Outlines

There are millions of ways to make an outline, but here is how I've been doing mine for my writing.

I make a general chapter online, as easy as possible with what I think will be the key events to happen in the chapter.

For example, if Uncle Joe is gonna die, that's a key event.

Chapter One General Outline

I. Uncle Joe dies

Beneath this I simply list questions I'm going to ask myself that are important to this event:

Chapter One General Outline

I. Uncle Joe dies
- How does he die
- When does he die
- The shirt Uncle Joe is wearing
- Mysterious doctor visit he didn't tell anyone about when he got home

I outline all the key events and anything I can think of that will help me develop and detail the event and then take note of anything I might need to research.

After the general chapter outline, I make a very detailed outline of each "number" on the outline, each key event.

Chapter One - Uncle Joe Death Scene

I. Uncle Joe goes to the doctor
A. The night before
a. Is very worried
b. Has heart pains

B. The day of
a. Is nervous
b. Has suspicions he has heart problems

My general outline for my first chapter has six parts - so I will develop six outlines.

It works well for me thus far, but I haven't gotten very far. I'm not even past the first detailed outline yet!

If you try this and it works for you or doesn't, I'd love to hear about the process.

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A Trip to Office Depot

I decided to re-write my novel.

Or at least the first chapter. I was using highlight on MS Word to highlight passages that I thought needed fixing or perhaps even deleting. When I saw most of the first chapter was highlighted and that I made more edits on my drafts on that one chapter than all my other chapters combined, well the decision became easier.

But first I wanted to get organized. I wanted to make an outline for the chapter, find a way to deal with the massive amounts of print outs I was accruing, and keep my notes and research together, so I bought a big binder and different dividers and sticky tabs and a million other things.

I am really organized now, and to be honest it was completely worth it.

I bought numbered tabs to represent the chapters, tabs I can write on for any additional materials, and some clear slips to hold my outlines so that I can find them easily and stay true to my outline.

I'll get into outlines (or rather how I came about mine) in the next post, but I really like them for keeping me on track.

For the first section I have a tab for my research. For this part I have four colored tabs (red, blue, yellow, green) that tell me by their color whether a page has notes, phrases, things I want to research further, or if something is essential to my story. The next part is for my general chapter and my detailed outlines. Each chapter and any drafts or revisions are also kept - the drafts being kept in one clear pouch to keep them together.

Writing the chapter with my outline has really helped keep me on track. I know where this chapter is going, what I want to accomplish and how I want to set the story into motion. The first chapter seems to be the hardest, the one with the most mistakes at least - having all my notes and everything I need at the ready has helped me with my dreaded Writer's Block.

Not to mention, I do so love to highlight things with a real marker.

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Holy Bejesus

I have a good excuse for not writing in this blog. I have been writing elsewhere.

I met a girl who responded to my post for a writers group.
I went to a writers group meeting at Shakespeare and Co.

The night before the group meeting I stayed up all night and wrote a chapter.
It was well-received and I was damn proud of my very first chapter EVER.

Yes, ever.

Then there were readings and glasses of champagne and a night bus to Amsterdam and a night bus back to Paris.

In a week and two days I've written SIX chapters.
It's now a book.
I really like where it's going and the story it tells.

BUT...

Now I have writer's block.

*#Y*Y$HIJ)(EH#IBI$E BIJ

Now I see the holes and the need for editing.

84y983y938y503ihnoiejg0h8e*Y*(^$Yiuhw

Isn't this glorious?

So I've cranked up Til' Tuesday's Voice Carry and had a bowl of Coccoa Pops and am ready to see where this goes.

*#T872g48hr40h7T657GVWRJ=-0I83Y4732

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You

You.You were in my dreams last night. With the same problems you have outside of my dreams, so I shouldn't say it was a dream. It was a reality that happened entirely in my mind while I was sleeping. But it was the same bullshit, I won't lie to you. My being asleep didn't make me less conscious of how much bullshit you've got crammed into you. You're an impacted colon with legs. But that didn't make you less desirable.

It might have been why I wanted you in the first place. See, I like complication. I like having a reason to throw my hands up, to bitch and moan, to kick and scream about things that don't seem as important when the garbage is stinking up the house or you've got to really take a pee. But when none of those other factors are in play, it's like opium for my soul knowing I've got you to contemplate over, to feel a twinge in my heart for as I cry salty tears into my morning tea sweetened with sugar substitute.

