Things to do when not writing NaNoWriMo Novel

* Play Scramble on Facebook on the premise that you are a) limbering up your fingers for typing, and b) it involves words so it’s a pre-write exercise.

* Take a nap and have a dream where one of your minor characters makes a case for importance in your plot and then proceeds to tell you how she dies. Get up and write that chapter.

* Get so enamored with one chapter that you just want to edit, edit, edit instead of write, write, write.

* Use Find/replace to change all contractions to two words, thereby increasing word count by 50 words.

* Think of ways to color code your characters to aide in building a mind map of the plot lines. Spend too much time on which color is just right for each character. Be glad that you have a set of 64 colored pencils.

* Recalculate every hour how many more words you have to write to ‘catchup’, then whine about your swine flu setback.

* Check FB again in case something important has happened. Be amused by swiney cartoon son has posted on your wall. Decide that one of your characters liked Winnie the Pooh as a child. Consider this research.


* Peruse the NaNoWriMo Forums and wonder if everybody is writing either FanFic or Sci-Fi/Fantasy. Have an episode of self-doubt that you shouldn’t be doing this.

* Remind yourself that it’s just a goal to get a first draft completed.

* Realize at 11:17 that due to the time change the perfect sunbeam for napping is almost in place. Move laptop to bed. Realize 45 minutes later that the sun doesn’t move as quickly as you thought.

* Think some more about your characters. Maybe even write a character sketch.

* Write a blog post to tell your 5 readers that your word count is now 6828, which isn’t bad considering that you didn’t write for 4 days.

* Wonder if bullet pointed blogs posts count towards word count if you can attribute them to a character? After all, 392 words would increase your count to 7220, leaving you with exactly 1860 more words per day to write to meet 50,000 by Nov 30th. Consider that would be 380 words if you removed the contractions.

* Take another nap. The sunbeam is now perfectly aligned with bedroom window.

NaNoWriMo Minus 1

Having a few hours to kill in an airport and on a plane, I made use of pen and paper to begin planning my NaNoWriMo project. As I understand the rules, prework is okay before November 1st, and since I've never written a novel before, I thought I might at least explore a few ideas.

Yesterday, I saw a televised interview with John Irving. One things that Irving said that intrigued me was that he doesn't start writing his book until he knows the last sentence. It was, he explained, the only way he knew how to begin a plot driven work.

I'm not going to doubt a best-selling author's process, just as I would not doubt someone who had written several unpublished works, because I really haven't a clue how one writes a book. What I think the follow up questions should have been, though, was this: how often does that sentence remain the last sentence?

I wrote a last sentence and it isn't too bad as sentences go, but it really was no more than a prompt. It started me thinking and, although it was a workable sentence, potentially a poignant last sentence that with lots of work might be within reach of Fitzgerald's green light Gatsby close, I quickly realized that I probably didn't have a book. So much for that idea.

The fun part about imagining is not knowing where your brain is going to take you. I continued to write down ideas, drifting away from my last sentence. Soon I had several seemingly unrelated ideas, but I saw a pattern revealing itself.

So, while I think that there is more to the pattern to be found, and that the discovery will come in the writing -- and more certainly in the editing to follow after Nov 30 -- I now have a core idea. Nature, time and place will figure prominently in this project. What I'm envisioning is a series of loosely related stories. I've outlined the chapters and have given them working titles. The titles will serve as writing prompts. For about half of these, I already know either the characters or the plot. Some characters will be recurring, but in some chapters, place and nature/season will be what ties the piece to work as a whole. It may not work out, but it's where I'm headed right now.

I don't know why I feel compelled to put the working chapter titles here, but in some ways it makes it seem more real. If I focus on one of these a day for the next 30 days, I should have at least something of length, even if not of significance by the end of NaNoWriMo. This list is in a vague thematic order that is more or less seasonal, but it is not the order that I think that the book will actually be.

The Map
Spring
Cemetery
Driving Lessons
The convertible and the tree
A Tale of a Bird Watcher
Ah, Pioneers
Baby!
Flower and Patio
Summer
Cherry
If It's Worth Building
Summer Storm
Escape
Getting Glasses
Home is not home if there are no oak trees
Fireflies and fireworks
Fall
Spook Spoof
Putting Dad to Bed
The Greenway Trial
Cowboy Camp
Deerhunters and the Tea Party
Fire Sale
Winter
Selling the Farm
An Accident
Break-In
5 Cents or The Dr. Is In
I'm Older than John Glenn
It was colder than this in 1875

As I actually get some words down on paper, I might be willing to share some of this with readers I trust. Let me know if you're interested...I probably will not look at specific criticisms until I'm ready to begin editing in December, but I'll take any encouraging words throughout November.

Words on Wednesday

Another word game this week:

Found here, with new words appearing each Sunday.

There are no rules to this game.

A free association list of 10 words. Read; react; write!

1. Flicker :: photos


2. Styling :: haircuts


3. Episode :: two-year old meltdown


4. Sexier :: desirous, wandering heart


5. Studious :: contemplative, library, quiet, solitude


6. Mushroom :: fungus lady at the farmer's market


7. 8 minutes :: time to get back to work


8. Bald :: eagle, mountain, head


9. Immunity :: immigration policies; sanctuary


10. Sectioned :: bleachers WTF? Why did I think of that? At least I've been honest with this, writing the first thing I think.

Found via this blog.

Another item of worthy wordiness: this week's topic at A Word A Day (AWAD) is words about words and language. Upon glancing at the subject line of my Word A Day email yesterday, not reading closely, I thought the word was catechesis. Funny since the word was catachresis. If you don't know Anu Garg's A Word A Day, check it out. Join over 640,000 word lovers from more than 200 countries who receive AWAD daily and know that the New York Times got it right when it wrote that AWAD was "the most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace."

Words on Wednesday: Writing Prompt

I stumbled across this site recently. One Word presents daily a single word writing prompt that is revealed when you press the Comment button. There is a 60 second timer that gently chimes (so much nicer than a clanking buzzer or gong) when the time has elapsed. Unlike timed standardized tests, you get to finish the sentence you're writing before posting.

I have used this recently for two purposes:
1. It's a good warm-up exercise before one starts to write.
2. Although it's only a minute, it's a great way to procrastinate while at work!

I don't spend too much time looking at what others have left. Like my own quickly jotted notes, most aren't very complete, and some are painful (or painfully boring) to read. I like this site and think I will continue to be a regular visitor for my daily one word dose.

Several months ago, I decided to start an occasional post on words, language, and writing on Wednesdays, that day chosen for the obvious reason of the alliterative sound of 'Words on Wednesday'. But, I haven't followed through with that idea and, in fact, have only posted on Wednesdays four times this year. Only two of those posts were even remotely about language and writing. Maybe, the occasional -- okay, I'll be truthful: sporadic -- Words on Wednesdays will appear with a bit more frequency in the future, but no promises! I have at least one post perculating about playing word games like Scrabble.

The best picture ever! A writing challenge

This is a post about photographs, without any posted here.

A few months ago I was having dinner with friends. The conversation drifted to a story involving a deceased friend of theirs, someone I had never met. As soon as someone mentioned their friend, they started telling stories about him. At one point C. asked: "Remember that picture of him & his wife? The one taken at the party?". "It was the best picture ever," she said to me, and then she went on to describe it in detail. I felt that I had a great image of the man that my friends missed.

Later, I started thinking about the memorable photos I have taken. Could I describe them such that someone who had never seen the photograph could understand the scene, the personalities or breathtaking view captured, the nuanced emotion, the untold story? What about the circumstances behind a photo that seems commonplace? I immediately knew what photo I would choose if asked to describe one photo I have taken that I can remember in detail without looking at it.

Here is my story of the photo:


It had rained most of the morning, but I hadn't minded it a bit. I had wanted only to be away from my friends. Too many days together on the trip were taking a toll. I needed solitude.

I had set out on foot with the map in my daypack, and a roll that I had grabbed as I left the hotel's breakfast room. I was 19 and it was my first time in Italy, my first time in a country where I didn't speak the language. Not a word. I didn't have a plan; I only wanted to walk and to see things through the lens of my camera. I had tired of the tourist spots, so I decided to wander through neighborhoods. The map would only come out of the pack when it was time to head back to the hotel.

I spent the morning walking in the drizzle, stopping occassionally to look at store front windows, avoiding the areas where hawkers sold tacky trinkets with images of the new Pope. I aimed my camera at buildings, old men playing bocce, women hanging laundry, flowers, trees, the river. Lunch was a slice of cold pizza bought at a small street market.

