A Tale Of Two Writers

Once upon a time I had a student I will call Chung-ho, an attentive, thoughtful student, if not the brightest, and not shy about speaking up in class. Chung-ho's English language education had been interrupted due to family problems, and he had joined the class late, but he easily managed to catch up with his classmates. In fact, for all that he had missed a lot of classes, he was still one of the best listeners and best readers in the class.

But he was not the best writer.

Because I had many opportunities to hear my students' experiences, I was familiar with Chung-ho's background, so when I sat down with one of his compositions, I already had a pretty good idea what it would be about. Which was a good thing, because at first, his stories were full of muddled, run-on sentences that almost reduced me to head-scratching confusion. Chung-ho left out subjects, verbs, and conclusions, struggled with subordinate clauses, and -- even though he was nagged and constantly reminded -- persisted in using the present when he should have used the past. In fact, he was unwittingly perverse about this: on one occasion, he wrote a long story about how his grandmother chased a snake into the outdoor privy. Throughout this story, his grandmother raced about dizzyingly in the present -- She run outside quickly. She call to the my brother for aid. She tell us keep watch for snake. She strike a snake with using cudgel. But in his last sentence when he should have used the present, here is what he wrote: Everytime we family union I told this story my cousins laughed.

But Chung-ho was a good student, and over the months, his grammar improved remarkably. Eventually it was possible to read his stories without stopping and wondering what the hell was going on. His commitment to learning was incredibly gratifying and inspiring. And yet his stories were real yawners, dry as dust, even the ones I asked him to rewrite, which I knew should have been great. After reading them, I used to feel a combination of irritation and anger: how could anybody screw up a story involving a grandmother, a snake, and an outdoor privy?

In the same class, I had another student, Lu, whose English was considerably less accomplished than Chung-ho's. Lu's problems were manifold: whereas Chung-ho could manage subordinate clauses, however clumsily, Lu could not, and saw no need to change his ways. Lu not only ignored the past tense, he saw no need for it. Auxiliaries struck him as a waste of time. When I gently reminded him once that the correct form was Did you finish? and not You finish? he was all spluttering indignation: "Every people understand You finish? Why need did finish?" My arguments for clarity and consistency did not convince him. Lu breezed through reading exercises, paying little attention to detail or general meaning; he frequently scored zero, but was remarkably blase about this. He did little to add to his vocabulary -- Chung-ho kept long lists of new words he had discovered -- and, when he could not get his point across, was more apt to put this down to his interlocutor's denseness than his own ineptitude.

Lu's writing was, predictably, appalling. But here is the amazing thing: he was a gifted storyteller. Even with his awful grammar, restricted vocabulary, crazy syntax, and ridiculous spelling (he once spelled the word 'apartment' four different ways in a 250-word essay), you could follow what he was saying because his narrative pulled you right along. Unlike Chung-ho, who felt the need to offer a useful moral preamble and ending to every story, Lu would put in a question that led you in and made you want to read more: Why all peoples scare of the darkness? He got right to the point after that, with gripping, fascinating, hilarious stories: about the time he walked through a graveyard drunk with his younger brother, his first visit to an American supermarket, the time he accidentally went into the women's toilet. I read his stories with breathless appreciation, even forgetting the terrible grammar and spelling in my haste to find out what had happened. And his endings never disappointed: American supermarket have many thing some think too much thing, but one thing Chinese market have American market not have: Chinese market interested and exciting. American supermarket not exciting. Also: no bad smell. Chung-ho's ending points got swallowed up in long ramblings about whether snakes were evil or useful, how grandmothers pulled their weight even in this modern age, and why it was best to be on the look-out for snakes even in one's house. (I would give you a sample of Chung-ho's endings, but I do not want to put you to sleep. Also, not enough room.)

It seems so obvious, and yet it's oddly elusive: that the key to telling great stories is learning how to match Chung-ho's diligence and commitment to form with Lu's storytelling genius and pithy prose. Often, the mechanics of writing got in the way of Lu's innate ability to tell a story. As a non-native speaker and writer, he must have felt frustrated when his stories weren't appreciated by people other than his EFL teachers. And all too often, the prosy dullness of Chung-ho's stories must have kept them from entertaining his audience. As a teacher, this drives me crazy. I know how much my students have to offer, and my biggest joy is knowing that they can leave the classroom with enough English to connect with people who aren't English teachers. As a writer, the fact that they could not share their gifts often made me think about my own writing. In fact, it still does. Recently, I revisited an old manuscript of mine and found more of Chung-ho than Lu in the ending. So back to the drawing board until my story pulls readers right in and keeps them gripped. Until it is interesting and exciting. (Also: no bad smell.)

Writing The End

I've been struggling with an ending for months now. I hate writing endings!

Beginnings always write themselves. I feel like I've just started a journey: flushed with excitement, not yet footsore or weary, not yet dreading the weight of my backpack or tired of the same old clothes packed inside. Later on, my beginnings tend to unravel a bit and need reworking, but they generally stay the same. They take off at a good gallop, pulling the plot merrily behind them.

They pull me right along too, panting in their wake, huffing and puffing as I plan the rest of the story. As I work my way toward the middle, all the major sign posts are there and I can see them clearly ahead, but carving the way to them is everything. Just as in real life, a straight line will seldom get you from point A to point B, in fiction, the way is circuitous and there are rocks and dips and barbwire fences. But I enjoy figuring these out and working my way around them. Yes, beginnings and middles are the part of writing I relish the most: that first heady, dizzying rush, then working my way from signpost to signpost, over all the hurdles and obstacles.

