Alex George Books » Writing

Missing Link

Alex George — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:01:21 +0000

It occurred to me this morning that there was a photo missing from my last post, which illustrated an absolutely critical part of the process. Here it is:

This is a page chosen more or less at random, during the second six month rewrite, after I had signed my deal with Amy. I am hopeless at editing on screen – I need a pen, paper, and lots of time. (And quiet.) And then I do this sort of thing. Whether you call it fine pruning or hacking with a machete is, I suppose, a matter of opinion.

One of the reasons I wanted to post this photo is that this kind of close editing is one of the most enjoyable parts of the process for me. The careful chipping away of unnecessary words, the cleaning up of infelicitous syntax, the hunt for clarity – all these things are immensely rewarding. The only downside to it is that it is a never-ending process. I know that if I were to pick up the book today I would still find things I’d like to change. But I cannot. I am learning to ignore those little voices in my head. My work here is done.

A Story in Five Photos

Alex George — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:05:08 +0000

Once upon a time, there was a blank sheet of paper. You know, that thing Ernest Hemingway was allegedly so scared of.

This blank sheet of paper (and a few hundred others) got written on. Some guy had an idea for a story, and every morning at five o’clock, he hauled himself out of bed, switched on the coffee machine, and sat down to write for two hours, while the rest of his family slept. The story was an elusive thing. There were many wrong turns taken. Whole plot lines lay abandoned on his computer’s hard drive. Once-cherished characters got written out entirely. Some good ideas turned out to be very bad ideas. It was an exhausting, enervating, frustrating and utterly wonderful journey.

Five years later, this is what he ended up with:

So: a book! Or rather: a big block of paper with lots of words on it!

The guy sent this big block of paper to his literary agent in London, who liked the story. His agent sent it to another agent in New York, who also liked the story. Submissions began simultaneously in both markets. Within days, there was a response from a well-known editor in New York. She loved much of the novel, but couldn’t make an offer for it. The last third of the story was too flawed, she said.

OK, said the guy, wobbling only slightly. As rejections go, that’s pretty heartening.

Over the course of the next few months, the big block of paper was rejected by everyone else, too. Many people professed to love it, but nobody wanted to published the damn thing. Most mornings there was another rejection waiting in the guy’s inbox. He began to dread waking up. He became despondent. Sure, he still had his big block of paper – nobody was ever going to be able to take his story and his characters away from him. It was still, people told him kindly, a wonderful achievement.

But.

Finally, the guy called his agents and told them to stop the submissions. Something was obviously wrong with the story. It needed more work. He hunkered down, and with a slightly heavy heart, attacked the manuscript once again. The five o’clock starts acquired a new focus. Six months later, he had a streamlined story, with a completely new ending. This time, they submitted the manuscript to just one editor – the very first person to respond last time around. And, this time, she liked it, and made an offer to publish it. But, she warned, it still needed a lot of work. Oh, and a new title.

The guy and his new editor talked long and often on the telephone, discussing what had to be done. “A lot of work” was something of an understatement. The guy sat down and beavered away for another six months, making wholesale changes to the story. And the story was immeasurably better as a result. A few weeks after he delivered the revised manuscript, this arrived in the mail:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is an uncorrected early proof copy. It is, frankly, a mess. It’s full of typos. The font size changes at haphazard moments, the pages are not properly formatted, and the cover, you’ll notice, won’t be winning any design awards, either. But, to the guy’s eyes, it was a thing of beauty. All those words he had been wresting with for so long finally looked like a book. He no longer needed a carrier bag to haul his novel around.

Work continued. The text was line edited, copy edited, proof edited, fact checked. Every last syllable was scrutinized. The guy read and reread, wrote and rewrote, until the words were swimming in front of his eyes.

Then came the cover. And it was a thing of beauty. Soon after that, galleys were printed, resplendent with gorgeous design and kind quotes from early reviewers.

These beauties were sent to reviewers, booksellers, magazines and a fair few were sent out to readers. Soon people began to talk about the book. Reviews began to appear online. A buzz was building. (By this time, the guy’s left arm was a mosaic of black and blue bruises from all the pinching that had been going on.)

And then, just after Christmas, this arrived in the mail.

I’m kind of anxious to find out what happens next.

Words of Wisdom from Ann Patchett

Alex George — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 15:58:25 +0000

Last week a bought a Kindle. I know, I know.

