Beyond the Elements of Style

Favorite First Lines

Well, gentle readers, here’s something fun to do over the weekend: an opportunity to add your favorite first lines to this fabulous compendium of … favorite first lines!

I have to warn you, however, that not all of those mentioned will be to your taste; in fact, it seemed to me that a couple were misplaced, and their creators were looking instead for the Bulwer Lytton contest instead.

I’m off to a day away from my desk, but I’ll be adding in my own favorite opening line … and I’ll be sure to include it here!

So share your favorite with the world, and see what others have to say. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

The Book Industry in 2009

There’s obviously a lot to say … it’s been an amazing year (not always in a positive way!) for the book industry.

A 2009 roundup of the happenings in the book industry is offered here by USA Today. it covers the emergence of ebooks, the question of whether literary novels are dead, and the rise—yet again—of the vampire genre.

My best advice? Read about the trends, but follow your heart. Write what is in your soul to write. If it’s meant to be out there, it will be, eventually. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Readers’ Reactions

We’ve been talking a great deal about book promotion here recently, and I wanted to take a moment to share with you one of the more delightful fruits of one’s labors … namely, the responses of readers.

My best experience in this area was a letter I received after the publication of my novel Wings. One of the characters in Wings, Sarah Martin, is modeled on Harriet Quimby, the first American woman to hold a pilot’s license. The letter read, “My husband knew Harriet Quimby, and he says she would have liked the life you gave her.”

A few years ago I wrote a book called Open Your Heart with Geocaching, and have had very nice feedback on it indeed. But even better is when what you write inspires others, makes them take your thoughts further, allows them to appropriate truths from it for themselves. So I was pleased to receive the following email:

I hope you don’t mind me sharing a few thoughts with you relating to my experiences after I started reading your book on Geocaching.

I have struggled for years to find a hobby that I can really get interested in. I tried woodwork for a while, but it just didn’t grab me. Then at the start of this year I stumbled across Geocaching and everything fell in place. I think it is the way in which the sport manages to pull together all the different interests that I have. It does not matter what your interests are, you will experience the same ability of Geocaching to pull unexpected things together at the most unexpected places.

I find it extraordinary how your mind gets informed of something and you then shortly thereafter encounter it in a totally different context – almost like a confirmation! In the copy of the listing of “Dark Satanic Mills” in Appendix C of your book, you quote an excerpt from Jerusalem by William Blake. I am one of those types that read more than one book at a time. It was therefore at the same time quite surprising but also entirely expected that a few days later I found a quote from Europe by William Blake (1794) in the story of the 9 remaining moon walking astronauts – Moon Dust by Andrew Smith (Bloomsbury 2005). What makes it quite incredible is that this quote is a very accurate description of the experience of the earth at creation which is similar to that which one can expect to experience while you are out in nature geocaching: “every particle of dust breathes forth its joy”!

The use of poetry in Geocaching is quite special. I recently did a multi-cache that also makes use of poetry in its various waypoints. This cache is situated in a very well kept cemetery – the Fourways Garden of Remembrance. Fourways is a suburb approximately 25 km from the centre of Johannesburg. The cache – Celebration of Life GC1CWP6 – is extremely poignant. The celebration of life in a cemetery is a beautiful concept – the use of poetry appearing of various graves makes it all the more special.

Here your advice to breathe and experience the location really made sense.

Look for the delight that your words can bring to others. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Revisiting Jodi Picoult

I’m a playwright as well as an author, and earlier this year I had the honor of “translating” one of Jodi Picoult’s novels, The Pact, into a stage play. The play has been an immense success, including a nomination for best script for the NH Theatre Awards, and it’s led me to revisit many of her other novels, most of which I haven’t read in some years.

There’s something about revisiting an author you haven’t read for some time; it’s like spending time with an old friend. Comfortable and pleasant and sometimes (when you’re lucky) a little surprising. Yesterday a blizzard hit the Cape, where I live, and I allowed myself a pleasant snow day: I stayed in my pajamas and did very little but re-read old friends. Phil Rickman. Dennis Lehane. Michael Malone. And, of course, Jodi herself.

There is a lot of joy in reading (as I discuss in some length in Open Your Heart with Reading), and it doesn’t always have to be something new and challenging.

Spend some time this holiday week with one of your old friends and see what a great experience it can be for you! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Poets and Writers Grants Submission Calendar

Did you know that you can access grant and contest submission information (deadlines, requirements, fees, etc.) for many literary journals online, thanks to Poets and Writers magazine?

