30 How to write a novel

Oh boy, I keep seeing people wish they could write novels but don’t know how, or where to start, or what to do, so here’s some advice about that.

You do not need to know how to do this before you start. You need a person with a problem. And you need specificity: what that person is like, their skills and weaknesses, their particular situation, plus the geographical location and things like time of year.

Then go ahead and go buck wild. Tell a story. They want to do this thing or solve the problem or find the answer or whatever it might be. Good! Take STEP ONE. Then take step two. What happens? Do it one step at a time. Listen to yourself. Is there a random mycologist in the forest? He turns out to be important later, so if he shows up, write him in!

Also, if you’re writing about a real place, like Eustis, Maine, the place in Landslide whose name I can never remember, then GO THERE. Reality is so much richer than your imagination.

Otherwise, get okay with making mistakes, being bad at things, and making a great big mess. It’s not just okay, it’s essential. You’re not writing a novel but a DRAFT. It does not need to be perfect. It can’t be perfect. You’re making the material now you will turn into a book later on.

Follow the story! Be there! Notice what things are really like! You’ve got this!

Sacred cheese of life!

 

29 A Worn Path

This week I get into the strange linear narrative of Eudora Welty’s “A Worn Path,” not in the sort of high school New Critical way of x symbolizes y, but in the sense of episodic versus serial narrative structure.

It’s a very strange story in a lot of ways because we have no idea where Phoenix Jackson is going or why she’s going there. And in fact when she arrives, she doesn’t know either. This story subverts narrative so thoroughly it’s almost like Tom Stoppard. Ooh, we should talk about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at some point. And stories told from the other side in general.

I discuss what makes us get and stay interested in a story with NO PLOT and see how I can apply that to other writing. Normally we assume the plot is what makes us stick around, but it sure isn’t in this case, since we don’t know what it could even be.

Still one of my favorite stories, even if (or because) it’s so strange and in some ways baffling.

Sacred cheese of life!

 

 

The Nerve!

My most fun novel, The Nerve, is out now!

Read and enjoy!

Available on Amazon in ebook and print. 

28 Doomsday Book

This week I dig into Connie Willis’s time travel novel Doomsday Book. I love this book so much. The issues with time travel are many, but the issues with omniscient time travel computers that somehow know that someone will change things and refuse to send them through are on another level entirely. So you know it has to be good if I will read it over and over again with a fundamental logic hole in it the size of Antarctica.

I also discuss another unnamed novel that has a tremendous betrayal of trust, in that the author lies to the reader. How can that be, when an author’s job is to lie to the reader? Yeah, but authors are supposed to lie in ways that tell the truth, not fake you out then go haha you believed me. I am so mad at this book still, for real. Like the whole premise gets undermined and therefore makes no sense at all.

How to make me mad: undermine your own stupid premise. Gaaaaah!

As I mentioned in the episode, if you want it, let me know, and I'll mail the hardcover copy to you. I do not want this book in my house. I'm MAD at it.

News: I published a new book this week, for you completists out there! The Nerve is available.

 

Get it here! Print or ebook options. Woo!

It’s the most fun of my books by far and I adore the characters. Also the main character deals with a fundamental inability to grasp school that I also have, not coincidentally, whatever its official name is. Don’t let my advanced degrees fool you. I have no idea what they’re talking about most of the time. Anyway we get into that a bit more this week. 

Also discussed the draft of 40/40 as it charges ahead. I’m writing from my college friend experiences and suddenly had to consider that maybe I didn’t happen to find the most incredible people in the world, I just love them??? Nah. They’re the most incredible people in the world AND I love them. I would give up my spot in the lifeboat for you, beloved friends!

Wrapping up end of year lists of accomplishments: mostly chairs. I know. But it’s better to have a list of chairs than no list at all, I guess.

Umpteen chairs, loveseat, an ottoman, a bench, a whole novel draft, a novel published, a book of short stories published; this podcast; learned to crochet and invented a pattern from The Icarus Triptych; learned how to cut down trees by being super brave (and careful) and doing it; grew out bangs, a major accomplishment; let a lot of things go, byeeeee!

