#IWSG post - July - How to write like the greats - Hemingway

It's the first Wednesday of the month again. Welcome to July's IWSG! Thanks Alex J Cavanaugh and your co-hosts this month--Yolanda Renee, Tyrean Martinson, Madeline Mora-Summonte , LK Hill, Rachna Chhabria, and JA Scott! Visit them if you can!

I buy a lot of how-to books and it used to make me insecure reading them and realising that my style was nothing like the 'greats' which might explain why I'm not a 'great'! But writing comes down to being true to yourself. You can emulate whoever you like, but you'll never be them. You'll just sound fake.

Still, now that I'm quite comfortable with my writing style, it doesn't mean I don't read how-to books any more. Came across a great one in the library.

And this might be a good place to belatedly insert my answer to this month's IWSG question: What's the best thing anyone has ever said about your writing? 

Easy: Michael di Gesu (whose opinion I value greatly) said my writing in Under the Tuscan Moon was "exquisite". That'll do me!

The book is called 'Fiction Writing Master Class' and the subtitle is 'Emulating the work of great novelists to master the fundamentals of craft'.

Here are some of the greats covered:

Honore de Balzac
Charles Dickens
Herman Melville
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Edith Wharton
W. Somerset Maugham
Frank Kafka
D.H. Lawrence
Ernest Hemingway
Margaret Mitchell
J.D. Salinger
Ray Bradbury
Stephen King

It's no secret I'm a fan of Hemingway. I've read most of his little books, but I don't think I write like him. He's sparing in his prose while I tend to verbosity. But this book picks up the techniques these writers use which gives them their recognised style. Some of the techniques are great to follow.

Here are Hemingway's 'secrets':
Did you know Hemingway is the most imitated author of our time? Not everyone likes his sparse style, but nevertheless, if it worked for Hemingway, writers think it's worth trying to write like him.

I once found (and blogged about) a way to improve your writing was to find a favourite passage by a writer you love, copy it, then write your own. By doing this exercise, I found that I was able to expand my paragraphs, add more of the senses. It was like a free-writing exercise, but following the steps of a master. I know it improved my writing style.

So how did this book distil the style of Hemingway?

SENTENCE LENGTH
Hemingway is most famous for his short sentences. He used simplified, direct prose. But he worked long and hard to write like this. Unlike those of us who love the open slather of NaNoWriMo, it is said that Hemingway never moved on to the next sentence until he was happy with the one he'd just written.

Advice in this book?
Hemingway's technique is especially helpful when rewriting. Break up long complex thoughts into bite-sized morsels. Short sentences can have dramatic effect. String together a series of short sentences when you want to stress a point or add dramatic punch to your prose. I've found I'm doing this now without thinking too much about it.

Example from 'The Snows of Kilamanjaro'...

'All right. Now he would not care for death. One thing he had always dreaded was the pain.'

Notice the cumulative effect, pounding home the idea that the hero is nearing death.

Short sentences add variety and music to your writing...add create white space so your pages don't look cluttered. Mix short with long at times, which Hemingway was also fond of doing. There are many examples in The Old Man and the Sea when he was in the thoughts of the old fisherman.

SENTENCE SPEED
Hemingway's prose moves along at a rapid clip. He writes in the fast lane. I'm not going into detail here, except to say he uses two methods to add speed to his sentences--(1) he chooses short words for simple diction (no flowery language with Hem), and (2) he cuts out commas as much as possible. There are many examples of this technique in A Moveable Feast-

''Often Miss Stein would have no guests and she was always very friendly and for a long time she was affectionate .' Fairly zips along.

The author also covers Hemingway's DICTION, DETAIL AND COLOUR (Imagery), USING 'AND', THE LOOK OF YOUR PAGES (white space), CHARACTERS BASED ON REAL PEOPLE, STRUCTURE (his endings are more memorable than his beginnings. His conclusions are filled with significance made more memorable by foreshadowing throughout his stories.

So ENDINGS--imbue them with symbolic significance and foreshadow final events. Drop subtle hints along the way. Beef up your conclusion with added meaning by making universal or spiritual statements.

So, really, Hemingway did have a lot to offer we writers of modern prose.

No need to feel insecure if  you don't write like Hemingway. But it doesn't hurt to read about him and check how we could improve by following some of his 'rules'.

• How about you? Are there any writing greats you like to emulate?
• Are you secure/insecure this month?
• And in August WEP launches its first challenge, GARDENS. Yolanda Renee has posted about it HERE...