Following a basic formula helps. First of all, what happens has to be at least a little bit funny. Because for pity's sake, what is life -- or fiction -- without humor? Then you have to give your protagonist loads of problems, providing plenty of tension to keep readers from looking at their watches and thinking about what's for lunch, but you also have to let your suffering protagonist have the occasional bit of fun so they don't end up so miserable and overstressed that you hate yourself for causing so much torment.

And then slowly but surely, you pave the way to a satisfying denouement, making sure not to forget the clues, the details that have to be there from the very beginning, woven deftly through your story so that the reader isn't left wondering what the hell just happened and how did that get there? This takes an incredible amount of fine-tuning, as the clues and contextual details have to be significant, but in an unobtrusive way, so that later on, your reader can go back and think to herself, "Ah, so that really WAS a dream, it was her all along!" and marvel that even with such great clues, they never guessed.

Beginnings and middles, I flatter myself, I can do. To be sure, there are many adjustments, hundreds of reworkings, characters dropped, plots restructured, beta readers consulted, and a whole teetering crap-load of angst, but I manage, all the same. But endings are my Waterloo, and this one is driving me wild. I know the outcome, I just don't know how to achieve it in the most incredible-but-believable, satisfying-but-not-predictable way.

Not so long ago, I had an epiphany: endings are hard for me because I don't like getting rid of things. I am a pack-rat by nature: I yearn to hoard and treasure the things I prize. I don't like saying goodbye, leaving places, finishing anything. I was always the kid who ate all the way around the blueberries on my danish, saving them until the very end, the one who made a bar of chocolate last until it had started to melt down my fingers. And once I finish writing something, the story is gone -- over! -- and all other chances for how the story might have ended are gone too. That goes against my grain, and that is why endings cause me so much difficulty.

So I am going to leave this ending for a day or two. I am going to clean out my drawers right now and sort through a few boxes of old shoes. It may not work, and it will be agony to throw out all those old shoes, but I can still use the cupboard space.

Wish me luck!

On Writing...

Anne Spollen has tagged me for a writing meme. I love being tagged for memes like this; they make me feel like a serious writer rather than a procrastinating dilettante. And in 2010, I'm going to work a lot harder to become the former and stop being the latter, so the timing on this is just right.

What's the last thing you wrote? What's the first thing you wrote that you still have?

The last thing I wrote is the end of my novel Foreigners. I've rewritten it about fifty-eight times now. It's better than it was -- enough said.

The first thing I wrote that I still have is the first draft, in hard copy, of my first MG novel. It's atrocious: bristling with too many tags, non sequiturs, side plots that meander, superfluous characters, and the word rather used several hundred times. Once in a blue moon, I force myself to take it out and look at it. It keeps me in touch with my writing 'roots' and reminds me that no matter how dissatisfied I may be with my writing, I've come a long way. It's like taking a peek into my kids' rooms: they're appalling, but there has been a definite improvement. That has to count for something.

2) Write poetry?

Yes.

3) Angsty poetry?

Yes. Don't laugh, it's NOT easy. (And I'm not saying it's good angsty poetry.)

4) Favorite genre of writing?

This is my problem: I can't decide. I like writing non-fiction, MG, YA, poetry, plays, and fiction. I tell myself this is why I'm still not published in a major way. But who knows? Denial is more than a river.

5) Most annoying character you've ever created?

My kids. (I am shamelessly copying Anne on this one. Her answer is too good not to duplicate. I blame my plagiarizing students.)

6) Best plot you've ever created?

I can't answer this -- yet. I think it's the plot of the MG I'm currently trying to sell. If I manage to sell it, I promise to come back and declare myself.

7) Coolest plot twist you've ever created?

See above. I feel silly answering this one when I'm still in limbo. Once I'm published, I'll come back and answer this.

8) How often do you get writer's block?

Never. My problem is organizing all my thoughts. Having too many, all over the place, is almost as bad as writer's block, though.

9) Write fan fiction?

I leave that to my Eldest Daughter who writes brilliant fan fiction. I'm just proud to know what it is.

10) Do you type or write by hand?

I write grocery lists by hand. Everything else I type.

11) Do you save everything you write?

No, but I save a lot of stuff I really have no business saving. Every once in a while I go through my files and delete like crazy, cheeks flaming, heart pounding. Sometimes I lie in bed worrying about people finding the awful poetry I've forgotten and left somewhere.

12) Do you ever go back to an idea after you've abandoned it?

Yes, all the time. I hate wasting stuff, and I'm convinced that if I just spend enough time thinking it through, I can make it work.

13) What's your favorite thing you've ever written?

Foreigners. But that may change.

14) What's everyone else's favorite story you've written?

Sadly, I don't enjoy a wide readership. But friends used to rave about my letters.

15) Ever written romance or angsty teen drama?

Not since my diary, age sixteen.

16) What's your favorite setting for your characters?

Coffee houses. Schools. Kitchens. Come to think of it, those are my favorite places too.

17) How many writing projects are you working on right now?

Two: Foreigners and an MG called Benmore which I'm trying to whip into shape.

18) Have you ever won an award for your writing?

Yes, several, but you've probably never heard of them. Still, they gave me a huge boost and I'll be eternally grateful to the people who picked me.

19) What are your five favorite words?

Umm, let's see. What about crimson, emerald, iridescent, cardamom and cinnamon. Though I'd like to publish this would tip the scales if I ever heard them.

20) What character have you created that is most like yourself?

None. There are little bits of myself in my characters, but I'd never put me in a novel. I can do a lot better than that.

21) Where do you get your ideas for your characters?

They come to me in the early morning hours.

22) Do you ever write based on your dreams?

Yes.

23) Do you favor happy endings?

I like hopeful endings because I think there is always hope. Happy endings strike me as being incomplete; there is no such thing as a happy ending because there is really no such thing as an ending.

24) Are you concerned with spelling and grammar as you write?

