless, in my own mind, this earlier meaning of the word was wiped out completely after I watched Jeff Bridges in the Big Lebowski in 1998.

This movie about a grown up man, Jeff Lebowski, whose days are filled with bowling, smoking weed, and sliding through life, has become a cult favorite, and it has created an indelible image of what could happen to the Spicolis of the world if they never grew up.

Interestingly, when I thought more about it, I realized that the writers of the movie (the Coen Brothers) were clearly aware of the changes the term had undergone from its earlier origins. For example, the movie is narrated by a character (called The Stranger and played by Sam Elliott), who is a quintessential cowboy. A cowboy who wryly references the change in the meaning of the word dude from city slicker to stoner slacker in this opening monologue:

“Way out west there was this fella… fella I wanna tell ya about. Fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. Mr. Lebowski, he called himself “The Dude”. Now, “Dude” – that’s a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn’t make a whole lot of sense.” The Stranger, The Big Lebowski

What does this all mean for me as a writer of historical fiction set in the 1880s? First of all, I can’t prove that any of my characters would use the word dude, in either of the earlier meanings–of dandy or city slicker–in 1880, when my next book is set, since I can’t prove they would have heard of it that early. However, the fact that the writer of the 1886 quote used the word without feeling the need of any explanation does suggest that I would not be committing any major historical inaccuracy if I did have someone use the word in either of its original meanings.

Yet, when I read the word yesterday, all I could think of was Jeff Lebowski, in his ancient knitted cardigan, sloppy t-shirt, and baggy bermuda shorts, ambling down the street with his bowling bag in hand, and I was no longer in the 19th century, and I was certainly not thinking about a young man who was “extremely fastidious in dress and manner.” Here the modern meaning and use of the term was just too far from its origins to be an effective word to use in a work of historical fiction set in 1880. Consequently, it was with reluctance I gave up trying to figure out in what context one of my characters could call another Dude.

But I did have fun exploring the origins of the word, and I hope you had fun reading about it. Furthermore, I recommend that you click on this link and read the rest of Silver Pen’s 1886 diatribe on Etiquette on the Street because I think it will make you laugh, even if you aren’t a Big Lebowski fan.

And for the Lebowski fans among you, let me conclude by quoting from the end of the film:

The Dude: Yeah, well. The Dude abides.

The Stranger: The Dude abides. I don’t know about you but I take comfort in that. It’s good knowin’ he’s out there. The Dude. Takin’ ‘er easy for all us sinners.

This is a reprint from M. Louisa Locke‘s blog.

This post originally appeared on The Writer’s ABC Checklist on 12/12/12.

Have you considered taking a writing class, but not been sure if that option was right for you? Today, [guest blogger] Kate Willson outlines the pros and cons.

Writing Classes: Are They Worth the Investment?

Throughout my years of working as a freelance writer, I’ve seen countless authors, bloggers, and professional writers jump into heated discussions and debates over whether or not writing is a natural gift, or if it is something that must be honed and developed through years of hard work and intrinsic learning.

I doubt we’ll ever see an end to this age-old debate, but nevertheless, I strongly believe that it can’t hurt to learn more about the art of writing from time to time. That said, I’ve found that writing classes have tremendously helped a great deal of my writing colleagues and acquaintances. If you’re looking to improve your writing work, enrolling in a writing class might be a viable option to consider. Here are some of the pros and cons of enrolling in writing classes.

Pro: Time set aside for writing
When I was a young writer, I used to bemoan the fact that I never had time to write for fun since my newspaper job took up most of my creative energy. With writing classes, however, you’ll have a designated amount of time set aside to do your personal writing. If you have been putting off writing a book, poem, or short story, you’ll finally have a time to do so in your writing classes! Most of the writing classes you’ll take require you to spend a lot of time writing solely for fun, so you’ll not only be practicing your craft, you’ll also be knocking out those side projects you’ve been putting off for much too long.

Pro: Practice makes better
No, practice doesn’t make perfect; it does, however, make better. One of the greatest pros of enrolling in writing classes is the opportunity to stretch your writing bones and improve your craft. Each and every day you spend learning about writing, you’re not only learning more about the ins and outs of professional writing, you’re also improving your body of work. So, if anything, writing classes give you the opportunity to spend practicing your writing skills. And as all seasoned writers know, practice is essential to becoming better.

