What I'm Doing...and a Few Thoughts on Writing

Tonight I'm working on back stories for my main characters. I should be done in a few days and will post them this coming Friday, or at least those I've finished. Back stories are fun...and easy. You don't have to worry about style or grammar since they won't make it into your novel. I'm having a good time with this.

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Writing, I think, is a lot like cooking. Cooking is my hobby. Having some knowledge of what foods go together or training in cooking usually helps. And by training I don't necessarily mean going to a cooking school. Few of us can afford that. Mom, aunts, older siblings can all teach you how to cook, assuming they know how themselves. In my case I learned some things by watching my dad cook. His repertoire was limited but what he cooked was good.

In cooking you get your ingredients, mix them together and hopefully come up with something tasty. If you mix together mismatched ingredients however you get something that sucks. I've done that lots of times.

Writing, at least fiction writing, is similar. You get your ingredients, i.e.: characters, settings, plot, and mix them together. Hopefully you've chosen your "ingredients" wisely. If you have you will end up with a well written story that people want to read. However, if you choose those ingredients badly, and there are lots of bad, boring or terribly written stories out there, than you get a bad short story, novelette, novel, etc. And like cooking a little training, self or otherwise, doesn't hurt. I've taken writing classes taught by published authors and have also read lots of books about writing. Writer's Digest is a good source for those books. Some folks have a natural ability to write fiction. Most of us, however, need a little guidance and training. Enough of that before I get boring.

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I just finished reading Henning Mankell's Faceless Killers. I spoke of this book a few days ago. Mankell is a pretty good Swedish mystery novelist. His novels are published in the U.S. in translation from the original Swedish. They were also translated by someone who speaks British English and not American English. Even so if you can get past all that reading Mankell is a treat that any reader of hard boiled detective fiction will like. I recommend him highly. You can get his books at any major (or minor) bookseller. And that brings me to my digression for the evening. I like the chains. In fact I worked for several years at Barnes & Noble in New York City; it was a great job. The reason I like the big chain stores is because they can carry midlist authors that the smaller stores can't simply because of space and financial limitations. They have a selection unparalleled by independent booksellers. There are plenty of authors who probably would not have made it without the chains to stock and sell their books. That being said I also like independents and have a great deal of respect for anyone with the guts to open an independent bookstore, especially in the current economy. In addition independent booksellers can usually provide a service that chains usually don't. That service is knowledgeable booksellers, people who can recommend titles better than most chain store employees.

I know it sounds like I'm riding the fence on this issue but I'm not. I think there are many positives to both chain and independent booksellers. I'm sure there are plenty of folks who disagree with me on that. I'ld love to hear from you if you want to comment.

That's all for tonight. I'll be back tomorrow with more.