Yes, compulsively so: I'm an English teacher. (I copied that straight from Anne too, but it's exactly what I'd have said and entirely true, so there you are.)

25) Does music help you write?

No, but it doesn't get in my way. I've written whole chapters with Rammstein, Dir en Grey, or Queens of the Stoneage blasting away in the background. And every time I hear a certain Red Hot Chili Peppers song, I remember the play I wrote a few years back.

26) Quote something you've written. I’m a woman of words; I’ve always got an internal narrative going, constructing or embellishing some kind of script in my mind. For things that have happened—things I regret, things I’ve done or forgotten to do—you name it. Is it because I want to explain myself, justify my actions? I’m not sure and who cares? I talk, therefore I am. And before you get the idea I’m a boorish windbag, I’m an okay listener too.

Now Hajime, the man I’m nominally married to, is a guy who’s managed to get through life on the fewest words possible. He was born that way, I think.

I'm going to tag Wendy Tokunaga and Robin Altman on this one because I'd like to read their answers. But if anyone else is tempted, be my guest!

Writing It Off

A few years back, I had a piece of extraordinary luck: I won first prize in a writing competition with a hefty prize. I know why I won now, and I can say with complete confidence that it wasn’t the cleverness or the skill of my writing. Here is how I did it: I overwhelmed them with words.

I found out about the competition when my daughter brought back a form from school, inviting submissions. Reading it, I saw that there was a separate category for adults. I was thrilled: hidden away in a dusty file, I had half a dozen short stories, a much-rejected chapter book for kids, part of a play, four poems, and a couple of essays. I studied the form carefully, but although it stated that pieces had to be under 5,000 words, there seemed to be no limit to how many things you could send in. All genres were welcome, too: poetry, prose, fiction, non-fiction, play scripts, and best of all, there was no submission fee. I couldn’t get over my good luck: for ages, I’d been relying on long-suffering friends to serve as my beta readers. Now total strangers would read my work -- they had no choice.

Piece by piece, I sent my manuscripts off: three short stories, part of a play, a chapter of my kids’ book, two rhyming poems, and one blank verse poem. I shiver to think about it, too: all the prose pieces were over-long at just under 5,000 words; I had circuitous story lines, plot holes like Afghanistan has mountains, clumsy tags, protagonists who acted out of character, and chunks of dialogue that went on forever, but I am pretty sure no one else beat me for sheer volume of words.

I tell you this so you'll see that I'm not being humble: I know damn well I had no business winning that competition. What I did was the gambling equivalent of wandering into a casino with a couple of nickels, feeding a few into a slot machine, and walking away a millionaire. I like to think that the readers looked at all my stuff and saw heart and promise. I'm also pretty sure that the other contestants, had they read my work, would have liked me about as much as a seasoned gambler would like a lucky jackpot winner. Whatever the case, I will always be infinitely grateful to the judges for separating my bits of grain from all the chaff and awarding me that prize.

Winning this prize gave me a tremendous boost and all sorts of encouragement, and it also gave me something to tell the tiresome people who kept asking if I’d managed to get anything published yet. No, I would say, but I did win a prize. They always asked how much, of course, and I’m afraid I always told them. It shut them right up, too: everybody respects money in the bank.

Last week, I got a really good rejection. I’ve received many dozens of rejections over the years, of course, from the perfunctory I have read your work with interest to the I really liked this, but it isn't quite right for our list, to the longer, more personal, believable ones, but this one made me feel weirdly hopeful. The best part about it was that the next day I woke up with a clear vision of what to do with the rejected manuscript. For the first time, I saw what I had to do to make things right. Everything the people in my writing group have been telling me suddenly made sense. This time, instead of feeling mired in confusion and hopelessness, I saw the path ahead of me appear straight and true, and knew where I was going to go. I felt like Moses watching the waters of the Red Sea part.

Here's the sad thing: I can’t brag about this, can I? When I told people about my writing competition prize, they were happy for me. I got congratulations and pats on the back. Family members told other family members and mutual friends; my stock rose. Lately, when people ask me if I’ve managed to get anything published, I find myself choking on the words No, but I got a really good rejection, and how very pathetic that sounds. And yet that really good rejection ranks right up there with my writing competition win.

So I’m telling all of you here, right now. Please be happy for me: I got a really good rejection –- one that served as a much-needed kick in the pants. And that’s why I haven’t been around here lately: I’ve been rewriting my manuscript, and loving every minute of it. Which is every bit as good as money in the bank.

Discriminating Reader

When I was a kid, I was a discriminating reader. I loved choosing which books I would check out. I always read the very first paragraph to decide if the story was worth my while. I can still remember the wonderful sense of power I got as I pictured the author watching breathlessly, waiting to see what I would do: That skinny kid there with her finger in my book, is she going to read it? Is she actually going to check my book out and take it home? I even pictured his or her disappointment on the occasions I decided the book wasn't interesting enough, as I snapped it shut and put it back on the shelf. I was merciless too: no matter how sad the author looked in my mind's eye, if the book didn't suck me right in, I didn't want it anywhere near me.

I used to run through a list in my mind whenever I picked out a book. First and foremost, the book had to be fiction; I had no interest whatsoever in anything that had really happened. Up until I was about thirteen, the book had to be about a girl or girls. When I mistakenly picked up a book with a male protagonist, it went right back on the shelf. Next, I couldn't be bothered with fantastic plot features unless the author sneaked them in after I'd gotten hooked. So if I opened a book and right away saw that there were going to be dragons and fairies, I dropped it fast. If the book started out in a world I could believe in, the odd dragon or fairy was fine, once I was well into the plot. It really helped if the protagonist was unhappy about something or in trouble -- or had to go on an adventure -- and my very favorite plots featured a kid who was a misfit or bullied. Best of all was when there was any kind of travel involved, especially if the protagonist had to travel alone or without adults. Madeleine l'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time ticked all the boxes, and so did Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden.

