According to Dostoyevsky (who met Dickens in the offices of his literary magazine in 1878), “He told me that all the good simple people in his novels, Little Nell, even the holy simpletons like Barnaby Rudge, are what he wanted to have been, and his villains were what he was (or rather, what he found in himself). . . “(VF 70).

To prove this, Hitchens underlines Dickens’ prejudices and then, in respect for the literary lion, Hitchens demonstrates the attempts Dickens made to atone for the faults to which his attention was drawn. Lovely.

Throughout, we are shown Dickens’ inner child, as apparent–for example–in his enthusiasm for celebrating birthdays. There follows a witty digression into the focus on birthday cards in modern society.  Hitchens can forgive such enthusiasm because it comes from the inner child of “the man who helped generate the Hallmark birthday industry and  who, with some of his less imposing and more moistly sentimental prose scenes in A Christmas Carol, took the Greatest Birthday Ever Told and helped make it into a near Ramadan of protracted obligatory celebration now darkening our Decembers.”

I am not here to speak ill of the dead. I have understood for quite a while that Hitchens was opposed to religion in general, ascribing the ills of mankind to faith rather than to the weaknesses of humanity.  However, it seems ironic that a writer of such  perspicacity, so gifted at pinpointing the weaknesses of individuals and institutions, should have missed the distinction that since it is humans who make distortions, the goal is balance.

Literary wars continue–our humanity is in how we wage them. Dickens did not do so badly.

I love most things about the holidays. I love that our girls and their guys come to visit. I like hearing from friends whom I don’t hear from very often and catching up with their lives (I’m not a Facebook fan, so Christmas cards are still a yearly event at our house). I like the bounce in peoples’ steps, the smiles on their faces. I love all the decorations. I don’t, however, enjoy the extra cleaning that goes with having company. I don’t enjoy fighting traffic as I scramble to finish last minute shopping. I could also do without wrapping presents. But the number one thing (by far and away) I don’t like about the holidays is that I have so very little time to write.

This year it’s more annoying than it was the past few years because I’m smack in the middle of a new project—a new project that’s been going so well the book is nearly writing itself. I have managed to snare a few days to devote to my writing (and reading/critiquing with Julia) over the past few weeks, but for the most part, my book (and new posts for this blog!!) has been on hold. There are just too many other things that need to get done. This is nothing new, of course; it’s happened to me many times over the years. Most times I’m able to settle back into a daily writing schedule by the first of the year, but there have been other times when it’s taken months.

Interrupting our flow as writers is never a good idea, but sometimes it simply can’t be helped. The holiday season is one of those times. Rather than getting frustrated, let’s give ourselves a pass. No guilty feelings about unmet goals. No sleepless nights worrying about whether we’ll recapture the flow. Of course we will! We’re writers. But we’re people, too. And on that end, I’d like to wrap this up by wishing all of our readers and fellow writers a very Merry Christmas and an incredibly safe and Happy New Year!

Young Gustave Flaubert

It is no secret to longtime writers that reading one’s own work aloud is the best way to tell if the writing moves, flows, excites. It is the best way to notice errors such as using the same word too often or making a character do something twice.

I vividly recall a teacher once telling the class about Gustave Flaubert’s habit of reading aloud. Gustave Flaubert was a 19th century novel writer best known for his work, Madame Bovary. Apparently he lived, at one time, near a river, and people in boats, were they quiet enough, could hear him reading his work aloud to himself.  (What I would not have given to have been floating by!)

Of course, reading aloud may have its drawbacks. Once, Gustave Flaubert read the first version of a novel aloud to a couple of friends, asking them to keep quiet until he was finished. At the end of his reading, they told him to throw the book in the fire. (Not my idea of friends.)

I often ask my students if they have read their works aloud and they almost unanimously answer that they have not.. On an individual basis, it is helpful to take a student aside with his or her essay–not necessarily in front of others, but possibly after class or in some manner that is quiet and non-threatening  When we have privacy, I may read the student’s essay aloud to the student. It is amazing that almost without fail, every single error of grammar or logic becomes quite apparent and the student catches almost everything that I would have had to notate by pen.  The method, for teaching, is far better than handing an annotated paper back to a student who, in the rush of everyday matters, may not take the time to note each detail.

If those wishing to improve their writing would read aloud, they might shortcut such writing classes.

Note to our regular readers:

From time to time, Julia and I have agreed we can use this blog to rant, rave, and vent about topics that might not have anything to do with writing. Today is one of those days, so all of you who don’t care about basketball and the NBA, my apologies for having bothered you today.

Normally as the month of November rolls in, robbing me of Fresno’s perfect fall weather—sunny and in the mid 70s to low 80s—I settle in after a long day behind the computer to watch TV, namely NBA basketball, and more specifically, the Lakers. The league’s regular season begins around the 30^th of October. Thanks to NBA League Pass, I am able to watch not only the Lakers but any other team playing on any given night. (This is a very good thing for Jody, since his favorite team is in Oklahoma.) 

