Do You Know What You Want to Say?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

“If you want to send a message, try Western Union.” – Samuel Goldwyn
Do you send a message in your fiction? Nothing wrong with that. You can’t read Atlas Shruggedor On The Road or To Kill A Mockingbird without picking up that the writers had something on their minds that drove them in the writing. And each of those books still sell tens of thousands of copies per year.
But good old Sam Goldwyn knew that if you get too didactic, the story suffers. You have to let the characters live and breathe and act like real people in response to the story elements. You don’t want to manipulate them so much that the reader thinks you’ve moved from storytelling to sermonizing.
Still, at the end of any book or story, an author will have left something for the reader to think about. It can’t be helped. That’s the nature of story.
Which bring us to Theme.  Theme (or as I call it, Meaning) is the “big idea.” It is what emerges once the central conflict is resolved. The famous writing teacher William Foster-Harris believed that all great stories could be explained in a “moral formula,” the struggle between sets of values:
Value 1 vs. Value 2 => Outcome.
You plug in your values thus:
            Love vs. Ambition => Love.
In other words, the value of love overcomes in the struggle against ambition. If one were writing a tragedy, the outcome would be the opposite, with ambition winning, but at the cost of lost love.
Writing teacher Lajos Egri posed a similar idea in The Art of Dramatic Writing. He called it the “Premise.” It is expressed in a moral formula as well, as in Justice overcomes deceit.
The question today, writer, is whether you are being intentional about your theme.
Not all writers know their theme when they start writing. They have characters and a plot idea, and they let the writing unfold as it will. They may not think about theme at all. They may simply write about characters involved in the struggle of the plot, knowing that struggle will eventually end. Most of the time that’s how I approach it in my own writing. But I do, at some point, identify what it is my emerging story is trying to say—because, of course, it’s really mein there somewhere.
But even writers who say they never think about theme end up saying something. It can’t be helped. All stories have meaning, whether the author is purposeful about it or not. Why? Because readers are wired for it. We are always looking for meaning, trying to make sense of the world. Indeed, one of the reasons we have storytellers is to help our fellow creatures through the mythical dark forest, otherwise known as life.
Perhaps, then, it would be wise to be a little more conscious of your theme. Whether you start out with one or find it along the way, try to identify the unifying message. Then you can go back in the revision process and weave symbols, metaphors and thematic dialogue into the tale.
It also helps to know your theme in case you get questions. I wrote a short story that stoked some controversy among a section of my reader base. I got a few emails, and one consternated face-to-face query, asking why I wrote such a disturbing and eerie tale.  
I responded that I was actually trying to write a profoundly moral tale. One that had a very clear meaning (to me, at least). I shaped the plot precisely to be disturbing (think Twilight Zone or Alfred Hitchcock Presents)  because the theme would not be as powerfully presented otherwise.
I would be very interested in seeing if you find the meaning I intended. That’s why I’ve made the story, “Autumnal,” free on Kindle today through Wednesday. I’d love it if you got it, read it, and told me via Twitter what you think the meaning is. Use #Autumnal for the discussion.
As for you, dear author, talk about this in the comments: Do you know what you want to say when you start a story? Are you a “theme-first” kind of writer? Or do you prefer to let the characters duke it out and leave it at that?

Happy Birthday, Hank

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Author Charles Bukowski would have been 93 yesterday. That would be a ripe old age even for the best of us but would have been well-nigh impossible for Bukowski, who probably never had a healthy day in his life and compounded his miseries with his alcohol-fueled lifestyle which in turn provided the frank fodder for his prose and verse. Bukowski, the poet laureate and prose prince of the down and out, was capable of inducing laughter or tears from readers within a sentence or two or on many occasions within the same sentence. I attended a reading of his in the early 1970s during which he got me to laughing so hard that he had to stop the proceedings until I fully recovered. Actually, I never really did. Reading Bukowski, let alone listening to him, was and is a life-changing event.
My introduction to Bukowski in was accomplished through a great guy named Mark Clayman who in the 1970s was the owner and operator of “Upstairs Books.”  It was a wonderful hole in the wall located at the top of two short staircases in a brick building in the Spicertown neighborhood adjacent to the University of Akron. One rainy afternoon Mark thrust a trade paperback book (I am deliberately omitting the somewhat scatological title) into my hands and said, “Have you read Bukowski? I swear by him.” He was so sure that I would like the book that he offered me a full refund if I didn’t like it. His money was safe. I have gone through five copies of that book over the years, the replacements occasioned by coffee spills and ill-advised lendings to the wrong people and get-out-of-Dodge moves subsequent to divorce.   I’m still reading and re-reading it, as well as other Bukowski short story collections, his novels, and even his poetry collections (and I NEVER read poetry anymore) some forty odd years later. 

