Upgrading My Writing Space

I recently bought a sit-to-stand desk riser. It wasn’t easy to find something I liked since most are too large for my current desk. I also needed an attached keyboard tray to keep my hands comfortable and healthy while typing. I finally found what I wanted at Staples,¹ but that was only the beginning of my purchases.

Fortunately, I didn’t have to buy a new desk. However, I had a long, narrow organizer on the rear of my desk that held a small stapler, thumb drives, paper clips, and a number of similar items I like to have within easy reach, and the organizer would no longer fit. It didn’t work anywhere else, either, so my next purchase was a square storage unit that fit where I had my lamp. The lamp is still there, too, sitting on top.

The riser arrived, and Roland helped me assemble it. Then I tried it out. When it was lowered to a sitting position, the keyboard tray on the riser blocked the keyboard tray on the desk so that I didn’t have enough room to maneuver my hands while typing. But the keyboard tray on the riser was too high to be comfortable while I was sitting. I solved that problem by raising the height of my chair. The old keyboard tray is now my desk calendar’s home.

Then I had to figure out the optimal height for the riser while standing. If I got the keyboard in the right position, the laptop screen was too low, and vice versa. That led to a trip to Staples and another purchase—this time a riser for my laptop. But I finally got everything set up to where I like it.

The entire process was a learning experience.

But I’m glad I did it.

_____

¹ Staples brand, Product #44901.

The Next Book I Read Will be Authored by a Robot

It won’t be long before our electronic books will be authored by robots. That’s an exaggeration, of course, because machines can’t think and never will. Unlike the fictional HAL, machines can only follow the instructions their human creators have programed into them.

Still, sometimes it seems as if machines are taking over, and it isn’t always a pleasant experience.

When we left New York City last week, we decided to get lunch at Newark Airport. An entrée cost $30 at a sit-down restaurant, so we headed for the food court. The prices were better, but the service was highly automated, and not in a good way.

After we figured out what type of food we wanted, we ordered it from a pad. We’ve done that at other places, but this menu didn’t include any drinks and we couldn’t find any place to order them from.

Paying was an even bigger problem. The person behind the counter was there to make up the orders and nothing else. Another patron finally told us that we had to pay for our food at one of the self-checkout kiosks. It wasn’t until we had scanned the order ticket and charged our sandwiches that we discovered we had to get our own drinks and scan them in, as well. Even the “on tap” Coke that flowed directly from a machine was purchased by scanning the code on the correct size cup and paying for it before pouring the drink. But when I tried to use cash to pay for my drink, I was told I would have to use a different checkout station. So I gave up and charged that, too.

We weren’t the only ones who were frustrated or confused, and the food court paid somebody to stand by the self-checkout machines and explain how they worked. The concessionaire may have saved on one or two employees, but at what cost in customer satisfaction?

Robots will never write books without help from a human creator.

But when did technology replace customer service?

Research Can Change the Story

Last week I went to Ellis Island to research my next book, and what I learned changed the tale I intended to tell. It didn’t alter the theme, but it did modify the plot.

Some background. Many people were held in limbo on Ellis Island for days or weeks or even months. Although many middle-grade readers have heard about Ellis Island, few know that it became a temporary home to some immigrants, so that is the story I wanted to tell. And it’s the story I will tell. Just not the way I had originally considered doing it.

My original plot idea was to have my protagonist’s younger sister fail the medical test for entry into the U.S. because of red eyes. Trachoma was a guaranteed basis for deportation, but they couldn’t always confirm the diagnosis immediately and would hold people temporarily to see if their eye conditions cleared up. I was going to have my protagonist stay with her sister during this observation period since I assumed that would give the protagonist the ability to roam the island.

I paid for a hard-hat tour of the hospital area, and our tour guide was very helpful. But one of the first things I learned was that family members weren’t allowed to stay no matter how old the child was. So that idea was out. (Apparently young children could stay if parents were detained, but not the other way around.) But I also learned that measles was the most common contagious disease treated there. So now my protagonist will be the person who is denied entry until she recovers (or dies, which was another possibility at the time) from the measles. She will be isolated from her family, which creates its own tension.

Fortunately, I hadn’t fleshed out my plot or started writing the story, so the change is easy enough to make at this point. In fact, the ideas are flowing, and I think this plot will be better than my original one.

But it highlights the perils of devising a plot before doing the research.

You Can't Fool Mother Nature

I’ve spent the past week catching up after my writers’ conference with little time to write a blog post, so I’m celebrating the extra hour of sleep by using a poem I wrote in March 2013. Here it is.

Spring Forward, Fall Back

Spring forward

To save an hour of daylight.

