We small-time bloggers pay a lot of attention to statistics. As I approach my 7000th pageview, I'm watching, checking in periodically to see how many hits I've gotten. I get very excited about a day with 60 or 70 pageviews. Wow, I must really be hitting the big time, right?!
Alas, the statistics page also includes a reality check. I look at the sources of most of those hits, and realize a sad truth: there aren't people behind them. A truly amazing number of my "referring sites" have a .ru extension--Russian computers, doing some kind of weird search. Are they robots who drop in on every single freaking site on the Web each day? Whatever for? The Ninja Librarian has no ambitions involving Russia. One thing I can be pretty sure of: they aren't avid Russian readers of American children's books dropping in to see what pearls of wisdom will fall from my fingertips today.
Dang.
We small-time Indie writers live and die by statistics--how many books did I sell? How many likes on my Facebook page? How many people added my book on Goodreads? The Stats page here at Blogger reminds me that Benjamin Disraeli (or maybe Mark Twain) had it right. Three kinds of lies, and the worst is statistics.
Part of me wishes there was a filter, so I could see how many genuine visitors, not search bots, I have. But part of me knows that would be depressing in the extreme. So I'll go ahead and celebrate when (tomorrow?) my view count tops 7000, and I'll plan on doing something special when it hits 10,000. After all, a little over a year ago when I started this blog, I had one reader, and even the search bots didn't bother to find me. It must be some kind of progress!
Coming Friday: a real post again at last--another Chuck Wendig flash-fiction challenge!
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Monday, March 11, 2013
I hate Mondays
Ironic. I was thinking that I really don't feel like writing anything, and figured I'd just take a look at my schedule for my planned posts on writing (if I could find it). And there it was: topic #4, dealing with the doldrums. Thanks to the switch to Daylight Savings Time, it couldn't be more appropriate. Today is, in my opinion, the worst Monday of the year. A day when a little shift in the clock messes with my whole brain and ability to get out of bed, let alone accomplish anything once I'm up.
So when I say "doldrums," I'm not talking about writer's block. To be honest, I've never really had that. Only the blahs. No wind in my sails, no energy to pour onto the page. My guess is that for most of us, that's the most deadly and insidious enemy of our writing. Not writer's block, the paralyzing inability to fill the page, leaving us to sit for hours staring at a blank paper (or screen). Rather, it's the paralyzing inability to get up from the breakfast table, clear away the detritus of getting three guys off to school and work, and go turn on the computer.
And yet, here I am. How did I do it? Well, for one thing, I'm here at the blog, not the novel. Definitely not the novel that's in the middle of a rather depressing round of edits/revision. And, to be honest, I sort of slithered into it. I went from turning on the computer and looking at the weather forecast to reading a few blogs to clicking on my own blog and figuring I could at least get a little done there. That's not so hard, right?
Well, maybe. That sunny room down the hall with a soft bed is still calling. Messing with my circadian rhythms is a cruel trick.
But sleep-deprivation isn't the only reason I want to dodge work on any given day, even if it's the cause today. We all get there sometimes. Maybe the story isn't going well. Maybe we feel inadequate as a wife/parent/employee and think we should ditch writing, just today, and clean house/play with the kids/go in early to work. And I say: don't do it. If this is your scheduled writing time, keep at it. Sit there in front of the computer/notebook, and be a writer. I once read that that if you want to develop a habit, it requires doing the thing 26 (or maybe 30. . . can't remember) times in a row. So we'll say a month of sitting down at 9 a.m. without fail and acting like a writer, and then you'll do it automatically, the way you pick the kids up at 3:04 p.m. after school or go to the gym for an hour after work every day. That's the hope, anyway.
And if you sit there and have nothing to say, or no energy to say it? Do it anyway. Find a writing prompt and play around. Write your blog. I start each day's writing by typing up what I wrote the previous day, and that can be a marvelous jump-starter.
I also count time spent making a cup of coffee as part of my writing time. After all, some things you just have to do. And caffeine stimulates the brain, right?
Oh, and that nap? Yeah, I took it.
So when I say "doldrums," I'm not talking about writer's block. To be honest, I've never really had that. Only the blahs. No wind in my sails, no energy to pour onto the page. My guess is that for most of us, that's the most deadly and insidious enemy of our writing. Not writer's block, the paralyzing inability to fill the page, leaving us to sit for hours staring at a blank paper (or screen). Rather, it's the paralyzing inability to get up from the breakfast table, clear away the detritus of getting three guys off to school and work, and go turn on the computer.