Vive la France! #BooktagsBlogHop. My book this week: Paris Hangover by Kirsten Lobe

Okay, I've been right off writing ever since I heard about those #ParisAttacks on Friday 13th. Like many others, it took my breath away, leaving me no motivation to do what seemed frivolous things, like write for #NaNoWriMo or prepare a blog post. Then blogger friend Toi Thomas reminded me that today is the day I write about a book I've read recently. At first I thought I can't do this, then I thought, yes, I can. So everybody, and Toi, I'm sorry if this is going to be a little outside the square, but I'm presenting my reading my way.

Lobe tells us in a dedication at the beginning of the book that: "...mother taught me to believe in the words of Henry David Thoreau: 'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.'"

Well, we saw on Friday 13th, that not everybody accepts the dreams we follow, seeing watching a game at a football stadium, eating at restaurants, walking down the beautiful Parisian streets, watching a rock concert where an American band was performing, are things to die for. Those 'soldiers' mowing down innocents with Kalashnikovs then blowing themselves and others away with suicide bombs obviously thought that dream of living and loving in Paris was anathema.

My favourite author, Ernest Hemingway, has a few lines in The Sun Also Rises, where he says, 'Fake European standards have ruined you. You drink yourself to death. You become obsessed with sex. You spend all your time talking, not working...You hang around cafes.'

That might sound like Hem would be on the side of the suicide bombers on Friday, but no, no one liked hanging around cafes quite as much as he did, so don't take it out of context. I deliberately included it as I think that it is a radical opinion of how Westerners enjoy themselves. Didn't we all think that hanging around cafes was not an action punishable by death? Until Friday, that is.

Which brings me back to Paris Hangover, the book I'm supposed to be talking about today. Okay, not exactly ISIS-preferred reading!


Definitely women's fiction, or chick lit, Lobe writes very autobiographically, so even though this is a work of fiction, it is obviously a pretty true account of her life. The premise (and what she did in her real life), was to ditch her super-glam life and apartment in New York City and relocate to a tiny walk-up Parisian apartment in Saint Germain. Fleeing her Big Shot boyfriend, the main character, Klein, starts over in Paris, plunging into the mysterious world of Gallic Men. She lives a life full of Moet and Gauloises, dating Frenchmen and waking up with a hangover most mornings.

Klein/Lobe describes her life in her chosen city: 'Living in Paris is an experience like no other. It's like being on a ride at an amusement park: wildly exciting, a bit scary, a little overpriced.' 

As she settles into her new apartment she considers her dream:

"This dream has the perfect soundtrack. To awaken each morning to the sound of doves cooing and church bells ringing. C'mon, it doesn't get any more beautiful than that...The first sounds I hear as I come into consciousness are usually the tender voices of mothers and their children, up early and out on their morning outing to the boulangerie down the street to buy brioche and croissants. The gentle, 'Maman...' followed by, 'Comment, ma cherie?' is like music.'

On re-reading this passage, I couldn't help wonder how Parisian mothers spoke to their children on Friday 14th. 'The President has asked us to stay indoors today, cherie. Something bad has happened.'

But back to Klein. This American in Paris never had it so good--vin blanc at Cafe de Flore, painting in a garret, afternoons in the Jardins du Luxembourg--or so bad. But Klein's passion for France and its men allows her to press on through some dastardly experiences.

There's something for everyone in this book. It's first and foremost a love story to Paris and its literary giants. Lobe peppers her story with quotes from French philosophers, French poets, and French writers. One of my favourites is her quote from Marcel Proust:

'We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.' 

Sadly, Friday's attackers' wisdom must be questioned. Have they discovered wisdom for themselves, where they see executing innocent civilians as somehow more holy than attending a rock concert or hanging around cafes, or have they been brainwashed into a point of view?

My feelings for Paris/France are not a well-kept secret. Tonight I will stand in solidarity with them at a special event in front of our City Hall, which once again will be bathed in the tricolour.

Books set in Paris are always so full of life and love, which is why I read so many, and am working on writing one myself. Thank you Kirsten Lobe for this quirky little love story to Paris. I hope you are safe in your chosen city!

• If you think this post is worthy to share, please press my buttons!
• How have the #ParisAttacks affected you?
• Go here to read more #BooktagsBlogHop posts.

7 Ways to Help us Reach Those Long-Term Writing Goals, with a little help from our friends, #Hemingway and #StephenKing.

Hello!

I've read plenty of posts from bloggers/writers/authors sketching out their resolutions for 2014, promising that this will be the year they're going to write more, submit more, get that novel finished...

