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Reading with Your Ears
Reading is an act of concentration. To focus your eyes and all the powers of your imagination on the written page. But sometimes it just doesn’t work. For me, that’s whenever I’m in a moving vehicle. Or a train where there’s no room to sit, let alone open up my copy of War and Peace. Even…
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Finding Nemo (aka the Perfect Critique Group)
Finding a good critique group is hard work. Get into the wrong one and it’s easy to have your ego bruised or to lose your writing mojo. Some writers hate critique groups while others swear by them. How does a writer choose? First off: let’s get our definitions straight. There are writing groups and critique…
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Angel Island
Angel Island is a patch of grass and woodland flung into the middle of San Francisco Bay. The native Coast Miwok once used it as a fishing and hunting site. The United States government chose to deploy this bit of land variously as a Civil War garrison, a 19th century quarantine station and a processing…
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Bonsai
Bonsai seems like such an obvious metaphor for editing a novel manuscript. The tiny tree, tweaked and twisted to look like the real thing, just as a novel strives to mimic life. When I think of bonsai, I’m whisked back to a Zen temple complex outside of Tokyo. It’s early in the morning and the…
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Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us. Thus intones the website mindfulness.org. Google the word mindfulness and you’ll find a world of coaches and retreats, a series of TED Talks and…
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Gulag with Chinese Characteristics
Let’s blame the Russians. After all, they’re the ones who first lit the flame of Marxist-Leninist socialism. The 1917 revolution was just the start. Russians taught the world how to collectivize farms, quash dissent and foment worldwide revolution. As Charles Clover writes: Starting soon after the Bolshevik revolution [in 1917], Soviet leaders offered sanctuary and…
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Who Am I?
Identity politics are all the rage, even within the world of books. This is odd since most of us are chameleons. We shape our identity to match our current circumstances as easily as we change clothes or the color of our hair. Child, spouse, parent. Angeleno, American, Dutch. An author identity is a choice, too,…
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Truth or Consequences
The people of Thebes are dying. They beseech King Oedipus to save them, as he had once freed them from the clutches of the Sphinx. The oracle promises the plague will pass if Thebes finds the murderer of old king Laius. So Oedipus Rex vows: I will begin again; I will find the truth. Last…
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Skin in the Game
Sensitivity readers are the new thing. At least, it was new to me when I read an article by Lionel Shriver entitled We need to talk about sense and sensitivity. Apparently, US publishers are sending out manuscripts for review by sensitivity readers. Their job is to check for any misrepresentations, stereotypes, inauthentic dialogue or anything…
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Family Photos
This week, my mother sent me a poem. She didn’t write it herself and I don’t know who did. Like most of Mom’s emails to me, she forwarded something a friend had sent to her. Usually Mom sends photos, recipes, cleaning tips and YouTube films about China. Last weekend, I was looking at old family…