Notebooking Part 3 of 3 - Skill Bill

Whether writing is a full time job or not, skill building is an important step towards getting published. Meet Skill Bill. My homework, assignment, writing prompt, note taker.

When I study the craft of writing, I shift into student mode. I underline in my books, write comments in the margins, and work my assignments in Skill Bill.

Page After Page and Chapter After Chapter both by Heather Sellers has writing assignments at the end of each chapter. In Skill Bill, I outlined the chapters of Between the Lines by Jessica Page Morrell.

Andy Couturier teaches great techniques in Writing Open the Mind: Tapping the Subconscious to Free the Writing and the Writer. One of my favorite exercises is in the first chapter.

Important notes, writing mantras, teacher comments are quick to find in Skill Bill. Now, remember I said, no writer knows it all. Good writers are forever learning, better writers are practicing what they learn.

Remember I said, study interviews of other writers. Sent you over to Paris Review. Encouraged you to subscribe and get the four-volume set. Skill Bill holds quotes by Truman Capote, William Falkner, and others. More recent entries include assignments from Dancing With The Gorilla blog.

Learning to construct great sentences, analyzing short stories, reading author interviews, working through writing exercises, are just a few of the ways to improve our writing. Use a notebook to keep everything you learn in one convenient, easy to find, pseudo-reference book created by you for you.

Without a doubt any writer can keep a number of notebooks. Right now, my magic number seems to be three.

• Blog Heaven for scrawling out blogging ideas ahead of time
• Infernal Journal for insights into myself and life
• Skill Bill for note taking, writing exercises, mantras, and etc

If you keep a notebook, consider how it supports your writing. If you're just starting, I hope this short series has encouraged you to try notebooking. Once you start and stick with it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.

Any questions?

Cozy Up to Characters

I've spent some time at the Paris Review website reading interviews that span six decades. These interviews share insight into The Art of Fiction through authors like Faulkner, Hemingway, Wilder, and Capote, Welty, Vidal, Shaw, and Steinbeck, Kerouac, Updike, White, and many more.

As writers, we can learn from these masters, these idols. In his interview, William Faulkner stated that he read Don Quixote once a year. Faulkner named a few of his favorite writers. Then, he made this remark "I’ve read these books so often that I don’t always begin at page one and read on to the end. I just read one scene, or about one character, just as you’d meet and talk to a friend for a few minutes."

We can cozy up to our favorite characters by practicing Faulkner's habit of reading, again and again, the books, scenes or characters that move us, inspire us, motivate us, teach us. My list of books to read for 2009 includes two I've read before: Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier and On Agate Hill by Lee Smith.

My re-reads for 2010 include:

Sufficient Grace by Darnell Arnoult

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Father and Son by Larry Brown, and

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver.

Each of these reads have well written scenes and characters. I've used a pencil to mark my favorites. And will "roll them around in my mouth like marbles" as Darnell Arnoult suggests in her blog, Dancing with the Gorilla.

Make a list of books you can reread next year. Mark your favorite passages so you too can return, as Faulkner did, to visit with your friends and hang out in familiar places. Cozy up to characters by reading and reading again. It's a great way to learn and improve your craft. Any questions?

Read Like a Writer

Readers enjoy the experiences of story, plot, and character. We identify with the good guys, despise the bad ones, travel to new places, and root for a happy ending.

Writers like story, plot, and character, too. We identify the three-act structure, analyze the depths of major characters, and watch for POV changes.

Reading like a writer takes practice. It's a skill that can be learned. Here's a few guidelines to get started:

a) Look at the book jacket flaps or paperback cover. These often summarize what the book is about.

b) Read the author bio and note her/his credentials. Get insight about what qualifies her/him to write the book.

c) As you read, learn how the author uses transitions, hooks, and flashbacks. Determine if the tension rises and falls in the right places.

d) Pay attention to how the author achieves the art of showing (versus telling).

Pick up you favorite book and read it like a writer. Circle the adverbs, underline the POV changes, and note the structure. Reading like a writer will give you a better understanding of why you like the book. Do the same with a book you don't like. Yes, that means reading it again.

Read like a writer. Learn the craft. Any questions?