I always have a creative burst at the beginning of the year, no problem, but maintaining that creativity is the problem. I don't speak resolutions out loud, knowing I'll break them for sure, and I'd feel more of a failure that way. I've been called a 'quiet achiever' by those who know me well, and I quite like that handle. I have my goals firmly in sight, but I don't like to articulate them, even to myself at times!

Writing goals take months, even years, to accomplish, and it's hard to keep that initial enthusiasm burning brightly over a long period, isn't it? Here are some tips I've discovered recently that may make achieving our goals easier:

1. Focus on the writing process rather than focusing on a long-term goal which makes it harder to reach the end point. 
2. Have a well-articulated goal in mind; it will then be easier to get to the keyboard/notepad and start writing towards that goal. Writing a five-minute outline each day before tackling your writing can help. (Hemingway said he never stopped writing each day until he knew where he'd start next day.) Perhaps jot down a short outline so your mind has a map.
3. Learn to embrace the process - get satisfaction from doing the things that make up your writing career, rather than focusing on where it can take you long term.
4. Make your writing satisfying. Take pleasure in the routine. Improve your daily word count; this will move you towards your end goal.
5. Track your word count visually - you could put a progress meter on your website. This is part of the success of NaNoWriMo - daily word counts push participants towards the end point. If you can write 1,600 words daily for NaNo, you can certainly write 500 each day! This is a little more difficult when you have more than one project cooking! I'd have a half dozen progress meters clicking away!
6. Have a regular check in. This is another reason for NaNo's success - writers form communities and gather writing buddies around them to shout about their up-coming novel, or bemoan the fact that they aren't reaching their daily word count. Writers need other writers to share their successes/failures with.
7. Up your creativity by considering Stephen King's comment - "...life is not a support system for art; it's the other way around." It's through living and working and struggling and thinking and feeling that we develop those aspects of our personality that seek expression through writing. Write, by all means. But don't forget to live.  

And for a great article on the Goal of Writing go to Karen Woodward's site. 

A sculptured writer in a Paris gallery in a little street off the Champs Elysee. Getting on with the task at hand.

One goal I always have front and centre is to write constantly, as this is the way to improve. As Ray Bradbury said, we all have millions of bad words to get out before the truly inspired ones begin flowing. I write short stories and travel articles for magazines and the occasional newspaper profile. I've written several novels while learning the long-term  process of novel writing - only one is finished, but I've embraced the whole experience and I'm not in a hurry to submit until I know it's the best it can be (You don't get a second chance to make a first impression...)

To keep writing I need fresh motivation. I find that by hosting/writing for Write...Edit...Publish, the permanent monthly blogfest hosted by Yours Truly. This way I am challenged to stretch myself, write in genres I wouldn't have dreamed of otherwise, and receive feedback from other writers. To me it fulfils No 6 - it's that regular check in.

If you're struggling to keep writing this year - you're welcome to join WEP. It's like a monthly NaNo - those who post flash fiction or non-fiction or poetry, are writing upwards of 1,000 good, proofread, edited, polished words a month that they probably wouldn't have written otherwise. Some of those stories may form parts of a WIP, some written solely for WEP may be improved after feedback, broadened, then submitted to magazines etc.

Here are six month's worth of Write...Edit...Publish challenges. The next challenge - What's in a face? can incorporate Valentine's Day themes if you wish. Join us on February 14 with a story, a poem, an artwork, a photograph or two...whatever strikes you as appropriate for the theme. Visit the WEP website to learn more. The linky is up! You can sign up here in my right hand sidebar.
 

Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises - Travelling with Ernest Hemingway - and eating a meal in Paris' Latin Quarter.

Happy New Year!!

'You are all a lost generation.' Gertrude Stein

'One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh; but the earth abideth forever...The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down and hasteth to the place where he arose...The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually...All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.' Ecclesiastes

The above taken from the forward pages to The Sun Also Rises.

I like to travel with a novel that says something about the country I'm seeing. Last trip to Paris I used Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast and followed his walks around Paris. I also learned that he always put his writing first. He claims he wrote every day from 5 am - 12 noon, when he put down his pencil (but not until he knew what would happen next), then meandered downtown to meet literary luminaries such as Gertrude Stein, Scott F Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Ezra Pound et al, and discussed his work/their work, helping each other's art. (Pretty cool critique partners!)  

My critique partners aren't travelling with me, but nothing suits my travels better than a Hemingway novel. Not everyone is a Hemingway fan - heck, he didn't write fantasy, sci-fiction, steampunk etc, genres that have huge followings today and are of the type many bloggers like to write. He wrote mainly chronologically, with sparse back story. He said he sweated over every sentence, every chapter, ruthlessly deleting any superfluous words. Some find his style sparse, but if you read and re-read his carefully-crafted stories you continue to find layers you previously missed. This is well expressed by the Evening News when they reviewed The Sun Also Rises -

'Hemingway captures atmosphere by reticence and breathes life into his characters by pages left unsaid...It is American; it is literature; and it is a first novel by a genius.' 

