Mya Bell - Novelist Web Log Blog July 2004

Mya Bell's Web Log
A Journal of a Writer's Life



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July 1, 2004 - Canada Day
So it's Canada Day, the day Canadians celebrate the formation of the "union" much as Americans celebrate the Fourth of July. Canada Day used to be call Dominion Day. It's the anniversary of the proclamation that marked the beginning of Canada as we know it.

I celebrate both Canada Day and the Fourth of July. There's a joke among small business owners (which includes freelance writers) that being self-employed means you get to choose which 60 hours a week you get to work. In other words, I have the flexibility to celebrate both holidays and take both days off, if I wish, as long as I put in the hours necessary to finish my projects on time.

I decided to read a new book for at least part of the day. I have a huge stack of books I'm dying to read and, since I couldn't decide, I grabbed one at random. It was Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar.

Sylvia Plath, like Mozart, died in her early 30s and probably never reached her full potential. Unlike Mozart, who died of illness, Plath took her own life. I actually know very little about Bell Jar. I've avoided reading reviews so that I could read it with fresh eyes and, surprisingly, none of my English instructors ever mentioned it, even though it is often referred to in literary circles.

Given the depressed nature of Plath's life (I've heard more about her than I have about her writing), I suspect it's probably not cheerful reading, but then, after just finishing Schindler's List, I suppose everything is relative. --- Mya

July 4, 2004 - US 4th of July Holiday

What a great weekend. I started the weekend by celebrating Canada Day and ended it by celebrating 4th of July and the Monday after the 4th of July. I tried to stay away from computers (I wasn't entirely successful). I did manage to go for a nice walk around a lake and very much enjoyed the 4th of July fireworks display from a second-story deck. It's not often I take a 5-day weekend, but this year it just seemed like the right thing to do.

Since I was in the mood for reading, I finished reading Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. Knowing that the events in the story echoed her real life and that the consequences were not so happy, made it a very sad experience to read this tale. The descriptive passages were very interesting--Plath has a way with words. I also found the story moved quickly and was difficult to put down. I'm not sure what to read next. I feel like I'm slowly working my way up from the stunning cruelty and sadness of Schindler's list to the profoundly moving individual sadness expressed in Bell Jar to... well, I'll have to decide. --- Mya

July 6, 2004 - I Dreamed About Stephen King

I had a most unusual dream last night. I dreamed about Stephen King. I dreamed he was on a slightly raised platform similar to those you find at conventions, with two other speakers (male) sitting on either side of him, as though waiting to speak as a panel. King had his elbows on the long, covered table that separated him from the audience. The other two men were gazing around at the people milling in front of the panel table. The audience seemed to be predominantly men in their twenties and early thirties and I noticed many of them were wearing dark (casual) clothing. They were dressed much like university students.

The onlookers were standing quite close to the panelists, just as people at rock concerts are always trying to work their way to the front. They didn't get too close, however, as though they were worried that bouncers might ask them to move away. There was a slightly expectant air in the large room. I don't know if the room had a ceiling or walls--in my dream it seemed almost to be bounded by something less solid than walls and I couldn't see any doors. The body language of the assembled, and the feeling in the room in general, made it seem as though something interesting was about to happen.

King wasn't making eye contact with anyone. He seemed to be thinking about something, waiting, looking past or through people. His companions did likewise, though occasionally they nodded at one or two of the audience members who were smiling in their direction.

I wasn't quite sure how I had arrived here, but I was standing about six feet from the table. I could clearly see the panelists and the backs of audience members. To my surprise, when King's eyes swept across the people in the room, they paused on me and then he smiled as though he knew me and said something to a panel member that I couldn't hear. I wondered if King had mistaken me for someone else or knew me by reputation. I stayed where I was, not expecting anything unusual to happen.

Then King stood and began to jostle his way through the crowd to where I was standing. He held my gaze as if to say, "Don't go anywhere, I'd like to talk to you. Wait until I get through this crowd." Unfortunately, someone took my elbow while King was trying to wiggle past the autograph-seekers to reach me. It was a tall slender man with blond hair cut in a shag reaching just past his ears. I didn't recognize him, yet the next thing I knew he was leading me away from the crowd and into a grimy industrial zone pockmarked with telephone poles and dumpsters. I'm not sure how we got from inside to outside as I didn't see any walls or doors as we moved from one environment to the next. I heard King's voice briefly call out but I couldn't see him and the unfamiliar man had already led me 2/3 of a block away from the event "inside."

