Beach Reading (and Writing)

For the next two weeks I'll be vacationing on the East Coast, taking some time to visit with family and friends and spending some considerable time on the beach.  While I plan to take this time off from "work" in the sense of writing that I am doing for others, I do hope to have a good amount of time for personal reading and writing.

I hope to use the change in pace of vacation to start getting in the habit of writing every day.  Essentially it's journal-keeping, but I hope to avoid the "here's what I did today and here's how it made me feel" form of the middle-school diary.  There can be great value in that kind of writing as well, but it has to be meaningful, not forced.  My biggest challenge with journaling is remembering that I'm not writing it for anyone; I don't have to make it interesting, it doesn't have to be about my life or myself or anything in particular.  This type of journal will be solely for practice in writing... essentially just to keep the pen moving.  I hope that doing this will help both my discipline to sit down and write every day and my writing itself. 

There is also a stack of books that I have been wanting to read or that I've started and haven't quite made it through.  I'm excited to have some airplane and beach time to finally sit down with these gems.  Here's what I'm bringing with me:

 

Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott - I have been plucking through this book ever so slowly.  I think I am reluctant to read it too quickly because I'm loving it so much!  It is great inspiration for anyone who loves to write.

 

Why I Write by George Orwell - This book promises more great inspirations in politics and writing.  I have read parts of it, including Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language," which is was originally published in 1946 and is included as the last chapter of this book.  It is always a pleasure to see what the great writers have to say about writing.  Click here to read "Politics and the English Language" online.

 

Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories by Katha Pollitt - My sister gave me this book when I saw her in Denver in May.  It has been rare in the past few years to see my sister more than once a year, so since I will be seeing her again already on this trip it seems only right to take as stab at finishing this one.  I imagine that Pollitt's observations of life will be inspirational, but I also look forward to reading it as an example of a successful publication of personal essays.

 

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - A very nice local Portlander who I know from working at Starbucks gave me a 1971 paperback copy of this book as a (very belated) wedding gift.  It is in near-perfect condition and very much has that wonderful old book smell.  I've never had the privilege of reading anything by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, so I am really looking forward to this one.

I am also bringing the past three issues of The Sun Magazine that I have been wanting to catch up on.  The stories in these magazines are phenomenal and promise to be excellent airplane and beach reading.

Check out The Sun and read parts of current and archived issues at www.thesunmagazine.org

I hope that with all this I'll have some great recommendations for reading and writing endeavors when I return.  Happy reading (and writing)!

NW 23rd Ave Interview with Komo Bains

Check out my interview with NW 23rd local Komo Bains!  

Find out what Komo dreams about, why he wants to make hair grow faster, and of course what he loves about Portland and living on NW 23rd Ave.

For a direct link to the interview, click here.

And as always watch for more interviews with great folks at www.nw23rdav.wordpress.com

Unhappyhipsters:

The only activity that could combat the horror of the child’s clunky Ugg boots—organizing the upper shelves by color and size.

(Photo: Shawn Records; Dwell)

 I understand.

NW 23rd Ave Interview with Cecily Stevens

Check out my new interview with Cecily Stevens on the NW 23rd Ave Blog!   Cecily is a super-friendly district manager with Goorin Brothers based out of the hat shop on NW 23rd and NW Johnson.  Originally from the Berkshires in Massachusetts, Cecily gave some great answers about who she is, why she moved to Portland and what she loves about NW 23rd Ave.  For a direct link to the interview, click here.  Thanks for reading!

 As always, watch for more interviews at www.nw23rdav.wordpress.com.

William Safire's "Great Rules of Writing"

Some excellent advice from William Safire, author of New York Times Magazine column "On Language" from 1979 until his death in 2009:

Do not put statements in the negative form.

And don't start sentences with a conjunction.

If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.

Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.

Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.

De-accession euphemisms.

If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.

Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.

Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.

Funny... but it's true.  Good writing is simple writing.  My rule of thumb: If there are words that can be removed from a sentence without changing the meaning, remove them.  

Example:  I originally wrote "My general rule of thumb:  If there are words that can be removed from a sentence without changing the meaning of the sentence, then you should remove them." 