When I first moved to Japan, finding books in English was a problem. Within the first week, I read everything I'd brought with me. A visit to Kinokuniya Book Store shocked me: books in English were expensive and it wasn't easy to find the less popular titles. Over my first year in Japan, I combed through the books left by other expatriates and we traded back and forth. I learned to reread books I'd especially enjoyed too; after six months, I found I could reread a really good book and invariably find something I'd missed during my first read.

During the next five years overseas, I reread hundreds of books. I also learned to love non-fiction: one dark December day I picked up Rachel Carson's Under the Sea's Wind and was bowled over by the beauty of her prose. I started reading other non-fiction, including memoirs. I was shocked to learn what I had been missing all those years. Whatever I found in English, I would read, even books I might never have touched back in the States. I read detective stories, translated novels, adventure stories for boys, pulp fiction, literary fiction, Harlequin romances, memoirs, comic books, biographies, war stories, travel guides, do-it-yourself books, cook books, and classics. My only criterion was that the books had to be in English.

In short, I became an undiscriminating reader; I knew I couldn't afford to be fussy. I was the reading equivalent of a Clean Plate Club star member: whatever I got my hands on, I finished it. Even when it was God-awful.

For the next several decades, I did this: I read just about every book that came my way. In some respects, this eclectic reading has stood me in good stead: I discovered writers and genres I might never have gotten to know. But it kept me from concentrating on quality, from thinking about what I was reading and how it might have been written better.

Then I started to write myself. I started the hard way, making stupid, classic beginner mistakes: telling, not showing, meandering, rambling, being inconsistent, putting in unnecessary details, leaving out essential information, and so on. And writing has entirely changed the way I read.

It has taken me a long time to get to this point, but I now begin books and don't always finish them. A few months back, I got to the end of a novel and threw it across the room. It was didactic, pretentious, rambling, and unfocused, and I didn't know who I was more irritated with, the author for writing it or myself for actually finishing it. Last week, I stopped reading a novel after forty tedious pages: all of the characters were having too good a time. Everybody was getting along, lessons were being effortlessly learned, and I was being bored rigid. Three days ago, I picked up a book, read three paragraphs, and put it right back on the shelf: the dialogue was stilted and unbelievable. Lucky me, I've got a pile of books up to my knees, and time is too short for books that mediocre.

I've become that fussy kid again, standing in the library, holding a book, a frown on my face as I think Is this really good enough for me? Do I really want to invest my precious time in reading this? Yes, I've become that fussy, discriminating kid again.

And that's definitely the kid I want to write for.

Pack-Rat

I'm a pack-rat. From earliest childhood, I've hoarded junk. I suspect it's in my genes: in my family there are many stories of relatives who have amassed great collections of books, seashells, stamps, and buttons. One of my uncles spent his lifetime collecting books about Robin Hood. By the time of his death, he had the largest collection in the world outside of Nottingham. His library included hundreds of volumes, old and new: first editions, books in Swahili, Serbo-Croatian, Hebrew, Turkish, Chinese. All about Robin Hood. The older he got, the more anxious he became. After he died, who would keep them all? Who would oil their bindings, make sure they were kept at the right humidity and temperature? And who would make sure that no one with grimy fingers got their cotton-picking fingers on his treasures?

Although I can smile at my uncle and his fastidious ways, deep down inside, I have his acquisitive ways. I am convinced that only my peripatetic lifestyle -- ten years here, five years there -- has kept my collections at bay. But I've struggled with this condition all my life.

When I was seventeen, I spent a year in Florida, living with a cousin and working. I can still remember packing to go back to California. My cousin, from the non-pack-rat side of my family, tried to help me. "You're not taking that?" she gasped as I filled my boxes with all sorts of junk. But I was. Dresses I could no longer wear, shoes with broken straps, brochures from places we'd visited, books I'd already read two or three times.

When I opened the boxes back in California, it all looked different. Did I really need brochures for Parrot Jungle and Flamingo Park? What could I do with them? Hadn't I read Franny and Zooey and Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters enough? Would I ever manage to get the straps of my black high heels fixed? I thought about the money I'd spent mailing my boxes. That would come in a lot handier than clothes that no longer fit, books I'd already read, and broken shoes. And nobody ever bought lunch with a collection of used brochures.

That was my first wake-up call. During my next major move, I was a lot more careful about what I took with me. Still, after a year in Japan, I came back to the States with eight boxes of things I couldn't bear to part with. I stashed them in my long-suffering sister's garage, where they stayed for years. On trips back to Southern California, I would agonize over precious items. Old clothes I was emotionally attached to. Books I'd traveled all over Mexico and Guatemala with. Miscellaneous nonsense I would never use, but could hardly bear to throw away.

And I still collected things. Stealthily -- a bit here, a little there. Things built up, but not everything was in one place so I couldn't really grasp the full horror of what I had done.

My husband tried in vain to make me throw things away, but it was finally this last move that shook me enough to do a serious cull. On one of our last days in Scotland, my friend Dina showed up at our flat and took one open-mouthed look around. She didn't even say anything, she just opened a roll of black garbage bags and started heaving things in. My dried flower arrangements, old Easter baskets, stacks of faded dishtowels depicting English castles, used packs of cards, puzzles, cracked pottery -- all the things that had already survived dozens of ruthless trips to Oxfam. We had one spat (over a torn Japanese fan; I know I can fix it), and I cried a little, but suddenly I saw the gift she was offering me -- liberation from possesions -- and I started discarding junk with reckless abandon. I was grateful that Dina hadn't seen the place before I'd started culling. And that she hadn't been with me when those first boxes came back from Miami.