For those you who don’t follow the sport, you probably don’t even know, let alone care, that the NBA is on strike. All of November’s games have been cancelled by the league’s commissioner, David Stern. Given how the league’s owners and players have been fighting over the details of a new collective bargaining agreement since June, there has been virtually no NBA news all summer. That means no trades, no free agent signings, no summer league, no training camp. Nothing. Natta. Nil. And all of that means that once an agreement is finally reached, there will be a period of at least another six weeks for teams to get their houses in order before any actual games can be played. So realistically, fans can’t expect to have any games to watch before the first of January, at the earliest. There will be fewer games this year because of that lost time, which, for older teams like the Lakers and Celtics may actually wind up being a good thing. But for fans in general, what it means is we will spend less time watching our favorite sport.

I don’t like that, but I can live with it. But I have to wonder about the tens of thousands of people who depend on the NBA season for their weekly paychecks: Arena vendors, parking attendants, ticket takers, referees, security guards, game announcers and camera crews to name a few. No games means no jobs. And it goes beyond the people who work at the arenas. There are thousands more business owners who look to basketball fans to eat at their restaurants, drink at their bars, and park in their lots.

In my 2007 book, Hoop Lore, I discuss how difficult it was for the NBA to attract and maintain a solid fan base over the years. When compared with the NFL and major league baseball, the NBA still falls short on that end. But the league has been making solid progress since the early 1980s, when Magic and Bird arrived on the hardwood, and after them, Michael Jordan. There was a reversal of fortune in the 1990s for too many reasons to go into here, but suffice it to say, the league managed to rebuild again and secure what is probably its best ever following on a worldwide scale. Sadly, all of that is now in jeopardy. Apparently, little was learned from a similar situation in 1999.

I don’t have a horse in this race. I feel both owners and players are equally responsible for the mess they have created. The current minimum annual salary in the NBA ranges from about half a million dollars for a first year player to $1,350,000 for veterans. The average player makes about $5.5 million, and the league’s superstars upwards of $20 million. Owners are whining about losing money hand over fist. Even if this is true, Forbes estimates the average NBA team is currently worth $369 million, which suggests those owners are probably not struggling to pay their mortgages.

The real problem with all of these numbers is that the fans, those of us who buy the tickets and merchandise and cable subscriptions that make those insane numbers possible, are finding it rather hard to accept that millionaires and billionaires are squabbling over what amounts to pennies in our eyes. Maybe they haven’t heard the country has been in a deep recession for the past four years, and as a result, no one is making as much money as they were five years ago (if they are lucky enough to have a job at all). Or perhaps they just believe they are so unique, so special, so important that the everyday makeup of society doesn’t apply to them. Either way, they need a wake-up call. And very likely, that call will come in the form of plenty of empty seats in arenas, smaller TV ratings, and an overall disgruntled fan base that will be looking elsewhere for their sports entertainment. March Madness, anyone?

   I am looking at 8 more weeks of an accelerated English 1A class that will definitely take a chunk out of my writing time. I got my class started last week, terrifying the students with a syllabus that gave the usual requirements for an 18 week course of writing with its required word count,research paper skill acquirement, and critical thinking exercises beginning with readings in Machiavelli’s The Prince and Lao Tzu’s Tao Te Ching.  Four students dropped the first week in a fit of horror.

That was the Machiavellian start. I simply spelled it out.  Machiavelli isn’t scary as a writer, nor was he a scary human being, but his name is associated with evil because he  was pragmatic in assessing the way a prince achieves and maintains power.

Machiavelli advised that a prince be both loved and feared, but if one of these qualities has to be lacking, than it is better to be feared than loved. He’s right, of course, and if he were not right, none of my students would ever learn anything. They have to fear me; I assign the grades.

But when they are so scared they ruin their own learning process by not coming to class due to a paper unwritten (through lack of confidence), then I have to resort to Lao Tzu and the Tao Te Ching.  Peace is the highest value for the Taoist, and peace of the soul is the only true definition for “peace” because none of us can change the world. It is already perfect.  There is a reason for everything and a time for everything. That is the Taoist view.

I attempted to restore peace to the souls of my students yesterday, assuring them that I would work with them, around books ordered and arriving to them late,  in the second week of class–I help them with URLs and library reference desk copies–around  the fears of the word count and the utter gobblety-gook they feel their first efforts amount to on paper, their lack of confidence and understanding of Machiavelli or Lao Tzu.  I told them, in so many words, to let it be. We will achieve, we will overcome, and we will become better writers.

