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Closet Reading

I received an email recently from an editor wanting to publish a short story of mine, “The Wurlitzer.” Even more exciting was the fact that the story is to be published in an audio version, not print. I love hearing authors read their stories, though I hadn’t considered recording myself reading mine.

I scoured a very detailed document explaining the ins and outs of DIY recording, including how to upload the file and a list of ideas for creating a sound-proof studio. There was mention of coat closets and reference to “hardcore” journalists and umbrellas! You’re intrigued, right?

While I cannot reveal all the secrets, I will say that I take editors’ suggestions seriously. I surveyed all of our closets and found the perfect one: my husband’s, which sits in the far upstairs corner of the house. The only slight issue was that his closet is really semi-converted attic space, meaning a series of shelves full of various items, one rod of hangers and shirts, and temperatures that fall well below my comfort zone.

But, we writers are a desperate sort. If we must confine ourselves to reading aloud among shoes and old blankets in bitter cold temperatures to an audience of sweaters and laundry baskets and a jar full of change, so be it.

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Just don’t forget the hat.

(Publication date and links to come.)

What are you reading these days? Or should I ask, Where?

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Becky Levine and the Basement of a Mall

When I first dove in to read Becky Levine’s book, The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide, I grabbed a pencil. I knew I’d be underlining and bookmarking and returning to the pages again and again. Every writer needs a survival guide, especially when it comes to critique groups.  Two years ago, I wrote the post below right after I began reading her book, as her words urged me on to my first meeting with a local writing group. Today, in light of my 2013 mantra, Fearless Writing, it seems apropos to post it again.

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A few days before I attended my first meeting with a local writing group, I read these words in Becky Levine’s Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide:

Take care to make the meeting worth your time and money. Talk to people. Too often, at these events, writers give in to their nervousness, shyness, or just their uncertainty about their own writing.

…[R]emember: This is your writing. It’s important. I’m not advocating shoving yourself into the middle of someone else’s discussion or waving a red flag in the bathroom line, but put yourself out there.

I was nervous, uncertain, not exactly ready to put myself out there. But, the woman who runs this particular group had emailed me such a nice introduction with the room information (in the lower level of the mall) and said I was welcome to attend. She mentioned that they all would be bringing a sample of their work to share, and she hoped I would as well.

After working a split shift at my paying job, being gone most of the weekend, and after my daughter cried both times I had to leave, the decision to steal away for another two hours on a Sunday wasn’t easy. Add to that guilt the anxiety about sitting in a room with strangers and reading a short story out loud (for the first time to someone other than myself), and I could have easily backed out. But, something in my gut told me – and Becky Levine’s words encouraged me – to go to this meeting.

When I got to the building, I came upon another woman looking for the room. She told me her name and smiled and immediately put me at ease. We made our way to the basement of the building, wound through hallways, and walked into the meeting together. She introduced me to her friends as a “fellow traveler.”

It was a small group, and, mostly, I just listened. When it came time to read our samples of work, I hesitated. A few of the members were aging adults, and the conversation at the beginning of the meeting had drifted from writing to assisted living. In the story I brought to read aloud, a young woman visits her grandmother in a nursing home. I thought maybe they wouldn’t like the story, that they would think I was rude to read something like that to this group. Worse yet, I worried they might not like my writing style.

Then, I remembered,

This is your writing.
It’s important.
Put yourself out there.

So, in the basement of a shopping mall, I sat around a table with six other writers and read my work. My face grew hot and my voice wavered. But, I pushed off that feeling of insecurity and panic and kept my eyes on the words.

After I finished, one person noted a place where I might change the wording. Everyone else sat quiet. Someone got up to leave. I tried to interpret the silence, the sudden departure, then I decided, No. Focus on what’s important: at least I took action. I can’t control their response. Nor, can I assume I know what it means.

And, isn’t that the way it is with every story a writer sends out into the world?

Before the meeting ended, the woman who acknowledged in her kind way that we are all travelers along this winding road complimented my story. The man across the table suggested my work would be published one day. I left the meeting with a few phone numbers and an invitation to come back.

