Jennifer R. Hubbard's Blog, page 9
October 21, 2017
Lessons from paint-by-numbers
When I was little, I loved paint-by-numbers sets. If you don't know, they were a template with numbered shapes marked on them, accompanied by numbered paints. Match the numbered paint with the numbered shapes on the template, and you would essentially be "coloring in" a painting, ending with a beautiful oil masterpiece!
It sounds simple, but the more complicated versions used very small shapes to get a finer gradation of shading and a picture with more depth. With such small shapes, the printer often couldn't fit the shape's paint number inside the shape, so s/he would put it in an adjacent, larger shape, with an arrow pointing to the shape in question. The problem was, if you painted the colors in the wrong order, you could paint over a number and arrow before getting to use it as an indicator for its neighboring shape.*
I got very frustrated with one such project while staying at my grandmother's. I was very much a perfectionist who couldn't stand when things weren't working the way I thought they should, and when I couldn't do something I thought I should be able to do. I may even have thrown a bit of a tantrum.
After calming me down, my grandmother suggested a solution: use a pencil to write in, myself, the color numbers inside each shape, making all those infernal arrows unnecessary. (I could write smaller than the printer could print.) Then I could paint in any order, not worrying about painting over a necessary number. Thank God for Grandma.
It was my Bird by Bird moment (if you know the allusion to the Anne Lamott book in which her father told her overwhelmed brother to write his big school report on birds by taking it "bird by bird"). So many times, a task that seems impossible can be broken down into simpler steps. We can find workarounds, solutions that fit our own way of working. These skills come in handy in writing, because there are so many different ways to write, and not every way works every time. And in the end, no matter how big or complicated the project, we can only write it one word at a time.
*It is possible that if you painted the colors starting with #1 and proceeding from there, the arrow problem didn't crop up. Believe it or not, it never occurred to me to paint the colors in numbered order--not until years later did this possible solution come to me. At the time, I chose to use the colors in the order that made sense to me then, and for simpler pictures it didn't matter what order you used. Only the complicated pictures used those arrows. But I'm glad my grandmother came up with this more innovative solution, because I think I learned more from it.
It sounds simple, but the more complicated versions used very small shapes to get a finer gradation of shading and a picture with more depth. With such small shapes, the printer often couldn't fit the shape's paint number inside the shape, so s/he would put it in an adjacent, larger shape, with an arrow pointing to the shape in question. The problem was, if you painted the colors in the wrong order, you could paint over a number and arrow before getting to use it as an indicator for its neighboring shape.*
I got very frustrated with one such project while staying at my grandmother's. I was very much a perfectionist who couldn't stand when things weren't working the way I thought they should, and when I couldn't do something I thought I should be able to do. I may even have thrown a bit of a tantrum.
After calming me down, my grandmother suggested a solution: use a pencil to write in, myself, the color numbers inside each shape, making all those infernal arrows unnecessary. (I could write smaller than the printer could print.) Then I could paint in any order, not worrying about painting over a necessary number. Thank God for Grandma.
It was my Bird by Bird moment (if you know the allusion to the Anne Lamott book in which her father told her overwhelmed brother to write his big school report on birds by taking it "bird by bird"). So many times, a task that seems impossible can be broken down into simpler steps. We can find workarounds, solutions that fit our own way of working. These skills come in handy in writing, because there are so many different ways to write, and not every way works every time. And in the end, no matter how big or complicated the project, we can only write it one word at a time.
*It is possible that if you painted the colors starting with #1 and proceeding from there, the arrow problem didn't crop up. Believe it or not, it never occurred to me to paint the colors in numbered order--not until years later did this possible solution come to me. At the time, I chose to use the colors in the order that made sense to me then, and for simpler pictures it didn't matter what order you used. Only the complicated pictures used those arrows. But I'm glad my grandmother came up with this more innovative solution, because I think I learned more from it.
October 13, 2017
Revealing just enough
One of my favorite parts of revision is balancing what I want to spell out explicitly with what I want the reader to figure out. How big are the bread crumbs I should leave, and how far apart can they be, for the reader to still be able to follow the trail?
Some things I only want to suggest, to hint at, to foreshadow. Some things I want the reader to have the thrill of discovering--or even of deciding. Yet I can't be too vague.
I'm doing such a revision now, deleting repetitions, trimming where I've over-explained, cutting back to make room for the reader. I'm also adding a few words where I realize I haven't been clear, have assumed too much. Seeking, the whole time, a perfect balance.
Some things I only want to suggest, to hint at, to foreshadow. Some things I want the reader to have the thrill of discovering--or even of deciding. Yet I can't be too vague.
