Please Don't Disturb the Writers
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Philip Roth writes standing up at a lectern facing a wall. Truman Capote favored motel rooms, and preferred to work lying down. Raymond Carver could often be found scribbling away in his car. When asked in an interview, “Where’s the best place to write?” Dorothy Parker responded, “In your head.”
WriteByNight wants to know where you write. Better yet, we want to see. Send us a photo of you in your workspace to be featured on our website. Creativity is highly encouraged, as are attitude and attention to detail. Plan your photo carefully: if you wear glasses when you write, wear ‘em. If you use a lucky pen, make sure it’s prominent. If your desk is usually a disaster area, don’t tidy on our account. We want to see you, WriteByNighters, in your natural habitat.
Email photos to Justine@WriteByNight.net.
At least 72 dpi, and 1 MB max. And if y’all know what that means, you’re ahead of me.
Writing Down the Voices in My Head
Today’s post comes from Brett Fowler, who tells us about the moment she knew she was destined to become a writer.
How does one know when or if they are a writer? I guess it’s just one of those things you know… kind of like singing. Either you’ve got it or you don’t. Either someone’s nice enough to crush your dreams before you decide to spend your life pursuing them, or they never tell you, letting you embarrass yourself in front of millions on “American Idol…” Or something like that.
Overcoming Writer’s Block
We at WriteByNight have lightly touched on writer’s block in past blog posts, but we’ve been asked before, “Hey, have you guys ever done a video on writer’s block?”
Well, yes. We have. So get off our cases.
We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Even those who deny the existence of block have, at one time or another, sat in front of their computers, typewriters, or journals, pens or hands at the ready … and the words just wouldn’t come. So what to do?
In the video below, Justine provides some tips and creative writing exercises for working through writer’s block. She’s available to answer any questions, so leave them in the comment space below or visit the YouTube page.
C4 Lit Mag Hits the Stands
Our good friends over at Chamber Four have released the inaugural issue of their literary magazine, C4, containing short stories, poetry, nonfiction, and visual artwork. The magazine can be downloaded for free here (PDF, ePub, or Mobi), or you can buy a hard copy through the Harvard Bookstore’s website.
WBN will be buying at least one hard copy, so check it out next time you’re here.
WFPL: Spellbound
This week’s Writings From a Past Life comes from poet Meelad Al-Arashi, who penned this piece in 2003.
Spellbound
Jump.
Extricate myself?
Initiate.
A face laced with
tears streaming—
Publishing the Book I’m Writing, Part II
Today we pick up where we left off yesterday, with Dan L. Hays sharing with us a response to a fan’s questions about writing and publishing.
So my Plan B became to self-publish. I studied this segment of the industry a lot, and advances in technology have changed it dramatically in the last several years. Mainly, because of what is called Print On Demand publishing. It used to be that if you self published (AKA vanity publishing) you would pay a publisher, who would run off a number of your books, which you were then left with trying to sell out of your garage.
Publishing the Book I'm Writing, Part II
Today we pick up where we left off yesterday, with Dan L. Hays sharing with us a response to a fan’s questions about writing and publishing.
So my Plan B became to self-publish. I studied this segment of the industry a lot, and advances in technology have changed it dramatically in the last several years. Mainly, because of what is called Print On Demand publishing. It used to be that if you self published (AKA vanity publishing) you would pay a publisher, who would run off a number of your books, which you were then left with trying to sell out of your garage.
Question: Publishing the Book I’m Writing
This two-part post comes from our friend Dan L. Hays, previous WBN blog contributor and author of Freedom’s Just Another Word.
Publishing the Book I’m Writing
Someone wrote recently and said they were trying to finish a book they were writing, but had gone into a fearful place when thinking about having it published. “It’s got me so twisted up that I am afraid to even write at the moment because I don’t know what I’ll do with the manuscript when it’s done.”
They knew from a friend that I had studied the publishing industry extensively before publishing my first book, and wondered my thoughts on writing and publishing. The following is my reply.
Question: Publishing the Book I'm Writing
This two-part post comes from our friend Dan L. Hays, previous WBN blog contributor and author of Freedom’s Just Another Word.