And once I got started culling, I found I could not stop. So what if I'd had those dried flowers since our first year in Scotland? Who really needed a whole stack of torn, faded dishtowels? And the relief this gave me was nothing short of cathartic.

Here, in our new flat, I have managed to accumulate almost nothing. This is a huge breakthrough. I can go to potteries and look around, but buy nothing; I can visit bookstores and browse, but leave empty-handed (it does help that 99.9% of the books are in Turkish); I can go clothes shopping with my daughters and end up with zip-all for myself. Somehow, I have managed to cure (almost) a lifetime affliction, and that is wonderful.

This breakthrough may have something to do with getting older: at some point, you realize you can't take it with you. In the end, everything goes: possessions, wealth, beauty, friendship, memory -- even dignity. All you can do is hope to leave behind the best possible record of your achievements, whatever they happen to be.

I'm thrilled with my new-found ability, but the best thing of all is that what I've managed to do with things, I have also learned to do with words.

For years now, I've struggled with a certain overwritten manuscript. The premise of my novel is good, but it has been weighed down by a meandering plot, extraneous characters, and far too many words. And yet every time I went back to my manuscript with the intention to edit, I found myself bogged down. How could I possibly get rid of the passage where Beatrice confers with her tortoise over the two bullies? Or the one where Herleva manages to cure one of her classmates? Rereading my novel, my heart would almost break as I imagined pressing that 'delete' button and getting rid of my precious words.

But a few months back, after we'd gotten settled, I opened up the manuscript and started reading. And I saw it all: the places where I'd gone overboard and put in too many details; the characters I didn't really need; the meanderings that did nothing to advance the narrative. It helped that I won a free critique of a different manuscript and was given this advice, and it helped that my writing group gave me a kick in the butt. But the thing that really pushed me was the desire to get the thing finished at all costs -- to leave it as good as it could be, whether it is ever published or not.

Besides, I've got all my deleted passages saved in a special file. Like that torn fan, you never know: someday I might be able to fix them.

Write Stuff

Tufan is sweating blood, huddled miserably over his answer sheet, scribbling and erasing, chewing the end of his pencil. Tufan hates writing. He chews his lower lip and wipes eraser rubbings off his desk, then casts a look of pure agony heavenward. Sighing deeply, he bunches up his lips, then tries again. And erases. And starts afresh.

Write to your good friend Barbara and tell her about the things you did during your first term, the directions state.

I slide on my glasses and unobtrusively read what Tufan has written over his shoulder: To My good friend Barbara, I am Tufan, Turkish boy goes to university and studying English. I has have twenty years old. I am like first term too much.

I try not to sigh. How many times have I told him that if you're writing to a friend, you don't have to introduce yourself? And we've covered simple present for habitual actions versus present continuous for current ones time after time, and yet look at what he went and wrote! Why in God's name can't he learn?

Two rows behind him, Esra is squirming in her seat, her forehead creased in concentration. She has finished her e-mail and moved on to the mock job application she is supposed to fill out. Her writing is nice and bold, so I can easily read what she has written. I almost wish I couldn't.

In the space marked Occupation, Esra has clearly written Yes.

We've covered what occupation means more times than I can count. She knows it's supposed to be student. Will she ever learn?

After Describe a person you know very well, I am heartened to see that Unsal has already written an entire paragraph; normally it takes her ages just to come up with an idea. On closer inspection, however, I find that she has written the following: My best friend Fatma and I have known each other from earliest girlhood. She is a kind and generous person and I consider myself very fortunate in having her as a friend.

This is beautiful English and if Unsal produced it herself then my name is Fyodor Dostoyevsky. I don't have to read much further to find the limits of her memory: I like my best friend, Fatma, too much. My best friend talk many times to me. We visit together and share. We go harbor. We eat somethings.

And yes, she knows exactly how I feel about plagiarism. She's done it before and she has been read the Riot Act. Clearly, she doesn't think I'll be able to tell the difference between the two styles.

There are times I feel like I'm beating my head against a brick wall. Will they ever learn?

So I go home and I spend hours revising my own endless manuscript. I sweat blood, I scribble and erase, metaphorically speaking, and sometimes I find it utter torture. I write, I erase, and I write again. And a week later, I go back and read what I've labored over, hoping against hope...and I find telling instead of showing. Long, drawn-out yawn-worthy scenes. Redundancies. Inconsistent characters. Information dumps. Embarrassingly obvious plot devices. Non sequiturs.

But I have every intention of learning...

Imaginary Writing Process

The talented Jackson Pearce is responsible for this one. I saw it on YouTube (which I am informed by my horrified 14-year-old can never, under any circumstances, be abbreviated as U-Tube, never mind how fast and free modern youth play with other spellings) and felt that it was too good not to be shared with many, many people. So here it is, and if you have not tried to publish a book, stand back in awe at how easy -- and fun -- it is. Go on and give it a try!



Now I'm going back to sorting out dictionaries. Sigh.

And if on the off chance you get a book published right away, please don't ask me to buy it. (Hey, you never know -- it might just happen. After all, I've just learned to embed a U-Tube -- sorry, YouTube -- video.)

What I Get From Blogging

Merry Monteleone has tagged me for a meme, and this one is a lot harder than it sounds: You have to explain what it is you expect from your blog and why you chose to write a blog in the first place. My reasons for writing a blog are many, and I have been pondering them for some time now, so this meme has given me the chance to deal with this subject in depth.

(1) Writing is Easier than Talking: Like a lot of other bloggers, I suspect that I am better at writing than I am at speaking. I have a rather convoluted, long-winded speaking style (what? you can't tell?) that lends itself better to the written word than the spoken. Writing a blog means I can get my point across without any embarrassing mess-ups as I flounder for the right word or compete unsuccessfully with more glib or charismatic people for speaking time. Participating in a many-sided conversation, I often feel like a timid driver trying to merge in heavy rush-hour traffic.