A dear student-friend told me, after class, that I should not “hand” the course to them. Have I done so? They will write the same number of papers and word count as required in any 8 or 9 week course. They will be held to the same standards. I simply left the whip unseen, if it ever existed. Did it? I do not know.

And I too am breathing easier. My book will get written, despite the load of papers. I will stop stressing about the class that is supposed to be hard.  When I visualize it as not hard,but as a natural part of life, like sleeping or eating, it takes its natural place, and I can breathe.

I have often wondered if Machiavelli and Lao Tzu were not, with different words, giving pretty much the same message. They were concerned with the maintenance of the state and not losing one’s footing.

The other day she tried to tell me not to fret, this is not a race, and that she will always be there to read my chapters when they are ready. I must have panicked a little since I have a new class starting in mid October and my time to write will be more limited. As I explained to her, I am panicking not because I will stop, but because once she is through, her energy will change. Right now she is just trying to get it down on virtual paper, and it feels to me like she is on the crest of a wave.

I am hugely benefiting from her energy as she is, mine. We meet approximately once a week.  We each bring two or more copies of the chapter that we intend to read. When it is my turn, for instance, we both hold a copy of my chapter while I  read it. When it is the other person’s turn, same thing. We  comment on what we like and what “bumps.”  And that, in a nutshell, is the way a writer’s group works. The literary adrenalin is fabulous. We both feel it afterwards and go back to writing our next chapters. energized and inspired.

Connie writes: Julia is SO right about everything she mentions above. Writers do feed off each other’s energy—when they have good working relationships with other writers, that is. Julia and I continue to marvel at how wonderful it is that we found each other. In theory, you wouldn’t expect it would be that difficult to find another writer, or even two or three, who are at the same skill level (or better) than you are. With so many folks writing books, how hard could it be to connect? Well, I can tell you from experience, it’s incredibly hard. Critique groups—and here I’m talking the old fashioned, face-to-face, group where writers sit together at a table and read their work aloud while the others follow along on a printed copy as Julia explains above—are an important asset . . . but only if the writers in that group are as good or better than you are. If you mix talent levels, then the normal result is the top one or two writers wind up teaching a writing class (for free) to those less experienced. That’s okay on occasion, but if it becomes the norm, than those top writers are getting very little—if any—positive energy from the group, and in fact are more likely to feel drained of their writing energy altogether. Julia and I don’t write the same type of books, but we write at the same level. That’s why we get so much out of sharing our work with each other.

As you see from the date of this post, we aren’t being as vigilant about checking in weekly as we’d planned. But alas, that’s actually a good thing, at least for us, as it means we are pouring our time and energy into writing books that we believe are going to sell the old-fashioned way: via the agent to publisher route. Personally, I don’t expect to get there by writing a novel in thirty days, but to those writers who are participating in that monthly contest, I wish you all the best of luck. Now I’m going to enjoy the rest of my Sunday, which will mainly entitle thinking about what I’m going to write tomorrow.

First up, I’d like to report (happily) that I did finish that difficult scene I mentioned in my last update. An emotional read aloud to a couple of friends signaled it comes across as I hoped it would. So, I give myself an A for that. As for total progress on the novel, I have to say the past two weeks, which we’re combining because of the holiday, were on the slow side for me. I still got about 15 new pages written, but that’s substantially less than I turned out during the first two weeks. Still, progress is progress. I have learned over the years that it’s a waste of time to force myself to write for the sake of meeting some everyday proposed word or page goal because that type of writing just winds up getting cut in future drafts. Also, it can ruin whatever type of flow I have going. So, in some cases, less is definitely more.

On a somewhat related topic, as I approach my mid-50s, I am finding I simply don’t have the energy and drive to write for seven or eight hours per day anymore. Gardening and household chores take a lot longer than they used to. And when I am writing, my arthritis forces me to get up at least every hour and move around. If I didn’t do this, I would become permanently chair bound. And while that might be all right insofar as my writing progress goes, it wouldn’t do much for my home life. My point is, if you are currently in your 30s or 40s and in good health, be sure to make the most of every single day you have to write.  Time truly does wait for no one.

Julia writes:

Interesting to see from what you’ve written, Connie, that things went a bit slower for you this week. Same here! I felt blocked by an important scene that I simply could not figure out how to begin. Then I realized, after our read last Thursday, that I should just write through it, which I did by recording a conversation. Your comment, “I can fill in sensory details later” resonated with me.

To everyone: I am trying to take the book I wrote twenty years ago and use it as the backdrop story to a new one set in the same place, a boarding school.  I noted in reading a great article on writing and publishing in the most current issue of Vanity Fair that every time an author does a revision of an old story, the story changes because the author has changed.  Therefore, we cannot hope to ever “see” a book  we have written as perfect because we, as the originators, have changed and would rephrase or edit out and in various scenes every time we sit down to edit.