It took a while for the public to catch up with Bukowski. His writing was stark and his subject matter was ugly. His books throughout most of his life were only available through small presses, most of which have since gone out of business. He eventually hit the big time; HarperCollins is his publisher now, and it even has a website set up to commemorate his birthday at http://happybirthdayBukowskidotcom. The subject matter remains the same, however. If you drive hurriedly through impoverished neighborhoods where the only going concerns are sad-looking taverns strategically placed every half block or so, the folks propped up on bar stools inside are the stuff and substance of Bukowski’s work. They would include the author himself, who wrote several autobiographical novels featuring Hank Chinaski, his fictional alter ego. 

Bukowski may have been an unapologetic drunk and a failure at conventional work, but he had no illusions about himself and no reservations about baring his soul for the world to see in prose shot through with an angry but resigned weariness fueled by his near-constant intake of whatever alcohol he could get his hands on at any given moment. At the end of the day, however, he described the ugly beautifully, as well as the frustration and difficulty of writing, the only occupation at which he attained some level of success, and that in spite of himself.
Pulp, Bukowski’s last novel,  was completed and published shortly before his death. It is a vicious sendup of the hard-boiled detective genre, containing exaggerated clichés and stereotypical situations which stand as a deliberate textbook example of how not to write a genre novel, and should therefore be read by anyone who intends to write one. As always, no punches are pulled, so that at times one is tempted to look away from the page even as the pull of his words makes doing so impossible. It is also however, infused with Bukowski’s knowledge and frustration over the fact that time for him was running out. Despite his prodigious output,  the man had so much more left to say.
 If you’re unfamiliar with Bukowski, check out the website I mentioned earlier and sample a book or two. If you have read his work, pull a volume down from your shelf and revisit a stark example of how the job of writing is fittingly and properly done.

Life and Death: Proofreading Your Novel

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By Elaine Viets
bears
    Are there more typos in novels these days?
    Readers complain about “it’s” instead of  “its,” “grizzly murders” (beware of those killer bears), and plain old misspellings.
    Yes. There are more typos, in my professional opinion.
    I’m speaking as a professional proofreader. I worked my way through college proofreading everything from phone books (snore) to medical journals, including The Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, along with Allergy, Surgery, and more. Reading medical journals gave me a lifelong distrust of doctors.general hospital
     I’ve never forgotten proofing that stirring editorial in The American Journal of Surgery, reminding doctors to count their sponges and surgical instruments before sewing a patient back up.
4.1.1
      I proofread from 1968 to 1972, and made $1.59 an hour, forty cents more than the minimum wage. Each medical journal was proofread three times, by three different people. They were nearly flawless.
    Publishers can’t afford to do that any more. Now you’re lucky if your book is read once. It’s your job to catch those typos.
    Betty Wilson, a master proofreader, taught me the trade. She believed hunting typos was a matter of life and death – and for medical books she was right.
    It’s harder to proofread your own books. Your mind substitutes the right word for the mistake that’s there.
    But Betty’s three-step method will help you catch more. If you’re like me, you’re better at catching typos on paper than on a computer screen, so if you aren’t reading page proofs, print out the manuscript.
    Here’s how I read my page proofs:
    (1) Read the novel through once.
     Find a quiet spot with good light. Then turn off the TV, CD player and other distractions, and pour yourself some caffeine.
coffee
    If I’m reading a 320-page novel, I break it into 70 to 80 pages a day. Take short breaks every two or three chapters. Pour more caffeine, scratch the cat, stretch, rest your eyes, then go back to reading.
    (2) Read your book again, holding a piece of plain white paper under each line.
    You will be surprised how many typos you missed the first time.
spaces
    When you’ve finished with the white paper read, you’ll be sure you’ve caught every single mistake. Boy, are you in for a surprise. It’s time for Step three.
    (3) Read your novel out loud.
    You don’t need to shout it out. You can mumble quietly in your chair. Your family’s used to that. But reading your novel out loud is crucial. Also, crushingly boring. And hard on the throat.
     This time, skip the caffeine. It dries out your throat.  Drink water. Cold will do, but I use the radio announcer’s trick for scratchy throats. I drink hot water with a slice of lemon. It works.
lemon  
So does reading your book aloud. You will be shocked to find still more typos. I guarantee you’ll catch at least four more this way.
    Will you get them all? Not this time.
    But you will see the last few typos – when your finished novel arrives.
Books
                    ***
   
