Shitty Scrivener First Drafts

One of my favorite (well, probably my absolute favorite) writing books is Anne Lamott's BIRD BY BIRD. If you haven't read it, I recommend going out to the bookstore immediately and procuring a copy. It's a book that's as much about life as writing, and I find myself remembering things from it often.

The piece of her her advice I've always found difficult to put into practice, however, is the bit about creating the SFD: the shitty first draft. The ability to allow yourself, as a writer, to produce crap the first time around, so that you don't scare yourself out of putting something down on the page. I always think about it, and sometimes, I do better than others (NaNoWriMo comes to mind), but usually, I tend to get in my own way because the truth is I do produce better writing with relatively minimal attention to it. But it also means sometimes I get stuck, waiting for the next thing to move me forward.

However, after NaNoWriMo 2011 (and after they produced the Windows version), I bought Scrivener. At first, I just used it for revision, and preferred to produce my writing within Microsoft Word. But now I've transitioned almost completely to using it as my drafting tool.

And it's had a really unexpected effect: I feel a lot freer to make a mess.

Scrivener gives you the ability to work scene by scene, and to drag and drop those scenes into any organization you want. Currently, my method is to use the Blake Snyder beat sheet for drafting, and to organize my scenes into their beats, and then to go back and reorganize them into chapters.
Somehow, being able to drag and drop a scene anywhere has freed something up in my brain. Since it's not necessarily going to stay where I put it, I feel freer to write something that might not make sense right there. Or to jump to a scene I'm itching to write without writing the bridge (although I try to get to the bridge in the next writing session, lest I build up a writing project in which all the fun scenes are written and I end up with only the hard parts). I know that it's as easy as dragging the scene to "trash" to remove it, or back from trash to reinstate it, and somehow, that makes it much easier to write.

Additionally, I know I can tag the status of a scene. Scrivener's basic statuses are "to do" "first draft" "revision" and "final draft," but like all things in the program, they can be infinitely customized. So I have some statuses like, "WTF was I thinking?" or "Really  great" to clue me in as to how much revision a particular scene is going to take and/or how happy I am with it (because happiness may simply be a factor of it being in the wrong place in the book, which is easily fixed!)
I find I'm drafting faster, revising harder, and that all of it is a lot more fun. I wouldn't have thought that I would adapt to a program--I'm a techie, if you can't tell, and so I usually find ways to make programs adapt to me--but Scrivener has finally brought me around to having the freedom that I first read in Anne Lamott's book almost twenty years ago.

I'm glad to have found it.

Do you use Scrivener or another noveling program? How do you like it?

And just for bonus kicks: here's my Scrivener template for the Blake Snyder Beat Sheet. Feel free to use it and share!

5 Great Books for a Graduate

One of the best parts about bookselling is handselling, which is when someone comes in looking not for a specific book, but a good book for a category: "For my thirteen-year-old nephew," or "for my friend's twin girls who are turning 2" (both were handsells yesterday). It's fun because it's when you get to put all your great reader skills to work as a bookseller—what's good in this genre? What follows well on other things that person has liked? What are the obscure, but cool books that the person otherwise might not pick up?

This time of year, I'm doing a lot of handselling of graduation gifts. It may be a little late for some, but in the interest of helping folks who may have a graduation party or two coming up, I thought I'd talk about my five favorite graduation books (and no, none of them are OH THE PLACES YOU'LL GO).

1. HOW TO COOK EVERYTHING, THE BASICS by Mark Bittman. I'd been reading a home blog all through my undergrad years, and so when I graduated, I wanted the original HTCE (we won't mention how many years that's been out, just in case). HTCE and HTCE: Vegetarian are veritable encyclopedias of cooking knowledge and recipes. For a long time, the full HTCE was my go-to graduation gift. But in the last two years, Bittman published HTCE: The Basics, which makes an even sharper gift for someone just venturing away from Mom and/or the college cafeteria. It explains all the basic techniques of cooking, and gives a number of easy, healthful recipes to try, and it has photos and fewer pages, which make it a much less intimidating tome than the full HTCE.