Hemingway stuck to realism with a dash of dystopian. I'm no huntin', fishin', hard drinkin' kinda person, but Hemingway's always been my favourite author for reasons I can't possibly articulate. He's real and gritty with no frills, which I'm sure he learned from his journalistic days and his passion for the short story. He wrote about the world he knew, the world in which he lived and played. It is hard to separate him from his characters. I find Jake in Fiesta: The Sun Also Rises, impossible to separate from Hemingway himself. As they say, many early novels are partly autobiographical.

I decided to make this novel my current travel companion, as it stars Paris and the louche characters that moved within its bars and restaurants, planning their next big adventure. The big adventure in this novel is, of course, the 'fiesta', the bullfight, in Spain. I've taken more notice of the bullrings in Spain this trip, and listened to the bullfight history enthusiastically propounded by locals and tour guides. In my ignorance I thought bullfighting had been banned, but it turns out it's only banned in Catalonia, capital Barcelona. The 'fiesta' is alive and well in the rest of Spain and the year seems to be dictated by where/when the next fiesta takes place. Madrid, the main bullfighting city, has a whole month of fiesta. 

I've photographed many bullrings, but I don't know about you, I'm sure I couldn't stomach attending a bullfight.

To the main point of this post...in the excellent how-to writing guide - Manuscript Makeover - the author suggests as a writing exercise to find a paragraph from your favourite novel/author, and re-write it your way...

I was reminded of this exercise when I read a few paragraphs in Chapter 19, p.204, of The Sun...when the main character Jake is having dinner in Paris. I decided to re-write it using my own experience of a dinner in Paris in the Latin Quarter...with apologies to Hemingway and vegetarians...

'The restaurant was all reds and blacks. It wrapped its dark arms around me, welcomed me back after a long absence. The meal was typically French - plain peasant's food - mussels marinated in red wine which were dealt with quickly, then I was eating onion soup with soaked garlicky bread and long, stringy cheese which stuck to my chin. But what could beat the shot of sweet onion fragrance on a bitter winter's night? I wanted to live in the bowl, to be revived by the nourishing juices.

The waiter offered a free cocktail. I held the tiny jewelled glass against the light. Then I held it close to my nose, took a sip. It tasted of rose perfume, a sweet flavour that clashed with the onion. I pushed it aside and ordered a rosé  to accompany the Beef Bourguignon which was delivered to my table. The sharp aromas of tiny roasted onions, carrot, and rich, red beef...my stomach danced. The onion soup was already a distant memory. I adjusted my linen napkin on my lap and inhaled before I lifted my fork and speared a cube of tender meat. The flavour of the red wine mixed with onion and herbs revealed to me, if the mussels and onion soup hadn't already convinced me, that I was back in France.

It was pleasant beyond words to be drinking good wine and eating excellent food - a bottle of wine and a plate of comforting food is always good company.

The attentive waiter saw I was immersed in my food and drink and left me to my joys.

It was good to be back in France.'

I enjoyed writing this and it proves that I do actually write while travelling, but apologies to Papa who would have slashed and burned many of my descriptions. To give you an idea of what I tried to emulate -

'I went in and ate dinner. It was a big meal for France but it seemed very carefully apportioned after Spain. I drank a bottle of wine for company. It was a Chateau Margaux. It was pleasant to be drinking slowly and to be tasting the wine and to be drinking alone. A bottle of wine was good company...' etc

How are you travelling? I wish you a wonderful 2014. Whether you make New Year's Resolutions or not (I don't), I invite you to join me in writing or illustrating something that could be classed as New Beginnings for Write...Edit...Publish's first challenge for the year. Sign up anytime from now until the 22nd...

Ernest Hemingway, the Marrakech Express and more...interview at Imagine Today.

Knocking on Hemingway's door
  in Paris

Hi!


Today I'm being interviewed over at Kathy McKendry's blog, Imagine Today. This is a result of being a joint winner of The Knights of Micro Fiction monthly competition. My winning story is here if you'd like to read it.


Both Kathy and I would love your support in checking out the interview.


Thanks!

At the highest point of the Sahara Desert in Morocco with my Toureg guides

And before you go, why don't you download Burnt Offerings? It's the latest in the Roland Yeoman's list of ebooks and it's available FREE! It contains four short stories in Roland's lyrical prose and some beautiful interior artwork.

