One Thing Well
That’s my new motto, at least when it comes to weeknights. I used to try to do a lot in my off-work hours: hit the gym, cook dinner, whip up a blogpost for the next day, catch up on other social media, read, call my fam, and get in some writing time. Sometimes I’d go really crazy and try to add cleaning, laundry, or (gasp) some kind of socializing in the mix.
Shocker: I ended up half-assing a whole lot of stuff.
My new philosophy? One thing well.*
On weeknights, aside from the non-negotiables (some kind of exercise or activity to destress; healthy eating, whether I prepare it or someone else does) and quality time with fiance/catching up with friends and family, I get to do one task. And I will try to do it well.
If it’s a night on which I want to revise two chapters, I’m not going to try to write a post, too. If I need to vacuum my insanely dusty apartment,** then maybe I’m not going to finish a read-through. I know what my priorities are, and it’s surprisingly easier than I thought to balance one-thing-per-night in accordance to them. Maybe I’ll clean less if I’m trying to finish a draft. Maybe I’ll blog more once a project is off with beta readers. Etc.
And you know what is kind of great? Going to sleep knowing that maybe you didn’t get everything done, but you sure whole-assed what you did.
*Slightly different context, but here’s a nice post from Zen Habits on Do One Thing Well
**Seriously, why is dust not a form of energy; because if it were, I would be so very filthy rich. Science, please get on that.
The Hippocratic Oath for Revisions
This week I’m returning to a sh!tty first draft from a long hiatus. It’s been so long and the draft is so raw that I don’t know whether to call this an extension of drafting, rewriting, or revising. It’ll probably be all three.
I get nervous when I start a revision, for a lot of reasons but mostly because I’m afraid of making the MS worse. The phrase that pops in my head as I work is a famous one from the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm.” [Oh, wait. Apparently that line was never explicitly stated in the actual oath itself.] Anyway, my manuscript is like a sick patient and I’m standing at the operating table, scalpel in hand, not totally sure what to do. All I know is that I want the story to get better, and I better not hurt it.
It makes me wish that there was a writers’ Hippocratic Oath for Revisions; something to guide the process or the way I should approach the daunting work. So I wrote one.
The Hippocratic Oath for Revisions/Rewrites
—Adapted from the Modern Hippocratic Oath, which was written in 1964 by Louis Lasagna, Academic Dean of the School of Medicine at Tufts University. The Modern Hippocratic Oath is used in many medical schools today. Full text of the oath: The Hippocratic Oath Today
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard work I already have done on this manuscript, and I will gladly view this revision (including its successes and missteps) as a learning experience for the manuscripts to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick story, all measures [that] are required to make it well, avoiding those twin traps of overcorrection and “therapeutic nihilism,” or the idea that fixing what is wrong with the story is impossible.
I will remember that there is science to writing as well as art. I will seek out craft advice as well as my own creativity. I will remember that showing warmth, sympathy, and understanding to myself, the author, may outweigh draconian work schedules or self-criticism. (Conversely, I will commit to regular and focused work on the task at hand.)
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my beta readers, CPs, and writing friends when the skills of another are needed for a manuscript’s recovery.
When making changes, I will remember this: First, do no harm. I will prevent creating new problems whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of cutting and adding. If it is given me to save a book, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to trunk a book; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own strengths and weaknesses.
I will remember that I remain a member of the writing community, with special obligations to all my fellow writers as well as readers. I will respect the great storytelling tradition as I work. I will think of words and meaning, not sales figures and markets.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of writing. Even in the midst of revisions.
So, writer friends: What have I left out of the oath? Or what should be cut?
Where we buy our books
I don’t care where people buy their books–indies or B&N or Half Price or online or Urban Outfitters or Target or the airport or your neighbor’s stoop–I just like it when people buy books. Yay, books!
With one exception: buy it where you found it.
If you discover a book in a bookstore, buy it there.
There have been a lot of trend pieces lately (and this article) about people using bookshops as showrooms–browsing the display tables and staff picks, then jotting down or taking pics of the titles to remember to buy them from an online retailer. I say: that sucks! Somebody working at that bookstore decided to stock the book, and liked it enough to put it out for you to find it. If you wouldn’t have known or thought to order it online without seeing it in the brick & mortar store, that store (and its helpful curators, the employees) deserves for you to buy the book there. Even if it costs a dollar or several more than online.
By the same measure: if you discover a title from an online giant’s email or newsletter or algorithm, great! Go ahead and buy it from them.
But a store is a store, not a showroom. It’s there to sell things and if it doesn’t, it will go away. Now that we have online retailers with no physical presence and mobile shopping apps up the wazoo, we have to protect the brick & mortar stores that help make our towns and neighborhoods vibrant places. Unless, of course, you want all the businesses around you to be banks and cell-phone stores. Nothing against them, but personally, I’d prefer a few bookshops in the mix.
Revision Trick: Synopsize Me
I know, I know. Synopses are devilish. But hear me out on this one.
I always start revisions by reading through my WIP, fighting the urge to make line edits the whole time. (If I let myself start making edits, I would never get through the read. So if something is really important, I jot it down on my ongoing revisions list, which is usually the length of Ulysses by the time I start revising.) But this time, to help keep my hands busy while I read, I synopsized my WIP. The urge to line-edit disappeared.
I didn’t mind writing the synopsis while doing my first read-through, mainly because I (apparently) forgot what happened in roughly 40% of my WIP. So I wasn’t slogging through dialogue I had memorized and scenes seared into my brain–the story was fresh, and I found it interesting to summarize each chapter after I read it. There’s a reason why teachers make kids summarize/retell as techniques for monitoring comprehension. It works. I remember all of my WIP after synopsizing it.