    DEAD-END JOB FANS: Enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of BOARD STIFF, the ultimate beach book, in time for Labor Day. Hope you get to take my 12th DEJ book to the beach. Hurry! Sweepstakes ends tomorrow, August 16. Click on  
 http://elaineviets.com/new/Contests/Contest_Enter.asp
BoardStiff

Broadchurch

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Nancy J. Cohen

Are you watching the British crime drama, Broadchurch, on BBC Wednesday nights? It’s a limited episode series that started last week, so you’re not missing much if you pop in tonight. As a mystery writer, I can’t help analyzing the story structure.

Episode one presents the scene of the crime. A young boy is found murdered on the beach. The time and method of death are established. We meet his family, some of whom are keeping secrets. The boy may have been killed between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am last night. Where was the father? Supposedly out on an emergency plumbing call. Oh, really? How lame is that alibi?

Yet not once does the lead detective suggest verifying the plumbing job. This handsome bloke, by the way, is David Tennant of Dr. Who fame. I like him with his scruffy beard. But someone needs to clue him in on finding the facts. Will it be the ambitious reporter? Or did he have a hand in this horrible event to create a story for himself?

David Tennant

And where was the victim’s father the night of the murder? Is he having an affair? Involved in a smuggling scheme? The rugged coastline may have been the site for smugglers in historic times. Perhaps there’s a new gang at work and the boy became a liability.

And how was the boy involved? His best friend isn’t so innocent. The kid erases all his computer and cell phone files after his mum, a detective on the force who’s been passed over for promotion, tells him he’ll be questioned about what he knows. What’s the kid hiding? Could he and the victim have been involved in a shady scheme with the victim’s father?

Then again, the father seems too easy a mark. Maybe he’s the red herring.

As the show progresses, we’ll see more townspeople guarding secrets. Eventually the detective will unravel them until he exposes the killer. And what about his own past? He was sent to this little hamlet after something scandalous occurred in his career. He couldn’t have created a murder to boost his own reputation, could he?

Broadchurch

Everyone in this village is a potential suspect. It’s a juicy story in that respect, and I’m eager to see how it plays out. This is why I like whodunit mysteries. We are guessing along with the detective. The small town atmosphere becomes a character in its own right as we learn that not all of the inhabitants are as innocuous as they seem.

So are you going to watch the show tonight?

It takes more than a village to move this writer…

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We’re deep in the throes of preparing our house for sale, while simultaneously scouting out new digs in a neighboring beach town. I’ve never had such a hard time moving. Unlike  Clare, who has repeatedly and gracefully moved across oceans and continents, young kids in tow, with nary a complaint, I’m feeling the need to whine about the moving process to anyone who will listen.

Every previous move in my life has been simple and painless: In the past I simply called up some movers, who’d pack up my stuff and drive it in a truck to the next place, and then unpack. Finis! But this time is different, and in a horrible way. We’re lucky that we live in a nice house in a seller’s market. But, as our real estate agent sternly explained after touring the property, the Market here has certain expectations. In particular, the Market expects this type of home to be updated, pristine and uncluttered. The opposite, that is to say, of its current condition.

To meet the Market’s fussy demands, we’re using a Roman legion of professionals to whip our house into shape. The first legionnaire to arrive was a landscape architect, who drew up plans to Update our plantings. He even ordered us to replant our neighbor’s side garden, which flanks the walkway to our front door. (The Market evidently demands an attractive approach to front entrances.) Our neighbors seemed pleased, if slightly confused, by our sudden offer to replace their weedy garden strip with lucious ferns and impatiens. (These neighbors have lived in the same house for more than 20 years; obviously they haven’t heard the news about Updating.)