Sacred cheese of life!

Obligatory chair photo, finished last night. Daisy can see the back, so yeah, skeptical. I got glue places where glue shouldn't be. The frame was all rotted out which meant upholstering was nearly impossible. And previous people damaged the wood. Tempted to run another line of trim around the gimp to cover the marks they left. 

But OH that gorgeous Victorian wood!!! Look at it, look at it!

If I did get anthrax from the Duncan Phyfe sofa, which I didn't, at least I finished that beautiful chair in a somewhat messy and flawed way. I mean. Perfection is impossible. But I wish I'd gotten just a little bit closer, is all. 

Always true about everything! Oh well! Keep on pursuing and having a blast!

27 Story and Plot

Hello to everyone I met at the Bangor Authors' Book Fair or whatever its name was! It was fantastic to meet you and talk to you. I have so many great memories from that day. Truly, I can't shut up about it. 

I put the books up for sale on the emmaburns.org website under Merch with the same prices I had at the book fair, cheaper than through Amazon. It costs $12 to ship Priority with their envelopes so that's what I used for shipping price. But if you're within about half an hour of the Bangor area, I'll drop books off for free. If the system fights you on that and insists on shipping, just email me and we'll figure it out. 

That event was so much fun, but now I am a pale shadow of my former self and can only lie about going "unnnnnh" and doing absolutely nothing. So between that and family events I'm wrecked.

Too much GOING PLACES and DOING THINGS yet AGAIN. I did more of that in the past week than in the past year. I'll have to tell you about the Duncan Phyfe sofa from like 1830 at the latest that I re-dislocated my shoulder wrestling into the house wrapped in a tarp (the sofa, not me) during a torrential rainstorm. Absolute madness. Cannot use my left arm without loud crunching, especially after my dog tried to remove it from my body lunging at her cousins yesterday. Anyway Duncan is a whole thing. I threw a mushroom fleece over it, even though it's going to get reupholstered. I say that in passive, but I'M going to REUPHOLSTER it once I can use my SEMI-DETACHED LEFT ARM.

I would not have said I'd give my left arm for a Duncan Phyfe sofa, but here we are.

I am on the job.

Today's episode is about story versus plot, what they are, why we need to think about both of them, and what they both mean.

I just read Hart Hanson’s novel The Seminarian yesterday, so it’s very much on my mind as that book does both extremely well.

Story and plot: different things. You could have the same plot tell very different stories. For example, depending on whose role you’re focusing on, things will change. But also think about how very many stories contain a hero’s journey plot but tell wildly different stories about the characters going through that plot.

Other topics: what is up with season six of Agents of SHIELD? The 40/40 draft continuing. This excellent novel The Nerve that I have to release from my clutches finally. And more!

Sacred cheese of life!

 

 

Fail!

I'm super sick and tottering around all confused. You do not want me to record a podcast right now. Why is everything so confusing? Why are my arms being weird and shaky? Nobody knows.

I slept half the day on the world's biggest ottoman (one I built from scratch) in the living room, with the dog cuddled up against me. She loved it. I kind of loved it. Head and shoulders on the purple loveseat. Then I had a fantasy of turning my headboard into a loveseat kind of thing, upholstered and with arms built on. I absolutely could make that happen. Or adapt an existing loveseat to become that. 

Well, not right now. Right now I'm baffled by applesauce.

I might not make it this week. I apologize. Especially to new listeners, but you probably came from the book fair and know how overwhelming and germ-filled that was (alas, it's true) so you get it better than anyone. 

I ate some applesauce and feel like I might shuffle off this mortal coil. I'm sure it's fine. But. Ooooh. 

Here, enjoy this photo of the most comfortable dog in the world on the aforementioned giant ottoman. And an afghan in progress you might recognize from The Icarus Triptych and Mazewood. I had to invent it to match the one Cole has. So there we go. 

26 The Boy Who... and modern epistolary

This week's episode will be about Meg Cabot's three modern epistolary romance novels Boy Meets Girl, The Boy Next Door, Every Boy's Got One.