The Effects of Fiction Writing on a Mac Keyboard

At the beginning of 2008, when I was getting serious about writing, I noticed a strange phenomenon. The N on my keyboard was starting to disappear. I don't have an N in my name, or in my passwords or email. It was however a letter in the name of two main characters.

Hmmm......

By June, the N was almost completely gone, along with half of the H. Not surprising I suppose, since I do sign my name a lot.

I actually wasn't paying much attention, though, since I don't look at my keyboard when writing until yesterday when I gave it to my son to research for his science project. He looks at me strangely and says, "You're missing a bunch of letters, Mom. How am I suppose to know what to type?"

Indeed, the N, the H, the C, the M and the Y are entirely gone. The E is quickly disappearing too, along with the B which now just looks like a lower case B (Hmmm, could that be the use of the name Babs??). Interestingly, the T and S are still quite readable, which you would think odds would be against.

So I used a Sharpie to write them on. Yeah. Not smart, man. Not smart. Now I have seven keys that are purple smudges (I used black, but you know how that goes...).

I look at it as a badge of honor though. That must be a lot of pages of fiction I've written!

That, or it could be the over 2000 emails my crit group has written in the last five months....

Nah.

Army Navy Weekend

This weekend was the Army/Navy game, a football game you either had no idea about or one you prepared for with the vigilance of an overzealous fan. There is little in between.

I first attended an Army/Navy game my freshman year in college, driving to Philly with my then West Point Cadet boyfriend and sitting so close to the field I was practically in the players' laps. What I remember.... thousands of cadets in grey uniforms, and bitter, bitter cold. And three guys I didn't know who bought me hot chocolate in return for using my gloves for a couple minutes!

This year is my fourth year. After two turns driving to Philly for the game in college, there was a long dry spell as I moved around the country and let it pass as nearly a non-existent blip on my radar. Last year, friends got us tickets, and we braved the bitter cold again. What I remember from last year? Tailgating sausage, eggs and mimosas before the game and chili afterwards, applying for credit cards just to get the free hand-out blanket, and bitter, bitter cold.

I think there is an unwritten law of nature that the Army/Navy game has to be the coldest weekend of the year!

This year, I came prepared. Four layers of clothes, underarmor, snow boots with three pairs of socks and feet warmers. Hand warmers. Hats, gloves, scarves that would cover my face. And lots of blankets. The high was suppose to be mid-thirties. Possible snow. No sun.

Once again, awesome seats, although much higher up (all the better to see the game play out).
In college I sat in the Army section (boyfriend got the tickets!) and rooted loudly for Navy (I was in NROTC). Oh yeah... fun times! I'm lucky I survived.

After long, long years of enjoying the rivalry, this year I hung up my long past allegiance to Navy and cheered for Army. Of course, we were sitting on the Navy side this year. Oh yes... more fun times!

Except Army was so lousy that even the Navy fans behind us cheered with us when Army did something not entirely stupid.

We lost, but I didn't look at it that way. What I love about this game is that I love both sides, and that I admire and respect both teams, and at the end of the game, both sides will go back to their academies and continue to dedicate themselves to learning to defend our country. At the end of the day, we are all on the same side. It's about football, and yet it's not. It's so beyond college rivalry. Which is why, no matter who wins, at the end of the game the teams line up in front of both schools and take off their helmets and hold them over their hearts and stand at attention to the opposing schools' alma mater. And every cadet and every midshipmen stand at attention to honor each other, and the dedication to defending our country.

And through the intense ribbing that goes with the territory, I think they all know that when it really comes down to it, they will need each other to stay alive someday.

I dreaded the cold, and it was. I dreaded losing, and we did. I dreaded wind and snow, and they came. But there is something about being surrounded by military people that is addicting and feel-good. And if we get tickets again next year... well, I'll be there gladly. With my hand warmers on.

When Will It End? (And by that, I mean, the economic problems, NOT the publishing industry... although maybe that too...)

More bad news from the world of publishing.

Really, guys, it's hard to stay positive when you keep posting stuff like this. I'd like to keep my head warmly in the sand. Stop coming along with your sand toys and shoveling me out.

Passion Does Not Equal Martyrdom

On Nathan Branford's blog today, he wrote a post entitled Will Write For Food. The post itself is great, as always, and full of Nathan's usual pithy humor. The topic? People are actually writing query letters in which they say they need to publish their books because they are in dire financial straits. What struck me though was the comments - 57 as I write this - almost all in harmony about how awful it is to expect to make money writing.