And yet, here I am. How did I do it? Well, for one thing, I'm here at the blog, not the novel. Definitely not the novel that's in the middle of a rather depressing round of edits/revision. And, to be honest, I sort of slithered into it. I went from turning on the computer and looking at the weather forecast to reading a few blogs to clicking on my own blog and figuring I could at least get a little done there. That's not so hard, right?
Well, maybe. That sunny room down the hall with a soft bed is still calling. Messing with my circadian rhythms is a cruel trick.
But sleep-deprivation isn't the only reason I want to dodge work on any given day, even if it's the cause today. We all get there sometimes. Maybe the story isn't going well. Maybe we feel inadequate as a wife/parent/employee and think we should ditch writing, just today, and clean house/play with the kids/go in early to work. And I say: don't do it. If this is your scheduled writing time, keep at it. Sit there in front of the computer/notebook, and be a writer. I once read that that if you want to develop a habit, it requires doing the thing 26 (or maybe 30. . . can't remember) times in a row. So we'll say a month of sitting down at 9 a.m. without fail and acting like a writer, and then you'll do it automatically, the way you pick the kids up at 3:04 p.m. after school or go to the gym for an hour after work every day. That's the hope, anyway.
And if you sit there and have nothing to say, or no energy to say it? Do it anyway. Find a writing prompt and play around. Write your blog. I start each day's writing by typing up what I wrote the previous day, and that can be a marvelous jump-starter.
I also count time spent making a cup of coffee as part of my writing time. After all, some things you just have to do. And caffeine stimulates the brain, right?
Oh, and that nap? Yeah, I took it.
Friday, March 8, 2013
What makes good prose?
I'm going to tackle this question a little less from the perspective of the writer, and more from that of the reader. That will help to keep us really clear about one thing: there are a LOT of different good prose styles out there. And each of us will hate at least some of them. Yes, you heard me: people can hate really good prose. That dense novel that you find way too full of words? It can still be really well written (and someone else is drooling over it). And while Hemmingway took spare, undecorated writing to an extreme that just cries out for parody, much of it is nonetheless a model of good writing that wastes no words, and as much as you hated reading The Old Man and the Sea in 8th grade, many people love it. To complicate matters, styles and fashions change, so that the prose that was seen as artistic, or even easy to read/popular fiction (think Dickens) at one time may seem affected or difficult in another era.
That does NOT mean that all prose is good and it's just a matter of taste. Some things we can pretty well agree on: good prose at least follows the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, or violates them consciously and for a good reason. It is coherent (some texts from the Modernist period, in my opinion, push the limits on this. They got declared "literature" and far be it from me to argue, but really there are some I won't name who I think are laughing at us all being so serious and trying to understand them). Good prose, in my opinion, is transparent. You don't notice it, you don't think about it at all when you are reading. It doesn't stand in the way of the story. If the prose is really good, you occasionally come up for air and think, "Gadzooks, that couldn't have been better said if a thousand Pulitzer-prize winners thought about it for a thousand days."
If the prose is to not get in the way of the story, not only must grammar and spelling and punctuation be correct (those things are only noticed when they are wrong, not when right), but it must flow. You must be able to read it aloud without tripping and stumbling and wondering at the end of the sentence where the beginning went. It doesn't use the same word five times in a paragraph; it doesn't use twelve words to do the work of three; it doesn't use a string of semi-colons to run together multiple sentences (yes, I did that on purpose).
And how do you write good prose? For most of us, we start by writing truly awful prose, and then (wait for it!) we revise. We hunt for words that are overused. We double-check homonyms. We do searches for our own pet words that we love to use, and then we axe them ruthlessly at nearly every appearance. We do a search for the letter combination "ly" and ask ourselves at each adjective if it strengthens or weakens the writing. We double-check the meanings of words (and if we have to look it up, we ask ourselves if maybe, just maybe, a simpler word would serve better). And we read it aloud. Yes, the whole thing. Maybe more than once. If we can, we get others to read and help us find our weaknesses, or locate the sentences that stumble haltingly across the page rather than flowing musically from our tongues.
Oh, yes. And we read extensively, and make sure that what we are reading is well-written. Our brains absorb the examples we present them.
