Up to my bloodshot eyes in research this week, I discovered a few excellent resources for searching case law, procedural stuff, and Supreme Court decisions:
FindLaw.com offers two searchable sites, one for professional (cases and codes, marketing advice, latest court related news, and lots more) and one for consumers (basics of family and divorce law, small biz, and when your kid is in trouble type stuff).
The Justia Supreme Court Center offers a searchable data base of decisions, info on the justices, and PDF files of arguments, plus links to various and sundry related stuff.
OYEZ.org features a nifty virtual tour of chambers and facilities, audio files of oral arguments, and lots more.
The University of Missouri-Kansas School of Law has a great data base of famous trials from the interrogation of Socrates to the mutiny on the Bounty to the Chicago 7, Manson murders, and impeachment of President Clinton. More than you ever needed to know about the McMartin Pre-School or Lizzie Borden. (Warning! You will get sucked in for hours!)
It's not that I have anything against any one of the networking communities that have sprung up like fire ant mounds after a heavy rain here in the South. My Space serves its purpose, as do all the rest of them. But then you add in the virtual bookshelf communities where you supposedly talk lit with your friends, not to mention the bulletin boards, chat rooms, and, yes, the blogs where a web-savvy author "ought" to be out schmoozing in furtherance of The Cause. Oh, and let's not forget Second Life, where virtual authors have been known to hawk their wares to virtual readers.
I'm feeling fragmented, splintered by the geometric progression of online communities. Or maybe pixelated is the correct term for this Twenty-first Century "disease."
Whatever it is, this author is declaring a rebellion, and here's my manifesto.
From this point forward, I want to be about the depth of focus: in the work I do, the relationships I nurture, and the literature I read. Rather than skimming the surface to do one hundred things poorly, I will strive to do one well. I will be mindful of the satisfaction found in doing work to the best of my ability and I will stop regretting those peripheral things I choose to let go.
In choosing activities to promote my work, I will keep those I enjoy and have the time and will to do effectively and forget about the others. I will banish the words "going through the motions" from my vocabulary.
I will walk in the sunshine, breathe in the air, and live in the real world rather than its virtual equivalent.
Amen... Well, um, as soon as I check my e-mail.
Hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. But that doesn't mean it was never built at all.
Every November much is made of NaNoWriMo -- National Novel Writing Month -- which encourages aspiring authors to set aside their procrastinating ways and blitz out a 50K word manuscript in 30 days.
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Here's what I love about this endeavor:
Writers learn by writing. I truly believe there is no other way to learn how to write a novel. Just do it. Yeah, baby. I applaud that approach in writing and in life. I'm up for just about anything that includes "seat-of-the-pants" in the instruction manual.
Daily ass-to-chair application is the foundation of the writing life. Thirty days of due diligence is probably going to entrench the work ethic -- or at least the habit -- and train family and friends to honor writing space and work hours.
The process is demysticated. Yes, I just made that up. It's a hybrid of "domesticated" and "mysterious...not". I was always a voracious reader, but the daydream that I could write a book and get it published seemed as realistic as travel by tornado to the Emerald City. It's healthy to boil the process down to a doable little pot of potatoes and get it done.
On the other hand...
Not "everyone who's thought fleetingly of writing a novel" is a novelist. According to the NaNoWriMo site:
In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
Erm...no, they didn't. I have fleeting thoughts of pole dancing. I share on a basic structural level the physical ability and innate sense of rhythm it takes to pole dance. I have the wherewithal to purchase necessary technology and could probably muster the will to practice daily for 30 days, but thinking that's all it takes is an insult to dedicated pole dancers. Unless I recognize that pole dancing will never be more than a hobby for me, I can only be a danger to myself and an annoyance to others.