Summarizing/synopsizing helped me see the places in the WIP where eighty billion things happen at once (I’m looking at you, Chapter 14) and those where nothing happens for a really, really long time and it’s boring. I can clearly see where the pacing needs work. My synopsis is also helping me figure out where I might place the scenes I want to add and where certain subplots disappear/appear. I’m the type of person who needs to be able to see the big picture a lot while revising. My synopsis will now be my map.
For each round of revision I start on this WIP, I’m going to start by updating my synopsis with a read-through. It’ll both refresh my memory and show me which parts saw the most/least work. The best part? By the time I’m done with revisions once and for all*, I’ll have a synopsis ready should I ever need it.
*”once and for all” = for now, because I am a compulsive reviser
Have you ever used a synopsis to help with the early rounds of revision, writer friends? What are your revision tricks? Spill!
I love this poem.
A Poet’s Poem
Brenda ShaughnessyIf it takes me all day,
I will get the word freshened out of this poem.I put it in the first line, then moved it to the second,
and now it won’t come out.It’s stuck. I’m so frustrated,
so I went out to my little porch all covered in snowand watched the icicles drip, as I smoked
a cigarette.Finally I reached up and broke a big, clear spike
off the roof with my bare hand.And used it to write a word in the snow.
I wrote the word snow.I can’t stand myself.
I think it applies to novelists, too.
Thanks to Megan for a) knowing I would love it b) emailing it to me.
Miss Teen Dream Fun Facts Page!
I had so much fun reading Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens. So much fun that I didn’t want to write a review or even sum up my thoughts on the madcap, hilarious satire. Instead, here’s my homage to that perfect end-of-summer read: my own contestant fun facts page, if as a Wisconsin teen I hadn’t been more Daria-like than a Teen Dreamer.
Name: Rebecca Behrens
State: Miss Wisconsin
Age: 16
Height: almost 5′ 3”
Weight: Depends on how many dairy products I have sampled
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Green
Best feature: Arm muscles from frozen-custard scooping
Fun Facts About Me:
I secretly love to sing along to my Boyz Will B Boyz CD while dancing around my room. But in public, I tell everyone I only listen to alternative and folk rock.*
My favorite show is NOVA Captains Bodacious.
The thing that scares me most is Ladybird Hope the swimsuit competition running out of the Corporation’s 100 Lashes mascara.
I love watching old movies, and I like to make Hitchcock blonde Halloween costumes.
My dream is to run the Corporation’s doughnut production business unit. Or to be an investigative journalist who exposes crooks with hidden cameras. I love me some hidden cameras.
*The Corporation suggested that I do not mention Ani DiFranco by name.
For those of you who’ve read Beauty Queens: what would your fun facts be?
Little Free Libraries!
I’m in love with Little Free Libraries–a grassroots effort to promote literacy and community. I’m also proud that it’s from my home state (and that my hometown is the one place where you can pop in a shop and buy a prefab Little Free Library).
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| Little Free Library #1 (Source) |
The Little Free Library mission:
To promote literacy and the love of reading by building free book exchanges worldwide.
To build a sense of community as we share skills, creativity and wisdom across generations.
To build more than 2,510 libraries around the world–more than Andrew Carnegie!
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| Little Free Library next to my favorite Madison coffeeshop! (Source) |
For more info, or to become a Little Free Librarian, check our their website: Little Free Library
Bossypants (and its therapeutic effects)
You might know that I am a fearful flier; in fact, you probably know it because one of the ways I “deal” with my fear is by blabbing to everyone I come into contact with about how freaked out I get about planes. Before a flight, I might talk about my phobia to: my super, my cubemates, my parents, my grandma, my fiance, the checkout lady at Duane Reade, all cab drivers I come into contact with, strangers on the Interwebs, the barista, strangers on the Air Train, my seatmate, etc. Most people are nice and try to reassure me by saying one of these three things:
–I fly all the time! And nothing has ever happened to me. (There is a first time for everything, buddy.)
–Air travel is the safest mode of transportation. (I bet they said that about the Hindenburg. And the Titanic.)
–You have a better chance of getting killed in a car accident on the way to/from the airport than on the plane. (This one makes no sense to me. I mean, we just established that I am a worrier. Are you trying to give me more fears? In NYC, people often like to tell me that I have better odds of getting smushed to death by a falling window-unit air conditioner. Well, congratulations: I’m now afraid of air conditioners, too.)
Despite all that reassurance, I still white-knuckle my way through a hell of a lot of flights. No what matter shiny object you put in front of my face, I can’t stop thinking OMG I AM WAY UP IN THE AIR IN A METAL TUBE WHAT’S THAT NOISE I HOPE NOBODY LOOKS AT MY GOOGLE SEARCH HISTORY AFTER I DIE.
Correction, there is one shiny object that will actually distract me and make me relax. It is this:
Pinterest for Writers
I stumbled into joining Pinterest lately–my friend invited me and I signed up, but had no idea what I was making an account for. Then other friends started “following” me on Pinterest and I still didn’t have a clue what it was, but figured it was time to figure it out. So, being a lazy person in the 21st century, I posted a status on Facebook: Hey guys, what is this Pinterest thing and why should I be using it?
Turns out Pinterest is a collection of virtual pin boards, social-networked. The official explanation:
Chunk It.
I adopted a nifty, new (to me) process while revising my WIP: chunking.
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