And then--and how you do this is up to you, but it must be done--we get an editor. Ideally, we get two--one to read early on and tell us if the story is working, and where it doesn't. That's a different issue. But now the story is great, and we are polishing the prose. And ultimately, we can't do it alone. I hear a thousand Indie authors out there protesting that they can't afford an editor. Fine. Find an alternative. Yes, a pro is probably better than your old friend who became a high school English teacher. But that friend, especially if he'll do it for an acknowledgement in the front of your book, or a couple hours helping him move, is better than no editor.
Because no matter how good we are at the language, awkward sentences we have read thirty times will escape us. We will never see all our own errors. No one else will see all of them, either. But as we used to say in grade school when teased about wearing glasses, four eyes are better than two. Or two brains better than one. When your editor returns your MS, think about each recommended change. Why didn't she like that word/sentence? What's wrong with this punctuation? And oh, yeah, I guess I did mean "its" rather than "it's". Make the corrections and hope that some of what you learned sticks in your brain for the next time.
Repeat the process until you die of old age. Maybe, if you are lucky and have enough stamina, before you are done you will have written some truly good prose. If you are doubly lucky, it will have a great story to tell.
Then you will have done what you set out to do.
That does NOT mean that all prose is good and it's just a matter of taste. Some things we can pretty well agree on: good prose at least follows the rules of grammar, spelling, and punctuation, or violates them consciously and for a good reason. It is coherent (some texts from the Modernist period, in my opinion, push the limits on this. They got declared "literature" and far be it from me to argue, but really there are some I won't name who I think are laughing at us all being so serious and trying to understand them). Good prose, in my opinion, is transparent. You don't notice it, you don't think about it at all when you are reading. It doesn't stand in the way of the story. If the prose is really good, you occasionally come up for air and think, "Gadzooks, that couldn't have been better said if a thousand Pulitzer-prize winners thought about it for a thousand days."
If the prose is to not get in the way of the story, not only must grammar and spelling and punctuation be correct (those things are only noticed when they are wrong, not when right), but it must flow. You must be able to read it aloud without tripping and stumbling and wondering at the end of the sentence where the beginning went. It doesn't use the same word five times in a paragraph; it doesn't use twelve words to do the work of three; it doesn't use a string of semi-colons to run together multiple sentences (yes, I did that on purpose).
And how do you write good prose? For most of us, we start by writing truly awful prose, and then (wait for it!) we revise. We hunt for words that are overused. We double-check homonyms. We do searches for our own pet words that we love to use, and then we axe them ruthlessly at nearly every appearance. We do a search for the letter combination "ly" and ask ourselves at each adjective if it strengthens or weakens the writing. We double-check the meanings of words (and if we have to look it up, we ask ourselves if maybe, just maybe, a simpler word would serve better). And we read it aloud. Yes, the whole thing. Maybe more than once. If we can, we get others to read and help us find our weaknesses, or locate the sentences that stumble haltingly across the page rather than flowing musically from our tongues.
Oh, yes. And we read extensively, and make sure that what we are reading is well-written. Our brains absorb the examples we present them.
And then--and how you do this is up to you, but it must be done--we get an editor. Ideally, we get two--one to read early on and tell us if the story is working, and where it doesn't. That's a different issue. But now the story is great, and we are polishing the prose. And ultimately, we can't do it alone. I hear a thousand Indie authors out there protesting that they can't afford an editor. Fine. Find an alternative. Yes, a pro is probably better than your old friend who became a high school English teacher. But that friend, especially if he'll do it for an acknowledgement in the front of your book, or a couple hours helping him move, is better than no editor.
Because no matter how good we are at the language, awkward sentences we have read thirty times will escape us. We will never see all our own errors. No one else will see all of them, either. But as we used to say in grade school when teased about wearing glasses, four eyes are better than two. Or two brains better than one. When your editor returns your MS, think about each recommended change. Why didn't she like that word/sentence? What's wrong with this punctuation? And oh, yeah, I guess I did mean "its" rather than "it's". Make the corrections and hope that some of what you learned sticks in your brain for the next time.
Repeat the process until you die of old age. Maybe, if you are lucky and have enough stamina, before you are done you will have written some truly good prose. If you are doubly lucky, it will have a great story to tell.
Then you will have done what you set out to do.
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