There's a lot to be said for the "painstaking craft" being chucked out the window. I'm on board with the NaNoWriMo "build without tearing down" philosophy, but I don't think "obsessing over quality" is a bad thing. Unless December through April are to be designated NitNoEdPro (Nitpicking Novel Editing Process), the product of the 30-day effort is a rough draft, not a novel -- it's a manuscript, at very best -- and I get crankled when the vast difference between is disrespected. That first draft is a huge step, yes, but only the first of several huge steps. I've produced eleven manuscripts; only seven of them have gone through the refining fire to become honest-to-God books. I work incredibly hard to see a draft through that journey. I've sacrificed a lot to make this process my living and livelihood.
As a memoir guru, I get flogged with that "everyone has a book in them" axe. My standard come-back: Everyone has a spleen in them, too, but it takes a particular skill set to get it out.
Bottom line, I love the idea of NaNoWriMo as a writing exercise, and I don't discourage anyone from going for that 50K. I can definitely see it sparking the beginning of a writing career. Participants are bound to discover some things about the creative process. I just hope one of those discoveries is that it takes a hell of a lot more than 30 days to be a novelist.
It absolutely can be. Furious about the state of the world? Write about it, and show the truth through fiction. So many great, great books have come about that way. George Orwell's Animal Farm and 1984. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
Can you think of any other books written as a form of protest?
Michael Crichton, who died on Tuesday at the age of 66, was like a character in a Michael Crichton novel. He was unusually tall (6 feet 7 inches), strikingly handsome and encyclopedically well informed about everything from dinosaurs to medieval banquet halls to nanotechnology. As a writer he was a kind of cyborg, tirelessly turning out novels that were intricately engineered entertainment systems. No one — except possibly Mr. Crichton himself — ever confused them with great literature, but very few readers who started a Crichton novel ever put it down...
All the Crichton books depend to a certain extent on a little frisson of fear and suspense: that’s what kept you turning the pages. But a deeper source of their appeal was the author’s extravagant care in working out the clockwork mechanics of his experiments — the DNA replication in “Jurassic Park,” the time travel in “Timeline,” the submarine technology in “Sphere.” The novels have embedded in them little lectures or mini-seminars on, say, the Bernoulli principle, voice-recognition software or medieval jousting etiquette. Several also came with extensive scientific bibliographies, as if the author, having learned all this fascinating stuff, couldn’t help sharing it with his reader.
Crichton came into our family via the stony gateway of Jurassic Park. My son Malachi was going on six and crazy excited to see the movie when it came out, but I was afraid it would be too intense for a guy just finishing kindergarten. Cruel beast mater that I am, I imposed the Gone With the Wind rule: You're mature enough to see the movie if you've read the book. Ike had been reading for a little over a year and was pretty precocious that way, but Gary and I were utterly astonished when he dug in, consumed, and loved the hefty novel, his first "real big book." Good as our word, we took him directly from the school bus to the movie theater the day Jurassic Park was released.
I think this is one of the most wonderful things a writer can aspire to: enticing a reader to stretch the limits of what they're willing and able to read. I always hoped I'd have the opportunity to tell Mr. Crichton about it, and I was just a degree of separation from him on a few occasions. He and I had the same editor at Harper Collins, and Chip Kidd, who designed the instantly recognizable J Park book jacket also designed the cover for my memoir, Bald in the Land of Big Hair. But our paths never did cross. I was sad to hear he'd died so young with so many words unwritten, but I'm grateful for his moment in the life of my son, who grew up with that same burning interest in the world and all it's workings.
"…I think the larger issue is cultural. There's a trickle down from the top in the way art exists inside and outside of the culture as a whole. Here in the USA, you could feel in the Bush years how little regard there was for it. People who disliked art, literature, dance, fine arts, they had a lot of cover for this antipathy. There's reason to believe that we are in for a much better period."
Check out the link above to read the thoughts of illustrious authors Toni Morrison, Jane Smiley, Jonathan Safran Foer, and others. Then let us know, do you believe the country's leadership has an impact on the place of writers and literature in our culture? Or do you feel respect for the arts emanates from the family, the schools, or society in general?