I'm doing such a revision now, deleting repetitions, trimming where I've over-explained, cutting back to make room for the reader. I'm also adding a few words where I realize I haven't been clear, have assumed too much. Seeking, the whole time, a perfect balance.
October 6, 2017
For love of reading
We've seen great upheavals in the world of publishing and bookselling in my lifetime, and especially in the last ten years. Reading has changed fundamentally, with so many of us doing so much of it on screens--reading texts, tweets and other social media posts, snippets of articles, all of it mixed with photos and videos.
For me, there is still a fundamental pleasure in unplugging. In taking a print book on a train or plane, or in settling on my back porch with a magazine or a paperback. I do spend hours each day reading on screens. And then I indulge in my not-at-all-guilty pleasure: grabbing a book and sitting for an hour on the porch, stopping now and then to smell the pine needles, watch the play of light on leaves, listen to the birds or the cicadas. Then I plunge back into the book (its pages so blissfully free of pop-up ads and autoplay videos) and re-engage with the story.
The ways in which we produce and transmit stories and compensate their authors have changed through the centuries. There may come a day when all my reading is done on the screen or by audio. And still at the heart of the experience will be the best part, the part that hasn't changed for most of human history, even as technology has changed: our love of story, our need to communicate.
For me, there is still a fundamental pleasure in unplugging. In taking a print book on a train or plane, or in settling on my back porch with a magazine or a paperback. I do spend hours each day reading on screens. And then I indulge in my not-at-all-guilty pleasure: grabbing a book and sitting for an hour on the porch, stopping now and then to smell the pine needles, watch the play of light on leaves, listen to the birds or the cicadas. Then I plunge back into the book (its pages so blissfully free of pop-up ads and autoplay videos) and re-engage with the story.
The ways in which we produce and transmit stories and compensate their authors have changed through the centuries. There may come a day when all my reading is done on the screen or by audio. And still at the heart of the experience will be the best part, the part that hasn't changed for most of human history, even as technology has changed: our love of story, our need to communicate.
September 28, 2017
The journey of a book
I just finished reading a nonfiction book by an author and naturalist who had once worked for an encyclopedia, answering research questions that readers sent in. Apparently this was an actual service encyclopedias provided once upon a time! It boggles my mind that they would have bothered. Now such things have all been swept away by the internet.
Anyway, I enjoyed the book (Elephant Bones and Lonelyhearts, by Ronald Rood), which I'd acquired secondhand. And I enjoyed wondering about one of the book's previous owners, who had written her name on the flyleaf along with her town and the date November 16, 1977. I wondered whether the Vermont publisher that published the book is still in business (probably not, as far as I can tell).
With a little internet searching, I discovered that the author wrote many other books, appeared on PBS and NPR, and passed away in 2001. I was sad to hear that he's gone, but I marveled once more at how books bring us into contact with other lives, other worlds. This book published 40 years ago made its way to me, and opened a window onto some parts of the past I might not have known about otherwise. The author's words are still alive. We never know where our books may go.
Anyway, I enjoyed the book (Elephant Bones and Lonelyhearts, by Ronald Rood), which I'd acquired secondhand. And I enjoyed wondering about one of the book's previous owners, who had written her name on the flyleaf along with her town and the date November 16, 1977. I wondered whether the Vermont publisher that published the book is still in business (probably not, as far as I can tell).
With a little internet searching, I discovered that the author wrote many other books, appeared on PBS and NPR, and passed away in 2001. I was sad to hear that he's gone, but I marveled once more at how books bring us into contact with other lives, other worlds. This book published 40 years ago made its way to me, and opened a window onto some parts of the past I might not have known about otherwise. The author's words are still alive. We never know where our books may go.
September 21, 2017
Pieces of the writing life
The popular conception of an author's life comprises two aspects, I think: pounding away at the keyboard creating, and making the bookstore/talk-show circuit to sell the book. Those are two parts to the writing life (although the latter is not likely to include talk shows for most authors, but may include visits to schools, libraries, book festivals, conferences, conventions, and so on). But there are many more. These are some of the hats writers wear:
Creative: the actual writing part; daydreaming and peripheral creative acts (such as drawing a map of your fictional world, or designing your cover if you self-publish, etc.); revising; attending classes and workshops focused on craft
Administrative/Professional: researching the business; querying agents and editors; tracking submissions; filing; writing correspondence; managing schedules; booking travel; maintaining supplies and equipment
Financial: tracking grants, royalties, expenses, taxes, and other monies
Marketing and Publicity: arranging and conducting author visits, interviews, etc.; ordering swag; maintaining an online presence
Social: maintaining ties with readers and other writers, live and/or online
Service: donating books or services; teaching; mentoring; using one's platform for outreach on good causes
Not every writer does every one of these things. But most writers find themselves spending much less time on writing and much more time on other activities than they ever would have believed when they scribbled their first stories, poems, essays.