Around 1 in the afternoon, the rain had stopped and the sun began to appear from behind the departing clouds. The smell of Springtime was in the air: a combination of budding trees and dirt, worms, and wet stone. I wanted to walk along a foot path near the Tiber, but it was too muddy. Instead, I cross a bridge over the river, stopping along the way to snap some photos. When I had crossed, I found some stone steps leading towards the river. As I descended, I saw one of the many feral cats that wandered throughout Rome. I stopped and quietly opened my camera bag to get my telephoto lens. The tabby stared at me as I aimed.

A month later, I had returned home and started working. The day I received my first pay check, I went to pick up the 12 rolls of film I had shot. I had forgotten about the cat. When I came to that photo, I was stunned by the image.

The stone wall is shades of grey and tan and white, with moss growing between the cracks. Rainwater that had drenched the wall earlier in the day, had dried mostly, with only a few wet trails scattering along the old wall. Evenly spaced along the wall were small openings. Stray plants had taken root in some of them. Dirt, carried by the rain, stained the walls below some of the niches. In the one centered in the frame perched the tabby cat. Sitting regally, enjoying the sun, she seems to blissfully ignore the noise from the street market above the wall, as she yawns. In the next photo, her eyes are closed, her mouth and whiskers stretched into a bored grimace, as if she had just sneezed. The tabby looks like she owns not just her niche in the wall, but the entire wall, the wet bank, and the green river flowing beneath her.

A few weeks later I met with my friends to look at the photos from our trip. As I shuffled through R's photos, I came to a nearly identical photograph of the Queen Cat. "I forgot you were with me that day", I said. "I didn't realize we took the same picture of that cat." And then I remembered that I had been alone. Even though I had wandered without my friends that day, we had been on the same path.

I would post a copy of the picture here if I had it. After nearly 30 years, I don't know if it is in one of the boxes in the basement. But the image is burned in my mind.


Here is my writing the challenge for you:

1. Pick a photo you have taken or were involved with in some way.
2. Describe the photo and explain the backstory.
3. Let your reader imagine the photo. If you want to post it, post it later!
4. Leave a link to your photo description in the comments here.
5. Tag 2 people. I tag: Emily and Bloglily.

Dipped in Raspberry Juice: Some musings on metaphors

About a week ago, Bloglily wrote a post titled "It was Like, You Know", about figurative language. As an example, she included, from her story "The Centerfold Club", this bit describing a pole dancer as "a rotisserie chicken, all heated, bronzed, exposed skin, rotating around them both, for as long as the green light stayed on".

In her post, Lily wrote about a literary agent who decreed that one should never have more than two metaphors or similes in an entire literary work. As you might expect, many of Lily's readers offered their opinions in the comments, disagreeing with the literary agent. Write without metaphor? You must be joking! I don't think I can converse without metaphor or simile.

Lily writes:

I think writers use simile and metaphor because thinking up a good simile/metaphor is just plain fun. Wit, as I recall, has to do with combining dissimilar things, in a way that gives the reader (and the writer) pleasure.

I agree with Lily that metaphor works similarly to wit. And both are good fun. But, the writerly pleasure of crafting a great metaphor is the aftereffect of achiving one's purpose in writing: to communicate with your reader. If humor is the recognition of the intersection of two incongruent thoughts, certainly metaphor is also.

As I wrote in the comments on Lily's blog, I like to think of metaphor as like a Venn diagram. Each vector in the diagram is disparate, but where they overlap, in the unexpected, not previously explored, region is where the writer uses figurative language to clarify something for the reader in a new and exciting way.

Although seemingly a simplistic way to describe a complex thought process, I see it like this:



What I know and what you know may be different, but if I am trying to convey an idea to you, I should start on common ground. I take two things that you have knowledge of and link those concepts together so that you can understand what I want to convey. F. Scott Fitzgerald is credited with saying that "[T]he test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." What a writer does with metaphor is to stretch that common ground in unexpected ways to broaden the reader's understanding by purposely forcing the reader to not only hold those two disparate ideas, but at the same time to merge them into a new concept.

The speaker of The Red Red Rose, to use Robert Burns' poem as an example, says "My love is like a red, red, rose". The reader thinks: "okay, she's like a flower. A pretty, red flower". The poet and the reader both understand love, and roses, and now they both understand that the speaker of the poem sees his love like a beautiful rose. The poem continues: "That's newly sprung in June". Now the reader understands more -- it is a fresh, just blossoming flower. But Burns doesn't stop there: O my love's like the melody/That's sweetly played in tune. Now the reader can move on to another image of the lover's sweetheart; his understanding is deepened by the second metaphor. The overlapping area of the diagram expands in yet another unexpected way.

But, you might say, the image of a lover as a red rose -- or any kind of rose, perhaps even a sickly one as Blake used (see "The Sick Rose") -- is cliche. And you would be right. But when it was first used, it was not cliche; it was unexpected. The same could be said for Homer's description of 'rosy-fingered dawn'. But, the lasting power of these images is due to their effectiveness.

But metaphor and simile aren't only used in poetry. Anytime something needs to be described, metaphor is the tool to have at hand. Take this passage from Howard Nemerov's essay "On Metaphor":

While I'm thinking about metaphor, a flock of purple finches arrives on the lawn. Since I haven't seen these birds for some years, I am only fairly sure of their being in fact purple finches, so I get down Peterson's Field Guide and read his description: "Male: About the size of House Sparrow, rosy-red, brightest on head and rump." That checks quite well, but his next remark -- "a sparrow dipped in raspberry juice" -- is decisive: it fits. I look out the window again and now I know that I am seeing purple finches." (A Howard Nemerov Reader, pp223)

I first read this essay of Nemerov's many years ago and I used it to describe metaphor to a classroom of bored teenagers. They may not have understood Burns or Blake on the whole, but they understood what Nemerov was writing about when he described his recognition of the birds dipped in raspberry juice.

Whether the metaphor is describing dawn, a beloved, a unfamiliar bird, or a pole dancer, each of these examples uses the common knowledge of the dissimilar to communicate precisely what the writer wants the reader to understand. Perhaps it is the cliched use of figurative language that the uncredited literary agent was referring to. I would agree that the cliched should be avoided. But using metaphor to convey an image by comparing unlike things that are known to the reader -- like comparing the exotic dancer to a rotisserie chicken -- is a tool that all writers use. It is basic to communication. That region in the Venn diagrams of our minds where two unlike ideas come together is where our limited vocabularies and mere words on the page are used to stretch our imaginations and to make something perfectly clear.

Second Chance for Great Blog Posts

Recently, I announced a new feature here -- a regular post highlighting other bloggers' posts that were either overlooked (didn't get the hits the blogger expected) or a piece of writing that one wanted to bring to the attention of new readers. To do this, I asked readers to recommend posts from their blogs. The only rule is that it be submitted by the blogger, and that it have been posted previously on his or her own blog. There are no restrictions regarding content, subject matter, length, or when first posted. I will do this monthly, with deadline for submission by Saturday night of the first weekend of the month. That is, the first Saturday of the month that isn't the 1st day of the month. Trivia fact of the day: This is called Lasagna Weekend in my household. Sit down with the comfort food of your choice, a cup of tea, or some warm cocoa and enjoy reading the following links: three excellent and very different posts from three interesting bloggers. Not only should you read each of these posts, but you also should consider making each of these blogs frequent stops on your travels around the blogosphere.


Charlotte of Charlotte's Web submitted her post from February, 2007, titled In Which I Gate-Crash History. Charlotte writes movingly of the first day of Parliament of the new South African government. In submitting this post, Charlotte commented: The reason I like it is the comparison between the formal, disinterested prince and the warm, informal South African style. Also, the vision of me in purple suit and gold brogues running around Cape Town like some sweaty underperforming superhero. How can you pass up clicking on a link like that?

Smithereens writes about how some books, while difficult to read, are well worth the trouble, in the post Jaan Kross, Treading Air. Smithereens commented: I feel kind of sorry for the Estonian book I reviewed this week. I know Estonia is a small country most people can't locate on a map, and Estonian books are not the thing you're most likely to find at your local mega-bookstore, but I thought the book was well worth reading...

Dorothy of the blog Of Books and Bicycles write about her first experiences reading the novel Don Quixote and how books that may have been written after Cervantes wrote his masterpiece have influenced her reading of the work. Dorothy writes: I'm fond of this post because it expresses my love of books that talk about books, something that Don Quixote does so very well. Reading and Writing in Don Quixote can be found here.

Submissions for next month's featured posts should be sent to the email address on the sidebar no later than January 5th.

What's your best blog post?

Do you have a favorite blog post you'd like highlighted, maybe one that you'd like others to read or re-read? Just a quick reminder that I'll be posting links to some great blog posts this weekend (see details here). If you'd like to be included, please send me an email by Saturday. I've extended my deadline by a day. I'll post on Sunday evening.

