James Rafferty Blog

Writer's Notebook: Interview with Boston Writing Careers - Part II

The second part of my interview with Lynette Benton, columnist for Boston Writing Careers at Examiner.com has been posted.  In this part of the interview, we discuss writing groups and blogging.  During the past 2 years, I've been fortunate enough to be part of a great online writing group, the Writing Wombats on Gather.com.  I talk about those experiences and offer a few comments about this blog.  Check it out at James Rafferty interview, Part II. 

Writer's Notebook: Interview with Boston Writing Careers Columnist

I'm pleased to report that I've been interviewed about my writing and blogging by Lynette Benton, who writes a column for Examiner.com entitled Boston Writing Careers.  Lynette posts regularly on a variety of writing topics with a Boston area focus.  She recently commented on one of my blog posts and shortly after that we agreed to do the interview. 

Check it out here at James Rafferty, Boston Area Writer, Part 1.  In this part of the interview, I talk about writing my first novel, Growing Up Single, and about other writing projects.  Part 2 will be posted soon.   

Writer's Notebook: A Trip to London Town

In January, business trips took me around the world.  Over the next week or so, I'll do a series of posts on the trips and the places I saw. 

First stop, London.  I'd come down with a cold over the weekend, so I dreaded having to fly under those conditions.  My strategy: take decongestants, drink lots of water and hope for the best.  I had an aisle seat and we flew during the day.  Happily, the nasty headaches and ear pressure I've sometimes experienced under these circumstances never materialized.  A van met our group at the airport, but one of our colleagues came in on a different flight to another terminal.  That added an hour to our trip -- Heathrow is huge and the best way to get around between terminals is by train.   We finally got into London at about 12:00 midnight and heard about the tragic Haiti earthquake just as we landed.  Much of the gang went out to drink, but I repaired to my room, nursed my cold and got a few hours sleep. 

I woke up the next morning and it looked like this.  Snow had fallen overnight and the inclement weather limited the visibility in our location on the Thames by the Tower Bridge.   

 

The local people told us that it had been snowing a great deal in the prior few days; we were just catching the tail end of it. 

Our meetings kept us busy during the day.  The first evening, our group went out to a medieval dinner experience.  We checked our coats and then were given outfits to wear right out of the middle ages.  In the spirit of things, I decided to try the beer, but whatever they were serving was godawful -- it tasted liked it had been sitting in barrels for ages and had gone rancid.  Nonetheless, we had a fun evening.  We were instructed in the proper behavior for guests in that era.  Whenever the King suggested a toast, we were to yell out: Wasail!  We practiced and got very good at this, though it failed to improve the taste of the beer.   We all sat down at long metal tables and were served community style.  When it was time for the next course of food, we made the requests by banging our fists on the tables.  We also adapted to this very quickly.  

In between rounds of food -- a murky soup served without benefit of spoons and hunks of chicken -- the court jesters did juggling tricks and the merry wenches danced with curtsies and displays of petticoats.  Bottom line:  a medieval banquet is a fair excuse to serve bland food and copious amounts of cheap alcohol, but the theatrical aspect of the evening sticks with you the longest. 

London is often foggy and we never did see the sun in our time there.  Here's another view looking out from the hotel across the river. 

Our meeting continued the next day and I managed to get all of my presentations done despite my sore throat. In fact, I had begun to recover from the cold.  That evening, we ate in at the hotel and this time the food was much better.   The salads were fresh and the main dishes offered real taste.  The wine also flowed in ample quantities, keeping spirits upright.  Afterwards, we engaged in a Nintendo WII driving competition.  I was not overly concerned when my vehicle spun out and went in the wrong direction, allowing me to head back to the room before midnight. 

The next morning, we had a fine buffet breakfast -- the breakfasts were consistently good throughout our stay -- as the combination of coffee, orange juice, smoked salmon and fresh fruit prepared me for the day ahead.  On this day, we had a customer meeting, but it was in walking distance, so we finally got to leave the hotel again.  We were in the financial district, which is not nearly as robust as it was before the financial crash, but managed to be quite lively on this morning.  After sitting in meetings for two days, the walk was refreshing. 

