Thursday, February 19, 2009

On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King


I enjoyed reading this book. Even though my experience of King has been limited to the movie adaptation of his books, one audio tape and his writing on entertainment weekly, I feel like I've known him for a long time.
He is a great storyteller and speaking about writing doesn't change his easiness and connectivity.
The book tough me a big deal about writing and the craft. But it also helped me understand talent, hardwork, process and storytelling.
Stephen King writes for the average men,
the middle class, he says. And that makes his thoughts on writing direct and heartfelt. But in the process of exploring his mind and his life, he made me think about the value of writing. Putting pen to the paper and just getting it done. Because it is the only way, he says, that one can learn to write, to let out the talent and the only way it can be sharpened.

writers never ask each other where we get our ideas. We know we don't know.
I'm smiling while I write this because as a creative, I know the process to get there and I know what inspires the idea, but I have no clue as to the where they come from.

writers don't understand what they do, why it works when is good and why it doesn't when it's bad.
This is a common confession made by writers, creatives, screenwriters and any body whose job is to create for a living. The magic happens unexpectedly, but you need to be prepare to identify it the moment it happens.

The equipment comes with the original package.
All people have at least some talent, and those talents can be sharpened. I believe, or I need to believe that this is true. It makes me think about two recent reads, the one about 10,000 hours of practice from M.Gladwell and this one, and how I became a better soccer player by sharpening some talent that I had given to me. And how, without really knowing it, or planning it, I played more soccer during 3 years than any other kid in my circle, and that made me really stand out within that period of time, ahead of many other players.

Good ideas come from nowhere. Two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new.
I believe this to be a great definition of creativity and the creative job. To know this is to pay attention to the world around us and recognize the patterns.
The better we look we more connections we find, the bigger the possibilities of creating something new.

(
When you are young) Optimism is a perfectly legitimate response to failure

I was disgusted with myself for not seeing the outcome in advanced.
I relate to this feeling. I really eat myself up when I make a mistake, overall when is a mistake I could have avoided. I always try to see all the possibilities and I tortured myself for not seeing obvious things. Knowing that S.King feels the same way made understand him better.

When talking about a teacher he had, he says: ...
she didn't want to be your inspiration. And it made me think: if you don't want to inspire people as a teacher, what is your purpose?

writing advice #1 when you write a story, you're telling yourself the story. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story. Write with the door close, rewrite with the door open.

writing advice #2 the writer's original perception of the characters may be as erroneous as the reader's.

Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around.

Inside the writer's toolbox.
vocabulary. don't change it. don't dress it up.
grammar. unless you are certain of doing well, follow the rules. (avoid passive tense, adverbs are not your friend)
the elements of style.

writing advice #3 read a lot and write a lot. there is no shortcut.

we also read to measure ourselves against the good and the great, to get a sense of all that can be done.
I've always felt that watching soccer, reading, watching movies and commercials allowed me to "get a sense" of what can be done. I think I am constantly using them as references with other people precisely because they represent possibilities. An open door that until that isntant remained hidden to me.

writing advice #4 your job is to make sure your muse knows where you're going to be every day from nine 'til noon.

an insight? when readers hear strong echoes of his, hers own life and beliefs, he will become invested in the story.

write what you like and blend in your own personal knowledge of life, friendship, relationships, sex and work.

writing lesson #5
in my view stories consist of three parts: narration, which moves the story from A to B and finally to Z.

Description, which creates a sensory reality for the reader and
dialogue, which brings characters to life through their speech.
the plot is nowhere. mainly because our lives are plotless. and second because plotting and spontaneity of creation are not compatible.
Stories make themselves, and the job of the writer is to give them a place to grow.
the situation comes first , the characters come next, once they are fixed in my mind, I start to narrate.
Description begins with the visualization of what is you want the reader to experience. Description begins in the writer's imagination, but should finish in the reader's.
Description usually consist of a few well chosen details that will stand for everything else.

writing lesson #6 Practice never makes you perfect. say what you see and get on with your story.

writing lesson #7 the key to writing good dialogue is honesty.

building characters comes down to two things: paying attention to how real people behave and then telling the truth about what you see.

in real life everybody is the main character.

good fiction starts with story and progresses to theme.

kill your darlings. let go of your favorite parts, characters, etc...

writing is magic, as much the water of life is as any other creative art. The water is free. So drink. This advise is especially significant today for me. There are so many things that one can do just with the power of his own mind and will. So much that can be created. As he says: the water is free, drink! start something, get it done. Repeat.


This book has come at a very relevant time for me, as a writer and as a creative. What King shares are the craft and the pains of writing, of creating, of the commitments we have with our talents, the characters we create and the people we create for. Writing plays a double purpose; one for us, as creators to use our imagination as a release valve. But the second purpose is to give to others the magic of our creation.

I'll look for unrelated ideas that will become a story... with dimensional characters, no adverbs, a good pace and strong descriptions of what I see, and all these will turn into a great a theme that many people will read and enjoy.

I'll drink the water.