Until I get to know my characters a little, I can't quite wrap my brain around the journey they'll be taking. So for the past month, I've been driving around the wilderness: writing pages, tossing pages, looking for some signs.
One by one, characters have shown up, some of them almost-eerily developed, as if they've been gestating on another plane. Others are still growing, but at least I have my cast now -- and, in draft form, the first few chapters of the book.
But it's time now to pull over on this dirt track's unpaved shoulder. Time to reach deep into the glovebox and pull out a roadmap. Unfortunately, that map hasn't yet been drawn. Oh, I've come up with a vague premise. I have some idea of the conflicts and the precipitating crisis that will act as catalyst.
But now it's time to come up with the narrative to pull these disparate parts together, to tell the story in some rudimentary form. Other authors do this with notecards, storyboards, or spreadsheets, but I've grown used to sitting down and writing a synopsis, which I call "Colleen's Theoretical Guide to How This Story Could Go."
In reality, I almost always end up at a slightly different destination. All right, sometimes it's radically different. But the map's part of my process, so I'll be writing it this week.
Go where those others went to the dark boundary for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust
you were saved not in order to live you have little time you must give testimony
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous in the final account only this is important
and let your helpless Anger be like the sea whenever your hear the voice of the insulted and beaten
let you sister Scorn not leave you for the informers executioners cowards - they will win they will go to your funeral with relief will throw a lump of earth the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography
and do not forgive truly it is not in your power to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
beware however of unnecessary pride keep looking at your clown's face in the mirror repeat: I was called - weren't there better ones than I
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring the bird with an unknown name the winter oak light on a wall the splendour of the sky they don't need your warm breath they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant - when the light on the mountains gives the sign- arise and go as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain repeat great words repeat them stubbornly like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way you will be admitted to the company of cold skulls to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
In the presidential primaries of 1980, I cast my virgin vote for Jerry Brown for the fantastically principled reason that he was dating Linda Ronstadt, and oh my gosh, how awesomely cool would it be if Linda Ronstadt was the first lady? Brown abandoned the race shortly thereafter, and when I complained to my father that my vote was wasted, he told me very seriously, "No vote is ever wasted. A vote might be misguided or ill-informed. But it is not wasted. It's your voice, and it counts. If all you wanted to say with your vote is 'Linda Ronstadt for first lady', well, that was your priority and you spoke up for it. But here's a few other things that you might consider before you vote in November..."
He talked to me about what a good man Jimmy Carter was. Dad had organized a statewide town hall meeting sort of broadcast during the '76 campaign and was invited to a press gathering at the White House, where he actually met and talked with the president. But a lot had happened to the economy since then. Dad explained to me what it means when you take out a car loan at 26% interest, the impact of the Mariel boatlift, the backstory on the hostage crisis in Iran, and on the flipside, the spirit of forward thinking that was behind the skilled rhetoric of Ronald Reagan. In the following months, I paid attention to the op eds in the newspaper and watched the evening news. In November, I stood for a long time in the voting booth, then voted for Reagan. I supported mostly Dems in state and local elections, but went for Reagan again in '84 and Bush Sr in '88. (C'mon, y'all. Dukakis? Not even Linda Ronstadt could have made him look good.)
In '92 and '96, a progressive Bill Clinton won my vote. I wasn't madly in love with the stolid Al Gore, however, and having seen what a poor governor Bush was here in Texas, I was certain he'd be a catastrophically bad president. I backed McCain in the primaries of 2000. I believed then, and I believe now, that he was a great man, and we'd be living in an entirely different world had he been in charge on 9/11. As I watched his own party consume and digest him on the 24-hour news channels, I told my dad, "I'm not sure I'll ever be able to vote Republican again. I don't know if there's any point in voting in this election at all. It's the evil of two lessers."
"You have to vote!" Dad told me. "It's not a privilege, it's a responsibility. You vote, and you vote your conscience, not your party. Sometimes it's the direction you're voting for, though, not the man himself." Dad still believed in the direction of the Republican party, so ultimately, Dad and I cancelled each other out, one for Bush, one for Gore.
