Jane Steele--A Good Jane Eyre Variation

Interesting story: I decided I needed a new Kindle. While I was working out what to buy, a family member told me I could get a Kindle app for my iPad for free. For free! And she was right! And it works just like a Kindle, except better, because the covers are in color and I can see them all instead of
just lists of book titles, which was all I had on my very old Kindle.

A great deal of my life is on my iPad now.

But that's not the interesting part of the story. The interesting part is that I was able to transfer my nearly 200 volume Kindle library to my iPad with no problem. Except that the "read" categories didn't transfer. There were just all these book titles, some of which I didn't recognize, and some of which I couldn't tell if I'd read for one reason or another. So I've been dipping into some of these unfamiliar titles, and it was clear that I couldn't remember if I'd read some of them because I hadn't liked them and probably didn't finish them. So I didn't waste any time on those and filed them away under one of the beautiful new categories I've made.

But one book I didn't recall reading was Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye. Its publisher describes it as a "reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer." Reader, that is right up my alley. I love reimaginings of Jane Eyre, the most famous being Rebecca. But I couldn't remember reading this particular one. So I start reading it, and I get through the childhood and school part, with no recollection, but then I come to something I do recall reading. So I thought, Well, I must have read this far. Then I read some more, and I get to another part that's familiar. 

I go on like that through the whole book. Which I did like a great deal. Presumably I liked it the first time I read it, too, though not enough to remember it.

What Is Jane Steele?

The original Jane Eyre is a Gothic novel, in which a young woman is in some kind of danger in a moody setting with a house having a significant part in the story. I think you could argue that the danger Jane is in is from losing her independence and having to play some role defined for her by society or within marriage. She struggles to live life on her terms. Jane Steele is more of a mystery/thriller, one in which the main character has read Jane Eyre and refers to it often. In the original Jane Eyre, Jane believes that she is not a good person, probably because she doesn't have an interest in conforming to social norms. In Jane Steele Jane has no doubt that she is not a traditionally good person.

Author Lyndsay Faye's website appears to have vanished. Earlier this year, she had a neat section on research she did on the clothes Jane Steele wears. I did notice her clothes while reading the book this second time. 

The ending of the book seemed to be a set up for one of those nineteenth century historical couples mystery series. Or maybe it is just a nod to another type of book, the way Jane Steele, itself, is a nod to Jane Eyre.

Why Have You Forsaken Us, Gail?

No, I have not forsaken Original Content. But now that I'm writing other kinds of short-form work, the short-form blog posts don't seem as pressing. In fact, a blog post I began last week may become a short-form piece published elsewhere. Or not.

Some Things I've Been Doing The Last Couple Of Weeks Instead Of Blogging

1. I went to Niagara Falls for a few days. This was my third and most extensive visit. One of my other trips I was literally just passing through town. I took some spectacular videos, IMHO, but I can't make them post, so these pictures will have to do.

It turns out, there is a Niagara River that runs from the falls to Lake Ontario. I biked along it for the second time this trip. The other time I biked there I must not have known where the hell I was. In addition to the bike trip, we also walked along the top of the gorge the Niagara River creates on its way to Lake Ontario. Honest to God, I had no knowledge of the great lake involvement with Niagara. I am a great fan of Niagara Falls, but also of great lakes. So this was a multiplier trip.

2. I have been preparing for John the Baptist Day.  You know, the French Canadian holiday that happened today. All you French Canadians and FrancoAmericans have, like me, been planning cookouts, making your deck presentable, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, and dealing with cancellations, because, just like Christmas and Easter, people are sick.

3. I finished a quick revision of one of my completed adult manuscripts, which I hope to start submitting again next week. Which means the week after.

4. I've been binge reading some not very elevating historical mysteries. This experience has given me an idea for a scifi short story, because I am committed to short-form work as I've mentioned before.

I'm Psyched For The Next Few Weeks 

1. I won't be planning a holiday meal and gathering. 
2. I've got that book submission coming up. I find submissions exciting, because rejection doesn't bother me. In fact, there's something to be said for it. Acceptance always involves additional work of some kind.
3. I have a bag of books I got at my favorite library a couple of weeks ago, I'm reading one of the historical mysteries as an ebook, and I was just notified that two ebooks I requested are available. 

So if I'm not posting here regularly, it's because I'm doing that.

Getting Serious About Humor: Trying Some Fiction

 I believe most of the humor books I've discussed so far have been essays or memoir or essay/memoir. Today I'm covering a couple of humorous novels I read this year.