Your post can be funny or serious, long or short, a review of a book or movie, or just a slice of life story. I don't have a timeframe requirement for when you published the post, just that it be something posted on your blog in the past, recent or otherwise.

Please send to an cam jong AT yahoo DOT com.

I already have a couple great posts to feature. Can't wait to read what else you send me!

Early Reviews

LibraryThing (What? You don't know about LT? Go here!) has an Early Reviewer program where LT members can opt into a lottery for ARC's. I just received an email indicating that I snagged another one: The Story of Forgetting, by Stefan Merrill Block. It's a debut novel and it sounds interesting from the description of it on the LT web page:

..."[t]hree narratives intertwine to create a story that is by turns funny, smart, introspective, and revelatory....Through the fusion of myth, science, and storytelling, this novel offers a dazzling illumination of the hard-learned truth that only through the loss of what we consider precious can we understand the value of what remains.

I'm looking forward to this and hope I get my copy before my next business trip. An interesting novel is always good to take on a long plane ride, especially in winter when delays are possible.

I'm struck by this in the author's bio on the publisher's (Random House) web page: ...was born in 1982. I expect that he is an awesome writer if he has a first novel published at age 25. I won't hold it against him that I have shoes older than that. A bit humbling, actually, considering that it sometimes takes me an hour or more to write a simple blog post, and the various short stories & other writing ideas I have seem to develop at a glacial speed. To be clear: that's the speed glaciers have moved over the past centuries, not the speed that global climate change is causing them to melt.

2 New Things and 3 Beautiful Things (or maybe that's 3 new things....)

Thing One:

One of the things I noticed about NaBloPoMo (yes, I'm still dissecting the experience, but stick with me here for a moment...) is that, while my overall blog traffic was increased for the month, on a daily basis, the number of repeat visitors was down. One reason for this may be that those who were doing NaBloPoMo (or the truly dedicated & hardy writers doing NaNoWriMo) were busy posting, and may not have been reading as many blogs as normal. I had less time to read since I was trying to post everyday. Was that your experience too?

During this time, I did the Blogging Roundtable (which was a great experience for me because 4 interesting bloggers participated). One of the items mentioned was a schedule for reading blogs some days and writing on others. Another point discussed was how one's best writing sometimes doesn't get the number of hits one would expect. Sometimes you can't predict when readers will land on your site; sometimes it isn't because of the writing. So, here is a new thing I would like to do on this blog:

I want to periodically feature posts that the blogger considers a great post. This isn't my evaluation that a post is great -- it is your evaluation that a particular post is great. I'll post a brief descriptive summary of the post & a link to your blog. This is like a blogging carnival, except there is not a common subject to the posts. The only qualification is that it be a post that you'd like to be highlighted for others to read, something that you consider worthy of a wee bit more attention than it may have received already.

Here is what you need to do to be included: Send an email to the address on the sidebar (Please don't leave a link in the comments to this post). Any emails sent before midnight (EST) 12/7 will be included in my post on 12/10. If you want to include a brief sentence or two about why you think this is a great piece, please include that in your email. There are no other rules -- your post can be funny or serious, long or short, a review of a book or movie, or just a slice of life story. I don't have a timeframe requirement for when you published the post, just that it be something posted on your blog in the past, recent or otherwise. If there is enough interest, I will do this on a periodic basis (maybe monthly).

Item the next:

I had a lot of fun with the Blogging Round Table Discussion that I did with Imani, Litlove, Smithereens, and Emily. When I came up with the idea, I hadn't thought through how it might work, how long it should be (I asked too many questions!), the logistics of sending comments amongst the participants. Overall, it was a great experience, and I would like to do it again (sometime after the first of the year). But, before I move forward with another one, I'd like feedback from you about what you'd like to see -- should the format be different? was it too long? did posting it over 3 days make it easier to read? Any topics you'd like to recommend for another one?


Third Item:

I love blog serendipity -- that experience of clicking on a link, which leads to clicking through to another site, which leads to an oh my gosh! this is awesome find. New to me -- but obviously not new as I found many sites doing this -- is this site I found yesterday: Three Beautiful Things. I find this fascinating, and so simple -- list three things that you consider beautiful, things that, as the site explains, "...amaze and delight".

Looking for things of beauty isn't always easy, especially when you have experienced a rotten day. But, recognizing the small things that we take for granted is surely an exercise that overtime could change your perspective on things. Isn't it better than bitching all the time about what is wrong? I know I do that far too often. So, here are 3 beautiful things I noticed today:

Removing the leaves from my koi pond was actually relaxing, despite the cold and blowing winds. The leaves drift slowly through the water as I move the net to capture them. The fish, at first startled by the disturbance of the leaf-blanket covering the pond, are curious for a few minutes, then continue on their graceful laps around the pond, swimming down towards the bottom, weaving in and out between the plants. I think I have a glimmer of understanding of zen gardens.

Occasionally long rambling phone calls with relatives who live across the country can be fun, even if you have to discuss unpleasant family things. Being able to chat, understanding each other enough to know when to make a wry joke, share a bit of black humor, is comforting and eases the distress of the things that aren't so much fun.

Apples on the verge of becoming mushy make great applesauce. I discovered today how easy it is to make: cut up some apples, add a little sugar, juice a lemon, sprinkle in ground cloves, and heat over medium flame for about 20 minutes until they liquefy. Stir about every 5 minutes so that you don't have a mess to scrap off the bottom of the pan. Hot applesauce = great comfort food on a blustery winter afternoon.

Editor (Almost) Constantly at Work

My cousin swears that she once saw a sign that read:

Trespassers Will Be Violated

Hmmmm...if that sign was on an empty lot in the middle of nowhere, should the police have been looking for bodies?

Misspellings, poor word choices, incorrect punctuation: you can find examples every day. Sometimes I dislike that I notice these things, especially when what I find distracts me from the message. I want to turn off my internal editor sometimes; I don't want to imagine picking up a pen when I read and drawing bright, red circles around offending errors. In print I don't expect to find such errors. I don't expect to find them in emails and business documents either, but I do. I don't want to rant about lack of spelling and grammar skills, but I do wonder: do people not know, are they careless, or do they just not care? For me, the thought of having a typo as big as a barn door in my writing is anxiety-producing. I don't want anything that I have written and is available to others to read to have mistakes in it.

Now, lest I come off as looking like I think I'm perfect, I must admit that my last post was full of errors. I was nodding off to sleep last night as I wrote my post on Beowulf. I was suffering from that kind of tired where it is impossible to keep an entire thought in your head for the length of one sentence. Random words were typed as if I were using a Ouija board rather than a keyboard. Determined to post because of NaBloPoMo, I reviewed my post with a sleepy proofreading eye. It all made sense to me. Until this morning when I re-read the post. Not only did I find several grammatical errors (I think I've fixed most, but I wouldn't be surprised if more remain), but it was worse than a first draft of anything. Ill-formed, poorly worded, not very interesting. For a blog post, maybe it shouldn't matter too much. But it does to me.

Rereading that post -- and deciding whether I would just hit the delete button -- led me to thinking about this endeavor to try to post everyday for a month. As a writing discipline, it has been good exercise. I've written when I didn't want to. I've written when I didn't think that I had anything to say, only to find that I did. Without a commitment to writing something on a regular schedule, it is too easy to blame Writer's Block and turn off the computer. But, writing something for the sake of simply meeting a quota doesn't support good quality writing. While some people may use their blogs as a personal journal, I like my posts to be a bit more polished than a journal entry. I cringe when I see that I have a typo or other error in my posts, and I tend to labor too much on them. Knowing that someone might read it -- even if it is only a couple dozen people, most of whom I am not likely to meet -- it's difficult for me to post something that has mistakes in it.

The disciplined routine of writing regularly can be beneficial. I'm just not sure that this spot is where I will continue to do so on a daily basis after this month ends. 3 more days to go!

Roundtable: Blogging About Books (Part III)

Blogging about Books

The Roundtable discussion about blogging about books continues below, with Emily, Imani, Litlove, Smithereens, an international panel since these four bloggers live in the US, Canada, England, and France. A full description of their blogs is in Part I. At the end our our discussion, Litlove asked her own questions. You can read those questions and the responses at the end of this post. Also, each blogger has given her recommendations for litblogs to read.

Part I, Books and Blogging is here.
Part II, Writing, Audience and Blogs is here.


Do you write exclusively about books, literature, and writing?

Imani: For the most part. Occasionally I post links to political articles, especially if I'm covering any London Review of Books issue, or something religious if it has to do with Anglicans.

Emily: No.

Litlove: Pretty much, with occasional visits to chez Litlove.

Smithereens: Yes (but some events in my life have an impact on my reading/writing habits)

Cam: Now that you mention it, I think that most people’s life events impact in some way what they choose to read and when. I’d never really considered that before, yet I think your comment must have some universality to it. This is something that I would like to explore in depth sometime. Interesting.

