This post comes as result of a google search. I'm feeling guilty with all this time on my hands; I should be doing writing or revising. Problem is, my computer is currently in the kitchen/diner, and so is G's. G is playing a lot of computer games, and he is always streaming music or having a loud skype conversation. Other rooms where I have written in our house in the past contain things like televisions and beds, both of which are impossible for me to resist at the moment.

So I looked online to see if anybody had compiled a list of good places to write in London. It turned out there aren't any generic 'great places to write in London' lists that I could find, but a couple of blogging writers have posted lists of where they like to write, mostly comprised of stuff like, 'um, at my desk in the morning.'

Here's my list. Do you have a favourite place to write? Post it in a comment, even if it's not anywhere near London!

• Oxleas Wood Café. I haven't written there for a long time, but there was a time when I was there 2-3 days a week with a laptop. Probably need to do that again.
  
• Generic coffee shop writing, with or without free wi-fi. Actually, without is probably better. I find that getting out of the house helps me not beat myself up because there's a sink full of dishes somewhere not being washed. I used to particularly enjoy writing in very public places and just tuning out whatever was going on. I remember in high school purposefully writing in the IAA cafeteria because in my room I was available, and in the cafeteria if I took a seat off the beaten path and had my head down over a legal pad, I was likely not to be disturbed. Singapore, believe it or not, was great for this. Everyone mostly moves very fast in Singapore, so if you're the sole person taking up space at the back of the coffee shop (where there is certainly free wi-fi), nobody is going to complain overmuch. Also, you're obviously a tourist.
  
• Anywhere quiet and isolated. I've actually done searches for places that have picnic tables in and around London that aren't attached to particular restaurants or cafés. These are less common here than in the US, for some reason.
  
• I'm interested in the idea of writing in train stations, but there are few good places to sit with a laptop that aren't attached to specific restaurants or cafés, and there's only so much coffee I can consume over time. Writing on trains also appeals as a concept, but long train journeys are few and far between for me, I'm almost never alone, and sleeping seems to be a more common default switch for my brain than writing.

Your turn! Where do you like to write? Do you have a single writing space, or do you like to explore strange new worlds?

I need to have a conversation with someone who has an academic background in folklore. Any takers?

I'm a guest blogger now! otherdeb asked me to talk a little more about pens and notebooks and the writing process over at her Wordpress blog. You can read it here.

I remember, before Squishy got so sick, that I used to have a terrific rhyming dictionary on him, called simply "Rhymes". Now that he's all better, I want it back! :) Doing a google search on this gives me nothing, and searching for "rhyming dictionary"+pda comes up with a bunch of applications for Windows and Symbian OS, but nothing for Macs or PDAs, except an add-on to an application called BDicty, which I didn't like when I tried it years ago.

Can anyone help with a reference or a recommendation?

What I'm looking for in a rhyming dictionary is something comprehensive that includes not only single words and endings, but also phrases and word combinations. My all-time favourite rhyming dictionary is Sue Young's The New Comprehensive Aerican Rhyming Dictionary. Yes, I know it has the word 'American' in there, but it really is a terrific rhyming dictionary, despite its geographical origin! Honest; I'll show it to you sometime.

Anyway, back when I was writing lots of songs, that and David Grambs' The Describer's Dictionary, a wonderful little book either recommended to me or given to me by relentlesstoil (I don't remember which), were the blocks upon which I built an awful lot of songs.

I emphatically do not think that using a rhyming dictionary is "cheating" when you're writing poetry or songs, and I've never regretted carrying around my copy of Miller Williams' Patterns of Poetry either, so there! Right now, I'm going through The Ode Less Travelled, and I'm finding these resources very helpful. Now, if only they all fit into a little box smaller than a paperback book....

I'm not going to write this entry in verse, as Doggerel Day has been over for a few hours here. But I just want to say that seeing all that silliness yesterday really helped turn a day that was bad and going more bad by the minute more bearable.

I don't have time this morning to link to all the Doggerel Day posts I saw on my friends list yesterday, but I will try to compile them at some point before the day is over, and I'll put them into another public post. You can help: if anybody on your friends list who might not be on mine posted an entry for Doggerel Day, please comment to this post and put the links here?

And, I've now unscreened comments by folks not on my friends list to the original Doggerel Day entry, so go and have a look if you like, to see what people wrote there as comments.

Again, thank you very much. I know that in the end all the people who wrote doggerel yesterday didn't do it just for me-- but I'm pleased to know my little pick-me-up apparently can help other people as well. I'm pleased as punch my little attack of silliness went as far as it did. A hearty thanks, also, to the good people of #filkhaven, who helped spread it into near-memeishness.

It's another grey and rainy day in London, but tomorrow I'm working from home, which means a two-stage bus trip to Oxleas Wood for some heavy duty brainstorming in my satellite office. ;-)

[reprinted from Writing at the Edge of the Wood; I was boneheaded and forgot to do it on the day.]