The meeting went reasonably well, and then we retraced our steps back to the hotel.  Our contingent was getting ready to leave, but we got to say our goodbyes over a light lunch.  By now, the weather had improved somewhat, but clouds still dominated the sky. 

Our route back entailed travel via the underground and by train.  We walked past the Tower of London, which looked very different than it had during my tourist visit during the Eighties.  Visitors now enter via a modern glass pavilion, analogous to the experience one has across the channel when visiting the Louvre in Paris.   New buildings, construction and the much older structures of the Tower collided visually as we walked by enroute to our station. 

In the station itself, we encountered the new phenomenon of the electronic ticket kiosques which fail to accept American credit cards, since most Euro cards now include a validation chip.  Our US bankers, showing off their wonderful sense of customer service, don't see the problem.  Right.  Why am I so surprised?  

Anyway, the regular ticket takers still accepted old school credit cards, so one of our group bought tickets for the underground for all of us.  We headed downstairs to board the Circle Line train headed for Paddington Station.  We no sooner got downstairs than an announcement from the speakers blared a message that the Circle Line train would not be running on the weekend.  After several other trains came by and there was no sign of the Circle Line, we wondered if the weekend had already begun in this fair land at 2:30 on Friday afternoon.  After about 25 minutes, the Circle Line train finally did arrive -- sorry folks, a few more hours before the weekend really starts -- and we boarded. 

I took a seat and watched the ebb and fro as young men and women wearing various colorful styles took their seats, chatted or got buried in books or MP3 players.  About thirty minutes later, we arrived at Paddington and ascended stairs and escalators into the main station. 

In my view, the best way to get to the airport is via the Heathrow Express, a high speed train that runs throughout the day and takes passengers all the way out to Heathrow -- a one hour car ride -- in just fifteen minutes.  We bought tickets and got onto a waiting train.  The train had plenty of room, so we just put our big bags aside and then settled into comfortable leather seats.  A while later, a blonde haired woman took the seat next to me and I admired the fine cut of her black dress while she talked non-stop with a somewhat older man who appeared to be her signifigant other. 

The train started up and soon we were whooshing through the suburbs outside of London at speeds up to 250 kilometers per hour.  The train entered a tunnel and we got off at the first airport stop.  The entire journey took fifteen minutes as promised.  

The rest of the trip was uneventful, merely a jet ride home to the Boston area after a week in London.  Alas, I was destined to return to this same airport within a week enroute to Singapore, but that's a tale for another day. 

Writer's Notebook: Writing on the Road

I'm sitting in an airport and getting ready to take my third trip by air this month.  This one is the long one -- by the time I finish the two legs, I'll be on the other side of the world. 

Travelling that much and that far is mostly an endurance contest, but it's also a time of long hours without distraction.  In other words, these long airplane trips are an excellent place to write with minimal disruption. In my case, I've done plenty of business writing on a plane, but sometimes also have the time for personal writing, particularly when I'm travelling at off hours such as on the weekend. 

As regular readers of this blog know, I've written one novel and am more than halfway through the second one. I'd estimate that half or more of these words were originally composed on either a personal or business trip, with much of the writing done on airplane trips. My current approach is to write using a wirebound, hard copy notebook.  The three subject binders targeted to college students work well.  

You may be thinking -- oh, how primitive -- writing with pen and paper.  Truth is, I've written a lot directly on the computer as well, and that works well, but it is less practical on long flights.  Only a fraction of the seats in the economy section have power and in my experience, four hours is about the practical limit on battery power, unless you want to schlep around extra batteries (I don't).  Worse than that, once the passenger in front of you leans their seat back, using a laptop is difficult or impossible. 

Now there is a much better alternative which is conducive to writing on a laptop -- train travel -- but it's only available on woefully few routes in the US.  I do love my trips on the relatively high speed Acela between Boston and New York or Newark, but I don't get to do that often. 

So, even when the flight attendants have ordered you to shut down all electrical devices, I can keep writing until the airplane pulls up to the jetway.  And the words turn into chapters, and eventually into completed books or stories. 

If you're a writer, do you write on planes or trains?  Do you ever write hard copy or is it all strictly on a computer device?  Do you have a favorite computer or one of the newer mobile devices for doing such work?  