Now, I’ve been down this path before. I wrote here about my brief and unfulfilling flirtation with a Nook, and this post shows another problem with e-readers generally. I will never, ever stop buying books… but, well, let’s be honest – there’s a certain inevitability about it all, isn’t there? I’m going back to England for Christmas and New Year and I really don’t want half of my allotted baggage weight to be books – especially since (because I can’t do otherwise) I would also have to lug them back across the Atlantic after I’d read them. And the Kindle really is very dinky and light and all that good stuff.

But perhaps the best reason for buying a kindle is that there is now material that is only being made available to people with e-readers. Many authors are publishing their out-of-contract back catalogs for e-readers via sites like Smashwords, and of course – if this is your kind of thing - there is always the next self-published erotic vampire novel to get your teeth into (ba-boom-tish, I’m here all week, etc.)

One of the main reasons I finally broke down and bought my kindle was because I was desperate to read an extended essay called The Getaway Car by Ann Patchett, which is only available in downloadable format through amazon. Patchett is probably best-known for her novel Bel Canto, which I read and enjoyed several years ago – although by all accounts, her new book, State of Wonder, is better yet (the – please note - actual book is sitting next to me as I write, and I am itching to start it.)

The Get Away Car, though, is something different. It’s part memoir, part rumination, part advice column. Patchett offers up some of her personal memories and reflections on her career as a writer. Anyone who is in interested in the creative process of sticking words down on paper should get their hands on it at once. You’ll devour it in one sitting. It is absorbing, inspiring, funny, honest, modest, and – best of all – it’s full of wise observations and advice. Patchett writes about writing with refreshingly unsentimental candor. Here are a few gems I pulled out more or less at random. For each quote there were another ten I could have chosen.

First of all, perhaps the best metaphor for novel writing that I’ve yet come across:

“Novel writing, I soon discovered, is like channel swimming: a slow and steady stroke over a long distance in a cold, dark sea.”

Next, an elegant description of the mountain authors have to climb every time they are confronted by the proverbial blank page:

“What I like about the job of being a novelist, and at the same time what I find so exhausting about it, is that it’s the closest thing to being God that you’re ever going to get. All of the decisions are yours. You decide when the sun comes up. You decide who gets to fall in love and who gets hit by a car. You have to make all the leaves and all the trees and then sew the leaves onto the trees. You make the entire world.”

This next one resonated with me especially:

“As much as I love what I do, I forever feel like a dog on the wrong side of the door. If I’m writing a book, I’m racing to be finished; if I’m finished, I feel aimless and wish that I were writing a book.”

And finally, perhaps the truest words of all:

“Writing is a miserable, awful business. Stay with it. It is better than anything in the world.”

Thank you, Ann Patchett, for writing such a wonderful little book. I’ll be returning to it time and time again. Very highly recommended.

To Read, or Not To Read?

Alex George — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:51:45 +0000

In my earlier post about my trip to the Midwest Booksellers’ Association in Minneapolis, I mentioned that at the dinner hosted by Penguin on the Thursday night, there had been some spirited discussion between booksellers about what made for the best author events. Certain booksellers felt that, as a general rule, authors should never read from their books at book signings. It sounds counter-intuitive, but when you think about it, the idea makes a lot of sense.

For a start, listening to most writers (or indeed anyone) read out loud from a book is usually rather boring. Secondly, people who make the effort to go out to an author event at a bookshop are looking for an experience that can’t be replicated (or bettered) simply by sitting at home on the sofa. So instead of just reading what they’ve already written, writers need to provide insight, anecdotes, background… all these things can enhance a reader’s enjoyment of a book more than simply listening to the author declaim his or her own words. Speaking for myself, I always enjoy answering questions during the Q & A session far more than the reading itself.

But don’t take it from me. The most vocal proponent of this idea in Minneapolis was Geoffrey Jennings, who works at the wonderful Rainy Day Books in Kansas City. In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Geoffrey’s mother Vivien, founder of the store, weighed in, echoing his opinion. Rainy Day are renowned in the industry for the quality of their author events, so they really do know what they’re talking about.