The upside to having so many pieces to this pie is that if one task seems like a nuisance, there are plenty of other tasks to look forward to--or procrastinate with.
And at the center of it is the writing. It's home base, the core that's essential to all the rest.
Creative: the actual writing part; daydreaming and peripheral creative acts (such as drawing a map of your fictional world, or designing your cover if you self-publish, etc.); revising; attending classes and workshops focused on craft
Administrative/Professional: researching the business; querying agents and editors; tracking submissions; filing; writing correspondence; managing schedules; booking travel; maintaining supplies and equipment
Financial: tracking grants, royalties, expenses, taxes, and other monies
Marketing and Publicity: arranging and conducting author visits, interviews, etc.; ordering swag; maintaining an online presence
Social: maintaining ties with readers and other writers, live and/or online
Service: donating books or services; teaching; mentoring; using one's platform for outreach on good causes
Not every writer does every one of these things. But most writers find themselves spending much less time on writing and much more time on other activities than they ever would have believed when they scribbled their first stories, poems, essays.
The upside to having so many pieces to this pie is that if one task seems like a nuisance, there are plenty of other tasks to look forward to--or procrastinate with.
And at the center of it is the writing. It's home base, the core that's essential to all the rest.
September 16, 2017
The story that won't die
Sometimes you have to give up on a project completely before the way to write it becomes clear. Sometimes it takes giving up on it repeatedly over a period of years. Sometimes after you've buried it for what you swear is the final time and gone skipping on your merry way, you are startled to find it dancing in your path, waving its zombie arms, crumbs of dirt falling from it. "Hey just had a GREAT idea for how you can tackle me from a different point of view / rewrite the ending / turn a subplot into the main plot!" it will say. And you sigh and follow it off to the keyboard, because what else do you have to do with the rest of your life?
September 11, 2017
Blog salad
This post is going to be a sort of blog salad, a mix of interesting items picked up here and there:
Jen Doktorski writes of risk-taking, in water-skiing and the rest of life, at YA Outside the Lines. A sample: "The potential for disaster loomed as I sat on the edge of the dock and watched as my fellow water skiing neophytes toppled over while attempting to stand on their skis." Good for some laughs--and of course, a writing-related lesson!
Thanks to a tweet from @NathanBransford, I saw this article by Anjali Enjeti on pursuing book publication for more than a decade. I certainly agree with her on this: "... in the years I’ve tried to sell a manuscript, things seem to have gotten tougher." And this: "... I’m happy with the career I’ve built. Rejections still flood my inbox, but my smaller successes go a long way toward offsetting the disappointment. ... I decided to shift my priorities, to spend more time volunteering for social causes and political campaigns and less pursuing traditional book publishing. ... By recalibrating, I’ve regained a small amount of control in a process that has very little predictability." For those of us in this tough field, there's a lot to ponder in this article, about goals and dreams and reality and priorities.
Many of us have struggled with clutter in our lives, with clearing out junk (physical, mental, and emotional) to make room for what's most important. But what is clutter, anyway? I like this phrase from Eve O. Schaub (from Year of No Clutter): "Things I neither want nor can part with."
Finally, Melodye Shore writes of hope as an antidote for suffering. A sample: "Helen Keller once said, 'Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.'"
Jen Doktorski writes of risk-taking, in water-skiing and the rest of life, at YA Outside the Lines. A sample: "The potential for disaster loomed as I sat on the edge of the dock and watched as my fellow water skiing neophytes toppled over while attempting to stand on their skis." Good for some laughs--and of course, a writing-related lesson!
Thanks to a tweet from @NathanBransford, I saw this article by Anjali Enjeti on pursuing book publication for more than a decade. I certainly agree with her on this: "... in the years I’ve tried to sell a manuscript, things seem to have gotten tougher." And this: "... I’m happy with the career I’ve built. Rejections still flood my inbox, but my smaller successes go a long way toward offsetting the disappointment. ... I decided to shift my priorities, to spend more time volunteering for social causes and political campaigns and less pursuing traditional book publishing. ... By recalibrating, I’ve regained a small amount of control in a process that has very little predictability." For those of us in this tough field, there's a lot to ponder in this article, about goals and dreams and reality and priorities.
Many of us have struggled with clutter in our lives, with clearing out junk (physical, mental, and emotional) to make room for what's most important. But what is clutter, anyway? I like this phrase from Eve O. Schaub (from Year of No Clutter): "Things I neither want nor can part with."