If you're a reader, do you have a favorite activity for whiling away the long hours on a trip?  

Writer's Notebook: 'Tis the Season

I'm at home after a busy December in the workplace and am feeling grateful for the chance to gather with family and celebrate Christmas and the New Year.  We have visitors and thought we might go out for dinner before attending an evening service, but all three of the restaurants we called were closing by 4:00 pm.   So we'll prepare our own dinner and then I'll tend to my role as a member of the chancel choir for our church service.  

During the past month, I've pushed a new product release out the door at work, but in the nooks and crannies of the evenings, I also wrote the latest chapters of my work in progress, a second novel.  My tools for the latter quest have been simple: a notebook and a pen.  Later on I'll enter this text into my PC, but I do a lot of writing while travelling, so the simplicity of being able to write without concern for power outlets, the vagaries of the Windows OS and the latest instructions from flight attendants has a distinct appeal.   

As I look back on my writing this year, I filled up over half of a three subject notebook that I purchased last summer.  Just a couple of days ago, I stopped in at the local Staples and bought another notebook, the third one for this particular novel.  I'm past the halfway point, so I expect I'll fill this one and perhaps get one more for the final chapters.  

Lest one think I'm strictly old school with respect to my writing tools, I also do a lot of writing on the PC and typically do all of my editing there.  I wrote earlier this year about my favorite new software tool OneNote here and here.  OneNote continues to help me organize the chaos of my active projects both at work and home.  They have a useful password feature, so OneNote is also a fine repository for the hundred or so usercodes and passwords that attend to one's online life.  It's very lightweight compared to Microsoft Word, so I use it to capture notes on my writing, ideas for future stories and even snatches of dialogue for chapters that haven't been written yet. 

Much of the computing buzz this year is about netbooks and tools for online reading such as the Kindle.  As a writer and reader, I'd love to have better tools that combine writing and mobility and I expect I'll go in that direction more and more.  However, in the year of the new normal, with tightened budgets and a son in his first year of college, I'm being much more careful about my financial outlays.  

I'll close this piece with a photo of my writer's library, a set of reference books I can turn to when I want a refresher on editing or want to clarify an arcane point of syntax or punctuation.  I took the time to get organized in this way recently and it feels good to have rescued these books from dusty exile in other parts of our house.  

This is a great time to be a writer as the possibilities for creating prose and bringing it to completion are so much robust than the early days of my business career, when word processors were $10,000 dedicated machines and most writers could only dream of an electronic tool that would collect text as it was written and allow for editing without the pain of re-typing a manuscript.  

If you're a writer, what are your favorite tools of creation?  Have you gone more electronic or mobile recently, and if so, how have you done it?  If you're a reader, are you reading books or checking out magazines online?  

And finally, let me offer my best wishes for the holiday season however you may celebrate it.  I've enjoyed the interaction with readers of the James Rafferty Blog this year and have gotten an excellent response to my re-branding of the blog to focus on writing and travelling.  Thanks for reading and commenting.  I also want to thank my online writing group, The Writin' Wombats who reside on Gather.com and many other places.  The wombats have been an amazing resource as friends, sounding boards, writers, critique partners and readers.  They continue to enrich my writing and personal life. 

Writer's Notebook: The Changing Face of Publishing and the Book

I recently read a very good post by blogger Mike Shatzkin about the future of the agent's job in an era where e-publishing is more common and big agent paychecks become much less common.  We also had the recent fiasco where Harlequin announced a self-publishing venture tied to their brand and immediately got hammered from all directions.  Clearly the publishing industry is going through an evolution and the rules are changing, but where will it go?

I certainly don't pretend to have the answers, but I've spent the past two and one-half years as an aspiring writer with a completed first novel and have looked at a number of different possibilities for getting that novel published.  I'm also past the midpoint in writing the first draft for my second novel.  So I've got some skin in the game and am very interested in seeing how publishing business models will change and how to get my books published in a way that will reach lots of readers. 

