Becoming the book: Bronson Pinchot

I don't usually share most of the wonderful things I read on the internet here, mostly because I suspect I am mostly reading the same things that everyone else on Twitter is already reading. However, I occasionally remember that I have readers who fall outside of the social media circuit, and so I will set aside my fears of redundancy. (And thanks, Kelvin K, for sharing the link!)

Do you know how writers sometimes talk about writing for the "ideal reader"? The reader who will intuitively understand what they mean and/or give them the benefit of the doubt, the trust to go on, if they don't? A faceless, nameless, quasi-mythical being who gives one the hope to keep on writing even when one suspects that nobody really cares about literature anymore? Well, it turns out that the ideal reader is actually Bronson Pinchot, or Balki from the late eighties/early nineties sitcom Perfect Strangers, as you probably remember him.  

As a voice actor and narrator, Pinchot has voiced over 100 audiobooks. This long interview with him in Vulture is a fascinating and heartening read for anyone who cares about books and the worlds that authors are trying to create when they write.  

Click here to read it. 

Tuesday Tuesday

I've been feeling the urge to blog, but without much to report except for various adventures on the internet. I've been laying low, reading and catching up (or trying) on emails, and preparing for a couple of events this weekend: a reading at the Deer Park branch of the Toronto Public Library on Friday and a discussion with Wayne Grady on Saturday in Kingston as part of the Kingston Writersfest.

That's right, I am doing an event with the only ever simultaneous dual Giller longlistee (for fiction and translation) Wayne Grady (!!!). So please do stop by if you'll be in Kingston...or just buy a train ticket and come to Kingston for the Writersfest, which has a ton of events I wish I could attend, too. (I'm there for less than 24 hours, but I hope to squeeze in at least one event around my own.) 

Wayne Grady and I are billed to talk about "Writing Through Race," which promises to be a very interesting discussion. (If you've read Emancipation Day, you'll know why.)  When it comes to Bone & Bread, it's not a subject I've really been asked about at all (or thought about, to tell you the truth), so I'm curious as to where the conversation will lead us.

And around the internet:

* I really like this NYT article on Elizabeth Gilbert, and one of these days I will actually get around to reading one of her books since it seems I get excited every time I read something about her. In this article, I like the way she talks about her readers (and about the implied attitude that male readers are more valuable or important than female readers), as well as the descriptions of her writing attic with winding shelves and hidden compartments. Also, it seems like she has actually populated the town where she lives in New Jersey full of her friends and in, at least one case, her favourite restaurant. That's kind of awesome. 

These are the relevant paragraphs about her readers:

The only time I saw Gilbert lose her equanimity, in fact, was discussing her fans. She detests the mind-set that certain readers are more desirable than others. “It’s the worst kind of arrogance. Shouldn’t the idea be that we want people to read, period? Isn’t it an honor if somebody chooses our books at all, whatever her background, whatever her education, whatever her level of perceived literary credentials?” She recalls meeting a woman in a Tulsa Barnes & Noble — “probably 65 years old, looked like an aging country singer with sad eyes” — who told her “Eat, Pray, Love” was the first book she’d read in her life, and she now understood why people read. “So if that’s the kind of reader I’m not supposed to want, well, Jesus Christ. Give me a few thousand more of those!”

Now that people have started telling her that “The Signature of All Things” will attract “a different level of reader,” she can’t help hearing the implicit slight in this praise: “You might be lucky enough to get out of your ghetto, now that you’ve found a better grade of readers, meaning male readers. I want to say: ‘Go [expletive] yourself! You have no idea who the women are who read my books, and if I have to choose between them and you, I’m choosing them.’ ”

*Also, this piece by Kerry Clare about her two different experiences of motherhood is one of the best things I've read on the internet this week. 

*Aaaaand if you find yourself as mesmerized by breakdancing as I am, you will probably enjoy watching this 6-year-old break dancer named B-girl Terra, who is now Britain's youngest breakdancing champion.

admiring the easy read

I just came back from the gym, where I went to buy food and read a book.  This is not the most intelligent behaviour for somebody who is doing a photo shoot for this good cause in the very near future.  Oh well. 