Well, if this were a story, I could put in an exciting part about me breaking away and finding King and the two of us going somewhere fun like an amusement park, a zoo, or a nice restaurant where we could talk about writing and other things of mutual interest, but it isn't a story, it's a true account of a dream and dreams have this annoying habit of ending when a dog parks or the garbage truck rumbles by. It became clear to me in my dream that the blond guy hadn't invited me away from the event to tell me something important. He invited me away to make some lascivious suggestions that I had no interest in indulging with him. And that's when I woke up. I never found out why King thought he knew me (or where he had heard of me). I didn't even get to watch the panel discussion, which I'm sure was very interesting. Never mind. That's one of the advantages of being a writer. If I can't dream it, I can write it and write it any way I want. That's pretty good compensation for dreams that end too soon. --- Mya

July 8, 2004 - Fahrenheit 9/11
I haven't yet read Michael Moore's book Dude, Where's My Country?, but I did go to see a matinée showing of Fahrenheit 9/11. I've written a few nonfiction books and have researched a bit of world affairs and politics in the course of doing so, so much of the information in the movie was familiar to me, but there were a few parts of the movie that stunned me.

I won't mention all of them because I think it might spoil it for people who haven't seen the movie yet, but I will mention one. I was flabbergasted to find that our U.S. Senators, our trusted lawmakers who vote on our behalf and are paid with our tax money to represent our democratic rights and interests, do NOT read the bills that are passed into law before voting on them. The shock hasn't worn off yet. How would you like it if teachers assigned grades to students without reading any of their essays or marking any of their exams? How would you like it if your employer evaluated your work without ever looking at it? How would you like it if people went to jail without ever coming face-to-face with a judge or jury? Having bills passed into law without being read is worse still. Laws provide the framework for our country and all the people in it and our freedoms and choices are all wrapped up inside those laws. I'm sorry for Senators who do take their jobs seriously and write and read bills (I'm assuming they exist, at least I've read that some do), because their hard work is being undermined by those who don't and even more sorry for the citizens of this country who trust their lawmakers and have been assuming all along that they've been doing their jobs to the best of their ability. --- Mya

July 9, 2004 - Books, Crows, and Death on the Deck
It's been a busy week. I've been writing a great deal and scarcely had any free time to commit to my Weblog.

I was having trouble deciding what to read after finishing Sylvia Plath's Bell Jar. I went to one of my (many) book shelves and let my eyes drift across them. The spine for Girl Interrupted caught my eye, so I pulled it out. I never watch previews and I never read the book jackets to see what a book is about before reading it (I rely on recommendations from friends who have similar tastes in books). I knew nothing about the subject matter before I started reading.

To my surprise, Girl Interrupted turned out to be a memoir about a woman who became a patient in a mental institution. What an amazing coincidence. Not only was the subject matter similar to Bell Jar, it was one of the same mental institutions in which Sylvia Plath stayed. I'm finding it very interesting to hear about the same environment from the points of view of two different writers who had many of the same experiences. It's amazing if you consider I have a library of about 4,000 books, all of which I'm almost equally eager to read. Bell Jar was fiction, but apparently largely based upon the events of Plath's life. Girl Interrupted is a memoir and thus primarily based upon fact (I don't know how much authors 'embellish' memoirs--it probably depends upon the person).

Avian Adventures. It's been a sad week in some ways. Yesterday a little bird, a baby red-breasted nuthatch, met its end by flying headlong into one of my windows. Then, today, I found a little brown bird under the same window, but I don't think it met its death smashing into the glass. I have a feeling it was brought here by another bird. If you are interested in birds and you'd like to read the whole story, see Dangerous Obstructions in my birding journal. --- Mya

July 13, 2004 - Tarzan of the Apes Anniversary
John Clare, an English poet, was born on this day in 1793 as was Edgar Rice Burroughs (famous for the Tarzan series), in 1875. The Tarzan series was made into a television series that was hugely popular at the time, but Burroughs apparently had many periods of poverty in his life.

John Clare penned "And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,..." At one point in his life, his books earned more for the publisher than Keats, whose work is still well remembered. --- Mya

[Money pic] July 15, 2004 - $2 Million Deal
Well, it's all over the news and it's being promoted as though it were an overnight success, but there's always more to a story than you read in the news. It's been announced that writer Elizabeth Kostova has been awarded $2 million for the world rights for her debut novel. I've been aware of Elizabeth Kostova's writing for several years and I noticed that the press didn't elaborate on Elizabeth's struggle to achieve this happy result. She spent over seven years submitting poetry and stories to literary magazines (most of which are nonpaying markets) and had to use the small prizes she won for her writing to help pay her bills.