Write about what you know? Did Hemingway, Joyce, Forster?

This is what I know

Hi my friends!

I know blogging is a bit of a scattergun approach and you may/may not have noticed that I'm keeping my posts down to about one a week. This allows me to write a more considered post and to leave it up long enough for it to be found by you. Welcome! Fewer posts mean I have more time to write my stories, more time to social network and more time to visit you when you leave a comment. Did I forget more time for real life? That's probably the MOST important thing. We bloggers can live in a surreal world, missing out on the beauties of the outdoors (and the outdoors are at their best at this time of year in Australia - a few days from Winter) and 'real' live people which is sort of relevant to my topic today...

A recent novel workshop reminded me of the adage, 'Write What You Know.' I've always disagreed with this advice and have subscribed to the opposite - 'Write About What You Don't Know But Want To Find Out'. A bit like those diagrams we teachers use to assist school students get started with their research for a history project.

At first I was resistant to the idea but decided to give it some thought. Maybe my idea was that the advice meant you must write autobiographally. Further reading showed me that as writers we may not have first-hand knowledge of something but we know a lot intuitively. Hemingway never had a son returning from war, but he was able to write convincingly in his 'Soldier's Home'. Hemingway was no stranger to disillusionment and apathy so he was able to use these emotions and his own first-hand experience as a war correspondent. Oh the pathos:

 By the time Krebs returned to his home town in Oklahoma the greeting of heroes was over. He came back much too late. The men from the town who had been drafted had all been welcomed elaborately on their return. There had been a great deal of hysteria. Now the reaction had set in. People seemed to think it was rather ridiculous for Krebs to be getting back so late, years after the war was over. 

Most of us don't see the value in our own lives, but Flannery O'Conner said: '...anyone who has survived childhood has enough to write about for a dozen years.' When I did my BLOGGERS WERE CHILDREN TOO! series for the A-Z Challenge, some of the comments were saying they'd like to hear more of my childhood in the wild, free and horsey Queensland bush.

Back to Hemingway who I think is far more interesting than I am. He is one of the mythical figures of literature who believed passionately in the value of violent and intense personal experience. He chose a life revolving around war, big game hunting, deep sea fishing, bullfighting, drinking and so on...It was intense and desperate. So despairing was he that he shot himself. However Hemingway also wrote, drawing directly on his own experience. His 'Nick Adams' stories, for example.

James Joyce lived as an expatriate, yet his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (click to read the ebook) covers his outwardly uneventful youth until he leaves university. What was so endearing about Joyce's Portrait? He experimented with a variety of styles which capture the exact feeling of each period of his youth. His Dubliners is a series of sketches of the city he both loved and hated.

So to wrap up, I'll remind you of the literary giant, E.M. Forster, and his attempt to write about what he didn't know - the lower class - in Howard's End. He tries to show the divide between social classes and how to bridge this chasm. So he included a character from the Working Classes! He had one tentative stab at it in the form of Leonard Bast, insurance clerk. Anyone familiar with this character will recognise that despite his good intentions Forster failed dismally as he concentrated on having Bast 'improve himself' by reading and attending classical concerts. Forster didn't 'know' this type of character and ended up just making poor Leonard a figure of fun.

There is a goldmine of fiction that uses the writer's early life. Here are just a few that come to mind:

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
Empire of the Sun - J G Ballard
Indian Camp, The Killers and A Day's Wait - all by Ernest Hemingway, all spare, shocking about a small boy learning the hard way about the ugly facts of life in Thirties America.

A COUPLE OF EXERCISES IN WRITING ABOUT YOUR LIFE

Describe some of the things (you could confine yourself to your own house) which you regard with particular affection, or loathing. Try to avoid telling the reader directly how you feel about them, letting your emotions come through instead in the way you describe the objects.

Minutely describe the sounds you hear going to sleep late at night, or in a fever. Try to capture the sense of drifting into sleep as you describe what you hear.

With thanks to Julian Birkett, Word Power for some of the inspiration for my post and for these exercises.

• So what do you think? Do you write about what you know, or what you want to find out?
• Will you try the writing exercises? I often find doing this type of work leaves me with the essence of a short fiction piece.

My 'moveable feast' in Paris. Ernest Hemingway and his pals. With pictures.

Tourist Denise capturing some of the delights of Paris in 2004

Firstly, thanks for all the good wishes for my health since I've been home struggling with a Frenchy virus. I'm feeling much better thanks and will soon be full of energy.

Now to my new weekly post. A bit late due to lethargy, problems with downloading photos and general lack of time.