We did a pre-inspection review (which  gives the Market confidence that you’re not trying to sell it a lemon). The inspection report revealed a number of flaws that needed to be fixed, mostly because safety codes have been Updated during the eleven years we’ve lived here. The required repairs (which included a new roof) are being made by a rotating cast of contractors, workers, handymen, and a friend of ours named Dave who somehow got sucked into the vortex.  There were so many guys tromping through the house at one point that I lost track of who was doing what, or even who they were. As long as they were carrying tools and didn’t appear to be conducting a home invasion robbery, I simply gave them all cheerful waves and tried to stay out of their way.

Next came the Updating of the house’s cosmetics. This phase is being driven by Miriam, an interior designer. Miriam has been selecting Things That Can Stay during the showing of the house, and separating them from Things That Must Go. Everything that doesn’t make the cut will be sold, donated, or moved temporarily into giant metal pods. Miriam is daubing the walls with sample swatches of paint, plus purchasing a few select items that will Update our decor. These purchases are mostly things like colorful pillows, a rug, and timers for the lights. (The Market expects a house to be brightly lit at all times.) Our kitchen is about to become something called “two-tone,” which I didn’t even know was a trend. Miriam is constantly moving stuff around to “stage” things properly. One candleabra has moved its position about so many times, I could swear we’ve picked up a poltergeist.

 Miriam came as part of a package deal with a professional organizer named Heidi. Heidi manages her own crew of assistants. Heidi, a high-energy, smiling refugee from the corporate world, makes her living helping people like us get through complex projects such as Updating. (I’m sure Heidi doesn’t help people like Clare, because people like Clare are obviously well-organized, competent, and resourceful. They don’t need a Heidi.)

Heidi set up timelines for our “project,” and keeps an impressive spreadsheet up to date. She is researching and marketing excess items that are too expensive to sell on Craigslist or in a garage sale. For example: Heidi  discovered that a set of my dad’s old office chairs are Swedish-designer things worth about $1500-$2500 each. Which means I should call them “vintage” chairs rather than old, I guess. Bottom line: one has to be careful when getting rid of anything that comes from my family, especially funky old office chairs.

Watching over all this chaos from a strategic distance is our real estate agent, who made it clear from the beginning that she’d prefer to sell our house empty rather than with us still living in it. I have to say I’m beginning to agree with her. It would be so much easier if we could move everything into pods, check into someplace temporarily, let the professionals do their thing, and be done with the whole mess. Then we could forget about things like colored throw pillows and editing furniture, at least until we find a new house, when I guess the process kicks into reverse and starts up all over again. But my husband has vetoed moving out early as an option. So I’m coping as best I can.  F. Scott Fitzgerald captured my state of mind brilliantly in the last line of The Great Gatsby:

 “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

The writing connection


I’ll bring this discussion back to writing. The publishing industry, as we all know, has been changing at a rapid clip. Indie publishing is in vogue, and longtime readers know that TKZ has a wealth of useful information about indie publishing in its archives. I’ve watched my colleagues step forth bravely into the new world, but I’ve yet to take the plunge. I’ll get there at some point, but I think I’d like to work with a project manager to get through the process, at least the first time out. I’ll need a project manager for indie publishing for the same reason I need Heidi the Project Manager for moving and selling our house–I don’t like dealing with the details of process. It isn’t my strong suit. I want there to be someone professional and trustworthy who can steer me through the whole thing. That person would 1) find a great cover designer for my new book, 2) direct me to a line editor, 3) format my manuscript, and 4) upload it to the appropriate outlets. Basically, I would pay this person to manage my indie publishing project, in the same way I pay Heidi to manage our moving project, or an accountant to manage my taxes. Does such a person or entity exist, or is a market being created? Because I’m one of those people who wants someone else to manage the nitty gritty process details, I’m nervous about falling into the hands of the sharks that prowl the indie waters. I certainly don’t want to pay a lot of money and be dissatisfied with the results.

I know we’ve talked endlessly about the how-to’s of indie publishing here at TKZ, but I’m wondering if there’s a solution for process-phobic people like me. Of course, the ideal solution would be for me to absorb all the good information we discuss here and learn how to master the process myself, but it might not ever happen. Just ask Heidi.