I'd prefer to go the traditional route of getting signed by an agent and published by a mainstream publisher, but there are other routes out there.  Just within the confines of my writer's group, the diverse and eclectic Writin' Wombats, we've got several writers who been published using the traditional approach of working through an agent, several who have self-published and built a readership that way, a few who have affiliated with small indy publishers that use POD (Publishing On Demand) techniques and one writer who has turned his self-publishing venture into a publishing company and is signing up other writers.  

The alternatives to the traditional publishers are numerous, but there are issues. In either the self-pubbed or indy publisher route, the writer must be prepared to do a substantial amount of self promotion to establish their personal brand and build a network of potential future readers.  Readers will want to have assurances that the quality of the indy or self-pubbed books is up to snuff, so there needs to be various new types of filters, such as reviewers who offer online book reviews and in essence, act as the first reader. 

What are your thoughts?  If you are a writer, have you gotten your books published?  Would you consider a non-traditional publishing path?  

If you are a reader, have you read self-pubbed books or content published by indy presses?  If you have, how did you find out about them?  Which ways do you think that books will be published in the next few years and will they be successful?   

These topics are fertile ground for discussion and I expect to write several related posts going forward.   

Writer’s Notebook: Collaborative Interview with Pat Bertram

 One of the joys of online communities is the chance to meet other writers.  I met Pat Bertram when she entered the Tru TV Crime contest on Gather.com and immediately liked her writing.   She also started a writer's group on Gather.com called No Whine Just Champagne which brought together writers to discuss writing craft, building stories, getting published, how to promote writing and a myriad of other topics related to writing.  She's currently doing a whirlwind tour of the blogosphere, talking about her newest book, Daughter Am I, just published by Second Wind Publishing.  Today she's my guest on the James Rafferty Blog as part of our Writer's Notebook series. 

Pat and I seem to have some similar ideas about writing, though she's finished more novels that I have. Let's have at it.

James: Pat, one of the intriguing aspects of your writing is that you haven't settled on a single genre. Do you have any thoughts about why your writing went in that direction?

Pat: It simply never occurred to me to pick a genre and stick to it. I remember when “genre” signified formulaic stories and mediocre writing, and I wanted to be a better writer than that. I also wanted to write books that had more than a narrow appeal. Libraries and bookstores used to be set up with a mystery section, a romance section, a science fiction section, and then all the rest of the novels. That’s what mine are — “one of all the rest”. Though that isn’t a genre. Drats.

James:  I had a similar experience.  I’d come to like books that had depth – great stories painted on a large canvas that challenged the reader.  I set out to write a book like that.  But it took me a long time to finish that first novel Growing Up Single, and by the time I had, the publishing industry had swung strongly in the direction of genre fiction.

Pat: With the huge proliferation of books published every year -- over 500,000 in 2008 --it’s almost impossible for readers to find new books by new authors unless the books are genre-specific, but it seems as if we all miss out when the emphasis is on genre.

James: A while back, we talked about how the best of all worlds for a writer might just be to establish their own genre. For example, Scott Turow did very well by opening up the legal drama genre and was quickly followed by John Grisham. Have you made progress in the direction of establishing your own distinctive genre?

Pat: I wish! After Wanda Hughes read my books, she sent me a message saying, “I now see what you mean about an unnamed genre. Kind of a big picture conspiracy, behind the scenes machinations and how that affects the little guy (or gal) on the street.” So, “conspiracy” could have been a good genre name, but I broke the pattern with Daughter Am I. Daughter Am I is more of a mainstream novel, though it could be classified as a mystery. My work-in-progress is a tongue-in-cheek apocalyptic allegory, which is a weird sort of story even for me.

The unifying theme in all of my books is the perennial question: Who are we? More Deaths Than One suggests we are our memories. A Spark of Heavenly suggests we are the sum total of our experiences and choices. Daughter Am I suggests we are our heritage. So, perhaps my genre is “identity quest,” though I can’t see that as ever being a big draw. My only hope is to build an audience for “Pat Bertram’s books.”

James:  Who are we?   I like that.  I think that sooner or later if the novelist wants to get beyond strict entertainment, he or she needs to take on bigger themes and say something about them in story form.  My favorite novel of recent years, Damascus Gate by Robert Stone, was set in the period of the first intifada in Jerusalem.  The novel could be seen as simply the narrative of a journalist facing a mid-life crisis, but he manages to weave in quests for spiritual enlightenment, vivid descriptions of day to day hell in the Gaza Strip and a romantic encounter with a potential soulmate.  If you want to understand why the Israeli – Palestinian conflict is so intractable, this book lays it out, but still manages to drive forward with a compelling narrative that kept me hooked from beginning to end. 