"When I start a book, I always think it's patently absurd that I can write one. No one, certainly not me, can write a book 500 pages long. But I know I can write 15 pages, and if I write 15 pages every day, eventually I'll have 500 of them." --John Saul, American novelist

John Saul writes thrillers, and I'm not familiar with his work, although I recognised some titles when I did a bibliography search. Even though I don't know the guy, and I imagine we don't have very much in common (particularly since he's published and I'm, you know, not), I think I understand that feeling of being completely inequal to the work I am about to do.

( How do you make it possible to write a novel? )

If you write, or if you read a lot and have Opinions about writing, or if you teach and have Opinions of writing, could you please spend a few seconds thinking about the semicolon? Although I have my own opinion, I am curious what you think. Here are my questions about the semicolon.

1. In your opinion, when and for what reasons is the semicolon properly used?
   
2. Are there points of semicolon usage that bother you or disrupt the process of reading for you? What are they?
   
3. Does the semicolon have a place in contemporary writing, and if so, where? Feel free to use examples, if any spring to mind.

I am particularly interested in getting a variety of answers on this topic, so I'm making this post public. I may copy it to Writing at the Edge of he Wood, although that blog gets very few comments.

Paul Theroux, an American writer and novelist, said that. Given his own checkered reputation, he probably said it in his own defence! I chose this quote this morning because the one I skipped would have led me into the vertical takeoff rant again, and getting embroiled in that would have made me grumbly all day, thus satisfying at least one of the definitions of crank.

( Are all writers cranks? )

(Also posted to Writing on the Edge of the Wood)

(Originally posted to edgeofthe_wood; I forgot to repost it to here at the time.)

“Read everything -- trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the mast. Read! You’ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you’ll find out. If it’s not, throw it out the window.” --William Faulkner

( Thoughts on reading and how it relates to writing )

Jack London said that. Jack London wrote The Call of the Wild, which I had to read in middle school like everybody else. I don’t remember much about the book except that it had some vague business to do with wolves, but this quote, the first one in A Writer’s Notebook, always makes me happy. Lots of people who write writing pages use this quote somewhere, but I am not sure how many of them really understand it. Obviously, there are many ways to interpret the things other people have said, and Mr. London isn’t here to defend himself, but I interpret this to mean we must find our own inspiration.

( Harper rambles on about things she demonstrably knows little... )

Yesterday, my husband and I went through all the books on two of our massive bookshelves, and we managed to identify enough books that we didn't think we'd ever want to read or read again to fill four boxes. (I said the bookshelves were massive, didn't I? Wait 'til we get to the paperbacks!) During this task, we found things we had forgotten about, found things we'd been looking for, found things we didn't know we needed, and laughed at stuff we'd never want to look at again. I do feel the need to inform you that we did keep a couple of books that were just too bad to throw away (we're the same way with films)!

So much of our lives' histories were present in the books we went through. We identified closed chapters in our lives that we'd want to remember, and we kept those books. Other things, things that meant less to us or were only important for a very brief period in our lives (I kept The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, for example, but got rid of What to Expect When You're Expecting), those things were put into boxes. Soon, we'll donate those boxes to charity shops or libraries, after we've given friends a chance to come round and see if they want anything.

One of the books that came to light yesterday was A Writer's Notebook, copyright 1984 by Running Press, which has been absorbed into a larger press conglomerate and probably doesn't remember this book at all. In fact, it was a fad book, a cheaply put together "blank book" with fancy, textured paper. I never wrote a word in it. It cost $4.95 in 1984, and you can buy it today for £1 or so via Alibris. But I kept it, through all the years and all the moves. Why did I keep it?

( Why did I keep it? )

(Crossposted to my journal and sacredpants, because that's kind of the way it is.)

I was going to confine this question to the novel filter, but then I thought a wider range of ears might be useful. I don't know if I've even mentioned yet in a public post that I am writing another novel, but there you have it. And I'm 62,000 words into it, so I can't stop now.

But here's what I'm curious about this morning. For those of you who write things that include dramatic action, what's your game plan?

Let's say you've been planning toward a big scene in your piece that has some dramatic action in it that's likely to be wrenching to write, like a death or an emotional breakdown. How do you plan for that? Obviously, you know it's about to happen. You've been foreshadowing it for what feels like an eternity, or you haven't because you like the shock value of it all, but it's been there in your outline or in your art consciousness for awhile.

Do you avoid it? Do you shy away from it? Do you find distractions to keep yourself from writing something distasteful and painful?

Is there a ritual you do, something that helps you get into the mindset of the moment? Do you find it's exactly the same as writing any other scene and the usual things (music, location, etc.) help you face the fact that today's the day you're going to write something big and dramatic and heart-wrenching? Or do you need something extra?

Right now, I feel like my whole book, the whole plot, every single character, is poised to take the same long, deep breath. It's an interesting kind of anticipation. I think I have to find a lot of breath, and soon.