I’m happy I took some time to read.  I’m reading The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, and I had one of those fleeting moments when I’m enjoying a book and I think ALL books should be just like the one I’m holding.  It’s funny and sad and smart and it just flies by.  I think, I want to write a book that just flies by. 

But so far, I don’t think this has been my style in anything I’ve published.  And I might be wrong or misremembering things…it’s almost certain, anyhow, that the way I feel when reading through one of my own manuscripts is not the same way anybody else would feel.  I’ll read something and get tripped up on whatever else I know went into a particular sentence (what I was thinking about when I wrote it, or that tricky clause I took out of it, or the word I wanted to use but couldn’t manage), while someone else finds it all wonderfully lucid.  Or at other times (and this is by far the more common pitfall in writing), I know exactly what I’m trying to say and I breeze through it all without a problem, congratulating myself on my clarity while readers are stuck trying to follow my analogies from point A to point B.  

It would be nice to write something as straightforward as talking or thinking, so there is nothing for a reader to bump up against and get shaken out of the spell.  That’s something I’d like to do. 

But I still appreciate other styles of writing!  I enjoy and admire difficult books as well as straightforward ones, and I guess I’m saying I’d like to write lots of books and lots of different kinds of books, if that turns out to be possible.  

Whew.

If you haven’t yet, and you’re behind on your internet reading, you should check out the wonderful LitBits gathered over at Bella’s Bookshelves. 

On a less literary note, check out this hilarious Get the Look over at The Hairpin.

Floods and disappearing cable needles

Well, it has been a week since my mom's operation, and she is continuing to do really well!  Thanks to everyone for your thoughts and good wishes.  (And if I owe you an email, I promise it's on its way.)  

It turns out that knitting is a better "sit and keep company" and "sit and wait" activity than writing fiction, so until yesterday, my hat-in-progress had come along further than my story.  (If anyone has a tip for how to not lose a cable needle, oh, about fifty times an hour, I'm all ears.) But now the story is coming on strong...I just need one of those pesky endings.  Right now I have the characters circling around one another, talking about this or that.  Before long they're liable to start checking their watches or something. 

In case you're not on Twitter (or maybe even if you are...some days there are a lot of links flying by), below are a few things I clicked on recently that were worthwhile...

This is a really interesting article by Samantha Francis for BookNet Canada on what makes a bestseller (according to sales data).  In case you've ever wondered what makes a bestseller in Canada.

We can’t reveal sales numbers, but to give you a very rough idea: when a book is in the “Top 10,” it’s usually sold several thousand copies across Canada in one week. 

An enjoyable Q&A by Ali Smith at The Daily Beast on "How I Write."  

A piece about how Canada's crime novelists are making a killing.  This was enough to make me pull out and revisit a plot outline for a light mystery novel I'd dreamed up last year during an idle afternoon, as well as another project close to my heart which has changed imaginary forms many times (TV show, screenplay, graphic novel), but which has finally come to rest (not surprisingly, given my actual skills) as what I hope will be a YA novel.  One day I'd love to write a mystery, and not just because it seems to be the one of the best ways for writers to make money these days.  

In other news, there was a ton of flooding at McGill yesterday (over 40 million litres!).  Below is a photo I took on Friday afternoon on my way across campus, of construction in progress on the reservoir pipes and the weathered old pipes on display (I think they're around  a hundred years old):

deep freeze Friday

The warm spell is over.  It’s a deep freeze now.  The cold doesn’t bother me too much – it’s all about knowing how to dress: long johns, thermal shirt, wool sweater, fleece-lined mitts and a dense scarf.  Plus a down coat, shearling boots, and a fur hat.  Winter in Canada isn’t for amateurs (nor for vegans, apparently).   

This week I’ve been trying take to heart all that good advice about living in the moment.   Singing, seeing friends, catching up on emails, reminding myself about what’s important (that same old moving target).  Typing that out, I'm reminded of Jo Knowles' blog, where she recently shared some powerful words about Maurice Sendak and the importance of living one’s life.     