Deacon King Kong by James McBride won The Thurber Prize for American Humor in 2021. It's an excellent book, sort of a classic story about a time (1969) and a place (a Brooklyn housing project). I didn't find it all that funny, though. Reviewers do describe it as funny, but I'm thinking maybe droll or wry in places. But that's not a failure, because the book is just plain good. It doesn't need to be gut-busting funny.

A number of reviews call To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris funny. There is humor here, particularly when you consider that the book is about religious observance. I particularly liked the main character's interactions with his employee, Betsy Convoy. They made up for all the sections on baseball I had to pass over, because I always pass over sections on baseball.

But neither of these books have the kind of humor that I'm Wearing Tunics Now and The World's Largest Man have. 

So What's Going On Here?

Well, a few things could be at work here.

1. This could just be the way humorous fiction rolls.
2. McBride and Ferris are fiction writers who happened to write some humor in these novels.
3. Wendi Aarons (Tunics) and Harrison Scott Key (Largest Man) are humorists who happened to write some memoir.

Must read more.

Time Management Tuesday: A Reminder About Done Lists

Last week someone on Twitter was feeling...uncomfortable...about tinkering with her to-do list by adding things to it that she'd already done. She felt she was cheating. She was relieved to hear that what she was doing was creating a done list, and a done list is a thing. 

So I thought it was time to do a reprint of an Original Content blog post on done lists. It's from 2016, so I decided to do a quick google search to see if I could find anything newer about them. I could at Slate and Wired. 

If in my reprint you read my personal life example of a done list related to exercise, I would like to point out that I am no longer so obsessive that I try to keep track of different types of exercising. However, I do have a place in my bullet journal (which has evolved from what you see in the linked post) to note how many miles I've done walking/biking/stationary bike/walking programs and whether or not I've done yoga. (Been a while.) 

Tuesday, December 20, 2016

Time Management Tuesday: "Done" Lists

Sometime this past year I read a suggestion that workers forget about "to-do" lists for managing time and focus their attention on "done" lists.  Since I spend time each December doing something similar for my whole year, this seems like a good opportunity to consider this time management option.

If I've written about "done" lists before, I can't find it now. Nor can I find the original article that included this material. Getting a handle on that sort of thing seems as if it would be good for time management, doesn't it? Another post.

Why Keeping Track Of What You've Done Could Work

The theory behind preferring "done lists" to "to-do" lists is that much that goes onto "to-do" lists is never done and will often just be dropped. In fact, I can also recall reading decades ago about prioritizing "to-do" lists into A, B, and C categories, planning to eventually drop the Cs altogether at some point, if they lingered on the list too long. Which kind of raises the question, What's the point?

"Done" lists, on the other hand, can become motivators, particularly if you create real lists and you're the kind of person who gets a kick out of some kind of visual reward.

A Couple Of Examples From The Life Of Gail

Exercise "Done" List

First off, let's look at an easy application from my personal life. I have no trouble exercising each day. I'm a bit of a plodder, but I'm happy to walk, sit on a stationary bike with a book, use an aerobics DVD, do some resistance training while watching TV, some yoga, go biking. What is more difficult for me is to organize exercise around specific goals--maintaining strength, improving flexibility, or any of the other functional fitness things we're supposed to be doing. I'm a bit of a binge exerciser. I've tried planning to do X number of minutes of some activity Y times a week, but I doubt I've ever made it through seven days with that kind of thinking. I always went back to running with whatever felt good at the moment. Except not running, of course. I've never been a runner.

Soon after I read about "done" lists, though, I came up with the idea of keeping track of what I've done for types of exercise instead of planning what I had to do. Yes, there are four types of exercise I should be doing each week, and I should be doing each one of them a certain number of times. But instead of assigning days, I jot down what I did with a number, the number designating that it is the 1st, 2nd, or whatever time I've done something in a week-long period. I'm getting a lot more success with this system, in large part because I see that I've done something once, and I'm motivated to do it again so I can see that I've done it twice.

Having done something, motivates me to do more. I've been doing this with exercise for two or three months now. That's far longer than I've ever made it with planning out what and when I'm going to do ahead of time.

Submission Boards "Done" List

A second, more professional example involves what I'm calling my Submission Boards, which you'll see to your right.Technically, this is a very poor way of keeping track of manuscript submissions. What you should do...well, I won't go into that, because, though I've kept track of submissions a variety of ways over the years, in all likelihood none of them were "what you should do."