Imani: Ha! How true. If someone knew what types of books I like to read during up or down periods they’d be able to get a good idea of my mood by examining my book lists.


We hear 'death of' laments frequently... the death of newspapers, the death of book reviews, the death of the short story, the death of"readers".... Is blogging a cause or an effect?

Imani: I don't buy into any of the death scares. They are mediocre journalism's tired leavings, faithfully recycled every year.

Emily: My prediction is that newspapers in print form will die. Reference books in print form will die. Biographies, novels, short story collections, poetry, etc. in print form will not die. After all, radio didn't die when television came along. However, radio drama pretty much did. I think the opposite will happen with books. The drama will remain in print, but news and factual information will all be electronic. Readers, I don't think, will die. They have traditionally been a very small part of the population and probably will continue to be so, but they will have many options, I'm hoping, as to the format of the way the written word is presented to them.

Imani: I disagree about reference books dying in the print format. The fact is that no electronic format has rivaled paper in terms of length of storage and “compatibility”. There are too many unknowns with electronic means of data retention for anyone to be sure of that.


Litlove: People have been predicting the death of literature and reading, or at least its terminal decline, since Gutenberg first thought of print as a medium. So I don’t take any of that seriously. It seems to be part of the character of a certain kind of literary critic who particularly admires his (and it always is his) voice in the mode of lament. The simple existence of the extensive book blogosphere proves that reading stories and talking about them is as popular as ever.

Smithereens: I don’t believe in all these laments. French people especially lament all the time; I just don’t listen to them. Bookblogs are a proof that readers care (and exist). Book reviews are worthwhile and read when the reviewer writes it with care. Professional reviewers who, in one hand, despise bloggers for being mere amateurs, while in the other hand, despising authors and just skimming through books have only themselves to blame.

Cam: I can’t help but think that some of the despise of book bloggers is a fear of extinction. Not all agree. I think of Jerome Weeks, of book/daddy, who previously was a newspaper book review editor and now blogs. He certainly doesn’t have that arrogant attitude towards bloggers. Or Frank Wilson, also a book review editor, who blogs at Books, Inc. Their blogs differ significantly (Wilson links to blogs and online articles, Weeks writes extensive posts). Adaptation to the new media on their part. And there are other examples, too. Still, the high-profile negative comments by some print-world reviewers just astound me as they seem to be intent on alienating the very public that are their readers. It’d be like a blogger starting a post with “you’re probably too stupid to understand this, but read it anyway because I know what's good for you”.

Emily: I love the fact that Paul Krugman forced all the NY Times editorials and op-ed pieces to be provided free (used to be online readers had to pay to read them) by taking his discussions out into a blog where the Times could do nothing about it. That’s a great sign to me of the power of those who are more interesting in educating and getting the word out (“saving the world,” maybe, even) and encouraging open dialogue with their audiences than in their own egos and making money. Now, I just wish writers for The New Yorker would do the same.

Litlove: You’re so right! But it’s all the media know how to do – start an argument by making a hugely provocative statement so that people still pay attention to them. Ultimately, however, this kind of strategy will result the in the alienation of its audience. It’s a shame because papers and blogs could easily support one another.


What do you think is the role of literary blogs? Do you think that they have/will have an impact on what people read? on how publishers might market? what gets published?

Imani: I don't look at literary blogs as a monolithic structure that has a self-defined or imposed "role". Lit bloggers are just lots of folks on-line talking about books as the internet medium evolved to accommodate it and similar activity. By themselves they do not have or will have any significant impact on what people read. They do and will continue to add to that accumulative effect in which a reader first sees a book mentioned in the local newspaper, then the magazine they subscribe, then on a favourite blog in their feed -- finally she is persuaded to buy.

I know that publishers have already adjusted their marketing plans to include blogs judging by what I read on the backs of ARCs, or the fact that I and others are offered them in the first place. Dzanc books existence attests to the fact that blogs can have an impact on publishing -- but the important thing to note there is that effect is coming directly from the blogger getting into the business himself.

Litlove: No! But I’m not sure what would be. Tracking hits, I guess , would be better, as well as links.

Smithereens: I’d like to add that this is only for North America (perhaps UK?? I don’t know), but all the websites I visited who have advance readership programs never send books overseas (and I can count on conservative French publishers to be as late as possible to adopt the new trend).

Emily: Literary blogs give people who love books the chance to come together and discuss them. I definitely think they have an impact on what people read. I've been reading all kinds of things this year I never would have if it weren't for literary blogs, and those I know who read literary blogs tell me they've been affected in the same way. Publishers are still trying to figure out what this means for them (and, I'm sure, all wish they had crystal balls). It's also an exciting time for publishers, though, as things change and evolve. What gets published will also be affected. I can imagine popular lit bloggers being paid to review book proposals for major publishing companies, as well as being paid to review published books.

Cam: Being a consumer of the industry, not in the publishing industry, I never really thought about bloggers being book proposal reviewers. But, it makes sense to listen to your market, doesn’t it? Interesting though that you indicate ‘popular litbloggers’ being approached to do this.

Emily: Cam, that’s because I’m realistic enough to know that publishing companies care more about the bottom line than anything else, so they’ll go for what they think will help them sell, i.e. “popular litbloggers.”

Cam: Which leads me to another question: there is so much out there that is good, but not all of it is popular. How does one determine what is/isn’t popular? A lot of ranking systems seem to be based solely on links to/from, and not readership. Is this the best way of determining the strength of a blog?

Imani: Well there’s Alexa in which you can actually measure traffic to and from the site, rather than links which, I agree, is not an effective measure. I read quite a few more litblogs than I actually link to in my blogroll. I think the most popular method is to assess how many unique daily visitors over a particular day.

Emily: I don’t think it is, but it’s probably the only way unimaginative corporations will be able to figure out how to judge the strength of a blog. After all, I’m sure horrible blogs about stupid people get far more hits than many of the terrific blogs out there, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anyone should be paying attention to what they have to say. My guess is that publishing companies will judge by numbers of hits and then have someone who does some sort of “authority control” with justifications for using certain blogs. It’s like the print review media. Many, many fantastic books never get reviewed, because they’re written by midlist authors, and publishing companies aren’t willing to buy out the review media to “pay” for reviews of these books. Yes, I hate to disillusion you, but publishing companies do this sort of thing. That, however, is a way blogs can help midlist authors. Bloggers can review books that the publishers aren’t bothering to push as hard to the review media.

Litlove: I don’t think that they will have so much of an impact on the external publishing market because the internet becomes a form of publishing in itself. I think the community will only grow and become more diverse, and that increasingly people who write experimentally and who enjoy the less commercial forms of literature, like the essay and literary criticism, will turn to it ever more frequently. I see it more as a space in which uncommercial voices can be kept alive and nurtured, and that can only be good.

Emily: Litlove, I completely agree that this is where those coming for essay and literary criticism will be coming in the future. The animal known as the “academic monograph” has all but disappeared from those companies that used to publish them.

Smithereens: If we assign any definite role to literary blogs, it will become stifling. Other lit-blogs do have an impact on what I read, at least. I have become much more open to different books, and even got back to classics I’d never thought I’d dare try. But lit-blogs are far away from the market and I’m not sure publishers can “use” them to guess what manuscript in their pile will be a success.

Cam: I agree. They are too diffuse to be able to predict market trends. But I think that more publishers are aware of bloggers and trying to get their books in front of bloggers for reviewing. I don’t have a ‘high traffic’ blog by any accounting, so I’m surprised when I get the occasional offer of an ARC.

Smithereens: I had a small publisher commenting on a book I reviewed that was on its list, and the translator of another who visited too. I find this nice, because it’s really a dialogue between both ends of the market, something that didn’t exist before.


Is book reviewing a skill that must be mastered? Is the "opinion of the masses" (or "the democracy of idiots" as I heard one charge recently) that is part of the internet phenomena killing the idea of a 'review' or 'criticism'?

Imani: If your aim is to provide formal, professional book reviews, even if it's just on your blog, then it's worthwhile to put some effort into it. As I previously said, I see my blog as a mixture of reading journal, notebook and scrap book; I write about a book in whatever form I can manage, and I consider few of my labeled "review" posts to actually fit the term, but I admit it on my site.

I don't think that litblogging is "killing" the idea of book reviews and criticism -- this assumes that all or most litbloggers engage in the activity to do reviews/criticism. But really, the majority of book buyers and readers don't even read blogs or reviews. The smaller subset of that group who do, have the wit to assess what each entity's intentions is, be it newspaper editor, or retiree librarian on wordpress. If anything is "killing the idea of a 'review'" it is the mediocre book journalism that the major national papers in USA & Canada trot out every week.