Fast forward past "My Pet Goat" and Mission Accomplished (not). In 2004, with my son approaching draft age and my worst opinions of W confirmed, I decided to do more than cast my vote. I got involved. Gave money, phone-banked for Kerry, a war hero with a conscience. I bought cases of water bottles and snacks and took them to people standing in the long lines outside the Bar Bush Library, not proselytizing for Kerry but letting them know that Liberals love Jesus too. Just before the election, I traveled with my then 16-year-old daughter Jerusha from a solidly red Texas to swing state Florida, where my sister Diana lives. While Jerusha went canvassing and demonstrating with a group of young environmentalists, I signed up online to volunteer at the Democratic headquarters, driving elderly people to the poles.
When I first arrived in Orlando, I visited the Republican HQ, which was as quietly controlled as a corporate office. Then I went to the Democrat HQ, which resembled the aftermath of a Brazilian soccer match. Fast food trash on the floor in the corner, mayhem, noise, idiocy. After I'd waited 40 minutes for someone to find somebody who knew something about anything, a woman told me to go around the office and collect everyone's names and email addresses and type it up in a nice spread sheet.
"A lot of us have gotten really close," she said. "It would be great if we could stay in touch."
Now, let me preface my response to that with the fact that this election coincided with my first really bad bout of arthritis, so I was on a mission and on steroids. A dangerous combo.
"Are you f^@#ing kidding me?" I said. "We are in a fight for the soul of our nation! I'm sorry, but your Kwanzaa card list is going to have to wait. I’m busy trying to get Curious f*<>&ing George out of the F()%#ING WHITE HOUSE!"
I was hastily referred to the guy giving out assignments to people driving elderly voters to the polls. He flailed through rafts of papers and finally sent me off to fetch "three handicapped seniors", but I arrived to find that the calls had been placed by spoilers. No such folks existed. The last trip I made was to pick up Gloria Hooper, who told me she was “92 years and still kicking, a lifelong Democrat.” Mrs. Hooper’s home had been damaged by Hurricane Ivan, and the resulting water and mold had left her chronically ill and disabled, but she hadn’t missed an election since WWII and was determined to make her voice heard. On the way to her polling place, she told me about her father’s electioneering and how he’d impressed on her the importance of her vote. My eyes burned with tears. This made it all worth while. I went inside the local library, fetched a disabled ballot and brought it to her in the air-conditioned car.
“I was afraid the Democrats might not want to give me a ride,” she told me as she marked the ballot. “Since I’m not voting for Kerry.”
“Excuse me?”
“Oh, no, hon,” said the proud lifelong Democrat, “the pastor of my church told us that God has said George Bush is to be president in 2005 when the Rapture comes.”
I tried to respectfully speak to her about this, but she was adamant. She filled out her ballot and I took it back inside, but just before I deposited it, I noticed that it had not been signed. The battle for the soul of our nation was now a battle for my own soul. I could deposit the ballot, knowing it would be declared invalid or have Mrs. Hooper sign it and contribute to the cause I’d spent hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars fighting. I thought of my father. And Linda Ronstadt. And the cause I was truly fighting for. I returned to the car with Mrs. Hooper’s ballot, deposited it with her signature, and cried all the way back to Houston.
Flash forward again. Past the drowning of New Orleans, the draining of our 401K, and a conspicuous lack of rapture. Four years later, inspired by the forward thinking rhetoric of Barack Obama, I've returned to the swing state to do what I can. I'm not usually one to hold a grudge, but driving into Orlando, I thought of Gloria Hooper in her soggy little house, abandoned by God and FEMA, and I felt a fresh surge of anger.
“Anger is easier to recover than hope,” my niece Jenny told me. “Anger is a safer place to speak from. Hope leaves you open to disaster.”