But the Submissions Boards...the Submissions Boards are another example of how having done something provides motivation to do more. When I could see on the first board that I'd only made a few submissions this year, I definitely wanted to submit more. And when I got close to thirty submissions, I wanted to hit the big 3 0. Yesterday I hit the big 3 3 for the year. That's what bicyclists call a third of a century. (Really, they call 33 and a third miles a third of a century, but I haven't figured out how to do a third of a submission.)

National Novel Writing Month might also be described as a "done" list. If you're doing well, having written for fourteen days in a row is a big motivator to write for the fifteenth day. And if you've been not only writing every day but meeting your word goal, you're going to feel good about continuing to work. 

The Opposite Of The What-the-Hell Effect

Remember the What the Hell Effect? It describes how we often give up on a goal when our self-esteem is low because we feel we've failed at doing something we wanted to do, so what the hell? We might as well drop the whole thing. "Done" lists are the opposite of that. We see we've done something, and we're so encouraged that we keep working.

"Done" lists are also a pretty powerful example (at least in my experience) of an external support for willpower. Workers are ""offloading" some of their mental work/working memory to their environment."

So This Happened Last Week

 Just yesterday, in fact.

I had another humor piece accepted and published, this time at The Belladonna. This is my first appearance at The Belladonna comedy site, and I was happy to breakin.

The Best Moments For A Sex Scene During A Thriller practically wrote itself, coming together over the last year or so as I watched characters in TV and movies choose to have sex over saving themselves. As with my last piece, The Trick to Writing Stellar Book Submission Letters (in Greener Pastures), I needed to do a little revising and editing. In both cases, there was a similar issue I needed to deal with. 

As I've said before, my Medium experience is what I imagine comics doing while they are taking material out on the road. 

The Weekend Writer: A Question For Agents That You May Not Have Considered

The weekend before last, childlit Twitter lit up when a well-known literary agency "parted ways" with an agent and unexpectedly dropped some of her clients. They were notified by an e-mail that went out on a Friday night. 

Hunting for an agent is stressful. Also, it's pretty much a part-time job at some point(s) in a writer's career. Over the years, I've heard many agent stories that indicate finding one who will take you on does not mean you've got it made, by any means. This was a particularly painful tale. 

Why Am I Bringing This Up On Weekend Writer?

Many writers interested in publishing books may want to approach agents for representation. You'll probably read a number of how-tos on how to do so, including what questions to ask agents who show an interest. In response to this blow-up, the Authors Guild released a statement on May 13 that included the following line: 

"The Authors Guild strongly believes that every agent needs to have a succession plan for their authors in case of disabling ill health or death, and we instruct authors to inquire about such a contingency plan." 

I Can Never Get Enough Frog And Toad

 Last month I shared here that Frog and Toad have a new TV show. Today I'm linking you to an interview humor writer Julie Vick did for her newsletter with Jennie Egerdie, the author of the parody Frog and Toad Are Doing Their Best.

This book began as a humor piece published at McSweeney's Internet Tendency called Frog and Toad Tentatively Go Outside After Months In Self-quarantine. 

Note in my first sentence I did not identify Frog and Toad. I expect you to know them. They are that important. 

I have a Jane Eyre post coming up soon, on a retelling, not a parody. Jane Eyre and Frog and Toad. I expect you to know all of them. 

Time Management Tuesday: Maybe We Can Find A Little More Time For A Few Weeks

 Just last week I said I wouldn't be doing regular Time Management Tuesday posts, and here I am back already. Well, I found "something interesting and potentially useful to write about."

You Can Become A Morning Person Thanks to This Swedish Lifestyle Practice by Adrianne Webster describes how the Swedes do something called gokotta. From Ascension Day until midsummer, May 30th (According to Webster. Other sources say May 18 this year) to June 24th, they get up early to get some sun, listen to birds, and experience nature.

There are two things that should interest us about this practice: 1. It involves getting up early, and 2.  It involves temporal landmarks. 

Getting Up Early

I am sure we have all read about writers who get up at the crack of dawn, or earlier, to get in their writing time. We may have been advised to do it. We may have tried it.

You may have tried it.

How did it work for you? About as well as getting up early to exercise? Yeah, me, too.

I am going to argue that the Swedish rise-with-the-birds thing is different from the roll-out-of-bed-and-write thing. When the Swedes get out of bed on Ascension Day and the weeks that follow, they are not under any kind of pressure to achieve something. They don't have to get in X number of words before a certain point or they've wasted their early rising. They're getting up early for an experience, to pretty much just enjoy themselves. There's no reason to quit the practice because they've failed, because there's no failure.