Cam: Maybe the question that book review sections of newspapers should be asking isn’t whether it is profitable, but what book blogs offer that the newspapers don’t. I think the answers include variety in opinions and in types of books discussed.

Imani: And the potential to engage directly with them, even if the change is never taken up. It’s clear from recent articles that for many book critics the idea of interacting directly with their readership is akin to mingling with a lower caste.

Emily: One of the answers to that question, of course, is that litbloggers are posting about more than just books that are being released this season by the publishers. You can read about books written in any century.


Emily: If book reviewing is a skill that must be mastered, I don't know why so many teachers assigned so many book reviews when I was a student, unless they were training us all to be book reviewers. Many, many who are well-read and passionate about books can write good book reviews. There are only so many professional book review spots available, and (as with any other job), just because someone happens to land one of those spots, does not necessarily make him or her a better book reviewer than someone who pursues a different career path or someone who tried and was turned down for that position. I'm convinced that the internet is just like everything else in society: there are television shows that cater to the "democracy of idiots" and those that cater to people who are looking for more, just as there are books and movies that cater to the "democracy of idiots" and to those who are looking for more. I'm not at all interested in reading blogs devoted entirely to someone like Paris Hilton, so I don't read them. Mostly, I read litblogs and cooking blogs. I imagine others do the same.

Litlove: Book reviewing, like all kinds of writing, is about how well you write. Yes, it’s a skill like any other, but it’s one that anyone can do, and one for which there are no definitive rules, no matter what journalists like to claim. I’ve seen it done every which way, and the more original the voice, the more perceptive and entertaining and reasonable the opinions, the more I like it. I particularly detest the kind of review that is all about making the reviewer look clever, generally identifiable by the amount of sneering it involves. Those pages I use to line cat litter trays.

Emily: Litlove, oh yes, I really hate to read “look-how-clever-I-am” reviews. Funny (isn’t it?) how they often seem to be written by mediocre, published authors whose books are also written with a similar sort of smug pride.

Smithereens: I don’t think professional reviewers in newspapers are the appointed guardians and judges of literary quality. In France, we have a bunch of self-important journalists/reviewers who write book reviews without any “qualification”. So I find their opinion just as good as anyone else’s. I can find all kinds of reviews interesting, as long as it isn’t limited to “I like it/ it’s crap”. A review is always subjective, but when someone has an extensive knowledge of literature, I stop and listen to their personal impression. But literary criticism (in the academic sense) demands, in my opinion, a specific knowledge and can’t be done on the internet by anyone.

Emily: Smithereens, I agree that literary criticism is something different, but I disagree that it can’t be done on the internet, especially since academic publishers are beginning to disappear, and more and more academic journals are right now publishing simultaneously in print and online. I expect they will one day move online exclusively, which means they won’t have the constraints of the printing costs incurred from number of pages printed and will be able to publish more articles with each issue. Those who used to go to publishers with dissertations can now self-publish and get immediate peer review through emails and comments without the help(or hindrance, as the case may have been) of publishers. Ultimately, I’m convinced this will be good for the consumer, because there will no longer be editorial teams making decisions about what does and doesn’t need to be published (still based on the bottom line). Thus, if someone is researching some really esoteric topic that a commercial publisher would deny publication, because it wouldn’t make money, he or she will still be able to find what, thirty years ago, never would have been published, because someone else who maybe did research on it five years ago didn’t have to go to a publisher to get his/her research out there for all to access.

Imani: I would disagree. There are a number of literary academics blogging online and sharing their expertise. The Valve is the most obvious example of this. The Little Professor is another.

Smithereens: Just to clarify my point, I didn't mean that the internet wasn't a good vehicle for academic journals, but that writing literary criticism needs some specific skills that not just anyone can improvise.

Cam: I saw an interview on CSPAN recently (I wish I had made note of the critic/paper, but I didn’t). The comment was the bloggers were unqualified. I had wished that the interviewer had asked what qualifications a print journalist needs to review a book. This man was about my age and likely attended college around the same time I did. I studied English and Journalism and I don’t think that book reviewing – as it exists in the print media in the US today – was ever covered in either. In fact, the common derisive comment in J classes was that one's writing was ‘English Lit” if you wanted to write on any topic considered too ‘arty’.

Imani: I don’t adhere to it, but yes that could be classified as a blog convention. It only detracts from a review in which discussion of a spoiler isn’t necessary, but is only part of a long plot synopsis with little to no analysis. I think Litlove gave the best definition of what literary criticism is, btw.


Would you differentiate between a 'review' and 'criticism'. If so, how?

Emily: It depends what source you're reading, because I think sometimes different journals confuse the two. Criticism, however, to me, indicates something academic: thorough research and a solid knowledge of either the author (fiction) or the subject (nonfiction), as well as something that's quite lengthy, often even book-length. Reviews I think of as resources for helping readers make decisions about whether or not to buy/read a book, and I think of them as being much shorter.

Litlove: Yes, I certainly would. Literary criticism is not about making a value judgment. A literary critic might hate the book he or she has just read, but their job is to show how it creates its effects, how it explores its themes, how it fits into its genre and historical context; whether they liked it or not is irrelevant. A review is based on an individual opinion about the amount of pleasure a book gives a reader, although it might contain elements of literary criticism.

Smithereens: Criticism is, in my opinion, an academic analysis of a book in the light of theory. Review is a lighter exercise, a subjective opinion of a book.

Imani: I would, although I use these definitions for purely personal use and am a bit unsure how they would stand on their own. For me, book reviews are shorter, more conventionally written assessments of a book's merits; you keep to the book for the most part. Literary criticism is intentionally longer and more insightful, able to place the work more clearly in author's overall output, in the current state of literature. "Spoilers" may abound because it's a less promotional form of prose.

Cam: Spoilers. Sylvia at Classical Bookworm posted recently on spoilers, suggesting that revealing plots was a no-no. Like Syliva, I don’t think that I agree. Is this one of those ‘standards’ mentioned earlier: that you shouldn’t reveal plots without posting a warning message? I hadn’t realized that it was. Do you think that detracts in any way from the function of a review?

Imani: I don’t adhere to it, but yes that could be classified as a blog convention. It only detracts from a review in which discussion of a spoiler isn’t necessary, but is only part of a long plot synopsis with little to no analysis. I think Litlove gave the best definition of what literary criticism is, btw.

Smithereens: I warn before writing spoilers -- out of respect for the readers, because some like it and others don’t. I wouldn’t really intentionally keep the suspense because I’m not in the business of selling the book to others, as some journalists do.

Emily: Good question, Cam. When people warn me about a spoiler on a blog, I don’t mind at all. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary in order to really discuss what did or didn’t work in a book. However, I get so upset with book review media when they include a spoiler with no warning. I pretty much won’t read reviews of the latest books by authors I love until I’ve read the book, because I don’t want anything given away before I can read it (I was so mad with the NY Times when they revealed who’d been responsible for Own Meaney’s father’s death in their book review. To me, that was such a big part of the book and never should have been revealed for those who hadn’t read it, which I had by the time I read the review, but it still made me mad).


Litlove Poses Her Own Questions to the participants:

Litlove: Imani, forget that you are SO young! I was wondering how pressurised you felt when blogging to be clever or smart or meaningful in what you say, or whether blogging was instead the place where you could relax. I remember being a graduate student and comparing my writing relentlessly with every form of published discourse on the planet! It's where one forges a writing style whilst both admiring other critics and somehow taking them on at the same time, and I wondered how blog writing fed into that or resisted it. Of course, your experience could be completely different to mine.

Imani: Oh litlove, that's so reassuring. You've described exactly how I feel, never mind the agonizing over my inferiority. I *try* to keep my blog a venue for relaxed musings but I admit that every other time I write about a book I'm distressed that it doesn't read like the ones in Time Literary Supplement. I am rarely satisfied with the final product (but if I waited until I was I would probably blog about once a month). It is of no use to remind me that the TLS writers are twice as old with a million degrees and decades of experience. I would say that my blog feeds into and resists it at the same time. The fact is that I don't and wouldn't want to approach books in an academic fashion but I'm also working under the assumption that that's exactly what one should aspire to. In the end I try to say something *meaningful* when it's warranted; I have no flair for the sort of cleverness that other grad student blogs seem to admire, so it would be no use to try.

Litlove: Emily, I wondered to what extent you felt that you constructed a Persona when blogging. So much of what you write is personal, and yet I feel the extent to which you edit and hold back in certain circumstances (and quite fair enough). But I wondered whether you felt the Emily of the blog was a kind of idealised version of yourself. I often feel that way about Litlove!