(2) Natural Show Off: This is embarrassing to admit, but true: I am a terrible show off. I was a nerd in high school and almost pathologically shy to boot, but my show-offiness has been there all along, lurking behind a meek, dorky personality, desperate to get out. Blogging gives me a chance to get up on my hind legs and hold forth, and very satisfying it is. You, dear readers, are all my enablers.

(3) Letter-writing Addict: Blogging is, for me, very similar to letter-writing, which I am crazy about. I get a thrill looking at my commenters' names and picturing all the countries you come from: Australia, Scotland, U.S.A., Japan, Singapore, India, England, Korea, Malaysia -- the more the better, and my only regret is that I cannot rip the stamps off your postings and stick them in my stamp collection. Yes -- I'll admit it! -- I've got one. I suspect if I'd had the technical ability, I'd have been a ham radio operator, too.

(4) Shameless Self-promotion: Friends who knew that I had written a memoir about learning Japanese told me that a blog would be the perfect way to showcase my work. Just start a blog they assured me, and you'll get agents writing and begging you for your memoir. No, of course that hasn't happened. But I live in hope.

(5) Keeping my Hand in: I tell myself that even if I've turned out only a few indifferent paragraphs of my latest manuscript or muddled through a little lukewarm revision of some past work, by keeping a blog I am at least getting some writing done. Sure, I know: I am only fooling myself. But there is still a grain of truth in it.

(6) Learning Opportunities: One month before I started this blog, I didn't know what blog meant and I didn't know what an internet presence was. The first time I saw the word meme I thought huh? I was unfamiliar with such internet-related terms as URL and hits, did not know the word friend could be used as a verb, and had no idea what Facebook meant. In fact, I still don't really know what Facebook is, but look how far I've come!

(7) Venting Opportunities! This ought to be number (1). What can I say? I am the mother of teenagers. Teenage daughters. That alone should speak volumes. I can't help but wonder what the mothers without blogs do. Frankly, I suspect drinking and substance abuse problems. Blogging has probably saved my liver.

(8) Fun, Fun, Fun: I'm not sure how much longer I'll keep this blog, but it has been such a wonderful source of fun. I never know what will garner interest, and I love reading everyone's comments and responding to them as much as I enjoy writing the postings. And visiting your blogs is wonderful too. It's free, it's fun, and I get to express myself, brother. What's not to like?

Okay -- that's why I started this blog. I now tag Kim, who got me into this in the first place.

Thank You For Christmas

We have a weird custom in our family: we get our kids to write thank-you notes for their presents on Christmas Day.

It started the Christmas our eldest was four and a half and her sister was sixteen months. On Christmas morning, my husband and I watched as they savaged a pile of gifts from us and other far away family members. We looked at each other uneasily: you hear people going on about how Christmas is all for children and how much fun it is to watch the little ones opening their presents, but we actually found it pretty awful. Our children were turning into greedy little consumers right before our very eyes. Worse still, we had aided and abetted it.

"Who gave you the book about bats?" we asked our eldest a few hours later.

She shook her head. "I don't remember."

"How about the train set? Was that from Uncle Paul?"

We had to ask her twice; she was too busy playing with a puzzle. "Umm...I don't know."

We were mortified: How could we possibly write thank-you letters when we couldn't even remember who'd given our kids what? I'd been trying to keep a record of who got what and from whom, but the kids had plowed through their presents so fast I'd managed to lose track.

"Christmas," my husband muttered despairingly. "Greedfest is more like it."

I felt exactly the same: clearly for our kids, the day was nothing more than a present-opening event. There was little gratitude shown, little sign that the day meant anything other than an opportunity to receive gifts and treats. Lacking direction, our kids had behaved perfectly naturally. We had to do something to civilize them.

And that is when the inspiration came to us: We were already teaching the eldest to read and write, so why not start her on simple thank-you notes? She would be responsible for remembering who gave her what gift; we would suggest a few ideas about how and what to write, then nag her to do her duty. It took a couple of months, but by her fifth birthday, the eldest could manage a few shaky lines. That Christmas, she wrote her first thank-you notes in pencil, copying what we told her to write in a wobbly, endearingly clumsy hand:

Dear Auntie Bertie,

I just love the cute cat pajamas you sent. Thank you so much!

Have you had a good Christmas? We have had a wonderful one!

Love XXX ---

We were thrilled with this, and as soon as the youngest had learned to print, we started her too. When nagging the kids to do it turned out to be a pain, we came up with an even better plan, one which had the added benefit of slowing down the whole gift-opening process: we had the kids write a note for every present they opened, as they opened them.

Believe it or not, this method has worked brilliantly for us. Faced with a huge pile of presents and the knowledge that they won't get to open more unless they produce, the kids keep those notes coming. Before each gift, we talk about the giver and how that person is special. I know: it sounds obnoxiously smug and smarmy, but instead of a dizzy, thirty-minute orgy of gift-opening, we have managed to stretch Christmas Day out to a good eight-hour session. Stationery piles diminish; carefully printed letters pile up. Photographs of aunts, uncles and cousins are pulled out and examined; anecdotes of funny events are recalled. Remember the first time you met Auntie Leslie and you threw up all over her in the back of the car? Remember the time Uncle Gustavo let you eat eight bananas all in one go?

Shortly after moving back to the U.K., we spent Christmas with my husband's family down south and had to abandon this custom. The next year, we were invited down again, and once again, thank-you notes had to wait until we got back. On the way home, one of the kids said wistfully I wish we could do that thing with the letters again. Do you think we could do it again next year?

