C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m

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08/18/2010 • 4:00 PM 2

Top 100 Books for Freelance Writers

Wow. I just stumbled upon Inkthinker, a website dedicated to helping freelance writers. What a great resource. Freelancers! Please peruse. The Top 100 Books for freelancers is just the beginning. We have a lot more reading to do now, don’t we?

Filed under: book reviews, Books, publishing, web reviews, help for freelance writers, Inkthinker, top 100 books for freelance writers

07/15/2010 • 9:19 AM 2

Your Favorite Books

On being well-read…that’s all subjective but I recently saw a list of 100 books–classics we should have read by now according to…someone. I read two or three books a week and have done so for years, but apparently not so much from the list designated as most worthwhile by Central Command.

I have read a lot of “classics” (whatever that’s supposed to mean to you) I suppose and there were a bunch from the Top 100 List I was really glad I had read. I loved The Great Gatsby and Crime and Punishment and Lolita, for instance. But I won’t be making a point of reading some of what someone else has decided is a must. I tried Middlemarch and it’s not my cup of pee. It’s just not happening. It was a ghastly foray among some bookstore shelves.

Besides, many of the Must Reads for me wouldn’t be old enough for The List. I love Fight Club and most of Kurt Vonnegut’s work and Bright Lights, Big City. You won’t find The Color of Light on anybody’s top 100 probably, but for my reading time, William Goldman is The Shit, man. (Princess Bride, too.) The Color of Light is about an aspiring writer so, you know, that makes sense, plus it hit me at just the right time.

So…top 100 is a bit impractical,but what’s on your top ten must-read, God-I-loved-that-book list? What’s on your desert island list? Please do share.

Filed under: book reviews, Books, favorite books

07/15/2010 • 9:12 AM 0

Conflicting Writing Advice

I’m reading Thanks But This Isn’t for Us, a development editor’s (AKA The Angel of Death*) take on why your manuscript sucks. Her suggestions on openings to avoid are very useful.

When I was evaluating the slush pile, there were an inordinate number of manuscripts–all rejected–that began with somebody getting up in the morning, describing themselves in the mirror and making coffee. Second most common thing? Boarding an airplane for The Big Trip. It could work but I never saw it play well in those submissions.

Wrinkle: Now the fiction market is so tight, publishers aren’t just rejecting bad manuscripts. Now they’re turning down a lot of good stuff. There’s only so much money to publish so many books in any one budget year.

Back to Thanks…she advocates “beautiful language.” I wonder if she’s focussing on so-called literary fiction there. I just read two translations from European authors that were definitely literary, but the language was very plain and cut down, even minimalist. I don’t think there were more than two adjectives in either book. Meanwhile, I’ve read about two MFA programs, one eschewing “beautiful language” and the other praising only fiction that employs poetic language. (Maya Angelou thinks it’s not good writing unless it’s hard to read. I disagree.)

This is why you must write for yourself and find someone who appreciates it after the deed is done.

*Angel of Death…you know…maybe we need to ease back on the throttle on hyperbolic language around writing. Sure, you want it to be good, but it’s also just writing. Too often people talk about it like it’s a secret language that only a few geniuses can learn. Successful authors are very very persistent and very very lucky. Nobody talks about the luck involved in getting through the razor wire and fine mesh of some underpaid, otherwise unemployable editorial assistant’s capricious sensibilities. I think I can say that because I was that otherwise unemployable douche who turned your masterpiece down.

Filed under: book reviews, writing tips, book reviews, writing advice

07/14/2010 • 9:01 AM 0

How I Became a Famous Novelist

Not me. The book. The book is How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely. It is the novel you MUST buy–and yes I know capital letters in a post are obnoxious and mean I’m screaming at you. But it’s that funny and that pointed. It’s that good. You need to own it and suck it down.

Publishers, overly earnest and sentimental writers (published and non), Hollyweird, MFA programs, lit journals, bestsellerdumb! It’s all here and you will laugh and then you’ll think. There’s enough truth behind the jokes to make you feel like you’re not sure you should laugh, like the author is making you giggle so you’ll let down your guard as he slips a shiv between your ribs and gives it a half twist.