In my dreams you lived in the same town you do now. In a log cabin. You're still impossibly tall with legs as thin as matchsticks down to the blue sneakers you always seem to wear. Your hair has a will all its own and you're hands are just as beautiful; elegant and carved so that I hear symphonies when I look at them.You still had that girlfriend and I still felt badly for telling everyone that she cheated on you, but I was trying to explain you, or rather why you're so venomous and so sad and so aloof. If you had seen them nod their heads and mumbles their "aahhhs", you wouldn't have been so mad about it. Everyone needs some pity points when they won't open their own mouths to defend themselves. I couldn't let everyone think I only had the hots for you because you're good-looking and moody and a graphic designer.

But in this dream I completely forgot about that time when we crossed the Seine together and we were so close a gust of wind couldn't have squeezed past us. When I couldn't see the dark of your eyes from the darkness of the night and I realized it just wasn't worth it. How I walked for hours back home knowing I could have gone up those steep stairs, or at least they were steep in my mind for poetic reasons, as was your bed very squeaky and your jeans very easy to pull off in the heat of moment. Your lips tasted like rosewater and your hands, as carved from marble as they might be, were as warm as my skin and couldn't be blamed whatsoever for my shivering.

I admit I forced myself to sleep a little longer in that blissful, mindless place where I had forgotten all those things and you were worth it again and it was exciting again and I wanted you enough to run you down the quais and over the ponts and through the Marais as if you were a marathon.

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Sometimes a Bad Blurb is Worse Than No Blurb

I looked down today and noticed this:

"One of a glittering constellation of contemporary Latin American novelists...He is the author of a classic on the grandest scale...the most obvious comparison is with Homer's Odyssey..."

Did this reviewer read another book and then accidentally submitted this as a blurb for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's 100 Year of Solitude? The Odyssey? Most obvious? I thought that title would be forever held by James Joyce, for Ulysses.

Who writes these things anyways...one of a glittering. When this book was first published in 1967, it was a revelation. GGM didn't win the NP4L because he was one of many Latin American writers, he won it because he was the Latin American writer. He created a new genre. Yes South America has given up Coelho, Borges, Neruda and others, but when you think of magical realism, do you think of anyone other than GGM?

Phrases like, "references Homer", "parallels the Odyssey", etc would have made sense. This blurb writer seems like he didn't bother to even read the book. It sounds like the opening paragraph of a paper you had to write for a book you didn't even bother to get Cliff Notes for or rent the movie or read.

Now here is a real blurb.

Reality and fantasy are indistinguishable: a Spanish galleon beached in the jungle, a flying carpet, a cloud of yellow flowers, an iguana in a woman's womb, are more than guerilla coups, banana company massacres, and the coming of the steam-engine...As an experience it is enormously, kaleidoscopically, mysteriously alive...

Wow.

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Amazon Kindle, The Revolutionary Wireless Device

Would you buy one?

I like that they take care of the wireless charges for you at the moment...wonder how long that will last.

It looks nifty and futuristic, but I can't help to think of what would happen to all those great sentences I write in the margins of my books...

I'm going to say no. I love paper. I know it's bad for the environment.

Would I want my book on the Kindle? Of course I would. It's another way of selling.

But would I want to read Proust on it? Nope.

Would I want to read newspapers, magazines and blogs on it? Nope. That's why I have a laptop.

But make the decision for yourself.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FI73MA/ref=amb_link_6369712_2?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=04VR40P338J4QY2YFTSX&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=365797001&pf_rd_i=507846

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Next on My List: Dear Zoe

I found this incredible story through Philip Beard's website after spending a (thank you dear Neuf for free unlimited calls to landlines in Europe) couple of hours on the phone with a friend telling her that I was in the worst stage a writer can be in; the "I haven't written anything but paragraphs" stage.

http://philipbeard.net/backstory.html

It's an incredible story, inspiring even. So inspiring that I went to amazon straight away and ordered it. I had to know what the book was that brought about this story.

But now I have to wait five whole days (it takes longer to ship books in English in France, dammit). So I suppose meanwhile I will cozy up to 1984 again. Instant gratification be damned.

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Down With Big Brother

She hadn't been conceived during the time when revolution was the melody to every song, or the opening line of every pamphlet distributed across a Berkley campus. Her mind hadn't been addled by pot smoke, her mother's breasts hadn't hung free slapping against her belly in the rhythm of a two step march.

No. She had been conceived during the disco era where everyone hustled about in Halston and caught Saturday night fever. Back then it was all Bacchus and blow and Grecian goddess gowns. A picture of her, three years old in 1980, all dressed up in a children's leisure suit summed it all up nicely. One couldn't fight the powers that be in a butterfly collar. Who the hell would take you seriously?

Hers had been the generation of shoulder pads, unrealistic high school movies, cell phone the size of toasters, and the concept that living in California was as close to paradise as you could get, granted you could afford a BMW convertible. If not, well you were fucked off to places like Spokane, Washington. Or worse, middle Massachusetts.