Sure, maybe she was just saying that because she knew we wanted to hear it. Maybe both kids are making a virtue of a necessity and only going through the motions of being grateful, but even if that's the case, it's good enough for us. The next year, we stayed home and wrote our Christmas thank-you notes again, and we've done it every year since.

We'll be doing it this year, too: thank you for Christmas.

And on the subject of gratitude, thank you all very much for reading and commenting on my blog. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you all!

Writing Up A Storm

I've been a writer ever since I can remember. I'm not saying that I've been a good writer all that time; my point is that I'm not new to this game -- no, siree. Forget all those rejection letters, forget all the hours spent agonizing over blank paper or computer screen, a writer I am and a writer I will always be. I cannot even recall when it all began -- when I first sat down with a pencil and paper and managed to turn out something intelligible. Something that made others smile and say Hey, this is pretty good! Once that happened, though, I was well and truly hooked and it would have been too late to stop even if I'd known where it was going to take me.

When I was nine, I got a poem published in a children's magazine. I waited breathlessly after sending it off, then one day to my delight received a letter telling me that it had been selected for publication. Months passed, and finally the issue with my poem arrived. I quickly turned the pages until I got to the poetry section. My poem wasn't there! Heartbroken, I showed my mother. She turned the magazine over, and on the back cover, there it was: my poem, fully illustrated. In color. Nothing will ever top that. Doris Lessing can eat her heart out.

When we were ten, my best friend and I decided to write a book together. We called it Free As The Wind and it was every bit as awful as it sounds. The protaganists were two girls we called Mary and Roberta. Although Mary was my given name, I went by my middle name at the time, and I gave Mary all the qualities I desperately wanted: beauty, grace, coordination, and the ability to sail. Roberta was my best friend's alter ego and embodied her ideal: an adventurous and feisty girl, with an almost reckless spirit. Roberta had a bratty little sister called Sally, and Mary and Roberta were always trying to get away from her. One day, they packed up a picnic lunch and an unlikely number of other useful provisions, borrowed someone's boat, and took off for a little sailing trip. Though there wasn't a cloud in sight when they departed, minutes into their voyage a violent storm began to brew. Both girls managed to get whacked unconscious by the boom, though fortunately neither sustained permanent damage, and the boat miraculously sailed itself to a small, deserted island. This was a shameless rip-off of one of our favorite books, Carol Ryrie Brink's Baby Island, but we told ourselves that the rest of the plot was so different that the obvious similarities hardly mattered. Mary and Roberta set off to explore the island and were lucky to find an abandoned house where they took shelter. Things were looking pretty good when they heard voices: angry male voices. Peeking out the window, they spotted a couple of sinister-looking fellows with bushy black beards. That was as far as we got, but we just slapped on To be Continued and considered ourselves finished. We even illustrated it.

Somewhere in a carboard box upstairs, I still have a copy of that dreadful poem; I have often looked at it and tried to imagine just how bad my competition must have been. I'm still in touch with my friend, and she's hung on to Free As The Wind, after all these years. On my rare visits to see her, we always look at it and laugh ourselves silly. Picture an American version of the very worst Enid Blyton you've ever read, add stilted dialogue, unrealistically capable heroines, a dopey plot, and the cheesiest pictures you can imagine, and you'll have some idea of our opus. But to this day, I remember the sense of pride and accomplishment; the wonderful feeling seeing my published poem gave me; the charge we got holding the book in our hands and thinking this is ours; we did this.

After those first giddy efforts, I continued to write. For the most part, I wrote letters, stories and memoirs. Then I got caught up in the adventure of life, as one does, and satisfied myself with merely writing letters. But some day, I was convinced, I would take it up again, full-time.

Several decades later, I decided I was ready to write another book. I had children, and like a lot of writer-parents, I made up stories for them. You don't have to be all that good to get your kids' enrapt attention: you could probably rattle off laundry lists and they'd beg for more. I knew that my kids just wanted to postpone bedtime for as long as possible, but making up stories brought back a long forgotten thrill: the joy of coming up with something that made people say What happened then? Gradually, the stories I told became more refined and elaborate. Characters took on decided personalities, developed preferences, fears and aspirations. Plots became more complex.

One story in particular began to take hold of me. When I found myself devising sub plots late at night, lying awake, unable to sleep, I bullied my husband into getting a computer, though he doubted that I'd ever use it. Five minutes after he'd set it up, I sat down and started my first children's book, writing hours at a time after work every evening. What with my job and two young children, it took me ages, and I often felt as though I was sitting in the eye of a storm, working away, while chaos raged around me. Five months later, the house was a wreck and my family were less than pleased, but I had another manuscript. It was considerably better than Free As The Wind, but it did not sell.

I wish I could tell you that after many efforts, I finally made it, but the fact is, I still haven't reached my goal. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll die before I see any of my books published. And that would be very sad, but even if I knew this was going to happen, I suspect that like Isaac Asimov, I'd just write a little faster.

The Pain Of Production

First of all, I have to make a confession: given half the chance, I tend to eavesdrop.

I put this down to my fascination with conversations and my hobby of people-watching. I don't eavesdrop in a mean-spirited or gossipy way; I don't take any information I may have gleaned and spread it around the town. I listen for accents and dialect, clever uses of language, and the politics of interaction. I try to guess at hidden subtexts and past histories, the interrelationships, the degree of affection or respect among interlocutors. And once in a while, when I am out with friends myself, I spot others that I'm certain are eavesdroppers at work. Needless to say, I do not begrudge them; I only hope they're as entertained and enlightened by the conversations I'm involved in as I've been by the ones I've stealthily monitored. As long as they obey the Eavesdroppers' Code of Honor like I do (in essence, 'Do it discretely and courteously and never even dream of joining in unless invited'), as far as I'm concerned they are more than welcome to indulge in their hobby.