One of the best author events I’ve been to recently was by Eleanor Brown, whose best-selling novel, The Weird Sisters, I have raved about on this blog before. Eleanor did read a small extract from her novel (actually “perform” would be a better description), but most of the evening was Eleanor chatting about the book, giving insights into her creative process, and answering a ton of questions from the audience. It was both stimulating and highly entertaining. Of course, when it comes to pulling something like this off, it helps if you’re, well, Eleanor Brown, who is one of the warmest and most engaging people on the planet. And this is one of the key points here: writers these days need to be able to speak eloquently and entertainingly about their work. We can’t hide behind the words on the page any more.

I’m going to be doing an author event for A GOOD AMERICAN at Rainy Day Books on Thursday, February 23 next year. At least I have plenty of time to work out what I’m going to say!

I should note that not everyone at the dinner agreed with Geoffrey’s opinion. And indeed, in the WSJ piece, some event-planners do like authors to read something. What do you think? Do you like to hear an author read from their work at events, or do you prefer just to listen to them speak?

Unplugging

Alex George — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:34:22 +0000

I’ve just come back from a few days away from Missouri. The children were not with me over Thanksgiving this year, and of course my family all live thousands of miles away, so there didn’t seem to be much point hanging around. Turkey for one, sir?

So I took off, for a quick visit to Philadelphia – somewhere I’d never been before. I had a wonderful time, loved exploring the city, and ate magnificently throughout. (Top tip: if you want to eat really well, dine with a food and travel writer. Or even better, with two. They know all the best places and are always treated like royalty. Thank you, Kayt!)

Prior to leaving I asked twitter whether or not I should take my laptop with me. The answer was a unanimous no. So, taking a deep breath, I left it behind.

And I am very glad that I did.

Without my laptop sitting in quiet accusation on the desk of my hotel room, I was able to relax and enjoy myself. Rather than pecking desultorily at the keyboard, then, the time I spent in my hotel room was a guilt-free blast. I raided the mini-bar, read a couple of books, and watched a boatload of rubbish television. I hardly thought about my novel-in-progress at all. Emails were read (I did have my phone) but every single one of them went unanswered. (None was especially urgent.) And it was all rather blissful.

Just like everyone else, writers need downtime, periods away from the pressure of work. But it’s harder to achieve for us, because it’s a different kind of a job that we do: there are no defined hours, no paid vacation days (and no health insurance, but don’t get me started on that.) It’s more difficult to leave my writing behind me than it is for my legal work. Of course, I’m only speaking for myself, but there is an irritating little voice in the back of my head which is eternally whispering: “You know, you could always go and write some more.” Sometimes the only way to shut it up it is to adopt draconian methods, e.g. leaving the damn computer behind.

While I was discussing this whole idea on twitter the night before my departure for Philly, Rebecca of The Book Lady’s Blog told me about an annual tradition of hers: Fall Back Weekend. It’s a simple idea. The weekend in autumn that the clocks go back, you go off-grid for the entire weekend. No email, no internet, no telephone, no television, nothing. Nary a single tweet. (If you can get through the entire weekend without getting out of your pajamas, you get bonus points.) I think it all sounds rather wonderful. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll be able to wait a year before I try it.

Anyway – here I am, back at my desk, feeling refreshed and ready to leap back into the creative fray. Do you have any tricks you use to recharge your batteries or get yourself out of a rut if you feel things are getting stale?

Galleys Ahoy

Alex George — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:33:46 +0000

On Monday morning, the nice UPS man knocked on my office door with a package from New York. In it were five galleys, or Advanced Reading Copies, or ARCs, of A GOOD AMERICAN. These are, essentially, final softcover versions of the book (it will be published in hardback) complete with (brilliant) cover art, embarrassing author photo, blurbs, and what-have-you. Penguin have produced a ton of these for circulation to reviewers, booksellers, bloggers, and other influential book-lovers in the hope that those lovely people might be prompted to write or talk about the book in advance of its publication in February. I believe the technical term is creating a buzz.

I posted here about the very special moment when you finally hold something resembling a book in your hands for the first time. Needless to say, it’s something else again when the book looks dangerously like the finished product. I know I’m biased, but I think they look rather splendid:

So, now these babies have begun to make their way out into the publishing world. I’ve already spoken to a couple of indie booksellers who have received their copies. This is when the fun really starts. Up until now it has been those nice people at Penguin saying how much they like the book – but then, the cynic/realist/gloomy bastard in me says: well, they would, wouldn’t they? That is, after all, their job. Now, though, my little book will come under the unblinking eye of some of the smartest, best-read people on the planet.

Anxious, moi?!?

Take Cover!