The submission calendar is well worth checking on a regular basis: you may have some old unpublished piece that just fits in perfectly — or be inspired to write something new! Either way, keeping up with submission information will keep you … beyond the elements of style!

Calling Poets and Fiction Writers!

Okay, so it’s been a while since I posted to my blog. Bear with me: my personal life has been in an upheaval (to put it mildly) but it seems that I’m getting it back on track, so I’m back to my blog now as well!

Today I want to point all poets and short fiction writers to a tremendous web resource of which you might not be aware. Duotrope lists an amazing amount of information about an amazing number of publications, both print and online, that are open to submissions. It tells you about reading periods, whether simultaneous submissions or reprints are accepted, the average response time, genres, comments … in short, just about anything you might want to know about the publication.

Duotrope also keeps track of the frequent changes in the literary world: which publications have folded, which aren’t accepting submissions, which new ones have appeared, etc. And you can have all of that information sent to your inbox for free by subscribing to either the poetry or the fiction edition of the digest here.

So check it out! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Social Media for Readers and Writers

So let’s start our tour of social media with my favorite group of people—people who read and people who write! With some exceptional help from some of my colleagues at LinkedIn (a social network site you’ll find mentioned here), I’ve put together a list of social media sites you might want to check out. They’re not in any particular order, so don’t bother looking for one; perhaps you can see it as an example of the random nature of the Net!

Remember as you browse the first rule of social media: there’s no one-size-fits-all here. Some of these sites may interest you; many of them will not. And that’s as it should be, because you don’t want to spend all of your time online! Explore the sites at your leisure, see which ones seem to work for you, try them out. If you don’t like one site, move on.

And if you find more to add to the list, drop me an email at jcezanne@customline.com and let me know!

• Literature Map: Gnooks is a self-adapting community system based on the gnod engine. Discover new writers you will like, travel the map. of literature and discuss your favorite books and authors.
• Book Glutton: Read books online with other people—suggest books, discuss books, see who’s reading what. Sign on as a glutton and take the video tour!
• Library Thing: So if you feel a need to catalogue your personal library online, Library Thing is the place for you. You can do it here, and then connect with others whose libraries you like. Note that there’s a fee once you pass 200 books.
• Good Reads: Another book cataloguing site. Also offer some great lists and trivia. (As I write this, Twilight is simultaneously on the “best books ever” and “worst books ever” lists, so it’s even-handed!)
• Author’s Den: From the site: “While some of the other sites focus on readers, here’s one that focuses on authors as well. From the site: “The largest most vibrant free online literary community of authors and readers! Visited by 1,400,000+ readers/mo.” It claims that authors “willreach many readers” and that readers
  can “discover, interact, get personal, buy and read!”
• Red Room says that it’s “where the writers are,” and explains, “Red Room provides authors and members with free, easy-to-use, elegant online homes. It’s a place for the literary community to promote their work, express themselves, and connect with their favorite authors.”
• Swap Tree is a book- (and music-, DVD-, and video-game-) swapping community. Have a book you want to trade for another? This is the place for you!
• We Read: Ger personalized recommendations for books, share your recommendations with others. Includes discussion forums.
• Write Lit“aims to bring writers and readers together from all parts of the globe. It seeks to help the writer — technical, commercial, and literary — earn a living, and find audiences for his work. Furthermore, it aims to provide a venue for readers to share their passion for the written word.”
• Authonomy: This is a community sponsored by HarperCollins UK that “invites unpublished and self published authors to post their manuscripts for visitors to read online. Authors create their own personal page on the site to host their project – and must make at least 10,000 words available for the public to read. Visitors to authonomy can comment on these submissions – and can personally recommend their favourites to the community. authonomy counts the number of recommendations each book receives, and uses it to rank the books on the site. It also spots which visitors consistently recommend the best books – and uses that info to rank the most influential trend spotters.”
• Writers’ News/Writing Magazine: This is a singularly useful site, a clearinghouse for a number of different activities: competitions, classes, book discussions, forums, links … it’s all here.
• Bookworm: a blog that celebrates books and reading with lovely enthusiastic reviews by the author, Lubya Kably.
• Media Bistro: Though not strictly an author/reader sort of site, Media Bistro is a community that can be useful to writers looking to improve skills, get jobs, and connect with other media professionals. They have local chapters throughout the United States that offer get-togethers in person.
• Book Marketing Network, part of the whole Ning family of social networks, describes itself as being “for book authors, self-publishers, book publishers, publicists, marketers, and others involved in writing, publishing, and marketing books.” Includes, in true social media style, something for everyone—photos, videos, discussion boards, events, and blogs.
• The Book Place, also a Ning community, features a blog, podcasts, reviews, and discussion.
• Writers Digest: the online community associated with the grande dame of aspiring writers’ magazines, Writers Digest , the site offers some social networking but mostly supports the magazine. Online subscriptions are available.
• Gaia Community: once you join the community you’ll have access to the books section. Very useful if you’re interested in spirituality and healing topics.

