Okay, So Let Me Get This Over With.

This is where I work. It's the landing outside our bedroom. My wife found that desk for me on Craigslist and I am eternally grateful to her for it. She also found me that awesome chair from around the same period.

She's lovey that way.

The bottom drawer has this old, glued-on card that says, "1936 Boston Red Sox Baseball Cards". It's quite perverse how much I like that card. The desk has a deep history, as evidenced by the 1/8" layer of pockmarked varnishes on the top.

Those are three of my guitars (in their black cases) in the background: a 1974 Ibanez Les Paul copy, a black Epiphone acoustic, and an acoustic I bought back in 1983 called a Mountain. It has a real Martin top on it, and sounds very, very "warm".

Yes, I am a guitar geek when I'm not writing.

Anyway, that's where I struggle almost everyday with this writing thing I love so much.

A Buddy Got His First Book Pub'd and...

... contract copies of it arrived at his house today. I wanted to blog about it because this guy has worked so hard, for so many years, to get to this place in his life. Yes, I admit to a certain amount of jealousy, because of course I wish it were me standing there, holding copies of my book. That's only natural, however, I am also filled with so much joy for him. My book is still being shopped by my agent, so hopefully I'll get there one day, too, but again: he's already there. His novel is a concrete object, with a certain mass and weight that occupies space. He's been hard at work building his author platform and he's doing a fine job at it. You'll find his blog and his website listed here on this blog. Please visit him. He's a great writer, and more of his books will be coming out, trust me.

This man is Ryan David Jahn. His book is Acts of Violence.

A Great Auction For a Great Cause

Irene Goodman, of the legendary Irene Goodman Literary Agency (Yes, I admit, I'm biased) is having a truly wonderful auction in December on Ebay. Here's what she has to say about it:

I am very excited about my Ebay auction, which will take place from December 1st-15th. Authors will be invited to bid on critiques of partial manuscripts (around 50 pages plus synopsis). I will personally critique the top 25 bidders. All proceeds will go directly to the Foundation Fighting Blindness and the Deafness Research Foundation.

I'll provide the links to the auctions once they go live, never fear. To get a critique of your work by Irene is really the proverbial golden opportunity, one that will also benefit a couple of great foundations. Mark your calendar and check back for the links!

Short and Sweet

Today is about succinct writing. Hence, here's a link to a fantastic blog entry on the Upstart Crow Literary Blog on Writing Workshops. It's a blast.

Want a peek behind the curtain?

Yes, two posts on one day, however, I really wanted to link to a fantastic blog on the publishing world, Pimp My Novel. Eric's in the middle of explaining what goes on during the acquisition P&L (profit and loss) phase at a publishing house and it's not too be missed.

Enjoy.

Rain, and setting a mood.

I woke up to massive amounts of rain today, beating on the roof like an angry army of squirrels. First big rain of the season, and if it weren't for the fact I had to go to work today, I would've gone out for a nice, long walk. I love the rain.

However, the rain made me think of mood, and how a writer can sometimes use weather to help create a mood in their writing. I set my novel, Unseen Damage, during a wet, rainy part of the year in San Francisco. I treat the weather in an anthropomorphic manner, making it one of the characters of the story, instead of just a backdrop.

Think about how powerful water is as a metaphor. A river can represent our journey through life, rain can be the cleansing agent not just for our bodies, but our souls. A great example of this, in film, is Kurosawa's Roshomon. Yes, I know... a film example on a writing blog? However, how Kurosawa uses rain in this film (and in all of his films, really) is a great lesson using weather not only as a mood setting device, but also as a metaphor for redemption. You can certainly watch this film and take away something you can later use in your writing.

I write noir novels, so my rain and weather tends to be dark, overcast, gloomy. However, you can certainly use a sunny day, wind, heat, or snow in the same way. Thinking about the weather world your characters inhabit opens up numerous layers of texture in your writing.

Give it a shot. Why not try writing a scene with your characters that takes place on a rainy day, then try it again with the same scene, but during a heat wave?

Use the weather around your characters to help build your world, make it more real. It doesn't have to be in the forefront, up in the reader's face; just enough to add another layer to the scene.

Gotta love the Mondays in our lives.

Or not. This might be a bit short today as I'm working on getting my website together, which lives here.

Yes, it needs more content. I'm working on a links page to all sorts of helpful stuff for writers.

There's something going on at Nathan Bransford's brilliant blog (that was a fun alliteration to type) that I urge all of you to enter: His 3rd Sort of Annual Stupendously Ultimate First Paragraph Challenge.

Oh, and I'm also a Tweeter. You can find me on Twitter as robertklewis. Yeah, I know... very creative of me. It's been a challenge to live on the net under my REAL name. I've always used an alias of some sort. It feels very much like shaving all the hair off your head and body and walking down the noon day street, nude. Yes, really.

Oh, and nothing to do with writing, but definitely with the blues (another love of mine): Booker White doing "Aberdeen Mississippi Blues", via The Boing.

On yet another note, a quick "you must go here!" sort of thing: the greatest database of agents on the web, plus TONS of informative essays, AND a fantastic forum of helpful writers all pulling together to succeed in what is a crazy hard career choice. I give you AgentQuery!

And finally for today, a small but incredibly informative post over at Editor Unleashed on Authors who are tweeting, and getting it right!

See ya at the bar. I'll be the guy at the end crying into his highball glass.