By worse I mean places that weren't so rural you knew what you were missing. One day Nancy came on the television and dared you to say no to something you had absolutely no access to. Some smart person figured this out and by junior high you knew that kid, Tim was his name, who sold little packets of pot for five dollars. You brought your allowance savings to school, bought one of the baggies and shoved it down between your Capri Sun juice box and your cheese sandwich until by your locker you showed it to everyone.

You had no idea what to do with it until another kid came along and asked to smoke with you. Then in a friend's backyard you watched him make a contraption from a Coke can and took your first drag, instantly coughed out, and then a second.

When you went home you listened to your father's albums, Pink Floyd and Led Zepplin and The Doors, and ate all of the leftover lasagna. You stared at the wall and felt impatient. You stared at your feet and felt tedious. You felt your bones become to heavy to lift and your eyes impossible to close. It was torture, but it was better than nothing.

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New Yorkers I Hate You So Much Right Now...

The New York Center for Independent Publishing is having their now highly regarded annual Writers Conference, and I am jealous I'm not able to go across the pond and attend.

Lots of smaller publishing houses will be there, of note being Akashic Books.

It's 250 USD for one day and 350 USD for the two days.

You can see more here: http://www.nycip.org/latest/the-third-annual-new-york-round-table-writers-conference-april-13-14.html?Itemid=56

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Cathy stirred the soup and brought it up, still boiling in the grasp of the spoon. As she tasted it, a single pea plunged and rolled perfectly down the center of her breasts. Better me than the soup, she thought. Tonight they were expecting friends, guests for dinner.

They were a nice couple, but they were always fifteen minutes earlier than you'd wanted them to be. Fifteen minutes you don't get to have the maid give one last pass with the cloth on the silver or to repress the linen napkins. She'd barely had time for one last swipe of lipstick before the bell was rung and she could hear the door opening and their voices came barreling up the stairs to greet her, to thank her for their gracious invitation.

Usually she minded when she saw their names in her agenda. It wasn't the constancy of issuing invitations to them that she minded, it was the necessity. Three, four times a year to reaffirm our place in society. It wasn't friendship, it was maintenance.

But tonight she didn't mind. Tonight she was glad to know she wouldn't be sitting across from Richard alone, her mind full of questions as one plate was exchanged for another, her mouth stained with wine, and just wondering and wondering.

She was all smiles for Dr. Harrison and his wife Millie. They sat on the sofa and caught up between mouthfuls of canapes and sips of champagne. By the time Richard arrived at home she had had no less than four glasses, she who normally didn't touch a drop except wine with dinner.

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DIY Book Publishing?

I know someone who published their own book. I never read it because I'm a snob. The minute I realized it hadn't been published by a brick and mortar publisher my mind discounted it. Maybe I'm not much of a snob because most people I know felt the same. We liked the person, but weren't falling all over ourselves to buy a copy.

But someone I know did and in hushed tones over coffee told me it was an interesting story, but there were a lot of mistakes and worse, technical problems that kept them from being able to enjoy the work.

You can read all about vanity publishing or self-publishing and the like all over the Netuniverse. I never fell victim to those poetry contests or vanity anthologies because the minute I got to the part about sending money, I balked. Why? Because I believe people should be paying me to read my work, not the other way around.

Why wouldn't I self publish? For the same reasons why I don't think once I've got a solid novel on my hands that I won't do it without an agent. I need guidance, I want someone whose expertise I can depend on. That means agents and editors and people to market or design the cover. I'm not going to do any of these things by myself because I know I simply cannot do it better than the professionals and I don't want to waste my time trying.

I have the same feeling about colouring my own hair. Yes, I can do it myself but it never looks as good and I have to worry about scrubbing the damn colour stains out of the soap scrub ring in the bathtub. My fingers get all coloured and so does my neck and my ears. In essence I can't leave the house for days.

Whereas if I go to the hairdresser yes it's more expensive, but in the end I walk away from it feeling like a million dollars and it doesn't exactly cost a million dollars so I believe everyone is happy.

The idea of not having enough faith in my work to believe I can find an agent to represent me and a publisher who will pay me for the right to publish my work doesn't even occur to me. I know there will be rejections by the boatloads. I know at times I'll feel discouraged and hurt and might want to reconsider what I've chosen to do at this moment in my life.

But in the end, ask yourself, do you believe in your writing? Do you believe people should be able to experience the story you are telling? If the answer is no, then why bother. If the answer is yes, then you owe it to yourself to give that story the best of everything.

I'm obviously going to have read this post again for myself some day in the future and I might think for a moment, jesusmaryandjoseph - was I a sentimental idiot.