I love the old jokes about people coming home from holidays and showing their photos while everyone sits around with glassy looks on their faces. I don't want to be that person inflicting boredom, but several of you have asked to see some pics and hear some stories about my recent travels, so I'm launching into a little travel-inspired series. When I'm feeling up to it I'll be posting much more on L'Aussie Travel and Pichets in Paris, but I'll be posting most Tuesdays or Wednesdays here on L'Aussie, with a more writerly slant to my recent trip. While I'm busy editing my novels I'll usually only be posting early in the week and on Fridays for Romantic Friday Writers (can't miss that!) Great writing practise. Please join us!

So let's get this tour started. You can leave any time you want, ha ha! But I hope you'll at least see a few pics you like or read something that will encourage you to leave a comment.

When you visit someplace marvellous for the first time, you're a tourist. Your visit is usually a frenzy of checking out the famous landmarks, monuments, museums, art galleries...it has to be done. Who could visit London and not see Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey? Who could visit Berlin and not see the Brandenburg Gate? Who could visit Paris and not see, er, let me see, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysee, the Seine, Sacre Coeur, Versailles, the Louvre, Notre Dame, St Chapelle, the bridges, the famous cafes..

Sacre Coeur, atop Montmarte, always worth of a return visit

.Sure, we have to see these marvels when we travel. But the beauty of visiting someplace marvellous for the second, third or even the fourth time, is that we don't have to do these things; we're free to explore and find the beating heart of a place. This is how I felt when I visited Paris yet again. It wasn't about the monuments, although we revisited our favourite haunts, but this time it was more about getting into the heart of things and this included the bygone era of the literary Paris when it was the mecca for struggling artists, writers and actors.

We (husband and I) made our headquarters in this gorgeous little rustic hotel, Les Degres de Notre Dame. We were given the 'Romantic Room' so that was sweet. Large by Parisian standards, with even a sitting room, this room was a great base for our stay. It is on the Left Bank in the Latin Quarter, across from Notre Dame and a stone's throw from Shakespeare and Company. Well, wasn't this a good start for a more literary focus?

Shakespeare and Company, just a few streets away! Doing very nicely thanks they tell me!

I trotted off to Shakespeare and Company to buy A Moveable Feast (they have a whole shelf of Hemingway's books. And of the other Lost Generation writers like Scott Fitzgerald and co.) After a day packed with adventure and a dinner in 'cheap street' in the Latin Quarter (3 courses for 10 - 15 euro, good sturdy peasant food like mussels, Bouef Bourguignon, creme brulee (gotta have my creme brulee!)) I'd retire with A Moveable Feast. It somehow took on more of a gloss reading it a short walk from where Hemingway lived most of his early, hungry days in Paris in his twenties and Paris' twenties.

Well, what would you choose? This one?

Or this one? Hmm, decisions...or should we just find a Maccas, more in Hemingway's price range?

Some of you know I'm a great fan of Hemingway's writing. He's been described as the greatest writer since Shakespeare and I know this is easy to dismiss, but for a journalist he wrote mighty fine. First his war reporting, then his myriad short stories, but he didn't think he could be a real writer until he wrote a novel. This he did, writing 7 of them. He also published 6 short story collections, 2 non-fiction works. A further 3 novels, 4 collections of short stories and 3 non-fiction works were published posthumously.

I love most of his work and I greatly admire his work ethic - writing from 5am - midday every day nearly without fail, always on the search for the 'one true sentence.' As Roland  posted recently, Hemingway said, 'you write to rewrite.' He drew heavily from his life experiences and these were enhanced with large brush strokes in his novels, some recreated into film with a lot of input from Papa himself.

Hemingway speaks of the making of something 'truer than anything else' when we write. In his words: '...you make something through your invention that is not a representation but a whole new thing truer than anything true and alive, and you make it alive, and if you make it well enough, you give it immortality. That is why you write.'

On a previous visit, I followed in the footsteps of some of my Parisian-based idols like Collette and Victor Hugo, and I did start walking up Hemingway's street, but just wasn't in the mood. This time I was.

I checked out Victor Hugo's apartments again at the Place des Vosges. Still kept as a shrine to him.  Then had coffee in the cafe Victor Hugo in the passages below his apartment. 

74 rue Cardinal Lemoine took on a mesmerising glow during my reading of Hemingway's novel. I wanted to see the apartment building he talks about so much. Where he shivered along with his wife Hedley as they were too poor for heating other than a few sticks. They had no private bathroom. No wonder Hemingway went to cafes to write! He was just too cold at home! So what were his writing habits? At this stage of his life he relied heavily on input from great writers like Gertrude Stein, Scott Fitzgerald and Ezra Pound, all living in Paris at the same time. After his morning spent writing, he'd meet up either casually or planned with one of the 'greats.' Remember he was in his twenties and hadn't yet written a novel. Of course he didn't always take the advice on his writing these luminaries offered; he was very sure about his own talents.

