On the plus side, when I looked at the place where I might actually start my novel in the next draft, I discovered that it’s only 20 pages in. True, these are twenty pages that I have already slashed and burned and then lovingly rewritten at least three or four times (probably more, since they were part of the chunk I initially wrote and rewrote several times to go to the novel-writing workshop last summer), but still, it could have been worse.

So now I’ll do more slashing and burning and will use my jedi-ninja mind tricks to insert the necessary information from those pages elsewhere in the story as exposition and possibly a flashback or two.

Also on the plus side, almost every scene I’ve written in the second act is a keeper–I just didn’t bother to write the connective transition bits that would keep the narrative flowing and keep the reader from stopping and saying, “Huh?” So that is the task of this draft.

And finally, it’s day two of Daylight Savings Time, and I am up writing at my customary time, which is sort of miraculous. Hearing the little birds chirping outside my window helped with that tremendously; I figured if they could get up and get moving even without the benefit of hot running water and electric coffee machines, then I really had no excuse.

P.S. – Although I didn’t touch the manuscript, I did spend time thinking about it, and doing some related research about desert survival and medicinal plants, which was fun. My next research task is to go back to Hank Reinhardt’s Book of Swords and take the notes I should have taken the first time through. I have lots of people carrying around metal implements (copper and bronze) and want to make sure I don’t have them driving their dagger points emphatically into solid wood tabletops or anything like that. (Hint: bronze is softer than iron; copper is MUCH softer!)

P.P.S. – Currently listening to: The Weepies, “Painting by Chagall” (“Sometimes rain that’s needed falls…”) from their Say I Am You album. Also Iron & Wine, The Shepherd’s Dog. Highly recommended.

Yes I did see this, and it ticked me off because it’s insipid. “There’s too much poetry! The good stuff gets lost! MFA programs are cranking out too many writers!” This is the sort of non-news, non-thinking blathering that pontificators of every generation seem to spout.

Look a the final paragraph:

“Every now and then someone asks me, ‘Who are the best poets writing today?’ My answer? ‘I have no idea.’ Nor do I believe that anyone else does. I do have an uneasy feeling that a Blake and a Dickinson may be buried in the overgrowth, and I fear that neither current nor future readers may get to enjoy their art. That would be the most devastating result of the new math of poetry. The loss would be incalculable.”

No one has EVER had ANY idea who the best poets of their own times were. It is unknowable. Blake and Dickinson are perfect examples – they were both “buried in the overgrowth” IN THEIR OWN TIMES. Why should our time be any different? And why blame changes in media and publishing for it?

And why have an uneasy feeling about it? Relax, read the stuff you love, look around for more stuff that you might love, acknowledge the unalterable nature of Sturgeon’s Law, recognize the 95% of everything that is crud for what it is (fertilizer for the other 5%), and enjoy life.

That is all for now.

While you’re there, you might want to check out Lyndall Gordon’s article about Emily Dickinson, which I believe is excerpted from her new biography, Lives Like Loaded Guns.

On the upside, revisions of the novel’s second act are going swimmingly.

I’m confident that I’ll still get my fair share from each e-book sold. But as an author, I’m not after your money. Well, not only your money. I have my sights on a much more precious commodity: your time. We enter into an unspoken pact, you and I: Give me a few hours, stolen moments on the subway or after the kids are asleep, and I promise to inform and entertain you. Frankly, that’s always been a tough sell, given the sundry ways you can spend your time, but at least I had a fighting chance. Curled up with a pinot noir and my book, your attention was mine to lose. Not anymore. The new generation of e-books will, in essence, merge the laptop and the book. Now if my narrative starts to drag, or I digress, readers can click onto their favorite news site to see what’s up with health care, or click onto TMZ to see what’s up with Brangelina. How do I compete with that?

Is this a reasonable worry? How much time do most normal people spend curled up with a pinot noir (or in my case, decaf coffee or  maybe a good pale ale) and a book these days?

Well, as a matter of fact, I read a whole book uninterrupted just last night, a debut YA fantasy novel from a cracking good writer and storyteller, Malinda Lo (the book is Ash, and I highly recommend it). I read it in print, a hard copy edition that I borrowed from the library.

I’m also in the middle of reading SHE by H. Rider Haggard on my iPod touch. It’s a bit of a pain to keep flipping “pages” on that tiny screen, but when I’m waiting in a doctor’s office or yes, even when I’m in bed before I turn the light out, it’s very convenient. I got that book free, too, from Project Gutenberg.