Sunday, February 15, 2009

Las tribulaciones del estudiante Torless by Robert Musil

week six.
I was excited about reading my first Robert Musil. I've had this book
for two years shelved waiting for the right moment to read it.
As part of this exercise, the book didn't live up to the expectations. I really enjoyed Musil's prose and his style is in the same universe of Kundera, but its far away from Kundera's brilliance.
These are some of the parts that made me stop and think.

violenta nostalgia.
I had never considered nostalgia being associated to any other feeling. Musil is paying attention to detail as we saw in a previous book about writing.

Preparar el alma, en espera de algo, y ese algo es del todo incierto. todo es asi, un eterno esperar, de lo cual solo sabemos que hay que esperarlo.
And isn't this the whole point of creating expectations; that we await for something with no guarantee that it will ever happen, and the wait in itself becomes the life we live, a sequence of moments with uncertain rewards.

caracter insuperablemente incomprensible.
las cosas accesibles a la inteligencia, y sin embrago no puedes aprehenderlas con las palabras o el pensamiento. Una linea que como el horizonte, retrocedia a medida que se le acerca.

hate against each other.
Interesting choice of words when talking about teens falling in love. The first passion teens feel is not love for each other, but hate against each other. Because the feelings are not understood at this age, to be two is actually nothing else but loneliness times two.
This first passion is short and leaves a bitter taste. The encounter was fortuitous, and after the breakup, the passions don't know each other, and only notice the distance between them, never what brought them together.

dureza.
in mankind the toughness is our character, in the consciousnesses that we are human, and the responsibility that carries to know that we are part of this world. if a men losses this conscience, losses himself, and when he losses that which made him unique, losses its virtue.

manzana.
when we see an apple, we see vibrations on our eyes of light, and when we reach out to get it, our muscles and nerves move our hand to touch the apple. But between the hand and the apple there is much more, an immortal soul that once sinned.

During a chapter in the book, Torless questions mathematics and the utility of some of its formulas and concepts. His teacher explains that he needs more time, to be more mature to really understand mathematics... and until then, just believe.
It made me think about the difference between faith and belief.
To belief is to consider something uncertain as probable. To have faith is to accept the uncertainty of something probable.

Overall I found
interesting some of the thoughts but what the book made me realized is that yuo can have a very good technique that makes you enjoy the reading, but the story needs to be engaging too.
I didn't like the story, didn't sympathized with the characters and I didn't understand their motivations.
At the end, I think that this is one of the best written books I read, but one of the weakest stories too.

Another good lesson to be treasured.

Friday, February 13, 2009

Things I've Learned from Women Who've Dumped Me by Ben Karlin

week five
Ben Karlin used to work at the Onion, The Colbert Report, and the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And I can say without any type of shame that I would like to have his resume. He knows funny stuff and this book is a great concept: Let's ask other funny, interesting people about being in love and the lessons learned from being dumped.


I enjoyed reading it for the most part, and just like with the previous book, this book and I met, it seems, at just the perfect time.

I found a few things specially appealing, but perhaps not as funny as I had expected. But I am willing to admit that perhaps it is me who is not funny and the book is hilarious. Which it is very much a possibility.

bombs stop dropping on us
The concept is: through dumping, comes wisdom. I personally think that learning from mistakes, or learning from defeats, is an over rated idea. I think that most times, we don't know what hit us. And most times, even if we have a clue, we don't spend enough time rationalizing the causes. We spend more
time, with the support of our friends and family, emotionalizing and justifying. Which is all right. We need the heart more than we use the brain, I guess.

you get a lot more done during peacetime
These last 2 years have been so demanding that I feel like I finally have time to get things done. The good things. The ones that make your soul grow and put a smile on your mirror in the mornings.

stephen colbert is crazy and creative
I'm constantly surprised by him. Even when I least expected, he does something unconventional. I think his essay is one of the best, and perhaps the most creative.
I laughed out loud. In the subway, from Brooklyn to Manhattan... surrounded by people wearing headphones.

In movies relationships end with a jump cut
damian kulash has a good point. Most relationships linger and fade, most start great, but most need a jump cut, and some a dissolve. In most cases we all need some transiction with music by marc isham.

there is a song for every dumping.
I thought that Adam schelisnger had a very clever essay and made me think, actually there is a song for every moment of my life good and bad... maybe that's why musicians get all the girls.

if they is one thing that I am absolutely certain about in my life is this:

Novelty becomes drudgery.

Sooner or later, at one point, everything you wanted so desperately, that emotion of new and fresh and unique... it changes.
Now, I am not advocating it, or defending it. I am just saying that it is probably the only thing I know for sure, besides my mother's love and mine for my kids and family.

so there.

I liked the book, but I didn't love the book. Lincoln is a tough act to follow, but comedy was a good choice.

My main take away is that when men talk about relationships, specially about those where we get dumped, we all sound whiny and silly.
It seems that we learn the lesson way past the due time, and then is back paddling.
We are clueless about the opposite sex, but we make it our life's priority.
This book, even under the comedy tag, made me think about important concepts, and one more time, I'm happy I got something of value out of it.
I really hope I'm not that old when I learn my lessons.

Followers