I don’t know that I had much in common with the people there, other than writing itself. But when Becky Levine talks about finding a writing or critique group, she doesn’t say we should search for people like ourselves: with kids or without, working day jobs or not, old or young. Instead, she emphasizes that we follow our gut instinct. Find a group where we feel welcomed and supported – a group that will meet our writing needs.

Whether or not it’s the first group you attend, the key is: put yourself out there.

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Lessons from an Old Panasonic: Read out loud.

Back in the old days, when cassette tapes were still in circulation, I read books out loud, into a recorder. I wasn’t writing at the time, but I was working in a department that turned printed textbooks into audio books for people with impaired vision.

Once a week, I would scurry down a flight of marble steps into the basement of my office building and seal myself in a sound proof room. I’d crack open the book at hand — sometimes social work, occasionally a classic, once in a while (the dreaded) Chemistry. I’d pop in the cassette tape, clear my throat, and press record.

I spoke the words of welfare policy and research using my best authoritative tone. I invoked the spirit of my days on stage in High School Theater when I came across a monologue in literature. I did my best to breathe life into the periodic table.

“Who is the owner of that voice?” I imagined the students would say. “I’ve never heard Chemistry sound so sweet.” Of course, once my ego died down, I realized that saying “the atomic mass of hydrochloric acid” probably evoked the same level of excitement if spoken with passion versus a subtle, scholastic drone. In fact, most of the students were likely fast-forwarding to chapter summaries and skipping over my thrilling read.

These days, transferring books to audio happens inside the inner workings of computers and in a fraction of the time. But, I still love to read out loud. It serves a different purpose, though, one that applies to my life as a writer. There are three reasons – at least – why reading stories and essays aloud should be a part of  every writer’s process:

1. You see the work through the eyes of an editor. Anne, in her post, “Read It Out Loud” (on About Freelance Writing), says this:

Awkward sentence structure and poor word choice…show up. Consistency, or the lack of it become apparent….

Nowadays, one area I pay close attention to in my work is dialogue; I listen for unrealistic speech or the strength in a character’s voice. Once, I wrote dialogue for a character from Mexico. I tried to incorporate a strong Spanish accent, and, in doing so, managed to make the character sound like an idiot. Or, at least that’s how I felt reading the words out loud. I decided reported speech might be a better choice.

2. Reading your work out loud helps you capture your voice. This didn’t matter so much when I was reading someone else’s research into a cassette recorder, but it’s especially helpful when I write blog posts today. Andrew Rosen, in “4 Reasons to Read Your Blog Aloud,” explains how blog posts play out differently, as compared to stories or essays, in the reader-writer relationship:

A BLOG IS A CONVERSATION. If you write the way you talk you have a better shot of connecting with your audience – and keep them coming back for more.

Subheadings, white space, and hard returns play an important role in blogging. Reading posts out loud helps me decipher when those techniques enhance the post or inhibit the flow of it.

3. Reading out loud prepares you for that book tour you’ve been dreaming about. I got a little dramatic during my “books on tape” days, but there’s truth behind the fact that, as authors, we have to practice reading aloud. As James Chartrand says, in a post on Men with Pens:

…[S]ub-vocalization…is a natural brain process we use while we read. As we read, we imagine the sounds of words and ‘hear’ them in our minds. That’s pretty important, because sub-vocalization helps us understand more of what we’ve read and remember it longer…That means [readers will] grasp your razor-sharp message perfectly….

Chartrand is talking about how a reader processes the words on the page, but his point can be taken from the perspective of a listener as well. There’s a distinct difference in how I hear a story that’s read with feeling and with appropriate pausing, versus a story that’s poured-out-in-one-long-breath-with-barely-a-break-between-paragraphs-and-what-did-that-character-just-say? I miss big chunks when a story blows past my ears too fast; I also get distracted when a story is read too slow. I have to practice my pacing, so that when I am standing in front of an audience, I can trust they will hear the story the way I intend — as if the characters were standing in the room and the scene was playing out in front of them.

One final note, Mem Fox (author of Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild, one of my favorite children’s books) offers ten commandments for reading out loud, one of which says, “Read aloud with animation. Listen to your own voice and don’t be dull, or flat, or boring. Hang loose and be loud, have fun and laugh a lot.”

I think she’d be all for reading through the alkaline metals with pizzazz.

Do you read your stories out loud? How does it improve your writing?