I'm really happy for Elizabeth--she worked hard and her backstory can also help aspiring writers to understand the years of hard work and many submissions to nonpaying markets it can take before you can get a foothold on the ladder of success in commercial markets. --- Mya

July 16, 2004 - Catcher in the Rye Anniversary
Today, in 1951, J.D. Salinger published his classic novel Catcher in the Rye. To my surprise, I discovered it was the only novel he ever published. The novel is notorious. It was banned for years, not only in schools, but in whole communities. Now it is studied in many places as classic literature (I wonder which would have surprised Salinger more). I found an interesting article about the book by Eric Lomazoff.

Apparently it took Salinger a decade to write the book--you wouldn't know that from reading it, because it moves ahead well and is essentially simple in its exposition in many ways, but one thing I've learned as a writer is that a simple story (at least on the surface), well told, is often difficult to achieve. --- Mya

July 17, 2004 - Kick-Back Barbecue
I did a lot of errands this morning, and stopped at a road-side stand to buy some fresh-picked cherries. Then, in the afternoon, even though I swore I would stay away from the computer, I worked on polishing the opening to my novel. I'm getting really excited about completing this book and starting on the next one.

But it wasn't all work. I had some fun today too. I bought some books (and a small bookshelf to hold them, since my shelves are already overflowing) and then went to a barbecue with friends. We indulged in a variety of bleu cheeses, wine, finger vegies, fresh fruits and barbecued whatever-people-brought. The setting included plants and birds and I had a chance to visit with an out-of-town friend who loves to read who I haven't seen very often since she moved away six years ago. All-in-all a good time. --- Mya

July 18, 2004 - Google Directory
I found out this morning, Google has included me in their directory. This is separate from the familiar Google search engine. It's a categorized directory similar to the popular Yahoo directory. My site has been included in the Arts - Online writing - Mixed Genre - Personal Pages section --- Mya

July 21, 2004 - Mo' Books
I bought more books. I have tons of books I haven't read yet, but I couldn't resist. I wanted to get a copy of Reading Lolita in Tehran and a couple of other books. I had heard that Lonesome Dove was good too, so I ordered that one and they told me they would let me know when it comes in. When I'm buying really good books, I always try to get them from a new bookstore rather than a used bookstore because I want the author to get a royalty from the sale, so these books I bought new. I have to finish my current book before I start them, however. Sigh, so many books, so little time. --- Mya

[Pink Lily pic] July 22, 2004 - Novel Project
Today I did something that wasn't on my original writing agenda. I have 10 novels in various stages of planning or near completion--I've almost completed the first and I've started the second and third. These are mainstream fiction and they work together in terms of tone, pace, and intended audience. Then, on the other side of things, I have a couple of ideas for novels that have a slightly different pace, audience, and length. I haven't been including these on my primary list of mainstream novels because they are just a little different. I want to get them written at some point, but I can only write one (or two) books at a time, so I have to list my priorities and stick to them to move forward.

In spite of that, I started putting a lot of effort into the first of the "other" novels because the idea was burning in my brain and because the theme and content fits an opportunity that's coming up and I wanted to see if I could get it written before the deadline. If I do, it'll be great and I will be submitting before the end of the year. If I don't, that's okay too, because I'll have a second book well under way and perhaps near completion. We'll see how this goes, as it was somewhat of an unscheduled decision I made because I saw an opportunity to place this particular manuscript. Sometimes you have to strike while the iron is hot. --- Mya

[GorillaMag pic] July 24, 2004 - GorillaMag Fun Pak arrives
Yay. I got my Gorilla Fun Pak today. GorillaMag is a literary zine being distributed in New York City via "guerilla tactics" to "spread art and literature throughout the world." I really like the idea of a magazine with art and literature (and sassy humor) that doesn't include any ads. The zine is being distributed around NYC and being stuffed into the New York Times and the Village Voice.

