Rules for Writers to Help Them Write

Many writers develop rules to help them write.  Sometimes such rules embody almost inhuman abilities in areas such as discipline.  Anthony Trollope would write several hours every morning, no matter what.  Once he finished a novel while he still had time allotted to write.  So without waste, he started on a new novel.

Two years ago, the British newspaper “The Guardian” asked several prominent writers what rules proved useful for them.  Some of them offered great advice.  Zadie Smith has a rule about writing on a computer that disconnected to the Internet.  Elmore Leonard crosses out anything that a reader might skip. Margaret Atwood’s advice is to bring pencils to write on flights, as pens tend to leak.  Roddy Doyle has a rule against checking on Amazon.com for books you haven’t written yet.

Some writers have rules for what they will write about.  Francis Spufford wrote about himself:

“I'm a writer of non-fiction who is creeping up gradually on writing novels. I write slowly and I always move to new subject-matter with each book, because I want to be learning something fresh every time, both in terms of encountering history and people and thinking which are new to me, and also in the sense of trying out a new way of writing. My idea of a good project is one that I can only just manage. I've written a memoir of my childhood as a compulsive reader, an analysis of the British obsession with polar exploration, a book about engineers which is also a stealth history of Britain since 1945, and […] "Red Plenty", about the moment in the early 1960s when it looked as if Soviet communism really might be beating the capitalist west in the race to abundance.”

“Red Plenty” is a great book and will have blog posts of its own.  By the way, Francis Spufford has just published another book “Unapologetic”, which is about his being a practicing Christian.

Does Handwriting Matter?

Does handwriting matter?  Philip Hensker thinks it does.  It’s more intimate, he says.  And it shows our personality.  And after accounting for such important part of our lives, it is disappearing.

I, for one, side with Hensker’s Ph. D. supervisor who, upon being presented with a handwritten thesis, returned it unread.  He was a reader and for us readers, handwriting isn’t such a great deal.

Actually, it wasn’t such a great deal for me as a writer either--from the very early stages.  When I was in grade school, my handwriting skills lagged and things haven’t improved much since.  Though, with laptops replacing typewriters everywhere, at least I am not punished anymore for having bad handwriting.

Schools in Poland had double desks and of course from the first grade, boys sat with boys and girls sat with girls. Except when a boy was being punished and the most diabolical punishment was to make him sit next to a girl. Other boys would pounce on such an opportunity to mock--being called “King of Women” was a great insult. (Nobody seemed to care how girls felt about being made an instrument of punishment).  Having to sit next to a girl was reserved for the misdemeanor of having a messy handwriting. With girls being in general neater than boys, the idea was that a boy, by sitting next to a girl, might absorb somehow, perhaps by sheer proximity, the virtues of good penmanship. 

In practice, the teacher would demand that all pupils open on their desks their notebooks with written work.  She would walk up and down the classroom between the rows of desks and look for what she could criticize.  She would  often stop at my desk and mock my very poor handwriting by comparing it to that of the girl sitting next to me saying something like: “How come you can’t do it if she can.  Look, look how neat her pages are.  And yours?  Ink spots, crippled letters, writing that doesn’t follow the lines on the pages.  Terrible.”

I used to hate that girl with all my heart.  I am ashamed to remember my happiness years later when were had to take exams that would steer us to either academic high schools or vocational schools, I learned that the girl flunked out and wouldn’t continue like most of us. 

New Poem at Wayfarer

I have a new poem, "Two Sides of Palo Alto" up at Wayfarer, a very handsome journal that can be read online here: http://homeboundpublications.com/the-wayfarer-journal/issue-archive/.

A Couple Reviews

Here is an excerpt from a great review at Amazon:

This novel is full of psychological aspects. You see the difficulties of Nicolas' mission, how much he suffered but also how strong he became. Furthermore you learn about Russia in the 19th century, a life on a Russian estate as well as about how bureaucracy worked and what way of thinking used to be. It contains an unbelievably vast range of issues from history to love and from humanity to justice. In the whole book Julian Berengaut describes the story so well that the reader can easily find himself part of the scene. It's definitely one of those unputdownable books you can't stop reading. Prepare to accompany Nicolas on his exciting, touching journey!

thanks Lara Kosa! And here's another: 

The mode in which the novel operates is similar to that of "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel or "Blindness" by José Saramago: novels that are almost "philosophical" in their desire to sketch out some dilemmas confronting the living, but whose intellectual energy is inseparable from the vitality of a narrative thrust that impels the action forward.

thanks Alok Yadav!