In addition to the list above, there is a Facebook application called Visual Bookshelf that you can access from inside Facebook. It’s another community that shares reading lists and reviews.

So that’s it for now! I’ll update this list periodically, as community life on the Net is always changing, always growing … but this should get you started. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Tony Hillerman RIP

So I’ll digress this week from my usual talk of writing and publishing and SEO to note with sadness the death this month of novelist Tony Hillerman, who has provided me (and countless other readers) with hours of wonderful entertainment, along with opening up a world that I might otherwise never have known about.

A colleague remarked that it’s not just Hillerman who died, it’s also his characters, people we’ve come to know and love, in particular Joe Leaphorn, the “Legendary Lieutenant” of the Navajo reservation, and Jim Chee, torn always between his career as a Navajo Tribal Police officer and his inclinations toward becoming a shaman. I nodded when I first read my colleague’s words, feeling sadness that there won’t be any new adventures involving these two men; but now I’m not so sure.

I’m not sure, in fact, that any well-written fictional character ever dies. We may have already read a particular book, but if the character has come to life for us once, he or she will do so again: that’s the promise of good writing. Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee (along with myriad other names like Antigone and Madame Bovary and Ivanhoe and Philip Marlowe and … well, you get my drift) won’t die until people stop reading the books in which they appear — a very slim chance, given Hillerman’s terrific storytelling ability.

Perhaps that’s part of the magic of books, their ability to touch the eternal, to keep a time and a place and a group of characters in our minds and our hearts long after their creator is gone. And if that’s true, Tony Hillerman was a magician par excellence.

If you haven’t read Hillerman, you have a world of pleasure ahead of you. Get to a bookshop or a library as quickly as possible and do so. And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!

Need Help with Book Club Launch

I’ve decided (with some help) to launch a local book club, with monthly meetings, and I need your help! Yes, you, gentle reader. Who out there has started a book club? Who participates in one? I’m a relative neophyte (have actually belonged to more virtual groups than realtime ones), having once upon a time been in charge of a reading group through my place of employment, which happened to be a bookshop … with emphasis on the “once upon a time.”

So I turn to you. What are your experiences? What works, and what doesn’t? In particular …

• Can I mix fiction and nonfiction?
• How are authors and books selected?
• Is a dessert café a good venue? (I have one in mind: the Purple FeatherHow many people is considered a good size for a book discussion group?
• How long should the discussion last? One hour? Two? Open-ended?
• What questions have I forgotten to ask?

Do please email me at jcezanne@jeannettecezanne.com and tell me your experiences and advice! It will all be greatly appreciated, and will put me well … beyond the elements of style!

Beyond Insular Reading and Writing

A lot of American writers (and readers!) were up in arms recently when the Nobel prize committee issued its opinion that American authors are too insular, too cut off from the rest of the world and international literary thought. That committee awarded this year’s literature prize to an amazing French author, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, said to be an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.”

They’re right, by the way. Run, do not walk, to wherever you purchase or borrow your books, and get yourself a copy of le Clézio’s Wandering Star. I promise that you won’t regret it.

The Booker Prize doesn’t need to deal with Americans at all, as it’s specifically for British Commonwealth citizens. If you’d like a glimpse into the creation of this year’s winning novel, take a look at the very good interview here.

Interested in exploring books outside of the United States’ insular outlook? Try one of these, recently reviewed on National Public Radio:

• The Funeral Party by Ludmila Ulitskaya
• Spring Flowers Spring Frost by Ismail Kadare
• The Three-Arched Bridge also by Ismail Kadare

Fall’s a great time to curl up with a book; but think about challenging yourself a little more this fall. Stepping outside of your usual genres can be a terrific intellectual and cultural experience! And then you’ll be … beyond the elements of style!