It's always fun to get a fat envelope in the mail. When I tore it open, I found the pack included four author's copies and a page of colorful gorilla stickers. I couldn't wait to look through the issue (Vol. 1 No. 4) because it includes one of my stories. I couldn't wait to read the other stories either because I really enjoy short fiction. There were a few typos and formatting glitches, but the stories were interesting and, as I said, no ads. Yay! This is the perfect thing to read on a bus or at a sandwich shop or while hanging out waiting for a friend. I like the concept--I wish we had something like GorillaMag in our town. I'm so tired of reading nothing but ads when I'm downtown (or on campus) with no book in hand and time to spare. --- Mya

July 26, 2004 - Burnin' Along
On Thursday I began a new novel (a not-quite-mainstream novel that I'm writing for a semi-self-imposed deadline). I'm happy to say I'm up to Chapter 4 already. I write pretty fast and I don' t have to make as many edits as some writers, but this is faster than usual, even for me. I'm sure the whole book won't go at this pace, but the concept and characters were so clear in my mind I just watched them walk around and wrote as fast as I could keep up. It was a productive day. Since I took the weekend off, it's nice to be this far along in only three working days. Hopefully the rest of the story will go as well! --- Mya

[Statue of Liberty Pic] July 28, 2004 - One Vote at a Time
I came across a quote in Entertainment Weekly that really threw me for a loop. It was one of the many responses to Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11. Gina Lugo of Baltimore said "If Moore wants to shove his agenda down my throat, well, I'm going to vote all right--for Bush, just to piss him off."

Well, great. We have citizens who vote based upon giving up their most trusted responsibility, just to piss off some film-maker they've never met. That's really good decision-making. It makes about as much sense as choosing a marriage partner based on pissing off the video store owner down the street. If Gina had said she would vote for Bush because she still thinks he's the best person for President, I would have respected her, whether I agreed with her or not. Instead, I found Gina Lugo's attitude about how she will use her vote far more disturbing than Michael Moore's agenda. Progress is based on reason, not on knee-jerk reactions. --- Mya

July 29, 2004 - How Long Does it Take to Write a Novel or Novel-like Work of Nonfiction?
This is a question that's asked a lot in writing circles and which I have often asked myself. So I did a little cursory research and found some interesting answers.

It took 16 years for James Joyce to write Ulysses.
John Irving brings out about one book every two or three years.
Anne Tyler brings out about one book every three or four years.
It took Melissa March four years to write her first novel.
Janet Lunn says it takes her two to five years to write a novel.
It took Sheldon Siegel three years to write his first novel.
Lawrence Watt-Evans says his ideas incubate for years and then take anywhere from eight weeks to two years to commit to paper.

Those intervals seem reasonable to me. I think I can bring out a novel about once every 18 months or so and I was pretty pleased with that expectation until a friend told me there was some guy in Brazil who can write a novel a day. I didn't believe this was possible. So I did some more research and was suprised to discover both Michael Avallone and Ryoki Inoue have written large numbers of novels in record time.

Speed Demons
Michael Avallone (1925-1999) is legendary as a writer. There are stories that he once wrote a novel in a day and a half. I'm not sure how this is possible, since he did the bulk of his writing in pre-wordprocessor and -laptop days, from the 1940s to the 1970s. Assuming that he could write without errors, corrections, and rewrites and also assuming he could type 90 wpm (I know many people who claim to type this fast but when tested actually score in the 70s), and assuming further he didn't stop to eat sleep or go to the bathroom, then it's conceivable that he could produce 194,400 words in 36 hours. That's a full novel.

But human muscles can't sustain that kind of speed indefinitely. You end up with carpel tunnel syndrome. You get inflammation of the shoulders, arms, hands, and fingers. Lactic acid builds up and causes pain. Muscles break down when they're heavily used and need rest in order to build themselves up again. So let's assume he took half hour breaks every eight hours and slept only four hours. Now his output would be about 164,700 words. Well, that's still a full novel. But nothing has been said here about 1st or 2nd drafts or the quality of the final product. I've never read any of his works even though he's been published under more than a dozen pen names.

There's also a legend that he once wrote a 1,500-word short story in 20 minutes in a restaurant. Presumably he didn't bring his typewriter into the restaurant--I don't think the owners or the patrons would have appreciated the noise. So let's say he wrote with a pencil or pen.