Alex George — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:44:12 +0000

I am very proud finally to be able to show you the US cover for A GOOD AMERICAN.

I had discussed various possible themes with Amy soon after the text was finished, but really had no idea what to expect when this little electronic file plopped into my inbox. I was, I can admit now, a little apprehensive. But I absolutely adore this. I think it’s elegant and classy and I am very proud of it.

Not much more to say, really, other than I hope you like it, too. Do let me know what you think.

Maine

Alex George — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 12:27:41 +0000

Earlier this week I arrived back in Missouri after a blissful week in Maine. From ME to MO. What a difference a letter makes.

I wrote a lot, read a lot, climbed a few mountains, and ate an awful lot of delicious fresh seafood. My cottage was on a secluded cove near Acadia National Park. It was a one-room wooden building, with no telephone, no internet, and about thirteen paces from the pebbled beach where I spent a lot of time watching birds swoop down low over the still water, hunting for fish, and then glide upwards in graceful parabolas over the skyline of dark green pines that stretched into the distance.

It was utterly perfect.

And what was even better was that I was able to call it all work. Because my new novel, praise be, is set in Maine. So this was all, you understand, in the name of selfless research. So, um, please ignore all those other posts I’ve written about research being an irrelevance; if it involves trips like this one then I am here to tell you that research is absolutely crucial. (And yes, tax-deductible, too.)

For reasons I am not yet ready to divulge, my new book had to be set in either Maine or Rhode Island. I vacillated between the two for some time, but finally chose Maine after we spent a few days there last summer. It wasn’t an easy decision – when people think of Maine, many have a certain image already in their heads. That’s not so much the case when it comes to Rhode Island, unless you’re a Blossom Dearie fan. By choosing Maine, then, I have created a slightly larger obstacle for myself, as I will have to overcome readers’ preconceived notions of the place.

But now I’m in no doubt that I made the right decision. I have fallen hopelessly in love. I want to move there, right now. I loved everything about the place, from its ridiculous beauty to the friendliness of the natives, to the juiciness of the blueberries. I felt completely at home – and as a displaced ex-pat Brit with homesickness issues, that tells you something. It will be a tremendous (and probably impossible) challenge to capture and convey all that I found so enchanting, but that’s all part of the fun. And I know that my honeyed view as a summer visitor would look very different in mid-February. Maine winters are long and hard. I need to find that out for myself, too. But if you are going to try and really get to know a place – well enough to write about it in a novel – it helps if you adore it to begin with.

So, I hope this is a love affair that is only just beginning. One thing is clear. Many, many more trips back will be needed if I am to do Maine justice. It’s a tough job, I know, but someone has to do it. The photo below is the view from the back porch of my cabin. I know, right?

Music for the Ages

Alex George — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 12:35:52 +0000

Finally, a respite from all the advice. Now it’s my turn to ask for your help. (And, I know. You never asked for mine.)

I’ve been having a fine old time lately enjoying Spotify, a music website that has (finally) been made available over here in the US. It is an amazing resource and I have been discovering lots of wonderful new music as well as relishing some old favorites that I haven’t heard for years.

One of the great things about Spotify is the ability for people to create playlists that others can enjoy. When I was in New York a while ago meeting with the Penguin marketing and publicity people, we thought – since there is a lot of music in the book – that it would be a fun idea to create a playlist that people could access to listen to some of the music that I talk about. That playlist has now been created, although it is very much a work in progress. I don’t think I can put a link to it here, but if you have signed up for spotify and are on twitter or facebook, drop me a line and I will send you the link.

Anyway, yesterday I posted a question on twitter and facebook about bluegrass music (something I know very little about, save for occasional trips to the Moniteau County Fair, where grizzled old men with big hats and straggly beards unsmilingly pluck at their fiddles), and I was overwhelmed by the generous and knowledgeable response. It became clear that, technically, “bluegrass” didn’t really exist at the time the story is set. There was much discussion (we got to over 50 comments!) about precisely what sort of music might have been played – thank you, Mary and Richard. It was an illuminating discussion.

Anyway, for those of you who are interested, I thought it might be helpful if I posted an extract from the book which talks about the sort of musical acts that turned up at the local tavern in Beatrice, Missouri, to play their tunes. This being 1919, Prohibition was right around the corner – hence the goodbye party.