The main thing I get, from being with really professional people (Connie and Lesley) during reads, is that a writer should not be too hard on him or herself.  We have to just keep writing or we will be blocked forever!

Personally, I had another pretty good week. I wrote 12 more pages, which gives me a grand total of 28 so far. While some of that will eventually be scrapped—this is, after all, a first draft—I’m still feeling very good about how this book is coming together. Today I have to write a scene that’s going to be one of the most difficult in the book. I’m not looking forward to it, and in fact I thought about it all day yesterday, which limited my forward progress. But that’s writing. It doesn’t always sail smoothly along like you hope. By this time next week, I expect to report that I successfully finished this scene and was thus able to move on. Stay tuned.

Julia‘: Driving to Stockton’s University of the Pacific  for the second time in three days, what story did my mind work on? The murder mystery ghost story novel? Heck, no. That would have been too logical. Instead, at the tail end of my second coffee on the road, the perfect details to finish another story I wrote about 11 years ago ( a story, not a novel or even novella) came together.  Just now I wrote them down on my laptop, and saved.

Of course my main project is the new book, but sometimes the muse asks for peculiar favors. I have asked Connie if she has had this problem, but I do not remember what she answered. I know I will have to get back on task or there will be nothing polished to read at our meetings!

Connie and I have been talking about our new books for months now, but talking is not usually the same thing as writing.  Over the years I have noticed almost everyone grows dewy eyed when talking about what he or she wants to write, or about what life will be like when said work is already written.  The cold hard truth is that a book won’t get written by itself, and chances are even slimmer that it will get rewritten.

Writing a book takes a heck of a lot of commitment through the days and months of tummy upsets, sore shoulders, bad news, and all the good shows on TV or YouTube that one would rather be watching. Even after a writer has written one book or five books, the next unwritten book is still another huge undertaking. It would be easier, I expect, if one were a feted writer with a strong marketing department poised and ready to spring into action once the last period is in place. Speaking for myself, I cannot write without encouragement. 

Luckily for me, thank God, I have Connie.   I have been waiting for her to begin this new novel, which is going to be a sensation.  Connie is a dynamite writer who knows how to keep a reader on the edge of her seat.  That is the kind of reader I need to critique my upcoming novel. 

Now that she is writing, one fine day soon, I will show up at her door with my first chapter.  We will read through her chapter and then my chapter, and we will give each other our true feelings about the way the chapters sound, helping each other write her best.  I can’t wait. 

Connie writes:

First let me say that having a writing pal as loyal as Julia is rare, and I appreciate her on so many levels. I truly hope the new novel I have begun turns out to be a sensation.  I am writing it with that result in mind, because if there is one thing I’ve learned over the past decade, it’s that sensation sells. Whether it will sell for me remains to be seen, but I am going to give it my best shot.

Over the course of the next 9 – 12 months, Julia and I will provide  progress reports on our respective books via posts on this blog. We are doing this for no particular reason other than we thought it might be interesting for our readers. Think of it as a mini reality show presented in print-only form. The good, the bad, and the ugly will all be covered.

I wrapped up my Writing Week One on Friday with four pretty strong pages. All told, I wrote 16 pages for the week. Given how hard beginnings (and endings) are to write, I feel pretty good about my start. It tells me that after thinking about this book for two years, I must finally be ready to write it. That means no more excuses. It will be full speed ahead from now until I type those infamous asterisks after the final scene to signal the end. That’s all for today, I have to get back to work!

The clearest memory I have of that Seattle store is that it was always busy. Sometimes there were three or four check-out lines—and that was at six-thirty in the evening, not weekend afternoons. Every seat placed around the store was occupied. The second story coffee shop area was usually busy as well. The last time I was there was late spring 2002. If someone would have suggested to me back then that a high end bookstore like Borders would be facing bankruptcy in nine years, I would have laughed them out of the building. And yet, nine years later, here we are.

I’m as guilty as anyone for allowing this to happen. The sad truth is, prior to my stop at Borders this past weekend, I hadn’t been there for over a year. As for why, I have one a one-word answer: Amazon. Let’s face it, most of us have very busy lives. It’s much easier to sit at our computers in the evening after a tiring day and browse for books (or just about anything else). We don’t have to leave our chairs to make a purchase, and it arrives at our doorstep within a few days. Amazon doesn’t charge for standard delivery—three to five days (or two days if you are an Amazon Prime member). Buyers in most states, California included, don’t have to pay sales tax either.

We can talk all we want about changing our ways, promising to make our book purchases at only book stores, but the reality is that we won’t follow through on that promise, at least not for long. It’s time consuming and costs more—not a very viable business plan. Logic then would dictate (as Mr. Spock would say) that the answer to the question in my title is a sad but resounding yes. The end of Borders is the end of an era, and there is nothing we can do about it. Change happens, and that change is not always for the better.