Here’s the thing: I read at least one or two books every week, and I live in a two bedroom apartment with three large bookcases that are already full. Up to this point, I’ve had what amounts to a one-in, one-out rule for book purchases. (Ash is quite possibly good enough to qualify for a purchase–but I have to decide what I’m getting rid of. Back issues of Tin House, I’m looking at you.) With this fun new device and a downloaded app or two, however, I can exponentially expand my collection of books without running the risk of being featured on that hoarders show.

Here’s what that means to those in the publishing industry: I’m the customer you can get back with e-books, if you play your cards right. Also, an e-book (like that pale ale?) is not a purchase for me, it’s a rental, so please price it accordingly. If I have the choice between paying a buck or two to get instant access to a book I’m interested in reading, or waiting a few weeks (or months) to get it through the local library, that’s something I’d be willing to pay for. If the e-book in question is $10 or $20, well…there are plenty of fish in the sea, and a lot of other books I can get right now and read while I wait for the library’s copy.

Here’s what it means to authors: if you want me to buy your book in hard copy, it has to be one I will fall head over heels in love with and want to live with at least as long as a typical marriage lasts these days. But even if I don’t want to marry your book, I might not mind a fling (electronic, of course). Your chances are better if you make the first few chapters of your book available online, free. Consider it a first date. (Herman Melville, you had me at “Call me Ismael.”)

Subterranean Press » Fiction: The Bohemian Astrobleme by Kage Baker.

Good stuff!

This is also a good time to send out positive cosmic whirlies (and maybe a card or email?) to the author, who unfortunately is seriously ill. I’ve been an avid reader of Kage Baker’s Company books and am sad to hear it.

This falls under the category of “not quite news,” since various scientists and historians have reported on our species’ long history with alcohol, BUT it’s relevant to me at the moment because of my current project, a novel set in a culture similar to some of those that sprang up in ancient Mesopotamia (the Sumerians, the Babylonians, and the Akkadians). Date beer in particular shows up fairly often, with the occasional appearance of mead and wine.

The article linked below highlights several reasons why a desire for alcohol could have helped fuel agriculture and taken us down our current path of civilization, including the pharmacological effects, but the author leaves out three I think may have been pretty significant:

1. Unsafe water. Alcohol kills germs, and alcoholic beverages would have been safer to drink in many cases than water.

2. More protein. The process of brewing increases the amount of protein in beer, which would have been important when other protein sources were relatively scarce and hard to get.

3. Thriftiness. Some alcoholic brews are made from things people can’t eat anyway (or don’t want to), like grape stems (grappa) and crushed or overripe fruit (cider). Also, without refrigeration or canning equipment, our forebears used fermentation to preserve extra food (along with drying and pickling) – not just for beer and wine, but for yogurt and cheese (which is a different type of fermentation, of course!).

Did a thirst for beer spark civilization? – Features, Archaeology – The Independent.

This one goes out to everyone who longs to write (or read) a good sword-and-sorcery tale, because without the sword, it’s just not the same — and if you don’t know swords, you’re liable to make a gaffe or two along the way.

The Book of Swords by Hank Reinhardt came out earlier this year; it was edited and published posthumously by Reinhardt’s wife, Toni Weisskopf Reinhardt. The book is fantastic, and makes me sorry I’ll never have a chance to meet its author.

Reinhardt steers the reader through the history of the sword, throwing in some metallurgy, archaeology, poetry, and applied research as needed along the way. The focus is on how these weapons were used in combat and how they were adapted over time to changing technology (i.e., the discoveries of iron and then steel), battle conditions, and societal conditions. Each chapter ends with suggestions for further reading, most from Reinhardt himself.

Whenever possible, Reinhardt tried out reproduction blades himself and described the results (sacrificing innumerable pork shoulder roasts in the process) — what kinds of wounds different swords made; how well they penetrated chain mail; which were good for cutting, thrusting, or both. He also takes time to discuss armor and other weapons used against swordsmen to give readers a clearer context for how swords were used. Finally, he discusses the differences between the sport of fencing and sword combat, and dispels a few myths and excessive liberties taken with the facts, perpetrated by the movies and other popular sources.

It’s an interesting topic, and Reinhardt made it a delightful read, full of quirky asides and the kinds of details writers find eminently useful. If the story you are writing has a sword in it, you should read this book.