Put it in the bank

Until the dark of winter.

Fall back

Into the evening gloom.

Open the vault

To lengthen the days.

Empty the treasure chest

Of sunlight and illusion.

Evening hours borrowed from morning,

And then returned.

No hour gained,

No hour lost,

Each day still with twenty-four

To run its course.

Minds are easily deceived,

But you can’t fool Mother Nature.

 

Ghosts, Witches, and . . . Authors?

I am Edgar Allan Poe. Or I was on Saturday for a writers’ conference.

Ghosts and witches are common sights at Halloween, but Saturday’s dress code ran more to literary figures and characters. If you are still looking for a costume, here are some ideas based on what I saw there.

Our keynote speaker came as Emily Dickinson and was accompanied by two of her poems. Unfortunately, he shed the costume before I got a photo. We also had a Laura Ingalls Wilder, a Louisa May Alcott, and a Joyce Carol Oates. I was the only male literary figure, although our grand prize winner was the Mad Hatter. Here is a photo of him with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott.

So if you don’t have a costume yet, try your favorite author.

Foul-Mouth Novels

I have a confession to make. I read the advice column “Annie’s Mailbox” in my local paper. It started as a search for story ideas and has now become a habit. Usually, I think “good advice,” “bad advice,” or “there are two sides to that story,” but sometimes I feel compelled to respond—then don’t. However, Wednesday’s column has prompted this blog post.*

A while ago, someone wrote in because she was upset by the frequency of the F-word in contemporary novels. Annie’s response was that “Usually, anything said with the F-word could be better said without it. More than anything, it’s lazy.” This week, she printed a response from a writer who took issue with that stance. Here is a quote from this week’s letter:**

As a person, I avoid profanity and completely agree that such words are a lazy means of expressing oneself, but as a writer, I try to represent my characters and who they are as people. And some people swear—so in dialogue, I must represent that character truthfully.

Yes, some people swear and we must represent our characters truthfully. And I’m not opposed to a limited (as in rare) use of swear words in dialogue to create a sense of authenticity in those genres where readers know what they are getting before they pick up the book. But even those books shouldn’t be using it in narrative or as an excuse to be lazy rather than creative.

Readers are smarter than we think, and they can pick up a person’s emotions, personality, and normal way of talking without being fed the character’s actual words. This is especially important to remember when writing middle-grade fiction, where swearing may be acceptable but swear words are not.

In the Harry Potter books, J.K. Rowling takes the direct approach. She simply says, “Harry swore.” She doesn’t give us the words, but we know how Harry feels at that moment.

Another option is to use the context and the characters’ actions. I just completed the manuscript for a middle-grade novel told after-the-fact by my twelve-year-old protagonist. In this scene, which takes place on a Mississippi riverboat in 1850, Ma is accompanying Lizzie and her younger sisters to the outhouse shared by all the deck passengers. I’ll pick it up right after Ma knocks on the door.

“Almost done, you _____.”

I won’t write what he called us, but Ma covered Sarah’s ears and Rose covered her own.

Some people use F*** or !@#$%^& to represent swearing, but even that lacks creativity in my opinion. Yes, I used a blank in my passage, but the real impact comes from the paragraph that follows it. Either take the route J.K. Rowling does or find another way to convey it.

Fiction is an art, not a courtroom trial, and good novels don’t include verbatim transcripts of what was said. If they did, every character's dialogue would be filled with ums and ahs and rambling speeches and ho-hum moments that put the reader to sleep—if he or she hasn’t already tossed the book aside. So find a better way to convey foul language.

Your readers will thank you.

__________

* The Times, October 17, 2018, pg. D6 (Lake County Edition).

** The letters printed in the column are often condensed and I sometimes wonder if they lose part of the context in the process, but this is the way it was printed in The Times.

Autumn in the Midwest

I have been busy preparing for a conference at the end of the month, so I am reprinting a blog post from November 4, 2013.

Autumn in the Midwest

Saturday I drove to Indianapolis for a writers’ luncheon. On the way down, the sun was still fighting the darkness and a fine mist veiled the scenery, so I barely noticed the trees. But on the return trip, the sun highlighted the gorgeous fall colors.

That and a few lines in a poem written by a friend inspired me to write this one.

A Feast for the Eyes

Driving along I-65,

The trees are a candy store assortment

Of cinnamon, tangerine drops, and butterscotch.

Walking through a duneland forest,

The path is a farmstand cornucopia

With cranberries, walnuts, and butternut squash.

Living autumn days,

The landscape is a Midwest banquet

That feasts the eyes while feeding the soul.