Work Room - Week 13

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

There is a new topic http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/425810.html
Saying goodbye to the people leaving us http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/425238.html
and of course making a decision about who might be *joining* us http://community.livejournal.com/therealljidol/425695.html

So there's a lot on the plate.

But there is also the Work Room. Your space to discuss your entries and writing in general.

A few weeks back I introduced the concept of the "Mentor Program". I think it went fairly well and have been having some conversations with various people, trying to convince them to step into the role of herding cats for a week.

This week, I am completely honored to be able to say that I was able to talk one of my personal favorite Idol contestants, ever, into taking the time to be our Guest Mentor.

You know him. You love him. Or at least you better because the guy is just plain good.

He needs no introduction. But he's getting one anyway.

Welcome to the Work Room alexpgp!!


***

"Right now, I'm feeling a little like a goofy private that has agreed to set off at the suggestion of platoon sergeant Gary on a jaunt, under a sunny cerulean sky, across a summery green, flower-dotted field whose soil may potentially be riddled with high-explosive mines.

So why'd I volunteer? You don't want to know.

(You do? Well, it's because I don't know if I'll be any good or not at this "mentoring" gig, okay? Mentoring is not something people learn to do, generally speaking, and among people that learn to do anything at all, surprisingly few can put their knowledge to good use with others.
In the end, though, it boils down to this: there have been moments in my life when a sentence or two from a full-dues-paid someone who's been there has had a positive impact on my life, and while it may be my ego talking, I think I'm capable of having that effect on someone else. In any event, if I don't try, I'll never know. So there.)

You might be wondering, what do I like to read? Generally speaking, I like to read pieces that pull me through to the end and make me either laugh, cheer, or think. Said in a slightly different way, I'm a huge fan of Elmore Leonard's tenth rule of writing, which exhorts (marvelous word) writers to "try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip." Obey that rule, and my eyeballs will follow you to hell and back.

As mezzominty before me, I shall do my best to either offer something constructive or admit to being out of my element. I shall endeavor to share my opinions civilly (and if I don't, take it as a compliment, because it means your writing made me forget my manners). Either way, recipients of said remarks are exhorted (there's that word again) to refrain from attempting to read anything other than their plain, evident meaning into them, as severe pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis may result otherwise.

Excelsior!"

Comments

[momebie.livejournal.com]

*cough* AS I JUST COMMENTED IN THE WRONG POST: I know what the words in the prompt mean separately, but together in that order they don't make any sense. >.>

In general, leaving out bits is my biggest challenge in anything I'm writing. I have a bad habit of falling in love with WORLDS as they explode and create themselves in my head, which means I get excited and want to share the whole world with everyone. It's what makes writing novel length works hard for me. Rooting out the story I need to tell vs. the story I want to tell is the biggest lesson I've been trying to teach myself for the last year or so.

I guess what I'm asking the mentor and everyone else is, how do you know? Which I think is akin to asking someone how they know they love someone. It'll be different for everybody. Nevertheless, I find other people's experiences to be educational.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

>> I know what the words in the prompt mean separately, but
>> together in that order they don't make any sense.

Which means, basically, that the world is your oyster.

---

Leaving out the bits that don't matter is, I think, the biggest challenge in general, in or out of writing.

---

How do you know if you're leaving out the right bits and hewing to what needs to be said versus what you want to say?

Early on in the process, the way one can tell is by how bad one feels when one cuts stuff out; it feels a little like excising a little part of oneself. Eventually, when one gains a little perspective and starts to notice how much snappier one's writing is, it gets easier.

Cheers...

[cheshire23.livejournal.com]

This is why I often write fanfic or use some other piece as a starting point, like I did with "Cats in the Cradle" last week. The world has already been built.

Otherwise, I will obsess something ridiculous about absolutely minute aspects of getting a setting right. (Sometimes even with fanfic, this happens.) I love building the worlds, but they are never complete enough to actually write in.

[redvelvetgrrl.livejournal.com]

Try to seperate whether or not you are leaving something in because you love that part, or that line, or that moment, or if you are leaving it in because it makes your story better.

[majesticarky.livejournal.com]

GRRR Gary there is no sport I hate more than baseball!! I'll have to think of something. What does "inside baseball" even mean? I need to look this up.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Don't exaggerate the significance of prompts. (Translation: what makes you think you have to write about a sport?)

[ravenshrinkery.livejournal.com]

Howdy :).

I am thinking about what I want to write, and need people's opinions as to how well informative, researched essays go down around here. I don't see very many of them, but my thoughts on the prompt are leading me to diving into geek culture, which I think "inside baseball" is a defining characteristic. Thoughts on these?

[comedychick.livejournal.com]

I think people haven't done them so much not because they don't go over well but because they're not the sorts of things they instinctively think of when the prompt comes up. I'd be interested in reading something like that, and not just because I like to see various forms of entries.

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

OKAY I JUST NEED TO SAY, alexpgp, HOW DO I BE AS AWESOME AS YOU?

