oysters and stuff

This morning I asked my Facebook friends what blogs they read, and I'm getting all sorts of stuff to check out.

Here's one I like: The Oyster's Garter is written (so the blog tells me) by a marine biologist and a journalist. It's got reasonably shortish entries, and they're funny. (Two things I greatly value.) It's about...well, science. Ok, there's an emphasis on marine science, but that's still broad - lots marine invertebrates but also some physical oceanography. I love marine invertebrates. There's some musing about science journalism and, yep, a bunch more marine invertebrates. Including fabric marine invertebrates.

The musing about science journalism makes me think I really don't want to get involved in debates about science journalism. (I followed a chain of links to a variation on "science journalists are stupid and only scientists should be allowed to talk about science" vs "scientists don't know how to speak English and you don't understand journalism, you jerk.") I prefer, you know, doing stuff to yelling about it.

what is this blogging the kids are doing today

I'm starting off the new year, professional-wise, by ignoring my many deadlines in the next two weeks and trying to figure out this whole "blogging" thing. This seems ridiculous, as I have been blogging nonstop since June 2005, when I first claimed not to be interested in blogging. (Actually, July is even funnier - read from the bottom, as I transition from explaining why I'm not blogging to writing obsessively.)

But now I'm considering actual professional blogging. A blog about my book topic, for one; a blog about science and being a science writer, maybe; a blog about knitting...probably not. These blogs would be under my real name (I know! shocking!). I'm thinking WordPress, because people seem to be happy with that. And I hope that it would find readers.

Very few people have actual pre-built interest in my book topic, but as soon as I tell them about it, they're like, whooaa, cool! So the hope is that my blog would attract people with the "whooaa, cool!" response and get them to keep reading and eventually, oh, buy copies of the book for themselves and everyone they know. I guess I know more or less where I'm headed with that blog. I'm just waiting to hear from, um, the guy whose family it is about to see where he stands on this whole "book" issue.

So, what about this science/science writing blog I might want to start? I actually don't read any science blogs, mainly because I don't like any of them enough to go back regularly. Do you read any? Which should I read? I'm going to start surveying them and seeing which ones I should read, who I could learn from, just how mean and awful the commenters are, and why I dislike so many of the blogs. (I suspect a lot of my problem is that I have a really short attention span when I'm reading on the computer, which means a post as long as this one is pretty much not going to work for me.)

I suppose it could all be the same blog, with BookTopic posts tagged as such and other posts tagged as something else.

Help? Anyone? Insight?

status updates

Through Facebook, I have discovered a fascinating new skill: writing status updates. If you are not on Facebook [coughGRRBEARcough] you may not be familiar with this art form. The Facebook status update is a sentence, starting with your name, with a limit of...I don't know, but it's not all that long. You hafta be pithy.

It turns out people really like my status updates. I mean, maybe everybody hears this, but it's happened several times recently: I run into someone I'm friends with on Facebook but don't know all that well, who never leaves comments or anything, and at some point in the conversation they'll tell me how much they enjoy reading my status updates. It's happened enough that I'm starting to believe them.

Two hours ago I posted:
[towwas] temporarily knows three verses of Silent Night, Joy to the World, and Deck the Hall. Should I use these skills for good...or eeeevillll?
It has 11 comments now. And they're funny.

On Tuesday:
[towwas] can't keep Guinea and Guinea-Bissau straight in her head.
That one has a hilarious mix of joke comments (other things with "Guinea," like "Guinea pig") and explanations of the relationship between Guinea and Guinea-Bissau that might actually help me remember the difference in the future.

This has to be a marketable skill, right? I mean, the obvious choice is a non-anonymous blog, but I would want it to be a blog read by 426 very funny people I know personally, and I'm not sure that the google ads would add up to a living. Any other ideas?

ok, little miss only barely knows how to read

Next to my keyboard at home right now I have a list of evidence that I'm a good writer.

1. [person at radio network] referred to me as "our best intern" several years after I'd been there, to someone who didn't know me.

2. [radio god] used one of my stories in a speech as his example of how people should tell stories about science.

3. [wildly successful freelancer and book author] picked one of my stories (ok, the same story) for an anthology.

4. Little Miss likes me, and she's smart.

Under normal circumstances, this might be considered bragging, but I really need this list somewhere where I can see it right now.