Publishing the Book I’m Writing
Someone wrote recently and said they were trying to finish a book they were writing, but had gone into a fearful place when thinking about having it published. “It’s got me so twisted up that I am afraid to even write at the moment because I don’t know what I’ll do with the manuscript when it’s done.”
They knew from a friend that I had studied the publishing industry extensively before publishing my first book, and wondered my thoughts on writing and publishing. The following is my reply.
C4′s “The Week’s Best Book Reviews”
Our friends over at ChamberFour.com run a regular series titled “The Week’s Best Book Reviews” in which Nico or Sean scours the newspapers and Internets in search of the most interesting and/or amusing reviews from the past week. It’s one of my favorite series in all of litblogdom, and with C4′s kind permission, we’re reposting their entry from last week, courtesy of Nico Vreeland, so you can get a sense of what it’s all about.
C4's "The Week's Best Book Reviews"
Our friends over at ChamberFour.com run a regular series titled “The Week’s Best Book Reviews” in which Nico or Sean scours the newspapers and Internets in search of the most interesting and/or amusing reviews from the past week. It’s one of my favorite series in all of litblogdom, and with C4′s kind permission, we’re reposting their entry from last week, courtesy of Nico Vreeland, so you can get a sense of what it’s all about.
WFPL: The Flying Whale
Our Writings From a Past Life has been a popular and enjoyable series so far. Our thanks to all of you who have sent us your early fumblings, and to all of you who have read these posts and given us some amusing feedback. We’ll likely be starting a new series in March (topic TBD), but we’re going to end WFPL with a bang at the end of this month (HINT: a childhood poem from a revered author).
But before that bang, here’s a whimper.
It’s a(n accidental) prose poem I wrote for what I must assume was some class sometime. That’s the best I can do for background.
It’s about a flying whale, and it’s titled “The flying whale.” The main character is a flying whale.
Wait, HOW Much?
Part II of WBN intern Brett Fowler’s rant against Avatar. Catch up on Part I before you read.
If you asked me who the more advanced civilization in Avatar is, I would tell you the earthlings. If you were a blue person, you would call me out on being ethnocentric, racist and then proceed to write about it on your Facebook status (Neytiri is OMG. Sooooo pissed that Brett is such a racist biotch). Progress, at least to me and Richard Dawkins, is the genetic and evolutionary development of a species into the fittest individual for survival. It is the ability of a species to adapt to its environment. Yeah sure, you could technically argue that the Smurfs were the fittest species because their dragons and arrows somehow managed to overtake an entire army (seriously?) … but realistically, don’t you think that the military has reinforcements, and you know, hydrogen bombs which could blast Papa Smurf and his harem of Smurfettes to hell? Not to mention that this is taking place like what, two hundred years in the future?
This Movie Made How Much?
WBN intern Brett is back, writing about what she knows best–Hollywood. Below is Part I of a two-parter on the absurdities of Avatar.
I believe that nothing, not even the recent publicity of The Jersey Shore, marks the decline of Western civilization more than the success of the world’s biggest blockbuster movie, James Cameron’s Avatar. I mean yeah, so the special effects were kind of cool and all, but honestly, the story to this movie was like a poorly constructed lesson in race relations designed for five year olds. How this movie managed to rake in the amount of money it did baffles me to this day. Let’s face it folks—the script was nowhere near Terminator 2 or Titanic caliber. Cameron can obviously write a great movie when he needs to, but Avatar is not one of those movies. Why? Don’t get me started.
Too late, I’m already revved up.
Put the Book Down, Part II
Today is Part II of WBN intern Brett Fowler’s “Put the Book Down and Listen.”
By the time I reached college, I disavowed any childhood dreams I might have once possessed of writing for network television, dismissing such goals as nothing more than a pipe dream. Writing was something I was good at, sure, but it wasn’t going to pay off my student loans or bank that next meal. So I did what most college freshman do; I enrolled in a bunch of pre-med classes, rationalizing that while not my natural strength, a degree in medicine could afford me a better lifestyle than a trivial degree in English. So when my GPA came back at the end of my first year at UT, it should have been by no great surprise that I was barely passing any of my classes.
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