2. NICE GIRLS DON'T GET THE CORNER OFFICE, by Lois Frankel. This book should be handed  out along with diplomas to every woman entering the workforce, in my opinion. While lately LEAN IN has been all the rage, this one is much more tactical. It's full of small things that girls are socialized to do differently than boys that hinder them in their careers—everything from asking permission for things to leaving trailing voicemails. I first listened to this book on tape eight years ago, and I still often turn to it when I'm on a long drive and see something new. 

3. THE MONEY BOOK FOR THE YOUNG, FABULOUS, AND BROKE, by Suze Orman. When I handsold this to a couple, the man in the couple described Orman as "smarmy," and I suppose he's right. At the same time, this is the best finance book for people in their teens and twenties, particularly those who are graduating into the recession. Advice to save money by just not going to Starbucks or eating out as often doesn't work when the person is too broke to go to Starbucks in the first place. This book addresses *that* reality, and takes people from good debt management to financial planning for home purchases and the like and everything in between.

4. 36 Hours series, from the New York Times. These books, which compile itineraries from the Gray Lady's weekly travel column, provide a bunch of suggestions for great weekend getaways for most of the major regions of the United States (and one book is of Europe). If the grad is headed to a new city for her job, these can be the perfect reminder that R&R should go along with all that hard work.

5. A great (recent) novel. Across the board, most students haven't done much reading lately that wasn't for school, and it can be an awesome gift to be given a new novel to read. I like to pick recent ones (and paperbacks, because they're cheap!), as it's unlikely the graduate will have read them; some of my picks this summer are WORLD WAR Z, BRINGING UP THE BODIES, and WILD (which is a memoir, but it reads like a novel). Or, a really touching and personal gift is to give the graduate the book that most resonated with you at that age—plus, it's fun to reminisce.


It's pretty easy to reach for the staples: OH THE PLACES YOU'LL GO, or a guide to surviving college for a high school grad, but if you step a tiny bit beyond the graduation display, there are lots of wonderful, and out-of-the-box (see what I did there?) gifts to be had.

What's your favorite graduation gift to give, book or otherwise?

Losing the Element of Surprise

I've discovered some of my favorite books by accident.

Growing up, my neighborhood library was one big room, kids books on one side, grown-up books on the other. When I was about eleven, I decided to read THE CATCHER IN THE RYE because it was a very grown-up kind of book to read. I loved it, and went in search of FRANNY AND ZOOEY.

I didn't find FRANNY AND ZOOEY, but in that tiny library, an author named Salzman was shelved right next to Salinger, and instead I discovered THE SOLOIST, a very moving story about a failed concert cellist rediscovering his art in the strangest way possible.

I read THE SOLOIST about once every couple of years (and have gone on to read the rest of Salzman's work as well).

As a bookseller, I have a lot of exposure to advance reader copies (ARCs), and so I end up taking home random books from time to time, which was how I wound up reading THE AGE OF MIRACLES last year. That book blew me away and then some, and I haven't been able to stop recommending it to anyone and everyone. The premise sounds crazy, but...trust me on this. It's wonderful.

But I've noticed something. These days, with social media, and book sites, and being so plugged in to Goodreads and twitter and the blogosphere, I am never surprised by a book any more. I add my favorite authors' books to my "to-read" shelf almost the moment they're signed. It started with HARRY POTTER, when the moment the release day was announced, it would be on my calendar. Now, it seems, it's almost everything—to the point that sometimes, I see a book on the shelf in the store and think, "Oh wow, that's just coming out? I've been hearing about it for ages and/or read it from Netgalley six months ago."

It's getting easier to know about most of the books you'd be interested in. It's almost impossible to be surprised by a new title these days.

Which was why, when I walked into the store last week and saw AMERICAN SAVAGE* sitting on the table, I just about screamed.

I had no idea Dan Savage was writing another book. (I realized I don't follow him on twitter, which might have something to do with it.) But he's been one of my favorite writers ever since I read THE KID—I'm one of the few people who discovered his memoirs first and his salacious advice column second.

Of course, I grabbed it at once and tore through it in a matter of days. It was a great and interesting read, although certainly preaching to a choir I'm already in, but what I was so much more excited by was the thrill of being surprised. It was the most delightful feeling, like somehow, someone had dropped a little gift just for me on the promo table—"Aha! Jess will want to read this...let's make a new book by one of her favorite authors appear!"