Time management, I think, is often a matter of psyching ourselves out. If we got up earlier without the pressure of achieving something with writing but to go outside for a while, make the kids eat breakfast on the deck, or "For mumblety-peg, if that's where your heart lies,' as Frank Gilbreth says at the end of Cheaper by the Dozen, how much easier would it be to do? We could probably do it a lot more often. 

How would that help us as writers since we wouldn't be using that hour or more for work? We would still have an hour or more in that day that we wouldn't have had if we'd stayed in bed. Sometime during the day, we would have some time we wouldn't otherwise have had. And what do writers do when they find themselves with some extra time? You get my point with this.

Temporal Landmarks

Notice the Swedes don't get up with the birds all year long. Gokotta begins and ends with a temporal landmark, Ascension Day and midsummer. In fact, you could say that gokotta is a temporal event. 

Temporal landmarks are events on the calendar that mark some kind of change in our lives. Because of that change, we often feel we can start something new. For people tied to the school year for some reason, summer vacation, semester breaks, the new school year are all temporal landmarks. National Novel Writing Month may have become a temporal landmark for many writers. Holidays are often temporal landmarks and many of those, like Ascension Day, are connected to religious practice of some sort.

Gokotta is another temporal landmark that makes me feel I can change, can get up a little earlier. I've been doing it for a couple of days. To be honest, I've been doing it because we have people here working on the house. But, nonetheless, I've been up earlier and outside earlier and the day does seem longer. I have spent what has seemed like more time reading and writing.

Yes, I am suggesting we take a practice designed to improve wellness and try using it for our own benefit. And I am suggesting we take another temporal landmark and try using it for our own benefit.

In fact, I'd like to fill up my entire year with temporal landmarks I can use for my own benefit.

Notes On Why I Read "Notes On An Execution"

I read Notes On An Execution by Danya Kukafka, because I am interested in the author's agent. And that is why I am mentioning this book here. It's part of my shifting my world view from children's writing to adult writing. 

Also, a couple of interesting things happened while I was reading it.

First, Notes On An Execution involves a number of women over a long period of time who are all connected to a murderer. Their stories are interspersed with the events of the murderer's execution day. I don't think I'm giving anything away here. It's all in the title.

Well, I started reading the book, and I found a section related to a mother of sons just too painful. I decided I wasn't going to read the book, which I had borrowed through an e-book service, and I returned it.

The very next day I saw on Twitter that Danya Kukafka had won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Notes On An Execution. The award was announced the night before. She won this award at around the same time I was returning her book to the library.

Book awards often aren't that big a draw for me. However, the timing of this one was so uncanny that I decided to borrow the e-book again. I'm very glad I did, because this is an exceptional book. 

However, I was reading it in bed one night, hit another mother/son section and was up until around 4 AM unable to sleep. To be honest, I had also started an antibiotic that had insomnia as a side effect, so it could have been that. But I would advise any mothers of sons to not read this before going to bed.

Earlier this month, I attended a presentation by two agents who talked about some different categories of fiction. As a result, I'm going to suggest that Notes On An Execution is not a traditional genre work, meaning, in this case, mystery, but a genre work that leans literary or high concept. The book is not, after all, a who done it, since, again, it's in the title, but a why done it. It's literary because of the significance of character development. It's high concept in that the story keeps coming back to the murderer's execution day, and there is a great deal of compassion for every character.

It really is an impressive work. But moms with boys, remember not to read it before going to bed.

My Newest Humor Piece, And What I'm Doing On Medium

In  case you haven't picked up on this, I have made a lot of book submissions over the years. I've read a lot of articles on how to do it. I may have attended a few workshops on the subject. I can't remember. It's all a blur, to be honest.

All that how-to resulted in my humor piece, The Trick to Writing Stellar Book Submission Letters, which was published yesterday at Greener Pastures Magazine, a Medium publication.

Now, Greener Pastures asked for some revisions before accepting my submission. Their main request was about structure, and I was embarrassed that I'd missed what their editor picked up on. Yesterday, while The Trick to Writing Stellar Book Submission Letters was enjoying its first day of publication, I was revising another humor piece for another Medium humor publication that may or may not publish the revised material. The editor there had picked up on an issue with that submission that was similar to the one the Greener Pastures' editor cited for Writing Stellar Book Submissions.

I am grateful for the feedback.

I'm also feeling that the experience I'm gaining with my writing for the humor sites on Medium is similar to the experience comics get performing "on the road." I'm definitely learning, and I hope I am improving.