The last year of the Nick-Nack’s life was an extended goodbye party. People drank as if every evening would be their last. Business had never been better. Joseph began to help when he could, sweeping floors, clearing tables and washing glasses. The customers were kind to him. They slipped small coins into his pocket and pressed crumpled cigarettes on him with a benign wink. Joseph began to understand that the tavern traded in more than simply drink. Other commodities were also on offer: companionship, community, and the comfort of ritual. He became familiar with the nightly rhythms of hope and despair, as the world slowly collapsed around the men who drank there. They wept, fought, slept, and stared longingly at his mother, before stumbling out into the darkness at the end of each night.

Meanwhile, there was music everywhere. The Nick-Nack was reveling in an extended, marvelous swan song. Just about anyone who walked through the door with an instrument under his arm could secure a night’s work. There were brass ensembles, string quartets, an endless procession of guitars and fiddles.

Joseph enjoyed the bands, but it was the singers he remembered the most. A woman came from Quincy, Illinois, squeezed into a tight satin dress and a slash of scarlet across her mouth. She winked and hollered her way through a honky-tonk repertoire of old bordello songs, bursting with lewd innuendo. She had the saddest eyes Joseph had ever seen. There was a huge ogre of a man, nearly seven feet tall with a long black beard down to his chest, who carried his double bass on to the stage as if it were a child’s violin. He glared furiously at the audience, and then began to croon plaintive love songs in a screeching falsetto, accompanying himself with occasional low percussive thwacks on the bass strings. Identical twins from Moberly hunched over their banjos and sang mournful songs of longing and regret. The long necks of their instruments pointed away from each other, slender horns on a double-headed beast.

Does this inspire anyone to suggest any other music I might add to the playlist – bordello songs included?!?

Finding Time to Write, Part 3 – Prevarication/Getting Started

Alex George — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 12:38:58 +0000

So, to business.

If for no other reason than in a doubtless doomed attempt to impress you all, let’s start with a quote from the mercurial French writer, Jules Renard, writing in his journal: “A fly alighting on the sheet of white paper was excuse enough to give himself the right to be idle. He did not write, for fear of disturbing the fly.”

Sound familiar?

We will always find reasons to avoid writing.

We will procrastinate, prevaricate, delay, and then we will look up more words in the Thesaurus.

And then we will stall, defer action, drag our heels, and be dilatory.

And when we all do this, people, we are not writing.

We don’t say: “I’m never going to write my novel.” Because that would never do.

However we do say: “I’m going to write my novel tomorrow.”

Except of course we don’t. Because we say the same thing again the next day. And so it goes on.

William Goldman said: “The easiest thing in the world is not to write.” And he had a point.

Are you scared on the blank page, as Hemingway so famously was? Are you great at making notes, mapping out plans, drafting synopses, creating your characters’ back stories, but reluctant to start putting actual words down on the page? Well, you are not alone.

We all do it – putting off the moment, I mean. I’ve been plotting and planning my new novel for ages. I found all sorts of really good reasons not to begin. I wrote here about the delicious promise of a blank page, and there is no doubt that before you set out on the journey, all that potential is very beguiling – and it seems a shame to spoil all that promise by, you know, actually writing anything.

But at some point you need to take a deep breath, and start writing. Because if you’re a writer, you write. So you’d better stop making excuses and jump in.

It doesn’t matter if it’s not great. (I’ve just completed the first chapter of my new novel and I have no intention of reading it for days, if not weeks, because I know I will get disheartened at how rubbish those ten pages are.) It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Here’s Margaret Atwood, who knows a thing or two about writing:

“If I waited for perfection, I would never write a word.”

So don’t aim too high. Don’t expect Pulitzer Prize stuff right out of the gate. Just take a deep breath and just jump in. Get something down. It’s invigorating and intoxicating. You’ll probably find all sorts of strange and interesting things happen. (Within three lines of starting the first chapter of my new book all of my carefully planned outlines lay in tatters as I found myself writing about horse flies. These things happen. Best to go with the flow.) You can always go back and revise the hell out of it later. But you won’t even be able to do that until you have some words on the page to mess about with.

My friend Beth Hoffman offered up these fine words of advice elsewhere on the internet: “Don’t fret about getting all the details into first draft; a manuscript is like a cake, let it bake and cool, then go back and decorate!”

So, go bake your cake.

Next up: Getting all efficient on yo’ ass: now you’ve carved out some time and have begun to write – how to stay focused and make the most of your precious time.