You get the point.  I'll be adding these to my wish list:

I Write Like David Foster Wallace

If you've ever tried to compare your writing style to your favorite authors (or if you're just curious), this one's for you.  On I Write Like, users can insert a sample of text into the analyzer and find out what famous writer their word choice and writing style compares with.  Who knows how this really works, but it has gotten some pretty solid recognition (check out the I Write Like blog) and it is great fun.  There are also a few other handy tools for writers on the site, including a blog of writing-related quotes, resources and recommendations.  I subscribed to the site's newsletter and was immediately emailed a link for a complimentary download of Short Story Writing: A Practical Treatise on the Art of the Short Story by Charles Raymond Barrett, Ph B.  So I'd say overall, I Write Like is worth a look.

I entered my last substantial blog post, Taking the Time to Write, into the analyzer, and here is my result:

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

NW 23rd Ave Interview with Josh Richardson

Check out my interview with the handsome Josh Richardson, OHSU PhD candidate and NW 23rd Ave resident.  Click here to learn more about Josh and why he loves living on NW 23rd Ave. 

As always, watch for more interviews at www.nw23rdav.wordpress.com.

The Importance of Editing

I've been feeling a bit observant lately and have been noticing a lot of typos in web articles, blog posts, and even one of the books that I've been reading (I won't name names).  I usually try not to be too critical and I'm sure anyone could sift through this blog and find a good handful of typos, so I have been resisting the lecturing "get an editor people!" post that has been mounting inside of me.  When I came across this tidbit today, I thought that sharing it would suffice.  Enjoy!

The 7 Most Disastrous Typos of All Time

*Note: this article is not intended for young or easily offended audiences.

Taking the Time to Write

Yesterday my mom asked me about Joyce Carol Oates' writing style.  While I happen to be quite inexperienced with her writing, I was explaining to my mom what I know about her writing habits and the habits and writing styles of other prolific writers.  This got me thinking about the amount of dedication and time that writing, whether as a career or hobby, requires. 

In The Midnight Disease, Alice Flaherty describes writers who suffer from hypergraphia, an uncontrollable compulsion to write usually caused by high temporal lobe activity such as temporal lobe epilepsy and bipolar disorder.  People with hypergraphia write constantly and extensively.  For example, Lewis Carroll, who is believed to have had temporal lobe epilepsy, wrote 98,721 letters from his late twenties to his death at sixty-five.  Flaherty also talks about "normal" but prolific writers, such as Joyce Carol Oates, who do not have abnormal temporal lobe activity, but who write almost as extensively as writers who do.

It's not easy to put that amount of time into writing.  For me, the difficulty is putting aside all the other things that need to be done, or could be done.  There are always dishes to do, mail to sort, stuff to look at online or out the window.  A long day working at the job that actually pays is always a good excuse.  In Bird By Bird, Anne Lamott describes writing constantly, every day, even when she was working full time.  This is what is really hard, the commitment to just do it, just keep going.  Lamott follows the advice of her father, who was also a writer:

"Do it every day for a while," my father kept saying.  "Do it as you would do scales on the piano.  Do it by prearrangement with yourself.  Do it as a debt of honor.  And a commitment to finishing things."

I have friends who write, too and I think we all have the same trouble with it.  One has been writing for years, has even been published.  She tells me, "I'm going to start writing again," and weeks later she's still telling me the same thing.  Another says to me, "let's go somewhere and just sit and write" so we go to the park and we sit and we talk and we people watch with our notebooks and pencils in the grass beside us.  I think that there is value in the desire to write and in the intention to write, but at some point you actually do need to just sit down and write.

See also:  The Inner Manic

Peanut-Butter-Jelly Time

Check out my newest interview with the creators of PBJs Grilled Gourmet Peanut Butter Creations located on the corner of NW 23rd and NW Kearney.  Read about their vision for delicious grilled peanut butter sandwiches with everything from bananas to blue cheese to hot sauce to pickles.  It's brilliance on a piece of bread.

As always, find this and other interviews with NW 23rd Ave locals at: www.nw23rdav.wordpress.com.  Or click here for the direct link to the interview.

Go to www.pbjsgrilled.com for more information on PBJs.