Emily: It's a very interesting question and one I've thought about a lot. It may be something friends and family members can answer better than I can. I tend to think I have created a persona or an idealized version of myself, because the Emily of my blog is funnier than I think of myself being in real life, and she doesn't worry as much, isn't constantly concerned she might be hurting someone else's feelings (although there's a little bit of that), and seems to handle everything that comes her way with a sense of humor, which I know I don't do. I think that's why when life gets really tough for me (like during the move and while dealing with the crisis of my nieces' accident), I find it very hard to blog. It's difficult to keep up the persona. On the other hand, that may have more to do with never wanting to be too emotional with strangers than with a real change in persona. Also, I often find myself turning all kinds of things I'm saying to people in real life into blog posts without changing what I originally said much, so sometimes I think there's much, much more of me, parts of me that I just can't help being no matter what the forum, reflected in my blog than I realize (for instance, maybe I really AM that funny, even in real life). I'd be really curious to see what people think who've met me first through my blog and now know me in person (like Hobs and Dorr). People who knew me first, I think, tend to read my blog with my voice and to see the Emily they already know.

Litlove: Smithereens, do you notice a difference between European styles of book analysis and American ones? Only I think I do and I wondered if you'd agree. I find American bloggers less concerned (on the whole) with the historical context of what they are reading, and more likely (on the whole) to judge classics by modern day standards. I've read elsewhere a purported difference between French and Anglo-American critics is that the latter take the book as an object of analysis, to be taken apart, whereas the French school was more interested in following alongside the writing and producing more of an explication du texte. I just wondered what you thought about cultural differences in literary appreciation.

Smithereens: As for Litlove question, it was both difficult and interesting! Here's my answer: I do agree of your comparison between Europeans and Americans. There is obviously a difference between French reviewers and Anglo-American ones, because I don’t really like the French ones while I read the others with pleasure, but to me it’s very difficult to define this difference. My attempt: French reviewers’ tone (in newspapers, radio talk shows like Le Monde, Libération, Les Inrocks, Le masque et la plume) is often quite aggressively judgmental and ad hominem (think Michiko Kakutani going personal…). Also the author’s intention is very important to French reviewers, even more than the result I think. The books are often viewed in the light of how innovative (on structure, form, themes) they are, compared to other recent ones, rather than judging whether readers will be moved, pleased, shocked…

Litlove: Cam, I think there was quite a measure of agreement between all our answers. Did you expect that or did you think we would disagree more? We're an international crew, but all women. I wonder if a man would answer differently?

Cam: I really didn't know what to expect with this. Even at the beginning, I didn't know whether to expect that anyone would want to participate. The similarity in answers to some of the questions doesn't surprise me at all, in retrospect. Although all of your blogs are different, I think that the general interests, tone and quality are similar and therefore it shouldn't be surprising. For example, I don't think that any of you are ever rude to readers or fellow bloggers. But, there are some bloggers who can't disagree with someone without resorting to ad hominem attacks. Do I think that a man would reply differently? I'm not at all sure. Maybe in a general sense, yes. But like the simirlities in your responses, I think that if my participants were limited to those who read my invite on my blog, all would answer similarly regardless of gender. Interestingly, I have frequently had people assume that 'Cam' is a man -- that both puzzles and amuses me. I could go on & on about that.....maybe I'll save it for a post sometime. :)


Summary:

Book blogs: Good? or Bad?
Imani: Good
Emily: Very, very good.
Litlove: But good, of course!
Smithereens: Good of course!

Critical Reviews in old media: Goodbye & good riddance? or We will miss you?
Imani: The second one. Better predictable book blather than nothing at all. I would sincerely miss literary magazines.
Emily: We will miss you (but I'm not really sure they're going away).
Litlove: The more publicity for books and reading the better – there’s room in the world for us all.
Smithereens: Depend on the reviewer…

The blogging form: Here to stay? A flash-in-the-pan fad? Still evolving?
Imani: Can I choose two? Here to stay and still evolving.
Emily: Here to stay and still evolving.
Litlove: Here to stay, certainly, and still evolving.
Smithereens: I’d say "Here to stay!"


Who are some of the blogs you would recommend to a new blog reader interested in reading about literature, writing, reading.... (besides the participants in this roundtable).

Imani:
It would depend on their reading tastes.

For romance readers I would suggest:
Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Books
Dear Author
Paperback Reader

For the more speculative I'd send them:
The Mumpsimus
Torque Control

For those who like historicals:
A Work in Progress

For those whose tastes cover mass markets to classics:
Superfast Reader

And for those of a more "literary"/academic inclination:
The Reading Experience
The Sharp Side
The Little Professor

For book news I'd suggest:
The Literary Saloon
Laila Lalami
The Elegant Variation

Emily:
Bloglily
Of Books and Bicycles
The Hobgoblin of Little Minds
So Many Books
A Striped Armchair
Ian’s Blog II
The Public, the Private, and Everything Inbetween
Charlotte's Web
Musings from the Sofa
The Library Ladder
Make Tea Not War
Mandarine (who doesn't write much about literature, writing, or reading but anyone interested in such things should be reading him anyway)

Litlove:
For intelligent debate:
The Reading Experience

For adding to one's reading list:
A Work in Progress

For a bit of everything:
So Many Books

For Community Projects:
The Hidden Side of a Leaf

Smithereens:
Of Books and Bicycles
Eve’s Alexandria
Reading Matters



Cam: I hope you have enjoyed reading what these four bloggers have had to say. Want to continue the conversation? Please do so in the comments.

Roundtable: Books and Blogging (Part II)

You can find Part I here.

Participants: Imani, Litlove, Emily, Smithereens

Writing, Audience and Blogs

Why did you start blogging?

Imani: I started because I wanted to take an active part in the online book conversation instead of remaining a passive lurker, as I had been for a few years. It looked like so much fun and, as I said before, I wasn't getting that online. I live with an English major now, and our tastes cross ever so often, but his forays into contemporary literature are fairly limited, in comparison to mine.

Cam: Since your interests are contemporary, do you find that the blogs that you read/comment on tend to be that as well? What about your readers (those you know) – do you think that they are similarly focused or are their blogs more varied as to types of literature?

Imani: My reading interests are actually rather diverse and the majority of the bloggers I read reflect the same variety. In fact that’s the advantage of readers who tend to blog online over those I meet off-line. The latter tend to have narrower interests, for eg. they only read classics, or non-fiction, and if they do read contemporary literature then it tends to be in specific genres (thrillers, fantasy/sci fi etc.). It’s rare for me to come across literary fiction readers.

Emily: I had a friend who was encouraging me to write every day who eventually began encouraging me to blog. I tried it, but wasn't thrilled, and gave up. Then I had another friend whose blog I loved to read who also encouraged me to blog. I read Julie Powell's Julia and Me and thought, well, if I had a theme, maybe blogging would be easier. I tried it again when I moved home to telecommute, deciding a blog about the ups and downs of telecommuting would be a good idea and a good way to interact with other telecommuters. I was wrong and didn't find anyone else blogging much about telecommuting. I soon found myself blogging about many other things and began to really enjoy it. Even though I don't write every day, it has definitely been a great outlet for my need to write, and I love getting feedback from others who can identify with the things I say.

Cam: Emily When I first started reading your blog, I thought the title was intended to be sarcastic. That is: that you were doing something while ‘on the clock’ that was unrelated to work – the fear of many managers when someone first starts to work remotely!

Emily: Cam, that’s so funny, because I never even thought of that (wish I had, as it would have been so clever). I’d managed three telecommuters myself before I moved home, so it never really crossed my mind. Almost all the editors at my company are telecommuters, and I’ve come to the conclusion that probably more people are doing things like blogging while in an onsite office than they are working from home, but I could be wrong about that.

Litlove: I was off work with chronic fatigue and missing students to talk at. And missing writing too.

Smithereens: Because I thought that commenting on other blogs wasn’t enough! And I wanted to talk about the books I read too. And have my own page to do my stuff.

What other types of writing do you do?

Imani: Things for class and journals now, I guess, since I'm a grad student. I did a review for the Fall 2007 issue of The Quarterly Conversation.

Emily: I write ghost stories, and I'm often starting but never finishing novels. Currently, I'm working (sort of) on a children's book.

Litlove: I gave up fiction writing years ago and have never written poetry. All my writing is academic, which is hard work but familiar.

Smithereens: Offline I write short stories (and a lot of professional reports).


How does the nature of a blog affect what you write? Has the blogging world impacted/changed your writing (for good or ill)?

Imani: Ummm...not very much. I have always been a bad writer in the first drafts, which are what my blog posts basically are, and need to edit, and re-edit before it looks proper. I'm doing bioethics research too, so it's a completely different field.

Smithereens: I don’t really think so. Fiction and posts are really different kinds of writing.