A waiter snapped us drinking rhum babas at the Cafe de Flore in 2004, one of Hemingway's favourite writing places.

So one afternoon, we stepped out of our hotel, headed to the quai, nodded to Notre Dame, and turned right. We walked past the booksellers and artists until we were opposite the Isle St Louis, then turned right into rue Cardinal Lemoine. It is quite a long street by Parisian suburban standards, but it was fun meandering our way upwards away from the Seine. Hemingway describes it as a 'steep street', which it is anything but. Not many steep streets in Paris except around Montmarte.

I guess it felt steep when dressed in your overcoat, feeling full of whisky and rum and shivering with cold. Anyway, to the left we passed James Joyce's Paris home, quite an enclave and much grander than Hemingway's (Joyce had Ulysses under his belt), but we soldiered on right to the top, to the last number in rue Cardinal Lemoine, no 74.

Knocking on Hemingway's door, but no-one's home

He said he lived on the third floor so we had a conversation wondering which was actually his apartment and who lived in it now. Sadly there was no one to ask (turns out they were all having dinner in Place Contrascarpe just down from Hemingway's apartment.) Fittingly there is now a bookshop underneath. Hemingway would have liked that. He says in A Moveable Feast that he loved that apartment, he loved the view and its proximity to everything he needed - his friends, his cafes, his beloved Seine where he would people watch and imagine his stories. He always left his writing when he knew what would happen next so his subconscious could work on it.

We should all be so lucky to live in an apartment like he did while writing in Paris.

Postcard from Paris!

Well how would you like to be in Paris right now? It's pretty cool to be revisiting my favourite city yet again. The final week of our tour. This time we're just chillin' and thrillin' at the street life and our best haunts. Here's a couple of pics for you to enjoy. BTW my American blogging friends, this city is full of American teachers. Even at the hotel we're staying at. Lovely people who are so jealous of the long vacations Aussies enjoy, rather than their 2-week jaunts.

Who put the haute in couture? Not moi!

I love the way Paris does homeless. Nice guy. Love the dogs.

Shakespeare & Co to the rescue for a little reading material. Bought Hemingway's  A Moveable Feast just to do the genuine Paris trip. Then I went and visited Hemingway's old apartment, or at least got to the front door.

Hope you enjoyed your Paris Visite!

Au revoir!

Denise

Publication Party. Session Two. Author Clarissa Draper. Hear Clarissa's journey to publication...

Welcome to the second session of our Publication Party. The response to our first session with author Christine Bell was overwhelming. Wasn't it great to hear her successful journey.


A round of applause to the effervescent ABSOLUTELY *KATE  who won a first ten pages critique by Christine and to...*drum roll*... GRANDPA who won a an e-book by Christine. As much as we all coveted these great prizes I think you'll agree they have gone to two wonderful bloggers. Congrats to you both! The desire for a critique partner (CP) was also overwhelming, so there are a lot of us out there wanting a critical eye to go over our writing. Those of you who requested a critique partner - I will get back to you individually about that and I'm sure we'll be 100% successful on that front too! So, back to you lucky winners, send an email directly to Christine to claim your wonderful prizes!


Today will be just as exciting. Every journey to publication is different and it will be wonderful to hear from mystery author Clarissa Draper. I have a lengthy blog association with Clarissa and she shares so much information for other writers and authors on her blog it is staggering. If you don't follow Clarissa, rectify that today!


Now, I would like you to grab one of those cranberry mocktails I've provided today, and thanks to Absolutely Kate who came with a stash of pink fizz. Someone asked for chocolate chip biscuits (cookies) so I cooked up a storm (whoops!) for you. To celebrate the rain finally stopping in Brisbane I thought we'd virtually mosey over to South Bank Beach and relax in the sun and sip our delicious mocktails while Clarissa speaks. No nodding off now... 


To get started, a few notes on the exotic Clarissa:
 
Clarissa Draper is a Canadian writer currently living in Mexico. Although trained in book layout and design, she prefers to spend her time planning and writing her code-based mysteries. Her short stories have been published in anthologies. She started writing full time in 2006, and is currently writing her third mystery in the Evans/Blackwell series.

Visit her at http://www.clarissadraper.com/




Thank you Denise for having me as your guest.