Read the rest of the post on The Writer’s ABC Checklist.

This post, by Peg Brantley, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

Sometimes when a writer digs, they find rich soil. Fragrant. The kind of dirt that sticks to your fingers just a little bit and compels you to bring it up to your nose to smell. The kind that brings images of lush growth. The kind where the fertilizer has long lost its poopy scent and blended perfectly into a pungent ripeness, ready for the touch of a master. It brings a promise all its own.

At other times, full of good intentions, a writer hits elusive sand. Or even worse, dense and sticky clay.

So what then?

God, I wish I knew.

I have this amazing story that I’m about a quarter into. I have a self-imposed deadline (but it’s still a deadline), and the date is looking more impossible to achieve every day. I’m struggling to find my focus. My touch. The thing that brings magic to my writing. Energy.

Last night I returned from a week long road trip with my dad during which I wrote not one new word. That’s okay. Sometimes making memories is more important than making a sentence. Truly. And the road trip? Thirteen hours each way, fourteen if you count the breakfasts at Denny’s (which I don’t recommend) and stopping to fill up the gas tank. My dad’s nickname is Rocket-Ass when it comes to road trips. I sort of learned I have a bit of Rocket-Ass in me as well, but that’s another story. Right now all I feel is wiped out. Even with a good night’s sleep in my own bed.

I’m feeling as if I’ve lost my way. After the holidays I never really got back into gear. Tonight I feel as if getting back into gear is the least of my worries. I’ve misplaced the damn car.

Today I’ve been sidetracked. Do I have Amazon Author Pages up in all of the available countries, and if not, why not? Have I refilled all of the bird feeders? Watered the plants that need watering? Have I contacted all of the possible sites to announce the free dates next month for The Missings? Is the grocery list put together enough that I can run my other errands and hit the store without a repeat performance the next day? What about scheduling those dates with friends? Writing… it didn’t happen.

I know I need to just start digging. To believe that among the yucky clay I’m bound to find fertile loam.

Maybe tomorrow.

This post, by Tansy Rayner Roberts, originally appeared on her blog on 12/9/12.

A great, thoughtful article at the Mary Sue on one of my pet topics: the common justification of sexist fantasy fiction being that it’s historically authentic.

I am BUSY today, far too busy for a rant, but then I felt one coming on, and was worried I might end up with a migraine if I tried to stifle it. You know how it is. So let’s talk about sexism in history vs. sexism in fantasy.

WARNING, ACADEMIC IN THE HOUSE.

I agree with pretty much everything said in the Mary Sue article: when you’re writing fantasy inspired by history, you don’t have to take all the ingrained sexism of historical societies along for the party, and even when you do, you don’t have to write women in a sexist or demeaning way. Your fantasy will not break by treating women as if they are people too.

But my rant is actually not quite about that stuff at all. It’s about history, and this notion that History Is Authentically Sexist. Yes, it is. Sure it is. We all know that. But what do you mean when you say “history?”

History is not a long series of centuries in which men did all the interesting/important things and women stayed home and twiddled their thumbs in between pushing out babies, making soup and dying in childbirth.

History is actually a long series of centuries of men writing down what they thought was important and interesting, and FORGETTING TO WRITE ABOUT WOMEN. It’s also a long series of centuries of women’s work and women’s writing being actively denigrated by men. Writings were destroyed, contributions were downplayed, and women were actively oppressed against, absolutely.

But the forgetting part is vitally important. Most historians and other writers of what we now consider “primary sources” simply didn’t think about women and their contribution to society. They took it for granted, except when that contribution or its lack directly affected men.

This does not in any way mean that the female contribution to society was in fact less interesting or important, or complicated, simply that history – the process of writing down and preserving of the facts, not the facts/events themselves – was looking the other way.

In history, from primary sources through most of the 20th century (I will absolve our current century-in-progress out of kindness but let’s not kid ourselves here), the assumption has always been that men’s actions are more politically and historically significant to society, BECAUSE THEY ARE PERFORMED BY MEN.

Read the rest of the post on Tansy Rayner Roberts’ blog.