There is a lot of great criticism of the way things are in this novel–so much in fact that when you finally close the book at four in the morning you’ll be puzzled at how much is satire. There is a slight pullback and redemption after all the hijinks, and I’m not sure I believe the transcendence. Maybe the author really means what he says for most of the book. His criticisms of publishing are hard to fault. If it’s a test of reader cynicism, I failed.

Please do read it and you’ll see what I mean. PLEASE!

Filed under: book reviews, publishing, Writers, book review, How I Became a Famous Novelist

06/19/2010 • 12:10 AM 2

Stephen King On Writing

Horror doesn’t just describe a genre, but what the reader is supposed to feel. I took in a short gasp of horror when I read a sidebar in The Writer which blithely informed us that we’d learn more from Danse Macabre than we’d glean from Stephen King On Writing.

Everybody’s entitled to their wrong opinion but the casual dismissal of On Writing took me aback for the simple reason that Danse Macabre is broad and descriptive of the genre, but On Writing is prescriptive, beating the adverbs out of you and even giving a solid example (if not a template) for approaching agents etc.,…. I’ve read and reread On Writing and it bears reading and rereading. It’s useful in its instruction and lyrical in biography (though for no reason I can understand King denies it’s a biography.)

Lots of people–okay, I’ll say it, English Majors–have discounted King in the past, and too easily. They forget that not only has he been one of the most successful writers on the planet, he used to teach writing, too. If you are a writer, you must own this book.

Filed under: book reviews, Writers, writing tips, book review, On Writing, Stephen King

06/18/2010 • 12:04 PM 0

cHUCK pAHLANIUK: Relax!

A lot of authors come and go or are trapped in the midlist and never break out, soon to be dumped by their publishers and agents after having their hopes briefly elevated. Others soar briefly, but the brand doesn’t catch on and now industry insiders wink at each other, telling each other the has-been was a flavor of the month. (These same editors, agents and publishers were certain they’d discovered the next Philip Roth not long before.)

Jay McInerney, for instance, wrote three really good books I loved: Ransom, Story of My Life and Bright Lights, Big City (which was made into a very good movie starring Michael J. Fox.) I tried to read the author’s next work but I felt he was suddenly trying to write as if he was an English author from a previous century. His solid stuff exhibited a sharp post-modernist wit but somewhere between his experimental popular fiction and what he wrote afterward, he wandered off. He’s still a successful guy and writes about wine and has made it big in the magazine world. However, he’s unknown to a new generation of readers and so, has become a bit of a footnote. In the 80s, you had to read him. Now? Really optional. He’s got a new book out, so maybe he’s working on a comeback.

Which brings us to: In a recent interview Chuck Pahlaniuk said he still didn’t feel like a success. (Wha–?)

I have proof he is a great success. Of course he wrote Fight Club (and a great movie was made of the book which is so close to the book they lifted almost all the dialogue.) Choke was made into a movie. He’s written quite a few books now actually: Lullaby (liked it), Diary (loved it), Survivor (liked it), Rant (not for me), Snuff (okay), Haunted (okay) Invisible Monsters (not for me) and Stranger the Fiction (really solid and readable.) He could stop there and have about as much output in numbers of books as Kurt Vonnegut had. Nothing to sneeze at.

BUT HERE’S THE PROOF PAHLANIUK IS A SUCCESS:

In a review of Rant (which was laudatory, long and detailed) not once did the reviewer even mention Fight Club!

Chuck. You’ve made it into the pantheon.

Congratulations.

Filed under: book reviews, Books, Writers, books, chuck pahlaniuk, fight club

06/15/2010 • 12:34 PM 0

I resolve to be a better supervillain, uh, no, I mean, writer.

Amidst a flurry of productivity pumping out short stories lately I was reminded of a book I read a long time ago. Had I heeded its message when I read it I would have several books behind me by now.

