I downloaded Ursula K. LeGuin’s Steering The Craft this weekend. I thought I was getting a little bit of a how-to on writing, some good advice. You know, something like Steven King’s On Writing, or E. M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel. That wasn’t what I got at all, and it was the best discovery.
Steering The Craft is much more like a workbook than it is like a how-to book. In fact, LeGuin’s writing is so much like being in class that I feel like I’ve actually decided to take one. Her clear narrative voice feels like she’s talking straight to you, and the exercises are fun and just challenging enough to make you think, but not daunting to complete. So great. Bonus points for her rampant feminism. I appreciate that SO MUCH.
I mean, “The grammarians started telling us [that using ‘their’ as a singular] was incorrect along in the sixteenth or seventeenth century. That was when they also declared that the pronoun he includes both sexes, as in ‘if a person needs and abortion, he should be required to tell his parents.'”
How can you not love that? Such a well thought out burn.
Not only that, but I give myself so much grief over my work (agonizing over whether it’s publishable quality, flogging myself to find the right word, giving another pass at the imperfect draft that feels like it will never be perfect); it was amazingly nice to just write and not worry about it. I found the fun in the words again.
I’m only about 1/3 of the way through, but I thought I’d post some of the exercises as I finish them. They’re vignettes, so I would imagine they aren’t publishable. But even if they were, I’m not sure I’d want them to be.
This one is from Exercise 2, in which I was supposed to write a paragraph of 100-350 words entirely without punctuation of any kind, even paragraph breaks. For those who are counting, this is about 190.
Quick Change
A sock a shoe a buckle slips over her ankle and a voice on a speaker calls a cue but the zipper broke and she’s gonna miss that cue for sure listening to the other guy fumble around with his lines while the three costume girls fumble with safety pins and come up short like the guy is doing vamping to the audience trying not to say um and trying not to be silent but she’s trying to be silent and so are the costume girls as one stabs her finger with a pin and a bead of blood gets onto the expensive costume they rented and their teacher will be so mad but there isn’t anything any of them can do now except try not to get any more on the dress and get the actress pinned as fast as possible they fumble again and the back of the dress gapes the actress struggles through the black drapes of the wings anyway with her back cheated away and her fingers crossed and the guy breathes a sigh of relief because there’s finally someone else there to do some talking
I think it sorta works. I’ll be posting more soon, so stay tuned.
by Grace Burrowes: This is a collection of 3 Christmas novels that were all collected into one e-book. They’re all full length (!!!) and very well done with plenty of Christmas goodness in with the romance goodness. I LOVED the first one, and am in the middle of the second. Best part is that they’re super-cheap right now. You can’t beat the bargain, and the 3 novels will keep you occupied until Christmas comes at this point.
by Eloisa James: I always love James’ stuff. I don’t quite know why, but as soon as you delve into that first chapter you just know you’re in the hands of a master. That was more evident to me after reading all the bad books before this one – it visibly felt like a relief to read the first paragraph. The beginning of the book and the end are all the Christmas you could desire, but the rest of it takes place outside the season. Still a fun romp and an excellent novel.
by Lisa Kleypas: The story moved quickly and the ending felt too unfinished, but otherwise the book was excellent. Modern, so be warned.
by Lisa Kleypas: I mean, it features the trope where the guy keeps going even after the girl has said no. And it does it repeatedly. But otherwise this book was excellent, with Christmas tree decorating, some Dickens, and a well done story line.
by Mary Balogh: A collection of 5 novellas. They’re all good, but I’m not really sure why they decided to put all of these together. In a lot of cases, the stories are so similar that they sort of blended into one another for me without distinction. I would read The Best Gift and Playing House, and then forget the other 3.
by Jenny Hale: I found myself cringing so often at the writing, and at the main character’s attitude toward things. Like, your life isn’t complete unless you can have children and that’s your only aim in life? Give me a break, kid. Interactions between her and the hero also felt awkward and forced a lot of the time. I did finish it in short order, so that’s saying something about the story arc itself, I think. But I would skip this one in favor of something less maddening. Also a modern tale.
Casey E. Hamilton 