A Transmedia Plan

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by Clare Langley-Hawthorne

Last weekend I attended the Willamette Writers Conference in Portland, Oregon and there were some great speakers who really helped open my eyes regarding the nature of the media and publishing industry today. 

One such speaker (Luke Ryan) gave a terrific presentation on what he termed  ‘transmedia’ and the need for writers to think beyond their ‘box’ (be it novel writing or screenwriting). He defined the term ‘transmedia’ as (and I paraphrase) ‘a narrative built across multiple platforms that grows exponentially with little repetition of content’. In other words, as writers, we need to be aware of all the different forms of media that could carry pieces of our narrative/story and which engage audiences in their own unique ways. We are in essence world builders and, as such, given the current state of the media and publishing industries, we need to think ‘outside the box’ if we are to grow our brand/story and readership. 

Makes sense, right? It’s also pretty daunting when you think of all the media platforms available. For writers like us some of the key media platforms might include things like:

  • Film
  • TV
  • Graphic Novels
  • E-books
  • E-book ‘shorts’/or serialization (see Jim’s post yesterday)
  • Graphic Novels
  • Apps
  • Social Media
  • Audio books

That’s a vast array of options for a writer but the key message I took away from Luke’s presentation is that we need to consider our work across these forms of media and identify ways in which these other elements might factor into building the ‘world’ we have created in our novels. 

The other key message I took from Luke’s presentation is that this does not mean merely reproducing or repeating content across various forms of media – because readers are hungry for fresh, unique content. An author should therefore look at their work across a continuum of media opportunities. You might have written a thriller but then produce a series of unique e-book shorts that focus on a minor (yet intriguing) character within that book. You might also work with a graphic artist to produce a series of graphic novels that involve stories from the main protagonist’s past. In each of these different mediums you are producing new content which nonetheless feeds into the core story (your thriller).

After listening to Luke’s presentation I was both excited by the myriad of possibilities for my own work and also (I admit) overwhelmed by them. However, I learned that, as writers, we must always be thinking about unique opportunities to bring readers to our stories, to rise above the ‘noise’, and to provide great, unique content that supplements the main stories we write. So I wanted to ask all you TKZers, how do you envisage tackling a ‘transmedia’ platform for your own work? Too overwhelming or are you already ahead of the curve and have a ‘transmedia’ plan of attack?


Two More Ways for Writers to Milk the Cash Cow

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So you want to make money as a writer. I feel a Seinfeld coming on: Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Because there absolutely isn’t. In fact, it’s a good thing to write for money.
Writers write. And these days, writers increasingly publish. But digital and print are not the only games in town. To invigorate the flow of your income stream, think diversification.As in, trying new things, putting out your content in all possible forms. Here are two to consider: Audio and Serialization.
Audio
According to the Wall Street Journal (link may expire),there is an “explosion” in the production and consumption of audio books:
“We’re moving toward a media-agnostic consumer who doesn’t think of the difference between textual and visual and auditory experience,” says Don Katz, Audible’s founder and CEO. “It’s the story, and it is there for you in the way you want it.”
Audio books have ballooned into a $1.2 billion industry, up from $480 million in retail sales in 1997. Unit sales of downloaded audio books grew by nearly 30% in 2011 compared with 2010, according to the Audio Publishers Association. Now they can be downloaded onto smartphones with the tap of a finger, often for the price of an e-book.
This development is not without its critics and concerns:
The rapid rise of audio books has prompted some hand-wringing about how we consume literature. Print purists doubt that listening to a book while multitasking delivers the same experience as sitting down and silently reading. Scientific studies have repeatedly shown that for competent readers, there is virtually no difference between listening to a story and reading it. The format has little bearing on a reader’s ability to understand and remember a text. Some scholars argue that listening to a text might even improve understanding, especially for difficult works like Shakespeare, where a narrator’s interpretation of the text can help convey the meaning.
Despite the doubts, it’s clear that audio is not only here to stay, it’s going to keep on growing. Which means another income stream for authors.
If you are going it alone, writer, the path to a recorded version of your work couldn’t be simpler. The ACX program at Amazon has one of the most user-friendly sites in publishing. Go cruise around it and see for yourself. Start hereto get an overview of the program.
You have two basic choices. You can pay for equipment (or rent a studio) and figure out how to produce your own work. Or you can partner up with a narrator/producer and split the proceeds. That’s what I chose to do with a guy named Sands from Alaska. Together we have two audiobooks available:
I’m currently auditioning female narrators for the audio version Pay Me in Flesh (Note: I retained those rights during contract negotiations. If you go traditional, discuss this with your agent). I’ll do the same with the other 8 books I have available with women as protagonists. For some of my other work, I’m planning to try it myself. I like listening to Stephen King narrate his own books, and I figure what’s good enough for him…
Serialization
Now we come to the serials idea, which is gaining momentum via Amazon. I recently interviewed thriller author Reece Hirsch, author of The Adversary (serialized via Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint) about his new venture:
“I’m writing a series of thrillers for Thomas & Mercer, featuring Chris Bruen, a former Department of Justice cybercrimes prosecutor who is now in private practice helping clients combat hackers and cybercriminals. Each of the three books in the series will be published initially as Kindle Serials, which means that for a one-time price of $1.99, an episode will be automatically delivered to your Kindle each week for eight weeks. After the serialization is complete, the book will be available for order as a paperback and as a regular ebook. The book’s pricing is typically higher after the serialization period.”
In addition to the serialization, Amazon sets up a discussion board for each Serial so that readers can comment on the episodes as they’re released. “I intend to mix it up with