[similiesslip.livejournal.com]

Agreed:)

[majesticarky.livejournal.com]

Oh good it doesn't have to have something to do with baseball.

It's just about some isoteric topic that few people know about. I still don't get the connection to baseball( a bad baseball strategy? 0_o) , but I guess that's not important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_baseball_%28metaphor%29

[teaberryblue.livejournal.com]

The connection is this: have you ever heard two people who are HUGE baseball fans talk about baseball? Not just people who root for one team, but the people who live and breathe it? It sounds like they're talking another language. They'll spout out lists of numbers and know what the other person is talking about. One of the ways to describe that would be "They're talking Inside Baseball" (like secret insider baseball)

[nyxocity.livejournal.com]

Hi Alex. Can I call you Alex? I love your writing and am happy to see you here! Also, you signed your post "Excelsior" which always brings to mind Stan Lee :)

My question, I guess, starts here: "try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip."

I feel like I'm very good at that part of things, I've got an instinct for when the reader is going to get bored (assuming that they're already engaged). My biggest problem, I think, or the problem that I perceive that I have, is simply in voice. You have the kind of voice that is not only well-written, but is seasoned with wisdom and skill to my mind. It's the kind of voice that is (to me) universal, where anyone could read your writing and feel a kinship or a connection. My problem is that while I feel I do well in certain areas, I don't have the kind of voice that appeals universally. It strikes chords with certain people, but it's not accessible to all, or most, I suppose, since you can't have all.

So my actual QUESTION, is this... Have you ever felt that way about your writing? And if so, what have you done to refine your style? Or is it something that's just always come naturally to you? I sometimes think it's just a matter of individual style, but I'm curious if there's been a process for you to find your voice, if it's changed and refined over the years.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Yes, I have. In spades.

My very first paid work was writing up track results for the local paper (synergistic, as I was a member of the track squad). I had no idea where to start in my "reporting,", so before my first column-inches were due, I stopped by the paper's office and looked in the archives to see what had been printed in previous years. Then I tailored my writing to sound like that stuff.

Later, when my first attempts at writing dialog didn't satisfy me, I literally started to copy pages of dialog from novels (which had the beneficial side-effect of acclimatizing me to the weird punctuation). Later, again, I'd write so as to sound like that dialog. In my opinion, such imitation familiarizes you with the underlying structure of the text, in which your own words can take residence

Note my repeated emphasis on "sounding like." I found that reading my own stuff out loud was an enormous help in helping me sense if my voice was appropriate. The talent to sense this may not be innate, but I think anyone who reads a lot—and if you write, you must read—develops it as part of that mental equipment required to comprehend text.

Cheers...

P.S. Yes, feel free to call me Alex. Just don't call me late for dinner!

[agirlnamedluna.livejournal.com]

My problem was - is - that I don't even know which sport baseball is, nor do I have any sort of affinity with it.

People talking hermetically about something only they know, mostly to impress the laymen, ... I've been to two universities. Strangely enough, the two professors who most come to mind when thinking about this sort of person, have a physical resemblance too.

Hmmm. I wonder which POV to use to tackle that story though.

[imafarmgirl.livejournal.com]

Great mentor choice.

My first thought of the topic was what the heck? My second thought was that I'll get bored reading all the entries this week about baseball. I think I have an idea for an entry though.

[similiesslip.livejournal.com]

LOL, I hadn't thought of the second base angle..

[estelwen.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, my first thought on seeing the topic was "WTF?"
So I went to bed.
This morning, I thought about it some more, and my inclination was to take a bye.
But then, I read through the WR and saw the explanation of the term - and then I had an idea, but I'm not sure (1) how to execute it or (2) how well it would go over.
So "inside baseball" refers to conversations by insiders over a topic using large amounts of jargon that is not comprehensible to outsiders, right?
Well, people who don't like evolutionary theory usually make the "it's just a theory" argument at least once - despite that term not meaning what they think it does.
*has a Inigo Montoya moment*
I could write something - impassioned, likely - on public misconceptions vs reality in science. My concern is twofold. Firstly, while the entry I wrote for week 7 (this one (http://esteletheque.livejournal.com/3248.html)) went over well, a ranty piece about jargon may not - after all, one of the pieces of concrit I got after that entry was "cut back on the jargon usage." Also, in such a post I would feel remiss if I didn't point out that many of the people who make public statements based in a poor understanding of scientific jargon tend to be of the same religious/political group - and I see myself offending people and/or starting a flame war. That, or just getting dismissed out of hand.
All of which is leading me to conclude that I should write about knitting. :/

[similiesslip.livejournal.com]

LOL.

I don't know. Every season there tends to be some drama.

Maybe you would get a lot of votes because you would get a lot of attention?

It's always so hard to know how to "play" a prompt. Even things like...should I go silly? Sad? Profound? Long entry or short?

[team-jessie.livejournal.com]

So... I have an idea I'm kicking around, but I'd like to get an opinion or two before I proceed.