Not long ago, I overheard a woman in a coffee shop compare getting a book published to the agony of labor. I too have written a book I am hoping to publish and like other would-be published writers I have learned that waiting is very much part of the deal. Up until I heard the labor comparison I'd been mentally smiling and nodding to almost everything I heard this woman say. But comparing the pains of labor to the pains of getting published? Oh no. Nooooo.

"You forget the pain," a friend of mine once commented, by way of explaining why she'd had four babies. Do you? I sure as hell never did, and I can't even remember where I put my coat. Yes, I know the woman was just speaking figuratively, but I still won't allow it: the pain of childbirth is on a rarefied plane of its own and it cannot be referred to so lightly. The walls have ears, after all, and who knows what impressionable young women may be out there listening?

For any women out there who have published, but have yet to reproduce, please believe me: going through labor hurts more than the process of getting something published. I would not want you to go into childbirth imagining a lot of frenzied, late night head-scratching, long, tedious conversations, and ages and ages of waiting. There will be waiting, there may well be lots of frenzied late night stuff, but that's pretty much where the similarity between producing a baby and producing a book stops, though I can easily imagine that the sense of pride and achievement is a pretty close match.

But the comparison that really works is going through pregnancy and writing a book. There are real similarities here -- or at least I have found that to be the case. Consider the following:

1) You start off starry-eyed, not really knowing what you're getting into. It can't be all that hard since so many other people have done it you tell yourself smugly.

2) You can easily become cloistered, and hence slovenly in your personal grooming.

3) You are in danger of becoming a bore; of answering every kindly meant And how are you doing today? with a tiresomely detailed response, forgetting that the world around you is not desirous of a blow-by-blow description of every tiny new development.

4) Housework becomes all too easy to neglect.

5) You are dependent on the expertise of others to help you achieve your goal. Only those with uncommon fortitude can go through this entirely on their own.

6) You start losing sleep at night wondering if everything will turn out okay.

7) You know that there are no guarantees that everything will turn out okay, but what can you do?

8) The further along you go, the more impossible it is to contemplate termination.

9) You wonder why you went down this road in the first place. To leave something of yourself behind? To show the world what you can do? Because in a weak moment you gave in? Because your friends and family kept telling you it was a great thing to do?

Sitting there in the coffee shop, I thought all these things and more, but of course I kept it all to myself. It's not always easy, but the Eavesdroppers' Code of Honor must always be rigorously observed.

Bringing Ishiguro to the Masses

While helping out at the school book fair recently, I was surprised at the number of children who bought books they could easily have checked out at the library. I mentioned this to another mother who was helping out, but my American accent must have gotten in the way because she misunderstood me. "I like buying books!" she said, giving me a rather supercilious look. "I buy books all the time, and I'm never happier than when I'm reading a good book!"

I assured her that she had misunderstood me. That I too read books, getting through several a week, but tended to buy only the ones I couldn't find in the library. We then got to talking about our favorite authors and she told me that hers were three very prolific writers -- two Americans and one Briton -- whose names I will not note here because I am a weenie and I do not want to be sued.

Now I'm really not a book snob. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've never read Proust and I find Faulkner a little tiresome. That Henry James gives me a headache (didn't he ever learn how to do paragraphs?) and I am out-and-out bored by John Milton. If I was really a book snob I would hide all those facts from you instead of admitting to them freely and openly. But when this woman mentioned those three particular writers, all of a sudden I felt like an elitist. Because here is the embarrassing truth: I have read the books of all three of these writers and although I blush to admit it, I have pretensions to do better.

I don't deny that these people can write. I don't deny that they can come up with interesting plots, snappy dialogue, and endings that satisfy their readers time after time. I am fully aware that they've done what I have singularly failed to do: honed their craft, marketed their work, and built up a huge readership. I honestly have no illusions about how hard it is to achieve even part of what they have achieved; I am just stubbornly convinced that if I try hard enough and am endlessly patient, I will be able to achieve something more. Something better. I am convinced that my characters won't be so one-sidedly good or bad, their romances will be more believable, and their lifestyles less unrealistically rich-and-famous. (Yeah, I already know: they'll go over like lead balloons, won't they?)

Do I really have it in me to be a better writer than these incredibly successful, bestselling writers? Am I just full of sour grapes because, while lusting after even an iota of their commercial success, I have the sense to know that I will never have one tiny scrap of their selling potential? Who knows? It doesn't even matter: I have this guilty ambition, and I might as well admit it.

I didn't say all that to my fellow book fair helper of course. I just acknowledged that I knew the authors she liked and had read their books too. And I swear to God, I wasn't the least bit snooty about it.

"So who are your favorite authors?" she then asked me. I told her that I liked Kazuo Ishiguro. She stared at me for a few seconds. "Never heard of her," she said flatly. I told her that Ishiguro was a man, that his novel Remains of the Day had been made into a successful film starring Anthony Hopkins, (she'd heard of him), but she commented rather dismissively "I don't read foreign writers."

This needled me. I happen to come from a long line of teachers and missionaries, people who had it in their DNA to try to reach the ignorant and bring The Truth to them, a quality I have inherited in spades, so I told her that Kazuo Ishiguro had lived in the U.K. since he was four, was as fluent in English as it is humanly possible to be, and almost certainly a naturalized British citizen. I said this very politely and I didn't bother to tell her that Ishiguro can write English 500 times better than any of her favorite authors, but my words cut no ice with her. So I got a little mean. I pointed out -- gently! -- that two of her favorite authors were actually Americans, i.e. foreigners, and yet that didn't take away from her reading pleasure, did it?

To this day the woman shies away from me on the street.