Looking at the Numbers
Have you ever timed yourself at your top speed when writing coherent words (as opposed to nonsense words or copied text) with a pencil or pen? Have you discovered how quickly you develop writer's cramp? My top speed, in a 5-minute test (1 minute isn't long enough, anyone can write fast for 1 minute), was about 24 wpm. It was even slower in a 10-minute test. Well, let's say Michael Avallone is superman and he can handwrite 30 wpm and sustain that pace (no one can, but let's see how the numbers work out). That means he could produce about 600 words in 20 minutes. Well, that's far short of 1,500 words. How fast would you have to write to produce 1500 words in 20 minutes? You'd have to be able to handwrite 70 wpm. Well, that stretches credulity (unless, in fact, he brought a typewriter into the restaurant). I have trouble believing it. Here's why:

I once interviewed 36 prospective male and female typists for a job with a high tech company. They were prescreened by our local employment office. They all claimed typing speeds of 40 to 75 wpm on their resumes. When I tested them on a 5-minute test and adjusted for errors, not one of them scored over 45 wpm, most were in the low 30s, and one who claimed 50 wpm scored only 20 wpm (and looked like she barely knew her way around a keyboard). So, I'm a skeptical about verbal reports, you see.

I know very few people who, on a properly supervised, timed test of 5 or 10 minutes, when adjusted for errors, can type over 65 wpm (no matter what they claim). I'm fast. I can type 82 wpm on a regular typewriter on a supervised 10-minute test when corrected for errors and I type faster on a word processor. But I can't sustain that pace and I can't produce what Michael Avallone has produced, so I really have to wonder about the quality of his work.

Avallone's Extracurricular Activities
Here's another reason to be a little skeptical about Avallone's legend. He didn't devote himself solely to writing. Apparently he also edited multiple newsletters, chaired committee meetings, did volunteer work. Those kinds of activities take time. Did he hire interns or family members to help him in his endeavors. My Dad would often have me help him with his work, but he rarely mentioned to his clients that he had had help. I was a "ghostwriter" and "ghost typist" in the sense that I did a lot of behind-the-scenes work without getting any of the credit. It's not an unprecedented situation. Walt Disney is legendary, but you never hear about Roy Disney, his brother, who did all the accounting and financing and running around and smoothing of ruffled feathers. You never hear about Disney's wife, either, who did her fair share to support her husband's work. Did Avallone have some kind of support system that quietly helped him with his writing and anonymously contributed to his legendary status? Or did he simply skimp on quality?

Ryoki Inoue - Record Holder
Ryoki Inoue is another puzzle. He claims to have written more than 1,000 novels in 11 years. That's almost a hundred novels a year, almost two per week. He's listed in the Guiness Book of World records. The story goes that he wears out his computer keyboard every few months. Supposedly, on a particularly productive day, he can write three modest-sized novels. Well, let's look at that statistic. Let's say a modest novel is about 60,000 words (the one I'm working on is about 160,000 words). Assuming Inoue is a speed demon who doesn't need to do any prior research, and can sustain 90 wpm, then 60,000 words would take about 11 hours. That also assumes he doesn't have to stop to think of what he's going to write next, reread, edit, eat, go to the bathroom, etc. Once again it's hard to believe that human muscles wouldn't break down under that kind of strain. Even athletes in top condition have to vary their training schedules to prevent muscle breakdown, tendon inflammation, and injuries. I type for about nine or ten hours every weekday and I can feel the strain (and I have far fewer problems than most people who type a lot) and I've never come close to wearing out a keyboard.

I've never read any of Inoue's books, but he apparently writes westerns, and other pulp fiction style works. I'm not sure what the motivation is to produce such a string of titles. If I had a choice between writing one good novel once every year or two and having time to enjoy life, or being chained to the keyboard 16 hours a day writing pulp fiction, I'd choose the former.

There's no question that Avallone and Inoue are prolific and fast. I'm not questioning that. The many anecdotes about them support those basic facts. Yet, the volume of writing produced by these men strikes me as pathological--as if they are fulfilling some desperate need to keep ahead of invisible demons rather than writing for the love of producing good work and improving their craft.

In the end, I decided, I shouldn't worry about trying to complete a novel in less time than is right for me, about one to two years for longer books that require research and half a year for the shorter ones that are imaginative fiction. Most novelists take from one to six years to produce really good books and Frank McCourt has said that it took 30 years (of living and then writing) to create his bestselling autobiography Angela's Ashes.

In fact, now that I think about it, I'd never heard of Avallone or Inoue until today. I'm a voracious reader. So why haven't I read any of their books? Okay, Inouye has an excuse, his books are written in Portuguese and I don't read Portuguese, but how about Avallone? As far as I know, he wrote in English. If he were a good writer, you'd think I'd have stumbled across his name by now if he had written anything of consequence. --- Mya

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