I would love to say my writing journey has been long and exciting, but frankly, I'm just starting out. Growing up, I never had the inkling to be a writer. A doctor or architect maybe, but never a writer. Well, that was until my sister came home with the six-hour Pride & Prejudice movie under her arm when I was twenty.

Shortly after watching that movie, the voices started talking. And I couldn't get them to shut up. Soon a story developed and the characters took on lives of their own. I was determined to write a story as beautiful as the one that Jane Austen developed - a period love story.

So I guess in the end, I can thank Colin Firth for my urge to write. (Or maybe it's just an excuse to watch him jump in the pond over and over and over and over...*sigh*) *and waits while Denise puts up image on the large screen*

Anyway, I finished the manuscript and joined a critique site (thenextbigwriter.com). I started submitting my story - chapter by chapter - and the response? The story sucked. Change this. Change that. Give up writing, my dog could write better than you. (No, they didn't say the last one.)

At first, my ego suffered. I wanted to throw in the towel. I loved writing but I was horrible at it. I wasn't an artist after all!

Thankfully, I have one of those personalities that sees a difficult challenge and immediately must conquer it. So, I studied plot, character, dialogue and grammar (and I'm still studying it). I read every book on writing I could get my hands on. It became my craft.

The first thing I decided to do was drop the historical piece and start my new passion - mysteries! I took up writing full-time in 2007. I wrote my first mystery in three months (1000 words a day). I submitted the chapters again to my critique partners and this time, I really listened to what they had to say. Slowly the story went from unreadable to manageable.

Also, I would challenge myself and my writing. To practice dialogue, I wrote stories in only dialogue (one story turned into a novel - my favorite novel to date). I wrote stories in only narrative. I even took up the challenge of writing short stories and entering them into contests. (I won two of those contests - now those stories are in anthologies.)

At the beginning of 2010, I decided my first mystery was ready to submit. I studied how to write a synopsis and query letter, but never got around to actually writing anything. Instead, I entered the first three chapters of the novel into a contest (at Karen's blog - http://karenjonesgowen.blogspot.com/) for a free critique.

No, I didn't get that critique.


But wait for it...even better...


Instead I got a request for the whole manuscript from Wido Publishing (a small publisher based in Utah). A few weeks later, I got a contract for publication.


Sounds easy! I would love to say my road to publication was super simple but I did put in years and years of study. I didn't give up. I firmly believe that if you work hard and never give up, you will be successful as a writer.


My advice:


1) Challenge yourself and your writing. Never feel you've learned enough. Study your craft!


2) Enter contests. Can't hurt, can it?


3) Find critique partners and really listen to what they have to say. If you can get a critique, take it. Then go with your heart.


4) Love writing. Really love writing.


That was tremendous, wasn't it? Thanks so much Clarissa! Your journey is very inspiring. So many helpful links and such good advice.

TODAY everyone who comments and leaves their email address will be in the draw to win EITHER:

a paper novel - A choice: EITHER: A paperback novel from one of my long-time favourite authors, Across the River and into the trees by Earnest Hemingway, OR a hardcover, Devil Bones by Kathy Reichs - her latest Tempe Brennan Novel, woo hoo! Love this author and this great character. If you watch the TV show Bones, you'll know Tempe very well. (Give me the books anyday though!)

• a first chapter critique by Clarissa. Clarissa does these critiques on her blog on a regular basis then posts them so we can all learn. If you would like a first chapter critique it would be great if you give your permission for it to be publised on this blog at a later date.

So before you leave, please do the following:

• leave a comment with your email address if you want to be in the draw for this week's prizes or the GRAND PRIZE and giveaway books and writing paraphanelia at the end of the series (you must comment on each post to win, starting last post. If today is your first day, go back to last week's party and leave a comment. I'm keeping track...)
• tell us what you'd like to win today - book (which book?) or critique
• tell us if we can publish Clarissa's critique of your work here at a later date
• ask Clarissa a question
• if you're published, share your story in the comments
• tell us if you'd like to find a Crit Partner. Last week there were 5 requests. Contact like-minded souls and we may be able to help each other in this way too...

Thanks for coming everyone! Winners for this week will be posted next Tuesday 25 January (NY time) with next week's post. Don't forget you have until Monday 24 January at 8 pm NY time to enter for this week's prizes.

Don't forget, next Wednesday 26 January we have author and blogger extraordinare Alex J Cavanaugh coming to our party to speak to us. Don't miss what he has to say!

PS Our guest authors have sung the praises of small publishing houses. I've just discovered Astraea Press, a brand-spanking new publisher who is currently calling for submissions. I'm headed their way! Check out the interview with the amazing Joanna St James here.

 

Denise :)