readers on the discussion board as much as possible,” Reece says.

Reece also notes an additional marketing aspect of serialization:
“The Serials program offers a two-month initial rollout as the episodes are released at a relatively low price, and then the opportunity for a renewed marketing push when the complete ebook and paperback become available. Thrillers, which tend to feature plenty of cliffhanger chapter endings, are uniquely well suited to serialization.”
There was another writer who did okay with serials. Hmm, what was his name again? Oh yeah, a fellow named Dickens. Will the same dynamic that worked in 1875 work in 2013? “I’m looking forward to finding out,” Reece told me. “I measure the ROI in terms of the massive amounts of time I devote to writing a novel for readers. If being part of the Kindle Serials program helps me connect with a larger readership, then I trust that will translate into a decent financial return.”
What about you, TKZ readers? Do you listen to audio books? What about the serials idea? Maybe you should use Reece Hirsch and The Adversary as a try out. 

Vacation!

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By Mark Alpert I’m on vacation in northern Michigan and using my father-in-law’s computer to write this post (so please excuse any weird formatting problems). Needless to say, it’s great up here. So great that I haven’t thought about writing for two weeks. I did a couple of book signings for my latest novel, Extinction, at my two favorite bookstores in the area, McLean & Eakin in Petoskey and Between the Covers in Harbor Springs. But I haven’t written a word. I’ve been very bad. But I’ve been reading a great new science-fiction book, Wool, by Hugh Howey. My son recommended it to me. It’s fantastic. And I did something heroic: I saved the life of an American icon. I was with my wife and kids at the trout pond at the Oden fish hatchery when I heard a loud thrashing in the trees nearby. Much too loud to be a squirrel. I walked closer and saw huge brown wings flapping ineffectually among the branches. Then the large bird fell to the ground and I saw it was a bald eagle in distress. Maybe it had broken a wing, I couldn’t tell. Anyway, my wife called the rangers at the fish hatchery’s visitor center and within a few minutes they drove up with a couple of nets. By this point the eagle had tumbled into the pond and I was worried it would drown. But the bird had amazing stamina and it managed to keep its head above the water until the rangers fished it out with a net. We checked on the eagle’s status the next day: it was doing well at a local bird sanctuary. So now I’m expecting a congratulatory call from the White House. Mr. Alpert, the President is on the line. Unfortunately, we head back to New York City tomorrow. Dirty, crowded New York City, which always seems twice as unlivable in the days after we return from Michigan. On the plus side, though, I’ll probably get more writing done there.

Reader Friday: Learning from Mistakes

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We all prefer to highlight the successful moments in our writing careers, but let’s visit the flip side for a moment. What mistakes or goof-ups have you made in your writing life? Did you learn any useful lessons from from the experience?