Welcome to a third helping of my Friday Reads weekly feature that, yes, I did, in fact, steal from Friday Reads. I like the idea of sharing my favorite posts, books, articles, etc. with y’all at the end of the week, so this has definitely been fun! If you’re looking for more Friday round-ups, check out Witty Title Here with Cassie. She comes across some pretty kosher stuff.
So, this week I’ve been thinking a lot about writing and the writer’s life and what it takes to produce work. I made a feeble attempt at NaNoWriMo, then had a bit of a panic attack about my story, before deciding the thing just needed a break. Mind you, this is the Four Year Project I’ve talked about before, one that started the summer before my first year of college. I’m tentatively getting into another story idea at the moment as a way to wean myself from the FYP, so I can focus my energy on producing manageable writing projects. With that being said, some articles that have helped me enormously in the last week have been from Pat Conroy and Maeve Binchy, God rest her soul, in the June 2012 issue of The Writer. If you can, I urge you to get your hands on a copy of that magazine, and pay particular attention to those two authors’ articles. I had so much to highlight from their writings. I even had to take a picture of one Conroy paragraph.
And here’s a favorite quote from Maeve:
“Is it pretentious to regard your book as some kind of journey? I think not. We are different people when we finish a book. We have had to face ourselves, think about what matters to us and what doesn’t. We have to face our own prejudices and attitudes. And maybe admit that we are more shallow or possibly more intense than we had thought when setting out. None of this is any harm.”
So, please, this thing — buy it!
Then yesterday as I was in between reading issues of The Writer (I’m really backed up on my writerly magazine reading, by the way), I wondered how a person generates ideas for freelance articles, as it’s something I’ve been increasingly interested in for the past couple of years. Naturally, I Googled it, and this was the first thing that popped up. However, if you have any other resources, I’m open to suggestions.
I also read two memorable blog posts this week — one that gave me fuzzy writerly feelings and one that gave me fuzzy life feelings. I have a feeling Tom and I would be great friends if it weren’t for the fact there is a giant pool full of whales and squids currently blocking our paths between countries. There are also the accents to contend with, but despite my endearing southern vocal chords, I can speak a good British tongue. I actually fooled this one guy from Oman when I was 17 into thinking I was from Canterbury. No lie. I mean, it sounds cruel, right? But, he called my friend Katelan, Lannern, because he said that was how it sounded when she said the word “lantern.” What kind of conversation they were having that she said “lantern,” I don’t know, but there it is.
I also told Tom about this one time, at band camp…
Just kidding. ;)
No, but really, in response to his post, I was telling him about how I wrote a letter inside the front cover of one of my favorite books and left it sitting on a bar stool at my favorite restaurant one night as I was waiting for takeout. Have you ever done that before? It was like a mix of Serendipity and More Love Letters, and it was terrifically exhilarating! Imagine my surprise, a few months later, as I read The Perks of Being a Wildflower, and what do you know? The main character, Charlie, had an affinity for giving away his favorite books as gifts! Okay, well, I think he only did that once or twice in the book, but still. We understood each other, and in that moment, we were infinite…
Lastly, I read an article about writing by hand versus typing on a keyboard. It was an interesting read, especially since I’ve been battling between longhand writing and typing when it comes to writing stories for at least two years now. I even wrote a blog post about it on my old HSM blog. I’ll have to dig it up and re-post it sometime. I’d really like to know what I said. Anyway, I went to The Coffee Shop yesterday during my lunch break and wrote 400+ words of my current writing project in a bronze journal I bought from Books-A-Million. It’s the second journal of its kind that I’ve owned, only my first one was a metallic pink. Regardless, it was actually nice sitting down with pen in hand over a piece of paper and scribbling out all of my basic thoughts. The writing wasn’t beautiful, insightful, or even thought-provoking — when re-reading it later I noted a few places I wanted to flesh out the scene — but it got my thoughts out of my brain and onto a physical, tangible surface.
I think I’m going to have to admit to myself eventually that I’m just not much of a digital person past desktops and laptops. My iPad did wonders for me when I was still in college, but I don’t use it that much anymore. I don’t like reading books and flipping through magazines on a screen. I will say that I don’t mind reading blog posts and internet articles on my iPad, but when it comes time for me to leave a comment I have to use my detachable bluetooth keyboard, because the virtual keyboard on such a big screen is frustrating to use. I’m just one of those people who likes having something — namely, paper or my hand — to write on. Of course, I won’t lie — my notepad app on my iPhone has come in handy many a time since I got the phone, but still. I’m just old-fashioned.
There, I said it.