Finally, Melodye Shore writes of hope as an antidote for suffering. A sample: "Helen Keller once said, 'Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.'"
September 4, 2017
September Grace
It's been a time of well refilling, of silence, of listening and reading. Of following the news, of using my writing skills mainly to craft heartfelt messages for my elected representatives. Of taking walks and seeing old friends.
There's a snap to the air, and the mornings are dark again. I used to despair at this time of year, sensing the long cold tunnel of winter ahead. I've despaired less in recent years--but mostly because time passes so quickly now, and every autumn is shorter than the one before it.
I never say good-bye to mellow August without regret--golden August, the most leisurely, reflective time of the year. But for now, the crickets are still singing, and the leaves haven't turned yet. September is a foreshadowing, a farewell, but also a grace period.
There's a snap to the air, and the mornings are dark again. I used to despair at this time of year, sensing the long cold tunnel of winter ahead. I've despaired less in recent years--but mostly because time passes so quickly now, and every autumn is shorter than the one before it.
I never say good-bye to mellow August without regret--golden August, the most leisurely, reflective time of the year. But for now, the crickets are still singing, and the leaves haven't turned yet. September is a foreshadowing, a farewell, but also a grace period.
August 24, 2017
Using what we have
My husband and I are getting more accustomed to this aspect of our CSA subscription (community-supported agriculture, where we get regular food deliveries from a local farm): using what we have on hand. Every week, we get whatever is in season, whatever crop successfully made it to ripeness. And that dictates what's on our menu for the week. It's made us try all sorts of foods we wouldn't have otherwise. Because of the CSA, I've eaten kohlrabi, and salads with turnip, and chard omelets, and salmon with fennel, and zucchini bread, and rhubarb cobbler, and spaghetti squash, and a host of other foods.
The other day, we got a lot of peppers, so we had chili. And it's this "what can I do with what I have" approach that's different from how I cooked for most of my life. For most of human history, people had to eat whatever was available, but nowadays, in my location and at my income level, it's possible to go to the store and get almost any food I want--whether or not it's in season, whether or not it grows anywhere near me. It's a luxury, one I used to take for granted but don't anymore.
The writing connection (you knew I'd get to the writing connection eventually!) is that there, too, it took me a while to get the concept of using what I have. For a while I tried to write like writers I admired but whose voices and subject matter were very different from mine. I tried to write what would be easier to sell. I tried to write what seemed like good stories--but turned out to be good stories for someone else to tell. And eventually I started using what I had. I started basing my writing on what I had to say, and on my own voice--which proved to be a much more natural wellspring.
The other day, we got a lot of peppers, so we had chili. And it's this "what can I do with what I have" approach that's different from how I cooked for most of my life. For most of human history, people had to eat whatever was available, but nowadays, in my location and at my income level, it's possible to go to the store and get almost any food I want--whether or not it's in season, whether or not it grows anywhere near me. It's a luxury, one I used to take for granted but don't anymore.
The writing connection (you knew I'd get to the writing connection eventually!) is that there, too, it took me a while to get the concept of using what I have. For a while I tried to write like writers I admired but whose voices and subject matter were very different from mine. I tried to write what would be easier to sell. I tried to write what seemed like good stories--but turned out to be good stories for someone else to tell. And eventually I started using what I had. I started basing my writing on what I had to say, and on my own voice--which proved to be a much more natural wellspring.
August 20, 2017
Saving yesterdays
I haven't been a steady journal-keeper; I've tended to write more at stressful times in my life, or during events that I suspected would be historic, or when traveling. Consequently, I have many notebooks and pieces of notebooks and stray pages from various times. One of my part-time projects--on which I spend an hour here, an hour there--is consolidating those journals into one coherent whole.
As I go, I discover records of events I'd forgotten but can recall when prompted by the journals, as well as events I've wholly forgotten. There are a few people referred to by first name only whom I can no longer identify.
There are so many days we live through and then utterly forget. A journal can save a few of them for us. Some of these days, honestly, I am happy to let go of; others I'm happy to retrieve. Maybe it's good to forget so much. Everything is impermanent; carpe diem; live for today. I'm not sure how much yesterday matters. I'm saving some yesterdays just in case.
As I go, I discover records of events I'd forgotten but can recall when prompted by the journals, as well as events I've wholly forgotten. There are a few people referred to by first name only whom I can no longer identify.
There are so many days we live through and then utterly forget. A journal can save a few of them for us. Some of these days, honestly, I am happy to let go of; others I'm happy to retrieve. Maybe it's good to forget so much. Everything is impermanent; carpe diem; live for today. I'm not sure how much yesterday matters. I'm saving some yesterdays just in case.