The book is The War of Art, Winning the Inner Creative Battle by Steven Pressfield. (Highly recommended!) One key is, treat it like it’s a job. You don’t wait for time to surface, you dive deep to get it. You don’t wait for inspiration to strike, you assume inspiration will appear once you start typing (sadly this never happened for the writers of Sex & the City, the story of three hookers and their transvestite dad, Kim Cattrail.)

Don’t be a dilettante. Establish a writing schedule and stick to it.

I’ve called this meeting because we must come up with a plan to kill Superman!

Whoops! Sorry, wrong speech.

Filed under: book reviews, publishing, Rant, rules of writing, writing tips, writers, writing schedule, writing tip

05/23/2010 • 11:26 PM 0

Foreskin’s Lament

I last laughed out loud, all the way through, reading Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint. So much masturbation and death anxiety was hilarious in a way few books are–consistently.

If I lived long enough, I figured I’d run across a book that would make me laugh all the way through again. 25 years. Reading. Waiting. It finally happened. The next laughfest has a lot in common with Portnoy’s. Somewhat less masturbation, loads of death anxiety, much more anger at a God who’s out to kill us all and isn’t that imaginative about it.

You need to read

Foreskin’s Lament

A memoir

by

Shalom Auslander

Go to the store now. Slip on your Depends, stock up on coffee and M&Ms and laugh your ass off.

Filed under: book reviews, book review

05/20/2010 • 11:59 PM 1

Make Your Life Literary

Books on writing abound and at a certain point, there’s a lot of overlap. I’ve bought so many that I’m beginning to recognize the reflex for what it is: procrastination disguised as education. My shelves are groaning for me to stop, but that’s just crazy talk. (As with all addicts, I say I can quit any time I want…just not now.)

However, Making a Literary Life by Carolyn See is different. This isn’t a day in the life of somebody camping out at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. This is somebody who teaches writing, applies for grants and has faced literary difficulty.She’s in the trenches. You’ll like her. You don’t have staff and neither does she.

There’s a lot of advice here you won’t see elsewhere. She’s a great advocate of building relationships with people in the business. You can protest and lament that it’s about who you know, or you can get out there with a campaign of “charming notes” to get to know people.

My favorite book on writing is Stephen King’s On Writing (if you haven’t got that already, you now have two books to go out and buy.) However, King’s a bit removed from the struggles of the mid-list from his perch up there in the stratosphere. See has a wry wit. She’s naked and vivisected on the buffet table so writers and would-be writers can learn from the exposed anatomy of her striving. She talks about mechanics and this insane and improbable business in an accessible way you’ll love. No wonder her charming notes worked.

The author makes an interesting argument for a non-query approach to editors. She’s also against authors buying their own books from their publisher at a discount to sell them. (That’s a pretty radical assertion in the current publishing climate where many authors are turning to their own resources to sell outside the box.)

Instead See suggests you buy your own books in bookstores, write off the expense and use the purchase to boost your tracked sales numbers while making the book a gift to bookstore staff. (I think she has a great point there. Authors doing a signing often make the mistake of thinking it’s about how many people show up to the event. It’s actually your chance to suck up to form an alliance with the bookstore staff so they’ll make an extra effort to sell for you into the future. Be nice to bookstore staff! Also, be nice generally.)

Sometimes I wasn’t sure if I agreed with her because it was brilliant advice or simply because she’s a bit of a contrarian and so am I. She lays out her publishing strategy and cheerfully acknowledges it hasn’t all been cherries and bouquets. It’s a realistic take on the literary life–several romantic moments and toasts with champagne flutes spread out amidst a lot of hard slogging.

And in what other writers’ guide are you going to find advice–and detailed advice at that–on the hows and whys of making the trip to New York to sell your work? Nowhere. Carolyn See balances the wry and practical in a book on writing unlike all the others.

I finished it the other night and I’m going to do something I never do. I’m going to read it again. The rest of the books on writing can wait.