And while I'm sharing links, here's another great blog post by Caroline Wissing I stumbled upon via Twitter about acknowledging your talent.

And at the Guardian, Philip Roth picks his best novels.  (I’ve only read Portnoy’s Complaint, many years ago, and more recently The Human Stain, which I loved.  I think American Pastoral will be next on the list…although probably not next in the reading lineup, not when I have the new Alice Munro and Zadie Smith at home.)  I love the idea of being prolific enough to actually have an oeuvre to consider – to have a body of work from which you can pick and choose your favourites.  (There.  That should be enough of an ambition spur to get me up early tomorrow to work on my new story.)

There’s also this hilariously accurate article on Slate about the dark side of the book tour.  I’m planning my book launch for Bone and Bread right now and am plagued with similar visions of nobody showing up.  Say you’ll come? 

writing links open in my browser

Time is running out for me to finish my 2012 update.  I’ve been strictly informed that January 15th is the cut-off date for wishing people Happy New Year or posting best-of lists or year-in-review lists.  So I guess that’s happening tonight.

In the meantime, here are some things I’ve been reading:

Lena Dunham interviewed by Miranda July for Interview Magazine.  Some of my favourite parts of this interview are where she talks about what it was like growing up with parents who were artists.

Cynthia Newberry Martin's inquiry into good sentences for Brevity i.e. the novelist’s perennial  question as she beats her head against the keyboard: does every sentence need to be great?  (The answer is that they at least need to be very good.) 

Related to the last:  Michael Cunningham’s New Yorker Letter From the Pulitzer Fiction Jury: What Really Happened This Year.  (In case you didn’t hear, in 2012, there was no Pulitzer Prize awarded for fiction.) 

Nova Ren Suma "On Chasing Ambition and Being a Girl and a Woman."    This post resonated with me so much, especially lines like the ones quoted below: 

I have and want one thing, and I’ve been single-minded about it since high school: I write. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, to the detriment of everything else.

I think more needs to be written about women and ambition.  Or maybe it’s already out there…perhaps I ought to say I’d like to read more about women and ambition.  If you know of any good books or articles, send them my way, please.

writing: "considerably less magic" (more work)

This is exactly, exactly how I feel about writing in the morning.  I almost never have the chance to do this anymore, and I certainly can't afford to get too precious about when or how I get my writing done, but whenever I have a day off, this is what I like to do.  No conversation, no jarring interaction with the world outside my head. There is definitely a spell that can be broken in travelling from that liminal dreaming space to the wide awake world of other people.

A conversation between George Saunders and his editor on Slate that seems to me to be a great illustration of how the best editor-writer relationships can work, as well as a pretty fascinating peek at how a Saunders story comes together (including showing his editor all the edited-down cut parts). 

An interview with Zadie Smith on the Rumpus, which is partially a follow-up to her amazing short piece on joy in the NYRB.  (In her interview with the Rumpus, she mentions she only writes short, memoir-like pieces like this about once every ten years, so it's worth checking out.)

Some remarks from the Rumpus interview that struck a chord:

"I think constant feedback is not a very healthy thing for a writer, one way or another." 

 "...reading is a magic thing. But writing, I actually feel, is considerably less magic. It’s a lot of work and a lot of daily grind, where reading is a true pleasure."

I guess that makes a novel a sleight-of-hand that only takes 5-7 years to master..?

Whedon, Mantel, and Neil Young - together at last

Well, together in a blog post, anyway.  This is just another one of these tabs-open-in-my-browser posts: all the articles I've been enjoying and  meaning to blog about.

Joss Whedon's Top 10 Writing Tips - Anyone who knows me (and let's be frank, that's most of you!) knows of my abiding love of Buffy and all things Joss.   These tips are tailored for screenplays, but the basic principles are relevant.  (And anyway, who among us fiction writers doesn't have a secret ambition to try writing a screenplay someday?  Or, say, a secret ambition that flits across our dollar-sign eyeballs after a screening of a particular dismal rom-com...?)