UPDATE, 11:58: Ok, I found another one, from an editor I've written for a few times, so please indulge me: "Seriously, though, and not just because I like you personally or want to be nice -- you are one of the most talented writers I've ever worked with." And "...whatever happens, don't let anybody make you think you're a boring writer -- that's crazy talk!"

(Although I realize one could argue that this particular post is boring. Sorry bout that. It's mostly for me. Feel free to place your own requests for affirmation in the comments and I'll tell you why you're awesome. Already did it for Z.Dog, and he didn't even ask.)

the inimitable jeeves

I have a number of books I consider suitable bedtime reading: books I know so well that there's no particular suspense and I can close them at any time, but that I like enough to keep reading over and over. Right now I'm on a P.G. Wodehouse kick, and bits like this are the reason why:

"I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on!' continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred Thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice.

Man. That Wodehouse really knew how to put a sentence together. Also in rotation right now: a well-worn copy of The Original Hitchhiker Radio Scripts that probably belongs to my brother. Ok, ok, you can have an excerpt from that one, too:

NARRATOR It is an important and popular fact that things are not always what they seem. For instance - on the planet Earth Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much...the wheel, New York, wars, and so on, whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely the dolphins believed themselves to be more intelligent than man for precisely the same reasons.

Other books I can read over and over at bedtime: the Harry Potter books, although less so when they start getting depressing; the James Herriot books; James and the Giant Peach. You?

but but but but but

There's a new rule (guideline, suggestion, whatever) at work against starting sentences with "but." This is KILLING me. You know, when you only have 150 words in which to tell a story, sometimes you want to make a transition FAST. Say, in three letters. I was complaining to one of my editors today about this stupid rule, and he was like, eh, just write it with the buts, I'll get them out of there. I love that editor.

(If you learned you can't start sentences with "and" or "but," you learned wrong. It's one of those silly made-up grammar rules people throw around to make themselves feel superior, like the one about ending a sentence with a preposition. In some situations, starting with "and" or "but" is too casual, but it's not bad grammar.)

public service announcement

If you ever find a copy of this book in the free pile in your apartment building, please, keep on walking. (Ok, it's Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani. I hope she doesn't google herself. If you do, Ms. Trigiani, it's nothing personal - I just didn't like your book.)

Sample problems: characters appear to read each other's minds and possess knowledge they can't logically have; it's set in the 70s, apparently only so that Elizabeth Taylor can pass through town; and the narrator, who I think I'm supposed to care about, does completely inexplicable things all the time.

And it's written in present tense. There are conventions for novels, people. If you're going to stray from past tense and first or third person, you had better have a DARN good reason. Part of the problem is simply breaking the convention - it distracts the reader. But, worse, it severely limits what the narrator can do. She can't look back and reflect on events, she can't foreshadow, she can only tell you what is happening now. And you know what? That's boring.

Worst of all, I can't stop reading the damn thing, because I'm at least 2% committed to the story lines and I find it really hard to give up on fiction. Argh. At least I'm almost there - 50 pages left.

I feel kind of bad putting it back on the free pile, but I'd feel worse recycling it, so there you go.

science journalism

Instant-message conversation (through gtalk) this afternoon:

N.Lu: I've got 40 minutes to finish a story.
I have no second source, nor do I want one
me: heh
here, I'll be your second source
"I suppose it's possible that they're right, but more work is needed. Only time will tell."
N.Lu: Oh!
PURRRfect
me: you're welcome.
I have two degrees in science, you know.

saving the world

My editor at [a magazine] e-mailed me a link to a commencement speech at [a university you've heard of] by [a journalist I don't know personally but greatly admire] in which he told a big long anecdote based on this story. He names the magazine and quotes extensively from my story. Which is funny! Especially when he says it.

No way is that enough information for you to google it, but let me know if you're interested and I'll send you a link to the speech - it's a good one, about how scientists should tell their stories to regular folks to counteract the image of science as a bunch of pronouncements by elitists.

sigh

I'm having a disastrously bad time at work these days. However, I am attempting to focus on the positives, which are: (1) I have not yet actually cried in front of anyone; (2) My boss claims to be confident that I can figure this stuff out; and (3) I have plenty of savings.