Pat: Most books that go beyond genre, and even many of those that don’t, seem to have some sort of quest at the heart, and mid-life-crisis certainly falls in the category of “identity quest.” It seems as if Damascus Gate is not only the story of a personal search for identity, but the search for a people’s identity or a country’s identity.

James: As a reader, my roots were in science fiction, but that eventually led me into the classics, literary novels and other genres like murder mysteries, as I followed paths carved out for me by my favorite writers. What would you say are your influences?

Pat:  I like to read novels that have it all -- mystery, adventure, romance, a touch of strangeness, a bit of truth -- but since I can’t find that sort of novel very often, I settle for just about anything. Non-fiction, genre fiction, literary fiction, whatever is at hand. I used to real a lot of science fiction, but when the science fiction gave way to science fantasy, I lost interest -- I like my science fiction rooted in the human world. If Kate Wilhelm were still writing science fiction, I’d still be reading it.

James: Yes, that kind of humanistic science fiction exerts a pull on me, though I’ve now got expectations that a strong SF story or novel will bring me to another place, tell a compelling and have a strong prose style.  I’ve recently been reading a Best of collection from one of the recent years and I’m impressed by how many of these stories really work for me.

Pat: One of the few books I’ve read recently that pulled me into another world was Heart of Hythea by Suzanne Francis. Her world mirrored ours enough that it was easy to get into the story and stay there.

James: Are you writing to reach a particular kind of reader?

Pat:  In a way, I’m the reader I was writing for. There were stories I wanted to read and couldn’t find, so I wrote them. The dichotomy of this is that I always wanted to reach a large readership, so it would have been more practical to write books that a large number of people would like.

James:  As writers, we need to be passionate about our stories.  The process of writing a novel is grueling enough, but the quest would seem impossible if we lost faith in what we’re doing and who we’re writing for.  When I do public speaking, I’m always thinking about who the target audience and  want to give them something special they won’t get from another speaker. In a sense, that’s much like the process of writing for that ideal reader.  We write and hope the reader will get it; sometimes they’ll see themes and connections that go beyond our conscious intentions.

Pat: Even though I write the books I want to read, I am always aware of potential readers and how best to show my vision so that they will be able to share it.

James: We've both entered writing contests and lived to tell about it. Would you do that again? Did you learn anything in particular from those experiences?

Pat: I don’t intend to enter any other major writing contests, though I might if I can figure out how to make it work for me as a promotion tool. I didn’t learn much from the experience, though I gained a lot. I’ve made many friends, I’ve become involved in a couple of writing groups that were offshoots of the contest, and in a roundabout sort of way, I became published because of the contests.

James:  Yes, novel writing contests feel like one of those necessary experiences that are good to have behind you.  We learn from them, but they are time consuming and the odds of winning in a large contest are quite slim.  But it is like a trial run for the whole process of building networks and promoting your work.  And getting to know the other writers I’ve met through the contests has been the lasting benefit. 

Pat: I was going to mention about how the contest was a trial run for networking, but recently I’ve become shy about asking people to read blogs or leave comments, let alone vote for an entry. It seems such an intrusion. I’d never again be able to do the kind of campaigning that was necessary for those online contests.

James: You've been very active in blogging and other forms of social media. Have these helped to build a readership? Do you actively measure the results of your community building?

Pat: Most of the people who bought my books came from the social media. Although I have thousands of “friends” there is no real way to measure my community building or to know if what I’m doing is effective.

James:  In my day job as a product manager, we’ve started to focus a lot on improving our online presence and Google (i.e. search engine) rankings.  Building a community through social media is a long, drawn-out process.  Getting people to buy books from writers they meet online feels like a paradigm shift, as mass media promotion (the old style) is augmented or superseded by social media.  I suppose actual book sales will be the key metric, but they are a lagging indicator.  

James: If you just had to choose two channels of social media, what would they be?