Emily: My blog is more of an outlet for my sense of humor than the other things I write, probably because people I know in real life read me and tell me how funny my blog is, so it's just kind of become that. Maybe it's more me than other things I write, since people tend to tell me I'm funny period. On some levels, I think blogging may have hurt my other writing, because I spend more time blogging than I do working on other stuff. For instance, I used to get up and work on ghost stories every morning. Now I get up and post or read others' blogs and squeeze in ghost-story writing at other times. On the other hand, blogging has opened up a whole new world for me, one in which I can interact with writers and they can interact with me as a writer, no matter where we live, and that's been a wonderful thing.

Cam: Do you think you might start writing stories with more of a comedic nature than horror, based on feedback from readers?

Emily: Cam, maybe. I used to do that but was never really satisfied with it. Blogging has definitely given me more confidence, so I’ve been considering going back to it. However, the fact that I worry the art of ghost-story writing is fast disappearing keeps me wanting to write them more than anything else.


Litlove: Actually the blog has had a drastic impact on what I write by making me less keen on writing it. Now I’m trying to do something far more sensible and take the lessons I’ve learned blogging in order to incorporate them into my academic writing. We’ll see how that goes. It’s also made a big difference to my life, as recently I submitted a proposal and chapters to some agents for a more commercial book. It’s a route I’m very keen to go down now, but I need to find the right vehicle for it, and that may take some time and effort.

Cam: Are you saying that your blog writing has made your writing more accessible or commercial? Or has it just pushed you to consider other writing options and now you are heading in that direction? Is this more an issue with style than with content? Are you seeing any general trends with your academic area that suggests that others might be similarly influenced in their academic writings by blogging?

Litlove: I think I’ve found a more accessible voice (although it still needs work). It’s about the presentation of content, making ideas available to a wider public and explaining them so that anyone can understand (which ought to be possible no matter what the concept). I’ve also enjoyed this kind of writing so much that I want to spend more time doing it. As for other academics, well, I guess we all have very much our own styles, and I have always been on the popularizing end of the scale. I do think lots of academics recognize that there is a mass market out there for their research, if they can find entertaining and painlessly informative ways of packaging it.

Do you feel that you can define your blog's audience? Have you cultivated or intentionally attracted a certain type of audience? If so, how?

Imani: No, I don't think I can. I am constantly surprised by some of the blogs that link to me and, going by feed counts, the majority of my readers don't comment.

Cam: I’m often surprised when someone who doesn’t frequently comment does. I find I can’t predict who will/will not comment. Do you feel that responding to comments generates more of a dialog? On many blogs, not just my own, it seems to be unidirectional. Despite all of the talk about interactivity of the internet, it seems lacking to me in terms of ongoing discussion. I’m not sure how we can change that. Perhaps, in part, it is a timing issue. That discussion feature – and interacting to what others say – is one of the reasons I thought about doing this roundtable exercise, though I’m not sure how it will turn out.

Imani: The discussion feature is precisely what I think off-line has over on-line: the person is right there so you have to respond. :P Blogging seems to be more conducive to the trackback linking rather than comment section activity. I respond to comments because I think it makes people feel more welcome, but it takes a particular kind of post and commenter to really generate discussion.

I don’t know if that can (or should) be changed. Books as a subject are resistant to bite-size commentary; and if your site is primarily focused on reviews then chances are that most of your readership hasn’t even read the book. It takes a certain kind of talent to write about literature that is specific to the book but expansive and accessible enough to draw a lot of comments.

Emily: Imani, I’m surprised, too, sometimes to discover who’s reading me, and it seems the majority of my readers don’t comment, either. Cam, I think you’re doing a good job of trying to get dialogue going with things like this roundtable.


Smithereens: I find it very difficult to answer to comments, if it means going beyond: thanks for the comment/compliment/discussion. Maybe I’m not really good at starting discussions, and I often wonder if people go back to the post they commented to read the answer to their own comment.

Emily: I think my audience consists mainly of bookish/somewhat nerdy people like me. I didn't intentionally start out to attract this audience(remember, I was looking to connect with other telecommuters), but I think I've cultivated it once I discovered it was out there by linking to others and taking up challenges others have created. And then, of course, there are memes, of which I'm apparently the Queen. The memes I've chosen and created have mostly been bookish ones.

Cam: Do you wear that crown happily? (I thought it was a self-appointed appellation.) What is it about memes and reading challenges that you think people find interesting?

Emily: Actually, I was crowned the Queen o’ Memes by The Hobgoblin. I think memes are a way of getting to know others. I compose them and answer them, but I’m always far more interested in reading what others have to say. When I answer them, quite often it’s because it’s easier to do a meme that day than to write a post of my own, but sometimes it’s just because the topic is one that’s really fun to explore (like the Halloween meme that went around last year). Maybe it’s still part of that wanting to find like-minded souls. Challenges are, for me at least, a great way to explore reading books and discovering authors I wouldn’t otherwise, as well as finally to read books/authors I’ve been meaning to read for years and never have. They’re like book discussion groups in which ultimately, I’m the one making the choices as to what I read and get to hear what others think of different books to make decisions about whether or not to read them. If I end up reading something I hate (which hasn’t happened so far), I have only myself to blame.


Litlove: This one is tricky: I feel I don’t really know who my audience is. I’ve always kept my own travels around the blogosphere limited to book blogs as it’s all I’m interested in. I’m not sure how I could cultivate an audience. I hope people turn up who want to go that bit further with their reading and are not quite sure how to. I think I attract more women than men to my site (don’t know why) and I don’t get the big literary types commenting. I’m too popularist for that.

Emily: Litlove, interesting observation about getting more women readers than men. I never thought of that, but I think I get more women readers, too. I’m tempted to say it has something to do with being a book blogger, but I don’t consider myself a book blogger (maybe I’m just in denial about that, though?).

Smithereens: This is a difficult one ! I think most people who leave a comment on my blog are fellow lit-bloggers, the sort of small world of people in my blogroll and slightly beyond, but from the blog stats, I see that many students reach my blog looking for ideas on classics, probably they have to write an essay about some book I reviewed.

Cam: I get these kinds of hits too. Do you know if any of these are repeat visitors? I also get several hits on a couple of books – one I posted about almost 2 yrs ago when I first started blogging – that I think must be people who are looking for ideas because they are reading this for a book club. I doubt that they read this sort of thing as assigned reading in high school, but maybe I’m wrong. I hope they read better things.

Imani: I get the high school student hits too I’m sure. In the last year I’ve read a few school type literature like Paradise Lost, Brother Man by Roger Mais (for Caribbean students), and Saint Joan. I also think that feminist literary courses probably assign a lot of A.S. Byatt. So it’s not that surprising. I have no idea if they are repeat visitors or not. I’m hoping they’re just looking for character listings or something.

Smithereens: I think they come as a result of a Google search, so I doubt they’re repeat visitors. And I got a lot of hits on the posts for the classic short stories that we discussed in the blog A Curious Singularity.

Emily: Smithereens, that’s interesting that you’ve found many students accessing your blog. Cam, unfortunately, I’m afraid they ARE reading these things as assigned reading in high school. (Although, sometimes, I’m not sure how I feel about that, as I’ve thought for a long time that “irrelevant” – being so to them at that point in their lives, and most of them don’t have the sorts of really good teachers who know how to make them relevant -- classics are forced on fifteen-year-olds that they can’t possibly understand and that it turns them off reading. When I was in high school, I was bored to tears by Herman Melville and the like, my assigned reading, but was reading things like John Irving and Lawrence Durrell on my own and probably would have been far more engaged in class if I could have been discussing these books. Luckily, it didn’t turn me off reading, but I was a reader from the moment I could do so). If teens are out there reading litblogs, like Smithereens’s blog, I think that’s absolutely fantastic, as it might help make the classic works more relevant and more interesting to them.

Imani: That’s one of the problems I have with literature as it is taught in schools. The philosophy behind it seems to be about cramming as many “great” Western classics as possible into the student’s heads because they will probably never pick up a fiction book again. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy because such a method more or less guarantees it. I’d think it would be better to be less fixated on reaching a quota and more focused on trying to build life-long readers. (And I should add I don’t think this can best be done by removing Shakespeare and replacing it with any random prize winning YA author.)

Is this audience who you thought it would be? Do you think you have adapted to your audience? To other norms of the blogging world?

Imani: I didn't think I'd ever have much of an audience, to be honest, and I don't in comparison to even a mid-size blog. I'm small potatoes. As for adapting...I don't know the audience so I can't. Even if I did I would write what I like, when I like, because that was what made them start reading in the first place. For norms of the blogging world? I don't really understand what you mean by that. I keep a blogroll and dutifully hyperlink the name of any blogger or site I mention, if he doesn't bore me, and I reply to comments. Basic etiquette, I guess, which I've done since I started.