Find this book at a nearby library or purchase it.

I appreciated this list because, like the author, I find that any productivity strategy that works for me does not work forever — the work-avoidance part of my brain is far too clever for that.

Re-reading Stephen King’s account of his long, painful healing process after the infamous hit-and-run accident that nearly killed him really makes the self-pity evaporate (if you want to skip to that part, it’s in the postscript, which is titled “On Living,” but then go back and read the whole thing). His lower leg was broken in nine places; his hip was fractured, and so was his femur; a gash in his scalp required twenty or thirty stitches. Here’s a passage about his recovery after surgery:

“A large steel and carbon-fiber apparatus called an external fixator was clamped to my leg. Eight large steel pegs called Schanz pins run through the fixator and into the bones above and below my knee. Five smaller steel rods radiate out from the knee. These look sort of like a child’s drawing of sunrays. The knee itself was locked in place. Three times a day, nurses would unwrap the smaller pins and the much larger Schanz pins and swab the holes out with hydrogen peroxide. I’ve never had my leg dipped in kerosene and then lit on fire, but if that ever happens, I’m sure it will feel quite a bit like daily pin-care.”

King was still in a wheelchair and recovering from the accident when he wrote the last half of On Writing.

“The first writing session lasted an hour and forty minutes, by far the longest period I’d spent sitting upright since being struck by Smith’s van. When it was over, I was dripping with sweat and almost too exhausted to sit up straight in my wheelchair. The pain in my hip was just short of apocalyptic. And the first five hundred words were uniquely terrifying–it was as if I’d never written anything before them in my life. All my old tricks seemed to have deserted me. I stepped from one word to the next like a very old man finding his way across a stream on a zigzag line of wet stones. There was no inspiration that first afternoon, only a kind of stubborn determination and the hope that things would get better if I kept at it.”

Then a bit later: “There was no sense of exhilaration, no buzz–not that day–but there was a sense of accomplishment that was almost as good. I’d gotten going, there was that much. The scariest moment is always just before you start…. After that, things can only get better.”

If that seems like a naive pronouncement, read the rest of the book. The writing advice is all solid, and some of it is inspired. Even the advice that seems like it ought to be common sense is not commonly practiced. The parts that stay with me, though, are the object lessons King provides from his own history, from the rusty spike under the eaves on which he impaled…wait for it…his early rejection slips (he’s really a pretty mild-mannered guy; what did you think I was going to say?) to his clear-eyed recollections about his alcoholism and recovery (even less self-pity here than in the postscript). Writers have to be uniquely courageous to do what they do, as King illustrates.

This is not just a book for horror writers, or genre writers; it was recommended to me by a successful narrative nonfiction writer with half a dozen respected books to her credit, and has popped up on many others’ bookshelves. (Never mind that the title as it appears on the paperback cover appears to be scrawled in blood on a wall, reminiscent of a certain novel about a haunted resort hotel. Really, it isn’t about how to write horror fiction specifically.)

Find this book at a nearby library or purchase it.

Today I want to applaud the careful work of Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat, author of Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia (which I’ll call DLIAM after this for the sake of brevity), part of Daily Life series from Greenwood Press.

I mentioned the series awhile back, and said I found the quality of the books in the series uneven, but Nemet-Nejat does a great job of balancing careful and thorough research, clear reporting of facts and current theories, and engaging storytelling.

This book has been essential to my current project, which is a high fantasy novel that takes place in part in a society that shares some similarities with Sumer and other ancient city-states. For the kinds of information a writer needs for world-building, DLIAM is a wonderful resource, offering all the bits and pieces that are sometimes missing in more specialized scholarly works (what did people wear? what did they eat? how did they cook? what foods were considered peasant fare? what did people do for entertainment?), as well as details about political and religious life.

If you have access to JSTOR, you might check out Mark W. Chavalas’ review, here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/545946. He goes into a bit more detail on the scholarly side of things, and confirms my notion that Nemet-Nejat is an excellent scholar as well as a good writer.

Also, it’s now out in paperback! The version I read is the earlier hard cover. Find a copy at a nearby library or purchase it.

P.S. – I photographed the image illustrating this review at the Nelson Atkins Museum in Kansas City awhile back. It’s an Assyrian, I believe, picking dates about four thousand years ago. But doesn’t that look like a Timex on his wrist? Hmmm.