Pat: One channel would definitely be blogging. Something I never expected when I set up Bertram’s Blog, is how much I like writing and publishing my articles. I feel safe on my blog, away from the ratings rampage of other sites, and it gives me the freedom to say what I want. I don’t write about controversial topics, so I don’t have the viewers that other blogs do, but still, for some reason, my readership is growing. As for the other channel -- I couldn’t choose just one. I have discussion groups on both Facebook and Gather, good friends on both sites, though lately I’ve actually been meeting more people on Facebook. What I would like is to find another channel, a different and effective way of introducing people to my books, but so far I haven’t found it.

James:  Pat, if there is another effective social media channel for reaching potential readers, I have every confidence you’ll be at the forefront.  Thanks for joining us on the Writer’s Notebook series of the James Rafferty Blog.

Pat: Thank you for inviting me to be a guest on your blog, James. I’ve always enjoyed your comments on the Gather discussions, so having this opportunity to talk with you has been a real treat.  

 

Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and a lifelong resident. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. Daughter Am I is Bertram’s third novel to be published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Also available are More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

Writer's Notebook: Writer Idol at the Boston Book Festival

In my last post, I talked about my fun experiences attending the Boston Book Festival.  The event brimmed over with sessions that were helpful for writers who are on the path to publication.  

The first of these sessions was called the "Guided Open Mic," with our expert guide being author and investigative TV journalist Hank Phillipi Ryan.  Here's a picture of the Arbor Room of the Boston Public Library, where that session was held. 

I got a chance to do a reading at that session and had hoped to get my work read at a second session.  This one was across the street at the Old South Church about an hour later. 

Imagine this scene.  The room is packed with about 250 people.  Up on the stage, a panel of four publishing industry veterans is assembled, with representation from the literary agent, editing and publishing communities.  The session was named Writer Idol. 

Now that you've had a chance to visualize the scene, here's a photo of the session as it was about to begin (it's fuzzy, but you'll get the sense of it). 

The ground rules for Writer Idol were:

1. Participants were asked to bring in a 250 word beginning to a novel or piece of non-fiction and state the genre.
2. The entries were put in a box and a woman actor pulled them out and read from them.
3. There were four judges: a couple of agents and two other people from publishers.
4. The entries were read until two of the judges raised their hands to stop.

Depending upon your perspective, this might seem like either a writer's dream or, more ominously, their nightmare. 

 

I would estimate that about 40 entries were read over a one hour period.   My entry didn't get read, but the process was fascinating, a kind of live slush pile. The judges had different perspectives, so sometimes one hand would be raised but the reading would continue. Only a few pieces were read through to the end.

 

The process was anonymous; nobody knew who the writers were. However, there were some passages where the audience totally broke down with laughter, which no doubt was tough for the writers of those pieces.

For example, it turns out the judges REALLY did not like references to certain bodily functions that get activated when a character gets squeamish. TMI, I guess. There were three entries or so that went there; they all got shot down immediately.

Other no-no's included overuse of flowery adjectives, misuse of large words, and overuse of cliches. I'd imagine most writers that participated in a writing group wouldn't be surprised by these things, but seeing the panelists stop the reading because of these gotchas offered powerful reinforcement on these do's and don'ts.

 

My conclusion: Great session.  It's one thing to hear about what agents and editors want to see -- or not see -- but it's quite another to see it all play out in real time.  If you submit your work to an agent, they'll read what you submit and analyze it line by line just as they did here.  So, yes, you want to make your work compelling AND avoid miscues that will take the reader out of the scene and cause them to move on to the next item in the slush pile. 

 

That's it for this post, but I'd like to mention that I'll be having a guest blogger join me later this week on November 19.   Pat Bertram, author of Daughter Am I and two other novels published by Second Wind Publishing is on a whirlwind blog tour this month.  She and I have a lot of fun chatting together online and we've collaborated on an interview where we both talk about our writing and muse about topics such as writing outside of typical genres.  Please join us. 

Writer's Notebook: Boston Book Festival

Saturday I treated myself and took the train into Boston for the first ever Boston Book Festival.  What a great event.  I hope there will be many more which follow.  