Cam: You caught me! I knew all of you would pick up on the ambiguity of ‘norms’, but I wondered if you all would comment. I read something recently (sorry, don’t remember who/where/when to attribute properly) about the ‘standard conventions of blogs’. I didn’t have a clue what they meant, although I think, at least in part, the writer was referring to the tone of blogs – the general polarization of some blogs, the snarkiness of comments. I can’t say that I’m always positive on my blog, but I try to avoid contemptuous sounding remarks. That wasn’t always the case, but personally, I find that degrading, depressing, and sometimes outright mean. I don’t want to be bothered reading that sort of thing. Do you think that there are standard conventions of blogging that should be adhered to? Is biting sarcasm one of them?

Smithereens: The blogs I read are often very positive on books, even when the blogger didn’t like the book, s/he usually says something to save it, like “perhaps it’s just me” or “there are still good points”. Perhaps bloggers even refrain from posting on the books they don’t like. I’d like to know if the other panelists do that??

As I took as a rule to post on each of the book I finish, I don’t really like being angelic about (what I consider) bad books; when I have been disappointed, I tend to use sarcasm, but I try to do it constructively, to see what is the main weakness (I’d like to apply the reverse engineering method, but I’m not sure I’m successful at it). IMO a lot of blogs want posts and comments to be lively and funny and sassy, because it makes people read it, come back and comment, but when it’s not well done, it often veers towards snarkiness.

Imani: I always think that these “blogging norms” as you described them are based on the political/techy blog world: the polarization and contemptuous remarks, the juicy scandals and upheavals. (Well, the romance blogs do have their occasional drama, as far as litblogs go.) Snarkiness might be a fair description for some sites but I don’t mind that, and sometimes enjoy it, because writing in a snarky tone does not mean one has to be vicious and hurtful. I can’t help but be withering and sarcastic when the Guardian Books blog posts another humdinger (although it’s been pretty decent for a while) or another paid critic raises her fountain pen in defense of “literary culture”.

I don’t think there is or should be any standard blogging style. As for “conventions”, hyperlinking to other persons when you mention them is only nice and works to your benefit. Blogrolls is a part of that. Besides that, I say make your site what you want it to be.

Emily: Nope. I didn't even know all these wonderful people with terrific senses of humor out there blogging about books even existed when I first logged onto blogger.com. I definitely think I've adapted to my audience. I've basically changed the whole theme of my blog to focus much more on the things that matter to me in life, of which telecommuting isn't really one. I probably shouldn't say "matter," because my job matters to me very much and telecommuting is a big part of it. "The things that most interest me" would be a better way to put it. I've adapted to other norms of the blogging world in as much as my limited abilities with technology allow. I still feel like I'm faking it half the time, because I can't do things like design my own blog. Also, it's interesting to think about what the "norms" of the blogging world are, or even blogging etiquette. For instance, I feel like I ought to personally respond to every single person who makes the effort to comment on my blog, and it seems others do, too. However, many don't. What's the norm then? Or is that just my compulsive nature raising its ugly head, and no one else even thinks about such things?

Litlove: I’ve been delighted to find so many like-minded folk out there in the world and have made a whole host of wonderful blog friends, which is a benefit I never expected, somehow. I love taking requests on my site and writing posts about authors or theorists that commenters have expressed an interest in.

Cam: Have any of you had experiences like Litlove’s – that commenters have made requests that you have responded to in your blog writing?

Emily: Cam, when I posted on finding stories I’d written when I was a child, I got a couple of requests to post them, so I did. That’s the only time I can remember getting such a request.

Imani: Other than the generic “Can’t wait for you to post about that book” I got my first request recently: to do a close reading of a Lorna Goodison poem. I acknowledged it and was receptive but I made no promises because my blog is where I allow myself to be more relaxed in contrast to school where I have so many reading and writing requirements to fulfill.

Smithereens: I don’t make any special effort for any audience (although I’m flattered when a post is read a lot). I laugh at the idea of students copying parts of my posts into their essays, because I don’t take them seriously and I don’t think they can get good grades out of them!

Cam: Do you have a post that you are particularly fond of – whether it received a wide readership or not? I hadn’t thought about asking this before, but your response made me think of it, so I’ll ask the other participants as well. I’m interested in what each of you think is your best or most favourite post. What made it so? Personally, one of my posts that I liked the most (about symbols, the Iraq war, stereotypes, and Rowan Williams’ book about 9/11) received few hits and almost nobody commented.

Imani: My posts on Roger Mais’ fiction (here and here) are probably among my favourites, but all together they probably garnered two comments total, and mostly get hits from high school students (poor things). I am pretty proud of the two posts I did comparing Louise Gluck’s poetry to a few of Shakespeare’s sonnets, and that got a fair response, but more often than not I can’t predict how it will go.

Emily: This is a really tough question, but I think my favorite post was probably the one I did on eavesdropping on cell phone conversations while traveling.

Litlove: Yes, some of my favourite posts are the least visited. I like doing straight book reviews best, and they regularly get smaller audiences than the general thought pieces. I liked my posts on The Great Gatsby, Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres and Richard Russo’s Straight Man. They’re probably my favourites.

Smithereens: Not one post in mind in particular. I’m kind of disappointed to see that my posts about European or Asian books don’t receive as many comments and hits as American recent publications, but it’s fair enough (all the more as they are not readily accessible/translated)


What type of interactions do you get on your blog?

Litlove: Delightful, insightful, entertaining discussions of books and ideas. I love my comments and am always so pleased with the points other commenters make. People have been consistently polite and open to each other, too.

Smithereens: Comments to agree/disagree, suggestions of books

Imani: Great comments by faithful regulars, with the very occasional newcomer. Sometimes I get encouraging feedback in e-mails. Lately I've gotten ARC offers, and one author who generously offered herself as an interviewee.

Emily: All wonderfully positive and very empathetic (of course, half of them are from my family members. We prefer to do our arguing in private). And I've had the great joy of occasionally corresponding with some of my readers through email.

Cam: Like Imani, you have indicated that you correspond with readers through email. Can you generalize about why people take things ‘off line’ rather than continue through the comments? Do any of these discussions ever make it back to your blog in another post?

Emily: I haven’t noticed any specific patterns as to why discussions get taken off-line, and it doesn’t happen very often, except maybe when wonderful people like Mandarine try to help me with my overall “Luddite-ness.” And none of them has ever made it back as another post (well, if you don’t count the fact that if someone has taught me how to do something on my blog, THAT skill makes it back to the blog).

Imani: The e-mails I get tend to be just positive thumbs ups that only require a thank you and a visit to the other person’s site. I did have one on-going discussion but it was about matters outside of books so I did not incorporate it into any posts.


Do you have any rules about posting comments? Under what circumstances, if any, would you/have you blocked commenters?

Imani: No trolls or spambots allowed. That's it.

Smithereens: No (I’d block anything personal and nasty)

Emily: I block spam. I have yet to have anyone say anything very rude on my blog, so I'm not really sure how I'd respond. The all-high-and-mighty Emily wants to say I'd always allow any comments. Everyone has a right to his or her opinion. But I know perfectly well that if someone came along and said something really, really insulting, I'd probably delete it. After all, I'm the person who still can't get over all the things I should have said to the nasty neighbor who accused me of being a bad neighbor, because I was letting my dog pee on his lawn (which she wasn't doing, although I wish she had. She was just sniffing around his mailbox) six years (yes, SIX years) ago.

Litlove: I would not allow aggressively critical or argumentative comments on my site, nor bad language. But I fully encourage people to hold alternative points of view to mine. I love it when they agree, but I do love to know how others think differently as well.

Cam: If one is looking for discussion, then one has to allow for alternate POV. Sometimes I think one of the conventions of the blogosphere – at the other end of the snarky continuum – is that you don’t disagree too much. Just keep quiet if you don’t agree. If that is the case, how does one effectively foster the ‘I disagree’ type comments?

Imani: I can only put my ideas out there and hope that if anyone disagrees they will pipe up in comments. I’m forthright but not oppressively so. I like it when people make meaty counterarguments that I can sink my teeth into, and it’s happened once or twice. I am certainly not shy about saying my piece on other sites.

Litlove: I tend to encourage anyone who wants to make a point. But I could easily disagree if I wanted to just by suggesting an alternative POV myself. Teachers do it all the time in class to foster discussions without discouraging any participants.

Emily: Cam, I think you need to be like Litlove and let others know you welcome disagreement.

Smithereens: I recently disagreed with Danielle’s enthusiasm on the Mysteries of Udolpho, but rather than putting it into her comments, I preferred posting a whole post in my blog with a link, to which Danielle answered through my comments. Somehow I feel that one of the untold rule is to keep comments shorts, so when I disagree I prefer to give detailed reasons.

Tomorrow: Part III - Blogging About Books.