An essay about prizes by Hilary Mantel - Hilary Mantel just won the Man Booker again, for Bring Up the Bodies, her sequel to Wolf Hall, which won the Booker in 2009.   This is a piece from 2010.   I've heard some pretty strong endorsements of Wolf Hall (er, as if the Booker isn't enough), but I have my own weird and foolish hang-ups about historical novels and a kdisinclination for Tudor England in particular, so I haven't picked it up yet.  But I love Mantel's voice in this essay -- now I'm interested in tracking down a copy of her memoir, Giving Up the Ghost.  

and lastly, a review of Neil Young's memoir, which creates a portrait of the artist as a non-reader.
 

Hazlitt, the new It Lit Blog

If you’re not on Twitter, then there is still a chance that you might not know about Hazlitt, Random House’s new online magazine (or, as they call it “flagship digital habitat”) that has been posting a staggering amount of awesome content lately from all the best people.

Here are some of the things I enjoyed reading in the past little while:

Helen Guri on Anne Carson’s Antigonick

Rachel Giese on a clash with her son's teacher over gay-positive materials in the classroom

Ben McNally with a thoughtful, bookseller's take on awards and prize lists

And everything by Linda Besner, including articles

on ---

The irrationality of optimism

The aesthetic value of the quiz

A linguistic take on beer commercials

I hope they keep it up, though with such ventures one always wonders if they're profitable (monetarily, I mean, to the publisher), and what the level of commitment is for keeping them alive even if they should turn out not to be.  

this and that

I’ve been slowly updating the list of links in the sidebar. Since becoming a blog slacker, I’ve been relying exclusively on my wildly disorganized (or formerly organized but now ossified and only marginally useful) set of folders on Google Reader. Meanwhile, check out the new additions!

Exchanged some more emails today re: a freelancing payment I am still waiting on from something I wrote back in August. In this case, and upon request, I had invoiced promptly – the very same day I filed the story. But such is the life of a freelancer. I am full of admiration for people who can survive on this kind of piecemeal salary, and no doubt those who are most successful at it have (one hopes) at least a few reliable gigs to bank on. But I am far too practical/anxiety-ridden when it comes to money matters to be able to try this at the moment.

The best thing I have read lately is a letter from John Steinbeck to his son on the subject of love. It has reminded me of grandness of Steinbeck’s heart, and it is good, warm, soul-expanding advice. I found it via the wonderful Classic Penguin tumblr, but it was originally posted on Letters of Note, a site I'm very happy to know about.

The best thing I saw earlier this week was the amazing Can Lit is Sexy tumblr. I hope whoever is doing it keeps it up!

And the last thing worth sharing is the great sale being run by ECW Press. Buy any Spring 2012 title and get the eBook for free. A terrific deal!

The Benefits of Leaving Town

One of the perks of leaving town for a few days is coming home to a pile of linky goodness on Google Reader and Twitter. Is there anything more satisfying and relaxing than zoning out with a cold glass of soda water in front of a metric ton of new blog posts? (Well, possibly. But not during a heat wave.)

Annabel Lyon has been posting lots on her blog (her last entry includes a link to an excerpt) for her brand-new novel about Alexander and Aristotle, The Golden Mean. I can't wait to read it! It and February by Lisa Moore are the two books I'm most excited about that I haven't gotten my hands on yet.

Ami McKay just posted this very cute and fun kids magnetic poetry site on her Twitter feed.

Hannah Sung at the CBC Book Club linked to a Times Online list from Adrian McKinty of the 10 Best Lady Detectives. Glaring omission (to my mind): Veronica Mars! (I'm still crushed that that show -- my favourite since Buffy -- was cancelled.)

The Guardian Book Club takes on Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha -- a book I loved when I first read it in Grade Twelve but which I haven't yet had a chance to revisit.

I think that's all the sharing I can manage before facing the fact that my little vacation really is over. Back to work!