I thought it might be fun to break down my (as some might call it) rather ridiculous Philly accent. Specifically pointing out words that we pronounce really "weird".

The thing is, in order to convey the sounds, that's probably going to require either a voice post or a video. What's the official word on that? Is it bad form to submit audio/visual stuff to a writing contest?

I'm not married to this idea just yet, so if it sounds like it won't work, I can always try something else.
Thanks! :)

[similiesslip.livejournal.com]

I know there are no rules against videos and audio. I know some people have done audios before.

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

Wow...talk about being out of element...I know nothing about baseball and had to look up the term. Both the strategy and the metaphor have possibilities, but I'm coming up blank at the moment.

It's a fine line, especially if one goes with the metaphor side, between boring or confusing your audience to tears and putting out something which fits the topic but has them interested.

[serpentpixie.livejournal.com]

Huh. The prompt is in and of itself.
I had to look it up, because it's an American idiom, not used in England.
This little bit of irony made me smile :)

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

I've taken the liberty of posting a mentoring message (http://alexpgp.livejournal.com/1616651.html) in my own LJ.

Comments are welcome.

Cheers...

[phoenixejc.livejournal.com]

Wow, yeah, I don't know a whole lot about the sport itself even though I go to most of my local minor league's home games. (I love to watch crowds.) Maybe I should write about a memorial experience at a ball game?

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Oh, what a lucky person you are! (For my money, minor league ball is where the true excitement is in baseball!)

Keep in mind that Idol prompts are like the stars of the Zodiac: they impel but do not compel!

Cheers...

[lawchicky.livejournal.com]

Heh- I just wrote about jargon a couple of weeks ago!

Alex- I agree with your method of trying not to write "what the reader will skip over."

Still not sure what angle my post will take this week. I need to concentrate more once I'm done preparing this big work project.

[shadowwolf13]

Thoughts?

http://shadowwolf13.livejournal.com/888094.html

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Your essay struck me as a straightforward piece that really hooked me when it lets the reader know your vows were "full of our secret language," but then lets the reader down, in my opinion, by not delivering on any of it.

You maintain that "to explain each of those lines would take a long post." Okay, so stipulated, but the essay puts you on the hook. What I might then suggest is to focus on one vow and explain at least some of its secret language. Bring the reader in, provide enlightenment, play with my emotions, make me care.

Cheers...

[pen-name.livejournal.com]

If you have a free moment... I would appreciate some critique, please Sir?

http://maizing-grace.livejournal.com/5202.html

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

An absolutely gorgeous take on the prompt, but if I hadn't been intent on reading the piece entirely through, I probably would've given up at "I lost interest in Julien as she (he) grew older, since I couldn't age, but strangely not in that theatre." I had to read that a couple of times before I figured out that the last part referred to the narrator not having lost interest in "that theater." That clause in the middle is a distraction. ("I lost interest in Julien as she grew older, but not in her theatre.")

That "strangely," by the way, seemed yet another in a series of hints that (to their credit) raised my expectations for later, but which the piece as a whole (to its discredit) in the end never delivered. (E.g., Who is Edward, and why is the narrator thankful that Edward owed the narrator a favor? Why can't the narrator age? Who is the narrator that can sneak away to catch a circuit show on two continents? What is the significance of "never-lover"?) And if the Edward referred to is Edward VII of England, then why not say so a bit more directly, and hint at a greater level of intimacy? (E.g., "In 1906, I was fortunate enough to have Bertie—he only went by "Edward VII" on official business—owe me a favor, and I was thrilled...")

The piece has an interesting first line, to be sure, but I think it would make sense to subsequently stick with one gender when referring to Julien, because while the speaker may be comfortable referring to 'him' in one graf, 'her' in the next, and then 'she (he)' two grafs later, I found it distracting to have to stop for a moment and check and make sure the narrator is still talking about the same individual. (The 'her (or was it his)' is fine, and a great location for the narrator to explain why the narrator will settle on referring to Julien consistently as 'him' or 'her' in the subsequent text.)

In my opinion, the part starting with "Hey, Lou!" is pure gold and worthy of expanding and developing.

Cheers...

P.S. Small anachronisms are also distracting. 'Jetting' wouldn't come into existence until very nearly 1950.

[joeymichaels.livejournal.com]

Hey work roomers!

Fun toy:

Find the Essence of your piece (http://www.bookshrink.com).

This program will look at your text and analyze it to determine the essential idea of your piece. I've run it on a bunch of my pieces and was like "yeah, you know, that really is the central idea of that piece." I only had one major WTF moment.

Anyhow, fun to play with.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Say, does anyone know of some clever way of having all of the comments on a page expand without having to click on (just about) each comment?

Cheers...

[shadowwolf13]

I believe there's a greasemonkey scrip to do that if you use firefox. I used to have it.

[alexpgp.livejournal.com]

Our work here is done kemo sabe.

Cheers...