I feel bad when I complain about my job, like when celebrities complain about how tough their lives are. I know my job is technically considered a dream job, and yet a lot of days it just makes me feel incompetent and hopeless. I don't know if you've tried writing sparkling prose when you're feeling incompetent and hopeless, but let me advise you: It's not the best mindset to start with.

So, yeah, things aren't great right now. No reassurance necessary, it's ok - just tell me a joke in the comments! (Or you could leave links like this one.)

letters

I've been learning recently where letters to the editor come from. A lot of people send them, but you know what? A lot of people have no point. And a lot of people also do not use English very well.

So I've come to the sudden realization that a person with a point and enough of a grasp of English to write three or four good sentences could get their letters pretty much anywhere. Particularly if they wrote their letters in a reasonably timely way, say before the next issue of the periodical came out. (Or even after, depending on deadlines.)

Ok, this might not work at the New Yorker. Those letter-writers are smart. But I bet you it works most other places.

writers I heart

I have to send Calvin Trillin an e-mail, and oh! the self-consciousness! The pressure to be clever! I can't take it! Aaaauuuughhhhh!!!!!!!!

UPDATE, 11:23 p.m.: I can't tell you how much it annoys me that this post refuses to display in the right font. I've tried to fix it about ten times. Gah! Stupid Blogger! Note that I can make the fonts change. I just can't make them normal.

UPDATE, 11:38 p.m.: I am embarrassed to admit that it took me until now to have the thought that I should go into the html version and delete the goofy tags. We have normality. I repeat: We have normality. Ten points to the first person who gets that normality reference without a search engine.

wisdom

This afternoon I addressed the eager new students at MSGAM by speakerphone. They've just started their nine-month journey to science writing excellence, and one of the first stops along the way was writing a story in the style of my employer. So I explained how we do our stories and answered questions.

It was fun - it's kind of nice to talk to beginners and be reminded how much I've learned since then. Like this piece of wisdom from The Great Curmudgeon, at my former employer: An editor can't make your writing any more interesting. Turn stuff in with that goofy touch (well, for me it's goofy - I gather other people have other styles), and if it's too much, the editor will pull it back. I kept self-censoring, and this was dumb. And also boring.

Who knows, they may have been rolling their eyes at my shimmering pearls of genius. But maybe, by some wild chance, they'd made it to this point in their career without anyone saying, "The easiest thing for your reader to do is to stop reading." I know I've only heard it 50,000 times. But, goldang it, it's true!

anthology

Hey! You know how one of my stories got picked to be in an anthology? Well, I just checked and it's out! Or appears to be. The release date is still in the future (are release dates for real? I have no idea), but Amazon claims to have it in stock. So go buy a copy! Yeah, I don't get royalties or anything - 500 bucks, that's the grand spankin' total, and I haven't seen the check yet - but it'd be good for my ego if you bought one, so do it, ok? I'll totally sign autographs.

Oh. Right. You don't know what anthology it is. Send me an e-mail and I'll tell ya.

assassination vacation

Ok - by ignoring my Netflix and having many delay-riddled commutes, I have now finished Assassination Vacation. It was fun - I learned about history, it made me giggle a few times, and unlike many of these awesome non-fiction books, it is the kind of book I could see myself writing. Not the subject matter, because I'm not that interested in presidential assassinations. But it's kind of my style - it's got a lot of the writer in it (although with my book, the average reader wouldn't actually be able to hear my voice reading it, because I'm not a famous radio person), and it's kind of meandery and discursive, and it required a lot of roping friends into roadtrips. That's my kind of project.

I think this is my favorite quote - she was talking about the state of American architecture early in the 20th century when a lot of people decried the neo-classical stuff that was going up all over: "...it's fun to look back on this dilemma of to-column-or-not-to-column, because honestly, the only question most Americans ask about a new building at this point is basically: Is it a soul-sucking eyesore of cheap-ass despair? It's not? Whew."

spirit etc

My post about The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down reminded me of my shelf of books I wish I'd written. They aren't really books I wish I'd written, because that would have required an extremely large amount of enthusiasm for topics that I really only want to read one book about. But they are the kind of narrative nonfiction I can almost imagine myself someday writing, if I find a long attention span in one of my boxes.

So, on the shelf:

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down - (Already discussed).