I found out about the festival from the excellent folks at Grub Street, who also sponsored several of the sessions. 

Despite a shaky weather forecast, thousands of people were in attendance.  I grabbed a quick lunch, then headed over to one of the main venues, the amazing Boston Public Library.   I headed for the Abbey Room, soon to be the site for a session called "Guided Open Mic." 

On the way, this is what I saw: 

The Abbey Room is in the old part of the library, just across from the outdoor portion of the festival.  I headed out the door and stepped across Dartmouth Street (closed off for the day) and over to the booths of the festival.   Even with the threat of rain, one tent housed the festival stage and a variety of muscians, mostly from the local Berklee School of Music.  For a few minutes, I watched an artist named Liz Longley, who sang original songs, played keyboards and was backed by a tight quartet.  

The Fall colors flourished despite the rain, as seen in the following photo I took near the music tent. 

Time to head back to the library.   Along the way, I spotted this very cool banner advertising the festivities.  

 

Back at the Abbey Room, I signed up for the "Guided Open Mic" session. Our host was the very energetic Hank Phillipi Ryan, who is a TV news journalist on Boston Channel 7 and moonlights as a writer of 3 published novels in the thriller genre.  The event premise was simple.  Writers were invited to read a 3 minute excerpt from their work.  Earlier in the day, I printed out the beginning of a story I'd written earlier this year called "Fifth Season."  Hank offered started the session by offering us her tips on reading in public.  Most of it boiled down to "practice, practice, practice", though she also suggested we be very careful in choosing our selection and read the excerpt in a way which will keep listeners engaged.  

I thought the session worked very well.  It quickly became clear that good writing alone was not enough to carry the day in a reading, but several writers got the attention of the audience and held it.  After each reading, Hank offered a quick constructive critique on what worked and what needed improvement.   I got a chance to read my excerpt about 15 minutes into the event.  I speak a lot at conferences, but definitely had a few butterflies when it came to reading from my own work in front of an audience.  Afterwards, Hank suggested I needed to be more careful in choosing my microphone position in order to be able to look out and engage the audience.   The early part of the story that I read mainly introduces the characters; she suggested the excerpt needed to have more happening.  And more does happen -- later in story.    

The event continued for over an hour and lots of writers got a chance to read their work.  I felt I learned a lot from this and feel I'll be better prepared the next time I do a reading.  

Later that day, I attended another writer event, this one called "Writer Idol."   I'll write about that in my next post.   

Writer's Notebook: Signs of the Seasons

Fall in New England is one of my favorite seasons.  I've lived in New England most of my life, but never tire of the variety this season brings to us. 

Yesterday, I rode with a business colleague through New Hampshire and Vermont.  It was Columbus Day, sometimes celebrated as a holiday in the United States, and often touted as a great weekend for viewing foliage.  Well, in most years, you won't see much but bare trees in Northern New England by the time that weekend rolls around.  Happily, this year is an exception.  We had copious amounts of rain in the Spring and enough during the summer so that the foliage this year is rich in colors of gold, harvest brown, and pumpkin orange, and many shades in between.  Smoke from wood fireplaces drifts in the air, stirring ancient urges to gather around the warmth.  As the temperature drops, we develop a taste for hearty meals such as stews, curries, and ragouts, washed down by mugs of hot cider, cocoa and pints of auburn ale. 

Frost warnings permeate the weather forecasts, but often the days are still warm enough to enjoy our favorite outdoor activities, be it tossing a football, riding a bike, hiking a trail or walking with your pet. 

For a writer, autumn presents backgrounds that tickle the senses, but the season also works as a metaphor for the passing of years and the progression toward mortality.  I've included scenes of Fall in my novels and the nip in the air, variegated colors of leafy canopies and harvest aromas can transport the reader directly to that destination, bringing it alive. 

As a reader, how to you react to seasons in writing?  Do authors draw you in with the vivid descriptions of the change that Autumn or Winter brings?  Or is there a hidden terror in these periodic changes of life and its rhythms? 

If you are a writer or another type of artist, how important are the seasons in your work?  Do they inspire you?  Do they transport your characters to new realizations or spiritual yearnings?  Let's talk about the seasons and how they affect your art.