Jenny is 23 years and kicking. Computer savvy, newly graduated from college, and gung-ho for Obama. She is proud that her genetic history is much like his; her father is a black man from Africa, and her mother is my white as Wonder Bread sister. She and I spent Monday evening making a bucket of black bean salsa and frosting chocolate cupcakes for the workers in the Obama field office, which is as well-ordered, efficient, and intelligently run as a bullet train. But Jenny is all about the ideaology. She's completely convinced that come Wednesday morning, the world will be a better place.
“Aunt Joni, have you seen the video by will i. am? I can’t watch it without bawling.”
"There's a whole other world out there ," my agent told me a while back. She was reminding me of other possibilities, which authors in my (or any) genre totally ignore. Limited by our own successes, however modest, we fail to consider other ways of earning a living and finding creative fulfillment.
It feels safer, sticking with the area we know, and getting to really understand and master our own small pond feels manageable. But it's limiting as well, which is one reason I make it a point to read broadly. My list of favorite books includes historical nonfiction, memoir, lots of mystery/suspense, fantasy, science fiction, historical fiction, and let's not forget romance.
But for a long time, it never occurred to me that I could learn valuable lessons from authors in other areas of writing beyond my chosen genre. I was very wrong on that score, and in the past few years I've broadened my horizons with literary techniques borrowed from screenwriting (thanks, Chris Vogler), gleaned in college English class (and Flannery O'Connor), or picked up from wise and eloquent thriller writers on the 'net (love your blog, Tess Gerritsen).
Interestingly, however, I meet a lot of authors in my genre who seem content with blinders. As incoming program chair/VP of my area RWA chapter, I'm hoping to let in a little light by inviting some prominent speakers from (gasp!) other areas of creative writing. Because strong dialogue is strong dialogue, great characterization great characterization, and the fine art of wresting a living from the world of words is a miracle worth celebrating!
So who are the best speakers/teachers on writing you're heard or read in the last few years? Or what classics have helped you untie some knotty writing problem?
I love research in general and the interview process in specific, whether I'm talking to an expert, gathering information that will make a fictional character ring true or listening to the life story of one of my memoir clients, corralling the facts that I know will be tested in the legal review. For the last five years, I've been using a terrific little Olympus digital recorder. I upload interviews to my laptop (backing up on an online storage facility), listen to them two or three times while I fold laundry or paint, and then I sit down to the task that will set the facts solidly in my brain and make the language "pullable" for the working draft: I transcribe the SOBs pretty much word for word. Yech.
There's nothing in the world that will make me enjoy this task, but it has to be done, so I'm constantly searching for anything that might improve on the process. A couple years ago, I found an upgraded program that enables me to slow the playback to 50% or speed it up to 200%, which helps me keep up with the important passages and blast past the interruptions and tangential chit chat. (I'm a southern girl; we tend to go off topic.)
A screenwriter friend recently introduced me to Final Draft, the standard industry software for the creation and delivery of movie and television scripts. I found the best price at The Writer's Store, and picked up on it quickly and easily. His intention was to "lure me to the dark side", but as I learned Final Draft, I quickly realized that this would make transcribing interviews a whole lot faster and easier.
For one thing, it automatically plugs in the name of the character talking. Once you've typed the person's name once, it's stored and suggested as soon as you tab to start a new voice and pop the first letter. If the conversation is between two people, you don't even have to pop the first letter, Final Draft instantly recognizes and suggests the alternating voices. Nifty.
Final draft also sets up the standard screenwriting format, which is an easy-on-the-eye Courier font with wide margins and center placement.
Everything about your co-dependant relationship with Word will be fed with Final Draft: search and replace, spell check, yada yada.
So that's my favorite tool box addition for the year, I think. I spent about 75 hours this week transcribing over 500 pages of interviews. When I finished the final hour last night, I sat on the edge of the coffee table while Gary massaged lotion into my aching hands, wrists, and forearms. I'd been typing so much faster than I normally do, every muscle from elbow to pinkie was a flaming licorice whip of agony. Which leads me to my second favorite toolbox addition of the week: gel keyboard bumper. Check it out.