But in the end, I'll still believe I'm doing what I'm meant to do. I would keep writing even if I thought I'd never be published. If there were never going to be any Edgars or a NP4L or a big fat advance check. I'd keep typing.

So, if you stumble upon this blog I hope the one thing you learn is, you owe it to your craft to do the best you can in every way.

But write well first. Everything is easier after that.

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I Knew I Wasn't the ONLY one...

I live in Paris.

I'm actually French, but yes, I write in English. I lived in an English speaking country (the US) for more than half my life. I speak and write several languages, but English is the language my pen seems to like best. I use a lot of French phrases though. Some things can't be said in English the same way they can in French.

Anyways...

Those who know Paris probably think immediately about the Lost Generation, the Surrealists, and everybody else who set up camp here as expats when the cost of living wasn't higher than that kid in your history class who always smelled like "incense".

Hemmingway is credited with having come up with the term "lost generation".

But if there is a community of writers in Paris, I've yet to find it. I've checked in at Shakespeare and Co - the supposed epicenter of writing. Nada.

I posted the following on Craigslist today because I've decided I want to make my own writing group. Why sit around and wait when you can do? I say this about this, but not about doing the dishes, which are calling me at the moment.

I've been searching the available sites to find a writing group; meetup.com, CL, google and have come up with very little and worse, what I do find isn't what I'm looking for exactly.

If you're a writer interested in being part of group that gets together to talk about writing and the all encompassing universe writers need to write, that believes that the thing the Lost Generation and the Cafe Society had going for them wasn't just being at Cafe de Flore at the same time, but that by writing alongside one another to offer advice, criticism, or even competition, that it also made them better writers - then please email.

The ideal group would seem to form itself. People would express a desire to meet, we'd sip coffee and talk about writing we like, move on to liquor and talk about what we don't like in our own writing. The group would be composed of all kinds of writers, as long as everyone seemed to contribute.

I know it's a bit utopian and that each writing group fell apart due to war or people moving back to their native countries and cities or because of excessive drunkeness. But who cares? Let's enjoy it while it's good! Writers need life that is larger than the lives lived by most. We write fiction to avoid a life told to scale.

If any of this hits you in the gut, like pow, then get in touch.

A few hours later and I've got a response. I wanted to be all coy and wait, but fuck it. I want to get writing and she sounds cool and likes to drink a lot. So it could be fun.

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"She goes from Inspiration to 0 in 60 seconds", bragged the salesman.

Well, I've done it.

I promised myself I'd dedicate waking hours to writing and being serious and so today I've...

1. Read further into the Miss Snark blog that is teaching me LOTS

2. Submitted a post on CL to look for like-minded serious writers who would like to drink a lot with me and maybe share some writing

3. Google'd the teacher of this class to see whether or not it'd be worth my time and money. It's 70 euros only, but that is 1/25 of a Chanel bag.

4. Am now going to clean my house because a clean house might mean more time for writing later on. Yay.

Plus, I have nothing to write about today. I think it's a typing up on longhand scribbles and then we'll see I suppose.

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Great Lines, Shame They're Not Mine

The Fairy gave him the sugar and Pinocchio, after chewing and swallowing it in a twinkling, said, smacking his lips: "If only sugar were medicine!"

Pinnochio

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If I Can Make It There...It's Up to You, The New Yorker

I recently heard that the New Yorker, while it accepts unsolicited materials for fiction and other categories, it does not send a reply with your submission whether it's sent via email or by post (unsolicited things cannot be sent by fax, btw).

So here it is direct from the horse's mouth (website).

We welcome submissions to other departments, although volume precludes personal response.

They should be sent by e-mail to the appropriate department:

Fiction: fiction@newyorker.com
The Talk of the Town: talkofthetown@newyorker.com
Shouts & Murmurs: shouts@newyorker.com
Poetry: poetry@newyorker.com
Newsbreaks: newsbreaks@newyorker.com

Except for poetry and newsbreaks, we do not accept submissions that are received as attachments. Please send your work as part of the body of an e-mail.

Alternatively, submissions may be sent by regular mail to the appropriate department at The New Yorker, 4 Times Square, New York, NY 10036. The New Yorker does not accept unsolicited submissions by fax. Although we do read all submissions, we cannot respond to them individually or return them.

No more than one story or six poems should be submitted at one time. Poetry submissions should include the poet’s name in the subject line of the e-mail and as the title of the attached document. We prefer to receive no more than two submissions per writer per year. We do not consider simultaneous submissions or material that has been previously published.

The New Yorker is not responsible for the return or loss of, or for damage to, unsolicited manuscripts, unsolicited art work, or any other unsolicited materials. Those submitting manuscripts, art work, or any other materials should not send originals unless specifically requested to do so by The New Yorker in writing.

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