Detail from a map in the collection of the Boston Public Library’s Norman B. Leventhal Map Center.
A few weeks ago, all the sins published my reflections on and exhortations to the wonders of gathering artistic inspiration in museums. (If you missed it, you can find it here.)
This week, they’re back with my best suggestions on how to outfit yourself for a museum exploration. Matthew Henson didn’t head for the North Pole without a coat, after all!
So if you’re suffering writer’s block, or it’s been ages since you went on that school trip to your local historical society, here are my 5 tips on using museums for inspiration.
…Inspiration can come from a fossil in a natural history collection, a scrap of wallpaper in a historic house, the view from a national park peak. What would a taxidermied specimen have to say to its collector? What words still resonate in the walls of an old structure? Whose hands molded the pot whose shards sit in that case, and how do the pieces evoke the whole?
Camp Nanowrimo has rolled around again, which means the corners of the internet I frequent are full of cheerleading and wordcounts and interesting snippets of advice from published authors. As I am currently more in the editing stage of several projects as opposed to the frantic amassing of words, I thought I’d share some of the things that have caught my attention in the last week or two:
How to Train your Inner Editor by Mary R. Kowal
I watched this right before making notes for critiquing two pieces for my writers’ group, and it did really make me think about the kind of feedback I give, as well as the feedback I’ve gotten. I’ve done the beta-reader thing in several different ways, by email and in person, for strangers, acquaintances, and friends, and I do enjoy it, but now I get to appreciate it as a training exercise for my own writing in a way I’d never considered before.
Quote by Ira Glass, Lovely layout by artist unknown. If you know whom to credit, please let me know! (Google’s reverse image search failed me)
For a deeper look at that idea-to-editing-to-just-publish-already zone, Kowal and her fellow authors from the podcast series Writing Excuses have a new anthology called Shadows Beneath, featuring 4 short stories in first draft and revised versions, with discussions of the editing process. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks like fun.
How Amazon and Goodreads are changing literary criticism – Do you write Goodreads reviews? Do you follow book bloggers? Whose opinions do you trust? I had a bunch of books on my ‘to read’ list based off bloggers’ book reviews that were *panned* on Goodreads–so what now? I moved them from my ‘buy if you see them’ to ‘see if they’re at the library next time you’re there’ list. But I won’t ditch them entirely until I read the first few chapters. How do you react to online reviews?
Slowing down the brain with calligraphic text messaging? Since much of this post is about being aware of your writing as you’re writing, and being a more mindful reader/responder, I thought it would be fun to wrap up with this entertaining article from a woman who spent a week replying to text messages with hand-written photographic replies.
What do you do to make yourself a more mindful reader and writer?
Lots of people who write like to write about writing. Oftentimes what they say is contradictory, sometimes it’s too obvious to be truly useful, and yet occasionally you come across things which are genuinely interesting, entertaining, and elucidating. Here are a few I’ve come across recently:
I have long loved Patricia C. Wrede’s novels, and her blog often has really interesting posts on elements of the writing process. One of my favorites so far was on the difficulty of multi-person point of view and big complicated stories: “Complicated Webs”
The bloggers over at Writers’ Digest also can offer up interesting nuggets (assuming one doesn’t mind the plugs for the books available through the WD shop, etc.) One post which encapsulated one of the problems I had with Rick Riordan’s newest book, The Red Pyramid, was “The Biggest Bad Advice about Story Openings,” pointing out the weaknesses in the old advice ‘Start with action.’
Portrait of Chaucer by Thomas Hoccleve in the Regiment of Princes (1412). Click for link
And for sheer geeky writer glee, I must pass along the link which a fellow writer friend shared recently: Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog. It’s written in Middle English (with a few modern adaptations) and is several levels of hilarious, if you’re anything like me (By which I mean ‘spent a whole semester reading almost nothing but medieval romances and the like.’ An understandably small percentage of you, I’m guessing).
Sea Dreams and Time Machines 