There are a lot of implications to the lack of surprise—it means that people come into a bookstore and don't browse. THey're not looking to be surprised by a book, they're looking for INFERNO or LEAN IN or the latest Jack Reacher novel (if they're coming into a bookstore at all—never before has it been so easy to buy a book without seeing any other titles as when you search for it in your e-reader store or online). For readers who want to know, all the information about their favorite books is readily at hand.

Now, I love goodreads, and I love twitter, and I love following authors' blogs and tumblrs. I hope some day, people will be trawling my website, looking for news on the book I'm releasing next.


But there's a joy in being utterly surprised that a book you want to read has been released and you didn't even know about it. It adds an extra layer of sweet, like you found something that no one else knew about, and now you can go hoard it all for you. And I feel sad that these days, that feeling is getting harder and harder to come by.

I'm glad I got to experience it for what might be one last time.

*I try very hard not to be political on my blog, but I realize my enjoyment of this book more or less 'outs' (if you'll pardon the pun in using that word to describe a book by a gay rights advocate) just about all of my political views at once. Ah, well.

W is for Write

So in April, I participated in the A-Z Blog Challenge. It was an absolute flurry of blog crazy. I was worried at the outset that I wouldn't make it; given that it's only been in 2013 that I've managed to get the discipline of blogging every Tuesday, and also that April for me means end-of-term grading plus hunting for summer internships and jobs.  Well, actually that last stuff turned out to be the first week of May, which is why this post is going up on the Tuesday after I intended it to! But I'm pleased to say I turned in my grades Monday morning at 2:30 AM, ahead of the 8AM deadline, and that I also got an email offering me a great summer internship. So, yay! One week blog break...worth it. 

But despite all my busy, I did the A-Z, and I'm glad.

I was going to make a reflection about all the great lessons I learned from doing it—and there were many!—but really, there was only one main one I found myself coming back to, again and again and again and that was this:

It's not hard.

Sometimes I despair when I see people who are blogging day in and day out, at the fresh, breezy tone of their posts, and the way it seems to be effortless. In the past, I've felt like I needed to have Something To Say™ before I blogged. And I needed to think about how it sounded. And compare it. And worry about whether it was too long. Or too short. Or too unprofessional. Or too crazy-seeming.

A-Z forced me out of that. I had some things I was excited to talk about (cool things you can do to "hack" your writing experience), and a goal of talking about them every day, and the next thing I knew, I was blogging. Every day. In a breezy tone. Effortlessly. It wasn't hard. When I showed up, the words did, too.

So for that reason, A-Z was amazing. It reminded me of a very important thing, which has lately been getting lost in the world of twitter, and blogging, and social media, and revisions. The lesson that,  that to write, you simply...

...write.

And that's a reminder that we could all use from time to time.

Voiceless..but Friendly

So a year ago, I tried really hard to get into a contest called The Writer's Voice, hosted by Brenda Drake, Krista Van Dolzer, Moni BW, and Cupid's Literary connection.

The widget hated my guts, and both times I failed to make it into the hopper.

But that was also post- me knowing that ISAAC IN THE MIDDLE needed some major work.

So this year, I found out with about two weeks' notice that TWV was going to happen again.

When I'm sitting here with a novel that is barely underway on its rewrite.

Now, the rewrite is pretty stellar, if I do say so myself. And I'm excited for it, and excited for how it speeds up all the necessary stuff, and excited for what the results may be when it's finished. (And I'll be excited when it's finished to send it off again!)

I'm no saint. It definitely occurred to me that given the structure of TWV, I could enter, put up my query and first 250, and frantically finish the rewrite over the next 23 days. The bones of the book are there, and it could be done.

But in the end, I decided it'd be foolish.

So instead, I'm sitting on the sideline, cheering. I've commented on what feels like  bazillion queries this morning (but what is probably only a dozen or so). The great thing about contests is that it's how you make friends, and I think (hope?) I can do that even if my manuscript isn't ready. 

I'm still going to try to have my rewrite done by May 24, though. The deadline is a good thing, and May is a great month for an academic...school's out, and summer research hasn't really gotten underway.

Good luck to all the TWV participants. You'll see me bouncing around the hashtag and commenting on your blogs. Let's be friends!