Sure, we all want to publish, but it's the art of storytelling, the need to write, the love of writing that should drive us all. We shouldn't expect to actually make a living doing it.

What??? Okay, I admit I don't expect I will ever be the next Rowling or Grisham or Meyer or Sparks or whoever the latest, greatest moneymaker in fiction is. And I fully understand the tiny odds of making enough money to put food on the table and shoes on freakishly-fast growing children's feet. But do all of these people honestly think that writing is something people do as a sacrifice to mankind - the starving artist thing we must do but can't ever expect payment for?

I say, Baloney! There, I've said it. What is wrong with being asked to be paid for your hard work? I can get a job filing papers and plugging numbers mindlessly in a computer (done it) and get paid a livable wage, but just because I love doing something, I shouldn't expect to get paid for it?

Isn't that Oprah's mantra? Find what you love to do and figure out how to make a living doing it?

I'm not saying we writers should get rich. I'm not even saying everyone who publishes should get paid enough to cover their mortgage. I'm just saying, when we start acting like writing is passion and creative art and not work, and that we are so privileged to get to do it that we should be willing to do it for free, we are selling ourselves short.

I work hard at writing. I put in hours and hours a day. Sure, I love it. But there are doctors who love their work and still get paid. And accountants who salivate over money and figures and bankbooks, and they get paid. Just because I love doing something doesn't mean I should give up the idea of making money at it. If the publishing industry feels like authors are groveling just to be in print, they will continue to pay practically nothing to them and then fork over millions to celebrities for memoirs that have no chance of ever recouping that advance.

I can know the realities of it and still not agree with it.

I'm not holding out for that big paycheck. I'm not expecting to pay my house off with an advance. But just because I know writing doesn't pay well to the majority of authors, I still think what I do is valuable, and worth being paid for. Even though I love doing it.

I Must Be Crazy

I've been talked into another Word-A-Thon. It's what I need, really. A good swift kick in the writer's block. October and part of November were query time. The last of November... trying to figure out where to go next.

I don't know if I'm heading in the right direction, but I'm finally writing again. When I get a couple thousand words under my belt, I'll write about it here. I'm still not certain it's going to work out, but I should know in a few weeks.

For now, a new goal. 45,000 words by January 14.

Just looking at it.... jimminy. What am I thinking?

Dirty Little Secrets

I have a love affair with used bookstores. It's something I've been very open about, the way an alcoholic may admit they like vodka a little. But these days, it feels like that dirty little secret I should hide under the rug. What with the publishing industry struggling and publishing house acquisitions halted, and the fact that I joined the facebook group, Buy A Book, Save the World...

Well, I shouldn't be buying second hand books, should I?

I haven't been in a used bookstore in many months, actually. But over the weekend my father-in-law took me to the one he works in. And truthfully, for the first time, it seemed like kind of a sad place. All these books, some hardly touched and others worn thin, hanging around on the shelves unwanted. I think this is what got me most. Someone didn't want them.

I wandered the aisles wondering: What books are people most likely to give up? Is it a sign of the worth of the book or the story or the writing that they ended up here? Would I want to end up here, someone else's hand-me-downs they'd outgrown and didn't foresee ever reading again?

I know others view books very differently. I hardly ever give up my books. I'm a rereader. Have been since I was eight and reread Katie Kittenheart fifty times before my mother bribed me with a Habitrail for my hamster to read something else. One never knows when they might be in need of revisiting an old friend in a book.

Many people, though, see books as expendable. You read them once and move on. There are thousands of books. You can't read them all, let alone hoard them all. Why not trade them in?

It felt sad at first, the flickering fluorescent lighting, the thread bare carpet, the rickety shelves with so many books already broken in. And then I found a book I'd been curious about but too cheap to buy. And then another. And then another. And pretty soon, I'd racked up fifteen dollars worth of 25 cent books and another three dollars worth of dollar books.

I'd feel guilt except for this: 100% of the proceeds from this store go to the library to buy more books.

And a few books have found permanent homes to someone who will love and cherish them. Maybe it's not so much a used book store as a book rescue store.

And hey- if I really like one of them, I might just buy it as a Christmas present for a friend.... New!