Seabiscuit - Horses! The author had chronic fatigue syndrome and terrible vertigo the whole time she was writing it. She wrote a New Yorker article about her experience and I had to take several breaks from reading it, I felt so sick for her. This would not be on my list of experiences to have while writing my Great American Work of Narrative Non-Fiction.

The Cult At the End of the World - It's all about Aum Shinrikyou! And Japan! It rocks! In a horrifying way!

In Cold Blood - Totally gripping. Go Capote go.

The Perfect Storm - I haven't seen the movie, but the book, lemme tell ya - you get new appreciation for fishermen and what they do.

The Devil in the White City - For some reason, I associate this book with Grrrbear. I don't know if he told me to read it or if it's just the setting, but, in any case, I'm pretty sure it's not because he's a serial killer.

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Because Mary Roach is hilarious. This is less hilarious than some of her magazine articles, and I had to skip much of the cannibalism chapter, but it's still an awesome book. She came to talk to one of my classes once in grad school, and I was like, hi, I want to be you.

Hm. As I study the list, I notice two things: they're mostly about murders, death, and serious illness, and Stiff is the only one about science. So does this mean my book should be about murder? Because that stuff makes me really uncomfortable. I think it's more likely my book will be about...uh...I have no idea. At one point it was going to be about hot air ballooning, but that's been about three years and has gone nowhere.

What's your book going to be about - or if you don't have a topic, what genre?

writing short

So, at my new employer, my job is to write short stories. I mean, seriously short: 250 words is long. You'd think that this would make them easier, and it does, in some ways - the whole thing can be done from start to finish in a few days. But writing short is *hard*. The issue I was writing about today has at least three or four sides to it and also has to be made entertaining and readable and all that stuff. Cramming that much into 120 words is quite a job. It feels a little like writing poetry, because every word has to count.

I've interviewed four people already for this story already and really ought to talk to at least one more. Know how many are going to get quoted? Zero. I often do manage to quote someone, because it's nice to have the voice and color, but in this one I am not going to hand over 8-10 of my precious words to identify someone when I can say what they're going to say faster.

Often when people hear I'm writing short stories for my employer they try to console me, like, aw, that's ok, someday you'll get to write long stories. No no no. Short stories are hard! And I like them! The people who write long stories get into the publication twice a year if they're producing super fast. Maybe someday I'll be into that pace, but for now, I'm really enjoying the instant gratification.

prizes

A few weeks ago I found out that a story I wrote last year is going to be in an anthology. This is totally awesome and I'm very proud, and I think it probably helped me get my new job. Last night I was trying to write my bio for the back of the book, so I looked at a copy of this book from earlier in the series (we used it as a text in a science writing class I took several years ago) to see what people put in their bios. And these people are all totally accomplished. Several have written multiple books, many are freelancers who write for lots of different fancy publications like The New Yorker and the New York Times, some aren't professional writers but are super-fancy in their own fields. My bio is like, uh, I worked at [my publication] for a while and now I work at [the publication where I'll be in a few weeks.]

So I was whining to Kay Ray about this, and she says, hey - that makes you a writing prodigy! So now I think my bio should be something like:

TOWWAS is on staff at [my new publication], where she never writes anything longer than 200 words. She has written for [extremely small newspaper] and [free tabloid newspaper]. Once she got an essay into [prestigious newspaper], but only because she sings in a choir with an editor there. This story was her second magazine feature ever. Bet you feel dumb now, suckaz.

breasts and whatnot

The fourth paragraph in this story has the best quote ever. Nice work, Mike Stobbe of the AP!

valerie plame

Check it out, I'm blogging about news! Valerie Plame is testifying on the Hill today, so I'm pointing you to this front-page article in today's Washington Post, which totally explains the whole thing about whether or not she was technically a covert agent at the time they revealed her name. (They get into this on the second page of the web version.) I learned, among other things, that at the CIA there is no such entity as a "covert agent" and that the CIA was pissed about her name being revealed, whether or not it was technically illegal.

This story reminded me how important it is to explain background in stories. Reporters who cover the Plame/Wilson stuff have all that stuff straight in their heads, of course, the same way I think it's completely obvious where embryonic stem cells come from. But they actually took the time to go through it in this morning's paper, and it was a great service to the reader who doesn't pay attention to these things (me).